CELEBRATING 20 1 0
1910
YEARS
volume CI number 42
inside
the official student newspaper at the university of alberta
Deputy News Editor
Living with addiction means dealing with a desire you can’t control, though not always drugs. feature, Page 12
Adding to 13
thursday, march 24, 2011
Campus Saint-Jean parking lot faces local opposition Simon Yackulic
Under the spell
www.thegatewayonline.ca
The University of Alberta’s plan to create a parking lot at Campus SaintJean has continued to generate controversy, facing heavy contention by the surrounding community. The U of A’s proposal for the 100car lot would be built over an existing soccer field to increase parking options for the satellite campus, which has 750 students and 150 staff, but only 22 onsite parking stalls. The plan would leave room for soccer, with the development only taking up part of the field. The Bonnie Doon Community League is firmly opposed, and their executive passed a motion suggesting that the U of A use already existing parking options in the area and develop underground parking instead. Students have currently been parking mostly off campus; however, the city has enacted a parking ban for non-residents on selected streets around the school. Some residents are concerned that a new parking lot would bring with it increased traffic, safety issues, and environmental concerns.
Nancy Rempel, the president of the Bonnie Doon Community League, said that community residents were hoping for clearer direction from the university, after the U of A’s representative was unable to attend the community league meeting last Thursday. “They didn’t attend, but they said that they’re still gathering information,” Rempel said. “We just hope that the university makes a decision soon, because residents are anxious. The sooner we know what’s going on, we can all get on with our lives.” The Bonnie Doon Community League’s motion reads, “We neither support the development of parking options that are priced below market rates nor the development of parking through public sector debt financing. We support the preservation of public-sector green space within the Bonnie Doon Community.” Rempel noted that, although many residents felt that communication between the university and the community was poor earlier in the year, she felt that communication has improved. Please see parking Page 3
Aaron Yeo
SHOWDOWN The U of A’s pokerbot is nearly unbeatable. See feature, page 4.
The Golden Bears hockey team will compete in the CIS national championship this weekend, looking to claim their 14th national trophy in team history
Students satisfied with SU services: survey
Sports, Page 19
Students are happy with the Students’ Union’s operations and services, according to the results from the campus-wide undergraduate student survey. Almost 7,000 students filled out the online survey designed to evaluate the SU’s service. That number is down slightly from last year. “The picture that this survey paints of our students allows us to figure out what questions we need to ask further,” said Marc Dumouchel, general manager for the Students’ Union. “One of the main goals we had was that we wanted to get a better sense of how students used our services.”
Create your own SU e_ection! Ever wanted to decide the SU elections for yourself? Now you can with our Election Rad Libs! opinion FeATURE, Page 10
Undergraduate population appreciates SUBTitles, Safewalk even though usage is lacking Aaron Yeo News Staff
Dumouchel oversees many of the facilities and services that the SU operates, and he said the survey is used as a source of feedback. While the results indicate that most students are satisfied, the SU will use the information to improve their performance where they can. “The survey’s designed to help us ensure that we’re on the right track, in terms of our service delivery, for our operational side. The survey indicates that we generally are, but we can always do better,” Dumouchel added. “People seem very happy overall with the services. The services we offer are one of our strengths.” President Nick Dehod said that many students expressed their interest
and support for the SU’s services, even though they may not use them. “Safewalk is a service that not a lot of students are necessarily utilizing en masse, but they seem to appreciate the fact that it’s there, provided as a service,” Dehod said. Dumouchel agreed, saying SUBTitles is also popular but underused. “The used book market has seen a decline in use [...] However, the survey’s been very clear; students like having us running a used bookstore. They see the value in us providing that competition towards the bookstore.” Dehod thinks that while the facilities are getting good responses, not enough students are taking advantage of them, and attributes that towards
physical separation on campus. “The campus is still very segmented. Some students visit SUB a lot, and others spend a lot of time in other parts of campus, and I think we’ve kind of known that.” In line with President-elect Rory Tighe’s plans, Dehod believes that the SU needs to expand their presence outside of SUB as, according to the survey, 60 per cent of students visit the building at least once a week. “A lot of students have their different nodes on campus and they’re going to spend their time there, so we can’t just expect students to come to SUB to access some of the services here.” Please see survey Page 3
2 Campus Life The Gateway
thursday, march 24, 2011
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www.thegatewayonline.ca thursday, march 24, 2011 volume CI number 42
Published since november 21, 1910 Circulation 7,000 ISSN 0845-356X Suite 3-04 Students’ Union Building University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2J7 Telephone 780.492.5168 Fax 780.492.6665 Ad Inquiries 780.492.6700 Email gateway@gateway.ualberta.ca
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Dan Mckechnie
IT’S FASTER THAN RUNNING A bike-a-thon held on Tuesday by the World University Service of Canada raised $2,700 for bicycle ambulances for AIDS victims.
STREETERS When was the last time your idea got voted down? As you may be aware, there may be a federal election coming up.
Compiled and photographed by Matt Hirji and Nick Frost
Jeremy Leathem Science IV
Jessica Jolliff Science IV
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colophon Gateway
The is created using Macintosh computers, HP Scanjet flatbed scanners, and a Nikon Super Cool Scan optical film scanner. Adobe InDesign is used for layout. Adobe Illustrator is used for vector images, while Adobe Photoshop is used for raster images. Adobe Acrobat is used to create PDF files which are burned directly to plates to be mounted on the printing press. Text is set in a variety of sizes, styles, and weights of Fenice, Joanna, Kepler and Whitney. The Manitoban is the Gateway’s sister paper, and we love her dearly, though “not in that way.” The Gateway’s songs of choice are Wiz Khalifa’s “The Race” and Buckwheat Boyz’ “Peanut Butter Jelly Time.”
contributors
Aaron Yeo, Anthony Goertz, Meryl Friedland, Benjamin Ripley, Ross Lockwood, Ross Vincent, Lauren Alston, Carole Yue, Bruce Cinnamon, Mike Chafe, Ryan Bromsgrove, Ben Dextraze, Kristine Nielsen, Darcy Ropchan, Dulguun Bayasgalan, Matt Meuse, Stephen Cook, Alex Migdal, Jamie Chapelsky, Nick Frost, Amir Ali Sharifi Skybox by Dan McKechnie
I went to a kegger over the weekend and my roommate thought it was a terrible idea. Looking back on it, it really was a bad idea. I just got really, really drunk. It was not good.
In group projects, I always think this is the best idea and then people say, ‘We’re not doing that, we’re doing this.’ And then you have to say okay. It’s pretty disheartening.
One month back. We were having an event, and I had a good idea that people weren’t supportive of. [...] At the end of a dance recital there was a final song where we needed a contemporary Bollywood song from 2010. I suggested a song that nobody liked. Majority rules, I guess.
There’s too many. Like meat pop or canned unicorn. [Can you elaborate on meat pop?] Take your favourite meats like beef and make it into a carbonated beverage. You know that vitamin water or whatever? Well, meat pop has none of the vitamins, it just has the protein. It tastes like meat. You could have a lamb flavour.
The Gateway
News
volume ci number 42
Panel examines role of LGBTQ in organized religion, atheism Meryl Friedland News Writer
A group of religious scholars said in a panel last Tuesday that change is necessary in their religions to accept LGBTQ individuals. More than 100 students attended the panel, put on by the University of Alberta OUTreach chapter, and made up of four speakers who represented different religions, as well as one atheist. The discussion aimed to create an atmosphere of open dialogue between faith-based and LGBTQ communities. Some panelists highlighted why certain sects and religious leaders denounce homosexuality, while the others used scripture and history to advocate for queers. All the speakers acknowledged that there is no single, unified position on homosexuality within their traditions. The speakers focused on different aspects of the issue; however, all agreed that mainstream culture has a huge effect on the level of acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and queer-identified persons. “Homophobic Christians get a lot of airtime [...] I don’t know if you’ve heard, but some Christians don’t like gays. But Jesus preached love. I don’t think he really said anything about homosexuality. I think he talked about heteronormativity, so we need to look at this in a modern time,” said Ryan Tristin Chapman, co-general secretary of the Student Christian Movement of Canada. Chapman and his associate Chris Miller acknowledged that the mainstream perception of Christianity is that it doesn’t support homosexuality. Chapman quipped that homophobes have had their chance, and that Miller and himself were there to show the other side of the coin. Junaid Jahangir, the Muslim representative, showed photos of Islamic gay pride parades and discussed Imams who support queers and samesex unions. He also acknowledged that the issue is often difficult to discuss in public Islamic venues, as scholars and Imams may receive death threats for doing so. However, he emphasized
Illustration: Dan Mckechnie
that alternative scholarship requires increasing support if it can challenge orthodoxy. “The mainstream viewpoint is full of fire and brimstone. Speak to any mainstream imam clergy and you will find out their opinions. I have personally faced the brunt of their opinions. I believe that the scriptures can be used for good. I also believe that the scriptures can be bastardized for a lot of reasons, and have been used time and time again,” Jahangir said. He also stressed the need for Muslims to get together at a grassroots level, and push the boundaries in order for more change to occur. Bodhi Sakyadhita focused on explaining the history of Buddhism and why there should be no conflict between homosexuality and Buddhist scriptures, as Buddha didn’t delineate between men and women. Michael Vester, representing the atheist community of Edmonton, pointed out that they don’t have any scriptures or testaments to refer to, but rather generally believe that “everyone has the right to do whatever they want
to as long as they don’t hurt anyone else.” He discussed the issue of private sexuality, declaring that a person’s orientation doesn’t need to be publicized. However, later on in the discussion Vester stated that he “wouldn’t doubt for a second that there are homophobic atheists out there.” While all five speakers acknowledged safe spaces within their traditions for LGBTQ, most saw a need for more progress to be made. Jahangir summed up his take on the situation with a cautionary message of hope. “All I have to say at the end of the day from a personal perspective is this: It’s gonna take me and my allies probably the next couple of decades to struggle with the mainstream religion. However, if you have Muslim queer friends, this is a message for all of them and for you as well: you cannot wait the next couple of decades to live your lives. “Our message to you is to live your lives, shine, [and] make your lives extraordinary.”
Miscommunication to Stats show blame: Lepage Fortin lack of U of A parking Continued From Page 1
Campus Saint-Jean SU councillor and Board of Governors Representativeelect Raphael Lepage Fortin disagreed, and said that miscommunication between the parties involved was still a major issue. “It’s a shame when the university can’t attend a meeting,” Lepage Fortin said, referring to the U of A’s absence at last Thursday’s appointment. “I believe that there’s high miscommunication between the university and the Bonnie Doon Community League, and it’s something that needs to change.” Lepage Fortin added that he didn’t think the blame for poor communication could only be pointed at the university, explaining that students were “shut in the dark” when parking restrictions were imposed. “Last year, during winter break, the Bonnie Doon residents petitioned to have parking limited to two hours
without notifying the university or the [Campus Saint-Jean] residents. So when residents came back, they had nowhere to park their car, which is a huge problem for people driving in from Red Deer and Calgary who had nowhere to park their car. So there was miscommunication from the university to Bonnie Doon, and Bonnie Doon has reciprocated that miscommunication to the university.” While a representative from the U of A was unable to speak to The Gateway as of press time, a spokesperson explained via email that the U of A’s representative had been unable to attend the previous community league meeting due to a scheduling problem. He said they were interested in meeting with the community league in the near future and that the U of A was still “reviewing concerns and questions raised at the December 8, 2010 community meeting.”
community survey Continued From Page 1
The SU was also concerned with how well-connected students were towards the university, reporting that only 45 per cent felt a strong link. “But what’s really interesting is that when they feel connected to our campus, they feel more satisfied with their academic experience as well,” Dumouchel said. “So it’s not really a matter of curricular versus extra-curricular — the two together help both build a better experience for students while they’re here.” Dumouchel hopes to continue the survey in the future, saying that it could be used as a benchmark to mark progress in the long run. Instead of being administered yearly, however, he hopes to split the questions down to sizable chunks so the SU can review and evaluate themselves on a regular basis.
3
4
News Feature
thursday, march 24, 2011
the
raise
www.thegatewayonline.ca
of the machines
The U of A Computer Poker Research Group goes all-in to attempt to make the first unbeatable AI in the world’s highest stakes card sport
Written by Lance Mudryk Photographed by Amirali Sharifi
B
eating the best humans at Jeopardy! is one thing, but to go heads up in no-limit poker may be an even more challenging task for a computer to solve, and the University of Alberta Computer Poker Research Group is working to do just that. In 2008, their poker robot Polaris played six matches of two-player limit Texas Hold ‘Em against two of the best players in the world, and managed to outperform them by $200,000, winning three matches, losing two, and tying one. This achievement shouldn’t be taken lightly. Poker is an incredibly complex game, and even two-player limit betting, the simplest form of Texas Hold ‘Em, has roughly the same number of unique states as there are stars in the universe. For games with more than two players or no-limit betting, the problem becomes that much more formidable. But it’s just another challenge for researcher Nolan Bard, a doctoral student working on the project. “This is a really hard problem to solve. Being able to play at that level would be able to demonstrate the ability to solve these really big games, exploit human players and learn quickly, and do a lot of things integral to decision-making problems that you can see in a lot of different areas,” Bard said. It’s not clear exactly what will come from the research, but some of the techniques that have been developed in the group have been applied outside of poker towards other games. Bard emphasizes the importance of game
theory and how it can be applied to a variety of different disciplines, from economics to biology to philosophy. The power and sophistication of the programs used to solve poker can be adapted to work in these other fields so that computers are able to compute large problems quickly and more accurately than humans. “I don’t know if it’s necessarily been our work, but poker work in general has [been] applied in security systems — where people should patrol and stuff, in a way to optimize security surveillance in airports,” said Richard Gibson, another doctoral student in the group. Though Polaris’ poker win in 2008 was a great accomplishment for the research group, they have been hard at work on developing better programs since then. The two major problems they are facing are dealing with multiple opponents and no-limit games. “Solving no-limit is closer in our grasps than multiplayer [games],” said Bard. “I’d say we’re making progress. The complication there is you can make any sort of bet size, so that in the game theory sense, it kind of explodes the space up. [...] It’s some ridiculous number that’s even impossible to store on a disc, on your computer, what to do at every single situation. There are too many scenarios of what to do.” The problem with multiplayer games is that they allow a greater exploitation of the program. The poker bots work by calculating a “Nash equilibrium,” which is a theory that each player has a chosen strategy and nothing to benefit by
unilaterally changing strategies. The computer decides their moves based on the Nash equilibrium, keeping in mind that if no one changes strategies, it’s guaranteed to gain more than it loses. However, with multiplayer games, there is more of a likelihood that one of the players will change strategy, and it’s harder for the poker bot to predict what the outcomes are going to be. “We’re looking at your average value over time. If you played forever, you’re guaranteed to take a certain percentage,” Gibson adds. That was the tradition of their research, but as more complexities are added to the game, it becomes easier to be exploited by human opponents. In a three-person game, their programs can perform well as long as their opponents don’t team up against it. As far as the future of artificial intelligence goes, both Bard and Gibson agree that super-advanced AIs are still distant fantasies. “For computers to get to a level where they could listen or read something like this, understand the context of a conversation, and then synthesize something new and novel — this is still far, far off,” Bard said. “In the ‘50s, it was basically said, ‘If you could create a program that plays chess and could beat human players at chess, there you go, you have AI.’ Well, we’ve done that. Right now, that’s not AI,” Gibson added. “That’s not interesting. Can you do that in poker? Well, we can try to do that, and as soon as we do that, the bar’s going to be even higher.”
The Gateway
News
volume ci number 42
Photo illustration: Aaron Yeo
Late-night texting, laptop use to blame for sleep deprivation Victoria Alarcon
(Excalibur) York University
TORONTO (CUP) — It’s 2 a.m. and Sarah Alyana is receiving her fourth text of the night as she quietly moves to grab her phone. It’s getting later, but just as quickly as she’s ready to go to bed, another text appears and sleep becomes the last thing on her mind. “It’s very addictive,” said Alyana, a second-year student at York University. Her eyes dart downward as she glances quickly at her computer. “I don’t get much sleep because I’m always on my laptop most of the night, and otherwise I’m texting people at night.” Alyana is not the only one who can’t let go of her binding addiction to the computer. The majority of Canadians use technology right before sneaking into bed. A recent survey published by the National Sleep Foundation found that 95 per cent of Americans are using some form of technology within the hour before they go to bed. Of the 293 Americans surveyed between ages 19 and 29, 67 per cent of the group used their cellphones, while 60 percent turned to their computer or laptop at night. An Excalibur survey of 100 found students at York are not so different. Seventy-seven per cent of students depend solely on technology to get them rested before bed. Fifty-three per cent of
Campus Crime Beat Compiled by Aaron Yeo
students are either using their laptop or computer every night, and another 31 per cent are using it almost every night. “We see this on a daily basis here in our sleep clinic, that many Canadians are not getting an adequate amount of nightly sleep,” said Robert Cohen, a Calgary-based sleep expert specializing in insomnia and sleep disorders. “They carry a sleep debt, and of the many factors responsible for that debt, one is certainly the prevalence of technology use before bed.” In addition, a growing number of students are using their cellphone every night in the hour before sleeping, often sending, reading, or receiving messages, or talking on the phone. Cohen says that the stimulation from being on the computer or cellphone every night keeps us up. “The hyper arousal from the technology gets us wound up so that we are unable to fall asleep,” he explained. “One of the things that was written in the survey is active versus passive technology. If someone is listening to music, listening to the radio, or watching television, that’s got be a little less disruptive to sleep compared to something active like gaming, texting, or working on the computer.” But the stimulation is not solely to blame — the light emitted from screens also suppresses our desire to sleep. Charles Czeisler, director of the division of sleep medicine at Harvard
University’s medical school, said in a press release that artificial light exposure “suppresses release of the sleep-promoting hormone melatonin, enhances alertness, and shifts circadian rhythms to a later hour, making it more difficult to fall asleep.” Cohen agrees, saying that “though we don’t have strong scientific evidence, there is good rationale that, depending on the type of technology, the light emitted from technology can suppress the hormone melatonin, which one needs to fall asleep.” “Specifically, university students do need at least eight to nine hours of sleep, and there is clear scientific evidence in research on the effects of chronic partial sleep restriction that it decreases mood, performance, and health. People who don’t get enough sleep gain weight since it affects their metabolic systems,” said Cohen. According to researchers, sleep makes for the difference between waking up a drained, irritated student or a focused and patient one. “One of the ways to improve someone’s sleep is to limit the use of caffeine, alcohol, [and] nicotine in the evening hours and have a good winddown routine prior to bed, preferably without technology,” said Cohen. It’s also important that students have as much of a consistent sleep schedule throughout the entire week by having a regular bedtime and a regular wake time, recommended Cohen.
in the area from noon to 2 p.m. When staff denied his request, he became belligerent towards them and headed to the Pavilion. The male was described as dark-skinned, in his 20s, wearing a black hat or toque, and a dark hoodie. UAPS officers attended the area but weren’t able to locate the male.
but when she returned at 7:15 p.m., her $500 bike had been stolen by cutting the chain used to secure it.
Collecting offerings At 9 a.m. on March 13, UAPS officers arrested a man at St. Joseph’s College for theft. On two previous Sundays, churchgoers had items stolen from the cloakroom while attending mass. The male had previously been dealt with by UAPS in 2009 for theft and has a lengthy criminal record. Edmonton police were contacted and took custody of the man. He was also issued a summons for trespassing.
It Grew Legs A female student attended the UAPS office on March 14 at 11 a.m. to report the theft of her laptop from the basement area of the CCIS building. She wasn’t sure if she had taken it with her when she was done studying. When she got home, she realized it was missing. When she returned to the area to check, it was gone.
Failure to report At 12:30 p.m. on March 14, staff at the activity desk in Van Vliet contacted UAPS to report a male who had approached the desk and asked staff to write a note for his parole officer stating he had been
Heist of the Two-Wheeler At 7:30 p.m. on March 14, a female student attended the UAPS office to report the theft of her bike. The owner had secured her bike at a rack on the northwest side of Fine Arts at around 2 p.m.,
Sleeping Beauty On March 14 at 7 a.m., UAPS officers arrived at the TELUS Centre after receiving a call about a male asleep in a lecture hall. Officers awoke the man, who had been previously dealt with by UAPS, and issued him a summons for trespassing. call me for a good time On March 14 at 10 p.m., members of the Palestine Solidarity Network contacted UAPS to report vandalism to their posters in the TELUS building. UAPS officers attended the area and observed that posters had been defaced and graffiti had been written on walls in a men’s washroom. On March 15, vandals struck again, this time in the Central Academic Building, with graffiti in the south stairwell and a third-floor men’s washroom. The graffiti was removed and EPS were made aware of the new vandalism.
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Opinion
opinion@gateway.ualberta.ca
thursday, march 24, 2011
Catholic schools shouldn’t be the only option Having the option to have YOUR CHILDREN receive education in a religious or secular school seems like a pretty fundamental right. However, in the town of Morinville just 10 minutes north of St. Albert, the councillors don’t seem to think it’s worth their time to explore. Recently, a motion to host a dialogue about the possibility of expanding the schooling in Morinville to include a secular institution in addition to the established Catholic school was voted down 4-3. The fact that the town doesn’t want to even bother to talk to its citizens about such an important issue is troubling at best, and shows a lack of accountability on the part of its elected representatives. While the mayor has said it isn’t the town’s place to address schooling, it wouldn’t hurt them to step up and explore a few options to the system already in place. Parents deserve to have the right to not have their children exposed to religious teachings if they choose, and there seems to be increasing reasons for them to do so. The failings of a faith-based education system were seen on March 10 when a Catholic school in Thunder Bay, Ont. sent home Alexandria Szeglet, a grade 10 student who decided to express her support for the pro-choice movement in response to students who had organized a pro-life show of solidarity as a fundraiser. The pro-life students wore a piece of red tape with the word “life” written on it, while Szeglet wore a piece of green tape with the word “choice” prominently displayed. Administrators said Szeglet was sent home because she hadn’t approved the display with the administration, unlike the pro-life demonstrators, and thus was not allowed to express her opinion. In a show of support for Szeglet, several other students donned similar pieces of tape, and many of them were also sent home or given suspensions. Students shouldn’t need administrative approval to express an opinion. According to the administration, some of the students were combative towards teachers when asked to remove the tape, but this shouldn’t be surprising. These students are old enough to form their own opinions and values, and had every right to be angry. If students are taught straight out of high school that they should keep their opinions to themselves, then it’s no wonder that we see such pervasive apathy on university campuses. As well, a Catholic school in Mississauga recently turned down Leanne Iskander’s request to form a gay-straight alliance student group. After submitting the request, the student was refused on the basis that other school and community initiatives exist. They also indicated that being in a Catholic school, it would obviously be approached from a faith-based perspective. Considering the faith-based perspective on alternative sexualities can frequently be summed up as “no,” it’s not shocking that Iskander would want to form her own group, separate from existing initiatives. Besides that, it would hardly be a problem if a slightly redundant group existed. Given their attempts to sweep students like Szeglet and Iskander under the rug, it’s pretty clear why parents are pushing for more options for their children than what’s offered at Catholic schools, and access to a religion-free education is essential. However, Morinville parents have been told their choices are to accept Catholic education, move elsewhere, or bus their students to other schools. Parents who want secular education point out that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees them the right of “freedom of conscience and religion,” meaning they should have the right to opt out from religious teachings for their children if they so choose. While the school in Morinville does allow students to opt out of the specific religion studies class, the fact that religion is infused throughout the curriculum means that the only way to effectively eliminate it is to remove students from Catholic schools completely. In order to guarantee that the Charter is respected, this is an option that needs to be available, and the town needs to step up to help make this happen. At the very least, they should listen to their citizens, since that was what they were elected to do.
Jordan Ching Online Editor
Ross Vincent
letters to the
eds
Editor ignorant about nuclear power RE: (“Nuclear power not worth the risks,” Dan McKechnie, March 17) It is just astonishing to me how easily people will throw their hands in the air and abandon technology when something goes wrong. The Japanese did everything they could to protect their reactors and they should be praised for it. The sum of the problems is a very small number of slight radiation releases and as of right now, most of Japan’s population is not in any danger. If this is what it takes to destabilize a reactor, why not put one in Alberta? I guarantee we will never see a tsunami in Peace River, and we sit on some of the most geologically stable material on earth when it comes to earthquakes. Canada has a fantastic record with our nuclear power plants and we would be far worse rapists of the environment than we already are without them. To top it all of, he suggests the disposal of nuclear waste into space as the “safest option,” but it’s “prohibitively expensive.” I don’t know about you but I played with model rockets and sometimes they explode; the same is true for the big ones. Take EAS 205, and you will know that not only is that not the best option, it’s one that no one even considers. In addition, he suggests “no effective
means of sequestering spent nuclear fuel has been brought forward.” The best option is sequestering it in wellcemented rock deep in the Canadian shield which is entirely feasible and currently being investigated by our government, already used by the US military in New Mexico, and for which the US government has already finished a facility in Nevada for non-military users. I was raised in Grande Prairie and I intend to move back there, and I say bring us a nuclear reactor. Unfortunately, people always fear what they don’t understand, and clearly our photo editor took neither the time nor the effort to understand the issue of nuclear power in Alberta. The only “dirty bomb in our backyard” is ignorance, which articles like this only serve to encourage.
Hogan Brimacombe
Science V
from the
web
Slate’s arguments hardly convincing RE: (“Same-faculty election slates disbanded,” Simon Yackulic, March 22) Of course Kusmu doesn’t think it’s fair, he lost. The only thing turning people off from voting is individuals saying that it is! Either way, there is no way to
quantitatively support this argument, so I had better not see a comment in this vein one week later. Do you see how little credit that the former slate’s arguments give students? You’re at a top level university, but they insist that they have to hold your hand through the voting process. Their argument is not only condescending, but it also sets themselves up as your only saviour. Wake up and smell the manipulation.
“Rumpled Feathers”
Via Internet
Disengagement in SU runs uphill RE: (“Same-faculty election slates disbanded,” Simon Yackulic, March 22) Fun fact: a certain intervenor in this case publicly acknowledged during a Council Administration Committee meeting that Bylaw 2000 is a badly written bylaw. And yet this same person wants this badly written bylaw treated like gold. Another interesting thing: when the formal decision re: slates was released by DIE Board on Monday morning, the Chief Tribune referred to SU Students’ Council as “General Faculties Council.” Seriously makes me wonder how disconnected these people are from the SU.
“Your Name Here”
Via Internet
Voicing concerns about Gmail privacy RE: (“All students able to make switch to Google Apps,” Aaron Yeo, March 22) I just finished switching over to Gmail. After being assured by the university that it was secure and private, I’m no longer sure. The agreement states that: “...your records, including emails, attachments, documents and calendaring data, stored, received and sent through your University Google Apps Account may be transmitted to and stored on servers outside of the University, Alberta or Canada. The University of Alberta cannot and does not guarantee protection against the possible disclosure of your data including, without limitation, against possible secret disclosures of data to a foreign authority as a consequence of foreign laws.” Sure, this will only affect a minuscule portion of the university’s population (if at all), but this sure does not “respect the privacy and security” of the university (and more specifically, my privacy and security) that Schaeffer just promised us.
“Peter”
Via Internet
Letters to the editor should be sent to letters@gateway.ualberta.ca. Letters to the editor should be no longer than 400 words, and should include the author’s full name, program, and year of study.
The Gateway
Opinion
volume ci number 42
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION : DAN MCKECHNIE
Pornography enters a new domain Bruce Cinnamon
E
arly this week, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, also known by their optimistic abbreviation “ICANN,” gave final approval for the creation of the “.xxx” top-level domain, which will be specific to pornographic websites. ICANN first gave approval in 2005, but caved under the pressure of politically conservative groups whose moral panic caused the initial decision’s reversal. The new approval doesn’t change much about the adult internet scene, but the debate surrounding it reveals the hilarious incoherence of cultural attitudes towards pornography. Indeed, though the 10-year battle seems to be over, the debate rages on, and neither side is happy. The aforementioned right-wing groups contend that creating a top-level domain will legitimize pornography, and no doubt create a slippery slope into a situation where everyone and their priest are constantly masturbating. The pornographers, though, argue that the triple-X domain will ghettoize their content and turn sex sites into the skeezy underbelly of the internet, apparently unaware of the staggering number of pornographic websites that are already there.
“Yet even as it is normalized, pornography must exist in this ‘red-light district’ of the internet, which simultaneously segregates it and legitimizes it, rejects it while endorsing it [...] It’s the exotic, under-the-rug, don’t-tell-mom nature of these images and videos that makes pornography exciting.” The fact that this conversation is even happening is enough to provoke umbrage from certain conservative groups, even though the triple-X domain’s chief advocates claim it exists to filter out inappropriate content and protect the intrinsic innocence of children. Perhaps what worries them is not the corruption of supposed childhood purity, but the fact that over 300,000 pre-reservations have been made for “.xxx” domains, forcing these moral crusaders to admit to just how normalized the consumption of pornography is. Yet even as it is normalized, pornography must exist in this “redlight district” of the internet, which simultaneously segregates it and legitimizes it, rejects it while endorsing it. Because really, who doesn’t like to pretend that pornography is alien and marginal? It’s the exotic, underthe-rug, don’t-tell-mom nature of these images and videos that makes pornography exciting — after all, it clearly isn’t the acting or production values which titillate viewers. This is why the creation of the “.xxx” domain — either the legitimized haven of porn-for-all or the shameful back alley of censored content — is so conflicted; it’s our
own fucked-up notions of porn that have driven it, and our intermingling of outraged sensibilities and freely expressed desires informs our mixed perspective. How can we decide whether to applaud ICANN’s decision or condemn it? We’re not sure if it’s pro-porn or antiporn, or if we’re pro-porn or anti-porn. And even if we are pro- or anti-porn, we still might not be pro-censorship or anti-protection of children. The issue is ridiculously complex. But what does all this mean for the recreational pornography viewer? ICANN has stated that the transition from the more standard “.com” domain to “.xxx” will begin immediately, and will make it easier for the company behind the domain, ICM Registry, to monitor websites for viruses and spam. You may have to update the links in your “boring homework sites don’t open” favourites tab, but otherwise you should be in for a more pleasant viewing experience. Until then, we must eagerly await the introduction of pornographic “.xxx” clones of non-porn websites, like “nationformarriage.xxx” or “chick-fil-a.xxx” — new name, same good old inappropriate content.
readerpoll
How many of your classes have you actually attended this semester? I've only missed a few for very good reasons. (34%)
I have good weeks and bad weeks. (31%)
My professors look at me funny when I actually show up. (15%)
I have a perfect attendance record. So far, anyway. (11%)
All of them except the 8 A.M. ones. Those are bullshit. (8%)
This week’s question: “Why aren’t you voting today?”
vote online at thegatewayonline.ca
7
8
Opinion
thursday, march 24, 2011
www.thegatewayonline.ca
Get over geeky girls Professor wrongly stripped of position Alix Kemp
T
hey are a rare and mysterious breed, and much sought after: the sexy, geeky girl. It is, of course, miraculous for anyone to be female, a nerd, and moderately attractive. I mean, really — since when do girls like movies, video games, comic books, or other geeky things? In most cases, appreciating Star Wars and having breasts are mutually exclusive. Or not. Despite the drooling fantasies of some fanboys, nerd girls aren’t new and exciting. I realize that girls are strange and frightening to those who never leave the dark comfort of mom’s basement. But if you come out of the shadows, you realize that while you’re masturbating to pictures of Felicia Day, there are real live girls who play D&D, collect comic books and action figures, and can kick your ass at Star Trek trivia. What’s arguably worse than the boys who go gaga for any girl with moderately geeky tendencies are those girls who cast themselves in the archetypal role of the hot geek girl. “I like video games,” they say, “and I’m also pretty. Thus I am a special, special flower.” I get it — the guys stared at you in shock when you lined up to buy Dragon Age and ultimately decided that you were buying it for your boyfriend, and it hurt your nerd pride. But
just because they’re terrified of talking to girls and can’t wrap their heads around the idea of a woman being part of nerd culture doesn’t mean you’re some kind of magical creature. Getting caught up in this farce of the mystical geeky girl is ridiculous. Enjoy the things you’re interested in without making a big deal about it — it tends to be more fun than spending every minute reminding everyone how unique you are. The idea of female geeks being special has even bled into mainstream culture — the Edmonton Journal recently published a fawning article about Valerie Lapomme of SexyNerdGirl.com. Of course, what they fail to mention is in this case, the mystical sexy nerd girl actually doesn’t exist — Sexy Nerd Girl is an “interactive multimedia series,” and Valerie Lapomme is actually a character played by Edmonton-born actress Hannah Spear. Besides which, the whole series is so full of clichés, it’s actually painful to watch. As one commenter pointed out, “If attractive ladies who are also nerdy weren’t as common as dishwater — well, this still wouldn’t be news.” Putting somebody up on a pedestal because they’re both attractive and geeky is stupid. I’m not saying these aren’t both great qualities, but if I lost my head over every person who was both hot and loved video games, I’d be dehydrated from drooling. So boys, put the Kleenex away and leave the house occasionally. Girls, go on enjoying D&D, board games, and whatever else your geeky heart adores, and the next time somebody acts shocked, tell them where to shove it.
for double life as burlesque performer Carole Yue
A
s you go about the task of registering for classes for the upcoming semester, consider this: what would happen if one of the psychology professors you were looking up on ratemyprofessors.com was revealed to be a burlesque dancer as well? If the prevalence of teacher fantasies in pornography is anything to go by, you would be one very perky pupil, to say the least. Unfortunately, when fiction becomes reality, the same enthusiasm fails to carry over. Ms. Sheila Addison, previously an assistant psychology professor at the John F. Kennedy University in California, was living out every young man’s fantasy by moonlighting as a burlesque dancer at San Francisco’s Hubba Hubba Revue. But when her alternate ego Professor Shimmy was exposed, Addison was stripped of her professorship. The university responded by sending her a termination letter that stated her performance brought “public direspect, contempt, and ridicule to the university.” The university’s claims of loss of classroom authority, due to students’ knowledge of Addison’s burlesque identity, are hardly convincing. The average university student doesn’t
attend class to receive a valuable educational experience. In fact, half the time, the average university student won’t even attend class at all, if they can get away with it. The impact a professor’s eyebrowraising lifestyle might have on a student’s respect and learning experience is probably equivalent to that of a soccer ball on the Earth’s rotation; so long as the midterms are easy and the final is non-cumulative, students couldn’t care less.
Anything that does not harm a student or their right to an education should be acceptable. Students won’t be so disturbed by the mental imagery of a professor shaking his or her assets that they’ll fail the course. The other contention is that educators should be held to a higher standard because they are in positions of authority. As role models, they’re responsible for maintaining a pristine image in order to avoid tainting the minds of impressionable students. This is true for teachers in primary and secondary education, but students in postsecondary are big kids now. Educational institutions, which pride themselves as centres of progressive
thought, should start looking for different ways to justify their traditionalist decisions. Professors have a right to a personal life outside of the university. As a rule, anything that does not harm a student or their right to an education should be acceptable. Students won’t be so disturbed by the mental imagery of a professor shaking his or her assets that they’ll fail the course and ruin their chances of ever graduating. University students are pretty good about failing courses or being distracted on their own terms, and a professor’s offcampus activities won’t impact anyone’s studies. Professor Shimmy never set foot on the JFK campus; Addison made a point to keep her professional and personal spheres separate, and never advertised her show to students, nor did she allude to her other employer during performances. Addison also alleges that when a male colleague publicized his one-man show on campus, which involved partial nudity, he didn’t face any sort of discipline. Clearly, there is a double standard at work here — regardless of the progress feminism has made, women are still getting screwed over. Society’s expectations that professors be paragons of virtue are unfair, especially when those standards aren’t applied equally. But really, there’s absolutely no reason that any professor — including Addison — can’t enjoy the freedom to enjoy the weekends however they please.
The Gateway
Opinion
volume ci number 42
Even losers can make money Mike
Chafe
Y
ou know, Bob Dylan once said “the times they are a changin.’ ” I’m not completely sure what he meant by this, but I can only assume it was in reference to a malfunctioning clock he had purchased. However, this song carries a message pertaining to so much more than just faulty timepieces. The times are indeed changing, especially here on campus. No, I’m not talking about the “hair in funny new places” kind of change, but rather something much more prolific. It’s crunch time; essays are due, finals are looming, and you’re quickly running out of time to wire bribes to your professor’s offshore bank account. Yes, with all of this stress building, it’s often too easy to forget about finding yourself that perfect summer job. But don’t worry — I’m here to help. Now, if you’re anything like me, the road to employment is a long and tedious one full of disappointment, utter failure, and fist fights with the night manager of a Denny’s. I suppose my biggest flaw in the working world is that I possess no applicable job skills whatsoever. I’m often late, I’m poor with computers, I refuse to lift anything heavier than 10 pounds, I can’t be trusted around a cash register, I don’t work well with others, and for some reason my body emits
“In its current state, your resumé is nothing short of a horrendous flaming trainwreck on paper [...] However, with a few minor tweaks, it can quickly become the little engine that could. Are you fresh out of prison? Not anymore — that’s now ‘volunteer experience in criminal justice.’ ” a strange odour that tends to attract deer. However, despite these minor setbacks, I have developed some foolproof methods to earn great money in a fast and semi-legal manner. Now I’m sure you’re wondering what exactly qualifies me to be giving such valuable advice regarding employment. Well, I’m a certified genius. In fact, the movie A Beautiful Mind was actually about me — they just changed the names around for legal reasons. It is this unique set of skills that will aid me in crafting a perfect plan to garner you the perfect summer job. The first trick to increasing your employment chances is beefing up your resumé. In its current state, your resumé is nothing short of a horrendous flaming trainwreck on paper. That’s bad, just like when the Ghostbusters cross the streams. However, with a few minor tweaks, it can quickly become the little engine that could. Are you fresh out of prison? Not anymore — that’s now “volunteer experience in criminal justice.” Perhaps your last job was less than respectable. Rather than tarnish your resume with the likes of “roadkill cleaning crew,” put something like “animal care practitioner.” It’s not lying, more like creative thinking — in fact, you can list that as a skill. Still having trouble finding work? Have you considered starting your
own company? Milton Berle once said, “If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” Isn’t it obvious what this quote means? Start your own company that builds doors. Or, if doors aren’t your forté, why not farm emus or resell prescription medication at inflated costs? Hell, you don’t even have to specialize. My company, Uncle Mike Corporation Ltd. has been in business for years, and I still have no clue what it is we do. Perhaps the most uplifting advice I can deliver is to tell you that you can very realistically earn great money by hardly working at all. There are plenty of backdoor methods to earning cash fast. For instance, have you considered selling blood or semen? How about working as a clown at children’s parties? If all else fails, I suggest becoming a contract writer where you do things like challenging yourself to mention blood, semen, and clowns in a single sentence. I’m still working on that one. You now have all the tools you need to land the summer job of your dreams. I guarantee that you’ll find working hard and earning an income to help pay for your education one of the most rewarding things you’ll ever do. And if it turns out that all you can get is soul destroying retail work, quit and mooch off government employment insurance all summer instead. Whatever works.
9
ThreeLinesFree
Got something that you need to get off your mind? Either email us at threelinesfree@gateway.ualberta.ca, tweet @threelinesfree, or message us at www.thegatewayonline.ca/threelinesfree To the guy in my ANTHR101 class who wears the brownish Sessions pinstriping Jacket, you, and your friend who wears the black, are very, very good looking guys ;) Does anyone else find Tory really hot? Q: How do you know when a students’ union is broken? A: When 85% of its members fail to vote. Everyone whines and complains about the SU being useless — go do something about it then! Fiji is taking over. I’m looking forward to spring cause it means the end of Uggs. Right?!? Haikus are hard Sometimes they don’t make any sense Refrigerator. To the sensuous red-head in my Psych 104 class: your sponge-bob tattoo rocks my world almost as much as your skullet. To the girl with the super loud squeaky sneezes in Sai Yiu’s Chem 102/105 class. Bless You. Doesn’t anyone else think the poetry at the health sciences LRT station is beautiful? I think it’s so inspirational I’d like to fuck with the guy who lives three rooms away from me. But he is a guy and I’m a guy =( Hey UofA, thanks for updating your website but still not including a moodle shortcut. Assholes. 25 pages is a little excessive for a 1st year class, don’t ‘cha think?!? There’s really no need to push past me, I’m just as late for class as you are. SUPA: Students United for Pushing Agendas. Don’t fuck up again, Arts students. The reason why I walk on the wrong side of HUB: The people on the right side are walking too slow. Yes, I would like to study in Italy. Please stop reminding me.
Ok, dude in my hockey class, it smells like you took a dump in your equipment. I’m doing kegels in class :) Why do all the boys want to do anal these days? No talking in floors 2 - 5 of Rutherford! Dear people of TLF, humans are inconsiderate but they dont have ESP. Sack up and use your grown up words to their faces. Stand up for yourselves! Don’t write to TLF, call out ignorant people who converse on silent library floors. If you do not want to hear people talking, why are you in the cafeteria? The library is very quiet. Sincerely, Loud Opinionated Guy in ETLC. Oh man you can loudly eat chicken in Rutherford now? I’m gonna order a beer! Can the gateway publish more about GLTBQ things? It’s all well and good to know how to talk to a straight girl but they aren’t the ones i want. To the guy playing pokemon in my astro lecture-high five My prof shows up to fewer classes than I do. Huh. Props to whoever made the snow boobs in business quad. snow dicks are so cliche You are disgusting and your PDA is making me sick. Please do my physchem lab while I throw up. Thanks
The Gateway reserves the right to edit any submissions, as well as refuse publication of any submission it deems racist, sexist, hateful, libellous, or overtly offensive. The Gateway cannot guarantee that your submission will be used (but we’ll try). Submissions should be 130 characters max (including spaces).
10
Opinion Feature
thursday, march 24, 2011
www.thegatewayonline.ca
SU Elections Rad Libs On Election Day, what a
woke up and
(VP Student Life candidate)
day to be running for office!” he said to his
(adjective)
it doesn’t end in a
his fuzzy white
(past-tense verb)
campus version of
. “Hopefully this time around,
(stuffed animal)
!” He then started practicing his
(just say clusterfuck)
. “Ah,
(type of livestock ruminant)
(choreography/jazz hands/chorus line kicks)
for the
.
(West Side Story/Hello Dolly/Rent)
On the other side of Edmonton, the race sure is out to
was throwing pokéballs at a nearby
this year,” he said. “But this time, that
(negative adjective)
(negligible number)
(other VPSL candidate)
students won’t affect the !” Oh, what a
(agreeing with other VPSL candidate/catching them all)
(type of electronic communication)
rushed in. “We
(authoritative verb)
(any activity excluding reading bylaw)
that you allow our group of
“Unfortunately, you’re
(type of bad fortune, eg. SOL)
from
will definitely help promote
Meanwhile, as they were awaiting the impending election (noun)
.
(approved/disapproved/determined by tarot card)
, when councillors Aditya Rao and Petros Kusmu
(plural noun)
to
each other!” they exclaimed.
(verb)
!” DIE Board ruled. “Based on the
tion. This decision will certainly
(name of anyone willing to take thankless job)
had just been
(noun)
(engage/piss off)
(Platonic form of governance)
the
advice we received
(adjective)
, we have determined that you can’t
(member of DIE Board audience)
I sent
day it will be!
(adjective)
Back at the university, trouble was afoot. Chief Returning Officer
The DIE Board had just finished
. “Man,
voter turnout. Now I’ve got to get back to
(low)
had just posted a ruling stating that the legality of
(noun)
each other in this elec-
(verb)
student population, and
(inert/idle/disengaged)
and student
in this election!”
(noun for indifference)
, incoming SU President Rory Tighe smiled with a
(results/catastrophe)
in his eye. “I pledge to improve student engagement!” he stated to
student councillors and
(number between 10 and 20)
students in the room.
(number between 1 and 10)
Waiting with him were incoming VP (Academic) Emerson Csorba, who had just finished balancing school and (existential reflection of consciousness)
, while incoming VP External Farid Iskandar had just been making posters featuring
fonts to help convince the (bullshit non-instructional fee)
government to stop the increase of
(provincial/federal/whichever)
(necessary instructional fee)
(form of swine)
and
.
Incoming Vice President (Operations and Finance) Andy Cheema laid back relaxing while wearing his (article of polyester clothing)
(number between 5 and 20)
(family member)
’s oversized
. Suddenly, incoming Board of Governors Representative Raphael Lepage Fortin burst in and exclaimed, “Sup,
!” These sights caused
they had avoided the threat to their
(any rational person)
(employment/dignity)
to
, as the candidates beamed with confidence, knowing that
(verb)
posed by
(none of the above/anyone else who would have ran)
Upon seeing all of these events, outgoing President Nick Dehod cupped his believe that I’m leaving this place to these
(body part)
(educational institution)
in his hands, and screamed, “I can’t
.” He then realized that he himself needed a
(type of barbarous heathen, plural)
before declaring, “This
.
sure is
(adjective)
,
(adjective)
, and
(week of relaxation/type of 40-proof alcohol/moment to cry)
(strong negative adjective)
!”
Email your best rad libs to gateway@gateway.ualberta.ca!
The Gateway
Opinion
volume ci number 42
11
To be a man without a country National Nutrition Month Ryan
Bromsgrove
Y
ou’ve had it with society. Democracy doesn’t work, nobody will listen to you about the benefits of a benevolent dictatorship, and you’re tired of trying to help fix things. But you don’t know what to do next, because society never bothered with an opt-out. It’s easy for someone to say, “Love it or leave it,” but there’s nowhere the disillusioned loner can move to. Almost every piece of land on the planet has had lines drawn around it by one group of people or another, and so as soon as you leave your own country, you’re in somebody else’s. Now you have to deal with their laws and their culture, and you’re probably back where you started: hating everybody and wanting no part of it. Your first option is probably to try hiding out in the mountains, living your life as a hermit. With a wild beard and untamed hair, you venture out of your homey cave every morning in search of animals to trap and the right sort of berries to eat. It’s a simple, primal life, and it will probably go fairly well for a while. But eventually, some tourist family will take exception to your nakedness and tell the authorities that there’s a pedophile harassing their children. That, or you’ll get eaten by bears. So you’ll need somewhere without
“Almost every piece of land on the planet has had lines drawn around it [...] and so as soon as you leave your own country, you’re in somebody else’s. Now you have to deal with their laws and their culture, and you’re probably back where you started: hating everybody and wanting no part of it.” tourists and bears. One option is the only significant chunk of unclaimed territory in the world: Marie Byrd Land in Antarctica. Of course, it’s unclaimed for a reason — Antarctica is a freezing desert. If you’re drowning in money, you could conceivably have a self-sufficient domed homestead built, but you’d probably end up rather irritated with having your dick freeze off every time you try to take a stroll outside. Unclaimed land isn’t the only way to escape society. Though full of its own host of problems, one can turn to the sea — and this is what Roy Bates did when he noticed that a British Second World War naval fort had been abandoned. At the time, it was also within international waters, so he moved in, eventually declaring it “Sealand.” Though temporarily held by Dutch and German mercenaries in the late ‘70s, Bates won the war and rules to this day. Even so, there are few abandoned military forts within international waters up for grabs these days. But that hasn’t deterred the sea-steading movement. They want to build floating cities as a means to experiment with new forms of government. We already have oil platforms and cruise ships — we just need to combine the two and scale up.
The idea is attractive. No bears, no -50C temperatures, and enough people to deter small invasions. But then, there’s your problem: people. The reason you wanted out of society in the first place is you just wanted to be left alone. While the location might be perfect, all this experimenting with new forms of government is bound to mean there’ll be a single decent idea for every 10 infuriatingly shitty ones. There is only one thing left. Somehow, you have to convince somebody to send you on a oneway trip to Mars. The obsession in the space industry of bringing every astronaut back leads to needlessly expensive missions, when instead we could be dropping people off with air and supplies to last them a lifetime. Imagine the secrets we could discover by always having the innovation of a human on stand-by, without having to spend a decade building a robot to execute one specific task at a time. No longer must we worry about a rover getting caught in a crater, or a shovel deployment failing. That’s how you pitch it, anyway. But really, once you land, you’ll just have a mysterious accident with the communication circuits, put on your pressure suit, and enjoy the most solitary walk in the universe.
gets us to think healthy Neil Sparkes
The Muse (CUP)
M
arch is National Nutrition month, and if you’re like me, the last two months of neglecting resolutions to eat better and be less self-destructive are starting to catch up. Even though some groundbreaking steps have been taken — like no more Cheez Whiz, since it’s grey before the yellow colouring is added — the garbage is still full of frozen dinner boxes, bottle caps, and Tim Hortons cups. Students have limited options when it comes to buying affordable food. A loan or line of credit will only stretch so far once you’ve lost half of it to winter cab fare and spent another chunk at the bookstore. Kraft Dinner and Mr. Noodles have as much nutrition as cardboard, but they’re still staples of a university diet. Cheap food is too appealing to someone on a budget. It occurred to me one evening, as I prepared another frozen chicken burger patty with a side of fish sticks, that I should eat more vegetables. I’m too often satisfied to simply fill the empty void with whatever comes easiest — the path of least resistance. Nutrition is something I rarely think about, and that’s not good. The body is a complicated thing. I wish my body came with a user
guide — a manual that told me how to keep all my components in tune, how to keep my gas tank full, and how to get the longest possible life out of my vehicle. Even if there were such a guide, I would probably still struggle with basic things, like consistent meal times. I can eat breakfast right before I go to bed, right?
Kraft Dinner and Mr. Noodles have as much nutrition as cardboard, but they’re still staples of a university diet. Cheap food is too appealing to someone on a budget. There are always people who take dieting too seriously. They carry light Tupperware lunches and caloriecounter notepads and they lecture you with hateful eyes as you order your BLT with double bacon. Unless it’s by doctor’s orders, neurotic obsession with nutrition isn’t healthy either. We all consume things that kill us: cigarettes, soda, and McDonald’s to name a few. But somewhere between gluttony and paranoia is a healthy balance, where smart choices come from awareness, not obsession. That’s what National Nutrition Month is about. It’s not about telling people how to live, but reminding people to take care of themselves. Habits can set traps that are easy to fall into.
12
Feature
thursday, march 24, 2011
www.thegatewayonline.ca
The Black Hole of The Gateway’s mental health series Today • The bigger problems with addiction
Thursday, March 31 • Suicide and students
Written by Justin Bell and Darcy Ropchan Illustrated by Anthony Goertz
A
fter being clean and “sober” for four and a half years, Amy admits she’s having troubles with her eating disorder again. She’s relapsed. She doesn’t know when the urge to binge will kick in and she’ll have to answer the call. Amy (whose name has been changed to protect her identity) will spend anywhere from three to five hours binge eating, then vomiting, when she gets the urge. It’s a compulsion she can’t control, but one that consumes her. She will leave the library in the middle of writing a paper in order to go home and start eating. Amy has been struggling with one form of eating disorder or another for most of her life. She describes symptoms of both anorexia, an obsessive fear with gaining weight, and bulimia, a back-and-forth of binge eating followed by vomiting. For Amy, a sociology student at the U of A, she can
trace her symptoms back to the age of 12, where she thinks two things pushed her into her eating problems: her 10-year-old brother died of cancer, and her family moved back to Canada from Australia. She had also recently entered puberty and gained 27 pounds, pushing her to 142. Amy and a friend, who also hit puberty and gained a few pounds, decided they would try dieting in order to bring them both back to what they considered a healthy weight. While her friend managed to cut back properly, Amy continued to push the limit of what was healthy and eliminated more and more foods from her diet.
The Gateway
Feature
volume ci number 42
“[A]t the time, we decided to go on a diet, my first relationship had come to an end, and I took the diet to the extreme. The more I learned, the more I cut out, and the more I changed and manipulated. My parents realized something was wrong before I had any clue anything was wrong.” Amy went on to lose 66 pounds in six months, a rapid change her family couldn’t ignore. She then spent 12 weeks in an adolescent psychiatric ward, where she would return twice more the following year. At one point, Amy was down to a paltry 88 pounds. She describes her bulimia and anorexia in terms clinicians usually reserve for addictions. And while eating disorders are generally classified separately from addictions, the research hasn’t been able to say either way. “Eating disorders are still considered a separate and distinct problem, separate from substance dependence,” said Jody Wolfe, a research associate at the Addictions and Mental Health Research Laboratory (AMHRL) at the University of Alberta. “From a clinical front, they’re still currently seen as different issues. But there’s been a significant amount of research, as well as individual clinicians and treatment providers, that are showing that there are some important similarities and that eating disorders can be treated using some similar techniques used for treating people with substance dependence.” While the research hasn’t quantified eating disorders as a full-blown addiction, it’s important to remember that the clinical description of what constitutes an addiction is a lot narrower than that of the general public. The term itself is a “lay term,” according to Wolfe, one thrown around by people to describe almost anything. From porn and sex, to video games and food, the media and the public have classified many different behaviours as addictive. From a clinical perspective, the exact reason why anyone starts an addictive habit is hard to explain. More and more research is suggesting a connection to the way the brain perceives rewards. An alteration to those perceptions, either by a substance or a behaviour, could lead to more problems. However, addiction itself is a highly complex process. “With problems like addictive behaviours, you’re not going to find one single answer. I think the key thing to keep in mind is [addiction is] a complex problem, multi-determined, and likely there are genetic, environmental, and developmental aspects at play,” Wolfe said. That goes against the common perception that simply because someone had parents who were alcoholics necessarily means they’re genetically predisposed. Environmental factors could play a
“The hardest part is when kids refuse treatment and you know they’re going to go out and use. You don’t want to read the paper, because a couple times you read that so-and-so overdosed or ended up in the hospital.” - Naomi Mitchell Councillor, Alberta Health Services
part in recurring problems, or it could be linked to genetics. “People who might not be related to their primary caregiver, [if] that person is an alcoholic — they may be more likely to develop it themselves,” Wolfe said. But even with the genetic and environmental predispositions, addictions don’t always manifest themselves without triggers. Addictions can be brought on by other mental health issues. Wolfe said that people often show signs of depression and an anxiety before they develop an addiction. But she noted that people with addictions can develop other problems too. “It seems to kind of go both ways. In some cases, people with mental illness may be selfmedicating, or turning to other problem behaviours to cope. People may have started off with a substance-abuse problem and that has led to other mental health issues as a result of those complications. You might get more depressed or become depressed because you realize your life is going downhill because of your substance abuse.” Other than cigarettes, the most common addiction in North America is alcohol. According to a study released by Statistics Canada in 2008, 17.6 per cent of people over the age of 12 in Alberta report heavy alcohol use in the past year. This is slightly above the national average of 16.7 per cent. Those numbers increase when looking at the male population, with almost one quarter of the population reporting heavy drinking in the past year. Gambling, like eating disorders, is an addiction that doesn’t fit into the general category of alcohol and drug addictions. In Alberta, approximately 4.6 per cent of the population has some sort of gambling problem. And those with a gambling addiction are more likely to develop other problems. According to a study from 2008, produced by the AMHR Laboratory, adults in Alberta who are problem gamblers are twice as likely to have a dependency on nicotine, alcohol, or drugs. The number of people like Amy who struggle with eating disorders in Canada
are relatively small, but such disorders can be incredibly deadly. A study from Statistics Canada in 2002 showed that 0.5 per cent of the population had been diagnosed with an eating disorder, while 1.7 per cent had reported symptoms in the past year. However, another study, out of the journal Eating Disorders and Obesity in 2002, found that 10 per cent of people diagnosed with an eating disorder will die within 10 years of its onset, one of the highest mortality rates of any psychiatric illness. Due to its complexity, treatment for addiction isn’t as cut and dry as dealing with other medical problems. For Naomi Mitchell, a councillor at the Health and Addiction Services department of Alberta Health Services, it’s a matter of examining a patient’s entire life to determine where their problem might have originated. And the process can often be lengthy. Mitchell said
patience is a requirement when treating someone with an addiction. “That’s the nature of drug and alcohol abuse. Change is a process — it doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a learned behaviour and they have to unlearn it. Sometimes there are lapses and relapses, for sure. It’s good to see people in our offices because they’re making steps towards their recovery,” Mitchell said. People who suffer from addiction are often perceived to be low-lifes and losers in society, a stereotype that Mitchell said simply isn’t true. Many people suffer from addictions, and when addicts become stigmatized for their problems, it only makes it more difficult for them to get help. Not only do societal views contribute to the negative view of addiction, but celebrities and media also play a detrimental role by glamorizing addiction and the people who suffer it. “You look at Celebrity Rehab with Doctor Drew or Intervention, I think it glamorizes it in a way but also hopefully people will see the impact that it has and that it affects everyone’s lives. It could be a mother, a brother, a best friend — these things do affect people’s lives,” Mitchell said. But trying to help people isn’t always easy. Working with addicts means making connections with people who may continue to use, or even die because of their problems. “The hardest part is when kids refuse treatment and you know
they’re going to go out and use. You don’t want to read the paper, because a couple times you read that so-and-so overdosed or ended up in the hospital,” Mitchell said. “My friends always ask me how I work with these people. I say, the average person who works on themselves and goes through recovery can be a healthier person than most people in their everyday life.” For Amy, she thought escaping back to Australia might help her get a fresh perspective on her eating disorder, but she returned within a year. What she quickly realized was that it wasn’t her family that was the problem — it was her. She came home and eventually sought help, through both psychiatry and Anorexics and Bulimics Anonymous, a 12-step group where she can talk through her problems and get support from others dealing with the same issue. She now classifies herself as a high-functioning bulimic, someone who can hide her problem well enough and deal with the symptoms while leading a normal life. But Amy relapsed back into bulimia last October, and now has to worry about when the urge to binge eat will come up again. “Somebody said it’s like cancer. It’s in remission. There’s always that fear that it’s going to rise up. And you never know if it will or it won’t — you just kind of live your life. I feel like I’m in a place where I have cancer again. I don’t know when I will go into remission or not.”
For more information about addictions, you can visit www.knowmo.ca, a site developed by the Addiction and Mental Health Research Laboratory. You can also go to www.checkyourself.ca to see how your drinking habits could be affecting your health. Anyone who thinks they are suffering from any sort of addiction can get help at the University Health Centre on the second floor of the Students’ Union Building.
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A&E social
intercourse
ESO 60th Season Launch Friday, March 25 at 12 p.m. Winspear Centre (4 Sir Winston Churchill Square) Free Every year the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra produces a splendid season, with everything from concerts showcasing the work of Chopin and Bach to tributes to Charlie Chaplin and Frank Zappa. Bugs Bunny was even a part of the past year’s selection of performances. On Friday at noon, the ESO will be launching their 60th season at their usual Winspear Centre venue, where you can get a glimpse of what they’ve got lined up for the coming year. Some of the featured composers include Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and Brahms, and the orchestra will also be playing a Disney Adventure piece. The concert is a free gig with general first-come, first-serve seating, and the ESO will also be collecting non-perishable food items for the Edmonton Food Bank.
Mile Zero Dance presents: Space of Water Choreographed and danced by Mari Osanai Friday, March 25 and Saturday, March 26 at 8 p.m. Azimuth Theatre (11315-106 Avenue) $15 for members, $20 for non-members at the door “Space of Water” — even the name brings to mind one of those magnificent spectacles you can’t begin to envision. My imagination tells me it features slow motion and no gravity, perhaps? It’s probably not quite that scientifically groundbreaking, but the magic in the artistic quality might be just as good. The world premier of Space of Water is on Friday at the Azimuth Theatre featuring Mari Osanai, a renowned Japanese dancer trained in classical ballet, Noguchi gymnastics, yoga, tai-chi, and hip-hop. Whoa. I may have to take back what I said: judging from her background, she probably can defy gravity.
2011 Edmonton Music Awards Sunday, March 27 at 7 p.m. and Monday, March 28 at 7 p.m. The Haven Social Club (15120A Stony Plan Road) Sold out Edmonton’s music community is home to an everexpanding wealth of homegrown talent. Now, to acknowledge, promote, and celebrate it, the first annual Edmonton Music Awards have arrived. In addition to awards for 13 different categories among more than 90 nominees, there will be rad live performances by local bands and artists including Colleen Brown, The Provincial Archive, and Erica Viegas. Voting is now closed and tickets are unfortunately sold out, but we can only hope that this is just the start of a growing yearly celebration for the well-deserved local talents who keep art and culture flourishing in our city.
West Indian Diary Directed by Philip Akin Written by Pat Darbasie Runs March 24¬26 at 7:30 p.m. Stanley A. Milner Library Theatre (7 Sir Winston Churchill Square) $10 for students at Tix-on-the-Square Edmonton is also a diverse cultural community that has a history of its own. Telling the story of part of that history is West Indian Diary, a play following the experiences of Caribbean immigrants making Edmonton their new home. This candid tale is set in the ‘60s and ‘70s, but the struggle to adjust to a new environment represents a universal story that speaks to young and old generations alike.
Dulguun Bayasgalan
Social Intercourse-winning
A dragon’s lair of fables and fantasy gamereview Dragon Age II
Developed by BioWare Published by Electronic Arts Available on PS3, Xbox 360, Mac, and PC
Ryan Bromsgrove
Arts & Entertainment Staff
While Dragon Age II features much-improved combat and gameplay than its predecessor, it is not without its problems. In the first game, the player is faced with the well-executed, but fairly typical RPG task of saving the world by defeating an archdemon — an enormous dragon threatening the land of Ferelden. This installment opts for telling the rags-to-riches story of a refugee, spread out over seven years. It’s a refreshing new idea, and is obviously trying to be much more subtle than the previous installment, but ultimately the smallness of the game is just too limiting. The sequel builds on the lore of the land of Thedas, taking us to a new area known as the Free Marches. Escaping from the events of the first game to the city-state of Kirkwall, the character of Hawke embarks upon a rise to power, from humble new arrival to champion of the city. Initially, the world of Kirkwall and its surrounding areas seems huge. It has various districts, an intriguing history, and a wide variety of inhabitants. There is constant tension in the city, with various factions on the brink of violence. But the game lacks a consistent adversary, and without one, the player can be left without a real sense of purpose. The first act, for example, sees you grinding through quests to reach an arbitrary amount of gold, whereas the next two have storylines that manage to deliver more exciting finales, but also have secondary tasks that disrupt the flow of gameplay. While storytelling at the end of each act was excellent, the abruptness of the plot, coupled
As one of the most anticipated role-playing games of the year, Edmontonbased developer BioWare had to live up to some hefty expectations for the sequel to Dragon Age: Origins. Did they succeed? Two resident Gateway gamers weigh in on whether Dragon Age II is up to snuff. with the compulsion to finish all the side quests before the point-ofno-return time jumps, results in pacing problems. By the time you’re in the last act, you’ll be tired of traipsing through the same warehouse or cave you already visited several times. Someone was helpful enough to replace all the treasure, and it’s a different group of people that you must kill, but the locations themselves don’t show any signs of aging. Worse, after the first act, there are actually no significant new places in the game to visit. The long timeframe of Dragon Age II has been an important part of the game’s hype, but with no actual sense of time passing, it’s pretty inconsequential. The story may encompass several years, but the impression is that Hawke had a few exciting weeks here and there, and didn’t get up to much between the crises. Had the story actually taken place over a month or so, the only thing that would have changed would have been the short cutscenes between the jumps — but the game would have been tighter and more immediate. Dragon Age II is worth playing, and is definitely fun — which is the most important thing — but the closer you get to the end, the more it feels very obviously rushed, and it’s hard not to speculate that the reason is its relatively short development time. Dragon Age: Origins was released more than five years after its announcement, whereas the sequel was pushed out in about a year and a half. It’s rare that an RPG can be pulled off with that sort of timeframe, and as a result, what could have been a fantastic followup feels incomplete.
Jordan Ching Online Editor
After landing themselves a selfadmitted surprise hit with Dragon Age: Origins in 2009, BioWare decided to almost completely gut the game and overhaul the whole experience for the sequel, much like their other popular title Mass Effect. While a lot of the changes have been to the game’s benefit, there are a few unfortunate missteps that pop up. Being an RPG, you spend a lot of time beating people or monsters into a pulp, and the combat has been mercifully tightened up, featuring far less lag between the issue of a command and its execution than in the previous game. There’s also better feedback when a kill is executed, making the experience of bashing in a thug’s face all the more satisfying. Standard attacks, though, are done by mashing the attack button rather than autoattacking, which is not only unsophisticated, but often causes your character to flail wildly after all the baddies have been dispatched. Battle difficulty is also more balanced this time, but there are a few annoying and unexpected blindsides that will force you to take direct control of your party members during key fights. There’s usually no warning until your companions start dropping like flies, at which point a total party wipe is almost inevitable. When this happens, it’s even more frustrating than the consistently unforgiving challenge of the first game, though this gives way to extreme satisfaction when you successfully orchestrate a series of devastating combos to obliterate a horde of enemies. Visually, Dragon Age II has also
received some much-needed attention, and it is definitely much easier on the eyes than the original. The environments of the virtual world of Kirkwall are nicely detailed, with impressive dwarven stonework contrasted well with lush forests and dank caverns in surrounding areas. The catch is that, while the more powerful PS3 does an adequate job of rendering the prettier environments, the Xbox 360 experiences some framerate drops and stuttering. The scope of the environments themselves is unfortunately much more limited than the first game. Kirkwall and the surrounding areas provide the primary backdrop, with a few outlying areas thrown in to add variety. While this gives a sense of “settling in” to your surroundings rather than rambling all over the countryside, neglecting to change the landscape to help signify the passing of time is a massive missed opportunity to develop the game’s depth. The game’s time lapse is instead best reflected in the consequences of your decisions on the people of Kirkwall. Each act of the threepart story focuses on a specific goal to accomplish, and the widening scope of your influence reflects well in the tasks set before you. Those around you take note of your actions, and it’s satisfying to go from being spat on to being treated like a hero by those you help. Ultimately, Dragon Age II makes more right than wrong moves, and succeeds in improving on many of the shortfalls of the original. The story of Hawke feels more personal and engaging, while the mechanics benefit from a great deal of tweaking. While there are obviously a few changes that didn’t work, they are easily overshadowed by the ones that did.
The Gateway
Arts & Entertainment
volume ci number 42
15
Young playwright explores the complexity of abduction theatrepreview An Almost Perfect Thing
Directed by Michael Clark Written by Nicole Moeller Starring Frank Zotter, David Ley, and Tess Degenstein Runs March 24 to April 10 at 7:30 p.m., Sunday matinées at 2 p.m. La Cite Francophone (8627-91 Street) $15-25 at Tix-on-the-Square or at the door, pay-what-you-can for Tuesday performances
Ben Dextraze
Arts & Entertainment Writer
Nicole Moeller burst onto the Edmonton scene in 2008 with her hit play Without You. Initially written at a 24-hour playwriting competition hosted through the U of A Bookstore, it was so successful it was subsequently picked up by U of A Studio Theatre and given a full production. This was a learning experience that launched Moeller into the public eye and also helped foster her future as an up-and-coming playwright. Fast-forward nearly three years, and Moeller is now ready with her newest play, An Almost Perfect Thing. “It’s been a completely different process than Without You,” Moeller explains. “I’ve had the time to experiment with different things. When I suddenly wanted all the characters to directly address the audience — I knew that would make things go in a completely different direction, but I decided to take risks to see where they’d lead.” An Almost Perfect Thing follows
a disturbing set of events based on a true story. In the play, a young girl named Chloe (Tess Degenstein) is kidnapped and held hostage for more than six years before she is finally able to escape Mathew (David Ley), her abductor. Soon after getting away, she’s swarmed by a media frenzy, and subsequently starts to script her own interviews to deal with the press — but because of this, the public’s opinion of her suddenly changes.
“I wanted to explore what truth is — what our rights are in obtaining the truth. And I also wanted to see and explore placing characters in desperate situations to find out what drives them.” Nicole Moeller Playwright, An Almost Perfect Thing
“What was interesting to me [in the real story] was how the girl took control of her situation pretty quickly and started scripting her interviews,” Moeller says. “She didn’t act like a typical victim, and we have a preconceived notion about what a victim really is and how they should act. So to me, the way her story was handled became fascinating.” In turn, Moeller’s drama questions the very ideas of freedom, individual
Dan McKechnie
rights, and truth as they are filtered through the media. The plot thickens even further when Greg (Frank Zotter), a reporter for the Toronto Star, becomes personally involved while trying to uncover the facts — taking the story in a new direction. Moeller says she wanted to write characters that have to face frantic circumstances while incorporating her love for direct address, a device which allows characters to convey their thoughts in a soliloquy. In turn, her drama becomes riddled with suspense, while also involving the audience in the action as each character tries to understand and negotiate their individual dilemmas.
“I wanted to explore what truth is — what our rights are in obtaining the truth. And I also wanted to see and explore placing characters in desperate situations to find out what drives them. What happens when you are completely desperate and you’re feeling completely alone, empty, and devoid?” Moeller has been busy workshopping and rewriting An Almost Perfect Thing since it was first conceived in 2007. She credits the help of actors, editors, and local playwrights who helped along the way, but Moeller is particularly thankful for the playwriting unit at Workshop West Theatre, the company now producing
her script. For Moeller, the development of this play has been much more conventional than her previous work, but still incredibly rewarding. Instead of having a mere 24 hours to formulate a play, she has taken the time to find her interests, empower her writing, and take risks to see where the script might lead her. “It’s always a balance between learning and experimenting with writing — and you also need to be concerned with what’s going on in the world around you,” Moeller says. “You want to spend time studying subjects that aren’t writing per se, but at the same time, you need to work on becoming a stronger writer.”
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The Gateway
Arts & Entertainment
volume ci number 42
17
We Are The City is out to catch ‘em all on tour musicpreview
“I would love for someone to come to me and instead of saying, ‘Can you sign my Pokémon card?’ I would love it to be, ‘Hey, do you want to have a Pokémon card battle with me?’ So we’re actually friends. ”
We Are The City
With Aidan Knight, Pre/Post, and Dirty City Hearts Friday, March 25 at 9 p.m. Brixx Bar & Grill (10030¬102 Street) $12 at the door
Kristine Nielsen
Arts & Entertainment Staff
Cayne McKenzie just wants to play Pokémon with you. Even though autographing a couple of Pokémon cards top the list of coolest things he’s ever signed, McKenzie can think of a better use for them. As the lead vocalist of Kelowna-based progressive pop trio We Are The City, his recording and touring schedule is hectic, but at the end of the day, he just wants to get to know some new faces. “I would love for someone to come to me and instead of saying, ‘Can you sign my Pokémon card?’ I would love it to be, ‘Hey, do you want to have a Pokémon card battle with me?’ So we’re actually friends.” We Are The City are sure to make plenty of friends as they tour across Canada in support of their newest release High School. The six-song EP began as a side project for McKenzie and We Are The City drummer Andy Huculiak when the two had time off in the summer of 2010. Fans won’t complain about this product of the band’s downtime, but McKenzie has another reason to spend his time writing songs in his basement and spending time on the road — it saves him from having to get a regular job.
Cayne McKenzie Lead vocalist, We Are The City
“There will be no more touring for all of July and half of August,” he says, detailing the band’s normally busy travel schedule. “Halfway through August, we start to record our new album, so in that month and a half we’re going to be at home. How do you have money if you’re not doing anything? “I’m really nervous to get a day job. It’ll be almost two years by that point that I won’t have had a day job — it’s going to be wild.” When most of us think about jobs that pay bills, “wild”
probably isn’t the first word to come to mind. However, McKenzie looks at his employment history with a distinct sense of humour. His own relationship with bandmate Huculiak began when the two started working together as teenagers, and the comedy hasn’t stopped since. “[Andrew and I] have to get a job together, or it’s just not fun,” McKenzie says. “We worked at the movie theatre for three years — it’s so fun. […] Maybe we’ll get a job at that movie theatre again, which will be funny because we’ll just go back to
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concession, but we’re like 21 years old and everyone is 16. It’ll be so funny! So we’ll either work there, or the last job we had was at a call centre for World Vision, so we need to top it.” However, McKenzie wants to clarify that there is still a limit to how far they will go for a laugh. The band knows when they need to be serious; namely, in the event of the onset of a zombie invasion. “We had this outrageous conversation in the van the other night about like, if there was a zombie apocalypse right now, what would we do?”
he says. “We just had a two-hour conversation-argument about it. There’s lots of conversations like that in the band.” Emergency zombie action plan aside, for now McKenzie is happy to continue touring the country and making music with his band. And when it comes to connecting with fans, We Are The City is willing to go the distance, whether you bring your Pokémon cards or not. “I signed my own shoes and gave them to a fan,” McKenzie recalls. “I just remember thinking that I’d been needing to get new shoes for so long, and the kid commented saying like, ‘Cool shoes,’ and I was like, ‘Hey, do you want them?’ “He had a piece of paper that he was hoping for a signature on, and he commented on my shoes at the same time as he handed me the paper, so I was like, ‘How ‘bout I do you one better and you can have the shoes?’ I seem to recall I got him to sign the shoes as well.”
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Arts & Entertainment
thursday, march 24, 2011
www.thegatewayonline.ca
Land of a million memes The Gateway runs down the internet’s best and most bizarre distractions A&E staff
Group Commentary
As we head into the season of final exams and term papers, you know you don’t want to do any actual work — you want to distract yourself with the internet. Luckily, there’s a whole world of viral videos, twisted pop culture references, and bizarre internet subcultures ready and waiting for your procrastinating pleasure. Get in on these online in-jokes, and you may just find yourself material for hours of unproductive amusement.
Matt Meuse There are three basic stages to every internet meme. Initially, a phrase, image, song, or any combination thereof sees a massive surge in popularity — this is the birth of a meme. Soon, however, the meme becomes overused to a point of supersaturation — this is when we begin to see things like parodies and ironic usage. Eventually, interest in the meme dies down, reaching an equilibrium — at which point it becomes funny again. All Your Base Are Belong to Us is an excellent example of how this works. Perhaps one of the first internet memes, this and several other choice phrases originate from the atrocious Japaneseto-English translation of the 1989 Sega Mega Drive game Zero Wing. Some time in 2000, the phrase went viral, appearing on everything from websites to t-shirts: the surge. Soon the phrase was everywhere, becoming irritating and unfunny: supersaturation. Finally, by the mid-2000s, the phrase had receded from the spotlight, and is now generally only mentioned as a sort of internet injoke: equilibrium. More than a decade later, the Zero Wing opening sequence is still hilarious. The beautifully broken English is ideal for insertion into just about any conversation or context for great justice. Call me old-fashioned, but forget sexy — I’m gonna bring All Your Base back.
Stephen Cook Brodyquest isn’t necessarily a “highprofile” meme. Sure, it’s got more than a million views on YouTube, is made by Neil Cicierega of “Potter Puppet Pals” fame and has its own page on the inter-
net’s official meme database, knowyourmeme.com; yet somehow, every day it goes unwatched by billions. That crime ends now. Adrien Brody is the greatest actor of all time (of all time!). The Pianist? Check. The Brothers Bloom? Check. Predators? Whoops, but oh well — even Phillip Seymour Hoffman was in The Invention of Lying. Now imagine a still cut-out of that lovable man-attached-to-a-nose prancing across the planet, across the oceans, across space and time itself to confront God and issue in the next stage of human evolution. All this is set to an upbeat, electro-synth-rock anthem and animated with two starfish and a UFO. Brodyquest is the greatest meme of all time (of all time!). It combines the infinite (talent of Adrien Brody) with the Infinite (possibly an envoy of fellow meme Raptor Jesus) to showcase the infinite (potential of the human race).
Alex Migdal “Problem?” It’s the answer to any wrench that life throws your way. It’s also the motto of our dearest friend, the internet troll. While many staunch internet users, particularly those who frequent forums, go insane over any trace of trolling — deliberately antagonizing internet bystanders to invoke a reaction, for those who were unaware — I just have to laugh. Anyone who takes the internet too seriously deserves what’s coming to them. Thanks to the Trollface meme, those with a secret affinity for the hilarious ways of trolling now have a figure to worship. Whenever the wide troll grin shows up to make a cringeinducing remark, you can be assured that there is pure meme gold to be found. Trollface isn’t just hilarious; it’s practical too. Get pulled over by a police officer? Classic trollface. Hit on that special someone at a club? Douchey trollface. A professor runs into your potions class at wizarding school announcing a troll in the dungeon? Trollface already provided. Trollface has also given birth to such revered meme spawn as Trolldad and Dr. Trollface. Cue the delightful awkwardness. This is all just music to the ears of the troll community, because the more trollface in our lives, the better.
Lance Mudryk As much as the Sad Keanu meme is just a stupid joke on the internet, if you take the red pill, you’ll stay in
albumreview Kim Churchill Kim Churchill Indica Records
Jamie Chapelsky
Arts & Entertainment Writer
Kim Churchill is proof that having a band to back you up can be overrated. This one-man music machine has been taking over the Australian folk music scene, and Churchill is now making his way across the Pacific so we can see firsthand what all the hype is about. The 20-year-old Merimbula, Australia native’s self-titled album is a composite of folk-blues ballads showcasing Churchill’s impeccable story-
telling abilities, all while he’s playing harmonica, shaking a tambourine, and finger-picking and slamming away rhythms on his acoustic guitar. It’s a little hard to believe that such emotionally charged melodies could come from someone so young. And yet Churchill does not back down from tackling complex themes of war and self-discovery — not something you’d expect from the photo of the laid-back surfer featured on
Wonderland and I’ll show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. A relatively recent meme, Sad Keanu popped up on reddit.com in June 2010 when a user posted a picture of a sullen Keanu Reeves eating a sandwich while sitting on a park bench alone. A quote from Reeves himself that read “I enjoy acting. Because when I act, I’m no longer me” accompanied the image. To take in this masterpeice is akin to watching one of the many cute animal videos on the web. In a way, Keanu seems adorable as he eats his sandwich. “Bwaaaaaaah, look at the movie star. He thinks he’s people.” What makes the piece successful is simply the enigmatic Reeves himself. He’s the mysterious and relatively reclusive actor behind many popular blockbusters, so it’s no wonder the image became one of the most popular fascinations of 2010. The rather dopey but handsome performer has a rarely discussed tragic past. Reeves never married, having lost both his daughter and girlfriend in separate tragedies in 1999 and 2001 respectively. Money has never interested him either, and he donates most of his earnings to either his film’s production crew or other causes, such as his sister’s leukemia treatment. Although Sad Keanu started off as yet another jab at one of Hollywood’s stranger A-listers, it helped people discover one of the few successful altruists out there. It gives me hope. Anyone can eat a sandwich on a bench. Maybe one day, the rest of society can also match the true human goodness that is Keanu Reeves.
Matt Hirji In only five seconds my life was changed forever. Dramatic Chipmunk, a viral video of a mere five seconds long that appeared on the internet in 2007, is everything that I ever wanted to watch. The video is originally from a Japanese television game show called Hello! Morning where a group of teenage girls are introduced to a tiny prairie dog. The animal proceeds to make the most endearing gesture known to the internet, suddenly cocking its eye and turning its head in anthropomorphic suspicion as the camera zooms in for a close-up. Synced to a dramatic song clip from Young Frankenstein, the prairie dog instantly becomes the star of one of the funniest animal videos the internet has to offer. the album’s cover. The depth of tracks such as “Running On” and “The Battle of Mr Shibuya,” with the added soulful touch from his stomp box, exhibit Churchill’s powerfully rugged vocals, illustrating his obvious talents as a lyricist. Churchill credits the likes of Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, and David Bowie as inspiration, but he sounds much more like a young Xavier Rudd. Luckily for him, his 10 years of classical training seem to have paid off — Churchill demonstrates impeccable skill with his guitar, and the intricate finger-picking and percussive beats on “It’s This System,” the Latin-American influence in “With Sword and Shield” make him stand out in a sea of folk singer-songwriters. So don’t be surprised if you find yourself tapping along to Churchill’s beats; they’re damn contagious.
Sports
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thursday, march 24, 2011
2011 university cup Standings
1
Compiled by Matt Hirji
UNB
Varsity Reds
Playoff Finish: AUS Champions Record: 23–5 regular season, 6–3 playoffs CIS Championships: Three Last tournament appearance: 2009
2
McGill
Redmen
Playoff Finish: OUA Champions Record: 24–2–2 regular season, 7–1 playoffs CIS Championships: None Last tournament appearance: 2010
3
Alberta
Golden Bears
Playoff Finish: CanWest Champions Record: 19–7–2 regular season, 8–1 playoffs CIS Championships: 13 Last tournament appearance: 2010
4
Western Ontario
Mustangs
Playoff Finish: OUA finalists Record: 20–3–5 regular season, 6–2 playoffs CIS Championships: One Last tournament appearance: 2009
5
St. Francis Xavier
X-Men
Playoff Finish: AUS finalists Record: 17–10–1 regular season, 7–5 playoffs CIS Championships: None Last tournament appearance: 2007
6
Calgary
Dinos
Playoff Finish: CanWest finalists Record: 17–8–3 regular season, 2–3 playoffs CIS Championships: None Last tournament appearance: 2000
File Photo: Matt Hirji
Wary Bears charge to nationals hockey preview Matt Hirji
Sports Editor
The Puck Bears will have their sights set on another trophy for their mantle when they do battle in the CIS national championship tournament this weekend in Fredericton, New Brunswick. After claiming their forty-ninth Canada West banner in a hard fought series against the Calgary Dinos just two weeks ago, the Green and Gold are travelling to the championship tournament to continue their legacy of greatness. Since 1972, the Bears have won 13 national titles. But as Bears head coach Eric Thurston explained, his squad will have to do more than rely on their prolific history if they hope to hoist their fourteenth University Cup. “There are so many things that need to come into place,” Thurston said. “It starts with good goaltending; your best players have to be your best players and play well; you have to be very good on your specialty teams; and then you’ve got to have a little bit of luck. If you can get that recipe, we’ll be winning a championship.” Achieving that championship dynamic is easier said than done for
the Green and Gold. Ranked third in the tournament, the Bears’ young roster, featuring 17 players within their first two years on the team, will be challenged by some of the best varsity hockey teams in the country looking to exploit the Bears inexperience. And with so much on the line, the young Bears are feeling the pressure of the national stage.
In order to combat this habit, Thurston has impressed on his small core of veteran players the importance of leading by example. If the team is going to bring a banner back to Clare Drake this weekend, it will be on the shoulders of their fifth-year players who maintained a cool poise to keep the rest of their teammates disciplined on the ice.
“They are a little bit wide-eyed right now. It’s all a little bit new. Going in with that, sometimes the nerves can get to you a little bit if you haven’t been here before and don’t know what to expect.” Eric Thurston Head Coach, Bears Hockey
“They are a little bit wide-eyed right now. It’s all a little bit new,” Thurston said. “Going in with that, sometimes the nerves can get to you a little bit if you haven’t been here before and don’t know what to expect.” While the Bears’ youthful energy has often worked in their favour this season, allowing them to play with a brazen fearlessness in the face of adversity, it may come back to haunt them this weekend. On several occasions throughout the season, the Bears young players have become frustrated by their opponent’s physical play, losing their cool and making pivotal errors in the process.
“They want to make sure that the team comes to the table with their best effort. We’re going to need the leadership that they have provided all year to help us out. We need them, just like they’ve done all year, to bring it to the table,” Thurston said But despite all the nerves and the challenges that the Golden Bears have ahead of them this weekend, Thurston is confident that, just like the 13 other Bears championship teams that have come before, this year’s squad will rise to the occasion. “Guys don’t work this hard all year to lose out on the chance to win at the end.”
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Pandas pioneer strives to recreate history Green and Gold coach utilizes his experiences with a legend to help advance the U of A women’s hockey program into the future
hockeyprofile Howie Draper Pandas Hockey
Matt Hirji
Sports Editor
The success of the Pandas hockey program — their 10 Canada West divisional banners that hang proudly above the rafters in Clare Drake Arena, their nine national championship trophies, and their countless successful alumni — was laid well before the team started playing in 1997. The Pandas achievements were set in stone when Howie Draper, the team’s current head coach, arrived on campus as a student-athlete in 1985 and began his varsity career. It was during Draper’s five years as a Bears’ hockey player under Clare Drake’s mentorship that the foundations for a varsity women’s hockey team at the university was born. Famously known as the grandfather of intercollegiate coaching in Canada for his pioneering athlete-centered style, Drake lead the Golden Bears hockey program and established them as the premier varsity men’s hockey team in Canada. But during Drapers first year with the Bears, Drake accomplished an even more impressive feat. On October 8, 1985, Drake became the most successful coach in Canadian varsity hockey history with his 556th victory. It was a moment that Draper remembers fondly — not only because of the greatness of the accomplishment, but because of the dignified way Drake accepted the honour, by heading into the dressing room after the game, where he said nothing about his feat. It was always about the growth of his athletes. “That’s when I really learned how to play the game, how to build a team and what’s really important when you’re working with athletes,” Draper explained. Drake became a mentor to Draper during his five years on campus as a Golden Bear. They won a national championship together in 1985, but most importantly, the veteran coach gave Draper the keys to personal and athletic success. “To have had the opportunity to be coached by Clare Drake was phenomenal,” Draper said, reflecting on his career as a student athlete. “At the time, you don’t really realize that he was imparting all these important values to you. But it seemed like on the day my career was finished, I kind of looked back on it and I realized how much I had grown up and how much of an impact he had on my life and how much he shaped me as a person.” It’s fitting that Draper is now the head coach of the Pandas team whose home arena is named after his mentor. While Drake never conceived of the idea himself, the introduction of a women’s hockey team at the university was largely due to his presence in athletics.
Dan Mckechnie
need to not only grow as an athlete but as a person as well,” Draper said. “After reflecting a little bit on my career, the little things started to pop up. For example, just all the times that Coach Drake would ask you how things were going outside of your hockey life. I didn’t really realize it at the time, but after it’s all said and done you can kind of see how he molded you.” Nearly 21 years after Draper’s last game under the watchful eyes of Drake, he still carries on his mentor’s legacy. When Draper took the position
“My ultimate goal is to have that longevity and deep tradition of excellence that Clare Drake established with the Bears. I think we’ve done a good job starting, but we are a long way away.” Howie Draper Head coach, Pandas Hockey
As Draper admits, if Drake hadn’t made such a large impact on his life, he may have never been involved in the creation of a women’s hockey team at the university, nor would he have been so passionate about the development of the team after it’s inception. He ultimately chose to take the head coaching job because of a desire to pass on Drake’s messages to another generation of student athletes. “He taught me to be disciplined in my life. He had the ‘everything in moderation’ ideal. He taught me the importance of academics — the
of head coach, he built the program around the knowledge that Drake imparted to him. As Draper explains, the saving grace of the Pandas hockey program was the foundation that Drake had established during his tenure with the Bears. It was a groundwork that the Pandas coach has drawn upon to help facilitate the growth of women’s hockey in Edmonton for the last 14 years. After serving as the Bears captain in his fifth and final year on the Golden Bears hockey team, Draper became deeply involved in the U of A’s athletics program, With a background
knowledge of varsity sport in Edmonton, Draper advocated for the establishment of a Green and Gold women’s hockey team. In 1997, without the security of a full time coaching contract, Draper accepted the top job for the newly-founded Pandas hockey squad. Despite his nerves, the position offered him the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of his mentor and make a lasting impact on sport in Canada. “I have such a great deal of respect for Coach Drake. When you respect someone that much, ultimately you tend to carry the same habits and philosophies. That’s kind of what’s inside of you. You share the same values. My practices themselves are essentially Clare Drake practices; the systems that we use are essentially Clare Drake systems. Everything about our program has Clare Drake’s fingerprints on them. In the end, that’s probably why we are so successful.” Draper has big shoes to fill. A legend in University of Alberta athletics, Drake established a tradition of triumph within the Bears hockey program. He founded a program that has gone on to claim 13 national titles in 34 national championship appearances since 1962. But while living in Drake’s shadow may be frustrating to some people, Draper has embraced it, using his legacy as a motivating tool to continue the development of women’s hockey at the university. “I’ve had a lot of success at the CIS level. But as a coach, I have a lot of growth in me and I have a long way to go until I can say that I achieved anything close to what Coach Drake
has achieved,” Draper says. “I don’t think we have the perfect program. There are lots of areas that we can improve on. We’ve dabbled with conditioning and touched on some very basic things, but we can take that to another level. We just need to keep moving forward in everything that we do.” Now that the Pandas have finished their 14th season, Draper is preparing for the next phase of varsity women’s hockey in Canada. With the development of other women’s hockey programs in the country, the Pandas will face stiffer competition in the CIS in the future. But while this trend will certainly make it more difficult for the Pandas to continue their tradition of puck dominance, it creates new opportunities for Draper and his Pandas to blaze a trail similar to that Clare Drake and his Bears started 40 years ago. “This year particularly, I’m starting to see a few more grey hairs pop up in my head. I know it’s a tougher path to follow, but it’s one that will ultimately make our program stronger.” “My ultimate goal is to have that longevity and deep tradition of excellence that Clare Drake established with the Bears. I think we’ve done a good job starting, but we are a long way away. You don’t have to win a national championship every year, but you’ve got to be able to compete and be that team that everybody respects for how you conduct yourself on the ice. That’s what Coach Drake was able to do. That’s really what I’m trying to establish. We’ve got a long way to go.”
The Gateway
Sports
volume ci number 42
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Sorry Perry Jones, the NCAA just screwed you over The debacle facing current Baylor University athlete is just another instance of U.S college basketball’s backward priorities Matt Hirji
Sports Commentary
W
ith all the excitement surrounding this year’s NCAA March Madness, it’s easy to get caught up in the hoopla. Hundreds of student athletes representing 64 teams from across the United States are pouring their hearts out on the hard-court, privileged to represent their school on the national stage. But there’s something missing from this year’s tournament. Perry Jones III, a highly touted freshman from the Baylor University Bears, was suspended prior to the Big 12 qualifying tournament just a few weeks ago. According to the NCAA, Jones received a ‘pre-enrollment benefit’ during high school. After deeper digging, it came out that Jones’ mother received three loans from one of his highschool coaches — loans that were paid back in a timely manner. The punishment, against the largely innocent Jones, effectively eliminated his squad from
In recent years, there have been plenty of instances where students violate preferential treatment rules, but the wide spectrum of penalties handed out for what’s essentially the same violation is absolutely baffling. qualifying for the NCAA tournament and destroyed a young man’s dreams. Next year, Jones will most likely be drafted to the pro ranks in the first round of the NBA draft. His phenomenal skill set, which has been compared to the likes of Magic Johnson and Tracy McGrady, will likely make him an NBA all-star. He’ll make millions of dollars in endorsements and his face will be plastered on billboards across the U.S. to sell the latest sneaker. But this year was Jones’ last opportunity to enjoy the innocence of playing amateur basketball. That’s been taken away from him for through no fault of his own. What’s even worse are the uneven punishments the NCAA doles out against student-
athletes who breach their amateurism. In recent years there have been plenty of instances where students violate preferential treatment rules, but the wide spectrum of penalties handed out for what’s essentially the same violation is absolutely baffling. This season, Connecticut Huskies head coach Jim Calhoun was accused of dirty recruiting. His penalty? Merely a slap of the wrist: a suspension for the first three regular-season games next year. What the NCAA did to Jones was to effectively end his college career. These are wildly uneven consequences when compared side by side. Calhoun, a NCAA head coach since 1972, should have known better. Jones wasn’t even in the same city as his mother when she accepted the money. What it boils down to is that the NCAA is looking after their own money-making interests. Suspending a player from a small school in Waco, Texas, loses the league far less revenue than placing a fan-favourite powerhouse team like Connecticut in jeopardy of not advancing into the televised national championship tournament. But in the process of being blinded by their own corporate greed, the NCAA is forgetting that they should be placing the interests of the student-athletes first. When they don’t, they are doing an injustice to all the athletes who are the backbone of their organization.
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volume ci number 42
crossword
Puzzle provided by BestCrosswords.com Used with permission. Across 1. Ad word 5. Cloak 9. Combustible matter 13. Actor Baldwin 14. Continuously 16. Greek peak 17. Ark builder 18. Slender freshwater fish 19. Gather, harvest 20. He loved Lucy 21. Banned insecticide 22. Womb 24. Broad valley 26. Play thing 27. Amphetamine tablet 29. How to dress for a ball 33. Pond scum 34. Colombian city 35. Trickery 36. Highly respectful way of addressing a man 37. Jackie’s predecessor 38. Able to 39. Child support? 41. Iowa city
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MAKING THEIR OWN LUCK Janna Ying Deng makes paper cranes as part of a Red Cross fundraiser in support of Japan in the wake of the devastating tsunami.
42. Profits 44. Located 46. Cost 47. Clock face 48. Member of the Conservative Party 49. Watched 52. Mac 53. Small children 57. Prissy 58. Toothbrush brand 60. Langston Hughes poem 61. Capital of Norway 62. Monetary unit of the former Soviet Union 63. Calf-length skirt 64. Collar type 65. Not e’en once 66. Earth Day subj. Down 1. Quartz grains 2. Burn soother 3. Meadows 4. Spiny anteater 5. Icily 6. Battery terminal 7. Heating fuel 8. SASE, e.g. 9. The paw of a foreleg
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10. Consumer 11. Biblical birthright seller 12. Drinks (as a cat) 15. Nonpile cotton rug of India 23. Male cat 25. Hydrocarbon suffix 26. Ancient Greek city-state 27. Small yeast-raised pancake 28. Everglades bird 29. Noted 30. Lawful 31. Grassy plain 32. Cravings 33. Inquires 34. Humped ruminant 37. Bullfighter 40. Good spirit 42. Needlefish 43. Whenever 45. Afflict 46. Person who robs 48. Silk fabric 49. Lodge letters 50. Formerly, formerly 51. Hawaiian city 52. Small child 54. Auricular 55. Commotion 56. Earth 59. Flee
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