The Cascade Vol. 21 No. 13

Vol. 21 Issue. 13

www.ufvcascade.ca

April 10 to May 7, 2013

Responsible living for younger students since 1993

Que saudade!

FRIDAY NIGHT KICK-OFF CELEBRATES BRAZIL AT U-HOUSE WHILE SCIENCE STUDENTS HOST BIG BANG 2013 AT AFTERMATH. PHOTOS INSIDE! p. 10 Your guide to campus carpool options p. 11

What’s behind UFV’s postponement of pro-life event? p. 6

2

NEWS News

Double-tap on politics

Not one but two UFV students have made good in the world of politics. Stephen O’Shea is running on behalf of the Green Party in Abbotsford and Andrew Mercier is running as part of the NDP in Langley. Catch up with them in a double Q&A feature.

Opinion

Arts & Life

What’s the deal with soup anyway?

Disney girls in bikinis

What, is it like a hot smoothie?

An unstrained pasta dish? An unboiled condiment? Dessa Bayrock makes the argument that soup is nothing more than a glorified beverage. Read on and you’ll be wondering why you drink your hot juice with a spoon.

Disney actresses in bikinis comitting acts of violence in a neon, bright and brutal spring break flick? Spring Breakers is drowning in a lot of misunderstood hype. Check out what The Cascade’s film critic Michael Scoular thinks of Spring Breakers.

pg. 9

pg. 15

pg. 4-5

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Sports & Health

Untangling “student-athlete”

Are they actually students first?

How many graduate? How many don’t? This week Ken Esau and Beau O’Neill ask athletes about athletes, and discover that that when it comes to graduation rates, the CIS (unlike the NCAA) actually has no idea.

pg. 18

EDITORIAL

Citation frustration

Most undergraduate assignments encourage conformity to standards of opinion NICK UBELS THE CASCADE

I’m convinced T.S. Eliot had college students in mind when he wrote that “April is the cruelest month.”

Yes, it’s that time of year when my fellow sleep-deprived, caffeine-addled undergraduates are riddled with deadlines and projects once neglected and now looming. The longer hours and sunshine beckon us outdoors but we must stay attached to our books and computer screens.

The comfortless truth, my friends, is that we have no one to blame but ourselves, for these assignments have been on our radar since January. But what’s really on my mind is this question: how many of us are truly interested in the research we’re conducting?

We chose to be here. Shouldn’t the power of original perspectives be compelling us to flood the library during its all-too-brief opening hours?

Judging by the sudden availability of parking spaces at UFV’s Abbotsford campus in recent weeks, I would hazard to guess that this is not the case.

The problem is that undergraduate courses reward stale and unoriginal ideas.

In my years at UFV, I’ve become intimately familiar with the particulars of researching and writing academic papers for humani-

ties courses. From my vantage point, there are two sources that contribute to this disease that is hampering the quality and vigour of our written arguments.

The first is something professors can help to remedy. It can be found on nearly every assignment outline and often looks a little like this: must include at least five secondary sources.

The rigid requirements for citing academic sources shackles students to what has already been said and explored.

Because we are required to cite prior secondary sources in our essays, it is much less work for me to select a topic that countless other academics and undergraduates alike have already beaten to death. In the clock-watching mind of the undergraduate, it becomes so tempting to ditch whatever original or interesting idea we have in exchange for the promise of an ocean of easy-tofind research that supports an unremarkable thesis.

The amount of work that has to go into culling little bits of argument from the range of tangentially-related sources required for an original thesis dwarfs that needed for your run-of-the-mill topic.

I understand the need for evidence. I can appreciate that the requirement for a certain number of secondary sources ensures a certain, minimal standard of research. But the balance is skewed

in favour of the short-term gains associated with boring takes on canonical and institutionallysupported topics.

In order to encourage more original thinking, professors must assert their interest in outof-the-box research questions and find tangible ways to reward students for taking on the extra work required of a truly original topic.

The second problem is something students can help remedy.

And that’s fear.

I’ve been there. In my first years of university, I was reluctant to pursue ideas that were daring or new or unconventional because I feared staking my GPA on them.

The truth is that an undergraduate degree is the time to experiment with ideas and types of arguments. (Unless you’re in Tim Heron’s Milton class. Seriously.

That man has his own 100-page style guide.)

To be clear, I’m not suggesting handing in a series of haiku for your next upper-level Tudor history paper (This seems like a good place to note that The Cascade assumes no responsibility for the grade any paper inspired by this editorial might receive).

There are certain stylistic and academic conventions that do need to be followed to allow for equitable debate.

What’s the worst could happen? You bomb your midterm

paper? Then play it safe for your end of term essay and study like hell for your final. One hundred and twenty credits means plenty of opportunities to boost your GPA. I’ve found the opposite to be true. Professors can see the extra work that goes into an original idea. If you write something that actually sparks their interest, their gratitude for relieving them from the monotony of 30 papers that draw on the same five boring subjects.

Take chances, make mistakes, and draw from different disciplines. Cross-disciplinary pollination yields delicious academic fruit.

By stifling creativity at the undergraduate level, we’re only reinforcing tired ideas at the higher levels of university thought, or worse, disenchanting and alienating our most original thinkers before they get the chance to take full advantage of our institutions of knowledge.

We’re institutionalizing conformity to old ideas and opinions. It’s a problem that will only feed itself until we decide to address it head on.

So as all of us write our last papers of the school year, and some of us put the final touches on our UFV credentials, I urge you to take the academic road less travelled.

You might be surprised what you find.

UPCOMING EVENTS April 10

April 10

April 11

April 13

The launch of the Louden

Last chance to get in on the open mic action

Dude looks like a lady, lady looks like a dude

An AfterMath farewell?

You’ll never take the slam poetry world by storm if you don’t get up on stage. This is the last open mic of the season, so your time is running out – take a leap into PBRfueled bravery and pour your soul out to other musicians and artists this Wednesday. The action starts at 7 p.m. in AfterMath, but if you’re late we won’t even be mad.

Yes, the wildly-acclaimed UFV Pride drag show returns to AfterMath this week, starting at 6 p.m. and continuing in a stately and brightlycoloured fashion. The theme is “Heroes and Villains,” and I know you have a Wonder Woman costume tucked away.

Dress up as the opposite gender for a chance to win prizes but also promote a cohesive, all-gender-loving community.

The pub is closing. I repeat, the pub is closing.

Relax, Max, it’s only for the summer and the dear old campus lounge will be back in the fall. But if you need any last-minute endof-semester liquid courage, do it while you can.

Friday the thirteenth (yes, I know how it sounds) is the last day you’ll have a campus alternative to Sodexo lunch. (PS. We’re all praying macaroni goes on special one last time.)

Before you say anything about the homework you have to get done this week, let me say one thing: free wine. UFV’s literary magazine The Louden Singletree is launching its fourth issue. It holds work from students, faculty, and alumni living among you, and you have a chance to hear them talk about their work betwixt 7 and 10 p.m. this Thursday in A225. (And there will be free wine!)

Front Cover Image: Campus Buzz/www.facebook.com/UFV.campus.BUZZ

Volume 21 · Issue 13 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 Ken Esau, Katherine Gibson, Jeremy Hannaford, Ashley O’Neill, Beau O’Neill, Ryan Petersen, Melissa Spady, Tim Ubels Printed By International Web exPress

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

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

Articles and letters to the editor must be typed.

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

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

3

NEWS

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

AfterMath manager resigns, SUS to re-examine its structure JESS WIND

THE CASCADE

AfterMath will be sporting fresh faces this fall.

With the pub’s summer closure just around the corner, Brad Ross submitted his resignation from the position of AfterMath manager.

Ross came to UFV in the summer of 2011 as part of a SUS attempt to bring the campus lounge back from its license-violating past.

With Ross at the helm, the pub has provided a hangout for hungry students, a venue for multiple student clubs and associations events and as a participating location in Thursday night pub crawls to Finnegan’s.

But Ross says the time has come for him to move on.

A little over a week ago, he accepted a position with a subsidiary company of Sodexo that deals with major fast food chains.

“It’s something that I was offered a few years back, turned down and it became available again,” Ross explained of the

timing of his new position. “This place was closing for the summer ... so it was perfect timing to accept the position finally and move on.”

AfterMath will be moving into the Student Union Building as a full-fledged restaurant once the project is complete, something that Brad was theoretically brought in to see through.

“When I came originally, it was to get that new building up and running; that never really came through in the time I was here,” he explained of the dirt lot between the Envision Athletic Centre and D building. “That’s still going to be too far down the road for me to stay here in a small role; so when the offer came through from this company, it was an easy one to take.”

In Ross’ wake, SUS is taking the summer to look at the service provided by the campus lounge and consider possible avenues for improvement.

“We do want to make sure AfterMath continues to be a place for students to go to,” SUS president Shane Potter explained.

“We’re going to be hiring outside consultants to make sure that we have good direction and good advice on how to make AfterMath a long-term option for students on campus.”

SUS general manager Meghan MacDonald expressed interest in moving toward a more bythe-students, for-the-students method, meaning that more positions could be filled by students in the future, including that of manager.

The summer closure will allow the new SUS board to look at the internal structure of the campus pub and potentially restructure.

“It’s an opportunity to completely reevaluate the service to see if there are ways to improve it,” MacDonald explained. “That includes its management structure and the opportunities it’s providing internally as a service, including students positions.”

Any positions will be posted publicly in time to hire a new face for the fall semester.

Image: Anthony Biondi

Brad Ross is bidding farewell to the AfterMath crew this week.

The tale of unclaimed Impark’s Parker Pete still on campus scholarships

Image: v i p e z/flickr

Six scholarships went unclaimed at UFV last year.

GRIFFY VIGNERON THE CASCADE

Every year $2500 in UFV scholarships go unclaimed because students don’t apply for them. That amount could cover one or two semesters, depending on the program.

It’s not a large amount that go unclaimed at UFV – but every unclaimed scholarship is money that nobody’s using.

Last year, six scholarships were unclaimed out of 400.

These scholarships ranged in value from $250 to $1000, according to financial aid and awards advisor Lorraine Bingert.

When asked why some scholarships are not claimed, Bingert said the answer lies with the donors.

“If scholarship criteria is too specific, it often discourages students from applying,” Bingert explained.

For example, Bingert said, scholarships offered to students in a certain year of a specific program might not get picked up. Scholarships that require

family member affiliations or laddering of certificate programs to degrees were other examples Bingert gave of criteria that was too specific.

In comparison, scholarships with very broad criteria can have hundreds of applicants, Bingert explained.

There are no numbers of unclaimed scholarships as of yet for this year, since awards are not given out until June.

The number of unclaimed scholarships does drop every year, according to Bingert.

When donors have an unclaimed scholarship, they often reconsider their specifications for the next year.

The lesson? When applying for scholarships this year, don’t be discouraged by scholarships that seem too specific.

“We encourage students to apply for scholarships if they [only] meet most of the criteria,” Bingert says.

After all, there’s no harm in trying.

Image: Katherine Gibson

Parker Pete will help you with a flat tire or dead battery, but not with keys locked in your car.

KATHERINE GIBSON CONTRIBUTOR

For students spending thousands of dollars each semester on tuition and textbooks, having to pay each time they park on campus can seem incredibly frustrating and unfair.

On the other hand, Impark also works to ensure those parking within their lots have access to various forms of assistance.

One of the main forms of help that Impark provides is seen through the Parker Pete (PP) program, a service that offers car aid to any individual choosing to park at UFV campuses.

Signs in several parking lots around campus advertise these services and offer a toll-free

number that drivers can call should they need assistance. “‘Parker Pete’ assists any individual whose car has a dead battery, flat tire or those who are in need of a little bit of gas for their vehicles,” an operator working for PP explained.

Despite the fact that other pay parking lots include aid to individuals who have locked themselves out of their cars, or “locked outs,” UFV’s PP program does not include this function. ‘“Locked outs’ is a service that is not covered for parking lots at any [UFV] campus,” the PP operator continued. “Toll companies are reimbursed for their services and the contract between the [PP] toll company

and Impark does not include reimbursement for this [“locked out”] feature.”

The lack of this function is slightly confusing, since advertising for the PP program both on signage and on UFV’s website implies that the “locked out” function is a part of the service – showing icons of a key as well as a gas pump, a sad-faced battery and a flat tire.

However, as the PP operator points out, the applicable functions of the program are clearly written out on PP signage.

Any student in need of PP’s assistance needs only to call 1-877-771-PETE (7383), which is also listed on the Impark signs at UFV’s parking lots.

Image credit correction: Photos from issue 12’s “Men’s soccer springs into action against Albertains” on page 20 and issue 11’s “A day to tell us how smart you are in the words we understand: What went down on Student Research Day” on page 5 should be credited to The Cascade’s photojournalist Blake McGuire.

4

NEWS

IN BRIEF “Iron Lady” Thatcher mourned, but opponents celebrate (Reuters) – Admirers of Margaret Thatcher on Tuesday mourned the “Iron Lady” who as Britain’s longest serving prime minister in over a century pitched free-market capitalism as the only medicine for her country’s crippled economy and the crumbling Soviet bloc.

World leaders past and present, from former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to U.S. President Barack Obama, led tributes to the grocer’s daughter who sought to arrest Britain’s decline and helped Ronald Reagan broker an end to the Cold War. “The world has lost one of the great champions of freedom and liberty, and America has lost a true friend,” said Obama.

While world leaders praised the most powerful British prime minister since her hero Winston Churchill, the scars of bitter struggles during her rule left Britain divided over her legacy.

Canada posts worst monthly job losses in more than four years OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada posted its worst monthly jobs loss in more than four years in March, another sign the economy is struggling to cope with weak foreign markets and a strong Canadian dollar.

Canada shed 54,500 positions in March, more than wiping out the 50,700 jobs that were added in February, Statistics Canada said on Friday. Market operators had expected a modest gain of 8500 jobs.

It was the biggest monthly jobs loss since February 2009, when the economy shed 69,300 positions. The March unemployment rate rose to 7.2 per cent from 7.0 per cent.

Alberta premier takes U.S. Canadian crude accidents in stride WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A pair of recent accidents that spilled Canadian crude oil in the United States is part of doing business in the energy industry and should not prevent the Keystone XL pipeline from moving forward, Alberta’s premier said on Tuesday.

“We have to be honest about the fact that if we do have energy development, there is the risk of really unfortunate incidents,” Alison Redford, whose province is home to Canada’s oil sands, said during a panel at the Brookings Institution.

The Obama administration is expected to decide late this summer on whether to approve TransCanada Corp’s proposed 800,000 barrel-per-day Keystone XL pipeline. The project would connect the oil sands, the world’s third largest petroleum deposit, with refineries in Texas.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Stephen O’Shea, of the Green Party and CIVL radio JOE JOHNSON THE CASCADE

In this upcoming provincial election a new name has entered the fray: Stephen O’Shea.

The former bass player from the band You Say Party, he’s taken up the riding of Abbotsford West. O’Shea sits on the Board of the Devon Clifford Memorial Foundation, he’s a volunteer programmer at CIVL, and is also an organizing director for the annual Jam in Jubilee concert series.

Voter turnout in youth is problematic and getting moreso. How do you go about turning this around?

Well, I think that there’s been a stigma with being young and interested in politics. And even in my own decision to choose to run, I’ve got a sense that young people don’t do that, that’s what old people do.

I think about it in school, you have opportunities with student government, at all levels – in high school and at post-secondary.

But it’s something that old people tend to have the most strong opinions about.

What I can see is that this is sort of the first generation of low ball social media. And so we have a real opportunity to reach people through mediums like Facebook and Twitter. Young people know how to use them and use them very well. It’s not the most important part of my campaign but it’s definitely a part of it and I know how to utilize it from the get-go from my decision to run.

I think if we look at it more and more, and just continue to engage in the conversation ... I know that young people are busy thinking about their careers, not looking at the bigger picture of what our society really looks like or what we want to make it a part of. But I feel like it is our, and young people’s, responsibilities to make an effort to contribute – which is why I chose to run in the first place.

Having been connected to UFV, how has the university affected you? Any people that have helped you along the way?

Yeah, the university has actually been amazing along the way.

It has this reputation as a commuter college but in fact there are so many resources and facilities that are available to all of us.

But what I find, and what has really worked for me, especially with my background of having played in bands and really being passionate about the all-ages music scene, is that the university has facilities. It has AfterMath, it has U-House, it has The Cascade, and it has CIVL as well, so it’s got a lot of great opportunities to foster culture in this town. It can make it a lot better place for university students to create ... they can use these facilities to create a more interesting environment.

One that they say doesn’t exist in Abbosford.

I know that a lot of people say that Abbotsford is boring. I think that if we get organized we can get rid of that stigma of commuter culture and actually make UFV, the Abbotsford campus, an interesting place to be.

Image: used with permission from Stephen O’Shea

Stephen O’Shea is a familiar face on campus, and is starting a political run as a Green.

Having just received your nomination for the Green Party in Abbotsford West, what have you found to be the most pressing issues in your riding?

For me there are three main issues.

The first is the environment, obviously. Throughout all of Abbosford runs a pipeline, the Kinder Morgan pipeline, which has a storage facility on the top of Sumas Mountain which leaked a year-and-a-half ago. And I think it’s a great concern for everyone who lives in Abbotsford, as well where it starts in Edmonton and where it runs all the way to the Burrard Inlet. They want to triple the capacity of this pipeline, but I think that affects us all because it puts us all at risk. And that’s the thing, if a pipeline were to fail like it did two years ago – where does that leave our environment that we all live in?

You know, we have a very sensitive environment and that’s obvious through our Fraser Valley air shed – which is also in jeopardy from the Metro Vancouver waste energy plant that’s planned. It’s hard enough to breathe on a hot summer day out here in Abbotsford with the air quality the way it is, I think if we were to begin burning our garbage it would begin to make things a lot worse.

Another thing that I’m passionate about is social justice issues. Like I said, I am a supportive caregiver for people with developmental disabilities, so I see how they are involved in our community.

And on top of that I am an organizing director for Jam in Jubilee, which works in Jubilee Park, which has sort of a negative stigma in Abbotsford for being an unkempt park. But we throw family friendly events, and we’re trying to create an inclusive environment for all people in the park.

The third thing that I think really affects Abbotsford, and is both connected to social justice

and to the environment, is that we’re on the cusp of a huge urban renewal. I believe that Abbotsford has pretty much grown to the outer edges of its urban sprawl, and I think if we go any further we run the risk of affecting lands that are protected by the Agricultural Land Reserve. And I think that it’s of the upmost importance that we protect this land. As this city transitions from the sprawl that has grown outwards, and begins to develop moving upwards, we have to look at how we’ll impact the environment through density. But also how we’ll affect social justice issues such as poverty and access to healthcare and education. We’re talking about making the inner part of our city more dense and that can lead to more social problems and I think that we need to be highly aware of that moving forward.

There are some major energy projects coming down the line that will have environmental impacts. How do you balance the environmental effects when it comes to creating needed jobs?

The Green Party obviously advocates “green” jobs. That is sort of a blanket statement, and there are many new jobs that are available if we look at alternative energy. I know that it’s easy to say that we can just take the oil out of the ground and that we can look at fracking as options – you know getting the liquid natural gas out of the ground. But those are things that are actually in the ground and we don’t have to necessarily be in a rush to take out.

Here in Abbotsford a major resource that we constantly pull out of the ground is gravel, which we use to make concrete.

You know, it’s there and it exists.

But if we look to preserve the Agricultural Land Reserve, we have these large flat bodies that have winds that spread all the way across them quite strongly. And we can look at wind projects as an alternative.

We also have the coast, which is huge for BC which means that we can harness wave energy as well. The Lower Mainland and Vancouver is known for a lot of rain, but there is a lot of other areas of the province that get a lot of sun, especially up in the North East, which is actually quite flat like Alberta. They get a lot of sun and we can look at the opportunity to harvest solar energy from there, as well.

I know that a lot of people think of those projects and say, “Oh, those are just pipedreams.

They’re not possible.” But this is a part of the reason for running, is to say that “it is possible and we should look at them.” We can’t continue to pull resources out of the ground, and to consider that for every ton of carbon we pull out of the ground that we can just go put it up in the air. That’s not possible.

I think that for the Green Party we’re not looking to change anybody’s quality of life, to diminish it by saying, “No, we can’t have oil.” We’re just saying that if we don’t look at better ways of being smarter consumers and being more educated on how we consume, we might not even have a world left to live in.

The Liberals have announced cuts to advanced education, and ultimately core funding to universities in the amount of $46 million over the next three years. Will the Green Party reverse this?

I believe that the Green Party has intentions to provide more funding for universities. Obviously, post-secondary is huge so I would imagine ... I can’t actually say whether they would reverse it but I imagine they would because I know that the party stands for more funding for post-secondary education.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

5

NEWS

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Andrew Mercier caught the political bug at UFV JOE JOHNSON THE CASCADE

Former UFV student Andrew Mercier has been politically active since receiving his degree in political science. As a Teamster and shop steward at his place of work he’s socially minded, and now with five current UFV students and alumni on his campaign team, at the age of 27 he’s the NDP candidate for Langley in the upcoming May 14 Provincial Election.

Voter turnout in youth is problematic and getting more-so.

How do you go about turning this around?

That’s an important question because the Liberals have just cut funding to Elections BC, and I think this is a pretty similar tactic we’ve seen across the globe with conservative parties. The Republican Party pioneered voter suppression in the United States, which is to make it difficult for people to vote. You cut funding to the independent elections bodies to register people, and then you blanket the air with negative ads, which disengages people and turns them off.

We need to address this issue before it becomes a crisis in our democracy. Right now people who are under thirty vote at a rate of less than 30 per cent, and as soon as one generation passes and that becomes the norm in Canadian society, if that trend is continued, we will have a massive crisis of democratic legitimacy.

If only 30 per cent of people are registered, and only half of that number show up to the polls on election day, which has been the recent trend, you’ll have governments elected with six or seven per cent of the vote.

I hear this at the doorstep all the time when talking to young people. I’ve talked to hundreds if not thousands of young voters – I myself am 27. Usually I hear people’s issues with the political system, and by the time I finish talking with them, the number one issue I hear is “how do I register to vote?” There are more barriers put in place of younger people voting than almost anyone else and what we need to do is ensure that everyone’s registered, because people that are registered to vote are more likely to vote.

What we’ve proposed to do is to lower the age of voter registration to the age of 16, register students in high schools—in social studies classes—so that when they become 18 they’re registered and we’ll start to see those numbers climb back up. And that’s not a substitute, also, for engaging people, which means talking about the issues and not pandering or beating around the bush on questions.

Being a former UFV student, how has the university affected you? Any professors that have helped you along the way?

I started going to UFV in 2004.

I was working full time when I was doing that. It was UCFV back then and I was fortunate to go to it because UFV is a smaller school where you get to really know your professors and you get to forge relationships. A lot of my friends who went to bigger schools didn’t have that. One of my best friends

Image: Joe Johnson/ The Cascade

Mercier is running as the Langley NDP candidate in May’s provincial election. He credits several UFV professors as inspiration. went to UBC and he was always one of a hundred students in the class.

I was very fortunate to study with Hamish Telford in the faculty of political science. Hamish is one of Canada’s preeminent experts in Canadian federalism, which I think is little understood.

So I was very, very fortunate to have that experience. The problem is “how do you build a social democracy in a federal country where social programs are provincial?” I think, it’s something very practical, but it’s something we need to be very cognizant of as social democrats and progressive minded people.

I was also very fortunate to take classes with Ron Dart and ethics courses with Glen Baier, which really shaped a lot of my political thinking. But also the mentorship of Scott Fast. Scott is someone that I still speak with that has been a tremendous mentor in my life – I probably wouldn’t be running if it wasn’t for Scott.

So I think if I didn’t go to the University of the Fraser Valley I probably wouldn’t be as engaged or involved as I am right now.

Since becoming an NDP candidate in September 2011 what have you found to be the most pressing issues in your Langley riding?

People don’t trust the government. I’ve knocked on about 5000 doors. I’ve had more than 3000 conversations with people in Langley. And the number one thing that I hear is that people want change because they think this government has done a bad job. The thing I hear after that is that people aren’t planning on voting because they don’t trust

politicians. And I think people have an intuitive understanding of the way the system is structured.

Right now in BC, in terms of financing political parties, it is the wild west. It is the last frontier. You can take as much money as you want from anyone, and people understand that the process works like this. And they’re disgusted by it, they’re turned off by it, because they understand that essentially what happens in a system where you can take that much money from anyone, dollars become votes. The Liberals had a fundraiser a couple of month’s back where they raised $2 million. They had a very small number of people going because it was massive corporations going in and buying tables.

We need to return to a system where it’s one person, one vote.

And the way we do that is by banning corporate and union donations. I think that’s how we address the democratic deficit that exists in BC politics right now.

There are some major energy projects coming down the line that will have environmental impacts. How do you balance the environmental affects when it comes to creating needed jobs?

We need a government that cares about the environment.

And the only way you can get a government that cares about the environment is to vote for the NDP. The first thing the Liberals did when they introduced the carbon tax was they gave the money back to the biggest polluters in the province. When they introduced the Pacific Carbon Trust, they used that to take money for carbon offsets from schools and

hospitals and give it to their corporate donors, Encana. What we need to do is make the environment a focus.

When Gordon Campbell was premier they signed the Equivalency Assessment Act with the federal government. And what this act did was say BC will no longer have its own environmental review panel to oversee the environmental assessment of big energy projects and infrastructure. So a project like Enbridge doesn’t go through a BC specific assessment, it only goes through a federal assessment and we accept that federal assessment as our assessment.

Now, Jim Flaherty in the last federal budget gutted the federal assessment process. So right now we have a federal assessment process that acts as a rubber stamp, and we’re accepting that as the final say on the environmental cost of energy projects. And that’s not right.

So what we’re going to do within 10 days of forming the government is withdraw from that and recreate a made in BC assessment process so that we can reclaim our jurisdiction over that issue And so that we can evaluate these programs with BC’s interest at mind. Enbridge can’t go through.

And we need a government that’s capable of doing that, because if the BC Liberals get reelected we’ll have the Enbridge pipeline.

The Liberals have announced cuts to advanced education, and ultimately core funding to universities in the amount of $46 million over the next three years.

Will the NDP reverse this?

This has been a problem ever since the Liberals lifted the tu-

ition freeze that Glen Clark put into place in the 1990s. When I started to go to university in 2004 it was possible for me to work part-time and to take four classes.

By the end of it, I was working two jobs and taking three classes because I could barely keep up because tuition had risen that fast within that timeframe.

What we need to do is prioritize education right now. Tuition has gone up virtually every year, and the amount of money you have—or your family has—dictates the level of education you’re capable of getting and your level of success for the rest of your life, and that’s not right. I graduated from university with $35,000 in student debt, and I’m still paying.

Over 50 per cent of my income goes to paying student debt. What we need is a government that understands this problem.

So in terms of advanced ed funding, they’ve projected more cuts in this current budget. But what we’ve said is that they’re projecting these cuts to hide what is really a massive deficit, they have an $800 million deficit. So we’re going to reevaluate the budget when we get in, but one of our top priorities is to make sure there’s financial aid for students.

And that’s why we’re going to put $100 million of revenue from raising the bank tax to 2008 levels into non-repayable student grants.

Not loans – grants, to make sure students are capable of being able to afford an education.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

6

NEWS

Controversy surrounds UFV decision to postpone pro-life event Nick Ubels THE CASCADE

A pro-life presentation at UFV scheduled to take place tonight has been postponed by the university. Members of Life Link, the student club responsible for the event, contend that it has been cancelled by the administration.

The group invited Michael Schouten of WeNeedALaw.ca to speak in favour of a law banning sex-selective abortions in Canada.

In an April 8 press release, Life Link president Ashley Bulthuis framed the dispute as a censorship issue, asking “[w]hy has the university suddenly disregarded its commitment to free speech in regards to the gendercide and abortion issues?”

Last year’s Life Link president Rebecca Groen echoed these sentiments, citing a successful debate the club held last year with attendance of over 100 students as evidence that the university’s security concerns are not legitimate.

Ashley Bulthuis said that the organizers were asked to meet with Student Life manager Jill Harrison on Thursday to discuss some new concerns about event security.

“She told us ... that protesters were planning on coming,” Bulthuis explained, “that there probably wouldn’t be enough time to put up security for that. So that was our first contact with her and we left with the understanding that it would be somehow worked out to have the event.”

Despite her optimism about the event following the meeting with

Harrison, Life Link received an email from Student Life on the following day notifying them that the event would not be allowed to proceed as planned.

Anastasia Pearse, western campus coordinator for the National Campus Life Network, a nationwide organization that Life Link belongs to, provided additional details about their take on the dispute. Pearse explained that delaying the event so late in the semester was the same as cancelling it, since it will be difficult to reorganize before most students leave campus for the summer.

“I feel that there could have been time to work with the university during that time frame, but their solution was to just cancel the whole event,” Pearse said.

“Being the end of the semester, there’s no chance to reschedule until September, and that’s effectively cancelling the event.”

Press releases from the National Campus Life Network have complained the decision was “illegal.” Elaborating on this, Pearse explained that there is no UFV policy that provides grounds for the postponement.

“They have no legal basis ... to cancel the event,” she said.

In light of Conservative Langley MP Mark Warawa’s motion 408, recently deemed “undebateable” in Parliament, Pearse is unsatisfied with the option to postpone the event for long.

“There is a bit of urgency sharing the message given the political goings-on,” she added.

While Life Link and its affiliates have framed the dispute as

a censorship issue, UFV officials have cited security concerns.

Preliminary planning sessions between the club and the university began in March, but according to VP students Jody Gordon, the university had not been notified that the event would include an external speaker and external advertising until, “late last week.”

According to Life Link president Ashley Bulthuis, full details of the event were not provided when the room was booked in March; she emailed Student Life programmer Martin Kelly on April 2 with the name of the speaker and further information about the planned event.

Gordon also cited security concerns over a planned protest that was brought to light by UFV’s Student Union Society on Friday.

“Due to the short notice, we did not have enough time to do a fulsome risk assessment to ensure the safety and security of our campus community and external visitors,” Gordon wrote in an email response to The Cascade’s questions.

“UFV did not cancel the presentation,” Gordon concluded.

Life Link has sought legal counsel from the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) who issued a letter to the university requesting that they reverse their decision to postpone the event.

JCCF has advocated in many controversial freedom of speech disputes, including other conflicts between anti-abortion groups and universities across Canada.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Looking for more?

THE CASCADE also lives

ONLINE! visit

ufvcascade.ca Facebook.com/UFVCascade Twitter: @ufvcascade

SCIENCE ON PURPOSE

Black hole wakes from dormancy and eats a planet ASHLEY O’NEILL CONTRIBUTOR

In a galaxy 47 million lightyears away, a black hole has woken from between 20 and 30 years of inactivity to engulf a passing planet.

Astronomers observed this event in Galaxy NGC 4845 through European Space Agency’s (ESA) integral space observatory, with follow-up observations from ESA’s XMM-Newton, NASA’s Swift and Japan’s MAXI Xray monitor on the International Space Station.

“The observation was completely unexpected, from a galaxy that has been quiet for at least 2030 years,” said Marek Nikolajuk of the University of Bialystok, Poland, lead author of the paper in Astronomy & Astrophysics and quoted on the ESA’s website.

Astronomers were observing a different galaxy when they noticed activity elsewhere in their field of view. They saw a bright X-ray flare coming from what they later confirmed as the NGC 4845 galaxy, a galaxy not generally known for such high-energy emissions. The emissions were traced back from its highest peak in January 2011, when the galaxy brightened before slowly subsiding over the last two years.

After analysing the character-

Image: newsfiber.com

Hey, black hole. What do you want for lunch? A planet? Okay. Sounds delicious! istics of the flare, astronomers determine the high-energy emissions came from material around the galaxy’s centre black hole tearing apart and consuming a passing planet.

Astronomers speculate the planet was 14 to 30 times the mass of Jupiter. This size corresponds to brown dwarfs – planetary bodies that are not big enough to fuse hydrogen in their core and ignite

into stars. Some astronomers think the planet could have had a lower mass—just a few times the size of Jupiter—placing it in the gas-giant category.

The black hole at the centre of NGC 4845 is estimated to have a mass 300,000 times that of the sun. The way the energy emission decayed since January 2011 suggests that the planet suffered a slow demise.

Ronald Walter of the Observatory of Geneva, Switzerland, told ESA that “this is the first time where we have seen the disruption of a sub-stellar object by a black hole.”

Walter’s team estimates that only the outer layers of the object were “eaten” by the black hole, which would be around 10 per cent of the object’s total mass.

This would leave a denser core to

orbit the black hole and eventually be consumed, too.

“Estimates are that events like these may be detectable every few years in galaxies around us, and if we spot them, Integral, along with other high-energy space observations, we will be able to watch them play out just as it did with NGC 4845,” said Christoph Winkler, ESA’s Integral project scientist, as quoted on the ESA website.

Free-floating planetary-mass objects are not uncommon in galaxies and are usually ejected from their parent solar systems by strong gravitational interactions.

This event gives astronomers more information about what happens to different types of objects as they encounter black holes of varying sizes.

A similar event is predicted to happen to our own galaxy in the near future, perhaps even this year. While there is not a brown dwarf or gas-giant on the menu this time, a gas planet a few times bigger than Earth was observed spiralling towards the black hole.

This planet too will face its inevitable fate soon, and astronomers are staying tuned to see how this planet reacts when being sucked into a black hole.

www.ufvcascade.ca

Curtailed commentary on current conditions

SNAPSHOTS

7

OPINION

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2013

Melissa Spady

Nick Ubels

Katie Stobbart

Anthony Biondi

Congratulations, you’re a dick

Clever girl: de-extinction now possible, but reckless

Wireless connections

I can’t see the purpose behind fake frames

I was fully prepared to write about open sneezers this week (people who don’t cover their noses/mouths when they sneeze), until something even more infuriating happened to me. I replied to a friend’s post on Facebook about a potential job opening and instead of a normal conversation about the details, I was met with an offer to be paid for sexual services from someone I don’t even know. The shocking part was that instead of being backed up, I was met with a barrage of derogatory statements from two other unknown males intending on making me feel bad about not accepting the offer with a flirtatious remark and a winky face.

“Missy is soooooo mad,” a patronizing bird chirped at me after I pointed out the problem in their words. I think my least favourite thing about engaging in conversations like these is that they wouldn’t even grasp the issue if I felt compelled to waste my breath – they think they’re entitled to speak to people in that way.

Do we really live in a society where this is not only an acceptable, but a supported behaviour?

If so, I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.

Hold onto your butts.

Twenty years after Spielberg’s adaptation of Jurassic Park, this month’s National Geographic has been turning heads with its cover story: reviving extinct species has made the leap from fantasy to reality.

Those cowboys already fantasizing about outwitting raptors in an inevitable dino-pocalypse can hand in their badge and gun; candidate species must have died out much more recently than your garden variety T-Rex. Scientists need more genetic material in order to successfully carry out the procedure, which draws on recent advances in cloning.

However, the number of years since the species’ extinction not only increases the degree of difficulty but also the risk.

Re-introducing extinct species could have unforeseen and devastating effects on a local ecosystem’s delicate balance. There are endless historical examples of transplanted species, particularly in colonial settings, wreaking all kinds of havoc on local flora and fauna.

The impulse to restore species destroyed by humanity is a noble one, but the complications of unleashing these species into the wild are prohibitive. It’s fighting carelessness with more carelessness.

Progress must be guided by a thorough, ethical consideration of the expected consequences and the awareness that every new feat comes with a set of unexpected side effects.

The opened box cannot just as easily be contained. Like the sage Dr. Ian Malcom says, “life, uh ... finds a way.”

If you’re a frequent internet user (and who isn’t) you may have noticed that the wireless access on campus leaves much to be desired.

School computers do have steady access to the internet if you’re able to nab one, but for people like me who always seem to hit the library or the labs at peak periods, bringing a laptop or other internet-ready device is a more mobile and attractive option. Except for one thing.

The connection times out ... all the time. It’s not as bad if I’m accessing it from my laptop; I just have to not close the screen to relocate, or close the internet window.

But if I’m using my phone to access the internet, I have to sign in again every time I get a text message or phone call. And the “Web Authentication Redirect” never seems to appear automatically. I always have to go there manually, and sometimes it doesn’t work, so I spend five minutes trying to access that page.

Sometimes I’m on campus and I have to Google. I have to check myUFV, or the number of that room – which one again? Is it so much to ask for easy-to-use, don’thave-to-sign-in-eight-times wireless access?

My perscription is somewhere around -4 in both eyes. My left eye has an astigmatism and I have to go in for health check-ups to test for glaucoma every six months.

If I had the choice, I’d throw my frames in the trash and never look back. They’re cumbersome and require constant maintanence. So when I hear about this new trend of healthy-eyed people wearing glasses for fashion, it bothers me a little.

Isn’t wearing glasses to look fashionable akin to rolling around in a wheelchair because it’s fun? It is exploiting a disability for personal enjoyment, while people bound to that disablity have no choice but to deal with its reality.

I mean, sure, I could find it flattering that having glasses is now the new fashion. I suppose it inadvertaintly makes me hip, but that is only for a limited time. Fashion has a way of moving on and leaving old fashion in the dust.

Overall, I just feel that men and women wearing fake glasses is an insult to those of us who have no choice. When they are sick of them, they can take them off and be no worse off. For those of us with perscriptions, however, we are required corrective contacts to even emulate those without frames.

To me, it just seems that fashion needs an eye check. It’s time to stop exploiting disabilities.

Image: photoscott/flickr.com

Livin’ la vida Cosmo

Why Men’s Health and Cosmo’s relationship advice is hilarious when it isn’t terrifying and sad NICK UBELS THE CASCADE

I recently started browsing a sub-Reddit called ShitCosmoSays.

It brought me back to one of my favourite grocery store pastimes: covertly glancing at the contents of an array of salacious glossies near the checkout. They’re always good for a laugh or two, and this way I’m able to check out a curated list of some of the best of the worst without having to leave the comfort of my own home.

The sub-Reddit’s posts are pretty self-explanatory – users compile some of the most ludicrous relationship advice in everyone’s favourite trashy mags and posts snippets for others to ridicule and chuckle about.

Take this gem, from the Cosmo article “Six Signs You’re Probably Getting Friend-Zoned” by Carson Griffith. “Chosen Communication Method: Text,” it reads. “Not sexts.

Just texts. It’s a sin our generation shares (for a multitude of unknown reasons, we find it hard to actually-

gasp!-talk on our telephones), but you barely know what his voice actually sounds like on the phone.

Guess who else doesn’t? His buddies. (Just sayin.’)”

Wait, what? Let me get this straight. If your potential romantic interest happens to choose text messages as their preferred mode of communication, not just with you, but with everyone important in his or her life, that’s a sure sign that they’re not actually interested in you? My head hurts.

I don’t know any of my friends who have the guts and/or the free time to spend chatting on the phone with the same frequency they will text a potential mate. In my experience, a steady stream of texts from someone hardly rules out a romantic entanglement.

Here’s another piece of comedy gold from Cosmopolitan’s hallowed pages. This time, it’s lousy advice disguised as a quiz question: “When he says: ‘I really like those shoes.’ What does he really mean?”

These are the only possible an-

Image: DBarefoot/flickr

Cosmo offers endless fodder for Reddit’s ShitCosmoSays. swers readers have to choose from: “You look weird,” “Can we have sex later?” and “I’m in so much trouble. I’d better make nice.”

How about we happen to fucking like your shoes and thought it would be nice to compliment your style?

To be fair, the male equivalent of Cosmo, Men’s Health, doesn’t fare much better when it comes to relationship advice. In “7 Signs She’ll Be Good In Bed,” Men’s Health advises selecting a compatible part-

ner based on their preference of ice cream flavour.

I like raspberry and you like French vanilla? Don’t call us, we’ll call you.

As I read page after page of similarly ill-fated advice, my laughter began to turn to sink into an overwhelming sense of sadness and fear. What if some lonely soul in search of love or sex actually takes this stuff seriously?

I can only imagine the sheer amount of batshit crazy that would transpire if two dedicated read-

ers of each magazine happened to get together. In order to relight the flame, she would answer the door in nothing but pigtails, but feel slighted because his toes happen to be pointed anywhere but directly at her. He’d suspect her of cheating because she changed her hairstyle.

It’s impossible to fit the endless complexities of human sexual relationships into such weirdly specific boxes. It’s a one-size-fits-all approach, but one rendered in such bizarre and counter intuitive detail that the bulk of it couldn’t possibly apply to most of our experiences.

These sort of “tips” encourage nothing but serial over-thinking and a constant drive to decode rather than discuss with your partner. As awkward or fraught as it can seem, open communication is the only way to foster a healthy relationship.

Shutting the door on discussion? That’s a sure-fire relationship killer.

8

OPINION

OPINION

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Misuse of language widespread and troubling KATIE STOBBART THE CASCADE

I know there are others like me out there. People who can’t stand to see a misused semi-colon, or who experience a deep, visceral horror when they spot that unmistakable spelling error in bold all-caps type in the middle of a campus bulletin board, standing out as a symbol of the slow, painful death of the English language. Perhaps this reaction seems extreme. If not, there may yet be hope for one of our main methods of communication, the written word.

This is a widespread problem. I spot grammatical errors, spelling errors, missing words and improper punctuation every single day in menus, advertisements, newspapers, creative works, professional and legal documents, informative pamphlets, essays and labels on a variety of products.

In one case, I purchased a package of stickers from a company selling scrapbooking supplies, and three quarters of the stickers with words on them were spelled incorrectly. (The company did send me free stickers when I complained ... but the new stickers also contained spelling errors.)

So what’s the big deal? Why are

a few spelling mistakes important?

The main reason is that those mistakes completely undermine my faith in the person or organization making them. If I have not met a person, and (s)he is giving me information, the words they have written are my first impression of their intelligence and credibility.

For example, if I receive an email supposedly from my telephone service provider, and many of the words are misspelled or there are significant grammatical errors, my first impression tells me that the email is spam. If I see that a government organization can’t string a proper sentence together or proofread for accuracy in its newsletter or pamphlet, it doesn’t inspire my faith that the organization is capable of carrying out its functions.

The occasional spelling error or typographical mistake is not a huge issue; I’m talking about consistent and really inexcusable errors. How many times does a person have to be taught how to spell “piece” or whether (s)he should use to, two or too? This stuff starts in the first grade. It gets corrected time and time again. I don’t make a habit of trusting people who are incapable of learning from their mistakes, so how is this any different? And it

Image: Vanessa-michelle/flickr

Can’t we all just learn how to use the English language properly? doesn’t stop: I’ve seen third- and fourth-year English majors make these errors. People are still unsure of when to use a period versus a comma. Do we forget how to add 2+2? (And while I’m on the subject of math, it’s not possible to “minus three from seven.” The word is subtract. Minus is not a verb.)

In a perfect world, people would take a grammar and spelling test in order to enter post-secondary studies or the workforce. It doesn’t

say much for our education system that I can’t go a single day without spotting at least one, but usually multiple errors. What will communication look like on that day when the majority of the population has decided that it isn’t important to do something well, as long as the gist of the message gets across?

I’m not just talking about spelling; I’m talking about apathy. Who cares whether something is right, if my doctor or lawyer or teacher

doesn’t know how to write? Who cares how language is used or misused?

Rita Mae Brown tells us that “language is the roadmap of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going.”

So when I see that bold error in capital letters, I can’t help but wonder: where are we going?

Pit bulls take their turn in the dog house GRIFFY VIGNERON

THE CASCADE

A pit bull in Chilliwack mauled an eight-year-old girl a few weeks ago. The news coverage of this awful incident has reminded the public of its trending fear of the pit bull dog breed.

Pit bulls have become the scapegoat of the dog world. Ask anyone what dog they think is the most aggressive and they’re most likely to claim it as being the pit bull.

Media coverage has loudly fed into this belief. Wikipedia holds a list of fatal dog attacks covered in the news from 1988 to 2013. A majority of fatal attacks covered by the media from 2004 were from pit bulls. Before that however, pit bulls are not shown to be the ones involved in the most fatal attacks.

Of course, this coverage is by Wikipedia. It’s only a basic summary, and the list is not nearly all inclusive. But searching through news databases shows similar results.

Before pit bulls, other dogs had their time being considered the most aggressive. Rottweilers trended as the most aggressive before pit bulls, as did German shepherds.

Media tends to cover what’s trending, pushing these dog breeds to the forefront as aggressive. Not all dog attacks receive coverage.

There’s also a problem looking only at fatal or more seemingly brutal attacks by dogs. Bigger stronger dogs are obviously more likely to cause fatal or more serious damage than an aggressive smaller breed.

They are more likely to therefore end up in lists of fatal attacks or in the news for their brutality.

A study done by the University of Pennsylvania found the top three dog breeds that attack or bite the most are actually smaller breeds— dachshunds, Chihuahuas, and Jack Russell terriers. Most people don’t consider these breeds the most aggressive probably due to their size.

Image: Mel1st/flickr

When it comes to pit bulls, the fault is not in the breed, but in the treatment of the breed.

It’s not usually a huge deal if a little dog is biting you. Unless of course you’re an infant. And fatal attacks on infants have been caused by these breeds.

That’s not to say that smaller breeds are more aggressive than

larger breeds. All in all, dogs are initially bred from wild animals.

Any animal is liable to act on instinct from time to time. If something flashes quickly on the edge of a dog’s vision it might attack based on instinct. A dog might re-

spond to a human’s actions as being threatening, when the human didn’t intend it to be so. And so on.

People are not always very familiar with dog behaviour, and dogs can’t speak to tell us.

It is important to make note

though, that some individual dogs may have a particularly aggressive nature. Individuals that is, not whole breeds.

Some owners may train a dog to be aggressive to be tough. Other owners may abuse their dogs, causing the dog to be fearful. Fearful dogs are more liable to lash out in a protective manner. Because pit bulls are seen in the public’s eyes as aggressive dogs, some people who want tough dogs may buy them and train them to act as such.

It is also true that the trending of an aggressive breed may lead to individual dogs being bred to be aggressive. Some people want a tough or aggressive dog for their image, or for various other reasons.

Breeders can take advantage of this to make money.

Once the breed is thought of as aggressive, breeders may select dogs that are more aggressive to breed. The idea being that this trait will be inherited with a successive breeding of previously bred aggressive dogs.

Of course, it would be ridiculous to assume that all breeders do this.

And it’s also silly to assume that those aggressively bred dog genes would dominate the breed’s gene pool. Many breeders only sell fixed dogs, or ask more for dogs that are breeding quality.

An aggressive nature is not an inherent trait of the pit bull breed.

It’s an exaggeration by media coverage that’s spread in pop culture.

Those that are bred to be aggressive might be fine with the right handler. Those that are friendly may become vicious out of fear of an abuse owner. Neither shows a fault in the breed, but faults in handling and perhaps in some breeding practices.

Pit bulls are not an inherently aggressive dog breed.

www.ufvcascade.ca

Programming education NADINE MOEDT THE CASCADE

The philosophy of the “first year experience” in which students have the opportunity to exercise curiosity and expand awareness is one that UFV nominally supports.

It’s a period of one’s life dedicated to exercising curiosity, a time of exploration and discovery; ideally, first year students have the opportunity to shop around and discover different areas of interest, before fully situating themselves in a program.

But what is the reality? It seems many students are punished if they are not ready to be streamlined into a program of their choice. In fact, more and more, UFV expects its new students to be readily “programmed,” having selected and declared a program path before they’ve taken the time to shop around. Or, in another meaning of the word, “programmed,” like a computer: a machine or robot, intent on certification, focused solely from the very start on battling its way into the job market. Because if you aren’t already with the program—if you expect to be able to take your time and learn about yourself while selecting a variety of subjects to delve into—expect also to be forever waitlisted as a general studies student or undeclared major.

This dilemma for the student could kill the love of learning before it takes its first breath. Your fate: being stuck in the most basic and boring of mandatory first year courses, unable to register for a class that you are genuinely interested in.

Statistics Canada reports a drop-out rate of 30 per cent among first year university students. This reflects the uncertainty of that period of one’s life; as you enter university, you are not only trying to determine a career, but also trying to differentiate yourself and find a passion. In other words, fall in love with learning.

A high drop-out rate should not

9

OPINION

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2013

Image: MStewartPhotography/flickr

Waitlists are hurting new students’ university experiences. be taken as collateral damage; it’s an opportunity that the university is missing out on by not allowing students a chance first to steady themselves in university life.

This is an issue that is to some extent out of the university’s hands; the lack of funding given to universities provincially reflects our government’s lack of respect for education and higher learning.

But UFV does have a say in the student experience. While we may have began as a a community college reaching out to community

members and allowing anyone, whatever their academic background, to enter the institution, things have changed. With UFV’s switch to a university status, this philosophy has to be modified. A more competitive entry could be considered among other solutions.

Students who are not streamlined and committed to being programmed should not be penalized for their indecision, but rather should be facilitated in their desire to explore.

What else is a university for?

Letter to the editor

UFV accused of censorship; Cascade “stinks” Just received this note from a rather liberal friend: “I’ve read the Cascade a few times, years ago, and I was absolutely shocked at the content and the language. Not because such things can be printed in a magazine as I do believe that there is the right to print such crap, but that it is printed by a University and by the journalism students. Most of the writing in the Cascade had absolutely nothing to do with University studies or responsible living for younger students and was the absolute lowest journalism I have ever read. And I was very accustomed, at that time, with having to regularly read my kids’ elementary school-level offerings.”

I’ve read with amazement the choking off pro-life messages at other universities, and now this cheap feigned outrage at ‘offensive material’ has come to UFV. The Cascade is spread liberally all over every UFV campus. While it may con-

tain good literature on occasion, that is not the norm. It most certainly contains foul, filthy and degrading words and images.

That seems to be a badge of honour for the newspapers of places of ‘higher learning’, but surely to then meouw about the mere possibility that pro-lifers may offend or hurt feelings, shows UFV to be really biased and totally unfair.

I think the Cascade stinks most of the time, but surely if you allow such filth, you cannot shut down the prolife message. Not even if it should display photographs of what was once real live human babies who have been killed within their mother’s wombs.

That is the real truth you (UFV) want to suppress. ~Gerda Peachey

EDITOR’S NOTE: Contrary to Peachey’s email, The Cascade is an autonomous student newspaper, which reports directly to the student members of the Cascade Journalism Society, not the University of the Fraser Valley.

Let us know what YOU think!

Letters to the editor must be under 400 words and submitted to editorinchief@ufvcascade.ca A maximum of one letter per student may be submitted for each issue.

A warning against soup DESSA BAYROCK

THE CASCADE

Soup is trying to trick us all.

In all likelihood, soup has graced your dinner table for years. The friendly Campbell’s soup cans line our pantry shelves and lend their contents to casseroles and lunches.

But despite reaching a sort of idolitry through the love of Andy Warhol, I am sorry to report that soup is not food.

Soup, if anything, is a beverage.

In the same way people keep telling me that coffee does not count as a meal, soup clearly belongs in the drink category of the nutrition pyramid.

Vegetable broths are suspiciously close to warm juice. “Oh, no!”

I can hear you say, rushing to the defence of your lunchtime cup of soup. “Soup is much different than juice! It has pieces of vegetables in it!”

Well, so does a bloody Mary. Is a bloody Mary a kind of soup?

I rest my case.

Apart from vegetable soups,

Let us all recognize the truth of this drink parading as food: soup is glorified hot juice. chicken noodle soup is basically noodles that someone has forgtotten to drain the water out of.

Creamy soups are basically savoury and hot smoothies.

Here’s a joke for you: what’s the difference between ketchup and tomato soup? Ketchup has been allowed to boil a little longer. If you want to argue against it as a bever-

Image: jfcherry / Flickr

age, I could easily retort that soup is basically a condiment. Go ahead and dip a grilled cheese sandwich in there – I guarantee it’ll be delicious.

Don’t get me wrong, I love soup.

There’s nothing better when forced to bed with a flu or a hangover.

But you know why it performs so admirably in such circumstances?

Because it’s the only thing a person can keep down when they can’t handle real food.

I don’t know how many more ways you want me to say it – soup is fake food. It’s like a diet scheme from the ‘80s that tricks consumers into drinking flavoured water as a meal replacement. That’s all soup is! Flavoured water!

Rise up, fellow citizens of the lunch room. Demand that this age of soup trickery come to a close!

Don’t let this beverage-in-meal’sclothing pull the wool over your eyes any longer. Order a sandwich to go with that soup and revel in the substance you will receive. After all – if beer isn’t a meal, then I don’t believe this dishonest hot juice should be either.

10

FEATURE

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2013

friday night’s alright for ... events!

www.ufvcascade.ca

Friday Night Kickoff travels to Brazil

The only way to capture just what happened at the Brazil-themed Friday Night Kickoff at U-House last weekend was through a series of photos.

Friday Night Kickoff Images: Campus Buzz/ www.facebook.com/UFV.campus.BUZZ

BIG BANG 2013

BEAU O’NEILL CONTRIBUTOR

What’s the active chemical in fun you ask? I don’t know, but on Friday night there was plenty of revelry at the Big Bang 2013, the second annual end of year event hosted by the combined associations of the Biology and Chemistry, Physics and CIS students.

The night was a success with several hundred people coming and going, maintaining a general level of packedness at

campus pub AfterMath. There were delicious free appetizers— sausage roll segments and pizza triangles—that went well with the cheap Pabst on tap and the exquisite peppermint tea. Prizes were given out for trivia answers and to lucky contestants who entered into a draw. Luckily the rain held off from the overcast sky so everyone could enjoy the seating set up outside next to the spirits stand and balloon-hat station. The main attractions were the three bands that played to a grooving audience.

The evening began with a bang from Derrival, a lifted mix of a band that sounds like a less intense Battles playing through a Grizzly Bear filter. They were very good at what they played, and provided a good start, even if they’re name invites at least a few jokes. Until the next day when I saw their webpage I was sure they were a German import, Der Rival, on tour of the West Coast a long ways from home.

But no.

Coming on stage next were local legends Harma White, who

Big Bang Images: Beau O’Niell

rocked the crowd with their mix of classic rock and blues, alternating covers of the White Stripes and the Allman Brothers with their own fast-paced pieces. The geeks that were jamming the pub to the gills seemed to enjoy this intrusion of hipness into their world of bases and aldehydes, adding some acid into things.

After Harma White came No Island, a band I actually missed because there was a lack of information around the place and

I was sure the event was over. I almost left after Derrival to be honest, because there was no program schedule, but that’s a minor criticism of the well put together gig. No Island, if you’re interested, is a jazzy romp with such hits as “The Waiting Game” and “House of Cards,” both of which are very tight pieces written around interesting rhythms and cynical themes of failed dreams.

It was well put-together, with a great turnout.

11

FEATURE

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Need a lift? A guide to UFV’s carpools Getting from ABB to CEP

by KATIE STOBBART

Transportation between campuses: the facts

Katie Stobbart Transportation between UFV’s main campuses in Abbotsford and Chilliwack is an issue for many students, and—barring a long bicycle ride—has always required access to a private vehicle.

A recent Student Union Society referendum resulted in the implementation of a shuttle bus between the two campuses beginning next fall, so students will have three different transportation options: driving alone, carpooling/ridesharing and rapid transit.

Approximate cost of fuel based on engine type: round-trip between ABB and CEP Not carpooling Carpooling

4 cylinder hybrid 4 cylinder 6 cylinder 8 cylinder 0

2

4

6

8

10

Cost of Fuel in $ Based on $1.29/L

• Post your name, schedule, and contact info • Easily view who needs and who is offering a ride to or from campus • Found in Abbotsford's G building and CEP's A building

• Enter a trip and search for matches • Requires registration with a UFV e-mail • Sponsored by the Jack Bell Foundation with funding from BC Transit and Translink

Tested: only four posts are currently on the board.

Bulletin Board on Campus

Did y ou know …

You can get a UFV Carpool Parking Permit with a minimum of three students carpooling?

It costs $150/semester, so $50 each student.

ridejoy.com

Tested: 4 rides covering a one week at varying times from A bbotsford to Chilliwack

CARPOOL OPTIONS

UFV Carpool

rideshare.com

• Recently established in February • Facebook page created, www.carpoolufv.com • Detailed research on financial, environmental benefits of carpooling specific to UFV

• Enter a trip and search for matches • Requires registration with any e-mail • Focus of website is on long trips (over 50 miles or one hour), not on commutes

Tested: found zero results for rides wanted or offered in either direction.

Daily costs and emissions per student

TRANSIT

10

8.41

8 6 4

4.73 3 1

2

2.8 1.58

Parking Cost ($)

10-12

Fuel Cost ($)

trips per day

35

CO2 Emissions (kg)

0

seats in transit shuttle

0.72 0.31

0 Drive

Carpool

Transit

Fuel cost for “drive” and “carpool” based on 4-cylinder vehicle. Transit “fuel cost” is calculated using daily cost of U-Pass and shuttle fee. Transit emissions per person based on CO2 (kg)/km divided into 35 passengers (shuttle capacity).

“Our group’s agenda is to create a network resource for those that have an interest in carpooling.” – Ryan Morris, UFV carpool club president “If 750 students were to participate in this program, travelling from UFV Abbotsford to UFV Chilliwack, driving a 6-cylinder vehicle, overall CO2 emissions would be reduced by 1,620,450kg per year.” –UFV Carpool

75%

33.8km

savings with

ONE WAY

three carpool friends

$6.75 fee per semester

12

ARTS & LIFE

CROSSWORD

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Phobias you can’t run from ACROSS

4. Maniaphobia (8) 8. Linonophobia (6) 10. Zemmiphobia (3, 5, 4, 3) 11. Olfactophobia (6) 12. Sitiophobia (6) 13. Nomatophobia (5)

by KATIE STOBBART

LAST WEEK’S Answer Key Across 3. LADYFINGER 4. BUTTER 8. PEANUTBUTTER 9. MACAROON 11. GINGERBREAD 12. SNICKERDOODLES Down

DOWN

1. Symmetrophobia (8) 2. Geniophobia (5) 3. Xerophobia (7) 4. Apeirophobia (8) 5. Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia (4, 5) 6. Panophobia (10) 7. Domatophobia (6) 9. Meteorophobia (7)

1. FORTUNE 2. BISCOTTI 5. SHORTBREAD 6. GINGERSNAPS 7. SUGAR 10. OREO

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

Gemini: May 21 - June 21

Libra: Sept 23 - Oct 22

Mercury cautions that all relationships, if taken to an extreme, can be unhealthy. He strongly recommends you end your sordid love affair with caffeine and make new friends.

The alignment of Saturn (as well as the fax message he sent) denotes that you should be spending more time and effort on that special someone in your life. If that just happens to be your cat, then so be it.

Mercury indicates that any difficulty you may experience in the field of romance might be to a lack of allure. Try getting a new haircut. We hear that Flock of Seagulls haircuts are becoming all the rage again.

Pisces: Feb 19 - March 20

Cancer: June 22 - July 22

Scorpio: Oct 23 - Nov 21

Venus and Uranus confide together and conclude that it’s time for you to try something new to spice up your love life.

Venus whispers of true love found in unexpected places. Incidentally the second annual drag king and queen show is happening this Thursday at AfterMath.

Mars declares that your bold nature requires no weak second half. Incidentally you will apply for a restraining order for yourself stating that you must be at least 100 metres away from yourself at all times.

Aries: March 21 - April 19

Leo: July 23 - Aug 22

Sagittarius: Nov 22 - Dec 21

Saturn says you should not be so easily corrupted by all these spring-induced affairs.

Shave your head and become a celibate hermit in the mountains.

Venus states that you should break free of your dreary winter wardrobe and fully embrace the bright and vibrant colours of spring. The added bonus of this look while attracting other is they will be temporarily blinded by your neon day glow ensemble.

Taurus: April 20 - May 20

Virgo: Aug 23 - Sept 22

Capricorn: Dec 22 - Jan 19

Neptune states that before you are able to love others you must first love yourself ... and stop collected cat tchotchkes, which will also help.

Mercury and Uranus foresee a rut in your love life unless you change your environment to a fresh start. It should be noted that Hong Kong does excellent dim sum.

The rotation of Pluto suggests that you should find your own creative spark by writing erotic literature to sooth your lustfilled soul. Bonus points if you can work in a Doctor Who reference or a meringue pie.

Jupiter boldly declares that love does not come to those who wait. You must go forth and announce your true intent to all who catch your fancy. He challenges you to profess your love to the next five people that catch your fancy.

13

ARTS & LIFE

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Discussions Below the Belt

Hormonal birth control: a guide LADY ORACLE

Sex Prophet

The first time I went to my doctor to get a prescription for birth control, he told me that he didn’t think I should be going on birth control unless I was “100 per cent ready to get pregnant.” I was sitting there thinking, yes, that’s why I’m asking you to give me birth control. To get preggo.

Of course, I was already uncomfortable enough with him asking me about the length and heaviness of my period that I didn’t say anything. I’m sure what he was trying to say was, don’t have sex unless you’ve thought about what you’re going to do if the worst happens.

That’s a valid point. But I don’t believe you have to be completely ready to be a mother just because you’re going on birth control – there are more options than that.

For young women, fertility rates are very, very high. It’s crucial to be responsible for your birth control. Pregnancy will turn your life upside down – even if you don’t choose motherhood, adoption or abortion can be very traumatic

physically and emotionally.

There are lots of options. It’s often recommended that you use both a condom and another form of birth control – that way, you have back-up if the condom breaks or you forget to take a pill.

Firstly, there are two overarching types of birth control: permanent and reversible. Permanent is essentially surgery – tubal ligation or a vasectomy. I won’t dwell on those options, because it’s not ideal to make such a huge decision when you’re so young.

But here are some other options to consider. The reversible side of birth control can be divided into two categories: hormonal and nonhormonal.

I’m going to talk about hormonal, because it is the most common and, arguably, reliable form of birth control for females wanting to control their own use of birth control.

Hormonal includes oral contraceptives (the pill), the Depo-Provera injection (the shot), the Transdermalpatch (the patch), and the Mirena Intrauterine system (IUS).

These forms of birth control are so

effective because they release estrogen and/or progestin into your body, essentially tricking your body into thinking it’s pregnant.

According to Health Link BC, this basically causes your cervical mucous to thicken, not allowing the sperm to pass through, as well as thinning the lining of your uterus so the egg cannot be implanted.

The Pill There’s a number of different types of birth control pills. They contain doses of estrogen and progestin. Basically, you take one pill a day, around the same time of day, for your whole cycle. They are 99.9 per cent effective. Pills most commonly come in packets of 28 pills— one for each day of your cycle—or 21 to allow a week’s break before starting another cycle of pills. There are pills that are made without estrogen, with progestin only, for women that medically cannot take estrogen. These pills are only 90 per cent effective. The side effects of pills vary – some women experience nothing, others experience intense mood swings, nausea, bloating or weight gain, and headaches.

The Shot The shot is a high dose of progestin that your doctor gives you once every three months. It prevents your ovaries from releasing the egg. It is, according to Health Link BC, 99.7 per cent effective. The downside of having it last three months is the side effects—which you won’t know will affect you until you’ve had the shot—will last the whole time, and if they’re bad, it’ll suck. The most common side effects are weight-gain, spotting, depression, headaches and unwanted hair or hair-loss. However, if you don’t have the side effects, you won’t have to worry about taking a pill at the same time everyday.

it does come off, re-applying it or another one within 24 hours will remedy the situation, and you can keep on the cycle. However, some women find it irritates their skin.

It is 99.7 per cent effective (again, according to Health Link BC). The patch has the same possible side effects of the pill and other hormonal methods that have estrogen and progestin.

The Patch The patch is applied anywhere on your body (besides the breasts, because it has hormones); you apply it once a week for three weeks, then on the fourth you don’t use it for your period. It releases estrogen and progestin into your bloodstream. The patch is designed to stay on the body, so it falling off shouldn’t be an issue – although if

The IUS The Mirena is a T-shaped device that is placed into your uterus by a physician; the procedure can be as quick as five minutes. Is releases progestin in low doses (because it’s releasing it directly into the uterus). It’s 99.99 per cent effective when put in properly – you might want to continue to use condoms for the first month in case it moves around. It can be left in place for five years, and can be easily taken out. According to WomensHealthMatters.ca, unlike the copper IUD, the IUS reduces menstrual flow. Its side effects are less than other hormonal methods because of its low doses – the IUS is safe, small and effective.

ton could move the player to one position (a) and releasing it could move the player to another position (b). Included in this could be that the player rotates when the button is released; this could allow a single button to control, for example, a tank that turns when it stops, allowing the player to wait until the tank is facing the direction they want to go before pressing the gas button again.

The same article also used examples of different ways a single button can be used to allow a player to jump – citing six main examples. At the most basic, a player presses the button and a jump occurs, with nothing happening differently when the button is released (Donkey Kong). As the article moves through the six levels, the complexity increases.

Releasing the jump button can trigger the character to fall faster the floor, or it can allow the but-

ton to be pressed again for a double jump (Super Smash Bros., Castlevania, Devil May Cry, God of War).

There are even games that allow you to hold the jump button for varying purposes – either to add additional height to a jump the longer you hold it (Mario), or to allow you to “charge” your jump for more height which only occurs when you release the jump button (Spiderman).

Although this might sound complex, the point is that a single button can make a big difference.

As game designers find the space to be more creative, they can experiment and refine their control schemes.

While some games will always rely on numerous buttons, there is something exciting about a game that dares to strip away the distractions and complexities, focusing instead on doing one thing really well.

Cascade Arcade

The difference a button makes JOEL SMART

THE CASCADE

Have you ever tried to play a game only to become bogged down with the complex control scheme?

Maybe it was a game with intense controls—like a sports game, a real time strategy game or a role playing game—or a game that relies on heavy memorization of “moves” like a fighting game. If so, you’re not the only one. More and more, game designers are looking into alternative control schemes to make them more accessible – and more compelling.

For Adam Hearts and his friend Steve, the solution arose as joke in the middle of the night – a fighting game controlled with just two buttons. The objective, to jump into the air (with one button) and then do a diving kick (with the

other). By pressing that latter button when you’re on the ground, your character will dodge away from their opponent. Those are the only controls in their upcoming game, Divekick, coming to PSN this summer. There are no complex combo moves where players need to press “up, up, right, down” to deliver the killing blow, and therefore no need for inexperienced players to mash the buttons in an attempt to outwit their more practiced friends.

Yet the gameplay remains competitive and strategy more apparent than ever – especially since it takes just one connecting dive-kick to win a round (and five rounds to win the match). While the game also features a kick metre that, when filled, allows players to press both buttons at the same time to perform “special moves,” these appear not to be the main focus of the game and

can be turned off if players prefer the game in its more minimalist form.

Many games in the past have used primarily two buttons. Early games were often designed to function with a “dial” and a single button. Pong functions simply with a dial. However, many of these games were constrained by the hardware available at the time, rather than the deliberate choices of a designer. It’s this thoughtfulness that intrigues me about Divekick.

It reminds me of an intriguing Gamasutra article from 2005 called “One Button Games” that delved deeply into the potential uses of a single button to control a game.

For movement, a button press could move a player and releasing it could stop. Or, a press could move the player right and releasing the button could move the player left. Or, pressing the but-

Wine, literature and visual art at the Louden Singletree launch SASHA MOEDT

THE CASCADE

Ever wonder where to go to see UFV’s creative writing and visual art students come out of the woodworks? Try the Louden Singletree launch.

The fifth anniversary launch of UFV’s literary and visual arts magazine takes place April 10 on UFV’s Abbotsford campus. Artists will read and exhibit their work and guests will be treated to raffle prizes, refreshments and— most importantly—complimentary copies of the new issue.

Nicole Christian, webmaster of the Louden Singletree board, said what she’s really looking forward to is “sharing the final product with everyone at the party, particularly those who are being published.”

Having the final product is an

admirable achievement, though being on the Louden board isn’t all rainbows and lollipops.

Christian explained that work began early in the year, with advertising. The board had a booth at orientation (they were the ones with the free corn and condoms that said “Read. Get laid.”). They did class visits to encourage people to submit and to become readers.

The readers are the volunteer students who first respond to the submissions – giving it a “yes” or “no” response, with a reason why. The Louden board held a few meetings to teach the readers what to look for. A single piece would move to three readers, and the ones with the most “yes” votes would move onto the shortlist, then to the final list if the board approved.

The process, Christian said,

took almost two months, lots of meetings and discussions over pieces. The board is helped by faculty members.

“Andrea MacPherson has been with us throughout the year to offer advice, encouragement and occasionally deadlines,” Christian explained. “We’ve also had advice from Leslie Poh and help from Linda Dahl with the website. All three have been invaluable to us.”

The Louden board was pleased with the number of visual arts submissions this year. “Not only did we push for a significantly larger amount of artwork than any year previously, but what we received in return was a very dynamic and fascinating collection,” Christian said. Last year, the number of visual arts submissions was approximately nine – this year, the Louden received 50.

“The challenge was that we had few volunteer readers for Visual Arts (VA),” Christian said.

“Those who did volunteer have my great appreciation since they accepted an intense workload and were extremely punctual with responses.”

As pleased as the board was with the improvements in VA submissions, the Louden board wants to encourage an even greater diversity in pieces. “Next year I would love to see more plays and monologues in the magazine,” Christian said. “While we made a point to visit theatre classes, we had few actual submissions.

The Louden is a great outlet for creativity, and being published is wonderful for anyone’s writing portfolio; I really hope theatre students will start to take advantage of the opportunity as they become more exposed to the magazine.

The Louden launch will be an event to celebrate all the efforts of the artists, readers and board members. Nicole Christian said she’s looking forward to share the polished and complete issue with the artists.

“One of the perks of being the webmaster was informing those who were selected that their pieces would appear in the magazine,” said Christian. “The response was always excitement, so I feel especially honoured to get to share the issue with them at last.”

Christian said that the launch is going to be a little more formal this year, with a program of readers and even wine.

So come out to room A225 on the Abbotsford campus, from 7 to 10 p.m. on Wednesday, April 10.

You’ll meet UFV’s finest artists, and the people that published them.

14

ARTS & LIFE

Book Review

After Visiting Friends: A Son’s Story

by Michael Hainey

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Dine & Dash

Donair Top disappoints 45641 Lark Road, Chilliwack 604-846-7669 Hours: Mon to Tues 11a.m – 5 p.m.; Wed to Sat 11 a.m. – 8 p.m.; Sun 11 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Prices: Food ranges from $6 – $10

DESSA BAYROCK

THE CASCADE

DESSA BAYROCK

THE CASCADE

Michael Hainey’s father is dead.

It’s quick. An aneurism, the doctors say. Open and shut case.

Hainey, our author and protagonist, is six at the time. Skip ahead 35 years, and he’s become a journalist like his father.

Three decades may have passed, but his curiosity still bothers him – so Hainey begins looking into his father’s death.

The facts don’t add up.

Records are unclear about where, exactly, his father died.

One obituary says he died on the street, and another “after visiting friends.” But who were these friends? Was it murder? Was his father having an affair? And who’s covering it up – whatever “it” is?

Our protagonist is resolute, unstoppable; he dives 30 years in the past without a backward glance, climbing his own family tree in a search for details. It is a son’s search for a father combined with a newspaperman’s need to fill holes.

There is no live action, and the stakes should be fairly low – the father, after all, has been dead for over 30 years. Somehow there is still an urgency to the quest, a unyielding purpose that drives Hainey and the story forward.

Stylistically, the book reads like a newspaper feature; short phrases and sentence fragments populate the chapters. It’s a newspaperman’s sense of how to convey the facts—briefly, and quickly—applied to an emotional journey. The resulting language is concise and beautiful – stark, simple, and emotive.

Hainey is cautioned by several of his father’s friends to explore the layers beneath any facts he digs up. After all, the fog of memory paired with industry-wide alcoholism provides a rose-tinted recollection at best – and few will be willing to remember things as they really were. The reader tags along as Hainey grapples with a cold trail and veiled descriptions.

Newspapermen stick together, and none of his father’s friends are willing to spill the beans.

At the core of the book lies the contrast between the black and white facts of historical record and the colourful narratives of Hainey’s day-to-day interactions with the living. He may be looking for his father, but Hainey also

finds himself drawing closer to his family of the present – cousins, nephews, divorced aunts and the adopted family of his father’s graduating class.

The search for an unknown dead father, ironically, results in a strengthened relationship with his mother. Their interactions are quiet, minimalist and often placebased. She takes him to the cemetery, the old sandwich shop, the lunch spots his parents used to frequent in their youth. These innocuous daytrips frame the story, grounding Hainey in the scenes where his parents fell in love, setting the scene for his father’s death and posing even more questions.

How much does his mother know?

And what kind of man was his father?

He finds the truth behind the title phrase “after visiting friends,” and this would be an easy place to end the story. We have the truth, after all – what else do we need?

But this is real life, after all, and Hainey has to decide what to do with the facts now that he has them. Should he tell his family what he’s discovered? Does his mother know the truth, or will he break her heart by telling her what really happened?

These are the simple questions, but there are large ones standing behind them; what power does the truth truly have? Will this death continue to define the Hainey family, or is it possible to move on from tragedy – no matter the circumstances?

On the last page of the book, Hainey recognizes what the reader has seen from the periphery all along. It doesn’t matter.

“Here I am,” he says, suddenly struck with the revelation. “A son who went looking for his father, and found his mother.”

It’s a wonderful story, exploring the interesting parts of the past and the immediacy of the present.

Where some leaps in timeline can leave a reader confused, Hainey ties the book together naturally and skillfully, treating the reader as a friend and confidante, recording the sort of confessions that happen late at night when everyone else ought to be asleep. It isn’t a book so much as a conversation, and when you close the cover with a sigh it’s more like hanging the telephone back on the hook. For a minute you, too, were part of the Hainey family – and the closure is both intimate and personal.

I consider myself a little bit of a donair expert.

For those of you not familiar with the food type, a donair is basically a pita filled with slowroasted meat (beef, chicken or lamb) and a variety of vegetables (tomatoes, lettuce, bell peppers) topped off with a selection of sauces (from Caesar to tzatziki to sweet). The result is basically a sandwich in packet form – hot, delicious and often messy.

It was with great sadness that Chilliwack lost its beloved and long-time donair provider over Christmas. Peggi’s Donair began downtown, moved to a location on Vedder road around 2009, and found its last home on Lark avenue, just a block away from its former location.

Peggi’s Donair had it all – cozy location, fantastic food, experienced cooks and the welcoming presence of Peggi herself. But the move to a larger and more outof-the-way location on Lark was a death sentence for the café; it closed up shop for good a little over six months ago, selling the equipment to another restaurant entrepreneur.

The result is Donair Top, which took over the location that Peggi’s abdicated. My grieving period for Peggi’s over, I thought I’d give it a try. I can always whip out to Ab-

Image: make up infusion

Donair Top fails to impress, especially compared to Peggi’s Donair. botsford’s Donairo’s if I’m in the mood, but the idea of having a closer-to-home option is also appealing.

Unfortunately, I was sorely disappointed.

With any new restaurant, I think it’s only fair to give it a couple of months to get into the swing of things before passing judgement on it. Despite the fact that Donair Top has been open three or four months now, the atmosphere and service seemed like we were visiting on the first day. The woman who took our order was flustered and not 100 per cent sure how to put together a donair. A friend I went with was undercharged but then shortchanged, and the food was simply uninspiring.

I ordered the maritime donair, which is the equivalent of a Halifax donair elsewhere – beef, tomatoes, onions and sweet sauce. It’s a simple but delicious combination, and usually is a pretty good test of donair quality.

There was something essential missing from this donair. The meat was bland instead of flavour-

ful, and the contents weren’t wellmixed – I felt like I was working my way through geological layers of onion, tomato and meat one by one.

With a specialty food shop like a donair place, the restaurant has to really nail that specialty food. In this case, the elements are all there – but they’re still figuring out how to put them together. The donair wasn’t bad – it was just a little too similar to what I would build in my own kitchen.

Donair Top also offered fries and poutine, which were decent, but are honestly available anywhere.

The gravy on the poutine was scalding, but the cheese appeared to be chunks instead of curds and had a hard time melting.

I think I’ll give them another six months or so and head back again, to see what the difference is when and if they become more experienced. For now, however, I highly recommend passing on Donair Top in favour of some other establishment.

Haute Stuff

Music festival fashion JASMINE PROCTOR

Fashion doctor

For all you music junkies out there, you know what the end of semester brings: endless amounts of music festivals. Whether it is across the border at ones like Coachella or Sasquatch, or lowkey venues here at home, the coming of warmer weather is a definite signal of the festivals fast approaching. So for those of you going, here are a few ideas on how to look stylish for the occasion with what I like to call music festival fashion.

Now depending on the music genre you’re most interested in, you could be wearing different outfits to different venues. It all depends on who’s in the lineup, really.

Likewise, you want to take into consideration the weather conditions when putting together your look. Don’t wear a crop top and maxi skirt if it’s going to be pouring buckets. Dress accordingly, my friends. With that being said, remember to wear comfy shoes (heels are a no-go) and a hat of some sort, to keep you from getting overheated if the tempera-

ture is high. As well, sunglasses are a must, especially if you’ll be in the sun for the entire festival weekend (or weekends, in some cases).

If you’re more of an indie or alternative rock fan, you’ll definitely want to be wearing something upbeat with a little bit of edge. Look for pieces that are distressed, studded or even acidwashed. My recommendation would be some high-waisted jean cut offs with a cropped band tshirt. This look works because it’s casual and comfy, yet it still has that rock feel to it. You could even play up the look with some funky accessories, like a spiked headband or some bangles.

For all you hip-hop lovers out there, you want to be funky.

Think street style: beanies, bright colours and hightop shoes are all a big must. Don’t be afraid to wear loud prints, cheeky graphic tees or out-there sunglasses. Hiphop is all about being different, so why not channel that vibe with your outfit? You could even add some costume jewelry to add a little extra to the look.

When it comes to more folk style music, light and flowy is

the way to go. You want to seem effortless and natural, so try a neutral maxi dress or skirt, alongside a basic floppy hat. These all have that earthy, bohemian feel to them, which is perfect for this type of music genre. I would even do a neutral maxi skirt with a black and white striped crop top or tank top, just to bring a little structure into the outfit. Accessorise with anything brown and rustic to complete the look that is both airy and grounded.

Wanting something you can wear to all venues? Try keeping your outfit basic, but on trend. A comfortable, light-weight sweater in a solid colour, tucked into a high-waisted skater skirt can act as a great basic look, which works for all types of concerts. To spice it up, put on a straw fedora and some gladiator sandals, plus a cross-body bag to hold all of your things while you’re on the go.

Remember: festivals are no longer just strictly about the music; fashion is a major portion, too.

It’s a time to play with colours and textures, and to express yourself through music’s influence. So have fun with it!

15

ARTS & LIFE

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Film Reviews

Spring Breakers MICHAEL SCOULAR

THE CASCADE

For some reason, Spring Breakers has accrued a reputation for wildly divergent reactions based on one’s familiarity with the work of Harmony Korine and the level of accessibility he’s associated with.

Those drawn because of names (Selena Gomez! James Franco!

Vanessa Hudgens!) will be disappointed. Those expecting spring break forever will end up shaken.

The entire idea of a film being some degree of accessible as a certain label is hardly worth taking seriously. Whether observing fantasy or life, any viewer should be able to “access” exactly what’s on the screen – there is no sudden barrier because of elliptical editing or unexpected divergences in plot. But there is a difference in period in life in seeing something – whether someone has matured beyond the point of caring about initial highs and lows of party culture and material aspirations or is someone who can’t yet know their beginning and likely end.

Spring Breakers isn’t a movie to only shock, or even stick a knife in the side of an idealized escape, but a movie that is of periods, morphing between what is carefree and caring. Whatever the impression from reactions may be, Korine’s film strongly suggests a caring about the people turned caricature of a distanced-by-nature culture, and a sadness left by the irreparable trustless violence of the weeks and months that add up to “we have to get out of here” and “I don’t want to end up like them” without any idea what “here” and “they” are.

Korine sets up an easy way in – for Spring Breakers’ main group of four, there is a division between those who it is possible to set the early scene with ignored civil rights lectures in favour of oral sex on spring break illustrations (Ashley Benson, Vanessa Hudgens) and an innocent in voiceover like a modern voice-to-text Linda Manz (Selena Gomez). They are the fashions of neon multi-hundred-dollar shoes and bikinis and the ethos of die young, live forever.

They reveal themselves through language. A sentence worth saying is in infinitives and now-normative hyperbole. Everything is a joke (except not everything). They know

how to project as many emotions as they know. When the voiceover is a call home, it’s not innocent, (or at least it doesn’t want to be,) and knows how to posture to make the idea of innocence impossible (until it is no longer posturing). And Korine cuts between this and its celebration on the beach and in hotel rooms and its ramifications after the high and between the surges and drops of period-appropriate Skrillex. It is here the allegation might come that Korine is applying too forcefully a moral sense.

To cut between spring break and a spiral of violence is manipulative in a fraudulent, not artistic way, and has nothing worth listening to.

But there is no physical violence for more than half of Spring Breakers. This turn is not there to feel offended by for most of the movie. Skrillex’s contributions to the soundtrack have low key moments too, merging with Clint Martinez in a comedown way, but what is most apt and fits with the way Spring Breakers lets go, is in the violence in thoughtless action, or action that actively forgets (“just act like it’s a movie” – and she means an escapist one), the careless threats of inexact language married to free moods, and the appropriation of music, materials, anything across any lines so long as it comes to me. Acquisition, value, pleasure,

The Sweeney JEREMY HANNAFORD

contributor

The Sweeney is a film that was released in the UK last year and has finally come to DVD here in North America. It is based on the popular British television series from the mid 1970s. It is about “The Flying Squad,” a division in the police force that specializes in investigating armed robberies and catching the culprits in the act.

The term “Sweeney” was a nickname for the squad that came from the Cockney rhyming slang Sweeney Todd meaning Flying Squad.

The show was known for its gritty realism in how the unit carried out arrests which were often violent if not borderline illegal. The show gave interesting arguments to the ideologies of police brutality and whether or not it was effective and possibly even necessary.

The film’s main character Jack Regan (Ray Winstone) is a hardedged and incredibly stubborn detective in charge of the Sweeney. He implores his brutal tactics within his team by having them use baseball bats to disarm a bunch of robbers in the opening scene. His brash tactics have high success rates but they also get the unit into hot water with the courts.

So enters in Internal Affairs officer Ivan Lewis (Steven Mackintosh), the guy who wants to crack down on Regan’s brutality and get him kicked off the force.

You’ve seen this arc many a time before in cop films. Stuck-up bureaucrat against stuck-up hard-asnails cop. You already know who comes out on top.

The essence of the television

Sweeney was that sometimes, people need to get their hands dirty if they want things done right. But what happens when the people on the receiving end are wrongfully accused? The film adaptation does offer this question briefly and it brings the movie to a slow but intriguing halt. It dips into areas similar to films like Zero Dark Thirty or Rendition. Where do the

boundaries lie in the world of torture or brutal investigation?

Innocents—however misleading they may be—are still innocent and the repercussions can be devastating when the law is proven wrong. But before the impact settles in, it turns out that those innocent people are actually bad and everything is okay again.

With my own father originally

money, art and possession interlocked – “this is my shit.” This is not an argument for maturity, but a carefully observed depiction of a definition. Korine does not detach, but surrounds, replays, submerges in the—whatever it is—of an obsessive search for happiness – “I feel like I’m finally who I was supposed to be.” To be above a line like that is to laugh at it, but to be the one saying it is to believe it and understand—so thought—every single word and its meaning.

“Perfect” would have to be the dominant word besides variations on “fuck” in Spring Breakers. Vacation, escape, this friendship, that experience, that experiment, was, is perfect. A film is the medium for taking moments, recreating them, making them last forever. Korine’s swaying, re-reeling images and sounds count parties and the moments that need to be preserved and continued among their captured.

But Spring Breakers is not that way – even in the opening drinksplashed nudity there is the knowledge this can only last a matter of minutes—seconds—and something else is going to happen, through movement, cutting, and it will be different.

In Spring Breakers, every act takes place in a time – late capitalism and its privileges, the moment right before pre-meditated knowledge crumbles, a scan of success immediately dated. Even denial only lasts so long. What keeps revolving is the bass, humming and waiting, of music unmade, and gunshots on the soundtrack – punctuation that barely changes, yet keeps its presence, undiminished by recurrence.

from Britain, I have seen my fair share of British television dramas and I’m not just talking about Downton Abbey. In every show I saw, one pattern that became apparent to me was that the main character was always a stubborn git. Their methods were crude, selfish and egotistical. Even when they seem completely in the wrong, they continue the macho facade.

But all of a sudden in the final 10 minutes, everything falls into place and it turns out they were right all along and everything they did that should have gotten them suspended or fired is completely forgotten.

This extremely odd story arc runs like clockwork in The Sweeney.

This film isn’t trying to hammer home any deep meaningful message about police brutality. It tricks you into thinking it might, but it just turns out to be another cop flick. It still can be an entertaining watch once you take away any impact it might have had. It however doesn’t do the original show any justice. In a province where the police seem to be scrutinized for every little thing they do, it is interesting to imagine if a unit such as the Sweeney existed in British Columbia. The news and police haters would have a field day.

16

ARTS & LIFE

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Q&A: Uncle Jesse GRIFFY VIGNERON

THE CASCADE

CHARTS

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Girl Dracula Garbage World Slates Vérité BOY Mutual Friends Gianna Lauren On Personhood

Maylee Todd Escapology

Shuffle NICK UBELS

ONCE AND FUTURE CIVL DJ

In Aaron Levy’s abscence, Nick Ubels’ affiliations with CIVL made him the best substitute candidate in the office. Nick is the outgoing Cascade editorin-chief and may be co-hosting Afternoons at The Cascade with Dessa Bayrock in the near future. Stay tuned for “newsaper on the radio.”

“Give my regards to Mr. Potter”

Digits Only Affection

METZ Dirty Shirt b/w Leave Me Out

8

B-17 Wishing Won’t Make It So

9 10

Bloodshot Bill So Blue The Dragstrip Devils The Dragstrip Devils

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Phoenix Bankrupt!

John Reischman Walk Along John

The Hold Steady – “Stuck Between Stations” This song was the inspiration for the name of the CIVL music show I once hosted. Wild, literate and treading a fine line between Bruce Springsteen’s verbosity and dramatic flourish and Hüsker Dü’s hard midwestern edge, this is The Hold Steady at their rollicking best.

Bruce Springsteen – “No Surrender” Speaking of The Boss, here’s my favourite cut from his blockbuster 1984 record. “We learned more from a threeminute record/ than we ever learned in school” pretty much sums it up.

Diamond Rings Free Dimensional

The Jackson 5 – “Never Can Say Goodbye”

Cellos Bomb Shelter

[Insert joke about how long it took for me to finally graduate.]

Pissed Jeans Honeys All Out Panic Pig Hayden Us Alone Suuns Images Du Futur

Game Theory – “Waltz the Halls Always” UFV’s halls might be a little less lonely and bleak if you add a little sway to your step. Eighties American alt-rock icons Game Theory know a thing or two about looking for beauty in the mundanity of day-to-day life.

Uncle Jesse is a Fraser Valley hardcore punk band consisting of Daryl, Ben and Caleb. According to the band, their genre is best described as outsider or avante-garde.

I got the chance to interview the entertaining group about their origins, inspirations and plans for the future before their recording session which will take place next weekend. Once recorded, their music will be available on their page unclejessesucks. bandcamp.com.

Where does the name Uncle Jesse originate from?

Daryl: We watch a lot of TV, and we were just sitting around just trying to think of stupid names. If you’re going to be a band, [your name] doesn’t even matter. There’s a band called Korn, [and] there’s a band called Limp Bizkit. They’ve sold a lot of records, those guys. I got into a John Stamos kick and I was like, “Dude, let’s call our band Uncle Jesse.” Then I remembered that there’s [also] the Uncle Jesse from the Dukes of Hazzard. That’s two uncle Jesse’s that are awesome, and we’re going to be the third one.

How did your band get together?

Caleb: I got a cheap drum kit to just practice.

Ben: I moved into the place where he was living ... and he brought his drum kit over.

Daryl: We’d known each other for like two years already at that point.

Ben: Then we just sorta started jamming.

Daryl: And then sat in a basement for a year telling each other it wasn’t good enough.

Caleb: It was horrible. The way that it actually happened was our friend had a birthday show. We weren’t actually originally going to play that day, but [Daryl and Ben] had a different band that was supposed to play. [Unfortunately] the drummer screwed off.

Daryl: Well, he was working.

Caleb: They texted me randomly. It was like “Dude, you gotta come here. We’re going to practice, we’re going to write a set and we’re going to play tonight.”

And I was like, “no, screw you guys. Just definitely no.” I ended up showing up anyway, and we wrote four 30-second songs.

How would you describe your music?

Caleb: We were actually just arguing about this.

Daryl: It’s just insanely fast and loud.

Caleb: [We try] to do as much or as little, depending on the song, in a short amount of time or a long amount of time. It’s like the calm before the storm [with] the storm in the last ten seconds.

Daryl: Our songs consist of [about] a minute and a half to 45 seconds of slow melodic intros. Then 10 to 15 seconds of just shrill intense chaos.

On that note, what kind of animal would you compare your musical style to?

Daryl: You know what it would be? On Avatar, the bear-grizzlymoose thing, when it’s the little baby one and it gets stuck ...

Ben/Daryl: and when the mom comes in!

Daryl: So like an angry mother moose bear/grizzly.

Caleb: It starts out when you just see the cute little one but then somewhere near the end the big one comes out.

Ben: The big one comes in and messes things up.

Daryl: A baby moose bear that transforms into an angry mother moose-bear.

So it’s kind of like the life cycle?

Ben: Yah, the life span of a moose-bear is a song by Uncle Jesse. Definitely.

Where do you get your inspiration for your musical style or lyrics for what you have written?

Ben: Most of the lyrics we are just sort of nonsense we think of.

Daryl: Ben does lyrics in Japanese.

Ben: I just scream out “tacos” in Japanese, [and] how much I love them.

Daryl: I’ll just find somebody that’s in front of me that I don’t think something awesome about, and just scream at them. You can’t really hear what we’re saying anyways. I mean you can hear it but you can’t understand it.

Ben: It’s the perfect place to vent out. It’s like your venting out in the company of people you enjoy the company of. It’s much more cathartic then just yelling at the walls or something.

What future plans do you have for your band?

Daryl: Write and record and play shows. We just want to take over the world.

Caleb: Short tour, couple recordings, taking over the world ...

Ben: ... opening for Lady Gaga next year.

Caleb: Small leaps, baby steps ...

Daryl: Producing a Paul McCartney record!

So are you aspiring to greatness, or are you content with being more local?

Ben: As it is, were not doing this so we can become superstars or anything.

Daryl: It’s so we can get in there [with] all of our friends. We can grab them and scream in their faces, things that we like about them or dislike about them. And [so] we can just be in basements and [be] sweaty and be the people we want to be. [Without] the judgement of the outside world being like, ‘Oh, you are different, you look different, you speak differently, you read different books and watch different TV shows, so you are unlovable.’

Anything else you want to add?

Daryl: People need to expose themselves to other things that are not normal.

SummitLearningCentre.ca Serving K-12 & Adult Students

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

Call Now! 604-820-3333

ible Flex ule. d Sche ytime! t an

Star

1-866-881-1984 Call Now!

ARTS & LIFE

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Mini Album Reviews

SoundBites

17

Wire Change Becomes Us

Cheers Elephant Like Wind Blows Fire

Villagers Awayland

Paramore Paramore

Punk rock, with its conventionally uncultured aesthetic, doesn’t have many bands approaching it with a very studious approach, but then again, Wire is not a traditional punk rock band.

The English veterans have never really played by the rules of the now marketable genre, choosing to zig when other bands zagged and constantly reinventing themselves. Their 13th studio album Change Becomes Us fills in a bit of Wire’s scattered history, as the songs on the record were originally written for the band’s live performances during their 1979/80 tour. Longtime Wire fans will recognize some of this material from their live album Document And Eyewitness, released in 1981.

Indeed, the reason Changes sounds as if it will jump out of the speakers is due to the fact that the band had originally intended to perform these songs in a live setting. Despite these songs being written over three decades ago, they still sound astonishingly contemporary, which makes sense when you look at Wire’s history of staying ahead of the curve. Changes also functions as a retrospective on the experimental changes Wire has gone through amidst countless break-ups and changes in direction.

On the unassuming soul-pop debut record from rose-tinged Philadelphia quartet Cheers Elephant, the band manages to conjure a healthy dose of studied and understated pop hooks.

Indebted to but not overwhelmed by their ‘60s pop influences, Cheers Elephant colour Like Wind Blows Fire’s 10 compact tracks with enough postpunk affect to create a highly-listenable, if slightly obvious juxtaposition.

The closest contemporary touchstone is probably international super trio Little Joy’s tropical departure from drummer Fabrizio Moretti’s betterknown NYC band The Strokes. Like Wind Blows Fire isn’t a challenging record, but it is a good record. And for the times when the band is firing on all cylinders, the experience is totally worth it. The album’s strongest point is “Leaves,” a kinetic and close-miked acoustic number embellished with bells and an outro electric guitar solo that nods toward ‘90s slacker rock a la Yo La Tengo or Pavement. Between the snappy drums, male / female harmony, and eclectic overdubs, listeners will also notice a lot of incidental noise cropping up as transitions between the tracks, suggesting an intrusion into Cheers Elephant’s AM dial optimism.

This interference (whether German dialogue, feedback whine, traffic or nature) hints at a collection of songs best played through a cheap boombox.

Villager’s Awayland opens with the kind of chords and vocals that lend themselves to the dim and intimate warmth of a small setting, seated six feet away from the artist and making eye contact. This is the essence of what follows: honest, intimate and almost haunting. At the same time, the Irish indie music is energetic and meticulously rhythmic. The third song on the album, “Waves,” aptly captures the sensation of what it’s like to live in modern society: it begins with a steady and frenetic high-pitched beat, blended with the guitar and striking poetics.

“Look at the girls, look at the gold / Gathered, beat and bought and sold / One man’s innocence is another’s chance / What were you thinking of ?”

The tracks of this album link together as though the listener has tapped into the artist’s stream of consciousness, simultaneously lyrical and jarring. This is not work-while-you-listen music; it’s too compelling and detailed.

Measured by music, memories segment into timeframes, song lengths, lyrics that spoke to something, now dimunitive and lacking. High-school pseudo-alt-rock is something Hayley Williams can’t have done anything but matured past, yet because of success or image constraints or perhaps a genuine affinity, eight years later, with a new, yet self-titled album suggesting origin (the first album with her as sole member remaining since inception), Paramore is still fitted with filled guitars and directionless drums - leaving Williams’ words front and centre. At over an hour, perhaps this is supposed to be more mature, aspiring surely, with interludes (of passive aggressive verbal revenge) and allusions to growing up and getting out (though it comes out on “Now” and “Daydreaming” as an unintentional alignment with the oblivious pre-fun Spring Breakers). It’s length, not room used for change or unconventionality. Paramore is memorizable riffs and detailed speak-sing that leads back to itself, at its worst, the sound of advertising space to sell platitudes (“Ain’t It Fun,” “Still Into You,” “Anklebiters”).

Seven-minute closer “Future” aims at authenticity, and works as quiet coda, until it too becomes all-out Statement, because if drums are hit this hard and guitars played this loud, it must mean something important and real.

Tim UBELS

NICK UBELS

katie stobbart

MICHAEL SCOULAR

dropped on March 22, I was more excited than three 50-year-old British metrosexuals should be able to make me. Despite the eccentricities and the glitter, despite DM’s bassist urging “someone” to “shoot Simon Cowell” in an interview with Music Week, despite the weird chicken-winging that is vocalist Dave Gahan’s standard dance move ... I couldn’t wait.

Delta Machine is not Violator. It’s a subtle, smoother Depeche, with a bluesy infusion that’s all Gahan.

Yet it is closer to the Mode of the ‘90s than 2009’s Sounds of the Universe, albeit with decidedly modern electronic scintillation to ground Gahan’s baritone. Somewhere in the background Martin Gore dramatically strums his guitar and deploys unexpected harmonies, while Andy Fletcher provides the rolling synthesized darkness that Depeche is known for.

I ate it up. From the first notes to the final track, “Goodbye,” I was a gooey pile of fanboy mush. I love the weirdness, the metaphysical references to “angels,” “sin” and “soul.” I love the fact that Depeche Mode take themselves seriously without any of this self-referencing Macklemore crap. Gahan can sing

“the angel of love was upon me, and Lord, I felt so small / The legs beneath me weakened, I began to crawl,” and it’s obvious that not only does he believe it, but he expects you to as well. Some might call it pretentious, but there’s something about Depeche that just destroys my incredulity. In fact, the rolling bluesy riff behind “Angel” makes the track the best on the album. It’s an apocalyptic seduction, a Revelation for the masses.

It makes my knees go weak.

Delta Machine won’t be for everyone; in fact, I’m pretty sure that everyone else in my family already hates it (although that may have something to do with repeated and relentless exposure). But for the true connoisseurs of electronic melancholy, those who are fully capable of lying on the floor and singing lines like “I’ll penetrate your soul / I’ll bleed into your dreams” without any twinge of embarrassment, this is the album you’ve been waiting for.

This is Depeche Mode in all their brooding, psuedo-religious brilliance. They will mess you up, they will play with your mind, they’ll strap you into their Delta Machine.

Album Review

Delta Machine by Depeche Mode PAUL ESAU THE CASCADE

I was first introduced to Depeche Mode at the tender age of 16, when a pirated CD was pressed into my sweaty palm by my long-haired, kilt-wearing, half-Vietnamese gym buddy and blood brother.

“I think you’ll like this,” he said.

It was the first non-Christian album (besides the score to Disney’s Tarzan) I’d ever owned.

My parents hated it, and, perhaps for that reason, it quickly became my first true musical love. It was 2005’s Playing The Angel, and it was quite the departure from Tarzan, DC Talk and the Newsboys.

I still have most of that album memorized, thanks to a postbreakup binge in my senior year.

I think I lay on the floor for about two weeks straight and sang along, with all the anger and heartbreak my teenage heart could muster. All the songs were perfect for my pain, I lived the music, I was consistently two tones flat and loud enough to shake the rafters.

If my parents weren’t such wonderful, God-fearing saints they would have bludgeoned down my door and beaten me to death

with own stereo. I wouldn’t have blamed them.

Eventually I got up off the floor and recanted my hasty vow to enter a monastery in some suitably foreign place (preferably that Tibetan one run by Liam Neeson).

Yet my love affair with Depeche

Mode stayed strong. I still believe in a “Personal Jesus” who will “Never Let Me Down Again.” I’m still going to marry a girl named “Lillian.”

I am “walking love incarnate” (sometimes with morning breath).

So when DM’s newest album

18

SPORTS & HEALTH

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Ben Walter approaching 50 points for seventh straight season TIM UBELS

CONTRIBUTOR

“The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime. ” ~Babe Ruth There comes a point in a hockey player’s career when he has to come to terms with his role on a team. Whether it’s a former star player accepting a minimized role on the team’s bottom six forwards or a defenceman who sits in the press box more than he suits up for games, players have to realize that whatever’s best for the team’s overall success has to be taken into consideration when management makes decisions.

For Heat forward Ben Walter, his horizons probably don’t extend further than the AHL anymore. Son of Ryan Walter, the Abbotsford Heat’s current President and NHL veteran of over 1000 games, Ben joined up with the club last season in order to bring stability to the Heat’s scoring lines. Centering everyone from

image: Clint Trahan

Walter has been a Heat stalward over his two years with the team.

Roman Horak and Sven Baertschi to Blair Jones, he is one of the only constants on the team’s top line.

He sees his line mates, usually touted prospects for the Flames, get shuffled around, called up and demoted while he remains with the Heat.

He has yet to see time with the Flames in the two years he’s spent with the Abbotsford club.

Walter, who turned pro in 2005, began his career with the Boston Bruins; however, he only saw 10 NHL games in total with the Bru-

ins organization, spending much of two seasons with their minor league affiliate the Providence Bruins. It isn’t unusual for young prospects to get a few short stints with the NHL club in order for the team’s management to get a chance to assess how a young player’s development is progressing. But for Walter, he’s only seen 24 games total at the NHL level in his entire career thus far, with only one goal over that span.

After moving on from the Providence lineup, the native of

Beaconsfield, Quebec, played for three other AHL clubs—Bridgeport, Lowell and Lake Erie—before finding a home on Abbotsford’s top line in 2011. While his NHL numbers have failed to impress, Walter has been a top-notch player for every AHL team’s he’s suited up for. Accumulating 454 points over 561 games in the AHL, Walter has continually received the praise of his coaches.

After Friday night’s loss to the Grand Rapids Griffins, Heat coach Troy G. Ward praised Walter’s attitude both on and off the ice: “He’s been a real good story for the Abbotsford Heat.”

Ward spoke further about Walter’s glowing traits.

“He’s been a consummate pro on and off the ice. He shows up every night, usually on the score sheet in some fashion. He’s one of our leaders. He leads the guys by example. He’s a father. He’s a husband. He’s a good man.”

This kind of praise, especially after a tough loss that likely spelled the end of the Heat’s playoff hopes, speaks wonders to Ward’s opinion of Walter, his accomplishments, and what it

When life becomes too much, I meditate MELISSA SPADY CONTRIBUTOR

Anyone who knows me knows I can count the things I take seriously on one hand, and mental health is one of them. Last week Jasper Moedt bravely wrote about his personal struggle and the stigma surrounding mental health.

I’d like to continue the conversation this week by sharing my own struggle.

I’ve struggled with anxiety and depression all my life, and I’ve been through the whole messy process of learning to cope with it: the doctors, the countless appointments, the pills, the counsellors and the social shame that makes most of us suffer in silence.

Over the past five years I’ve overhauled my diet, kicked my butt into shape, found constructive ways to deal with my feelings, and am more open than ever. But sometimes all those things—including a loving support system to catch me when I breakdown— aren’t enough to ward away the creeping raincloud that seems to follow me wherever I go. I’ve tried making medication a regular

Image: Flickr

Meditation has been practiced for thousands of years in many cultures. part of my life (twice), and even though it helped me pull myself out of the dark hole I’d created, in the end I just felt numb.

For me, the pills were simply a band-aid to cover up an underlying and unresolved issue: I had no idea how to manage my stress and anxieties. I let them trample all over me.

One particularly stressful day I’d finally had enough. I’d read about meditation and its benefits for months but had no idea how to start, so I turned to Google.

“Meditation for beginners” led me to a fancy little program I

could tote around with me on my iPhone called Headspace. Upon download, I was offered a free 10day program. Everything I wanted to know about meditation but had been too scared to ask was answered in a few snappy little animations and an introduction by the program’s creator, Andy Puddicombe. Ten minutes for 10 days, how hard could it be?

Surprisingly challenging, actually. Anybody can sit down and meditate, but it is a learned skill that must be honed over time. I didn’t realize how busy my brain was until I had to be alone with

it. It wasn’t until day six that I could sit down without multiple thoughts bouncing around in my skull, but by day 10 I found myself looking forward to sitting.

The gentle guiding from Puddicombe, and breathing techniques he introduces, effectively reduced my mental and physical tension.

I felt relieved. There are lots of studies that link meditation to lowered stress hormones (cortisol), and people from all walks of life practice it for a variety of reasons: lowering stress, tackling insomnia, reducing inflammation, etc. We live in a society that pressures us to push ourselves to the limit, which is why I feel learning to practice mindfulness and meditation is so important.

To start, I recommend downloading Headspace (for free) on your iTunes or smart phone and watching the animated introduction. It offers basic, non-judging, guided meditations for you to do for 10 days. How and when to sit are addressed, as well as interviews with other subscribers who share their stories. I did it last year and have been actively meditating ever since. I’ve noticed positive changes in my per-

means to have him playing alongside the younger players on the Heat.

After collecting an assist on the Krys Kolanos goal during the Heat’s 4-1 loss on Friday night, Ben was asked about his current streak of six straight seasons with 50 points, and whether or not the potential of a seventh straight season weighed on him, responding by saying: “I don’t really think about it ...

It’s something maybe in the summer or when my career’s done I’ll be able to look at but, you know for now it’s about getting wins. If I can score points to help us get wins, then that’s what I’m aiming for.”

Putting the streak out of his mind and focusing on what’s best for the team is what we’ve come to except from Ben Walter. His leadership and attitude towards his team’s overall success can be described as exemplary. He’s always made sure that his personal achievements are in alignment with the overall success of the Heat organization.

sonal life, my insomnia has vastly improved, my emotions are easier to balance, and I’m more in-tune with my body and mind.

I often get the eye roll when I start talking about meditation.

“New age hippy bullshit,” they say, when in fact people have been practising meditation for thousands of years. It’s even more applicable in today’s age when we have so many digital distractions to hide our feelings away in.

Learning to focus my mind and take control of my emotions has been the key to shooing that little rain cloud away. I feel like I have my life back, and if talking about it helps just one person take their life back too, then it’s worth it.

Depression and anxiety are the bane of any and every student’s post secondary career. They can easily take a level-headed person and turn them in to a quivering mess if left to fester. With exams and deadlines on the horizon, don’t let yourself become victimized by your mental health. Take your time, slow down, reach out to one another when it becomes too much, and remember that we’re all in this together.

A DAY OF PERSONAL & PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

presents

May 3, 2013 · LANGLEY EVENTS CENTRE, 7888 – 200 Street, Langley, BC Me to We: How One Person Can Make a World of Difference Craig Kielburger

Motivating Marginalized Students for Success Dr. Victor Rios

Co-founder of Free the Children & We Day

Former LA gang member, now Professor of Sociology & authority on marginalized youth

What Do You Want to Do Before You Die?

The Buried Life

Person Centered Thinking and Planning for Everyone Michael Smull

Stars of MTV reality television show

Co-developer of Person Centred Thinking

Interventions for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders Dr. V. Mark Durand Author of “Optimistic Parenting”

Admission is FREE

Pre-register online at

www.bethechangesymposium.com

Pre-registration required if you want to reserve a seat and/or receive a professional development certificate.

19

SPORTS & HEALTH

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Prioritizing our athlete’s academic success KEN ESAU and BEAU O’NEILL

How many of UFV’s varsity competitors are actually graduating?

CONTRIBUtors

All of us—okay most of us— have lives outside our formal academic studies, but there are student athletes at UFV trying to fulfill academic requirements while carving out time for the practices, weight training sessions and personal workouts— not to mention the many road trips and games—required to be on a varsity athletic team.

In the United States college scene, some sports (like football) can be huge money-makers for the university. (Did I mention football?) Because of this, schools can be tempted to care more about their athletes as athletes, rather than as students. In addition, since some U.S. collegiate sports are the main stepping stones to a professional and well-paid career, some athletes might wonder why it should matter so much that they complete their degrees when their main dream is in athletics and not academics.

As a result, the NCAA (think the American version of our CIS), advertises a “graduation rate” for each NCAA school and even for each NCAA sport. They claim that across the U.S., student athletes have a 66 per cent graduation rate. Closer to home, the University of Washington has a 75 per cent graduation rate. That seems pretty impressive considering the hyped-up world of collegiate sports across the line. One

Art.: Anthony Biondi

Are student athletes valued more for their brawn than their brains? could even argue that athletes in the U.S. are doing far better than the average bachelor degree student who, according to a 2009 NY Times article, has only about a 50 per cent likelihood of graduating within six years. Things are somewhat better north of the 49th parallel with Queen’s University advertising a completion rate of 92.2 per cent in 2012, but also noting a pretty impressive average of 81 per cent for the whole of Ontario. Unfortunately, BC appears to be less forthcoming about its graduation rates.

The NCAA has a huge program in place to hold universities accountable not only to help stu-

dent athletes to be academically successful each year but to ensure that they are moving closer to graduation. If the university does not comply with these standards, they can lose their right to offer a certain level of scholarships or even to be banned from participating for a period of time.

In Canada, no athlete is required to do anything more than pass the minimum number of credit hours per year (18) and maintain the minimum GPA. It does not matter what courses they are taking or even if they ever declare a major. There has been a longstanding joke about several Canadian universities whose athletes

were apparently enrolled in such “challenging” courses as “Basketweaving 101” — my apologies to all you basket-weavers out there.

It is interesting then that no one in Canada—except maybe UFV’s own Sasa Plavsic (see below)— seems to be asking any questions about what percentage of Canadian student athletes will ever graduate in the programs that they are purportedly pursuing.

This seems especially puzzling since no varsity sport at any Canadian university brings in more money than it costs to run that program. If we are essentially subsidizing all of these sports teams, shouldn’t we be asking more questions about what is going on academically? One would think that Canada would take the high ground and say, “We believe that our athletes are students first – eh?”

Without any hard data available from the CIS website, we had to do our own informal research based upon the experience of several of our own UFV Cascade athletes.

First we caught up with Kyle Leinweber, who played volleyball until 2012 when he quit the team due to a back injury and decided to finish his Bachelor of Science degree in Physics. He stated that while on the team, “I wasn’t ever going to let school come second behind volleyball.” When asked about his observation of the players he spiked alongside, he felt that most had graduated at the end of their term, though it may have taken longer than the usual

Chief mechanic of the green machine JASPER MOEDT THE CASCADE

Every year, 140 varsity athletes compete for our proud university. Whether it is on the court, pitch, green or water, our UFV varsity athletes spend countless hours honing their bodies and skills. Needless to say, the constant physical wear and tear that comes with such rigorous training leads to aches, pains and injuries. It is an unavoidable part of being an athlete – unfortunate, but a fact of life.

Lucky for our Cascades, there is a professional mechanic who is charged with keeping the components of the green machine running smoothly. One woman whose job is quietly treating and preventing injuries daily for our entire varsity athlete population.

That woman is Sarah Eckhart.

She has been the head athletic therapist at UFV for our eight varsity teams for four years and counting. It is Eckhart’s job to ensure that athletes are treating their bodies properly and getting the care they need to be able to compete.

Originally from Victoria, Eckhart is a graduate of Simon Fraser University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Kinesiology.

Sarah received her postgraduate certificate in Athletic Therapy from Mount Royal University.

image: Tree Frog Imaging

Sarah Eckhart has been UFV’s head athletic therapist for eight years.

The task of dealing with so many athletes essentially singlehandedly is daunting. One look at her schedule and you start to wonder how she manages to function in this hectic environment. Most days see Eckhart spending long hours in the clinic treating athletes, often missing her lunch to help out the straggling athlete who forgot to sign up. After a long day of battling and butting heads with often stubborn athletes who refuse to rest their injuries, Eckhart packs

up and heads to class where she teaches night classes for the kinesiology and physical education faculty at UFV. But despite its numerous demands, Eckhart maintains that the job’s rewards outweigh its demands.

“To be able to see an athlete progress through their five-year career and to help them reach their athletic goals is something I truly enjoy,” she said.

She further stated that relationships that she gets to build

with the athletes are one of the numerous perks of the job.

“Often you are seeing athletes daily and helping them through injuries,” she explained. “The relationship you build is a reward in itself in this profession.”

Athletic therapy is a profession which specializes in emergency care, prevention and treatment of musculoskeletal disorders in athletes and the active population.

Eckhart also works in cooperation with physicians and other medical staff to treat athletes when the situation demands it.

The demands—140 athletes who come in with a huge variety of injuries and medical needs— seem overwhelming at times, but Eckhart not only manages to survive but thrives in this setting.

In addition to treating athletes, Eckhart is in charge of her staff of student trainers who work with individual varsity teams.

It is her job to mentor these students and support them in their task of working on the day to day medical issues of their respective teams On the surface Eckhart looks like a fairly valuable member of the Cascades team. The truth is her role goes so much further than her job description. She also serves as a mentor, counsellor and constant source of information and inspiration for young minds around her.

four years. He described the huge practice and team commitments of up to four hours a day, which obviously had to be balanced with schoolwork.

Another athlete, Sasa Plavsic, is a kinesiology major who played on the UFV men’s soccer team for three years and has done a major academic project exploring this question and proposing a study to find out about the graduation rates of athletes at several BC universities. From his own observations, he evidenced a slightly less optimistic perspective as he noted that quite a number of athletes failed to return to school during the years he was on the team. He explained why this is not that surprising because of the huge challenges that athletes face with practices and game preparation and even the emotional challenges of trying to focus on schoolwork after a bad game. But in his final comment, he noted that there is an upside as well.

“Well I would say I came to university solely for the sports, and I walked out more of an academic than athlete,” he said. “So I would say it opens up an opportunity for academic success for people who might not normally go to school.”

Maybe it’s time for the CIS to come clean and tell us what is really happening. If not, we’ll have to wait for Sasa to do his study.

I’m putting my money on Sasa being the first to step up.

UFV Varsity Awards 2013 UFV Cascades Athletes of the Year: Sam Freeman (Men’s Basketball) and Kayla Bruce (Women’s Volleyball) 2013 UFV Cascades “Rookies of the Year”: Justin Sekhon (Men’s Soccer) and Kira Tome (Women’s Volleyball) Outstanding Community Service Award: Alexa McCarthy (Women’s Basketball) UFV Cascades Academic Award: Nicole Wierks (Women’s Basketball)

20

SPORTS & HEALTH

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

UFV legends: Kate Bilodeau Kate Bilodeau is one of three graduating seniors from this year’s national championship winning squad. Kate spent time at NAIT and Capilano University before coming to UFV to finish her career. I got the chance to ask Kate a few question about her remarkable season before she graduates and moves on to the next stage of her life.

Height: 5’9” Major: Business Favourite class: Active Health Favourite professor: Brian Justin Favourite food: Tacos Favourite Abbotsford restaurant: Cactus Club Favourite musical artist/genre: Everything, really depends on the situation

JASPER MOEDT the cascade

What drew you to UFV? I moved to Vancouver in my previous year looking for a change from playing in Alberta for three years. I spent a year at Capilano and after that season I had heard that UFV was looking for players so I contacted Dennis.

It has always been my goal to win a national championship. I knew they had done well that year and I knew I hated playing against them so after I came to a practice and checked it out, and it seemed like a good fit.

Best. Decision. Ever.

Image: Tree Frog Imaging

Bilodeau performs in front of “the best teammates a girl could ask for.”

As a fifth-year player coming into the season, was it difficult to adjust to a new school and team?

New school was no biggie.

School is school no matter where

I’m at. Minus transferring courses – that sucks. But a new team seemed like it could be a lot more difficult. I was a little worried I wouldn’t fit in or the girls wouldn’t want to invest in building any sort of relationship with me seeing as I would only be here for the one year and they had all known and played with each other for a while. So I was a little nervous but that wasn’t the case at all. Right away it felt like family. I have never been on a team more supportive. It was an amazing feeling coming here and feeling like I belong in this hilarious, extremely diverse group of ladies!

What is the fondest on-court memory you have from this year? Off-court memory?

On the court would definitely be winning nationals when everyone rushed the court. I just remember hugging as many girls as I could [while] crying like a baby. Off the court there are way too many moments to choose just one. Our team trip stands out in my mind. All the shenanigans we got up to, as well as our pre-game dances. I will carry those memories with me for a long time.

What would you say to recruits coming to UFV about playing volleyball here?

First I would say, “great choice!”

Then I would tell them to not use

the bathrooms by Tims (they smell), always do your homework and work hard at practice. Don’t be afraid to have a little fun!

What are you going to miss about playing volleyball in the university environment?

I miss competing! It’s everything. Dragging yourself to practice can get hard at times but once you’re there everything else melts away and then game days when all you can think about is your game tonight so nothing else that day gets done ‘cause you’re so pumped.

Anything you would like to say about the university/teammates/coaches?

To the university: Thanks for letting me in! All the profs that know about our team’s success have been so supportive and it’s nice to see that [those] outside of the volleyball program care what our team is doing. Our athletic director, school president and vice president have been amazing and so supportive and made this year so wonderful!

To my coaches: Thank you first of all for taking that chance and bringing me onto your team, for believing in my abilities, pushing me, and for all the time and effort put into the team.

To my teammates: You are the best teammates a girl could ask for. I will always hold a special place in my heart for each of you. I hold very dearly the special memories with every single one of you and I appreciate how welcoming you all were. Thanks for such an incredible year full of laughs!

The Abby Orcas

Pipedream remains after Heat deny swap with Canucks’ farm team JOEL SMART THE CASCADE

While many Abbotsford residents appreciate hockey for hockey’s sake, a large portion of Canucks fans don’t want to develop favourite players that can get called up to the NHL to play for the Calgary Flames – against Vancouver’s team.

Because British Columbians are so Canuck-mad, it was never going to be easy to convince them to cheer for the up-and-coming stars of an opposing team. And the Flames have always been a major villain for the Canucks – division rivals, playoff foes and a springboard for inter-provincial trash talking. This has been the issue ever since the Calgary Flames brought their farm team to Abbotsford in 2009.

Fans would rather cheer for the AHL team with future Canucks players (a team that used to be called the Manitoba Moose, moved and renamed the Chicago Wolves in 2011). So ever since the Heat moved to Abbotsford, rumours have been swirling about a

The Rivermen could come to Abby. potential “team swap” that would move the Canucks’ farm team to Abbotsford. The benefits would be obvious – a guaranteed fan base and extreme ease for management of the Canucks to keep an eye on their prospects. That’s not to mention the quick drive to Vancouver for prospects called up to play for the Canucks when needed.

The most recent rumour, as cited by The Province and the Vancouver Sun, was that the Calgary Flames were considering packing up and moving their team

to Utica, New York. The rumour suggested that the Vancouver Canucks would then buy the Peoria Rivermen, the St. Louis’ farm team that plays in Illinois, and then St. Louis would take over the Chicago Wolves. It seems complicated, but the end result is that the Flames would end up in New York, allowing the relocated Rivermen to move to Abbotsford.

One part of the rumour came true on April 1. The Canucks, who didn’t renew contracts with Chicago, purchased the Peoria Rivermen. Due to the rumour, many have complete confidence that the team-swap will indeed occur at the end of the current season.

The Calgary Flames, however, have done their best to quash the speculation. In statement released April 2, reported by PostMedia News, the Flames denied that they were moving. “... We wish to emphasize that there is no ‘three-way deal’ (or any other deal) that will see the Canucks move their development program to Abbotsford ... we remain committed to our fans and partners in Abbotsford and look forward to

sharing many more seasons with them.”

The move by the Canucks to purchase the Rivermen means that the Canucks now fully own their farm team for the first time.

“It allows our organization to focus on what we think is really important,” Mike Gillis told reporters on April 1, noting that they don’t always see eye-to-eye with the choices of independent minor-league team owners. “We get to make the decisions now.”

But Gillis was tight-lipped about plans to move the team.

“We have made no decisions whatsoever about where that franchise will be, and we do need a little bit of time to go through all the possibilities before we make a decision,” Gillis said, according to the Peoria Journal Star. That report speculated that that the Canucks might leave the team in Peoria for the next season, waiting for Calgary to agree to the swap. Alternately, they suggested, the Canucks might “move the Rivermen to another neighbouring city in the Vancouver area.”

Whatever the case may be, it can’t be denied that most hockey

fans in the Fraser Valley are hoping the Heat will agree to a swap.

In just three years, Abbotsford residents have been forced to pay $3.8 million to subsidize the flopping Heat franchise due to the contract the city signed with the team. Meanwhile, 88.29 per cent of voters in an April 1 poll on The Vancouver Sun website said they’d support and attend more games if the Canucks brought the Rivermen to Abbotsford.

Perhaps Abbotsford citizens should be less picky. The Heat are a quality organization with high-end talent like Abbotsford has never seen. We love hockey here and it’s embarrassing that we have some of the lowest attendance in the entire AHL. But for fans of the Canucks, the dream is just too good: The Abbotsford Orcas. The Canucks’ future stars playing in town regularly – seeing your favourite young player make the leap and comprehending the context of everything they’ve done as they do it. No, you can hardly blame fans for dreaming of that.