The Sheaf - July 31, 2014

31 July, 2014 - The University of Saskatchewan Student Newspaper since 1912.

THE sheaf

Taming of the Shrew with a 60s twist. Pg.4 /thesheaf1912

Sports

News Students plan research trip to Vietnam.

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Canadian basketball talent on the rise.

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@thesheaf1912

@thesheaf1912

culture

opinions

Weird Al’s new album is a mandatory listen.

33,000 boxes of B.C.’s history could go unrecorded.

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Food addictions take the stage — what’s on your plate? Pg.6

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THE sheaf Editor-in-Chief: Anna-Lilja Dawson, editor@thesheaf.com

Copy Editor: Tab Rahman, copy@thesheaf.com

Production Manager: Cody Schumacher, layout@thesheaf.com

Web Editor: Carter Bryden, web@thesheaf.com

Senior News Editor: HenryTye Glazebrook, news@thesheaf.com

Ad & Business Manager: Shantelle Hrytsak, ads@thesheaf.com

Associate News Editor: Rainer Kocsis, associatenews@ thesheaf.com Photography Editor: Katherine Fedoroff, photo@thesheaf.com Graphics Editor: Stephanie Mah, graphics@thesheaf. com

Board of Directors: Julia Wagner, Tyler Spink, Nicholas Kindrachuk, Jordan Bulgis, Aralia Maxwell Cover Photo: Katherine Fedoroff/ Photo Editor Banner Graphic: Stephanie Mah/ Photo Editor

Culture Editor: Madison Taylor, arts@thesheaf.com Sports Editor: Austin Arvay, sports@thesheaf.com

Office Numbers: Advertising 306.966.8688 Editorial 306.966.8689

Opinions Editor: Naomi Zurevinski opinions@thesheaf. com

The Sheaf is non-profit, incorporated and student-body funded by way of a direct levy paid by all part- and fulltime undergraduate students at the University of Saskatchewan (U of S).

Membership in the Society is open to undergraduate students at the U of S, but all members of the U of S community are encouraged to contribute to the newspaper. Opinions expressed in the Sheaf do not necessarily reflect those of the Sheaf Publishing Society Inc. The Sheaf reserves the right to refuse to accept or print any material deemed unfit for publication, as determined by the Editor-in-Chief. The Sheaf is published weekly during the academic year and monthly from May through August. The Editor-in-Chief has the right to veto any submission deemed unfit for the Society newspaper. In determining this, he/she will decide if the article or artwork would be of interest to a significant portion of the Society and benefit the welfare of Sheaf readers. The Sheaf will not publish any racist, sexist, homophobic, or libelous material.

Corrections If you find any errors, please submit them to copy@thesheaf.com

NEWS

31 July, 2014 - THESHEAF.COM

Students search for new Sask. markets in Vietnam

ANNA-LILJA DAWSON Editor-in-Chief With a keen interest in international trade, brothers Igor and Eugen Balzer have headed to Vietnam in hopes of returning with information that will bolster Saskatchewan’s economy.

The two University of Saskatchewan business students are researching the consumption habits and preferences of the Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam — formerly Saigon — community towards beef, pork, chicken, chickpeas and wheat. Each of these food products are common Saskatchewan goods that have high levels of production and are subsequently stockpiled.

While the categories of food are fairly broad, the Balzers have already researched the three meats and said their focus will be on the chickpeas and wheat — although they will remain open to new findings and ideas throughout their trip.

The brothers left on July 21 and will be conducting their research in Ho Chi Minh for one month before returning home. Igor is a management major while Eugen is studying finance.

Igor and Eugen will administer their survey to individuals living in Ho Chi Minh, asking them about their daily consumption of the five foods, their preferences for local

homegrown and farm-grown foods, especially over those from abroad, and their perceptions of quality of foods that are sourced locally and abroad alike. There is a 15 question survey for each food and each survey will be given to 20 individuals.

Eugen said that their preliminary research has shown that populations in Southeast Asia, and specifically Vietnam, perceive food products from North America and Europe to be of a higher quality and are ready to pay a higher price for them. Citing recent trade issues with the United States, Eugen said that the Asian markets could be very beneficial for the Saskatchewan and Canadian economies.

“Especially here in Canada, many see international trade as being

KATHERINE FEDOROFF/ PHOTO EDITOR

Brothers Igor and Eugen Balzer (left-to-right) are in Vietnam to research consumer behaviour.

BRAD KENNEDY The Gateway (University of Alberta) EDMONTON (CUP) — For more than 86,000 Canadians living with a spinal cord injury, the struggles of daily life can often feel insurmountable to tackle alone. But what if those injured Canadians had access to a fully-functional robotic exoskeleton capable of returning their mobility?

University of Alberta professor Jaynie Yang aims to explore that possibility and more, thanks to a

four-month lease of the first robotic exoskeleton in Canada: the ReWalk.

Developed as a tool for rehabilitation and replacement of mobility in injured patients, the ReWalk is a marvel of technological engineering capable of climbing ramps, navigating curves and climbing stairs.

The device is controlled through a wrist-mounted interface and directed using a series of sensors, located around the torso, which interpret the leaning motions of the user as instruction to begin walking in a certain direction — not unlike

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sheaf july 31, 2014.indd 1

that the combination of three factors — certain communities with high opinions towards their food, the common practice of consuming nearly every part of the animal and positive perceptions of North American food processing technology — seem promising for future trade between Saskatchewan and Vietnam.

While taking business professor James Cao’s operations and management course in the winter term, Eugen and Igor started researching international trade opportunities with countries other than the U.S. They had only settled on Vietnam as a prospective population to research at the end of term, leaving them with a mere three months gather the necessary funding and support for the trip.

Eugen said that they have had a huge amount of support and mentorship from Nicholas Kokkastamapoulos, director of the Hanlon Centre for International Business Studies, as he helped them fundraise for the project while Cao was indispensable with his academic guidance.

Despite the initial difficulties in starting the research, Eugen said that he hopes that their project will inspire other U of S students to work on their own studies, especially in international trade and relations, and assures them that the funding and support is there.

“Some students might think that it’s too hard and too stressful. But they should try and find out everything,” he said. “You grow.”

Research takes steps towards artificial motion with ReWalk

The NiNe

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partners with the United States — and that’s not enough,” Eugen said.

“We think that Canadians need to go out and sell their things worldwide — that we Canadians... cut ourselves short.”

Although the Balzers have been learning Vietnamese in preparation for the trip, a Vietnamese friend of the brothers translated the survey for them. When the survey was translated, some of the phrasing needed to be changed to incorporate aspects of Vietnamese culture.

“Food for them means so much more than it does for us. Food here means just getting energy and enjoying it. And there, food means a lot. It’s a part of their culture,” Eugen said.

Igor said that they have found

CHRISTINE GLEASON / FLICKR

The ReWalk could make walking possible for those with decreased mobility.

7/22/2014 1:07:13 PM

the way human bodies naturally walk, leading with the torso and then keeping pace with the feet to progress.

During the U of A’s possession of the ReWalk, Yang said she hopes to conduct a rigorous 12-week study on people with a variety of spinal injuries and capabilities.

Yang aims to see who responds to the use of the suit best, as well as how its use affects their bodies in terms of neuroplasticity — changes in neural pathways created when individuals learn new behaviors and skills.

“We want to know what’s possible with this exoskeleton, because people can walk in it for extended periods and that’s what’s needed to provoke changes in your nervous system,” Yang said.

“This means we can study all kinds of motor pathways, sensory pathways and reflexes looking for changes.”

The participants in the study will be put through a number of tests over the course of the program, establishing their physical capabilities at the start, middle and end of the experiment.

Yang said her team hopes to discover how the body’s nervous system adapts to this new form of artificial motion and how it creates new neural pathways in order to use the ReWalk.

Those kinds of results would suggest that the human brain could biologically adapt to the use of an artificial body, which Yang said would be great news for the modern prosthetics field.

“We’ll be looking closely at how these neural pathways change,” Yang said. “We think there’ll be lots of changes to the pathways to and from the [torso], because that’s what they’re controlling — they’re staying balanced and controlling using their trunk, which isn’t something they do much. But it could also change pathways to the legs, especially in people who are incompletely injured.”

On YouTube, dozens of videos show individuals who have been in wheelchairs for years finally able to stand, walk and live mostly normal lives again using the ReWalk.

It’s not exactly the same, Yang said, but being able to walk in a robotic exoskeleton is far better than the alternative for these people. She said she hopes the results of her study will have a similar promise.

“The best possible result is that we would find the people who are best-suited, who could really change their lives by using these devices, and find kinds of changes in the nervous system that we haven’t found before through our research.”

Sports

31 July, 2014 - THESHEAF.COM

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LeBron James shocks basketball world AUSTIN ARVAY Sports Editor LeBron James has stunned the basketball world by returning to play for his hometown team, the Cleveland Cavaliers.

After four long years with the Miami Heat, The King walked away from South Beach and rejoined the team that drafted him.

The Cavaliers took LeBron first overall in 2003 at the mere age of 18. He was born and raised in Akron, Ohio and would essentially start out his NBA career playing for his home team.

During the 2003–04 season he was named Rookie of the Year, while leading the Cavaliers to 18 more wins than the previous year.

Over the next six seasons, LeBron led Cleveland to the NBA finals, would push the team to have best record in the league twice and received two Most Valuable Player trophies.

Following the 2009–10 season, LeBron decided to test the free agent market. In an hour-long ESPN TV special, The Decision, he announced which team he would play for. Thus, he and fellow superstars, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh, joined the Miami Heat, turning the team into a powerhouse.

Fans, players and media alike criticized him heavily for the way he handled his departure from Cleveland and he was seen as the villain of the NBA. Back in Cleveland, fans burned his jersey in the streets after they watched his decision on national television. He had instantly become the most hated athlete in America.

To add even more fuel to the fire, Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert wrote a nasty letter to the fans where he called LeBron’s behaviour “cowardly”, “heartless” and “an act of betrayal.” Gilbert guaranteed that the Cavaliers would win an NBA championship before LeBron and the rest of the Heat.

Cleveland went on to finish with the worst record in the league and LeBron carried the Heat all the way to the finals, where they would eventually lose to the San Antonio Spurs.

LeBron’s success continued with the Heat as he won yet another MVP trophy and led the Heat to an NBA title, a feat he would replicate the following season. However, in 2014 he was not named the MVP and the Heat lost in the finals to the Spurs in just five games.

A mere two weeks after the loss, LeBron opted out of his contract with the Heat and the media circus surrounding The King’s decision went into a frenzy. The craze surrounding James is fuelled by the fact he is already one of the greatest players to ever play the game and improves every team he plays for by a tenfold.

After much scrutiny, LeBron wrote a personal essay to Sports Illustrated explaining that he would return to Cleveland for the 2014–15 season. Fans who had once hailed him and now hated him, were once again going to cheer on their hometown boy.

“Before anyone cared where I would play basketball, I was just a kid from northeast Ohio,” LeBron wrote in the essay. “It’s where I walked. It’s where I ran. It’s where I cried. It’s where I bled. It holds a special place in my heart.

People there have seen me grow

STEPHANIE MAH / GRAPHICS EDITOR

up. I sometimes feel like I’m there [sic] son. Their passion can be overwhelming, but it drives me.

I want to give them hope when I can. My relationship with northeast Ohio is bigger than basketball.”

LeBron has returned home, now we’ll see if The King can earn another crown, this time for his hometown.

Canadian invasion taking over the NBA KADE GATES Tonnes of young, Canadian talent are making their way into the NBA and could soon turn Canada into an international basketball powerhouse.

In 1995 when the NBA decided to expand north of the border into Canada, they entered a market that was dominated by the NHL, already having a number of Canadian teams.

At the time of expansion, the Canadian dollar was near an all time low of $0.71 compared to its American counterpart with the problem being that player salaries were — and still are — paid in American currency. Regardless, the NBA boldly expanded into Canada’s eastern and western markets and thus the Toronto Raptors and Vancouver Grizzlies were born.

Only two Canadians were playing in the NBA at this time — Toronto's Rick Fox for the Boston Celtics and Montreal's Bill Wennington with the Chicago Bulls. Even though the Grizzlies relocated to Memphis in 2001, the foundation had already been laid that would turn Canada into a future talent mill for basketball players.

Canadian basketball slowly improved over the next 15 years with the emergence of two-time league MVP Steve Nash, a point guard from Victoria, B.C. Along with him came a pair of big men — 2004 NBA All-Star Jamaal Magloire and the Haitian-born, Montreal-raised

Samuel Dalembert. Joel Anthony came along in 2007 and by 2011, the world was ready to see what Canadian basketball really had to offer.

The 2011 NBA rookie draft gave the world its first glimpse into the future of Canadian basketball.

The Cleveland Cavaliers held the fourth overall pick and selected Toronto's Tristan Thompson, a power forward from the University of Texas. At the time, he was the highest drafted Canadian born player in NBA history.

Then with the 29th pick in the draft, the San Antonio Spurs selected Thompson's teammate a nd f e llo w T or o n t on ia n C or y Joseph which was the second time in history that two Canadians were selected in the first round of the draft. It would only go up from there.

The 2012 draft saw three more Canadians get drafted with Andrew Nicholson going in the first round while Kris Joseph and Robert Sacre joined him in the second round.

Although the NBA was undergoing a Canadian invasion, no one could predict what would take place over the next two years.

Once again, the Cleveland Cavaliers were part of the Canadian basketball renaissance in the 2013 rookie draft as they shocked basketball experts with their selection of Brampton’s Anthony Bennett as the first overall pick. Bennett had become the first Canadian to be taken first overall yet the jubilation continued when

Kelly Olynyk from Kamloops, B.C. was drafted 13th overall to the Boston Celtics.

After the dust had settled Canada emerged with seven new NBA players over three years and had taken the lead for most international players with 24 — passing France and Serbia that had each produced 20.

The 2014 draft made more international history for Canada as once again the Cavaliers drafted a Canadian with the first overall pick of Andrew Wiggins, also from Brampton. The selection made history as it was the first time in the NBA that two players from the same city had been selected first overall.

The celebration continued through the night as Nik Stauskas was taken eighth overall, Tyler Ennis went 18th and just to set another record Dwight Powell was selected 45th overall making it the first time in Canadian basketball history that four Canadians were in the same draft.

The invasion didn’t end at the draft though as five more Canadians — Khem Birch, Melvin Ejim, Jordan Bachynski, Sim Bhullar and Myck Kabongo — were signed to summer league rosters with the chance to make an NBA team.

Saskatoon born Trey Lyles looks to have the potential to become a 2015 first round pick while Chris Egi from Harvard College and Oliver Hanlan, a junior at Boston College, are other Canadians who may be selected next year.

The future of Canadian basketball has never been brighter and the thought of qualifying for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil seems possible

while the early suggestions are that Canada could be competing for a medal by 2020 in Tokyo. The furture ofCanadian basketball has never been so promising.

KEITH ALLISON / FLICKR

Tristan Thompson is just one of many young Canadians playing in the NBA.

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Culture

31 July, 2014 - THESHEAF.COM

The Taming of the Shrew delivers an engaging comedy STEPHANIE MAH / GRAPHICS EDITOR

NAOMI ZUREVINSKI Opinions Editor Dotted with humor, sexism and gender relations is William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew — one of the two productions to appear on the stage at 2014’s Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan.

This year marks the 30th run of the annual event and also features Shakespeare’s classic romantic tragedy Romeo and Juliet directed by Will Brooks, along with The Taming of the Shrew with Johnna Wright as the director.

On a simple and modest set, the show opened with “Tell Him”

by Vonda Shepard and set an amusing tone for the production.

The costumes and music all fell under a 60s theme that while contrasting a typical Shakespearean setting, called upon bright outfits to enhance the hilarity of characters by exaggerating their characteristics.

The Taming of the Shrew follows Lucentio (Nathan Howe) as he arrives in Padua, Italy to continue his studies. Upon arriving he falls head-over-heels in love with Bianca (Anna Seibl), a beautiful and silly girl already pursued by two other suitors, both of whom she is uninterested in.

The main obstacles standing in the way of their love is of course, the shrew — Bianca’s older sister Katherine (Jenna-Lee Hyde), who the girls’ mother Baptista (Lisa Bayliss) insists must be married off first. Incredibly hostile, quicktempered and agitated by nearly everything, Katherine proves to be one feisty shrew.

Meanwhile Petruchio of Verona (Joshua Beaudry) arrives conveniently in need of a wealthy

woman to marry. Upon hearing about Katherine, one of Bianca’s unchosen suitors, Petruchio makes a deal with Baptista to marry Katherine the following Sunday. It seems he is the only one who can provide her with a taste of her own medicine.

Immediately following the wedding, Petruchio whisks Katherine off to Verona to begin the transformation from unruly shrew — Shakespeare’s chosen synonym for bitch — to model housewife, by means of starvation and sleep deprivation all in the name of true love.

The actors recreated the scenes of one of Shakespeare’s comedies with ease and energy. Additional songs interspersed the scenes of the play. “Going to the Chapel of Love” and “I Will Follow Him” added an upbeat vibe, while “You Don’t Own Me” helped to provide a more humorous perspective from Katherine. Miley Cyrus’ “Can’t Be Tamed” certainly would have been

a good fit for the scenario as well.

The song numbers provided a chance for the actors to show off their wide range of abilities through harmonies and various musical instruments including trombone, saxophone, violin and guitar. The music was a very welcome inclusion to narrate the plot further and provide additional humor.

The plot itself has its controversial moments. When at last Katherine is “tamed,” she falls into submissiveness and domesticity under the rule of her husband Petruchio. Representing extreme patriarchy, she refers to her husband as her king and master, a moment that had me cringing and silently thanking for feminism and equality.

Aside from the male control and female compliancy, The Taming of the Shrew does present an interesting representation of gender roles in the 16th century, done so in a humorous way that was captured by the lively and

entertaining actors.

The Taming of the Shrew featured graduates of the University of Saskatchewan who are part of the RBC Emerging Artists program that promotes the growth of young artists in Saskatchewan. Three of the actors in The Taming of the Shrew — Jacob Yaworski (Gremio), Anna Seibl (Bianca) and Nathan Howe (Lucentio) — are part of the program this year.

Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan presents a wonderful opportunity to sit back, relax and enjoy some local theatre. Full of comedy, music and dynamic actors, The Taming of the Shrew is a great way to sneak in a little entertainment over these long summer months.

Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan runs until Aug. 24. Tickets are available for matinee and evening performances by calling 306-652-9100 or at the Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan Box Office. For more information visit shakespeareonthesaskatchewan.com.

Upcoming events August 1–15

August 16–28

PotashCorp Fringe Festival July 31– Aug. 9

Bruno Mars at Credit Union Centre Aug. 3

T. Nile at Vangelis Tavern Aug. 19

Siiines at Rock Bottom Aug. 1

Saskatoon Exhibition at Prairieland Park Aug. 5–10

Rock the River at the Delta Bessborough Gardens Aug. 22–24

Saskatoon Folk Fest Aug. 14–16

Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan Through to Aug. 24

Slates, These Estates, Fire Next Time and Slow Down Molasses at the Underground Cafe Aug. 2

Genevieve Chadwick at Village Green Amp and Guitar Co. Aug. 27 The Mowgli’s at Louis’ Pub Aug.28 Katy Perry at Credit Union Centre Aug. 28

Culture

31 July, 2014 - THESHEAF.COM

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Modest Mouse whips Saskatoon into a frenzy HENRYTYE GLAZEBROOK Senior News Editor Those who are more familiar with Modest Mouse’s studio albums might find something missing from their live shows, but the group more than makes up for anything lost with their chaotic and explosive stage presence.

Hailing from Issaaquah, Wash., the group blew the roof off of O’Brians Event Centre on July 26 and thrilled the audience with a performance that jump-started with the opening number and didn’t let up until the lights came on.

Opening acts Mimicking Birds and Kevin Drew, the latter of which is most widely known as the frontman for Broken Social Scene, entertained the crowd with their indie credentials but proved unable to quite match up to the headlining act’s musical potency.

As he ended his set, Drew prodded the crowd into a rallying cry of “Modest Mouse on a Saturday night!” which quickly dissipated as the crew did stage maintenance between acts. This attempted chant

was only the smallest taste of the heaving beast that shook, stomped, screamed and crowd-surfed back and forth atop a jungle of each other’s contorted limbs once Modest Mouse took centre stage.

Known for their diverse sound, Modest Mouse bounced between twangy banjo tunes, indie-rock sensibilities and broody numbers worth stomping along to as they shuffled through their setlist.

Combined with a comparatively huge band, numbering up to 10 at the group’s fullest and including dueling drummers to keep the beat, it’s easy for certain attributes — the underlying violin or a rattlesnake shake backing track — to get lost in the pandemonium. The result is a wall of sound which — if a bit unwieldy at times — kept the sold-out crowd electrified with excitement.

Modest Mouse uses a variety of string instruments from the banjo to the fiddle.

Now just over seven years from their last LP release, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, the group is still hardly without a varied catalogue to draw from. The setlist was an eclectic mix, with songs plucked from all over the band’s discography and performed with an intensity that often outshone their album equivalents.

If there was any irony to opening the night with Good News for People

HENRYTYE GLAZEBROOK / SENIOR NEWS EDITOR

Who Love Bad News track “The Good Times are Killing Me” — a somber exploration of the toll that too many late nights chasing a high can have on a person, performed with uncharacteristic gusto — it was entirely lost on the sweatdrenched, alcohol-fueled crowd that twisted and writhed only inches from the stage. One attendee had even taped a collection of beer cans into a makeshift staff, which he later hoisted above his head as he dove off the stage and into the amorphous group.

Frontman Isaac Brock commanded the night with vigor.

Like the band he leads, Brock is a volatile figure. He doesn’t sing into the microphone so much as he attacks it in fits. Brock harmonizes with his bandmates one second and stabs at the air with short-syllabled words the next, beating at his chest with the backside of his guitar. It’s an awesome sight in the true sense of the word; watching Brock shake his band’s songs loose is an experience that borders on animalistic fervor.

Ending with a three song encore, the group closed out the night with fan-favorite “Ocean Breathes Salty.”

A slow-burn, the track slowly built from a quiet beginning to a bursting lights, crashing cymbal crescendo that sent the crowd home revitalized from good times.

Weird Al makes a comeback to rival that of the terminator

MADISON TAYLOR Culture Editor Before the release of his latest album Mandatory Fun on July 15, Alfred “Weird Al” Yankovic hadn’t made a peep in the top 10 charts since fans caught him segwaying Straight Outta Lynwood in 2006.

These days any Joe Blow with access to social media and a webcam is capable of making a song parody that will reach the ears of thousands.

If professional parodists like Weird Al hope to make a dent in such a large and unrestricted market, they really have to break out the big guns — which is exactly what Al does in Mandatory Fun. A 12-track LP that gleefully pokes fun at the likes of Lorde, Iggy Azalea, Pharrell and Robin Thicke, Mandatory Fun quickly shot up to number one on the Billboard 200 list, selling a whopping 104,000 copies in its first week of release.

With three decades of experience and 14 albums under his belt, making a living off of the mockery of others is clearly Weird Al’s calling. The guy seems to have it all figured out — and the fact that he hasn’t aged a day in 30 years certainly doesn’t hurt.

But the real question remains — just how funny is Weird Al Yankovic?

Comedy artists are often cursed with

the ability to produce nothing but onehit-wonders. For much of his career this has appeared to be the case for Weird Al, as anyone living in the MTV/ MuchMusic era can attest to. Songs like “White & Nerdy”, “Eat It”, “Amish Paradise” and “Canadian Idiot” are just a handful of Weird Al’s most notable tracks, best known for their tendency to stick in the brain more stubbornly than “It’s a Small World.”

In Mandatory Fun however, Weird Al seeks to redefine himself from his previous flash-in-the-pan popularity.

With tracks such as “Foil”, a parody of Lorde’s radio hit “Royals”, Al shows the world just how silly he really can be.

He turns lyrics about consumer society into an ode to food preservation that quickly degenerates into a how-to guide for avoiding alien abduction and government propaganda.

Another standout track is “Word

Crimes”, a tongue-in-cheek play on Thicke’s controversial “Blurred Lines.”

Turning Thicke’s blatantly sexist lyrics into a crash course on grammar seems to be a breeze for Weird Al. This cultural commentary on the digital age proves that his music isn’t merely based on silly wordplays — although they are a prominent feature — but actually contains a healthy amount of wit and constructive criticism towards his fellow humans.

Last but certainly not least of the notable parodies are the tracks “Handy” — a mockery of Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy” — and “Tacky” — a remake of Pharrell’s painfully overplayed “Happy.”

Throughout the course of “Handy”, Al instructs his listeners in the fine arts of laying tiles and servicing their furnaces.

In “Tacky”, he elects to make a muchneeded jab at much of our generation’s increasingly shameless behavior.

Contrary to popular belief, Weird Al’s albums aren’t simply made up of specific song parodies. Al takes a stab at genre parodies as well, most prominent on this album in “Now That’s What I Call Polka!” — an accordion-happy polka parody of Miley Cyrus' "Wrecking Ball", Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” and Foster the People's "Pumped Up Kicks, to name a few.

Mandatory Fun is certainly not going to go down in musical history like Led Zeppelin IV or The White Album, but as far as comedy albums go, it’s surprisingly catchy. If you’re in the mood for a little light comedy, some prime music video direction and a look at Weird Al’s somewhat disturbing — but perfectly preserved — face, then Mandatory Fun is the LP for you.

LEGISLATIVE PAGES The Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan requires energetic individuals to work part-time as Pages in the Assembly. This is a unique opportunity to observe the daily workings of our Legislature.

Pages will be employed in the Legislative Chamber to assist the Speaker, Members of the Legislative Assembly and the Clerks-at-the-Table in carrying out their respective duties. Pages deliver documents and messages both in the Chamber and elsewhere in the Legislative Building. Pages will also be employed in the Office of the Clerk to assist in the preparation of the Assembly for its daily sitting. This will include performing a variety of general office duties, such as distributing documents, running errands, mailing, filing, receiving telephone messages and photocopying.

The term of the employment will extend over both the 2014 fall and 2015 spring sittings of the Assembly. The hours of employment will be Monday to Wednesday, 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Thursdays from 8:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Additional hours of employment between 9:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. Monday to Wednesday will be assigned on a rotational basis. Some overtime may be required each week, particularly when the Assembly is sitting on Monday and Tuesday evenings from 6:45 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Pages will be paid at a rate of $16.885/ hour.

Applicants must have graduated from high school or be enrolled in a post-secondary program. An interest in the parliamentary system of government would be an asset. Pages must exhibit initiative, sound judgment and reliability as well as possess excellent interpersonal skills, be comfortable dealing with a variety of individuals and be at ease performing in a team setting. The employees of the Legislative Assembly provide non-partisan service to all Members of the Legislative Assembly.

Tentative start date will be October 2014. Original, fax or electronic resumes with references must be received no later than 5:00 p.m. on Friday, September 12, 2014. If possible, electronic resumes should be submitted in a word format.

H-GRIMES / FLICKR

Weird Al cranks out catchy polka parodies on his accordion.

Sandra Gardner Administrative and Chamber Services Coordinator Office of the Clerk Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan 239 Legislative Building, Regina, Saskatchewan S4S 0B3 E-Mail: sgardner@legassembly.sk.ca Phone: (306) 787-0603 Fax: (306) 787-0408

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Opinions

31 July, 2014 - THESHEAF.COM

High on sugar: Food addiction changes the game NAOMI ZUREVINSKI Opinions Editor Obesity and excess weight are usually associated with laziness, extreme gluttony and a lack of willpower. These characteristics combined with the difficulty of shedding extra pounds places all the blame for surplus weight on the individual themselves.

But we’re tackling the issues of obesity and poor health in the wrong way. What if obesity actually had nothing to do with the individual and was viewed in a similar way to how drug or alcohol addictions are viewed?

Instead of challenging ourselves and others to diets and workouts, the root of the problem is food addictions — a very real and frightening issue.

Most of body fat comes directly from what you put in your mouth. When the majority of food is processed and loaded with sugar, it yields minimal nutritional value and instead makes the individual dependent on that good ol’ sugary white stuff and unable to make the scale budge accordingly.

I recently saw 2014’s Fed Up, a documentary which explores this very issue, finding that obesity has much

more to do with food dependencies than it does a personal responsibility.

While this documentary focused specifically on the United States government’s food regulations and distribution, many of the issues can be applied to a variety of geographic locations and support the anti-sugar campaign.

Addressing obesity as a food addiction changes the conversation on general health. The issue expands to a larger scale, involving the production, marketing and regulation of food.

Equally massive is the health and diet industry. Why are there so many “diets?” Simply put, there is no money in healthy people and therefore no diet truly works as a sustainable longterm solution.

At first glance, food addiction seems like more of an exaggeration or metaphor than a legitimate problem.

People can become addicted to many things — alcohol, nicotine and even eating couch cushioning or glass (My Strange Addiction anyone?) — but food? Really?

The reason that an addiction to food is so difficult to both understand and eliminate is because it’s something humans need to survive. An alcoholic can become sober after eliminating alcohol, but you cannot break a food addiction in the same way. It’s about dramatically changing the way that a person eats; something that is challenging and habitual.

Food addictions leading to obesity

mostly involve processed, packaged and refined goods. Generally speaking, individuals are not addicted to broccoli and spinach. According to Fed Up, sugar and cocaine produce similar brain signals, triggering almost identical addictive responses in the body.

Sugar has zero nutritional value and is processed in your body as a simple carbohydrate — and it’s hiding in everything. It’s added to condiments, salad dressing, yogurt, granola bars, cereal, bread, pasta sauce and the list goes on (and on, and on.) Sugar even sneaks through under the monikers of dextrose, fructose and maltodextrin.

The reason some of these sound like toxic chemicals is because they are — if you cannot recognize an ingredient in your food, chances are your body

of human civic history, not a peep was heard. In fact, we’re not even sure if people live there. That’s because in the B.C. archives, not a single entry of information has been transferred or preserved in the last 10 years.

This shocking piece of information came to light in a report by B.C.’s

Information and Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham on July 22. As Denham tells us, all information regarding civic activity from the last decade sits in a warehouse — all 33,000 boxes of it. The price for archiving this information is $454 per box and so far no ministry in British Columbia’s government has expressed interest in footing the bill. If Denham’s call to action goes ignored, these documents will probably never be properly organized and made accessible to the public, leaving British Columbians and Canadians eternally in the dark about 10 years of their history.

But how much really happened in those 10 years?

As it turns out, a lot. In particular, there are four events from the last decade of British Columbian history that are pretty damn important and future generations are doomed to never know about.

First is the 2010 Winter Olympics — that did happen, didn’t it? The best cold-weather-loving athletes in the world came to Vancouver to compete in various sporting events against one another. And believe it or not, Canada actually did alright! In 2010, our home and native land won an astounding 14 gold medals, an all-time high for any country in the Winter Olympics ever.

Despite the generally fun vibes of the whole event, not everybody was super jazzed about the hoopla.

Several indigenous groups protested the games for taking place on land that technically doesn’t belong to the city of Vancouver at all — this year, the city

cannot either.

When a product is everywhere and readily accessible, it is easy to see why people eat a lot of and therefore crave sugar — this is a natural biological response. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Americans consume 156 pounds of sugar each year on a per capita basis.

In the past, type two diabetes was referred to as ‘adult-onset diabetes.’

However this is no longer the case because children are now being diagnosed with type two diabetes. Fed Up showed several cases of children in the U.S. that were obese at very young ages — even infanthood. One story followed a 400-pound 15-yearold boy who had to get weight loss surgery — something almost unheard of for someone of that age.

KATHERINE FEDOROFF/ PHOTO EDITOR

Is too much sugar wreaking havoc on your health?

Cases like this and the ever-growing increase in the world-wide obesity epidemic do bring up questions. With food products being modified and made convenient, would an increase in exercise or eating smaller portions of the same foods actually fix the problem? Chances are slim — you cannot out-exercise a bad diet and if you eat a smaller portion of junk food than usual, you’re probably going to just crave more.

To know that obesity is not one’s fault is perhaps both comforting and disturbing. Eating food that is addictive and has little to no nutritional value results is a population of overfed but malnourished people. The knowledge that you are simply addicted to the food you eat may not sound like a solace, but I suppose it can be somewhat comforting to know that it is not a matter of personal willpower.

When the food industry is so massive and consumer products that have a longer shelf life are often cheaper, is it worth it to make a switch to eating more natural and unrefined foods? And if the problem is truly one of addiction, won’t it be much harder to make changes in the first place?

The answer to both questions is a definite yes. You can either pay more now to put in the hard work and buy foods that are nourishing — or you can pay more later for excess health care and possibly even pay with your life.

B.C. archives collecting dust: Events that won’t go down in history OREN LEFKOWITZ The True North Times MONTREAL (CUP) — The years 2004 to 2014 will be forever remembered as a time in British Columbia when nothing happened. The wind may have blown, the snow may have fallen, but in terms

KATHERINE FEDOROFF/ PHOTO EDITOR

The 2010 Vancouver Olympics are one of B.C.’s events waiting to be archived.

even admitted to it. But maybe that’s a piece of history the government would prefer everybody to forget.

What about Vancouver’s Stanley Cup riots? In 2011 immediately after the Vancouver Canucks lost in the Stanley Cup Finals to the Boston Bruins, chaos exploded in the city’s downtown core. Police cars were lit on fire, several stores were broken into and looted, including a Chapters — Vancouver rioters sure do love to read! Police estimate that at least four people were stabbed over the course of the riot. The numbers rang up to 140 people were reported injured, including nine police officers and by the end of the night, 101 people were arrested.

Peculiarly, chants to start rioting were heard during the first period of the game, before Boston even took a two-point lead, which makes one wonder if the same thing would have happened if Vancouver had won the game. I guess there’s one thing Vancouverites love even more than hockey and reading: breaking glass and lighting cars on fire.

Then we have Idle No More.

Although it would be unfair to call this First Nations movement “history” at this point, Idle No More certainly made a splash across the country in 2013, especially in British Columbia.

Although protests had to do with numerous Aboriginal-related issues, protests in B.C. primarily focused on the Northern Gateway pipeline.

It is likely that 2013 only sparked the beginning of the First Nations

anti-pipeline movement and that we are yet to see the full brunt of this ongoing conflict. If we’re lucky, the B.C. government will begin documenting it before it’s over.

Lastly we have terribly inaccurate election polling. You know they say 73.6 per cent of all statistics are made up — and that’s not to say that all polls leading up to the 2013 B.C. general election were fabricated, but somewhere along the line somebody involved had to have cut a couple corners. Despite the fact that every pre-election poll predicted the NDP winning over the Liberals by over eight per cent, the B.C. Grits somehow managed to score a majority government.

The Liberal party got over four per cent more of the popular vote than the NDP and although there are a slew of theories of how a statistical fluke of this kind may have happened, the real losers of the election were the guys running the polls. And also the people of B.C., who now have to deal with a mega corrupt government for the next few years.

So whether it’s the families of the Vancouver rioters, the province’s stats team or the officials on top pulling the strings, somebody out there wants to keep 10 years of British Columbia’s history in a dark warehouse away from the eyes of the people. At least British Columbians have Wikipedia at hand to learn about their past. Say what you will about the reliability of the online encyclopedia, it’s probably more accurate than a B.C. election poll

Campus Chat Humour

31 July, 2014 - THESHEAF.COM

7

If you had a band, what would its name be?

The Mushroom Cuts.

Andrew Van De Woestyne

Endoplasmic Reticulum.

Abstract Thoughts.

Anna Yaworski

The Terroristocrats.

Alex Steffen

Madison Taylor

MIKE T

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