The Cascade Vol. 21 No. 11

Water Woman March 27 to April 2, 2013

FREE

Vol. 21 Issue. 11

www.ufvcascade.ca

Cascade Journalism Society

Highlighting our weaknesses since 1993

N A M

O W R E T A .

W S V N I A T P A !

E C N I R O L CH

p. 3

MORE COMICS INSIDE! p. 10-11

SUS election results are in! p. 7

Alexa McCarthy wins Sylvia Sweeney Award! p. 20

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NEWS News

Opinion

Arts & Life

Science: who needs it?

Sexing it up

SUS and Athletics have been struggling to figure out the ins and outs of an informal agreement set up at the beginning of the year. The details were somehow lost in the budget shuffle of semester and Athletics is saying they’re owed $5000 ... so now what?

Think scientific discourse and intelligent thought is a waste of time? Ed Fast thinks so too, and he’s got you covered. Read up on how the conservatives have served us well by throwing science right out of parliament, basic common sense and all.

Feeling like you’re in a sexual rut? Wondering how to spice up your long-term relationship?

Want to go back to the days when you couldn’t keep your hands off each other? Lady Oracle gives you 15 million (or five) ways to bring the magic back.

pg. 6

pg. 9

“Informal agreement”?

pg. 17

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Sports & Health

Does it have to be orange?

Melissa Spady discusses the synthetic dyes which give Mac n’ Cheese its healthy, radioactive glow and whether it’s time for them to be replaced with healthier alternatives ... the answer is no.

pg. 19

EDITORIAL

Volume 21 · Issue 11 Room C1027 33844 King Road Abbotsford, BC V2S 7M8 604.854.4529 Editor-in-chief nick@ufvcascade.ca Nick Ubels Managing editor amy@ufvcascade.ca Amy Van Veen Business manager joe@ufvcascade.ca Joe Johnson Online editor michael@ufvcascade.ca Michael Scoular Production manager stewart@ufvcascade.ca Stewart Seymour Art director anthony@ufvcascade.ca Anthony Biondi Copy editor joel@ufvcascade.ca Joel Smart News editor news@ufvcascade.ca Dessa Bayrock Opinion editor opinion@ufvcascade.ca Nadine Moedt Arts & life editor arts@ufvcascade.ca Sasha Moedt Sports editor sports@ufvcascade.ca Paul Esau News writer jess@ufvcascade.ca Jess Wind Photojournalist blake@ufvcascade.ca Blake McGuire Varsity writer Jasper Moedt Staff writers Katie Stobbart, Griffy Vigneron Contributors Reace Buchner, Katherine Gibson, Kate Nickelchok, Ashley O’Neill, Ryan Petersen, Jasmine Proctor, Melissa Spady, Tim Ubels

UPCOMING EVENTS

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Mar 27

Mar 28

Surveys, surveys, everywhere!

… Seriously. Surveys everywhere

Triple P threat

Come meet quorum

Love us? Hate us? Either way, you can tell us. It’s time for the annual online Cascade survey, which you can access through the myUFV portal. What do you want to see us do in the next year? What should we stop doing?

Feel free to tear a strip into us, because it’s completely anonymous. Or if you want to tell us we’re pretty, that’s cool too.

You’re also invited to lend your personal data to the National College Health Survey. UFV will send you a personalized link sometime in the next week or so, and it’ll take about 20 minutes of your time. How often do you exercise? Eat? Imbibe alcohol? Together, we’ll find out how healthy universities students are! High five! Now let me get my Pizza Pop out of the microwave.

If your preferred P&P stands for Pride and Prejudice, then this P&P&P is perfect for your palate: at 7 p.m. this Wednesday, ESA presents Poems, Pints and Prose pub night at AfterMath. Placate your inner poetic person with powerful performance, or pop in to present a personal, pretentious or prodigious piece of your own production.

No, quorum is not a new band – it’s the number of people required for SUS to hold their Annual General Meeting. Get a look at the new budget and the new board in the gathering place (A1423) at the CEP campus, starting at 4 p.m. and going as long as it takes. Democracy is fun! Right? Right? Democracy is— hey, where are you going?

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

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

Articles and letters to the editor must be typed.

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

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

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NEWS

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Puppy room moves from myth to reality Melissa SPADY CONTRIBUTOR

Last fall, UFV students were filled with jealousy when an article about Dalhousie University in Halifax made the rounds on social media. The buzz? The DSU (Dalhousie Student Union) set up a three-day event where, for a few hours, students could take a break from stress and study with a friendly visit from a certified pet therapy dog.

The dogs were on campus for three days, specifically scheduled to help students cope with end of the semester projects and the beginning of exams.

Those who attended the events said it helped ease the pain of being away from family pets and provided a fluffy distraction from the end of term. Although McGill University and University of Ottawa have also brought therapy dogs to their campuses, Dalhousie was the first to garner nationwide attention from the media.

Pet therapy is used for reducing anxiety, lowering blood pressure, improving recovery from heart disease and providing an

all-around boost in mental wellbeing. Programs like Therapeutic Paws of Canada (TPOC) and St. John Ambulance (SJA) provide pet therapy for hospitals, longterm care facilities, and schools all over Canada.

Arts Advice Centre assistant Charline Derksen has worked with the St. John Ambulance pet therapy program for the last three years. Her Rhodesian Ridgeback, Shelby, is a certified therapy dog.

“They do a very, very rigorous testing of your dog,” she says, “They put the dog in very stressful situations, people yelling and screaming ... the worst scenario they can encounter.”

The dogs must be able to remain calm when faced with other dogs or other excitable situations.

“They also [have] to see that you had control over your dog,” Derksen explains: handlers have to be able to “make them do turns, make them sit, and have them be relaxed and not jump up and bark.”

After the dogs are certified, evaluations are held to ensure the handler and dog are comfortable in visiting situations.

Handlers are able to choose a facility they would like to visit or can be assigned one that has requested canine company.

“The residents really get a lot out of it. You can tell,” Derksen says. “A lot of the people there have had strokes. They’ve been altered mentally. They have Alzheimer’s or dementia, and you can see their glum faces. Then, as soon as they see the dog, people will be trying to wheel over to you.”

But why dogs? To Derksen, the answer is simple.

“They love unconditionally,” she says with a smile.

After seeing the article everywhere and hearing the laments of the pet-starved UFV community, SUS clubs and associations rep Zack Soderstrom wondered what it would take to bring a puppy room to UFV. Weeks later, the planning and plotting has been done and it’s finally official: UFV students will be getting their very own puppy room this coming exam period.

Students who have been poring over final assignments and holding late night cram sessions will

Image: petian.com/flickr

This puppy could be your new best friend. Go on. Love it. get a much needed break coming up in the next few weeks.

“It’s going to happen. We’ve booked a room,” Derksen says.

“It will be the 17, 18 and 19 of April.”

Although time of day has not been set in stone yet, Soderstrom wants to get puppies for at least a few hours each day, with the pos-

sibility of stress balls to go along with it.

The puppy room will be open to everyone (students, faculty, and staff) at UFV and it will be free to everyone who attends.

More information will be forthcoming from both SUS and the university.

Bringing water back to the people Chilliwack’sWealth Water Project plots the narrative of community water

Katherine Gibson CONTRIBUTOR

We drink it, cook with it and wash with it on a daily basis – but how often do we actually think about the water we use?

This month, BC celebrated “Water Week,” an event that encourages Canadians to actively participate in the ongoing conversation surrounding the use and protection of natural water.

One group that took this water initiative to heart is The Water Wealth Project (WWP).

WWP is a non-profit group that is based locally in Chilliwack and advocates giving citizens more control over the water that resides within their home community.

“People who call a place home should have the right to say yes or no to decisions that impact that home – especially in regards to water,” WWP rep Natalie Jones explains. She manned a booth at UFV’s Canada Education Park campus last week, explaining the organization to anyone who stopped by.

In order to help engage the community, WWP has set up pilot initiatives, including the use of digital mapping software.

“People can literally plot their story on a map,” says Jones. “They can place a pin and explain why that place is special to them or what they are concerned about.”

The use of this software has been received positively by the public and gives WWP a chance to more broadly understand the threats that face local water sources.

“It’s like gathering threads from the community,” Jones explains. “Each person’s own per-

Image: Kathrine Gibson

Natalie Jones, Water Wealth Project representative, wants UFV students to get involved with efforts to protect our water. sonal story is a thread, and once we’ve gathered many of those [threads] we will be able to weave them together into a community narrative.”

By building these narratives and giving the community a centralized voice, WWP hopes to empower citizens.

“People really care,” Jones says, “but when people feel disconnected from each other – they can feel helpless.”

“Our job is to connect those people,” she continues, “and aid them in feeling empowered

enough to be a part of the solution.”

WWP’s desire for local water control comes on the heels of a recent and controversial decision by the Fraser Health Department to chlorinate Chilliwack’s water system.

“People felt frustrated,” Jones says. “Having a doctrine handed down to them by a system that they had no choice in – they were totally powerless.”

“People want to have a voice.”

WWP will continue to collect stories and engage with the com-

munity, educating and equipping individuals with the skills they need to actively participate in the decision making process of how local water sources are used.

“We are way stronger than we think,” Jones concludes, “especially when we get together.”

A few weeks back Jones attended a UFV anthropology class as a guest lecturer, where she explained the purpose of WWP. She explained to the class that if the public were in control of the situation—rather than politicians already bogged down with other

issues—they’d be more likely to look for the root cause of recent pollution to Chilliwack’s water.

Eliminating the pollution—and its root causes—would benefit the public the most, she explained; adding chemicals to the water is just a band-aid solution.

Those looking for more information about the project, or with interest in getting involved, can find out more at waterwealthproject.com or at the group’s Facebook page.

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NEWS

IN BRIEF Australia to withdraw most troops from Afghanistan by year-end (Reuters) -- Australia will withdraw most troops from Afghanistan’s south at the end of this year and shut down a major base for NATO-led forces, handing security to Afghan soldiers and police, Defence Minister Stephen Smith said on Tuesday.

Most foreign combat troops are due to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014 under a planned security transition from foreign forces to Afghans.

“It is a necessary and logical and natural consequence of transition being effective,” Smith said.

Australia has around 1650 troops in Afghanistan, including special forces, based mainly in volatile Uruzgan, and was an original member of the U.S.-led coalition that helped oust the former Taliban government in late 2001.

It has lost 39 troops in the war, with 242 wounded.

Soda sales decline accelerated in 2012

(Reuters) -- The decline in U.S. sales of carbonated soft drinks accelerated last year as more consumers reached for alternatives, according to a leading beverage industry newsletter.

Total sales volume fell 1.2 per cent in 2012 to 9.17 billion cases, according to Beverage Digest. That compares with declines of 1 per cent in 2011 and 0.5 per cent in 2010.

Excluding fast-growing energy drinks such as Red Bull and Monster Beverage Corp products, soda volume would have fallen 1.7 per cent, the newsletter said.

By company, Coca-Cola Co and Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc each gained 0.1 percentage point of market share, while PepsiCo Inc’s share slipped by 0.4 percentage points.

U.S. wants EU to put North Korean bank on sanctions list (Reuters) - The United States is urging the European Union to impose sanctions on North Korea’s Foreign Trade Bank, which Washington believes helps finance North Korea’s ballistic missile program, a U.S. State Department official said on Monday.

North Korea earlier this month threatened the United States with a pre-emptive nuclear strike as the United Nations Security Council tightened sanctions in response to Pyongyang’s third nuclear test.

A few days later, President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, Tom Donilon, said the U.S. Treasury was imposing sanctions on the Foreign Trade Bank, North Korea’s main foreign exchange institution, for its role in supporting Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.

“Our decision to sanction the Foreign Trade Bank is a big deal and we hope the European Union looks hard at this,” the State Department official said.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

SCIENCE ON PURPOSE Elephant gestation: why 22 months?

GRIFFY VIGNERON THE CASCADE

If you thought nine months of pregnancy was bad, be thankful you’re not an elephant.

Elephants are known for having one of the longest gestation periods in the entire animal kingdom. An elephant pregnancy lasts about 22 months – almost two entire years. However, until recently, no one was completely sure of the reason why.

A recent study has found that the cause results from an excess of a hormone-secreting gland known as the corpus luteum. Elephants have been found to have up to 42 corpus luteums for one fetus, whereas humans only require one.

In humans, the corpus luteum is a structure left behind after the egg exits the ovary during ovulation in the middle of the menstrual cycle. After the egg remains unfertilized, the corpus luteum degrades before the next menstrual cycle begins. Since humans aren’t really built to hold more

Image: Brittanyhock/flickr

Elephants stay in the womb for 22 months. But why? than one embryo at a time, generally only one egg will be released at a time – in turn producing only one corpus luteum at a time.

The corpus luteum is known for its hormonal involvement in extending pregnancy. If the egg becomes fertilized in the womb, the corpus luteum will not break down. Instead it continues to produce progesterone, a hormone that effectively stops the menstrual cycle This also stops more eggs from being produced, which is why progesterone is often used in hor-

monal birth control methods. It tricks the body into thinking it’s pregnant, so it won’t release any more eggs to be fertilized.

But why do elephants have more than one corpus luteum?

Elephants only carry one offspring at a time, so there doesn’t seem to be a specific need for more than one. They can’t be releasing more eggs while being already pregnant, so why the need for extra corpus luteums?

Regardless of why elephants have them, it’s the excess of progesterone from the extra corpus

Recent rash of theft on campus should have students putting their guard up TIM UBELS

Mystery surrounds A&R’s name change KATIE STOBBART

CONTRIBUTOR

Zack Soderstrom, clubs and associations representative at the Student Union Society, fell victim to theft’s quick hands when he left his bag unattended in UHouse earlier this month.

“It was around three o’clock when one of the staff members for Student Life came out with my bag and said, ‘Oh, I found it in the bathroom.’ But I hadn’t gone to the bathroom,” Soderstrom said.

After discovering that both his Blackberry Playbook tablet and one terabyte external hard drive had been removed from his bag, Soderstrom informed campus security and reported the theft of his electronic devices to Abbotsford police, but has so far been unable to recover either stolen item.

“It was just a bunch of people I knew. I left it with everyone else’s stuff,” Soderstrom explains. “It felt like it was safe and secure and I didn’t have any reason to worry.”

Many students have taken the same risks in leaving possessions unattended, but most of us haven’t had the misfortune of having our valuables swiped from under our noses.

Whether we’re in the stacks, the cafeteria or just hanging with friends on the green, most students have at one point or another left their bag, laptop or cellphone unattended on campus.

But frankly, students are becoming easy targets for thieves.

Whether stressed about an upcoming quiz or weary from pulling an all-nighter, students often forget that they study at a public institution; anyone is free to come and go on campus without attention. The unassuming crammer who stumbles off to go get coffee may be in for a surprise upon their return to their workstation,

luteums that is now thought to extend the length of the elephant gestation period.

Why is this beneficial?

Mammals with lengthier gestation periods allow a lot more time for the development of the fetus.

In smaller mammals with shorter gestation periods, protected development of offspring in the womb allows mainly for structural development. Once the baby is born it might spend more of its time depending on these structures for survival.

A longer gestation period allows for extra development, especially of features like the brain. It’s often speculated that elephants highly emotional and intelligent. They are social creatures, much like humans or apes.

They need to be able to navigate the complexities of group living and understanding. Long gestation periods prepare elephants developmentally. It readies them for the complex world they are about to enter.

THE CASCADE

Image: cjelli/flickr

Students at UFV are encouraged to watch out for theives. discovering that something’s missing.

Because of this easy access for potential thieves, theft on university campuses have always be an issue for students, whose common sense takes a backseat during marathon study sessions.

Often afraid that they’ll lose their spot if they tidy up their gear and leave for five minutes, students may need to begin taking this small risk of losing a preferred study spot in order to save them a lot of hassle and a lot of money.

The theft at U-House comes only a week after Darren Nixon, a friend of Zack Soderstrom, also fell victim to theft; his laptop was stolen from B building during a monthly games day put on by the Computer Information Systems Student Association (CISSA).

Justin Cole, coordinator of security and emergency management

at UFV, warns that a thief, “only needs a couple seconds of inattention to take what they want.” He encourages everyone on campus to “keep personal property with you at all times” and “maintain a list of personal property” to help “identify and recover your stolen property.”

Students are prompted to report thefts to campus security immediately after the property goes missing.

These recent events should put students on their guard at all times, especially with finals right around the corner and the campus busier than ever. With the recent rash of theft on Abbotsford campus, students would do well to keep a close eye on their valuables.

There must be something in a name, or there would be no need to change it.

There is a new banner outside the former Admissions and Records Office, dubbing it “OReg,” short for “Office of the Registrar.”

The appearance of this physical banner has been echoed by changes to the office’s website – although the “Admissions” tab remains, the header now reads “Office of the Registrar,” and the offices are referred to as “OReg” throughout the site.

“The change is in name only,” explained Darren Francis, the deputy registrar with UFV. “We will continue to offer the same services for students.”

Since the change does not affect services offered through OReg, the motivation behind the name change is in question – why change the name at all?

“The decision was made to change our name in an effort to be consistent with industry standard and more inclusive in an effort to acknowledge the hard work of all our units,” Francis stated.

It is true that most universities, at least on the West Coast, appear to call their office the “Office of the Registrar” (though it seems few have considered abbreviating the title to OReg) but whether or not this resolves confusion for students, or gives UFV any kind of advantage, is unclear.

As for financial considerations, Francis stated that “the costs were nominal and paid for through a specific allocation of funds for the name change.”

What the total cost was and what it included were not made available before print deadline.

5

NEWS

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

A day to tell us how smart you are in words we understand

What went down on Student Research Day

JESS WIND

THE CASCADE

Ever wonder what to do with all the skills gained in the first couple of years of your degree?

Student Research Day gives students an opportunity to showcase the skills and research they have gained through individual or group research projects. This year, over 40 students participated in Student Research Day, either through five-minute microlectures or poster presentations.

The lectures are designed for students to get experience in communicating their research to a room that is unfamiliar with the project. The posters are displayed and judged, with awards given based on the criteria of readability, impact, importance of research, visual appeal, organization of material, effort in poster construction and presenter’s knowledge and enthusiasm.

Now in its 10th year, Student Research Day is a chance for students to convey the passion behind the research – and show off the work that they’ve done.

Five-minute pitch: making sense of microlectures

Students passing by the Road Runner Cafe on the first floor of A building couldn’t help but listen as 11 different research projects were presented.

The presentation kicked off at 11:30 a.m. with an introduction from director of research and industry liaison Brad Whittaker. He explained the rules—five minutes to explain who you were and why you were there—and thanked those involved with the coordination of the event, including Yvette Fairweather and Deborah Block of the research and graduate studies department.

UFV president Mark Evered was also on hand, and he enthusiastically commended the student researchers for their dedication and passion for their projects, speaking to the necessity for ongoing research on university campuses.

“Research really is a defining characteristic of universities. It’s what differentiates us from a lot of other kinds of post-secondary institutions,” he said. “Research and scholarship takes us to the frontiers of knowledge that is really the place that we want to take

Image: Amy Van Veen/The Cascade

UFV’s microlectures and poster presentations covered everything from biology to kinesiology. all of our students.”

Students from biology, criminology, geography, kinesiology and physical education (KPE), media and communications studies (MACS), physics and psychology presented their research, each one balancing theory and research methods with relevance and enthusiasm.

KPE student Scott Bishop, connected his research on heart rate variabilities with concussion injuries to NHL’s Sydney Crosby, and MACS student Ali Siemens connected privacy issues in online society to Facebook. Physics major Jason Ho assured the audience that he would make his research into quantum field theory accessible.

“Before anybody panics out there, let me just put you at ease,” he said in his address to the crowd. “There’s not going to be any squiggly diagrams or Greek letters. I want to try and give you a feel for what’s going on in the physics department ... without any of that mathematical mumbo jumbo.”

Whittaker congratulated the students for their hard work and humorously alluded to next year’s faculty microlectures, saying that the bar has been set high for them.

Image: Amy Van Veen/The Cascade

The event provided students with an opportunity to network.

“It’s just fascinating to hear what students are capable of, especially undergrad students,” he concluded.

Research and awards: student poster presentations

The second part of Student Research Day began later in the afternoon with nearly 30 posters presenting a wide range of student research projects.

The posters ranged from biology to media studies, stopping at all of the sciences and some of the humanities on the way. There was also a class of Communications 155 posters that were not included in the competition portion of the event.

The poster projects were judged by seven members of the faculty on a volunteer basis. Generally they judge inside their own faculties, but as one judge for the faculty of science commented, there was some crossover this year – she found herself judging posters inside the social sciences.

Student Alan Sum presented two biology posters: one compared fungi between organic and conventional blueberry farms, and the other looked at pesticide residue and surface water quality

in the lower Fraser Valley.

Like Sum’s research, the majority of posters focused on topics relevant to the community and its residents, something that Evered commented as being a strength of their research.

“I’m so impressed ... not only with the quality of the research that the students are doing but their wonderful ability to communicate what they’re doing,” he said. “Whether it’s science, social science [or] humanities, there’s relevance to the world in which we’re living.”

Sum wasn’t the only student to present two posters. social, cultural and media studies (SCMS) student Julia Hodgins presented a poster that looked at the present state of norms and values inside society, and another that focused on the relationship between children’s self esteem and poverty.

She admitted that jumping between two posters and two judges was a challenge, but doesn’t know why more students don’t participate in Student Research Day.

Behind the scenes: the result and future of Student Research Day Biology instructor and Student Research Day coordinator Ron

Wilen spoke to the result of this year’s event.

“It has grown pretty much every year until this year and we have seen a small decline this year,” he explained.

Research projects from any discipline are eligible for presentation on Student Research Day, but this year the primary representation came from sciences and geography.

“In the past we’ve had history, we’ve had psychology projects, we’ve had English projects, anthropology projects,” Wilen explained. “The number of science students was about the same as previous years, and on the social studies side it’s mostly geography students. Again, those numbers were about constant. It is the other faculties that we just didn’t see the students this year that we normally would.”

Wilen noted that the decline was due to two factors: an earlier date resulted in single-semester projects being less developed than in previous years, and the fact that several faculty members (who usually oversee these kinds of projects) were on sabbatical.

Student Research Day may take on a new form in future years. At a recent meeting Wilen explained that there was discussion of combining the event with an open house for new students.

This would foster an interest in research earlier in a student’s university career.

Location is also something that might change in the future; the poster presentations were held in B121, and the room filled up quickly.

“It was pretty crowded in there,” Wilen explained. “I have suggested we go to Chilliwack because we have that big foyer ... it’s a huge space and we would get lots of flow-through traffic.”

Apart from serving as a valuable learning opportunity for students to gain experience in presenting their research, Student Research Day also functions to bolster an interest for research in other students that happen to pass by the event.

“It exposes those students to the idea that, ‘Oh, I can do research as I progress through UFV,’” Wilen explained. “That is the other major function that research day has, is that it exposes non-participating students to that possibility.”

Image: Amy Van Veen/The Cascade

Those in attendance were exposed to a multitude of new and exciting areas of research.

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NEWS

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 2013

Chemistry student heads to Québec DESSA BAYROCK THE CASCADE

“Basically,” she says, leaning back in her chair a little, “my work is about macrocyclic anion receptors.”

It’s more than a mouthful, but the syllables roll off her tongue easily. After all, this is something she’s been working on for almost a year.

Meagan Beatty is a fourth-year chemistry student at UFV, and the tiny molecular structure she’s working to create may very well be her ticket into grad school.

Thanks to SUS funding, she’ll be attending the Canadian Chemistry Conference in Québec City later this year to present her research. Rubbing elbows with chemistry students and professors across the country is a chance to show off the work she’s done, and hopefully will catch the eye of a professor who will recruit her to a grad school program.

“It’s like the bee’s knees – it’s the thing to go to,” she says with a grin. “It’s just to show how good you are, and then maybe, hopefully, you get recruited by people from other universities for grad studies.”

Meanwhile, there’s still work

to do on the receptor she’s been building for the past three months.

The receptor is a molecule that bonds to a particular particle – in this case, a negatively-charged molecule called an anion. If all goes according to plan, she’ll put the receptor next to an anion at the end of the project and they’ll bind together.

“I use synthesis, so it’s one step to another to another,” Beatty says. “Since January, I’ve gotten to point A to point B to point C, and now I’m currently working on C to D. Hopefully I’ll get there this week.”

“That’s what I do as a synthetic upcoming chemist,” she continues. “I won’t even call myself a chemist yet. I still have maturing to do.”

Beatty originally worked on a similar project in the fall, building a receptor for cations – which are positively charged instead of negatively charged, like anions. The team swapped the anion project when it became clear it was more promising than the cation receptor.

Beatty’s been doing work under the supervision of chemistry professor Dr. Cory Beshara since last May, honing her synthetic

www.ufvcascade.ca

Image: Blake McGuire

Beatty will present her research at a national conference. chemistry skills in preparation for grad school.

The Québec conference will bring her even closer to that goal.

Beatty attended last year’s conference in Calgary, which opened her eyes to both study and career possibilities.

“It’s like an ice-cream parlour.

You can try chocolate, vanilla – you know,” she explains with a

laugh. “Anything from medicinal chemistry to inorganic to polymer – any field of chemistry is there for you to take a taste of.”

This year she expects the experience will be even better, since she’s presenting her own work.

She had practice at UFV’s poster presentations as part of Student Research Day last week, and next week she’ll be heading

to Trinity Western University to do the same.

“It’ll kind of show where I rank with other undergrads of chemistry and synthetic chemistry, because at UFV there isn’t too much of a competition in terms of chemistry,” she notes. “To actually see other chemistry students and see how they present their poster and what results they’re getting [will] be a good kind of test to see how I should improve for the conference.”

SUS approved a motion to fund Beatty at their last regular board meeting, and their donation will cover roundtrip airfare as well as hostel fees and a sum for meals.

With funding taken care of, Beatty can focus on completing the project – and combating her own nervousness.

“I’m kind of nervous for [the conference], but I’m more excited.

And I just feel so happy to get the money, because obviously that was the hindrance,” she says.

“It’s an opportunity to see what other people are doing, get ideas, collaborate with other people ... this is a good place to advertise yourself.”

Athletics funding request brings up forgotten promises JESS WIND

THE CASCADE After three months of backand-forth correspondence between general manager Meghan McDonald and Athletics marketing coordinator David Kent, SUS has decided to fund Athletics $5000, stipulating that further discussions occur in the summer to avoid future confusion.

The thought is that the $5000 was promised to Athletics in the original 2012/2013 budget, but was one of the budget lines cut at the November EGM. SUS interim VP finance Ryan Petersen could not confirm nor deny this.

“I never saw the previous budget before it got moved around and shifted,” he said.

Petersen was a rep-at-large at the time, and was also a part of SUS’s finance committee.

The situation came to light in December when Athletics requested the amount. Many board members were aware of the agreement between SUS and Athletics, but none were sure of the details – which interim VP finance Ryan Petersen pointed out.

“I’d always heard of this agreement in the past but then we had nothing to reference, no agree-

Image: UFV

Athletics has requested the $5000 SUS promise be fulfilled. ments,” he explained. “There were a few emails here and there ... nothing really concrete enough for me, new to a position, to say, ‘Yes, okay, let’s move forward on this.’”

In response to the request, McDonald asked Athletics to fill out a funding request form, which would officially request the money and uphold SUS internal procedure.

“I did send a message back to

David at that point simply asking him to fill out a funding request form, because UFV finance does mandate that we show a motion at board,” McDonald explained at the March 15 board meeting.

“This is part of our internal processes.”

As to the lack of official history behind the promised sum, McDonald referenced an unofficial agreement that occurred before many of the present board mem-

bers were in office.

“As far as I can see in terms of correspondence, there was an agreement between [previous SUS president Carlos Vidal] and [previous SUS general manager Jhim Burwell] and Athletics,” she explained. “It didn’t specify an amount but there is a historical understanding of this agreement.”

The agreement was designed as an exchange for services; SUS would fund the Athletics department $5000, and in exchange every UFV student would be granted free admission to varsity events. SUS would also receive marketing in the Athletics printed materials.

McDonald confirmed that Athletics has upheld their end of the agreement.

“I just wanted to point out that they have put a full page ad in their magazine and their pamphlets,” she noted to the board.

“They have met their marketing obligations as they understood it in this agreement.”

The other question raised was whether or not SUS had the money to follow through on the verbal agreement.

Petersen confirmed that there was enough money left in the

budget to fund the request, and many board members expressed concerns about tarnishing a long standing relationship with Athletics should they decide to do otherwise.

McDonald assured that the relationship remains in good standing now that the miscommunication has been cleared up.

“I think we have a really good working relationship with Athletics; I don’t think it’s been negatively affected by this,” she explained. “I think it’s simply about getting the right people in the right room.”

As it stands now, the papers have been signed and SUS is able to move forward with granting $5000 to Athletics. McDonald expects a discussion regarding a standing contract to occur in the summer months.

“I feel like this is particular to a department of UFV ... and therefore it does call for perhaps a contract,” she explained.

Kent declined to comment on the situation as of print deadline.

The Cascade is hiring a new editor-in-chief!

The position runs from September 2013 to August 2014 Full details can be found at ufvcascade.ca/employment Applications must include a resume, cover letter and sample article and be submitted to nick@ufvcascade by Monday, April 15.

www.ufvcascade.ca

Student health survey

Data will shape future services DESSA BAYROCK THE CASCADE

This week, students will have the chance to lend their data to the National College Health Assessment.

“It’s an online survey examining students’ behaviours, perceptions and habits about a variety of health and wellness topics,” UFV VP students Jody Gordon explains.

The survey includes personal safety, “risky habits,” as well as alcohol and drug use, among other topics. For obvious reasons, the process lets students remain completely anonymous.

Whether or not students completed the survey is the only data UFV will receive that will be linked to individuals. This allows students who completed the survey to be entered in a prize draw, but students can also ask that their names be withheld completely.

“Even that information is purged three weeks after the survey is completed,” Gordon notes.

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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 2013

“We can’t tie the students’ information to their responses.”

After completing the 60-question survey, students’ answers will be added together to show UFV administration what kind of issues the student body is dealing with and where UFV needs to improve services or counselling.

“The goal of the survey is to really help us learn more about our students around various health issues, so we can better serve them,” Gordon says.

This will guide the university in creating new programs where needed and supporting programs already in place.

This is the first year that Canadian universities have been involved in the survey, and UFV is one of 25 across the country participating this year. There is a sharing agreement in place between UFV and these other universities, allowing administration to compare UFV students to the student body at other universities.

The survey is run by the American College Health Association,

which has been conducting the annual survey since 2000. The organization facilitates the survey at a cost of 43 cents per survey sent out.

Gordon estimates UFV will send out around 9500 surveys.

She’s hoping that at least 30 per cent of the students who receive the survey will complete it.

All students who are currently enrolled in UFV programs will receive an email with a link to the survey in the next week or so, Gordon says. The link will be unique to each student, which will allow them to save the survey halfway through and continue it at a later time.

She also suspects that UFV will participate in the survey every three years – giving the university information about trends over time, and allowing administration to measure the effectiveness of services and other measures.

SUS ELECTION RESULTS ABORIGINAL REPRESENTATIVE Ashley Camille – 202 (votes) Harrison Depnar – 80 None of the above – 106 CLUBS AND ASSOCIATIONS REPRESENTATIVE Natalia Deros (uncontested) Yes – 313 No –75

Sarah Gabor-Martinez Yes – 284 No – 104 Stephanie Martin Yes – 286 No – 102 Thomas Davies Yes – 277 No – 111

PRESIDENT Shane Potter – 212 Mehtab Singh Rai – 111 None of the above – 65

VP ACADEMIC Zera Gregoire – 43 Kristianne Hendricks – 257 None of the above – 88

REPS-AT-LARGE Dan van der Kroon Yes – 269 No – 119

VP EAST Debbie Ellis (uncontested) Yes – 282 No – 106

Jarret Bainsbridge Yes – 256 No – 132

VP FINANCE Ryan Peteresen (uncontested) Yes – 328 No – 60

Jay Mitchell Yes – 277 No – 111 Jun Feng Yes – 244 No – 144 Renee Czarnecki Yes – 277 No – 111

VP INTERNAL Greg Stickland (uncontested) Yes – 312 No – 76 VP SOCIAL Zack Soderstrom – 210 Nick Willms – 80 None of the above – 98

Campaign to save BC film hits bumpers everywhere GRIFFY VIGNERON THE CASCADE

Citizens of the Fraser Valley may have noticed “Keep Calm and Save BC Film” bumper stickers and posters plastered on vehicles and in store windows over the last month.

The message is clear, but the purpose less so: what, exactly, does BC film need saving from?

For a long time, BC has been considered the Canadian Hollywood. Tron: Legacy, The Twilight Saga, Smallville, Superman: Man of Steel are all in a long line of films or television shows produced or shot in BC. The film industry has played a significant part in both the BC culture and economy. On average the film industry brings in about $1.2 billion yearly to the BC economy.

Unfortunately, the film industry has, more recently, not been faring so well. Wayne Bennett, film producer and spokesperson for the Save BC Film campaign, explains that there has been a decline in the film industry since 2009. This, he says, was “when Ontario and Québec raised their film incentives to something much higher and much more lucrative than what is available in British Columbia.”

In short, it was more worth filmmakers’ while to head across the country – leaving the BC film industry floundering when producers lost interest in BC as a product.

According to Bennett, on average around 25,000 people in BC are employed in film-related industries. Many of these people are now facing job loss. Instead of contributing to the economy, they are now becoming more of

Image: screenshot of www.savebcfilm.ca

BC’s film economy has seen a drastic dip in the last year. a drain.

According to Bennett, however, this fate is not inevitable – something Save BC Film is trying to bring attention to.

Film writer Sandra Montgomery started the campaign and set up the group’s Facebook page after over 400 comments on the issue were deleted from MLA Christy Clark’s page overnight.

“I was absolutely shocked, as well as totally dismayed,” Montgomery says, “especially when it

says right at the top of the page ‘I want to hear from you’.”

“The first thing [the government] can do, is give us a PST exemption when the PST kicks in on April first, but that doesn’t do anything but keep the status quo,” she also notes.

Bennett explains the reason behind the PST exemption.

“When we factor the PST back into [things], it’s going to bring it up to about a 12 per cent difference,” he says. “Twelve per cent

doesn’t sound like a lot, until you’re talking about $100 million movie or $75 million episodic television series. Twelve per cent of a $100 million movie? That’s $12 million. That’s a lot of money.”

Improving the situation of the film industry apart from a PST exemption is going to require a little more work. Montgomery hopes there will perhaps be better tax incentives to help save the film industry.

Both Bennett and Montgomery

encourage everyone to get educated on the issue, write to their MLAs, and hopefully bring about some change for the film industry. They say it will not only help those in the film industry, but also the community at large.

“Everybody seemed to think that we were just whiny, self-entitled, overpaid rich movie-makers, when it is the farthest thing from the truth,” Bennett says.

Many of the employed film workers are freelance, and while they make good money, they pay back into the economy.

“You could be spending 30, 40, 50 thousand dollars a week in rentals or purchases to dress a bunch of sets on an episodic show,” Bennett explains.

Bennett also describes the industry as completely renewable.

Unlike selling resources—such as building pipelines or cutting down trees—the film industry continues to bring in more money with time.

“We also are known for leaving things better than we find them,” Montgomery says.

The film industry pays a lot of money into communities for permits to use their space. Schools benefit from filming not only from being paid rent, but also from new paint jobs or new flooring. These are things that taxpayers would normally be paying for.

Instead the film industry pays, and, like with other aspects of the film industry, communities benefit.

More information about the Save BC Film campaign can be found on their Facebook page, or on their webpage at savebcfilm. ca.

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Curtailed commentary on current conditions

SNAPSHOTS

OPINION

MELISSA SPADY

NICK UBELS

Don’t be a butt – throw away your butts

Prezi dazzles profs, leaves substance up for grabs

I’m grateful we live in a society where being pro-environmental and a recycling junkie is worn like a badge of honour. It used to be something that was poked fun at, and you never admitted to being an environmentalist lest ye be sorely judged. We are slowly (as a collective) becoming more aware of the consequences our actions have.

Which is why it pains me to still see people putting out their cigarette butts and leaving them on the ground. It happens everywhere: parking lots, street corners, playgrounds, nature paths, beaches and yes, even on trees.

Usually these are the same people who wouldn’t dare drop their Big Gulps in the sand at White Rock, yet they don’t think twice about stamping out their smokes and walking away.

It’s bad enough you’re huffing second hand smoke into my face as I reluctantly walk by you, smokers of the Fraser Valley, but do you really have to put your non-biodegradable acetate (plastic) filters into the eco-system as well? I’m hoping you’re just operating under the common misconception that filters aren’t bad for the environment, instead of acting like an entitled brat who knowingly leaves a trail of harmful trash for others to pick up after you leave.

Picture yourself in a four-hour, upper level evening class that already tests the outer limits of your attention span. It’s nearing the end of semester, which can only mean one thing: student presentations.

Yellow text on a white background, a block paragraph rendered in an indecipherably small font, a pixelated image stretched to fill the entire projector screen or a whooshing, pinwheel transition are all it takes to turn an otherwise compelling term paper topic into a cringe-worthy train wreck.

Presentations are a very different animal than academic papers.

But much like MLA for English or Chicago for history, brief class presentations should be required to follow certain formatting guidelines to ensure a basic level of readability and help level the academic playing field.

In an academic setting, simple and effective presentations will suffice. Humanities majors shouldn’t be required to be graphic design geniuses and I hate to think that a brilliant thesis with a poor slide show could receive a grade lower than a vacuous and mundane one powered by a desperate student’s sudden discovery of free slide show design software Prezi. I don’t give a damn whether each point stems as a branch from a sprawling oak tree if they’re poorly argued.

When it comes to class presentations, a little standardization would go a long way.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

KATE NICKELCHOK

AMY VAN VEEN

The internet wants Power outage shows our true selves ... or does it? you to get out more Merit badges and gold stars are usually left behind with 15-minute recesses and getting your parents to sign off on your homework.

Because achievement badges are given out in childhood, they’re somehow seen as childish. Once you get too old for calling your friend’s mom Grey Owl, the little joys of merit badges fly out the window faster than your Boy Scout bottle-rocket project.

YouTube wants to change this.

Blogger Alex Day began LifeScouts.com as a platform for adults to share, compare and collect reallife adventures. The Tumblr project is still young, having only been launched this past January, but there are already close to 50 badges ranging from skydiving to milking a cow.

Some badges, like CPR and scuba diving, focus on skill-building, the same way girl and boy scout badges did when we were kids.

But most reward experience. In particular, the kinds of experiences that force you out of the house and do something you never expected to try.

Every month is a new theme with new badges available to reblog or purchase. March was nerd month (which seems fitting for an internet community). And while learning Klingon may not be your thing, Life Scouts has plenty of achievements with which to challenge yourself and power-up.

As a member of our social media-obsessed generation, it’s no surprise that the large majority of my waking hours are spent staring at a screen.

For the most part, though, this fact sits dormant at the back of my head while I scroll through my updated Twitter/Facebook/Tumblr/ Pinterest feed. Sure, it may be unhealthy and we may all be moving toward some kind of dystopic future where youths are controlled by computers, but for now it entertains.

Until the now is ruined by a power outage. At first I thought I could handle it – it would only be out for about 10 minutes or so, but as 10 minutes stretched to over three hours, and the fading daylight made it impossible to even read those dusty paperbacks on my shelf, I reached new levels of boredom.

My computer battery was dead, my Wi-Fi was out and the only light I had was from a collection of scented candles. I was completely lost without a screen to distract me. Without it all I could do was lay on the floor and wonder how early I could get away with going to bed.

Image: photoscott/flickr.com

TEDTalks: is questioning science not allowed?

GRIFFY VIGNERON

CONTRIBUTOR

TEDTalks has recently ignited a public outcry online over two “censored” talks. The two talks involved in the controversy were removed from TEDTalks not long after being posted. Rupert Sheldrake, speaker in the talk, “The Science Delusion,” claimed in his response posted on TED’s blog, that the talks were removed after complaints about their scientific validity by “militant atheist bloggers Jerry Coyne and P.Z. Myers.”

The word “censored” in such a case, seems to me to be a bit of an unusual and fairly dramatic use for the situation. TEDTalks have censored the talks as much as a publisher would reject a manuscript of poor quality or irrelevant material. That’s not to say that I’ve found them to necessarily be correct in their actions however.

Both videos discuss fairly controversial ideas. Sheldrake’s talk discusses problems found in main-

stream scientific thought; Graham Hancock’s talk, “The War on Consciousness,” delves into the ability of drugs to open up human consciousness.

It’s also true that TEDTalks, after receiving a huge backlash from the online community, has reposted the talks not once, but twice. Both posts are, however, not in blatant public view, but hidden away on TED’s blog – not the usual place for the talks.

It’s these two repostings however, that illuminate TEDTalks rather poor decision making. The older post now has crossed-out explanations of the factual inaccuracies found in each talk, as per TED’s mysterious “science board” (which leads us to wonder, how reliable this board is). The reason they’re crossed out? Both Sheldrake and Hancock have carefully refuted most of the accusations, with Sheldrake even offering sources, including peer-reviewed journals.

At least TED has posted these responses under their crossed-out

Image: Techsavvyed/flickr.com

TED has very specific criteria of what is “worth spreading” accusations.

Now I don’t believe TED is entirely to blame. Mainstream scientific thought is highly muddled with the human disposition that pervades its methodology. Humans, not always the best appreciators of change, often keep science from moving by getting caught up in the facts. They like revelling in these facts they’ve proven or accomplished through science.

People often look to science for

certainties, afraid of uncertainty or questions.

In actuality, this is against the true basis behind scientific progress. You can’t deem something unscientific because it cannot be proven. Science wasn’t meant to start with the proof, but with the unproven. It is meant to be the exploration of uncertainties, to determine certainties which are liable to change if more evidence is brought in. You can’t prove certainties

without evidence or have evidence without questions. And if evidence may prove your facts wrong, you have a question again, even if the question may be wrong.

Now, if TEDTalks wishes to post talks of scientific accuracy and yet wants also to post talks that spark human curiosity and new ideas, they’re in a bit of a bind.

If you already have the accurate facts, what questions can you ask?

And if you’ve got questions, like Sheldrake’s or Hancock’s, which have some evidence but may need more, how can you prove factual accuracies?

TEDTalks slogan is “ideas worth spreading.” Obviously this gives them every right not to publish or broadcast talks they don’t think are worth bringing to the public. However, if they also want to perpetuate intellectual discussions, they are going to need to be more than one-sided. Especially if they want continued and diverse publicity.

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OPINION

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Solving the mysteries of Facebook KATIE STOBBART THE CASCADE

Is it embarrassing or cool to set your Facebook language to Pirate English? Is there a limit on the number of captioned pictures I can post? To poke or not to poke?

Facebook is still a relatively new addition to our lives, and it seems that protocol for how to use it is still drenched in mystery. So, let’s take the plunge (like in the iced tea commercial) and see if we can’t make the virtual world a less annoying, less confusing place.

(1) Pirate English is definitely cool. (And you know you’re going to set your Facebook to Pirate English right after you finish reading this, if you haven’t already.) Upside down English is also cool.

(2) I’m not opposed to the occasional captioned picture. But posting pictures with funny captions 62 times a day is not okay. Sending a mass swarm (like bees) of pictures decreases the effectiveness of each individual picture—it’s like you’re that person at the party who keeps telling jokes—no one’s laughing.

One or two per day is an acceptable ceiling for funny caption picture posting. (This rule is an umbrella rule which also governs pet pic-

tures, pictures with captions that are not funny, links to videos, links to websites and/or memes.)

(8) This shouldn’t need to be stated, but sometimes you have to break the hard truth to people: when you “like” someone’s every post, it means you “like” them.

It’s the modern version of braidtugging.

(3) Don’t be that person who posts the lyrics to a song and expects everyone to realize that the song applies to your current state.

(Posting “I Honestly Love you” is probably not going to reveal your undying love for Jimmy – maybe you just like that song.) There are some exceptions to this rule, like posting “Walking on Sunshine.”

That’s a pretty clear indication of happiness.

(3b) On that note, posting song lyrics 62 times a day also qualifies as a mass swarm.

(4) Don’t post things you don’t want people to read. “Facebook stalking” is a misnomer. Stalking is when you persistently and stealthily pursue someone – and it’s creepy. Viewing information that someone has published online is not creepy. It’s just reading.

(5) Facebook also has these great things called “privacy settings.”

By changing your privacy settings, you can selectively disallow people from viewing the material you have posted without “unfriend-

see that little red flag that tells them they have a friend request.

Image: Scott Beale/flickr

Facebook etiquette is oft debated and misunderstood. Until now. ing” them (so you can run into that person at the grocery store without having to dodge and knock over a can pyramid in the process). Privacy settings are a great gift: use them.

(6) Special tip for applications— if you have to post requests for farm tools, spools of thread or magical fairy dust, please wander over to your privacy settings and customize who can see posts from that app—select only people who actually want to see those posts

(people who also play the same games as you do).

(7) If, three weeks after sending it, someone has not responded to your friend request, they probably don’t want to. There’s usually no need to ask them in person about it, because they will tell you that they didn’t see your notification because their dog ate their computer, or that they contracted a virtual virus that enables them to post what they’re having for breakfast and to like someone’s kitten picture, but not to

(9) Which brings us to the mysterious “poke.” It used to be pretty common to poke (at least when I first started to use Facebook) but the action is no longer as widespread, so it’s difficult to know whether or not to respond to the occasional rogue poke. If you don’t know the person, you probably shouldn’t respond. If you do know the person, you probably should respond (but be warned that your response may start a poking war).

If you can’t remember how the person got to be your Facebook friend, that’s at your discretion. Don’t poke strangers – that is creepy.

(10) Finally, there is one thing that is still a total mystery to me: “Like for confessions.” It’s just completely baffling. So if you can enlighten me, please let me know.

Ed Fast votes “nay” to science NADINE MOEDT

THE CASCADE

The Canadian government doesn’t need science. They don’t need scientific discourse or any sort of intelligence to make their decisions about the future of Canada.

The Harper government showed their contempt for basic common sense in their stand against, yes, science, last week, defeating a motion put forward to promote the use of science in shaping policy. It was a shocking display of self-interested solidarity by the conservatives: science was thrown out of parliament 157 to 137. Every vote against the motion was conservative.

The motion, introduced by NDP MP Kennedy Stewart, is divided into three sections and reads as follows: That, in the opinion of the House: (a) public science, basic research and the free and open exchange of scientific information are essential to evidence-based policy-making; (b) federal government scientists must be enabled to discuss openly their findings with their colleagues and the public; and (c) the federal government should maintain support for its basic scientific capacity across Canada, including immediately extending funding, until a new operator is found, to the world-renowned Experimental Lakes Area Research Facility to pursue its unique research program.

The first two sections are fairly self explanatory. Basically, by rejecting this third section, changes in environmental legislation can be made without consulting any scientific research or seeking advice from an expert in the field. It makes it harder for scientists to reveal or discuss their findings with their colleagues and the public. It is ultimately an attempt by the Conservative government to further muzzle the voice of reason in Canada.

Image: unmuzzledscience/wordpress

Harper and the Conservative Party takes a daring stand against science The third section is in regards to the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA), which is a facility for “whole-ecosystem research on environmental problems” in freshwater lakes is carried out, according to the ELA website. ELA research pulls scientific weight internationally, with key areas of influence in the understanding of acid rain, climate change, algal blooms, mercury pollution and green house gases. The defeat of this motion

reveals the Conservative government’s lack of support for the vital research the ELA provides.

The defeated motion is not at all surprising coming from the Harper government, who have been forcing omnibus bills through that are catastrophic to our environment; Bill C-38, for example, wiped out nearly every protective environmental legislation in Canada. Obviously our environment is not on the forefront of our government’s

mind.

In an underhanded and dishonest method of policy making, scientists are being ignored, or else forced to find the science that supports the policy, rather than using science to shape the policy.

This vote must be dealt with at a local level. It’s repugnant to think that though parliamentarians— such as our own Ed Fast—should be voting for their own constituents on these issues, they are instead

voting in solidarity with a party lacking any environmental conscience. It is unacceptable that Ed Fast, who has been elected as our MP three times, is not representing Abbotsford’s views with accuracy.

Voting against the use of scientific evidence to shape policy is not a transparent means of policy making. Where is the accountability?

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COMICS

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Written by Amy Van Veen. Illustrated by Anthony Biondi.

PUN KILLER!

Stewart Seymour

Anthony Biondi

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

“Parking Lot” by Joel Smart

Nadine Moedt

COMICS

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OPINION

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Online communities can be a segue to crazy NADINE MOEDT

THE CASCADE

The internet has given every crackpot a soapbox. At first this may come across as a mere annoyance; an unsolicited comment on an innocent YouTube video might leave you wondering if the person behind the username is truly coocoo for coco puffs or if it’s a misguided troll. But the reality is a little bit more sinister. No matter what unbalanced view of the world you have, you can find an online community that will support you, and solidify your vision.

This is the danger of online communities; they’re a breeding ground for discussion between like-minded and often uninformed people.

Imagine for a moment that you

believe that everyone should have a right to bear arms. You join a few online forums that agree with your sensibilities, and subscribe to a particularly radical newspaper put out by the National Rifle Association.

Soon enough, your views which were at first fairly moderate have changed; you might start thinking that weapons should not have to be registered or monitored by the government, or that there should be armed guards outside of every elementary school.

This phenomenon is known as group polarization: if a group as a whole has a similar underlying attitude towards a situation, over time and discussion the attitudes will often become significantly enhanced and strengthened.

Because people will seek out

like-minded groups, opposing ideologies are rarely presented for serious consideration. In fact, perceptions of the prevalence of their views in society will become considerably exaggerated, which in some cases leads to a very vocal and rather radical group of people.

In “Dynamic debates: An analysis of group polarization over time on Twitter,” a study conducted by Danah Boyd and Yardi Sarita in 2010, this phenomenon of polarization was observed following the murder of George Tiller, an abortion doctor. After reading and analyzing 30,000 tweets by pro-life and pro-choice advocates, Boyd and Sarita found that like-minded individuals will reinforce and strengthen their views when congregating together. Conversation between

opposing individuals did nothing but further polarize the discussion.

Issues that are often treated similarly online are ones that are complex and have no straight forward solutions: social justice; climate change and sustainability versus economic issues; healthcare; immigration; and crime are all heavily debated by people entrenched in their views.

So how do we have a healthy discussion on these types of topics?

In his recent article on “The Post Truth Era,” Gregg Henriques writes that working to become “more explicit about owning our justification systems” helps in understanding our prejudices. If we consider how our value system is influenced by our demographics, interests and life experience we can have a bet-

ter understanding of where these values orginate, and what drives them. Henriques also emphasizes the effect of method when it comes to the nature of online discourse.

People should engage in more of a dialogue, “an exchange with the purpose of understanding where the other person is coming from” rather than a debate, wherein “nonexperts” are attempting to convince another that their system of justification is more valid.

So next time you get in an argument with a random person after commenting on a Facebook post, remember to take the high road: it should be a discussion, not a flame war.

classes really that remarkable?

Are our classes really even all that small?

According to UBC’s website, 50 per cent of their first-year classes have more than 100 students. The SFU website states classes are 82 students on average, and will never exceed 200 – which, incidentally, is what they advertise as “smaller class sizes.”

So it’s safe to say that UFV classes are, at the very least, comparatively smaller.

But that doesn’t mean small.

Over the past five years, I’ve learned that 30 students is not a small amount of students. It’s small enough that the professor still feels the need to cultivate one-on-one interactions with every student, but it’s a large enough class that no student will feel truly cultivated.

It’s small enough that every student should be able to contribute to discussion, but it’s a large enough class that there isn’t necessarily

enough time for every student to speak – let alone get a checkmark in the participation column.

Thirty students is a small enough number that professors can theoretically handle their classes without the aid of a TA, but it’s a large enough that a professor will still forget names.

It’s large enough that not every student wants to be there, but small enough that an absence is painfully obvious.

Thirty students is not a small class.

Before the economy crashed and everyone headed back to school, and barely after UFV had gained university status, I was in a class that had six students in it. They had to run it because it was a Chilliwack section, but no one wanted to take it – also because it was a Chilliwack section.

It was my very first semester, and I didn’t know how good I had it until years later.

Each student got a tremendous amount of attention and respect, both from professor and other students. Rather than take notes from the board or listen to a lecture, the class was a constant discussion group – and everyone came prepared, because they knew they’d have to deliver. There was no hiding. You were there, or you weren’t; you were engaged and paying attention or it would soon become painfully obvious.

That was a small class. Intimate.

Comfortable. All the things UFV advertises in its class sizes.

But there’s another end of the spectrum. As a multitude of reasons have pushed people back to school and brought them to UFV, classes have become more crowded than ever before. Last year, I took a lower-level course. The odds were in my favour; as an upper-level student with a fairly decent GPA, my registration date scored me a spot in the class.

Others were not so lucky. There was a waitlist of 27.

The professor allowed an extra five or six people into the class, assuming someone would drop and things would even out. No one did.

We quickly learned to be early to class – assuming everyone attended lecture, the last student in the door wouldn’t have a chair.

At this point, UFV is at a crossroads; it’s getting to the point where we have to decide if we want to be the next UBC or SFU, or go back to our roots as a community college. Class size is one of the factors we’ll have to come to a decision about. Can we go back to classes of six or a dozen people, or do we upgrade to lecture halls that can hold 150 students at a time?

One thing is clear, at least in my mind – we can’t keep kidding ourselves that 30 students is a small class.

It’s not.

Small classes: a complaint DESSA BAYROCK THE CASCADE

I am sick to death of small classes.

It’s something that UFV prides itself on, and it’s a bragging right that seems to sneak into every description and pamphlet the university sends anyone. Look at how small and personal we are! Our class sizes are an average of 30, including the professor! Not like those larger universities, where you get lost in a crowded lecture hall with 150 other students. UFV students enjoy a more comfortable and intimate learning atmosphere instead. Lucky us!

That’s how I used to feel about it, anyway – exactly how the promotional material told me to. But I’m staring down my sixth year at this institution, and I’m a little more cynical now than when I first arrived. Are the benefits of smaller

Letter to the editor THE CASCADE IS

NOW HIRING A

MANAGING EDITOR Do you want to be the Nick Fury of The Cascade office?

Do you want to lead the leaderless?

If so, send your resume, cover letter and sample article to amy@ufvcascade.ca Full job description posted at ufvcascade.ca/employment

Re: Sodexo: king of cheap curmudgeons

I am not quite certain why you did not feel it necessary to tell the whole story in your piece today (Sodexo: king of cheap curmudgeons), however perhaps you did not read the whole sign. As the sign states, we will give you a china cup for free and we will also take 15 cents off your beverage if you do not take a paper cup. The water is free and always has been.

We are trying to raise awareness on waste at UFV and we need everyone’s support.

We all talk about sustainability, but do we make the right choices when we have the option? We offer china service first to our customers because it is the right thing to do. The 88-cent charge for paper is not with the intention of making money or

looking cheap; It is to prod and challenge people to make intelligent choices and to realise that unnecessary waste has an impact on the environment and it comes at a cost to us all.

I encourage you to go Sodexo’s Better tomorrow plan and learn about our commitments to sustainability and in helping to make this world a better place. We as a company are taking action right here at UFV and anyone can request from me in detail, our actions to date on our 14 commitments to a better tomorrow. http://www.sodexousa. com/usen/citizenship/thebettertomorrowplan/thebettertomorrowplan.asp I would also like you to correct the wrong impres-

sion that you have left with the readers of The Cascade, as you do a disservice to all when you do not tell the whole story.

Thanks, Douglas Fowler General Manager UFV Sodexo

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ARTS & LIFE

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Book Review

My Heart is an Idiot

by Davy Rothbart

Dine & Dash

Sushi Nara 2362 Whatcom Road, Abbotsford BC 604-859-6877 www.sushinara95.com Hours: 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. daily Price: up to $17.95 (excluding party trays and sashimi boat)

AMY VAN VEEN

THE CASCADE

DESSA BAYROCK

THE CASCADE

I stumbled across My Heart is an Idiot a couple months ago, when one of the chapters made its way online. I don’t remember how I found it, only that I couldn’t stop reading it.

The chapter in question, you see, detailed the narrator’s history of peeing in bottles.

He explains the situation rationally, as though it was a completely normal situation. It started, he says, tending bar at a concert. He couldn’t leave his post, but the audience’s attention was clearly elsewhere and the bar afforded him privacy below the waist, so ...

I’m sure you can figure out the rest.

This unlikely history continues as he breaks his leg and is confined to an upstairs bedroom for an extended period of time.

You guessed it – the bathroom is downstairs. Our protagonist rarely makes the trek, but begins a collection of bottles filled with amber- and honey-coloured liquid.

He eventually starts sending these bottles as hate mail, which is both disgusting and intriguing.

The absurd little story trips along, so unlikely and on the edge of taboo that it remains enthralling until the very end.

In any case, by the time I reached the end of the chapter I realized that the book was non-fiction. The story, barring small creative liberties, was completely true. Our stalwart narrator is Davy Rothbart. The history of pee-bottles is his, and it’s one of 16 odd, awkward and wonderful stories tied together in My Heart is an Idiot.

This genre can’t quite be labelled collections of essays, which sounds suspiciously like schoolwork, but rather self-contained chapters – each in and of itself a story.

For some reason, I find short non-fiction to be more compelling than short fiction – after all, each of these stories has a concrete basis in reality. These weird, awkward and sometimes look-away-painful things actually happened to someone. It’s more personal, and it’s more gripping. Anyone could make this stuff up – but to have this stuff happen to you seems like the most absurd combination of good and bad luck.

Although this book is hardly the first to package together a dozen or so stories in the form of a full-length work, I would instead strongly suggest taking each story

by itself over an extended period of time. I finished the book in two or three days, and as I ruefully found out, a bit of a nasty undertone creeps into the stories when taken as a whole. Each by itself is enthralling, entertaining and unlikely, but a less positive theme becomes apparent; Rothbart is a bit of a creep. Every story revolves around a woman he is desperate to impress, a woman he is head over heels in love with – if he can only get this girl, he thinks, everything will be perfect at last. It’s a theme that I would hazard to guess most people can relate to.

The undertone of vague creepiness sneaks in when none of them resurfaces a second time over the course of 16 stories. No girl lives up to the golden ideal image Rothbart has of her when he first spies her, and one or both parties is let down. Sometimes this is gentler than others, like when a mysterious woman he’s been having phone sex with turns out to be a gay man. On the other end of the scale, he finally meets a longdistance girlfriend in person and finds himself flirting with her best friend out of boredom.

In the last chapter, Rothbart admits he’s been told as much; if he wanted to find “the one” so badly, his friends say, he probably would have by now. The realization is sad and a little bit hopeless; we’ve watched in anguish as he tries and tries and tries, finally arriving at the end of the book with a handful of perfect moments, half-formed conclusions and absolutely nothing tangible.

In any case, the endless (if fruitless) search leads to a variety of unbelievable situations; he finds a dead man in a pool, recounts his first attempt at beer pong, takes a Greyhound bus to the newly-destroyed twin towers (posing as a radio journalist), and plays detective at a years-old murder investigation. We travel from San Fran to New York to Missouri to the desert. This man is a slave to his whims, and we’re lucky enough to tag along on the ride.

Rothbart’s endless pursuit is, if nothing else, completely truthful.

The reader recognizes the painful truth that none of these “perfect” women will keep him happy, even as he futilely chases the elusive woman of his dreams.

On some level, we know he recognizes this – and by the time we reach the end of the last chapter, I think everyone can agree his heart is, after all, truly an idiot.

New sushi places tend to scare me – I’ll admit it. There’s a lot that could go wrong if sushi isn’t well or even properly made. It’s a big risk to walk into an unknown sushi bar and order a piece of raw fish atop a clump of rice, which is why most of my sushi adventures are based on word-of-mouth recommendations.

And that is how I heard of Sushi Nara.

A couple minutes north of the Whatcom Road exit there’s a whole set of new stores and restaurants for the bourgeoning community on the mountain, including one Sushi Nara.

The restaurant, which has about 11 booths and tables, offers a more sophisticated sushi dining experience. Instead of fairy lights and mismatched pictures on the wall, there are dark wood tables and booths with black padded seats, a collection of bamboo planters and bouquets of bright pink flowers by the bar.

Behind the bar there’s a school of ceramic fish plates lined up.

The darker tone of paint gives the restaurant a more intimate feeling and the bathrooms are adorable – if bathrooms can be adorable.

Sushi Nara seems to have every detail covered, down to their environmentally friendly, reusable

Sushi Nara serves the perfect gyoza. chopsticks.

The menu offers all the sushi staples along with several house rolls and sushi combos. My one friend ordered the magic tuna roll – a deep fried spicy tuna roll topped with sweet chili sauce, cut on a bias and arranged around a scoop of rice. My other friend ordered the crazy boy roll – a deep fried California roll drizzled with their house sauce and topped with shredded yam tempura. The crazy boy roll was also sliced down the middle, cutting each piece in half which made consumption a whole lot easier.

As tempting as it was to rack up my bill trying every delectable menu item that caught my eye, I opted instead for the more bargain friendly lunch box.

Available daily from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., the lunch boxes range from $9.95 to $12.95 – making them the same price as the special rolls. I ordered the sushi box, which came with a starter of miso soup and contained four pieces of nigiri, eight pieces of California roll, five pieces of prawn and vegetable

Image: Amy Van Veen/The Cascade

tempura, green salad and four pieces agedashi tofu. Every bite was scrumptious – abounding in flavour and of clearly fresh quality.

The three of us also shared a starter of gyoza – my favourite menu item, but also a dish that many sushi restaurants mess up.

Sushi Nara, however, struck a perfect balance between crunchy and chewy with the right balance of flavours that didn’t overwhelm or disappoint.

I normally burn my mouth biting open the freshly made dumplings, but these were ready to be consumed the minute they hit the table – which meant I didn’t have to wait around staring at the deliciousness before diving in.

While the individual rolls can get a little pricey, the lunch box was well worth the cost – especially considering the fact that I entered the restaurant famished after a morning class and left completely satisfied with a smile on my face.

Fashion Doctor

Spring jackets JASMINE PROCTOR

CONTRIBUTOR

Well, ladies and gentlemen, it’s officially spring. Before you know it, April will be fast approaching, and the temperature—hopefully—will begin to rise, signalling the start of yet another rainy, but warm season. Yes, this means that those heavy winter jackets can be tossed aside and in their place you can throw on something a little more spring appropriate.

Spring coats are significantly different from those found in winter. While winter coats are meant to protect you from the bitter cold, spring coats are meant to be more of a fashion piece.

That, and they can act as light barrier between you and the unpredictable weather that extends throughout March and April. They are the prefect transition piece between the colder and warmer weather, which is why you should know the best options out there, to find the one suited to your tastes.

For those of you looking for something a little bit more fashionable, there is the moto jacket.

Definitely a more fashion-forward piece, these are great because they give off that effortlessly cool vibe.

They also come in an array of different styles and shapes, from cropped to quarter-sleeved. As well, you can play with colours, as you can find them in pretty much every shade under the sun.

Either way, moto jackets are great for spring, because they are normally water-resistant (which is a must here, on the infamous “Wet Coast”) and have a lining inside to keep you warm on those chilly days. Put one on over a simple t-shirt and some high-waisted pants, and you’ll be looking stylish in no time.

Now no spring jacket list would be complete without including the anorak-style rain coat. A staple for spring, this type of outerwear is so versatile and comfy that you’ll want to wear it year round. Some even come with wool lining on the inside, which most of the time is removable. This makes them perfect for both cold and warmer days. The military style of these jackets is definitely my favourite, preferably the ones that are longer in length. They just give outfits a down-to-earth feel.

As well, they come with hoods to protect you from those ever-sofrequent April showers (or downpours, if you will). I love them be-

cause they are perfect for layering to keep in warmth and can also act as a light coat for when it’s a bit hotter outside. Either way, they help fight off the precipitation and that, above all, is a must.

Now for something a little more light and simplistic, there is the denim jacket. These beauties have come a long way since the ‘90s – you can virtually find them in any style or design imaginable. Printed, studded, distressed, bleached, dark wash, metallic – there is a jean jacket for everyone. I think my favourite are the distressed or acid washed kind (though I think I’m just biased towards anything acid washed), and I would recommend layering a hoodie underneath for extra warmth. Though they are not exactly West Coast ideal, they are perfect for those sunny days when there’s still a bit of a chill to the air. They are definitely a more casual piece to have and I think that’s why they fit the spring vibe so nicely. They’re light, comfortable and fresh – just like spring.

So welcome the season with style, and keep warm with these light staples for the spring wardrobe.

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ARTS & LIFE

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Q&A: Jean-Paul De Roover CHARTS

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

We Are Wolves La Mort Pop Club This Hisses Anhedonia The Bicycles Stop Thinking So Much Woodpigeon Thumbtacks And Glue

Shuffle AARON LEVY

CIVL STATION MANAGER

Aaron Levy is CIVL Radio’s station manager, and thus keeps a keen eye on campus politics and student organizations; in light of last week’s SUS Elections Committee debaucle, here are a set of songs focused on democractic SNAFU’s!

Hayden Us Alone

Suuns Images Du Futur

Close Talker Timbers Julie Doiron So Many Days Renny Wilson Sugarglider PVT Homosapien

NEEDS The Accursed Share Gal Gracen Blue Hearts In Exile Babysitter Eye We Hunt Buffalo We Hunt Buffalo Oh Village Far Side of the Sea

Swollen Members Beautiful Death Machine

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The Sweet Lowdown May

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Slates Vérité

Post-pop maven Jean-Paul De Roover plays by his own rules.

SASHA MOEDT

THE CASCADE

Crazy Town – “Butterfly” “You’re my butterfly. Sugar.

Baby.” Remember those butterfly ballots in Florida back when Al Gore faced the “inconvenient truth,” losing the 2000 election to George W. Bush? The Sugar Babies down South couldn’t figure out those ‘chads’ on the MLB All-Star vote-card style ballots that won dubya the election.

Kanye West – “Gold Digger” Do you think it made a difference in the 2008 Presidential election campaign that in 2005, Kanye West interrupted Canadian Mike Myers on a national Katrina telecast to say, “George Bush don’t like black people,” less than one whole entire term before the U.S.A. elected their first ever black president?

War – “Why Can’t We Be Friends” Homer Simpson vs. Steve Martin!? We should be so lucky to be in a position to make such a tortured and difficult decision!

But, so it was in Springfield, 1998. Ray Patterson had to fend off the political newb who just wanted everyone to play nice in the decontaminated sandbox.

Woody Guthrie – “This Land is Your Land” Democracy is an inclusive process that needs to be kept uniform for equality to prevail. It may be a pain, and frustrating, and look like much ado about nothing, but think about how society would turn out if we didn’t allow each other to participate? Let’s share the blame.

Jean Paul De Roover’s genre is, in his own words, “Post-pop.” The one-man band from Ontario released Complexity in Simplicity on March 26, and he’s currently touring Canada. His unique style—an infusion of complex ideas and uncomplicated expression, of heartbreaking lyrics and upbeat instrumentals—brings a strong, fresh meaning to his fourth album as the juxtaposition and seeming oxymoron of style and sound in Complexity in Simplicity works itself out into a straightforward and easy listen of an album.

First of all, your development as an artist: what’s your background? How did music draw you in as a way to express yourself?

I’ve been musical my whole life, but I started my first “real” band when I moved back to Canada in 2001. Since then I’ve played in rock bands, bluegrass groups, concert bands, barbershop choruses and much more. Music started off as a way of expressing things I’d rather not say to people, whether it was love or frustration, and then I started to harness that more creatively over the years.

Who are the musicians that inspire you? How about poets, writers, visual artists or artists in another medium?

Comedians inspire me. Musical comedians of course, but any kind of stand up works! But musically, it’s the full gamut. I’ll listen to something really upbeat on the radio, followed by experimental projects, then a folk album, metal record, and soundtracks. Just depends on what I can get my hands on. They all inspire me in different ways, too.

What’s your creative process like for writing music? Anything in particular you seek out for inspiration?

I typically start with the music rather than the lyrics. I do a lot of composing for film and TV, so I’m often creating instrumentals before I decide if there is a story that suits it. I typically draw on things that happen close to me, just be-

cause that’s what I know, and I’ve always been grounded in my writing – no epic metal ballads about battling dragons here.

Complexity in Simplicity was written in four years – can you describe the shaping, development and struggles with this album?

I remember playing the first song on the album, “Silhouettes Pass” at the CD release show for Windows and Doors in 2009. Most of the songs were written just for this album, but some, like “Break My Soul,” were actually from much earlier. Rewritten almost completely, but the original idea came from earlier. I learned from my earlier works, and Complexity in Simplicity became much more focused stylistically. Some songs came together quickly, while others (like “Man With No Hands”) I spent months workinand/ re-working lyrics. When all the writing was done, I had close to 20 songs. I sat down with the producer Ben Leggett, and narrowed it down to 12. From there we hit the studio, but only 10 remained.

The remaining two were still recorded, but after much deliberation we left them off the album because they didn’t quite fit the flow.

Great songs, but that hard decision had to be made. The entire album was recorded in two weeks flat in Thunder Bay, Ontario, at Dining Room Studios, and mixed/mastered a month or so later.

How is Complexity in Simplicity different from your other work? Where do you think your personal style is going to go from here, as a young artist?

As I mentioned, this album is much more focused. It’s also a lot more lyrically driven than earlier works. Windows and Doors had a lot of instrumentals, while this one is quite word-heavy. I think it’s a bit of the folk/songwriting influence kicking in, mixed with a newfound appreciation for upbeat, poand/rock sounds. It’s hard to say where it’ll go – but I know I love it, otherwise I wouldn’t have written it. My music has always been about honesty. If I don’t feel something while playing it, then how could anyone else?

Image: Shannon Lepere

You’re playing at Falconetti’s on April 1 – what’s the ideal venue for you, and the ideal crowd?

I love smaller, intimate spaces.

My sound is quite loud for those types of rooms, but I love them because I can play with dynamics quite easily – quiet enough to hear a pin drop, yet a moment later you can hear the room all singing along. I’m a big fan of all ages spaces, since you shouldn’t have to be of drinking age to enjoy music. That being said, Falconetti’s has always been a great home for me when I’m in Vancouver.

The song that really caught my attention was “Man with No Hands.” Can you talk a bit about that song?

It was one of my first attempts at writing in the third person, and I spent a really long time working on that song. It started with the title, and then I created a narrative and a full story about the man in the song. Married at a young age, he started working in a factory to help provide for his wife and child, but many years later, the same company that took him on cast him off after an accident leaves him unable to work.

It’s about the struggles he goes through at that point.

Finally, because I have to ask this question to all artists: if you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be, and why?

Inner-nerd alert: I’d be one of the trees on the planet of Lusitania from the Orson Scott Card’s book Speaker for the Dead. When the local life-forms, referred to as “piggies,” would pass on, a tree would grow from their bodies. Each tree on the planet was in the second stage of life. The piggies also had a way of avoiding pain, which involved meditation and “thinking like a tree,” and that idea has resonated with me since I first read it in the ‘90s sometime.

Jean Paul De Roover plays in Vancouver at Falconetis on April first – and that’s no joke. Check the show out, or look up his new album Complexity in Simplicity.

ARTS & LIFE

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Mini Album Reviews

SoundBites

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Girls Names The New Life

Low The Invisible Way

Autre Ne Veut Anxiety

Chvrches Recover EP

Hailing from Northern Ireland, Girls Names decided to completely disregard the effortless and catchy surfrock jangle found on their 2011 debut Dead To Me. Instead, they take the listener down a nostalgic and dark path on the recently released The New Life.

Psychedelic overtones, heavy reverb and ominous lyrics engulf all 10 postpunk tracks – reminiscent of the early 1980s British doom and gloom scene, which inspired a generation of white eyeliner and white paste upon your face. Talents like Joy Division and The Cure are easy comparisons, as Girls Names are similarly adept to strong instrumental interplay. However, the title of the fourth track, “Hypnotic Regression” seamlessly sums up the problems with the first half of The New Life. Filled with a domineering rhythm section, forgettable melodies and hypnotic drones, The New Life’s first half is almost completely devoid of any liveliness or originality. These holes in the album, however, do serve to accentuate the truly standout tracks, like the Wake inspired “A Second Skin” or the dissonant and organ synth heavy “Pittura Infamant.” Overall, the album fails to develop the new identity or “new life” the band is clearly searching for with this record.

Twenty years and 10 albums in, Low continues to step forward in their particularly lumbering, despondent sort of way. The tempos on their new, Jeff Tweedy-produced album The Invisible Way never breach a moderate pace in keeping with the desolate spirit of the record. There is a persistent, meditative and minimal intensity to the work that demands both close attention and patience, though the payoff is considerable. Jeff Tweedy’s touch can be heard in the spacious and weighty low end acoustic arrangements, reminiscent of A Ghost Is Born era Wilco. The Duluth trio powered by dual husband and wife vocalists Mimi Parker and Alan Spearhawk hinge entire songs on subtle chord changes. Their distinctive baritone harmonies and sparse instrumentation matches the minimal lyrical content; much like a Hemingway novel, most of the gravity and meaning is carried by the subtext. When Parker finally admits, “I can tell something’s wrong” on “Holy Ghost,” this slight statement re-frames the song’s preceding story in a whole new light.

“On My Own’s” explosion of distorted guitar is so striking because it is the only moment of release on an album fraught with unspoken spiritual and interpersonal tension.

Every Autre Ne Veut song feels like it’s on the verge of collapse; Arthur Ashin’s voice breaking but not quite, fake and real chorals propel with the drum and hand-clap beats – the whole show not overwhelmed by the off-tune horns and saxophone. All the lyrics are too much, obsessing over mirrorshown age (“Gonna Die”) and cathecting (“Play By Play”), yet the desperate sincerity has its moments, like the fragile promise that fans out in all directions of “Counting:” “I’m counting on the idea/that you’ll stay alive.”

Synths crowd and cut off into separate rhythms Ashin’s voice, which reaches heights like local theatre dreaming of beyond Broadway, accompanied by its cloned manipulations, high notes turned into downpitched drops and merged into instrument – the scenes swivel between drained loneliness and a stage performance of that same anti-feat. The more things tend toward simpler pop on Anxiety, the more sameness creeps in (Autre Ne Veut’s isn’t even the best Whitney Houston response-titled track this year), but in the cracked, resounding stop-start near-scream confession of Anxiety’s strongest moments, that’s easy to forget.

Chvrches, the hot breakout band from last year has finally hit with a long awaited EP, Recover. After seemingly releasing their first two killer tracks onto the internet last year, “The Mother We Share” and “Lies,” there was huge expectation for what this band could produce on a full or extended play. Comprised of Lauren Mayberry, Iain Cook and Martin Doherty, the three from Scotland only came together roughly a year earlier but have already found an edgy electronic synthpop sound that, with Mayberry’s sweet and soft vocals layered above, has real depth. While those two particular songs aren’t here on Recover there’s three new tracks that are just as hot in addition to two remixes. It begins with the self-titled “Recover” which musically takes you on a trip as the synth continually pops along with Mayberry’s tight vocal punches. One of the other new songs found is “Zvvl” takes Doherty as lead on vocals. While I do prefer Mayberry to be here this has a great, darker, drive to it and is a nice changeup. The final new entry is “Now Is Not The Time” which sees Doherty step to the background again. This is my favourite on the EP. It’s light, airy, and makes me crave for the summer.

When a full length does drop they will be ‘the’ band, if they aren’t already.

Tim UBELS

NICK UBELS

Michael Scoular

JOE JOHNSON

of listening to Weezer’s classic “Blue Album” is readily apparent, as guitar-driven production are found all over the record, particularly on the catchy second track “Demon to Lean On.” Containing a subtle acoustic intro that bursts into massive guitars alongside Williams’ gritty croon, “Demon to Lean On” draws many parallels to Weezer’s “My Name is Jonas.” “Jonas,” a game-changing track that informed an indie scene used to Kurt Cobain’s screeching vocals that melodic harmonies and Beatles-schooled pop blueprints were also acceptable, opened the floodgates for similarly riveting, but more grounded punk rock in the mainstream.

Another standout track on Afraid of Heights is its self-titled track, which sees a cameo by Rilo Kiley frontwoman Jenny Lewis, backing up Williams on vocal duties.

“Afraid of Heights,” which sounds like a mixture of mid ‘90s staples Weezer and Green Day, has Williams repeating: “I’ll always be on my own / Fucked and alone,” with Lewis adding the complementary “woos” and “oos” in the background to bring a little innocence to the song. While Williams’ exclamation may sound like it came from the mouth of a 16-year-old kid in need of counselling, it fits right in with the rest of the album’s angst-driven subject matter.

Themes of apprehension, mortality and hopelessness abound on Afraid of Heights, which only helps to further the comparisons to a time when similar topics were being written by Kurt Cobain and Billy Joel Armstrong.

Amid lively and energetic arrangements by Wavves, Williams had cleaned up his songwriting abilities and sings throughout the record about battling his innermost demons. He exclaims in despair: “We’ll all die alone” (“Sail to the Sun”) “Soon it’s over / You’ll regret your whole life” (“That’s On Me”) “None of you will ever understand me” (“Lunge Forward”).

There’s a lot going on underneath those huge walls of distorted guitars, and it’s not just an aspect of production. This is the first Wavves record where Williams really puts his feelings out there in a nuanced way, making himself extremely vulnerable. This exposed self is summarized in the chorus of the album’s final track “I Can’t Dream,” which contain the lines: “I can finally sleep, but I can’t dream.” Williams, the appointed poster boy of indie-rock fans, seems to have grown up and has found peace amidst these unforeseen anxieties of a loner being accepted by the mainstream.

Album Review

Wavves – Afraid of Heights TIM UBELS CONTRIBUTOR Frequent line-up changes tend to signal to the listener that an artist’s sound is in the midst of changing.

Maybe it’s because the artist felt too comfortable in the genre they inhabited, maybe they grew bored of their own music, or maybe it’s because the hype and pressure that surrounded their work resulted in a near breakdown for the artist.

Nathan Williams, the once oneman proprietor of Wavves, could never have lived up to the publicity drummed up seemingly overnight prior to the release of his skuzzy sophomore release Wavvves back in 2009. It was a simple and heartfelt record about demons, pot and early-20s boredom, but listeners saw much more in the 22-year-old Californian.

Williams was a slacker at heart, an anti-hero in a trucker cap who had created a record from his parent’s bedroom with the smallest of intentions. But the hype his second album received had audiences viewing him as their knight in shining armour.

Unfortunately he wasn’t able to handle the intense scrutiny this kind of fame undoubtedly brings, and this Cinderella story quickly turned into a shitstorm of selfdestructive tendencies during his first major tour. His interviews be-

came unintelligible, and his shows became a set of onstage fistfights, because this “rebel” had nothing to rebel against but himself.

Four years later, two new members and a hip-hop side-project with his brother under his belt, Williams’ conduct and maturity have finally caught up to his success. This newfound self-confidence is at the forefront on his new release Afraid of Heights, where the

indie-rock poster boy successfully molds grunge-infused melodies with Weezer-esque powerhouse choruses, all culminating into his signature snotty, noise-pop atmosphere.

According to an interview with Williams in SPIN, the band spent “an entire year in the studio,” and Williams says he was “listening to [Weezer’s] ‘Blue Album’ every day, almost on repeat.” The effect

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Famous Funnies

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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 2013

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by AMY VAN VEEN

LAST WEEK’S

ACROSS

1. Mondays are apparently too much for this cat to handle. (8 letters) 5. The exploits of Bucky B. Katt and his weasely nemesis Fungo Squiggly often confuse both Satchel Pooch and owner Rob Wilco. (3, 5 letters) 9. Jim Unger wrote and drew this comic which often shows up as a single panel daily and often appeals to an older audience’s humour. (6 letters) 10. This comic strip has followed the titular character over a span of 40 years, often dealing with political subject matter. (10 letters) 11. “Good grief.” (7 letters) 12. For Better or For Worse has been a Sunday funnies staple depicting the ____ family. (9 letters) 13. This Brian Bassett comic follows the struggle of a work-at-home dad. (4, 2, 4 letters)

Answer Key Across

1 BOUNCE 4 SPRINGFIELD 10 CHINOOK 11 PAMUKKALE 12 SPRINGSTEEN

DOWN

2. It’s like Office Space meets The Drew Carey Show. (7 letters) 3. From creating scenes of snowmen massacre to flying through space in a cardboard box, these two never stop having fun. (6, 3, 6 letters) 4. “Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, ACK!” (5 words) 6. This comic frequently shows up on the funnies page, depicting the life of teenager Jeremy Duncan as he deals with high school, parents and social situations.

(4 letters) 7. Sibling rivalry and family dynamic is covered in this multi-panel comic. (7 letters) 8. This comic follows the hormonal trials of a teenage girl, her best friends and her annoying older brother Brad. (5 letters) 10. Of all the Pearls Before Swine characters, this one is the only one to always appear in a military garb. (4 letters)

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EclipseCrossword.com

Down 1 VERNALEQUINOX 3 CHERRYBLOSSOM 4 SPRINGADOR 5 SPANIEL 6 CHICKEN 7 PRIMAVERA 8 BEETHOVEN 9 SCALLION

The Weekly Horoscope Star Signs from Swamp Bob Aquarius: Jan 20 - Feb 18

Gemini: May 21 - June 21

Libra: Sept 23 - Oct 22

You will finally beat your record at marshmallow bunny eating ... have the hospital and a diabetes specialist on speed dial.

You are weary after the dark and grey winter months. Rekindle your spiritual batteries by weaving spring blossoms into your hair and dancing about your neighbour’s hot tub under the light of a full moon and their motion sensor security lights.

Pisces: Feb 19 - March 20

Cancer: June 22 - July 22

Scorpio: Oct 23 - Nov 21

You will be accosted by a rabbit after disrupting him from his duties of hiding Easter candy and planting new shamrocks and stealing people’s left socks (apparently he is diversifying his portfolio).

Just as spring brings forth new blooms and fresh starts, so you will begin your life anew as a yak herder on the slopes of Mount Kailash in Tibet.

Out do yourself with hiding all those Easter treats this year by really taking advantage of those unique and obscure hiding places, such as the inside of the chimney flue or the top side of ceiling fans.

Aries: March 21 - April 19

Leo: July 23 - Aug 22

Sagittarius: Nov 22 - Dec 21

Your favourite time of year is upon you as you once again waltz through mountains and glades smelling fresh flowers and chasing after butterflies. Beware, though, of coming across small children in red cloaks delivering baked goods to their elderly family members.

Spring is upon us, and it will unleash (along with sugared treats and pollen allergies) your latent desire to clean every nook and cranny of your abode, Happy No Ruz.

Taurus: April 20 - May 20

Virgo: Aug 23 - Sept 22

Capricorn: Dec 22 - Jan 19

For Easter, you should take better notes on where you hide your candy or you’ll be finding forgotten marshmallow chicks and chocolate eggs for the rest of the year.

You grow weary of all these interpretations of spring celebration and ceremonies of renewal and rebirth. Start your own celebration by waltzing around a chalk-drawn meadow in a local car-park while wearing discarded fast food wrappers as a cloak and radishes for earrings.

Upon your wanderings through the many parks and forests in the area, taking in the splendor of spring, you will happen upon a group of eldritch old gentleman in white robes, long beards with holly woven into their hair. Worry not, you have not found some long lost Druidic severity, but merely the local LARPING guild.

Your hipster quality knows no bounds and you make the trek to find the original spring equinox celebration. You travels will take you to Egypt and the celebration of the rebirth of Isis.

You will find yourself remembering why you loath the onset of spring: people who think that yoga pants and crocs are acceptable apparel.

Cascade Arcade

BIRGing and CORFing JOEL SMART

THE CASCADE

As an admitted fan of the YouTube legend VSauce, I was excited when I saw this week’s video was entitled, “Why Do We Play Games?” While the 12-minute video answered this question with a number of fascinating facts—including the difference between a toy, a puzzle, a competition and a game—I was most fascinated by his explanation of the terms BIRGing and CORFing. While these apply most obviously to spectator sports, they can also be related to gaming as a whole.

BIRG stands for “Basking in Reflected Glory.” This is that sense of pride and entitlement that people receive after a team they’ve identified with has accomplished something favourable – say, win-

ning a game or championship. In other words, these people feel the rewards of a successful moment without having to actually do much work. By putting on a sports jersey after your favourite team has won, you gain some prestige and excitement for yourself.

CORF stands for “Cutting off Reflected Failure.” Much the opposite of BIRGing, CORFing is when people disassociate themselves from the negative emotions—embarrassment and frustration—that come from a tough loss. This can range from turning off the TV to skipping past the next day’s sports section or even giving up being a fan altogether.

It makes sense why people would BIRG and CORF – it’s one of the simplest ways to improve their standing and their emotional state. Real life is complicated – so too are the rules and goals. Games

provide a simplified and reliable model for experiencing the rewards of success. Easier still is to gain these rewards by association; not everyone wants to put the time in (or has the ability) to become an expert at a game.

Video games have not traditionally been open to spectators.

Increasingly, however, certain gamers have begun to develop followings. Gamers post videos of themselves playing games with commentary on YouTube and often times thousands of people tune in to see the experience. While associating with one of these gamers won’t necessarily increase a fan’s prestige (except among a select few), it does allow them to easily experience the rewards and failures the player faces in the game.

BIRGing and CORFing is increased in team-based games where rewards and failures are intensified

by human-to-human competition.

Many who play massively multiplayer games online, like World of Warcraft, form into clans or guilds – these teams of players then experience pride when their team does well, or shame when they don’t.

Because it’s just a game, players who don’t experience success might distance themselves from the game to minimize their emotional harm.

In The Sociology of Sports, Tim Delaney noted that there have been some theories as to what players are more likely to BIRG and who are more likely to CORF. One theory is that individuals with more self-esteem are more likely to BIRG, without needing to CORF, however studies have so far not proven this hypothesis. Sports fans would argue that hardcore fans would be most likely to follow this pattern, while “bandwagoners”

are the ones to CORF the second things look bad.

Of course BIRGing and CORFing seems to happen in many other ways as well. Take the console war as an example – gamers often become entangled in a bitter war based on the video game system they’ve purchased. Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft all have “fans” that pride themselves on their preferred company’s successes while ignoring (or denying) the faults.

Perhaps it does make sense why it happens, but it doesn’t hurt to keep it in mind. Sometimes it is fun to enjoy the thrill of fandom.

However, it can often happen subconsciously. So, BIRG and CORF to your heart’s content, but also remember that it’s no substitute for the real rewards.

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ARTS & LIFE

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Film Review

Admission AMY VAN VEEN

THE CASCADE

For all those Liz Lemon fans who went into a nerd rage when the curtains closed on 30 Rock, Tina Fey shows no signs of stepping away from the screen. She stars in this month’s Admission alongside the forever young Paul Rudd, the formidable Lily Tomlin and the bearded Michael Sheen.

Admission depicts the story of Princeton admissions officer Portia Nathan (Fey) who is approached

by John Pressman (Rudd), a teacher at a developmental high school who invites her to speak at his school during her admissions tour of northeast schools. But, of course, there’s a twist. A twist she thinks she knows when she accidentally smushes her face against his—it was too awkward to be classified as a real kiss—but soon learns it’s less about him being interested in her and more him suggesting his favourite student is the son she

gave up for adoption in college.

Most films that have these kinds of confrontations are for men who didn’t realize they had a child, not for women who made the decision to hide their pregnancy from their friends and family and give their child up in secret. The treatment of this situation—and everything else in the film—has a deep sense of realism. Most flicks of the rom-

com persuasion suffer from a lack of reality. The audience can’t see themselves acting the same way as the characters on the screen and a suspension of disbelief is required to even begin to enjoy the film.

Admission, though, shows the unfolding of a series of events that compound upon Portia Nathan are – first she is confronted with the young man who could be

her son, then she learns that her mother neglected to tell her she’d had a double mastectomy and her professor boyfriend of 10 years (Sheen) leaves her for a Virginia Woolf scholar pregnant with his twins. But in the midst of all this life change, Fey brings a strong relatability to the character.

While the film centers on Portia, it also looks at the larger complications that exist between parent and child. John is facing the tension between trying not to become his parents and trying to please his adopted son. Portia is still struggling to find her footing under the shadow of her noted feminist mother while facing the reality of her own maternal role.

Apart from the plot itself and the emotional whirlwind I was subject to (in other words, it made me cry), Admission’s casting deserves attention. Mindy Kaling, in her book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, rages against the casting of romcom characters – how actresses

who are supposed to be the same age as the male lead are actually 10 years younger and how the mothers of the protagonists are the same age as their “sons.” Tina Fey and Paul Rudd are both 43-years-old.

Lily Tomlin, who plays Fey’s unstoppable mother who expects her dogs to find their own food and takes a cab home from major surgery, is 73-years-old.

With a cast as solid as this, the return of doomed-to-fail relationship between Sheen and Fey and a story that wasn’t as predictable as one might think, this film left me more than satisfied – like when you eat steak and potatoes as opposed to a bowl of low-fat yogurt.

Correction: Last week’s film review of Dead Man Down was written by contributor Jeremy Hannaford not Michael Scoular.

Discussions Below the Belt

Fifteen million ways to get out of a sexual rut LADY ORACLE

Sex Prophet

So you’ve been with your partner for a year and a half, and you’re definitely past that quivery, lusty, honeymoon stage. Little signs are creeping in that the physical fire is petering out – you can sit side by side watching a movie without groping or even snuggling, you no longer wait to shower so you can do it with her/him, and, well, your sex isn’t as frequent or exciting.

Welcome to a normal relationship. It’s probably not news to you that keeping the fire burning in your relationship wasn’t going to be effortless forever. I’m not saying that your desire for each other is going to cool off completely; of course people in love will remain very sexually attracted to each other in the long haul. But you have to be willing to work to ignite the sexual fires in those times we call a rut.

Here are fifteen million ways to get out of a sexual rut. (There’s actually only five listed).

Actually talk about it This one is required. It’s hard. It feels like you’re telling your boyfriend/girlfriend that you don’t want them as much as you used to. Remember when you couldn’t keep your hands off of them? But always keep in mind that you’re at a different stage in your relationship, not a worse stage. That new, exciting, powerful lust is replaced by comfort, trust and knowledge of each other’s bodies. And with these things, you can re-create that lust – you can tell your partner openly what you’re really into, how to touch you just so. You can put yourself out there safely and know your partner will accept you. You can try something new and not be embarrassed when it really doesn’t work out. Accepting that you’re in a rut, and then both agreeing to put that effort there – that’s sort of exciting and special itself.

Lose the autopilot Sex isn’t a race to the climax.

Foreplay isn’t just a means to get there. It’s not sexy for your partner to keep asking “are you close yet?” By stopping and making sex a means of exploring each other, you lose the predictable feel. Take your time. If, for example, you know the best way to get him hard or her wet – don’t do it. Try other things. Make foreplay a full body experience.

Immerse yourself in sexual education and experiment Sex is an art. No matter how good or experienced you are, there is still no way you’ve explored the whole territory. Read kinky sex guides. Read unusual sex guides that aren’t so mainstream. Take a peek in the Kama Sutra (think you’ve done it all now?). Research new moves, experiment with food,

lingerie, toys and positions. Heard about anal but too scared to try it?

Look into it. You’ve got a safe partner now. Trying these new things is something that many people don’t want to do with a new sexual partner. Now you’ve got steady and respectful Joe or Jane over here, and it opens up a lot of new territory for the cautious people out there.

Get out of the bedroom and off the schedule It might have seemed like a good idea at the time. Your schedules were crazy, you were always on the go ... but sex isn’t like your workout. A workout is something you have to schedule or you just know it won’t happen, and even though you really hate running, it’s good for you so you do it.

Don’t fit sex in that category.

The issue with having sex Monday, Wednesday and weekends at 9 p.m. is that you don’t always feel like having sex Monday, Wednesday and weekends at 9 p.m. You can’t program your body and forcing yourself to do it even if you’re not feeling it isn’t going to make you look forward to 9 p.m. Sex should happen when you feel it.

Listen to your body. Be spontaneous. And get out of the bedroom.

Don’t do anything illegal but ... change locations.

move on you one night instead.

It’s a great gesture; they’re making you a priority, and you definitely wouldn’t expect it when the Canucks are playing, or whatever the case may be. The element of surprise works well – plan something special. Anticipation works the same way – tell her or him you’ve got something sexy waiting for them before their classes. Write a note and stick it somewhere they’ll find, give them a clue that something’s going to go down later.

Reap the benefits of anticipation and surprise: Say your partner faithfully watches the hockey game, or Jersey Shore or even the six o’clock news.

It’s something that you’re not a huge fan of. Imagine your partner flicking off the TV and making a

The rut is a signpost in any longterm relationship – work with it.

You can come up with some pretty exciting experiences with your partner and be stronger for it.

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SPORTS & HEALTH

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

The Baller Awards

Women’s volleyball star Kayla Bruce celebrates while brothers Dalibor and Sasa Plavsic of the men’s soccer team battle out their sibling rivalry.

JASPER MOEDT and PAUL ESAU the cascade Welcome to The Cascade’s first annual Baller Awards! UFV’s athletic awards are yet to be given out, yet we here at The Cascade jumped the gun and decided on what awards we’d be giving (and whom we’d give them to). Some are a little less than conventional, but they’re all stuffed with prestige and glory and fabulous prizes (that possibly don’t exist)!

This year’s winners are ... (drumroll) ...

Female athlete of the year: Kayla Bruce (Women’s Volleyball) Hands down Kayla Bruce.

With no disrespect intended to any other female athletes at UFV, Bruce is the clear winner of this year’s highest athletic honour.

PACWEST Player of the Year and CCAA player of the year, Bruce led her team to a national title after a near perfect season. Seriously, this girl has raised the bar for what is expected from athletes at UFV. Prize: A back massage from Ryan Gosling (Except that’s he’s apparently taking a short vacation from all “Hey girl!” antics.)

Male athlete of the year: Sam Freeman (Men’s Basketball) Not as clear cut as the women’s category, but Freeman capped off a strong five-year career at UFV bringing his undermanned team all the way to the Final Four. Freeman finished the season as the second leading scorer in the Canada West Conference

and was a solid fifth-year leader on this year’s squad. Freeman’s closest competitors for this award were his teammate Kyle Grewal and men’s soccer standout Sasa Plavsic.

Prize: A Purple Heart for being wounded in the line of duty.

Freeman got banged up badly this year, and spent the latter part of the season playing with what we suspect was a fractured rib.

Tough guy, great player.

Male rookie of the Year: Andy Khaira (Men’s Basketball) We had to give this to Andy.

The guy is 26 and came into his rookie year looking to contribute in any way possible. By the end of the season he was playing huge minutes and playing a big role on a team that was a win away from nationals.

Prize: A lifetime supply of 7-11 jalapeno taquitos. We’ll give him all the taquitos he wants, in fact we’ll give him anything he wants as long as we don’t have to play against him.

Female rookie of the year: Kira Tome, (Women’s Volleyball) Starting as a setter is a highpressure job, especially if you are a rookie on the top-ranked team in the country. Tome did a great job of feeding the high powered UFV offence all season long.

Prize: The joy of having the pressure to repeat this season’s performance for the next four years. Anything less than a national championship a year may be considered a slight let down.

We have faith in you, Kira!

The Alexa McCarthy Community Service Award: Alexa Mc-

Carthy (Women’s Basketball) We are going to go ahead and give this award to Alexa. She not only deserves the award but deserves to have an award named after her for all the work she has put into community service and just generally being a better person than us (although we hear she steals paper napkins from fast food joints, so she’s not that much better).

Prize: A once in a lifetime opportunity to do Jasper or Paul’s (her choice) yardwork! Or have Jasper and Paul do her yardwork ... but since she’s such an amazing volunteer we’re pretty certain she’ll pick the first option. Alexa clearly loves giving to those in need so it should be a joy for her to come clean out some gutters and do some gardening because, after all, spring is here! (But seriously Alexa, we love what you’re doing. Keep it up.)

Best Sibling Rivalry Award: Sasa and Dalibor Plavsic (Men’s Soccer) They’re brothers, they’re strikers, their names defy the laws of English spelling, and they both have very sexy hair. Combined, they scored 12 of their team’s 31 goals on the season, while maintaining that classic big brother/ little brother relationship.

Prize: An all-inclusive roundtrip to Wembley Stadium in May for the Champion’s League final.

Let me stress that the prize is one ticket for one trip.

May the best brother win!

Unsung Hero Award: Aaron Pauls (Men’s Golf) The guy had a great year, capped off with a PACWEST

Championship and a League AllStar. He wins this award hands down. Though this guy is generally a ghost on campus he may be the best thing to happen at UFV this year that no one’s ever heard of.

Prize: A giant life-sized cutout of himself to be put in the the lobby of the Envision Athletic Centre. This man deserves recognition and this cutout will stand as an eternal monument to his glory.

Coach of the Year: Dennis Bokenfohr (Women’s Volleyball) Bokenfohr did a great job capitalizing on a season that held such high expectations. This award honours both his recent accomplishments and the exceptional job he did recruiting talent into the program in past years, and helping his team gel. The women’s team’s success this year was a great accomplishment for a great young coach.

Prize: A new pair of dress shoes (with a complimentary shoe-shining courtesy of Jasper). Come on Dennis, you think people don’t notice those Reeboks with your dress clothes? You need to get your swag together! It’s time to upgrade, coach, you’re a national champion after all!

Best Celebrity Look-alike Award: Emmet Campbell (Rowing) This storied and historic award goes to Campbell. In previous years this recipient has flown under the radar, but as the captain of the rowing team he can be ignored no longer. See James Franco, see Emmet Campbell. The resemblance is uncanny. Closest competition for Campbell was

Art: Anthony Biondi

Nicholas Vojnovic with his spectacular Tom Cruise impression, but the routine is not as polished as Emmet’s effortless Franco.

Prize: He looks like a Hollywood actor. The guy doesn’t need anything more than that.

Craziest Twitter Feed: Jacob Kubanski (Men’s Soccer) As far as we can tell, this award is Jake’s hands down. He’s a master of that special subset of humour that bridges the gap between hysterically funny and potentially grounds for a lawsuit.

I’m just going to assume that Michael would laugh and therefore we can laugh too. If not ... Michael, on behalf of Jake and myself I very much apologize.

Prize: We aren’t sure if we should drop his iPhone in the toilet or start paying for his meals.

2012-2013 Breakout Star: Paige Friesen (Women’s Soccer) Paige had an outstanding year on the pitch in her second year as she finished the season with three goals and five assists to tie her for most points on this years women’s squad. Paige greatly improved on her rookie season and will be a player to watch in the Canada West next year.

Prize: The satisfaction of knowing that she is the only athlete to not receive some sort of ridiculous, non-existent prize from this year’s Cascade Varsity Awards!

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SPORTS & HEALTH

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Kraft Dinner: deadly, delicious or both?

MELISSA SPADY CONTRIBUTOR

I can say with a degree of certainty that we’ve all seen that distinct blue and yellow box in the cupboard at one point in our lives. Kraft Dinner is such a staple North American meal that in 2012 The Walrus named it Canada’s national food. Kraft’s macaroni and cheese in a box is infamous, which is why Lisa Leake (100daysofrealfood.com) and Vani Hari (foodbabe.com) decided to target them in their campaign to educate Americans about food dyes and the potential harm of ingesting them.

“Kraft Macaroni and Cheese is an iconic American food product,” said Leake on the Dr. Oz Show. “You’d be hard pressed to find someone who has not had this product at one time or another, and Kraft is such a large food company that we felt they are in the position to become the leader in voluntary removing these dyes in the United States.”

Kraft products in America as well as Canada are currently home to Yellow #5 and #6 dyes.

Derived from petroleum, a chemical involved in gasoline, tar and

image: Hockey media/Flickr

asphalt, these additives are manmade in a laboratory, provide no nutritional value and are only included for aesthetic purposes.

It feels almost redundant to ask: why are they in our food?

Kraft Dinner’s fluorescent orange glow is part of the traditional image that we have grown to love over the years, but is it necessary to include these dyes in order to maintain that image?

Leake and Hari’s main argument

is that Kraft manufactures products without these dyes for other countries that have banned food additives, but still uses them unabashedly in their North American versions.

These other versions use betacarotene and paprika extract to ensure that traditional image of macaroni and cheese is preserved, but what does that do to change our beloved Kraft Dinner?

Leake and Hari posted a video

Men’s soccer can’t defend Keg Classic Trophy in third-place finish

Image: Blake McGuire

UFV men’s soccer competes in the Keg Classic to start of their season.

EMAD AGAHI CONTRIBUTOR

The UFV men’s soccer team kicked off their spring exhibition season this weekend at the annual Keg Classic hosted this year at Vancouver Island University. The Keg Classic features the four CIS teams in British Columbia – UFV, Trinity Western, UBC and UVic. This tournament is a good chance for teams to shake off some rust and start building for the upcoming year. UFV is coming off a season in which the team made major strides towards becoming a contender in the Canada West division, finishing only one point back of the last playoff spot. The Cascades also won last year’s Keg Classic with wins over both Victoria and Trinity Western.

The opening game featured UFV again playing the host, Victoria, in a semi-final matchup. The teams matched up twice during the regular season resulting in a 2-2 draw and a 2-1 victory for the Vikes. Victoria came out firing in the first half scoring two goals within the first quarter of an hour played.

UFV managed to fend off the first half onslaught of chances and went into stoppage down by a pair. There was no scoring in the second half as teams exchanged chances at either end but were

not able to beat goaltenders Mark Village (UFV) and Elliott Mitrou (UVIC).

The loss meant UFV now faced Trinity Western for third place on Sunday.

Matches versus Trinity are always ones that the players look forward to as the teams have developed a healthy rivalry due to their close vicinity. In the 2012 season UFV was 0-2 versus the Spartans losing both games by a score of 2-1.

This time, the game ended in a 0-0 tie; however, UFV must be very disappointed not to have come out on top.

A goaltending change; which saw Jake Kubanski starting, and improved offensive play led many to believe that the Cascades deserved a better result. UFV outshot Trinity 11-3 in the game and if it wasn’t for Spartans goal keeper Andrew Hicks, some of those shots would have surely turned into goals.

UFV head coach Alan Errington has his work cut out for him this coming summer as the recruitment process will be very crucial. The team will be losing graduating seniors Sasa Plavsic, Craig Robinson, and Brian Davis; key players that the Cascades have relied on in big games the past few years. Their replacement will not be easy; however, with the program’s increased success and growth, Errington should have no issue loading up on talent going into the 2013 season.

with their petition on change.org, putting each box to the test. On the original, and later on a Dr. Oz Show segment, it was found the taste and colour to be near identical.

The petition has garnered over 250,000 signatures, all urging Kraft to remove these dyes from their products. Lynne Galia, of Kraft Foods Corporate, issued a statement to the pair, “The safety and quality of our products is our highest priority and we take consumer concerns very seriously. We carefully follow the laws and regulations in the countries where our products are sold. So in the US, we only use colours that are approved and deemed safe for food use by the FDA.” Galia also told MSN moneyNOW that Kraft “also offers 14 varieties of macaroni and cheese that are made without added food colours or with natural food colours, such as Kraft Macaroni & Cheese Organic White Cheddar.” The Centre of Science in the Public Interest has linked these additives to hyperactivity in children, allergic reactions and cancer, and previously recommended the removal of Yellow #6.

Despite these links, there is not yet enough conclusive scientific

evidence to say these food additives and health problems are absolutely connected. On the Dr. Oz Show however, Leake and Hari read emails from concerned parents who have seen a reduction of hyperactivity, skin problems and breathing conditions in their children after removing Kraft and other products with dyes from their cupboards in a few short weeks The debate continues to boil and the defence of choice comes into play. Consumers can simply choose not to feed their families Kraft products after being informed of the threat artificial dyes pose but as Leake and Hari noted in their Dr. Oz segment, there are over 10 different boxes from Kraft that are specificallygeared towards children and none of these are the products without dyes or additives. The issue now delves into the underlying morals and ethical decisions made by a corporation. Platforming on an FDA approval can be seen as a steadfast decision by Kraft to some, but in a changing society it has already caused the business to lose loyal customers and may continue to do so if they don’t change their tune.

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SPORTS & HEALTH

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

In Brust we trust?

TIM UBELS

CONTRIBUTOR

Only a few short months ago, Barry Brust was the talk of the town in Abbotsford. Splitting time between the pipes with Danny Taylor, the two had combined to post one of the best records, save percentage and goals against average in the entire AHL. In fact, Brust himself was breaking records at the AHL level early on in the season. His stellar performance in November broke a professional hockey league record that had stood for 55 years.

The 29-year-old native of Swan River, Man. played 268 minutes and 17 seconds of flawless goaltending, which was enough to pass the previous AHL record of 249:51, established by Hockey Hall of Fame goaltender Johnny Bower, who played with the Cleveland Barons in 1957.

Despite all of this early season success, Barry Brust has struggled mightily since the lockout ended back in January. In the past three months he’s put together a dismal 4-11 record, posting a 3.64 goals against average and a save percentage well below .900 over the stretch of 15 games. Friday night’s contest against the Rockford IceHogs saw him pulled in the second period after giving up three straight goals on only 11

Brust in a February start against the Lake Erie Monsters. shots, summing up his struggles over the past month.

With three goaltenders fighting for possession of the crease on a nightly basis, Brust could see his minutes decreased in Abbotsford, as both Leland Irving and Danny Taylor have posted significantly better numbers than Brust since the lockout ended.

Taylor’s numbers are stellar

The Cascade is now hiring an interim sports editor!

We’re looking for someone to fill in for our six biweekly summer issues published between May and late July.

Applicants must be registered in at least one, three-credit class at UFV during the fall 2013 semester.

Responsibilities include assigning, writing and editing copy for the sports section as required; attending editorial and writers meetings; completing final edits in inDesign.

Please send resume, cover letter and sample sports article to Paul Esau at esau@ufvcascade.ca by April 2 to be considered for the position.

Good luck!

since January, posting a 9-4-1 record with the Heat over that time, while also getting a chance to start at the NHL level for the Calgary Flames twice in the past month. The 26-year-old rookie goaltender posted his first NHL win against the Vancouver Canucks, helping the Flames beat the Canucks 4-2 back on March 3.

Irving started the year as the

Image: Clint Trahan

Flames’ go-to backup, beating out Henrik Karlsson who was traded to the Chicago Blackhawks prior to the beginning of the shortened season. However, inconsistent play at the NHL level and the acquisition of veteran netminder Joey MacDonald caused Flames management to reassess Irving’s status on the team. Since being assigned to the Heat back in Feb-

ruary, Irving hasn’t won many games, going 1-3-1 since February 20, but he as posted some respectable stats. His save percentage over that time is .923 and his goals against average (GAA) stands at 2.21.

With the playoff race in full swing and the seventh-place Heat needing as many wins as they can get against Western Conference rivals, they may need to abandon their system of letting every goalie play and instead start going with whoever’s got the hot hand. Brust, a crowd favourite at the Abbotsford Entertainment and Sports Centre, has indeed fallen from grace in this town and possibly out of the three-headed goalie rotation that Heat coach Troy G. Ward has initiated over the past month.

Brust is undoubtedly working hard with Jordan Sigalet, the fulltime goaltending coach for the Heat. Sigalet will try to help him turn his game around and get another shot in goal with the team during this final playoff stretch.

Coach Ward has never been forthcoming about who he’s going to start in the next game, but if Brust’s numbers over the past few months are any indication as to who’s going to get playing time, it looks as though Brust will be the one taking a backseat during this important stretch of games.

UFV’s Alexa McCarthy honoured with the Sylvia Sweeney Award by CIS EMAD AGAHI THE CASCADE

“Starting at guard, at five-footseven from Chilliwack, British Columbia ... Alexa McCarthy!”

Fans of the UFV women’s basketball team grew accustomed to hearing these words from the announcer this past season. The fourth-year kinesiology student started 19 games for the Cascades in 2012/13 and played in 25 of the team’s 29 games. Her all-around contributions on the court played a big role in the team’s achievement of a 21-8 record. While her team suffered an early exit in the national championship tournament last weekend, McCarthy was still able to achieve national recognition by the CIS at the season’s end.

Each year the CIS Women’s Basketball Coaching Association awards a player with the Sylvia Sweeney Award. This award is given to the player who best exhibits success in basketball, academics and service to the community. This year’s recipient was none other than UFV’s own, Alexa McCarthy. “I was surprised to find out, but [I] really appreciate any time I can represent my teammates and coaches in a positive way,” McCarthy stated on her reaction to the winning the award.

With the time that needs to be put into course work, basketball practices and travel to and from games, the life of a student athlete can be daunting for most. Not for

Image: David Kent/UFV Athletics

Alexa McCarthy sets the standard for student athletes at UFV. McCarthy, who is able to not only balance her schedule to succeed in academics and basketball, but also spend countless hours of her time helping others in the community. Her major involvement in programs such as “Shoot for the Cure,” “Operation Red Nose,” and the “Walk and Knock” food bank drive had already earned her the UFV Athletics Community Service Award three times.

After winning the Sylvia Sweeney Award many more people from around the CIS will now be able to appreciate McCarthy’s efforts. As for McCarthy herself,

helping other in the community is something she feels is necessary to do; the recognition is just a bonus.

“To be honest” McCarthy says, “it seems a bit odd to be recognized for doing things I feel so strongly about and that seem like the right thing to do.”

Certainly she has set the standard in student-athlete accomplishment. Commitment like McCarthy’s shows there is so much more a student can bring to his or her university and community, outside the classroom or the playing field.