The Sheaf 08/03/12 - Volume 103 Issue 24

March 8, 2012

volume 103 • issue 26• thesheaf.com

Sheaf the

The University of Saskatchewan student newspaper since 1912

Chamber of Secrets

2

CIS

volleyball

16

University of Saskatchewan/Flickr

Sport or smut?

9

Justin Chin/The Queen’s Journal

Abortion

4-5

Film rating

controversy

John Pozadzides/Flickr

lunar caustic/Flickr

John Carter

18

Walt Disney

Huskies shoot for nationals

17

supplied

SSX returns 20

15

Raisa Pezderic/Photo Editor

supplied

2• News

thesheaf.com/news • the sheaf •March 8, 2012

Ferwerda draws ire of USSU co-workers

Editor-in-Chief: Ishmael N. Daro, editor@thesheaf. com Production Manager: Matthew Stefanson, layout@thesheaf. com Senior News Editor: Tannara Yelland, news@thesheaf. com Associate News Editor: Daryl Hofmann, news@thesheaf. com Photography Editor: Raisa Pezderic, photo@thesheaf. com Graphics Editor: Brianna Whitmore, graphics@ thesheaf.com Arts Editor: Aren Bergstrom, arts@thesheaf. com

Sports Editor: Kevin Menz, sports@thesheaf. com Opinions Editor: Michael Cuthbertson, opinions@ thesheaf.com Copy Editor: Holly Culp, copy@thesheaf. com Web Editor: Bryn Becker, web@thesheaf. com Ad & Business Manager: Shantelle Hrytsak, ads@thesheaf. com

Student council votes to keep complaints from students

Board of Directors: Victoria Martinez, Andrew Roebuck, Ashleigh Mattern, Blair Woynarski, Peter Yee Office Numbers: General 966-8688 Advertising 966-8688 Editorial 966-8689 Corporation Number #204724 GST Registration Number 104824891 Second Class Mailing Registration. #330336 The Sheaf is printed at Transcontinental Printing Ltd. 838 56th St. Saskatoon, SK Circulation this issue: 6,000

The Sheaf is a non-profit incorporated and student-body funded by way of a direct levy paid by all part- and full-time 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 newpaper. 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.

Despite a duty to report to undergrads, student council decided to keep a complaint about VP Ferwerda (left) secret.

TANNARA YELLAND Senior News Editor Alex Ferwerda’s frequent absences from meetings and inappropriate workplace behaviour have frustrated his co-workers on the University of Saskatchewan Students’ Union executive, the Sheaf has learned.

Executive members president Scott Hitchings, vice-president academic Kelsey Topola and vicepresident operations and finance Reid Nystuen have lodged a complaint with the Code of Ethics Disciplinary Committee for the second time this year. They allege that Ferwerda, vice-president student affairs, has either missed or been late for several meetings; Ferwerda was to lead at least one of these meetings, and another was a breakfast meeting between the executive and university president Peter MacKinnon.

The complaint further said that Ferwerda has been argumentative

and insulting in his treatment of some USSU staff. Ferwerda was responsible for a Jan. 30 “comment couch” event that was poorly planned and poorly attended: he failed to book USSU plasma TVs to advertise the event and there was little to no other advertising done. When the issue was raised in University Students’ Council, Ferwerda laid the blame on USSU staff.

The March 1 USC meeting went in camera — a legal term for a private meeting, with the discussion usually kept confidential — so that councillors could be told about the two complaints that were submitted against Ferwerda. Both complaints, they were told, were sustained by the CEDC, which is tasked with investigating and ruling on complaints of this nature.

Even before the complaint was read at council, Ferwerda had issued a formal apology to Jason Ventnor, the USSU Communications and Services

Manager, and Jeff Jackson, who is on contract to provide IT services.

When asked for a comment, Ferwerda responded that it is against USSU bylaw to discuss in camera matters and that to do so would be a violation of his responsibilities. He also declined to comment on the substance of the complaint, from his absences and tardiness to his treatment of USSU staff.

According to USSU bylaw, the second sustained complaint against an executive member or councillor must be brought to USC for approval. If approved, council must then vote on whether or not to inform the student body about the complaint via a letter to the Sheaf.

With little debate on the subject, council voted overwhelmingly against publicizing the affair, with the three executives who filed the complaint among the few who wanted to notify students. An exact vote count could not be confirmed, but according to one source, "it

wasn't even close."

Some councillors expressed concerns over the trust students might lose in student council were this information to become public.

Student councillors are unpaid representatives of various colleges and student groups on campus, while USSU executives can come from any college and collect a $32,000 salary. The USSU bylaw explicitly charges councillors with reporting “on a regular basis to the members,” but they appear to have acted differently on this matter, opting to keep potentially embarrassing information secret.

“I absolutely do not think this should be published in the Sheaf,” one member of council was quoted as saying. This councillor went on to say that if there were a third complaint against Ferwerda it would be worth debating going public.

For a third sustained complaint, the bylaw calls for council to discuss impeachment.

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News

March 8, 2012 • the sheaf • thesheaf.com/news

•3

U of A develops hepatitis C vaccine Vaccine could protect against all forms of virus ANDREW JEFFREY The Gateway (University of Alberta) EDMONTON (CUP) — A University of Alberta team has made a breakthrough in hepatitis C research, creating a vaccine that could potentially combat all forms of the liver-destroying virus.

The vaccine was developed

by Michael Houghton, a U of A researcher who first identified the hepatitis C virus in 1989. The vaccine exposes the human body to a non-infectious sub-unit of the hepatitis C virus in order for the body to develop antibodies.

These antibodies are able to cross-neutralize against the seven genotypes of the virus.

“Previously, many people believed that the virus was impossible to neutralize with just one type of vaccine because there are so many different genotypes,” explained John Law, a member of the U of A research team.

“This is a proof of principle finding — showing that we can make a vaccine that can allow cross-protections of many different varieties of the hepatitis C virus.”

Houghton began developing a vaccine more than a decade ago, and was recruited by the U of A’s Li

Ka Shing Institute of Virology three years ago to continue his research.

Law attributes much of the success of their team to Houghton’s dedication.

“We didn’t really make anything special. Mostly it’s been the efforts of Dr. Houghton. We’ve persisted and been able to go through the hurdles of finally getting the samples, getting the trial, and eventually testing the results and being able to find out the answer,” Law said.

“He stayed with his idea and eventually carried it out to a point where now we can see there is a very good potential for things that are going to happen.”

Law said an obstacle in creating the vaccine is the virus’s ability to mutate quickly and exist in a variety of genotypes, similar to AIDS. Law predicts that it will still take another five to seven years before the vaccine is ready to be released.

The research has only completed the first of three phases needed for Health Canada to approve the vaccine. Although its safety has already been tested, the vaccine will require further testing in a clinical setting.

The vaccine has already been presented by the research team to various other members of the

United Nations Photo/Flickr

Houghton, who discovered the virus, has now potentially found a vaccine for hepatitus C. virology community.

Recently, the team travelled to Montreal to present their findings at a Canadian symposium for hepatitis C. Law hopes the team can improve upon their vaccine further before releasing it to the public.

“We’re basically trying to

understand those antibody responses, and trying to find out which part of the sub-unit the antibody recognizes. There might be some common area between the genotypes that the antibody can see that is therefore blocking infections of HCV,” Law explained.

“We can maybe learn the mechanism to increase the efficacy of the vaccine and be ablxe to design a better vaccine and move forward.”

USask four-year plan gets green light At annual public report, board chairperson supports closed-door meetings

Margie de Jager

President MacKinnon speaks at Board of Governors meeting.

TANNARA YELLAND Senior News Editor There were few surprises at the March 6 annual public reporting session of the University of Saskatchewan Board of Governors.

Board chairperson Nancy Hopkins began the meeting by acknowledging the low turnout and attributing it to the snowstorm. It was also the only public meeting the board will hold until next spring, and although this has been challenged at some institutions like the University of Regina, Hopkins maintains that it’s necessary for “trust, respect and confidence” between board members.

After a whirlwind day-and-a-half of meetings, the board was able to announce that it had unanimously

approved the university’s third integrated plan, titled “Promise and Potential.” University Council also unanimously approved the plan this week.

Promise and Potential outlines four areas of improvement and focus for the university: knowledge creation; aboriginal engagement; culture and community; and innovation in academic programs and services.

“University plans allow us to do three things,” said outgoing university president Peter MacKinnon. “They allow us to identify goals and priorities; they allow us to prepare and align budgets; and they allow us to take a multi-year perspective.”

University Vice-President Academic and Provost Brett

Fairbairn rolled out the plan, saying he was “delighted by the unanimous support this plan has received from the board.”

The plan, which will be enacted between now and 2016, outlines specific targets to meet in each category. For the most part, the plan represents a continuation of the policies that have guided the university through the last two plans, such as a focus on scientific research and on increasing the presence and inclusion of aboriginal students on campus.

Success in aboriginal engagement will be measured by increasing aboriginal student retention by 10 per cent for first- and second-year direct-entry students, and being “on track to achieving the goal of aboriginal enrolment at 15 per cent of total enrolment by 2020.”

“This plan means society will be better served by the university, in Saskatchewan and far beyond,” Fairbairn said.

But the meeting was not organized solely to announce the third integrated plan. Board member Susan Milburn discussed “risk as an element of planning,” and Hopkins delivered an address on the board’s role in planning for the university.

Fairbairn also outlined a number of “budget pressures” the university will be dealing with in the coming years.

“One of those pressures is created by our highly competitive hiring

strategy. Another pressure has to do with ongoing liabilities relating to university’s pension funds. And the third pressure is the serious toll of accumulated deferred maintenance on buildings and infrastructure.

“We can see that over the next four years, if we took no action, those kinds of pressures would cause our expenditures to grow

more quickly than our revenues.

That’s not going to happen, of course, because we’re not going to let it happen.”

The university has already begun dealing with the backlog of building maintenance through its RenewUS campaign.

Abortion in Canada

SARAH VITET — Capilano Courier (Capilano University)

VANCOUVER, B.C. (CUP) — In 1988, Henry Morgentaler, an active pro-choice doctor, challenged Canada’s abortion restrictions in the Supreme Court of Canada, where they were found to be unconstitutional.

A year later, another case was brought to the Supreme Court in regards to fetal rights after a man tried to get an injunction to stop

his ex-girlfriend from getting an abortion (Tremblay v. Daigle). The ruling declared that a fetus has no legal status in Canada as a person, in both Canadian common law and Quebec civil law.

Since then, Canada has had no laws regulating or restricting abortion access. However, there continue to be multiple barriers for Canadian women faced with

unwanted pregnancies, ranging from the stigma associated with abortion to lack of access in rural and remote areas.

Doctors who provide abortions also face risks. Dr. Garson Romalis, a provider from Vancouver, was shot and seriously wounded in 1994, and then attacked again and stabbed in 2000; the Toronto Morgentaler clinic was fire-bombed

in 1992; and two other Canadian doctors were shot between 1995 and 1997.

Although the current federal government has no plans to change the abortion status-quo in Canada, some members of the Conservative party — like Saskatoon’s own Brad Trost — are still pushing to re-open the issue. The debate on abortion, it seems, is far from over.

Stigma and access still issues A

2003 study by the Canadian Abortion Rights Access League found that fewer than one in five Canadian hospitals provide abortion services, and those hospitals are located only in larger communities.

New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island do not fund abortions unless they are performed at a hospital. Furthermore, there is no place in P.E.I. that handles abortions, and residents have to travel off-island to obtain them. There are only two hospitals that can perform abortions in New Brunswick, and the demand is higher than can be met, so the rest of the abortions are performed at the Morgentaler Clinic in Fredericton, where women must pay for the procedure themselves.

The preliminary findings of a federally funded study by Christabelle Sethna and Marion Doull indicated that “nearly 23 per cent of women who have obtained abortions in a freestanding clinic had to pay for it up front” and that “15 per cent travelled more than 100 kilometres from home.”

Clinics perform roughly 45 per cent of all abortions in Canada. The main difference between clinic and hospital abortions is that one does not need to obtain a doctor’s referral in order to receive an abortion at a clinic. Hospitals also offer sedation for surgical abortions, while clinics use only local anaesthetic.

Manitoba did not fund abortions done at clinics until 2004, when a non-profit clinic successfully sued

the provincial government to pay for abortion procedures. Quebec had similar restrictions, but in 2008 ruled that all abortions would be funded, without any limitations. In the Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, abortions are accessible only in the capitals, but the territorial governments do pay travel costs for women from remote areas.

Women in Saskatchewan receive full medical coverage for abortions in hospitals. Saskatoon providers offer abortions up to the 12th week of pregnancy, while those in Regina offer abortions up to 16 weeks and six days.

If a woman travels to Alberta for an abortion in a clinic, the Saskatchewan government will pay for the abortion itself but the woman may have to cover the travel costs.

In Regina, wait times for abortions are a bit longer than in Saskatoon. Planned Parenthood Regina estimates that the waiting list is about three to four weeks in Regina and two to three weeks in Saskatoon. The longer the wait list, the more difficult it could potentially be for women who discover their pregnancy late to book an abortion.

British Columbia offers and funds abortions up to 20 weeks. Although access in British Columbia is better than in other provinces, the public stigma regarding abortion continues to make the process difficult, and services are still limited to larger communities.

When Mary Scott tried to get an abortion in Penticton, B.C., she faced

both geographical and societal barriers: “There’s no actual place in Penticton to get one, so if you lived in Penticton, Summerland, etc., you had to go out to the one clinic in Kelowna,” Scott explained.

Penticton is a one-hour drive from Kelowna.

“They only do abortions on Tuesdays and are incredibly hard to get a hold of.”

Kelowna is well-known for its active anti-abortion groups. A doctor has to be flown in from Vancouver to perform the abortions, wading through the weekly vigils staged by protesters outside the Kelowna General Hospital.

Scott says that due to protesters, the clinic did not have an answering machine, and every time she went past the clinic she was yelled at and called “a murderer.” When she went in for her ultrasound, Scott says that the nurse told her she was “wasting taxpayer dollars,” and she was given very little advice or guidance.

Kira Campbell/Capilano Courier

“Did you know that the majority of U of S students felt that their expectations were met or exceeded?”

Speak up.

Have your say by filling out a student survey.

Student surveys are an important way for your voice to be heard. Survey results have a direct and lasting effect on things like class offerings, residences, food services, clubs and your overall university experience.

Watch your inbox this term for survey invitations and take the chance to tell us what you think.

www.usask.ca/ip/surveys

Not a settled issue for some P

rime Minister Stephen Harper has said he has no interest in reopening the debate on abortion in Canada. However, some Conservative backbenchers continue to go against their party leadership. In February, Ontatrio MP Stephen Woodworth introduced a private member’s bill that sought to

redefine personhood under the law, with the possibility of expanding the law to fetuses. During the last federal election, Saskatoon-Humboldt MP Brad Trost boasted of having defunded the International Planned Parenthood Federation, which provides maternal and sexual health services abroad, of $18

million in federal dollars.

Later in the year, the Canadian International Development Agency did grant IPPF $6 million over three years. The renewed funding has been criticized by pro-life advocates.

Medically necessary ?

J

ohn Hof is the president of the Campaign Life Coalition of British Columbia, which he describes as “the political activist arm of the pro-life movement in B.C.” The CLC puts on various campaigns both nationally and in individual provinces, including the 40 Days for Life campaign, the Defund Abortion Rally and the Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity.

“Planned Parenthood,” Hof has said, “should not receive a penny of federal funding.”

In 1995, under pressure from the Committee to End Taxpayer-Funded Abortions, the Alberta government attempted to define “medically required” abortions in an effort to fund only those deemed absolutely necessary. The Alberta Medical Association and the College of Physicians and Surgeons were asked to clarify the distinction, but they refused.

“You have to leave it up to the doctor to decide, based on the patient’s best interest,” said Joyce Arthur, executive director of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada. “We can’t distinguish between different types of abortion as to whether they are medically necessary or not, because that would require women having to state their reason and then someone having to decide whether their reasons are legitimate or not, and it just won’t work.”

Arthur also notes that not funding abortion would be discriminatory, as women who are well off could still easily get an abortion, “but it’s the poor women

and the disadvantaged women who are stuck, and that’s unjust.”

The ARCC also emphasizes that defunding abortion or imposing restrictions would be a violation of women’s rights to life, liberty and security of person under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

“Abortion must be funded because it is not an elective procedure any more than childbirth is,” Arthur writes. “Pregnancy outcomes are inescapable, meaning that a pregnant woman cannot simply cancel the outcome — once she is pregnant, she must decide to either give birth or have an abortion. To protect her health and rights, both outcomes need to be recognized as medically necessary and fully funded.”

According to Hof, “Eliminating the child should never be suggested as a solution with total disregard for subsequent effects on the mother and the child.” He claims that “in a civilized society [abortion] should not be tolerated.”

In a 2010 online Angus Reid poll, 39 per cent of respondents agreed with the statement, “The health care system should only fund abortions in the event of medical emergencies.” Another poll reported that 27 per cent of Canadians describe themselves as “pro-life.”

However, the ARCC warns that popular opinion polls are not a good way to make decisions regarding women’s health.

“Voter opinion on this issue has been shaped by anti-choice misinformation, as well as lingering prejudice about

women who have abortions,” they say.

Arthur also said that 90 per cent of abortions happen within the first 12 weeks, the other eight per cent happen by 16 weeks, and one to two per cent are done by 20 weeks.

Only 0.3 per cent of abortions happen after 20 weeks. In many third-trimester abortions, major health complications such as serious fetal abnormalities are often considered.

“Late-term abortions are the ones that are the most desperately needed of all, done for medical reasons, and so it’s ridiculous to criminalize those,” said Arthur. “The idea of criminalizing abortion would just be from the myth of women having a lot of abortions, but that doesn’t happen.”

Brianna Whitmore/Graphics Editor

Coercive forces Prevention H

of explains that another goal of the CLC is to ensure “protection for women being coerced into abortion.”

In 2010, Bill C-510 was put forward in order to amend the Criminal Code to make it illegal to coerce a woman into having an abortion. It was put forward by Conservative MP Rod Bruinooge and was not supported by Stephen Harper. Threats and illegal acts, such as coercion, are already illegal under the Criminal Code, and the bill did not pass; but it did spark conversation regarding various influences over women’s reproductive rights.

A 2010 study by the Guttmacher Institute found that women in abusive relationships were often coerced into childbirth: “Pregnancy promotion involves male partner attempts to impregnate a woman, including verbal threats about getting her pregnant, unprotected forced sex, and contraceptive sabotage,” the

study read. Seventy-four per cent of respondents reported experiencing this kind of coercion.

The concern over coercion regarding pregnancy and abortion is evident from both pro-life and pro-choice groups. Crisis pregnancy centres such as Birthright International advertise that they are “here to help you in making a decision about your pregnancy,” but critics suggest that they mislead women and exist in order to coerce them out of having abortions.

“I have nothing against antichoice places if they want to help women… [and] give them resources and support to have their babies,” said Arthur. “The problem with these hotlines and these crisis pregnancy centres is that they are very deceptive.... They engage in all the standard misinformation tactics, and scare [women] and confuse them with really unprofessional counselling techniques.”

A

2010 report by the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada showed that there was a 36.9 per cent decline in Canada’s teen birth and abortion rate between 1996 and 2006 due to an increase in contraception and birth control use.

Globally, countries with the best access to contraceptives and sex education have the lowest abortion rates. The Netherlands, for example, has fully funded birth control and they have one of the lowest abortion rates in the world.

The Canadian Medical Services Plan does not universally fund birth control or contraceptives.

Hof does not believe the Canadian government should add more costs to the health care system by mandating full birth control coverage. “Birth control and contraception are lifestyle choices.

In no other situation do we facilitate choices by financially supporting

them with tax dollars,” he said. “We don’t buy people cigarettes if they choose to smoke.”

However, Arthur counters that we give people free health care, regardless of why they need it, including smokers with lung cancer and people with addictions.

“Ninety-eight per cent of women have used contraception at some point,” she said. “The main cause of abortion is unattended pregnancy, and the main cause of unattended pregnancy is no use or improper use of contraception.

“Women still have to pay for that, in most cases, and it’s expensive,” she said. “Contraception is essential preventive health care for women — and all of society.”

6• NEws

thesheaf.com/news • the Sheaf • March 8, 2012

Files leak from top Canadian school McGillLeaks publishes ‘highly confidential’ documents

in brief

U of S student arrested for New Year’s sexual assault A male University of Saskatchewan student has been arrested in relation to the sexual assault that occurred inside a McEown Park high-rise residence on New Year’s Eve. A campus-wide email was sent out March 2 by David Hannah, University of Saskatchewan associate vice-president of student affairs, regarding the arrest.

According to Hannah, Campus Safety and the Saskatoon Police Service arrested and charged the student believed to be involved with sexual assault and restricted his access to campus.

The announcement, a day after the arrest, came after the university was criticized for waiting six weeks to report the initial assault to the campus community.

Speaking last week at University Students’ Council, Hannah admitted that the delay and the timing of the release — 4 p.m. on the Friday before Reading Week — had made it appear as though the school was not treating the assault seriously. However, details following the alleged assault were “sketchy,” he said, and administrators did not know whether there was an imminent threat to others on campus.

Recent details, first reported by the StarPhoenix, show that the victim was allegedly drugged and violently sexually assaulted for hours in a McEown Park dormitory. The man charged is 27 years old and has since been released from custody. He is scheduled to appear in court March 27.

Summer U-Pass a possibility if enough demand found

Byron and Tamara/Wikimedia Commons

An anonymous website has aquired files that provide a glimpse of the inner workings of the Quebec university.

Erin Hudson The McGill Daily (McGill University) MONTREAL (CUP) — Documents from McGill’s Development and Alumni Relations (DAR), many of which are marked “confidential” or “highly confidential,” were posted online on March 3 by the anonymous group calling itself McGillLeaks.

In a statement on its website, McGillLeaks announced its intention to release hundreds of documents over the next three weeks, starting with the release of documents pertaining to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and defence industries.

The documents were available for download at McGillLeaks. wordpress.com.

The first release of documents contained donor and corporation profiles, correspondence related to corporate funding, histories of corporate donations and relations, and industrial partnerships — notably, a Memorandum of Understanding between McGill and Canadian pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline Inc. On its website, DAR states that its “many programs and activities help the University establish and maintain strong relationships with alumni, donors and potential donors.”

In its statement, McGillLeaks verified the authenticity of the documents on its website and stated that the contents of the documents have not been altered.

McGillLeaks outlines three goals for its public release of the documents: to provide an account of a “corporate university’s inner workings,” to supply accurate information regarding McGill’s relations with the private sector and to create transparency at the university.

“While not exhaustive in any sense, the documents are primary source material on the university’s role within the competitive market and how it conceives of that role,” the statement reads.

“We are cognizant of the fact that the methods used by McGill are similar to those of many other ‘public research universities,’ and thus are relevant not only to those with an interest in McGill.”

McGill has a policy regarding safe disclosure in recognition of the “necessary and valuable service” of the “good faith reporting of improper activities ('whistleblowing')." The policy, approved in 2007, applies to all members of the McGill community, and such reports will not be considered cause for reprisal.

Under the policy, an improper activity is “an act or omission committed by a [member of the university community] that constitutes ‘Academic Misconduct,’ ‘Research Misconduct,’ or ‘Financial Misconduct.’ ” The policy also states that, in all McGill activities, the university “seeks to promote a culture based on honest, transparent, and accountable behaviour.”

It is unknown whether the safe disclosure policy would apply to McGillLeaks.

In its statement, McGillLeaks discusses its “leak” of documents. “We do not see the leak and the new level of transparency it produces as ends in themselves. These documents are only as important as your pursuant critical analysis and initiative,” the statement reads.

McGillLeaks states it will publish submissions of documents related to McGill that are “classified, confidential and/or not yet public.” The group advises any contributions to be made anonymously and advises against contacting the group from McGill computers.

McGill administrators are already fighting back. The university has acted to remove the documents from file-sharing sites where they were posted and says it is treating the leak as a crime.

The University of Saskatchewan Students’ Union is investigating student interest in the implementation of a summer U-Pass program, similar to the universal bus pass available to undergraduates during the fall and spring sessions.

The idea, spearheaded by vice-president operations and finance Reid Nystuen, would give undergraduates who register for summer courses a cheaper option to use public transit from May 1 to Aug. 30.

Currently, the Term 1 pass is available from Sept. 1 to Dec. 31, and the Term 2 pass is available from Jan. 1 to April 30. Students who choose to use the pass must activate their student cards at the start of each semester.

According to the USSU website, undergraduates are charged $71.83 per term for the U-Pass, regardless of whether they activate it or not. Students who live on campus or outside Saskatoon city limits, who hold a disability parking pass for the U of S or who are enrolled exclusively in distance education courses can apply for an exemption.

In 2008, U of S undergraduates voted 80 per cent in favor of making the U-Pass program permanent.

Federal summer job centres close, move online The federal government is closing job centres across the country that help students find seasonal summer employment and is instead shifting the service online.

The offices, called Service Canada Centres for Youth, were open temporarily from May to August to offer job-finding advice and career tips to youth aged 15-24.

Closing the offices is expected to save $6.5 million annually.

The Conservative Party says interest in the centres has diminished in recent years and that young Canadians now prefer to get help with job searches and resume writing online.

The shift online comes at a time when unemployment among Canadian youth is 14.5 per cent, according to Statistics Canada — almost double the national average.

Both the NDP and the Liberals vocalized their concerns following the announcement, saying that moving the service online will hurt the overall quality of help provided to young Canadians. The Conservatives, however, reiterated the fact that the summer jobfinding service for youth will still continue and will be integrated into already existing Service Canada offices.

The online service can be found at www.youth.gc.ca.

•7

March 8, 2012 • the sheaf • thesheaf.com/advertising

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?

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Submit your résumé and cover letter together in a sealed envelope to: Hiring Committee The Sheaf Publishing Society Room 108 Memorial Union Building 93 Campus Drive Saskatoon, SK S7N5B2

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8• Opinions

thesheaf.com/opinions • the sheaf •March 8, 2012

Is university the only road to success?

Just in time for finals: reasons not to believe in post-secondary

Brianna Whitmore/Graphics Editor

Michael Cuthbertson Opinions Editor Years ago I filled out one of those sociology surveys you occasionally get in lectures. One question asked me, “Why are you in university?” to which I replied, “It beats working.”

I still feel this way. Reading textbooks is at least one step above my last job: working in a kitchen. Sometimes I felt nauseous working there — partly because I was cutting up kidney meat while hungover.

Schoolwork is tedious but ultimately leaves you feeling that you have somehow bettered yourself. Even the most brutal study session doesn’t usually result in the Post Traumatic Work Syndrome you feel at shitty jobs. That is, jobs where you make minimum wage for tolerating verbal abuse and doing hard manual labor.

Still, I shouldn’t pretend to have a clue how shitty the work force gets. My friend knew someone who cleaned up accidents on the highway. Surely going to university beats hosing human remains off the pavement every day.

PAMELA PORTER

UPCOMING EVENTS

®

run March 8, 12.indd 1

Reading & Signing No Ordinary Place Thursday, March 14, 7:30 PM

KELLY-ANNE RIESS

Reading & Signing I Love Saskatchewan Thursday, March 15, 7:30 PM

02/26/12 4:08:19 PM

I sincerely appreciate that, in the grand scheme of things, university life is a pretty sweet deal.

But after four years on campus, I’ve realized the following: university is largely a big business, where education is commodified and sold to the student body.

University is not exactly a place to nurture and network gifted intellectuals, as it’s often idealized to be.

Instead universities act like any business looking to stay competitive. They seek to attract more customers every year and ideally keep those customers returning for a very long time.

Today, universities pursue this selfserving model in two ways. Firstly: universities (especially ones like the University of Saskatchewan) will essentially admit anyone who wasn’t educated by a pack of wolves — so long as someone foots the bill.

Secondly: by passing every half-wit they enroll, universities diminish the prestige of their degrees. As a result, serious students now often need a masters or sometimes even a doctorate just to turn a profit on their education. All these extra years of study then translate to job security for university faculty, but do not necessarily bode so well for undergraduates.

As a philosophy major, I’ve long since accepted that if I stay in university it must be exclusively about the learning, because pursuing a philosophy degree is about as beneficial to your personal finances as a gambling addiction.

But herein lies the problem for students pursuing unprofitable degrees: if we’re only here for the learning, what exactly are we being taught that we can’t figure out on our own? Sometimes I think Will Hunting was right, that I will one day realize: “You dropped a hundred-and-fifty grand on a fuckin’ education you coulda got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library.”

Many scholars will say this attitude is an

oversimplification. They claim university is about so much more than landing a job; rather it’s about being part of an “academic community.” And it’s about having a “professional” give feedback on your work.

Professional feedback, eh? Oh, like all those exams we write on Opscan sheets.

Yep, the computer grading them sures gives us real heartfelt feedback.

Calling the university an inspired learning community is hardly true. You may find more people excited about debating the merits of existentialism on campus — at least, more than you would working at McDonald’s — but when you set foot in a lecture theatre, do the words “learning community” really come to mind? My classes tend to look more like a funeral service than the scene of some great intellectual debate.

For students already disillusioned with university life, their last line of defence is usually this: “University gives me the structure and discipline I need to stick to my studies.”

Seriously? I refuse to believe we’re so unmotivated that we need pats on the back and slaps on the wrist from some “professional” just to continue bothering with education.

Last fall I wrote a 100-page book.

Every night I locked myself in my room and wrote for hours. And go figure, after months of doing that I was way more fluent at writing. Now I wonder where I’d be if I had invested all that time and soul not in my book but in writing 10-page papers on “A comparative analysis of the preSocratic…blah, blah, blah.”

At first my story may sound inapplicable to your field of study. You may have me pegged as just another wannabe artist saying, “I’m too special to participate in your crummy system.”

But in countless fields — commerce, computer science, music and so forth — the real talent isn’t sitting in a classroom with a bunch of self-entitled, upper-middle-

class kids who show no outstanding gifts or visions.

More likely, the great entrepreneur is on the phone in her home office, trying to get her independent business off the ground.

The great computer scientist is drinking Redbull at 4 a.m. in his living room, developing the next Facebook or Google.

The great musician is sleeping in his car, en route to his next show.

So if real success happens off-campus, then what exactly are we doing here?

Though professors will repeatedly tell you otherwise, a lot of what we do here is, without a doubt, ivory tower bullshit. It’s hard to accept this when you’ve spent your whole life cooped-up in learning institutions. Usually by the time you reach university, you’re already so “institutionalized” to this mock-world of exams, grades and credits that you don’t believe you could ever succeed without it.

But once you take a leap of faith, to learn and create things in a DIY environment, you’ll start to see how questionable the high-flown ideals of university really are.

I imagine you more gracious students have been itching to say something to me regarding all this. Something like, “Well why don’t you stop bitching and just drop out?”

That is a very good question. Partly it’s cowardice, and a bit of laziness. For me, university is like a long-lived but emotionally dead relationship: I stay in it because it’s safe. But mostly I’m here for the same reason I gave in the sociology survey: it beats working.

Opinions

March 8, 2012 • the sheaf • thesheaf.com/opinions

•9

What’s so wrong about the Lingerie Football League?

LFL objectifies women, but the athletes know what they’re doing Martin Winquist It was announced earlier this week that Saskatoon and Regina will be the homes of Lingerie Football League franchises in the coming year.

This sport, in which (beautiful) female athletes dress in lingerie and play a modified form of NFL football, has been called demeaning to women, misogynistic and a poor representation of women’s athletics on many media comment boards since the teams were announced a few days ago.

These responses are not unwarranted. Both the lingerie and the padding (consisting of modified football shoulder pads, optional elbow pads, knee pads and hockey helmets with half-visors) are minimal enough to ensure none of them obscure the usually ample cleavage of the athlete.

If you’re an ass and legs person though, don’t fret; the booty shorts and required garter make sure “the girls” don’t monopolize one’s ogling.

What the league’s website calls “True Fantasy Football,” then, is just that: fantasy. Just as Nike isn’t selling shoes, but a “Just Do It” culture, so the LFL isn’t selling football, but the primetime equivalent of mud-wrestling. As much as the league’s media spindoctors may claim the league is about football and that these women are just like any other athletes, one look at the uniforms, the equipment, the ads and the athletes themselves must send our bullshit detectors into overdrive.

Don’t get me wrong, these women are certainly athletes, but if you think of them as similar to professional wrestlers you’re on your way to understanding the LFL. The LFL is essentially just a spectacle for the male gaze. Now, I know many will throw their hands up proclaiming that most sports are spectacles for the male gaze, and they’re right. What is the NFL if not an incarnation of gladiatorial combat with a few rules thrown in?

But when was the last time an NFL

Is this just a spectacle for the male gaze? Yes. Yes it is. football team chose a player in the draft based, at least in part, on his beauty? All Tom Brady jokes aside, that has never and will never happen.

However, it must happen in the LFL. To return to my previous analogy, if we watch professional wrestlers as characters first and athletes second, then we watch LFL players as tits-and-ass first and athletes second. Is that objectifying? Sure. But that is ultimately a moot point. After all, the mission statement of the league is to “become the ultimate fan-driven live sports phenomenon — blending action, impact, and beauty” (emphasis on beauty).

Reading between the lines, one quickly realizes that criticizing only the sport’s objectification of women is redundant. Its sole purpose is the objectification of women.

So let’s tear our eyes away from the bodies on the field for a moment, because in the LFL, like any other spectacle, it’s what you can’t see that’s most interesting.

For instance, LFL athletes don’t get paid a set salary. Their travel

expenses are paid and, according to the LFL website, they receive 20 per cent of the gate if they win and 10 per cent if they lose. That money is then divided amongst the athletes on the team. So how much does this amount to? We can’t know exactly, but there have been lawsuits levied against the LFL in California because the athletes claim they are being paid less than $8 an hour — below minimum wage in that state.

If this is the case, then why might these female athletes participate in a league that objectifies them? I don’t know the answer to that, but to venture a guess I’d say it’s because there is no better place to be seen than in a spectacle. Most of these women, if they aren’t already models, certainly gain the potential to break into that field through the LFL. Because they play in a league that is marketed at the male gaze, the athletes already model as part of their day-to-day activities with the team. The league films minidocumentaries, taped in team locker rooms, hotel rooms and on the field, that are then put on the

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league’s website after each game.

Thus, the possibility of translating their exposure through the LFL into a career in modelling is not all that unreasonable — especially if we consider the slow but gradual movement away from the stick-thin models of the 1990s and early 2000s toward the more fit and curvy women’s body types we’re seeing in vogue today.

I’m thinking here of women like Jessica Biel, Scarlett Johansson, and Sofia Vergara.

If a modelling career is in fact the end goal of some LFL players, then who can blame them for participating in the league? We live in a world where Snooki can make $100,000 per episode for getting drunk and causing drama, and where Kim Kardashian can make $40,000 per episode for marrying “the love of her life.” Imagine what people with actual talent could make.

Whenever news stories like these come along, we tend to assume that the women involved with the activity in question are somehow duped into objectifying themselves for our titillation. That

couldn’t be further from the truth.

In a YouTube video promoting a “Women of the LFL” Playboy shoot, Tanyka Henry of the Philadelphia Passion said, “To be a great player in the LFL, you have to be willing to play both ways.”

The wink with which she delivers the line gives it away, folks. She knows she’s being objectified, and she’s fine with it.

Don’t believe me? Then turn your eyes back to the titillation on the field one last time. This time, however, notice the jerseys the women are wearing and not what’s below them for a few seconds.

They differ from regular football jerseys in many substantial ways, most notably in that there is no team logo on the front of them.

“You play for the symbol on the front of the jersey, not for the name on the back,” as the saying goes, but it seems we have to reverse this mantra for the LFL. Not that there’s a name on the back of the jersey either, but there are two (usually substantial) things just below the sweater that these women are playing to promote.

Oh, and a couple curvy, well-toned things a little lower if you can make it that far.

The question, therefore, isn’t whether or not these athletes are objectified. They are, and the LFL is problematic for all those reasons mentioned above. The real question is whether or not their objectification is worth it. It seems that for these athletes it is.

And who are we to deny them the right to take full advantage of that system?

To quote Ice T: “Don't hate the player, hate the game.... Every baller on the streets is searchin' fortune and fame. Some come up, some get done up, accept the twist.

If you out for mega cheddar, you got to go high risk.”

The game, however, isn’t football. It’s fantasy, and these ladies might just be winning.

10• Opinions

thesheaf.com/opinions • the Sheaf • March 8, 2012

When wearing makeup becomes a problem Women shouln’t use makeup as a security blanket

Nothing smart about phones in school Devices — and the students who love them — have no place in class

Re_/Flickr

Kimberley Hartwig A morning fight with the mirror is a regular occurrence for university students. Whether it’s due to an all-nighter to finish that paper or becoming the beer pong champion last night, the person staring back at you the morning after often looks a little more haggard than you remember.

Putting the pieces back together can often be a struggle but women have something at their disposal that can make it easier: makeup. Like a magic marker, makeup can erase those telltale dark circles and make it look like you got eight hours of sleep when in fact you only got two. There can be too much of a good thing, however, and too much makeup can make someone look like she belongs on Jersey Shore instead of at university.

Girls are introduced to the concept of wearing makeup as early as 12 years old and with each passing year the idea of wearing makeup becomes more and more acceptable. While some girls will fall into the habit of wearing makeup on a regular basis, there are also those who refuse to wear any. For every woman who spends hours in front of the mirror primping to perfection, there is a woman who can’t be bothered to put on more than chapstick. It’s always a personal choice whether or not to wear makeup and there are pros and cons to each side.

Makeup is an easy way to have fun with how you look, as well as an easy way to look put-together. However, makeup can be timeconsuming and often the idea of hitting the

snooze button is much more appealing than getting up to curl one’s eyelashes.

In the makeup versus no-makeup debate, I fall squarely in the middle. While I love makeup, I also feel perfectly fine leaving the house without any on. It always seems odd when women insist on wearing makeup everywhere they go. The most obvious example is the need to wear makeup to the gym, as it will either wear off or run down your face within five minutes of setting foot on a treadmill. Neither of these are particularly appealing options, but every time I go to the PAC I see at least a handful of girls wearing makeup, which always makes me wonder why they feel the need to do so.

There is a line between liking to wear makeup and needing to wear makeup. Wearing makeup can be an easy confidence boost but it should never become the sole source. If going outside without makeup starts to become the stuff of nightmares, there’s a problem. Wearing makeup should never become a security blanket that is needed to face the world. There’s no reason to be terrified of leaving the house without makeup on — in fact, it should be embraced.

Makeup-free Monday is an easy challenge to accept. If you’re more adventurous, try going a week without it. In a culture that seeks perfection, it can be difficult to feel comfortable in your own skin but being comfortable going to class or to work without makeup can be the first step to getting there.

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Jean Oliver Nexus (Camosun College) VICTORIA (CUP) — Lately, I’ve been thinking that the only way I will be able to finish my degree is online, where, paradoxically, I would be free from endless smartphone and Internet-related classroom distractions.

It boggles my mind that students can be so cavalier about their phone and computer usage to their teachers. Many people would gladly take a seat in the classroom if they had even half the chances many students seem to take for granted. Ignoring teachers and staying focused on phones is not a smart use of anyone’s time.

But why do so many instructors do nothing to stop this distracting behaviour? Many teachers I’ve watched are intimidated and unable to enforce their expectations of students. It’s uncomfortable when a teacher resorts to the old-fashioned guilt trip by publicly shaming an individual over Internet or phone use, but it just might be necessary.

Students say they need to stay connected to what’s going on. They say smartphone use is a habit. Some justify it to

themselves by saying the class is boring.

Well, I say you’re in the wrong class.

In my book, boredom is the result of a resistance to learning.

The desire to stay connected can be overwhelming, but we shouldn’t confuse a need with a want. If students truly need to check on a friend or be available for an email about a job, they have no business being in class.

The problem at hand is not simply an issue of poor etiquette. The brain can only take so much stress before it leaks illness out into the physical body. Turning off the Internet for a one-hour class is more than good manners: it might just save you from a heart attack or an ulcer down the road.

The problem is getting worse. One of my recent classes was so noisy the instructor was barely able to convey complex ideas over the din of crosstalk.

Add into that the strobe lights of flickering Facebook images and the dance of nodding heads over cell phones and, well, focusing in class becomes about as easy as hearing someone give a lecture in a night club.

Opinions

March 8, 2012 • the sheaf • thesheaf.com/opinions

Freaks, geeks and things that are ‘so gay’

•11

Does Vic Toews look like a walrus?

What’s the best way to make Kraft Dinner?

Is China’s devalued currency a threat to global trade?

What does the TV show New Girl teach us about humans’ capacity for evil?

If you have opinions on any of these, or anything else for that matter, you should contribute to the opinions section! photo illustration by Raisa Pezderic/Photo Editor Iand Ishmael Daro

Natahna Bargen “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger,” or so my mother believes.

This cheery colloquialism is said in an effort to make horrible, hateful things that happen to you seem part of a greater plan and give hope that once you have pushed through the latest injustice, you will somehow emerge as some sort of super-human on par with the Hulk or Superman. The truth is that I have been hearing this saying all my life and am still waiting for my honourary super strength or, at the very least, a gold star.

Most of the offenses I have withstood in my, albeit short, lifetime have been due to a breach of conduct between myself and what is accepted as “normal” in society. I never thought of myself as being abnormal, but then people would hear that I was home-schooled through elementary school (“That means you wear long skirts and don’t know how to talk to people, right?”), or that our family took in foster children (“But those kids are wild, aren’t they?”), and little by little I began to realize how much I am not like the majority.

When I was 12, I had two foster sisters who had severe Cerebral Palsy.

It amazed me how people would have no qualms about staring wide-eyed at the wheelchairs and tubes, and drool

as we passed them on the street. You could clearly see some people squirm as you rolled up closer to them in a Wal-Mart line-up, or wheeled in to sit beside them at a school concert. The gawkers rarely made an effort to walk over and talk to us, or the girls.

At age 14, my first of two wonderful little brothers was born.

To my shock and dismay, this meant that I was just the right age to appear as one of those “Darn Teenage Mothers,” as I chased my brothers up and down shopping aisles, or fed them their bottles while waiting for my mother at the dentist. I never expected the snide comments and dirty looks, along with the occasional pitying sidelong glance, that were dished out (mainly by middle-aged women). I found myself often announcing things like, “OK, Baby, let’s go find our mom!” or “Who loves sister! Yes, you love sister!”

Then there was that awkward stage — all through high school — when I was determined to be cool even though I didn’t drink or party: a recipe for success. And let us not forget that wonderful growth spurt which left my limbs flailing and people wondering if I had succumbed to Anorexia.

Being told that you are “a little too skinny, if you ask me” is hardly more complementary than being told that

you are too fat.

For better of for worse, social stigmas profoundly shape the people we become. I still clarify as often as I can that I am only a sister to my sixand seven-year-old brothers. I am still sensitive about my gangly legs and spindly arms. And if you should even dare to make a Helen Keller joke around me, I will make you feel like the lowest person alive.

We are all acutely aware of the wrongs that have been inflicted upon us, but are we cognizant of the words and actions that we inflict on others?

If we are using derogatory words such as “retard,” or saying that things are “so gay,” or taking time out of our day to gawk at the homeless, the disabled or the just plain different without following up that stare with a kind smile or a simple hello, then we are contributing to the isolation and stigma likely already felt by these people.

If you would like a challenge, go out and befriend someone who makes you feel uncomfortable today.

What doesn’t kill you does make you stronger, but what they don’t tell you is that it’s a lot easier to make it through the hard times if you have a friend who is willing to go through it with you.

opinions@thesheaf.com thesheaf.com/contribute

12• Opinions

thesheaf.com/opinions • the Sheaf • September 15, 2011

Vladimir Putin is ridiculous The Russian strongman may win elections, but he is losing his mind Ishmael N. Daro Editor-in-Chief The votes are in and it looks like Russia, and the world, is stuck with at least six more years of Vladimir Putin.With another six-year term more than likely, that would bring Putin’s total time as Russia’s undisputed leader to 24 years, rivalling the reigns of Stalin and Ivan the Terrible.

Winning over 63 per cent of the vote, Putin’s victory was never in doubt, just as it was never in doubt that the whole process would be fixed in his favour. With real opponents barred from taking part for a variety of technicalities, Putin faced four nobodies and won handily. There were also widespread reports of ballot-box stuffing and “carousel voting” — the same people voting multiple times at different polling stations.

“We have won in honest and fair combat,” a tearful Putin told supporters after the vote, despite rather substantial evidence to the contrary.

Putin’s corruption and cruelty over the last 12 years are not that surprising: invest all the powers of the state in one man and he cannot help but be a tyrant. Absolute power, as the saying goes, corrupts absolutely, but it also leads to absurdity.

When Putin first rose from obscurity to lead the Russian state in 2000, much of his appeal was based on a certain tough-guy machismo.

Most photo-ops of the time featured the new president in a karate outfit, chopping his way to a brighter future for Russia. Since then, the personality cult around the former KGB

colonel has only grown.

For a 2010 trip to the arctic, Putin’s handler’s thought it would be a great idea to have the leader speak next to a polar bear. So they found a polar bear, kept it captive for more than a week, then sedated it just so Putin could put an electronic collar on the animal and give a speech next to its slumbering form.

In announcing his re-election bid, Putin scuba-dived into the Black Sea and came back out with two ancient Greek urns he just so happened to have found on the seafloor.

After widespread mockery, the government subsequently admitted the obvious: the entire event had been stage-managed and the urns planted there beforehand.

Putin has even skied down a volcano because, presumably, that’s what tough guys do. And if the real Putin’s feats weren’t impressive enough, supporters have even created a SuperPutin comic series in which the fictional Vladimir fights terrorists and stops various bomb plots.

Such flights of fancy are hardly isolated to the Kremlin. They can be found wherever a leader continues to rule past his expiry date.

Saddam Hussein liked to gold-plate pretty much everything he owned (not unlike Donald Trump) and even had a Qur’an written entirely in his own blood.

Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi always travelled with his seven, handchosen “virgin bodyguards” and had a mysterious Ukrainian nurse on-hand. The Libyan leader also chose to live in a bedouin tent that

he claimed was bulletproof, even trying to set it in front of the United Nations in New York.

(He was denied his request.)

Perhaps the zaniest of all world leaders was the recently departed Kim Jong-il, whose birth, according to North Korean propaganda, was greeted by a double rainbow and a new star in the sky. The Dear Leader once tried to solve his country’s hunger problem by importing giant rabbits for food; he ate the first batch of rabbits himself before a full breeding program could get underway, unfortunately. Kim even claimed to have invented a new food, the name of which roughly translated to “double bread with meat” — the strange new delicacy rather suspiciously resembled a standard hamburger.

Obviously, such examples are not that funny to the people who suffer under authoritarian regimes. After all, that a leader can get away with such craziness is a sign of their arbitrary and unfettered power. In Putin’s

case, such eccentricities are now increasingly becoming a national joke in Russia, and while he looks set to rule uninterrupted for another six or 12 years, his greatest enemy may well be his own absurdity.

Brianna Whitmore/Graphics Editor

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Sports •13 Bittersweet finish for Duncan Jones

September 15 , 2011 • the sheaf • thesheaf.com/sports

Huskies senior drains nine threes as Saskatchewan’s season ends early

Ben Baker forces his way to the hoop.

KEVIN MENZ & KEITH FLYSAK Duncan Jones’s final game in a Huskies basketball uniform was bittersweet.

The fifth-year guard led Saskatchewan to a Canada West bronze medal after putting up 40 points — including an astounding nine three-pointers on 10 attempts — in front of his hometown crowd at the Physical Activity Complex in a 90-85 win over the University of Victoria Vikes March 3.

The two teams had been exchanging baskets throughout the entire game until midway through the third quarter when Jones helped the Huskies pull away. He sank three consecutive three-point attempts to close out the last five minutes and give the Huskies a 6758 lead going into the fourth.

While the Vikes charged back to within two points of Saskatchewan nearing the game’s end, a steal by Jones with only 33 seconds on the clock combined with a jumper from the fifth-year sealed the victory for the Huskies.

The No. 9 jersey’s nine triples placed him alongside teammate Jamelle Barrett and former Huskie Kyle Grant for the most threepointers by any Huskie in a single game. Barrett hit nine threes against Fraser Valley in November of 2010 while Grant drained nine against Manitoba in January of 2008.

Jones, of course, was humble after the career-best performance and passed a lot of the credit off to his teammates.

“The guys did a really good job of finding me in nice spots so I could hit my shots,” said Jones.

Head coach Barry Rawlyk said that the performance simply

reasserts how strong his veteran players are.

“The bar has been set by some of these graduating players who have enjoyed sensational careers here,” he said. “They’ve set the blueprint for the future.”

Saturday was the last time Jones and fellow seniors Michael Lieffers, Peter Lomuro and Chris Unsworth would dress for the Green and White as they have all extinguished their Canadian Interuniversity Sport eligibility.

The bronze medal meant the Huskies wouldn’t be continuing on to their third straight CIS Final 8 tournament, which is held in Halifax this year.

On the previous night, the University of Alberta Pandas upset Saskatchewan 89-73 in a Canada West Final Four firstround matchup. The Huskies, who finished the season atop the conference’s standings, were pushed into the bronze medal game.

Since the Canada West conference only sends its gold and silver medalists to the Final 8, it meant the Huskies’ only chance of landing a spot in the national championship was with the CIS’s wild-card selection — which often goes to the highest ranked team in the country that was not a finalist in its conference’s championship.

The Huskies had a very strong chance of landing the wild-card berth, however, considering they finished the season ranked third in the nation.

Unfortunately for Saskatchewan, the No. 2 Lakehead University Thunderwolves also fell in their conference semifinal after losing 86-70 to the Ryerson University Rams in Ontario’s conference semifinal.

Raisa Pezderic/Photo Editor

Lakehead landed the CIS’s wildcard berth, ending the Huskies’ season.

Following the loss to Alberta, Saskatchewan reflected on what could have been a much better game.

“It was defence for sure,” said Barrett. “I think we got the game to within two and one a few times — we even had it tied up — and we just couldn’t get the stops when we needed them. They execute their offence really well. They were well prepared. They came out and they played a hell of a game.”

The Huskies enjoyed their only lead of the game early in the first quarter after Barrett buried a three to put the Dogs up 12-11. After that, the Bears’ phenomenal shooting allowed Alberta to run away with the game.

“We didn’t shoot the ball very well tonight,” said Rawlyk afterwards. “I thought we settled for too many jumpers or mid-range shots early in the game.”

Saskatchewan only shot 35 per cent from the floor while Alberta shot 47 per cent.

Both Barrett and Lieffers were recognized after the tournament for their outstanding seasons in the Canada West.

Barrett was named a first-team all-star and conference MVP for the second year in a row while Lieffers was named second-team all-star and defensive player of the year.

Pete Yee

Lieffers, Barrett, Jones and Lomuro salute the Huskies fans.

Duncan Jones fires a three-pointer over a Victoria Vike.

Pete Yee

14• Sports

thesheaf.com/sports • the Sheaf • March 8, 2012

Bosch pushes Dogs to CanWest final Huskies to host Dinos after pair of overtime wins against Bears KEVIN MENZ Sports Editor The University of Saskatchewan Huskies have slayed Goliath.

Brennan Bosch’s overtime heroics March 4 in the third game of a best-of-three semifinal series helped Saskatchewan knock the four-time defending Canada West champion University of Alberta Golden Bears out of playoffs.

The Huskie forward’s powerplay goal only two minutes into the extra frame not only pushed his squad to a 4-3 win, but also encapsulated the recent surge from Saskatchewan’s second and third lines.

All season, most of the Huskies’ goals have been scored by the squad’s top three forwards and Canada West scoring leaders Kyle Ross, Kyle Bortis and Derek Hulak. While the trio currently lead the conference’s playoff scoring race with 9, 8 and 7 points, respectively, the Huskies also have nine other players notched into the top 25 scorers, including Bosch.

More and more weight is lifted off the top line as the Dogs continue to increase their secondary scoring in these playoffs.

In the Huskies’ 4-3 win, for

instance, Bosch’s overtime winner was his second goal of the game. Matthew Delahey buried Saskatchewan’s other two.

The Dogs’ top line only recorded one assist in the win when Ross notched the helper on Delahey’s first goal.

“When you have a team playing the way that we have, where guys are contributing... through killing penalties or through offence, it’s huge,” said Bortis, who scored a pair of goals including the overtime winner in the Huskies’ 3-2 victory in game two of the series.

“When everyone contributes in that way, it takes a lot of stress off of everyone. It’s a lot easier to play that way.”

Huskies head coach Dave Adolph was particularly pleased to see fourth-year player Chris Durand, a leader on the team, finally start to produce in the postseason.

Durand picked up one goal and two assists and was the only Huskies’ star in their opening game 7-3 loss to the Bears.

“Chris Durand has been knocked hard by me and by others about not being able to perform in the playoffs but he’s in the best shape of his life and it showed this weekend against Alberta. He

Julianna Damer/The Gateway

Derek Hulak looks to escape the Bears defence. was good,” said Adolph.

When the Huskies host the University of Calgary Dinos in the Canada West final March 9,10 and, if needed, 11 at Rutherford Rink in Saskatoon, receiving continued leadership and scoring from their second and third lines will be vital for Saskatchewan as opponents start to key in on the squad’s top three forwards.

“Definitely Ross, Bortis and Hulak are getting a lot more attention because of how good they are,” said Bosch. “It’s so important in the playoffs to get some secondary scoring and to get that secondary push. We had that

in Alberta and we’re going to need that against Calgary for sure.”

Calgary has beaten Saskatchewan in all four of the teams’ meetings this season despite finishing one spot lower than the Huskies in the standings.

Most recently, the Dinos swept the Dogs in Saskatoon on Feb. 3 and 4.

Huskies head coach Dave Adolph believes that the Saskatchewan squad that shows up this weekend will be the same one that has been dominating the playoffs and not the one that handed Calgary two wins last month.

“We weren’t very good against Calgary when we played them here,” said Adolph. “The guys were a little disjointed but I think we’re back.”

“We played some good hockey this week,” added Bortis. “I think we just have to keep playing the way we have. I don’t think we have to worry about them having beaten us four times, but more about what we do as a team.”

In order to continuing winning, Saskatchewan will need to fire a lot of shots at Calgary goaltender Dustin Butler as the Dinos’ large defenders often do a great job of limiting high-quality scoring chances.

“They’re the deepest, biggest team in the league and they play the game with a great deal of purpose in terms of allowing Butler to see pucks. It’s hard to score. It’s hard to get shots on Butler and I think that’s going to be our challenge all week,” said Adolph.

The Canada West final kicks off at 7 p.m. on Friday, March 9 at Rutherford Rink in Saskatoon.

sports

March 8, 2012 • the sheaf • thesheaf.com/sports

Huskies capture conference bronze Miyazaki wins third-straight defensive award

•15

sports in brief Keenan MacDougall lights up CFL evaluation camp

Riley Humbert of the Huskies looks for a shot as the Cascades’ Sam Kurath defends.

COLE GUENTER

It was the combination of an established veteran and a motivated rookie that led the Huskies women’s basketball team to a bronze medal March 3 and 4 at the Canada West Final Four tournament in Regina.

The veteran came in the form of the Dogs’ best player throughout the regular season, Katie Miyazaki. The fifth-year guard not only won her thirdstraight Canada West defensive player of the year award, but also earned a conference first team all-star mention for her strong performance this year.

On the weekend, Miyazaki stepped up and performed like she has all season, leading the team onto the court in their first match against the No. 2 ranked UBC Thunderbirds. She set the tone for that game, recording 20 points and a game-high six steals.

The T-Birds came prepared, though, and a close game through three quarters of play suddenly became one-sided when UBC went on an 11-2 run early

in the fourth quarter to go up 16 points.

The dominance continued from there when the T-Birds’ Kristjana Young peaked late in the game with 11 points in the final 10 minutes, steering her team to a 72-55 victory.

With the loss, the Huskies found themselves facing the Fraser Valley Cascades for the bronze medal. It was during this game that the motivated rookie, Dalyce Emmerson, took control. A player who has been turning heads all season, Emmerson continues to improve game after game and was awarded for her regular season play by being named the Canada West rookie of the year.

She tallied 11 points and 8 rebounds in the bronze medal match.

The Huskies got off to a quick start, holding a 33-26 lead at the half.

They kept the momentum rolling, maintaining a 14-point lead early in the fourth quarter. Another late game rush by the opponents, however, put Saskatchewan on their heels. The Cascades closed the gap to two points

Marc Messett/The Carillon

with just 36 seconds to go in the game.

A vital rebound picked up by Emmerson kept the ball in the Dogs’ hands as time ran out and sealed a 7165 victory.

UBC went on to beat the previously undefeated Regina Cougars to clinch the gold medal. With the win, UBC gets an automatic berth in the Canadian Interuniversity Sport Championship tournament later this month.

Regina will have a chance to qualify for the championship in this weekend’s West Regional Tournament starting Friday, March 9 at the Physical Activity Complex in Saskatoon. The Huskies, being the host team, will also compete for a spot at nationals.

Saskatchewan kicks off the tournament against Concordia University at 6:15 p.m.

Tighten that ass!

Quick workouts to get you ready for summer SHARAI SIEMENS In the world of a university student, hours spent working out are few and far between. Between balancing class, homework and often a job, many students can’t find the time to hit the gym. It’s important, however, for students to fit exercise into their busy schedules not only for the health benefits, but also for the mental and emotional benefits.

According to the Canadian Physical Activity, Fitness and Lifestyle Approach Manual, only 34 per cent of Canadians between the ages of 25 and 55 meet the recommendations for practicing healthy, active living. The guide recommends performing one hour of low-intensity physical activity every day or 30-60 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise.

High-intensity workouts for 20 to 30 minutes, performed four to seven days a week, are also recommended.

“Not only does daily physical activity reduce risk of health issues but it also helps in managing stress, reducing anxiety and improving sleep,” said Keegan Sharp, a fourth-year University of Saskatchewan kinesiology student. “Obviously students deal with these issues every day so by

3

incorporating physical activity into your daily regime, one can improve their overall well-being.”

People can find it hard to squeeze in an hour of physical activity each day. By the time you pack your bags, drive to the gym, find parking and change into workout clothes, a half-hour of your time is already consumed. For students who can’t find the time to fit physical activity in their schedules, here are three quick workouts that do not require a gym and allow you to get out in that fresh, natural air.

1 2

Running intervals

Run hard for 30 seconds, followed by a slow jog recovery for 60 seconds.

Do this for 15 minutes. If feeling more advanced, double the times to one minute of sprinting and two minutes of recovery.

This exercise can also be done on the bike or elliptical.

Pyramid runs

Run one minute, walk one minute. Run two minutes, walk two minutes. Run three minutes, walk five minutes, then repeat while going back down the pyramid.

If you have trouble remembering the pyramid, just think 123-5-321.

Stair or hill workouts

This is a burner to get your butt in shape — literally. Run quickly up the stairs or up a hill and then walk or slowly jog back down. Do this three times, with a fiveminute rest between each set.

These workouts can all be adjusted accordingly to ability. Once mastered, you can move your reps up in each set. They only take 30 minutes of your time and are considered a high-intensity workout that can be done four to seven days a week.

“Going for an hour-long jog is considered low-moderate intensity, but a thirty minute or less workout at highintensity is more beneficial because it elevates your heart rate and makes your muscles work harder,” said Sharp. “Your body’s metabolism rate is higher one to two hours after these high intensity workouts so it will continue to burn carbohydrates stores and fats.”

University of Saskatchewan Huskie Keenan MacDougall put up an impressive performance at the Canadian Football League evaluation camp last weekend in Toronto.

The 6-2, 208-pound defensive back didn’t play last season with the Dogs because of an injury, but was in top form in front of CFL scouts.

MacDougall put up the best broad jump — a standing, forward jump of 10 feet 7.5 inches — of all 59 draft-eligible prospects and only missed the top five in two of the six events. He put up the second-best vertical jump, jumping 41.5-inches, and finished third in both the 40-yard dash and shuttle drill. He ran the 40 in 4.52 seconds.

MacDougall’s teammate on the Huskies, offensive lineman Ben Heenan, also put up strong numbers despite opting out of the event early after tweaking his left hip flexor.

He finished second amongst all players in the bench press, lifting 225-pounds a total of 32 times, and his 8 feet and 3 inches was good enough to beat all offensive linemen in the broad jump.

Heenan’s decision to opt out early is not expected to hurt his chances of being selected first overall in the CFL’s upcoming draft.

Bryce McCall, a Huskies defensive back, also participated in the camp. On the 225-pound bench, he finished second amongst all defensive backs behind only MacDougall, recording 20 reps.

MacDougall put up 23 reps.

U of S students rock the Tim Hortons Brier Tyler Lang and Mike Armstrong are taking a break from the books this week to compete for Team Saskatchewan in Canada’s top annual curling championship, the Tim Hortons Brier.

The two are full-time University of Saskatchewan students. Lang is a third-year kinesiology student while Armstrong is in his fourth year of biology.

Lang told the StarPhoenix that he’s willing to put his education on hold in order to succeed at the Brier.

“We’re having a little bit of a tough time juggling that but this could be a once-in-a-life-time thing,” he said.

“You want to do both but when something like this comes about you’ve just got to take that opportunity,” Armstrong said in the same StarPhoenix report.

At the time of the Sheaf’s publication, Team Saskatchewan sported a 2-4 record in the tournament. They had downed Prince Edward Island 8-4 and Quebec 6-5 but lost to British Columbia 6-5, Northwest Territories/Yukon 9-5, Alberta 6-3 and Ontario 7-5.

16• Sports

thesheaf.com/sports • the Sheaf • March 8, 2012

Spartans, T-Birds crowned champs

Justin Chin/The Queen’s Journal

The Trinity Western Spartans hoist the Tantramar Trophy for the second year in a row.

No. 1 Spartans win secondstraight men’s volleyball title

UBC captures its fifth national women’s championship in a row

BENJAMIN DEANS The Queen’s Journal (Queen’s University)

FRASER CALDWELL The Silhouette (McMaster University)

KINGSTON (CUP) — The Trinity Western Spartans won their second consecutive national championship March 4 with a 3-1 victory over the Laval Rouge et Or, establishing the Spartans as a powerhouse in Canadian university volleyball.

The last team to win back-toback Canadian Interuniversity Sport Tantramar Trophies was the Alberta Golden Bears in 2008 and 2009.

This was the Spartans’ third gold medal in seven championship appearances and the Rouge et Or’s fifth silver medal in 29 championship appearances. The thirdseeded Rouge et Or were the underdogs against the first-seeded Spartans — the Spartans only lost one game to Canadian competition all season.

The Rouge et Or came out strong in the first set, winning 25-19 as Laval fans taunted

Spartans outside hitter Steven Marshall, who made three reception errors during the set.

After a disappointing first set, however, the Spartans turned it around and won the second set 25-19 and the third set 25-17.

“We were a bit hesitant, a bit nervous, maybe all the pressure got to us finally, but eventually we got into it, then we became ourselves again,” Spartans’ captain Rudy Verhoeff said.

With the fourth set tied 2424, the two teams changed leads four times before deciding a winner. The Rouge et Or made late service errors and couldn’t put the game away. Marshall, recovering from his earlier mistakes, made back-to-back kills and Trinity Western took the set 30-28.

Verhoeff was the Spartans’ leading scorer with 13 kills.

Laval first-team All-Canadian Karl De Grandpré led the Rouge et Or with 18 kills.

HAMILTON (CUP) — It was hardly the dominant run of years past, but the UBC Thunderbirds claimed their fifth consecutive national women’s volleyball title at the expense of the Alberta Pandas on March 4.

Battling back from a twoset-to-one deficit in front of a large and energized crowd at McMaster University's Burridge Gym on Sunday night, the Thunderbirds capped their comeback victory with a block on Alberta’s rookie standout Alena Omelchenko.

The opening frame saw the Pandas take an early 10-6 lead as UBC began to misfire from the outside.

The Pandas’ early lead had dwindled to just a single point late in the game at 20-19.

UBC seized their opportunity and completed the first-set comeback with a double block for a 25-21 win.

Despite the setback, Alberta looked reinvigorated as the

second set got underway. They won the first five points of the frame thanks largely to some heroic backcourt defence. That early push proved vital for the Pandas, as they would wrap up the one-sided frame by a 10-point margin.

Having leveled the match, Alberta immediately set to work in the third set. The surging Pandas caused havoc for the defending champions from the service line and were immaculate on the attacking front, playing the entire third set without committing a hitting error. The Pandas won the third set 25-19.

UBC would comeback in the fourth set, however, by jumping out to a 12-9 lead.

The Panda attack that had seemed nearly invincible in the third frame was comparatively vulnerable in the fourth. After Omelchenko fell into a waiting UBC double block, Alberta fired wide to give the set to the Thunderbirds and send the championship match to a deciding fifth set.

UBC started quickly in the

fifth and won the first three points of the abbreviated period. The Pandas would recover their form well to close the early gap, but after CIS player of the year Kyla Richey found the floor with a powerful cross-court swing, UBC led 8-7 at the changeover.

Alberta would rush a late attack only for Omelchenko to push an attempted tip into a waiting UBC double block and lose the set 15-12. The only thing left to do for Alberta was watch as the rejected attack found the floor and the Thunderbirds mobbed the court to celebrate their fifth consecutive national championship.

— With files from McMaster University sports information

March 8, 2012 • the sheaf • thesheaf.com/arts

Arts •17

Bullies from the schoolyard to the MPAA Ratings controversy brings light to problems in Hollywood

A brief history of the MPAA rating system

The

MPAA introduced its rating system in 1966 as a replacement for the Hays Code, which had been in effect since 1934.

The Hays Code itself came into effect because Hollywood feared government censorship, so they imposed a code upon themselves that placed very strict restrictions on the sort of content allowed in movies.

It began to lose its teeth in the late 1950s with the rise of independent theatres and the influx of foreign films. The death knell was probably when Alfred Hitchcock flagrantly defied the code in Psycho and still got wide distribution.

MPAA Brianna Whitmore/Graphics Editor

BLAIR WOYNARSKI No one likes to be bullied. It happened to many of us as young pups oin the schoolyard, and it continues to happen, especially with the rise of cyber-bullying in the information age.

So it was natural that an intrepid filmmaker would have the desire to make a hard-hitting documentary on the subject of bullying.

Unfortunately, it seems our desire to click our tongue at the young people of today is superseded by our pathological need to present a sanitized version of everything to our children.

The hard-hitting documentary in question is Bully by Lee Hirsch, which follows the lives of five children in middle and high school. It was made to address the issue of school bullying, and was inspired by several suicides by bullying victims in the recent past.

More than likely, we all saw movies about bullying in school, but Hirsch’s specific vision was one that didn’t pull any punches.

He wanted to show all the brutal details that went on in schools across the country, as opposed to other bullying awareness videos that tend to oversimplify and clean up the presentation at the expense of actually hitting the truth of the matter. This frankness has now started to cause problems.

Major Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein picked the film up for distribution, but soon ran afoul of the Motion Pictures Association of America’s ratings board. Bully was quickly slapped with an R-rating for coarse language. The Weinstein Company immediately made an appeal against the decision, since the intention had always been to show the film in schools and an R-rating would effectively prohibit schools from showing it — all because language used by schoolchildren in the movie is deemed far too inappropriate for them to hear.

Harvey Weinstein has called the rating “outrageous” and has made an appeal for a PG-13 rating, which would allow the film to be shown in schools.

“We hope smart people come to their senses,” he said.

Others have joined in the fight. Katy Butler, a high school student in Michigan,

has gotten over 200,000 signatures for an online petition to change the rating.

American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten has also rallied behind the film, hoping that the “MPAA can take a stand against bullying and ensure this powerful film reaches children across the country.”

However, the MPAA and NATO (that is, the National Association of Theatre Owners) are not budging. In response, Harvey Weinstein has threatened to pull his movies from the MPAA ratings board and releasing them unrated in theatres. NATO president John Fithian issued a counter-response saying that if Weinstein were to withdraw from the MPAA, “I will have no choice but to encourage my theater owner members to treat unrated movies from The Weinstein Company in the same manner as they treat unrated movies from anyone else.”

This would mean they would be treated as NC-17 and not get distribution. This response has been viewed as petty browbeating, essentially jacking up the rating of movies because Weinstein has the audacity to question the ratings board. It would appear that the MPAA and NATO are, themselves, being bullies.

The problem is that the MPAA does have very strict rules about profanity in movies. If the word “fuck” is used more than once, the film is given an R-rating. This is what led to the soundly inoffensive The King’s Speech being assigned an R-rating in the United States. Profanity is quantifiable in a way that other aspects are not (there is no strict delineation for how many litres of blood may be spilled in a PG-13 movie, for instance), and that makes an appeal essentially impossible.

Weinstein’s appeal is based on the worthiness of the subject matter and the merit in showing the film in schools, while Fithian responds, "…were the MPAA and NATO to waive the ratings rules whenever we believed that a particular movie had merit, … we would no longer be neutral parties applying consistent standards."

Perhaps the problem is larger than the MPAA. After all, even if the rating was relaxed to PG-13, any school would be fully capable of refusing to show it for the very same reason it was given an R-rating. So the

problem then is a strange cultural obsession with the notion of foul language, to the extent that it supersedes all other concerns. Parents, it seems, are less concerned about the very real and damaging effects of bullying in school than they are about their child being allowed to hear a word that he or she already uses on a daily basis.

From a simple, Kantian viewpoint, the MPAA is doing the correct thing in applying a consistent standard. But maybe the standard is wrong. Hirsch’s documentary is made about school kids and was intended to be seen by school kids, but first it has to pass by a table of men and women aged 50-plus who have the job of deciding what school kids are ready to be exposed to. The dissonance here is troubling, and the controversy erupting over this film indicates that people are less willing to accept these decisions.

Bully will lose its own battle, but it may be a bellwether of the serious changes that need to happen to the MPAA in the near future.

For more information on the movie Bully, go thebullyproject.com.

ratings are G, PG, PG-13, R and NC-17. PG-13 was added in 1984 in response to complaints about the content being allowed in PG movies. NC-17 — no one under 17 admitted, regardless of parental accompaniment — was added in 1990 to replace the X-rating which had gained too much of a stigma for its association with porn and had fallen out of use. Unfortunately, if there was ever an attempt to legitimize the NC-17 rating, it didn’t work, and theatres continued to treat it with the same stigma given the X-rating, which meant most would not carry those films.

The

MPAA has come under fire for some of its ratings. The NC-17 rating is often seen as a method of suppressing independent films, as happened with the recent Shame and nearly happened with the Oscar-nominated Blue Valentine. It is also criticized for the fact that sexual content and profanity are dealt with much more harshly than intense violence.

18• Arts

thesheaf.com/arts • the Sheaf • March 8, 2012

John Carter finally arrives on the big screen Andrew Stanton and Taylor Kitsch discuss adapting the sci-fi classic

Walt Disney Pictures

The fantastic spacecraft of John Carter are the results of hundreds of hours of work by concept artists, production designers and computer animators.

AREN BERGSTROM Arts Editor It has been 100 years since the character first appeared in print, but over that time John Carter of Mars has never made his way to the big screen.

That makes Disney’s upcoming John Carter the first film adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ classic science-fiction adventure novel A Princess of Mars. It follows Civil War veteran John Carter, who finds himself transported to Mars (or Barsoom, as the Martians call it), gains super powers and does battle against a race of 15-foot tall, fourarmed barbarians in order to save a princess.

A film adaptation of the novel has been suffering various forms of development hell for the past century. Looney Tunes animator Bob Clampitt tried to make an animated version back in the 1930s, with input from Burroughs himself, but failed, while John McTiernan and Tom Cruise tried and failed to make their own version in the 1980s.

Despite various filmmakers’ interest in the science-fiction series, a production never materialized. The only elements of John Carter of Mars that have worked their way onto film are through movies it influenced, like Avatar and Star Wars.

The Sheaf was fortunate enough to take part in a conference call roundtable with John Carter’s director Andrew Stanton and star Taylor Kitsch on Feb. 21 and get their thoughts on their science-fiction blockbuster.

Pixar animator Andrew Stanton makes the move to live-action Andrew Stanton is the Oscar-winning director of WALL-E and Finding Nemo and a Pixar animator. While he has worked exclusively in animation until now, John Carter marks his first move into live-action.

Although there are differences between the two mediums, Stanton says the process of switching from animation to live-action is actually far simpler than most people would suspect.

“People think that when you work on an animated film, it's as if [you’re] talking to a bunch of computers [your] whole life,” he said. “I actually talk to 200 people every day, 200 people that have different jobs, like how to do the lighting, the camera, the

Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins) appeals for help from John Carter (Taylor Kitsch). costume work. So it's very similar, actually, in live-action. I'm talking to people that do the camera, the costumes, the actors, and it's just that you're doing it outside instead of inside.”

Stanton says there are also certain advantages to be had by transitioning from animation to a live-action film heavy with special effects.

“Making John Carter was basically making two movies,” he said. “One was the liveaction side that took almost a year to do and then the computer graphics side, because half my main characters are completely CG and half the world is CG, and that was another year-and-a-half of work and that happened after I shot the live-action.”

Stanton got the gig after Disney regained the film rights after a Paramount production failed. He convinced Disney that they had to

make a movie of it, and that he’d be happy to do it himself once he was done with WALL-E. “Suddenly they said yes and gave it to me before I even knew what was going on,” Stanton said. “And it was sort of one of those ‘be careful what you wish for’ moments. It was my own pressure on myself, of like, ‘OK, now you can put your money where your mouth is and should put on the screen what you always wanted to see.’ ” Stanton has been a fan of the John Carter of Mars series since he was young, having read all the books and wanting to see a movie made of them throughout the years. This definitely made the project near and dear to him, and he didn’t want to adapt the series incorrectly, but he was able to avoid the intense scrutiny other adaptations have gotten from fans, like the Harry Potter and The Lord

Walt Disney Pictures

of the Rings films.

“It’s slowly been a dwindling base and so I knew there wasn’t this massive social pressure about how it was executed,” he said.

This is mostly due to the story having been around for longer than most people have been alive. Although the story is a century old, Stanton didn’t worry about trying to update it to make it relevant for a modern audience.

“My interest was... the timeless human aspect about the character and the story that will always speak to me, no matter what’s going on in the world,” he said.

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John CArter cont. on

Arts

March 8, 2012 • the sheaf • thesheaf.com/arts

•19

A visceral and stunning Coriolanus Ralph Fiennes’ Shakespearean action film is badass AREN BERGSTROM Arts Editor

A squad of soldiers storms a compound in the midst of an Eastern European urban landscape. The city is torn apart, blasted to pieces by mortar rounds. Bullets fly through the air and the soldiers are hesitant to move forward, but their commander urges them on into the fray.

This doesn’t sound like a scene from a Shakespeare play, but that’s exactly what it is in Ralph Fiennes’ updated version of the lesser-known Shakespearean tragedy Coriolanus.

Fiennes, best known for his dramatic turns in Schindler’s List and The English Patient, and for playing the villainous Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter franchise, both acts and directs this film with a script from John Logan (Hugo). Instead of the ancient MARCH Roman setting, Fiennes and Logan place the story in a vaguely Eastern European “city called Rome” (the film was shot in Belgrade, Serbia). Out are the tunics and sandals, and in are machine guns, tactical squads, political pundits and newscasters. The one thing that remains the same as the original play is the language — a wise decision on Fiennes and Logan’s part.

Fiennes plays Caius Martius, a celebrated Roman general enforcing a breadMARCH ration when the film begins. The citizens of the republic are protesting the ration and see Martius as the chief enemy of the people. As the riot police move in to quell them, Martius marches forward and yells down the rioters alone, showing his contempt for the masses.

His words cut into them like swords.

From this first scene, Fiennes’ intensity as Martius is on full display. While the film is certainly interesting from a filmmaking standpoint (a rarity for film adaptations of MARCH plays), the performances are much of the film’s highlights. Fiennes, in particular, is blistering. One battle scene, in which he emerges from a cloud of smoke, his bald head splattered in blood, raging at his soldiers to continue their assault, is electrifying. This is the kind of scenery-chewing you could watch

aboriginal

achievement

week

Supplied

•2012 bears a striking resemblance to a snake-nosed fantasy fiend.

Caius Martius 19-23 for hours. And the character is fascinating: neither a clear-cut hero, nor a villain.

As Martius racks up military successes, the Senate grants him the title of Coriolanus and elects him consul. However, this also engenders hatred from other powerful Romans who scheme to have him banished, using the people’s fickleness to their own advantage.

Too often film adaptations of plays feel •2012 19-23 like they are merely filmed stage productions, and this is almost always the case with Shakespeare adaptations — Kenneth Branagh’s films notwithstanding. The reason for this is that most don’t want to meddle with Shakespeare’s play, leaving solely the words to do the heavy lifting. Why edit a monologue when if you merely film the actor performing the lines in an unbroken shot, the result will be adequate?

Because this is a film, not a stage play — •2012 19-23 that’s why.

While the power of the words cannot be denied (which is why it was so important for Fiennes and Logan to leave the Shakespearean language intact), the medium of film itself cannot be ignored. This is where Coriolanus triumphs.

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week

It is primarily a visceral film, something that cannot be said for any Shakespeare adaptations save Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V and Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet.

The film is almost entirely shaky-cam, and although the gimmick has lost much of its potency as it has gotten overused in the past few years, it works effectively here. The camera allows for the action scenes to be potent and intense, while making the dramatic scenes extremely intimate. The decision to film most personal scenes almost entirely in

achievement

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MARCH 19-23•2012

week

Reflect aboriginal achievement Celebrate week Connect on traditions and ceremonies

Attend events.

Win a laptop.

Aboriginal student andMARCH community 19-23 achievement •2012

with the University of Saskatchewan community There are more than 20 scheduled events to choose from during Aboriginal Achievement Week and everyone is welcome. For more information visit our website or call (306) 966-5790.

FOR A COMPLETE LIST OF EVENTS AND TIMES VISIT:

Pick up an event-tracking booklet at the Aboriginal Students’ Centre. If you attend seven or more events you will be entered to win a laptop and other prizes.

students.usask.ca/aboriginal/week

Coriolanus is currently playing at the Roxy Theatre.

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close-up also heightens the immediacy of the play. For Shakespeare, this is certainly a badass film.

It also helps to have a marvelous supporting cast round out the characters.

Vanessa Redgrave as Martius’s mother is terrific. She comes from an honoured acting family and brings heft and tenacity to every scene. Jessica Chastain and Brian Cox are also great as Martius’ wife and a Roman senator. Even Gerard Butler is pretty good as the Volscian leader, getting to do a little scenery-chewing, which he had already demonstrated he had a knack for back in 300.

This is Ralph Fiennes’ first film as director and although he still seems occasionally hesitant in his shot setups and pace, he brings a vision to Coriolanus that makes it more than just an accomplished adaptation, but an accomplished film in its own right.

Not every modernization of Shakespeare works, but Coriolanus does so exceedingly well. Partially through the performances and partially through how Fiennes extracts the visceral essence of the play, this is a terrific film that works the material in a new, ingenious way. Also, this is Shakespeare.

It never hurts to have impeccable source material.

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20• Arts

thesheaf.com/arts • the Sheaf • March 8, 2012

SSX has returned to your console Popular snowboarding video game is fast and fun NICHOLAS KINDRACHUK

SSX, one of the most renowned arcade snowboarding games of all time, returns to your console with plenty of speed, frustration and a ton of dubstep.

The SSX series flourished over the previous decade amid a gaming environment with an intense over-saturation of extreme sports games. That time has passed and EA has revived the series with some pretty strong results.

One of the big new features of the game is its dynamic mountain ranges that EA modelled on real mountains. In the game’s brief single-player mode you tackle nine of the mountains called Deadly Descents. In this mode, you are introduced to all the different playable characters, each with individual statistics making them better for either races or trick events.

This mode also features a horrifyingly bad tacked-on story.

It is so awful that they introduce each character’s back-story through a motion comic. Not only are motion comics a terrible way to tell a story, but the ones here don’t even have vocal dialogue.

Granted, having voice actors read the terrible writing probably wouldn’t be that great either. It all just feels slapped together at the last minute. There was no real reason to have a story in the first place.

All you need to know for this mode is that you are attempting to survive the nine deadliest descents in the world. This will take you from mountains like Everest to Kilimanjaro.

Story aside, the Deadly Descents are pretty unique and require a special strategy to survive each one. Each descent has a threat. The first one you face is trees blocking the track and in order to have a good chance of surviving the descent, you need to equip your character with armour

18

John Carter cont. from

John Carter marks Taylor Kitsch’s first time as leading man

Filling the shoes of this timeless adventure hero is Canadian actor Taylor Kitsch, best known for his role on the television series Friday Night Lights and his brief appearance as Gambit in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Kitsch is by no means an established leading man and banking a film with a rumoured budget of $250 million on a television actor is a risky venture.

The transition from television to film has been a relatively easy one for Kitsch, as his first few acting jobs were actually on film productions.

However skilled professional snowboarders are, you’ll never catch Shaun White doing a trick jump like this. so they can take a bit of a beating.

Some of these gimmicks work very well and add a new degree of intensity to the snowboarding.

The other ones present a bit of an issue. With this reboot of SSX, EA has gone and made everything bigger and faster — much faster. It feels like another EA franchise, Burnout, beautifully capturing a sense of speed so great that it barely feels like you are in control. Factor that into snowboarding that asks for some pretty extreme precision, and it no longer feels like you have any control at all.

The most frustrating descents are ones that require you to equip a headlamp, which is supposed to light your way but instead only does a great job of not showing you the various precipices where you can fall to your death.

Some of the the descents also require an oxygen tank due to the

high altitude. Run out of oxygen and your snowboarder blacks out.

Unfortunately, blacking out the whole screen makes any kind of quick progress feel impossible.

Still, the extra dimension of having a survival event in the mix along with racing and tricks adds some much-needed variety to the game.

The way to acquire these survival tools, along with new boards and suits, is through an RPG-like loot system. Before every race you can buy boards from a store with a random assortment of wares. Each piece of equipment has its own individual stats that make it better for certain events or terrain.

Equipment is colour-coded by rarity in a manner very similar to the way games like Diablo organize equipment.

Each character has an individual level as well. Obviously, the

“In film, a big difference is, we can do a whole 12-hour day and do one scene,” he said. “If I’m playing Riggins [from Friday Night Lights] it’s — I’ve done 17 pages in one day. So I think that you can really take your time and break it down a lot more.”

Kitsch also had to adjust to reacting to creatures and objects that weren’t physically there while filming on a green-screen.

“Once we get the scene on John Carter, we have to do it another 10 takes, plus, for the effects people, for them to get it right to make sure we can get through all that,” he said. “I think when you’re acting to nothing, it’s tough. I’ve got big speeches in this film, when you’re looking at clouds. It’s tough to really connect to anything. It just kind of demands that much more of you.”

Although Kitsch has refused

to let the history of the character distract him from the role at hand, he still got a certain satisfaction from portraying a sci-fi icon.

“It’s very flattering to be a part of it,” he said. “To breathe life into [Andrew Stanton’s] childhood dream, I think that’s a pretty amazing thing to do and be a part of.”

John Carter, a character who leaps hundreds of feet in the air and takes on entire armies singlehandedly, also proved an extremely physical role. Although computer graphics and stunt crews helped the actor achieve these feats, the role was still very taxing. Kitsch even apparently lost 30 pounds due to complications from the rigorous training and diet the role required.

“You wake up at 4:30 in the morning every day, and you train, and it goes back to boxing, to a lot of the core stuff of the wire work,

higher the level the better equipment they can get. You purchase these items with credits earned from completing various events. It is definitely a fun system that makes the gear part of the game far more interesting.

The speed and feel of the snowboarding is great, despite not feeling like actual snowboarding in the process. It is one of the main aspects that will keep you coming back long after the roughly five hours it takes to complete the Deadly Descent mode.

Other features that will keep players coming back for more are the Explore and Global Event modes. These use an allencompassing leaderboard of sorts, a feature introduced in Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit.

The leaderboard notifies players whenever their score has been beaten. It is simple, but extremely

and then the sword training,” he said.

Kitsch was on a strict diet for 11 months that included tons of protein in order to sustain the physical work required for the role.

“And man, I can bore you guys all day with what I ate,” he said.

Kitsch took a lot away from working with Stanton. Kitsch has even said that he would refuse to do any sequels, which Stanton and cowriters Mark Andrews and Michael Chabon have already planned, if Stanton did not direct them.

“I would go to war with this guy,” he said.

The sequels have yet to be greenlit and Stanton doesn’t want do jinx the production by seeing them as sure bets. It still remains to be seen whether the blockbuster starring this relatively unknown actor based on a dated science-fiction property will even garner a sequel, let alone

supplied

addictive.

Explore mode features 150 different variations of the mountains and has you competing with friends for a high score while Global Event mode has people across the world competing simultaneously for large sums of credits.

SSX changes just enough of its gaming formula to make things fun and fresh, while keeping the components that made it beloved in the first place. It will definitely play on nostalgia for old fans but there’s enough for newcomers as well. While the single-player largely feels like an extended tutorial, there are plenty of slopes in the other modes that give the game some legs.

Ulimately, however, the SSX reboot is a lot like dubstep: fast and fun, but missing the necessary depth to make it something truly great.

two. However, Kitsch is already worn out by the promotional period that preceded the film’s release.

“I spent the last 20 hours in my home in Austin,” he said. “That was the first time in a month that I’ve had that. And I won’t get to go back for another month plus. And jet lag is no joke, by the way. It is no joke. So you lose a job here or there because of lack of availability and that’s the last thing you want to lose a job for.

“But, you know, I’ll put the violin away. You just stay focused, you get through it and it helps when you love the movie and you love that work that you put into it.”

John Carter plays at Galaxy Cinemas starting March 9.

Crossword

March 8, 2012 • the sheaf • thesheaf.com/crossword Across

1- Deadly black snake 6- Westernmost of the Aleutians 10- School orgs.

14- _ the hole 15- Asian sea 16- Wash 17- Hospital 19- Banned apple spray 20- Curse 21- Beethoven’s birthplace 22- Bracelet site 23- Sun Devils’ sch.

24- Mental acuteness 26- Seldom 28- Ancient Palestinian 29- 1836 siege site 30- Gulf War missile 33- Relaxed 38- _ kleine Nachtmusik 39- State not to “mess with”

42- Beast 47- Get stuck in the mud 48- Asexual reproduction 52- Mohawksporting actor 53- Sam, e.g.

54- Farm team 55- Decree 56- Aforementioned 57- Self-contained 59- Art Deco designer 60- Parentheses, essentially 61- Red cosmetic 62- Textile worker 63- Sneaky guy?

64- Church areas

Down

1- Eyelash cosmetic 2- Random 3- Pertaining to measure 4- Prejudice 5- Aardvark morsel 6- Brother of Moses 7- Triple 8- Mock 9- Einstein’s birthplace 10- Flora 11- Innovation of the late 20’s 12- Celtic paradise 13- Tranquil 18- Comply 22- Small batteries 24- Agricultural implement 25- Cincinnati club 27- Comedian Philips 30- Hindu honorific 31- 100 yrs.

32- Application 34- Soccer legend

•21

35- Salt Lake City hoopsters 36- “Everybody Hurts” band 37- Eminent 40- Place in order 41- Lounges 42- Entertained 43- Consisting of nine 44- Stir up 45- Crumble 46- Bio bit 47- Bandage 49- _ Dame 50- Strictly accurate 51- Have a feeling 55- Failure 57- Dupe 58- Altar in the sky

For Chad so loved his bros that he gave his one and only beer bong, that whoever drank from it shall not perish but have eternal life.

Puzzle provided by BestCrosswords.com. Used with permission. For a daily electronic crossword, go to thesheaf.com/crossword.

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22• comics

thesheaf.com • the Sheaf • March 8, 2012

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Send Brianna some comics!

She loves when students contribute to the paper in some way.

Maybe one about lady-butts? graphics@thesheaf.com

•23

March 8, 2012 • the sheaf • thesheaf.com/advertise

CAMPUS CHAT

What’s the grossest food you’ve ever eaten?

“Sesame ball.”

“A Minnow.”

Ore Olubobokun

Matt Nyberg

Fake News of the Week Men’s Lingerie Football League causes public outcry

Last Thursday the Lingerie Football League announced it will expand its brand to include a men’s version of LFL. Human rights activists — and really anyone with any shred of decency — are protesting the league’s decision.

The new league will feature men weighing 250 pounds or more, running naked save for jockstraps, defiling the once-sacred tradition of throwing a pigskin around a lawn.

Jan Walton, the chairperson for The Human Fund, a non-profit organization described as “people helping people,” says the league is a disgrace.

“The Men’s LFL demeans not only the male players, who are treated like mere sex objects, but also the fans, who must witness these corpulent figures crash into each other wearing little more than their birthday suits,” Walton said.

But league owner Rupert Goldstein maintains that the league will be fun for the whole family.

“The games are a riot! Bring the kids.

Bring grandma. Whether you come to see the athletic excellence, or the players’ hunky thunder thighs, you will not be disappointed,” he assured reporters.

While the players are only paid in beer and pretzels, many of the league’s biggest stars say they feel grateful to play lingerie football.

As Reggie Ray, the 419 pound fan-favourite eloquently puts it, “Duh, now I plays football.

Not work at KFC. Me happy. Me make momma proud.”

The lingerie league is attracting interest from the sports establishment as well, with New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady announcing his intent to join the Lingerie League earlier this week. However, the Lingerie League rejected Brady.

“He’s beautiful — a little too beautiful if

“I chewed on a piece of some undefined deep-fried skeleton”

“Blue steak.”

Allan Walter

Greg Reese you ask me,” said Goldstein. “We just think he would make the other players feel selfconscious.”

Canadians

agree: politics

require too much thinking

A recent poll finds an overwhelming 86 per cent of Canadians agree with the statement: “Politics is too hard to think about, and too boring, and I’d really rather not be bothered by it.”

In wake of the study, many Canadian media outlets are announcing they will no longer cover politics.

“Our job is to spread news that really matters to people,” said John Stackhouse, editor-in-chief of the Globe and Mail. “Right now the important news is funny cat videos and celebrity sex scandals. Government budgets? Foreign policy? Who gives a damn.

I know I don’t.”

When Parliament convened last Thursday to discuss the study, the house went into an uproar when Stephen Harper criticized parliament’s very existence, saying, “Mr. Speaker, what do we really do here? I mean,

what is all this? A bunch of people in suits screaming at one another. We’ve done this for hundreds of years and where has it led us?

Nowhere, absolutely nowhere.”

Many Canadians seemingly agree with this sentiment, burdened as they are by life’s many challenges. Canadian politics, many say, is probably one of the most boring things you could spend your few hours of leisure getting into.

“I have three bratty kids, ulcers and an affair I’m trying to juggle with my loveless marriage,” explained Daniel Sacks, a 42-yearold investment banker in Calgary. “You think I have leftover energy to keep track of this shit? Hell no.”

Ironically, while North Americans are largely abandoning the mundane and ultimately useless concept of democracy, large parts of the Middle East have been frittering away their time and their very lives fighting for this very inconvenience, showing yet again why they are a primitive people.

Hello New Neighbour!

There’s a brand new Conexus Branch!

The Community

Come in for a coffee at the corner of 8th and Preston (in the Grosvenor Park Centre), and see what we can do for you.

4515c2 Saskatoon Print-Sheaf v2.indd 2

12-02-23 2:54 PM

24•

thesheaf.com/advertise • the Sheaf • March 8, 2012