NOVEMBER 16 TO NOVEMBER 22, 2016
VOLUME 24 ISSUE 29
Generally disatisfied since 1993
THE REALITY OF LIFE ON THE STREETS pg. 10-12
women’s rubgy pg. 5
why trump won pg. 9
WWW.UFVCASCADE.CA
ARRIVAL pg. 19
www.ufvcascade.ca
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2016
EDITORIAL
SUS-PICIOUS BEHAVIOUR Is SUS paying their staff to attend general meetings or not? VANESSA BROADBENT THE CASCADE
Student engagement on campus has been a hot topic for as long as I can remember and clubs, associations, and student societies are basically begging students to get involved. Anyone that’s involved in pretty much anything at UFV knows the struggle of trying to recruit students, especially the Student Union Society (SUS). SUS has quorum requirements for their general meetings, which range from two per cent of the society’s membership for the first attempt of a requisitioned meeting, to 0.375 per cent for second attempt of a meeting without a member vote, and they usually have a hard time achieving this. Sometimes even the promise of free food isn’t enough to draw the needed amount of students. In the past, SUS found a quick fix to this problem: making it mandatory that their employees attend general meetings and paying them to do so. Students employed by any of SUS’ services (The Canoe, FairGrounds, FixIt, facilities, and SUS’ front desk) were either required to attend meetings if they were working, or paid for two hours of work to attend. Attendance for SUS’ general meetings has historically been low (it took three attempts to meet quorum for an EGM in fall of 2015), especially by the general student population that isn’t already somehow involved with SUS. But by requiring that SUS employees attend, this usually results in a significant portion of students at the meeting being SUS employees, which isn’t a fair representation of UFV’s student population.
This unproportioned attendance isn’t effective. It’s at these meetings that society-shaping decisions are made and students have the opportunity to tell SUS what they actually think about these decisions — but that won’t happen if those in attendance are the ones implementing the changes, or afraid to risk their job security by voicing their concerns to their employer. Any voting items are usually passed unanimously, without much, if any, questions from attendees.
This might be the only time you work for an organization that gives you the ability to shape how it’s run. Use it. The good news is that SUS claims to have fixed this problem. In an email sent to staff employees after SUS’ recent extraordinary general meeting (EGM), SUS president Sukhi Brar explained that current policy no longer requires attendance from staff. “While we encourage all of our student staff to attend these meetings, it is not obligatory and student staff that choose to not attend SUS EGMs / AGMs will not be written up or punished in any way. Since it is not a job requirement of student staff to attend EGMs / AGMs, students who attend EGMs / AGMs will not be compensated for their time,” the email read.
However, students weren’t aware of this until they were at the meeting. Afterward, when a student asked if attendance was mandatory, SUS then replied no. To be fair, SUS could have forgotten to inform their employees of the policy change, but it doesn’t really seem like that’s the case. “I attended the SUS EGM meeting believing it was mandatory for all SUS-associated employees to be there and that we were getting paid,” an employee of SUS that requested to remain anonymous explained. “There was no indication that I did not have to be there as my manager kept reminding me and my coworkers of the mandatory meeting and that it is in our contracts to attend meetings such as the EGM.” The student also showed The Cascade their employment contract, which stated that attendance was mandatory. So did SUS actually change their policy requiring staff to attend general meetings? Probably, but not telling their employees about changes in their job descriptions is a pretty shady move — intentional or not — especially following the elections of the current SUS board, which were full of promises of transparency. Going forward, SUS: be upfront about what you want from your employees, listen to what they say, and I know this is hard, but don’t take the easy way out by getting your staff to make up for the rest of the student body’s lack of interest. And SUS employees: if you’re not okay with the way your employer is running things, be vocal about it, even if it could affect your job. This might be the only time you work for an organization that gives you the ability to shape how it’s run. Use it.
News
Opinion
Culture
Arts
Centre for Creative Development
Heard enough about Trump yet?
Dr. Carl Peters
Villeneuve’s Arrival
Your parents, boss, and even your grandma can learn about gifs.
Here’s a few more words about him but from UFV students.
If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if benevolent aliens landed, now you can know.
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8-9
On Gertrude Stein and his latest work, an annotated commentary on Tender Buttons.
STAFF
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CONTRIBUTORS
Editor-in-Chief Vanessa Broadbent vanessa@ufvcascade.ca
Culture & Events Editor Jeff Mijo jeff@ufvcascade.ca
Multimedia Editor Martin Ranninger martin.r@ufvcascade.ca
Managing Editor Mitch Huttema mitch@ufvcascade.ca
Arts in Review Editor Martin Castro martin@ufvcascade.ca
Advertising Rep Kayla Schuurmans kayla@ufvcascade.ca
Business Manager Jennifer Trithardt-Tufts jennifer@ufvcascade.ca
Production Manager Brittany Cardinal brittany@ufvcascade.ca
Distributor Quintin Stamler quintin@ufvcascade.ca
Copy Editor Kat Marusiak kat@ufvcascade.ca
Online Editor Tanya Vanpraseuth tanya@ufvcascade.ca
Researcher Trevor Johnson trevor@ufvcascade.ca
News Editor Joel Robertson-Taylor joel@ufvcascade.ca
Features Editor Bradley Peters brad@ufvcascade.ca
Staff Writers Emma Groeneveld emma@ufvcascade.ca
Opinion Editor Panku Sharma panku@ufvcascade.ca
Illustrator Amara Gelaude amara@ufvcascade.ca
Michael Chutskoff mike@ufvcascade.ca
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Klara Chmelarova Jessica Milliken WWW.UFVCASCADE.CA Rebekah Brackett @UFVCASCADE FACEBOOK.COM/UFVCASCADE Josh De Silva INSTAGRAM.COM/THE.CASCADE Mike Friesen
Volume 24 · Issue 29 Room S2111 33844 King Road Abbotsford, BC V2S 7M8 604.854.4529 Front Cover Photo: Bradley Peters
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 1,250 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 each Monday at 2:00 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 400 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.
www.ufvcascade.ca
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2016
NEWS
NEWS BRIEFS UFV partners with Canadian Federation of University Women UFV and the Canadian Federation of University Women (CFUW) have signed a five-year partnership that will open up opportunities for both organizations. UFV president Mark Evered met with more than 60 members of the CFUW last week to sign the agreement. The agreement will help the partners to host events and create opportunities for UFV faculty, staff, and students, as well CFUW members. $132,000 raised at Town and gown fundraiser The second annual town and gown fundraiser raised over $132,000, more than twice as much as the previous year. Proceeds will go to UFV’s Changing Lives, Building Community Endowment, an initiative that provides scholarships for students with high academic achievement. With over 250 people in attendance, the event took place on November 9 in the Student Union Building on the Abbotsford campus. The event also highlighted UFV’s alumni with two awards: the Distinguished Alumni award, won by Gary Bass, and the Distinguished Young Alumni award, won by Shannon Theisen. Men’s wrestling and volleyball earn national rankings The UFV Cascades men’s wrestling and men’s volleyball teams have both placed in national ranking this week. The wrestling team placed at No. 10, the first national ranking they’ve received since their 2014-2015 season. The men’s volleyball team rose four spots in the CCAA rankings this week, from No. 12 to No. 8. Nick Bruce, fourth-year left side on the men’s volleyball team, was also named the PACWEST men’s volleyball athlete of the week following his help in the Cascades’ defeat of the Douglas College Royals.
Freedom riders rally UFV students and community members protest defunding to critical AIDS and hep C services
Photo: Vanessa Broadbest
JOEL ROBERTSON-TAYLOR THE CASCADE
A freedom ride left from UFV on Tuesday morning to protest the defunding of the only HIV / AIDS and hepatitis C services centre within the Fraser Valley — a cut that leaves anyone east of Burnaby affected by these diseases lacking for support. The “freedom ride” bus, once a staple of civil rights activism, most notably in the American civil rights movement, carried supporters to visit local MPs and MLAs to demonstrate their concern for the program defunding. Riding on the bus were UFV social work and human services students, members of Positive Living Fraser Valley (PVFV), as well as community members. At each MP and MLA office, handwritten letters of advocacy from both the students as well as faculty at UFV were presented by the group; the offices were not made aware of the surprise appointments. Mike Zonta, a UFV social work student organized the ride as a statement to local government. “In social work, every instructor that I have gone through over the last four years has spoken on advocacy being a part of social work,” said Zonta. “So this opportunity arose and here we are. Even though we all have busy schedules we managed to get together today to send a message.” The organization being de-funded, PLFV, is a hepatitis C, HIV, and AIDS support service — a non-profit charity and outreach organization. They offer services for HIV, viral hepatitis, TB, and sexually transmitted bloodborne infections as well community support for their members. With the defunding of the program comes a major loss of services such as food banks, free lunches, medical, social, and community support and education. Janet Wilson is a member of PLFV and has been since it was first established over 10 years ago. “I volunteer two days a week because I tend to isolate myself otherwise,” said Wilson. “HIV itself creates depression, so I try to avoid it by volunteering and also being looked after … I don’t know what I’d do without them, I really don’t.” PLFV provides services from Langley to Boston Bar, and if the non-profit society loses
its funding, anyone currently receiving support — about 900 individuals — would need to look for support in and transportation to the Greater Vancouver Region. The remaining AIDS services organization in Surrey also faces defunding. Keri Hackett, the executive director of PLFV originally brought the concern to UFV. Hackett contacted the university to request an impact letter of support for the organization. “It’s a very time sensitive issue because of the catastrophic damages that will be done to marginalized individuals who count on these services,” said Hackett. “We are actually asking for an immediate halt to the current process and that they take the time to review what went wrong … and how was it that every major AIDS organization failed to meet the government’s criteria.” The issue arose this last year when a new call from the federal government through the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) went out to organizations that provide “prevention activities,” requiring these organizations to submit a letter of intent to PHAC for continued funding. Approval of the letters of intent would mean the organizations would then be permitted to submit contract proposals. Previous to the new funding model, PHAC’s HIV and Hepatitis C Community Action Fund funded 124 organizations. This year, 45 organizations that had previously relied upon PHAC funding were not invited to submit full proposals. “Although this directly affects the Fraser Valley leaving it no services at all, it is a national crisis,” said Hackett. Most of the agencies being defunded are long running support centres, some of which have provided community support for over 25 years. Despite PLFV’s long standing ability to provide services to the Fraser Valley, they were denied the opportunity to submit a proposal. “PHACs answer was that we did not write viable letters. We questioned, ‘How could 45 agencies that have years of experience writing proposals have all failed?’” said Hackett Concern was raised by members of the defunded organizations because of a perceived deficit in services to widespread regions. With the new funding comes a blackout to the entire British Columbia interior. Even across the country, some of the most experienced
organizations were the ones to lose funding. “Most of the new agencies that were allowed to go forth to write the formal proposal are agencies that have never done HIV or hep C services before and a lot of them are working with Syrian refugees,” said Hackett. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that but our question is shouldn’t that be a separate lot of money, part of the refugee integration plan?” “The Fraser region, and in particular Abbotsford, has the highest rates of hepatitis C in all of British Columbia by quite a bit,” said Hackett. “We also have one of the highest overdose rates.” In addition to their support services, PLFV has often hosted practicum students from UFV, the cessation of funding will put an end to practicum placement for social work students interested in this fieldwork. “As students, these organizations, and in particular Positive Living here, provide an opportunity for us to have real boots on the ground and to interact with our community,” said Roger Tourand, a student in the social work program at UFV. “These organizations provide that learning space and that’s an important local contextualization to the work that we plan to do in our future and in our career.” Tourand was one of more than 30 people that participated in the freedom ride. “Today, I saw a lot of engaged students and community members joining together collectively to present our issue to these members and hopefully we’ll get a follow up and some traction and movement on those issues that we have found,” said Tourand. The impact letters delivered on Tuesday were a symbol of protest and solidarity. Mike Zonta and Kari Hackett will follow up with meetings with the MPs and MLAs. On December 5, the group will host a roundtable event at the Student Union Building on UFV’s Abbotsford campus for the community to learn more about the defunding and engage with their community. “I have high hopes that something positive will come out of this no matter what, whether it’s government funding or new funding, we’ll see, but I do have high hopes that Positive Living will have a future in the Fraser Valley,” said Zonta.`
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www.ufvcascade.ca
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2016
NEWS
What is Senate?
According to the Universities Act, UFV, a special purpose, teaching university, must have on its senate the following positions: • the chancellor • the president, who is senate’s chair
JOEL ROBERTSON-TAYLOR
• the academic vice president or equivalent
THE CASCADE
• the deans of faculties
Senate is UFV’s academic governing body. That means it’s responsible for managing academic policies and advising the Board of Governors on policies of mutual interest. Some of Senate’s recent work has been the approval of new courses, degree programs, and reviewing existing courses. Senate is also responsible for approving the academic calendar and setting curriculum content for courses. “There are lots of issues that might well be of concern to students that are discussed at Senate. There’s very few things discussed that wouldn’t be,” said Eric Davis, provost and vice president, academic, who is a member of Senate. In B.C., the University Act stipulates that a university (more specifically a special purpose, teaching university, such as UFV) must have a senate. The differences for a special purpose, teaching university, are minor — they are mainly requirements regarding who sits on Senate; the number of students on Senate and various other positions. While Senate is concerned with academic affairs, they are also required to advise the Board of Governors which is largely focused on fiduciary issues, issues of property, and finance and reputation. In regards to the Senate / Board relationship, the University Act says “senate must advise the board and the board must seek advice from senate on various issues.” The business of Senate is conducted via standing committees. Just like Senate, students can be elected to a standing committee to participate in decision making.
If there’s one body that students should really pay attention to, it’s Senate
— Eric Davis
• the chief librarian • the registrar • two faculty members for each faculty, elected by faculty members of the faculty • four students elected by the students • one alumni member who is not a faculty member, appointed by the president on nomination by the alumni association • two support staff elected by the support staff • one non-voting member of the senate, if appointed to the senate by the board to serve for one year
Standing Committees: Faculty Standards Committee has
the responsibility to advise Senate on matters related to standards for faculty promotion through rank and tenure. They establish the principles that govern faculty standards. Senate Graduate Studies Committee provides the Senate with advice and recommendations concerning graduate program development, and policies and standards that relate to graduate studies. Undergraduate Education Committee is responsible for advising Senate on all matters related to the undergraduate educational programs of the university, including policies, practices and criteria for admission, evaluation, and promotion of undergraduate students. Academic Planning and Priorities Committee is responsible for advising Senate on the mission, goals, objectives, strategies, and priorities of the university. Indigenization Committee of Senate is responsible for advising Senate on the alignment of academic, budgetary, and other priorities as they relate to Indigenization plans and initiatives at UFV. Senate Committee for Student
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Appeals deals with the creation of impartial tribunals to hear student appeals for matters of academic misconduct, non-academic conduct, and final grades. Senate Budget Committee has the responsibility to provide advice on the university’s annual budget, budgetary policies, guidelines, processes, and models. Senate Governance Committee is responsible for advising Senate on matters on how to conduct the business of Senate and its committees, meetings, and proceedings. Research Committee has the role of advising Senate on policies and programs that promote and support research and scholarly work.
Things Senate has done: March 2016: Senate passed a policy revision that would standardize the grading format across the institution. Previously, the same percentage in different departments could mean different percentages. March 2016: Senate approves the new Bachelor of Science, Biochemistry major. March 2016: Revisions to undergraduate admission requirements were approved. April 2016: A report on academic misconduct at UFV was presented by the office of academic integrity and appeals. The report summarized the findings of the office on what academic misconducts were most common. It also included what the office intends to do to reduce academic misconduct. May 2016: An annual review of Senate’s bylaws was conducted. Revisions were made to the procedures for membership on senate standing committees as well as to the senate standing committee Rules for the conduct of business. June 2016: Senate approved the strategic research plan 2016-20 and recommended approval to the Board of Governors. The plan will integrate research with teaching and to increase research opportunities for students. September 2016: First annual report on the academic success centre was provided to senate for the purpose of monitoring the effectiveness of the centre. October 2016: Approved course load revision.
October 2016: Senate approves a master’s degree program for integrated science and technology. Some things senate does: -Sets criteria for awarding certificates, diplomas, degrees, and honorary degrees. -Set curriculum content for courses. -Set qualifications for admission -Policies concerning examinations and evaluation of student performances -Residency requirements -Policies regarding student withdraw from courses or programs -Criteria for academic standing, academic standards and the grading system for awards. Any kinds of student awards
Questions and answers with Eric Davis: What does senate do? Senate is the chief academic governance body at the institution. When new programs are coming through, they have to be approved by senate ultimately. If new academic policies are coming through they have to be approved by senate. What is your role on senate? I’m a member like anybody else, I have one vote. In my position I know a lot about certain things so I have an education role to play. There might be a number of issues that are discussed where I will say something based on my experience or I might give advice to senate. Why is senate important? It’s how a university governs itself and it’s how students and faculty self govern. It’s like a parliament for a university. It’s how a university functions like a democracy and it’s called a form of collegial governances because colleagues elect colleagues on senate. There are no other institution in society that are like a university. Senate is one of the things that distinguishes a university from other institutions. How many positions are there for students? There’s four on senate and there are student positions on each of the standing committees of senate. More students can addend, you can always attend as a guest, and in the past for some issues, students did come as guests but there are four, and this is set by the legislation.
www.ufvcascade.ca
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2016
NEWS
UFV athletics adds women’s rugby program VANESSA BROADBENT THE CASCADE
UFV’s athletics program is expanding with the new addition of a women’s rugby sevens program. The team started as a joint three-year pilot project between Canada West, B2Ten, and Rugby Canada. UFV is one of six participating institutions, including the University of Alberta, University of British Columbia, University of Calgary, University of Lethbridge, and University of Victoria. As a club team, the sport will primarily be funded through fundraising and donations, most of which will be provided by B2Ten, an organization that funds Canadian athletes, who is also funding the league’s other teams as well. “Basically, no one is paying for air travel between the three tournaments,” Steve Tuckwood, UFV’s director of athletics and campus recreation explained. “Additionally, they’re providing $2,500 to each of the teams for scholarships to give out to athletes.” Jen Ross, former Canadian national team player, will be coaching the team. “Jen and I had started talking about a women’s rugby opportunity before this came up,” Tuckwood said. “Once we had confirmation from B2Ten about funding and that the league was going to happen we went to the vice president and she took it to the president’s executive and said this is what we’re planning to do, and they were supportive on a few levels.” For now, the team will play as a sevens team, a form of rugby that grew in popularity after its debut appearance in the recent Rio Olympics. “Sevens has been around for a long time, but it’s just recently made its stride in popularity,” Ross said. “It’s not a new sport, it’s just grown in popularity and it’s more fan-friendly because the games are short and quick and more excitement happens in 15 minutes than maybe in a regular fifteens game.” However, Ross has hopes that it won’t take
Photo: UFV Cascades Instagram
long to develop the club to include fifteens as well. “I hope that eventually we will develop into a fifteens program because that’s a CIS sport where they play September to November and then the sevens takes over in the early winter / spring,” she said. “All the schools but us have a fifteens program and a sevens program, but right now we’re just going to have to go with sevens until we can get ourselves established.” “There is a fifteens league for women, but that’s a bigger investment in time and energy,” Tuckwood said. “At this point we’re going to start with sevens and see.” The team’s roster hasn’t been announced, but Ross already has close to 20 players joining the team. “Because I’m associated with the Abbotsford Rugby Club, I knew early on who the players
were that were attending UFV,” she said. “But that’s not saying that we wouldn’t be interested in having girls come out that hadn’t tried it before … Everybody’s going to be welcome to be part of it so that we can start to build a program and the culture that we need.” Tuckwood noted that the team is also a way to bring student athletes to UFV that would usually have to attend elsewhere to play the sport. “I’m seeing more and more athletes coming from the Fraser Valley and staying in the Fraser Valley to play university sport,” he said. “This is an option for us to keep some of those. We have some good recruits that are going to come and play.” Although the majority of players have already played for a club team, this will be the first opportunity for them to represent a university in
the Fraser Valley. “There’s something about when you get to represent an entity like that. You’re representing a whole bunch of other people that are your age,” Tuckwood said. “It’s not like it’s a city or a club team with a whole range of ages. When you represent your university, you’re really representing people from 18 to 25.” The series doesn’t open until January 21 in Edmonton, but the team is already itching to start practicing. “We’re just waiting for confirmation of field times and then we will be on the field and ready to go,” Ross said. “I think they’re anxious,” Tuckwood said. “If I told them they could go out in an hour, I’m sure they’d be there. They’re ready to go.”
Stories worth paying attention to #BCTFWinsCourtCase
#BellaBellaOilSpill
#TentCities
The Supreme Court of Canada has sided with the B.C. Teachers’ Federation in a longrunning court battle over the right to negotiate classroom conditions, creating a multimilliondollar obligation for the provincial government as it readies for an election. The battle has been fought since 2002 (when Christy Clark was education minister) over legislation that removed teachers’ bargaining rights related to class size and composition. The legislation was found to be unconstitutional and the Supreme Court ordered original policy language to be restored.
Attempts to salvage a tugboat that sank near Bella Bella almost a month ago spilling over 100,000 litres of pollutants have been delayed once again due to bad weather. The tugboat sank after it ran aground about 28 kilometres from Bella Bella. Since then, Fisheries officials have ordered the closure of shellfish beds vital to the economy of the Heiltsuk Nation.
Independent, online news magazine, The Tyee, launched a new series last week on homelessness in British Columbia. The first edition of the sixmonth series looks at the “controversial role of tent cities in the housing crisis.” For this series, The Tyee has partnered with Megaphone, a monthly magazine sold by homeless and low-income vendors on the streets of Vancouver and Victoria. The series will be an in-depth investigative collaboration reported by Stefania Seccia of Megaphone, and edited by Tyee Solutions’ Chris Wood.
B.C. teachers’ union wins landmark appeal at Supreme Court
Sunken B.C. tug’s tanks now pumped out, thousands of litres of fuel not recovered
Rethinking tent cities as a help in housing crisis, not a nuisance
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www.ufvcascade.ca
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2016
NEWS
Looking for skills in a digital world UFV looks to place emphasis on creative development much like professional development
Photo: UFV Flickr
MITCH HUTTEMA THE CASCADE
UFV’s graphic design and continuing education departments have banded together to run the newly formed Centre for Creative Development (CCD) which will offer not-for-credit short-term seminars focused on specific design skills and programs to the community. Karin Jager, the department head of UFV’s graphic and digital design department, explained that the idea for the centre came out of an informed discussion. “The centre was inspired by a group of 15 industry professionals from Vancouver and the Fraser Valley. We all got together on a Saturday and brainstormed how me might shape continuing education and creative practice courses for the Fraser Valley,” Jager said. “It occurred to us with the diverse skills and creative disciplines that it really is creative development as opposed to professional development.” In addition to the desire to shape creative education in the valley, the CCD was formed in response to a number of factors. According to Jager, UFV has received interest from many business people requesting upgrading of their skills in the creative department as well as community members looking for training in Adobe programs and graphic design. Additionally, UFV’s own faculty, staff, and students have been looking for shorter courses that offer them a specific digital skill as opposed to semester long programs. “Some of our inspiration also came from the Fraser Valley
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economic summit that took place in 2014,” Jager said. “One of the biggest gaps that business people at the summit identified was a lack of digital skills, so every business today requires some kind of digital skill-set in being able to manage that business. We have a really strong network of business professionals that we are connected with, so we’re able to bring that expertise to the Valley and we’re also tapping the Valley for that expertise.” In order to be an instructor in the CCD program, candidates are required to be current industry professionals; this enables them to be tuned into current trends and keeps their instruction current. In an industry such as design, trends come and go very quickly. Valley local Tom Froese is one of the several instructors that are already lined up. “He’s kind of a rock star illustrator that has also got a really strong background in the creative industry, I think he worked for Giant Ant and he’s now moved his practice into illustration and he works internationally,” said Jager. Other instructors for the program include Alex Wells, a sessional instructor and owner of Maple Ridge design firm Your Design Here, who will be teaching social media, web design courses, and InDesign courses beginning next semester. Camilla Coates from UFV’s university relations department will be involved as well and will be leading InDesign classes. For each of the CCD courses the maximum enrollment is 15, but if there are less than 10 participants the seminar will be cancelled. “Tom has fewer than 10 students but we really want to run
this course, so we are going to run it anyhow,” Jager said. “We’re super excited about it, it’s going to be a really good workshop.” These courses are made with businesses in mind, and Jager noted that UFV is willing to coordinate and develop private seminars with companies and “will actually tailor a course for a particular company’s needs.” These private seminars are developed at no extra cost to the participants, making privatized training highly appealing. There are plans to create certificate programs within the CCD that are earned by completing several modules within the program. “We have InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator boot camp courses and if someone wants to take three modules within our offerings it would be an equivalency to a credit course,” said Jager. Jager explained that the program will not be conflicting with or delaying the creation of a graphic design major. “It’s complimentary,” she said. “It’s really intended for people that want to take a short course and develop their skills. We have a graphic design extended minor option right now within the bachelor of fine arts, and the graphic design department is working on a major.” The major will not include any of the CCD courses as of yet. However, its structure will be based on the current twoyear diploma, plus two years of cross disciplinary learning in InDesign, and will be a more comprehensive program than the diploma.
www.ufvcascade.ca
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2016
NEWS Can costs get better with just a sweater? Centre for sustainability and UFV host sweater week EMMA GROENEVELD THE CASCADE
UFV campuses are colder than usual this week. November 14 to 18 is Sweater Week at the university. The event was planned in hopes to raise awareness and lower costs of heating and gas consumption for the four days of Sweater Week. The temperature in the school has be decreased from 21 to 20 C for the week. Sweater Week is designed to let students know the new temperature might affect them, as well as to provide ways students at UFV can think about how to save energy and money by dropping the temperature one degree. Travis Gingerich, a student at UFV and sustainability coordinator assistant for the Centre for Sustainability said that dropping the temperature even slightly can “reduce the consumption and cost of heating significantly.” “I would say that an awareness campaign is more valuable than heating the campus for the allotted amount of the time during this event,” said Gingerich. The Centre for Sustainability came up with the event as a reminder for students that heating the 21
buildings across UFV is costly and also uses up a great deal of natural gas, a nonrenewable substance. “Dropping the temperature by one degree saves 0.5 to 1 per cent, of the total cost of heating the school. When looking at the amount of money it costs, it is quite substantial,” said Gingerich. The Centre for Sustainability is also hosting multiple events across campus such as a sweater selfie contest, where students can tweet a selfie of their sweater to @green_UFV. There will be five different “sustainable selfie situations” set up for the selfie contests, with backgrounds of nature and outdoors. There will also be daily draws for $20 gift cards for food establishments around campus as well as a UFV department hoodie of the student’s choice and a $50 gift card to the campus bookstore. Next semester, January 2017 there will also be an event centered more towards the Chilliwack campus. The Centre for Sustainability and Gingerich hope that “these events will help students have fun, and also think about how much natural gas is being used, as well as reducing greenhouse gas.”
THE CASCADE IS LOOKING FOR A BUSINESS MANAGER Business Manager Contract Rate of pay: $300per issue One Year Term The Business Manager is responsible for the financial management of The Cascade. The Business Manager works closely with the Cascade Journalism Society’s treasurer to ensure The Cascade’s budget is adhered to. The Business Manager also manages the Cascade’s local ad portfolio. Responsibilities • File payroll according to the Production & Pay Schedule. • Be the liaison between advertising partners and the paper. • Work to sell a minimum of $300 of local advertising per issue. • Responsible for all accounts payable and receivable. • Develop and maintain a system to attract, and track, the stages of advertisers from potential to clients. • Produce the society’s annual budget in conjunction with the Editor-in- Chief and the Cascade • Journalism Society’s treasurer.`
SUS by-elections see low voter turnout JOEL ROBERTSON-TAYLOR THE CASCADE
Votes cast in the Student Union Society (SUS) by-election totalled 10. Of the five positions that were vacant and open for candidacy, only one student ran for one position. The uncontested candidacy for Aboriginal rep received all votes in favour, and no votes for “no” or “no opinion.” The other four positions remain unfilled. By-elections are held in the fall to attempt to fill vacant positions on the SUS Board of Directors that do not get filled during the general election in March. “The SUS by-elections were advertised for two months through extensive postering on campus and regular social media messaging,” SUS vice president internal Ashmeet Saran said in an email. Despite the extensive postering, very little interest was generated for the by-elections. “Even though by-elections usually have a low voter turnout, we will yet continue to promote the by-election voting period in the future years because it yet involves voting for a potential candidate — even though most of the time the positions are uncontested,” said
Saran. Saran said that student feedback revealed that students who were aware of the by-elections and did not vote, did so predominantly for three different reasons. “They did not feel the need to vote because the sole candidate for Aboriginal rep position was uncontested,” said Saran, adding that “They tried to find the voting page on MyCampusLife and weren’t able to, or they tried to find the ‘Elections and Surveys’ section on myUFV to vote as they have in the past and couldn’t find it.” SUS will continue to promote elections as they have been so that students are aware of the process and who they may vote for. “We were expecting a higher voter turnout,” said Saran. Low interest in by-elections is not uncommon to SUS, and in the 2014 by-elections, only one person ran for a position out of four positions set to be filled. In previous years, requirements for the elected representatives have been simplified to make the positions more manageable and potentially more appealing for candidates.
• Ensure that the annual budget is adhered to, and/or necessarily adjusted upon approval of the • Board of Directors. • Produce monthly reports for the Board of Directors. • Oversee distribution and work in conjunction with the distributor to explore off-campus distribution sites. • Organize fundraising and promotional events when necessary with support the Managing Editor and/or the Editor-in- Chief. Qualifications 1. Must be a member in good standing of the Cascade Journalism Society. 2. Must be registered in at least one credit course during the fall/winter semesters. 3. Must be available to work varying hours. 4. Must be available to be present in the office for at least 12 hours per week, especially Friday afternoons. 5. Must be able to deal effectively with Society and university staff, students and the general public. 6. Administrative experience is an asset. 7. Basic literacy is required. To apply for the position, email a resume and cover letter to mitch@ufvcascade.ca by Dec. 2.
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www.ufvcascade.ca
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2016
OPINION
So Trump won... PANKU SHARMA THE CASCADE
“And I don’t know how much it really means to be right / And what a joy it’ d be to see some peace in this life” — El-P (“2100 ft. BOOTS” — Run the Jewels) Well, I don’t think many of us saw that coming. Between the start and end of my 15-minute presentation on the futility of American Green Party electoral success on election night, the forecast reversed completely — I think there was even some ominous thunder outside. It was a blow, not because anyone I knew was particularly excited about four years of establishment and dynastic hum-drum under Hillary, but because of what the Trump win meant. Their country is just a few kilometres away from most of us and we live under Washington’s shadow in just as many ways as we do Ottawa’s. I’m not dramatizing when I say there was a gnawing and almost primal feeling in the pit of my stomach, the same one you get before a fight or in the midst of a natural disaster. The one that compels you to find a way to survive the next few moments. Yeah, maybe we all got a little caught up in the narrative. We built him in our minds as such a complete disaster that we never shored up our minds to the possibility. In that immediate haze, we ran through the scenarios: nuclear codes, race riots, the fact that Americans have such an entitlement to arms. But then we had a drink, maybe two, let the immediate haze slip off and thought seriously about what tomorrow would bring. If you’re anything like me, one of your immediate concerns was the type of beliefs that had just been validated. It’s hard to parse out what drove people to him, but what we have to remember is that many more people were driven to just stay home. For the 40-something per cent of the American population that didn’t vote, there wasn’t much of a choice. All they were told for the last year is you support either a madman or the same broken and unfair system that had spied, lied, and left your way of life behind. At the same time however, giving Trump that power gives power to every shitty attitude and belief he has endorsed or cultivated in the last year, the fear and blame put on immigrants, the hostility to women and marginalized
groups. If Obama’s election was supposed to mean something for race relations, then so does this. If Hillary’s election was supposed to provide a role model to girls all over the world, then Trump does the same for every backward troll. Not to say all his supporters are trolls, there are some who held their noses the same way Hillary voters did and refused to take up his hateful rhetoric with the same gusto their compatriots did. Some. So who’s to blame? It wasn’t social justice warriors. As many problems as the Left has, and as tiresome, divisive, and useless as the rhetoric and “progressive” ideal can get on campus, it’s no excuse. It has to be tempered sure, but there’s only been a decade where t h e
tomorrow. The blame is with the ones who forgot both of these groups, the ones so entangled in a political machine oiled with corporate funds and self-aggrandizing ego that they forgot what people needed. They need something to vote for. They need something to change, that would let them keep up with a world that every day is looking grimmer and more uncertain. When’s the last time we have even felt that way here? That we voted for principle and trust instead of strategy and payback? If you haven’t felt that way in your lifetime yet, look for it. Not to say that staying home and disengaging is in anyway principled or brave. In any election, not
bothering to form an opinion isn’t showing courage — it’s complacency and consent. At least the Harambe voters might have had a say in their local elections. There are silver linings here for our neighbours — 2020 could be interesting for new and grassroots-oriented political parties. There should be some solace in the low turnout too, it’s not half of America that supports whatever Trump believes (it’s changing by the minute), it’s just half of the people motivated enough to show up that day. But what now, what about the next four years? Well, we wait, gather strength, and stand firm. We have our own fights even here at home that are coming, that are happening, that we aren’t even watching yet, that we have already forgotten. Whatever that feeling it was you felt Tuesday night, don’t forget it — whether it was good or bad. Let it keep your eyes open, your mind busy, and your politicians accountable.
culture h a s been open enough for these discussions to be had — for institutional and societal failures to be admonished and inspected. There are definitely people caught in the crossfire unfairly, but to take that challenge, and if it motivates you enough to cast a ballot for a man-child it means there was no real point in reaching out to you anyways. Grow a little, meet some people, open your heart, speak your mind, be humble but be challenging. We’ll regroup later. It’s not the working-class whites against free trade. The ones who have swapped between parties as a political tool in the same way minorities and marginalized are left on the democratic mantel above the dying embers of progress towards a better Illustrations: Rebekah Brackett
Soroptimist Live Your Dream: Education and Training Awards for Women The Abbotsford-Mission Soroptimist club will provide $2,500 cash grant to women seeking financial assistance for educational and training expenses. The award recipient will then advance to the Soroptimist Western Canada Region level, where recipients could receive up to an additional $5000. The program culminates with three finalist $10,000 awards. Recipients can use the Live Your Dream grant to offset costs associated with efforts to attain higher education or additional skills and training. This includes tuition, books, childcare, carfare or any other education-related expense. Applications available online at www.sorptimist.org Application deadline is January 15, 2017
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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2016
www.ufvcascade.ca
OPINION
Why Trump won JOSHUA DE SILVA CONTRIBUTOR
After the results were known, liberal activist Anthony Kapel “Van” Jones stayed on CNN Tuesday night to talk about President Trump. (Get used to saying it now, it’s going to be a long four years.) Van Jones emphasized that Trump’s victory was a white-lash: “This was many things. This was a rebellion against the elites — true. It was a complete reinvention of politics, of polls … This was a white-lash. This was a white-lash against a changing country, it was a white-lash against a black president, in part.” Van Jones went on to talk about the personal and moral failings of the new president and complained about the problem parents now face in explaining the election to their children. “You have people putting children to bed tonight, and they’re afraid of breakfast. They’re afraid of, ‘How do I explain to my children?’” he said. Jones is not wrong about Trump insulting his challengers in a petty way, appealing to the racist elements of the alt-right, and Trump not doing his homework as he should have. This guy, however, is wrong on so many levels. About the parents, it’s not terribly difficult
to explain that Hillary’s corruption is a serious problem and that the government was going to have someone morally unqualified elected in either case. She lied about her emails, claimed to be a champion for women and LGBTQ rights while accepting funds from countries like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia who have no respect for either (no one in America has been hanged off a crane for being gay), and could not stop playing the woman card for the life of her. Secondly, people are tired of the race card. No, I did not dislike Obama because he was black, I disliked him because he used the IRS to target conservatives, opposed free speech in Citizens United v. FEC, and frequently pushed his edicts over the laws of Congress and the will of the American people. Overall, he has done serious damage to the rule of law in the U.S, and to the authority of Congress and to the Constitution. Race relations, furthermore, have worsened under his presidency, thanks to his demeaning speeches towards police officers after one of them shoots a black person, and also thanks to the Black Lives Matter movement. Political correctness on campus has also furthered divisions. By canceling events by right-wingers like Milo Yiannopolous, Ben Shapiro, and others, Republicans on campus become more infuriated and finally cave to
Trump. As Ben Shapiro can attest, most young conservatives he met were against Trump, compared to older generations. These divisions, along with attacking “white privilege,” push white people to identify with their race when they normally would not. In turn, they voted for Trump, because fuck everyone. It is this backlash, not some racist revolt against a black president, which fueled much of Trump’s support. Thanks, guys! No, seriously, thanks, because Trump is your fault. For years the left has employed language that was hyperbolic and inaccurate, enough so that people stopped listening or taking it seriously. Bill Maher, just before the election, even confessed to the liberal’s previous sins: “I know liberals made a big mistake because we attacked your boy Bush like he was the end of the world, and he wasn’t. And Mitt Romney we attacked that way. I gave Obama a million dollars because we were so afraid of Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney wouldn’t have changed my life that much, or yours. Or John McCain. They were honourable men who we disagreed with and we should’ve kept it that way … So we cried wolf, and that was wrong. But this is real. This is going to be way different.” Ironically, just before that statement he claimed that America would get “President
Leadership: to lead or to listen? MARTIN CASTRO THE CASCADE
What kind of qualities do we want in a leader? This is a question that I’m sure has been on everyone’s mind lately, what with the election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency. But this isn’t a commentary on whether Donald Trump is or isn’t a good leader. I know what my opinion on the man is, and I’m sure, after months of election coverage, you also have your own opinion. I’m not here to change that. Instead, let’s look at the qualities an ideal leader should have. Should they listen to their constituency? Most people would answer “yes.” But what if their constituency is composed solely of people calling for the arbitrary death of every 10th citizen? Should a good, wise leader listen then? Good leaders should reach out to the disenfranchised, just as they should reach out to the elite. They should attempt to bridge the social gaps between all peoples. Now, obviously a leader should focus more efforts on reaching the disenfranchised. The well-off socially and economically have, by definition, already been heard by society. This doesn’t mean we should ignore them, but a good leader should be aware that the more visible wants / needs of the wealthy or well-off will, and oftentimes do, outshine the needs of the people on the fringes of our society. A leader should seek to bring those people in from the fringes. The best way to do this is by expanding the benefits of society so that previously disenfranchised people lie within its boundaries. But what if that’s not something the people want? What if the people, angry and embittered, choose a specific group within society to use as a scapegoat for their frustrations. Honestly at this point, all I can say is that every good leader should at least
have read The Prince. Essentially a good leader should know that they are not just a leader but literally a public servant. That is, one who serves the public. Here’s where we get into the sticky situation of a constituency calling for arbitrary decimation. Or, perhaps more readily apparent in today’s politics, the rejection of rights to certain groups of people based on their gender or sexual orientation or financial standing. A good leader ought to know enough to understand that if their constituency is calling for the oppression of a certain group of people, say, Muslims, then all available cash left on the cutting room floor when the budget is done should immediately go to public education reform. Also, this is one of those instances during which it would behoove a leader not to listen to his constituency. Every good leader should actively advocate across the board for the following three things: the separation of religious institutions and public institutions as well as government, the implementation of social institutions which have until recently been or are currently being withheld from certain marginalized groups (such as the right of any two consenting adults to marry), and finally the education of every single member of the public in three things: ethics, reasoning, and in at least one of its many forms — art. Ethics and reasoning because you cannot think for people, but you can give them the tools to think for themselves, and art because it is through art that we connect and empathize with others who before we had no knowledge of. A good leader should know that if you strengthen the bonds between people, educate them, and give them the tools they need to think critically and compassionately, then it’s not just those people who benefit, but the whole of society.
Trump for life” since fascists don’t give up power. I’m sorry Maher, but Trump is not going to be a fascist, and even if he was, he’s 70 years old and eats lots of junk food — he isn’t living for much longer. I am sick and tired of my entire side of the political spectrum being called racist, sexist, bigoted, homophobic, xenophobic, islamophobic, and whatever other buzzwords are popular now, for daring to disagree with the left. So are many Americans, and that’s where Trump comes in. As much as I dislike him as a Republican candidate — his views seem to fit more with the left — and believe he is going to need to be spoon-fed on how to appeal to conservatives, I laugh at the mainstream media and the rest. Once you turn the dial up to 11, you can’t go any higher. So when you really get someone like Trump, and you’ve already trotted out the buzzwords against everyone else, who is going to believe you now? It’s the classic tale of the boy who cried wolf. So congrats CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, and the rest of you, you outplayed yourself. All Trump had to do was look better than Hillary, and denounce political correctness. Neither of those are high bars to set.
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CORRECTION “Poking holes in free stuff,” an article in Issue 28 of The Cascade, implied that UFV paid for free condoms previously provided on campus. All condoms provided on campus were actually ordered from Options for Sexual Health, and provided at no cost to the university or students.
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A death sentence for the destitute WRITTEN BY: BRADLEY PETERS
RESEARCH BY: TREVOR JOHNSON
A closer look into homelessness in the Fraser Valley
I
scramble up the brambly embankment in the dim morning mist, clacking metal like an army tank reverberates through the chill. Over the hill is a sparsely wooded area spotted with makeshift shanties and elaborately crafted campsites: layered tarps strung to uprooted tree roots, shabby tents, and rutted-tin lean-to’s. To my left, a young woman frantically bundles a sleeping bag into a shopping cart and rushes into a plywood shack. Downtrodden individuals speckle the forest, wordlessly rushing about, dragging boxes of personal knick-knacks and overloaded plastic wagons along the weaving mud trails. To my right, a 16-foot excavator rattles into the clearing, shepherded by a row of police officers and city workers marching into the homeless camp. On Tuesday, November 8, the City of Abbotsford demolished a homeless encampment near the Peardonville overpass. Although they have cleared this site several times in past years, the eviction I witnessed last week, the surly orders shouted from city workers and police officers curt rebuttals to pleas for just a little more time, all seemed to harbour an air of vindictive weightiness. It’s not too difficult to comprehend why. One week prior, on November 1, a homeless man walked off the street and into Abbotsford Secondary School with a knife. The accused is 21-year-old Gabriel Klein, who allegedly stabbed two young girls, killing 13-year-old Letisha Reimer in the hall outside of the library. Homelessness in the Fraser Valley has reached its tipping point.
DESIGN BY: BRITTANY CARDINAL
Abbotsford is ranked the fastest growing homeless population in the province; according to a new report by health professors at UBC, SFU, and the University of Calgary, there are over 15,000 homeless people in B.C. with approximately 600 homeless in the Fraser Valley. The report only includes people with severe addictions and mental illness, and only those deemed “absolutely homeless”; it does not account for what some workers in the field refer to as “hidden homelessness”: those who do not show up at food banks and shelters to be tallied. The general consensus on the street is that many of the homeless don’t seek help because they know there is nothing for them. “Transition houses are maxed out; second-stage houses are at capacity, with one- to two-year waiting lists,” said a subcontractor for B.C. Housing who wished to remain anonymous. “The Salvation Army has 26 beds and Riverside has 40 beds and they’re all full.” Sarah Fung, an outreach worker for 5 & 2 Ministries in Abbotsford, spoke about how this issue affects Abbotsford’s homeless population. “Abbotsford has adopted a Band-Aid approach to everything,” Fung remarked. “Instead of dealing with the issue, we just try and maintain it. The homeless get kicked out of certain areas and then move somewhere else … We call it the Abbotsford shuffle.” Many people working with the homeless in Abbotsford harbour a certain disdain for the city’s response — or lack thereof — to homelessness. Abbotsford is notorious for its churches, crime rate, and now, its homeless. “Abbotsford has a bylaw in effect so that we can’t have a detox here,” Fung stated. “We can’t have any type of treatment centre. We aren’t even supposed to have harm reduction.” The stout ideologies of citizens of the Fraser Valley could be hindering progress toward finding housing for the homeless. “There’s an idea that the homeless community exists because of laziness or poor choices,” remarked Fung. “Some people think that if you pray over homelessness, or domestic violence, or addiction, that it will all just disappear.” Evidence proves the reality behind homelessness is not so innocent. According to research presented at a “Health of the Homeless” summit in Vancouver, the overwhelming majority of B.C’s homeless suffered from mental illness and trauma-induced mental health issues long before they began living on the streets. The majority of B.C’s homeless suffer from schizophrenia, and more than half of the men and women who are homeless have
44% felt that using tax dollars to provide some form of housing should be the priority
suffered from both physical and emotional abuse, often at an early age, as well as fetal alcohol syndrome. Over 79 per cent of women living on the street were victims of sexual abuse. Living on the street without structure or security is a horrific and deadly ordeal. According to a report done by The Megaphone, a counter-culture magazine sold by the homeless in Vancouver, at least 46 homeless people died in British Columbia in 2014 (the last time a count was conducted) — a 70 per cent increase from the year before. That’s someone dying on the street every eight days. According to the report, the expiration date for a homeless person in B.C. is between 40 and 49 years of age; the average Canadian life expectancy is 82. The homeless are three times as likely to suffer an “accidental” death, and twice as likely to die by homicide and suicide than the general population. Leading causes of death among homeless people are: natural disease, drug poisoning, blunt injuries, hanging, and drowning. According to Sean Condon, executive director of The Megaphone, the actual total of homeless deaths in B.C. could be twice as high; a homeless person dying in a hospital bed, or one who has sought temporary shelter, is not counted by the B.C. Coroners Service in the report. But, I admit, it may be hard for people to give these issues their full attention amidst the difficulties of securing housing for themselves in an egregiously bloated market. The homelessness issue has collided with a housing crises culminating into a crescendo of fear and loathing: fear that a 0.6 per cent housing availability sounds eerily similar to an ultimatum, and loathing for any suggestions of allocating hard-earned tax dollars towards supporting undeserving freeloaders. But, here’s the thing: you’re already paying for it. Someone who lives on the street tends to be a regular consumer of police, ambulance, hospital, and other emergency services. Research conducted for the Calgary Homeless Foundation estimates that the total cost a homeless person garners is $135,000 from the tax system each year. Multiply that amount by the approximate 15,000 homeless in British Columbia, and taxpayers in our province are paying approximately two billion dollars a year in order to maintain homelessness. The cost of sheltering someone in a supportive housing unit, according to B.C. Housing, is $37,000 a year. Ending homelessness is not only a moral and ethical CONTINUED...
PHOTO: BRADLEY PETERS
PHOTO: BRADLEY PETERS
issue, it also makes good business sense. The Cascade conducted an on-campus survey asking for students’ opinions on the homelessness issue. When asked what steps should be taken to combat homelessness, a majority of UFV students — 44 per cent — felt that using tax dollars to provide some form of housing should be the priority. The smallest minority of respondents, seven per cent, suggested we do nothing. The idea of providing housing to combat homelessness is a proven solution. It’s called “Housing First,” a term used to quantify housing as a necessary precondition for mental health and drug addiction recovery, and not the other way around. Under a Housing First bylaw, the municipality would work with the province to provide housing — anything from subletting rooms in a house to a renovated and sectioned off shipping container — and offer safe space to everyone, regardless if they are “clean.” This provides stability and a structured environment for addicts to pursue recovery. According to the research article Housing First — Where is the evidence?, the proof affirming this approach is overwhelming. Individuals who reside in a Housing First placement are healthier and more lawabiding than those who live in shelters or on the street. Housing First users are more likely to enroll in treatment for addiction or mental illness, and once in treatment they have a higher rate of success. Cities following the Housing First principles are seeing positive results — most notably the triumph of Medicine Hat, A.B. — so why isn’t Abbotsford following suit?
Housing falls under provincial regulation, meaning the municipal government has to fight for an audience with the B.C. government to convince them to allow their city to implement a Housing First bylaw. “Therve’s a lot of passing the buck,” Fung noted. “It’s
“
There’s an idea that the homeless community exists because of laziness or poor choices. Some people think that if you pray over homelessness, or domestic violence, or addiction, that it will all just disappear
frustrating, because the city doesn’t want to deal with it, and when we try to pressure the government about implementing something that needs to be done, they step up and say no.” Amidst all of this exasperating political gloom, Sarah points out a simple explanation: “The root of the problem is a lack of empathy,” she said. I recall the city workers evicting the frail old woman. The excavator had already torn through several makeshift campsites. Fragments of fabric littered the ground. I followed two big city workers, gleaning some pesky satisfaction from their snorted side-glances as they tramped up to the multi-tarp shelter and tore open
the front flap. She reminded me of my Aunt Martha, brittle, frizzy, spotted and creased with age. I thought she might be somebody’s grandmother, and my chest ached as she shouldered her threadbare bag and stepped lightly between the two men. I handed her my water bottle. She nodded, and I willed my heart into my eyes to smile love back at her. “Could you live like this?” one of the workers asked pointedly, after the lady had gone. I wanted to respond with biting scorn and wit and my mind raced, but all I said was “I don’t know.” They peered inside the empty shelter. “Quite the kitchen, eh?” The older man said to the fat man, and they both guffawed their way down the trail. “I think that it is really important that people know that the homeless are human beings that just want to be loved and to belong,” said Fung. “I had a pastor tell me once that love burns brightest in the darkness. The homeless community is not a community to be afraid of. They, amid their brokenness, possess a lot of things that society has forgotten: the sense of community and taking care of each other. They are loyal and loving people. They have a freaky exterior, but as soon as you get to know them they have hearts of gold.” After the tragic events that recently unfolded in our city, it’s time for our community to take a stand towards ending the homelessness crisis. The failed tactic of dismantling and degrading the homeless with the hopes of driving them into some form of ashamed surrender is no longer feasible. The cost is too great; the toll too dire.
www.ufvcascade.ca
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2016
OPINION
SNAPSH
TS
Curtailed commentary on current conditions
Odour of the Sith
Conventions can be a great time. It’s unfortunate that wisdom of this has slipped out though, because now everyone knows and that often leads to crowded spaces. This is usually okay and foot traffic is to be expected, however, being in a crowd that reeks of body odour is never a pleasant experience. Personal hygiene is important, as it keeps you healthy and the nasal health of those around you in good condition. I get it, conventions can be long and arduous, and all that walking and heat generated by the masses can cause some sweating. Yet this is precisely why it is important to slather on some deodorant before heading out to ensure you are as fresh as a fire flower from the Mario universe. So please, take the time to take care of yourself, and in turn, you will not impede on the experiences of others and will be less susceptible to dirty looks when in crowds — unless of course you decide to block pathways. Don’t be that person either.
What’s the question again? Joel Robertson-Taylor
Sometimes, I’m not even sure what the question is before I proceed. I’ll dive into something, expecting to find clarity as I go, but it only gets more convoluted and confusing. I could have asked for clarification, but like refusing to check Google Maps, the further I get — the more time it takes to figure out where I’m going — the more adamant I am about not using a map. Then there’s a glimmer of clarity, a sign, just enough to keep you feeling like you’ll figure it out. It wasn’t useful, we’re back where we started, sometimes there’s uncertainty. Great ships once sailed these seas, none of which could bat the breeze. It’s too far along now to ask for directions, it would look silly. Maybe I’ll figure it out as I go. Maybe I’ll just keep sailing, I’m sure there’s something interesting up ahead anyhow. But it gets weird. There was nothing further along, no context, no answer, no clue.
Michael Chutskoff
ALT: Hipsters make my fists hurt Bradley Peters
Hipsters. Those craft beer drinking, mustache wearing, local-obsessed know-it-alls are so damn annoying. When will this trend be over? I’m so tired of feeling judged when I just want to enjoy my Starbucks and eat a hamburger in peace. “Starbucks doesn’t recycle,” they say. Boo-hoo. Beef is worse for the environment than the transportation industry, causes cancer, destroys the Amazon, is full of steroids, and perpetuates animal cruelty? Tastes delicious. My heart aches with hatred when those hipsters ride their bicycles past my car while I’m sitting in traffic, dressed second-hand, unshaven, bulbous helmet strapped to their stupid head while they practically salute their hand-signals; so smug. When will we go back to the happy days, when everything was so simple and I didn’t have to pretend to give a rip when someone decides to “educate” me about the “true cost” of my clothes. We’re giving jobs to those garment workers in Bangladesh aren’t we!? And the longshoremen who load up the tankers to transport everything across the ocean, and the miners who get the coal to run the factories, and the oil rig workers who get fuel for the ships, not to mention the businessmen who worked hard to create such a successful international clothing company; they all need to make a living! Small, local businesses are just jealous. Everything has to be researched, scrutinized, and explained with these people. Hipsters are pretentious. I can’t wait until the fad is over so I can just enjoy my life again.
Kelly Leitch’s Screen Door Panku Sharma
So the leadership race for the federal Conservative party is still going with a wide breadth of all the vaguely memorable and adequately dressed candidates that this country has to offer. While Kelly Leitch wasn’t at the last debate due to a possible break-in (which isn’t funny or deserved at all), she has gained notoriety for her pandering to “old stock” or “everyday” Canadians in a Trump-style approach. Perhaps her most famous policy proposal has been that immigrants should be screened for antiCanadian values. Now the stickler is she hasn’t gotten very specific or provided any sort of draft, but the sentiment is there and easily understood. I mean, there are fundamental things that make Canadians Canadian. Regardless of our ethnicity, background, race, or class there are common standards that people across this great land all share — a smug and self-righteous sense of superiority to other Western nations disguised under a neighbourly and humble veneer, a love / hate relationship with an oversaturated coffee shop, and a grumbling resentment of Quebec. See, it wasn’t that hard at all. Kelly, if you’re reading this my lawyer says I’m technically a policy advisor. I invoice by email.
Illustrations: Amara Gelaude
WE ARE HIRING A MANAGING EDITOR If you have a penchant for writing, know how to coordinate a team, send and reply to countless emails, inspire people to succeed, have dabbled in design or are looking to encourage engagement on campus, then shoot an email to mitch@ufvcascade.ca for more info on how you could become the next managing editor of The Cascade! Deadline for applications is Dec. 2.
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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2016
www.ufvcascade.ca
STUDY BREAK Crossword Across 1: A collection of best players, or a hit song by Smash Mouth 4: Steven Universe’s theme: “_ _ are the Crystal Gems” 5: Fall 2016’s highest rated new show, This is _ _ 6: Subject of LeVar Burton’s popular children’s show 8: Supernatural BBC drama, _ _ing Human 9: _ _ Name is Earl 10: The type of product contestants manufacture on Project Runway
Down 1: “Sp_ _ _, the final frontier” 2: Battlestar Galactica and Firefly genre 3: Surname of TV’s most famous painter 4: Critically acclaimed HBO crime drama, The _ _ _ _ 5: The unfortunate descriptor given to a character named Betty in her show’s title 7: ‘80s television action heroes who “love it when a plan comes together” 8: Third word in the title of a sitcom that holds the title of number one show in Canada 9: How I _ _ _ Your Mother
SPORTS SCORES Nov 11 UFV Cascades vs. TWU Spartans L 90-82 (OT) Nov 12 UFV Cascades vs. TWU Spartans W 93-79 Women’s basketball Nov 11 UFV Cascades vs. TWU Spartans W 60-47 Nov 12 UFV Cascades vs. TWU Spartans L 65-51 Men’s volleyball Nov 11 UFV Cascades vs. Douglas Royals W 3-1 Nov 12 UFV Cascades vs. Douglas Royals W 3-0 Women’s volleyball Nov 11 UFV Cascades vs. Douglas Royals L 3-1
Made by Jeff Mijo
Horoscopes
Astrological mysteries interpreted by Master Moji
Aries — Mar 21 to Apr 19 Hey kids, don’t forget to mind your kerning!
Taurus — Apr 20 to May 20 All that glitters is gold, and only shooting stars break the mold.
Gemini — May 21 to Jun 20 This week will be a remarkable week for you. Watch out for drunken armadillos and people at bus stops. Take time to think about your life priorities and question them, then finish off the day with wine. Cancer —Jun 21 to Jul 22 Sometimes the best jokes are the ones you run so far into the ground that they pop out the other side and are funny again.
Sagittarius — Nov 22 to Dec 21 Watch out! Some inanimate and / or intangible objects are far, far less lickable than others. Capricorn — Dec 22 to Jan 19 The time for money stuff is nigh. Invest, or face the wrath of a banker with a machete. Seriously, they know where you live, call witness protection.
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Leo — Jul 23 to Aug 22 One night this week, you’ll wake up to see a disembodied skull named Boneathan hovering three inches from your face. He’ll remind you to stay hydrated, lest you end up like him. Virgo —Aug 23 to Sep 22 Cats ahoy! Hug a cat, or a cat will hug you. Either way: cat hair on all your clothes.
Nov 12 UFV Cascades vs. Douglas Royals L 3-2
UPCOMING GAMES Men’s basketball Friday, Nov 25 8:00 p.m. UFV Cascades vs. UNBC Timberwolves (home) Saturday, Nov 26 7:00 p.m. UFV Cascades vs. UNBC Timberwolves (home) Women’s basketball
Libra — Sep 23 to Oct 22 The supermoon will deliver you a superboon of cash. Spend it wisely. Scorpio — Oct 23 to Nov 21 You are likely to encounter a dubious choice at work this week. You will find it in your best interest to resist your nature and carry out your obligations. However, it is common amongst Scorpios to succumb and make their situation much worse.
Pisces — Feb 19 to Mar 20 What seems at first like a long, tedious bus ride may in fact be a pretty fun time! Aquarius — Jan 20 to Feb 18 You will come into great peril if you cross another Aquarius. The stars indicate that poison is in your future. If you have a chance to buy tickets, you should act on it immediately.
Friday, Nov 25 6:00 p.m. UFV Cascades vs. UNBC Timberwolves (home) Saturday, Nov 26 5:00 p.m. UFV Cascades vs. UNBC Timberwolves (home) Men’s volleyball Saturday, Nov 26 7:00 p.m. UFV Cascades vs. COTR Avalanche (home) Sunday, Nov 27 1:00 p.m. UFV Cascades vs. COTR Avalanche (home) Women’s volleyball Saturday, Nov 26 5:00 p.m. UFV Cascades vs. COTR Avalanche (home) Sunday, Nov 27 11:00 a.m. UFV Cascades vs. COTR Avalanche (home)
www.ufvcascade.ca
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2016
CULTURE & EVENTS
I write, therefore I am Carl Peters on writing and his upcoming presentation
KLARA CHMELAROVA CONTRIBUTOR
What is creative writing? I sat down with Dr. Carl Peters, a professor in UFV’s English department, over a mug of steaming coffee to find the answer. Originally from Toronto, Peters studied visual arts in Saskatchewan. However, the program didn’t live up to his expectation and after finishing it, he decided to come to the mountainous shores of British Columbia. What brought him into writing was a love of books and reading, especially He Who Runs May Read by Gertrude Stein. One might ask what this book has to do with writing, and the answer is everything. As Mr. Peters put it in a more sophisticated vernacular: “If I want to be a serious writer, I want to prove to myself that I can read well, and how can I do that? So I thought, why don’t I explain a difficult writer, that’s always fun. Gertrude Stein is in keeping pace with that project. [I would] try to annotate her and read her with as much focused intelligence as possible, which is how I want to read, hence how I want to write. The better you read the better you write.” Comparing writing to a kind of blindness, Peters believes
that the process itself is internal and has to come from ourselves “travelling” in our inner dimensions. It can be a struggle at times, but it sharpens one’s awareness and writing skills greatly. Peters is going to hold a presentation on November 17 in the Abbotsford campus library about the topic. “My talk on the 17th will comment on creative writing as that kind of process,” Peters explained. “Then it will rebuke expressions like creative writing because all that I think we are trying to do is learn to write. I don’t think it’s creative. I don’t think it’s uncreative.” Peters hopes to address the question of “What is creative writing?” saying it leads to the question of “Why write?” which is a key question for modernists. “I make no distinction between living and writing,” he mused. “Both are what you do: writing is never more than an extension of living.” Peters says he created the event to promote his new annotated study of Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein. He explained that Stein “tried to write in the way Picasso painted ... Tender Buttons focuses mainly on the cubistic tendency to understand that objects have multiple points of view and it changes according to those.” I asked Peters how, as students, we can judge how much of our own voice to bring into academic writing. Saying that a lot of students struggle with that question, he told me that “What we are
trying to do as academic writers is explain. In explaining, what we are making is expository writing. Something really extraordinary happens when you dare to put an expository text next to the nonexpository one.” “Along the way,” Peters added, “experiment with the way to construct that narrative.” He cited the works of Kafka, Poe, and George Bowering, as well as poems by bill bissett and bpNichol as “speaking to writing processes and ‘inner dialogical thinking’ or voice” and says he tries to “put all of that together in ways that can inspire students.” As our talk slowly drew to a close, one last question stood out in my mind, a kind of worry many of my friends succumb to, as do I. Eying my now empty coffee mug I asked, “What would you tell to the students who feel like they are not talented and so they will never be able to be a creative writer?” His answer was quite simple, and because of that, much more resonant. “If they write, they are already writers. If they keep writing they will improve.” Carl Peters Considers What is Creative Writing? will run from 1 to 2 p.m. on Thursday, November 17 in the Abbotsford campus library.
Political science students ponder Trump How exactly did he win, what does it mean, and what happens now?
JEFF MIJO
THE CASCADE
On November 10, students from Political Science 322: Introduction to American Politics hosted a roundtable discussion on the aftermath of the American presidential election two days prior. I’d been planning to attend all week with the expectation of a straightforward evening. Like most pollsters and pundits, I’d anticipated election night to be a straightforward ordeal, with Hillary Clinton defeating Donald Trump and proving that his recklessly offensive campaign was too much for even the more conservative American voters. When it turned out we were all horribly mistaken and almost the entirety of Canada fell into a stupor, one silver lining did stick in my mind: this talk on Thursday just got interesting. The students putting on the event were caught just as off-guard as the rest of us. They’d been planning the discussion since the second week of classes, but a Trump victory was one possibility that hadn’t been addressed in as much detail as the alternative. One speaker joked as the panel began that the results meant a lot of work had required “let’s not say revisions, [but] lots of additions.” Speaking of speakers, the panel was made up of around 15 students from a range of backgrounds, including several Americans. While a few seemed more comfortable speaking and dominated the conversations, all of them spoke at least briefly on one of the many topics that came up over the two-and-a-half hour discussion. The first topic discussed was the transition between Barack Obama and Donald Trump, and the differences in their policy. After calling for a round of applause for Obama’s successes,
one speaker referenced NPR research that found the American people like his personal touch, and often referred to him like a friend. It was “Obama did this, Obama did that,” he explained, rather than attributing decisions to the vague entity of the government. However, another statistic showed that Obama’s term was not universally beloved — while black Americans overall felt that race relations had improved under his administration, the majority of white respondents thought they had worsened. Unsurprisingly, this was far from the last mention of race during the evening. After an audience poll verified that aforementioned shock at Trump’s victory, the panel explained that documentary filmmaker Michael Moore had predicted it, saying that this would be “the last stand of the angry white man” in a blog post weeks before the election. Trump’s plays to racist, xenophobic voters proved successful, and the impacts of those appeals were far reaching. One panelist theorized on how he won despite those stances, when a surface assumption would be that non-white voters would flock to Clinton to keep Trump out of the White House. “Me being Hispanic, I felt terrible for my siblings,” she explained. “Why would these voters vote for Trump?” One often overlooked angle brought up is that prejudice exists within Latino communities themselves. Groups from one country or region are just as capable of isolationist stances as their white neighbours, leading to support of Trump’s infamous border wall proposal. Many Latino communities are also highly religious, which can correlate with agreement on Trump’s stances against abortion and LGBTQ rights. Another panelist had a personal story to share of the fear that comes with being an
immigrant. A Filipino immigrant to England, she was told on Facebook, by a man with the same background, that if she didn’t agree with Trump and the similar sentiments that fueled the U.K.’s Brexit vote, she should get out of the country. Little did he know, she joked, that she was “safely tucked away in Canada.” But she used the story to illustrate even though the man was also an immigrant, still in the process of getting his citizenship, he bought into the powerful “us not them” mentality. The hostility didn’t just come from the public, either. When she lived in England her brother had dated an undocumented immigrant, and that girlfriend had used the speaker’s address for government forms. One day the government came knocking on her door, demanding to know if the girlfriend lived there. “The experience was horrifying,” the speaker recounted, relating it to the possibility that may soon face hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants, as well as their friends and family, in the United States. Of course, Trump’s win did not happen in a vacuum, and significant attention was also given to Hillary Clinton. The panel agreed that while feminist ideals were on the rise (a poll of the audience found a sizable majority self-identified as feminists), Clinton’s particular brand of feminism lacked the intersectionality of later feminist ideals, focusing more on just feminine empowerment without much consideration for the roles race and class took in social positioning. In addition, the panel saw Clinton as taking voters for granted. They thought she assumed she’d get the young voters, the racial minorities, and the women, so she only had to appeal to white men by tearing down Trump rather than making promises for those other demographics. However, as one panelist pointed out, “Feminism
isn’t monolithic, and women aren’t monolithic. They didn’t all vote for her just because she was a woman.” And as the results showed, clearly she didn’t succeed at appealing to enough people to secure the presidency. However, while American voters as a whole may not have been ready for another four years from a progressive candidate, their other decisions on November 8 showed a surprising amount of progressive opinions. Towards the end of the discussion, Professor Michelle Rhodes joined in the conversation, pointing out that Americans didn’t just vote for a president, they voted for ballot initiatives. “The American population is not as divided as we see,” she said. “They’re divided in the symbolism.” Of all the states with ballot initiatives on the legalization of recreational or medical marijuana, only one failed to pass. California passed a law requiring background checks for ammunition purchases. Oklahomans voted to end government spending for religious purposes. “Donald Trump was just one choice that people made,” Rhodes explained. “There were a lot of other choices on the ballots.” That was the sentiment the discussion closed with — as a few audience members asked questions and the tone turned more casual, the mood also lightened. Sure, an unexpected and, to most attendees, unfortunate outcome had shocked the world two days earlier. But it wasn’t without its silver linings. “I think the greatest benefit,” summarized one speaker, “and I say this with a lot of reluctance, is putting forward a lot of conversations … like masculinity, sexual violence, feminism, race … I hope that Donald Trump serves as an impetuous of change for the positive, even if the ways he does it are negative.”
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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2016
www.ufvcascade.ca
CULTURE & EVENTS v CREATIVE WRITING
Thy Touch is Fire.
v SCIENCE COLUMN
Beam me to class Scotty Teleportation is not a viable car replacement (and don’t expect it to be in anytime soon)
JESSICA MILLIKEN
CONTRIBUTOR
Even if thou tell’st me thou loves me too I knowest tis only in vain, for which Love thou provest true shall reflect the moon In her monthly orb, full and bright, then switch Wane off my reflection, find someone new The opposite form they tell’st us we need. Yet yearning for me, thou tell them adieu Crawl into mine room, we’re finally free. We knowest only I can hold thy soul Betwixt mine heart, safe harboured and whole. Thine air shivers through, mine heart you have stole: Thy touch is fire, yet thou leav’st me cold. Alas, any love thou shall cast my way I’ll keep in my bosom, for wretched day.
Illustration by Rebekah Brackett
MIKE FRIESEN
CONTRIBUTOR
Every day I’m one of a few people who decide to walk to school from a free parking area in order to save a few bucks. Recently, I’ve been thinking about ***Star Trek, and in particular about how nice it would be to have the transporter, especially since it rains literally all the time. When I get to class it often looks like I decided to shower that morning with my clothes on for a change. But the more I considered the ***Star Trek transporter as a replacement to my wet walk, the less appealing it became. There is a frequently discussed problem in Star Trek over their transporters. I’m sure many of you are familiar with it, it goes something like this: if people are being disassembled piece by piece, transported across the across the universe and then reassembled, it’s not really you on the other side. Rather, it seems likely that the you that went into the transporter dies instantly and then some other person with all your memories is simply created on the other side. The transporter problem becomes a heavy topic really fast; it often ends up with a discussion over what consciousness is and arguing whether persistence of consciousness is necessary to stay the same person. And just when you’ve convinced yourself that
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persistence of consciousness is necessary, you find yourself awake late at night, scared that you’re going to fall asleep and an impostor who looks just like you and has all your memories is going to wake up tomorrow morning, put on your shoes and socks, and go about your day. Anyway, philosophical considerations aside, I think we’ll be safe from the dangers of transporters for a while yet. The reason? Bandwidth. Say we manage to get a complete atom-by-atom 3D scan of a person. That sort of thing seems like it would take up a lot of hard drive space. It would be a ridiculous amount of data, and I want to know exactly how much data it would be. For each atom we’ll need two pieces of data: the position in 3D space and what type of atom it is. We certainly don’t want any of these atoms to have their locations saved out of place, so we’ll use the highest resolution possible: the Planck length. (Yes, the universe has a highest effective resolution, yes the reason is a quantum mechanical effect, and yes, I’m simplifying things a bit.) It turns out that we need roughly 400 bits to store the data for each atom. Now times that by the average number of atoms in our body, and we get our answer — one human is about three billion zettabytes of data. As a comparison, the total amount of data ever produced in the history of computers is probably under five zettabytes
of data. And I didn’t even make up the word zetta, it’s an official International System of Units prefix meaning a billion trillion of something. It’s just that things are so rarely that big that it doesn’t get used much. If we wanted to build a data centre to store all the data for that one person, it would be, as it turns out, pretty big. I mean, it would fit inside Greenland — but just barely. It would be a 10-foot-thick layer of the densest storage units money can buy covering the entire island, but it’s technically doable. But there’s a better solution: why store the data at all? Why not just beam the person’s data directly to the reassembler as he’s being scanned? Well, using a single fibre optic cable, we can transmit a huge amount of data in a short amount of time — about 40 billion bytes per second. We’d be able to get all of our bodily data from one place to another in only 20 times the current age of the universe! I think in that case I would be a little late for school. Well, what if we just used more fibre optics? If we had a giant bundle of a thousand billion optic cables — the bundle being a kilometre tall and a kilometre wide — and each cable was sending data at record speeds, it would still take 100 days to teleport across. So I’m still definitely going to be late. But hey — at least I’d be dry.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2016
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vvv
ARTS IN REVIEW ALBUM REVIEW
Shuffle AARON LEVY STATION MANAGER
Alan Doyle and the Beautiful Gypsies came to Mission at the Clark Theatre this month, and it is in that honour, and for absolutely no other reason, whatsoever, at all, that I list the following songs of fire and brimstone for you to peruse and enjoy. :)
Great Big Sea “It's The End of the World As We Know It” This was possibly the most unpredictable cover of the bicoastal Can-Rock renaissance that featured the likes of Doyle's Great Big Sea, Ashley MacIsaac, Melanie Doan, Sloan, and other artists whose names do not rhyme with one another. No one's sang lyrics this fast north of the 49th since — except Drake. R.E.M. “It's The End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” The harrowed original, arguably not the most novelty-baited Rapid Eye Movement recording (see: Orange Crush, Man on the Moon, and Everybody Hurts. The latter simply for its usage in cheesy insurance / money transfer service commercials throughout the ‘90s), this song has been immortalized via usage in TV / movies relentlessly. Modest Mouse “What People Are Made Of” The closer from Modest Mouse's 2001 piece-de-resistance goes "... By then it was too late and you wound up on an island of shells and bones that bodies had left. The one thing you taught me about human beings is this: They ain't made of nothing but water and shit.” Alright. Aerosmith “I Don't Want To Miss A Thing” Who could ever get enough of Liv Tyler and Ben Affleck (“whofleck,” as referred to by Chris Kattan's character Mango on SNL, who no want you) coming of age together over animal crackers and under the creepily watchful gaze of her serenading father, whose videos she stars in pornographically / regularly?
CHARTS 1
Preoccupations Preoccupations
2
A Tribe Called Red We Are the Halluci Nation
3 4 5
Sad13 Slugger Majid Jordan Majid Jordan Blessed Blessed
6
Kishi Bashi Sonderlust
7
Jay Arner Jay II
8
Against Me! Shape Shift With Me
9
La Sera Music For Listening To Music To
10
Hot Panda Bad Pop
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Eleanore Eleanore
12
Cheap High Picture Disk
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Peachy pink angst a la Ken Mode MARTIN CASTRO THE CASCADE
Ken Mode’s NERVE starts off like this: “Oh, hello there.” Then the drums come in and lead singer Jesse Matthewson starts yelling, “The German businessman can certainly be distinguished by always wearing a ponytail with his suit. The German businessman commands your attention, when he speaks out loud, the whole world goes on mute.” I’m not sure just what to make of the lyrics because they remind me of something a much more angry Cake might have put out in the mid-2000s. But there’s a definite blending of pop and the more angry aesthetics of hardcore or punk in NERVE. The interesting thing is that, despite its simple verse / chorus structure, “The German Businessman” is just as, if not more, catchy than a whole slew of modern pop songs. There’s just a whole lot more angst behind it. The track that follows, “Let’s Get Divorced,” is just as angst-ridden and loud, but not at all as catchy. None of the would-be pop elements of the album’s opener are retained in “Let’s Get Divorced.” But that said, the instrumental loses almost all of its straightforward hooks in favour of overly energetic drum fills and growling vocals which toe the line between Zack De La Rocha-like screams. (You know the ones, like at the end of “Bullet In the Head” where you can feel his vocal chords just coming apart at the seams.) But for all its unrelenting in-your-face presence, “Let’s Get Divorced” has none of the contrast that made the record’s first track so compelling. Something that one of the later tracks on the record, “Absolutely Not” recovers, but not by much. A screeching guitar fill coupled with an interlude that builds tension up by way of a surprisingly danceable bass line that stays around just a little longer than it’s welcome gives listeners just the reprieve in tension that they need, the
opportunity to catch their breath before a series of three demos (and I’m unclear as to why they earned the “demo” moniker, given that they’re just as noisy and dissatisfied and energetic as the previous four tracks, if not less refined) blast away any semblance of tranquility listeners might have managed to accrue over that brief, bass-laden respite on “Absolutely Not.” And it’s the demos that undo this album’s appeal, because although the underlying guitar riff on “Why Don’t You Just Quit — Demo” is just hands-down a beautifully executed angry little thing (and the rest of the track generally seems more complete than the two previous demos), it still feels as if it doesn’t have the same cohesiveness of the record’s front end. That said, NERVE turned out to be much more abrasive than its bright cover implied, but if KEN Mode are seeking to make their listeners nervous (or more appropriately, anxious) they’ve definitely put together a collection of tracks that succeed in doing just that.
Phantogram Three Red Velvert Russian Roulette
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FT Island Where's The Truth
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Elephant Stone Little Ship Of Fools
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Harpdog Brown Travelin' With The Blues
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Sunday Wilde Blueberries and Grits
19
Al Lerman Slow Burn
20
Ghost Popestar
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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2016
www.ufvcascade.ca
ARTS IN REVIEW ALBUM REVIEW
Bon Jovi’s new album is exactly what we’re used to KLARA CHMELAROVA CONTRIBUTOR
You know what they say: old love dies hard. It’s interesting to see Jon Bon Jovi mellow down from a rebellious teenager into a classy rocker. Bon Jovi showed us several times how things got done in the ‘80s, but does his new album This House Is Not for Sale, still hot from the recording room, deliver again? It’s no secret that Bon Jovi’s repertoire has become a bit repetitive over the last decades. Let's see if he gives his newest album “a bad name.” The opening song “This House Is Not for Sale” screams Bon Jovi so loudly you can almost hear his name hiding behind every lyric. It's a nice kick to the eardrums to launch off the whole album, and makes sure to let you know this old dog is not out of breath. After such a good start you have your hopes up, but then the first tones of “Living with the Ghost” hit you and you start to wonder if it's a bad joke. It's not, the song is just … bad. There is nothing to be said about it other than it’s bad. Don't listen to it. Then comes “Labor of Love,” which is sort of bland with the spirit of Brian Adams, which does not suit Bon Jovi’s lively style. The song is not terrible per say, however there is nothing special about it and it feels forced at times. Next in the line is “Knockout,” the song during which — luckily — our rocker catches a bit of second breath and is able to deliver a solid piece, still not in the quality you would expect from someone of Bon Jovi’s caliber, but it’s digestible.
I never thought I’d be disappointed in Bon Jovi, yet here we are. It sounds like pop music, and no, that one sad electric guitar riff doesn't count. I guess it's no surprise since the album's quality goes up and down, that there is a song called “Roller Coaster,” which is basically a rip-off of “Demons” from Imagine Dragons. Again, it's bland. “The Devil’s in the Temple” brings us from the greyness a bit and we can hear more from Jovi’s old days in it. It’s a solid, electric guitar supported song and also the heaviest This House Is Not for Sale has to offer. “Scars on this Guitar” is the contemplative one in the room. Jon sounds kind of weary here, reflecting back on his life, guitar in hand. Although it may come off as him being a crybaby, the track is not intrusive or depressing and actually pretty good. “God Bless This Mess” is yet another trip down the memory lane, this time with more life in its veins. Yeah, Bon Jovi is getting grey, but the party is apparently not over. If its predecessor dodged the squeal bullet, “Reunion” definitely did not, a bizarre mix of country and Jovi’s tenor that’s hard to put a finger on, I’m still trying to decide whether I like it or hate it. The album ends with the invite to “Come on Up to Our House,” a slow and gentle tune. Again, not bad, but not a particularly remarkable piece either. All in all, there is a lot of disappointment left in the tracks of This House Is Not for Sale. Having a soft spot for Bon Jovi, it's my belief that in his mid 50s he deserves some slack. It’s safe to say that although This House Is Not for Sale is not the best we’ve seen of Bon Jovi, it still has bits and pieces you can revisit and listen to.
S undBites
Mini album reviews
J’orage
Cheap High
Ponteix
I am of the opinion that when you are not privy to the meaning of a language you begin to fixate on the sounds and formation of the words. In the case of a foreign language within music, the inability to interpret causes the listener to view the voice as an instrument as opposed to a medium for a message. Ponteix's J'orage (which loosely translates to “I storm”) functions in this way for non-francophones. As a mixed language EP, English lyrics open and close the album, while the tracks between are performed in French. The shift between languages is smooth as the delivery of the lyrics hardly changes. The EP is upbeat, and it works in a pinch. I enjoy its indie rock roots but don't think I'll come back to it time and time again like I do with Half Moon Run, who also hail from Montreal.
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Subterranean Suburbia
This EP is at its heart indie pop. Indie because of its dreamy, echoey composition, but pop because it doesn't connect with you in the way other genres might. It's diverse within its genre, venturing from the surf rock vibes of "Chasing the Sun" through the psychedelic pop of the title track "J'orage." The final track, "Ghosts," gets a little grungier, but only as grungy as pop could ever get. The album captures the right sounds to hook you in and hold you down regardless of any language barrier. It's a tight little EP and it shows that the next full-length release from Ponteix has a lot of potential.
Mitch Huttema
Local band Cheap High released their debut LP Subterranean Suburbia back in September and it’s made a delightful impact since. Just shy of a half hour long, the album should please anyone interested in a garage punk flavouring. Musically, most of the album works through an argument between garage punk and a remnant of surf rock’s dark side. Though the music may be undecided about what it is, it is assuredly pitted against commercialization. Such is the life of almost-punk punk music. Like a middle child to hard rock, alternative rock, and garage punk, the punkish features of Subterranean Suburbia are underrated and underplayed. But its place isn’t to live in the
spotlight, it’s to live in our hearts. Because of albums like this, there should be a great sense of pride in our local musicians. We’re fortunate to be part of a music scene that does what it wants and often rejects the demands of the mob and its billboard. Subterranean Suburbia is an album that would make a fantastic live show. The album itself stays true to its post-punk style, even though at times it feels more habitual than expressive.
Joel Robertson-Taylor
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2016
www.ufvcascade.ca
ARTS IN REVIEW MOVIE REVIEW
Arrival has arrived at Oscar Central Station
Following in the footsteps of sci-fi past, Villeneuve taps into fantasy to achieve success
MITCH HUTTEMA THE CASCADE
There is hope yet for you English majors to break through the stereotypes of becoming a teacher and / or not being able to feed a family of four the way a large pepperoni pizza can. In Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival, Dr. Louise Banks is an expert linguist, called upon to aid the United States government in communicating with one of the 12 alien spacecrafts that has landed on Earth. This film doesn’t feel like a sci-fi though. It is well made and reveals the rules of its reality gradually and without anything that might cause you to step aside and question the illusion. There are a host of films that you might think of when you hear “sci-fi” — Elysium, District 9, Independence Day and Paul — but this film only fits into the genre of sci-fi because it has aliens. Every other aspect of this film is similar to a drama. The aliens and the reality they bring into question are only an afterthought to how this film plays out. Arrival doesn’t get caught up trying to build suspense by hiding the reveal of the actual aliens: when the time comes to meet them there is no delay. They are there, right there, no clever camera angles to disguise their appearance or shape. This is what makes the film most convincing and the least like sci-fi. The frankness with which the extraterrestrials are presented pushes the viewer’s agreeance and cooperation with the illusion to the max. Instead of wasting time trying to convince the audience the aliens are cool, Villeneuve creates the mystique of the beings through the inability to communicate with them and the unique manner in which they act. This is a huge relief from the scifi fatigue you might experience from being in the midst of the X-files series.
At this point in film history, it is nearly impossible to create any sort of extraterrestrialthemed cinema without making homage to Ridley Scott and the Alien franchise. The ships that the aliens arrive in are shaped like Scott’s xenomorph eggs — why not, right? The creatures themselves are a visual treat and have similar features to some of the extraterrestrials from the original Alien film. Scott’s idea of alien creators, like in Prometheus, plays in for a minute, but does not end up holding any ground, though his work is still clearly referenced for the duration of the film. I wouldn't want to detract from the guaranteed excellent theatre experience that Arrival will offer you, so if you plan to see it, consider stopping here. If I haven't yet convinced you, or if I have hooked you, then carry on soldier; the spoilers ahead are only of worry to the most die-hard “I-haven’t-evenseen-the-trailer” type of moviegoers. Arrival is very similar in style to Villeneuve’s previous film Sicario based on the choice of a female lead amongst a cast of all males, and a methodical, well-plotted delivery of the contents of the story. It begins the same way most dystopian alien invasion films would: the scene is set, characters are introduced, and then the spacecrafts land. However, this is the end of the familiar formula. There is no sudden eruption of war, there are no attempts to harvest the energy or resources of Earth. Instead, countries unite via tactical camps at each of the landing sites and live feed their progress of working with the aliens to one another. Amy Adams as Dr. Banks, a linguist with security clearance, and Jeremy Renner playing a physicist are called up to head a team of analytic staff to communicate with the new guests. At a time when Trump has won presidency of the United States, the reality of the terror of how
he might handle a national security crisis (think of something more realistic than an alien invasion here, okay) is a very real fear that this film could cause you to consider. As events unfolded, I could not stop repeating to myself, “This is exactly how it would happen.” (Granted that the newly arrived were benevolent.) My fears were echoed by my movie-going companions at my sides, though our shared understanding did not continue for long. This is what makes the film most terrifying. As an audience, a film is typically experienced all together, with the implications of the plot and climax becoming clear to each viewer at the same time. There is strength in this method as a director can rely on unifying the audience as they each react to the jumps and jokes. However, dividing them and requiring them to figure it out on their own (like Inception might have) is what Villeneuve does with this film. My companion to my right inhaled sharply halfway through the film as they grasped what was happening, while I only understood twothirds of the way through — my companion to the left not till nearly the end. As a group divided, experiencing the film alone became something that Villeneuve used to build his case of evidence and support his subtle conclusion. Thematically, this film relies heavily on the shape and semiotics of circles. Ends are beginnings within the development of the plot, and the infinite motion that a circle implies plays into the way that time is portrayed. Characters too are subject to circular themes. At the risk of sounding gauche (oh, it’s too late), Nolan’s Interstellar and Inception are both essential to reference here once again. If you enjoyed either of those films and the thematic content they contained, then Arrival will be an absolute treat for you. The similarities between the three films go beyond theme and into their
mind-bending visuals as well. Nolan was never afraid of cinematographic grandeur and Villeneuve takes a leaf from his book with some of the physics that the alien species introduce. Contrary to Nolan’s tradition of continued spectacle though, Villeneuve makes the film less and less visually appealing as it rolls on. The colour and appeal of the cinematography drain from the film as the likelihood of you figuring out the story becomes more likely. This film will likely sweep at the Oscars, this film will likely become a classic (the same way I think Gravity will become a classic), and this film is easily a masterpiece among Villeneuve’s work so far. The reason that these things are all mostly true is because Arrival is a tale that can only be told the way it is through the medium of film. The way that change in colour tone as the film progresses paired with subtle visual clues promote the subtext that leads you to “figure out” the film is exquisite. A book cannot casually mention subtle hints to figuring out the mystery in the way that a film can. When David Fincher sneaks a Starbucks cup into every shot of Fight Club you don’t figure it out. When a book says, “There was a Starbucks cup cloaked in shadow in the corner of the room” you start to pick up on it pretty quick. Whatever words have made it into a book, it’s clear to the reader that they are there for a reason, whereas audiences are easily tricked into thinking that every pixel of the frame is not as much under the director’s control. Via all the subtle clues that Villeneuve works into the visual landscape and story of Arrival, his final blast-off of a conclusion touches down at its destination in the most cinematic and successful way possible.
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UPCOMING EVENTS NOV.
16
KIN DAY @ Chilliwack Campus 11:00 AM - 4:00 PM DOCUMENTARY SCREENING: THE IRON WALL @ Abbotsford Campus - B121 3:00 PM THE GREAT CANADIAN TIRE MONEY CAPER @ Chilliwack Cultural Centre 7:30 PM
NOV.
17
CARL PETERS CONSIDERS WHAT IS CREATIVE WRITING? @ Abbotsford Campus - library 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM
NOV.
25 NOV.
26
SCHOLARLY SHARING: FOOD, FARMLAND AND SEASONAL WORKERS IN AGRIBURBIA @ Abbotsford Campus - U-House 1:15 PM - 2:45 PM
18
CHILD’S PLAY FUNDRAISER MARATHON @ Abbotsford Campus - SUB 9:00 AM - Nov 19 10:00 AM MICHAEL W. SMITH AND AMY GRANT @ Abbotsford Centre 7:00 PM - 12:00 AM CHILLIWACK CHRISTMAS CRAFT MARKET @ Chilliwack Community Arts Council All weekend WEST COAST CHRISTMAS SHOW @ Tradex (Abbotsford) All weekend
NOV.
22 NOV.
23 NOV.
24
STRENGTHENING OUR COMMITMENTS TO RECONCILIATION @ Abbotsford Campus - B101 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM YOU AND YOUR MONEY: FINANCIAL ADVICE FOR YOUNG ADULTS @ Clearbrook Library 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM CELTIC THUNDER @ Abbotsford Centre 7:30 PM - 12:00 AM
UFV THEATRE: 7 STORIES @ UFV Performance Theatre 7:30 PM - 9:30 PM PLAY: A FULL HOUSE @ Chilliwack Cultural Centre 7:30 PM COUNTRY CHRISTMAS MARKET @ Maan Farms (Abbotsford) 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM
PLAY: A FULL HOUSE @ Chilliwack Cultural Centre 7:30 PM
NOV.
27 NOV.
29 NOV.
30 DEC
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2
COUNTRY CHRISTMAS MARKET @ Maan Farms (Abbotsford) 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM
DEC
3
UFV THEATRE: 7 STORIES (OPENING NIGHT) @ UFV Performance Theatre 7:30 PM - 9:30 PM
UFV THEATRE: 7 STORIES @ UFV Performance Theatre 7:30 PM - 9:30 PM
UN INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR PERSONS WITH A DISABILITY @ Mission Library 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM POP UP ARTISAN MARKET @ Highstreet Shopping Centre 11:00 AM – 7:00 PM ROTARY CHRISTMAS PARADE @ Downtown Chilliwack 5:30 PM UFV THEATRE: 7 STORIES @ UFV Performance Theatre 7:30 PM - 9:30 PM
DEC
4
POP UP ARTISAN MARKET @ Highstreet Shopping Centre 11:00 AM – 4:00 PM UFV THEATRE: 7 STORIES (FINAL SHOWING) @ UFV Performance Theatre 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
DEC
UFV THEATRE: 7 STORIES @ UFV Performance Theatre 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
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FOOD BANK SKATE @ Twin Rinks 3:15 PM – 4:45 PM
ABBOTSFORD EDUCATION AND CAREER FAIR @ Tradex (Abbotsford) 9:00 AM - 3:00 PM
DEC
CHRISTMAS AT CLEARBROOK LIBRARY @ Clearbrook Library 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM
DEC
SPEAKER: KIM GEMMELL @ Abbotsford Campus- A225 2:30 PM – 3:30 PM
NOVEMBER WALKING PROGRAM @ The Abbotsford Centre 8:30 AM – 5:00 PM WINTER SOLSTICE LUNCH @ Chilliwack Campus - A1454 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM WINTER SOLSTICE LUNCH @ Abbotsford Campus - Indigenous Student Centre 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM DANIELS V. CANADA: WHAT’S NEXT FOR CANADA’S METIS @ Abbotsford Campus - B121 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM
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DEC
11
CAREER AND LIFE PLANNING WORKSHOP @ Chilliwack Campus - A1318 4:30 PM – 7:00 PM UFV HEALTH AND WELLNESS FAIR @ UFV Five Corners 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM
CHRISTMAS TREE LIGHTING @ Historic Downtown Abbotsford 3:00 PM - 9:00 PM
PLAY: A FULL HOUSE @ Chilliwack Cultural Centre 7:30 PM
COFFEE HOUSE CONCERT SERIES: MICHAEL AVERILL @ Clarke Theatre (Mission) 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM UFV THEATRE: 7 STORIES @ UFV Performance Theatre 7:30 PM - 9:30 PM
THE GREAT CANADIAN TIRE MONEY CAPER @ Chilliwack Cultural Centre 7:30 PM
NOV.
CHRISTMAS TREE LIGHTING @ Historic Downtown Abbotsford 3:00 PM - 9:00 PM
DEC
UFV THEATRE: 7 STORIES @ UFV Performance Theatre 7:30 PM - 9:30 PM
FOOD BANK SKATE @ Twin Rinks 3:15 PM – 4:45 PM ABBOTSFORD FLEA MARKET @ Exhibition Park- 32470 Haida Drive 6:00 AM – 4:00 PM WALK MISSION @ Downtown Wander 10:00 AM – 11: 00 PM CHRISTMAS OPEN HOUSE @ Sweet Dreams Luxury Inn 1:00 AM – 5:00 PM
DEC
12
FOOD BANK SKATE @ Twin Rinks 3:15 PM – 4:45 PM