The Concordian

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sports life

Men’s basketball headed to nationals P.18

Leaving Libya: a personal tale of being extracted from Tripoli P. 7

VP Pudwell quits ... leaving behind a trail of questions

Letters P. 20 Tuesday, March 8, 2011

arts History, mythology, religion and camp all in one exhibit P. 10

music Andrew W.K. brings the party to Concordia P. 17

opinions Happy Int’l Women’s Day! How to get more women elected P. 20 Volume 28 Issue 23

CSU VP Morgan Pudwell resigns, calls out executive’s actions Remaining execs suggest Pudwell may have resigned for political reasons Evan LePage News editor Morgan Pudwell, VP sustainability and promotions for the CSU, has resigned, marking the fourth resignation of a CSU executive this academic year.

In her letter of resignation, sent out to CSU councillors, student media and other members of the Concordia community late last Thursday, Pudwell wrote “The union continues to move in a direction that directly conflicts with my values and this is a path that I cannot support.”

The remaining members of the executive have offered a different reason as to why they believe she resigned, however. “If she felt all this stuff from the beginning, why is she saying this a week before elections are happening?” said CSU president Heather Lucas. “Why not in January? Why not right before the new semester begins? The timing is very sketchy.”

VP Loyola and Advocacy Hassan Abdullahi elaborated, saying “Ultimately, it is an opinion of ours that the series of unfortunate events that have occurred starting with her resignation are politically motivated ones.

“We feel that the CSU is being used as a battleground for petty politics, and as the CSU executives we’re duty-bound to uphold the integrity of the CSU so it does not get mingled into such behaviour,” he continued.

Pudwell agreed that it was politically motivated, “in the sense that this is an important time of year for students to start thinking about representation on campus and I think it’s important they know what representation has been pretending to be this year.” As for running, she would only say that she wanted to get involved in some way to make sure students interests were represented at Concordia, but that she had no plans as of yet.

But as for her reasons for resigning, Pudwell reiterated that her confidence in the executive had been declining since the student centre campaign in November, and said that an executive meeting last Wednesday really sealed her decision to resign.

“They basically went around the table and said they didn’t trust me,” she explained. “They went around the table and said they didn’t think I did my job and [...] they sort of criticized my involvement with other student leaders on campus.”

Lucas presented a very different picture of that meeting, saying that “We had basically hashed everything out; we had talked about our issues that we had, and we talked very frankly and openly, and there was no indication about her resigning or her leaving the team.”

“She was a part of the team; we considered her a part of the team. She was a part of the family,” she added.

But the feeling wasn’t shared. “I think it got so bad that I couldn’t address it in any other way but resigning,” Pudwell said. “As much as I tried to say that this is a two-way street and we should all be working on things, it sort of always felt like it was everyone against me.”

What started off as a group of eight executives has dwindled down to a group of five, and one that

See “Student centre...” on p.5

CSU ‘inactive’ in tuition fight: student activists Jacques Gallant Assistant news editor

With just days left before more than 150 unions and other organizations march at Place du Canada against tuition hikes and privatization, the Concordia Student Union is being criticized for failing to mobilize its members in the lead-up to Saturday’s event.

Although CSU VP external and projects Adrien Severyns described mobilizing the students as ‘paramount’ in an email last week, People’s Campus Coalition member Alex Matak said that the CSU is being far from helpful in pushing this Saturday’s march.

“Unfortunately, it’s no surprise,” said Matak, one of the organizers of WHALE last Feb. 14, which saw close to 1,000 Concordia students denounce tuition increases and the university administration’s lack of transparency. “Most student organizers who were working with CSU executives in planning WHALE found out that, except for [former VP sustainability and promotions] Morgan Pudwell who was a major exception to this, the executive has no real knowledge or passion for the student movement.”

Pudwell, who resigned from her position late last Thursday night, was also the only member of the executive whose name was included

See “Student union...” on p.3

theconcordian.com

news 2

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Got a news tip? news@theconcordian.com

City in brief Jacques Gallant

JMSB dean is leaving

Sanjay Sharma, dean of the John Molson School of Business, will be taking up a new position on July 1 as dean of the School of Business Administration at the University of Vermont in Burlington. Sharma told the Gazette last week that his departure is unrelated to the controversy over the resignation of former Concordia president Judith Woodsworth. According to the Burlington Free Press, Sharma’s salary will be $320,000 US ($311,397 CDN) annually, compared to his current salary of $240,170 at JMSB. The newspaper indicated that Sharma will become the second highest paid official at UVM behind its president, who makes $322,000 US. A committee will soon be put in place to begin searching for Sharma’s successor. The president of the Commerce and Administration Students’ Association could not be reached for comment.

ASFA OK with MASSA

Members of the Math and Statistics Students’ Association voted overwhelmingly last week to accredit MASSA, making it the student association that officially represents them. Aaron Green, president of the Arts and Science Federation of Associations, was pleased with the vote, saying that MASSA will continue to be represented by ASFA at the faculty level until the association decides to seek its own independent fee-levy. Green plans to begin the dialogue with MASSA as soon as possible, hoping to organize a meeting between ASFA’s executive-elect and MASSA’s executive-elect in the coming days.

campus

Small group of protesters calls for Link newspaper editor’s resignation

EIC Justin Giovannetti believes the protest could have a CSU connection Evan LePage News editor

Approximately 20 protesters gathered near the Link newspaper office yesterday holding signs and chanting for the resignation of editorin-chief Justin Giovannetti. The protest lasted less than 10 minutes before being broken up by security.

None of the protesters were willing to give their names or speak

on the record about why they were calling for his resignation. An individual standing back from the group who claimed he himself wasn’t protesting but that he knew those behind it said that the protesters were upset about what they called the “slander” of CSU councillors in Link stories lately. He claimed that the protesters believe the slander was done in the interest of helping a potential campaign by councillor Lex Gill, who they say is in a relationship with Giovannetti.

Speaking after the protest, Giovannetti would not confirm or deny the relationship, saying it’s “none of their business.” He reiterated that if anyone had concerns about the Link, they could send letters or address the editors themselves by email or phone.

Giovannetti also said “It’s definitely strange that the same day

campus

Bad, McGill, bad

To celebrate National Engineering Week, Concordia’s Women in Engineering chapter organized the construction of a massive space shuttle model built entirely out of K’nex pieces. The 37foot tall, approximately 166,000-piece model is the biggest ever constructed at Concordia, surpassing previous K’nex models of the Eiffel Tower and Sears Tower. According to WIE member Jacalyn Bale, one of the reasons the organization decided to take on the project was because they “wanted to showcase the talents of female engineers, and to encourage women to think about working in this male dominated field.” Students worked for months designing the model, and spent all of last week putting it together in the atrium of the EV building. The construction garnered the attention of the Discovery Channel for the second straight year, as the students involved found themselves on the Daily Planet television show. Photo by Tiffany Blaise

Protestors held signs and chanted ‘Hey, ho, Justin has to go.’ Photo

by Tiffany Blaise

ConU delegation places 5th overall at Coms games Sarah Dehaies Editor-in-chief

Chez Mom

it was against an editor who is tarnishing the reputation and credibility of one our school’s reputable social sources. Petitions are being signed.”

- With reporting from Sarah “Sweetie” Deshaies

coms

Video team earns top honours at French-language competition

Education minister Line Beauchamp told Le Devoir last week that she is ready to get tough on McGill for increasing the tuition for its MBA program without government consent.

The minister has requested a list of students registered in the program, which would serve as a tool to calculate financial penalties for the university. The Liberal government has been threatening to punish McGill since it announced in 2009 that it would increase tuition for the twoyear program from $2,000 a year to $29,500 a year.

Word has leaked out about the past of a reservations-only restaurant in Contrecoeur. The South Shore establishment’s dirty little secret is its location, which is in a house that once belonged to the incarcerated head of the Quebec wing of the Hells Angels, Maurice ‘’Mom’’ Boucher. Now, it has been turned into La Tablée du Coteau, a restaurant managed by a Longueil couple who bought the two-storey house from Boucher’s son in Oct. 2009. Although the pair tried to be discreet about the house’s past, its connection to Mom Boucher was leaked to L’Actualité and is featured in its March 15 issue. Among the restaurant’s furnishings include the long antique pine table where Boucher conducted his business, as well as the chair from which he presided over meetings.

that the CSU refuses to comment [to the Link] on the resignation of their fourth VP that there’s this protest and that they’re standing outside of it,” and insinuated in a tweet that the protest could have been an attempt to draw attention away from the CSU’s political issues.

Members of the CSU executive were seen watching the protest, and Giovannetti said they claimed to have heard it from their office one floor above, something he claimed is not realistic.

An email sent to the Concordian late Monday evening signed only by “Your Concordia Students” read “Students are not paying a fee to finance a political party; we want the Link to be independent and representative. We want the Link to live up to the prominent reputation that it has established. The protest was not against freedom of speech,

Dressed as hunters in camouflage clothing, Concordia students had set their sights on accolades at the Jeux franco-canadiens de la communication, and they came away with a few spoils of war, placing fifth overall.

Nine university delegations, each costumed in a different theme, competed at the JDLC in Sherbrooke, Q.C. last weekend. Concordia was, as in past years, the only English university competing against francophone schools, including first-place Université de Quebec à Montreal and runner-up Université de Montréal. Like at last year’s competition in Moncton, Concordia has rose from the bottom spot to a higher rank.

Organizer and communications student Charles D’Amboise was impressed with his team’s work. “We had good performances like in every

competition,” he said. “All the people were super prepared.” He pointed to professional mentorships from groups like advertising agency DRAFTFCB as a helpful factor in the performance of this year’s delegation.

Thirty-two students represented Concordia at the competition, which is conducted entirely in French, and features 13 challenges in the journalism and communications field including debating, improv, theatre, radio production, public relations and interviewing.

Concordia placed first in the video production category. Teams of three had to create a two-minute trailer for a film after receiving the movie’s script. Teammates Ryan George, Sabrina Allard and Samuel Brisson had four hours to shoot and four hours to edit the movie. Gabrielle Lefort, a journalism student and staff member at L’Organe, placed second overall in the journalistic writing challenge. The advertising team won third place.

D’Amboise acknowledged that last year Concordia ranked in the top three in more categories, but with poorer performances in others. This year, however, the overall performance of the team was stronger. “We’re happy that everybody did well.”

The winning video team had to produce a trailer for a film they didn’t see.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/theconcordian Continued from cover...

Student union criticized for lack of mobilization ahead of March 12 demonstration among the creators of Concordia’s Facebook group for the March 12 protest, which had 265 people listed as attending on Monday night.

“Now that Pudwell has resigned, and that student organizers are both burnt out and sick of doing all the CSU’s work for them while receiving no credit, we are seeing a huge hole appear in mobilization,” said Matak.

Biology student Irmak Bahar, who originally proposed the idea for WHALE at the CSU’s Jan. 27 informational general meeting, voiced her displeasure with the student union, saying she doesn’t feel the fight against tuition increases is a priority for most of the union’s executives and councillors.

“WHALE was a success because of the serious commitment of the 40 odd students-at-large and it seems that the CSU is expecting the same students to take on the leadership roles and responsibilities again with the March 12 demonstration,” she said.

Bahar expressed her frustation over the CSU not booking tables on the Hall building’s mezzanine to promote the event, a task eventually completed by Free Education Montreal. But it’s still not too late for the CSU to do more in terms of mobilization, said Bahar.

“There is much that could be done throughout this week and I certainly would love to see a difference,” she said. “A real, sincere

commitment to fight against tuition fee increases is needed from the CSU.” According to Severyns, that commitment is already there.

“Just last week the CSU posted over 200 posters around campus and we have printed and started distributing 3,000 flyers up to date,” he said. “We are also extremely present on the social media front and have had very positive feedback from our members throughout the weekend.”

He added that those who denounce the CSU’s role in the fight against tuition hikes should remember that both he and and other executives often pressured the administration last year to consider

students’ demands regarding the underfunding of universities. He also pointed out the CSU’s role in getting as many as students as possible to the Dec. 6 protest against tuition increases in Quebec City; a campaign entirely financed by the CSU. “Nevertheless, the fight against tuition hikes is one that can only be won with a united student body,” he said. “One where the collective effort carries more value than personal political ambition.”

This Saturday’s march comes just days before the Quebec government tables its budget on Mar. 17, which will likely include a $1,500 increase in tuition fees over a three year period beginning in 2012.

academics

Students largely mum on academic plan

It’s difficult for students to feel connected to plan, says Provost Jacqueline Di Bartolomeo Assistant news editor If students are contributing to the formulation of the university’s next academic plan, they aren’t doing it in person. Provost David Graham invited students to three recent Open to Question series held in February and early March to discuss the matter. Sessions were poorly attended by students, but saw high participation from faculty. Graham said at least five

students attended the March 4 session, adding that it consisted of a higher proportion of students than in February.

However, he noted students have been giving feedback using several platforms – by letter, email, in the comment section reserved for that purpose on the Provost’s website, and in this month’s faculty council meetings.

“I didn’t hear a lot of expressions of concern” during the sessions, he said. Some concerns were program specific, while others were related to “ways in which students can have input into reshaping academic programs.” Online, some questions were directed towards the financial viability of the objectives proposed in the plan.

Graham also noted students

showed interest in learning from direct experience: “[Hassan Abdullahi, the CSU’s VP Loyola and Advocacy] spoke particularly to the inclusion of experiential learning and co-op as an objective in its own right in the academic plan and he said that was something students had told them they were very enthusiastic about seeing.”

This inclusion is a departure from the previous academic plan, which made no mention of it. Graham said that is something both he and Vice-Provost of Teaching & Learning Ollivier Dyens have had in mind for years. “It’s really part of [Concordia’s] institutional DNA to engage in that kind of learning,” he explained.

Even if students didn’t attend the Open to Question sessions, they haven’t completely missed the boat

on getting their ideas into the plan.

“Students will have a major opportunity both [at the committee of the whole] and at the Senate Academic Planning and Priorities Committee to have input into reshaping the plan,” Graham said. The academic planning working group will then rework the plan in order to take into account comments that have been made by students. He added, “My hope is that the student senators will take an active part in discussing the plan when it comes to senate later this month.”

The academic plan will govern the course taken by the university for the next five years with the goal of placing Concordia within the top five Canadian universities. The previous plan expired in 2010.

elections

Two out of three approved fee levy requests taken off ballot: CEO Queer Concordia and the Void will have to wait until fall to try again Sarah Deshaies Editor-in-chief With Concordia Student Union elections three weeks away, two fee levy requests that were approved

by CSU council in January and February have been struck from the ballot.

Queer Concordia, which received its approval at February’s council meeting, was looking to establish a fee levy of $0.02 a credit in order to be able to establish a service centre for queer students. Creative writing magazine The Void came to council in January also seeking its first fee levy of $0.02 per credit in order to establish a steady source of funding.

Normally, the magazine is supported by funds from the CSU, Arts and Science Federation of Associations

and other sources.

Both groups received a conditional acceptance for their fee levy questions; each had to become incorporated with the provincial government before the announcement of polls, which was posted March 4. Because neither group had achieved this by last week, they were taken off the ballot.

“This is not an arbitrary or discretionary decision as the CEO has no authority to override these regulations,” explained CSU’s chief electoral officer Oliver Cohen in an email on Monday. “Any referendum questions not included on the announcement of polls were excluded because they were not in compliance with the requirements of the regulations as per Article 136.”

A minor detail in the motion approving QC’s fee levy question differs with Cohen’s statement.

Reviewing the CUTV footage from the Feb. 9 meeting, QC members observed that councillor Lex Gill’s amendment to the motion called for the incorporation to be completed by the day ballots are printed, and not the announcement of the polls.

Queer Concordia representative Joey Donnelly issued a release on Monday, stating, “We are on the right side of CSU bylaws and the CEO is being heavy handed.” Cohen apparently notified the group of being struck from the ballot when he was contacted by QC on March 2.

Adding to The Void’s troubles is the fact that its required petition has gone missing - seemingly in a careless act at council. Each group seeking a fee levy must bring a petition signed by at least 750 students to council. Editor-in-chief Cole Robertson maintains that he brought his petition to the January council meeting, but that he did not know he had to hand it to the chair, Marc-Antoni Tarondo.

It seems that at the meeting, the petition was misplaced. Robertson was informed by the loss on Friday

by CSU president Heather Lucas. He expressed frustration by not being instructed on how to handle the petition. “I’ve been met at almost every step of the fee levy [...] with misinformation,” he said, adding it almost amounts to negligence. He claims that he was only informed of

the incorporation requirement the day before the Void’s presentation to council.

Lucas admitted that she neglected to inform Robertson on the protocol for handling the petition. “It’s my fault for not saying something, but it’s also council that needs to be held accountable as well for not saying anything, either,” she said, suggesting that councilors should have spoken up.

Lucas also said that she is working on adding incorporation as a requirement for fee levy applications. Currently, groups seeking a fee levy do not need to be incorporated, according to CSU regulations; however, the university will not transfer fee levy funds to a nonincorporated group.

CJLO radio station is the remaining organization headed to a referendum on its fee levy; the station is asking for a $0.09 increase to $0.34 per credit. Concordia students will take to the polls on March 29, 30 and 31. Both QC and the Void can apply again for a fee levy in the fall.

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Nation in brief

Jacqueline Di Bartolomeo

University of Winnipeg professors preparing to strike

Negotiations between the University of Winnipeg and its faculty are stalled again, with the latter set to walk out on Thursday if talks do not continue. CBC News reported that Saturday’s discussions fell through when the two parties broached the topic of wages. A university spokesperson said the salary raise demanded by faculty (8.4 per cent over three years) would cause a 10 per cent raise in tuition. However, a faculty association spokesperson denied the claim. The faculty originally set a strike deadline of March 9, but later extended it by a day. They have been without a contract for a year.

Party on, Ryerson U

Ryerson is the latest Canadian university to face the unintended consequences of merrymaking on campus.

The Canadian Press reported that a February party in the Toronto university’s residence ended up incurring a $4,000 cleaning bill. University officials are now saying they will crack down on out-of-control behaviour. Student housing manager Chad Nuttall said they are hoping people come forward with information so they can assign the bill to those who caused the damages. If not, the university is considering the implementation of community billing.

With the incident, Ryerson joins the ranks of schools like the University of Toronto (access to common room temporarily banned), the University of British Columbia (weekly beer night cancelled) and Queen’s University (homecoming cancelled until 2014) to be faced with stricter rules because of comparable incidents.

Having children - not all it’s cracked up to be?

Researchers at the University of Waterloo are saying that parents idealize the positive effects of having children, the Toronto Sun reported.

The study, published in Psychological Science last year, divided 80 parents into two groups. The first group was given literature emphasizing the cost of raising a child (approximately $185,000), while the other was given material expounding on the long-t erm benefits of parenthood. Follow-up interviews revealed the first group was more likely to talk about how much happiness their children had brought them, indicating they were trying to justify their financial cost. The researchers suggest the phenomenon is a recent one. They say it originated in the 20th century as children began to contribute less financially to the household. My mother has assured me the study is nonsense.

Mad cow disease found in Albertan dairy cow

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency revealed on Friday that a case of mad cow disease was found in an Albertan dairy cow last month.

The owner reported abnormalities in the cow to a local veterinarian as part of the National BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) Surveillance program. A CFIA spokesperson told the Globe and Mail that they confirmed the finding on Feb. 18. No part of the animal entered the human food chain. Mad cow is spread through feed contaminated with infected animal proteins. The discovery is not expected to affect beef exports. The case marks the 18th case of BSE found in Canadian cows since 2003, when an outbreak of the disease devastated the beef export industry.

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theconcordian

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

World in brief Evan LePage

Women slain in Ivory Coast protests

At least six women were shot to death while protesting the refusal of Laurent Gbagbo, leader of the Ivory Coast, to step down. The president’s security forces had already resorted to firing on protesters, but women apparently organized believing, based on the country’s history, that they would not be shot at, the CBC reported. But the president’s men once again fired on the unarmed civilian group of thousands of women who demonstrated last Thursday in the city of Abidjan, killing at least six of them. Following the attack, the U.S. state department, which has already called for his resignation, described the Ivorian leader as morally bankrupt.

The Ivory Coast has been in conflict for about three months, but Gbagbo has shown he is willing to defend his presidency at all costs.

American religious unis enforcing strict moral codes

Two incidents last week highlighted the willingness of religious American universities to enforce strict moral codes.

Early last week, officials at Church of Latter Day Saints-run Brigham Young University suspended basketball player Brandon Davies for the rest of the reason for having premarital sex, a violation of the school’s honour code.

The 19-year-old athlete expressed remorse for his actions in breaking the code, which also requires students to “be honest,” “attend church regularly” and abstain from tobacco, tea and coffee, among other things. Also last week, private Christian college Harding University blocked all access to HUQueerPress.com, a website for a queer student zine called State of the Gay. Hours after copies of the zine were distributed on campus last Wednesday the site was blocked on the school’s Internet network. Editors told the Huffington Post that their goal was to give a voice to the experiences of gays and lesbians at the school.

Woman’s banana peel slip leads to lawsuit

A woman in California is suing a 99 Cents Only store for an incident in which she slipped on a banana peel last spring, Reuters reported. While in the cartoons the victims of this unfortunate fruit incident usually get up none the worse for wear, the victim in this case, 58-year-old Ida Valentine, says she suffered a herniated disk and tissue damage. Valentine is suing for her reported $9,000 in medical bills as well as damages. The store has already refused a settlement offer to the tone of $44,000 according to her lawyer. This situation was not only unfortunate for both parties involved, but also for the headlines it has produced including The National’s painful “Woman not monkeying around about banana peel lawsuit” Oof.

No glory for NASA following launch failure A rocket launched by American space agency NASA last week failed to propel the satellite it was carrying into orbit, plummeting the piece of observation equipment into the Pacific Ocean.

Costing $424 million, the mission likely failed because the protective cover of the satellite didn’t separate from the rocket as planned, according to initial NASA reports. The satellite, ironically named Glory, was created as an Earthobservation vessel designed to help explain how aerosol particles affect our climate, the LA Times reported.

The rocket charged with launching the satellite into space, the Taurus XL, also failed in its last mission in 2009.

journalism

Despite digital change, reason for writing remains the same

Adam Gopnik addresses the question: Why write now?

Shereen Ahmed Rafea Staff writer With technological advances making information more easily accessible, New Yorker staff writer and author Adam Gopnik is quick to point out that choosing to work as a writer in the digital age is no easy decision.

“There is, for the first time in the history of the written word, no barrier between the act of writing and the act of getting seen,” said Gopnik last Friday as he addressed a packed

BMO amphitheatre in the MB building. He added that all someone has to do is own a computer, go online, write, press a button and their writing instantly becomes available to the whole world.

Gopnik, an American who grew up in Montreal, was this year’s speaker for the annual Reader’s Digest Lecture Series in Journalism.

He addressed the questions, “why write now?”and “why write at all?” in his talk.

Internet innovations such as Facebook, Twitter and blogs have had an enormous impact on writing, according to Gopnik.

“Not only does it seem to affect the way information gets reproduced, but also the democratization of its availability and its effect,” he said.

“Even now it seems to be changing the world, seems to be changing

the social regimes, bringing down dictators,” he added, referencing the popular uprisings in the Arab world.

A good part of Gopnik’s lecture was inspired by a recent article he wrote for The New Yorker entitled “How the Internet gets inside us,” which summarizes 20 books by 20 authors and their take on technology.

He then divides their takes into three categories: the ‘Never-Betters,’ people who believe that it is the perfect time for a technological revolution; the ‘Better-Nevers,’ who are the exact opposite; and the ‘Ever-Wasers,’ who are indifferent.

Despite all the technological developments, Gopnik said there are some downfalls, one of which is consolidation without compensation.

He pointed to the recent sale of the Huffington Post to AOL, saying that while the blog’s owners profited from

the purchase, the future of the site’s writers is far more uncertain.

“You no longer have any guarantee that the ideas you offer, the articulation you slave over will get any kind of compensation at all,” he stated.

So why write now?

“We write in order to explain,” said Gopnik. “The world is a complicated place and we need simplifiers, we need analysers and we need explainers.”

Other reasons he mentioned were arguing, giving praise, capturing moments and creating great books.

“The simple fact of writing is that the words on the page, the black marks on the paper don’t just become messages, arguments, explanations,” Gopnik said. “They become whole worlds.”

haiti Haitian presidential candidate Mirlande Manigat was in Montreal last week for two days to present her electoral platform and thoughts on the nation’s current struggles to both media and members of the local Haitian community.

At a press conference Friday, the 70-year-old candidate said she would like to amend the country’s constitution to allow dual citizenship and voting from abroad, according to a Gazette report. Other platform topics she discussed were speeding up the reconstruction process, improving education and bringing non-governmental organizations under increasing state control. Haiti’s presidential elections will be held March 20. Manigat’s adversary in the race is popular Haitian recording artist Michel Martelly.

Photo by Navnnet Pall

education

English CÉGEPs scrambling to accommodate students for third straight year Universities already seeing spike in admissions Kalina Laframboise Staff writer For the third year in a row, the number of applications to English CÉGEPs on the island of Montreal is on the rise, leaving overcrowded schools struggling to accommodate additional students.

The deadline for college applications was March 1, and though calculations are not complete, it is

known that the number of applicants has increased. Geneviève Lapointe, the director of communications for the Service Régional d’Admission du Montréal Métropolitain said, “There was an increase this year regarding English CÉGEPs, but not as significant as last year.” Lapointe pointed out that there has also been a rise in the number of admissions for French CÉGEPs on the island of Montreal.

Overall, for the 36 schools for which SRAM processes applications, “there was a 1.4 per cent overall increase in applications.”

However, the high demand for English CÉGEPs has left the postsecondary institutions scrambling to adapt to the influx even with additional government funds. As the number of applicants grows, the

issues of overcrowding and lack of space has prevented many CÉGEPs from accepting additional admissions and forcing them to turn away students.

Last year, Kevin Isaacs, a firstyear college student, was rejected from two English CÉGEPs until the third and final round of the application process, at which point he was accepted to his second choice, Vanier College. Isaacs was surprised. He said, “I had marks that were between 70 and 80 per cent and still didn’t get in.”

Most English CÉGEPs are struggling to fix the problem and provide temporary classrooms or rent out space. Rachel Côté, a commerce student at John Abbott College, had to attend a course at Macdonald High

School due to lack of space. The college rented out three classrooms from the secondary school for the current semester but if student population continues to grow, it might not be enough.

According to McGill classics professor Dr. John Serrati, English universities like Concordia and McGill can also expect to see a spike in admissions for the next semester.

“We’ve already been seeing it,” he said. “For English CÉGEPs, there is an increase because francophones really want to embrace the English higher education and more people in general are going to college. Since there are more people going and coming out of college, there will be a knock-off effect for universities.”

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

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Continued from cover...

Students centre, questionable alliances singled out by Pudwell looks much different than the Fusion slate elected by students last spring.

First, VP finance-elect Nikki Tsoflikis resigned before ever even entering office. She was followed by the surprise resignation of president Prince Ralph Osei who left his seat to pursue higher education in Europe. Then last month Tsoflikis’ replacement Zhuo Ling resigned citing the time commitment.

But none of those executives left in as conflictive a fashion as Pudwell.

In her letter of resignation, the former VP goes on to highlight various areas in which she disagreed with, or was unhappy with the course of action taken by the CSU and its executive.

The controversy regarding the student centre was one such area, as Pudwell asserted that she was “lead to believe that the executive had been working to change the exploitative currently existing contract with the

administration,” but that the changes to the contract, and serious efforts to consider alternatives to the Faubourg, were not made.

VP external and projects Adrien Severyns disagreed. “During the campaign, and prior to the campaign, I sat down with her on a couple of occasions and spoke with her and asked her if she had any concerns and if she wanted to talk about specific points regarding the campaign or contract.”

But he said she did not express any concerns until right before the voting period, something Pudwell explaining saying she simply trusted the other executives but became alarmed following newspaper articles and many student complaints. She also said she was then simply pressured to support the executive on the issue.

Former CSU president and student Board of Governors representative Amine Dabchy’s involvement in the CSU was also called into question

by Pudwell in a section of her letter

titled “Questionable Alliances.” She wrote that he has “clearly disregarded the needs of students” on the Board and has failed to follow CSU bylaws and report to council. According to Pudwell, Dabchy had clear influence over the executive, shown by his ability to call an executive meeting despite no longer being an executive, and the tendency of certain Board members to relay messages to students trhough him rather than directly through current president Lucas.

Dabchy released his own statement in response to the allegations, saying that he attended a council meeting to report on the situation and was open to questions, among other things. As for the CSU, Lucas said Dabchy “is on his own. He has no influence on this executive.” She also added “We’re friends and I’m not going to apologize for my friendship with Amine Dabchy.”

Pudwell also said she has spoken to someone who was approached by

Heather and subsequently brought into meetings with Dabchy in regards to forming a team to run in the upcoming CSU elections. “There’s been a few people come forward saying that they’ve been approached by other executives to be on this team,” she said. “I’ve heard from a few people that they’re involved in some way or another.”

Lucas vehemently denied these allegations and any personal involvement in forming a team. “This is absolutely not true. I’m busy with two portfolios, I take two classes, I don’t give a shit. I have no time for that,” she said.

Other areas of concern cited by Pudwell in her letter included “University Governance,” “Potential Financial Mismanagement,” and “Lack of Trust and Respect.”

Ultimately, Pudwell wrote “I hope that my resignation will encourage the current CSU to re-evaluate their actions, and to turn back to the stu-

dents. We are all implicated in these failures; the CSU is only as strong as its members, and we must continue to expect more.”

While the CSU was not willing to accept her allegations, Abdullahi did say “I think we can be held accountable on one aspect of this entire thing.

And that is not being able to resolve our differences at this table. It’s really unfortunate that this event turned out to be made into a broad public event.

We really believe that we could have resolved this issue.”

Most of Pudwell’s accusations were denied in a letter sent out by the remaining CSU executive the day of her resignation. In that letter, the executive also wrote that they hoped Pudwell will attend this week’s CSU council meeting, which she has confirmed that she will be doing.

For the rest of the year her portfolio will be split between Andres Lopez (promotions) and Abdullahi (sustainability).

May 2010 - Before officially taking office in June, VP finance Nikki Tsoflikis resigns. She is evenutally replaced by JMSB student Zhuo Ling

June 2010 - Fusion takes office

October 2010 - CSU announces that they will not fill VP services position

January 2011 - Ling steps down; VP clubs Ramy Khoriaty takes over finance portfolio

Timeline April 2010 - Incumbent slate Fusion beats underdog Community in a landslide win. Returning VP Prince Ralph Osei heads a eight-member executive

August 2010 - Osei steps down; VP services Heather Lucas takes over as president

March 2011 - Pudwell resigns

Finance

CSU’s financial practices, budget status called into question by resigning VP Pudwell Morgan Pudwell’s accusations of overspending, financial mismanagement denied by CSU Evan LePage News editor When the CSU’s VP sustainability and promotions Morgan Pudwell resigned last Thursday, she left a trail of accusations behind her, many of which focused on potential financial mismanagement within the student union. Pudwell wrote in her letter of resignation that the budget, as originally presented, was in fact

entirely fabricated, that councillors and executives were told not to speak about the financial situation to anyone, and that nearly every budget line had been overspent.

All of these accusations have been denied by the remaining CSU executives, both in a statement and in interview with the Concordian.

“There is in no way mismanagement of the budgets,” said current VP finance Ramy Khoriaty. “That’s an accusation that she doesn’t have any proof of.”

In her letter, Pudwell wrote that most budget lines had been overspent, explaining later that “In the budget that I was shown everything, even mail and office expenses, was pretty much over budget.” Khoriaty said this isn’t true, but that this was limited to three lines of spending: the speaker series, green initiatives and promotions budgets, and that these had been frozen as a result.

Additionally, Pudwell said that

upon sitting down with Khoriaty she was told that certain items had been placed under her budget line that were not supposed to be there, including promotional material for orientation and mugs. “I was told when we ordered them that I was just doing the ordering simply because it was easier for the VP promotions to do all the ordering at once and it was cheaper,” she said.

Khoriaty denied that extra expenses were added to her budget, though he admitted that a small error had been made which has since been corrected, a correction she said, if real, she had not been made aware of.

Due to the additions to her budget, the former VP said she was told that she had gone over budget and therefore had no finances at her disposal for the rest of this year.

“With over half a semester left in office this left me in a position in which planned project and prom-

ised support/funding fell through,” she wrote in her letter.

And while Khoriaty denied any financial mismanagement and reasserted the CSU’s commitment to openness and transparency, having posted budgets online and having one on one sit-downs with each executive to go over finances, Pudwell alleged that she had not been given access to her own budget on multiple occasions. “I was specifically told that no executive would have access or be able to see their budget,” she said.

“Because of this secrecy,” she wrote in her letter, “I am still unaware of the CSU’s current financial status, despite having done everything in my power to find out.

I question whether student money has been spent with respect for our members or in consideration of the law.”

Pudwell also said she was told not to speak about the union’s cur-

rent financial situation, which CSU president Heather Lucas explained saying that executives were told not to speak about budgets because “they were numbers that were projected that we were waiting to get confirmed.” Lucas also said that in the end they had gotten both more and less money than expected from certain sources, resulting in changes to the initial budget Pudwell called ‘fabricated.”

The Concordian also requested financial documents from Khoriaty via email in late January, but received no response.

As of last night, a copy of the CSU’s projected budget, updated Mar. 4, was available for download on their website. For all except four fields however, the spending for this year to date is listed at $0.

Khoriarty says he will be giving a full, detailed budget report at the CSU council meeting tomorrow.

Business

Concordia student wins entrepreneur award Adam Haroun shares his business secrets Renee GIblin Staff writer Despite just having been named Quebec student entrepreneur of the year by the organization Advancing Canadian Entrepreneurship, Concordia student Adam Haroun is willing to spill his secrets to success.

“Talking to successful people helps sharpen your skills,” Haroun said, singling out his own business mentor,

Fabienne Fredrickson, as a major reason for his success.

Fredrickson and Haroun speak once a month on the phone and he just came back from meeting her in Stamford, Connecticut. Haroun suggests all young entrepreneurs get coaching. He said it helps them to create a niche, find a target market and expand their business network.

Originally from Ottawa, Haroun moved to Montreal to do his undergraduate degree at the John Molson School of Business. He started his first online company, The XFactor Agency, two years ago while going to school full-time.

He said the XFactory Agency is about helping businesses brand their

product, market their services, establish an online presence, and create a website - not simply about developing a logo. His agency attracts companies of all sizes, and from different regions - ranging from Canada and the United States to Slovenia. In the past year the company has seen a 605 per cent growth, for which he credits both his mentor and Concordia.

Haroun said that Concordia gave him the tools to venture into creating his own business. He credits his experience with Concordia’s Students In Free Enterprise team, a chapter of the international SIFE group which promotes student involvement in the community as a method of developing the skills to become business leaders,

for helping him to develop and giving him the extra push to create the XFactor agency.

“Being able to represent Concordia and Quebec is an honour and a privilege,” Haroun said.

Other advice given by Haroun is that “success leaves clues.” He added that going to seminars and schmoozing with successful people gives young people an edge in the business world.

Haroun also emphasized that making contacts helps, but you also need to find the right price for your service.

This year he changed his company’s prices from an hourly rate to a package price. He found once he established a format to sell his product he created a focus, and his company’s size

exploded as a result.

Going to school and having a business is hectic, but Haroun said that because he attends online classes and has tutors he is able to do well.

“Cool thing is that with a laptop and cell phone,” Haroun said, “I can go anywhere.”

Haroun will now be competing at the regional championship in Toronto on March 18, with a $1,000 prize on the line. The three regional winners will then face off at the 2011 ACE National Exposition in Toronto on May 11, 2011. The Student Entrepreneur National Champion will receive a $10,000 cash prize and go on to represent Canada at the Global Student Entrepreneur competition.

life

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

6

Write to the editor: life@theconcordian.com

sCraPBooK

Building ovens in Nandaime Students travel to Nicaragua as part of an Alternative Spring Break program

Heidi Bercovici Contributor

This past spring break, I was part of a group of 11 students from Concordia University and McGill University who participated in an Alternatiave Spring brseak program to Nandaime, Nicaragua. Through Hillel Montreal and American Jewish World Service, we worked with Nochari, a non-profit organization that supports over 500 families in the region by promoting economic development, gender and generational equity with an agro-ecological approach. Nochari does this by fostering small family farming enterprises and grassroots group of women, men and youth in the country. As a result, quality of life is improved by increasing production for home consumption and marketing, thus impacting the municipal, provincial and national development. We worked alongside the members of the rural community of Pedro Joaquin Chamorro.

The community was named in honour of the assassinated editor of daily newspaper La Prensa. We helped them build outdoor ovens which, when completed, allowed the families to make bread for their own consumption as well as to sell.

The extra money earned is then reinvested into the purchase of food, children’s education, transportation and home repairs.

This man and woman are the oldest members of one of the families for whom we built an oven.

Their physical strength and hard work amazed us.

Every Saturday, members from a local cooperative set up tables at a market where they sell a variety of items. Each family keeps the money they have earned. Once the ovens are completed, bread will be added to the table’s contents.

Our group with the families in the community of Pedro Joaquin Chamorro.

This is what a completed oven looks like.

The family uses it to bake bread which they will sell for extra income to help cover the costs of better nutrition, the children’s education, transportation and house repairs.

While working alongside members of the community, we learned how to make the foundation and the cement for the oven.

Photos by writer

Follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/concordianlife

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

7

international

Extraction from Tripoli, Libya Concordia graduate tells the story of a close friend’s final days in North Africa Bruno De Paula Contributor “It was the first time I ever heard gunfire. It’s not really a situation you except to be in, even while living in Libya,” Ed told me when he recalled what it was like during the turmoil in Tripoli, the capital of Libya.

Eduardo Bezerra has been a good friend of mine for roughly 20 years and currently works for Odebrecht, a Brazilian engineering company responsible for building large scale constructions throughout the world, including some of the stadiums for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Ed had been living in Tripoli since June of last year, and was getting used to being there, despite the many cultural differences, which included a sixday work week, a legal ban on eating pork and, worst of all, a ban on alcohol.

February 20 On the Feb. 20, a rumour went around his office of conflicts going on between rebels and dictator Moammar Gadhafi’s men on the outskirts of the city. His Libyan coworkers were allowed to go to their hometowns, but the foreigners were assured that it would be fine and that they should keep working and continue

with their routine. For Ed this included working out, smoking some hookah and watching TV until it was time for bed.

February 21 The next day, when he woke up, his roommates told him that they were not supposed to go to the office, but that everything was alright.

Ed went to the local market, surprised to see it open, and bought enough food to last him the week. Soon after, one of his bosses called to tell him that the unrest would soon end and he would be required to show up for work the next day.

That afternoon, the same boss was due to show up to a job site just outside Tripoli. He was sitting in a car with one of Ed’s roommates waiting at the toll booth. They looked out the windows and saw four men with AK-47s kneeling 20 yards away. Suddenly, three men in the car in front of them got out and began to walk away from the toll. The men with the AKs immediately opened fire and gunned them down.

His boss and roommate had to put their heads down to best avoid any stray bullets.

February 22 The incident at the toll booth led Odebrecht to speed up the process of extracting their employees, and on the following day the foreign employees were sent to their office because a plane was being arranged to get them out of the country. After waiting in the office for about three hours, they were informed that no planes were allowed to land anywhere in the country at that time, so they went back home.

Luckily, Ed had gone to the market the day before and there was plenty of food for him and his three roommates. They sat around, mostly in silence, and watched one of the few movies they

hadn’t all seen, Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers — not exactly what one would call relaxing.

That night, Ed realized he had left his only black suit at the tailor’s 50 km away - he knew he would never see it again. He had bought it a few months before as a gift to himself when he received a generous bonus from his company.

“That hurt a lot, but I just wanted to get out of there, to be honest. It was a nice suit, though,” he said.

February 23 He woke up around 8 a.m. to a call from his boss telling him a plane should arrive at 3 p.m. to pick them up. They were told that they were allowed to pack only two bags, but by then, everyone was already packed from the day before. When the bus arrived at 11 a.m., the driver told them that they were allowed to take only one bag, not two. Having both a large suitcase and a small carry-on luggage, everyone figured they would leave the smaller one behind until the driver informed them that their bags were way too big and they could only take the carry-on bags.

“We were a bit shocked because we had our entire lives in those suitcases, but we didn’t really hesitate. Everyone just threw their large bags into the house and got into the bus as fast as we could,” Ed recalled.

The drive to the airport was tense, but they arrived without any encounters with the rebels or Gadhafi’s men. It did however, take roughly four hours to make what was supposed to be only a 30-minute ride. Ed described the airport as “madness.” They stayed at the large tent-camp that had been setup a few kilometers away from the actual airport while they waited for their flight. The plane was supposed to leave

Tripoli at 3 p.m. but by 10 p.m., it had yet to even leave Greece.

February 24 At around midnight, three buses departed from the tent-camp to the airport, taking only single men, including Ed, because these passengers would have to wait outdoors for the longest. With an average nightly temperature of 2 to 3 degrees in Tripoli during this time of year, spending all night outdoors is not exactly comfortable.

“It was the longest night of my life, no doubt. I figured I would never leave,” Ed told me, clearly still shaken about the events that happened that night. He explained how all night there was a buzz that the plane was about to arrive, but it never did. Ed didn’t sleep at all that night. At 9 a.m. the plane was finally there. An hour and a half later, they boarded. Ed said that despite what one might think, there was not a sense of relief, everyone was too tired.

The plane left soon after they boarded, and they arrived in Malta, an island just south of Sicily several hours later. They slept and went out for a much deserved celebration, hitting up a local bar.

February 25, 26 The next morning, they went to Lisbon, where many of his former coworkers from his time in Brazil were waiting for him. Finally, 24 hours later, he had landed in Brazil and was free from all of it.

“Hey, want to come with me to buy a new suit?” he called me up and asked after arriving home. “Sure, how come?” I replied. “Long story.

Tell you later.” And with that, life slowly seemed to be getting back to normal for Ed.

A tent city was set up outside the airport.

A sunset outside Eduardo Bezerra’s room in Libya.

Passenger arrive in Malta, an island south of Sicily.

Eduardo Bezerra arrives in Malta after being extracted from Libya. Photos courtesy of Eduardo Bezerra

8

theconcordian

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

fashion

Models decked in recycled and eco-friendly clothing to strut stuff for charity 8th annual CASA Cares charity show is taking place this Friday night at Time Supper Club with proceeds going to the Montreal Children’s Hospital Amanda Dafniotis Staff wrtier Model hopefuls and the CASA Cares team are busy preparing for Friday night, when the Recollection Charity Fashion Show will finally take place and the winner of Concordia’s Next Top Model will be announced.

CASA Cares, the non-profit portion of the Commerce and Administration Student Association, held auditions back in November looking for models to fill the runway of their annual charity fashion show that donates proceeds to the Montreal Children’s Hospital.

“Our mission is to promote social awareness and responsibility throughout the university,” said Adelina Kirilova, president of CASA Cares. The biggest challenge of fundraising is getting people involved, but also, getting them to be excited about helping others.

With “Think Fashion Differently” as its slogan, the fashion show, is all about the art of sustainable fashion and celebrating Canadian culture. The organizers want to showcase eco-friendly and recycled clothing, as well celebrate the city of Montreal and other

Models auditioned last semester in hopes of being part of the fashion show and competition. Photo by Tiffany Blaise dia’s Next Top Model, a competition inspired Canadian cities by featuring local designby the Canadian version of television show ers and music artists. Some of the designers America’s Next Top Model. participating include Dita et Bella, Creations

By January, a panel narrowed down the Encore, Design Will Be, and Birds of North contestants to 30 students, but the final deciAmerica. The soundtrack will include tracks sion is open to the public. You can vote online from Canuck artists Coeur de Pirate, Beast, once a day for the guy or girl student you Arianne Moffat, MSTRKRFT, Arcade Fire and think has what it takes to be a real model.

Misstress Barbara.

The models with the most votes will be anThe goal for this year is to donate benounced at the end of Friday’s show. tween $13,000 and $15,000 with organizers Last year’s winner, 21-year-old marketing expecting a crowd of over 300, as part of the student Barbara Dunkelman, really enjoyed show’s biggest appeal lies in its ever changing the experience and the friends she met themes. through the fashion show.

Though primarily a fundraising event, “You are involved every weekend with Recollection is also the conclusion of Concor-

the same group of people - you are all going through the same experience together,” said Dunkelman. “Everyone is kind of nervous, kind of unsure about what’s gonna to happen.”

Marketing student Nancy Peng was a first-time hopeful when she went to try out.

The 19-year-old loved the idea of supporting a charity. “CASA Cares always does fundraisers for good causes, so I think it’s important to get involved and show your support,” said Peng. “Being able to bring our student body out and make them attract others is also great.”

Showing support for both the school and local charities is an important focus of the work CASA Cares does. Over the years, they have been able to donate over $60,000 to the Montreal Children’s Hospital. The team of 12 has also organized bake sales, soccer tournaments and BBQs as well as comedy nights donating to other local charities including Dans La Rue, The Old Mission Brewery, and Dr. Clown Foundation, to name a few.

“I think it’s important to get to know more people, see what’s happening around,” said Kirilova. “Especially CASA Cares, because we help so many different charities.”

To vote for Concordia’s Next Top Model, visit styledluxe.com/voting The Recollection Charity Fashion Show is taking place on March 11, 2010 at 9 p.m. at Time Supper Club located at 997 St. Jacques. Tickets are $25 and include entrance to the after party. To purchase tickets head to the CSU office in room H-711 or email CASA Cares’ VP Promotions, Angelle Estevez at angelle@casacares.com

Tracez le parcours de vos ambitions.

CERTIFICATS Date limite d’admission : 15 mars 2011 Choisissez parmi nos certificats en gestion : • Administration • Affaires internationales • Analyse des processus organisationnels • Commerce de détail • Comptabilité professionnelle • Création d’entreprise • Gestion comptable des organisations • Gestion d’entreprise • Gestion de projets • Gestion des affaires électroniques • Gestion des opérations et de la logistique • Gestion des ressources humaines • Gestion du marketing • Gestion financière • Leadership organisationnel • Planification financière personnelle • Supervision • Systèmes d’information et analyse d’affaires • Vente relationnelle •

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Client : HEC Montréal - martine.plaziac@hec.ca 514 340-6622 - denise.cadieux@hec.ca 514 340-5663 - Représentant : Edgar Donelle Journal The Concordian - Format : 1/2 page (10.5 x 8 po.) - Noir et blanc- Parution : 8 mars 2011

arts

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

9

Write to the editor: arts@theconcordian.com film

A world apart in Los Pereyra Documentary reconsiders helping hand of charity work Sofia Gay Copy editor Imagine living in the middle of a jungle, shielded from the outside world save for five days a year. One day, you’re told a group of people from the big city are coming to help you. Seems pretty far from the concretepainted landscape of Montreal, right? Well, in Andrés Livov-Macklin’s documentary, A Place Called Los Pereyra, this is a reality.

The jungle, to be precise, is a region in the northern Argentinean province of Chaco, known as El Impenetrable, and the helping hands come in the form of a group of girls from the prestigious Buenos Aires private school Northlands, who are known to the Los Pereyra schoolchildren as the Godmothers.

The film follows the merging of the two groups over the span of a week, as the girls arrive in the isolated community and try to help the kids in the village’s only elementary school by bringing them food and supplies, and offering them friendship.

A far cry from the type of situation that can be fixed with the wave of a fairy godmother’s wand, the girls’ visit makes the audience question the reason behind their act of charity in the first place. “We often try to help other people without asking questions to ourselves or the other people, just for the fact that it makes us feel good to help,” said Livov-Macklin.

Not only does the film expose the audience to a way of living that may be foreign to their own - it goes further by showing how the girls reflect the ways of a larger group of privileged people. “I wasn’t much surprised about [the locals], but about me and about the girls in the movie, because they are a metaphor of me,” he said. “They represent me and they represent the audience as well that goes to see the film.”

With the contrast between the wealthy city students and the kids who have never stepped foot outside their secluded village comes the realization that the latter have things which

cannot possibly be provided for them out of a non-perishable can of soup. “Sometimes it feels we’re in more need than they are,” said Livov-Macklin. “They have things we don’t have, as well. They have a sense of warmth we don’t have.”

Given the way the film was shot, it was no surprise that some unexpected twists came about, namely the fact that no individual characters are pointed out. Instead, the camera looks at the kids going about their week in clusters, which Livov-Macklin said was unforeseen.

Particularly with fly-on-the-wall films, he said, “You go and you have an idea of what might happen, but you don’t control anything, so what happens, happens.” This approach allows for a sense of realism to set in, lending itself to a truthful depiction of the differences

between the city and the village kids.

It is with this unflinching honesty that Livov-Macklin hopes to have an effect on audiences continents away from Los Pereyra, especially in the way they view the idea of doing charitable work. Drawing from his own experience while shooting the film, his advice for those who opt to help others by immersing themselves in different communities is to “just observe and talk to them and see what’s best and be open to other solutions and never do things because you feel good, because it’s not about you.”

This is a concept which the girls had a hard time accepting. “They think that the film’s about them, but it’s not,” Livov-Macklin explained. “I have used their story [...] to tell something more universal, to move people in certain ways.”

A child from Los Pereyra attends class at the village’s elementary school.

The teachers at the Los Pereyra elementary school try to instil hope for a better future in their students.

The change he wants to instill in viewers, he said, is the ability “to ask themselves questions and not always take everything for granted, not always try to impose their views.”

Although A Place Called Los Pereyra provides revelatory insight into both the privileged and impoverished worlds, in the end the audience has to look beyond the objective gaze of the camera to get at its message.

“It’s up to each person who watches the film to decide why it’s important,” said LivovMacklin. “One of the properties of this film is that it won’t tell you anything. It’s up to you to figure it out.”

A Place Called Los Pereyra plays March 11 to 17 at Cinéma Parallèle, 3536 St-Laurent blvd.

For more information, check out cinemaparallele.ca.

10

theconcordian

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

theatre

When creativity and nature run wild Concordia theatre students try ambitious play during next weekend’s Short Works Festival Valerie Cardinal Arts editor What do you get when you combine a complex script, a play condensed to half its length, puppets and a bevy of other visual effects?

All those elements compose an ambitious upcoming performance at next week’s Winter Short Works Festival in Concordia’s theatre department.

Caryl Churchill’s The Skriker is a difficult play, featuring a lot of wordplay and dense themes and imagery. Despite its challenges, theatre development student Jenn Kearney and the rest of her ensemble decided to work on The Skriker as their Student-Initiated Production Assignment. The Short Works Festival is a chance for students to run their own shows, and let their creativity go wild in their SIPA project.

The choice of The Skriker was mostly coincidence; Kearney was studying the script for a voice class at the same time as ensemble member Claire Hogan discovered the play. “It was kind of fated, meant to be,” said Kearney.

With the script cut down from two acts to about 40 minutes, Hogan and Kearney set out to find anyone who had an interest in puppetry or Caryl Churchill to join them. “It was like, ‘does anyone want to come on this crazy undertaking?’” stated Kearney.

Eventually, they made the decision to work as an ensemble with Rhea Nelken and Morgan Nerenberg. “It was like four different interpretations of it that we were trying to put

together in something cool, like a transformer, instead of something really awful, like, I don’t know, a pile of garbage,” shared Kearney. She said that although working in an ensemble can be difficult, it’s worth it in the end. “It’s much easier when a director can just be like, do this, do that, but in this case it’ like, well, what does everyone think?” explained Kearney. “The creativity takes twice as long, but I think in the end it’s twice as rich, because you get so much more input.”

The Skriker’s central character is a “nature spirit, death omen, shapeshifter, and she has come up into the human world out of the underworld to get revenge on humans for destroying nature and generally ignoring magical creatures everywhere,” summarized Kearney.

The Skriker’s attention is especially focused on two women; the mentally-disturbed Josie and the pregnant Lily, who are played by “just plain, straight-up actors.”

However, due to the shapeshifting nature of the Skriker, all four remaining cast members are the nature spirit at some point in the production. When they are not busy being the Skriker, the rest of the cast are operating one of about 10 puppets. “There’s a lot of puppetry and masks and we have projections that we’re working on,” said Kearney. “It was really huge and very ambitious with our cast of four people.”

The Concordia Theatre Department’s Short Works Festival allows students to think outside the box by allowing them to produce and often write their own short plays. For Kearney, this was the first time she used puppets. “I had a chance to actually learn to make puppets and learn to operate them, and how to interact with them as a puppeteer and then also as an actor,” she said.

With less than a week of rehearsals left before the Friday opening, Kearney said things are on track, if a little chaotic. “It’s the theatre, everything seems like a horrible disaster until you get there on opening night, and you’re like, ‘wow, we have a show!’”

The Skriker opens at the Winter Short Works Festival on March 11. The festival runs from March 10 to 13 at the F.C. Smith

Auditorium at the Loyola campus. Tickets are $2 for students. For the complete schedule, check out theatre.concordia.ca

Expect wordplay and dense themes at the Short Works Festival.

Visual arts

Canadian history, the Bible and modern taboos collide at the Leonard & Ellen Bina Gallery Kent Monkman uses camp and myth to rewrite our history Ben Croll Contributor A military dirge plays off in the distance, enlivened by the drums of war to match; the walls of the the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery are adorned with artifacts of Quebec’s colonial past. Revelers, expecting something a bit more contemporary, stand facing a 100year-old tableau of Montcalm’s last stand, looking at each other, dumbfounded. But continuing through Kent Monkman’s new exhibition My Treaty is With The Crown, the artist’s intentions soon reveal themselves.

Weaving biblical myth and Canadian history with a healthy dose of camp, artist Kent Monkman uses a variety of different media to explore society’s ongoing relationship with the taboo. Monkman casts his own alter ego, the aboriginal Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, across a series of paintings, photographs, etchings and videos that are meant to contrast older works on loan from several archives and national galleries. Recalling biblical ‘fallen women’ Delilah (of Samson fame) and Mary Magdalene, Miss Eagle is seen in one painting cutting locks of hair from a sleeping Montcalm, just on the eve of his battlefield defeat. The new work is painted on a large canvas, its romantic style meant to directly echo the century-older works that sit alongside it.

Monkman’s aim to shock spectators with

a figure so alien and anachronistic in the otherwise familiar repeats itself throughout the exhibit. He decided it was time to turn the tables on himself, and become the artist instead of the model.

But that only tells half the story. In this exhibition, artistic meaning is derived entirely from the model’s point of view. The environment that Monkman creates, filled with sounds and visions of a different era, is brought to life in the sporadic, playful appearances of his Miss Eagle persona. It has the effect of both lending his very modern alter-ego a historic weight and making the past feel just a little bit weirder.

One of the more successful pieces is also one of the simplest. Two glass cases sit on the gallery’s floor, both filled with large red footwear. On the left, a pair of traditional Cree leggings, actually worn in the presence of the Prince of Wales upon his 1860 visit to Montreal. On the right, a flashy pair of red vinyl boots, with six-inch heels and shining studs along the side that could only be worn, if ever, at a revival of La Cage aux Folles. The artist offers no more explanation, leaving it to exhibit-goers to consider the various implications and similarities that arise from being non-white, non-male and non-straight in societies that don’t exactly cater to any of those lifestyles.

My Treaty is With the Crown will be at the Leonard & Ellen Bina Gallery until April 16.

Follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/concordianarts

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

11

Cinema politiCa

Living in dangerous territory Two docs show the human faces behind the Israel-Palestine debate Corey Pool Staff writer For the last 44 years, Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Arab East Jerusalem have lived under severe Israeli military control and occupation. According to the UN, there are over 500 Israeli-controlled checkpoints in the West Bank alone. Israel has built settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, all of which, according to international law, are illegal. It is estimated by the UN that there are more than half a million Israelis living on occupied land. Next week, Cinema Politica’s special double-feature takes a look at what life in occupied territories is like with Israel vs Israel and This Palestinian Life.

Israel vs Israel “[Occupation is] really emotional for me, it’s really frustrating, and it really pisses me off,” said Israel vs Israel director Terje Carlsson. He has lived and worked in Jerusalem as a freelance journalist and filmmaker for the past eight years. “Israel vs. Israel is a way for me to try and somehow make a positive film about a very sad and frustrating situation.”

The film follows four progressive Israeli activists – an ex-Israeli soldier, a rabbi, a concerned mother and an anarchist – who are fighting for an end to over 40 years of Israeli occupation and illegal settlement in the Palestinian Territories.

“Today we work to expose the reality of occupation back home,” explained ex-Israeli soldier Yehuda Shaul in the film. Shaul is one of the leaders of Breaking the Silence, a group that secretly receives testimonies and accounts of abuses and excessive use of force against the Palestinians from soldiers. “We call it Breaking the Silence because, you have to understand, what’s going on in occupied territories is one of the biggest taboos in Israel,” said Shaul.

Israel vs. Israel uses intense, visceral and constantly shocking footage to show how complicated and strange this conflict really is, from the frantic checkpoint of Qalandia to the strange and violent streets of Hebron, where even the children beat Palestinians walking the streets.

Though Carlsson admits that he is no activist, he said his motives behind making the film were to inform a wider audience, and spark interest in an issue that is not just going to go away. He implores us to “get informed, don’t stay fucking ignorant about what’s going on in the Middle East; you can have whatever approach you have, just don’t stay ignorant.”

This Palestinian Life This Palestinian Life is a short independent documentary film by Egyptian/German freelance journalist Philip Rizk that tells the

Israel vs Israel wants to show viewers what it’s like to live in the Palestinian territories.

Palestinians in the West Bank have to get used to standing in line at checkpoints to do virtually anything. stories of the everyday lives of Palestinians living in a place called “Area C” in the Israelioccupied Palestinian Territories. Rizk moved to Palestine in 2005 to work as a volunteer in the West Bank, then spent two years working with NGOs in Gaza.

“The conflict is large and complex,” explains Rizk in the film. “I found that because violence makes the news, the everyday stories of real people barely reach the outside world.”

Comedy Who knows what you’ll find at the Couscous Comedy Show? For those who don’t know the event, this unique combination of homemade couscous - prepared by master of ceremony Uncle Fofi - and cultural cross-fertilization of standup comedians has treated Montrealers to something different for almost two years.

Last Sunday, the now-famous couscous dealer magnificently wrapped up a new season.

Fofi assembled over a dozen standup comedians for a three-hour show, punctuated by Fofi’s own incredible presentation.

The night ended with a standing ovation when all the artists gathered together on the stage with the diva singer Vanessa.

The performers included musician Karim Medfai, Sebastien Louis XVI (“the King of Magic”), Jocelyn Haas, Richardson Zephir, Tom Cock, Nicolas Tremblay Cote, Morgan O’Shea, Cherry, Sebastien Ravary, Couscous News Fifo with reporter Farah Bandahmane, Dorothy Rhau, Reda Senoussaoui, Benjamin Marquis, Neev Ben Simhon, Adib Al Khalidey and Vanessa. Hassan El Hadi wrapped up the show with a music concert.

The next Couscous Comedy Show with Uncle Fofi is March 20 at 6 p.m., at Cafe Campus. For more information, check out cafecampus.com.

Photo by David Vilder

The conflict is complex indeed; Gaza is sort of a “no man’s land,” without any internationally recognized governing body and stuck under harsh Israeli control policies.

In Susya, south of Hebron in the West Bank, it is illegal for the people to dig wells for water or tend their fields. In Gaza, a family is in ruins after Israeli forces bulldozed their entire property. In the Jordan Valley, families are not permitted to even repair their homes

when they begin to deteriorate. This Palestinian Life creates an interesting and intimate portrayal of the plight of the Palestinian villagers living in these areas.

Israel vs Israel and This Palestinian Life will play at Cinema Politica on March 14.

For more information, check out cinemapolitica.org.

12

theconcordian

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

spoiler alert

Lady Gaga was “Born This Way” New music video celebrates “individuality” with lots of birth Jessica Wei Staff writer

Man. I love personal freedom and diversity.

I love waking up every morning, taking a good long look at myself in the mirror and saying, “I am a strong, unique individual.The world better watch out, because I ain’t gonna change; I was born this way.” That’s why I listen to Lady Gaga. She has, like, bajillions of fans, and is an international pop sensation, but her career statement? Non-conformity.

And when she released “Born This Way” that’s exactly the message she was driving home. She really couldn’t have done it in a classier way. I mean, telling the story of the birth of her “little monsters” (a term she tenderly applies to her fans), pulling machine guns out of her vagina - she’s really making a point about individuality there. So there you go, I watched the music video for “Born This Way” and now I want to drop half my body weight, get prosthetic shoulders and call

myself Lady JessJess. You should all probably follow suit.

“This is the manifesto of Mother Monster,” begins the opening dialogue of her video. Those are some pretty heavy words, words I wasn’t aware that she knew or could pronounce. She goes on to explain the birth of her monsters, dropping the word “mitosis,” so clearly she’s taken a science class. The video shows scenes of hands crawling around her crotch. She’s writhing in agony, pumping out a succession of gooey Gaga fetuses. But wait, all is not perfect in her happy Gaga factorythere’s another evil queen who is, simultaneously, also giving birth, but she’s had a lot more practice running things through her vagina. Without any help (but probably loads of painkillers), she gives birth to a ma-

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

chine gun and starts aimlessly shooting it. Shut up, science, if I wanted to shove a Subaru out of my lady parts, I probably could, right?

So begins a dance sequence of gothic anorexics in leather and chains, as she’s hopping around singing “I’m beautiful in my way/’Cause God makes no mistakes.”

Again, it’s all about individuality and personal freedom, which is clearly why none of her dance ensemble weighs more than 30 pounds.

As she flails around, I fear that one misstep could snap her like a twig. Seriously, how can her emaciated frame support the weight of her own skin, let alone all the hardware on her leather bikini?

Cut to random shots of her at zombie prom, shaking her long pink wig and grinding up against her frozen-solid model date. Mother Gaga keeps pulling out more slimy goodies from her vajayjay. The story

starts to break up at this point. Like, why are there zombies? And where all the umbilical cords? And if she’s so determined to highlight diversity and personal beauty, why does everybody look exactly the same?

But despite the obvious plot holes in her music video, at least there are writhing nearly-nude bodies. That usually fixes most problems in modern popular music. Like her lyrics. I don’t want to “be a drag” and get on the PC wagon, but come on: “You’re black, white, beige, chola descent/You’re Lebanese, you’re orient”?? Obviously such a big fan of diversity, she really knows the socially respectable terms for various ethnic backgrounds. People love walking around referring to themselves as “cholas” and proudly sharing their “beige descent,” right? I should probably start embracing the term “oriental.” Oh waittoo bad we’re not in a 1950s Yul Brynner movie.

Anyway, the video wraps up with her shaking her ass in an alleyway wearing oven mitts. Lady Gaga, you are an inspiration to us all. I mean, people talk about individuality all the time, but she’s the only one who does it with hardly any individuality at all, unless you count her career-long trying-waytoo-hard-to-be-different campaign. But then again, maybe we’d all see it if we were on as much crack as her. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt.

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Daniel Spinali Staff writer A cult film is defined as a film that has acquired a small, yet devoted fan base despite being either panned or ignored by critics and movie viewers during its initial release. This week’s film is a prime example. If it wasn’t one of my father’s favourite sci-fi films, I never would’ve heard of it.

Buckaroo Banzai is a scientist with one major goal in mind: develop a way to travel through a solid object and emerge on the other side unscathed. With his jet-powered truck equipped with an oscillation overthruster, Banzai is successful, but he picks up an unwelcome hitchhiker on the way.

Banzai finds a mass of what appears to be brain matter on the underside of his truck after passing through a mountain. This leads him and his team of scientists (who are also his bandmates known as The Hong Kong Cavaliers) to hypothesize that there is another dimension located well within the realm of our own, in every piece of solid matter. The ragtag group of scientists soon learns that the dimension is filled with exiled aliens from Planet 10, who, due to Banzai’s recent success, now have a way to escape and return to their planet.

As it is with every comic book-esque movie, the main characters, in this case Buckaroo

Banzai and the Hong Kong Cavaliers, are the ones charged with destroying the aliens in order to save the planet. Not a big surprise there, but certain plot lines just work, all the time.

Buckaroo Banzai is one of those movies that, just like Robocop, another Peter Weller film, makes an attempt to create an alternate universe of sorts. While there is no question about the decade in which the movie takes place, there are those attempts at futuristic technologies that, today, look incredibly outdated. While this could be something that would turn people away from the film, I say no; let the glory of ‘80s hi-tech shine through. While we may not yet be able to move through solid matter as Banzai does, it is amazing to see how much advancement has taken place in the fields of computing and special effects.

If you are a fan of antiquated views of the future, gunfights, aliens and a heavy dose of synthesizer music, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension is the perfect movie to watch on a lazy afternoon with a cup of hot chocolate (or, quite frankly, any beverage of your choice).

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension Directed by W.D. Richter, 1983 Starring Peter Weller, John Lithgow, Christopher Lloyd and Jeff Goldblum

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music

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

13

Write to the editor: music@theconcordian.com Q&A

Alcoholic Faith Mission visits Canada for the first time

Indie group Alcoholic Faith Mission (above) will journey all the way from Copenhagen to play at Montreal’s Under The Snow Festival. Photo courtesy of the artist

Danish group has all the fixings of a Canadian indie band, but gets noticed abroad Katelyn Spidle Music editor Conceived in New York City in 2006 and cultivated in their hometown of Copenhagen, Denmark in the years following, Alcoholic Faith Mission may be a small fish in a giant indie pond. But with their nicely crafted tunes, this band may have what it takes to keep afloat.

To stand out, In today’s musical survival of the fittest, a band must either bring something completely fresh to the scene, or they must learn how to develop a sound that so perfectly characterizes a genre that listeners cannot help but acknowledge its legitimacy. Catchy, Broken Social Scene-esque guitar riffs, sweet interchanging male-female vocals and the occasional accordion zing is what Alcoholic Faith Mission have going for them, and time will tell whether this proves to be an indie recipe for success.

The sextet - made up of lead vocalist and guitarist Thorben Seierø Jensen, bassist, vocalist and drummer Sune Sølund, keyboardist, drummer and vocalist Kristine Permild, trombonist, vocalist and guitarist Gustav Rasmussen, vocalist and percussionist Morten Hyldahl and accordion, keyboard and synthesizer player Anders Hjort - will be playing their first-ever Canadian gig as one of two featured international artists at the Under The Snow Festival, running March 9-13.

For those who are not familiar with the group, Jensen took some time to answer The Concordian’s questions to bring us indie-lovers up to speed.

Concordian: Alcoholic Faith Mission formed in

New York City. Did you and Sølund make this trip together and for the same reasons?

Thorben Seirø Jensen of Alcoholic Faith Mission: We made the trip together, but it wasn’t until we came back that we decided to start our own band. Being the first time any of us had really been in New York, let alone explored it, we went on strolls up and down every borough.

Eventually we ended up in Brooklyn in front of the Apostolic Faith Mission congregation. We figured it would be rather cool, in our young adult minds, to change apostolic into alcoholic religion being alcohol for the pious and alcohol being religion for the drunk.

Did you two start writing songs for your first album, Misery Loves Company, while still in NYC or did you wait to get back to Copenhagen to begin songwriting?

My brother had installed a recording program on my computer, and one night Sølund was over and we decided to dabble with some recordings.

That night one song quickly turned into two, and after a few months we had a pretty decent roster of songs.

Just six months after we had started recording we sent our songs to a Danish label, and they released it without having us changing a thing.

Is it true that you and Sølund exercise complete creative control? Why doesn’t the band write songs collectively, with equal say in the creative process?

Well, actually, we do write songs collectively.

But what started out as a project governed by Sølund and I turned into a trio, and now it’s a sextet.

It’s easier to find collaborators that share your vision, or a vision I should say, when it’s not clouded up with a million different opinions and approaches. It’s also easier for the newcomer to get the idea from the start and immediately know whether or not it’s a project they’d like to jump on.

That was what happened with Permild and since with Rasmussen, Hjort and Hyldahl. They all knew from the start that Sølund and I wanted

to make this type of music, and it turned out that they did too - at least in the realm of AFM. So it wasn’t that difficult for us to have them add their two cents creatively.

Many songs seem to be fuelled by melancholy, confusion or some other kind of inner turmoil.

Do you believe that such feelings are essential to the production of true art?

No at all! It’s just the way it comes out for us.

And it’s not that we’re a dreary bunch of guys hanging around bars feeling sorry for ourselves, we just like that melancholic flavor. We’re actually quite happy and fun people to be around, at least we’d like to think.

To what degree are the lyrics influenced by your experiences?

The lyrics are inspired by a lot of things: personal experience, something that happened to a close friend, or they might even be inspired by something we saw on TV. It comes from all around. There are a lot of personal experiences in the songs, but “Sobriety Up and Left” is, lyrically, a direct result of [a] life-changing moment in my life.

While working on the second album, 421 Wythe Avenue, the band established certain conditions under which the record had to be written and recorded: recording only at night, lighting candles, recording only once and while slightly intoxicated. What was the intention behind putting these “rules” in place?

It was to force ourselves to be creative, plain and simple. Sometimes when you have everything at your disposal you take the easy way around recording an idea, and miss all the exciting things that happen on the longer way around.

Has the group’s name ever given regular listeners or industry people the wrong impression of the band members? In other words, do people ever assume that you’re all a bunch of boozers?

Either that or religious fanatics - and I am sorry to say, but we aren’t either. We’re just

normal everyday people with jobs, mortgages and bills to pay.

What’s the indie scene like in Copenhagen?

Does Alcoholic Faith Mission stick out in its local scene?

There’s a rather big indie scene in Copenhagen and in Denmark in general. One way that you could say we stick out is that we’re quite often told that our sound isn’t very Danish.

This might also be the reason why we aren’t that known back home the same way we are in Europe and the U.S. The new EP, Running With Insanity, will be out on March 29. Are you happy with how it turned out? What can fans expect?

We’re very excited about it. Once again we tried to change the style a bit, so this time the fans can expect more vocals, more acoustics and a bit more lyrical bite. But it is only an EP, mind you, and so it is just a taste of what will come in the fall.

As a band, what has been your greatest regret and what has been your greatest achievement?

Our greatest regret was when our drummer at the time decided he’d rather pursue his own music and leave AFM. Our greatest achievement was being able to have Hyldahl join in his place.

Looking back, it turned out that our regret was actually one of the best things ever to happen.

Where are you guys going or what will you be doing after your show at the Under The Snow Festival?

The day before Under The Snow we’re playing in Toronto and after it we’re going back for another two nights in Toronto. From there we go to New York for a few days, ending it all with a mad four-day stretch in Austin for the SXSW, having to play three to four shows a day. It will be exhaustively good.

Alcoholic Faith Mission will play on March 10 at Casa Del Popolo for the Under The Snow Festival.

14

theconcordian

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Preview

One of the two members of Siskiyou (above) sits in a tornado of instruments. Photo courtesy of Constellation Records

Plenty of music to be heard Under the Snow Three Plateau venues will host 28 local and international indie bands over five days for seventh annual music festival Katelyn Spidle Music editor Montrealâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Under The Snow Festival, running March 9 to 13, may not be the same large-scale kind of operation as high-budget festivals like Osheaga or POP Montreal, but

as artistic director Jeff Rioux points out, â&#x20AC;&#x153;The kind of budget we have is pretty tight, but weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re trying to build [the festival] and do what we can do with the small budget.â&#x20AC;?

Twenty-eight indie bands will play over the course of five nights, with shows taking place at Plateau venues Le Divan Orange, La Sala Rossa and Casa Del Popolo. While most artists are from the Montreal area, Rioux has invited two international acts, Danish sextet Alcoholic Faith Mission and Belgian group MLCD [My Little Cheap Dictaphone], to play play on March 10 at Casa Del Popolo and on March 11 at La Sala Rossa, respectively.

According to Rioux, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s important to throw some international showcases into the mix for two reasons. Firstly, for bands that have not previously played in Montreal, a slot at Under The Snow is a good opportunity to

share their music with a wider audience. Secondly, â&#x20AC;&#x153;some of the international bands are more popular than local bands, so itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a good way to bring attention [to the local bands],â&#x20AC;? said Rioux.

Highlights of this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s festival include a performance by Vancouver-based two-piece Siskiyou, who will play at La Sala Rossa on March 10, and a musical history lesson by Monsieur le chien, taking place at Le Divan Orange on March 12. Also, for the second year in a row, Under The Snow will be hosting a record and art fair, happening during the afternoons of March 12 and 13 at 5075 Rivard St. Over 60 bands, labels, zine makers, designers and artists will be selling music and other goodies for cheap, so be sure to check it out.

Under The Snow is celebrating its seventh consecutive year, but Rioux admits that he

didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really think of it as a festival during the first few years that it ran. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really a festival in my mind, it was just three days of shows that I had planned,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;They were mostly bands from my label [Where Are My Records].â&#x20AC;? Many people urged him to make the event an annual one. So by drawing from the well of experience that he has accumulated over the past 15 years from playing in local bands, hosting radio shows and working in record stores, Rioux assures that the festival has been getting bigger every year. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This year itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a little bit bigger,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more serious; itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not a hobby like the first two or three festivals.â&#x20AC;?

More information, including a full program, can be found at Under The Snowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s website: www.underthesnow.ca/fr/

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Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/concordianmusic

15

PArty

Passovah Productions celebrates three years with a two-day-long party at Divan Orange and Il Motore Special Noise, Ancient Kids kickstart celebrations while seven local bands play cover sets on day two Cora Ballou Staff writer Thursday and Friday were big nights for local promoting company Passovah Productions.

Hosting a two-part series of shows, the company celebrated its three years on the Montreal scene.

Founder Noah Bick started Passovah in 2007 and since then, it’s grown from producing small shows at local underground venues to hosting over 70 different gigs around the city. Having cut his teeth with local promoters Pop Montreal and Blue Skies Turn Black, Bick decided to use Passovah “to either help friends or make friends.” As he explains it, “I’ve made it my mantra to only book bands that I’m friends with or that I really respect.”

In that vein, last week Bick assembled an impressive cast of local talent. Beginning at Divan Orange, Thursday featured a three-part rock show, with local favourites Special Noise headlining the set. Following a hypnotizing performance by solo act Royal Palm was Ancient Kids, an all-star band featuring members of other local acts like Sunset Rubdown and Adam & The Amethysts. Speaking to Ancient Kids guitarist/vocalist Jordan Robson-Cramer before the show, he explained how Bick asked him to do a show, but he “was never ready.”

But after three years of offers from Bick,

he & his co. finally took the stage to deliver a refreshingly straightforward indie-pop set that featured minimal reverb and synthesizer and Robson-Cramer’s clear, soulful voice, and no synthesizers. Unfortunately this didn’t last long, as Special Noise took the stage to deliver an ear-splitting show that was far too loud for Divan Orange’s limited space. A spectator after the show succinctly described the band as “music that promotes hearing loss rather than actual melody.”

Thankfully, the decibels remained manageable on Friday for the second part of the celebrations, which took place at Il Motore.

Featuring an impressive lineup of new and older favourites from Montreal, the show featured seven local bands who came together to play cover sets.

The night night demonstrated the communal goodwill between Bick and his artists.

Each set was laidback, with musicians who seemed truly pleased to be playing. A welcome sense of lightheartedness filled the room as artists joked in between songs or cracked up at their own cover versions.

Bick, a fan of the Talking Heads, was looking forward to a cover of the ‘80s band by Play Guitar. His status as a full-time student means that Passovah is now producing less gigs. “It’s pretty exciting to be able to work with them,” explained Jeff Simmons of Play Guitar, in light of the scaling back.

In a city full of fledgling promoters, it cn be hard to gain a proper foothold. Yet Noah Bick demonstrated that what Montreal needs is a little more fun. With a scene that seems to get increasingly affected by the day, a bit of youthful exuberance was a refreshing change of pace.

Check out Passovah Productions at www. passovah.com

Mozart’s Sister performing at Passovah Productions’ three-year anniversary. Photo by writer with

the tax experts

I GET EVERYTHING I WANT Songs for the modern, empowered slut

By Shannon H. Myers Staff writer

In honour of International Women’s Day, here are some songs sung by some exceptionally bold women who, combined with being self-aware, feature a mindset typically associated with masculinity. Wherever you are between monogamy/polyamory, homosexual/heterosexual, masculine/feminine, let yourself be open and accepting of others positions and confident in your own unique place, without feeling the need to adhere to any categories.

SIDE B: 11. “Jerk It” - Thunderheist - Thunderheist - 2009 12. “Mediocrity Rules” - Le Tigre - From The Desk of Mr. Lady - 2001 13. “Les Femmes” - Yelle - Pop Up - 2007 14. “Lovertits” - Feist - Open Season - 2006 15. “I’m Good, I’m Gone” - Lykke Li Youth Novels - 2008 16. “No Regrets” - Sohodolls - Single - 2006 17. “Cold Hands! Hot Bodies” - You Say Party! We Say Die!- Hit The Floor! - 2005 18. “Kiss Kiss” - Yeah Yeah Yeas - Is Is 2007 19. “Make it Hott” - Crystal Castles vs.

Uffie - Demo - 2008 20. “Lust” - The Raveonettes - Lust Lust Lust - 2007

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SIDE A: 1. “In These Shoes?” - Kirsty Maccoll Tropical Brainstorm - 2000 2. “Jique” - Brazilian Girls - Talk To La Bomb - 2006 3. “Pile of Gold” - The Blow - Paper Television - 2008 4. “Tight Fit” - New Young Pony Club Fantastic Playroom - 2007 5. “I Get Around” - Dragonette - Galore 2007 6. “Art Bitch” - Cansei De Ser Sexy - Cansei De Ser Sexy - 2005 7. “Fuck the Pain Away” - Peaches - The Teaches of Peaches - 2000 8. “Stripper” - Sohodolls - Ribbed Music for the Numb Generation - 2007 9. “It’s Getting Boring by the Sea” - Blood Red Shoes - Box of Secrets - 2008 10. “U.R.A. Fever” - The Kills - Midnight Boom - 2008

NEWSPAPERS:

To listen, visit: 8tracks.com/the_concordian/music-for-the-modern-empowered-slut

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16

theconcordian

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Profile

We Are The City release High School this month, new album in the works With a $150,000 contest win, lineup change and new album set for release, it’s been a busy year for this young West Coast band

Andrew Guilbert

Stars feeling Gaddawful

Katelyn Spidle Music editor When We Are The City released their debut LP In A Quiet World in 2009, the then 18-yearold bandmates - singer and keyboardist Cayne McKenzie, drummer Andrew Huculiak and former guitarist David Menzel - had not yet played a show outside their quiet hometown of Kelowna, B.C. Yet this is not what inspired the name of the album, as McKenzie pointed out.

“It’s kind of pretentious actually, and I wish it wasn’t,” he chuckled self-consciously.

“We came up with this idea that in an ideal world, everything wouldn’t be so loud and fast and careless.”

With a band name like We Are The City, it’s hard not to see the irony in McKenzie’s introspective attitude and modest ideals. “Any time that I’m feeling good about the kind of person that I am becoming or that I am, is when I’m the least careless and the least loud and outspoken, and when I’m as quiet as I can be,” he continued. “I think that there’s a lot of wisdom in being quiet and in taking it all in.”

The indie-pop band - whose sound is reminiscent of Vampire Weekend and Tokyo Police Club - has certainly not become all that it has in the past year by keeping quiet.

Last January, We Are The City beat 450 local bands for a top cash prize of $150,000 in The PEAK Performance Project, a professional development program for emerging B.C. artists, run by Vancouver radio station 100.5 The PEAK. Since winning the competition, the trio has gone on to tour Canada’s loud and fast cities several times. The young musicians have had to learn to adapt to the less-than-perfect conditions of tour life, but this, McKenzie believes, has only made them tighter as a band.

“You’re practicing your songs in the most intense environment possible,” he said. At first, the quality of their set would suffer from playing shows in different cities every night.

We Are the City wear masks while playing songs from High School.

“You didn’t have time really to set up, to get everything right in your monitor, to make sure your vocals were warmed up, or [that] your arms weren’t cold. It’s just the ultimate practice.”

Formed in 2008 while the members were still in high school, We Are The City experienced a minor change to their lineup last year. By the summer of 2010, Menzel - who had become engaged shortly beforehand had slowly begun to phase himself out of the band. “It was time for him to go on to some different things, I think,” said McKenzie. “It’s just the way it goes when you grow up: you go into different directions.”

Although We Are The City was taking a break, the remaining members had no intention of packing away their instruments.

“We just wanted to play some local shows with some local bands,” said McKenzie. “We wrote what we considered to be pop tunes.”

The side project, which they named High School, began as a musical outlet and was never meant to be taken seriously. “We Are The City is the band that we really care about and it was under some turmoil, so I think that High School was a great escape from thinking about that,” McKenzie candidly expressed.

However, after We Are The City got back on its feet last fall with the addition of guitarist Blake Enemark, the band decided to record the High School songs. According to McKenzie, the six-song LP - set for release on March 29 - saw band members swapping instruments and experimenting with a drum

machine.

“It was a different recording process,” said McKenzie of High School. “We did it way quicker - It’s pretty much a live record except for the vocals.” The High School album, however, represents a transitional period for the band, and McKenzie hinted that after their current tour, the group will be headed back to Kelowna to work on some new material.

McKenzie revealed that they have written about half of the songs for the new record.

These, he noted, were written with Menzel, but the rest of the album will be written with Enemark.

Having won a ton of cash at such a tender age, it may be surprising to discover that the band, over a year later, is still hanging on to the majority of their winnings. Rather than spending it all on international tours and parties, McKenzie assured that, “We have always maintained this frugal attitude of ‘no unnecessary spending.’”

But, he continued, “I feel like it’s kind of our job to party in a sense. That’s what being in a band is about, and that’s what you’re doing on stage: you’re supplying the energy for people to let loose.” However, it’s clear that for We Are The City, their job as musicians take precedence over the endless opportunities to party. Put simply: “I’ll continue to be blown away as long as I get to go around in a van and play piano.”

We Are The City play with Aidan Knight and Rah Rah at Casa Del Popolo on March 8.

in-dePth

The King of Limbs: divisive, yet genius Music polarizes Radiohead fans but marketing tactics reaffirm their brilliance David McIntyre Contributor Shortly after the world was treated to Thom Yorke’s oddly entrancing dance moves in the video for Radiohead’s new single, “Lotus Flower,” they shocked fans by announcing the imminent release of their new album.

The King of Limbs received mixed-to-positive reviews from critics and fans alike. While the BBC hailed it as “a fans-pleasing eighth album from Britain’s most consistently brilliant band,” NOW Magazine claimed Radiohead is “so invested in the idea of not being a pop band any more that they haven’t written many actual songs.”

The group initially released the album through its website – albeit not via the paywhat-you-want strategy that their previous effort, In Rainbows, had been promoted through

– to accumulate hype over a month before its physical release on March 28. They did this all without the help of a major label. So is this a brilliant marketing tactic for the band to attract a more widespread audience, or does their lack of a big-name label hinder the accessibility of their new material to the masses? More importantly, how come the band isn’t taking full financial advantage of their new material by releasing it in stores simultaneously?

First of all, Radiohead has already achieved much success over the past two decades by doing things the traditional way. Their prior achievements carry a large enough monetary value that whether or not The King of Limbs goes multi-platinum may not be their biggest concern. Secondly, the album’s digital price of $9 is just under what it would usually be sold for physically - a smart move in an age where record sales are tanking at an alarming rate.

With the Internet as today’s primary source of new music, the group’s sales strategies can help it reach the kind of audience that it can no longer attract at one’s local HMV. Of course, that’s not to say they don’t care at all. You could also argue that the digital selfrelease of both The King of Limbs and In Rainbows is more financially beneficial for them, as

A slew of musicians have been urged to donate what’s being called “Gaddafi blood money” to charity after a WikiLeaks cable revealed that performers such as Usher, Jay-Z and Lionel Richie were paid substantial sums to perform for Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his entourage. In a gesture of penitence, performers such as Beyonce and Nelly Furtado donated their profits to various worthy causes, while others expressed regret at the part that they played in the affair.

In a statement, Mariah Carey said: “I was naive and unaware of who I was booked to perform for. I feel horrible and embarrassed to have participated in this mess. Ultimately we as artists are to be held accountable. Going forward, this is a lesson for all artists to learn from. We need to be more aware and take more responsibility regardless of who books our shows.” Furtado, on the other hand, tweeted : “In 2007, I received 1million$ from the Qaddafi clan to perform a 45 min.

Show for guests at a hotel in Italy. I am going to donate the $.”

Courtney Love in the hole for $430,000 Fashion designer Dawn Simorangkir’s lawsuit against Hole frontwoman Courtney Love over comments the singer made about her via social networking sites has reportedly been settled out of court for $430,000. Simorangkir claimed that Love’s vicious comments, which included references to prostitution, drug dealing and a history of assault and battery, ruined her business. Shortly after having the charges brought against her, Love tweeted: “The end.

Am shutting down all social media tomorrow first thing, from here on in I have NO Comment, includes Facebook.”

Zombie will not be digging Crue’s Dirt Rob Zombie and Mötley Crüe fans had something to cheer about recently when it was widely reported that the shock rocker was on board to direct the screen adaptation of Motley Crue’s 2001 memoir “The Dirt - Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band.”

Turns out it was too good to be true. Zombie, in an interview with Undercover.fm, squarely stated, “No, I’m not doing the Motley Crue movie. I don’t know where that came from.”

The rumor purportedly started in an interview with Crue drummer Tommy Lee on Billboard. com, where the website had stated that the film “is now on track with Rob Zombie as its director.”

Richards can’t keep daughter under his thumb

more money would find its way into their bank accounts rather than into those of major labels.

With such tactics in mind, it’s obvious that Radiohead has chosen how they want to go about distributing their music, and they have already found a surprising degree of success as a result. But at the end of the day, Radiohead has been successful enough at this stage in their career that it barely matters how many people buy the record, rather how many people they reach.

Theodora Richards, the 25-year-old model better known as the daughter of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, was charged for “criminal possession of a controlled substance, unlawful possession of marijuana, making graffiti and possession of a graffiti-making instrument” while scribbling on the wall of a SoHo convent. Police say Richards had used a red acrylic paint marker to write “T [Heart] A”, which she told anti-crime unit officers represented herself and her sister, Alexandra. The officers reportedly found white pills they believed to be hydrocodine and a small amount of pot on her person before taking her in. The second-generation Stone is due in court April 21 and faces up to a year of jail time if she is convicted of the misdemeanour charges.

Write to the editor: music@theconcordian.com

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

17

interview

The Concordian sits down with Andrew W.K., the self-proclaimed king of partying Before taking the stage at Art Matters, Andrew W.K. talks interviews, Canada and, of course, partying Evan LePage News editor Last Friday, musician, motivational speaker and self-proclaimed king of partying Andrew W.K. visited Concordia for an unconventional lecture that flew between the detailed intricacies of an amazing sandwich, the festival of the Juggalos and depressing literature. The talk, presented by the Fine Arts Students Alliance, saw the man in white explain why he wanted to smash his bus driver into a brick wall. He momentarily broke into a solo hardcore dance, and one audience member wiped his own blood onto the speaker’s shirt. We doubt such antics have ever occurred in the walls of H-110 before. W.K. was also in town to perform a DJ set later that night as FASA’s contribution to the Art Matters Festival. But before either of those escapades took place, the Concordian sat down for a quick, but surprisingly insightful interview with him.

Concordian: You’ve been interviewed by everyone from Nardwuar, to Fox News, to a young child, so what’s your take on doing interviews?

Andrew W.K.: I like it and I’ve liked it always.

I remember the first interview I did as Andrew W.K. and I couldn’t believe this person really just wanted to talk to me. And even if they didn’t, they’re being paid to talk to me. They have their questions, they’ve looked up things about me, I mean it’s a huge ego boost. So of course in that

way I like it. But after that you wonder what can you do with this. Now that you have this chance to talk with someone what can you say. I’ve tried to keep it not only entertaining for the readers and for the writers but also for myself as well, to find new answers. I’ve learned more about myself from doing interviews than any amount of psychotherapy ever could have done. [...] As long as you’re aware while you’re doing it that it’s completely absurd that anyone would want to talk to me to this degree, then everything is okay.

So you’ve been keeping busy, between your music, motivational speaking, your television show Destroy Build Destroy, the nightclub that you own, etc. So how do you balance it all and which is your favourite?

My favourite is entertainment, show business, performing or however you want to define this realm. As much as I am doing different things, they all fit under the same umbrella very, very clearly. I mean it’s easy for me, I’m not doing mathematics on the one hand, social studies on the other hand; it’s pretty much partying and entertainment, all the good stuff. I grew up as someone who was into drawing, and painting, and music and theatre and it just became very obvious that the entertainment industry would allow me to do all of those things. They are all justified, they all fit. [...] Anything I could ever think to do, not only has a place here, but is valuable here. So that’s what I love about it, I feel like I was born to work in this field.

You tweeted this week that every day you write a to-do list, and the one you posted was: 1) party 2) party 3) party hard 4) call mom and dad 5) party harder. So where does work fit in?

Work is different than a job. I’ve had jobs and they sucked because that’s the type of work that is not fun. But work doesn’t have to be a job, it’s something I’ve just been realizing now. I work harder now than I actually did when I had regu-

Quick Spins

Andrew W.K. takes a photo of himself. Photo by Andrew W.K. lar jobs. But it’s a work that is so full of joy that I would never call it a job. A job is not good vibes.

What about the Arts Matters event drew you in?

Well for one I’m a big fan of Canada, so that was the easy part. And two, [I am] a fan of Montreal; I’ve spent quite a bit of time here. I also worked with some of the organizers for this event at a Canadian festival called Sled Island that I enjoyed very much. But at the same time this is my first university lecture anywhere in Canada, so I was very pleased. I mean I just can’t believe that I get invited to do this stuff so part of it is just embracing it before they change their mind and uninvited me.

What can one expect from an Andrew W.K. lecture?

That I will show up. That’s about the only thing that you can expect [...] I have arrived, I’m here. Expectations beyond that? We’re just going to party hard.

What do you hope students get out of all this?

That it puts them either further in touch or back in touch or amplifies with whatever excitement or will they already have to party, enjoy themselves and to do what makes them happy.

I’m just here to facilitate more of that feeling, to be a spokesperson for joy.

This interview has been condensed. Read the full conversation can be seen on www. theconcordian.com. A full podcast of Andrew W.K.’s lecture will also be posted on the FASA website www.fineartsstudentalliance.ca.

Retro review

Avishai Cohen- Seven Seas (Blue Note; 2011)

Scale The Summit- The Collective (Prosthetic Records; 2011)

Colin Stetson- New History Warfare, Vol. 2: Judges (Constellation; 2011)

The Red Hot Chili Peppers Blood Sugar Sex Magik (Warner Bros.; 1991)

Israeli jazz guru Avishai Cohen returns with his unique brand of “heavy metal jazz” on Seven Seas, which is a follow-up to 2009’s Aurora. The Cohen, Mark Guiliana and Shai Maestro trio - who play bass, drums and piano respectively - have never before disappointed fans, and the same holds true for the new album. The addition of vocals, an electric guitar, a Turkish oud and a horn section have greatly filled out the band’s sound. The effect is a sound that is rich, nuanced and groove-heavy.

Tracks like “Halah” and “Ani Aff” showcase the trio’s virtuosity and ability to create complex polyrhythms, all the while maintaining their penchant for melody and counterpoint.

At times, the vocals evoke the sound of an Israeli lounge bar, but the dynamic between the keyboard, drums and bass shines throughout Seven Seas, enough to keep your head bobbing well beyond its 52-minute run time.

Texas instrumetalists Scale The Summit have started 2011 in heavy fashion with the release of their third album, The Collective. Their latest work lives up to their 2009 release, Carving Desert Canyons, and then some. With a trademark dualguitar sound that puts melody ahead of speed, quick odd-time flickers and a mix that gives no one instrument precedent over the other, The Collective has a lot to offer prog-metal fans - even though there is not a single vocal to be heard on the record. With a touch of dissonance, the record sounds like Cynic meets Between the Buried and Me with a bit of Dream Theater added in. Overall, The Collective is a mature, intelligent and complex record that shows a wealth of songwriting ability as well as an appreciation for plain old good music.

Saxophonist Colin Stetson demonstrates an inclination for jazz, noise and the oh-so elusive avant-garde. By virtue of his idiosyncratic tendencies, Stetson has come to work with the likes of Tom Waits, Arcade Fire and David Byrne. Out of this impressive repertoire comes New History Warfare, Vol. 2: Judges - a collection of two-minute tracks that briefly but thoroughly explore what one could imagine may be going on inside of Stetson’s brain.

Almost taking the lead as the longest track on the record, “Lord I Just Can’t Keep From Crying Sometimes” awkwardly stands out as a classically composed love song, while the rest of the record conveys a panic-stricken tale featuring ranging falsettos, cries of feedback, howls of French horn and ever-pulsating clarinet screeches. Guest vocals provided by Laurie Anderson and Shara Worden help Stetson construct the soundtrack for a potentially fascinating psychological thriller.

With songs like “Under the Bridge,” “Funky Monk” and “Blood Sugar Sex Magik,” the album is heavily influenced by funk music, but it nonetheless possesses a very diverse and well-built track list.

Blood Sugar Sex Magik sold over 17 million copies, making it the band’s second most popular album after Californication. Having put aside many of the heavy metal riffs that were more common in their precedent albums, the band was able to enlarge and diversify its audience. Released in 1991 as their fifth album, it brings together guitarist John Frusciante and Michael “Flea” Balzary’s energetic funk riffs with colourful and suggestive poetry-style lyrics. The album’s immense success forced Frusciante to temporarily quit the band in 1992 in the middle of a promising world tour. The album is considered one of the most influential albums to emerge out of the ‘90s alternative rock scene. It embraces genres and styles that can appeal to most listeners while keeping an original and stimulating sound.

Trial Track: “Seven Seas”

Trial Track: “Colossal”

Trial Track: “Richard II”

Trial Track: “Give It Away”

8.0/10

7.0/10

-Jesse Polowin

-Jesse Polowin

7.0/10

- Sruti Islam

- Kim McPherson

sports

18

Write to the editor: sports@theconcordian.com

BASKETBALL

Stingers have a date with the final eight at National Championships in Halifax After a convincing victory over UQAM, Concordia defeat Laval to take the title Michael Downs Staff writer Thanks to a pair of key performances by forward Evens Laroche, the Concordia Stingers are provincial champions and will head to the CIS National Basketball Championships in Halifax, N.S. After missing some time late in the regular season due to injuries, Laroche played phenomenally in the Quebec conference playoffs.

The third-year forward played a pivotal role in the Stingers’ championship run, averaging 22 points, 13 rebound and two steals in wins over the UQAM Citadins and the Laval Rouge et Or. “I’m a leader for these guys,” said Laroche.

“It’s my third year and I realize that I have to step up for these kind of games. I just try to focus, play hard and do what I gotta do.”

His teammates and head coach have taken notice as well.

“He takes so much pressure off of me when he’s playing like that,” said Stingers point guard Kyle Desmarais.

“He’s so versatile. He can drive, shoot the ball, rebound and get steals, which really lets me conserve energy. When he plays like this it’s good for him and good for the team. It gives the opposition something to worry about and opens up my game more.”

The Stingers’ journey started in a game at home against the UQAM Citadins in the semifinals.

Concordia entered the game on a hot streak, undefeated in the month of February and winners of six consecutive games.

The Stingers set the tone early on with their defence, applying full-court pressure on

Head coach John Dore said team play was a key to success all season. Photo by Almundena Romero Citadins ball handlers, which caused them to cough up the ball at a high rate.

These frequent turnovers led to some early easy baskets for the home team and the Stingers were leading by as much as eight points during the first quarter.

However, the Stingers would hit a rough patch in the second quarter, as they often looked disoriented and listless, which allowed the visiting Citadins to not only get back into the contest, but also to lead and be in near complete control of the game. As a result, the Stingers trailed 42-37 at halftime.

“We just lost focus,” said Stingers head coach John Dore when asked about the second quarter breakdown.

“We started playing as individuals rather than as a team. We had some turnovers and some bad defensive errors, got into a little foul trouble. But that’s what happens with a young team.”

Fortunately, the Stingers ended the game with the same intensity with which they began.

A spirited series of plays saw the Stingers score an unanswered eight points in the span of roughly 30 seconds which sent the home crowd in an absolute frenzy and helped them take a lead they would never relinquish, eventually defeating the Citadins by a score of 89-74.

Next up was a meeting with the Université Laval Rouge et Or in the Quebec championship game last Friday.

The two teams split their four games; each team won two games on their home court.

The game took place at Concordia in front a packed gym of well over a thousand people.

The atmosphere was electric and every shout was amplified due to the small size of the gym.

But the game did not start well for the

Stingers.

They were intense from the opening whistle but appeared nervous, repeatedly missing easy looks, eventually allowing the game to open with an 11-4 run that had them ahead 18-11 after a quarter of play.

Things got progressively worse for the Stingers in the second quarter. They were completely out of sync offensively and missed shot after shot. The Rouge et Or demonstrated why they were known for their perimeter shooting as they drained several three pointers, stretching the lead to as much as 15 points. Things did not look promising and the home team went into halftime down 42-31.

“We shot 10 per cent from the three-point line, 30 per cent from the field and 60 per cent from the line. Things went terribly for us,” said Dore.

In similar fashion to the UQAM game, the Stingers started with a renewed focus and defensive intensity and it immediately paid dividends.

Gone were the wide open three-point looks Laval had enjoyed in the first half, as the Stingers did a much better job of closing out defensively on perimeter shooters. The Stingers also limited Laval’s penetration, forcing them to take contested outside shots.

Propelled by Laroche’s 19 points and 15 rebounds, some outstanding free throw shooting and stifling defence, the Stingers came from behind and dominated the second half.

As the final buzzer sounded, the home crowd erupted while the players celebrated ecstatically at centre court.

They had just defeated the Rouge et Or by a final score 77-67 to win the title.

“This is the best feeling in the world,” said Desmarais. “Going from last place to conference champions and going to the nationals in Halifax, it doesn’t get any better than that.”

The Stingers, seeded seventh out of eight, play their first game against the number two seed Carleton Ravens. The game will be broadcast on TSN2 and starts at 7 p.m.

BASKETBALL

Concordia falls to the Citadins in playoff semifinals Nerves and a key injury get the better of the team, who could never take the lead Brennan Neill Managing editor After ending the season on a winning note, the Stingers quickly bowed out of the playoffs following a 65-54 loss in the semi-final game against the UQAM Citadins this past Wednesday. Although it appeared that the Stingers were evenly matched coming into the game, since they only finished two points behind the Citadins in the regular season, nerves and a key injury made all the difference on the court.

“I thought it was 50/50. Either team could have won this game, but UQAM made their shots and we didn’t,” said head coach Keith Pruden. “We were nervous and I think it showed.”

Citadins head coach Jacques Verschuère noted that they had taken the season series 3-1 but echoed Pruden’s thoughts on the game. “It’s always a close game against the Stingers,” said Verschuère.

The Stingers were also missing a key component in their lineup. Veteran guard Kendra Carrie, who averaged 10.3 points and four rebounds a game, sat out while recovering from a concussion suffered earlier this season.

“It was pretty hard not playing tonight,” said Carrie. “It’s not exactly how I imagined my university career finishing.”

From the opening tip off UQAM applied pressure and built up a comfortable lead over the Stingers. About four minutes in the Stingers took an early timeout after falling behind 9-2 and missing easy points. The breather was not enough to calm the Stingers down, and the Citadins pulled further ahead while maintaining a strong defence. By the end of the first quarter, the Stingers were down 23-11.

The second quarter continued much like the last and the Stingers were unable to slow down the Citadins or sink shots in their own end. Pruden called another early timeout three minutes in after falling behind 27-13.

The timeout seemed to work as the Stringers woke up offensively and began taking more shots but the team still had trouble turning chances into points. The Stingers closed out the half down 39-25.

The Citadins did not let up in the third quarter but the Stingers seemed to find some sort of defensive rhythm following a timeout two minutes in. Stinger guard Magalie Beaulieu showed strong defence as she stepped

up the pressure on the Citadins ball carriers.

Concordia also managed to pull down more rebounds in the offensive zone but could not capitalize on the points. The Citadins were sitting comfortably ahead 50-35 at the end of the third quarter.

With their playoff hopes on the line, the Stingers stepped up their offence and began putting points on the board in the fourth. The Citadins began taking fouls and the Stingers were given bonus free throws with about seven minutes left in the game. The extra opportunities at the free throw line and strong defensive play left the Stingers behind 58-53 with just under two minutes to play. But after a punishing three-point shot by Citadins forward Karine Boudrias, the Stingers were not able to come back.

The Stingers finished the game with only 30 per cent of their field goals finding the net but fared better at the free throw line with 58 per cent made.

“I guess we weren’t focused and we missed a lot,” said Stinger guard Yasmin JeanPhilippe. “All those missed shots probably cost us the game.”

Before the game, Jean-Philippe and Stinger guard Kaylah Barrett were honoured as allstars in the Quebec conference this season.

Barrett was selected as part of the first all-star team and rookie team, named the rookie of the year and as the defensive player of the

year. Jean-Philippe was selected as part of the second all-star team.

Yasmin Jean-Philippe was one of two Stingers honoured last Wednesday.

Archival photo by Alumenda Romero

Follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/concordiansport

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

19

profiLE

Stingers recruit Vince Nardone looks to make immediate impact Defensive back brings his ability to read the play to Concordia Stefano Mocella Staff writer Vince Nardone was looking for great coaching, familiarity with teammates and something close to home; he found all three when he was recruited by Concordia.

Nardone gives the Stingers a new defensive back, addressing one of the team’s needs. He stands at 5-11, 185 pounds, and works the position with great anticipation of the play.

“I think my knowledge of the game is probably my best asset,” said Nardone. “But something I want to work on is my speed this coming season.”

The coaching staff of Concordia first noticed Nardone at John Abbott’s spring camp. They expressed interest in the defensive back, scouted him at some of his games with the Islanders, and brought him in for a Stingers game. Nardone got a chance to tour the facilities and get to know how Concordia functioned as a football program.

With coaching being one of the factors in Nardone’s decision, he expressed admiration for his new coaches. Nardone was also familiar with Paul Rapagna, the defensive backs coach and assistant defensive consultant; Rapagna was coaching at Abbott during Nardone’s time there.

“I love Coach McGrath’s intensity and his drive to win [and] I always loved the way Coach Paul coached me.”

Nardone may be entering his first season, but that doesn’t mean his coaches expect any less out of him.

“Being 20-years-old, my coaches told me I can be a leader right away in the locker room,”

he said. “I can help the younger guys with what I already know. Having already been coached by Coach Paul, I know the things he’s preaching, so I have to bring as much leadership as I can, along with my talent.”

In addition to his experience with Rapagna, Nardone’s decision was influenced by his familiarity with some of the Stingers players. And you can’t get more familiar with a teammate than being his best friend off the field. Nardone and Terrance Morsink, the rookie quarterback who started in all but one game last season when Robert Mackay was lost to injury, will be expected to become leaders on next year’s team.

Nardone hails from Rosemère. While he attended Rosemère High School, he played with the Laurentian Wildcats in Midget AAA. However, he got his start in football playing in Ontario. He lived in Toronto for eight years, having moved there with his family when he was nine.

Nardone was originally a wide receiver, but was converted to a DB at John Abbott.

“They were in need of DBs at the time, so Coach Paul basically switched me” recalled Nardone. “I believe that being a former wide receiver really helps me in reading a play, because I know what the receiver is thinking and what he’s trying to make me do.”

Being a defensive back, Nardone looks up to Troy Polamalu of the Pittsburgh Steelers, who was named the 2010 Defensive Player of the Year. Besides his trademark hair, Polamalu is known for reading a play better than anyone else.

As far as his academics go, Nardone is studying business at Concordia, but is still unsure of what his future holds after football.

“I love football and I want to keep playing it as long as I can,” he said. “That’s the main reason why I came to university. I’m not sure if I’d be in school right now without football.”

That doesn’t mean Nardone will not take his studies seriously. As for the football side of

University of Ottawa

“I can help the younger guys with what I already know,” Nardone said. Photo courtesy lanouvelle.net things, there are no guarantees that Nardone will start next season, although it is very possible. What he can do is bring the knowledge he

has to the team. The Stingers are happy to have him, and Nardone is where he wants to be.

Graduate Studies

Friday, March 18, 2011

Open House Meet with Faculty representatives. Explore the campus.

Get answers to your questions.

Gain a real sense of what graduate studies at uOttawa is like.

FREE round-trip shuttle from Montreal. Spaces are limited!

Visit discoveruOttawa.ca to register.

opinions 20

Write to the editor: opinions@theconcordian.com editorial

How do women beat Canada’s “steel ceiling”?

On International Women’s Day, NDG MP Marlene Jennings share her plan to elect more women

Today is the 100th International Women’s Day. In casting around for a suitable angle for this week’s editorial on the subject, the topic of politics came up. If you want to follow Gandhi’s saying to be the change you want to see in the world, getting elected is one way to make waves on issues you care about.

And that’s why it’s important to have more women elected to office in Canada.

Women have made significant strides in the political realm in Canada in the last century - including earning the right to vote federally in 1918, and the first female prime minister Kim Campbell taking power in 1993 (albeit for a short time). Steady growth has brought the percentage of women members of parliament from just under 10 per cent in the 1980s to 21 per cent today. But, that’s just 1 out of 5 women filling the seats in Parliament. The Senate has a higher percent-

age, around 30 per cent, but those seats are appointed. It’s not impossible to have an even representation of both genders - this is happening in Rwanda (56.3 per cent), Sweden (46.4 per cent) and South Africa (44.5 per cent).

A review of the politicians who represent the interests of this corner of Montreal reveals a near-unique occurrence. Concordia’s Loyola campus is one of a handful of spots in Canada that has a women representing them at all levels of government - federal, provincial and municipal. (A quick, but not exhaustive, overview of the 68 ridings which have female members of parliament reveals at least two communities west of Montreal represented by women at all three levels.)

The three women in the trifecta of political representation include Marlene Jennings, who’s been a Liberal member of parliament for the NDG-Lachine riding since 1997.

Kathleen Weil, a lawyer by profession, was a political newcomer when she first ran for the Liberals. She is now Quebec’s Minister for Immigration and Cultural Communities.

Susan Clarke was elected in 2008 with the Union Montreal party as the councillor for the Loyola district.

Jennings spoke with the Concordian about her thoughts on how three women came to represent NDG; she believes the area

has a “certain level of maturity that helps women get elected.” (Weil was not available for comment before press time, and Clarke is away on vacation.)

Right off the bat, Jennings unequivocally believes that Canada, a progressive, Western democracy, is faltering when it comes to women’s involvement in politics. “Somehow, we’ve hit - I don’t even call it the glass ceiling, I think it’s now a steel ceiling. And I really do believe that government, and the House of Commons, and political parties at the federal level, have to take really proactive measures in order to not just encourage more women to run for political office at the federal office, but to ensure that more are actually elected.”

Jennings, a longtime backbencher, has introduced a private members’ bill to persuade parties to run more women in riding elections. Political parties, since 2004, receive $1.95 in funding per vote each year until the next election as a method to curb party donations. Jennings proposes that if a party fails to obtain women filling at least 40 per cent of its representation, the party would lose part of its $1.95 subsidy.

Studies show, according to Jennings, that when at least 40 per cent of representatives are women, it creates a ‘substantive change’ in the way government operates. “The way

in which decisions are made becomes much more collegial across party lines. There’s a lot less partisanship, jumping on minor errors to try and gain some one-upmanship and blacken the reputation of your opponents [...] There’s much more interest in investing public moneys into policies that have proven over the medium and long term to actually affect a healthy change for population.”

Sounds like something Canada could use.

But, as her proposal is a private member’s bill that will wait another year or so before it is introduced, with a potential election looming, it might take a long while before her bill comes up for a vote. But if the federal budget fails at the end of the month, Jennings affirms she is ready to run again for her seat.

There has been a backlash among younger women against the perceived aggressivness of the term ‘feminist.’ The F Word, an excellent CBC documentary that aired last week, explored this topic in depth. Jennings, however, thinks that the term is not outdated, and that young women, and men, should not shy away from the word.

“I believe that any individual, male or female, who believes in equal rights, is a feminist,” she said. Because I think that that is the core of feminism.”

the WHALE and SGM on Feb. 14, I personally saw Morgan have sleepless nights, attend countless meetings, post countless posters, make countless phone calls, and coordinate an enormous part of what had to happen for WHALE. Sure it was part of her job, yet Morgan did more than was expected, and clearly she was often alone within the CSU executive doing it. Yet I did not realize until reading her letter of resignation just how alone and excluded she was. I remember being in Morgan’s office one Friday watching her multitask everything from phone calls and emails to equipment reservation. We had finally found the one place in Montreal that seems to rent out patio heaters, for WHALE, and Morgan did everything she could to make sure we had the safest yet cheapest heaters (a whopping $604.09), so as not to overspend the CSU budget of $1,900 for WHALE. This is not an executive who flung money around thoughtlessly. This is an executive who sacrificed her own mental and physical health, not for her career, as is obvious from her resignation, but for her beliefs and convictions, and mostly for the students she represents. Let me tell you that’s rare these days in student politics.

We should praise Morgan for her honesty and hard work, and hope that future executives and councillors are inspired by her. With our tuition likely to double starting in 2012, believe me, we need it.

ate student, I don’t need to give a damn about the ins and outs of CSU politics, but I hate to see someone who works so hard, and who actually blew me away with her effectiveness, punished because she made Heather Lucas and Adrien Severyns look bad.

Undergraduates, please don’t make me deal with people like this next year.

courage and loyalty (to students!) coming from the CSU. I have the utmost respect for Morgan and I wish her the very best.

letters

Re: Student centre After the student centre byelection failed by a large margin last semester, the CSU executive responded to those results, stating on their website that they “are listening” to students, and invited “those who opposed the increase [...] back to the drawing board” with them to address their concerns.

Unfortunately, though not surprisingly, such consultation never took place. Quite the opposite, the student centre became an issue rarely mentioned by the executive for the months following the referendum. Their silence was broken with last week’s articles in the student newspapers regarding the Faubourg, which showed the CSU executives (namely CSU president Heather Lucas and VP external Adrien Severyns), hand-in-hand with the administration, stepping up to the plate to take yet another swing at a project that has failed twice in the past year - in apparent ignorance of the 70 per cent of students who voted against the proposal last semester. It has become clear that the only consultation the CSU executive has conducted over the past few months is with the administration.

All that this establishes is that, without a doubt, the CSU executives’ intentions of consultation were little more than a facade put in place to subdue those with legitimate questions and concerns regarding the contract.

The student centre has failed before, and regardless of how many campaign rules are broken, it will fail again. That, to borrow from Mr. Côté’s quote in one article, is something this year’s executives, and the administration, will have to accept and move forward with as well.

Gonzalo Nieto

Re: VP Sustainability Morgan Pudwell resigns After almost two years of campaigning for tuition freeze with Free Education Montreal, I can say with all certainty that I have never seen a CSU executive work so hard for tuition freeze and student democracy as Morgan Pudwell. During and leading up to

Nadia Hausfather When you get involved with fighting for accessible education (and against tuition increases) you quickly discover that a lot of student representatives are virtuosos at pretending to do something about it and taking credit for the work of others.

Believe me, this is not a hopeless fight, and a lot more could be accomplished at Concordia if all undergraduate student representatives were giving their best effort. Unfortunately, when I was involved in organizing the WHALE, of the CSU executives it was only Morgan Pudwell that was around. Of the executives, it was only Morgan that gave material organizing support, and in fact she did an inhuman amount of work. I’m a gradu-

Holly Nazar Morgan has taken the courageous step to resign because of her sincere commitment to students’ interests and her conviction for an accountable and transparent student union.

I have seen her put forth incredible efforts during this school year to carry out her mandate and to represent students on issues including eco-awareness and sustainability, corporate influence on campus and tuition fee increases.

Her tremendous contributions in working together with students-at-large to put together the Special General Meeting WHALE on February 14th have especially left an impression on me.

Morgan has consistently put students’ interests first and her resignation is a testament to that. The factors leading to this are clear.

Morgan was expected to comply while the rest of the executive silenced her and acted directly in conflict with the concerns that students have voiced about purchasing the Faubourg for the student centre and the disarray of the university due to corrupt governance. She was expected to straight-out lie about their finances, while the Student Union was being steered by external forces in a direction detrimental to student interests.

That disregards actual student representation and favours instead the administration.

I am certain that in making this difficult decision Morgan had the best interests of the student body in mind and that this was the only way she could be honest and transparent to her constituency.

Morgan has chosen to defend the rights of over 30,000 students she could not know individually, above many of her personal relationships, her reputation and her job. This is admirable. It is the first time I’ve seen real

Irmak Bahar The Cinema Students Association is disappointed to learn that the current CSU executives were not willing to work with Morgan Pudwell, an outstanding leader who has represented students with integrity in her term as VP Promotions and Sustainability.

She was invaluable to councillors during a conflict within the Fine Arts Student Alliance at the beginning of the year, providing support and guidance, and her leadership helped strengthen the Alliance as a whole. She has attended many FASA Council meetings as the Fine Arts representative on the CSU, going above and beyond her position, and was a resource regarding the CSU bylaws during the rewriting of the FASA Constitution.

Morgan Pudwel has been a fierce defender of student rights, active in protesting the tuition increases proposed by the Quebec government.

She participated in the student demonstration in Quebec City on Dec. 6, as a representative of the thousands of Concordia students who would be affected by these increases.

Morgan Pudwell was also integral to the WHALE campaign in organizing activities, postering, and cutting through the red tape that accompanies a student assembly of more than 800 people. Though CSU President Heather Lucas spoke on behalf of the executives during WHALE, the organizers relied on Morgan Pudwell for the assistance of the CSU. The Cinema Students Association witnessed her intense devotion to the campaign at several planning meetings as well as during the assembly, which greatly influenced the success of the campaign.

The Cinema Students would like to extend our gratitude to Morgan Pudwell and her continued dedication to the Fine Arts and Concordia communities.

Ali Moenck VP Communications Cinema Students Association Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema

Follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/concordianops

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

21

bUdget

Conservatives slash environmental spending in new budget Stephen Harper’s policies are making Canada a dirty place to live Owen Nagels Assistant opinions editor Last week, the Harper Government (as they now insist on being called) announced they will be cutting big chunks of money from environmental spending in the impending budget. Specifically, $140 million will be cut from Environment Canada’s climate change and clean air programs, as well as a 51 per cent cut to substance and waste management.

Along with that, natural resources will see a $390 million decrease in spending. The total cuts are expected to top over $1.6 billion.

For some odd reason, Harper seems hell bent on taking our beautiful country and quite literally tossing it straight into the trash. By cutting spending to substance and waste management, garbage will pile up in our streets and landfills, and recycling programs, which are already underfunded, will have even less money to work with.

Meanwhile, instead of investing in jobs

and technologies for the future, Harper is handing over more than $1.4 billion in subsidies to oil companies, most of which have declared billions of dollars in yearly surpluses.

If you ever wondered where the conservatives’ loyalty stands, hopefully these statistics will clear that up.

Along with oil companies, Security and Public Safety, better known as “correctional services,” will enjoy an increase in spending of about 21 per cent. With the new budget, first-time offenders will spend more time in prison instead of being given the chance for rehabilitation. Prisons are expensive to run, and taxpayers would save money in the long run by breaking the crime cycle first-time offenders often find themselves in.

When Paul Martin handed power over to Stephen Harper in 2006, Canada enjoyed a $16-billion surplus. Today, Canada’s deficit stands at over $45 billion. The “fiscally responsible” conservatives have been one of the biggest borrowing and biggest spending governments in Canadian history. Yet they aren’t spending money where it counts. They are giving tax breaks to the wealthy and they are allowing polluting companies to continue to make our air and water dirtier with no consequences whatsoever.

While the rest of the world is taking two steps forward, the conservatives are taking two steps back. Countries like Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden and Norway are

leading the way in environmental technologies. Canada could and should be a part of this movement, but Harper has taken no incentive whatsoever on creating green jobs.

He is even cutting the tax breaks to homeowners who want to make their houses more energy efficient.

Harper is planning the future of our country entirely the wrong way. He is putting our money into old technologies that will only reduce the quality of life we now enjoy. It doesn’t make sense to give money to big oil companies who already make billions every year.

We’re essentially rewarding them for polluting the air we breathe.

And meanwhile, students are racking up massive debt, health-care is

in a shambles and our environment is a mess.

The future under a conservative government looks dirty and riddled with debt. Enough is enough.

Graphic by Sean Kershaw

online

stUdent liFe

Is Concordia’s dormitory policy dated?

Concordia’s website redesign: it’s actually useful

Kelsey Pudloski Contributor

Christopher Kahn Online editor

New Jersey university to allow students to room with member of the opposite sex

The adjustment to university residence life can be tough. Gone are the days of homecooked meals and Mom taking care of your laundry.

Rutgers University is hoping a change in their housing policy will put all students at ease as they settle into their new environment. Beginning in the fall semester, some students will be able to select either a male or female roommate.

The decision was reached following the suicide of freshman Tyler Clementi, who jumped off the George Washington Bridge after his roommate secretly streamed a video of Clementi in a sexual encounter with another man.

Rutgers now joins a growing list of universities offering gender neutral housing options.

But could this policy also work for Concordia residences?

According to Rich SwamiNathan, the manager of Res Life at Loyola, the idea has never been discussed at Concordia because there have not been any requests for it.

“It could happen — we’ll just have to wait and see,” said SwamiNathan.

Currently at Concordia, students can choose between living alone or with a roommate. However, rent is higher for a single room than it is for a double so students may be limited in their choice because of financial reasons.

“If someone has an issue [with a roommate] during the year — we would solve it,” said SwamiNathan.

The residence application includes a brief questionnaire of one’s personal habits but it does not ask about sexual orientation — doing so is against Concordia’s policy. The actual pairing of roommates is done through a computer program. Due to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, residence life is not permitted to share any personal information about one’s assigned roommate prior to move-in day.

In the United States, where this act does not exist, many students choose their own roommate(s) after meeting them at orientation or talking over Facebook. Putting this important choice into the hands of students, rather than computers, seems to be a smarter alternative.

Concordia residences are relatively small: last fall, 600 people applied to fill 424 available spaces. But it’s this close-knit, community atmosphere that makes students feel right at home.

“One of the benefits of having a small residence life program is that our residents receive individual attention as opposed to sweeping policies,” said resident assistant Cameron Monagle.

Choosing your own roommate might not currently be an option at Concordia, but with a little persistence, students seeking equality have the potential to change these dated rules.

Graphic by Sean Kershaw

University revamps concordia.ca just in time for summer and fall 2011 registration

It always seems to be an epic battle between what students need to see on a university’s website, and what the universities think is cool to have on their website. And now that Concordia has finally revamped its own, it’s not half bad. Lucy Niro, Concordia’s director of web communications seemed to understand that when she told the Concordia Journal that “her primary goal is to provide up front the information that users are most interested in. Design choices, information architecture and navigation were based on usability testing reports, analyses of other universities’ sites and user surveys.”

For once in my life, everything I care

about can be accessed from the front page: the library site, shuttle bus schedule, campus map, undergrad calendar, class cancellations and jobs on campus. Students can rejoice at their new-found easy access to information, in a world where simply finding the campus map can be a complicated and horrifying endeavour. The new class schedule browser is also far more usable, albeit slow, whereas the old one had me running for the hills come registration day.

As a comp-sci student, however, I can’t help but chuckle at Niro’s mention that the website upgrade takes them one step closer to a Web 2.0 site, and puts them on their way to Web 3.0, whatever that is. It’s great that they’re taking advantage of jQuery, but Web 2.0 is a term that’s been tossed around since 1999. And Web 3.0? Even Wikipedia is dubious about the term, saying that “the overwhelming consensus is that Web 3.0 is most assuredly the ‘next big thing’ but there only lies speculation as to just what that might be.”

All in all I’d say good on Concordia for providing students with a clean, useful upgrade. Now if they could rebuild the registration system I’d be set.

theconcordian

Concordia’s weekly, independent student newspaper.

Tuesday, Mar. 8, 201 Volume 28 Issue 23.

Sarah Deshaies Editor-in-chief editor@theconcordian.com Brennan Neill Managing editor managing@theconcordian.com Evan LePage News editor news@theconcordian.com Jacques Gallant Jacqueline Di Bartolomeo Assistant news editors Emily White Life editor life@theconcordian.com Savannah Sher Assistant life editor Valerie Cardinal Arts editor arts@theconcordian.com Katelyn Spidle Music editor music@theconcordian.com Kamila Hinkson Sports editor sports@theconcordian.com Chris Hanna Opinions editor opinions@theconcordian.com Owen Nagels Assistant opinions editor Jacob Serebrin Online editor online@theconcordian.com Tiffany Blaise Photo editor photo@theconcordian.com Katie Brioux Graphics editor graphics@theconcordian.com Trevor Smith Chief copy editor copy@theconcordian.com Morgan Lowrie Sofia Gay Copy editors Jill Fowler Production manager production@theconcordian. com Jennifer Barkun Francois Descoteaux Lindsay Sykes Production Assistants Board of Directors Tobi Elliott Richard Tardif Ben Ngai directors@theconcordian.com Editorial 7141 Sherbrooke St. W. CC.431 Montreal, QC H4B 1R6 514.848.2424 x7458 (Newsroom) 514.848.2424 x7499 (Editors) 514.848.2424 x7404 (Production) Francesco Sacco Business Manager business@theconcordian.com Marshall Johnston Advertising advertising@theconcordian. com Business and Advertising: 1455 de Maisonneuve W. H.733-4 Montreal, QC H3G 1M8 514.848.2424 x7420 (Office) 514.848.7427 (Fax) STAFF WRITERS AND CONTRIBUTORS: Shereen Rafea, Renee Giblin, Kalina Laframboise, Amanda Dafniotis, Heidi Bercovici , Bruno De Paula, Jessica Wei, Daniel Spinali, Corey Pool, Ben Croll, Elizabeth Tomaras, David MacIntyre, Andrew Gilbert, Shannon H. Myers, Jesse Polowin, Kim McPherson, Michael Downs, Stefano Mocella, Eva Kratochvil, Alex Woznica, Kelsey Pudloski, Sean Kershaw, Phil Waheed, Almudena Romero, David Vilder, Andrew W.K., Navnnet Pall, Almudena Romero

langUage

theconcordian

The Oxford Dictionary is adding new “techspeak” terms to its vocabulary Updates reflect the way the English language is spoken online, and offline Kelsey Pudloski Contributor Techspeak, for those of us who are technically impaired, can be as mind-boggling as HTML formatting. Thankfully, Oxford Dictionaries Online is here to help. The site has recently added 200 new words to spice up our vocabulary, with many of them being associated with the world wide interweb (n. the Internet).

Since 1998, the Oxford University Press has published three editions of an English language dictionary, aptly titled The New Oxford Dictionary of English. The researchers start from scratch with every new edition, as the dictionary is intended to reflect the current state of the English language—not simply an updated one. The latest edition was published in 2010, but Oxford Dictionaries Online frequently updates their website with new entries to keep it contemporary.

The emergence of social networking has taken techspeak to new heights. Ever defriended (v. to remove someone from a list of friends or contacts on a social networking site) an ex after a bitter breakup? Or arranged a tweetup (n. a meeting or other gathering organized by means of posts on the social networking service Twitter) at Starbucks?

Mark Zuckerberg has not only turned procrastination into an art form, it seems he has also infiltrated our verbal communication.

Beyond the confines of your Facebook home page lies a vast and chaotic network of other websites. Perhaps upon the purchase of your latest PC you installed freemium (n. business model, especially on the Internet, whereby basic services are provided free of charge while more advanced features must be paid for) malware to protect your files. Or maybe you’re a fan of microblogging (n. the

Graphic by Phil Waheed

posting of very short entries or updates on a blog) and read up on Perez Hilton from time to time.

Although it’s mainly self-proclaimed geeks who label these words, Oxford legitimizes them by slapping on official definitions and putting them into print.

Has techspeak taken over our society to such an extent that grade five students

throughout the country are using ‘becuz’ and ‘rofl’ in their book reports? Perhaps — but outside the world of academia, techspeak is widely accepted. It isn’t deteriorating our vocabulary, it’s enhancing it. The English language is constantly evolving. The addition of terms enriches our understanding of new phenomenons encountered on the Internet.

And that is nothing to ‘lawlz’ about.

politics

Conservatives are not just the lesser of three evils The last five years have shown that Tories can run this country... well Alex Woznica Staff writer A new poll has found that if an election were to be held this week, the Conservative party could quite possibly win a majority. The poll, conducted by Ipsos Reid, found that the Conservatives are now supported by 43 per cent of decided voters, which is quite close to the percentage experts believe is required to win a majority. The new survey shows the Conservatives with a 16 point lead over the Liberals, and a 40 point lead over the NDP. The current popularity of the Conservative party can be explained by two factors. In the short term, there is a perception that the Conservative government handled the recent economic crisis rather responsibly, resulting in Canada’s faring relatively well in comparison to other western countries. In the long-term, and perhaps more importantly, the Conservative government has not adopted some of

the more radically conservative right-wing policies that many believed their ascension to power in 2006 would bring. This has resulted in the people of Canada, or at least many of them, coming to realize that the Conservative Party is not as radically right-wing as they once thought. Combined with overall good and responsible governance, it is possible that after five years, they are finally replacing the Liberals, at least for now, as Canada’s natural party of government.

While the general good governance provided by Stephen Harper’s conservatives certainly contributed to the state of the current poll numbers, so too have the deficiencies in the two main opposition parties, the Liberals and the NDP. The Liberal party did far worse in the poll for good reason. First and foremost, they have simply failed to articulate policies different enough from the Conservatives to warrant their election to government. Instead, they have chosen to harp on controversial, yet in terms of the big picture unimportant scandals such as the recent affair concerning Bev Oda and the NGO Kairos. Combined with the fact that Michael Ignatieff is still, in the eyes of many, simply not a believable leader, it is not surprising that the Liberal party only has the support of 27 per cent of decided voters,

according to the poll.

With only 13 per cent of decided voters backing it, the NDP fared even worse. Simply put, the NDP has lost credibility. During recent debates over the upcoming federal budget, the NDP stated a list of demands without bothering to even speculate their cost, or what sort of tax raises they would require. As well, the recent proposal by that party Jack Layton that a referendum be held regarding the abolition of the Canadian Senate, is an example of the sort of ill-conceived and irresponsible PR move that his party seems to be fond of. Combined with the fact that the party has for many years been failing to represent the working-class base that it was created to represent, it is not surprising that the NDP appears to be rapidly coming close to the verge of irrelevance.

The current popularity of the federal Conservatives, if it can be sustained, seems likely to result in their formation of a majority government in the next election. If that occurs, hopefully the first majority federal government in seven years can make the sort of legislative progress that has been seemingly impossible under the past three minority governments.

23

theconcordian

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

The Etcetera Page

It is not often that one person is so outspoken, so outrageous, so out there, that he becomes the sole beneficiary of our quotes of the week column. Just 24 hours after joining Twitter, he amassed over one million followers, breaking a Guinness world record. Charlie Sheen was fired on Monday from his role on Two and a Half Men, but that hasn’t shut him up yet. Here is but a snippet of some of the best things he said last week.

Q: With Morgan Pudwell now gone from the CSU’s roster, how do you feel about the resignation of yet another VP?

Samy Jbjaiji - first year mechanical engineering

- “I am on a drug. It’s called Charlie Sheen. It’s not available.

If you try it once, you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body.”

“I think it’s sad that it got to the point that she couldn’t stand it anymore. It’s too bad.”

- “I have a grandiose life. Sorry my life is so much more bitchin’ than yours. I planned it this way.”

Graphic by Katie Brioux

- “I got tiger blood, man. My brain fires in a way that is - I don’t know - maybe not from this particular terrestrial realm.”

Jeremy Chapud - first-year political science “I don’t really know much about this, but if there is corruption around and she thinks she can’t stay then I guess it’s time for her to leave the position to someone else.”

Jenny Ho - second year human environment

Compiled by Eva Kratochvil

Montreal’s winter skyline. Photo by Almudena Romero

Horoscopes Aries - March 21 to April 20 Don’t fret over the small stuff, even if it doesn’t seem so small. Keep in mind that you can always count on a friend for whatever help you may need.

Taurus - April 21 to May 21 Keep your eye on a close friend or lover this week. They’ve been behaving strangely and may not be able to express how they’re feeling. Keep your eyes and ears open.

Gemini - May 22 to June 21 Watch the efforts of those around you. You may find inspiration in dealing with your own daily struggles. Start planning your summer vacation this week.

Cancer - June 22 to July 23 Spend time with your family this week.

Plan a dinner or outing with them, and spend some quality time with the ones you

love. You may learn from their wisdom.

Leo - July 24 to August 23 You have a few friends that you haven’t seen in a long time. This week, reconnect with a few of them. It’ll feel good to get the old gang back together.

Virgo - August 24 to September 23 Your willingness to help other people will really shine this week. Keep your eyes peeled for a friend in need. Your wisdom and intelligence will have a great impact on others.

Libra - September 24 to October 23 A family member could put a dent in your plans this week. Others may give you a piece of their mind. Hold your ground and don’t let yourself be bullied.

Scorpio - October 24 to November 23

Take some time to relax this week. You’ve been spreading yourself a little thin lately and it’s starting to take its toll on your mind and body.

Sagittarius - November 24 to December 21 Watch your finances this week. You’re usually quite good about it, but sometimes you’re a little tempted to overspend. Just don’t make any impulsive decisions.

Capricorn - December 22 to January 20 Know your limits this week. You’re a little tired and irritated, and you tend to take it out on other people. Just remember to breathe and relax and you’ll be fine.

Aquarius - January 21 to February 19 Even if you have a lot to say, try not to say too much this week. You never know when your comments can hurt the feelings

“If she can’t work under those conditions then it’s not a good thing.

Its about representing the students and if she feels that she wouldn’t be able to represent the students because she isn’t being given the opportunity to fully activate her position, then in terms of her resigning it’s her choice.

She says that under these conditions she isn’t able to do her job properly so it’s really hard to say at this point who will listen to and represent the students now.”

of someone else.

Pisces - February 20 to March 20 You may have to pay some bills before you make any big purchases. You don’t want to get yourself into any kind of debt, so just keep an eye on that.

You share a birthday with...

March 8: Aidan Quinn, Camryn Manheim, Freddie Prinze Jr. March 9: Juliette Binoche, Brittany Snow, Bow Wow March 10: Chuck Norris, Sharon Stone, Carrie Underwood March 11: Rupert Murdoch, Lisa Loeb, Johnny Knoxville March 12: Liza Minnelli, James Taylor, Aaron Eckhart March 13: William H. Macy, Cillian Murphy, Emile Hirsch March 14: Michael Caine, Billy Crystal

*

EVENTS AT A GLANCE HELP PROMOTE CONCORDIA EVENTS! ALL EVENT LISTINGS ARE ADVERTISED FOR FREE SEND YOUR IDEAS TO EVENTS@THECONCORDIAN.COM PLEASE LIST NAME OF EVENT, LOCATION, AND TIME +TALK +TALK +MUSIC +MUSIC +VISUAL ARTS

18h00 H-769 Fenceline Conversations: The Evolution of Adult Learning in the Farm Community w/ Hugh Maynard 1590 Docteur Penfield Are we there yet? : Moving Montreal's Transportation in the Right Direction 22h00 Casa Del Popolo We Are The City + Aidan Knight + Rah Rah 17h00 Le Divan Orange YETI LANE + The High Dials VAV Gallery (ongoing until March 11) DeFaced

WED 09

+TALK +MUSIC

"From Here to There" w/ Alec Soth CBC Montreal presents: "Everyone’s Irish on St. Patrick’s Day"

+MUSIC +MUSIC +VISUAL ART

My Dad vs Yours + Sally Paradise + Beat For Sale ZOOBOMBS + Holger + Technical Kidman Sheldon Lawlor: Dirty Doilies

THURS 10

+TALK +MUSIC +MUSIC +THEATRE +THEATRE +THEATRE

Columba: Dynamic Founder, Politician and Saint, and Sixth century monasticism in Ireland 7th Floor, Hall Bldg Casa Del Popolo Half Moon run + Alcoholic Faith Mission Le Divan Orange Esker Mica + Kafard + LaGlobe FC Smith Auditorium This Must Be the Place/What My Mother Taught me FC Smith Auditorium The Bucket FC Smith Auditorium A Sketch Comedy Show

17h00 22h00 22h00 19h00 20h00 21h00

FRI 11

+TALK +MUSIC +THEATRE +MUSIC +MUSIC +THEATRE +MOVIE

On the Desire for the Political w/ Lauren Berlant CJLO Listening Party for REM’s New Album A Treasury of Household Hints/The Castration of Apollo MLCD [My Cheap Little Dictaphone] + Surface Of Atlantic + Like Elliot Did TY Segall + Heavy Cream + Uncle Bad Touch

LB-125 Helm (273 Bernard Ouest) FC Smith Auditorium La Sala Rossa Club Lambi F.C. Smith Auditorium Cinéma Paralèlle

15h30 21h00 19h15 22h00 22h00 20h15 ongoing until March 17

+MUSIC +THEATRE +THEATRE +THEATRE +VISUAL ARTS

Armen at the Bazaar A Treasury of Household Hints/The Castration of Apollo The Bucket This Must Be the Place/What My Mother Taught me Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow (exhibit ongoing until March 26)

Trois Minots FC Smith Auditorium FC Smith Auditorium FC Smith Auditorium Galerie Diagonale

22h00 15h45 16h45 17h45 vernissage 14h00

+FUNDRAISER +MUSIC +THEATRE +THEATRE +THEATRE +THEATRE

Five Days for the Homeless begins at Concordia Lymbyc System + Sweet Mother Logic + Early Transcendentals A Sketch Comedy Show The Skriker Four: MAP Project A Treasury of Household Hints/The Castration of Apollo

J.A. de Sève Cinema Le Divan Orange FC Smith Auditorium FC Smith Auditorium FC Smith Auditorium FC Smith Auditorium

22h00 16h30 18h45 20h00 21h15

+FILM +VISUAL ARTS +CINEMA POLITICA

Nuremburg, its Lessons for Today, w/ Dr. Payam Akhavan Tight Knit: Conversations with Louise Bourgeois Israel vs Israel and This Palestinian Life

H.1220 VAV Gallery H-110

18h00 ongoing until March 25 19h00

TUES 08

SAT 12

SUN 13

MON 14

The Skriker Welcome to Los Pereyra

16h00 D.B. Clarke Theatre 20h00 Oscar Peterson Concert Hall Casa Del Popolo 22h00 Le Divan Orange 22h00 The Dep[art]ment (ongoing until March 13)

Do you love the smell of print in the morning?

The Concordian is holding elections for next year’s masthead.

We’re looking for section editors: * News * Music * Life * Sports * Arts * Opinions

As well as the following technical positions: * Photography editor * Graphics editor * Online editor

If you’re interested in joining our team send in an application (CV, relevant clippings, and a short paragraph about yourself) to elections@theconcordian.com by 4:00 p.m. March 18. We’ll be holding the elections in our Loyola office March 20 at 2:00 p.m.

Get involved and you’ll have enough print to last you a year.