January 12, 2012

Leaving Drake and Kalyeena behind SINCE 1918

U

POW

January 12, 2012 | VOL. XCIII ISS. XXX

Local pros give the lowdown on Vancouver’s best mountains

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THE UBYSSEY

PEELING BACK THE

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SHRUM

BOWL

ON ICE P5 UBC loses home at home series with SFU

CULT

FILMS We begin our look at the leadership candidates

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UBC prof Ernest Mathijs covers the top 100

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What’s on 12 THU

This week, may we suggest...

Our Campus

One on one with the people who make UBC

PHYSICS>>

Newton Mangled on a Bissett Home-made, Electrical Computer: 5-6:30pm @ Coach House, Green College Can you describe human interaction with physical equations? If you want to know more about the history and subject of social physics, i.e. how scientist over time tried to combine physical and social laws, check out this academic event.

13

FRI

MOA >>

14

COURTESY OF DAVED BENEFIELD

SAT

SLC>>

A Green Dress: Objects, Memory and the Museum: 12am @ MoA An opening of a new exhibition of selected objects from the MoA’s worldwide collection! It focuses on the history and memories that come with ancient objects.

15 SUN

BORED?>>

Don’t know what to do on a Sunday?

Visit the exhibition 75 Years of Controversy: Canada’s Governor General’s Literary Awards, 19362010 in Irving K Barber.

Try out a class for free on the LAST DAY of the UBC REC shopping week!

16 MON

Former CFL star Daved Benefield, seen with his kids, says that juggling school, work and fatherhood “is the hardest thing in the world”

Back in school: Daved Benefield Will McDonald Staff Writer

10th annual UBC Student Leadership Conference: 8:30am-1:30pm @ Chan Centre Who doesn’t have a big dream or goal? If you want to know more about accomplishment, here’s your opportunity. Attend the Leadership Conference, meet and listen to inspiring people and learn how to achieve your personal breakthrough.

POLITICS>> The Good, the Bad and the Dirty: 5-6:30pm @ Buchanan A 104 David Pizarro’s talk about the role of disgust in moral and political judgment. He reviews the predictability of disgust depending on one’s political orientation and how it relates to the conservative end of the spectrum.

Daved Benefield never thought he would play pro football, but he’s played in the CFL and NFL. He said he’s been “told he supposedly has a talent for writing,” and he’s contributed to Time magazine and was a columnist for The Province and Winnipeg Sun. He’s also worked as a football analyst for the CBC. Growing up in California, Benefield never dreamed of playing pro football. But after standing out on the football field at Cal State Northridge, he ended up playing in the CFL. “I wound up in Canada, like a lot of guys, not knowing really what the hell was going to happen to me next, but knowing that I was accidentally chasing football.”

After performing well in the CFL, Benefield got a chance to play for the San Francisco 49ers.

“For me it was just too funny...

It just kind of blew me away that here I am one minute in Canada

How shall I speak thee, or thy power address Thou God of our idolatry, the Press....

Like Eden’s dead probationary tree, Knowledge of good and evil is from thee. ­

U U

Got an event you’d like to see on this page? Send your event and your best pitch to printeditor@ubyssey.ca.

THE UBYSSEY January 12, 2012, Volume XCIII, Issue XXX

EDITORIAL

Coordinating Editor Justin McElroy

coordinating@ubyssey.ca

Managing Editor, Print Jonny Wakefield printeditor@ubyssey.ca

Managing Editor, Web Arshy Mann webeditor@ubyssey.ca

News Editors Kalyeena Makortoff & Micki Cowan news@ubyssey.ca

Art Director Geoff Lister

art@ubyssey.ca

Culture Editor Ginny Monaco

culture@ubyssey.ca

Senior Culture Writers Taylor Loren & Will Johnson tloren@ubyssey.ca wjohnson@ubyssey.ca

Sports Editor Drake Fenton

sports@ubyssey.ca

Features Editor Brian Platt

features@ubyssey.ca

Copy Editor Karina Palmitesta

BUSINESS

CONTACT

Business Manager Fernie Pereira

Business Office: Room 23 Editorial Office: Room 24 Student Union Building 6138 Student Union Blvd Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1 tel: 604.822.2301 web: www.ubyssey.ca

copy@ubyssey.ca

business@ubyssey.ca

Video Editor David Marino

Ad Sales Ben Chen

video@ubyssey.ca

advertising@ubyssey.ca

Senior Web Writer Andrew Bates

Accounts Sifat Hasan

abates@ubyssey.ca

accounts@ubyssey.ca

Graphics Assistant Indiana Joel

webmaster@ubyssey.ca

STAFF

Andrew Hood, Bryce Warnes, Catherine Guan, David Elop, Jon Chiang, Josh Curran, Will McDonald, Tara Martellaro, Virginie Menard, Scott MacDonald, Anna Zoria, Peter Wojnar, Tanner Bokor, Dominic Lai, Mark-Andre Gessaroli, Natalya Kautz, Kai Jacobson, RJ Reid

Print Advertising:

604.822.1654 Business Office:

604.822.6681 advertising @ubyssey.ca

ijoel@ubyssey.ca

Webmaster Jeff Blake

feedback@ubyssey.ca

LEGAL

The Ubyssey is the official student newspaper of the University of British Columbia. It is published every Monday and Thursday by The Ubyssey Publications Society. We are an autonomous, democratically run student organization, and all students are encouraged to participate.

Editorials are chosen and written by the Ubyssey staff. They are the expressed opinion of the staff, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Ubyssey Publications Society or the University of British Columbia. All editorial content appearing in The Ubyssey is the property of The Ubyssey Publications Society.

Stories, opinions, photographs and artwork contained herein cannot be reproduced without the expressed, written permission of The Ubyssey Publications Society.

The Ubyssey is a founding member of Canadian University Press (CUP) and adheres to CUP’s guiding principles.

Letters to the editor must be under 300 words. Please include your

phone number, student number and signature (not for publication) as well as your year and faculty with all submissions. ID will be checked when submissions are dropped off at the editorial office of The Ubyssey; otherwise verification will be done by phone. The Ubyssey reserves the right to edit submissions for length and clarity. All letters must be received by 12 noon the day before intended publication. Letters received after this point will be published in the following issue unless there is an urgent time restriction or other matter deemed relevant by the Ubyssey staff.

It is agreed by all persons placing display or classified advertising that if the Ubyssey Publications Society fails to publish an advertisement or if an error in the ad occurs the liability of the UPS will not be greater than the price paid for the ad. The UPS shall not be responsible for slight changes or typographical errors that do not lessen the value or the impact of the ad.

—William Cowper

Yeah, what he said! So come write for The Ubyssey. Or make pictures or radios or designs.

Justin McElroy coordinating@ubyssey.ca

and the next minute I’m getting ready to play for the 49ers,” he said.

His NFL career was derailed by a knee injury. He returned to the CFL and played for the BC Lions, Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Saskatchewan Roughriders.

Benefield arrived at UBC last year to work on an English degree that was interrupted by his professional football career. It was a difficult transition, especially for a father of two children, who are currently five and six years old.

“It is the hardest thing in the world,” he said of juggling school, work and fatherhood.

“Doing papers, trying to sound academic when I haven’t had to sound academic or write an academic paper…It’s totally different.

It’s a completely different way of thinking.”

Benefield hopes to get his degree so he has the option to work in the NFL offices.

He is currently a defensive line coach for UBC football.

“I’m a defensive line coach, but

unfortunately, when you spend 14 years playing pro football, there’s a lot of stuff that just doesn’t miss your eye.”

He said UBC’s forfeits were tough to take, but he’s not angry.

“You know everyone is out trying to do the right thing…I’m too laid back, especially just the way it happened. If we were trying to be dirty, or we were trying to get away with something, I’d be real ticked off…It was just an honest mistake. And honest mistakes, they happen.”

According to Benefield, the worst thing about UBC is the lack of school spirit.

“Why don’t we have a lot of school spirit? There’s no excuse.

That’s the biggest bummer of actually being involved in sports, is just the lack of student body support.”

Benefield currently works as a colour commentator for Shaw Canada West Football.

“I just try to bring a lot of emotion and energy to our conference because I think our guys deserve it.” U

News

01.12.2012 |

3

Editors: Kalyeena Makortoff & Micki Cowan

BLOGS >>

AMS cuts Voter-Funded Media budget by $7000 for the 2012 elections Andrew Bates Senior Web Writer

Voter-Funded Media (VFM) is set to return, but it’ll be back with funding cuts and a short roster of blogs as the deadline for applications arrives on Friday.

The contest is funded through the AMS elections budget and distributes money to competing blogs writing about the election. Students registered to vote in the elections can also vote to divide the money amongst the blogs.

In past years, $8000 was set aside for the VFM. In 2011, $6000 was devoted to funding blogs continuously throughout the year, rather than just during elections. But this year, the funding will be limited to $1000, to be split among all the contestants.

According to AMS elections administrator Carolee Changfoot, the reason for the reduction is to see if it changes involvement in the contest.

“For the former years, it was a lot of money...and it would often go down to the same blogs repeatedly...It just wasn’t money people

were engaging with as much,” she said. “What the executive wanted to see next year is maybe if we could get more engagement coming out from...more of UBC than the same blogs over and over.”

But Changfoot says there are no new candidates yet. “That’s why we’re still trying to get the blog squad people to be interested,” she said. In her search for candidates, VFM coordinator Amy Chan has contacted the UBC Blogsquad, a community of first- and secondyear students hosted through the

Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology.

However, with the lack of monetary incentive, some say it may be harder to find new writers. “The benefit of putting more time in is now less,” said Mark Latham, who initiated the VFM program in 2006 and runs votermedia.org. “With less money in the contest, it’s a little harder to get peoples’ attention.”

Neal Yonson, an editor for the UBC Insiders blog, agrees, but notes that money isn’t everything.

“Having money available for

RESIDENCE >>

Totem gets compensation for cold water Will McDonald Staff Writer

Residents of the new Totem Park houses are being compensated for the unreliable hot water situation they experienced last term.

Students residing in həm’ləsəm and q’ələχən were given $240 and $220, respectively, for the inconsistency in water temperature. The compensation, provided by Student Housing and Hospitality Services (SHHS), was pro-rated for students who only stayed part of the term.

Aside from the monetary compensation, SHHS replaced major components of the water heating system over the winter break to ensure a constant supply of hot water.

“The compensation was primarily about the hot water because that was an ongoing issue and a long term issue and one of significant disruption and inconvenience to students,” said Andrew Parr, managing director of SHHS. According to Parr, the new water heating system was unable to keep up with the demand in the new houses.

“I should note that while it was a very real problem, it wasn’t a constant problem all the time. It was during high peak times,” he said.

Parr said the duration of the problem was due to the new sustainable water heating system.

“Being new technology, they had a really difficult time finding what the problem actually was,” he added.

However, according to həm’ləsəmresident Brendan Lau, the problem hasn’t been solved.

“I don’t know if the issue has really been resolved yet…It hasn’t been cold since, but it’s been lukewarm fairly often. You rarely get

independent media I would say is useful to convince people to start one up. But if they want to keep going, it’s because they want to—not because of the money,” he said.

Yonson said the system has suffered from the lack of a full-time administrator after Latham handed the program back to the AMS. “For the last little while, you know, Mark Latham hasn’t been really handson like he was at the beginning,” he said. “Without that person who’s actually keeping an eye on it, it’s easy for it to slip through the cracks.” U CONSTRUCTION >>

Memorial Road renovations to beautify walkway

COURTESY CAMPUS & COMMUNITY PLANNING

Kevin Zeng Contributor

Residents of two new Totem Park buildings dealt with late construction and a lack of hot water last semester.

GOEFF LISTER/THE UBYSSEY

really hot showers,” said Lau. Residents have complained about other problems in the new Totem buildings, including exposed wires, unfinished construction and broken elevators.

“There were problems with the elevators…I was on the seventh floor so it did bother me. But it got fixed,” said həm’ləsəm resident Gigi Mehta.

According to Parr, the issues with the new houses were the result of an aggressive construction schedule, but they didn’t pose serious threats.

“We built those buildings in 23 months…There were a few things that had to be done after students

moved in. None of those were, as per code, and as per inspectors, life safety issues. But there were definitely some deficiencies that students had to deal with for a short time during first term,” said Parr.

Other students, such as q’ələχən resident Jesse Doran, didn’t think the lack of hot water was really a problem.

“I honestly think it’s funny.

People complained about it and we got paid. It really wasn’t that big of a deal. It was lukewarm water. I live in a new building,” said Doran.

This isn’t the first time students have been compensated for problems in their residence. “We’re not setting a new precedent by

[compensating residents]. There’s many situations where different types of compensation will be given to individual students,” said Parr.

He added that construction issues in residences are infrequent and are lessened by summer maintenance.

“One of the benefits is that we have entire summers to close the buildings down…and do significant maintenance and cyclical upgrades so that lessens these issues arriving when students are in place,” he said.

“We pride ourselves in taking care of our buildings as best we can.” U

Order of Canada for UBC prof and alumnus

Memorial to be held for murdered UBC student

Vancouver works to fix shared helmet dilemma

UBC student charged for taking part in Stanley Cup riots

UBC adjunct professor James McEwen and alumnus David Northcott have been named to the Order of Canada.

McEwen, an adjunct professor in UBC’s Faculty of Medicine and Faculty of Applied Science, was appointed to the Order of Canada for his contributions to biomedical engineering.

Northcott, an alumnus who graduated in 1976, is being honoured for his commitment to fighting poverty and hunger in Canada.

The Order of Canada is one of Canada’s highest civilian honours. It recognizes a lifetime of achievement and contribution to society.

A memorial for UBC student Ximena Osegueda, who was murdered in Mexico, will be held later this month.

As Osegueda was a practicer of the Brazilian martial art dance of capoeira, a dance has been scheduled in her honour sometime after January 12 at the Capoeira Aché Brasil Academy at 341 E Broadway.

Audrey Silver, a supervisor at the dance academy where Osegueda was a member for more than a decade, said capoeira was Osegueda’s speciality.

Osegueda went missing December 13. According to Mexican media, her body was found partially buried at a Huatulco beach early last week.

UBC and TransLink have said they’re willing to be partners in the much-anticipated Vancouver bikeshare system by providing space and marketing.

Vancouver hopes to be the first city with mandatory helmet laws to create a bike-share system.

The bike-helmet sanitizing machine and disposable helmet liners are two ideas that private companies have pitched to Vancouver.

They are both intended to help to solve the problem of communal helmets.

Vancouver’s lengthy bid process has also had to contend with finances and sidewalk space.

Crown counsel has approved charges against UBC student Camille Cacnio for her role in the Stanley Cup riot.

She has been charged with taking part in a riot and breaking and entering, the Vancouver police confirmed in a news release Monday.

Cacnio was one of a number of people identified on so-called name-and-shame websites and online social media pages, with her photo, name and other identifying information posted for public consumption.

To date, 30 people have been charged with a total of 77 charges related to the riot. U

News briefs

The never-ending renovation cycle at UBC continues, with Memorial Road as the newest recipient of the university’s attention.

Plans for the renovations on the road, which connects Buchanan, Lasserre and the Music building, were presented at the January 11 open house.

Construction begins around June and will be completed this year.

The idea is to pedestrianize the old campus core and limit vehicle traffic, according to Dean Gregory, the campus landscape architect with UBC Campus and Community Planning.

Along with added seating, all of the asphalt will be replaced by pavement and executive parking stalls will be removed.

“The plan is to create universal access across the campus, meaning that where there are stairs or other impenetrable grade changes for people with wheelchair or other disabilities, we want to make it easier for people to travel across the campus,” said Gregory.

Some Arts students are concerned about the disruption it will cause to classes in Buchanan.

“The noise is probably the largest irritation, but UBC seems to be pretty good at ensuring that noisy work is done in off hours,” said Danny Urquhart, a fifth-year political science student.

“The worst rerouting was last year when the courtyard in front of Buch D was closed off so anyone who was trying to get to Buch D pretty much had to go through a narrow corridor in Buch C. “I think it was disturbing to all the profs who had offices in that hallway.”

The Seattle-based company Karen Kiest Landscape Architects will be doing the renovations.

Kiest said the project is designed with environmental preservation in mind, including improved and more sustainable storm drainage, underdrained walkways and flowering cherry trees. U

4 | News | 01.12.2012 ACADEMIC FRAUD>>

Fraudulent researchers held accountable Names, nature of guilty academics’ misconduct to be made public

Alison Mah Contributor

Students found guilty of academic misconduct have their infractions documented on their transcripts— and now there’s an equivalent for university researchers who have committed major academic violations.

Canada’s three largest research agencies have jointly created the Panel on Responsible Conduct of Research in part to introduce a new process that would make public the names of academics who have committed serious misconduct.

“I think the system we had before did not protect the public interest adequately, and I do think it’s a step in the right direction,” said Michael McDonald, a UBC Ethics researcher. “It’s not only the public’s money, but also the public’s confidence that we’re doing an appropriate job.”

The panel, part of the new TriAgency Framework: Responsible Conduct of Research, was adopted in December 2011 by the Canadian Institutes in Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

All researchers applying for public funding are now required to sign a consent form allowing the

agencies, in cases of major breaches of policy, to openly disclose the name of the researcher, the nature of the breach and where it occurred, and the institution where the researcher is currently employed.

Serious academic misconduct includes the misappropriation of funds, false reporting of data and the deliberate misuse of research grant funds for personal benefit.

The new rule comes in light of mounting pressure from media and critics for the enforcement of transparency and accountability in what was perceived as an unnecessary privacy measure for researchers.

The names of guilty academics were previously withheld from the public due to privacy concerns, and in some cases, fear from universities over lawsuits or potential harm to the institution’s image.

“I commented on a case that received a lot of publicity in Alberta,” said McDonald. “The researcher was asked by the university to return the money that had been misspent on things such as snow tires and entertainment equipment. He said he would return the money if his name wasn’t publicized.”

One of the largest issues still unaddressed in the new research framework is the lack of an established system for handling allegations of misconduct across Canadian universities. The agencies do not

Researchers can no longer commit fraud and not be held accountable.

have the legislated mandate to inquire into allegations of misconduct and must rely on universities to conduct individual investigations.

Each charge is then sent to Ottawa, where the panel acts on the basis of the reports provided.

“I understand that it’s a concern,” said Susan Zimmerman, Research Ethics Board director of CIHR. “This new panel will help ensure

HORIA ANDREI/VARLAND

that if one researcher has breached policy, the response from the agencies will at least be coordinated.

One panel will be advising all three presidents.”

John Hepburn, UBC VP Research and International, attributed the absence of a governing body to the differences between provincial jurisdiction and federal jurisdiction. “The universities are the

responsibilities of the provinces.”

In his six years working at UBC, Hepburn said there have been no major cases of scholarly misconduct, and that almost all accusations came from a breakdown in research relationships. “People get angry with one another and the accusations start flying, and they’re essentially all unfounded.”

Like Hepburn, Zimmerman is quick to reject the notion that scholarly misconduct is an issue in Canada. “[The naming of guilty academics] is not premised on the understanding that there is a great deal of misconduct,” Zimmerman said.

“Quite the contrary. It’s just to ensure that in those rare cases of serious breaches of agency policy, there is a recourse where the public can find out about it.”

In the past two years, the CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC combined have pursued 40 cases of alleged academic misconduct. Only eight cases of actual academic misconduct were found.

And as for whether he and his UBC co-researchers will begin double-checking all their findings in light of the new rule, McDonald said that diligent research was already the status quo.

“I think most of us who do research try to abide by the rules with integrity.” U

UNA >>

COMPLAINTS>>

RFC takes issue with campus development

AMS to formalize prof complaint policy

Tanner Bokor

Elise Grieg

Staff Writer

Contributor

Residents in the University Neighbourhoods Association (UNA) are frustrated over issues ranging from local representation on the UNA board to continuing development in the Wesbrook Village area.

An ad hoc faction called Residents For Change (RFC) began last year after Promontory condominium residents protested a hospice that was slated to be built next door. RFC currently has a core membership of 20 residents.

“We are unhappy with the UNA, which is supposed to be our form of municipal government that should be representing residents,” said RFC member and Hampton Place resident Kathy Griffiths.

“We’re unhappy with their ineffectiveness, and we’re unhappy with the university in that we feel that we’re being treated like a cash cow.”

Most recently, UBC’s proposal for increased density in South Campus caused a backlash from residents living in Wesbrook Place. While the UNA takes care of general administration of residential areas on campus, UBC continues to be in charge of land development, which has led to clashes between residents and the university.

UNA board chair Prod Laquian is in support of resident participation.

“To me, a plan is never carved in stone,” Laquian said. “Every time a developer puts together a plan to build a 15 or 18 storey tower, [residents’] voices should fully be heard,” said Laquian.

Beyond the towers, RFC members say they’re unhappy with the composition of the UNA board and that

The AMS wants to make sure that negative professor evaluations get a similar response across all faculties at UBC. “In the [current] policy, it states that the faculties must have some response to teaching that has been identified and...there are faculties that are not currently upholding that side of the policy,” said VP Academic Matt Parson.

“We would like to see something a bit more formalized within the faculty level of what the responses should be to people that are identified within the evaluations as coming up short.”

Parson said that even though the current policy “doesn’t specifically stipulate what the response should be or how intensive it needs to be,” the Faculty of Science is already doing very well responding to substandard evaluations.

But Geraldine Pratt, associate dean of faculty equity in the Faculty of Arts, said they take the evaluations very seriously, and that the evaluations affect salary and achieving tenure.

“In Arts…peer reviews are being done as well,” said Pratt, explaining that there are a number of programs in place to help professors improve their teaching. “[If someone gets bad scores], I’m sure the head [of the department] would advise them to access those courses.

“I think a concern, in the Faculty of Arts anyway, is that not enough students actually fill out the student evaluations,” she said.

But publicizing the evaluations themselves has also been proposed

Residents seek change

Prod Laquian is the new chair of the UNA.

it should be more representative of residents.

The UNA board currently has seven members, two Board of Governors appointees, one AMS rep and four elected residents.

“There are two representatives appointed by the Board of Governors on UNA council and I think that we shouldn’t have them on council—in the same way that the Vancouver Board of Trade can’t be on the Vancouver City Council,” said Griffiths.

Laquian believes the BoG representatives have a place within the UNA, but not necessarily a vote.

“I agree with their presence, because we are judicially responsible to UBC, but I also believe their

CATHERINE LAI/THE UBYSSEY

voting rights should be limited to any activity within the UNA related to finance,” Laquian said, as opposed to issues like board structure.

“They are not elected by the residents of the UNA.” However, Laquian also stresses that the onus is on residents to be active when issues arise. “This is your government, you have access to direct government, and please come in and express your will, otherwise, then you keep quiet and don’t object when decisions are made without your input.” “[Give] us more than five minutes at a board meeting to bring something up,” Griffiths said. “You’re sort of required to jump through bureaucratic hoops.” U

to increase accountability.

Anna Kindler, vice provost and associate vice president academic affairs, co-chaired a committee meant to revise student evaluations.

Kindler explained that the evaluations are under the BC privacy legislation.

“The student evaluations of teaching are considered...personal information. We don’t have the ability to release this information without the consent of the person to whom the information pertains,” said Kindler.

She recommended that students become more vocal about wanting access to the course evaluation responses and—if a professor agrees to its release—the evaluations could made available online.

“I think that…signals from the students that this information is valued will encourage faculty members to be...more willing to release their results,” said Kindler.

Parson said that UBC’s evaluations would be a more reliable resource for students, rather than letting them resort to the uncertain ratings of sites like ratemyprof.com. “[There is] potential for a good bank of evaluations of professors being able to guide students with their course selection process,” he said.

But if no progress can be made on publicizing evaluations, Parson hopes to at least guarantee a more a formal protocol for dealing with poor evaluations.

“A big part of it has to do with there are so many things going on: there’s countless policies, and it might have just flown under the radar a little bit,” he said. U —with files from Tanner Bokor

Sports

01.12.2012 |

5

Editor: Drake Fenton

SHRED>>

Can’t do Whistler? You can still shred local Drake Fenton Sports Editor

For students, January might be the worst month of the year. It starts with a rocking hangover and things only get worse from there. There is no sunlight, it’s cold, it’s rainy and by the end of the month midterms are already around the corner.

January has only one saving grace: ski and snowboard season.

If you already purchased a ridiculously cheap student season pass for Whistler, then you probably have no inclination to ride the North Shore’s mountains—but if you missed out on getting a pass, the local mountains might be your best option.

While Grouse, Seymour and Cypress Mountain are all on the North Shore, Cypress isn’t a solid option unless you own a car. Located in West Vancouver, it’s roughly a 6075 minute drive from campus. And though there is a shuttle bus that leaves from West 10th and Fir, the total price including the shuttle ticket would be $89 before tax.

Cypress is the North Shore’s biggest mountain, but it doesn’t offer a terrain park. For students, Grouse and Seymour are much more viable options.

So if you want to rid your January gloom by shredding then let The Ubyssey break down which mountain makes the most sense for you.

Grouse and Seymour Of the two mountains, Grouse is the most accessible. From Lonsdale Quay’s SeaBus terminus, Grouse is one 30 minute bus ride away.

Grouse has 26 runs, 4 chairlifts, 2 terrain parks and offers a good wealth of black diamond runs for riders with slightly more expertise.

The mountain is open from 9am to 10pm.

HEREWARD LONGELY/THE UBYSSEY

A local snowboarder about to ride Seymour Mountain’s back country. Back country riding is not allowed at Grouse Mountain.

A day pass costs $58 and the price is reduced to $48 after 4pm.

According to Sean Kivlichan—a filmmaker for PartySnake, a group of local North Shore professional and sponsored riders—Grouse’s biggest draw is its convenience and accessibility.

“Grouse is super quick to get to, the bus takes you right to the bottom and you can take the tram up, you don’t have to drive or hitchhike,” said Kivlichan. “They have high speed lifts so you can rip laps pretty quick.”

Seymour, on the other hand, has notoriously slow chair lifts and requires a shuttle bus from Lonsdale

Quay. A round trip ticket cost $8.

Yet Kivilchan said Grouse is not without faults, most notably in its price and its dedication to non-casual riders.

“Their [terrain] park is alright, it isn’t too bad, but they aren’t creative.

Grouse is a tourist trap, they don’t care about the actual boarders and stuff. They melt the snow at the end of the year so they can get the lumberjack show and all that stuff going,” said Kivilchan. “At Seymour you can ride until there is no snow left.”

Grouse’s $58 price tag is $12 more than Seymour’s. Seymour shares the same operational hours as Grouse,

but also has 13 more runs and 2 more terrain parks. While Grouse does have a steeper price tag and less runs, it compensates with its amenities.

“We have snowshoe[s], we have snowshoe training and snowshoe fondue night,” said Sarah Lusk, Grouse Mountain’s public relations manager. “We have a zip line and a mountaintop ice skating rink, which is one of the only [outdoor rinks] around.”

Grouse also offers a multitude of food and beverage options.

Kivilchan described Grouse’s Altitude Bistro as “classy,” whereas he described Seymour’s The Rock

Chute Inn as a “greasy pub you get hammered at.”

Another advantage of Grouse, according to Lusk, is that it is a great place to learn. “We are known as one of the better mountains to learn [how to ride],” she said. “Our instructors are [fabulous] and you can do private lessons or group lessons on the weekends or in the evenings.”

For Kivilchan, the biggest advantage Seymour has over Grouse is its terrain.

“The terrain is good and there aren’t a lot of people there because the chair lifts are so shitty, which I guess is a con, but the riding is awesome and the hidden gems are out of control,” he said. “They have the best [terrain] parks and they have open back country that you are allowed to hike. It is all open powder, cliffs, jumps and you are allowed to go back there.

“If you jump the [out of bounds rope] at Grouse to try to get some pow or film, you are going to get kicked off for life, where at Seymour they have an avalanche warning sign and you can go wherever you want.”

Though there is no supporting data, Grouse may be the safer of the two mountains.

Irrespective of terrain or amenities, Seymour does have one exclusive advantage that Grouse doesn’t offer: student nights on Thursdays and girls ride free Monday nights.

Every Thursday starting at 4pm, if students display a valid student ID card their lift ticket is reduced to $19.

On Monday nights, girls can pick up a voucher from one of four retail locations, the closest to UBC being Pacific Boarder on West 4th, to receive a free lift ticket valid after 6pm.

“Yeah, every Monday [at Seymour] it’s fucking packed full of girls, it’s awesome,” said Kivlichan. U

HOCKEY>>

Birds get dropped by SFU in inaugural University Classic Andrew Bates Senior Web Writer

“Whether it’s bragging rights or whatever, they want to establish a rivalry, but for us, we’re looking at it as two exhibition games,” UBC coach Milan Dragicevic said Friday afternoon. “It doesn’t matter who we play, we just want to make sure we’re on top of our game. That’s the biggest thing for us.”

SFU’s men’s hockey team then flattened the T-Birds 3-1 Friday night.

The University Classic, a twogame home-at-home exhibition series, was unknown as an event before it occurred. The first time SFU and UBC ever met in hockey, the series also formed the only meeting this year between the schools in any sport. SFU left for the NCAA in 2010, and popular rivalry games like the Shrum Bowl, contested by the football teams 33 times since 1967, have fallen by the wayside in the face of scheduling issues.

“SFU and UBC’s rivalry sells itself in any sport,” said Mark Coletta, head coach of SFU’s hockey team. “It could be ping-pong and people are gonna be intrigued about it.”

SFU’s hockey program started in 2004 and plays in the BC Intercollegiate Hockey League

ERIC INASI/THE UBYSSEY

UBC in action Friday night at Doug Mitchell Arena. UBC lost 3-1 to Simon Fraser University.

(BCIHL). They are currently undefeated in the regular season, with a 9-0-3 record against competition that includes Okanagan College and Trinity Western University.

But four minutes into Friday’s game, they appeared to be out of their depth, giving up an early goal on the power play.

“I think on Friday we probably took a team a bit too lightly, scoring in the first or second shift there, and then we thought that it was going to be Easy Street from then on,”

Dragicevic said. SFU came back to win the game 3-1.

In the return game of the home-athome, UBC returned the favour, winning 3-1 at the Bill Copeland Sports Centre in Burnaby. As the series was based on total goals, the University Classic went into overtime tied at 4-4, and UBC lost 2-1 in the shootout.

“It was a great atmosphere, they had 1500 fans there,” said Dragicevic.

“We knew what to expect from SFU, we didn’t think they were going to change the way they played.”

While the Clan managed an attendance of 1500, UBC’s Doug Mitchell arena saw around 100 fans, about the average at the CIS team’s games. The game wasn’t heavily promoted, with no article on gothunderbirds.com, UBC Athletics’ promotional website.

“I don’t think it’s a secret that CIS sports in general have a tough time drawing attention,” Coletta said. “I think the hockey rivalry can bring the student body, mobilize them because it is hockey.

“I think both institutions here have something that they can market and make money off of if we wanted to.”

While the game was a showcase for SFU, it was a tuneup for UBC. “We’ve had five weeks off, and we needed to play some games. That was the most important thing,” Dragicevic said before the games.

“The biggest thing for us is that we want to make sure our level of play is high. This is a crosstown rival.”

But according to the Thunderbirds coach, there was a lot on the line for SFU. “This is a big deal for them. They’re number one in their league, they’re undefeated.

They want to see how they stack up against a very good CIS team,” he said, comparing it to when UBC plays exhibition games against

Vancouver Canucks prospects or AHL teams.

And for those hoping for a sequel, the scoreline gives hope. “I think from a university standpoint or a fan standpoint of university hockey, they want to see rivals,” Dragicevic said.

“The way it turned out—we split the games—is probably really positive on their end.

“If our schedules work out, the fact that we can play these guys next year again, this is something that we’re going to have to seriously consider.”

“I think this is the one opportunity we have to capitalize on it,” Coletta said. “It’s a shame the football teams don’t play, it’s a shame the soccer teams don’t play and I don’t see why they can’t. If one team’s in a different conference...oh well, it is what it is and I think that all you’re doing is making student athletes suffer.”

And according to Dragicevic, the series did teach his team an important lesson. “Number one, I think you can never take any one, any team for granted,” he said. “You’ve got to be prepared to play every game, every shift.

“You know the old quote: hard work is going to beat skill every time when skill doesn’t work hard.” U

6 | Feature | 01.12.2012

In the last election, the NDP came closer to forming t Now its members—many of them university students— Managing editor, web Arshy Mann profiles all e

Who will lea The party president

A BC boy with big dreams

Brian Topp

Nathan Cullen

W

hen Brian Topp’s name began circulating as a possible NDP leadership candidate after Jack Layton’s death, few Canadians were familiar with his name. But within New Democratic circles, Topp is no unknown.

For 26 years, Topp has worked in nearly every facet of the NDP—in both labour and party politics, provincially and federally, in campaigns and in government—with one exception. Topp has never before run for office.

But despite his lifelong career in politics, Topp didn’t start out that way.

“I spent four years as a union building rat at McGill working for the McGill Daily,” he said. “It was quite a lot of fun and quite distracting from my studies, but worth it.”

It was only after finishing university that Topp was slowly pulled into the world of party politics.

“When I left the McGill Daily, I didn’t want to stop working in alternative journalism. So I got together with a bunch of friends of mine and started a city magazine in Montreal.

[It was] a little like the Georgia Straight, but much less successfully implemented.”

In order to finance the magazine, Topp and his friends opened up a small typesetting shop that often catered to leftist organizations.

“One of our clients at the shop was this political party that had never really been active in Quebec, but was suddenly getting really involved.”

That party was the NDP. Topp worked on his first campaign in 1985, and slowly worked his way up in the party, including stints as deputy chief of staff to Saskatchewan Premier Roy Romanow and the national campaign director for two federal elections.

Most recently, he worked as party president; he had figured he was out of politics, but Jack Layton called him and said, “I wonder if you could help out a bit...”

If elected leader, Topp said he

would continue to fight as an NDP partisan, rejecting the proposal by Nathan Cullen to hold joint nomination conventions with the Liberals and the Greens.

“I think to adopt the agenda and perspective of our opponents when we’re winning would be defeating ourselves…People are looking at us for a real alternative.”

During the campaign, Topp has been best known for his many high profile endorsements from NDP stalwarts such as Ed Broadbent and for his plans to roll back corporate tax cuts and increase taxes on the richest Canadians.

“I don’t think we get elected by making spending proposals without explaining how we would pay for them…If you want to be credible for office, if you want to make the transition from an opposition party… you’ve got to show how to pay for things.”

When discussing the hardships faced by youth when first entering the labour market, Topp adopts much of the language made popular by the Occupy protests last fall. “[There is] an unacceptable gap between the top one per cent earners and everyone else,” he said. “More workplaces in Canada are heading towards two-tiered [systems] where young people are paid much less than their colleagues for doing the same work, and don’t have the same pension and health benefits.”

On post-secondary education, Topp, like most of the rest of the NDP field, pushes back against a “student aid model that is predicated on getting people into debt.

“We need to move away from a debt model and more towards a grant model to help those who wish to go to university [do so].”

But at the end of the day, Topp believes that the only way the NDP will be able to form government is if they build on Layton’s “hopeful and optimistic approach to politics.”

“Every time we challenge Stephen Harper, we’re going to present a positive alternative. Because that’s the difference between the Conservatives and us.” U

I

n a campaign that has largely consisted of candidates competing to agree with each other, Nathan Cullen hasn’t been afraid to be controversial.

“I have a small ambition,” said Cullen. “And that’s to change politics in this country.”

The MP for Skeena-Bulkley Valley—a northern BC riding roughly the size of Norway—Cullen is probably best known for his proposal that the NDP hold joint nomination conventions with the Liberals and Greens to take down the Conservatives in the next election. It’s an unpopular position amongst New Democratic stalwarts, who see it as selling out in the wake of their greatest election victory at the federal level.

“I’m attached to my party,” said Cullen bluntly, “but I’m more attached to getting things done.”

“We had very mixed emotions on May 2, as a party. We had this incredible breakthrough, but we also, for those of us who are very involved, knew exactly what a majority meant for this country.

“So for people who say, ‘These last eight months under Harper have been terrible,’ I say, ‘Imagine eight years.’ Because in a short amount of time we’re going to go back to the polls, and I don’t want to hope that we’re going to win, I want to know that we’re going to win.”

Cullen maintains this is a “oneoff opportunity” and that once elected, his first priority of business would be to move for a change to a proportional representation voting system.

This isn’t the first time that he has bucked the party orthodoxy.

For years, Cullen had been a critic of the long-gun registry.

“I’m a pro-gun control candidate, and I can show you the record. I think it’s a mistake to say that the gun registry was perfect and immaculate in its form.”

He does, however, oppose the government’s bill to scrap the registry.

“It has incredibly dangerous loopholes that will allow

sniper rifles and urban assault weapons onto the street with no tracing or tracking at all.”

Cullen points to his experience representing a northern, rural riding as one of the reasons that he favours cooperating with other progressive parties.

“If I just ran on a deep, partisan campaign, I’d get about 17 per cent of the vote,” he said. “It’s not a safe seat. There’s not a lot of safe seats for the NDP.” Despite his independent streak, Cullen remains a strong advocate in NDP approaches to most issues, including the environment, Quebec and the economy.

On post-secondary education, Cullen argues that institutions such as colleges and vocational schools often get ignored.

“Often when we say post-secondary in this country, we’re talking about universities explicitly, and that’s got to change. Because there’s been a bit of snobbery over the last generation or two. When I went to high school, it was success to go to university and failure to do anything else.”

A former small business owner, he also wants government to provide more support to individual risk takers.

“We can diminish those risks.

We do it for big business all the time,” he said. “[But] I meet young entrepenuers all the time that are frustrated.

They can’t get a $5000 line of credit. Meanwhile, they’re watching a business write off a $15 million loss.”

Cullen says that regardless of what happens on March 24 when the party picks a new leader, it won’t change his disposition.

“My identity isn’t wrapped up entirely on the idea of me being a politician. I see these guys, we call them the ghosts, [who] wander around Parliament Hill, former MPs and ministers, and they don’t know what to do with themselves,” he said.

“And that’s never going to happen.” U

01.12.2012 | Feature | 7

the government than any time in its 50-year history.

—are electing the next federal leader of the opposition. eight candidates in the first of a two-part series.

ad the NDP? At 29, a rising star

A labour stalwart

Niki Ashton

F

or all of the young NDP MPs that marched into Ottawa last election, Niki Ashton acted as a vanguard.

When she was first elected in 2008, Ashton was the youngest NDP MP and the youngest female member of Parliament, two distinctions she lost after the Orange Wave hit Quebec. Not that she minds.

“I’m very happy to be joined by other young people,” said Ashton.

But even before her 2008 election, Ashton was making splashes amongst the New Democrats. In 2005, she ran against incumbent NDP MP Bev Desjarlais for the party’s nomination in Churchill, the federal riding for all of northern Manitoba. “[She] was the only NDP MP opposed to same-sex marriage,” said Ashton. “So we decided to get involved and organized and ran in the nomination.”

Ashton won. She was 23 years old, and though she lost in the federal election that year, she came back in two years time to take the northern Manitoba riding.

Ashton maintains that she has always seen her age as an advantage.

“When you have young people’s issues being raised at the top level, that engages our generation.”

During her leadership bid, Ashton has been running on a platform that emphasizes the growing inequality in Canadian society.

As a demonstration of the types of changes she would champion, she points to her desire to create a Minister of Equality that would address issues such as gender and racial discrimination.

“The way to [combat inequality] is to have a real presence in government at the ministerial level,” she said. “That involves looking at legislation, but also, of course, programs that create a level playing field and truly aim to put an end to discrimination.”

Peggy Nash

Ashton, who served as the NDP’s youth critic, said that reducing tuition fees is an essential plank of her economic plan.

“I know firsthand how much of a challenge and a setback the rise of tuition fees…is to our generation,” she said. “This is not a charitable commitment, this is about making a real difference to young people.”

As a northerner and a former instructor at the University College of the North, Ashton has often advocated for increased commitments to northern and First Nations education.

“That’s the pinnacle of the kind of inequality we see in our country and it’s unacceptable in a country as wealthy as Canada, that First

I know firsthand how much of a challenge and a setback the rise of tuition fees…is to our generation. This is not a charitable commitment, this is about making a real difference to young people.

Niki Ashton Nations receive a lower level of funding ultimately because they are First Nations.”

She also points to Canada’s foreign policy as a place where young Canadians are being excluded from decision-making, but then forced to live with the consequences.

“It’s our generation that pays the ultimate price when soldiers die,” said Ashton. “If I’m elected leader, my message would be keep the troops home.”

Ashton uses a simple slogan to encapsulate her leadership bid: “new politics.”

“New politics is about engaging young people and engaging the issues that young people are raising,” she said. “Harper’s practicing old politics.” U

I

t’s become political cliché to say that people trust the Conservatives on the economy.

But Peggy Nash believes she can convince Canadians that when it comes to their wallets, they should vote NDP. Running on a message of New Democratic economic stewardship, Nash argues that she has a resume that can back up her words. She’s worked as a labour negotiator, community activist, party president and, until she decided to run for the leadership, the opposition finance critic.

“We’re seeing a dramatic decline in the number of good-quality jobs,” said Nash, arguing that this can’t be fought with Harper’s hands-off approach.

“They leave it to the market and [what] the market decides… and where that has gotten us is the highest level of inequality in Canada since the 1920s.”

If elected NDP leader, Nash argues that she would give Canadians a real choice when it comes to the economy.

“I believe that government has to work with the private sector, with labour, with communities, in order to ensure that we’re creating jobs.”

Nash argues that Canada needs to emulate countries like South Korea, Germany, Brazil and Finland, which she argues have not allowed global corporations to dictate policy.

As a former labour negotiator for the Canadian Auto Workers’ union, Nash emphasized that she’s faced off against top CEOs and wouldn’t have a problem doing it again from the prime minister’s office.

Like most of the other leadership candidates, Nash decries the fact that Canada simply exports raw materials instead of processing them at home.

She also places a strong emphasis on the need to move to a green economy.

“We’re behind many other countries in the world at transforming our infrastructure and transforming our production to renewable energy and

better energy efficiency,” she said.

“Nobody’s going to turn off the tap on oil and gas production.

They’re going to be part of energy strategy for the foreseeable future, but we can massively reduce our dependence…rather than just digging stuff or pumping stuff as quick as we can, and exporting it anywhere we can, as quickly as we can. It’s not a good strategy.”

Nash argues that the Harper government has a shoddy record when it comes to post-secondary education.

“I think that’s a disgrace in a country that purports to be a modern democracy, that we’re not ensuring that post-secondary education is affordable,” she said.

“We need to increase the transfers from the federal government to the provinces with strings attached to ensure that the money is used to lower tuition fees.”

She went on to say that “for somebody to apply to university, and then hope that they’re going to get a loan or grant, and some will and some won’t, I don’t think is right.”

According to Nash, she’s a candidate that truly represents NDP values.

“What they get with me is someone who’s connected with the grassroots of the party,” she said. “If we’re going to grow, if we’re going to build, if we’re going to inspire people to work with us, we’ve got to stay connected with the grassroots.

“Those aren’t just words to me.

It’s my life’s work.” U

Culture

01.12.2012 |

8

Editor: Ginny Monaco

FILM>>

Akira to Oz: Prof lists best cult films

Christian Voveris Contributor

UBC film studies professor Ernest Mathijs somehow found a way to make a living by spending days watching and discussing the most bizarre and revolting films ever made.

Growing up in Belgium, Mathijs was first drawn to the edgier and more obscure films that were stocked—often as under-the-counter deals—in video stores, and eventually devoted himself to studying cult film.

Getting academics to take the obscure realms of B-movies, exploitation films and Spaghetti Westerns seriously hasn’t been easy, considering the prevailing well-established canons, which didn’t leave room for many of the films that were generating cult audiences. Yet throughout the 90s, as the video store and drive-in theatre generations began infiltrating the academic circles, tastes were challenged through conferences as well as new publications.

“In the margin of those conferences, you talk about your guilty pleasures, films you like but you don’t think you can study.

I realized there were more and more people with similar tastes,” recalls Mathijs, who met British film scholar and future co-author Xavier Mendik at the breakfast table at one of these conferences.

The meeting of the two film scholars resulted in a long

collaboration, producing several books, the most recent being 100 Cult Films, an accessible primer into the culture of cult films. In making a list of the most important cult films, there are a few that come to mind immediately: The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Big Lebowski and Eraserhead, to name a few whose place on such a list seems inarguable.

But how do unexpected titles such as Dirty Dancing, or the infamous classic porno, Debbie Does Dallas, end up on this list of essentials? Mathijs explained, “We wanted to have some sort of array across a geographical area, we didn’t want to include only American films.”

Working under the conditions of keeping a balance of origin, gender and genre, the book embodies a very broad definition of cult film, and in facing the fanatical audiences that many of the films have, Mathijs and Mendik soon discovered how touchy their choices can be.

When it was published on NPR, the full list of 100 Cult Films generated almost 1000 comments.

Almost all of them expressed fans’ outrage at the omission of one or another title, with the two most commonly complained about being A Clockwork Orange and Princess Bride.

To Mathijs, this itself is a clear indication of the reverence that cult films create among their fan bases. “These are films that they carry with them for the rest of their lives,” he explained. U

Professor Ernest Mathijs received over 1000 comments when NPR first released his list of the top 100 cult classics.

POETRY>>

In conversation with Fred Wah, the new poet laureate of Canada

COURTESY OF FRED WAH

Ginny Monaco Culture Editor

Now that he has been appointed Canada’s new Parliamentary Poet Laureate, Fred Wah is faced with some interesting challenges.

Wah is tasked with representing Canadian literature by a government that has made significant cuts to the arts. He admitted that “in regards to this particular government—much of which I disagree with ideologically—is that I have to find a way to work that ideology. But that’s no different from the parliamentarians on the hill who represent different ideas.

“Each of us comes from a specific constituency of opinion and imagination and I think mine is pretty easy to pin down. I don’t know

quite yet how I’m going to negotiate it, but I find it intriguing.”

Wah—who was born in Saskatchewan, raised in Nelson, BC and is currently based in Vancouver—graduated from UBC with a BA in English literature and music in the 60s. During his time on campus, Wah was a founding editor and contributor to the influential poetry magazine TISH. “It’s gained some notice in Canadian literature as being a kind of a turning point for Canadian poetry,” he said. “It was probably a turning point because we took on a kind of innovative stance towards writing and we felt out here on the west coast, a little left out or excluded from the mainstream down east, in New York and Toronto. At the time, we had quite a few professors in English from the United States and England. There were hardly any Canadians.”

Wah taught for many years at Selkirk College, David Thompson University Centre and the University of Calgary. In 1986, he won the Governor General’s Award for his book Waiting for Saskatchewan . Wah said he was “pretty proud of that because the book adressed a lot of my interest in racialization. I’m mixed Chinese/ Swedish. I’ve been working on matters of race for quite a few years, so that was quite gratifying.”

After retiring, he and his wife moved back to Vancouver. Wah was named the Writer in Residence at

SFU in 2006/2007. “Vancouver’s always been our city,” he said. “It’s been great to be back here. There’s a great literary community here.”

Wah called his appointment “a pleasant surprise. I didn’t expect it, in the sense that I wasn’t thinking about it.” Wah had been nominated for the post in 2005/2006 but John Steffler was chosen instead.

“The commitee asked me if they could keep my nomination active.

I wasn’t paying much attention. I guess they just pulled my name out of the hat,” he joked.

The Parlimentary Poet Laureate was created in 2001 to, as their website says, “encourage and promote the importance of literature, culture and language in Canadian society.” The position comes with an annual honourarium of $20,000, $13,000 for travel expenses and a budget for translation of their work and administrative expenses.

As poet laureate, Wah is partularily interested in education.

“I’d like to see more Canadian literature—particularly poetry—in our classrooms, in primary and secondary schools. I’m going to try to create, I hope, energy in that area.

I’m not sure how I’m going to do that yet.”

“I’m kind of looking forward to examining the whole notion of poetry and politics and how that might work in the role of the poet laureate. I would like to take it seriously and engage parliamentarians in a reasonable discourse.” U

RAY HUANG/THE UBYSSEY

THE INTERNETS >>

UBC prof stars in USAteasing viral video hit

Chris Cannon’s video “The Canada Party” has experienced skyrocketing popularity since its YouTube debut on January 3, reaching well over 400,000 views in a week.

The video is a snarky satire that takes a Canadian perspective on American politics. Chris Cannon, who teaches creative writing at UBC, and Brian Calvert, co-creators of the video, collaborated on a number of other projects before getting the inspiration for this video.

“Have you been watching the news? Brian and I realized the easiest job in the world is doing political humour at this moment in history. The best comedy writes itself,” said Cannon when asked how

the idea for the video came to him.

While serving mainly as a comedic piece, the video also contains very strong themes regarding the strength of the Canadian state and the absurdity of the current political situation in America.

“We’re shooting the second piece this weekend and have our first campaign poster ready to rock,” said Cannon. He and Alvert are wasting no time in providing more material for the vast number of fans, and are trying to build a Twitter following through @ theCanadaParty. “[I] didn’t realize how hard it was to be funny in 140 characters. It’s like trying to do the Daily Show in haiku.” U —Scott MacDonald

01.12.2012 | Culture | 9 COMEDY>>

Funny people in East Vancouver

East Van Comedy collective aims to make people laugh or something like that Will Johnson Senior Culture Writer

A new comedy collective is setting up shop on Commercial Drive, and they’re looking to mess with your expectations.

“We’re not looking for the Russell Peters, polished comedy for the masses,” said Alistair Cook, the organizer of the East Van Comedy collective. “There’s this term that gets used a lot: ‘alternative comedy scene.’ But it’s been around a very, very long time.”

Cook said he wanted to capitalize on the unique brand of experimental East Vancouver comedy that has been thriving recently by bringing a number of acts together.

“This is where we live, and where we perform,” he said.

“I looked around, and tried to find acts that had a potential for growth. I wanted to find who was working in the area, who was a vanguard, who was breaking new ground.”

Cook compared experimental comedy to scientific research and development. “But instead of making some drug that makes you a billion dollars, instead you get a bit part as a funny neighbour in some sitcom,” he said.

Cook has signed the Laugh Gallery, Teen Angst Night, Instant Theatre Company, Say Wha? and a number of others to his line-up.

Some of these shows have been going on for nearly a decade, while others are relatively new.

And starting this month, they will all be performing semi-regular shows together on Sunday

and Monday nights at Havana restaurant.

Ghost Jail, a theatre troupe that originated in Ontario, is one of the main acts. The performers improvise a comedy show for a live audience without notes or forethought.

Each month they will select a theme from a piece of writing provided by the audience and perform their take on it.

“This show was a hit in Toronto for five years, before they came over to Vancouver,” said Cook.

“We’re floored to have them involved.”

Cook said one of his main priorities was to get Sara Bynoe and Graham Clark involved, two performers he called “two parts in the puzzle of East Van comedy.”

Bynoe has two trademark shows she has been performing for the decade. The first is Teen Angst Poetry, an open mic night where people read embarrassingly awful poetry.

The second is Say Wha?, an evening where performers share stories from truly awful literature.

She has become a Vancouver icon in the comedy scene, and said she is thrilled to find a new venue for her shows.

“I feel like I’ve been in this no man’s land,” she said. “I’ve got a theatre and a writing degree, and I think my shows leave people a little confused. They’re asking, ‘Is this comedy? Is this literary?’ It’s not traditional stand-up.”

Bynoe said she is excited about the new venue. She feels Havana will be a unique space to perform her shows.

“Havana is a destination on its own,”

COURTESY THE FURIOUS ANGER FUN HOUR

These young men, The Furious Anger Fun Hour, will act like fools for your amusement.

she said. “I mean, creative types just tend to congregate there.”

Bynoe said she is excited about the cross-pollination that will occur when these disparate acts come together. She’s already been invited to open for Ghost Jail.

“There’s going to be a lot of mixing and collaboration,” she said.

Graham Clark, the organizer of the Laugh Gallery, is also thrilled to have found a home at Havana.

Over the last decade he’s hosted his variety show in a number of

locations, mainly in restaurants and bars. Having a devoted theatre space will make a big difference, he said.

“It’s neat for performers to have a venue that’s not a bar,” he said.

“I’m going to let the format evolve because I’ll be able to try things I never could before. It’s a whole new, free-wheelin’ world.”

Clarke said his show will have a continuously shuffling line-up, with brand-new material each time.

Former performers at the Laugh Gallery include Shane Koyczan and Zack Galifianakis, and his show has launched a number of other comedy careers as well. “Now we’re going to get comics trying to pull off stuff they could never try in a restaurant or a bar,” he said.

And Cook was quick to point out something else: “Pretty much every show has a discount if you have a receipt from Havana,” he said.

“So we’re pretty much paying you to drink.” U

U

Culture free stuff write Ginny write staff ad text | culture@ubyssey.ca

Opinion

01.12.2012 |

10

Editor: Brian Platt

The journalism revolution is over Editor’s Notebook Justin McElroy

INDIANA JOEL/ THE UBYSSEY

The Last Word Parting shots and snap judgments on today’s issues Poetry in Parliament On December 14, The Globe and Mail published a story calling for the federal government to fill the Parliamentary Poet Laureate (PPL) position, which had been vacant since April. Less than a week later, the government announced Vancouver-based poet Fred Wah would be taking on the two-year assignment.

The PPL is given an annual stipend of $20,000 and a budget for programming, translation and administrative expenses. The idea is that the poet will introduce poetry into the Parliament on special occasions, sponsor poetry readings and help the Parliamentary Library with acquisitions. But the post (created in 2001) has become primarily a ceremonial one, and that’s problematic.

Given the Harper government’s blatant disregard for arts and culture, appointing the PPL is a quick way to pacify critics without making any substantive policy decisions. Let’s hope that Wah takes the initiative to make whatever small changes he can that will benefit the Canadian literary community, because we know that Harper has no intention of ever doing so.

The sad state of Voter-Funded Media One thing seems certain about Voter-Funded Media (VFM) for this election: there will hardly be any of it.

VFM, if you didn’t know, is a program that makes a pot of money available for blogs that cover the AMS. Students then vote to give each blog a proportion of that money, based on how well the blog was written. The intention is to get more students involved in student politics—and to drive up turnout at the voting booth.

When VFM first started, it was quite successful, with many diverse blogs popping up to cover the election (a separate fund is sometimes made available to cover the AMS throughout the rest of the year.)

But lately the number of blogs

participating in VFM has dwindled both in quantity and quality.

The biggest problem is the lack of advertising around VFM. When the program has been successful, it has been advertised months ahead of time and draws in students who aren’t already within the inner circle of student politics.

We’ve said it before: we want to see as many VFMs as possible. It makes the election more lively, and it keeps us on our toes. We hope the AMS gets its act together on this next year, and starts advertising the program early in the fall instead of at the last minute.

The UNA still needs a reform movement Last month we published a letter from some campus residents who were upset about how the University Neighbourhood Association (UNA) was operating. The group was called Residents for Change, it was led in part by Eleanor Laquian, and they weren’t mincing words.

The UNA, according to the letter, “suffers from a crippling bureaucracy caused by the authoritarian rule of its hired bureaucrats and some directors too busy or beholden to UBC to support its feudal practices.”

Now it should be pointed out that Prod Laquian, husband of Eleanor, has just become the UNA’s chair and president. Eleanor declined to speak to us for our news story on the topic, citing a conflict of interest. To which we say: uh, yeah.

This very odd situation aside (a husband running an organization his wife is leading a reform effort against), we hope the Residents for Change stick around, because the UNA needs that outside pressure; without it, they will remain a mostly powerless faux city council with little incentive to change.

Baby steps on addressing ballooning student debt The federal government is taking steps towards improving the student loan program. Starting later this

year, part-time students are going to be treated more like full-time studetns, and will not accrue interest on their loans until their studies are completed.

And that’s great. But it’s not enough.

By the federal government’s own estimates, student debt in Canada will pass the ceiling of $15 billion by 2013. While it’s likely that the government will seek to raise the debt ceiling—as they did in 2000, increasing it from $5 billion to $10 billion—there should be more of an effort to decrease debt. The ceiling is set for a reason.

A population riddled with debt is a dangerous situation, as the debt crisis of our southern neighbours reminds us. We’re not going to solve the problem if the government is only willing to take baby steps away from the pitfall we are heading towards.

A thank you speech in advance One thing we try to do at The Ubyssey is highlight some of the amazingly dedicated and talented students on this campus, many of whom are outdoing their counterparts at schools across Canada.

But now we’re happy to report that, amazingly, some of those students are, um, us.

This weekend, the John H. McDonald awards for campus journalism are being presented; they’re like the Oscars, except for broke and unglamourous Canadian student journalists. The shortlist for the Johnnies is compiled by professional journalists working at top media outlets. The Ubyssey secured seven nominations for six different awards; no other paper in the country has more than four. It’s a wonderful honour and a validation of the hard work we do.

And while there are no winning speeches at these things, there’s no doubt that UBC students would be first and foremost in ours. Whether we win six awards or zero, we’ll thank you in advance anyway, because a great community paper is the product of its community. U

If you’ve ever had an urge to commit some low-level mischief on campus without fear of media reporting it, now’s your chance!

(Hint, hint, engineers.)

Right now, myself and the staff of The Ubyssey are in Victoria for the annual national conference of Canadian University Press, of which we and most campus papers in this country are members of.

There, we and 300 other young journalists are learning tips of the trade from people we emulate, drinking far too much cheap beer, and tweeting a fair number of very nerdy and insular jokes (which you can read, if you are so inclined, via the #nash74 hashtag).

I mention this only because, in past years, these events would involve a lot of talk from young and old alike about how Journalism Is Changing Because of the Internet.

It’s a conversation that has gripped everyone in the past decade. Newspapers have died, niche online publications have flourished and everyone has wondered when a stable business and publishing model will arise.

When young journalists talk now, that conversation doesn’t happen as much. We’ve more or less caught up to the needs of online readers, who demand (and deserve) news about our university when it happens. We tend not to worry about what the future of journalism will be—and that’s because the future is here.

Writers who once achieved prominence through syndication

now disseminate their personal brands online for all the world to read. We have large, prestigious newspapers like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal now charging for premium online content. We have sprawling free websites like The Huffington Post and The Daily Beast, which do some quality work but get most of their traffic from rewritten stories and slideshows of the Kardashians.

(Note: All of this is slowly coming into Canada too. If you want to consistently read interesting things online, you’re probably going to have to start paying for it soon.

Terribly sorry.)

And social media, that wonderful thing which will benefit everything under the sun? Well, it’s pretty much a fact of life now, with every journalist under 40 worth their salt fully plugged in. The revolution is mostly over, in terms of how you get the news.

But this isn’t a bad thing. Alfred Hermida, a UBC journalism professor and a man much, much smarter than I, wrote, “Technologies reach their full potential when we forget about the novelty. Instead they become boring and blend into the background. How often do we think about the technology behind the telephone, or the television set in our living room?”

That’s where we’re at these days in journalism. Old rules have been dashed, new tools have been established. And the obsession of journalists is back on the message, after years of being about the medium.

So back here on campus, instead of focusing on where the story will be published, or how it will be spread, or how we’re going to get paid for it, our mind is back on how to tell the story as well as we possibly can. U

UBC’s biking commute routes are unsafe Letters As a regular cyclist commuting from Main and 41st to UBC, I get nervous every time I bike on SW Marine Drive between Camosun and West 16th Avenue (UBC campus). Unofficially, people often refer to this road as the UBC highway, and for good reason.

Last night on my commute home on SW Marine, I witnessed the aftermath of a car which ended up in the ditch, several metres off the road. Drivers and cyclists stopped to attend to the victim and called for emergency assistance. The accident reminded me of how dangerous travelling this provinciallyowned road can be. Following sunset, the road is incredibly dark, making it dangerous for cyclists and drivers alike. Cyclists travel only feet away from buses, trucks and cars travelling at speeds in excess of 90km/h. At these speeds, the smallest error could leave a cyclist dead.

I urge UBC and the AMS to lobby the provincial government to make this stretch of SW Marine Drive safer for cyclists and motorists. UBC loves to remind us of its sustainability achievements, and yes, much has been accomplished. Yet we must do

more and demand more.

Many students live in south Vancouver, and SW Marine Drive is the shortest bike route to campus.

If I don’t feel safe biking on this road, as a seasoned, white, male, 22-year-old commuter cyclist, then how are we to expect other less confident cyclists to feel safe and comfortable biking this road?

Would we expect a 75-year-old grandmother to feel comfortable cycling SW Marine Drive?

We should demand that the province improve the street lighting and, ideally, create separate bike lanes through concrete barriers on these roads: –SW Marine Drive from West 16th Avenue to Kullahun Drive –University Boulevard from Blanca Avenue to campus –Chancellor Boulevard –West 16th Avenue from Blanca Avenue to Wesbrook Mall Buses are overcrowded, and the university seems unable to get single-occupant vehicles trips below one-third of commutes. We must demand investments in better transit and cycling infrastructure.

Cycling is a significant part of the solution, and it must receive adequate attention.

—Andy Longhurst Arts 4

Scene

01.12.2012 |

11

Pictures and words on your university experience

HUMOUR >>

The Pacific Spirit Stroker

Why does this man choose to stalk the woods, getting himself off with his hands?

Warnes’s World Bryce Warnes Warnes’s World is a new humour column that will appear in The Ubyssey this term. You may remember Bryce from “The 25 Queries of Student D,” and “Slightly Humourous Unsigned Editorials from The Ubyssey in 2010.” In this space, Warnes will explore some of the events making news at UBC. This week: the masturbating man in Pacific Spirit Park.

Earlier this month, police warned the public that a man has been running around Pacific Spirit Park stimulating his engorged penis in front of women—“around a dozen” according to Sun Media. In a different context, this might be considered performance art. But at night in a remote area with an audience of one, it is sexual assault.

Despite my own proclivity for public masturbation—in the form of this column—let it be known that I condemn this man’s actions.

Despite his sexually violent and, frankly, rude behaviour, I cannot help but wonder about the life and identity of the Pacific Spirit Stroker (as he will henceforth be known). Does he have a family? A home? After a long night of wandering around the woods, jacking off, hoping and praying for a witness to his onanism, does he return home to a tidy house in Point Grey, to a doting wife, loving children and a position in the corporate hierarchy?

Is the flasher in Pacific Spirit Park a product of the Sauder School of Business? I am only

GEOFF LISTER/THE UBYSSEY

A man has been taking his pleasure in Pacific Spirit Park, frightening a number of passersby and soiling the forest floor with his seed. But is he really that different from you and I?

asking questions here.

More likely, the Stroker is a vagrant, splitting his time between the park and Wreck Beach (the fact that victims describe him as “tanned” suggests the latter location). I can’t blame him for his choice of domicile. Given the price of rent in this part of the city, I myself have been tempted to set up house in the wilderness. Who knows? Maybe the Stroker is a mature student at UBC. Maybe he is a professor. In any case, he has made the woods his home, and wood his

occupation.

Most likely, the stroker is just a hint of the horrors lurking in those dark glens. For all we know, there could be an entire colony of mastubating nudists living in Pacific Spirit Park. Or clans of giant spiders whose chitinous mouthparts ooze foaming green venom. Or sasquatch cabals plotting to overthrow civilization. Or dire-engineers, bigger and hairier than their campus brethren, and hungry for human flesh.

Since no one is taking it upon

themselves to cleanse the park of these threats, I am forming a posse. My extensive woodlore and natural charisma make me a shoein for leader.

WANTED: Able-bodied humans who lack fear/mercy. Must supply own shotgun and/or bloodhound.

Chewing tabacky and rotgut liquor will be provided. Wage is an equal share of any gold/ancient artifacts discovered, plus a photo next to the corpse of the first ungodly beast you take down. PANTS MANDATORY. U

Is the flasher in Pacific Spirit Park a product of the Sauder School of Business? I am only asking questions here.

U Looking for a free lunch?

Stop by The Ubyssey Wednesdays at 12 for noms and info on how to get involved with the paper.

COME BY THE UBYSSEY OFFICE

SUB 24, FOLLOW THE SIGNS

12 | Games | 01.12.2012

(CUP) — Puzzles provided by BestCrosswords.com.

Used with permission.

Across 1- Filth 5- Artful 8- Soprano Gluck 12- Cop ___ 14- Cancun coin 15- London jail 16- Hackneyed 17- Language of Pakistan 18- Cornerstone abbr.

19- Consist of 21- Prepare to eat, in a way

23- Classified items 24- Bingo!

25- Leb. neighbor 26- French form of kick boxing 30- Actress Woodard 32- Beethoven dedicatee 33- Act of impelling 37- Cover 38- ____ and the Night Visitors 39- Emaciated 40- Disease of rabbits 42- Gravy, for one

43- Prehistoric chisel-like tool 44- Beginning 45- Attorney’s org.

48- Spar 49- Dada pioneer 50- Bog 52- Astonishment 57- Against 58- Civil disturbance 60- Tall and thin 61- Parody 62- Buck follower 63- First name in cosmetics 64- Achy 65- Mohawk-sporting actor 66- Makes a row?

Down 1- Not fem.

2- As far as

3- A type of bake 4- Seaweed 5- Shrivelled, without moisture 6- Acid 7- Young 8- A Death in the Family author 9- Wears well 10- Like an unprotected sweater?

11- Tree of the birch family 13- Add fizz 14- Cat 20- Chemical ending 22- British nobleman 24- A, as in Athens 26- Denomination 27- Baseball family name 28- Antidote holder, maybe 29- Take ___ at (try)

30- At full speed 31- Convocation of witches 33- Mingle 34- Markers 35- A single time 36- Russian no 38- Airmail letter 41- Bumpkin 42- Flexible 44- Bruins great Bobby 45- Accumulate 46- Swindle 47- Moving 49- Car 51- Bird of prey 52- Smoke deposit 53- Impetuous 54- A big fan of 55- ___ -Ball 56- Baby blues 59- Discount rack abbr.