Showing up to work SINCE 1918
LONGBOAT
October 6, 2011 | VOL. XCIII ISS. X
FEVER P6
U
HOOK UP
THE UBYSSEY COMFORT FROM THE
KEYLESS CAMPUS UBC promises to make building access digital
OF A PHONE
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Electric Courage brings pub patrons together with an innovative idea.
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UBC-O STUDENTS
DENIED
U-PASS
Though the AMS, UBC, TransLink and the BC government are in negotiations to sort things out, students from UBC-O who attend UBC-V aren’t being issued U-Passes,
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What’s on 6
THU
This week, may we suggest...
Our Campus
One on one with the people who make UBC
JOBS>>
Career Days: 10am–3pm @ SUB main concourse
Midterms got you down? Why not attend UBC’s biggest career fair and find out how unemployable a BA actually makes you. Over 140 booths with employers hawking their jobs will be set up in the SUB.
7
FRI
FRATS >>
9
SUN
FAMILY >>
Heaven and Hell: 9pm @ Alpha Delta Phi A massive themed party spread over the main floor (heaven) and basement (hell). Tickets are $10 and entrance is 19+ with postsecondary ID. BYOB. To purchase tickets, call Omri Wallach at 604.649.7473.
8
SAT
Vanier’s own Rey the Caf Guy Peter Wojnar Contributor
SPORTS >>
Men’s ice hockey vs. Calgary: 7pm @ Winter Sports Centre Watch UBC’s season home opener versus the Calgary Dinos. The ‘Birds have a good chance of making the playoffs this year. Stay tuned!
10 MON
PETER WOJNAR/ THE UBYSSEY
Rey McLellan: Food Services employee, tennis semi-pro, world traveler, bourbon drinker. A true Renaissance man.
Canadian Thanksgiving Go to your parents’ house (if applicable) and eat food covered in gravy. Or break up with your significant other from high school. ‘Tis the season, after all.
VIFF >> Khodorkovsky: 8:45pm @ Empire Granville theatre The Ubyssey sponsored a particularly depressing film for this year’s VIFF. The film tells the story of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a Russian oil magnate and prodemocracy activist thrown in prison by Vladimir Putin.
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 September 29, 2011, Volume XXXIII, Issue VIII
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
Copy Editor Karina Palmitesta
CONTACT
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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
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video@ubyssey.ca
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webmaster@ubyssey.ca
BUSINESS
Senior Culture Writers Taylor Loren & Will Johnson
Ad Sales Ben Chen
business@ubyssey.ca
tloren@ubyssey.ca wjohnson@ubyssey.ca
advertising@ubyssey.ca
Sports Editor Drake Fenton
Andrew Hood, Bryce Warnes, Catherine Guan, David Elop, Jon Chiang, Josh Curran, Will McDonald, Tara Martellaro, Virginie Menard, Scott MacDonald
features@ubyssey.ca
Business Office:
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STAFF
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.
You know him as the friendliest food service employee at UBC, and you’ve probably heard rumours regarding how cool he is outside the caf, from ex-professional tennis player to memory whiz to rich corporate owner. Though they may not all be true, there has to be some reason why they exist: Rey McLellan is an interesting man. McLellan was born in the Philippines, then moved with his family to Canada when he was ten years old. After high school, he started to get serious with his tennis: “I did not pursue university just to see how far I could go,” he said. “I made it into a competitive level and traveled, playing, just to see whose ass I could kick.” Tennis rumour? Check. “I did that for about six or seven years, and when I saw that I probably wouldn’t make it to the top pro level, I decided just to teach… and decided I might need another job.” Now, Rey is possibly the nicest Sudoku by Krazy Dad
food service employee at UBC. “My main job in the caf is to serve everyone with a smile,” he said. But how does he stay so endlessly cheery? McLellan says he loves the energy of the students. “Holy cow, I’m surrounded by 18, 19-year-olds, who are all really upbeat, and I like that,” he said regarding his job. Over the years that he’s worked in the Place Vanier cafeteria, Rey has met many students, and they all remember him. What is remarkable is that he seems to remember them, too— I’ve heard stories of Rey asking students about siblings who hadn’t been UBC students for nearly a decade. Rey says that even though he sees thousands of new people each year, he doesn’t forget those who stand out to him. “Saturday night, I was at the Bourbon and came across an older student who said to me, ‘Rey, I was in Vanier in 2001, do you remember me?’ And I replied, ‘Kelsey?’ “There are some students who make an impact on me, and I remember them.”
Though he loves to travel—he has visited more than 50 countries—Rey’s life outside the caf brings him back to campus often. “I also enjoy spending my free time around campus: watching plays and musicals or going to the home games or going to the Pit or the Gallery to say hello to some old faces.” Rey told me that this could be his last year working in the Vanier caf. He wants to travel the world some more, until the list of countries he’s been to breaks the triple digit barrier. “I know I’m going to miss the job, so I’ll go on leave for one term to see if I’ll miss it too much… but if I don’t? Hasta la bye bye, babies!” U
Rey McLellan Occupation UBC Food Services, tennis instructor, Vanier icon
News
10.06.2011 |
3
Editors: Kalyeena Makortoff & Micki Cowan
ACCESS>>
Cards over keys: UBC begins switchover to a keyless campus Trisha Telep Contributor
For UBC, losing keys could actually be a good thing. The campus has started its lengthy transition from using keys to access buildings and labs into using a chipembedded, personalized card. The iClass UBC card is the new “key” to access every building on the UBC campus of the future. It contains an embedded radio-frequency chip, and will open doors when you tap it on hotspots located at frequently used entrances.
“Starting last year, all UBC faculty and staff and students got what’s called an iClass UBC card. It’s that card that can be programmed to be used with these readers,” said Beth Krisciunas, business development manager at Parking and Access Control Services. The card on the hotspot will communicate with the system software, pull up your individual profile and allow you to gain access to the buildings you are authorized to enter. Every new building constructed at UBC automatically has keyless
access. This year, funding has been granted for 20 older buildings to be converted either from traditional key systems or incompatible keyless systems with outmoded hardware to a single web interface developed in the computer science department— the first steps towards unified keyless access on campus. “The first year of the project, we’ve received $650,000 in funding from UBC. And then, of course, depending on how this goes, we’ll be applying to try and do the next set of 20 buildings next year,” said
Debbie Harvie, managing director of University Community Services. The UBC Keyless Committee has a ten year plan they’d like to see funded and implemented at UBC. But for now, they have to take it 20 expensive conversions at a time. Discussions about converting the older buildings on campus have been going on for more than five years. But the Keyless Committee, formed two years ago, is responsible for securing the funding for the first phase of the project, which starts this November or December.
“We’re hoping to have these first 20 done by March 31, [2012],” Harvie said. UBC Okanagan has set the precedent—by the end of the fiscal year, they’ll be the first 100 per cent keyless campus in Canada. Garry Appleton, manager of security and parking at UBC-O’s Campus Security said that the transition to keyless was fairly smooth, and although there were a few issues initially, “Once the system is running, it runs flawlessly.” U
U-PASS >>
SAFETY >>
Kalyeena Makortoff
ShakeOut day helps prepare UBC for earthquakes
UBC-O students denied U-Pass News Editor
UBC Okanagan (UBC-O) students studying on UBC Vancouver’s campus this fall have been denied both their September and October U-Pass. Whether they will be receiving their passes for the rest of the year depends on negotiations of the U-Pass contract. The contract with TransLink stipulates that to receive a U-Pass, students must be enrolled in at least three credits and be a fee-paying member of the AMS. While UBC has the same administration for both the Okanagan and Vancouver campuses, the student unions at each campus are separate entities. UBC-O students can take up to 30 credits at the Vancouver campus without officially transferring, but they still pay fees to UBC-O’s student union and not the AMS. “While these students are here for a short period of time, we consider them AMS members; they have access to our services and can vote in our elections, but we decide to waive their fees because they are paying student union fees at their home institution,” said AMS President Jeremy McElroy. “So it was the AMS’s understanding that UBC-Okanagan students fit into that category, because they’re paying UBC student union fees back home so why should they be paying more here,” he said. “This summer, Enrolment Services sent a report to TransLink listing UBC students requiring the U-Pass, but did not include Okanagan students taking classes in Vancouver. This has been explained as an oversight. “Once we explained this after the contract had been signed with
DONALD WANG/THE UBYSSEY
Hannah Lorena Contributor
GEOFF LISTER/THE UBYSSEY
While attending classes at the Vancouver campus, 39 UBC-O students still pay student fees to their home student union.
TransLink, that’s where they said, ‘Oh, that causes some problems,’” he said. TransLink is now taking a closer look at how the AMS determines membership. When contacted by The Ubyssey, TransLink was unable to give comment. “TransLink is continuing to internally review the issue and will keep UBC, AMS and the province informed of how this issue may be resolved,” said Carole Jolly, director of Transportation Planning at UBC. “Unfortunately, it has not been resolved for October, which means UBC-O students who are studying at UBC Vancouver will continue to not have access to U-Pass BC for this month.” “We’re trying to make up for it by subsidizing students’ fares in the
meantime,” said McElroy, who sent an email to the 39 visiting Okanagan students outlining the current state of negotiations. The AMS will cover the difference between the transit passes that Okanagan students are now required to buy on their own, and the U-Pass price. However, rather than waiting for the situation to be resolved, some UBC-O students are taking matters into their own hands. After paying upwards of $90 for transit during September, Daniel Vineberg tried to become a feepaying member of the AMS. “What I had to do was go to Enrolment Services and opt into AMS fees, which for a while they were denying us from doing because they didn’t recognize us being UBC Vancouver students because my status still showed I went to UBC
Okanagan,” said Vineberg. “The first week felt like I was trapped in a big bureaucracy, I kept being pushed from one person to the other. It took some time to figure out, but I’m glad it’s over with,” said Vineberg. But a long-term remedy might be close. “The AMS has been exploring options for developing a reciprocity agreement between the UBC Students’ Union Okanagan and the AMS that would ensure UBC-O students who are studying at UBC Vancouver would be assessed AMS fees and not UBC-O student union fees, and vice versa,” said Jolly. But in the meantime, a solution needs to be found with TransLink, said McElroy. “The longer we wait, the more inconvenienced everyone is.” U
BC gets new statutory holiday Students can expect an extra day off in future winter semesters, as Premier Christy Clark announced that beginning in 2013, the third Monday of every February will be Family Day, a new provincial statutory holiday. The announcement, made during the government’s annual Throne Speech, followed through on a promise made by Clark during the BC Liberal leadership race. And while the holiday will be a relief to employees, some business leaders aren’t ecstatic. BC becomes the fourth province to have a Family Day in February, joining Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan.
UBC president says domestic students won’t be crowded out UBC President Stephen Toope responded to claims by critics that UBC international student enrolment is taking spots away from in-province students in an editorial in Tuesday’s Vancouver Sun. “The premise that UBC’s recruitment of international students is at the expense of our mandate to serve BC is false,” wrote Toope in the editorial. Addressing claims that international students are benefiting from BC student tuition fees, Toope said, “This is not a zero-sum exercise. International undergraduate students pay the full cost of their education.”
Study: monolingualism may not benefit autistic children A study led by Stefka H. MarinovaTodd, an assistant professor in the UBC School of Audiology and Speech Science, contradicts the theory that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) should be monolingual. Child development professionals commonly advise parents of children with ASD to only speak one language in the home, as bilingualism might hamper the child’s communication skills. Marinova-Todd, along with her collaborators, found no significant difference between the vocabularies of monolingual and bilingual children. U
News briefs Western universities are surpassing eastern schools Ontario universities are finding it increasingly difficult to compete with their western counterparts because “the intellectual centre of gravity of Canada is shifting west,” said Alex Usher, president of Higher Education Strategy Associates. In 2010, UBC was awarded over $24 million in Canada Research Chairs, more than double what Queen’s, Waterloo and McMaster received in total. According to the article, a possible solution for these eastern universities would be to attract more international students who pay higher tuition fees to increase available funding for programs, but even this may not be able to save Ontario from its $15 billion deficit.
On October 20 at 10:20am, UBC will be participating in a province-wide “ShakeOut Day,” an exercise aimed at promoting earthquake preparedness. The first ShakeOut Day was held on January 26, 2011, marking the 311 anniversary of the last major earthquake on the west coast of North America. “We would like everybody on campus to be aware of what they should do during a significant earthquake, and that’s basically the ‘drop, cover and hold’ message,” said Ron Holton, chief risk officer of UBC Risk Management Services. Holton said UBC will activate their Emergency Operations Centre and evacuate the Old Administrative Building and the Frederic Lasserre building as part of the drill. He emphasized the importance of having periodic drills in order to ensure students know what to do if an emergency occurs. “The university has taken ongoing measures in terms of upgrading buildings for seismic resistance purposes. We have all of our emergency preparedness plans in place.” When asked about the precautionary exercises, kinesiology major Emily Kwe said, “I think it’s a good idea, especially because of what’s being said about Vancouver and the earthquake we’re supposed to be expecting soon.” Before ShakeOut Day, an earthquake symposium will take place October 18 at the CIRS Building, where a panel will address expectations during a seismic event and earthquake preparedness. It will begin at 3:30pm in room 1250, and requires an RSVP to attend. The symposium is organized by Carlos Ventura, the director of the Earthquake Engineering Research Facility, and will include shake-table demonstrations mimicking various earthquake motions experienced during a seismic event. U
4 | News | 10.06.2011 INTERWEBS >>
INSITE>>
Social app quells first move jitters Insite to stay open
UBC grad creates app to help people connect at bars
COURTESY VANCOUVER COASTAL HEALTH
Andrew Bates Senior Web Writer
CHRIS BORCHERT/THE UBYSSEY
The dating app helps people in campus bars connect on screen first.
Zafira Rajan Contributor
A new social app designed by a UBC grad may soon move flirting at campus pubs to the internet. Designed by UBC grad Duncan Bays, the Electric Courage app aims to connect people in clubs and bars in Vancouver. It lets you check into any club or bar that you’re at and throw out a “Flirt,” posted on the bar’s “Flirt Wall.” “We’re hoping that Electric Courage will mean that you never have to ask yourself ‘what if…?’ again,” said Bays. “Because each location’s Flirt Wall is public, everyone checked in to Electric Courage can read the
Live Flirt Stream and get in on the flirting action,” he said. Spots at UBC, such as the Pit and the Gallery, already have their own Flirt Wall. “They’re just waiting to get some action,” said Bays. He also said that there is the option to add new locations to the app for places that don’t have their own Flirt Wall, and they don’t have to be a bar or nightclub. “Maybe a Flirt turns into a date, maybe it’s just a drink, but either way it’s a fun way to meet someone new.” If you see that your Flirt might be headed somewhere, there’s always the option to make things more private by using the messaging function. “It’s exactly the same as
text messaging, but you don’t have to exchange phone numbers,” said Bays. AMS Beverage Manager Michael Anthony said that he’s noticed the effects mobile phone culture has on the way people interact in pubs. “Now you see [people on dates] interacting with their phones and in some odd cases are actually texting each other from across the booth,” he said. While he doesn’t think an app like Electric Courage is necessary, he did see the positive aspects of it. “If it helps a guy break the ice with a girl that he has his eye on and otherwise wouldn’t have had the courage to just walk right up to her, then good for him!” U
After years of legal uncertainty, Insite can get back to work. The Insite court decision, which was delivered on September 30, put a cap on the conflict over the legal status of the supervised injection facility that has lasted for years and involved many students and researchers at UBC. “It’s wonderful, it’s a big relief,” said Erica Wynjaards, a first-year forest sciences student who’s been working as a program support worker at Insite. “There’s this sort of feeling that finally, we can get on with our work. We’ve just been fighting and spending money on fighting the court case.” Insite operates under an exemption from the Criminal Code in order to give people with a drug addiction a safe place to inject. This harm reduction strategy is considered one of the four pillars of dealing with drugs in Vancouver. Organizers had been fighting attempts to withdraw the exemption in the courts since 2008, and last Friday the courts ruled that closing the centre would have “grave consequences.”
“It was still kind of nervous [and] tense up until the end, because people really rely on the service and people would literally die if it closed,” said Wynjaards, who attended two of the three most recent court decisions. “We have overdoses there almost every day. If those were to happen, you know, in someone’s room alone, if they even had a room, or in an alley, and there was no one there...” Wynjaards, who used to work at Insite full time, now works two or three days a week while she attends school. “It’s a very stressful job, so you need to just separate your life from your work and not overdo it,” she said. “Take time when you need it, sit outside and that sort of stuff.” The decision cited the scientific evidence proving the centre’s effectiveness. Evan Wood, an associate medical professor at UBC and co-director of an addiction research initiative at the Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, has co-authored many of the 30 papers published by the centre since 2003. “What was unique about the Insite evaluation is that unlike other areas of HIV, where we make progress and the fruits of our research are incorporated into new guidelines, we obviously early on recognized that the federal government really wasn’t interested in the research,” said Wood. “For researchers across all academic disciplines, we face challenges with having our research impact on policy, but certainly that was a relevant frustration for us,” he said. “[It’s] my sincere hope that we could move forward in a constructive way now that this decision is behind us,” Wood said, “and really focus on improving the health of not only individuals that are involved in drug use down there, but the greater community as well.” U
Culture
10.06.2011 |
5
Editor: Ginny Monaco
THEATRE >>
Visions of Vancouver offers glimpses of rain city
COURTESY OF GUNTIS GRIKIS
Rebekah Ho Contributor
PETER WOJNAR/THE UBYSSEY
CITR>>
SHiNDiG! returns for another year of battle
Catherine Guan Staff Writer
Definitely mad. Possibly heroic. UBC campus radio CiTR—the merry, boozy defender of independent music—is making another valiant stand against the corporate Goliath. It’s time again for SHiNDiG!, the station’s annual battle of the bands competition. “We are looking for potential, we are hoping for something original,” said Ben Lai, who is returning to host SHiNDiG! for yet another year and regularly graces the airwaves with his show Live from Thunderbird Radio Hell. One the longest running battle of the bands in Vancouver, various records place the first SHiNDiG! in 1983 or 1985. While the search for sonic revolutionaries has never wavered, the selection process has marched into modern times.
“We, my colleagues and I, used to lug in bags and bags of CD’s and onesheets,” Lai recalled. “But now we get almost everything over the internet.” From nearly 100 submissions, 27 were chosen. Lai is content with this year’s batch. “It’s a good crosssection, pretty representative of the local music scene.” The judges are representative of music in Vancouver as well, ranging from CiTR DJs to local musicians and music journalists. Alex Hudson, the frontman of SHiNDiG! competitor Rec Centre, had trepidations about the judging. As a rock critic writing for various publications, the UBC alumnus is used to being the one to pass judgment. “I started Rec Centre in my bedroom as a kind of home-recording project,” he explained, “and this is the first time other people have been
involved.” With a little help from his friends, including Jay Arner of Fine Mist, the project evolved. “The live band side of Rec Centre is very new indeed, it’s embryonic at this stage.” Occupational hazards are also loom over Honourary MD. While six members of the band are UBC medical school students, one of them, Bronwyn Malloy, is uncertain how many of the nine-person band will be playing at SHiNDiG. “Seven or eight, depending on if one of our members gets called to the hospital or not.” Not as scientific is Beekeeper’s way of recruiting band members. “We found our bass player through a dating site,” confessed singer Devon Lougheed. “We created a fake profile and looked for someone who was musical.” By day, Lougheed is a PhD candidate in political science at UBC; his
fellow band members are a computer scientist and a WestJet flight attendant. “We bring all these experiences into a strange fusion of music.” Lougheed is looking forward to SHiNDiG!, and said, “We like CiTR even though they won’t play our music, and you can quote me on that.” At this point in our interview, Beekeeper’s manager Rockin’ Robin grabbed the phone and issued a challenge: “To all the other SHiNDiG! bands, you are going down. And contact me if you want to be famous.” The bands will be trading riffs and more fighting words at the Railway Club, where SHiNDiG! takes place every Tuesday night until November 8. Lai hopes the event will bring in more than a few musically curious students. “It’s a good place to hear some fresh music, see something different and maybe go home with a new favourite band,” he said. U
Under review VIFF >>
Jess + Moss Gavin Yeung Contributor
In some respects, Jess + Moss is almost as plain as the title itself. Director Clay Jeter’s first feature film is acutely minimalist in terms of plot, featuring only two characters of note: the eponymous 18-yearold Jess (Sarah Hagan), and 12-yearold Moss (Austin Vickers). Set against the backdrop of a decrepit tobacco farm in a forgotten corner of Kentucky, Jess and Moss are two cousins who have lost their parents. They live with and wholly depend on each other, and explore the self-contained world of the agrarian microcosm they inhabit in their last summer together. What could have ended up as aimless and alienating is instead a beautifully shot ode to the transitory nature of youth, which is all the more enhanced by the juxtaposition of two supple bodies against their decaying abode. At once, they have all the freedom in the world, unrestrained by any adult presence, but at the same time they are hemmed in by their past and the residual
emotions stemming from their abandonment. The film progresses in a nonlinear fashion, with jump cuts aplenty and even rewinding in some places. It is arranged much like halfremembered fragments of a happier time, a reference to Jess and Moss’s attempts to recall and preserve memories of their past lives and of each other. Jess + Moss is about a yearning for childhood and tainted innocence, and the inevitable fading of youth and memory. VIFF >>
The Jewel Rheanna Buursma Contributor
The Jewel is a movie about business. More specifically, it’s about how not to run your business. Taking a peek into the indulgent lifestyles of Italy’s silky businessmen, this film reveals the danger of establishing a family-run company, and how quickly greed can poison a corporation. Based on the 2003 Parmalat SpA scandal in Italy, the largest
COURTESY OF VIFF
The Jewel offers a fictitious account of the Italian Parmalat scandal.
bankruptcy in European history, The Jewel tells the story of Amanzio Rastelli. Founder of Leda, a multi-million dollar dairy and food company, Rastelli’s humble roots and familyoriented business leads to financial incompetence and careless money handling. Placing his under-qualified son and niece in positions of power, Rastelli averts his eyes when money occasionally disappears. Unlike
Rastelli’s relatives, the uncorrupted financial advisor Mr Botta is loyal to Leda, the company he’s given his life to. His loyalty is tested when the company starts to flounder and he must decide how far his dedication goes. The fantastic cinematography and engaging soundtrack brings the audience into the world of Leda’s elite, and powerfully deals with the balance of devotion to one’s family and to work. U
It’s Vancouver, 125 years in the future. “The tsunami has hit, everything is underwater,” said playwright Kevin Loring. “And you’re able to talk to the dead. You can phone a phone line and talk to the deceased. It’s kind of a funky, sci-fi piece.” He’s explaining the sci-fi short, The Dead Line, one of the works in Pi Theatre’s Visions of Vancouver. Visions is a four-part series of short, self-reflective plays about the city by emerging Vancouver playwrights. The project features a theatreradio mash-up concept. The set-up is simple, featuring the same four actors throughout the entire work. Their performance will be broadcasted on the internet. Visions takes a fresh angle on a number of quintessential Vancouver experiences and icons. “There’s one piece about condo culture. And another one is about the Iron Memorial Bridge,” said Loring. Loring’s own contribution, The Thin Veneer, is an artistic reaction to the riots that followed Game 7 of the Stanley Cup. It encourages citizens to recognize the heart of the destruction. “I did my piece on the riots because it was a big deal,” said Loring. “The media was like, ‘Oh, this is not Vancouver. This is people from outside coming in and doing this.’ Well, that was denial. It was ridiculous. “I understand why you want to reject that act, but I think that you have to acknowledge that it’s us. If not, who did it?…I just wanted to put the mirror back. This is what we’re doing. This is what we sound like.” Despite the diverse nature of the individual pieces, familiar Vancouverite themes pervade the play, such as the “high cost of living…the fact that we live in million-dollar homes that no one can afford,” said Loring. “It’s kind of this character that is Vancouver that’s come up from the pieces,” he said. Loring expects that the personality of Vancouver will be recognizable to the audience. The opening night of Visions of Vancouver is October 6, but the end result of the play will be a surprise, even to those involved in the production. Loring admitted, “I still don’t know exactly what the finished product is going to be, because it’s this weird experimental hybrid.” U Visions of Vancouver runs from October 6-15 at CBC Studio 700. Tickets are $10.
6 | Sports | 10.06.2011 LONGBOAT >>
Digging deep at Day of the Longboat
JON CHIANG/UBC REC
Annual UBC Rec tradition draws more than 3000 students for epic canoe race Peter Wojnar Contributor
“Wake up!” yelled our residence advisor Jerome, as he pounded my door. He gave each door in our hall the same beating. “Longboat time!” Day of the Longboat is a race put on by UBC Rec each fall. For 25 years, teams of eight to ten have come up with a goofy name, piled into a large canoe and paddled a course at Jericho Beach. There’s a baton pick-up in the middle, and the team that finishes first wins. It was Sunday morning and we were already almost late. The day before, we had finished third in our heat—good enough to advance to the finals. On Sunday morning, though, we were barely awake. Skipping breakfast, we rushed to the bus. The driver threw us a dirty look as we all climbed aboard. We deserved it. Longboat participants are encouraged to dress in as silly a manner as possible. Between the skin-tight body suit, the short shorts, bandanas, revealing shirts, climbing rope fragments and a pair of false breasts made of Pilsner cans, we looked like we were ready for an 80s workout video.
Time for the finals. Callout: “What do we eat?” Reply: “Dragon meat!” Just like that, we established our dominance over any team whose name had anything to do with dragons. There were many. The start of the race consisted of about a minute of teams hitting each other (unintentionally) with paddles, splashing and hurling insults across the water like volleys of arrows in a medieval war. Paddling a longboat is a team effort. Everyone has to paddle to the same drum, and for most teams, that drum was a collective yell of, “Stroke! Stroke!” We had a different philosophy. “Still! Drunk! Still! Drunk!” and “Hung! Over! Hung! Over!” By the time we hit the final stretch we had a healthy lead. To quantify the exact finishing time, one member of the team jumps out of the boat, runs across the beach and hits a gong with a baton. We finished in 11 minutes and 50 seconds, good enough to beat the next team by almost 20 seconds. As winners of our division, we were invited to come to the overall finals later that day. Instead of chancing a loss, though, we decided to end the day as champions. U
Clockwise from left: a paddler runs to ring the gong. A team celebrates post-race. A fan cheers from the sidelines.
JON CHIANG/UBC REC
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UBC Thunderbirds shake hands with players from the Southern Insitute of Technology, after sweeping them in a two-game preseason series.
Puck drops with high expectations After a two year absence, UBC hopes to return to the playoffs with a mix of rookies and veterans Chantel Colleypriest Contributor
The hockey season for the men’s varsity team begins this weekend against the Calgary Dinos at Doug Mitchell Arena. Following a failure to make the playoffs for the last two years, head coach Milan Dragicevic has signed 12 new recruits of this season and is hopeful for a quick turnaround. “We have competition, right from goaltending to defence to forwards,” said Dragicevic. “We want all our guys to be at the top of their game, to push so everyone gets better.” The high number of new recruits will drive veteran players to improve their skills in order to get more ice time, while still allowing them to lead by example. Dragicevic said that his veteran players will be the “individuals who step up and be point producers, be great penalty killers and be specific in their roles.” Though Dragicevic expects a lot from his veterans, he wouldn’t be surprised to see some of his new recruits with years of experience in the major junior, Junior A and Junior B ranks jump into those leadership positions as well. This season, the team will need to create on-ice chemistry and make a strong commitment to each other. Although there is competition between players to be the best they can possibly be, Dragicevic said that “work ethic and a passion to play can’t change.” Dragicevic’s goal for this season is to become an “aggressive, in-your-face hockey team,” which
will demand a tight defensive game while still producing a good offence. He is directing the team’s focus to “putting pucks on the net.” In a fastpaced game where there is no time for hesitation in the offensive zone, players need to be shooting the puck from everywhere and that is what is being ingrained in all of his players. The upcoming season could see the T-Birds in the Canada West playoffs if their veterans and rookies are able to mesh quickly. With two solid options in net, the team can continue to work on maintaining a strong defence and getting more shots on net. And although the ultimate goal is winning the games that will take the ‘Birds to the playoffs,
Dragicevic said the most crucial element for the team is players pushing themselves and teammates to “get better every day.”
Players to watch for In the 2010-2011 season, veteran forwards Justin McCrae (Cochrane, Alberta) and Max Grassi (North Vancouver, BC) both finished in the top 20 in scoring in the Canada West. Dragicevic expects that they will continue to produce offensively, taking the lead in scoring for the T-Birds. Centre Marc Desloges (Vancouver, BC) is the team’s oldest player and entering his fifth year
with the Thunderbirds. Dragicevic calls him, “one of the best skaters in the league,” and the team will rely on him both offensively and defensively in the coming season. The backbone of any successful hockey team is good goaltending, and this season the T-Birds have two highly skilled goalies. Veteran Jordan White (Surrey, BC) will be competing with new recruit Steven Stanford (Calgary, AB) for play time, and their on-ice performances will determine who starts more games. White had a .885 save percentage last season and had a one day professional contract as an emergency backup for the San Jose Sharks last January when the team’s regular
backup, Antero Niittymaki, was injured in practice. Stanford, who played for the Saskatoon Blades in the Western Hockey League the past two years, had an impressive .91 save percentage last season and a .90 the season before. Before he was moved to the Blades, Stanford had an average save percentage of .885 in his three years with the Prince Albert Raiders. U
Key games Oct 7: vs. Calgary, 7pm Oct 28: at Regina, 6pm Nov 5: vs. Calgary, 7pm Nov 19: vs. Manitoba, 7pm Nov 26: at Sask., 5pm Dec 3: vs. Lethbridge, 7pm Jan 14: vs. Regina, 7pm Jan 28: vs. Alberta, 7pm Feb 4: vs. Manitoba, 7pm Feb 11: vs. Sask., 7pm
JOSH CURRAN/THE UBYSSEY
Veteran UBC goaltender Jordan White will be competing against rookie Steven Stanford for the starting position in net this season.
Feb 24: Playoffs begin
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WE HAVE HAD nial from Alex A SIGHTING. What follows is Wilkes, an Engl news editor. ishman who is a testiomocourting our “Sometime be Granville Street tween 5–7pm I was in a pu b he—he being Shand walked into the bar sect on friends and talki ia Labeouf—was sitting with ion and them. It didn’t ng to two females at the tabl...two male seem they arriv e ed with them. next to I was going to ap pr oa ch him to inquire sible work expe ab distracted by m rience at The Ubyssey, but thout his posen be y de sire to inquire He left prompt about Even Stev came ly before I was ens. lively debate. able to engage him in a He’s smaller th razor, as his faci an I anticipated and is in ne its styling on hi al hair is ridiculous. His choi ed of a ce liked to talk to s head was unfortunate. But of cap and him to discuss I would have career has take th n since Even St e downward spiral his evens.”
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Opinion
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Editor: Brian Platt
Letters
More problems with new health plan Dominic Lai gave a good accounting of the difficulties students have faced in the Student Health Plan switch from SunLife Insurance to Pacific Blue Cross. Not only are some medications denied—Adderall, oral hypoglycemics and some non-steroidal anti-inflammatories are not covered—but others require more paperwork for the prescribing physicians. The plan relies on Fair Pharmacare to let the pharmacy know if the drug will be covered rather than telling the student directly. Adderall, in particular, is a drug that students with ADHD must use to manage their symptoms so they can succeed academically. It and other longacting drugs are not covered by Fair Pharmacare. It was covered on SunLife. This is a huge problem for the approximately five per cent of UBC students with ADHD. Ritalin, which often causes elevated blood pressure, agitation and loss of appetite that can lead to serious weight loss, is covered. Ritalin can also be diverted for recreational use. Without Adderrall, some students diagnosed with ADHD may need to leave school. This is an unacceptable fallout of the change that I do not believe was anticipated by the AMS. I look forward to working with the AMS leadership to resolve this coverage issue and keep students with ADHD in school, and on safer drugs to manage their condition. —Patricia Mirwaldt, MD CCFP Director, Student Health Services INDIANA JOEL/ THE UBYSSEY
The Last Word Parting shots and snap judgments on today’s issues A chance for students and faculty to join forces Students have long complained about the lack of affordable housing on campus. Now, they may have an ally when imploring UBC to create more non-market housing: faculty. A committee created by the Board of Governors has been investigating the shocking facts that a) living in Vancouver is expensive, and b) UBC doesn’t do as much as other prestigious universities in expensive cities to alleviate costs for staff and students. Crazy, we know. Of course, students and faculty do not share specific long-term needs. But we share a common goal: to ensure that campus housing is geared towards the people that contribute to the university. The more unified we are on this issue, the better. The combined pressure of students and faculty could make a real difference in land use negotiations. It’s no coincidence that new U-Pass problems keep arising For the second time in two weeks, TransLink and UBC are close to a solution on a problem that needn’t have existed in the first place. This time, it’s about students on cross-campus exchanges from UBC Okanagan who weren’t given U-Passes because they still pay fees to the UBC-O student union, not the AMS. We understand the cold reality behind this “confusion”: Translink wanted a better U-Pass deal, had leverage, and so some students on exchange and financial hold were sacrificed. Instead of a couple of billion dollar entities expressing confusion, it would nice to see a bit more bluntness as to why it’s taken so long to make the U-Pass truly universal.
To really get student feedback, you need to actively go to the students As the discussion around collegia develops, we have a suggestion for the UBC administration. Student consultations done in a passive way don’t work very well. By passive,
we mean holding a workshop somewhere, or putting a survey online, and offering free food or a prize to get students to come and participate. Yes, we recognize that a big problem here is the unwillingness of many students to actually put in the effort to attend consultations on subjects they complain about. But even when students do come, you are only getting a self-selecting group of students who are already quite involved in university politics. What a true consultation needs is the participation of students who aren’t in that inside circle. Do an active consultation: go out and find students who are in the category that your program will affect. In the case of collegia, actively search out students who have long commutes and ask them what kind of program will be most useful to them. Some of them will not want to answer questions, but many of them will. Because you are approaching them, as opposed to the other way around, you will have a much broader representation of the commuting student population. This should lead to a collegia program that will better serve the students that it’s meant for.
CBC cutbacks would affect those who need it the most Last week, a Conservative MP from Calgary launched a petition to defund the CBC. While this is hardly the first time someone has launched such a campaign—you can find “Defund the CBC” bumper stickers on eBay—the petition has received considerable traction from social media and Conservative supporters. For years, the CBC has been labeled as “leftist,” “communist” and all sorts of confused terms that paranoid Canadians have learned to hurl at anything they disagree with. The petition calls for the defunding of the broadcaster based on the belief that Ottawa’s $1.1 billion budget “gives the CBC an unfair advantage over its private sector competitors.” The chances of the CBC being
completely defunded are very low. But the real danger here is significant cutbacks that could paralyze the CBC’s ability to serve remote and under-represented communities, including Aboriginal peoples and the Canadian North. It’s the community—not the socalled “communist”—focus of CBC that is vulnerable to Conservative pressure, and that’s why petitions from federal MPs like this need to be pushed back on.
A protest that puts the cart before the horse The “Occupy Wall Street” movement is coming to Canadian cities, and Vancouver will be included. Organizers have said they plan to set up outside the Vancouver Art Gallery, the preferred location of most protests in the city. Much commentary has been made about the lack of direction and coherence of the Wall Street protesters, but they certainly don’t lack reasons for outrage at the way most large financial institutions have operated in the past few years. Well-paid analysts and brokers made stupid decisions, financial institutions received huge government bailouts, and yet many of those same firms are now paying out gigantic executive bonuses and posting profits. It’s entirely understandable why protesters would start camping out. Yet what exactly are protesters here going to demonstrate against? Banks in Canada are distinguished from American banks by their aversion to risk-taking, and haven’t required any bailouts. But according to protest organizers, they’ll figure something out. “We have a lot of critics and skeptics about the fact that currently, there are no goals,” a spokesperson told the Toronto Star. “But it comes down to corporate greed.” Organizing a protest before you’ve figured out what you’re protesting? That’s a new one to us. We like to see people raising hell against injustice, but we prefer that they have actual reasons before marching in the streets. U
Aquatic centre clarifications I wanted to take this opportunity to respond to your article on the feasibility study of building a new UBC Aquatic Centre, and to clarify a couple of points that are of significant importance to students, faculty, staff and residents. The purpose of the feasibility study, commissioned by UBC Infrastructure Development (not Campus and Community Planning), was to evaluate whether the needs of campus stakeholders would best be met with construction of a new facility or renewal and expansion of the existing facilities. The study recommended pursuing the option of building a new facility and considered criteria such as functionality, existing building condition, campus fit, financial aspects as well as sustainability and architectural impact. The proposed new aquatic centre, anticipated for completion in 2016, will provide student athletes with a state-of-the-art training and competition facility, and the larger campus community (students, faculty, staff and residents) with an on-campus recreational facility. I’d like to make three clarifications related to your coverage of this feasibility study. First, there will be no disruption of service at the existing UBC aquatic facilities during construction of the proposed new UBC Aquatic Centre. The existing UBC facilities will only be demolished once the new Aquatic Centre is open and available for use by the public. Second, no final decision has been made on the location or shape of the new facility. Neither Infrastructure Development nor Campus and Community Planning is advocating for one particular site. Options for the location and shape of the new Aquatic Centre are being considered by the Gage South & Environs Working Group as part of the Gage South & Environs planning process, which is ongoing. The Working Group is developing options and the campus community will be asked to provide feedback on these options as part of a public consultation process in late October/ early November 2011. Third, the purpose of the open houses held on September 20 and 21 was to publicly present the proposed new Aquatic Centre’s planned elements (e.g. a 50m competition pool, a 25m lap pool, a children’s leisure pool) and to gather feedback on those elements. The public also had the opportunity to provide feedback online. To find out more, please visit www.planning.ubc.ca. It’s an exciting project for everyone on campus. —Kera McArthur Director, Communications and Public Engagement Campus and Community Planning
Feedback on collegia options welcome Thanks for your recent editorial supporting the idea of collegia—a “home away from home” for commuter students—here at UBC Vancouver. Our hope is that these spaces will provide a “great room” for student life: soft seating, a place to connect with a community of up to 300 other students, a place to study, to heat your lunch and to relax between classes. From the feedback we have received, we believe that such spaces will improve the student experience significantly for students who travel to campus. Thanks too for the suggestion that these spaces be offered to commuter students free of charge. At the moment we are considering all options. One option is to have commuter students pay no membership fee (in effect to have these spaces subsidized by all students on campus). A second option is to have students who use these spaces pay a modest fee (of perhaps $100 - $150 per term) to help cover operational costs, for example of student employees, printing stations, etc. A third option is to have student members pay the full cost of operating such spaces. Since we are still in the exploratory stage and no final decisions have yet been made, we would welcome further ideas and feedback. Anyone wanting to write to us with suggestions about these proposed spaces is welcome to contact us in care of janet.teasdale@ubc.ca . Ideally, feedback should be received by November 1, 2011. Thanks again for your support. —Andrew Irvine Senior advisor to the president, Student Housing —Janet Teasdale Senior director, Student Development and Services
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Pictures and words on your university experience
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Query the 19th: Tasty food on campus? The 25 Queries of Student D Bryce Warnes
The 25 Queries of Student D is an attempt to answer 25 pressing questions posted anonymously by a commenter on The Ubyssey’s website. For the introduction to this column, and to read the original comment, visit ubyssey.ca/opinion/wakefield-a-new-look-a-new-paper-anew-way-of-thinking321/.
19. when the fuck will cheap and tasty food be availble on campus? [sic] If you haven’t been able to find anything “cheap” or “tasty” yet on campus, you either haven’t looked hard enough or you have one of them weird “veganarian” diets the kids are so excited about. The SUB is full of places to get food. The Village is filled with places to get food. Assorted eating establishments are scattered along routes to class. This isn’t a difficult problem. Anyway, the word “food” is entirely subjective. I’m 99 per
cent certain that the burger patties at McDonald’s are pooped out by robots that feed on petroleum by-products, and that the fake crab meat that sushi places use in their California rolls is made from ground-up shark dick. “Tasty” is a useless word too. My idea of tasty is a dozen raw oysters and a bottle of beer made from the excretions of wild airborne yeast found in a certain region of Belgium. That’s because I have good taste and I’m better than most people. Your average 59fifty ballcapwearing subhuman, on the other hand, would prefer a sandwich made from the kind of processed meat that gives you asshole cancer. And besides, what the hell does “cheap” mean? I’ll tell you what’s cheap: a bag lunch, you spoiled little shitstain. If you’re responsible enough to pick up groceries on a semi-regular basis, your lunch shouldn’t cost more than a dollar or take longer than 15 minutes to prepare. And if you brought a salad to school every day instead of mowing down on Pi-R-Squared, you might lose a little weight and people would like you more. “Not enough time” to pack a lunch? Then you should just die.
PAUL BUCCI/THE UBYSSEY
This slop, available from an undisclosed campus eatery, reveals the extent to which the term ‘food’ is totally subjective.
Humans who are unable to procure and consume food on a daily basis die. This is called “natural selection” or “the invisible hand of the market.” It’s how we weed out weak people and make the human race better. If you lack the abilities necessary to pack a bag lunch for
yourself, you are of no use to yourself or to society. Donate your body to science. And if you’re all pissy because the restaurants on campus don’t offer enough variety, get a job at one, work your way up the ranks and take over 20 years from now. Or save up and buy a franchise.
Whatever you do, just stop whining. You live in a place where if you look poor enough and you’re willing to line up at a soup kitchen, you will get free food. Relative to the rest of the world’s population, you’re wiping your ass with C-notes. So shut up and make a goddamn sandwich. U