The Silhouette - January 23, 2014

The

This is our house? A3

Silhouette

McMASTER UNIVERSITY’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER

Thursday, January 23, 2014 VOL. 84 NO. 19

One of these students is your next MSU President

YOSEIF HADDAD / PHOTO EDITOR

With voting to take place Jan. 28-30, we break down what each candidate can offer you PAGE A6-A7 STUDENT FINANCE

Student groups respond to Ontario’s ‘30 off’ tuition grant expansion The Ontario Liberals announced on Jan. 20 that they are extending the ‘30 percent off ’ tuition grant eligibility to cover about 5,000 more students.

Co-op students in their final year of a five-year program and students in private postsecondary institutions who qualify for the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) are now also eligible for a 30 percent off rebate on their tuition.

“For co-op students, while their program lasts five years [instead of four], a good part of that is taken up by work experience. When the 30-off tuition program was originally constituted, this was kind of an anomaly that was determined afterwards,” said Brad Duguid, minister of training, colleges and universities.

In spite of the expanded

eligibility requirements, provincial student lobbying groups have pointed out perceived shortcomings of the program.

After the announcement, the Canadian Federation of Students—Ontario released a statement saying they do not support the extension of the grant to students in private career colleges and institutions.

“The issue is that the government is funding private institutions rather than prioritizing public postsecondary education and making it more affordable,” said Anna Goldfinch, national executive representative for the CFS-Ontario.

Goldfinch expressed concern over the ministry’s oversight of private career colleges, referencing public scrutiny over the ministry’s enforcement of the Private Career Colleges Act. In 2009, for instance, the Ontario Ombudsman’s office found that the ministry had “inadequate oversight” of Bestech

Academy Inc. The owner had falsely advertised the academy as a registered private career college.

The CFS-Ontario maintains that while the expansion of the grant could help 5,000 more students, the funds would be better allocated to institutions’ operating grants toward a 30 percent reduction of tuition over three years.

Duguid said the Ontario government is committed to providing targeted funding to lower-middle income students in the form of financial assistance.

“We want the funding that we’re providing to lower-middle income students to go directly to those students, rather than the institutions. That’s what’s important about the 30 off grant,” Duguid said.

Spencer Graham, a member of the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance’s steering committee, said he was surprised the government would extend

the grant eligibility to students in private career colleges, but said OUSA still supports the expansion of the grant.

“OUSA believes increases to base operating budgets is important and that remains a priority for us. That doesn’t mean we’re coming out against the increased Ontario tuition grant eligibility, because it does help students. It’s not necessarily an either-or,” Graham said.

OUSA continues to lobby for expansion of the tuition grant. The grant currently covers students who attend college or university up to four years after they graduate from high school, and those in a five-year co-op program.

“That policy serves as a barrier to a number of students who attend postsecondary education after the four years after high school are up,” Graham said.

“Particularly this speaks to students who have dependents

The candidates argue their case in a series of campaign columns

What does it take to be a clown? Hear it from the source

How one hockey player ditched his skates for volleyball success

ANDY brings up the rear with the final five top 10 movies and albums of the past year

Anqi Shen Online Editor

PAGE A9

PAGE B7

PAGE B1

and children. We also see that Aboriginal learners tend to wait a number of years before entering postsecondary education. The grant doesn’t cover those two types of students, who face particular barriers,” he said.

OUSA’s pre-budget submission to the Ontario government also recommends that the grant should offer 35 percent off tuition, up from 30 percent.

Currently, eligible students can save $1,730 in tuition on average for degree programs and $790 for diploma or certificate programs. The deadline to apply for the grant for the winter semester is March 1, 2014. According to the Ontario government, 230,000 students received the tuition grant last year.

About 310,000 were eligible before the expansion of the program. @anqi_shen

the S ’ T N E D I S E PR E G PA Referendum 2014 Your Voice: The Bus Pass and Health Plan Jeff Doucet VP Finance vpfinance@msu.mcmaster.ca

ext. 24109

As student leaders, we often find ourselves explaining to students what the MSU does for undergraduates here at McMaster. We launch into thorough explanations of the McMaster Students Union, explaining our services, our businesses and the impacts of our lobbying efforts. This is especially important during Welcome Week as students are introduced to the University and the MSU for the first time.

msumcmaster.ca/yourvoice

I quickly realized that no service provided by the MSU prompts as many questions as our Health and Dental plans or HSR Transit agreement. Students are often surprised to learn that the MSU provides these services at such a low cost to students. Many students are no longer covered by their parents’ health insurance once they turn 18. Our Health and Dental plans provide an essential safety blanket, helping to ensure that a student’s studies are not derailed by an unexpected medical emergency.

These two important services are being put to referendum during this year’s Presidential election, and it is vital that you learn about the options and make an informed vote next week.

Every three years, the MSU sends the HSR agreement to referendum. This year, the HSR referendum will feature additional options to those seen in the past. We worked hard to negotiate on behalf of students with the HSR in order to present students with potential improvements to their bus pass. Specifically, it will feature the options of adding new features to the student package regarding summer service (as a 12 month pass), as well as rush hour service and late-night service. I personally believe we have delivered great value for students as our bus pass continues to be one of the least expensive in the province, and I am excited to see what students think about the potential options.

Last year’s Student Representative Assembly voted to send our Health plan to referendum to ask students about potential increases to health insurance. This year, the Health plan referendum will offer a series of YES/NO questions to several new coverage options available, including vision care, oral contraceptive coverage and extended health care services under the MSU plan. Regardless of selection, the MSU plan will continue to operate on the OPTOUT basis.

While the Presidential election will directly impact the organization for a year, the outcome of the referendum will have a multi-year impact on McMaster students. The HSR pass will not be renewed for another three years, and the health plan will not go back to referendum until it is initiated again. I encourage you all to get informed about the referendum by visiting msumcmaster.ca/yourvoice to read all of the details.

The President’s Page is sponsored by the McMaster Students Union. It is a space used to communicate with the student body about the projects, goals and agenda of the MSU Board of Directors.

www.msumcmaster.ca Spencer Graham VP (Education)

David Campbell President

Anna D’Angela VP (Administration)

Jeff Doucet VP (Finance)

fb.com/MSUMcMaster @MSU_McMaster

Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014

theSil.ca

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Bill Nye on why we need more scientists in part three of our interview video series, this Sunday at 6 p.m. on THESIL.CA

Editors Tyler Welch & Rachel Faber & Tomi Milos Email news@thesil.ca @theSilhouette Phone 905.525.9140 x27117

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Forsyth house rezoning met with opposition from Westdale community $735k home to be made into offices, student lounge space

the roof and windows will be put on hold until the zoning matter is resolved. In the meantime, the property has been added to McMaster’s regular groundskeeping and security rotation.

No new occupants were identified for the spaces in the student centre that OCRS, SOCS and SCSN would vacate if their relocation to 88 Forsyth is successful.

Jemma Wolfe Executive Editor Westdale residents voiced their fierce opposition to the University’s proposed rezoning of a house on Forsyth Avenue at a community consultation meeting last week.

“It’s truly an incredibly stupid idea,” said one audience member at the Jan. 16 meeting in Gilmour Hall. The idea, to move services into an off-campus house, is attractive to a University short on space but unwelcome by the neighbourhood.

McMaster purchased 88 Forsyth Avenue in December for $735,000 with the intent of turning it into student lounge and office space. The Society of Off-Campus Students, Student Community Support Network and the Off-Campus Resource Centre are three MSU and McMaster organizations that would inhabit this 3,000 square foot home.

The thought to relocate these services came from the successful test drive of a SOCS student lounge in vacant Wentworth House prior to its demolition last year. SOCS had temporarily taken over the old Phoenix restaurant and bar area and had found that having a large, dedicated lounge and quiet study space was beneficial to off-campus students between classes.

@jemma_wolfe

Proposed main floor

Proposed second floor TYLER WELCH / SENIOR NEWS EDITOR

The Forsyth house would operate in a similar fashion. The building would be open from 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays and may be open on some weekends.

Students would be welcome to access the formal services offered

by SCSN and OCRC or enjoy quiet study space, a lounge and kitchen area, and a basement games room.

Supervision of the space would be provided daily by regular campus security personnel.

While no structural changes are planned for the blueprint of the house, fire regulations for a rezoning would require reinforced separation between floors. Other planned renovations include

painting, updating the wiring and re-carpeting.

The property was previously owned by the Muslim Association of Canada, which used the space in a way similar to what the University has planned. Under the Association’s ownership, the property was called Cordoba House and operated as a library and resource centre for Muslim students. Since it was not being used as a family home, Cordoba House had been run without the proper zoning status for the past many years. The quiet nature of its mandate and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedule, however, meant that the neighbours who understood its illegal zoning status weren’t both-

ered. Now, with fears of late-night activity and backyard parties, the community is ready to challenge the University on its intentions and oppose the rezoning of the house.

Residents potentially affected can lobby City officials to veto the rezoning. A presumed decrease in property value and potential noise issues were the major concerns of the community members opposed to rezoning the property for non-residential use. “We will fight this all the way,” said one Forsyth Avenue resident at the meeting.

Rezoning involves a lengthy application to the City and progress is not expected for several months.

The significant renovations to

Proposed basement

C/O MCMASTER UNIVERISTY

Scientist questions Earth’s habitability Tomi Milos Features Editor Researchers looking for an alternative planet for habitation are limiting their options, as a study lead by McMaster’s Dr. René Heller suggests.

Heller’s paper says that scientists who only search for Earthlike planets may be missing out on finding habitable planets that are not like Earth.

Heller is a member of the university’s Department of Physics and Astronomy and the lead author of a thought-provoking paper recently published in Astrobiology titled “Superhabitable Worlds”.

A seed germinated in Heller’s mind while perusing the livechat that accompanied a stream of an AbGradCon talk in 2012. It was during the chat that he noticed John Armstrong of Utah’s Weber State University asking if anyone thought that certain circumstances could make an Earth-like planet even more habitable

C/O MCMASTER UNIVERISTY

Dr. René Heller than Earth itself.

“I thought about it for weeks and it somehow turned into a paper. I later invited John Armstrong, who asked the question, to join as co-author,” Heller recounted from his office in the Arthur N. Bourns Building.

The resulting work refutes Peter Ward’s and Donald Brownlee’s Rare Earth hypothesis, which argues that an Earth-like planet is necessary for extra-terrestrial life to subsist and that these planets may not exist.

Heller said he and his co-author were motivated by the lack of scholarship sharing their view that Earth is probably not the most likely place in the universe to be inhabited.

“All I found was literature proposing that there could be other forms of life.”

To address this oversight, the two academics explored the idea that Earth may only be barely habitable compared to other planets since it exists at “the very inner edge of the solar habitable zone,” and is consequently “literally marginally habitable because it just scrapes the edge of the solar habitable zone,” Heller added with a laugh.

To highlight the difference, Heller says they came up with a set of bodily characteristics that

prospective superhabitable planets might possess.

The list is extensive, but some of the characteristics include: total surface area, plate tectonics, magnetic shielding, surface temperature, biological diversification and age.

“The most important aspect to consider is that these superhabitable planets will be terrestrial, meaning earth-like in composition, but slightly more massive than Earth, maybe two to three times the mass of the Earth.”

Despite the fact that a search for such planets is currently limited by technology, the paper already pinpoints a place to start once the means are available.

According to the report, a star named Alpha Centauri B is a member of the nearest stellar system to the Sun and is purported to host an Earth-mass planet, which is so close the star that it is rendered inhabitable.

“This star is interesting because it is slightly older than the Sun, which is a pro because its

planets may have been inhabited earlier than Earth has…I think it will take maybe a decade or before these two to three Earthmass planets, if they existed, could be discovered in the stellar habitable zone.”

NASA’s introduction of the James Webb telescope in 2018 could be helpful in characterizing of the planets if they cross the stellar disc once per orbit as it could detect the chemical imprints in the atmospheres of those worlds, Heller noted.

The open-minded hypothesis has gained traction amongst his scientific peers, says Heller, with most being amenable to the idea.

When asked if a migration from Earth is in the cards should conditions further deteriorate, Heller said, “Nothing is impossible…it might be an option. Not today, not in a thousand years, but maybe in a million years.” @tomimilos

CANADIAN CAMPUS NEWS Patrick Kim The Silhouette Three wounded in Frederiction college knife attack

Plans for McGill satellite med school in progress

TRU partners with European university network

Algonquin e-textbook program aiming for all access

uOttawa gets new masters program in bilingual studies

Monday morning at a private college in Fredericton called Eastern College, a man attacked a student in a classroom leaving two students and a teacher injured.

Some students restrained the man before the police arrived on the scene. The attacker was wielding a machete-type knife, inflicting minor to serious injuries on the three affected. They were taken to the hospital following the incident, although no injuries were life threatening. The confrontation is still under investigation, and it is not yet clear what the attackers intent was. There are counsellors on campus currently to help anyone who was impacted by the event

McGill is working with health officials in western Quebec in order to set up a satellite medical school in Gatineau by 2016.

While students are already sent to the area for internships and residencies, the new plan would involve coursework through videoconferencing and a direct partnership with the Hull hospital and University of Quebec’s Outaouais campus. Gilles Brousseau, a local doctor who authored a feasibility study for the Gatineau area, found that among other Quebec satellite medical schools in Trois Rivieres and Saguenay, the majority of students stayed to work in the same respective region after graduating.

Thompson Rivers University has partnered with three universities with campuses in Germany and Austria through the International University Network in order to offer TRU programs in Europe.

The new partnership, dubbed the International Strategic Network, will first offer four new programs in the summer of 2014. Kathleen Scherf, TRU’s Academic Lead for TRU-ISN programs in Europe, commented on the programs, stating “we have developed programs for the World Campus in Unna, [Germany,] and have opened admission to TRU certificate programs in Tourism, Social Media, Global Competency, and Environmental Sustainability.”

Phase two of Algonquin College’s e-textbook initiative was launched last year. The program was expanded this September to include approximately 4,000 first-level students. Student kiosks have now been added for e-text connectivity and informational support, and

by Sept. 2014 the college plans to implement the e-texts in all of its full-time programs. To gain access to the online texts for three years, students paid 63 percent of what they would have paid for a print book. Algonquin estimates that in September 2013 with 4,000 students participating, students saved $250 - $300 each semester, or about $1 million overall.

The University of Ottawa tread into uncharted waters with the introduction of a new master’s of bilingual studies, the first of its kind in Canada. Set to begin at the start of the next school year, the program will be offered through the Official Languages and Bilingualism Institute and will be taught by a wide array of faculties.

Students will gain investigative skills after engaging in the writing of extensive research papers and, when possible, thesis-related work. Allan Rock, University of Ottawa president, said that the program serves as an example of how uOttawa is strengthening its commitment to bilingualism and Francophone communities.

Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014

theSil.ca

Don’t miss our livestreamed debate with the Presidential candidates...

A7 Executive Editor Jemma Wolfe

...live on thesil.ca on Thursday, Jan. 23 at 8 p.m.

Email thesil@thesil.ca @theSilhouette Phone 905.525.9140 x22052

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MSU PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

Waiting for the punch line Without a joke candidate this year, presidentials are missing both fun and reflection to presidentials.

to presidentials.

to state of the union.

to running out of paper (at a newspaper).

to the ghost of s.h.

Jemma Wolfe Executive Editor Few joke candidates run a joke campaign well, I’ll admit. Some have a hard time sticking to the fun stuff and awkwardly squeeze a few real issues into their platform points. Some don’t fully invest in the joke and fade away halfway through the campaign period.

Some just aren’t very funny.

But this year, with five serious hopefuls and not a joke candidate in sight, I’m missing the flair that they add to MSU Presidential Election season.

I think some people miss the boat when it comes to joke candidates.

They might get irritated by their silliness in the face of important issues, or merely laugh at them for entertainment value and ignore what’s really at

stake.

Joke campaigns, when performed well, aren’t about making us laugh at some ridiculous candidate. They’re about making us laugh at the self-importance and egos of the presidential hopefuls. They’re also about making us laugh at the self-importance and egos of ourselves.

This year, we don’t have that absurdist lens with which to view the carefully constructed campaigns or hastily assembled platforms.

There’s no one to add humour to thorough but personality-scarce campaigns.

No one to mock the candidates with half-baked, half-assed ideas who don’t have a clue what it would take to make their vague plans come to life.

No one to gleefully promise free chocolate milk every day or rocket-

ship rides to campus to distract us from the frustration of illogical and misleading promises.

I miss the joke candidates of yesteryears.

By mocking the buzzwords, the balloons, the lofty ambitions and the resume-builders, joke candidates can help us see more clearly through the bullshit towards what matters and who is sincere in their desire to create change.

This Presidentials, read the platforms, talk to the candidates, make yourself informed. And search for any laughs available along the way. @jemma_wolfe

it might be affecting what’s expected of them, what their role in society is, how it’s impacting their mental health.

Women should do all this too. Women can also perpetuate sexism. Everyone can. But unlike men, women don’t get the same privileges that men are born with in a patriarchal system.

I don’t think I’ve ever met or will ever meet someone who hasn’t perpetuated sexism at some point in their life. Sexist behaviour isn’t a male-isolated phenomenon, but male privilege is.

There are a myriad of ways in which men can use their privilege to bring forth, alongside women and people of all genders, great strides of feminist development. Leading the whole damn thing, however, is not one of them.

•

Ana Qarri, ArtSci II

This letter has been condensed and can be found in full online.

Come again?

They may have been published in previous weeks, but these online pieces deserve a second look

Most popular

Most underrated

Most discussed

NEWS: “Five candidates running for 2014-14 MSU president” by Anqi Shen. First published on Friday, Jan. 17.

LIFESTYLE: “Diversity Week reimagines inclusivity” by Amanda Watkins. First published on Wednesday, Jan. 15.

OPINION: “Feminism without women” by Kacper Niburski.

First published on Wednesday, Jan. 15.

MUSC, Room B110 McMaster University 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, ON L8S 4S4 E–Mail: thesil@thesil.ca Facebook.com/ TheMcMasterSilhouette Twitter.com/theSilhouette Production Office (905) 525-9140, extension 27117 Advertising (905) 525-9140, extension 27557 10,000 circulation Published by the McMaster Students Union

Write To Us Letters to the Editor should be 100-300 words and be submitted via email by Tuesday at 12:00 p.m. to be included in that week’s publication.

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to b.c., bonne retraite. to our interns, j.b. and a.c., who will be missed. to my arctic hat.

to chocolate orange.

In reply to “Hey girl, let’s smash the patriarchy” by Kacper Niburski, published Jan. 16, 2014 on A8 (Posted as “Daily Dose: Feminism without women” on thesil.ca)

About Us

to the candidates.

to a subway in union market. jk. not really.

Leading the feminist movement isn’t the role of a male ally dimensional and complex. Feminism takes into account so many things that a claim like that is hardly justifiable. Feminism has never attempted to alienate men. I’m not saying that there haven’t been feminists who have happened to hate men. I’m not denying that there are people – feminist or not – who will hate a group solely based on their gender. Those people exist, but they’re not really who we’re talking about when we refer to feminists.

As a feminist, I’m aware how important men can be to the movement.

I’m aware that men will listen more if other men are telling them that feminism isn’t just a bunch of men-hating lesbians whose mission in life is to kill off anyone who gets in their way.

Men can make great allies. They can create safe spaces for women.

They can start discussions. They can reflect with their peers about how they might be perpetuating sexism. They can talk about how the current societal norms are affecting them too, how

to 88 forsyth.

to whisky in your tea.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Gentlemen, hold on to your boxers.

The idea that feminism is for everyone isn’t new. It’s not revolutionary, it did not grace the world for the first time on page A8 of the Silhouette.

It’s an idea that feminists have been repeating over and over for decades.

If I had a dime for every time I’ve said it, I would still be drowning in student debt, but at least I’d have enough money for a beer.

We know feminism should be for everyone. We know feminism isn’t a movement only for women. It’s because we know this that we can’t stop talking about it.

So, yes, Kacper is right. Men are and should be part of the solution.

Men are important to the movement.

Men should be feminists, they should be involved, they should care, because feminism is for them too.

Feminism isn’t isolated to “one gender, one lifestyle.” It’s not isolated to one way of interacting with the world. Feminism is diverse, it’s multi-

to buckingham garden party earl grey blend. yum.

The Silhouette welcomes letters to the editor in person at MUSC B110, or by email at thesil@thesil.ca. Please include name, address and telephone number for verification only. We reserve the right to edit, condense or reject letters and opinion articles. Opinions and editorials expressed in The Silhouette are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial board, the publishers, the McMaster Students Union or the University. The Silhouette is an editorially autonomous newspaper published by the McMaster Students Union. The Silhouette Board of Publications acts as an intermediary between the editorial board, the McMaster community and the McMaster Students Union. Grievances regarding The Silhouette may be forwarded in writing to: McMaster Students Union, McMaster University Student Centre, Room 201, L8S 4S4, Attn: The Silhouette Board of Publications. The Board will consider all submissions and make recommendations accordingly.

Remember to check out our website throughout the week for fresh content daily! We’re no longer Thursday exclusive – we’re your constant source of everything McMaster, every day.

thesil.ca Section Meeting Times News Thursdays @ 3:30 p.m.

Opinions Tuesdays @ 1:30 p.m.

to networking. again. to transcribing. to nepotism, nihilists, and other ‘n’ nemeses. to it still being way too cold. to being told, “i never read the sil.” your subsequent suggestions really mean a lot. to candidates backing out. to people who don’t know what they’re talking about. grrrrrrrrr.

The Silhouette

McMaster University’s Student Newspaper

EDITORIAL BOARD Jemma Wolfe | Executive Editor thesil@thesil.ca Sam Godfrey | Managing Editor managing@thesil.ca Andrew Terefenko | Production Editor production@thesil.ca Anqi Shen | Online Editor news@thesil.ca Tyler Welch | News Editor news@thesil.ca Rachel Faber | Assistant News Editor news@thesil.ca Tomi Milos | Features Editor news@thesil.ca Kacper Niburski | Opinions Editor opinions@thesil.ca Laura Sinclair | Sports Editor sports@thesil.ca Alexandra Reilly | Assistant Sports Editor sports@thesil.ca Amanda Watkins | LifeStyle Editor lifestyle@thesil.ca Miranda Babbitt | Assistant LifeStyle Editor lifestyle@thesil.ca Bahar Orang | ANDY Editor andy@thesil.ca Cooper Long | Assistant ANDY Editor andy@thesil.ca Yoseif Haddad | Photo Editor photo@thesil.ca Eliza Pope | Assistant Photo Editor photo@thesil.ca Ben Barrett-Forrest | Multimedia Editor photo@thesil.ca Karen Wang | Graphics Editor production@thesil.ca Colin Haskin | Video Editor photo@thesil.ca

Sports Thursdays @ 12:30 p.m.

Olivia Dorio | Distribution Coordinator thesil@thesil.ca

LifeStyle Thursdays @ 2:30 p.m.

Sandro Giordano | Ad Manager sgiordan@msu.mcmaster.ca

ANDY Wednesdays @ 11:30 a.m.

Video & Multimedia Mondays @ 1:30 p.m.

Photo Fridays @ 1:30 p.m.

Staff Reporters Tobi Abdul Sarah O’Connor Ana Qarri Sophia Topper thesil@thesil.ca

A5

Tyler Welch - News Editor

The Good The Bad The Ugly 16-year-old becomes youngest person to reach South Pole

Three children stab 12-year-old boy outside of UK grocery store

Prince Harry drank champagne out of a prosthetic leg

A teenager from Bristol, UK reached the South Pole on Jan. 25 after a 50-day trek.

Lewis Clark, 16, spent almost two months skiing about eight hours a day to reach his goal. Along with a guide, Clark skied a 700-mile route from the coast of Antarctica to the South Pole.

The duo faced temperatures around -50 degrees Celsius and winds upwards of 120 miles per hour.

“I think sometimes about how few people have done this. Only 300 in 100 years. And I’m doing it.

That’s pretty cool,” Clark told the Telegraph.

Scotland Yard says that three boys, ranging in age from 12 to 15, tried to rob the 12-year old victim and went through his pockets looking for money and valuables.

The incident occurred on Jan. 21 in Croydon, south London.

He suffered injuries only to his arm and leg, and after going to a nearby hospital, they were determined to not be life-threatening.

Local police are on the case and looking for the three suspects.

If you ask a famous royal red-head, he’d tell you that artificial legs are just as good as glasses.

Prince Harry recently completed a trek to the South Pole with a team of wounded soldiers as part of a charity mission.

Canoe is reporting that a 48-hour drinking session occurred after their accomplishment.

A member of the team said, “Most of us, Harry included, just went on a twoday bender.”

They used the prosthetic limbs of Duncan Slater, a wounded Afghanistan veteran, to chug down celebratory champagne.

CHECK OUT WWW.MSUMcMASTER.CA/TWELVEIGHTY FOR MORE!

NEWS

CHEAPDRINKS, AMAZINGFOOD, PRICELESSMEMORIES.

Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014

THURS BAR NIGHTS! HOTTEST DJ’S! LOWESTDRINKPRICESINHAMILTON! STUDENTPRICES!

theSil.ca

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A6

MSU Presidential Election ELECTION REFLECTION

2

MSU presidents won by acclamation [1963 & 1965]

JASON WOLWOWICZ

JACOB BRODKA

“Not just a number”

“Come together”

12 *all candidates were male

Largest field* of candidates [1994]

Lowest voter Highest voter turnout turnout

[12.9%] [2009]

[51.1%] [1973]

Significant MSU Achievements [1977] Office of the Ombuds. The University claimed for more than 20 years that it wasn’t necessary, before finally agreeing (in the late 1990s) to cofund it with the MSU.

[1978] Emergency First Response Team. It went on to become a model for similar services across Canada.

[1997] HSR bus pass agreement first established.

[2002] Opening of the McMaster University Student Centre. (MUSC)

Significant MSU Flops [1979] The Blast Furnace, a (short-lived) campus disco.

[2007] Undercovers, the used bookstore, closed after just three years of operation.

[2008] Presidential election takes more than five weeks after voting to resolve. Dozens of ballots appear and disappear between counts.

The Wolwowicz campaign got off to a slow start after suffering website troubles for the first days of the race, but the team is working hard to spread the “not just a number” message and promote their platform.

The platform itself consists, mostly, of undeveloped ideas that call for student feedback.

Wolwowicz wants to ensure that a variety of study environments exist on campus. His plan is to gather feedback from students and figure out what types of spaces are most in need. Whether that results in more demand for quiet space, group study rooms, or private cubicles, Wolwowicz would rearrange current study spaces to meet those needs.

“It’s really about getting student feedback and tailoring the space that we have to make students happy,” he said.

This may be his most specific platform point.

His plans for “increasing experiential education options,” and adding an end of year celebration both look to the students for direction.

Wolwowicz seeks to ensure that each faculty organizes committees to think of new ideas for education options and encourage students to take courses outside of their faculty.

His hope for an end of year celebration would also be in the hands of the student body.

“Let’s give the students a chance to give ideas,” he said.

Wolwowicz has spoken to Campus Events about the idea and been assured that the money is there.

Despite not having a budget or knowing what the event would be, he is confident that the celebration would occur. It would take place between the end of classes and the start of exams in the spring.

“It would be completely up to Campus Events and the students; It could be a concert or interactive event, or anything,” he said.

Wolwowicz’s Bright-Idea program is an idea similar to those of Teddy Saull and Jacob Brodka. It is a system where students submit, and subsequently review, ideas for new ways to improve campus or student life. A new idea would go through committee and be chosen by students each term.

Unlike Saull’s or Brodka’s plan, the Wolwowicz incarnation of the idea seems more hopeful than practical. He has not placed a cap on the amount of money these projects can receive, nor does he know exactly where the money will come from.

Jason Wolwowicz is likeable and engaging, but his ideas may have more words than substance. It remains to be seen whether students will vote for a leader with his or her own ideas, or choose the candidate who will be asking for their’s.

Jacob Brodka is back in the running for a second year in a row, and it’s clear that this time, he means business.

With a three-part platform built on the pillars of academics, student life and communication, and heavily focused on community building, Brodka’s tagline “come together” is an appropriate unifier for his brand.

For Brodka, student engagement is a high priority. His proposed Frost Week upgrade, MSU idea forum, Change Camp expansion and participatory budgeting plan all relate to getting MSU members more involved in the organization.

Brodka’s Frost Week upgrade would include reviving the programming of Welcome Week and bringing key Welcome Week players – MSU Campus Events, IRC and SOCS – back together to create a “winter homecoming” experience. Student desire for such an upgrade and feasibility due to weather are undetermined but worth considering.

The freedom credit – the ability to take an elective course from a different faculty on a pass/fail basis – is a platform point from Brodka’s 2013 campaign that he’s carried over into this year’s Presidentials.

“When you look at people completing four years of a degree in social sciences and then [for example] starting a new degree in engineering… part of me wonders if they had a low-risk way of taking an elective course outside of what they were studying if they could have saved themselves $20,000 and a few years,” Brodka explained.

Brodka wants to introduce a freedom credit pilot project at McMaster on a small scale to transition faculties and programs into this flexible system.

Another major platform point is the participatory budget model, in which students could submit proposals for projects and then MSU members can vote on ideas worth funding.

“When this platform was developed it was very ‘this could feed off of this,’” said Brodka on the interconnected nature of his platform.

Students could use the idea forum to suggest projects worth funding in the participatory budget model.

Such ideas might come from his Change Camp expansion proposal. Brodka describes Change Camp as an “anti-conference” where students can informally participate in addressing community concerns and workshopping solutions at a semiannual “unconference.”

Jacob Brodka is a softspoken candidate determined to prove he has the research, ideas and passion to be a successful MSU president.

As the most active on a variety of social media platforms and with the largest campaign team, Brodka’s green presence on campus is hard to miss.

background Fourth-year French and Political Science

background

most ambitious goal

most ambitious goal

opponent who gets jason’s vote

opponent who gets jacob’s vote

criticizes opposition’s point of

criticizes opposition’s point of

Experiential education increases

Jyssika Russell “Inclusion” & “equity” Anyone who says this

These should simply be givens, and to make them platform points is redundant.

Third-year Life Sciences Freedom credit Jyssika Russell Freeze the fee Teddy Saull

“You can’t freeze fees and increase spending because the money just isn’t there.”

Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014

ns 2014

A7

With the countown on until voting opens, we break down the platforms of the five presidential candidates to help you cast an informed ballot.

Writing by: Jemma Wolfe, Tyler Welch and Rachel Faber Photos by: Eliza Pope

JYSSIKA RUSSELL

TEDDY SAULL

ISRAA ALI

“Diversity, inclusion & equity”

“Make it matter”

“Creating spaces”

Jyssica Russell, running on a platform of equity and accessibility, is advocating for an inclusion council in the MSU. She suggests expanding the existing roundtable to include the core of the organization and the president of the MSU. “We need to have direction. We need to have campaigns and student feedback,” said Russell.

Aside from stating that there needs to be a more long-term vision for the service, Russell’s hopes do not differ greatly from how Diversity Services already aims to function.

One of Russell’s chief platform points is improving the emergency fund. The fund is already available through the office of student Financial Aid and Scholarships, but according to Russell is not well advertised and rarely offered.

Russell’s goal is to make the funds more readily available to students - even those who are not eligible for OSAP - and to ensure that these loans are interest free.

The University, however, would still be the only organization with the authority to determine student need for this money. Russell would not ensure the completion of this emergency fund if the University were to put an end to her effort.

Russell plans to use the MSU surplus to fund these loans, though the organization is ill-equipped to deal with financial responsibility of this scale.

“It’s the most advocacy-based idea and the MSU doesn’t specifically focus on finances yet so there is a lot more research that needs to happen,” said Russell about the emergency fund.

She continued, “We will need direct collaboration with the university and when it comes to money people are cautious.”

Another of Russell’s platform points is MSU-provided busses to and from Art Crawl and other local events. “I am aware that the HSR goes there, but I want to make local events known to people,” said Russell.

While the busses would be geared towards first-year students who may not be comfortable taking the HSR or CAs who want to take student groups, this seems like an unnecessary cost.

“Even if I don’t win, I still want to work with the MSU to achieve my goals. I’m not running just to be President, I’m running to get these policies in place,” said Russell, who has been working in the MSU for two years as coordinator of the Queer Student Community Centre.

She continued, “I want to make sure I share that I’m all about inclusivity, and meeting students’ personal needs versus simply wants.”

background

Fourth-year Biology

Teddy Saull longs for the day that all McMaster students participate in the community that he has come to know and love.

“I’m running for MSU President because community matters to me” he said. “The MSU is a thing we’re aware of, but not necessarily engaged in… it’s a challenge I think we can overcome.”

Coming into the race with little MSU experience but a passionate idealism, Saull says that his experience living in residence for three years and working for Residence Life, has taught him about the importance of community his platform looks to create.

“I wanted to build a platform that was very tangible” he said.

Saull has some big ideas, but hasn’t constructed exact roadmaps about how to reach all of them.

Saull hopes to lobby with local politicians and the municipal police force to work toward better lighting in student neighborhoods and red security poles like those found on campus.

Another big idea is to freeze the MSU fee where it currently is.

Full-time undergraduates pay $122.61 to the MSU each year. Saull wants to ensure that the fee doesn’t rise.

“We’re good where we’re at,” he said, “We can start to give back a little bit.”

Questions have been raised as to how a candidate with such little background in the MSU could lead the operation of the organization. Saull’s campaign attempts to respond to these questions by focusing on the lessons he has learned through his work as a residence community advisor and IntroPsych TA. Saull also acknowledges that several of his platform ideas are similar to those of Jacob Brodka. He believes that this fact shows that MSU experience does not always mean different ideas.

Both he and Brodka are looking to expand Frost Week and introduce a cost-friendly peer tutoring service, while three candidates (Brodka, Saull, Wolwowicz) are introducing a program that would allow students to decide on what projects to fund and develop.

Saull’s may be the most well-thought out variation of the idea.

He plans to call for student submissions, with a $100,000 budget from the Student Life Enhancement Fund, which will then be reviewed by a selection committee and the student body.

“I’ve set it up in a sustainable way that could be repeated,” he said.

Though Saull’s ideas will likely connect with students, his similarities to Brodka and lack of MSU experience may be a turnoff to voters.

background

Israa Ali is concerned about creating spaces - be these spaces physical, legal or spiritual - for students on campus.

Ali is perhaps most passionate about the establishment of a spiritual centre on campus. She points to buildings like Wilson Hall as potential properties for this space, or for the spaces the services moving to those buildings would vacate. With space at a premium on campus and the actual need for a spirituality centre still to be assessed, the logistics behind this proposal are lacking.

Food is a dominant theme in her campaign, and three platform points address her concerns with food options.

Ali wants to break the monopoly that Paradise Catering has on all functions on campus, which she sees as unaffordable and unrealistic for clubs with small budgets who have to pay a premium for Paradise food and beverages. “One of the first steps to decrease this monopoly is to isolate Bridges Café from the exclusivity contract and to change the rules for the student groups booking this space,” Ali said.

Accessibility of food ingredients for on-campus food services is also a platform point. “I know students who would walk in and literally walk out again because they actually don’t know what’s in the food,” she said. Ali’s conversations with food services managers on campus assure her that improving conditions for students with multi-faith and allergy-based dietary restrictions is a feasible goal.

While Ali’s platform also proposes an “off-campus meal discount program for students,” this statement is misleading. Ali clarified to the Silhouette that she is simply suggesting launching a campaign for students to eat locally and healthfully and to promote the Mustard Seed coop. With Mac Farmstand and the MSU Bread Bin already established MSU services, this suggestion is redundant and the phrasing of this platform point (which remains as quoted on her website as of print time) is false advertising at best.

Ali is also proposing a review of the ancillary fees that go towards David Braley Athletic Centre. “What exactly are the students getting back?” she questions, and wants Pulse membership fees lowered to reflect the large chunk of student money already going towards athletics and recreation and the DBAC facility.

With a slow start to online presence and a number of unfeasible and poorly thought-out platform points, Israa Ali appears overwhelmed. Her campaign so far does not reflect her desire to be president.

background

Fourth-year Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour

Fourth-year Life Sciences

most ambitious goal

most ambitious goal

most ambitious goal

opponent who gets jyssika’s vote

opponent who gets teddy’s vote

opponent who gets israa’s vote

criticizes opposition’s point of

criticizes opposition’s point of

criticizes opposition’s point of

Freedom credit

Freedom credit

Participatory budget

Emergency fund Israa Ali

Jacob Brodka

“I like the idea, I just don’t think it will work in practice.”

Off-campus security Jacob Brodka

Jacob Brodka

Would not want to encourage the creation of a de facto “bird course.”

Spirituality centre Jyssika Russell

Jacob Brodka

“This may potentially hinder student enhancement if not done appropriately.”

Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014

theSil.ca

A8 Editor Kacper Niburski Email opinions@thesil.ca @theSilhouette Phone 905.525.9140 x27117

S

Editoral Cartoon

POLITICALLY UPSET

Karen Wang / Graphics Editor

How to lose an MSU presidential election Kacper Niburski Opinions Editor I’m sorry.

Really, I am. I’m sorry that you’re knee-deep in this election, I’m sorry that there’s no backing out now without losing your integrity, and I’m sorry that despite all the helter-skelter, despite the forced smiles, the endless parading around, and the elaborate game of dress up, it’s not enough.

I’m sorry that after everything, you are still going to lose.

I know. I know. Last week I told you how to win the MSU election and so you stormed the MUSC with a wry grin, a heavy handshake, and a campaign with such intricacies that you were a scattershot of soundbits and paper-thin ideas. In some instances, your platform was so specific that it said nothing at all and other times it was so transparent that even you couldn’t see anything substantial about it.

But I also told you that in order to win you needed to lie, and you aren’t doing that exactly. This is not because you follow some grand moral compass or because doing so is simply beyond you; that would be a lie to say in and of itself. Instead in the beginning of all this, dear reader, the only thing that you have provided is the single truth hiding in between the breathes of your speeches, the boldface text of your campaign motto, and the white space of your pamphlets. It is this: one day you will lose. Luckily it happened now.

It’s may be hard to hear, but at least I’m telling you before the votes come in and you’re with all your friends and your nails are a scratch away from bloody sores and you can imagine yourself there in the MSU Presidential office and you can see all the good you’re doing and everyone seems so happy with you at the helm, and then the votes come in and you lost. Dead last. Congrats.

Truth is emancipating. It is liberating. And it is all you are, all you could have left behind after this madhouse. So be rid of the shackles by embracing these words: here is how to lose the MSU election.

First, don’t change anything. Keep doing you because you is not enough. No matter what you have done, will do, or plan to do, stereotypes will bleed into the debate. You’ll be seen as a white male propagating their privileged agenda, you’ll be described as an arrogant, self-righteous prick, and people will call you a militant feminist as if that were a bad thing. They’ll see you for religious preference. They’ll judge the sound of your voice. They’ll make decisions largely about the clothes you wear.

You’ll fight against it by supporting it: you’ll become anything but what you are - that person who has daily struggles connecting and reorganizing the flurry of lines that intersect your being. You don’t want to damage yourself by exposing your vulnerabilities, so you become a pretender, a momentary image crystallized in a suit, a tie, a dress. You’re a professional and you want everyone to know it, you most of all.

Yet you know that this behaviour is expected all the same, so you have no choice but to tow the line. Complacency works in your favour.

In a way, you don’t want people to know that your breath smells in the morning, that your snore could wake Snorlax, or that you once peed your pants in grade five. You want to be relatable but not related; you want to be understandable but not completely understood.

And yet when you lose, you’ll be so awash in whom you pretended to be that you’ll forget who you are. All that will be left is the ghost of the policies that defined you, the slogans that spoke for you, and the colours that embodied you, rather than the other way around.

So please: forget who you are in pursuit of what you want to be.

Besides, this divide between then and now, between the two people you see yourself being, is what a faceless mass wants. It is what we want.

We want an image, rather than a person, and this will be your downfall.

Don’t challenge it. Don’t try to change the dialogue to practicality and complexity. We crave the simple and reducible because we are that exactly. We’re a fickle mob with fickle needs; we are no more permanent than our four years here. Most of us just don’t care. We just want to get through the whole thing with our heads down and without rubbing too many elbows on our way in and out of the university’s revolving door.

But you won’t believe that in the electoral hype: the sounds, sights, and senses will confuse you, and you’ll oppose this acquiescence. You’ll give us more credit than we deserve and you’ll be torn apart as a result.

Your accessibility will be clawed at again and again and again until we tear you apart. It’ll kill the person who you thought you were, sure, but hey, look at those organs, look at the colours, and look at all that blood.

Don’t worry, though. The MSU is the real loser. Its failings are why you lost in the end. You wanted to fix things. You needed to fix things.

And your loss proves how broken things are. Now in your absence, the MSU is going to be in the same mess you wanted to change.

Serves us right, and I’m sorry for that too. @ kacpnibs

The universe of jellybeans Differences in opinions come down to personal taste Kacper Niburski Opinions Editor It was impossible: the whole of the universe found its way in my palm. Of course, I didn’t know it then; I was six so such ignorance can be excused. Basic things eluded me. I didn’t know about ozonolysis. I didn’t realize the harms in trans fats. Hell, some days I couldn’t even urinate outside the seams of my pants.

But there it was after everything: the universe – a roaring red rolling onto a unblemished white, a vacuous black without the slighest glimmer, a blue, green, yellow and purple that could only be the fruits of the Big Bang, and it tittered and tottered as I tottered and tittered.

It was a gift from my grandfather. He smiled. He told me that here in these jellybeans was everything I’d need to know about the world and those in it.

I found it hard to believe, but not unbelievable. In a way, he was right – I knew I was hungry after all. Jellybeans would be all I needed, all I wanted. And bite-by-bite, a little piece of everything would become mine.

So in the comfort of my room with no responsibilities besides those that I invented and imagined, I ate and I ate and I ate in that order. My hands were a sticky rainbow paste and my digits were an abstract mess of food colouring and sugar.

Just as I was about to slurp my fourteenth droplet of paradise, my sister stomped in. “What are

you doing?”

“Eating jellybeans.” I said.

“I see that. But you know you shouldn’t eat the white ones.”

“Why not?”

“They’re unhealthy. Something something about chemicals.

Grandma told me.”

“Oh.” “Yeah, so I wouldn’t eat them anymore.”

“Thanks, sis.”

With a turn, she was gone.

My hand dove in the plastic bag again, yet there wasn’t the sense of glee anymore. A generous handful procured a couple of white jellybeans. I picked them out carefully, and placed them in a tissue beside my bed. They looked as they did five minutes ago but they weren’t the same. They were harmful, chemically-latent, death pills.

Most of all, they weren’t mine anymore. I didn’t want them.

I continued onto the green pieces. A bit different taste than the white, I admitted, but delicious nonetheless.

A knock, a voice, my father.

“Son: why is there a napkin here?”

“Sister told me that the whites were bad for me.”

“Son – you’re wasting them, you know. What did I tell you about wasting food?”

“Not much.”

“Exactly. Because you’re not supposed to do it. There’s nothing else to say.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Eat those slowly.

Don’t spoil your dinner.”

“I won’t.”

Doors went a’slamming, feet

went a’ scurrying, and I was alone in my room again. I looked back to the white jellybeans. They were the same as before, yet somehow after the door closed and a new ocean of candy swam in my hand, they were entirely different once again. Even their weight felt as though it had changed.

One popped in my mouth, another soon followed. As I was savoring the third, my Mom walked in. “Kacper?”

“Yes, Mom.” My lips stuck together with the wet sugar.

“What did I tell you about eating jellybeans?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“Well I don’t want you eating them at all.”

“Why?” “Because I said so.”

“Oh, okay.”

The bag was practically glued to my fingers. She had to tear them away. “You don’t know what’s good for you yet, Kacper.”

She patted my head. “And that just isn’t my opinion.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s alright. You were just doing what you knew, little as that may be.” Her soft hands combed my mushroom cut.

“It wasn’t enough?”

“No.” Her fingers stopped on my scalp. “Want something else?”

“It’s okay. I’m not hungry anymore.”

“Okay.” She looked at me hard in the eye and walked out with a final pat. The jellybeans jingled to the sound of her step.

FEEDBACK Compiled by Kacper Niburski & Eliza Pope

Who would be your Vice President and why?

“Drake because I’m obsessed with him.”

Reem Safadie, Life Sciences II

“The Doctor from Doctor Who. He can fix anything.”

Laura Koops, English I

I would grab a tribesperson from the Amazon who has no exposure to Western material obsession.”

Pat Torrance, Civil Engineering II

“Best friend because I trust him and we have different skills and opinions that support each other.”

Rafael Posada, Humanities I

“I’d want Obama. I’d like to see his perspective on university politics.”

Sophiya Garasia, Biology IV

theSil.ca

Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014

OPINIONS

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

A9

MSU Presidential Candidates on why they deserve your votes next week *Candidates were given a maximum of 600 words

The bottom line is community and connectivity

TEDDY SAULL

“The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” - T.S. Eliot Amidst the exciting chaos of this campaign, I find myself reflecting on how things have changed so dramatically since I arrived at McMaster almost four years ago.

In a word, my first year was confusing. I couldn’t see where I fit in to the puzzle that was “the McMaster community”—just a small fish in a big pond. I believe this is true for many, and that it isn’t just a first year thing.

Today, I walk the same paths and sit in the same buildings. I eat the same food and I hear the same bells ringing from Divinity College. The McMaster experience hasn’t changed much, but the

feeling has.

Now I’m connected, involved and excited. I’m grateful for the friendships I’ve formed and experiences I’ve had.

As an MSU Presidential candidate, I’m relentlessly dedicated to bringing this feeling of connectivity to our entire student body.

My platform is powerful in its simplicity. It’s tangible and well informed. But it’s not everything. It’s not just promises of a bigger frost week, a new website or an opportunity to have your say in MSU spending. It’s an opportunity to prioritize community and to make it matter.

As voters consider the different candidates, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, I’d like to

advise a note of caution. Challenge the depth of experience and the meaning of consultation that seem to promise a safe vote in other candidates. Differentiate between talking about student issues and dealing with them, and ask yourself where each candidate falls on that spectrum.

The bottom line is that this campaign is a job application and the 20,000+ students at McMaster are the hiring managers. While I see value in the ideas brought forth by the other candidates, I wouldn’t have run for this position if I didn’t believe I was, without a shred of doubt, the most qualified applicant. Read my story, review my CV and reflect on my philosophy (available at www.teddysaull.com). It’s all there.

It’s experience where it matters: with students, for students and about students.

All that said, thank you for making it this far in an article about student politics. I appreciate the past 3-minutes of your time (reading speed may vary, but thanks either way).

Students should get value for their money

ISRAA ALI

Creating spaces for equity, enhancement, engagement and in essence everyone to not only be heard but recognized, is truly what I stand for.

Passion and embracing challenges are two fundamental aspects of who I am as an individual. The vision I carry forward encapsulates a variety of student voices that, if brought forward, will doubtlessly enhance student life on campus.

My platform points outline different issues with the primary focus going back to addressing this concern: creating spaces for you.

The “Everyone” pillar touches on the need to revisit ancillary fees and assess their value to students. For instance, when an average full-time student, out of 20,000 others, pays about $250 to the Athletics and Recreation centre, equating

to about $4 million dollars collectively every year, we need to question whether each student is truly receiving value for their money and act accordingly. The pillar further elaborates on ensuring the availability of food ingredient labelling across the different eateries on campus.

Surprising we don’t already have this despite the many dietary/religious/cultural restrictions students have. Exam Welcome Day as a de-stressor in March and subsidized costs of graduation photos are also other things I am sincerely passionate for.

The “Enhancement” pillar revolves around modifying the catering rules for student groups at Bridges Café, which was originally built with the intent of bridging the gap between the different diverse backgrounds and food happens

to be an essential component. This is a strategic approach to decrease the monopoly of Paradise Catering on campus. Another enhancing aspect is to establish a base for a spirituality centre on campus. I have critically analyzed different ideas of where this space can exist. It’s definitely feasible if enough pressure and commitment are in place. After all, nine years ago, an entire vegetarian restaurant came to life on campus, all because of students’ voices coming together and enough work from the MSU. The potential is there. Within this platform as well, there needed to be space to enhance the learning and academic experience of students, more so from the research aspect. The idea behind the MSU Research Awards is to work collaboratively with the different faculties and hold a campus-wide

research symposium, however logistically feasible the supervisors think it would be.

The “Equity” and “Engagement” pillars further revolve around issues we as students can relate to. I invite you to visit me at the table behind Timmies to ask me for more details on them or have a chat over anything you like. I would absolutely love the opportunity to share with you my thoughts.

And beyond any other label, I am a student just like you. What makes me different is that I care, a lot.

Individual student drive should shape the future

JASON WOLWOWICZ

Hi there McMaster, thank you for taking the time to read this article. Hopefully it will give you more insight about myself and shed some light as to why I am a relevant candidate for the position of MSU President.

I am pleased to see the diverse selection of candidates running for President of the McMaster Student Union.

In fact, I have had the pleasure of working with all of them in some way, shape or form within the last year and I admire their drive and determination.

With that said, I strongly believe that my wide variety of experience at McMaster is what sets me apart from my fellow candidates. My time as an active member of the Student Representative Assembly, MSU Executive Board, Finance Committee and Sponsorship

and Donations Committee has helped me develop valuable knowledge of the day-to-day operations of the services we provide to students. It has also allowed me to recognize the areas in which improvements need to be made.

However, it is not only my time with the MSU that has been valuable. I have assisted with Welcome Week as a Residence Orientation Rep for the last three years. Since this past summer, I have also had the opportunity to work with students and staff through dedicated working groups, in an effort to increase the experiential and interdisciplinary options for our students. For after all, a comprehensive education is the reason we are all here.

When deciding what points to include in my platform, I had to reflect on

the diverse needs of our University. The result was a variety of realistic projects inspired by student feedback, and I invite you to read through it.

I have been asked by some students why I did not include a point regarding Equity in my platform. I would like to clarify that by no means is this ignorance towards the issue. My reasoning is as follows: There is simply no one solution.

Instead, I firmly believe that every presidential candidate should attempt to foster an equitable learning environment in all the initiatives that they undertake with the assistance of our resources such as the MSU’s Diversity Services, the QSCC, the up-and-coming Women & Gender Equity Center and the many important clubs on campus.

It has been an absolute pleasure

having the opportunity to meet so many of you and I am hopeful that we will see a record number of students voting this year. So please check all the candidates platforms and come meet us all as well, for we should be voting not only for the platform, but for the individual who best represents our community.

This is a call to all undergraduate students at Mac. Remember that you are not just a number, but a student with dreams, goals, ambitions and the power to make this important decision for the future of our University.

The choice is yours McMaster.

Informed leadership will make the difference

JACOB BRODKA

My decision to come to McMaster was an easy one. As soon as I had an opportunity to experience the incredible sense of community on campus, I was sold. The amount of energy and passion I continue to see from students each and every day motivates me to want to make a difference.

From buying a cup of coffee at Union Market to printing off our assignments at Underground - whether we realize it or not, the majority of us interact with the MSU through its services each and every day. Aside from this interaction - the MSU gives us as students a direct role in improving student experience and driving change. In putting together my platform I wanted to make sure that I built something that students could not only connect to, but is also feasible and practical within the term of the MSU President.

I decided to focus on three main areas: Student Life, Academics, and Communication.

For student life I wanted to focus on celebrating and expanding school pride and community relations. I am also interested in taking steps towards improving term two programming specifically Frost Week.

Academics is the reason why we are all here to begin with, yet it is often something overlooked in a Presidential campaign - especially from a service perspective. With my platform I wanted to encourage students to explore new academic interests by implementing “Freedom Credit” pass/fail course options.

I want to create a service for affordable peer-to-peer academic support and at the same time bridge the gap between the

MSU and faculty societies.

Communication is key. I truly believe that student ideas are the fuel that helps ensure the MSU continues to provide amazing opportunities and experiences for all those it represents. I want to take the power of student ideas even further by giving you the ability to be part of the decision making process through participatory project budgeting.

In making my platform I aimed to create something that was feasible within a one-year term. A lack of information about research or consultation in regards to platform implementation is a major oversight. I want students to know that what I am proposing was the result of hours of research and conversation with the people who have the power to turn talk into action.

Students need a president who not only has good ideas, but also has a strong knowledge of the organization in which they want to lead. The majority of the MSU President’s job is not implementing their platform but filled with meetings, conversations, and events that require a holistic view of the MSU and its services and governance.

Through my involvement with the MSU and other university departments, I am confident I have the experience and understanding to ensure continuity and introduce positive change.

To learn more, I encourage you to check out my website: www.brodka14. com

Inclusivity and student equity should be priorities

JYSSIKA RUSSELL Don’t forget to vote from

January 28-30

I envision a campus that’s equitable, inclusive, and accessible.

It’s time for the MSU to focus on the needs of those belonging to marginalized communities, or not otherwise represented by the Student Representative Assembly.

The MSU should strive to get a better understanding of student issues on campus beyond academics.

As it stands, representation within the MSU is limited to just our faculties.

But we all know that we’re more than that.

Students have individual needs, concerns and issues on campus that need to be addressed in different manners.

While faculty division might be an easy and effective way to vote on organizational policies, we also need other venues for students to speak up about issues of equity on campus.

I’m advocating for the creation of an Inclusion Council, which will meet with the MSU President to discuss matters of equity, inclusivity and accessibility. This Council will serve as a window into the

myriad of individual student needs and bringing these matters to the attention of the MSU. Over the last two years, with the help of last year’s VP Education, Huzaifa Saeed, the MSU has been talking about mental health issues on campus, and attempting to “stomp out the stigma.” For far too long we’ve been raising awareness about these issues and failing to implement tangible solutions.

We need to address some of the roots of mental health concerns, and find avenues to improve support for students.

The primary source of support for students with mental health issues on campus is the Student Wellness Centre.

However, some students have to face month-long waiting periods between appointments. Additionally, same-day mental health appointments are only offered for first time use. We need to have more counsellors at the SWC to reflect this growing student need.

The Peer Support Line is doing a

wonderful job at reaching out to students and providing support. However, we need to be cognizant of the fact that not everyone feels comfortable calling in. In collaboration with other services which provide peer support, like the Student Health Education Centre and the Queer Students Community Centre, a text-based peer support system should be put in place to provide more accessible support options.

There are also ways for the MSU to be proactive in helping students overcome barriers that can lead to mental health crises.

For example, a low income student whose OSAP is late will have a hard time collecting funds to pay for tuition, courseware, food and rent. The implementation and advertisement of an accessible emergency loan with students in mind would lessen the burden of a financial crisis. In turn, removing this major source of stress would have a positive impact on a student’s mental

health.

Another stressful time for students is tax season. In the past, the MSU had a tax consultant on campus to help students with the completion and filing of their taxes. It saw strong usage during its original implementation, however, the program was poorly advertised later, and the service was discontinued. Tax season is stressful for many students, and can be a complicated process. Re-implementing this program with proper advertisement would lessen the stress associated with this period of time.

As a part-time manager of the MSU, implementing solutions, building community, and providing students with the support they need has been my job.

Over the last two years in this position, I’ve interacted one-on-one with hundreds of students.

My platform isn’t only a list of things that could make our experience at McMaster better. These are things we need.

theSil.ca

Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014

OPINIONS

A10

A picture worth dying for Funerals are supposed to be a celebration of life, but funeral selfies are a celebration of self Julie Huff The Silhouette Facebook news feeds are littered with selfies. We see them on Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.

They’re everywhere. I’m not sure why people feel the need to catalogue their image at every turn, but one thing is certain: selfies have become an internet phenomenon. Some argue that selfies are no more than a narcissistic attempt for people to cry, “hey, look at me!” without actually saying the words. They’re attention-grabbers. But selfies have hit a new low.

Jason Feifer, a Brooklyn-based senior editor of Fast Company, has created a tumblr blog called “Selfies at Funerals.”

Care to guess what it’s about? Yup, that’s right. Feifer compiles images of teenagers taking pictures of themselves at funerals. Often, teens are seen with “duck faces” or posing for the camera with various hash tags such as “Love my hair today. Hate why I’m dressed up #funeral.”

The blog first came to public attention last October and has since created a barrage of media uproar. Many are upset that teens seem to show such little respect for the deceased. The selfies indicate that rather than mourning the loss of life, teens instead place themselves at the forefront of a somber event by highlighting their blatant vanity and narcissism through a self-taken photo.

Indeed, many feel that funerals are not an appropriate occasion for any picture, let alone a selfie.

Feifer has been accused of attempting to mock funerals and their attendees, namely teenagers, but in fact his tumblr seems to have had a slightly different effect: rather, the selfie-taking teens have become the target of mass criticism and disapproval. Teens have been attacked for what many consider their conceited and egotistical behaviour.

In an interview with CBC Radio, Feifer challenged the public’s outcry and defended the pictures, saying that he never meant the tumblr to be a cultural critique. He stated: “I don’t think this is a condemnation of a generation. I don’t intend it to be.

It certainly is an observation of the way this generation is using social media. They’re also the first to do it – they’re the first to have it – and I really strongly believe that if my parents’ generation, my grandparents’ generation, had been the ones growing up with these tools, with this amount of technology and ability to share, they would have done very similar things.”

KAREN WANG / GRAPHICS EDITOR

Some defend the selfies. Mortician Caitlin Doughty claims that they may be the only way teens know how to express their deep sense of sadness and mourning. A hundred years ago, family members commonly took pictures with caskets propped unceremoniously on a wall. Today, the ever-changing world of technology constantly alters the way we communicate, and selfies have become a universal way to interact with others.

Moreover, she suggests teens take the pictures out of boredom. They are forced to attend the funeral of someone they don’t know, and retreat to the bathroom to take pictures of themselves when they find that their boredom has become all-consuming.

But enough with the excuses.

Regardless of whose funeral we are attending or our relationship with the deceased, there should be a universally understood level of respect owed to the dead. Not only are funeral selfies disrespectful of the deceased, but they are also offensive and hurtful to their loved ones. Have teens become so desensitized that they are completely unfeeling in regards to death?

But I can’t help thinking that perhaps teens don’t mean the selfies to be offensive. They are

just so used to taking pictures of themselves wherever they go that they don’t stop to think about what affect a funeral selfie may have. Yet teens seem to know that there is something wrong with the pictures – if they didn’t, one example of a funeral selfie wouldn’t ask, “This is a funeral selfie, am I going to hell?” Or worse still, snapping a shot with the deceased behind them; “My friend took a selfie at a funeral and didn’t realize his dead Grandma was in the background. I can’t breathe.”

The maelstrom of media backlash will hopefully soon come to an end (and the funeral selfie phenomenon along with it) due to Feifer’s decision to end the tumblr when what he considers

the ultimate selfie was taken: On Dec. 10, 2013, Obama took a selfie along with the Danish and British prime ministers at Mandela’s memorial service. Granted, the occasion wasn’t a funeral per se, but you get the point.

While social media has quite clearly changed our lives in regard to the ways in which we express ourselves, funeral selfies are a selfish, conceited and disrespectful way to portray our feelings. I argue that these selfies show the world how much teenagers care about themselves rather than the person whose funeral they are attending. After all, a funeral is meant to be a day that celebrates the life of the dead, mourns their passing and provides an opportu-

nity for their friends and family to say goodbye. Surely teens can give the attention to others for one day. Although maybe unintentionally, Jason Feifer’s blog uses an occasion we are all familiar with to illustrate a cultural phenomenon and cleverly critique society today. While not all funerals are somber events, the fact that the tumblr elicited such a remarkable reaction from society and the media shows that proper “funeral etiquette” is universal. So next time you’re at a funeral, think twice before you decide to whip out your phone and snap a quick pic. You never know who might be behind you.

Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014

theSil.ca

OPINIONS

A11

Two sides, one land A conflict half the world away still has influence on students at McMaster

Lauren Grammer The Silhouette Simple labels are easy to use but are often purposely misinforming.

The label of apartheid that has been put on the state of Israel is a misinformed term. As the sole Jewish and democratic state in the Middle East, Israel has always been a lightning rod for controversy. The complex issues impacting Israel including Arab rights and so called ‘apartheid wall’ have therefore been cast under the shadow of apartheid.

The annual Israel Apartheid Week (IAW) that occurs at McMaster and around the world is therefore deeply disturbing as ill-informed activists simplify complex issues using a term that is purposely inflammatory.

Apartheid is an official policy of racial segregation involving political, legal, and economic discrimination. Apartheid is most commonly associated with South Africa. From 1948 to 1994, black South Africans were legally persecuted and segregated from the white population. There was an official mandate identifying blacks as second-class citizens who could not vote, hold political office and had to reside in certain locations. The people involved in IAW at McMaster try to compare the so-called Israel apartheid with the South African apartheid.

How can Israel be an apartheid state if it operates on a system in which all citizens and minorities have full rights? This means that every Jew and Arab living in Israel has the same exact freedoms. Arabs have the right to vote, the right to health care, the right to move about freely within the country and much more. Also Israeli Arabs can be seen in government, on Israeli national sports teams and even in international beauty contests representing Israel. No black South African ever had the kind of rights and freedoms that Israeli Arabs do. In fact, Arabs with Israeli citizenship are actually entitled to more rights than any Arab living in the Arab world, as Israel is the only democratic state in the Middle East. It seems that those using the term apartheid at McMaster year after year forget this fact. On this principle alone, Israel is not an apartheid state as there is no legal policy separating Jewish Israelis and Arab Israelis.

Despite the aforementioned rights and freedoms, McMaster IAW still continues. Many have pointed to the so called ‘apartheid wall’ as the quintessential example of apartheid in Israel. When Arabs want to come into Israel they are subjected to security checks due to the building of the security wall that separates the West Bank and Gaza Strip from Israel. This wall was built in reaction to the abundant amount of terrorism that occurred in Israel from 2000-2005 called the Second Intifada. Since the wall has been built terrorism has gone down by 90 per cent. This wall may separate Israel from its bordering regions, however it is no different than the wall being built between the US and Mexico to stop illegal immigration. The US-Mexico security fence is not an apartheid measure and neither is the one that separates Israel from its neighbors. Therefore, the only way for McMaster’s IAW advocates to use the security wall as an argument for apartheid, which they have, as seen on McMaster’s Israel Apartheid Week 2012 Facebook page, is to suggest that the US-Mexico wall is also an act of apartheid.

The purpose of this article was not to devalue some of the points that are being brought to light due to Israel Apartheid Week because many of these issues are real and worthy of discussion.

However if one wants to be taken seriously, activists must stop using apartheid as a convenient catch-all for the plight of the Arabs in Israel. When using the term “apartheid” to describe the situation in Israel, one is not using the word correctly and sounds, at best, ill-informed. Comparing the two is simply a plea for media attention, as the situation in Israel is completely different than what occurred in South Africa. A more effective way to utilize an entire week is to set aside the rhetoric and focus on the real issues that are affecting the Palestinian people.

BEN BARRETT-FORREST / MULTIMEDIA EDITOR

Edward Lovoquintanilla The Silhouette On the day of Nelson Mandela’s death, people from all walks of life mourned his loss. Amongst the loudest mourners were politicians who criminalized his actions, branded him a terrorist, and supported his imprisonment— labelling his anti-apartheid work an act of ‘anti-white hostility.’

Today he is mourned a hero.

Conveniently forgotten are the campaigns against him. Mandela was on the United States’ terrorism watch list until 2008, Margaret Thatcher famously said that, “the ANC [African National Congress] is a typical terrorist organization ... Anyone who thinks it is going to run the government in South Africa is living in cloud-cuckoo land.”

These were not isolated remarks. Returned and Services League of Australia’s Bruce Ruxton commented that the ANC was a more dangerous “terrorist” organization than the Irish Republican Army and the Palestinian Liberation Organization - the latter ironically transformed into a legitimate arm of government after the Oslo Accords.

These histories of vilification—where the powerless are demonized by the powers that dominate them—are almost cyclical (examine the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., for example). Voltaire’s phrase “To know who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize,” echoes through the passageway of time into contemporary events: Mandela’s imprisonment after organizing against a white supremacist regime; the criminalization of the ANC; Palestinians, both adults and children, incarcerated for refusing to cooperate (though sometimes arbitrarily) under the conditions of occupation; Israel’s refusal to recognize the democratically elected Hamas (while prizing themselves as the beacon of democracy in the Middle East, no less) and converting the Gaza Strip into an open air prison.

In 1997, years after Mandela’s release and the crippling of the apartheid state by popular boycott, divestment and sanctions, Mandela famously said in an address at the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, “we know too well that our freedom is incomplete

without the freedom of the Palestinians.” And yet those who publicly mourn him sugarcoat the true zeal of the great man that was Nelson Mandela, and work to silence his call for action in solidarity with Palestine.

And yet, there is still hope. In the spirit of Nelson Mandela, actions across the world have taken place in the last year alone.

The Association for Asian American studies passed a resolution for a Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) in April followed by the American Studies Association in December. The European Union boycotted several Israeli companies and sanctioned Israel for its illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Stephen Hawking endorsed the academic boycott beside the name of Noam Chomsky the York Federation of Students passed a BDS resolution.

Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War’s and Palestinian Association of Hamilton’s, joined by McMaster Muslims for Peace and Justice, picketed at Canadian Tire to boycott SodaStream products, whose production is in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Each one of these actions received backlash from Israel and its supporters. Backlash eerily similar to the controversy surrounding Mandela during the age of apartheid South Africa.

The similarity of the portraits—and the absurdity of both—of South Africa and Palestine leaps out when Palestinians who throw rocks are called terrorists, but when Israeli leader Ariel Sharon levelled Palestinian cities and encouraged their further expulsion (all acts of ethnic cleansing as defined by the United Nations and International Criminal Court)—now he’s an example of a warrior!

The question we are faced with is: will we continue to praise Mandela yet sit comfortably in our hypocrisy in not heeding his call for action?

NOTSPEC.COM

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IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREE T SINCE 1934

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CANDIDATES’ CORNER

DAN HANDSOME “EQUALITY FOR

THE LUCKY FEW”

PLATFORM>> QUACK COLOUR>> YELLOW MOOD>> QUIZZICAL

CLEOPATRA FAWKES “ART

TART”

“IT’S NOT THE

MEASURE OF

With the student union presidential election campaign season in full swing, we look at the players that hate the game.

PLATFORM>> LIFE’S A STAGE COLOUR>> FUCHSIA MOOD>> ABSENT

MAKES HIM GREAT, IT IS

“SOMEONE

MYSELF

FOR ALL THE ITTY-BITTY BIDDIES.”

OF BREAD

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PLATFORM>> CHICKS, MAN COLOUR>> BLACK MOOD>> BUSINESS CASUAL

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GET WITH MY

CRUMBS IN HIS

OUT OF THE WAY.”

Dan has been called many things, but subtle has not been one of them.

Handsome is the favoured forerunner in this election cycle of completely fresh candidates, but he hopes to set himself apart from the chaff.

“Some candidates will make you empty promises and tell you about all the things they want to do for you. I’ll tell you here and now, that I will, with complete certainty, decrease the amount of student-on-fowl violence that is currently plaguing our fine campus,” said Handsome.

A father of eighteen, Dan is hoping to create a safe environment in whose puddles his offspring can safely, and playfully, wade in.

“The duck stops here. A vote for Handsome is a vote for splashing around in early spring watering holes and being able to poop wherever, and whenever I please.”

Hsu is known across campus as the inventor of the “Deca-Down,” a combination of ten fast food orders culminating into an entity that is gaining a pro-life movement.

Hidonaka is not the type to traditionally campaign, and as such he will let his message speak for itself.

“Students shouldn’t have to invent fake political clubs in order to facilitate marijuana transactions,” said Hidonaka.

“Under my administration, I will appoint some of my closest friends as VPs, and they are really legit dudes with some sick hook-ups, so yeah.”

Hidonaka can be reached by interested voters in the usual Young Liberals’ club space.

CHUCK POTACKI “SLEAZE PLEASE”

“IF LIFE IS A

PLAY, THEN I CONSIDER

A MAN THAT

Ten new ways to contract STDs from toilet seats B2

It can be said that people of Cleopatra’s calibre are born only once a millenium.

This millenium, in fact, as she bears a rare degenerative disease that causes everyone in her proximity to be completely put off by her bitchy “can-do” attitude.

That fact standing, she has high hopes for winning this close election, as she feels nobody else is up for the job.

“These other jokers are chumps. They couldn’t lead their way out of a pencil. See what I did there? That kind of homonym mastery is what you can expect from a Fawkes administration,” said Fawkes.

When asked about any tangible plans she has for the student union, she pulled out an orange and peeled it slowly while not breaking eye contact.

“Life is too short to think about what comes next.

What matters is moving backwards, to simpler times.”

HSU HIDONAKA “PRETTY SURE

HE’S HIGH”

Your kids are learning only the basic body shapes!

Expand their minds!

PLAIN JANE

“THE EASILY FORGETTABLE ONE; I CAn’T BELIEVE SHE’S NOT BUTTER”

“LEGALIZE IT.

“SUSTAINABIILITY,

BACK FAMILY MATTERS.”

AND EQUALITY

AND BRING

PLATFORM>> POLITICS COLOUR>> AUBURN MOOD>> MANNEQUIN

ACCESSIBILITY,

ARE ALL BUZZWORDS I

WILL UTILIZE.”

WEATHER HIGH: SPACE PIRACY LOW: SPACE SUDANESE RELATIONS Space Africa is really not to best place to vacation nowadays.

PLATFORM>> YES, PLEASE COLOUR>> GREEEEEEN MOOD>> GIGGLE FITS

Unlike his successful brother, Chuck is a man of few words, save for any that land him some strange.

“The promiscuous student population is severely under-represented. When do we give a voice to the voiceless, and topless?” said Potacki.

Potacki is running on a strict two-point platform, outlining the importance of having “enormous ta-ta’s” and “readily-available coital access” which he hopes will convince voters to elect him over his more experienced peers.

When asked about which other candidate he would vote for given the chance, Chuck was candid.

“Dan is a stand-up guy that I think wants a lot of the same things I do. Chicks dig ducks, and that dude is fowl to the absolute core,” said Potacki.

Don’t think twice when you’re at the ballot box next week. A vote for Chuck is just slightly worse than abstaining.

Shittles and Bits Shits Hastings gets a cat or some-

SPECU

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DISCLAIMER: I apologize profusely for using this image, but sometimes shock therapy is needed to get your message across, you know.? yeah you know.

RESHAPE YOUR EXPECTATIONS

Disclaimer: The Hamilton Speculator is a work of satire and fiction and should not under any circumstances be taken seriously. Unless you’re into that sort of thing. Then do what you want. I’m not your dad.

Plain is the right person to represent you, the demographically-average student of voting eligibility.

Jane wants all students to be equal and able to access finances in a speedy and convenient manner.

“Tuition is both too high and scaling unreasonably. I believe education should be both accessible and free for people of all ethnic backgrounds and lifestyles,” said Jane.

Jane promises to make the unreasonable demands students have a reality after she is elected into office, but only then.

“You want longer library hours? Done.

Cheaper food on campus?

Please, that’s child’s play.

I’ll even throw in better grades because you don’t really understand what this position is capable of,” said Jane.

theSil.ca

Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014 Marauders win nine in a row, cementing first place position

B1 Track team prepares for McGill invitational

B6

B5

Editors Laura Sinclair & Alexandra Reilly Email sports@thesil.ca @SilSports Phone 905.525.9140 x27117

SLAPSHOTS TO SPIKES

6’8” Tyson Alexander hung up an exceptional fourteen-year hockey career to take a crack at volleyball. Now in his final year, he is leading his team to CIS dominance Page B2

YOSEIF HADDAD / SENIOR PHOTO EDITOR

S BASKETBALL

Mac has trouble closing Scott Hastie The Silhouette McMaster has slid into a two-game losing streak by a combined four points. They have been handed defeat with 2.2 seconds left and then at the buzzer. The fourth quarter is the women’s basketball team’s biggest nemesis – and it could cost them their season.

The Marauders are reeling right now, losing by one point to the second place Laurier Golden Hawks and then losing to the second-to-last Guelph Gryphons on a desperation three-point heave as time expired. While there is a conversation to be had about the legitimacy of the call at the end of the Laurier game that put guard Lee Anna Osei at the line for two free throws, Mac had a shot to win that game and let it slip away.

Head coach Theresa Burns will not blame the officiating, she says that the team simply lacks execution at crucial moments. When asked what was going through her head when the whistle blew to give Osei free throws, Burns paused for nearly ten seconds before expressing her concerns.

“Just total frustration with how the last five or six minutes were played on our part. The calls compounded the frustration. We just don’t seem to be able to close out close games. Until we can do that, we are not going to beat top-ten teams,” said Burns.

That conversation happened before McMaster suffered the likely dagger in their hopes for the No. 2 seed in the OUA West against Guelph. With the Gryphons looking to score a bucket to put themselves up four, Hailey Milligan tipped away the ball and forced a turnover. After a flurry of passes, Danielle Boiago went to her right hand and pulled up to nail a jumper that tied the game with exactly one second left.

With the Boiago shot, the narrative of clutch issues was on its deathbed. Mac could force overtime and get a win in a game they were largely outplayed. But Gryphon Marlee Freeman banked in a leaning three-pointer from five feet beyond the line to claim the walkoff victory. With the buzzer-beater, the narrative was alive and well.

Burns shakes her head when discussing the execution issues, trying to peg why her team is losing.

“We just have had too many of these games. We are not accountable enough; there are shots that you have to hit, there are fouls that you cannot take, there are turnovers you cannot have. There are individuals who are not holding themselves accountable,” Burns said.

Accountability aside, Burns named other issues plaguing the team in the fourth quarter. The problem of secondary scoring lingers, players are not taking shots with any confidence, and the team is hesitating instead of just playing.

Coming out of the winter break, the team looked like they had the secondary scoring to compete and make a run for the OUA title. McMaster played the University of Saskatchewan and Saint Mary’s University very tough and ripped off a win over Brock University.

Now, at 8-6 with five games remaining, the All-Canadian level play of fifth-year Milligan is looking like it will be an effort that is all-fornaught, and the veteran-laden core will walk away from the Maroon and Grey with a disappointing final campaign.

In 2012-13, McMaster “peaked at the right time”, according to Burns, catching fire at the end of the season and going into the playoffs with all of the momentum.

This year, the Marauders are faltering in January and heading into a double-header on the road against Lakehead University, who have surged in the new year and look poised to make a run into playoffs.

A season that started with so much promise is coming undone at the end, a perfect anecdote for McMaster’s problems with the fourth quarter. @scott1hastie

SPORTS

Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014

theSil.ca

B2

Alexander the great Hockey player turned volleyball star #12 Tyson Alexander is dominating the CIS

YOSEIF HADDAD / PHOTO EDITOR

Laura Sinclair Sports Editor Tyson Alexander is currently one of the best volleyball players in the country, on one of the most dominant team’s in the CIS—but it didn’t always start out that way.

The 6’8, 245 pound middle from Shanty Bay, Ont. was originally a competitive hockey player, like a lot of Canadian kids getting into the game at an early age, first lacing up skates at the age of

three.

His hockey career would extend fourteen impressive years, with Alexander seeing success early on, playing at the Junior C level. Though typically comprising a roster of 16-20 year-olds, Alexander managed to crack the line-up as a fifteen-year-old.

When he was seventeen, he got an offer to play for the Stouffville Spirit Junior A team.

He tried out for the OHL hockey team the Barrie Colts with the

intention of trying out for them again when he turned eighteen, but somewhere along the line, his plans were changed.

Volleyball was always more of a side-sport for the multi-talented athlete, coming onto the Alexander’s radar when he was in high school.

“I played for fun through school, my first year was in Grade seven,” said Alexander, “and then in high school, I started to get better at it —I got MVP all four years.”

Despite Alexander’s obvious success in the game, he was an under-developed volleyball player. He did not have the experience of a competitive league under his belt like most of the MVP highschool volleyball players did.

So when Coach Dave Preston was invited to the OFSAA championships in Alexander’s grade 12 year to watch another athlete play, he was blown away by Alexander’s level of play despite his lack of volleyball experience.

“I talked to the coach right after the match, and the coach knew who I was there to see and I said ‘Thank you very much for the opportunity to take a look at this other young man, but I would really like to know who that guy is,” said Coach Dave Preston.

“And the coach said ‘He’s not a volleyball player, he’s a hockey player.’ I said ‘Well I beg to differ.”

Alexander’s physical presence alone was enough to gain Preston’s interest in wanting to have him involved with the Marauders team, as his 6’8 stature is key for the physical demands of the sport.

“He was 6’8, 230 pounds and he jumped out of the gym. That got my initial attention,” said Preston.

Alexander’s technical skills were not great, but the way he carried himself on the court is what impressed Preston the most.

“The way he interacted with

NEW

A whole new way to earn

his teammates—he wasn’t always doing the right things, but he was always complimenting someone else who made a nice play, supporting someone who didn’t, it was neat to see,” added Preston.

Preston was able to talk to Alexander’s coach after the game, and gave him his business card so that Alexander could contact him about his options.

Alexander originally was not going to contact Preston due to his initial intention on continuing on with hockey, but after talking with his father, he decided to at least check out the option.

“I got a call from Tyson saying ‘my coach gave me your business card and I have no idea what we’re supposed to do next.’ I said ‘No problem, bring you and your parents to campus and we will sit you down and talk about it,” said Preston.

In their meeting, Preston told Alexander to give him two years to work with him and develop him into a phenomenal player, and he’ll be able to dominate in league-play.

“I told him the worst thing you’re going to end up with is two years of great education,” said Preston.

When Alexander first came to McMaster, he had a lot of work to do in order to catch up to the skill-level of the guys around him, with the majority of them coming from very competitive leagues.

He did not start or play for his first two years of eligibility. He had to really work on his technical skills before being able to crack the starting line-up.

“I wasn’t really that good when I got here, I had to work, Dave had me pinned for about two years until I was ready to start,” said Alexander.

But his tremendous improvement in the past five years has gone exactly how Preston has planned, and Alexander has

continued to exceed Preston’s expectations.

“When he first got here in first year he couldn’t continue a rally, he couldn’t make more than a single contact at a time. To see that development is remarkable, and how he has handled all that is even more remarkable,” said Preston.

Alexander is now in his fifth and final year at McMaster, and the progress he has made in the past five years has been incredible. He not only gets to play for one of the most dominant teams in the nation, but he is also one of the most dominant players in the CIS. “His story will last a long time. That is something that will go down in history. I have been coaching for 20 some odd years, I don’t know if I’ve had a more remarkable story than his. He is one of those top notch kids,” said Preston.

Despite switching sports, Alexander still gets to play a team sport at a very competitive level, and has managed to make a name for himself and reach high goals both athletically and academically.

As for his decision to quit hockey, Alexander lives without regret, as he knows he’ll still get to play the sport whenever he wants to.

“I am happy I did it, no regrets. Whenever I go home I play hockey with my Dad and buddies, any chance I have to go on the ice is good. I will always play, so I’ll never miss it.” @Lsinkky

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SPORTS

Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014

theSil.ca

B3

Marauder wrestling grows stronger

C/O BASIA KARPINSKI

Aurora Coltman Silhouette Intern McMaster’s wrestling team has found themselves sitting in the OUA top ten after scoring well in several challenging matches this season.

Following an excellent match at the Brock Invitational where McMaster players won six medals, they once again played a tough tournament on Jan. 18 at the Guelph Invitational.

The Ontario Amateur Wrestling Association attracts wrestlers internationally, and with a number of powerful competitors, the wrestling team left the Guelph Invitational with two solid wins.

The two notable winners were Jason Buckle and Nicole Roach.

Buckle won gold in the 61kg weight class, his second uninterrupted win in two weeks, fol-

lowing his first win at the Brock Invitational.

Jason was a fierce competitor at this week’s Invitational as he won against the Alberta Golden Bears’ Dylan Williams by a score of 12-1, and followed that with an intense win of 14-11 in his gold-medal match against Mike Asselstine where Buckle twice tilted experienced Asselstine in the final 20 seconds.

Nick Cipriano, the wrestling team’s Head Coach, spoke of Buckle and said, “A common characteristic of a champion is that they find a way to win, and certainly Jason is becoming a champion.

Jason pushed himself to the very last second and scored a most convincing win against last year’s CIS Champion and a current member of Canada’s U24 team.”

This speaks to one of Buckles

COMING UP JANUARY 22 MEN’S BASKETBALL @ Guelph 8 p.m.

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL @ Guelph 6 p.m.

JANUARY 24 MEN’S VOLLEYBALL @ Waterloo 8 p.m.

WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL @ Watrloo 8 p.m.

JANUARY 25 WOMEN’S BASKETBALL vs Western 1 p.m.

JANUARY 26 MEN’S VOLLEYBALL vs Guelph 3 p.m.

YOSEIF HADDAD / PHOTO EDITOR

most valuable strengths. “Jason is more technically skilled, but Asselstine is a couple of years older and more experienced.

Many, with the exception of our coaching staff and Jason, were surprised by his victory over such an accomplished wrestler.”

Cipriano also mentioned Buckle’s major strengths, his “fierce fighting spirit and work ethic to match. [Buckle] loves to compete.”

Roach won against Lorraine Yeung 8-0 of York before losing to Brock’s Michelle Fazzare and Celeste Rodrigues, of the Sudbury Wrestling Club. This claimed her bronze in the 60 kg weight class.

“Nicole is a very methodical wrestler and approaches every match with a game plan,” Cipriano said, “She is meticulous in studying her opponents and developing a winning game plan against them.”

The two other notable players of the day were Kevin Barret and Erica D’Angelo.

Barret, also an experienced player, was advanced due to a forfeit in his first match, and managed to win against Saskatchewan’s Calvin Daum in the second round before he lost to Ryan Cochrane from Brock in the 86kg weight class. Barret placed fifth.

D’Angelo, recently returned from a serious injury, placed fourth in the 55kg weight class at the tournament. “Erica is coming off a serious injury and is starting to see herself as a challenger,” Cipriano said. “As her training continues, her confidence will grow and her expectations [of herself] will be greater.” It seems true, as D’Angelo opened her tournament with a 10-0 defeat over Regina’s Cassandra Schhmidt in the consolation bracket, before being beaten by Anna McKee of the

Londonwest Wrestling Club in the bronze-medal match.

The wrestling team will continue to participate in tournaments including the Kingston Invitational and the Queens Invitational. Buckle will be traveling to Colorado Springs for an international tournament, and will be at the OUA Championships on Feb. 15 and Feb. 16. Barett shall be taking the week off, and D’Angelo will be appearing at Queens to continue to gain confidence on the mat.

“Roach will be competing at the Provincial Junior Championship (under 20 years of age) this weekend and we expect her to be a challenger for the gold medal,” Cipriano added.

Many of the other members will be participating in a number of tournaments, and great things can be expected from all of them.

SPORTS

Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014

theSil.ca

B5

Marauders extend win streak

The Marauders now extend their win streak to nine in a row and although this is some of the best basketball played in Coach Connolly’s career the team knows they need to move forward in a state of cautious optimism.

Scott Hastie The Silhouette The winning streak has hit nine games, the roster is healthy and attentive to detail, and Mac is sitting atop of the OUA West with a two-game cushion.

It is safe to say the McMaster Marauders men’s basketball team is playing its best ball of the Amos Connolly era.

It is the longest winning streak in the head coach’s four year tenure, although the combined winning percentage of the teams they have beaten is .392 as of Jan. 22.

While things are going along swimmingly, the Marauder camp is in a state of cautious optimism.

YOSEIF HADDAD / PHOTO EDITOR

It is early still, and the welldocumented goal of winning a national championship is still far, far away.

Connolly knows there is work to be done, and the practice conversations revolve around keeping the squad’s focus on the right areas.

“What I concern myself with is the [team] getting a false sense of confidence,” said Connolly.

“They have done what they need to do to win basketball games, but I would not say [the team’s] execution has been perfect or that they are playing at the level they are capable of.”

That seems like a harsh criticism for a team that has reached heights not seen in nearly a decade.

Connolly says there are positives though, and pointed to the success given the schedule in 2014 – six of the first eight games are on the road – as an example.

In order to keep the team in check, the coaching staff is preaching that the players “stick to the process.”

The internal belief is if McMaster focuses on themselves and continues to maintain the intensity that has got the team to this point, they will have every opportunity to achieve their goals.

McMaster’s rise in the CIS rankings to No. 6 is an example of that.

The by-product of their spot in the poll is that Mac is the highest ranked team that most of their opponents will play for the rest of the season.

“We have a target on our back. We are going to get the opponent’s best, we are not going to sneak up on anybody,” said Connolly.

In a conversation last week, Joe Rocca echoed that sentiment, saying he could see the difference in compete-level they are receiving from other teams.

It is a good problem to have in comparison to issues facing other OUA teams, but the head coach aired a concern that the team is taking some opponents lightly.

He pointed to the Waterloo Warriors mounting a comeback and the Laurier Golden Hawks hanging around for too long in two of the latest matches.

All of this is not to say that McMaster is far from making it back to the national stage. With the way they are playing, they are undoubtedly closer to reaching the CIS Final 8 than they have been in years.

There are issues here though, and whether those wrinkles will be worked out or not is yet to be seen.

The pieces are in place and the roster is deep, but the danger of complacency is lurking.

@scott1hastie

“

“What I concern myself with is the [team] getting a false sense of confidence.”

Amos Connolly, Head Coach of Marauders basketball

SPORTS

Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014

theSil.ca

B6

Mac shines at Don Wright

YOSEIF HADDAD / SENIOR PHOTO EDITOR c/o pete self

Laura Sinclair Sports Editor The Marauders track season is in full swing, and after two meets under their belt, they have already managed to throw down some impressive times.

The team traveled to the Don Wright invitational in London, and started off quickly with the 60 m dash, where Latisha Rhooms finished fourth overall in the finals with a time of 8.06.

In the men’s 60 m dash, last year’s CIS 300 m bronze medalist Scott Hutchinson also finished fourth overall with a time of 7.12.

In the men’s 1000 m race, Jeff Tweedle prevailed as the winner, running to an impressive time of 2:31, which is a personal best time for the second year engineering student.

Not too far behind Tweedle was first year Patrick Deane, who finished third overall with a time of 2:33.

In fifth place was Eric Barry, who finished the race right beside Deane, with a time of 2:33.

In the 1500 m race, women’s captain Chelsea Mackinnon ran an impressive first race of the season, finishing in third place overall with a time of 4:45.

Close behind Mackinnon was Raquel Burgess, who ran to a personal best time of 4:48 which was good enough for sixth place overall.

In the men’s 1500 m, the most impressive race was from Taylor Forbes, who won the race with a time of 3:59 - close to his personal best time, which he ran at the OUA meet in late February last year.

Forbes and teammate Connor Darlington were initially given the task of pacing his brother and teammates, but after feeling good for the majority of the race, Forbes decided to keep running and aim to break the grueling four-minute barrier in the mid-

dle-distance race.

“Just before reaching three laps to go I took a look back and realized they weren’t following pace anymore and I wasn’t feeling tired, and I was having a lot of fun being out on the track. I knew I could run under four if I wanted to, so I just said why not?” said Forbes.

Although his race in the 1500 m was great, Forbes has decided to shift his concentration to the 3000 m race, where he will attempt to run to a personal best time.

“I want to run as close to 8:20 for the 3000m as I possibly can, I would be happy with running 8:25 or faster this season,” said Forbes.

Forbes has decided to use the indoor-racing season as training for his triathlon season - which is his main event and passion.

“I’m not focusing solely on track but more towards the bigger picture which is my summer tri-

athlon season,” added Forbes.

Three other Marauders finished closely after Taylor Forbes, with twin brother Austen Forbes finishing in third place with a time of 4:03, Jordan Bierema finishing in fourth place with a time of 4:04, and Luke Charbonneau finishing in fifth place with a time of 4:07.

In the 3000 m women’s race, grad student Kierstin Myers came in fourth place overall with a time of 10:30.

The team will now look forward to the McGill Invitational meet — the biggest meet of the season this coming weekend in Montreal, where they will be pushed to even faster times in a more competitive field.

“

“I knew I could run under four if I wanted to, so I just said why not?”

Taylor Forbes, member of the McMaster track team

@Lsinkky

Meet your Marauder track superstars Laura Sinclair, Sports Editor @Lsinkky

c/o pete self

Maddy McDonald Maddy McDonald is in her second year, but this is her first year racing the indoor track season.

She sat out last year, because she competed in the World Junior cross country championships in March.

“Her focus is on the 3000 m and qualifying for the CIS Championships,” said head coach Paula Schnurr.

McDonald ran a huge personal best time of 9:32.5 in the event last summer, and is an OFSAA champion in the distance as well.

“She should be very competitive this weekend in the 3000 m and her second 3000 m will be at the Boston Valentine invitational” said Schnurr.

Taylor Forbes Taylor Forbes is coming off of a great 1500 m race, running to a time of 3:59 which has him ranked 10th overall in the OUA. “His focus is on the 3000 m and his outdoor triathlon season,” said coach Schnurr.

Forbes also plans on racing at the Boston Valentine Invitational.

“If things go well this weekend, he may run more indoors and hopefully make the fast section of OUA,” added Schnurr.

Chelsea Mackinnon Chelsea Mackinnon is literally back on track after an injury that affected her indoor season last year and also held her back in cross country.

She now is healthy and better than ever, running a 4:45 1500 m at her first indoor race in two years.

“She will run the 1500 m this weekend and may focus on the 1000 m, ” said Schnurr.

Mackinnon will also be joining teammates Morgan and McDonald in Boston at the Valentine Invitational, where coach Schnurr plans to have her race the 1000 m race, which is her best event on the track.

Blair Morgan Blair Morgan is coming off of the best cross country season of his life, being both an OUA and CIS all-star.

He managed to run to a 10 second personal best time of 8:29.28 in the 3000 m at the Bob Vigars invite in London on Nov. 30.

He is currently ranked 5th in OUA and 7th in CIS. “He hopes to go faster this weekend, and since he ran the 8:29 alone I think he can go faster,” said Schnurr.

Making the CIS track championships will be tough in this distance, but he will look to improve on his time and will be joining McDonald in Boston at the Valentine Invitational.

Jeff Tweedle Jeff Tweedle is coming off of a great summer track season, running a 1:54.14 in the 800 m, which is a four second personal best time.

His time of 2:31.71 in the 1000 m currently has him ranked 9th overall in the OUA. “He can run faster and will need to get under 2:30 to make the OUA final,” said Schnurr.

Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014

B7

STEEL

Editors Amanda Watkins & Miranda Babbitt

AND THE

theSil.ca

is coming next month! Keep your eyes peeled and loins ready

Email lifestyle@thesil.ca silhappens.tumblr.com Phone 905.525.9140 x27117

S

JUST CLOWNING AROUND Being a clown is a full time job, and Cirque du Soleil veteran Gordon White wouldn’t trade it for anything.

“

“The most challenging part is just being ‘on’ when you need to be.”

Gordon White, Clown, Cirque du Soleil Gordon White plays a clown character in Varekai, the Cirque du Soleil show coming to Hamilton from Jan. 29 - Feb. 2.

Jemma Wolfe Executive Editor For most people, getting called a clown is meant as a joke or insult.

But for Cirque du Soleil veteran Gordon White, it’s a full-time job. As part of Cirque’s travelling show Varekai, White has clowned all around the world and will be bringing his talents to Hamilton next week.

True to Cirque’s characteristic storytelling aspect to their circus shows, White’s character The Skywatcher is described as a mad scientist and collector of the world’s memories. This central character acts as an enchanted ringleader, guiding the audience through the magical forest-themed show.

“In this little society in the forest, there’s a nymph character [called] The Promise. The Skywatcher, he’s always trying to make the world better. So, he’s always building these gizmos to attract a higher entity, which in this case, is the Icarus character,” White explained.

Icarus “crashes at the beginning of the show into the forest, and The Skywatcher gets to spend the show trying to match these two together. Once they’re married and together, everything will

be just fine.”

Interspersed within that story arch are the acrobatics Cirque is known for. Aerial hoops and straps suspended above the stage, “Russian” moving swings acrobatics, and traditional juggling are all acts in the show.

White is in charge of providing the comic relief from such intense physical performances, a responsibility he enjoys. The ability to play to the audience in the midst of a tightly scripted show adds variety to White’s performance. “There are moments where you could take advantage of audience reactions or something that happens on stage. It’s very, very rigidly structured, but there is room for some improve,” he said.

Cirque du Soleil scouted White in the early 2000s. At the time, he was in his home-town of Vancouver putting on oneman shows at corporate events and festivals. “They heard about me through some other clown friends that I had and they were casting a clown for Saltimbanco,” he explained. “They wanted a replacement for a clown that was leaving.”

White has since spent nearly a decade as a clown with Cirque

and has performed in Saltimbanco, Banana Shpeel and Kooza as well as reprising his role in Varekai for this tour. He’s well accustomed to the rigorous touring schedule and has developed a routine while on the road.

Every day begins with a late start. “We get up late to mid-morning because after doing a late-night show… it takes two or three hours to wind down enough to go to sleep,” White said. Then, he checks up on his emails and stays in touch with people and business he has back home before heading to the site of the next show. “The acrobats, they train every day but the clowns - we pretty much just show up with enough time to do our makeup and do a physical warm-up,” White said. The makeup application process, however, should not be underestimated.

“Everybody does their own makeup. Mine takes almost two hours to do,” he said. “It’s just quite detailed and there’s many layers, too. There’s a grease base and then you need to powder everything and then you go over all the same stuff with other powders,” he continued. “Some are wet and you need to powder on the wet and blend it before it

dries… It takes almost two hours to put and takes only two minutes to take off.”

There are other difficulties with being on tour. “The most challenging part is just being ‘on’ when you need to be, whether you’re sick or injured or just don’t feel like doing it,” White said. “But as soon as you step on stage you need to ‘be’ there. And as clowns we depend on the audience’s response.”

White has found that different countries have different senses of humour. “Every country has a different response,” he said. “In Asia, they’re really into the broad slapstick stuff. When we got to Brazil, they wanted more sophisticated [humour],” he added.

But in the heat of the performance, White enjoys letting it all go. “I just be in the moment. I mean, it’s a clown thing… It just happens.”

Catch Gordon White onstage in Varekai at Copps Coliseum from Wednesday, Jan. 29 through to Sunday, Feb. 2. Tickets are available at the Copps Coliseum box office or through Ticketmaster. @jemma_wolfe

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Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014

theSil.ca

B9

Beating the McMaster PLAGUE Julia Busatto The Silhouette

Flu and cold season has hit McMaster. We’ve all noticed the running noses and heaving coughs as we make our way through campus. I don’t know about you, but I’m sick and tired – literally – of blowing my nose in lecture. So what can we do to beat the dreaded January sickness?

The following tips are ensured to help you stay healthy this wintery season.

1

Drink a lot of liquids

If you already do, drink more. It is suggested that in a day you should consume 6-8 glasses of water.

When your body is sick it produces more mucus, causing your sinuses to feel stuffed up. Drinking water among other liquids helps increase mucus flow. Liquids also help you stay hydrated, which is

2

important to building a stronger immune system. If you’re looking for a warm drink, herbal teas will tell your cold to hit the road.

Herbal teas are warm and have essential hydrating benefits.

Sleep, sleep, sleep!

Although students tend to like to stay up until the wee hours of the morning, it is essential we get 6-8 hours of sleep. It is important for our bodies to recharge after a long day of bustling around. A good night’s sleep will strengthen your body for the following day, and help you regain your strength as quickly as possible.

To keep your immune system in good shape, it is best to develop a regular sleeping pattern. For students this may be nearly impossible, but even four good nights of sleep a week will help you fight off the cold. This may be a no-brainer, but try to avoid stimulating drinks like coffee late at night.

Grab IRA NDA BABB IT

me

Come to our office during our weekly meetings on Thursdays at 2:30 p.m. to learn how you can get involved. MUSC B110

C/ OM

T

Want to join the Sil?

so

Do you like writing?

3

Eat well

And yes, I mean chicken noodle soup. Hot chicken soup, or any given soup, raises the temperature in your nose and throat, creating an inhospitable environment for viruses that prefer cooler, drier climes. In addition, just like a hot steamy shower, hot soup thins out the mucus blocking your sinuses. Alternatively, spicy foods like cayenne, horseradish, or (for

4

zzz

lovers of sushi) wasabi can shrink the blood vessels in your nose and throat to relieve congestion.

Garlic contains allicin, a potent antimicrobial that can fend off bacteria, viruses, and fungi. Overall, generally eating healthy will help you avoid becoming sick, and help you get over a sickness more quickly.

Stay warm

It’s the most obvious tip, but I often see people between classes without proper winter gear. It’s time to ditch the fashionable fall jacket and opt for that ugly parka your grandma gave you. Although it may not get you on Style at

Mac, it will keep you warm and less likely to catch a cold. Bundle up when you are on campus, waiting for the bus and running errands to become less vulnerable.

C/O

5

’s

ITT BB BA DA N A MIR

Be conscientious

As students we come in contact with many people everyday, and must do our part to not only keep ourselves healthy but others as well. This means washing your hands frequently after you cough, blow your nose, go to the bathroom, eat, etc. Avoid sharing

utensils and water bottles, and make sure you let others around you know you are sick. It’s a classic, but always sneeze into your arm rather than your hands. Another option is a vacuum-sealed suit. Do what you need to do.

theSil.ca

Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014

LIFESTYLE

B10

DON’T BE CROSS

C/O FREECROSSWORDPUZZLES.COM

FAMOUS LAST WORDS:

“This wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. Either it goes or I do!”- Oscar Wilde

ACROSS

DOWN

1: Skin 5: Pretentious 9: Take nothing in 13: Peru’s capital 14: Trout tempter 15: Series beginning 16: Disney’s art 18: Infield fly 19: Cygnet’s mother 20: Sell 21: Half-wits 22: Blades of choppers 24: Humidor contents 25: ‘To each ___ own’ 26: Most reasonable 27: Receded 30: Lively outing 31: Tick off 34: Bird with an eerie call 35: Shows fright 36: ___ de vivre 37: May celebrant 38: Tuckers out 39: Like the beach 40: Drinks like a fish 42: Absorb, with ‘up’ 43: Didn’t have 44: Flail 47: Tipped to one side 48: Bad driver’s shout 49: Kind of talk 51: Like Cheerios 52: Cattle drive oasis 54: Peevish states 55: Chilled, in a way 56: Keeps from squeaking 57: Cul-de-___ (dead end roads) 58: Precious stones 59: Rorschach image

1: Brouhaha 2: Large ship 3: Part of PABA 4: Thanksgiving staple 5: Doctors 6: Chichen Itza attraction 7: Trampled (on) 8: Craving 9: Regional plant groups 10: Allot 11: Avoids 12: Tune for lights out 15: Orbital point 17: Duck 21: Excavation sites 23: ‘___ Came You’ (1974 Dionne Warwick and Spinners chart-topper) 24: Anxieties 26: Double agents 27: Shade tree 28: Haunting sound 29: Pompous 30: Turn cabbage into slaw 32: Free 33: Pivotal 35: Sorted, in a way 36: Prank 38: Game coins 39: More ticked 41: Electron valence sets 42: Tattered state 43: Jungle vine 44: Kind of pole 45: Go bad 46: Greeting on meeting 47: Write-off 48: Confront 50: Pain in the neck 52: Part of a costume, perhaps 53: Quoits target

SUDOKU & YOU easy.

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DID YOU KNOW? It is illegal to kill Sasquatch in the state of Washington.

Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014

theSil.ca

LIFESTYLE

B11

An intro to

“brospeak” Interpret what the bros are really saying

peer-based

Jason Woo The Silhouette My first year residence experience was out of this world because I got paired up with some of the ‘bro-iest’ people one can ever meet. In no other situation would I have become friends with them, but they are some of the sweetest people I know, and we became buds. One of the first things I realized when I got to know them was that I was often bamboozled by some of the words coming out of their mouths. It was like some weird dialect that I had never heard before. Over time I became acquainted with ‘brospeak,’ and sometimes it would even slip into my daily speech. The following list is non-exhaustive, and probably not wholly accurate, but will serve you well for your foray into the land of bros.

Bare: a lot e.g. Person A: “How excited were you for the snow day?” Person B: “Bareeeee.”

Berger: a unit of measurement that can be used in any context. e.g. “Dropped a hundo berger at da club last nite” is “Spent $100 at the club last night” Blessed: an adjective to describe something good e.g. Person A: “Tutorial was cancelled today.” Person B: “That’s blessed!”

‘Bout it: short form of “About it,” usually means in agreement e.g. Person A: “How do you feel about pizza tonight?” Person B: “Bare ‘bout it.”

Brah: another way of saying bro, because we need that. e.g. “Sup brah?”

Cheesed: annoyed/frustrated e.g. Lost my wallet today #cheesed Clutch: to perform under pressure e.g. “It’s exam time so I guess clutch mode activated.”

Pipe/simmer down: calm down e.g. Person A is making a scene.

Person B: “Alright, pipe downnn!”

health education & resources

Palika Kholi SHEC You’re in university. You’re brand new, you’ve been here a while (because let’s be real—every undergraduate year is the equivalent of at least five regular years) or you’re about to leave. But whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever point you’re at – you’ve got to make a decision. And the question remains: to commit or not to commit?

Because even though you’re in university and are on your way to becoming an adult, basically everyday is prefaced with a question mark. And, well, you’re in university (and while I think I’ve established this fact, it’s well worth repeating). So, somehow you have to try to find an answer to your daily question while also keeping up with a mountain of schoolwork and juggling your social life, your sleep schedule, and any job commitments you might have. Opportunity abounds – all that’s left is for you to determine whether or not it’s worth taking it.

As someone who has often been accused of over-committing, I present to you, in no particular order, some of my own considerations on deciding whether or not to make a commitment:

7 questions to ask before making a new commitment Are you passionate about it?

For some people, this is pretty much the only truly important consideration. For others, if it doesn’t add to their resume, then it’s not high priority. Neither of these ways of thinking can be called wrong, but in my experience, I tend to do a way better job if I actually personally care about the work involved. And this doesn’t mean I find every part of the job meaningful, but it does mean that I find the ultimate point of the endeavour worthwhile.

Do you need it?

Have you answered your aforementioned daily question? Do you have at least a general idea of the direction you’re headed in?

It could be that you don’t have any clue, in which case it might be a good idea to join something that is potentially “unnecessary.”

Or maybe it’s your last couple of years, and you know exactly where you want to be once you graduate, and so you have to make a judgment call based on the

state of your resume.

What do you hope to gain from it?

Do your expectations align with the reality of the commitment?

Have you envisioned yourself accomplishing goals that may not be so feasible outside of your imagination? Is there a lot of grunt work involved? Or maybe it’s a huge commitment – one that can detract from another commitment. You need to decide the potential worth, and this can involve some research and realistic thinking on your part.

Is it a long-term role?

Some commitments explicitly require that you take on a contract of more than just one school year. This is especially true with research, or if you’re working with a sensitive group that requires stability and consistency in terms of your presence. So, you’ll have to schedule your future accordingly.

It can also be implicit – for example, you might take on a smaller role and envision yourself as the president of the club by the time

Do you have the time?

Now, this may seem really obvious, but you’ve got to look at your own work habits and priorities. Maybe your schedule isn’t that full, but the only thing that gets you through the week is every Thursday night out at Snooty’s with your roommates, and that’s when the commitment takes place.

Or maybe you only get things done when your schedule is already full, and so adding one more thing will actually make you more productive.

Tho styll: Really not sure what this means. Throw it on at the end of your sentence to try it out. e.g. “Yo that was blessed tho styll!”

OR DIT TO E / PHO D A D D YOSEIF HA

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era am

you’ve reached your fourth year.

If this is the case, it’s not only important to adjust your commitments, but to also to into consideration: why do you consider this role to be so important? If you’re uncertain about where you want to be in the next few years, this might be a great indication.

Where does the commitment fall on your hierarchy of values?

Sometimes commitments aren’t about leadership roles or your future. They can be about relationships – like planning a date night with your significant other once a week, or calling your grandmother every few days. Or it can be more personal, like actually making it to the gym and identifying the point in the day that you are most likely to actually go. This last sort of commitment is often the hardest kind, because the only person you will let down if you fail to honour the commitment is yourself.

Have you recognized that maybe it won’t work out?

Sometimes you have to commit a lot of time and effort to something like an interview or a dense application process, and it’s important to understand that you may not even get the role you’re applying for. In this case, you must evaluate the worth you applying, because not only does the amount of effort you put in determine the quality of your application, but it will also make you consider whether the time you will take up in your application or preparing for your interview will be worthwhile.

y Gu

Coming to terms with mental illness Confessions of a tightrope walker Rick Kanary The Silhouette I frequently find myself coming across a variety of blogs, Facebook posts, and tweets claiming that it is Mental Health Awareness week, followed by a plaintive plea to repost, and the skeptical starting line “I know most of you won’t…”, which all seem to be posted at different times of the year. Doing some research will turn up the proper dates, but the exponentially increasing appearance of these messages strikes a resounding chord for me and, I hope, more of the public than ever.

Following Scott Hastie’s recent editorial regarding his choice to take some time off from the pressures of university life to tend to his mental health, and Amanda Watkin’s candid account of her own struggles with anxiety and depression, I offer you this piece as a source of inspiration and unification. There is a too-often over looked and highly stigmatized aspect to our capacity for a healthy and happy life; our mental health; and it is time that all of us rally behind the alleviation of this mostly-silent, suffering.

I will resort to the action word embedded in this column’s title and make my own confes-

sion. Some time ago, I was in something of a reverie wandering down Lakeshore Boulevard by Spencer Smith Park in search of someone. I remember the streetlights having an eerie glow about them and everything moving in wishy-washy sand animation style. I felt an intense weight on my chest and found it difficult to breathe, almost hyperventilating. Tears were falling down my face. Those tears were icy cold in October.

Thankfully, some chemical in my brain, or some memory of my little boys, overtook the emotional meteor shower I was battling through and I snapped out of this fantasy world and back into cognitive reality. I wasn’t just searching for anyone, I was searching for my girlfriend who had gone out with her friends for some drinks.

I had been walking around the streets of Burlington in the cold for hours full of morbid jealousy and a fear that my world was going to end.

I was filled with dread, a feeling like tomorrow wouldn’t come.

I hated myself and didn’t know what kind of mischief I would be capable of, so, thinking of my little boys, my mother and father, my girlfriend and her daughter, I yanked my phone from my

pocket and Googled “I want to kill myself help Burlington.”

COAST was the first number I found. I called them. A kind lady on the other end of the line talked me down, and convinced me there was no shame in visiting the ER at Joseph Brant hospital, as they are fully equipped with a crisis intervention team trained for just these kinds of circumstances and, in fact, have a Mental Health Urgent Care Centre attached. I made my way into the ER. I was given the help I needed.

I have been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, a highly misunderstood disorder that hangs on the borderline of most psychiatric diagnoses, somewhere between psychosis and neurosis, displaying symptoms of both. It is identified by the individual displaying at least five of the following nine symptoms: an intense fear of abandonment and frantic efforts to avoid it; a disturbed or fragmented sense of self; a pervasive instability in relationships; a deep, inexplicable, and chronic feeling of emptiness; emotional instability and dysregulation; recurrant suicidal or self-harming behavior; impulsivity (spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, etc.); inappropriate, intense anger; and

transient, stress-related paranoid thoughts or severe dissociative symptoms. I qualified on all 9 of the symptoms.

The psychiatrist, a kind and quirky fellow by the name of Alfred Amaladous (I feel the need to precede his name with a respectful ‘sir’), asked me a series of questions while taking notes quite attentively. After 30 minutes, a look of sincere certainty washed across his face and he laid down the symptoms in a gentle and friendly manner. He introduced the idea by asking me what my favorite sports car was, to which I replied “a Maserati.”

“Well, Richard,” he continued, “you have the emotional engine of a Maserati,” smiling in a very comforting and accepting manner. “Everything you feel is at 220 mph, no matter how far you are pushing down the pedal. It must be very difficult. You’ve been going through this for so long.”

He concluded by looking directly into my eyes with a genuine empathy and understanding, the likes of which I had not experienced in all of my 37 years, at least not from someone who was not directly tied to me biologically.

So I began a path to freedom.

A path of healing, restructuring,

and rebirth.

The team at Joseph Brant’s Mental Health Outpatient facility has been nothing short of a miracle (this coming from an atheist).

Each step of the way I have been provided a framework, and tools to pick up the millions of pieces and put them into place to begin making some kind of sense of where I have come from, where I am going, who I was, and who I can be.

There are many professionals capable of making a massively positive change in the world, and I have been fortunate enough to have been one of their patients.

There are those of you attending this school that will have the fortune of playing their role. I intend to be one of them. There are also those of you who have experienced a mental health crisis. This is a missive to both. Both sides of that coin must hold their heads high, as there would not be one without the other. Those who are suffering are not limited but, perhaps, better positioned to provide a deeper and more substantial offering to others. Here I reach my hand out to you. Humbly. As others have done for me, and as I know I will need again.

theSil.ca

Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014

LIFESTYLE

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The winter Understanding the differences between Seasonal Affective Disorder and depression

“

“It’s important to be able to recognize when you’re dealing with something more, and recognizing that SAD is a treatable disorder.”

Miranda Babbitt Assistant LifeStyle Editor The winter blues can be more than just craving the sun gracing its presence at your desk when you’re working, which can make the stress of academic life a bit more bearable. For some, weather marked by cloudiness, little light, and a drop in temperatures affects them to the point of serious debilitation to both their academic and personal lives. This is known as Seasonal Affective Disorder.

In light of a seemingly endless bout of wintery weather, it’s understandable to find yourself in a bit of a funk. However, it’s important to be able to recognize when you’re dealing with something more, and recognizing that SAD is a treatable disorder.

SAD is essentially an exacerbated form of these winter blues.

It’s a perpetual feeling of lethargy, problematic sleeping and eating, and a general reduction in focus.

However, this form of clinical depression only occurs in the winter months, with the spring and summer months returning them to their normal functioning. The seasonal influence behind SAD is mostly due to the lack of light, according to Dr. Lam of University of British Columbia.

This makes intuitive sense. I doubt I’m alone when I say that when the sun breaks through

my window even on a pretty glum day, my spirits are instantly lifted. With those affected by SAD, the lack of light on a daily basis can actually disturb the biological clock responsible for keeping hormones in check and regulating sleep and mood. When winter strikes, this disturbance is aggravated, whereas in the spring and summer, with its glorious abundance of light, the biological clock may be closer to its normal functioning.

Understandably, Canadians are more perceptible to this disorder given the shorter day lengths in winter. You wake up to darkness, you have breakfast in darkness, get about eight hours of semi-blissful light shrouded in clouds, and then back to eating dinner in the dark. And for those of us with heating systems that are only barely functioning, wearing a couple layers on top of your hoodie can be the norm. Canadians have it rough in the winter.

As someone who originally hails from Vancouver, I’ve come to accept an impressive amount of consecutively rainy, grey days.

In fact, sometimes I even enjoy the rain in a sort-of Norah Jones “I want to wake up with the rain falling on a tin roof,” type way.

It can be inherently satisfying to stay inside when the rain or snow is refusing to let up. But as students, we often don’t have the

privilege. We need to trek outside to our calculus class or psychology tutorial. Again, Canadians have it rough in the winter.

But some have it rougher than others. My mother has identified with SAD for as long as I can remember. Walking into her office, a light looms over her computer screen designed to simulate the sunlight missing from Vancouver’s winter season. Although glaring at first, your brain settles into the mindset that the weather doesn’t hold as much gloom and doom after all, even if it’s a trick.

This is called light therapy, and according to Dr. Lam of University of British Columbia, it can usually promise a 60-70 percent improvement in those who suffer from SAD. It’s difficult to differentiate between the blues and depression.

There can be an undeserving stigma around depression as it is, resulting in many trying to keep their suffering quiet. Too many people dismiss depression as something that is a passing phase, but it has the potential to only be exacerbated when it’s pushed aside, as though your mental wellbeing is a lesser priority than whatever happens to be soaking up your attention, be it Facebook or homework. @mirandababbitt

FIVE to help combat depression TIPS & anxiety Amanda Watkins LifeStyle Editor Winter can be a time of wondrous snow days, evenings by the fireplace, and Hallmark holidays.

But in addition to the cheerful, colourful festivities of the season, the cold weather also brings forth an onset of cloudy, dark days that can be mirrored in emotions of hopelessness and depression.

The current school year has brought forth several candid confessions from Silhouette staff members and volunteers outlining the effects of an ongoing battle with mental illness. If you find this time of year tends to bring you down and affect your mood, here are a few tips that have worked, and continue to work, in helping me feel more like myself when dealing with depression and anxiety. I cannot guarantee that these will work for everyone, but making these changes have definitely helped me reduce my frequency of panic attacks, and revive the spring in my step when depression has left me feeling hopeless. @whatthekins

Make Time When I first started speaking with friends who were also struggling with mental illness, one of the things we always seemed to have in common was an inability to keep a schedule. Sleeping was a challenge, making it to class was a burden, and for reasons unknown, we always forgot to eat.

This year, I’ve started keeping a schedule that reminds me to keep up with my commitments and my necessary daily habits. It may seem like a pretty basic plan, but keeping a day planner and setting reminders on your phone will help you feel more organized and less stressed.

If you’re finding it difficult to make time for sleep, reschedule your life accordingly. If it takes you two hours to fall asleep, schedule in an extra two hours at bedtime. If you know you’re going to wake up at 3:00 in the morning, have a show queued on your laptop so you have something to lull you back to sleep again. Or even if you have the opposite problem and are sleeping too much, have a

Treat Yo’ Self trusted friend or relative give you a call to remind you of the world outside your bedroom. Making time for sleep may require you to cut the time you spend on other commitments, but if you’re well rested, you’ll have more time and energy to get caught up the next day.

If you find that you’re forgetting about other important details in your life, such as eating or attending class, write everything down and check off each item as you go. It’s been about a year since I was diagnosed, and I still write down “Eat Lunch” in my day planner- but now I’ve yet to forget! Getting thrown off my school and eating schedules last year led to a drop in my grades and a rise in my weight. Not staying on schedule ended up giving me more worries on top of my pre-existing anxiety conditions.

Having a visual outline for your day written on a calendar or in a planner will give you a better understanding of how much time you realistically have in a day.

When you’re feeling down, you can’t waste time blaming yourself for your problems. Instead, treat yourself. Make yourself feel good about something rather than berating yourself into feeling worse.

Once a week, I schedule a two-hour time slot where I do something just for me. Put on some inspiring music (pro tip:

Talk it Out Talk to someone- a friend, a family member, a professional in the field, or even call a hotline if you don’t feel comfortable speaking with someone who knows you personally. If you’re bottling up your feelings, you’re hurting yourself and hurting others. Not only are you hindering your own chances of speaking about your problems and accepting them, you’re also preventing those

Synthetic Sunshine

Be Nice

Getting enough sunlight is crucial in keeping your mood bright. But if like myself you find yourself living, working, and spending a considerable number of classes in basements, you may need to resort to some synthetic forms of sunshine.

Going outside can be cringe-worthy when the term “Polar Vortex” has become a CP24 regular and frosted eyebrows have become a daily fashion statement. An alternative to the classic glowing orb is a sun lamp. I’ve recently ordered one (a

Be nice to yourself and be nice to others. Have an inspiring quote set as your desktop background, or reflect on your accomplishments at the end of the day.

Complimenting yourself may seem lame, but it will boost your spirits and help you look towards the positives of each day.

And while you’re flattering yourself, let those around you know how much they mean to you. Complimenting someone else will make you feel like a genuinely good person and will leave you feeling more grateful for

little over $100 from Wal-Mart) and I’m highly anticipating its arrival. I’ve heard great things about its ability to both literally and figuratively brighten your day, and living in a basement, it’ll help my body rise naturally with the sun and create a natural schedule to follow.

If you find the darkness of the current weather is really affecting your mood and how you feel about getting out of bed in the morning, a sun lamp can be a beneficial step.

avoid the Adeles and Lana Del Reys of the world), paint your nails, watch a movie, try a new recipe, do whatever it is that you wish you had more time for during the school year. It will be an instant pick me up that you’ll begin looking forward to every week.

around you from gaining a better understanding of what you’re going through.

Talking to yourself can even be a positive option. Don’t necessarily talk to yourself out loud, but writing in a journal or talking out your problems in your head can be beneficial in gaining a better understanding of what your stresses and upsets currently are.

positive relationships in your life that you may sometimes overlook.

You’ll feel good about it, and any recipient of a validating comment or complimentary text message is bound to also benefit from the flattery.

Dealing with depression, anxiety or seasonal affective disorder can leave you feeling hopeless. But taking a few steps in the right direction may have you turning down a path of new hope.

Top 10 Part Two

theSil.ca

Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014

ANDY E-mail: andy@thesil.ca Meeting Time: Wednesdays @ 11:30 a.m.

Phone: (905)•525•9140 ext 27117

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Senior Editor: Bahar Orang Assistant Editor: Cooper Long Contributors: Tomi Milos, Josh Spring, Kacper Niburski, Karen Wang, Nicole Vasarevic, Todd S. Gallows

Cover: Bahar Orang

the casbah •jan 24 •jan 25 •jan 30 •jan 31

| | | |

dred the band the woodshed orchestra pup the lounge send-off party

movies

coming up in the hammer

homegrown hamilton

| the painter pictured: french nineteenth century paintings and portrait photographs •until feb 9 | a play on nature: joseph calleja & viktor tinkl •starting feb 1 | terrors of the breakfast table

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hamilton artists inc.

•feb 2 | silverstein •mar 7 | abandon all ships

•until mar 1 | Corinne Duchesne, Peter Horvath and Anna Torma

bay city music hall theatre

music

art

club absinthe

baltimore house

cinema love C4 C5 best albums

•until feb 9

this ain't hollywood

•jan 25 | vivid eye •feb 1 | hello beautiful •feb 8 | trick bag

•until jan 30 | 12 years a slave

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art gallery of hamilton

•jan 24 | kashew butter •jan 25 | the colour •jan 31 | lowlands

•jan 23 | dawn and marra •jan 24 | broken issues •jan 35 | the soul motivators

westdale theatre

•jan 24 | weeknd riot club •jan 31 | the donefors

THE COVER STORY

theatre aquarius •starting feb 5 •starting mar 12

| driving miss daisy | cabaret

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best movies

theSil.ca

ANDY

Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014

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EDITORIAL

For the love of movies Bahar Orang ANDY Editor Four of ANDY’s top five films of 2013 are love stories – Her, The Past, Blue is the Warmest Colour, and Upstream Color. Although these films are far more than their love stories – each one offers a whole universe of ideas and relationships – a common thread that runs through each work is a magnetic romance that both pulls and propels.

It’s true that most films contain love stories. They’re used as plot devices, as symbols, and as means of attracting audiences who want to see beautiful, naked bodies writhing on the big screen. Sometimes they are undeveloped, haphazard and corny.

Often times they’re dishonest and silly and will only fill our most shallow longings.

But occasionally, a love story will stir something deep inside – it will invoke and articulate an emotion or an idea that we only ever felt instinctively. It will attach words to our desires, characters to our anxieties, and stories to our fears and dreams.

We insist that the love stories of 2013 in our list do just that. But I am curious about what kind of information they reveal about

us – why these love stories, why now?

We could look at Her and Upstream Color and comment on the giant, nearly unsurpassable space between the lovers. Does this speak to the loneliness of the modern age? Is Her about our love story with technology – how it makes us accessible, it unifies us, and yet alienates and disconnects us?

But this, to me, does not feel adequate. This brief interpretation is not sufficient for describing the true depth of emotion and intensity that this film brings to the surface. There’s something more here, something more about human intimacy and how it can be expressed and experienced in unique and unpredictable ways. At times, Twombly’s love-filled conversations with the digitized Samantha feel not unlike someone’s internal dialogue with a character in a book, or a musician in a song, or an actor in a movie. In each case, there is something strange and paradoxical going on – you look inwards, while also looking outwards.

Or we could think about Blue and say that its love story is a political statement – that it works to promote relationships and stories that subvert hetero-

normative narratives. But this too feels terse and incomplete.

Again, this story was too present, too fresh, too alive and too breathlessly engaging for so shallow a political analysis. This was more a film about human sexuality, about human connection, about how romantic love somehow speaks to our most desperate desire for contact. It was about how people find each other, fall apart, move on, and then spend forever wondering what happened and how they ended up here.

The Past expresses some of these same questions – how do relationships have this ability to be so fleeting and yet stay inside us for so long? How do we give ourselves over to another person so completely, fully aware that if they go, they’ll really be gone?

Bad love stories are really bad. Nauseatingly, loss-of-faithin-humanity-bad. But good love stories – they’re really, really good. Sometimes they will carefully probe – other times they will aggressively challenge. But most of all, they make us feel less alone in our curious, inexplicable longings. Our top five films did that for us, and we hope that they may do the same for you. @baharoh

the

big

tickle what’s your favourite type of gum?

YOSEIF HADDAD /PHOTO EDITOR TOMI MILOS /FEATURES EDITOR

Ian S.

Rachel M.

Sarah R.

Mark S.

James H.

Bubblicious cotton candy

Trident spearmint

Stride mint (the blue one)

spearmint

Excel peppermint

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theSil.ca

Trouble Will Find Me The National

When life gets overwhelming, we reach for a security blanket. It may not be with the same consistency as Linus van Pelt, but sometimes the tumult of the everyday can prove to be too much (as wretch-inducingly Thought Catalog-ish as that sounds).

The National’s sixth album, Trouble Will Find Me, comes at the apex of their decorated career and provides the same wholesome comfort for the melancholy population as a tub of ice cream and shitty rom-coms do for spurned lovers. After suffering through relative obscurity and being pegged as sleepy miserabilist dad-rockers, all the acclaim the band has enjoyed in recent years could not be more deserved. In an industry saturated by one-hit wonders — Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, anyone? — it’s been refreshing to watch a band work their way up to widespread respectability.

I was surprised to face staunch opposition when I suggested this album for ANDY’s year-end list. Even though I’m a pacifist, I would have fought several bears or listened to Imagine Dragons to ensure its position. Though not as grandiose and immediately accessible as 2011’s stunning

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Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014

High Violet, TWFM is easily the most subtly brilliant record to come out last year.

It bears more of a sonic resemblance to 2003’s underappreciated Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers than its immediate predecessor. Although his young daughter Isla must be keeping it at its end, Berninger’s wit remains razor sharp. The baritone frontman will have you silently sobbing during the cathartic “I Should Live In Salt” (an ode to his younger brother) and laughing at the fauxmorose lyrics on “Demons” (i.e. “When I walk into a room, I do not light it up”).

Jaded detractors have long labeled the National as overtly solemn, but they’re missing the obvious tongue-in-cheek nature of the music. Guitarist Aaron Dessner described the offerings on TWFM as “songs you could dance to—more fun, or at least The National’s version of fun.” After all, how could you insist that these guys take themselves seriously when the best song on their latest record is named after a nauseating cocktail, “Pink Rabbits,” and full of lyrics like, “I was a white girl in a crowd of white girls in the park”?

• Tomi Milos

Woman Rhye

Sometimes I repeatedly write the word “Rhye” in the margins of my notebooks.

Mike Milosh and Robin Hannibal have refused to reveal the meaning or origins of their musical project’s name, and I am not even confident that I know how to pronounce it properly. But I just love how those four letters look together.

In this way, it’s the perfect name for a duo crafting soulful R&B music that, while perhaps not complex or profound, offers immense sensory pleasure. Horns, harps, and pianos are perfectly placed across Woman. Yet these flourishes always leave ample space for Milosh’s sublime vocals, which do not definitively register as either male or female.

His delicate, unplaceable voice enables Woman to deftly sidestep the hypermasculinity and sexual aggression that frequently surfaces in male-fronted R&B. The cover art for R. Kelly’s recent record Black Panties, in which Kelly plays a naked woman like a cello, pretty much encapsu-

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ANDY

Modern Vampires of the City Vampire Weekend

Yeezus Kanye West

lates this tendency. In contrast, when Milosh cries out “make love to me,” it’s a desperate plea, not an order. Of course, there is nothing wrong with sexual confidence, but Milosh’s style invests all the familiar pillow talk on Woman with a universal and somewhat subversive twist.

It’s true that a lot of other artists trade in similarly wounded, brooding R&B. In 2013, Autre Ne Veut, The Weeknd, and even Drake released albums in this vein.

There is also some darkness on Woman.

But perhaps better than any of their counterparts, Rhye balances such angst with the joy and jubilation of deep intimacy, even if there’s just “three days to feel each other.”

Woman opens with the couplet: “I’m a fool for that shake in your thighs/I’m a fool for that sound in your sighs.” It may not be subtle, but what else is there to say?

• Cooper Long

To call Yeezus an album seems to do it a disservice – it is a scattershot of punk, a flurry of electric, and a hard-hitting pulse of hip-hop. It is a political statement, a diatribe on the overinflated monstrosity of celebrity status, and a lyrical tornado scathing a music industry that produces pop tunes that leave a listener feeling diabetic. Misogynistic slurs, challenges to racism, and helter-skelter screams pepper the measures. It is disorder. It is calm. It is everything and anything in between.

And that’s just the first song.

Kayne West’s Yeezus is an exhausting, powder keg of music, if it can even be called that. Unlike Kanye’s other six albums, the classic soul sounds are almost entirely absent. There isn’t the vintage word flexing or pencil pushing to produce smooth beats. Instead a progression of dissonance with shrieks and deep bass lines, chaotic melodies and emotional layers grate the

ears for forty minutes.

Listening to it all in one go is a marathon. The tunes come in torrents, thud after thud after thud, and just when it feels like it’s too much, when you can’t take the discord, jerkiness, and sudden tiredness, the song ends and the next one ambles on with shrill screech.

This is not to say the album is bad. It isn’t. The greatness comes in exactly what makes it disconcerting: a reversal on the perceptions of regular musical composition, as well as the artist’s ironic assault on himself and everything that has made him.

That, or the album could just be the loud grumbles of a narcissist parading as complexity. Like the album’s title suggests, God only knows, and I’m sure even he has trouble listening to some of the fubar ricocheting throughout the songs.

• Kacper Niburski

Jai Paul (Unofficial) Jai Paul

Who is Jai Paul? His website (www.jaipaul. co.uk) does not answer this question; it is a blank, white page. His Twitter feed is equally unhelpful. Jai has tweeted once, only to announce that that he does not endorse this release. All other information about the enigmatic UK artist must be gleaned from his collection of self-produced demos.

As early as “Track 2” it becomes clear that Jai Paul is an extreme musical force.

The song is a triumph of sonic fusion: electronic hip-hop meets Bollywood on an MDMA-fuelled dance floor. Jai Paul’s sensual vocals are complemented by Vani Jairam’s singing on the sampled, “Bala main bairagan hoongi.”

Two of the collection’s sixteen songs have been officially released. Track nine, “Jasmine,” is a subdued, pulsating slow jam.

In the final track, “BTSTU,” Jai Paul alternates between haunting falsetto verses and a banging hook driven by electrified synth riffs. The music world has taken notice.

“BTSTU” has been sampled by Drake and Beyoncé, and Jai Paul was signed to the British independent label XL Recordings on the strength of these two songs alone.

It is hard to believe that the other fourteen tracks are demos, for they sound no less complex or complete. Songs bounce across genres and moods. The cowbellaccented future-funky “Track 5” is worlds away from the undulating tropical vibe on “Track 15.” The album’s disparate sounds are made cohesive by Jai Paul’s vocals, which are at once distant and foreign, yet deeply intimate.

Some might argue that this leak deserves no place on a top ten list. Doubters, I bid you, listen to Jai Paul. His are among the most innovative sounds of 2013. Once you have listened through, relish the idea of an official debut album. Let us hope to hear it soon.

• Josh Spring

C4 & C5

Whatever you call it, Vampire Weekend’s third record is one that defies both labels and my writing ability to express how fucking amazing it is. It is both the ambitious conclusion of a coming-of-age trilogy as well as an impressive sign of things to come.

They were originally pegged as just another buzz-band when they arrived in a musical landscape replete with twee and lazily ironic acts. But Ezra Koenig, Rostam Batmanglij, Chris Baio, and Chris Tomson have proven their critics wrong at virtually every turning point in their careers. 2008’s self-titled debut was a buoyant amalgamation of classical influences Batmanglij picked up at Columbia University (no one ever said a V-Dubs song needed more harpsichord) and African-pop. 2011’s Contra built off the debut’s inventiveness while remaining accessible even when making references to typography (re: the oxford comma). As Pitchfork put it, the band was “in an enviable position: semi-popular and

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sincerely idiosyncratic.”

Perhaps that’s why the band’s utter domination of 2013 wasn’t surprising. Although Batmanglij was the sole producer of the first two albums, the band enlisted Ariel Rechtshaid to lend his deft touch and fresh ears to the proceedings. To call the resulting fruits of their labour “magical” wouldn’t be hyperbolic.

MVOTC is a barbaric yawp proclaiming the virtues of America and a brave confrontation of solemn issues like mortality and religion. “Step” functions in the same vein as Kanye West’s “Homecoming” as a clever love song about a city, with the metropolis in question being poignantly depicted in its accompanying video. The number of references to fire that pepper Koenig’s lyrics on tracks such as “Unbelievers” and “Don’t Lie” makes one wonder whether he was reading Dante’s Inferno in the booth. The songs are as grave in subject matter as the epic poem, but with the band’s trademark tongue-in-cheek still shines. “Ya Hey” is an ethereal conversation with a higher power, but that doesn’t make it any less fun to gyrate your hips to.

Considering the sheer infectiousness of the remaining songs on the album, the sparse and intimate “Hannah Hunt” is certainly not the one you’d pick for radio play, but it’s easily their best yet. The sheer ecstasy it induces during its final minute is enough for anyone to produce a full-fledged Patronus.

No words of mine can really do this immensely important album justice, so I’ll just stop here and give you a chance to listen to it.

• Tomi Milos

Top 10 Recap:

andy’s winning hand

10. Holy Fire by Foals 9. Reflektor by Arcade Fire 8. Overgrown by James Blake 7. Shaking the Habitual by The Knife 6. Beyoncé by Beyoncé

theSil.ca

ANDY

Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014

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andy’s best films of 2013

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An inventive and often ingenious futuristic sci-fi/romance that’s subtle with the sci-fi, but a little heavy with the romance. From the design to the concepts, it really delivers on creating its world and in evoking thoughts with its many “what if ” scenarios.

Scarlett Johansson’s voice-acting, Jonze’s directorship, and the way Joaquin Phoenix interacts with the Artificial Intelligence all come together to convincingly humanize something that doesn’t have a body, and is present mostly as just an earpiece.

Although it’s a bit too long and begins to lose sight of its central ideas, the relationship drama was always at the forefront. It’s a love story that’s not unlike many we have seen for decades on the big screen, but this man is in love with his computer. It’s a frightening, disturbing, but nonetheless heartfelt, moving, and an utterly original account of loneliness in the modern age.

Her

by Todd S. Gallows

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Marie has asked her ex-husband Ahmad to come to Paris from Tehran so that they can have a proper goodbye and finally some closure. To Ahmad’s dismay, and for unexplained motives, she hasn’t booked him a hotel but instead offers him space in her own home, where she lives with her three children. The film carefully unravels a web of complex relationships – each one tragic, confused, and compelling in its own right. Director Ashghar Farhadi unearths a vast and intricate mosaic of details, stories, and emotions. Each moment feels purposeful, but not contrived. Farhadi is a brilliant and skillful storyteller, and some of the themes from A Separation carry over in this film – themes about marriage, domesticity, family, and where and how we place our various histories. The Past is compelling on every level – entertaining with all its plot twists, intellectually engaging with all the questions it asks, and emotionally moving with its beautifully and honestly drawn out characters.

The Past

by Bahar Orang

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I prefer the French title of this film, La Vie D’Adele: Chapitres 1 et 2, because to me, this was not a film about Emma’s blue hair, but instead the story of Adele, a story that has only just begun.

We see her as a shy, confused, and frustrated teenager. We see her as a lover, filled with desire, intensity, strength, and compassion. We see her as a teacher, quiet, patient, careful. The film is composed almost entirely of close-ups of Adele’s face – her blushed and embarrassed cheeks,

Blue is the Warmest Colour

by Bahar Orang

her loving smile, her tearful eyes.

The camera follows her through every little moments – and while some details prove immediately important, others are just part of a larger landscape of her life that is constantly, shifting, growing, and becoming more complete.

There is the moment when she first catches Emma’s eyes on the sidewalk, there is the moment where she leads her students in a dance, when she sits around the table with her parents discussing her future plans. Things happen, the movie, ends, Adele walks away, and we know that she will keep walking and her life will keep going even after we’ve turned away from the screen.

This is the power of the film: its incredible vitality. The stories are honest, the relationships are present and real, the characters

are complex and flawed and lovable. It’s gained a certain amount of backlash for the long and explicit sexual encounters, but I defend those scenes. They are not the crux, the pinnacle, or the main event of the film. Nor are they meant to be visual signifiers – telling the audience that they slept together. The sex is a part of her life, and we see it in the same full and unadulterated honesty as we see the way the lovers meet, fight, fall apart, move on, and then look back. Perhaps the sex scenes are not necessary, but then nothing is.

I left the theatre feeling both empty and fulfilled; elated by the film’s ability to express my human longings, but my head was clouded as I wondered, inevitably: what is the meaning of all this – Adele’s life and my own life?

ANDY

Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014

part two

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Upstream Color

by Cooper Long

Upstream Color takes place in what the French impressionist filmmaker and theorist Germaine Dulac called “the realm of nature and dream.” Writer-director Shane Carruth’s elliptical screenplay bridges images that are beautiful, disturbing, and inexplicable. Frequently, the film is all three at once.

Carruth imagines a mysterious, multi-stage ecological cycle that ensnares two ordinary people, Jeff (Shane Carruth) and Kris (Amy Seimetz). The film is a love story in the sense that they develop a profound, metaphysical bond. But Upstream Color is the antithesis of a romance like Before Midnight, in which the characters expound on their love and life together. Instead, Carruth proposes that it may be impossible to unpack a relationship in long monologues.

Frances Ha

by Karen Wang

Sometimes the forces that draw people together defy description or comprehension.

Even when Jeff and Kris try to engage in the obligatory banter of a new couple they are foiled. At one point they exchange childhood stories, only to realize that they hold the same overlapping, fragmentary memories.

“I was six,” Jeff tells Kris.

“No, I was six,” she replies gravely.

This blurring of identity feels at once deeply erotic and disquieting. Yet true intimacy necessarily involves exactly this type of shared experience and loss of self. Any pair of lovers could be seen as a microcosm of the complex ecosystem that links Jeff and Kris’ consciousnesses.

Rather than verbalizing these themes, Carruth paints

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them. In a series of striking shots, Jeff and Kris argue over whose memories are whose, while black birds fill the sky. As the flock makes tightly coordinated loops and arcs in the twilight, the individual birds seem guided by some collective intelligence or invisible hands.

Jeff and Kris are similarly subject to unseen powers. They too are flying wingtip to wingtip, but they cannot understand how or why.

Carruth’s first feature was the labyrinthine time-travel story Primer. The 2004 film felt like a puzzle that could eventually be solved with enough viewings and maybe some flow charts. It is not clear that Upstream Color has the same entirely coherent internal logic. Regardless, it is a dream that still cries out to be experienced more than once.

I thought I would hate Frances Ha. I morbidly expected the movie to mirror in hipster style (the film is in grayscale) my own sense of uncertainty and aimlessness in life, to draw on some profound, abstract philosophy too deep for my meagre mind, and then to end cynically as if celebrating the process of being lost.

But (thankfully) it wasn’t what I expected. Instead, I fell in love.

Instead of caricaturizing an empty girl obsessing over unattainable dreams, Greta Gerwig beautifully portrays the everyday self, full of desires, contradictions, and expectations.

I was taken with the desperate curiosity in Frances’ eyes, her languid but graceful posture, her wanderlust, her unintentional awkwardness and how she embraces that awkwardness. I love the way she inexplicably pushes people away when she all wants to do is pull.

The movie doesn’t excuse wantonness or laziness. It doesn’t celebrate the indulgence in staying lost or unknowing. Instead, it offers hope. It tells me that it is ok to be lost, for a little while.

To want something but not know how to get it, or to get something even if I don’t know if I want it.

To be free. To not be ready when society relentlessly demands for you to “settle down”.

Frances Ha (both the movie and the character) never pretends to be bigger than itself.

It is bold but unpretentious, it is honest, it is raw, it is charming and it is so satisfyingly humorous. I recommend it to every lost soul out there.

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ANDY

Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014

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“Play and write music you want to hear, because you love it. That’s the key to this music scene.”

The Bandicoots crash local music scene

JOE FUDA/FUDAGRAPHY

Up-and-coming band goes from house party to venues across Hamilton Nicole Vasarevic The Silhouette The Steel City’s music scene was full of life last Friday night at the Doors Pub, where Hamilton band the Bandicoots played alongside Billy Moon and the Mackinaws. Exciting, for sure, but Justin Ross – vocalist and guitarist for the Bandicoots as well a McMaster student – is no stranger to his native city’s potential for musical energy.

Just over a year ago, Ross

and drummer Andrew Parkinson started the band almost unknowingly. The two first began jamming when they stumbled upon a guitar and drum kit at a house party. Soon they recruited Ross’ co-worker Nicolai Koyel as lead guitarist and school friend Max Cain as vocalist and bassist.

As the band added members, its sound, classic rock with an urban twist, also began to grow. “We play what we wanna hear,” Ross said. Their influences vary from older groups like the

Strokes to up-and-coming bands such as Temples, a psychedelic rock band from the UK. The Bandicoots debuted their sound at the Casbah, and gigs at Absinthe, This Ain’t Hollywood and the Doors Pub eventually followed. Lo and behold, The Bandicoots were taking their first footsteps into the local music world.

The band experienced their biggest break last November when they opened for Born Ruffians, an ascendant indie band

from Midland, ON with tour dates worldwide. The word that Justin kept repeating when talking about the night was “awesome.”

With the dual perspective of someone both in the audience and on the stage, Ross said that not only is Hamilton full of opportunities for musicians, “it’s also just a good place to be.”

“The people in this city are not concerned with the aesthetics, they do it for the passion of making music,” he said. It’s not

about being the best here, it’s about meeting people and sharing your passion for music.”

The band is planning on recording their first EP soon at Hamilton’s very own Threshold Studios. In the meantime, they will keep trying to make it in Hamilton’s music scene by adhering to a simple philosophy.

“Don’t think about it. Don’t play to be famous,” said Ross. “Play and write music you want to hear, because you love it. That’s the key to this music scene.”