The Cascade Vol. 26 Issue 11

MARCH 28 TO APRIL 4, 2018

VOLUME 26 ISSUE 11

Rough but runnable since 1988

SUS ELECTION 2018

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Salamanders They lurk across UFV.

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Decriminalization How should the illicit drug problem be solved?

The butterfly effect It’s more capable than you think.

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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 2018

Editorial // STAFF Editor-in-Chief Joel Robertson-Taylor joel@ufvcascade.ca Business Manager Quintin Stamler quintin@ufvcascade.ca

Managing Editor Kat Marusiak kat@ufvcascade.ca News Editor Jessica Barclay jessica@ufvcascade.ca

Production Manager Caleb Campbell caleb@ufvcascade.ca

Opinion Editor Jeff Mijo jeff@ufvcascade.ca

Production Assistant Renée Campbell renee@ufvcascade.ca

Features Editor (interim) Joel Robertson-Taylor joel@ufvcascade.ca

Copy Editor Cat Friesen cat@ufvcascade.ca

Culture & Events Editor Cassie de Jong cassie@ufvcascade.ca

Illustrator Amara Gelaude amara@ufvcascade.ca

Arts in Review Editor Martin Castro martin@ufvcascade.ca

Illustrator Simer Haer simer@ufvcascade.ca

Staff Writer Aleister Gwynne aleister@ufvcascade.ca

Columnist Mike Friesen mike@ufvcascade.ca Online Editor Jeff Mijo jeff@ufvcascade.ca

Staff Writer Jennifer Klassen jen@ufvcascade.ca Distributor Alena Zheng distributor@ufvcascade.ca

THIS WEEK’S CONTRIBUTORS Chandanee Dancey Simran Kaur Aulakh Avery Gemmell Cover: Joel Robertson-Taylor Back Cover: Caleb Campbell

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@UFVCASCADE FACEBOOK.COM/UFVCASCADE INSTAGRAM.COM/THE.CASCADE Volume 26 · Issue 11 Room S2111 33844 King Road Abbotsford, BC V2S 7M8 604.854.4529 The Cascade is UFV’s autonomous student newspaper. It originated under its current name in 1993, and achieved autonomy from the university and the Student Union Society in 2002. This means that The Cascade is a forum for UFV students to have their journalism published in an entirely student-run setting. It also acts as an alternative press for the Fraser Valley.

The Cascade is funded with UFV student funds, and is overseen by the Cascade Journalism Society Board, a body run by a student majority. The Cascade is published every Wednesday with a print circulation of 1,000 and is distributed at Abbotsford, Chilliwack (CEP), Clearbrook, and Mission UFV campuses and throughout the surrounding communities.

The Cascade is open to written, photo, and design work from all students; these can come in the form of a pitch to an editor, or an assignment from an editor. Writers meetings are held every second Monday at 12:00 p.m. in The Cascade’s office on the Abbotsford campus.

In order to be published in the newspaper, all work must first be approved

by The Cascade’s editor-in-chief, copy editor, and corresponding section editor. 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. Letters to the editor, while held to the same standard, are unedited, and should be under 200 words. As The Cascade is an autonomous student publication, opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect that of UFV, The Cascade’s staff and collective, or associated members.

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Facebook game JOEL ROBERTSON-TAYLOR EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

The Cambridge Analytica story is a great spy thriller. It takes elements of psychological warfare, and even hints at brainwashing. The devious villain's evil corporation had been working silently in the backstage of political theatre, and through its ingenious use of data collection, had Donald Trump elected, and the U.K. exit the EU. It’s an even better example of the how stories get spun, and how most people don’t care about the details.

Not that Cambridge Analytica didn’t do anything wrong, but it seems that their whole scheme, dubbed psychographic data collection, is closer to magic than secret campaign weapon.

Shortly after the New York Times and the Observer published this story, social media lit up with an antisocial media sentiment.

Elon Musk joined the #deletefacebook movement by removing Tesla's and SpaceX's pages from Facebook, according to Inc.com. Former Facebook executive and co-founder of WhatsApp, Brian Acton also added to the conversation tweeting, “It is time. #deletefacebook.”

The scandal is that Facebook gave away 50 million people's private data.

“This was a major breach of trust, and I’m really sorry that this happened,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg eventually told CNN. The Facebook data collected by Cambridge Analytica was used to create personality profiles based on the Goldberg five personality traits: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Cambridge Analytica performed targeted analysis using the Facebook data to apparently shape its client’s campaign messages.

But most of what broke news had already been known for years, and no one cared. Any application that ran off Facebook between 2010 and 2015 essentially had access to the users’ profile — and also all their friends’ info.

That’s how 50 million users’ data was accessed. It wasn’t that Cambridge Analytica cracked some secret code, they paid a University of Cambridge researcher who created a personality quiz for them. Though the specifics are disputed, what more or less transpired was the researcher had access to the 270,000 Facebook users who voluntarily downloaded the personality quiz — but since Facebook’s terms allowed the app to collect data from users’ friends, he ultimately obtained over 50 million profiles’ data.

That Facebook blunder had been reported on quite extensively. Facebook closed the loophole in 2015.

But, according to most of the experts who I’ve listened to for context

on the issue, Cambridge Analytica’s system of psychographic data collection and advertising is about as effective as horoscopes are at predicting your future.

Antonio Garcia Martinez, contributor for WIRED, speaking to On The Media said, “One of the funniest things about the coverage of this story is those who know the least about ads are the most convinced of the supernatural powers of advertising and what Cambridge Analytica did. And those who know the most about ads are most skeptical about their claims.”

The story got interesting when Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie told the Observer that the data obtained was used to influence the outcome of the U.S. presidential election.

However, speaking to BBC Radio 4, Aleksandr Kogan, the PhD researcher who developed the personality/data collection app, “The accuracy of this data has been extremely exaggerated.

In practice, my best guess is that we were six times more likely to get everything wrong about a person as we were to get everything right about a person. I personally don’t think micro-targeting is an effective way to use such data sets.”

“It could have only hurt the campaign. What Cambridge Analytica has tried to sell is magic. And it made claims that this is incredibly accurate, and it tells you everything there is to tell about you, but I think the reality is that it’s not that. If you really work through the statistics, those claims quickly fall apart.”

Martinez more or less agreed. He noted in his article “The Noisy Fallacies of Psychographic Targeting” that these psychological profiles are more akin to astrology signs. “Facebook doesn’t actually give you the tools to target a psychological state of mind (not yet, anyway) — it only offers pieces of user data such as Likes.”

According to Martinez, for Cambridge Analytica’s methodology to work, it has to somehow guess an individual's political leanings based on metaphysical properties like conscientiousness and neuroticism, as well as predict which user behaviours are common among people with the same psychological qualities. “[A] straw poll among my friends in the industry reveal near-unanimous skepticism about the effectiveness of psychographic targeting,” Martinez wrote.

Siva Vaidhyanathan, professor of media studies at the University of Virginia, and director of their Center for Media and Citizenship, speaking on CBC’s Day 6 said Facebook doesn’t need help to sway voters’ views. Since 2015, when they took their ad consulting in-house, they’ve been the go-to

crew for political campaigns.

Vaidhyanathan noted that Facebook actually embedded consultants with both the Trump and Clinton campaigns.

"The Trump campaign decided to actually listen to them, and put all of their money in Facebook ads, and use their ads to carefully target American voters based on very small discrepancies," Vaidhyanathan says.

Considering this, its Facebook itself that has the ability to gather personal data and target users based on it.

Vaidhyanathan described Facebook’s advertising tools as a monster that even Facebook can't control He believes that the real problem is rooted in the core ethos of Facebook, the algorithms it uses, and the fact that it's not accountable for disseminating false information.

"There is no disclosure for political ads on Facebook the way there is on television and radio," Vaidhyanathan said. "Everything is dark, everything is below radar."

But maybe the solution isn’t just to quit Facebook, as some claim.

In an article he wrote for the New York Times, Vaidhyanathan said, “[E] ven if tens of thousands of Americans quit Facebook tomorrow, the company would barely feel it. Facebook has more than 2.1 billion users worldwide.” “[Q]uitting Facebook lets Google and Twitter off the hook. It lets AT&T and Comcast and its peers off the hook … We must demand that legislators and regulators get tougher. They should go after Facebook on antitrust grounds.”

There’s far more to this conversation than what could be summarized here and it’s all quite exhausting. But a small upside to it is now people are talking about these issues.

Facebook, if they’re going to display ads or news, should be held to the same standard any legitimate news provider is.

Last week, Laura Tribe spoke at the Student Union’s Advanced Leadership Program. She’s OpenMedia’s executive director. If you haven’t paid attention to their work, they’ve launched some incredible and influential campaigns related to internet neutrality and privacy in Canada.

Check it out and maybe do something about the problem. Facebook and tech giants like it will continue to get away with choosing presidents and prime ministers if everyone stays quiet.

As Vaidhyanathan wrote, “If we act together as citizens to champion these changes, we have a chance to curb the problems that Facebook has amplified.”

NEWS

Jessica Barclay — News Editor news@ufvcascade.ca

NEWS BRIEFS

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 2018

UFV Biology //

UFV's salamanders study

B.C. “very disappointed” by court decision to not hear Trans Mountain appeal B.C.’s request to appeal a National Energy Board (NEB) ruling that would allow the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline to ignore local bylaws has been dismissed by a federal judge. The December NEB ruling allowed Kinder Morgan to continue working on the protested Westridge Marine Terminal in Burnaby, bypassing city bylaws.

Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy George Heyman said the province would continue to explore legal ways to defend against the “unnecessary project.”

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley called the decision “another step forward for market access, the national climate plan and a strong Canadian economy,” according to Abbotsford News.

-The Abbotsford News

Burnaby won’t cover policing costs related to Trans Mountain protests Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan says the city will not be picking up the additional costs of policing associated with protesting the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline. Burnaby, like most communities in B.C., is policed by the RCMP, and generally pays the expenses of this service.

Corrigan, who has been a vocal critic of the pipeline, says the refusal to pay is reflective of the city’s opposition of the project and view on the Trudeau government, who should be left to pick up the costs.

Burnaby also refused to pay for policing during the 2014 protests for the pipeline project. The sum of $800,000 “remains in dispute.”

-The Globe and Mail

A salamander. (Joel Robertson-Taylor)

Dalton takes a closer look at the campus’ northwestern salamander population JOEL ROBERTSON-TAYLOR EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Baker pond is six degrees celsius, the ambient air is seven. This means that the northwestern salamander is beginning to become active.

Both UFV Abbotsford D building’s pond and the pond behind Baker House have hosted salamander-related experiments.

These salamanders are the reason the pond near D building has been sectioned off for biological research.

The study is UFV lab instructor Christine Dalton’s sabbatical project. She’s been looking at the population size of the aquatic northwestern salamanders who call D building and Baker ponds home. She’s also studying their roaming and breeding habits.

“Salamanders, in general I would say, are under-researched compared to lots of other species,” Dalton said.

Salamanders live in damp, temperate climates, like ours.

“We're kind of in a hot zone for salamanders,” Dalton said. An area like this is an ideal location to carry out these studies.

Last summer, and into the fall, Dalton, with the help of workstudy students, trapped aquatic salamanders for a mark and recapture study. Salamanders from D building and Baker ponds were caught and marked with a fluorescent dye, then released home. Some time later, after the trapped population reintegrated into the unmarked population, the team trapped more salamanders and counted how many of those were marked.

Though there is some variation in the exact calculation method used, this essentially reveals how large the population is. The first number of caught salamanders is referenced against the ratio of marked to unmarked salamanders in the second catch.

“We ended up marking 753 animals in a Baker pond, 65 in D building,” Dalton said. “The final calculation will tell us that there's probably somewhere around 3,000 or 4,000 in Baker pond.”

If only 10 per cent of the second catch salamanders are marked, you’d infer that the amount caught is 10 per cent of the total population.

“It's a very simple concept, but it's one of these ecological concepts that people have been working with and fine tuning for a long time.”

Four thousand salamanders is a lot. According to the data, the Northwestern salamander is a species that’s adapting to human influence quite well.

This number is only for the aquatic population of Northwestern salamanders. Northwestern salamanders are neotinic; they can choose to live on land or in water. As they grow and metamorphose, many lose their gills, and move onto land.

Jessica Barclay, UFV student, is hoping to look at the other half of the picture. After the terrestrial salamanders breed, how far do they roam from home?

Barclay is preparing her own research project that will implant radio chips into several terrestrial salamanders. Currently, she’s in the beginning stages of acquiring funding for the chips,

and attaining provincial approval.

Monitoring the salamanders with telemetry, she’ll track their movements on land to find out if they live within a square metre or a square kilometre. Currently, there is little literature on the movements of northwestern salamanders.

Implanting chips require minor surgery, and Barclay will learn how to operate on the amphibians from a local vet, then insert the small chips into at least four individuals. The amount depends on the funding secured, and how many chips can be purchased.

Because only a few salamanders will receive chips, the study won't reveal the lifestyles of all northwestern salamanders, but it will yield a general idea of their home range size.

Home range for animals is where they go geographically, how big of an area they live in. Very few telemetry studies have been performed on northwestern salamanders, so Dalton and Barclay have no idea what they might find.

“Some species’ home range is just two or three metres, others it's dozens of metres,” Barclay said. “It can be a huge variation.”

“We do know they can only breed in ponds,” Dalton said. “At some point, they're all either in D pond, or in the Baker House pond.”

But salamanders have been seen on the green between both ponds and near G building, outside Tim Hortons.

“We would like to know if they move between these ponds,” Dalton said. “It's very exciting to do what [Barclay] is going to do with the terrestrial salamanders, to figure out really where they are on campus. We've had so many people tell us they’ve seen salamanders all over.”

As an extension of Dalton’s project, she is also collecting a list of all vertebrate species that live on campus.

“This includes amphibians like the salamanders, but also birds, rabbits, rodents, lizards if there are any,” she said.

As far as amphibians go, Dalton said they’ve previously observed long-tail salamanders, red-legged frog eggs, bullfrogs, pacific chorus frogs, and rough-skinned newts, in addition to the northwestern salamanders.

For information, or to share vertebrate siting, Christine Dalton can be contacted at christine.dalton@ufv.ca.

A salamander's habitat. (Joel Robertson-Taylor)

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OPINION

Jeff Mijo — Opinion Editor opinion@ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 2018

Ontario Politics//

B.C. Transportation //

Deconstructing Doug Control or

Doug Ford’s successful leadership campaign looks all too familiar SIMRAN KAUR AULAKH CONTRIBUTOR

Here’s something interesting: in a somewhat surprising turn of events, Doug Ford beat rival candidate Christine Elliott in a down to the wire leadership race, ending with Mr. Ford as the winner for the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario.

The business owner and former Toronto city councilor, supported by influential religious leaders like Charles McVety and Paul Melnichuk, identified himself as pro-life, and ran on a roster including parental regulation on teens’ sex ed., cutting taxes, providing better paying jobs, and most famously, opposing the carbon tax.

His tweets clearly propound his political objective of a prosperous Ontario (and read much like those of a nearby, controversial president).

On Feb. 21, Ford tweeted “Friends, it’s time to take back #Ontario.” The potential future premier is as defiant of media as his fellow political leader, Donald Trump. In one of her articles for National Observer, Montreal-based writer and editor Toula Drimonis attempted to collate the two leading businessmen-cum-politicians. Her one observation that really struck me was that both envisage the world as black and white.

Internationally famous for his abrupt temperament and sweeping statements on immigrants, Mr. President plans to build a wall deterring Mexicans, and enact policies deterring a myriad of migrants from other corners of globe. Nonetheless, Ford seems to have a humane heart when it comes to immigration policies, and is proud enough to credit them as a base for Canada — a land of migrants. Ford distinguishes himself from Trump in that Ford contrives himself as a “man of common people.”

Every now and then in his interviews he gave

instances of how, when he met the crowds during his campaign “the roof [would] come off,” as well as talked about the grievances of “grassroot people,” considering their takes on common issues and proposing amendments accordingly.

While the list goes on, Ford caught the limelight when Christine Elliott conceded the elections and, according to CBC News, cited “serious irregularities” in the whole process.

Speaking to the same news outlet, Ford asserted that his party is always going to be progressive, and that he’ll do his best to curb party infightings. Christine Elliott, after narrowly losing the vote, wasn’t seen in the room at Ford’s victory address to the media. A review of the votes held is underway, and is supported by Ford himself.

Ford apparently has no qualms or quandaries with the review, and says he’s patient enough to wait for another week or so, if required.

With the premier elections still down the road, and after the incredibly narrow victory Ford just took, nothing seems easy to predict.

The reason why Doug Ford could win the elections is that he, again like Donald Trump, is offering something that people have wanted for a long time — more jobs and less taxes. He promises to boom the Ontario business industry, which is plausible and credible, given his business tycoon image.

Current premier Kathleen Wynne’s personal life has also come under scrutiny. Her sexual orientation (and previous marriage) have become a matter of popular talk, which should not be an object of discussion owing to the nature and sensitivity of topic. Policy-wise, Wynne’s sex ed. curriculum at school is thought of as too extreme by some people. Ford also has an edge over Wynne in fiscal aspects of the campaign.

Moreover, the religious sects take pride in defending the young generation from what they may consider “bad elements,” which again butters the bread on Doug’s side.

As the campaign for premier draws nearer, someone might be coasting on clout, while another needs a trump card to win majority of the votes. Regardless, the campaign and debates are definitely going to make it worth your while.

Social Policies //

How do we battle addiction?

MARTIN CASTRO ARTS IN REVIEW EDITOR

Global News reported Monday that as part of a government push to stem the abuse of and growing dependence on opioids throughout Canada, federal law will soon further open up access for treatment. Specifically, the article noted that “Forthcoming legal changes will allow patients to access, when appropriate, prescribed heroin outside of a hospital setting, such as addiction clinics, making it easier for them to balance their treatment with daily responsibilities.”

There is no lack of vocal critics when it comes to the liberalization of drug laws in Canada, and regardless of how little observable traction the promised Liberal legalization of marijuana has or has not gained in parliament, the issue comes up invariably when legal change is discussed.

Firstly, we need to acknowledge the very real and sobering realities of an opioid epidemic which threatens to fundamentally change the social and physical landscape of our society. We also need to take a deep breath and really heav-

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ily evaluate the situation. How is it that we’ve gotten to this point?

As he stares down the equally destructive American counterpart of the opioid crisis which, according to the government of Canada, claimed at least 2,800 lives in 2016 throughout this country, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions last week instructed American prosecutors to take a more active stance in combating the problem, and recommended, among other things, “The pursuit of capital punishment in appropriate cases.”

The approaches of both countries in dealing with the epidemic, each shockingly different from the other, espouse critically different attitudes that we need to address as we try to tourniquet the flow of life taken in both countries.

We can be harsh on drugs (which, let’s not kid ourselves here, means being harsh on drug users), and spend the GDP of some small countries positioning ourselves through policy, propaganda, and police action, against our

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regulation?

Should B.C. Ferries be provincialized?

ALEISTER GWYNNE STAFF WRITER

For many people living on the B.C. coast, the only way to access the wider world is by sea, and the only way to travel by sea (unless you have your own boat) is through B.C. Ferries. Therefore, those who often travel to and from B.C.’s offshore islands take the affairs of B.C. Ferries quite seriously.

On March 12, activist Jim Abram delivered a petition to the B.C. legislature containing the signatures of over 16,000 people requesting the provincial government take control of B.C. Ferries by incorporating the operations into the Ministry of Transportation, according to CBC News.

Although the government has imposed new regulations on the company in recent months, and intends to keep an eye on their operations from now on, the B.C. government says it is content with mere regulation, and does not intend to take over the company.

The petitioners hoped that the new NDP-Green coalition government would be willing to reverse the Liberal party’s decision in 2003 to privatize B.C. Ferries, which had previously been a Crown Corporation under government oversight. The current government has imposed some changes on B.C. Ferries, including a freeze on fare prices on routes between Vancouver, Victoria, and Nanaimo, a 15 per cent fare reduction on smaller routes, and bringing back a Monday-Friday senior citizens’ discount. However, this isn’t enough for Abram and his petitioners who say that “It’s a matter of let’s treat ferries like the marine highway that it is.”

Abram’s comparison with highways is an appropriate one. Since most ferries carry cars, they serve as a direct road link with the mainland. The Trans-Canada Highway technically begins in Victoria, implying that B.C.’s ferry network is indeed a component of

the public road system, in which case, it is not unreasonable to demand that this crucial link be administered as such.

It would be one thing if there were alternatives, but there are none. B.C. Ferries has no direct competitors. It is possible to fly, but not all communities have airports, and in any event, air transport cannot handle the volume of passenger and cargo traffic that must go to and from the islands. A private corporation, whose obligations are to deliver profit to its shareholders, not to best serve the public, with a monopoly and a captive customer base creates a dangerous situation that could (and arguably did) lead to price-gouging and slipping standards.

According to another CBC article on the subject, ferry traffic in 2011 dwindled to levels not seen since the 1980s, which critics of B.C. Ferries attributed to fare hikes following the company’s privatization, although ridership has been increasing on nearly all routes over the past three years. If B.C. Ferries were to jack up ticket prices or reduce service on certain routes, it would put a significant strain on B.C.’s economy by increasing the cost of travel and shipping in the coastal regions.

Seen from that light, government ownership of B.C. Ferries makes sense in order to ensure that the system best serves the people of the province, since many individuals, businesses, and communities are dependent on that system.

Despite the government’s reluctance to take control, the new regulations are at least a step in the right direction.

B.C. Transportation Minister Claire Trevena said, “[People] want it to be affordable and accessible, running the service they want. They don’t really care where it is housed as long as it is affordable and accessible.”

While making the system affordable and accessible is indeed the important thing regardless of the exact method, she cannot speak for all people. At least 16,000 of our province’s citizens would prefer that the operators of B.C’s ferry network were accountable to the public, not narrow private interests.

OPINION

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 2018

Satire //

Procrastination plagues student populace Suffering and solutions for the endless tomorrow ALEISTER GWYNNE STAFF WRITER

Last week, Professor Alberto Ricciardo arrived at his theoretical thermodynamics class to find most of his students feverishly typing away on their laptops.

When he asked his students what they were doing, he found out that they were scrambling to complete their assignment that was due that day, despite the fact that is was assigned over a month prior.

The experience of Ricciardo and his students is far from unique.

Truly, procrastination is a plague that affects teachers and students alike. Yet some have put forward solutions to this problem.

An on-campus society called the Just Don’t Do It Club swears off all forms of homework, claiming that it serves no purpose other than to make students miserable. While many students say they find Just Don’t Do It’s message appealing, the club struggles to gain traction and stay alive. This is due to the club’s extremely high turnover rate, owing to members constantly being denied readmission as a result of its members’ imploded GPAs.

Some have turned to drugs, instead. A new substance available to those in the know called Clockstopper slows down users’ perception of time. Anonymous users claim that it buys them crucial time to think and plan when doing assignments on the night (or morning) before. However, like most illicit drugs, there are negative side-effects. In Clockstopper’s case, users begin to hallucinate visions of alternate universes, all of them worse than our own. Eventually, prolonged use results in users losing all sense of time and reality, an experience said to be similar to browsing the internet, but more so.

Unfortunately, hallucination is still a risk even if you don’t take drugs. One anonymous student stayed up all night trying to complete four major assignments in as many days. Toward the end, she attempted to write her last essay on what she thought was her laptop, but was in fact a very angry Canada goose.

One student named Henry Gregory Swell claims to have invented a means of travelling through time, which he used to go back in time, and badger himself into doing

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4

his schoolwork. Swell would not share his method of time travel, nor did he use it further because on one of his jaunts into the past, he ended up creating a bizarre alternate timeline where Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, and has been unable to fix the timeline. Swell says that getting good grades is not worth creating dystopian futures.

A much more practical and down to earth solution was proposed by Dr. Wilhelmina Sanders of UFV, who after years of study and research, claims to have found a foolproof method of defeating procrastination once and for all. She is due to hold a guest lecture at Evered Hall. Unfortunately, her scheduled appearance has been postponed 19 times in a row, with no established date in sight.

In the end, the student’s best bet is probably either counselling, which can be had an average of one hour every two weeks, barring cancellations, or the Long Night Against Procrastination, which is held every semester around exam time. According to reports from past attendees, the Long Night Against Procrastination makes a welcome change of pace from the Long Night Because of Procrastination.

most vulnerable population.

Anyone so desperate to alleviate their natural suffering that they turn to opiates (or having been prescribed opiates, develop a mental and physical dependency which they then either alleviate or perish from) cannot possibly recuperate from their condition inside a cell.

So what do we do?

Drug decriminalization as a start takes the resources otherwise poured into patrolling and policing a population wracked by pain and addiction, and frees them up for allocation elsewhere.

A good next step would be the creation of a specifically designated syndication of aid and care workers, tasked with (and, once again for the folks in the back, fairly compensated for) providing assistance en-masse to those so deep in their addiction that they cannot at this moment see anything stable to grasp.

Then come the arguments asking how such a widereaching service would be coordinated and funded. My first suggestion is to nationalize every energy corpora-

tion operating in Canada for a one-year period. We’d probably have enough finances then, and, after all, a year’s not too long.

For some, this is too extreme. The next best alternative is to show compassion always, and in every interaction.

Look, at the end of the day, things will happen whether or not you do anything about them. If I sit for long enough, what’s in front of me will change. But if all I feel is animosity towards those caught in the thick of addiction, and do nothing but voice my disdain for their condition, I other them, and further fuel their need to find solace in the very substance that’s responsible for their deteriorating condition.

I don’t know, man. I don’t think there’s a clear answer.

My suggestion is: next time you see someone living through destitution, stop for a minute. Learn their name.

Just be with them for a moment.

The only real truth is that if you only ever treat an addict as such, that’s all either of you will ever see.

Commodified //

Listen to my pleada, don’t buy Frida

A Frida Kahlo Barbie. (Mattel)

CHANDANEE DANCEY CONTRIBUTOR

After an article in a recent issue of The Cascade heralded the release of Mattel’s new Barbie line representing female role models, I rushed to their website to take a gander at the selection. Yes, I thought, a refreshing and wide range of women of different colour, and profession worth endorsing!

Then I spotted Frida. Her skin? Pale. Her facial hair? Missing. Her cane, back brace, and prosthetic leg? Absent as well. What happened to the accurate representation of Mexico’s beloved artist and revolutionary?

Frida Kahlo, who died in 1954, was a Mexican artist who painted many self-portraits. Unfortunately, the signature features

A painting of Frida Kahlo. (fridakahlo.org) that encompassed Kahlo’s identity have been stripped away for the sake of aesthetics. The doll reflects a lighter eye colour, a lighter skin shade, and eyebrows that seem less than perfect only if I squint.

In Kahlo’s self-portraits, however, she intentionally accentuated her unibrow and facial hair in efforts to show her contempt for European standards of beauty. She even said herself, “I don’t like the gringos at all.

They … have faces like unbaked rolls.” She rejected beauty standards of the time expressed in Europe and the United States, which she nicknamed “Gringolandia,” and embraced her Indigenous Mexican culture through the textiles she donned. Her image was integral to her identity and represented many conscious decisions about the presen-

tation of her body.

Furthermore, her artwork offers a humbling depiction of her chronic pain and disability. It’s well known that she suffered a debilitating streetcar accident in her youth that later caused her to rely on canes, medical corsets, and wheelchairs. These physical aids are a reminder of the adversity she went through, and her perseverance is one of the reasons why she makes such a great role model for today’s youth. By taking away the features Frida loved and embraced, Mattel seems to be limiting the scope of what beauty is, and even infringing on what she believed in.

Speaking of Kahlo’s beliefs, in a painting entitled “My Dress Hangs There,” Frida clearly expresses her political condemnation of capitalism. Instead of her figure, an empty dress is present as the lone focal point, hanging in the middle of chaos that represents the United States and symbolizes the superficiality of American capitalism.

I can only assume she would have objected to the idea of her mass produced image being used to rake in profits for Mattel, Forever 21, and Hot Topic, among others.

There’s an irony here, but it’s a little too tragic to laugh at. When it comes to making Frida into a fashionable and easy-on-theeyes commodity, it seems corporations can easily overlook her political views on their establishments.

Her late family has already expressed their unhappiness towards the inaccurate

portrayal of Frida, but surprisingly also shed light on legal matters. On the Frida Kahlo Twitter, a letter claims that her greatniece, sole owner of the rights of her image, didn’t give authorization to Mattel for production of their doll. Despite this, The Frida Kahlo Corporation, claiming to represent the Kahlo family and hold rights to the icon’s brand name, released a statement supporting the Frida Kahlo Barbie. This just adds another layer to the conflicting ethics involved in its development.

The idea behind the new Barbie Role Model doll line is innovative, empowering, and diverse. The execution of the Frida Kahlo Barbie? Not so much. The other dolls represent many other modern and timeless women who deserve to have their Barbies totted about proudly, but Frida’s leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I encourage others to go out and support Mattel’s production of the other Barbies, and show that there’s a market for these types of toys. At the same time, however, experience Frida’s strength and perseverance through the medium she loved best: art. Create clothing with hand drawn representations of her likeness, read her diary, take in her paintings, or watch informative films on her life.

This kind of media may not be as easy to digest as a doll who can’t object to the practices behind her making, but maybe it’s a better way to represent the bold and beautiful Frida Kahlo.

5

OPINION

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 2018

Somethin’ funny about the Easter Bunny Why is it that so many lies we as a society tell our children involve benevolent home invasion? You have Santa Claus, of course, who explicitly finds circuitous routes into the homes of sleeping people around the world, and then the Tooth Fairy somehow magics her way into a child’s bedroom, and manges to pull a tooth out from under their pillow without waking them. Is a sleeping spell involved in that, or are the fairy’s tiny hands just so small that they don’t move the pillow much?

But the strangest one is the Easter Bunny.

Santa is confined to the specific route between the chimney, Christmas tree, and the milk and cookies, while the Tooth Fairy stays in the bedroom. But the Easter Bunny wanders the house, sticking its little rodent-like paws into every nook and cranny to hide its little surprises. Even ignoring the health concerns of advocating for animals handling food, why is the message we’re instilling in children that if they hear someone creeping around their house at night, it’s probably just to give them gifts?

Brief bits of bite-sized brevity

Computer Maintenance

Jeff Mijo

SNAPSHOTS

Hardly Human The other day at work, a homeless woman ran into our fast food chain crying, screaming, and asking us to call the police. When I left my position to talk to her, I found out that a store owner nearby had, without giving her prior warning to leave, forcibly removed her by grabbing her throat and shoulders. I called the RCMP, and although I was assured they would be on their way shortly, they never came. Oh, but they did call back... five hours later. They called to ask if the woman was still there. When told them no, I was informed that they didn’t have enough information on file to do anything. When I asked why they hadn’t requested that information earlier, I got a weak excuse.

To add to the ignorance, some customers came up to tell me that I was brave for approaching the woman, but should basic human decency be celebrated? She wasn’t dangerous; she was in distress because she was assaulted. In the wake of this, I recall the George Orwell quote, “All animals are created equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” Another day, another dollar, another vulnerable citizen overlooked by the law.

Illustrations: Amara Gelaude

6

Going to bed at the end of a hard day hoping you’ll feel better in the morning is the human equivalent of turning your computer off and on again in hope that it will fix an error. Ninety-nine point nine per cent of the time, it works. But eventually there comes that one thing where a simple restart doesn’t solve anything, and you have to acknowledge that the problem is more serious.

Just remember, you don’t have to replace your computer when this happens!

Bring it to the right person who knows how this stuff works, and with a little elbow grease, you can can get it working just like new! Then, until that next problem, remember to continue regular maintenance to ensure that everything runs smoothly, and your computer will be in absolute tip-top shape. Don’t have too many tabs open at any given time, give it a break when it overheats, and learn to recognize the signs of an imminent crash.

We wouldn’t want it to burn out now, would we?

Cassie de Jong

Curtailed commentary on current conditions

Falsie Frenzy

Chandanee Dancey

So, I dance. Part of dance is doing stage makeup, and of course, applying the fake lashes so your eyes pop, looking big and doe-like. But it’s probably the part of the routine that takes the longest, and causes the most stress. First, there’s the glue.

Messy, sticky, clear, and ends up on everything. And I mean everything. I found falsie glue on an apple in my refrigerator.

If someone could Sherlock how that happened for me, that’d be great. After sticking that glue on the spine of the lashes, then comes the next trick: actually sticking it to your eyelid. Not just anywhere on your eyelid, but as close as possible to your lash line — which happens to be extremely, and uncomfortably, close to your eyeball. And to your lower lid.

So if you miss, you risk gluing your eye shut. Which results in wandering blindly around your house, and accidently falling down the stairs, tail over teakettle, at the mercy of gravity. So, let’s be real. Falsies should be applied with caution, and only by an expert. All you Instagram models, stop giving us hope that it’s so darn easy.

It isn’t. You must be magic.

Jen Klassen

SUS Elections A breakdown of some simple SUS stuff What is the Student Union Society?

The student union society (SUS) is a student lead, non profit organization on the University of the Fraser Valley campus that is funded by student fees. It is run by a board of elected student executives, faculty representatives, hired student staff, and a small group of permanent staff.

SUS is the official representative of the student body and serves its members by providing services and engagement opportunities, organizing clubs and associations, and communicate students needs and opinions to the university and government. The SUS also manages the Student Union Building (SUB) and services such as the UFV Shuttle Bus, student advocacy, financial aid, and hosts events.

What positions on the SUS board are up for election?

What do you pay towards SUS per semester?

President The president is the official spokesperson of SUS, and is responsible for carrying out the strategic goals of the Board and representing the interest of the students. The position is public-facing and is responsible for external communications with various national, provincial, local, and university groups. They also lay out strategic goals and orders of the SUS Board.

$30.00 General Operations $27.23 Campus Connector $4.98 FixIT $35.00 SUB Building Fee $43.13 U-Pass program $215.59 Health & Dental Plan Fee

(yearly, full time students)

Vice president internal The VPI is the Treasurer and Secretary of SUS, and oversees clubs and associations. They are responsible for ensuring financial responsibility and compliance with governing documents, and overseeing the management of student organizations.

What services does SUS provide?

Vice president external The VPE is SUS’s representative at the local, regional, provincial, and federal government levels and coordinates advocacy efforts for the interest of UFV students.

Vice president students The VPS is public-facing role involved in the creation of student programming designed to build community on campus and provide educational outcomes Collage of Arts Representative Student representatives act as the voice for the student body they are representing on the Board.

The U-Pass program The Campus connector Shuttle Bus FixIT IT services SUS Food Bank Health and Dental coverage Funding for clubs and associations The Canoe Restaurant Fair Grounds coffee shop Emergency Student grants Various scholarships and awards

Voting is available online from April 9th to 12th.

A Year of SUS Created gender neutral washrooms on the first floor of SUB

June

Moved shuttle bus location to the front of SUB

June

Put in place plans for a shuttle bus shelter (still incomplete)

September

Turned SUB lounge into Clubs and Associations room

September

Free Pancake breakfast every Wednesday

October

Hosted the new event Winter FUNderland in collaboration with E-sports Valley Club, Pen and Paper Tabletop, and the Computing Students Association

December

Cancelled by-elections due in part to starting late and the UFV email hack

December

The second EGM attempt saw the approval of a bylaw allowing SUS board of directors to approve the SUS annual budgets

February

Brought back Vice-president students position

February

Launched Advanced Leadership Program (ALP), hosting a total of four speakers at the events

March

Hosted Budget Consultation Focus Groups to gather student opinion

March

2018 Electoral Candidates How would you accomplish your goals in this role?

My goals are definitely to listen to the students and know what they want. I think VPS is definitely about planning events and student advocacy and they go hand-in-hand with knowing what the students want and helping them accomplish those goals. So I don’t want to just put on events that I think are cool, I want to put on events that students think are cool.

Right now I have the idea, I don’t know how viable it would be, but I want make a way for students to come up to me and tell me what they want in a more focused manner than just having emails or through Open Door policies. I want to get out in the atrium and be like “I am here and I’m listening. You guys can come up to me”. Because it’s easy to say oh I have an open door policy, just come in and talk to me anytime. But that’s kind of intimidating and the SUS offices can be a scary place. There is people with a lot more power and authority in there. So, I want to be that middleman between students and the Student Union that isn’t scary or intimidating to talk to or be around.

Alec Zinman

Running for Vice President Students (VPS) Qualifications Secretary of the Pen and Paper Tabletop, worked on Winter FUNderland charity event Area of Study Currently enrolled in the general studies diploma but plans on getting BA with minors in Theatre and Applied Ethical Political Philosophy *********************************************************

Sharnpreet (Sunny) Singh Cheema Running for Vice President Students

Qualifications Student Ambassador for NSO, worked with UFV Lead program, volunteered at CCSL (Canadian conference of student leadership) and Town & Gown, on Cascade Board of Directors as Treasurer Area of Study Bachelor of Business Administration Program *********************************************************** How specifically would you accomplish your goals in this role?

Well I have three main points that are going to add up to that.

The first is the fact that I want to increase knowledge of the students, and increase awareness of

How would you go about improving communication between SUS and the student body?

Like I said before, I want to be that middleman between the two that kind of takes away that big, scary presence that the Student Union can be. I think the current Union has already done a lot of improvements when it comes to transparency and communication so I definitely want to continue that route on getting the information out there and know that we are not hiding anything. If you guys want to know you can; you have the right to know. things. So one of the bigger things that I want to do, and it’s not even that big it’s actually pretty small scale but I think it would make a huge impact, is make an events calendar. I intended to make it somewhere in the Student Union Building, a thing like a physical bi-weekly calendar where you can come and see all of the events that are happening. Also along with the knowledge thing, I want to embark on clubs and associations a bit more, like another area where it would show all of the clubs and associations list.

And maybe a short description and who you need to contact for these clubs and associations, that kind of stuff.

The next step would be unity. I want to unify more of what’s going on in S Building in these types of services and stuff. I know student life and Student Union society don’t really get along that well. They aren’t really talking to each other and there isn’t really too much going on there. That’s one thing that I absolutely want to work on. And finally, making Student Union building a little more accessible. It’s quite pricey and there really isn’t very much in place that makes and gives incentive to people to rent out and do stuff here. For that I’m going to be looking more towards budget and what’s going on there. Because Student Union society is a nonprofit organisation, there should absolutely be a way with a budget to make that work. We’ve been seeing a little bit more of that lately with the Alp stuff, and that pride event that went on. We can see more things coming in to Student Union building, but I still feel like it’s not being used to the extent that it could be.

How would you go about improving communication between SUS and the student body?

I don’t know if you know this, but they’re actually already starting to work together better. Like, all those different areas: Student Life, PRLC, the peer resources Leadership Center, the collegium, Campus Rec, The Global Engagement and Associates Center.

And that’s good. And that’s going to help a lot of students work together with that. The next step is getting SUS to work with them as well. And as well, by doing that, creating that unity. People are going to be able to not only learn about these things but

Is there anything in the past that SUS has done that you would have done differently, or believe could have been done differently?

I know being part of the clubs, working with the clubs, we have a new Club room that kind of goes unused. There’s certain things that we thought we would have been able to do with the room, that we ended up not being able to do with the room. And I know that causes conflict both between the students, who see an empty room, and that are now mad at clubs and associations. Then clubs and associations now have an empty room that they can’t do anything with. And can’t do the things things they wanted to do.

Are there any bylaws or policies you would change?

I mean, the policies themselves, I guess there’s some that are conflicting with each other. Like, I know just in the election there were certain things where they said “Oh, we thought you could do this and it turns out you can’t, so don’t do that anymore”.

And I think sometimes there’s things that are worded in weird ways that can be miscommunicated. But I think as VPS, my important goal is knowing what the students want changed, then bringing it up to the board not, necessarily making my own changes.

Not saying “Oh, we need to change this” but saying “Oh, this is what students want, what can we do to move forward”.

expand their knowledge. I find when people go and do stuff with Student Life and just Student Life they don’t hear much about any other stuff. So this is going to make it better, if it’s all unified like that. If I can act as a bridge between Student Life and the Student Union Society, to an extent that they can work together along with all the other organizations, it’s going to make it a lot easier for students to learn and intermingle in between the different places and actually become a part of the university.

Are there any bylaws or policies you would change?

Maybe policies based on fundraisers. I know SUS changed [the policy] so now there are fees applied to fundraisers and stuff. So, I want to look at that a bit more. I only briefly heard about it and it seems a little bit ridiculous to say the least. Other than that I don’t think there’s many policies directly related to what I’m saying. So in my candidate statement as well, I mentioned trying to reach out to the food bank. I’ve been digging into information about the food bank and their fundraisers and that’s where I stumbled across this; the fees that they’re charging for fundraisers and stuff. So that’s really one that I can think of besides that. And that really directly apply to VPS. Is there anything in the past that SUS has done that you would have done differently, or believe could have been done differently?

I feel like SUS could be engaging students more.

I feel like that’s also why they created this position, and like brought it back. Telling the VPE to do all of the external stuff and on student related stuff is probably a bit much. So, they were lacking quite a bit and actually being able to run these events and do that stuff. What I’ll mostly be doing is not creating policies, that is more VPI but I definitely will be working with the VPI to organize large-scale events and actually holding these events. The VPI handles paperwork and stuff like that but there’s nobody that really builds on it and markets it a bunch and gets it going and all that. If you’re talking about SUS’s engaging factors to students, it’s quite slim at the moment, but I want to help improve that.

campus you have those rights: a landlord can’t just come onto your property, they can’t increase the rent amount by such and such much, etc. However, that doesn’t apply to any educational institutions. See, that’s a problem, because if there is no legal provincial law or regulation, students can’t take any legal recourse or legal action against the university if there was a dispute, and there is no third party for students. The union can’t step in either, there is no outside organization that can help students, so I’d work closely with ABCS [Alliance of BC Students], or with other universitie around us, like UBC, SFU, other student societies to work with the provincial government to pass a modified version that is unique to the post-secondary circumstances. Because there are cases, let’s say police have to get involved, there are emergency situations, perhaps they have to check for bed bugs or for sanitary issues, so it wouldn’t be the same as the RTA. But there should be minimum standards such as maximum percentage increase for rent, so they can’t hike it up. It’s hard right now, especially with the circumstances in Abbotsford regarding housing, there’s a huge demand.

Rajdeep (Raj) Dhaliwal

Running for Vice President External (VPE) Qualifications Works at Collegium, volunteers with student life Area of Study in Biology and Kinesiology courses *********************************************************** How would you accomplish your goals in this role?

One of the things I didn’t add on to my statement is that I want to work on student-tenant rights. We have the RTA, the residential tenancy act, so if you are renting a basement or an apartment outside of

How would you go about improving communication between SUS and the student body?

I know my opponent Logan, on his candidacy statement, mentioned he wanted to have Town Hall meetings of some kind. I think having something of that sort would be really difficult based on how the last EGM [extraordinary general meeting] went.

We didn’t have much of a student turnout. I’d like to have a meeting, like every three months, quarterly meetings, just to let the society membership know what we are doing, but it should be known that all the executives do publish their monthly reports on what they have and haven’t been doing. I’d really like to update the society on what I’m working on, what’s happening, what has been done, what I would like to do on a regular basis, but it’s difficult.

With monthly meetings, if they do make them happen, or the quarterly meetings, I would like to How specifically would you accomplish your goals in this role?

I have number of goals. First and foremost would be the bus schedule, which I wish to accomplish by communicating with the University of the Fraser Valley as well as the BC Transit. I attended a bus sharing meeting recently and I brought up the point in which we have access to BC Transit but not TransLink. And I am a commuter student, I live in Maple Ridge. So even though I am paying for the bus pass, and I’m absolutely fine to do so, I also gain absolutely no use of it because I’m on a different system. So hopefully I want to look into allowing Upass to access not only BC Transit but also TransLink. I can’t say that I will promise that can be accomplished but it is definitely something that I want to look into.

How would you go about improving communication between SUS and the student body?

Logan Clelland

Running for Vice President External (VPE) Qualifications UFV Clubs and Associations Commissioner, Pen and Paper Table Top Treasurer, member of Economics Student Association (CONSA) Area of Study 3rd year Business and Economics student ***********************************************************

I intend to host Town Halls either bi-weekly or weekly and if I am elected. I also intend to also have 1 hour a week, in both Abbotsford and Chilliwack and hopefully in Mission, where I will sit there in the building and say “Come and talk to me, what do you want me to know about”. I also wish to work closely with the newly hired commissioner whose Name Escapes me but works with communities to discover problems that students are facing both on and off campus and just ways in which we can help.

be able to live stream them for students who aren’t able to attend.

VP is about advocating for students, so apart from the meetings, I would like to utilize surveys. SUS sends out those emails regularly, so if we can attach a simple survey, for example, ‘this is the topic of the month, how do students feel about this?’ that would be nice.

Are there any bylaws or policies you would change?

My role as VPE, can also be referred to as VP academic, just like VPI is VP Finance, and VPS is VP social. I’m mostly with the academic body, so with that being said, I’d be working very closely with the VP academic of the university. One policy I’d really like to make, because I can’t think of any I’d like to change, as I mentioned before, restrict the percentage of online course materials, because I don’t think those are necessary.

Is there anything in the past that SUS has done that you would have done differently, or believe could have been done differently?

I think SUS actually did do it; splitting up the VP external role into students and external itself. Before, VP external had to manage the duties which are now VPS, they had to balance it all together. I think, splitting that off was really good. Now the VPE can focus on all the advocacy, diplomacy, outside of the university, on the policies, and without the added stress of on campus issues.

With that being said, this VPE position is relatively new in comparison to what it was last year, so basically it should be treated like it’s a new position.

I also think it isn’t my place to put down a society that I am running for, it’s our society. I think we can make things better of course.

I’ve been warned against mentioning things that I do not directly relate to.

But I can tell you what I would like to do for the advocacy portion of it. And that is I would like to gather students and honestly just teach people how to reach out to people and communities that can help them and to create a sense of we are doing something as well as we can get things done.

I do not particularly enjoy the philanthropic booking policy. Or the fact that when rooms are booked by students well there might not be any upfront costs in booking the rooms if they need any tables or chairs to set up cost are not insubstantial and not particularly forthcoming.

Is there anything in the past that SUS has done that you would have done differently, or believe could have been done differently?

I think that personally I am an avid fan of communication. I really like, as a student in general, knowing what is going on and feel just recently that I have little to no idea what that is. So I would love, if I am elected, to get involved and also just to have weekly meetings in which I go out and say, “Look, this is what we’re doing, this is what we’re trying to do”. So that is one thing that I would do differently and plan on doing differently. Just facilitating easier communication between Student Union society and students at large.

Are there any bylaws or policies you would change?

I hesitate to answer the question because there are some policies and bylaws that are not under my portfolio that I am not particularly in accord with.

Andrew Stahl

Running for College of Arts Representative Did not show up for his interview.

ects. I would like to see that clubs and associations have better access to the resources that matter to them [like knowing what they need to do for the reregistration package]. So fund requests, for example, I did try to create a new and better system for fund requests. But I have noticed that engagement with the digital forum hasn’t been very good. So, I would like to improve the funding requests procedure, clarify the policy, and make services more accessible to clubs and associations as well as elucidating our finances, which I think we did pretty well with the current budget.

How would you go about improving communication between SUS and the student body?

Jaleen MacKay

Running for Vice President Internal Qualifications Current VPI, Acting VPE along with the president, previous Executive of SUS Clubs and Associations, member of multiple committees at UFV Area of study 4th year Biology student *********************************************************** How would you accomplish your goals in this role?

I’d like to do much of the same stuff that I had been working on, but also branch out to some new proj-

Yes and I’ve already been working on that. I’m working on a survey that was adopted from the Graduate Student Society of UBC. This was made by professors and experts in the field. I’ve been prototyping it with the board, and prototyping a little bit with the executive committee to kind of ask students topical questions. So the type of communication that I want is two fold. I want to solicit feedback, but I also want to have in-person smaller dialogues like the budget consultation sessions. I hadn’t initially planned to attend, but I did end up actually going to all of them and speaking with students directly. So we want there to be a conversation. We want there to be data, like collectable, numerical data, on a variety of things. And so to really go back to that, how do I intend to improve communication? I want to have more surveys and I want to meet with students and that’s something that I’ve already been working on.

Are there any bylaws or policies you would change?

Actually, I’m trying to finish that before the end of my current term, but I’m doing a comprehensive policy review. So before the end of my term, I hope to finish all of them. I’ve done approximately half of all of the policies that are on our website, by just reviewing them and going over the difference between

How would you accomplish your goals in this role?

Gurvir Gill

Running for President Qualifications Current SUS President, CASA Membership Relations Vice Chair, UFV Student Engagement Team Member, UFV Student Ambassador, UFV Global Engagement Volunteer, UFV Campus Tour Guide, UFV Rowing Team, UFV Baker House Residence Association President, UFV Baker House Residence Association Vice President Area of study Fifth-year student, pursuing a Bachelor of Arts, Business/Communications ******************************************************

So I think, it’s trying to be flexible, because in any game situation, or organization situation, you don’t know what’s going to come through the doors, and you don’t who is going to be here. The whole organization changes every year, so I don’t know who my team is going to be, or if I will even be on the team.

So, I think it’s just trying to stay open, and prepared for every single scenario.

So I think in any case, in any project, just being prepared to, not being stuck to it. With the platform, it should be flexible type platform. These are things I want to do, this is what students want me to do, and it’s also the role, even when you come into the job and understand it, you’re like “Woah, did not know all this other stuff behind the scenes”. So, maybe let’s see what’s realistic and reasonable. Every year it changes. We could have more students next year, or not enough students next year. I don’t know. The government could do something. It’s an interesting organization to be a part of, but I think it’s just, making sure all the projects are flexible, because we don’t know what’s going to happen to any single tool for that component.

policy and procedure. So the answer is all of them.

There is a variety of things that I would like to see with the bylaws. I’ll be bringing it up during the debate, but accountability. So, now that we have an additional VP, the composition of the board has naturally changed. The proportion of executives to everyone else, so one thing that I want to present are a couple of different options for accountability of executives to the board. Now, granted I think the board should be in support of the executives. It’s a weird relationship, both holding someone accountable and supporting them, but I want to see that in future years when we don’t know who the executives are, who the board is, that we have a consistent understanding that we’re here to serve students together as a group.

Is there anything in the past that SUS has done that you would have done differently, or believe could have been done differently?

This past year, of course I have the bias of having been in the office for the past year, so I can’t really think of anything I would’ve done differently with the knowledge that I had at the time if I were to do it again. I did learn that there are certain types of information that we need to be careful with when handling, which is, for example, why the surveys have taken so long to get off the ground. If I were to do it again, I would’ve put out more surveys on things that directly impact students, where we could have solicited feedback like the food bank, the gender equality and pride centers and the change over for the fund requests policy. One thing that I do kind of regret this was due to my own inexperience. I would’ve made the public board sessions at a standard time every single time. What we had done was we would have the in- camera as long as we needed it to be. And then the public was just, whenever.

What I’d want to do in the coming year is we’re going to have the public at the same time every time.

How would you go about improving communication between SUS and the student body?

Is there anything in the past that SUS has done that you would have done differently, or believe could have been done differently?

I think definitely with communication it is just the marketing of everything. I want to make it more crisp and clean, so like you get newsletter, you know boom, boom, boom. I don’t want to overload students with information, but they should be aware of what’s going on, whether it be through email communications, or just one on ones.

I know we are looking into doing more town-hall like information sessions. We do have them kind of at our board meetings when there’s a public session, but maybe moving those around, or just trying to have more interaction face to face with students, because I think at the end of the day we can send the email communication and someone could just misread something, but until we just sit down and talk, and I know we do that a lot, just sit down and talk to our students more. But until we do that with all our students, that helps get everything across.

I think the biggest message we want to emphasize is what SUS was, and what SUS is, is two completely different things and two completely different organizations. I think personally we are something different than what we were before. And so that would be my biggest communicator, saying we’re open, we’re here for you, we’re here to serve you, and we want to hear from you.

The only thing I can really think of is, well, we are trying to adjust a lot of those issues, so like the lack of communication and understanding. So, we’ve went and worked with the university to go and get an email set up, and a newsletter set up for our membership.

Another component was just openness and presence of the executives. That’s something I have done this year, is to just push open doors, everyone’s, just open doors, in your office. When you step on campus you’re an executive, so open door policy. Be there for students, and try and be out and about.

Are there any bylaws or policies you would change?

This response was given over email.

I would like to look into the Elections Policy regarding the schedule of the elections. I feel that we can shorten some of the timelines as we have access to emails and online marketing. Therefore maybe look into reducing the nomination period, review period and even the voting days. I understand why the process we have now existed. Therefore like many other universities let us look into, a simplified process.

CULTURE

Cassie de Jong — Culture Editor culture@ufvcascade.ca

Column // Physics

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 2018

and Folly

This is not the butterfly effect

MIKE FRIESEN STAFF WRITER

Physics and Folly applies real world science to familiar and fantastic situations. Discover the answers no one has heard, to the questions no one ever asked.

I’m sure everyone here is familiar with the butterfly effect. Somewhere on an island nation in the Pacific, a butterfly flaps its wings.

The tiny disturbance of air propagates outward, changing the surrounding atmospheric conditions by an almost indescribably small amount — but just enough so a

certain puff of wind catches a bit more of the warm ocean spray, becoming slightly warmer and wetter, rising and causing more air to follow suit, until a rising mass of warm, wet air forms into a storm cloud. This cycling of warm air continues, the tropical storm growing larger and larger until we’re all watching the news, secretly (and somewhat morbidly) rooting for the hurricane as some coastal town in Florida gets uprooted by the forces of Mother Nature.

Or maybe you’re a better person than me, and you don’t root for the destructive forces of nature to

prevail; either way, your feelings don’t cause hurricanes. But really, neither do butterflies.

But could they?

Let’s say we have some way of coordinating a giant flock1 of butterflies, and we get them all to flap at the same time, pushing a large body of air in a circular motion. We’ll remember to align this spin with the Coriolis effect — counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere, and clockwise down south. If we’re really going to try this, how big does our flock need to be?

Cyclone Tracy was a tropical cyclone that hit the small city of Darwin, Australia on Christmas Day, 1974. It absolutely devastated the city of nearly 50,000 people with wind gusts well over 200 km/h, leaving over half of the population homeless and in need of evacuation. The interesting application to our case is that Cyclone Tracy was absolutely miniscule for a powerful cyclone — less than 100 km in diameter.

The entire cyclone could have fit inside the eye of a large cyclone.

So then, say we fill up a Cyclone Tracy-sized volume (after all, cyclones are usually about 15 kilometres tall, and, being made of matter, occupy three dimensions) with an enormous, dense cloud of butterflies. And I know “cloud” definitely isn’t the right terminology here, but if we’re going to maximize the number of butterflies, some quick math tells us that there is space for roughly

5000 monarch butterflies in every cubic metre, so I think the word “flock,” and the even more technically correct term “swarm,” stops applying.

This is a lot of butterflies. A little over four hundred million billion, to be precise. Just for fun, let’s say we centre our cloud of butterflies over the city of Darwin. Now, if each one of those butterflies flaps its wings in a clockwise direction, the wind speed generated is a measly seven kilometres per hour. You see, after all that, a butterfly can only fly at about nine kilometres per hour. So, if there’s a stationary butterfly pushing air backwards, it’ll only push the air at a maximum of, well, nine kilometres per hour. So, unfortunately, we do not get a hurricane. However, we do get something.

The citizens of Darwin look up into the sky, which is now black — all the light is blotted out by millions of billions of butterflies.

They feel a gentle breeze as all of the butterflies begin to flap in unison. And then their ears pop.

You see, four hundred million billion butterflies is heavy — and this dense cloud of butterflies we’ve created weighs nearly four times as much as the surrounding air. The column of butterflyfilled air descends quickly on Darwin (no amount of butterfly flapping can stop it), increasing the pressure temporarily to above six atmospheres — rupturing eardrums, breaking windows,

and causing a sickness previously limited to divers: nitrogen narcosis; the air actually becomes toxic due to the extreme pressures, although not severely enough to be immediately fatal.

Near the edges of the butterfly cloud, the wind speeds rise. A 360-degree jet of butterfly-filled air is shot out from under our collapsing column of butterflies, the wind speeds reaching over 500 kilometres per hour, packing an extra punch due to the high butterfly density. A wide swath of complete destruction ensues; the winds scour the land clean in a giant ring tens of kilometres wide around the city of Darwin.

The city would mostly be fine, if it weren’t buried under a hundred metres of dead butterflies. The world will remember this event as one of the worst disasters in history. The cyclone in 1974 killed 65 people. But from our butterfly storm, there’d be very few survivors.

1 Actually, the search engine that determines the truth of all statements tells me that a group of butterflies is actually called a kaleidoscope; or a swarm. Also, I could probably ask anyone in the department next to mine, and they’d have told me the same thing. But I’m a physicist! Be happy I don’t refer to everything as coming in “bunches.” Flocks is a good word; I’m sticking to it.

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CULTURE

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 2018

Big Poetry //

UFV professor’s public lecture showcases research, institutional engagement MARTIN CASTRO ARTS IN REVIEW EDITOR

On Wednesday, March 21, UFV English Professor Miriam Nichols hosted a public lecture on the shifting societal role of poetry, tracing its function from antiquity through to the modern day.

Nichols’ talk, titled “Poetry Now: Memory, Measure, and Meaning for the 21st Century” focused on what Nichols termed “Big Poetry” — the kind of poetry that communicates “big” cultural values.

Although faculty and staff made up the bulk of attendees, students, alumni, and community members could be spotted sitting among the crowd gathered in A225 to hear Nichols speak.

A mainstay of UFV’s English department whose scholarly endeavours were most recently formally recognized by the university in 2017 when it awarded her that year’s Research Excellence award, Nichols began the evening by drawing a distinction between what she termed “poesis” and Big Poetry.

“Poesis is not just metered verse,” said Nichols, “but rather verse making arguments.”

The distinction, according to Nichols, boils down to poetry which, as it comes out of a specific cultural, historical, and geographical background, espouses a distinct philosophy, and set of values.

Big Poetry, argued Nichols, is how knowledge is passed down.

It lays down guidelines for living. “[Big Poetry] shows us how to act,” said Nichols. “These are narratives which hold the worldview and/or identity of a given people. They chronicle the identity of people by communicating how to act.”

Nichols named epic poems like Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, and the Indigenous Sky Woman creation myth as examples of Big Poetry.

“The differences between Homer’s Odyssey and Sky Woman,” said Nichols, “illustrate the difference between [philosophies of] dominance over nature and co-existence.”

Big Poetry, argues Nichols, fails in the 21st century for several reasons. Among these are the emergence of a sustained critique of single ideological reference points, or the espousal of “master narratives” (that is, narratives which claim to communicate “the truth”). As the century turns, and a focus on tribalism/ethnocentrism fades, we begin to lose our belief in or espousal of narratives

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Cascade Leaving their audience in awe Events Calendar and wonder Grad Art Show //

specifically linked to countries of origin, or cultural roots.

From this point onwards, poetry is individual.

“The humanities instead focus on addressing the differences between individuals and fragment populations,” Nichols points out.

“We lose cultural memory, and lose the ability to relate to others because social identity is so fragmented in society.”

As Nichols points out, Big Poetry takes a back seat to individual narratives throughout the 21st century. We can’t revert to the practice of specific cultural narratives after having focused on individual narratives for the greater part of the 20th century.

Consequently, Nichols proposes the emergence of a mode that she calls “the view from here.”

“Since the scholar-poet doesn’t inherit a world-view,” she says, “they must go into the cultural archive and adopt one. They must know the traditions of where they are, and apply them to the here and now.”

Nichols points out, however, that to avoid chauvinism, the contemporary poet needs to be educated on the problems they attempt to address.

“The scholar-poet has to mold tradition to their goals.”

Envisioning the emergence of Big Poetry once more, Nichols acknowledges the need for poetry which moves away from immediate observation, and embraces bigger issues which apply to whole communities or people.

“The secular poet dives into the canon, and uses the things he finds there to relate to the specific canon they have chosen to take part in,” says Nichols. “What matters isn’t the depth of the dive, or the breadth of the poet’s vision, but what they manage to do with the bits and pieces they choose.”

The poet of today can’t help but be political, argues Nichols.

“Big Poetry tries to go beyond simply stating ‘this is what I think or feel’,” says Nichols, “and attempts to deal with the big problems that we have to contend with as a people.”

It falls to the contemporary poet to tap once more into an overarching narrative of Big Poetry.

“The poet/artist makes the real world visible. They shine a light on delegitimized people,” she argues. “This way perhaps, instead of policy measures that might overlook real people, the politicians or citizens can access the realities of their countrymen.”

Visual arts diploma graduates stun sizeable crowd with impressive new show CASSIE DE JONG CULTURE & EVENTS EDITOR

UFV always needs more art on campus, as creative expression and imagination can be wholly beneficial for student-related stress. For those seeking to relieve their end of semester dread with a healthy dose of eye-catching and thought-provoking visual material, a new art exhibition has just opened at the S’eliyemetaxwtexw Art Gallery in B building. Alone in Wonder is a project composed of UFV’s latest graduates of the visual arts diploma. The show features UFV visual arts students Jenna Cook, Beru Bell, Sharon Clark, Mouon Levan, Candice McPherson, Mario deSantis, and Susan Song.

This year’s diploma graduates have been organizing Alone in Wonder since the beginning of the semester. The name of the show is derived from the fact that each participating artist’s body of work is so different, since they all come from such different backgrounds. This title was created to generalize and encapsulate such diverse work, while acknowledging the individuality of each piece.

Past diploma shows have been very painting oriented, but the participants of this year’s program were pleased to discover not a single painter in their midst. Instead, the show is entirely composed of photo and installation work. There is no conceptual theme tying all the work together, but the similarities in material and medium allow the various pieces to fit together nicely.

Diploma graduate Jenna Cook spared The Cascade a few moments at the opening reception to share a few words regarding her work. Her pieces were completed two years ago, and are inspired by film, television, and the media behind it all. They also work with themes of narrative and story.

Cook works so well with Photoshop that she believes, “It has become like my paintbrush a little bit.” The events appearing in her photographs take place in real spaces, but are also very staged. Often, there are things within the photograph that shouldn’t be there, which makes you think twice about what is going on in this story. Cook states that her work is manipulated in every way possible to achieve certain goals.

“It’s definitely not just a candid photograph — it’s completely built.”

Most of the of students that participated in the visual arts diploma this year are completing it on their way to their Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. Cook stated that it was quite helpful to have the opportunity to do both at the same time.

“Completing the diploma was nice because it gave us a little practice show before we do our grad show,” she said. “This helped us to become a little bit more oriented with our practice.”

Diploma graduate Beru Bell also had a moment for a quick interview about her practice. Bell’s work focuses on the creative and inventive use of shapes and colour. Her piece in Alone in Wonder is a video installation that depicts kaleidoscope-esque visuals, and a meditative sound track. Bell used Photoshop to make the shapes, which are the same shapes hanging on the strings beside the installation. A graphics program called Motion was used to animate the work in time with the audio track. The audio for the meditative recording was sourced from an old Casio keyboard, and other found clips.

When asked about her experience in the visual arts diploma program, Bell stated that she thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and is pleased with what she has been able to take from it. There is only one of her pieces displayed in the show, but during the program she was able to create a whole body of work based around basic shapes and bright colours.

“It was really fun to work with everyone in the department.

Everyone was really supportive. If you show drive, and you know exactly what you want to do, people will support it, and help you.”

The students of this year’s diploma show urge their fellow students to stay updated on what’s happening with art on campus. There is art everywhere you look, so keep your eyes open.

Alone in Wonder will be on display at the S’eliyemetaxwtexw Art Gallery until April 11.

March-April Note: Some of these events require tickets, most are on Facebook.

If something catches your eye, take to the internet for more details.

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Valley (W)rites: Exploring the Valley as Muse @ U-House (Abbotsford Campus), 4:00 - 6:00 p.m.

Tunic, Atodaso, Matt Mckeen, Aaron Levy @ Carport Manor (Abbotsford), 7:00 - 10:00 p.m.

Mozart Yoga @ Room B121 (Abbotsford Campus), 10:00 - 11:30 a.m.

Andy the Musical Scientist @ Chilliwack Library, 2:00 - 3:00 p.m.

Louden Singletree 10th Anniversary Launch Party @ U-House (Abbotsford Campus), 6:00 - 8:00 p.m.

Roots & Blues Night with the Jesse Waldman Trio @ Tractorgrease Cafe (Chilliwack), 7:00 - 9:30 p.m.

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Chilliwack with Prism @ Clarke Theatre (Mission), 7:30 p.m.

CIVL 10 Years of Streaming Celebration w Blessed Witko & More! @ The Stage in Mission, 7:00 p.m. - Midnight March LiVE Music + Arts @ Decades Coffee Club (Chilliwack), 6:30 - 9:30 p.m.

Red Haven @ Tractorgrease Cafe (Chilliwack), 7:00 - 9:30 p.m.

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Paradise Lost Marathon Reading @ UFV’s South Evered Hall (Abbotsford Campus), 8:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m.

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Indigenous Film Series: Helen Haig-Brown @ Room B101 (Abbotsford Campus), 6:00 p.m.

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UFV Student Research Day @ Spirit Bear Cafe (Abbotsford Campus), 11:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.

Fraser Valley Career Connections and Conference/Hiring Fair @ Tradex (Abbotsford), 11:00 a.m. 6:00 p.m.

Roots & Blues Night with Blue Moon Marquee @ Tractorgrease Cafe (Chilliwack), 7:00 - 9:30 p.m.

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Indigenous Film Series: Helen Haig-Brown @ Room B101 (Abbotsford Campus), 1:00 p.m.

DOA, Not Inpublic, The Judges, Marry Me, The Spewers @ Gators Pub (Abbotsford), 6:30 p.m. - 12:30 a.m.

Chill Rose Place @ The Stage in Mission, 7:00 -11:59 p.m.

STUDY BREAK Crossword //

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 2018

Made by Cassie de Jong

ACROSS

DOWN

1: Characteristics or occurrences that serve as small warnings of danger or problems.

1: To drive or force something away from you.

4: A mysterious object seen in the sky that has no scientific explanation that can be found, and is often associated with alien visitors.

5: A Greek physician of the Age of Pericles, who is considered the “Father of Medicine.”

6: A non-formal word or phrase that is typically used in casual or familiar conversation.

7: The date during spring when the sun crosses the celestial equator.

8: Grounds that feature various attractions, such as rides, and fair games.

11: Your smallest blood vessels.

12: A long, thin, snake-like fish with poorly developed fins, and an affinity for electricity.

13: To leave one’s home country to live elsewhere.

2: A person who is able to predict a person’s future using palmistry, a crystal ball, or other methods.

3: A Japanese dish consisting of rice, served on raw fish, seaweed, vegetables, or egg.

9: The brother of your father or mother, or the husband of your aunt.

10: A creamy substance made of blended fruit or vegetables.

LAST ISSUE’S ANSWERS: Across

Down

4: Acorn

1: Mango

6: Banjo

2: Ego 3: Aorta

7: Loofa

4: Awl

8: Zoo 9: Loan shark

10: Suede

12: Avalanche

11: Vivaldi

14: Ode

13: Cocoa

15: Album

14: Olive

18: Pin-up

Astrological mysteries rudely interpreted by Lady May

Aries — Mar 21 to Apr 19 Poor, poor Aries, your semester’s been a rough one. Just remember that it’s an unhealthy habit to bottle up your feelings, and to drink to forget, or whatever. Plus, the hangover makes it quite difficult to finish your papers. (Which are due soon. Yes, it is that time already.)

Taurus — Apr 20 to May 20 You’ve been feeling low this week, and my prescription is to watch one or two episodes of Friends. Hear me out — I’m aware that particular sitcom has become massively overplayed. But just like you, their jobs were jokes, they were broke, and their love lives were DOA.

Leo — Jul 23 to Aug 22 You are prepared for everything, and I mean everything. You are the type of person to keep appropriate inspirational quotes for every occasion on cute little wallet cards, and store shoes for every type of weather stuffed in your bag. Keep this up; none of your friends are ever this prepared for anything, and they need you.

Virgo —Aug 23 to Sep 22 Virgos often hang posters of themselves on their walls, and send themselves gifts every once in a while, just to keep their relationship with themselves interesting. If you truly love yourself, let yourself go. There are plenty other fish in the sea.

Gemini — May 21 to Jun 20 Your reclusiveness is getting out of hand. At this rate, your future home might as well be a fully-automated barrack. If you wish to keep out the world so badly, simply quit wearing deodorant. It’s much more effective, is less of a challenge, and is inexpensive. Just be ready to not go anywhere, ever.

Libra — Sep 23 to Oct 22 When you were a child, your parents bought you books of law for your birthday so you could search for loopholes. In fact, you have a knack for finding loopholes in anything. This is probably why no one likes to debate with you — you never seem to lose.

Cancer —Jun 21 to Jul 22 They say a penny saved is a penny earned.

But we’re Canadian! This saying doesn’t apply to us anymore. Treat yo’self, friend. You’ve earned a night with your feet up, watching the hockey game in a bunnyhug, sipping maple syrup from a straw.

Scorpio — Oct 23 to Nov 21 You’ve probably noticed lately that more and more people are calling you out on your nasty eating habits. 98.3 per cent of the Spam consumed in the past 10 years has been consumed by Scorpios. You all seriously need to find a different comfort food.

9: Llama

11: Vinaigrette

17: Haiku

Horoscope //

5: Referee

16: Mop 17: Hoe

Illustration by: Amara Gelaude Sagittarius — Nov 22 to Dec 21 Feeling like professors, fellow students, and pretty much everyone else you know sucks?

This week is a good time to take a break from social media (and people in general), and dive headfirst into all those assignments you haven’t started yet. People are a distraction, and they’re annoying.

Capricorn — Dec 22 to Jan 19 You’re a strong silent type, and I respect that. Silent people love a good Scotch, which I can also get behind. You’re the person at your local bar that sits a corner sipping said whiskey, people-watching all night long.

Which is by far a more fascinating pastime than the papers you should be writing.

Aquarius — Jan 20 to Feb 18 Be especially kind and considerate to numero uno this week. And no, numero uno is not you, it is your Aries friend. Since they appear on top of the zodiac each week, they deserve a gold star for once. (They’re also going through some shit. Seriously, help them out with that.)

Pisces — Feb 19 to Mar 20 Lately, you’ve been starting your days brighteyed and bushy-tailed. You’ve had enough energy to run a marathon before breakfast.

Your problem is you’re not saving yourself energy for the rest of the day, and burn out usually happens around 3:00 p.m. You need a bit more balance or you just might fall off the scales one of these days.

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ARTS

Martin Castro — Arts Editor

arts@ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 2018

Movie //

CHARTS 1 2

CHRIS-A-RIFFIC Post-Season

OUGHT Room Inside the World

SHUFFLE CIVL STATION MANAGER

CIVL Station Manager Aaron Levy thinks the world is going pretty crazy lately, and he was in high school when 9/11 happened!

LOOK VIBRANT The Up Here Place

4

THE GARRYS Surf Manitou

5

CRYSTAL SHAWANDA Voodoo Woman

6

PALE RED Heavy Petting

This song always reminds me of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, wherein Ben Stein asks if “anyone” knows about the term “Voodoo Economics,” quoted in this tune, the title of which refers directly to this Cambridge Analytica scandal, in that they were able to execute the titular move for Donald.

7

CASINOS S/T

Ella Fitzgerald — “Stormy Weather”

8

PAINTED FRUITS PF II

9

SLOAN Spin Our Wheels

Radiohead — “Electioneering”

10

HOT SNAKES Jericho Sirens

That bugle horn, the Louis Armstrong special, performed by Harry “Sweets” Edison, may be the Dizzy Gillespie fashioned Harbinger of the storm to come for the GOP, and what we currently and barely refer to as the legitimate POTUS in that ivory home. Point being, did you watch 60 minutes?

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WEIRD THINKING  Years Later

Matthew Good Band — “A Boy and His Machine Gun”

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SUE FOLEY    The Ice Queen   TOUGH CUSTOMER Rockgasm

“Don’t move / stay right where you are / talking can only give you away.” Matthew Good comes to town March 31 with Our Lady Peace, and I doubt he’s going to play this 1999 B-Side from Beautiful Midnight, but darn, isn’t this just such a relevant song for today’s political climate?

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THE SUBMISSIVES  Pining for a Boy  YO LA TENGO   There’s a Riot Going On 

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THE SUMNER BROTHERS  To Elliot - In Remembrance of Wolf

17

REVEREND FREAKCHILD Dial It In

18

KELLARISSA  Ocean Electro  

19

MOUNT EERIE  Now Only 

20

JAGUAR KNIGHT Unknown Futures

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Suffering and solutions for the endless tomorrow

AARON LEVY

3

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A Wrinkle in Time could have used more wrinkles

The Offspring — “Americana” More along the juvenile “when I was in high school and still liked stuff like this” lines, singer Dexter Holland opened the title track from this kinship’s massive 1998 second round of breaking out album: “Well I’d like to tell you all about my dream, it’s a place / well **** you.”

ALEISTER GWYNNE STAFF WRITER

Disney’s new release, A Wrinkle in Time, a film adaptation of Madeleine l’Engle’s novel of the same name, follows the journey of siblings Meg and Charles-Wallace Murry and their schoolmate Calvin, as they search for Meg and Charles-Wallace’s father, who disappeared four years prior.

Their father was a scientist who, together with his wife, conducted research into space-time manipulation. He believed that by folding (or rather, wrinkling) the fabric of space-time, he could create a portal called a tesseract and thereby enable instantaneous travel to other worlds.

The children are aided in their quest by three mysterious women, who call themselves Mrs. Who, Mrs. Which, and Mrs. Whatsit, each of whom is more than human. They inform the children that Meg and CharlesWallace’s father succeeded in his goal, but is now in great danger.

Together, they embark on a journey across the universe, encountering both beauty and horror, as they try to find their father and free him from the clutches of a great evil that threatens to corrupt the entire universe.

While I am ordinarily hesitant to watch a Disney movie oriented towards a young audience, especially one with a G rating, I found A Wrinkle in Time to be quite enjoyable on the whole. The actors all give respectable performances, and succeed in conveying some powerful emotion and characterization, especially Storm Reid as Meg. The movie spends a fair bit of time on character establishment, and I think this is a wise choice. Each of the

characters we are introduced to is unique and fascinating in their own way, and serve to really draw the viewer in.

The movie delves into Meg, Charles-Wallace, and Calvin’s school lives, which wasn’t elaborated on in the book, but I think serves the film well by establishing a connection between them and the audience. Between the three of them, these characters struck a chord by reminding me of my own youth, and I imagine it will be the same for viewers both young and old.

The high point of the film is when we are introduced to Mrs. Who, Mrs. Which, and Mrs. Whatsit. Each is imposing and awe-inspiring when first introduced, but it is from this point that the cracks start to appear.

Mrs. Who in particular was not portrayed as well as she should have been. I think they were going for an ethereal personality for her, but it comes off as more airheaded instead. What are perhaps the most iconic and wellknown lines from the book, “Wild nights are my glory,” and “Speaking of ways, by the way, there is such a thing as a tesseract,” (both spoken by Mrs. Who) are altered in the movie. They are said in the wrong order, the latter line is altered into something less evocative, and the former doesn’t mesh well with her other dialogue in the movie.

Nevertheless, as the protagonists journey across worlds, we are treated to rich scenes filled with special effects that inspire a sense of wonder. Exotic beings and beautiful backdrops abound.

However, some of the camera techniques were painfully jarring. The sooner this shaky-cam fad dies completely, the better.

Unfortunately, in the last third of the movie, the story comes down with a serious case of CDS (Cosmic Deadline Syndrome).

The film’s runtime is only one hour and 49 minutes, and it shows.

I don’t fault the director for spending extra time on character development at the beginning, since I feel the finished product benefits from it. However, the third act suffers from a lack of leftover time, and feels rushed.

The characters lose some of their personality in the rush to wrap up the plot. We have neither the rich characterization of the first act, nor the special effects extravaganzas of the second, leaving the third somewhat bland by comparison.

I also think the Disney movie did an inadequate job of explaining the tesseract phenomenon, which is central to the story. I understand that this is a movie oriented towards children, and some of the advanced concepts might go over their heads, but the same is true of adults. They could have at least explained why, how, and under what circumstances one can create a tesseract.

A previous film adaptation (this isn’t the first) did this better, in my opinion. While Disney’s version is richer in many ways, the previous version did a better job of pacing itself, and giving all characters the weight they deserve.

All in all, I found Disney’s A Wrinkle in Time to be an experience that was both heartwarming and thought-provoking, and can be enjoyed by people of all ages.

That being said, I highly recommend reading the original novel in order to get the full experience.

ARTS

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 2018

Movie //

Black Panther opens up road to Infinity War

grants superhuman agility and strength.

Here’s something interesting about Wakanda: in the Marvel Universe, WakanBlack Panther is the 18th and latest movie da poses as a third world country. In reto come out in the Marvel Cinematic Uni- ality, Wakanda is home to the one of the verse (MCU). It’s also the last movie to ar- biggest deposits of “vibranium” (an incredrive before Avengers: Infinity War, prob- ibly rare and valuable metal in the Marvel ably the most anticipated movie to date. Universe), and thrives thanks to technoThe Black Panther, also known as T’Challa logical advancements made possible by the (Chadwick Boseman) is a Marvel superhe- vibranium, placing them centuries ahead ro who is the current king and protector of of other nations.

Black Panther starts off in the past, Wakanda, which is a fictional African nafeaturing Atandwa Kani as the young tion.

The Black Panther’s powers come from T’Chaka (T’Challa’s father, previous king a heart-shaped herb that is linked to the of Wakanda and previous Black Panther, spirit of the panther goddess Bast, which who is played by John Kani in the present

AVERY GEMMELL CONTRIBUTOR

day scenes) visiting someone who is assisting one of the main antagonists, Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis) to steal vibranium and sell it for a profit. Back in the present day, T’Challa is getting ready to assume the throne after T’Chaka’s death in Captain America: Civil War. T’Challa becomes king, but must overcome defeat after being challenged by Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan), a long-lost Wakandan who had, up until now, been living in the U.S. With assistance from his sister Shuri (Letitia Wright), his ex-lover Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), the Dora Milaje, and CIA Agent Everett Ross (Martin Freeman), T’Challa fights to prevent Wakanda’s technological-

ly advanced nature from being exposed and destroyed from within by Killmonger.

While the movie lacked in the comedy department compared to Thor: Ragnarok (notable is an especially behindthe-times “what are those” gag), it more than makes up for it in the action department. Noteworthy is the city chase in South Korea, where Black Panther chases down Klaue with the help of his allies, and utilizes Black Panther’s new suit and his abilities. I am very intrigued

by Wakanda’s culture, which combines the styles of futuristic sci-fi with a traditional tribal feel.

Now, where does all this tie into the MCU leading up to Avengers: Infinity War? Black Panther offers aid to Bucky Barnes, Captain America’s best friend, knowing that Captain America and Bucky are both fugitives now, thanks to a new law that was voted in by a majority of the world’s governments that forces superheroes to register with the government.

With the Avengers split up and their biggest threat coming to Earth, the film raises the question: are the Avengers going to work together again? Will Black Panther and the heroes who follow Captain America be able to defend Wakanda and protect the rest of the infinity stones from the mad titan Thanos?

Soundbite // As far as I can tell, Labyrinth is the debut release from Germany’s Thomas Konder, but it certainly doesn’t sound like it. The new prog-rock album proudly wears its influence on its sleeve, and the influence of bands like Camel, IQ, and (Peter Gabriel era) Genesis is readily apparent. But it also feels in line with more mainstream offshoots of the prog world, such as Saga, Supertramp, and The Alan Parsons Project, particularly in its ability to have catchy, memorable songs while still holding onto the complex sounds and structures that characterize much of progressive

rock: look no further than the title track, or the endlessly loopable “Firedance” for evidence.

The album seems to focus on the topic of depression, with the titular labyrinth being a metaphor for feeling lost, without joy from the things that once brought it. The slow, gentle “Morning Sun” evokes this feeling particularly well, though the use of a child’s voice reciting favourite hobbies is a much.

Labyrinth is a nice surprise, and well worth an hour if you want a mostly calm, pleasant listen with a few surprising bursts of energy.

Jeff Mijo

Thomas Konder Labyrinth

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