Impr int The university of Waterloo’s official student newspaper
Friday, June 13, 2008
vol 31, no 4
imprint . uwaterloo . ca
How green is my campus?
Part 3 of 6, page 11
Quantum tunnelling?
Groundbreaking ceremony draws crowd, but construction is still overcoming early setbacks
chris miller
David Johnston, Leanna Pendergast, Dalton McGuinty, Ophelia Lazaridis, Mike Lazaridis, Bob Harding, and John Milloy all dig into the B2 green project. Jamie Damaskinos staff reporter
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onstruction on the Quantum NanoCentre (QNC) has officially begun, although delays continue to impede the completion of the QNC’s service tunnel. Meanwhile, the Bombshelter’s patio — which lies directly above the tunnel — continues to remain out of service due to construction delays. The groundbreaking ceremony for the QNC happened on Monday, June 9, with the Board of Governors officially approving the construction of the QNC only five days earlier, on Wednesday, June 4. UW Chancellor and co-CEO of Research in Motion, Mike Lazaridis, as well as his wife, Ophelia Lazaridis, were among those who attended the ceremony. The couple — after whom the building is named — recently donated $50 million dollars to the University of Waterloo; $22 million has been used to help fund the construction of the QNC. The QNC has been designed to house students and faculty interested in quantum information technology and nanotechnology. Quantum
technology deals with the study of atomic and sub-atomic particles and their behaviour. Nanotechnology is the science of creating devices that are in the size-range of about 100 nanometers, the size of atoms and molecules. “This is an exciting time for science and the University of Waterloo,” Mike Lazaridis said in a UW news release. “In addition to housing state-
of plant operations, the progress on the new service tunnel has been temporarily slowed and is progressing on par with a “revised schedule.” “The scope of work changed to accommodate site conditions discovered during construction. The patio was disrupted as part of this project, and we are obligated to re-instate it as part of this project,” Murdock
“[Feds] will work diligently with the university to ensure the patio is reopened at the earliest opportunity possible.” — Del Pereira, Feds VPAF of-the-art research labs, this new building will provide a unique and cutting-edge environment that will bring together the brightest minds in basic and applied research to explore and advance quantum computing and nanotechnology.” Meanwhile, the Bombshelter’s patio will remain out of service until at least late June because the construction of the Quantum Nano Centre’s service tunnel has suffered numerous delays. According to Byron Murdock, a project coordinator of the design and construction branch
said. “Unforeseen conditions [such as inclement weather] and locations of underground services came into play.” Despite these “unforeseen conditions,” Murdock stated that construction is moving ahead at a steady pace, and that the project will be fully completed in mid-July. “Portions of the patio will be reinstated sooner. Our goal is to have a portion of the patio opened on the third or forth week of June. The schedule is subject to weather conditions,” said Murdock.
Del Pereira, Federation of Students (Feds) vice-president of administration and finance, echoed Murdock’s sentiments. However, he also stated that “there is no definitive completion date set as yet.” Despite this, Pereira added that construction was “moving along well, according to the revised schedule.” Pereira did not comment on possible plans to recoup any lost revenue from the absentee patio. He said only that “[Feds] will work diligently with the university to ensure the patio is reopened at the earliest opportunity possible.” Justin Williams, president of Feds, could not be reached to further comment on the stalled development plans. It is still not clear at this moment whether or not the patio will be further delayed by adverse weather conditions, or other unforeseen circumstances. Furthermore, it is unclear as to how the feds will deal with this unexpected loss of revenue. Students and staff can only hope the patio is back sooner than that. The QNC is scheduled to open late in 2010 or early 2011. jdamaskinos@imprint.uwaterloo.ca
On the road to recovery
SETTING THE STAGE
MoCCA: indie comicons
Part 3 of 3: After the surgery, retraining, and moving on
Doing drama, part 2 of 3
Columnist Peter Trinh returns from New York City to comment on comic culture
>> page 18
>> page 17
>> page 10
News
Imprint, Friday, June 13, 2008 news@imprint.uwaterloo.ca
Spring convocation fills campus Friends and family flock to UW as students graduate and honourary degrees are conferred
daniel lewis
Above, the faculty of science convocates on Wednesday, June 11 in the Physical Activities Complex. Below, left, science faculty valedictorian Samantha Brown congratulates her colleagues on their successes to date, and encourages them to continue pushing their limits in the years to come. Maggie Clark editor-in-chief
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ou can hear babies crying from all quarters. In the aisles and wings of the PAC, mothers and fathers wave at the formally-gowned students, who in turn scan the packed bleachers for familiar faces as they file in, arranged by program, to the processional accompaniment of Harry Currie, UW director of music. When one graduating student faints in her seat, the forward momentum of faculty speeches doesn’t even waver. UW professors, garbed in the various colours of their different schools and standings, oversee the distribution of new degrees from a stage set with three thrones. Three-by-three, UW’s newest graduates kneel before these thrones to receive their respective hoods, colour-coded on the basis of degree, as well as words of wisdom from the top tier of this institution — UW President and Vice-Chancellor David Johnston, UW Chancellor Mike Lazaridis, and UW Vice-President Academic and Provost Amit Chakma. Yes, it’s convocation time again. And though 10 honourary degrees will be distributed to members of the broader community throughout this particular, four-day celebration of academic excellence, UW’s real stars are, as always, the undergraduate and graduate students concluding their courses of study with the receipt of diplomas or degrees. This season, there are 3,821 convocating undergraduates, and 557 students receiving a masters or higher. Convocation began on Wednesday, June 11
and continues through Saturday, June 14. Applied health studies (AHS) and the faculty of the environment (ES) started off the second of three convocation periods to be held in 2008 (one per term) at 10:30 a.m. with 655 graduating students. At 2:30 p.m. the science faculty followed with 677 students. Arts, math, and engineering will all convocate in two sessions apiece, with respective totals of 1154, 894, and 1127 graduating students. Notable this semester are the first convocating classes for three recent program additions: UW’s school of accounting and financial management convocates 101 students — 95 as master’s students — as chartered accountants, certified management accountants, or chartered financial analysts. 91 mechatronic students will comprise the first graduating class for their program, in the whole of Canada, let alone in UW’s faculty of engineering. 13 students first gain a UW master’s of theological studies, after completing the twoyear program in conjunction with Conrad Grebel. In Chancellor Lazaridis’s address to the faculty of science, he stressed how important it was for graduating students to recognize UW’s presence as the “most powerful commercialization engine in Canada.” He spoke further of each graduate’s ongoing responsibility to give back as alumni to the UW community, and also to exercise his or her vote in upcoming government elections. Touting an ambitious goal of seeing 95 per cent (or higher) UW graduates go to the polls, Laz-
aridis argued that attaining a high academic turn-out would ensure that education matters maintain prominence in future public policy debates. Prof. Peterson then spoke on the matter of attaining personal happiness, offering students an assortment of thoughts and findings to provoke more intensive thought into the subject in years to come. After science valedictorian Samantha Brown offered a more outward-looking address to her fellow graduates, encouraging continued excellence in the course of their respective careers, President Johnston asked friends and family in the audience to stand to receive a moment of recognition for their own part in seeing the graduating class through to their academic goals. Despite the sheer number of graduates in attendance, the entire ceremony — a typical representation of UW convocations — took just under two hours. Of the ten prominent community members also receiving (honourary) degrees this convocation season, CBC broadcaster and Globe and Mail columnist Rex Murphy is perhaps the most easily recognized; he will be receiving an honourary doctor of laws from UW on Saturday, June 14. This degree is bestowed in accordance with academic tradition that allows even institutions without law programs to give the degree in recognition of public service. Also to be presented throughout the course of convocation ceremonies are a series of annual excellence awards, both for teaching and graduate supervision. Six UW professors in total will be bestowed with these honours. mclark@imprint.uwaterloo.ca
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News
Imprint, Friday, June 13, 2008
President david johnston reappointed Anya Lomako staff reporter
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avid Johnston, the current University of Waterloo president, has been reappointed for two additional years, which will make him the longest serving president in the university’s history. This re-election will carry Johnston’s position until June 2011, at which point he will have served for a total of 12 years and one month; furthermore, the now 66-year-old has no plans of leaving the post after the reappointment runs out. Johnston said that a major focus for the next two years of his term will be the Sixth Decade Plan, which spans from 2008 to 2017 and aims to excel, globalize, and increase the amount of innovation at the university. Although the secretariat has re-
the six faculties to “bring the work experience reality a little closer into the academic enterprise,” said Johnston. He has also supported the ongoing movement to increase student funding — particularly financial support through grants as part of the guarantee of financial support for unmet needs, provided to ensure every admitted student has the resources to enter or complete education despite their financial status. Johnston has observed a vital shift in the university’s population during his nine-year career as University of Waterloo president. He says that internationalization was a shifting dynamic when he came, and he expects it to keep its direction for the next decade. According to Johnston, when he first arrived at his position as president, “about one per cent of our undergraduate class
No concrete projects for materializing the Sixth Decade Plan appear to have been announced yet. Nonetheless, Johnston said he hopes the plan will “improve student engagement and the student learning experience.”
Anya Lomako
UW President David Johnston has recently been reappointed for two more years of service.
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leased a generic plan with goals of a very ambitious calibre, no concrete projects for materializing the Sixth Decade Plan appear to have been announced yet. Nonetheless, Johnston said he hopes the plan will “improve student engagement and the student learning experience.” What Johnston foresees for students by the end of the Sixth Decade Plan is a flourishing of the graduate student increase Waterloo is currently experiencing, which, Johnston said, “is indicative of the increased research breadth of the institution.” He hopes to bring graduate studies to the level of excellence and innovation that undergraduate students are known for at UW. Another project under Johnston’s wing is the renovation of the cooperative system in seeking globally recognized excellence with the program. On behalf of this initiative, associate deans were established in
was international, and currently it is about 10 per cent, while our goal is to have 20 per cent of our entering class be international by 2017.” But Johnston is not exclusive to the administrative business since he is also a Professor of Law and has written seven books in five years, his latest one being, Communications Law in Canada in 2000. He chooses to integrate his passion for law into his administrative career by remaining a scholar and a teacher apart from presidential duties. David Johnston has been an enduring presidential force during his nine years in office. It is clear that the grandiosity of the Sixth Decade Plan will modulate Johnston’s legacy for the next president — although according to Johnston, the position won’t be open anytime soon. alomako@imprint.uwaterloo.ca
A wait worth watching Tight-lipped, CUPE 793 and UW continue negotiations Rosalind Gunn staff reporter
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egotiations took place between the Canadian Union of Public Employees local 793 (CUPE) and the University of Waterloo administration regarding the formation of a new contract this past Tuesday and Wednesday. The previous contract expired on April 30, 2008. In April, negotiations took place regarding workers’ salaries, where decisions were made to increase it by an average of .35 per cent. As of yet, an agreement has not been reached between CUPE and the UW administration regarding the renewal of their contract. CUPE is Canada’s largest union. It represents workers in areas from healthcare, education, municipalities, libraries, universities, and social services, among a number of others. Members of CUPE from the University of Guelph and the Univer-
sity of Windsor confronted a similar impasse as UW CUPE members in their negotiations earlier this year, with both cases leading workers to contemplate a strike. Here at UW, CUPE is the representative body for more than 300 paid staff within the Plant Operations and Food Services departments at UW. It acts as any other union does; it protects the rights and privileges of workers who are a part of it, and it also protects the university from any potential problems, such as strikes, which would have adverse effects on the services provided by the university to the students. When asked to comment on what issues may be impeding the process of reaching an agreement, an executive of CUPE did not elaborate. The executive only said that “these things take time [and that they are] still dealing with some issues.” The director of Plant Operations and the manager of Customer and staff
relations for Food Services could not be reached for comment. The recently expired CUPE contract was a 52 page list of rules and procedures regarding its members. It stipulated that the union agreed that there would be no striking or any other collective actions that would interfere with the operation of the university. The contract also covered other areas of concern, including harassment and discrimination in the workplace, union dues, representation, seniority, wages, hours of work, as well as sick leave, pension, and insured benefits, along with many other subjects covered by union agreements. With no comments from all parties involved, it is difficult to speculate about the effect this stalling in negotiations will have on employees of the university, as well as on students. Only the upcoming weeks will tell. rgunn@imprint.uwaterloo.ca
News
Imprint, Friday, June 13, 2008
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Police policy has zero tolerance
Waterloo Regional Police move to stricter residential violation enforcement Jamie Damaskinos assistant news editor
Student Housing Plans Under Construction In our May 30 issue, Imprint explored the problem of student housing in the residential areas surrounding the University of Waterloo, such as near Lester and Columbia streets. There is a high proportion of students who occupy the single-family style homes in these areas. In an effort to deal with the pressing issue of irresponsible students, a ‘no tolerance’ program was introduced last September by Waterloo Regional Police. This week, Imprint explores the new law enforcement strategy employed by Waterloo Regional police, and explains how it affects students.
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he Waterloo Regional Police in conjunction with bylaw enforcement have been taking a hard-line stance towards dealing with misdemeanors in residential areas surrounding the universities. They have implemented a program of proactive zero tolerance that entails immediate disciplinary action against any infractions. Staff Sergeant Mark Bullock of the Waterloo Regional Police stated that the program is the result of permanent residents’ complaints. “The community wanted a harder line stance taken towards those issues,” Bullock said. “The traditional going and knocking on the door and telling everyone to keep the noise down just wasn’t cutting it.” The program is designed specifically to handle public nuisance behaviour. Bullock said the police are targeting “public nuisance issues [such as] open alcohol, public drunkenness, kicking garbage, stealing, property damage.”
During the month of September, police will be committing a significant amount of resources towards handling these issues in an initiative dubbed “Project Safe Semester.” The project began in September of last year and will be implemented again this year, following the success of last September, as police laid a total of 702 charges. Although “Project Safe Semester” finishes at the end of September, students can still expect the Waterloo Regional Police to continue with their policy of strict enforcement. However, during the remainder of the year, police will be committing fewer resources towards proactively policing the areas surrounding the universities. Bullock insists that the program is not designed to attack students, but instead designed to attack destructive behaviours. These behaviours can negatively impact the quality of life for many residents in the area, including student residents. “We’re not targeting students, we’re targeting the behaviour. If we’re policing the area up near the
“university, we apply the same approach…whether you’re a student, whether you’re a permanent resident, whether you’re a visitor to the city,” Bullock contends. “With our demographic here, with the number of students we have in the area and the number of permanent residents…we have an obligation for safety purposes to make sure that those issues are strictly enforced,” Bullock added. In the past, police may have passed out warnings to people who were committing minor infractions but were otherwise not causing very much harm. However, due to their new operational policies, police are being told to lay charges regardless of any extenuating factors. “We are telling our officers that it doesn’t matter whether the person you stop who has the open alcohol is the nicest guy you’ve met or is the most disrespectful person you’ve met…” Bullock said. “They are being issued tickets for that behaviour regardless of the type of individual they are.” Although some residents are skeptical of the program, the critical
reception garnered by the program has been mostly good, Bullock stated. “What we’re hearing back from the residents is that this was needed 10 years ago,” Bullock said. “We’re getting really positive feedback from city councillors, people that live in the area, and even university students…” Furthermore, the program has resulted in lowering the number of incidents of property crime. “Last year, over September, we reduced property crime by 45 per cent from the previous year,” Bullock noted. There will be growing pains associated with the program come September, Bullock warns. Bullock believes that education is important so that students coming into the Waterloo Region are aware of the expectations police have set out for them. “We encourage you to come to Waterloo and have a good time but there are boundaries and we don’t accept behaviour that is destructive.” jdamaskinos@imprint.uwaterloo.ca
In the past, police may have passed out warnings to people who were committing minor infractions but were otherwise not causing very much harm. However, due to their new operational policies, police are being told to lay charges regardless of any extenuating factors.
Aboriginal apologies, Korean beef protests and 28 dead in Sudanese plane crash Casey Song reporter
Canada apologizes for Aboriginal assimilation Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized to Canada’s aboriginal families this Wednesday for the harm done to native residential school system throughout the generations. State-funded Christian boarding schools operated from the late 19th Century until the 1990s. Over decades, more than 100,000 aboriginal children were forced to attend these schools away from their parents and families. The goal was aimed at assimilating and “civilizing” the aboriginal youth, and to convert them to Christianity. They were punished for speaking their native languages or practising their culture. A number of children became victims of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of their educators. They were often malnourished, resulting in epidemic outbreaks such as measles and tuberculosis that killed many people. According to BBC News, Mr. Harper said aboriginal Canadians had been waiting “a very long time” for an apology. “There are thousands of hearts and minds that will be at different stages of acceptance, but I hope that we will begin the process of healing and reconciliation,” he said.
‘Olympic Games’ names 4,000 Chinese babies BBC News reports that, in support of Olympic 2008 being held in Beijing,
China, thousands of new born babies were named ‘Ao Yun’ this year, the Chinese words for Olympic Games. The trend started when China applied to host the 2000 Olympic Games in 1992. According to BBC News, it is very common in China to be named after popular events and slogans such as “Defend China,” “Build the Nation,” “Space Travel” and etc. In recent weeks, many babies have also been named Hope for Sichuan, Pray for Sichuan, to show support to the recent earthquake victims and their families.
South Koreans protest against US beef imports President Lee Myung-Bak’s decision to resume U.S. beef imports sparked weeks of protests in South Korea. The Associated Press reported that thousands of protesters, monitored by riot police, rallied in Seoul, Korea on Tuesday, claiming that the government lifted the ban on U.S. beef imports while disregarding the safety and health of the people. After an outbreak of mad cow disease in 2003, U.S. beef imports were suspended in South Korea. When the agreement was resumed, fear of mad cow disease outbreak angered South Koreans. Protestors, including students, union members, and office workers, demanded the resignation of President Lee Myung-Bak, for that he accepted American demands too quickly in hopes of a free trade agreement with the U.S. According to the New York Times, this was by far the biggest
anti-government demonstrations in two decades.
Sudan plane crash A Sudan Airway plane crashed at Khartoum airport on Tuesday, Killing at least 28 out of 217 passengers on board, with many injured and 14 passengers still missing. According to the New York Times and BBC News, a surviving passenger claimed that due to bad weather, the plane was not able to land in Khartoum airport. The Airbus A310 airliner then decided to fly to the
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Red Sea city of Port Sudan before returning to Khartoum airport an hour later. As the plane tried to land, it crashed into the airport. According to Mabrouk Mubarak Salim ,minister of state for transportation, two or three minutes following the crash there was an explosion coming from inside the right side of the
engine, not long before the plane burst into flames. “So far we don’t have precise information but we think the weather is a main reason for what happened,” said Mabrouk. —With Files from Aboriginal Canada Portal, BBC News, NBC News and The New York Times.
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Opinion
Imprint, Friday, June 13, 2008 opinion@imprint.uwaterloo.ca
Measuring bias Friday, June 13, 2008 Vol. 31, No. 4 Student Life Centre, Room 1116 University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1 P: 519.888.4048 F: 519.884.7800 http://imprint.uwaterloo.ca Editor-in-chief, Maggie Clark editor@imprint.uwaterloo.ca Advertising & Production Manager, Laurie Tigert-Dumas ads@imprint.uwaterloo.ca General Manager, Catherine Bolger cbolger@imprint.uwaterloo.ca Sales Associate, Laura McQuinn Systems Admin. vacant Distribution, Mitch Sanker, Christy Ogley Intern, Dylan Cawker Board of Directors board@imprint.uwaterloo.ca President, Jacqueline McKoy president@imprint.uwaterloo.ca Vice-president, Sherif Soliman vp@imprint.uwaterloo.ca Treasurer, Lu Jiang treasurer@imprint.uwaterloo.ca Secretary, vacant secretary@imprint.uwaterloo.ca Staff liaison, Peter Trinh liaison@imprint.uwaterloo.ca Editorial Staff Assistant Editor, Dinh Nguyen Lead Proofreader, Ashley Csanady Cover Editor, Michael Gregory News Editor, Andrew Abela News Assistant, Jamie Damaskinos Opinion Editor, Guy Halpern Features Editor, Tina Ironstone Arts & Entertainment Editor, Emma Tarswell Science & Tech Editor, Adrienne Raw Sports & Living Editor, vacant Photo Editor, vacant Graphics Editor, Joyce Hsu Web Administrator, Sonia Lee Systems Administrator, vacant Production Staff Mohammad Jangda, Andrew Dodds, Ryan Lee, Paul Collier, Samantha, Cait Davidson, Kaitlan Huckabone Rosalind Gunn, Peter Trinh Imprint is the official student newspaper of the University of Waterloo. It is an editorially independent newspaper published by Imprint Publications, Waterloo, a corporation without share capital. Imprint is a member of the Ontario Community Newspaper Association (OCNA). Editorial submissions may be considered for publication in any edition of Imprint. Imprint may also reproduce the material commercially in any format or medium as part of the newspaper database, Web site or any other product derived from the newspaper. Those submitting editorial content, including articles, letters, photos and graphics, will grant Imprint first publication rights of their submitted material, and as such, agree not to submit the same work to any other publication or group until such time as the material has been distributed in an issue of Imprint, or Imprint declares their intent not to publish the material. The full text of this agreement is available upon request. Imprint does not guarantee to publish articles, photographs, letters or advertising. Material may not be published, at the discretion of Imprint, if that material is deemed to be libelous or in contravention with Imprint’s policies with reference to our code of ethics and journalistic standards. Imprint is published every Friday during fall and winter terms, and every second Friday during the spring term. Imprint reserves the right to screen, edit and refuse advertising. One copy per customer. Imprint ISSN 0706-7380. Imprint CDN Pub Mail Product Sales Agreement no. 40065122. Next staff meeting: Monday, June 16 12:30 p.m. Next board of directors meeting: Wednesday, June 18 10:15 a.m.
When the time is right to recognize your own
U
ltimately, the measure of any media organization lies in its capacity to rise above conflicts of interest. Forget being a political watchdog; forget creating forums for community discourse: if a newspaper, radio station, or TV network can’t convince its audience it knows how to deal with bias, that audience is less likely to trust any of its related reports. This is especially true when those conflicts of interest arise from within — for instance, an inability to criticize other commercial holdings of a media organization’s parent company, or the acceptance of direct government influence and propaganda, permitted because the organization’s owner wants to push a particular political agenda. Welcome to the reality of contemporary media. And though there are plenty of specific cases that draw attention to the problems of internal bias, often the unspoken is enough to isolate an audience. The immense number of media take-overs by entertainment and telecommunications giants alone sends a clear underlying message to the audience at large: news is a profit-oriented business. The fall-out of such a message is just as clear: news organizations likely aren’t going to portray themselves, or their parent companies, in a negative light. So when these same organizations have positive news to report about themselves, how can readers really trust its relative worth and importance? Of course, you don’t need to be a giant mainstream publication in order to suffer from this kind of distrust. Here at Imprint, dissenting readers regularly refer to the “presumption” of students here who think themselves “real journalists” and maintain a “higher than thou” attitude in relation to the rest of campus. There is an immediate distrust, in other words, for students who dare to adopt the immense power afforded to the practice of journalism. (And I do truly find some measure of distrust healthy from the student body — it certainly keeps us on our toes!) However, while I hope I’ve been quick to hold myself and my paper accountable for failings as they arise, I’ve let that same accountability blind me to reporting on our successes, which we do have — and for which outside journalistic organizations have in fact praised us. I’m talking about the Canadian
Community Newspaper Awards (CCNA) and the Ontario Community Newspaper Awards (OCNA). I’m talking in particular about Mohammad Jangda and Andrew Abela, two long-time Imprint volunteers who represent just how down-to-earth student journalism at UW can be. Mohammad Jangda (pictured below) received third place for Best Campus Photo in the CCNA. The photo in question caught then-VPED Jeff Henry discussing with VPAF Renjie Butalid the extra load they would have to shoulder with the resignation of VPIN Sai Kit Lo. A very opportune shot, taken with the right balance of lighting to convey the gravity of the situation — heck, don’t just take my word for it: you can find the photo in our online archives as the cover shot for the February 9, 2007 issue.
photos, Daniel Lewis
Meanwhile, Andrew Abela (pictured above) reported last summer on a forum in Conrad Grebel that fell apart when guest scholar Dr. Shomali, of the Khomeini Education and Research Centre, was shouted down by cries of “Terrorist!” and
“Murderer!” by Iranian and Afghan protestors. The issue resonated on an international scale, so it’s not surprising his comprehensive article won first place for Student News Writing in the OCNA and third place in the CCNA competitions. Since Abela is Imprint’s present news editor, and since I also won an award for student news writing in the OCNA, I wasn’t comfortable printing a full article about the awards in our news section; however, writing nothing about their accomplishments was just as inappropriate — and here I have to thank the Daily Bulletin for their more timely coverage of Imprint’s successes in my stead. When I asked Jangda and Abela what they felt these wins meant to them, to Imprint, and to UW as a whole, they both shrugged. Jangda’s been here for almost four years as opinion, web, photo, and sports editor, as well as lead proofreader and (in his own words) “office jerk.” He says he isn’t in it for anything but the fun and the community — and I believe him. If volunteers didn’t find being here enjoyable, I can’t begin to imagine why they’d work so hard for Imprint with all the coursework they also have to do. As for Abela, in his two years here to date, he’s been a columnist, reviewer, assistant arts editor, arts editor, and news editor. His passion for writing trumps all else; he loves the research that goes into his articles, and the positive reinforcement that comes from seeing a tangible product at the end of every news cycle. Though he says awards like his should be a mark of pride for Imprint and UW — a “win for our team” as he puts it — he also makes it clear where his priorities lie. “I’m not here for personal recognition,” said Abela, “so much as for personal gain.” A lot of mainstream news organizations could, I think, easily learn a thing or two about humility and the importance of measuring bias from some of my volunteers. And so, it seems, could I. On the eve of Imprint’s 30th anniversary, all I can say is: congratulations, team — you’re doing great. And thank you, dear readers, for keeping us humble all the while. editor@imprint.uwaterloo.ca
Days since Kambakhsh’s arrest, as of the dateline: 230 Days since Kambakhsh’s sentencing: 143
The importance of reading past the headlines
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t this year’s annual Synod meeting in London, Ontario, priests, lay-readers, and proxy voters of the Anglican Diocese of Huron came together to discuss and vote on a variety of issues. The vote that drew the most attention from media speculators and neighbouring diocese was the vote that resulted with 73 per cent of the clergy and lay people in favour of blessing samesex marriages. But before all you queer couples rush out to get marriage licenses and head over to the local Anglican church, and before all you self-congratulatory straight lefties pat yourselves too hard on the back, you should know exactly what this decision means and how if affects you. The diocese of Huron is the geographical area within which all Anglican churches answer to St. Paul’s Cathedral and the bishop in power. The diocese isn’t limited to the Region of Waterloo, but encompasses a sizable chunk of southwestern Ontario, including Kitchener, London, Sarnia, Chatham, Windsor, communities along Lake St Clair and Lake Erie, and everything in between. Right now, it’s presided over by Bishop Bruce Howe, a man
whom I’ve met many times in the past eight years, a friend of my parents, as well as the bishop who performed my confirmation. Despite misleading and confusing newspaper headlines such as “Anglicans say yes to same-sex,” “Vote comes out in favour of blessings,” and “HICKS NIX STICKS PIX,” the vote was not actually to pass any motion for the blessing of same-sex marriages. The vote was instead to put a motion forth to leave the decision on the desk of the bishop, allowing him to decide whether or not same sex marriages should be blessed within the diocese, and, if so, for him to develop an appropriate ritual for said blessings. An answer from Howe is expected at or before the upcoming Lambeth conference. To further the misconstrued perception of the vote that took place at Synod, the understanding of many who heard of the decision was that it condoned the performance of same sex marriages in Anglican churches across the diocese. Not so! When they talk about the blessings of same sex unions and marriages, it means quite simply to give the blessing of the church to a pre-existing same sex marriage that had been performed elsewhere.
So why is everyone so worked up about this decision? Well, the answer is two-pronged. First of all, many people could be high on the decision due to the misunderstanding and poor media coverage of the vote that I previously detailed. The second reason is that, although the change within the church is smaller than some had understood, it is still a large change in the foundation of one of Canada’s oldest denominations, and one of the oldest Christian denominations in the world. For a church that is often described as “Diet Catholic,” to even go so far as to recognize the legitimacy of city-hall same-sex marriages is a big deal. So what can we expect from Bishop Howe in his upcoming decision? Well, as he is on sabbatical right now, I doubt any media hound (even if that media hound is a family friend) will find out before it’s made, but I wouldn’t count on it being anything less than what has already been celebrated. In the meantime, though, you’ll have to put your big-gay-church-wedding scrapbook back on the shelf and wait this one out. tmyers@imprint.uwaterloo.ca
Opinion
Imprint, Friday, June 13, 2008
An evolving attitude of faith
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or some, the theory of evolution poses a distinct threat to the Christian faith. It is a challenge that seemingly discredits arguments for the existence of God, providing a picture of the world that doesn’t necessitate an omniscient power. The first and most significant source of conflict has to do with one of the oldest philosophical arguments for the existence of God: the Design Argument. The Design Argument was best expressed by William Paley in 1802, who used the analogy of finding a watch lying on the ground. After examining the watch and seeing its intricate design and moving parts that work like, well, clockwork, you can conclude that the watch had an intelligent designer. If you apply this to all the complicated and ordered systems in nature, you should conclude that nature had an intelligent designer, too. The theory of evolution states that everything in nature was created through natural selection from simple, single-celled organisms to the complicated structures and systems seen in the variety of species we have today. According to Richard Dawkins, a British zoologist and one of the most famous evolutionary biologists, “natural selection is an automatic process that has no foresight and if it were to be compared to a watch maker it would be a blind one.” However, just because a scientific theory discredits an argument for the existence of God doesn’t mean that there is no God or that the scientific theory is wrong; it isn’t necessarily a zerosum argument. Even before a bunch of oversized turtles led to one of the most profound theories of our time, the Design Argument was criticized. One notable critic of this line of reasoning was the philosopher David Hume, who formulated several
arguments against the Design Argument. Hume’s main points were that order does not necessarily mean there was a purpose and design, that it is difficult for us to recognize a designed universe when we only have experience with one, and that — even if the Design Argument was feasible — wouldn’t the designer need a designer? While evolution appears to eliminate the need for a god, it doesn’t necessarily mean that there isn’t one. The Design Argument focuses on the structure and order of life in its current state, but isn’t the ultimate design something that can make itself? Could a god have set everything up to let it run its course until we became what we are today, and what we will be in the future? The other aspect of evolution that conflicts with the existence of a god is the idea that the universe is an uncaring and indifferent place, a place that is especially cruel to the weak. Either God exists and is all around in nature or not at all; evolution, it would seem, forces us to decide. With that said, humans appear to have found a breath of fresh air in the cold, hard grasp of natural selection. We have reached a point where we cheat natural selection, at least on a physical basis, so in a sense we have evolved past evolution. Human evolution has produced the brain capacity necessary for self-awareness and, even more importantly, humanity. While this has obvious benefits to the survival of a species, it is still something that is greater than “matter being the ground of all existence,” as stated by Stephen Jay Gould, a Harvard-based evolutionary biologist. We are able to survive for longer than the natural world would want us to as individuals due to advances in medicine, the ability to manipulate our environment, and our affinity to care for fellow human beings. The universe may be indifferent
to our survival, but we as individuals, and to each other, are not. Through random mutations, through millions of years, through millions of species, and through chance, we are able to formulate thoughts, experience emotions and believe in things. We are at a point where not everything we do necessarily has evolutionary motivations; it’s difficult to see why having sex without wanting offspring, eating, drinking, and smoking things that actually inhibit our survival, and helping the sick, weak, and poor would have any evolutionary benefit. We have control over our own destinies with free choice, with emotions, and with brotherhood. Perhaps this is where God is — not in the detailed makings of our physical bodies but in the manifestations of neuronal complexity that somehow allow us to have a soul. To disregard scientific evidence and theories simply because they threaten your faith is unscientific and illogical. If there is a god, then nothing discovered should disprove that, and if you truly believe, then you should be able to see and accept the truth without getting defensive. Evolution is this era’s “earth around the sun” theory and it’s just a matter of time before it truly becomes common sense. If you believe that God created us, then you still need to know how, and for that you need to explore the natural physical world, not a book of poetry and symbols. We can experience things like love through electrical impulses in our brain, and that truly is a miracle no matter how it happened. Recognizing this is how you have faith and still understand the physical world around you — how you can accept and understand evolution, yet still believe that there could be a god.
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Letters Had a reaction to one of our articles, editorials or columns? Write a letter to the editor at letters@imprint.uwaterloo.ca Re: Engineering computer labs Engineering students pay $4,900 per term in tuition, one of the highest on campus, yet half the computer labs are booked by outsiders or simply closed. Out of the ones that are open, 30 per cent of the computers don’t work, i.e. they are fucked. Students frequently walk into a lab, wander about checking each un-occupied computer one by one and then finally leave since none of them work. Now I’m no rocket scientist, but don’t you think one day all this pressure building up inside these sex-deprived, frustrated students is going to reach its critical point? We all know what happens at the critical point. Vapor, solid, and liquid co-exist. That results in an event commoners know as snapping. I do NOT want to be there when one of these dudes snaps becuse he may pick up the monitor and throw it at me or something. So please, I request the university, for my sake, to buy new computers. You know what, I will not take my ENG endowment fund back next term... how about that? Can you drain a couple of thousand from the couple of million you have in that fund?! What has a man gotta do to find a computer around here?! — Sallu Dada mechanical engineering
mharvey@imprint.uwaterloo.ca
The Letters section continues on page 8
live? o t lace p a r g fo n i k Loo
Look no further... Benefits from choosing WCRI: - Minutes walk from UW campus, - Lower than market fees, - On-site laundry and maintenance, - Regular organized social events, - And much more. Don’t miss out on a great housing experience. Apply now! Applications are accepted year-round. Seniority deadlines are always: - March 1st for Fall, - October 1st for Winter, and - February 1st for Spring.
WCRI: A whole new way to live together! Contact us today for more information or to arrange a tour. web: www.wcri.coop e-mail: info@wcri.coop phone: 519-884-3670 address: 268 Phillip Street, Waterloo
8
Opinion
Letters Continued from page 7
Re: Photography on Imprint’s website As an avid photographer, I am greatly disappointed by Imprint’s decision as of late to neglect to include images with the articles on the website version of their publication. Photos add a great deal of content to the articles they are attached to. It is a great mistake to ignore this fact, and to fail to recognize Imprint’s photography. Perhaps more students would be willing to take pictures for Imprint if they knew they would receive the attention they deserve on the Imprint website. The age-old adage “a picture says a thousand words” should not be taken lightly. — George Bataille 4B philosophy Re: Pissed off to be paying — May 16, 2008 The 60 per cent ($75) of the Student Services fee that goes toward athletics funds all aspects of ath-
Imprint, Friday, June 13, 2008 letics, from facility maintenance, to risk managment, to free access to both the CIF and PAC facilities for all UW students. It also allows students free entry to all Warrior varsity games. Of the $3.5 million necessary for allowing all students free access to athletic facilities and equipment, $3.1 million comes from student fees and the remaining $0.4 million comes from fundraising and donations. Not all schools provide this service for the students; at McMaster University, for example, students must pay $40 to 100 extra per term to use the gym. The university benefits from the existence and success of varsity teams, because the school earns a good reputation when its name appears in newspapers and on TV, and the services make it more attractive to a prospective students. UW is moving dangerously close to being just the boring place where we go to school. People forget that most of the university experience is what happens outside the classroom; the things that help you grow as a person. To provide students with an opportunity to get active is worth the small fee each term. — Stephanie McCaig UW Varsity Swim Team
For more letters to the editor visit:
http://imprint.uwaterloo.ca
When politics gets in the way of democracy
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nother day, another bill passed in the House of Commons. The quiet riot over the passage of Bill C-50 comes due to the new powers it grants the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. According to the CBC, the Conservative government hopes to use these powers to reduce the stack of over 900,000 unprocessed immigration applications, and to help fill a Canadian labour shortage of 300,000 skilled workers. On the other side, CanWest News Service’s quoting of NDP MP Olivia Chow paints a different picture of these new powers: “This is a horrible day for immigrants across the country. It’s a damaging, dangerous and deceptive bill ... It’s betraying the trust of ordinary Canadians.” Bill C-50 grants the minister the ability to create categories of immigration applications based on employment demand; these categories can be given quotas, a processing order, and can even be summarily rejected. A clarification also appears after the explanation of the powers: “Nothing in this section in any way limits the power of the minister to otherwise determine the most efficient manner in which to administer this Act.” Is it a good thing to effectively put the power to accept, reject, or reorder all immigration powers into the hands of one minister? “I’m suggesting they’re already out there, at the (foreign offices) and not disclosed yet. It’s that far advanced,” said immigration lawyer Richard Kurland, in an interview with The Waterloo
Campus Bulletin CO-OP/CAREER SERVICES
Prerequisite Workshop Information – since the activities in some of the workshops build on the material presented in online modules from the Career Development eManual, you will need to complete the pre-work(as noted in the chart below) as a first step before registering for a face-toface workshop. If you have submitted any of these modules in PD1, COOP 101 or Co-op Fundamentals for Engineering, you have satisfied this requirement and may register for the workshop. Interview Skills: Preparing for Quetions – complete module Interview Skills. Interview Skills: Selling Your Skills – complete module Interview Skills. Networking 101 – complete module Work Search. Work Search Strategies – complete Work Search. Tuesday, June 17 – “Career Interest Assessment” – 2:30 to 4 p.m., TC 1112. Note: materials charge of $10 payable at Career Services prior to the first session. Once you have registered, you will be given info on how to complete the Strong Interest Inventory online prior to the workshop. “Working Effectively in Another Culture” – 5 to 6 p.m., TC 1208. “Business Etiquette and Professionalism” – 10:30 a.m. to 12 p.m., TC 2218. Wednesday, June 18 - Part 1 – “Exploring Your Personality Type,” 2:30 to 4 p.m., TC 1112. Note: materials charge of $10 payable at Career Services prior to the first session. Once registered, you will be given info on how to complete the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) online prior to the workshop. Wednesday, June 25 - Part 2 – 2:30 to 4:30 p.m., TC 1112. “Work Search Strategies,” 2:30 to 4 p.m., TC 1208. Note: Prerequisite see above. “Are You Thinking About An MBA?”
– 5:30 to 7 p.m., TC 1208. Thursday, June 19 – “Success On The Job” – 2:30 to 4 p.m., TC 1208. Saturday, June 21 – “Are You Thinking About Med School? Perspectives of a Waterloo Grad” – 10:30 a.m. to 12 p.m., TC 2218.
VOLUNTEER City of Waterloo, 519-888-6488 or volunteer@city.waterloo.on.ca has many volunteer opportunities. Check out the website today. Volunteer Action Centre, 519-7428610 or www.volunteerkw.ca, has many opportunities available – visit the website or call today! The Kitchener Youth Action Council is currently seeking volunteers aged 14-24 who are concerned about issues facing youth and young adults across Kitchener. For more info e-mail youth@kitchener.ca. The tri-Pride Community Association is looking for people to get involved with various projects leading up to Pride Week 2008 which will take place during the month of June. For more info e-mail info@triPride.ca or www.tri-Pride.ca. Summer volunteer opportunities with Family and Children’s Services of the Waterloo Region. Summer buddies, reading club, special events assistants and drivers needed. Contact 519-576-1329, ext 3411 or volunteer.services@facswaterloo.org. Volunteer Board of Director Secretary position available immediately to May 1/09, at Imprint Publications,UW. Email president@ imprint.uwaterloo.ca for more info. UW Canada Day Celebrations is looking for volunteers. Many positions are available. Volunteers receive free t-shirt and food vouchers. Contact us for more info at 519-8884567, ext 33981 or www.canadaday. uwaterloo.ca.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
“Morning Drive Radio Show” – 6:30 to 9 a.m., www.ckmsfm.ca, click on webcast for the latest news, traffic, school closures, interviews and a great mix of music! To get your important events on the air, e-mail morningdrivel@yahoo.ca. If you have an interesting person that CKMS should interview call 519-884-2567 between 6:30 to 9 a.m....qualify for a prize! The Grand House Student Co-operative is a non-profit housing co-op comprised of architecture students from UW, community members and professionals. Workshops are being organized on environmental techniques, solar power, non-toxic materials and more. For info/registration visit the website at www.grandhouse. wacsa.org.
UPCOMING
Friday, June 13/08 Internet Gambling: Current Situation and Future Trends – Dr. Williams, University of Lethbridge, will discuss the history of internet gambling and its prevalence world-wide, from 10 to 11 a.m., Community Hall, Albert McCormick Community Centre, Waterloo. Tuesday, June 17, 2008 Islamic Information Booth with be in the SLC Great Hall weekly on Tuesdays(also the 24th) from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. www. uwislam.com or info@uwislam.com. Thursday, June 19, 2008 Executive volunteer positions – tech and business – UW Alternative Fuels Team. Come to the Recruit and Info meeting today at 7 p.m., SLC Multi-Purpose Room. For more info email recruit@ uwaft.com. Saturday, June 21, 2008 Uptown Country Festival – Regina Street, beside City Hall. Check out www. uptowncountrywaterloo.com for all info. on the stars, vendors, etc. 5v5 MiniEuro 2008 Outdoor Soccer Tournament – sign up fee/team, with
Region Record. According to the article, Kurland has heard that the categories have already been established, ready to be implemented upon the bill’s passing: Should there not be more oversight, more discussion about who should enter our country, in what numbers and what order? If the Conservative government wanted that, it would have worded its bill differently. How could this bill come to pass so quietly? The Liberals did not vote in large enough numbers to defeat the bill. Had they, an election would be called, since — like so many of this government’s bills — the Conservatives declared Bill C-50 a confidence motion. Surely the Liberals could have waged a good campaign for office, painting Harper’s Conservatives as control-freak xenophobes. But Bill C-50 was not limited solely to those immigration powers. The Ottawa Citizen reported that the bill contained measures for a tax-free savings account for capital gains, among other things, helping Canadians upset with Finance Minister Flaherty’s previous ruling on capital gains. It also has money for new police officers, public transit infrastructure, carbon sequestration, and even post-secondary financial assistance and grants; over $1.5 billion for those measures combined. Voting against those measures might make it a difficult issue to fight over with the Conservatives in a general election. Having to accept the less desirable immigration reform along with the more
pleasant parts of Bill C-50 is something uncommon to Canadian bills, but known all too well south of the border. Earmarking bills allows individual congressmen in the States to add pet projects to bills virtually guaranteed passage through the House of Representatives, usually adding money for projects in their constituency. The non-profit watchdog, Citizens Against Government Waste, reportedly found over $17 billion in pet projects during fiscal 2008. It is the many other benefits Canadians would welcome that forced the Liberals to pass the bill. The government has made countless bills matters of confidence, to push its initiatives through, abusing its power to do so as no minority government has done in my memory. Despite MPs objecting to many of these bills, none provided proper ammunition for an election, or to justify the cost of one. In using this tactic to protect its goals, our government is exercising the worst kind of brute force politics. At every turn, our MPs are denied their voice, unable to vote as they were elected to do so because so many bills carry the threat of an election without the weight to warrant one. At this point, this abuse alone is worth defeating the government over, so that we might elect a new one willing to listen and act according to the view of all Canadians. That is how democracy should work. adodds@imprint.uwaterloo.ca
ads@imprint.uwaterloo.ca great prizes to be won! Guaranteed three games. Register your team in the PAC athletic office under intermediate, advanced or all-star.
SPORTS Row for Heart – learn to row: register a crew of five or as an individual. Eight week lessons start the week of June 16. Call 519-571-9600 or www.fitforheart.
ca for more information.
CHURCH SERVICE
St. Bede’s chapel at Renison College offers worship on Sundays at 10:30 a.m. Come and walk the labyrinth the second Thursday of each month, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. For more info contact Megan at 519-884-4404, ext 28604 or www.renison.uwaterloo.ca/ministry-centre.
Classified HELP WANTED
Weekend counsellors and relief staff to work in homes for individuals with developmental challenges. Minimum eight-month commitment. Paid positions. Send resume to Don Mader, KW Habilitation Services, 108 Sydney Street, Kitchener, ON, N2G 3V2. Health Club/Conference Centre needs weekend staff for varied shifts. Must be energetic, able to work independently and have good communication skills. Duties include setup and clean up of meeting rooms, assisting caterers, cleaning, swiming pool tests and some reception. Please deliver resume to The Club Willowells, 40 Blue Springs Drive, Waterloo, (beside East Side Marios, King Street, N.) Office Manager required – contact bestfabrics@live.com for more information. Imprint Frosh Editor – this position entails working from July 2 to August 29. Strong writing and editing skills, familiar with desktop publishing InDesignCS2 and photoshop, a full-time student who is returning to school in the fall term 2008. For more job details visit www.imprint.uwaterloo.ca. Submit your resume to Maggie Clark, Editor-in-Chief or Cathy Bolger, General Manager, at SLC, room 1116, by Wednesday, June 18 p.m at 4:30 p.m.
HOUSING
Attention Cambridge School of Architecture students! Live conveniently and comfortably right across the street from school in this beautifully renovated apartment. 4, 8 and 12-month leases available with excellent signing bonuses and rental incentives! Call Darlene or Joanne at 519-746-1411 for more details. Lovely three bedroom home with one plus half baths, basement and garage in Laurelwood, Waterloo. Appliances are available including washer/dryer. $1,245/month plus utilities. Long-term lease prefered. Available June 1. Please e-mail Tracy at tracy_morgan2@hotmail.com or call 519-886-8219. Room for rent for a quiet individual in a detached house near both universities. Parking and all amenities. Please call 519-725-5348. Summer sublet – May to August 08 – $300+negotiable. Call Jason at 613-9895210 or kenkaniff02@hotmail.com. Spacious, well maintained house available to rent at 11 McDougall Road. Only five minute walk to UW campus. Utilities and internet included in rent of $395/month. Contact 519-893-2000 or rooms4students@gmail.com. 193 Albert Street, Waterloo – shared accommodations, $490/month, June to August 2008. Call Haney PM 519-7461411 for more info.
Features
Imprint, Friday, June 13, 2008 features@imprint.uwaterloo.ca
facebook and privacy invasions Facebook recently underwent fresh scrutiny from university students with regard to its privacy settings; Imprint investigates the issue with responses from the UW community
Phuong Tram reporter
W
hen you hear “Facebook,” what is the first thing that comes to your mind? Networking, playing games, keeping in touch, killing time, or perhaps stalking? For someone like Robin Ma, a fourth-year fine arts major, Facebook by far is the “best source for finding old friends and reconnecting with them.” However, she might not be aware that there is a dark side to such accessibility. As we know, Facebook has grown to a point where personal information could easily be accessed and taken advantage of by other users. When you express yourself through Facebook, you could be sharing that same information with anyone in the world, and not surprisingly, since it is a shared social network. Imagine people you don’t know — knowing you, and almost everything about you: your name, age, interests, hobbies, relationship status; who you’re friends with, where you go to school, where you live and the most freaky of all, your every move. This sharing of information begins the moment you agree to Facebook’s terms of service. Have you read them? Really read them? Here’s a relevant excerpt from the section on “User Content posted on the Site:”
By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, nonexclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excer pt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to pr epar e d er i va ti ve
works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.
When you allow such information to be obtained, you’re putting a red flag on your profile, asking to be known by people from all walks of life that have Facebook accessibility. The worst part is that you never know how your personal information is being interpreted and shared from one source to another. I know it is cliché to say “pictures are worth a thousand words,” but they can be misinterpreted, and the aftermath of misinterpretation can result in social drama and worse. Let’s be honest and admit that no matter how hard we try to be good and not to judge what we see, the reality is that, we do. What do we know really? Yes, we can draw a general conclusion from what we see on profiles, such as age, sex, hobbies, relationship status, etc…but how solid do you think the conclusion is going to be? Regardless, this question brings me to my next point. Many employers have turned to Facebook for employment assistance to terminate or select candidates who they “think” are best for the position. According to George Lenard, the founder of the George Employment Blawg, who has over 20 years of experience in all aspects of labour and employment law, “employers are free to make unfair, stupid, arbitrary, and wrongheaded hiring and termination decisions, even based on false information, as long as in doing so they do not violate some specific law.” Also, they can “hack past such a privacy barrier” and when they do, you would have a case against Facebook. This is one of the concerns Kulbir Deol, a 2B math major, has when posting pictures on her profile: “I’m afraid people can save my pictures without me knowing and use them for other purposes.” Many Facebook users are aware of how to privatize their information by manually changing the settings, yet it remains unclear how much information could still be leaked to the public. This is exactly why Bobby Richter, a third-year computer science major has to “think twice” before he does anything on his profile; certain things should be private could get broadcast or shared immediately through the Newsfeed and on default settings. “I’d say Facebook is intrusive; there’s no better way to describe it,” with conviction Richter stated. The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) a group of law students from the University of Ottawa, has stepped up to bring the matter into further investigation. They asked the Privacy Commissioner of Canada to investigate alleged violations of Canadian privacy law. CIPPIC has filed a 35-page complaint alleging 22 separate violations claiming Facebook has failed to educate members that their personal information could
Sonia Lee
be shared to third parties without their consent. The law team analyzed Facebook and its company’s policies and practices as part of a clinic course this past winter. They identified certain practices that appear to violate the Canadian Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). Canadian law states that “personal information such as a person’s address or birth date cannot be released to third parties without obtaining a member’s expressed consent.” According to a clinic director, Philippa Lawson “Social networking online is a growing phenomenon ... It is proving to be a tremendous tool for community-building and social change, but, at the same time, a minefield of privacy invasion. We chose to focus on Facebook because it is the most popular social networking site in Canada and because it appeals to young teens who may not appreciate the risks involved in exposing their personal details online.” The Facebook population is sitting at more than seven million Canadian members with more joining every day. This makes Canada the third largest user base, after the U.S. and the U.K. Harly Finkelstein, one of the law students who filed the complaint, said, “Facebook purports to provide users with a high level of control over their data, but our investigation found that this is not entirely true — for example, even if you select the strongest privacy settings, your information may be shared more widely if your Facebook friends have lower privacy settings. “As well, if you add a third party application offered on Facebook, you have no choice but to let the application developer access all your information even if they don’t need it.” Lisa Feinberg, another law student expressed her concern. “We’re concerned that Facebook is deceiving its users. And even though it promotes “a social utility ... it’s also involved in commercial activities like targeted advertising. Facebook users need to know that when they’re signing up to Facebook, they’re signing up to share their information with advertisers.” In an article from E-Commerce Time, Facebook spokesperson Malorie Lucich said, “We pride ourselves on the industry-leading controls we offer users over their personal information. We believe that this is an important reason that nearly 40 per cent of Canadians on the internet use our service.” To ease the controversy between the Canadian privacy law and users, Lucich promises to educate members through brochures and videos, so members can have more control over their private lives. Though many Facebook users willingly share their information beyond their social circle, the issue lies with those who are unaware and nonconsenting. Under PIPEDA, the Privacy Commissioner has up to a year to investigate and gather findings on the complaint.
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Features
Imprint, Friday, June 13, 2008
the road to recovery
Part three of a three-part series: The final installment of McEvoy’s journey from injury to recovery. He undergoes surgery, explores his career options, and finally finds an employer who understands
Graphic in white space.
Tifa Han
Steven R. McEvoy staff reporter
T
his part of the journey began at St. Joseph’s Health Care Centre in London, Ontario. After many trips to the hospital over nine months, the time had finally come for surgery. After coming out from under the general anesthetic, I would not be allowed to drive, so I needed an escort to take me to London. My friend John Helmers accompanied me to the hospital. Before I was admitted to pre-op, a nurse went over the expectations for the day and what would happen, as well as John’s role after the surgery and on the return trip from London to Waterloo. As I do not recall the surgery, I cannot comment on that part of the day’s events. But they went in through my neck and did a nerve block, freezing the nerve in my arm. This was combined with the general anesthetic. After my surgery, they discovered that the nerve block must have hit the diaphragm, because every time they tried to take me off oxygen, my blood oxygen level would drop too low, and I would have to be put back under the mask. I expected to be discharged from the hospital around 1 p.m. and it was after 5 p.m. before we were finally able to leave. During the surgery, they went in and cut out the scar tissue from around the tear in the supraspinatus tendon. The surgeon also shaved bone from both the acrommion and the humerus to give more room for the tendon to swell when it gets inflamed. After the surgery, there were a few follow-up meetings with the surgeon. After the first 10 weeks, physiotherapy began again. This time it was only three days a week. For the first 12 weeks I did not have a doctor’s approval for driving, so I had to make arrangements for rides to and from appointments and treatment. A decision was made between the surgeon and physiotherapist that my shoulder was as good as it was going to get; treatment would continue, but with my employer being unable or unwilling to take me back with modified duties, it was time to look at other long-term options. Permanent restrictions were put on my working conditions. No repetitive or sustained work at shoulder height or above, no lifting above shoulder height of 10 lbs or at shoulder height of 15 lbs. These were now permanent restrictions — something I will have to abide by for the rest of my life. If I choose to work and ignore these restrictions then WSIB will not cover any future problems. If I do I will recieve a Transcutaneous
Electrical Nerve Stimulation(TENS) unit for me. A TENS is a non invasive, drug-free, pain management modality used for short-term acute pain or long-term chronic pain management. I can use it at home to help manage the discomfort and pain on an as-needed basis. Since returning to my previous job was not possible and I now had permanent work restrictions, WSIB sent me to a subcontractor for a Labour Market Re-entry Assessment or Plan (LMR). The first time I met with my assessor I was more than a little disappointed. I went with copies of my high school and university transcripts, copies and samples of different resumes and cover letters that I had used. My worker’s response was: “I don’t know what to do with you, most of my clients have never finished high school, and I have to send them for aptitude testing before even looking at creating a plan and what type of schooling a client can do.” At that time, I was four credits short of graduating from the University of Waterloo. But because I was injured while working in construction, my worker would not even submit a plan to have me finish my university degree. So she created two plans and submitted them to my WSIB adjudicator for approval. Unfortunately, the plan that was decided upon was not wellplanned or well-researched. It was created to get me in and out of school in the quickest way possible - to get me back in the work force. I began at triOS College to work on Microsoft Office Certification. I trained on two of the applications and then moved to Laurel College for the other three. Unfortunately triOS does not offer the certification exams for the courses and Laurel teaches and offers exams on a different version of Office. Fortunately, Laurel College allowed me to work at my own pace, and I did the coursework, practice exam and certifications for Word, Excel, Access, Powerpoint, and Outlook in 21 days — what is normally 12 to 15 weeks of private instruction. Then I had a week off and after that went back to triOS. It had now been over two years since my original injury. Again my assessor, who planned the LMR, did not realize that she had me in a part of a course that did not include the exam certificates allowing me to write the certification exams for all of the courses done in class. We had to go back to WSIB with a modification of the LMR to request the exam vouchers for the courses being worked on and add courses to complete certain certification requirements. There have been both good and bad along the road to recovery. For the first 17 months I had the same adjudicator from WSIB. We developed a rapport. Then over the next 12 months
I had at least eight adjudicators, some of whom never returned calls or called before I was informed that I had a new one. The two years off work had been a mix of good and bad. Some of the instructors and staff at both triOS and Laurel College were great to work with. I was also able to be home the first year of my daughter’s life, an opportunity many fathers do not have. On the down side, my wife had to return to work shortly after the birth because we could not afford for both of us to be on reduced income. I was also able to focus on developing my writing and spend more time volunteering at Imprint. It was a struggle being on reduced income, and there were emotional trials of being off work for such a long period, which caused some stress in the family. During my entire time off work, I looked for a job that would not contradict my restrictions. I applied for many jobs and never heard a thing. Just as I was returning to triOS for my second stint there, a headhunter from Spherion Staffing contacted me because they had found my resume on Workopolis and thought I would be perfect for one of their clients. I did a couple of interviews but did not get the job. Then in late November, they called again to see if I might be interested in interviewing for a different client. It was a hard decision; my schooling had been extended into February. Should I take a contract job and leave school and continue studying on my own? I took the risk and accepted a contract position through the headhunters at Crawford and Company. I had been hired to do IT support, which was what I was training for at triOS. I negotiated with the company managing my LMR and was able to transfer my unused tuition from leaving school early to extra book and exam vouchers to write more certification exams on my own. After my contract expired at Crawford I was hired full-time. My first day back to work as a fulltime employee was March 10, 2008, almost 30 months from the day of the injury. I am now employed full-time again. My advice, since having gone through the system and meeting many people at triOS who were doing the same, is to learn what you are entitled to, and fight for it. Find out about all your options and don’t sign anything you do not agree with. Seek the advice of others who are going through the process and from which help injured employees. As always, first and foremost: protect yourself at work. Do not do something just because you are told to if you think it is unsafe. If you have questions or doubts, check it out before proceeding and hopefully you will never have to go through this kind of experience yourself. smcevoy@imprint.uwaterloo.ca
How green is my campus? A six-part series on environmental sustainability at UW
Part 1: The Way We Eat
Part 2: Spaces We Inhabit May 30, 2008
May 16, 2008
Part 3: Stewardship and You June 13, 2008
Part 4: Human Communities June 27, 2008 Part 5: High Tech, Low Impact July 11, 2008 Part 6: Growth for the Future July 25, 2008
Joanna Sevilla
Sustainability is... 1. The measure of how and what we consume, and the impact those choices have on our ability to maintain present practices indefinitely. 2. How we inhabit buildings and similar surroundings — are we building for today and tomorrow? 3. How we share communal spaces — are we protecting the longevity of natural resources, flora, and fauna as well? 4. How we interact and build social networks together, to spread awareness and to entrench more environmentally-friendly living habits. 5. How we develop and treat new technologies, as well as other consumer goods — are we enhancing our society in ways that reduce waste and promote habits that can be sustained over time? 6. How we plan for tomorrow — are we learning from the past, and leaving a better mark for generations to come?
How green is my campus? Part 3 of 6: Stewardship and You Green, grey and the space inbetween Guy Halpern
Wildlife management: Not just a matter of pests
Rosalind Gunn staff reporter
W
hen the warm weather hits, it seems UW turns into a Canadian symbol petting zoo. There’s more goose droppings than bubble gum on the sidewalks. What’s to be done about these hordes of animals making home sweet home of our campus? Many are aware of the issues regarding the trapping and killing of beavers that took place last year at UW. Spurred by that debacle was a report titled the “UW Wildlife Management Taskforce,” written in October, 2007. This report outlines issues regarding wildlife on campus — the Canadian geese, groundhogs, and beavers, to name a few. It outlines fairly simple ways to limit population growth for all three animals. For instance, it suggests re-naturalizing the banks along the bodies of water on campus. It suggests “placing dog hair (obtained from a grooming studio) in the toe of a nylon stocking and tying it to stake(s) placed in the ground,” and for the beavers, it recommends persistently dismantling dams. The suggestions seem surface-scraping at best, and old wives tale-like at worst. Are they only a method of appeasement to smooth over the embarrassment of the beaver incident? Or, are they really all that can be done? Environmental Sciences Prof. Steve Murphy believes that UW is indeed doing enough. The report is designed as a reference for non-experts, and it makes procedures clear and will aid in preventing any uproars at measures taken to maintain the safety of the campus. He believes that the animals that make a home of this campus are “not a huge problem, just a nuisance.” To do anything to rid the campus of the animals would just cause them to move somewhere else and create problems there. “The university is really constrained with what it can do,” Murphy said. UW’s mission is to educate, and with limited funds already, and with booming admission rates, working on greening the campus is not the first area the administration will decide to fund. He went on: “It’s
tough to justify spending millions of bucks on rehabilitating things.” Murphy pointed out that it’s not merely a UW issue, but an issue of urbanization. Animals are running out of places to go as cities expand. To really address the issue and do something long-term and effective, UW needs to work in partnership with the City of Waterloo. An example Murphy provided is the Laurel Creek reservoir which is not part of UW’s 1000 or so acres, but is the root of the problem regarding water. When asked if UW is doing enough, Greg Michalenko, assistant professor in ES and undergraduate officer, answered that “administration mostly think about controlling wildlife.” He suggested that there should be more focus on enhancing the habitat for wildlife on campus. In essence, sharing the land. There is a huge controversy regarding the North Campus Master Plan, where there was a 109 hectare block of land north of the greenhouses by Columbia Lake, between two forests. The idea was to integrate these former farmlands into the surrounding forests, giving ample room for local wildlife. What ended up happening was that UW decided to go back on this Master Plan and lease the fields to the City of Waterloo for a large sum to be used as soccer fields. “It appears that this major reserve is being given up for cash,” said Michalenko. He noted that a big problem for the area is that we “keep losing fields to parking lots ... the city is not addressing the prime problem of too much space for parked cars.” The simple solution is to build parking garages. Why aren’t we? We’d save some green space, give the local wildlife a fighting chance for survival and comfort, while creating the secondary result of maintaining at least some aesthetic appeal to the city. Also, the geese wouldn’t enjoy relieving themselves on our walkways as much as they’d enjoy frolicking in the larger, wilder, green spaces. The Association of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future is committed to addressing the need for working to make a more sustainable world. It states as part of its rationale:
staff reporter
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reen, and space — good things on their own, but better things together. The Oxford English Dictionary defines green space as “an area of grass, trees, or other vegetation set apart for recreational or aesthetic purposes in an otherwise urban environment.” The internet reveals a myriad of different meanings presented by NGOs and academics, that in many cases, expand the definition to include habitat or ecosystem in addition to what the OED provides. Rather than simply another buzzword capitalizing on the upswing in environmental concern, the concept of green spaces has important ramifications for how we envision our school in the future. As the university continues to grow, the role of green spaces on our campus has become an inherently divisive issue. How should the school balance development of new facilities and intensification of existing ones while still ensuring an enjoyable, organic campus landscape? Is there more value in converting a green space, such as the B2 Green, into new faculty buildings? Or does it benefit the campus as whole to have it as a flexible, open area? The answer to these questions may appear to come down to a split between comfort and competitiveness, but the reality is far from simple. With ground already broken at the B2 Green as of June 10, the specific example in this case is an academic question, rather than a practical one. However, there are other examples that are not so obscure. Over the past decade, the expansive lands of North Campus have seen massive changes in usage patterns.
“Since colleges and universities are an integral part of the global economy and since they prepare most of the professionals who develop, manage and teach in society’s public, private and non-governmental institutions, they are uniquely positioned to influence the direction we choose to take as a society.” Over 350 university presidents and chancellors from more than 40 countries have signed it. UW has not signed it yet. Michalenko mentioned that Feds President Justin Williams was pressuring the administration to take sustainability more seriously, but, Michalenko said, “I think they were too polite.” Especially regarding environmental issues—which have the status of being on the back burner—advocators need to be persistent and aggressive in their approaches. It’s a matter of integrating it into the curriculum. There are many benefits in doing so. An example of this already being done is ERS 250, which looks at what the environmental issues at UW are and gets student teams to evaluate them. The students are given the chance to encounter the number of factors involved in environmental issues, with the consequence of implementing change on campus at a fraction of the cost it would take to hire professionals. As for support structures, we had WATGreen, but it fell apart. Michalenko said, “it needed to be rejigged.” They never put out calls for people to volunteer. He believes that students would volunteer if they knew where and how they could. There is no central and well-publicized place for these students to go, though. Universities often have sustainability offices, which become integral to teaching and implementing modes of change on campus. In Winter 2008, a proposed sustainability office was said to be non-viable by members of the executive council, due to the general de-centralization of campus. Which is fine if we yield concrete results from our approach, but do we? How would we even know if what we’re doing is the best we can do?
Covering a square mile in 1967, the area was split between natural lands and farms, with the balance strongly in favour of agricultural use. However, in 2002, the school began construction on the Research & Technology Park, and more recently turned over what had been designated an environmental reserve on former agricultural lands to the City of Waterloo in exchange for infrastructure. The city is considering the construction of soccer fields on what is currently natural green space. Although soccer fields are arguably green spaces, the land will cease to serve the ecosystem functions that it does now. With so many different interpretations of the same situation, articulating how we, as a community, define green space and its uses is of paramount importance, especially considering the rapid rate of change. I noted that there was no one monolithic consensus of what a green space is. Speaking broadly, their defining characteristic is a lack of development, but in order to further advance this idea within the campus context, another equally important point can be added to this: green spaces (and everything else on campus) should ideally improve the lives of the students, staff, and faculty who interact with them. The green spaces on our campus can be divided into five loose and frequently overlapping categories. A green space can have value aesthetically, value as a place of seclusion and peace, value as an open place to congregate or play sports, value as an aid to teaching or study, or value in terms of the ecosystem services it provides. This last one is perversely the least tangible for most of those using the campus, despite the fact that it is, in a practical sense,
the most important. Often, it’s difficult to assess the real significance of a given green space in ecosystem terms; an undisturbed woodlot provides habitat for birds, small mammals, and insects, among other things. It filters carbon dioxide from the air and mitigates the effects of soil runoff and flooding. Perhaps best of all from a UW standpoint, it provides one less habitat for those damned geese. There’s overlap between my admittedly imprecise categories; the woodlot described above also has aesthetic value, and perhaps provides a quiet place to hide away from the world. Ecosystem value remains the hardest thing to justify as a reason to keep a given natural area because of its often intangible benefits, benefits which tend to affect the larger community rather than just campus. Why should the school be in the business of providing ecosystem services with difficult to quantify criteria for success? It’s the tragedy of the commons writ small. The decisions made in terms of campus land use over the coming years will have profound implications for the kind of school UW is. Do we want a beautiful campus, replete with native plant gardens, attractive natural spaces, and areas to join together as a community, or do we want a high-density campus of modern buildings and quick linkages, more akin to a downtown core? Objectively speaking, neither option is superior, and the decision is not a zero-sum game. Regardless of which path UW sets off on, hopefully the ecological, practical, and cultural benefits of extensive green space will not be ignored. ghalpern@imprint.uwaterloo.ca
rgunn@imprint.uwaterloo.ca
A review of campus water Jamie Damaskinos staff reporter
L
aurel Creek and Columbia Lake form a vital part of a thriving ecosystem at the University of Waterloo. However, the health of the ecosystem has been adversely affected by many factors like silt, a fine sediment that can flow easily through the water, one which has been settling in Colombia Lake. Fortunately, the University of Waterloo’s Plant Operations has concerned itself with maintaining the health of Laurel Creek and Columbia Lake. An environmental assessment of Columbia Lake in 2003 revealed that it was too shallow, and as a result it was heating up far too quickly. This meant the Lake’s ecosystem was being threatened by the heightened temperature of the lake, as certain species of fish require lower temperatures in order to continue to thrive. Tom Galloway, the director of Plant Operations’ Custodial
and Ground Services, revealed that the Laurel Lake reservoir was one of the sources of Columbia Lake’s dangerously shallow waters. “There’s a huge slug of silt that comes down from the reservoir and deposits itself in the lake,” Galloway stated. In a response to the situation, Plant Operations created a filtering system to prevent further sedimentation in Columbia Lake. Noting that the silt coming from the reservoir was the greatest source of pollution, “there’s no problem with sewage running through our portion of the creek,” Galloway said. Furthermore, Plant Operations has taken additional measures in order to improve the health of Columbia Lake’s ecosystem. “The lake has been reconfigured in terms of its bathymetry,” said Galloway. A lake’s bathymetry corresponds to its depth. In addition to dredging the lake for silt, Plant Operations has taken the time to actively create deeper waters in order to create a healthier ecosystem. According to Galloway, the bathymetry of the lake
“…determines what kind of fish can live in it.” Plant Operations has taken measures to ensure that the waters of Laurel Creek are sufficiently cool for various types of fish as well. “We have allowed vegetation to create a canopy over the creek,” Galloway said. The natural canopy created by the vegetation that surrounds the lake protects its waters from the sun, thereby providing a better habitat for the fish that live in the creek. Galloway admitted that the ponds by Conrad Grebel and Applied Health Sciences do not benefit from the canopy cover created by the vegetation. Plant Operations would like to build a bypass channel that circles Columbia Lake and continues out the other side towards Silver Lake in the future. “The rationale is to get the water around the lake quickly so that it doesn’t warm up in the lake,” explained Galloway. “Cooler water allows for more diverse fish habitat.” jdamaskinos@imprint.uwaterloo.ca
Joanna Sevilla
Talking to mathematics students
On a scale of one to ten, with “ten” being very important, how important do you feel environmental sustainability should be to your faculty? And are you willing to see more of your faculty’s financial resources dedicated to environmental sustainability?
Environmental sustainability should be a university level effort, faculties should follow directions, but not have their own efforts (parallel efforts will lead to waste.) — Charles Dick The environment is not particularly important to mathematics but I think that we as a people still have a responsibility to the environment. — Erik Schrauwen While environmental concerns are certainly a concern of our time and have socio/ political/economic effects in the long run, the university should focus its resources on training and making the bright minds of tomorrow to have the capability of fixing these important issues. — James Simpson
Number of respondents, by willingness to support environmental initiatives (Yes, No, or Indifferent) in their faculty financially.
139 math students answered the poll cumulatively, but we’ll be adding to these numbers throughout the next 6 weeks, check out our breakdown by faculty online at http://imprint.uwaterloo.ca. And while you’re there, fill out our poll online!
Where “ten” means students think environmental sustainability should be very important to their faculty.
Emily Yau
Talking to Patti Cook about environmentalism David Yip staff reporter
Cait Davidson head reporter
This week, Imprint profiles the Faculty of the Environment. Patti Cook is the Alumni Officer with the faculty, as well as past university Waste Management Co-ordinator. Starting with general initiatives and going into detail, Cook talks about environmental initiatives both in ES and campus-wide. The general information on environmental initiatives in the ES faculty — reduction; paper and other waste, duplex copying, reuse, recycling — are all part of everyday life in ES. We get involved in forwarding things like an initiative to move the entire campus into the use of recycled content paper for all their copying needs. We [joined] the world for the 60 Earth Hour project (www.wwf. ca/EarthHour) on March 29. There is a culture of reuse and recycle. Environmentally friendly food and beverages for events and — as much as we can — vegetarian options. China cups are used; the ES coffee shop has no disposables service (i.e. you must bring your own mug or borrow one from them), we have vermi-composting, composting, and energy saving labels on lights switches for washrooms and other areas, to promote turing off the lights when you leave. Other projects, some perhaps not so easily recognized as environmental, include the Green with Innovation project which provides information on everything environmental; and the Zerofootprint competition that we (ES) have challenged Applied Health Sciences (AHS) to. UW has incorporated its own Zerofootprint website as a learning tool for the two faculties, [and has expanded] the program to the rest of the campus. We [have extended] the UW Zerofootprint site tool out to our alumni. The Zerofootprint website tool allows us to calculate our carbon footprint, and then look at ways to reduce it, by using alternative sources of transportation, and making healthier eating choices. … People will be able to learn about the sustainable travel and food options available in Waterloo Region. The faculty has a Living Learning Centre with St. Paul’s College, which is a residence where students live and learn more fully about the environment. The students are kept busy with talks and activities and living sustainably. faculty research and our Faculty
experts are available on a variety of subjects, such as climate change — Dan Scott is regularly featured on the news (print and television), Environment Canada’s Adaptation and Impacts Research Division is situated in ES, there’s also Sustainable Energy Research, Global Governance, International Development and much more. REEP — Residential Energy Efficiency Program and their new green office, was founded through Paul Parker in Geography. UWSP was founded by Sandy Kiang and Crystal Legacy — ES alumni now. Our new innovative research centres will take our research out into the community, providing tools that can be applied internationally. They include: Ecosystem Restoration Centre “The Ecosystem Restoration Centre will do innovative research into repairing damaged ecosystems, helping conserve rare habitats and species-at-risk and involving citizens in implementing the fruits of our research in their own neighbourhoods to bring back indigenous species and ecological processes that reduce the need to rely on expensive methods to maintain water, nutrient, and oxygen cycling.” — Stephen Murphy, Associate Professor, Environment and Resource Studies, Faculty of Environmental Studies, University of Waterloo The Centre for Environment and Business “The Centre for Environment and Business focuses on the knowledge tools and experience to integrate environment into business.” — Steven Young, Director, Centre for Environment and Business, and Professor, Environment and Business, Faculty of Environmental Studies, University of Waterloo The Centre for Knowledge Integration “Knowledge Integration builds bridges across the disciplines from the arts and humanities to science and engineering in order to better understand and contribute to our complex and rapidly changing world. The Centre for Knowledge Integration in the Faculty of Environment houses Waterloo Unlimited, a unique enrichment experience for outstanding high school students, and an equally unique new undergraduate degree program at the University of Waterloo, the Bachelor of Knowledge Integration.”
Ed Jernigan, Director, Centre for Knowledge Integration, Faculty of Environmental Studies and Professor, Systems As well, the School of Planning is working on a Healthy Communities with AHS. Other activities include: The ES School of Planning hosts the semi-annual PRAGMA conference — [the university], alumni and others take part in this “forum of business, education and government leaders that meet at the University of Waterloo semi-annually to discuss issues relating to economic growth, the environment, development and land use change, and, in general, the quality of life in Canada.” Our students’ co-op and full time jobs lead to many social justice, environmental planning, corporate, teaching, government jobs — to which they bring their environmental knowledge.” Are there projects or initiatives in environmental studies that could benefit from some kind of central coordination or input? How about as part of “central co-ordination”, a student fee that goes towards Green Buildings? (U of Guelph is doing this). The students over here are interested; in fact, [that] is another thing ES is doing. The graduate students have started up a “Greening ES” committee with faculty, staff and students, aimed at raising funds towards greening the building. Environmental Studies is all about studying the environment; which courses in particular might have some influence on environmental sustainability on campus? The Greening the Campus Course ERS 250 — where students are put into groups — uses the university as a laboratory and look at if there are sustainable solutions and improvement for the campus operations — energy, water, waste management, food, transportation; there are over 200 projects online at www. watgreen.uwaterloo.ca. As things are ever improving and changing, there will be a web exclusive update of the initiatives in ES at http://imprint.uwaterloo.ca dyip@imprint.uwaterloo.ca cdavidson@imprint.uwaterloo.ca
16
Comics & Distractions
POSTSCRIPT
Imprint, Friday, June 13, 2008
BY GRAHAM MOOGK-SOULIS
IMPRESSION, BY JIM & LAN
BY PETER N. TRINH
GUEST COMIC 30 years, and we’re still here!
s
BY SONIA LEE
Not surprisingly, he didn’t want to come back the very next day...
ucceeding three news publications — The Cord Weekly (1958 to 1960) which lasted for two years, The Coryphaeus (1960 to 1967), which lasted 7 years, and The Chevron (1967 to 1978), which lasted for 11 years — Imprint first took the reins on June 15, 1978. To date, it is the longest-running official UW student newspaper. Imprint has maintained a two-part mission statement since 1984: “To publish a newspaper that provides the University of Waterloo community with information, entertainment and a forum for the discussion of issues that affect the community; and to provide University of Waterloo students with the opportunity to learn and gain practical experience in an open and rewarding journalistic environment.” Imprint marks its 30th anniversary on Sunday, June 15, 2008. Then on Monday, June 16 Imprint invites students (and all student media) to join in a celebration of campus media. There will be cake and activites! The event runs from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the SLC courtyard.
Missing the crossword? Never fear! The Comics & Distractions section continues on page 23
Arts & Entertainment
Imprint, Friday, June 13, 2008 arts@imprint.uwaterloo.ca
DOING DRAMA: PART 2 OF 3
Setting the stage
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Brian Gashgarian special to imprint
W
hen you sit down to watch a play, movie or any other form of visual entertainment, it’s easy to take the flashy swordplay, relevant set pieces, and even the character’s movements, which seem so natural, for granted. It all appears so easy when in actuality almost everything you see was — in most cases — carefully and laboriously put together, from the backdrop of the scene to the very movements of the actors. During the audition process, the main people you come in contact with are the director, stagemanager, and if there’s fighting, the head choreographer. Once rehearsals start, however, the bigger picture begins to unfold. Often it’s not what you’d expect. About three or four weeks into the rehearsals, when my company was doing three rehearsals a week, for a total of 14 hours, we had been sticking to purely swordplay exclusively. The reason for this was simple; we have about two months to take people, like myself, who have most likely never picked up a sword before and make them look like they’ve been doing it their entire lives. I had arrived early and was clearing the room when our choreographer, Nick Oddson, walked in with two things:
his usual golf bag full of rapiers, which certainly wouldn’t serve him half as well on the links as it would in some sort of renaissance battle. The second was an armful of short, round sticks about a foot long, and this was what caught my attention. Everyone had arrived, and after stretching and otherwise warming up, I for one, was expecting Oddson’s usual “OK, grab swords everyone,” when he walked around the room and started handing out the sticks to everyone, two to each person. “We’re going to be doing a little bit of Filipino stick fighting,” he informed us. Oddson wanted us to be able to get used to the idea of wielding two weapons simultaneously; a handy task for everyone in the cast, but especially so for the musketeers, who normally end up with two weapons by the end of every fight. This is merely one example of the craziness of theatre; another is the size of the venue, the St. Jacob’s Church Theatre. The stage we have is relatively small; a Shakespearean orator might not feel too cramped but when you have 14 people swinging four-foot rapiers around their heads it becomes difficult to co-ordinate them all in such a way as to prevent people from losing eyes or getting wonderful bruises and Oddsons all over. When asked about the stage, Anita Kilgour admitted, “The stage at St. Jacobs is a great space, however, with a cast of 17 and up to 14 people on stage with swords, one of the first things we had to resolve was pure real estate. We are building an extension, with the able direction of Chris Rovers, our master carpenter, to bring the stage out and forward of the current arched proscenium.
The new thrust stage space, specially built for the show, will be 27 feet wide at the front, and bring the depth of the stage out to 18.5 feet, with a few sets of stairs, enabling the actors to enter & exit the stage through the audience.” This has also been a challenge for technical director Amos Boratto, who immediately set to work designing the mentioned “thrust” which will lengthen the stage considerably. Usually the tech director has several other tasks as well, such as managing props and set pieces, but because of the small size of the stage we’re using, we’re dispensing with elaborate set pieces in favor of room to swing a sword. Other tasks include managing lighting and sound effects, both of which are crucial when it comes to giving the proper mood to a certain scene. Besides the challenges the size of the stage presents to the tech director, our director, Kilgour, has an equally difficult time shepherding us into such a position as makes sense, scene-by-scene — a very long and drawn-out process. What I didn’t realize when I first went into theatre was the importance of positioning on stage, or “blocking,” as it’s called. A deceptively simple task such as circling a person whilst delivering a line presents a surprising challenge to the actor, who has to make sure that all of the words are going to the audience and not the back of the other actor’s head. Fun fact: one of the scenes that took the longest to “block” was not one of the fighting scenes, as you might have guessed. It was a scene in which several people had to engage in court intrigue and eavesdropping; their movements around the stage had to be carefully choreographed, almost more so than any of the swordplay. I cannot underscore enough how complicated the simple act of moving across the stage can be in a scene. Next up is moving lips. During every run through of a scene, the stage manager (in our case, Nadia Ursaki) and assistant stage manager, or ASM (Alisha K.), read through the scripts as we recite our lines, marking down any mistakes we made and then reading them back to us after
we’re finished. I must say this, while necessary, can be very frustrating; coming out of a run through in which you felt went very well, only to be told that you said “whence” instead of “when” and “no” instead of “nay”; it can really take the mickey out of you. So we’ve established that moving isn’t just left-right-left and talking isn’t just saying words in theatre; but neither walking nor talking would do any good if we were naked, which is where the costumer comes in. Janelle Mifflin (self-proclaimed as Kilgour s “flying monkey”) is making our costumes mostly from scratch, having recently taken our measurements at rehearsals in between scenes. However, her duties do not end there. In our production we have several “quick changes”; they’re pretty much what they sound like, where an actor plays one character in one scene, then has to rush backstage and change costume for the next scene in which he or she plays another character/the same character in a different outfit. Considering that most of the scene changes in our play won’t be punctuated by blackouts (when the lights go down in between scenes or at the end of an act), this change of costume has to be effected in a space of about 20 seconds at the very most. Far more complicated than it sounds. Finally, we come to the producer; after all, we could put together an amazing show with perfect blocking and amazing fights, but it would all be for naught if no one came to see it. Simply put, the producer’s job is to fill seats in the house. In our show, Janelle Mifflin is doubling as the producer as well as head costumer. Posters, Facebook, flyers, and sometimes business cards are all methods by which the producer can spread the word about the play. After all of this work goes into the play — and believe me when I say I gave you the Coles’ Notes version — comes showtime, which is an adventure in and of itself. But that’s another story. To be concluded on July 11, 2008
Last night a dj saved my life The deconstruction of a disc jockey
T
here is an old colloquial saying among DJs and it goes “Last night a DJ saved my life, and last night a DJ stole my wife.” So, over a few White Russians, a colleague and I had a climatic discussion regarding how important and influential a DJ can be in determining the “where” and the “when” to spend their night of debauchery. Similarly, the merit of the DJ plays a central role when accessing how much fun an individual has had during that said night. The modern life DJ can be compared to the life of a Jedi. There is vigorous training, a lifetime commitment, the ability to attain the knowledge of the universe, and most importantly, they are heard but rarely seen. A superior DJ must be able to synchronize grooves, orchestrate beats, and always be on the prowl for new sounds and fresh tracks. More importantly, the ultimate objective of a DJ is to keep the dance floor as saturated as the 401 on the Friday of a long weekend. Over the last month, it was my manifest destiny to critique the current DJ’s spinning in Waterloo bars and clubs and provide you with an in-depth analysis of their strengths, weaknesses, and overall ability of spinning. That said, it should be noted that this deconstruction by no means is intended to shift your attitude or appreciation for the music that they spin, but rather highlight their talents and inform you of their respective flaws. DJ WHITEGOLD — WEDNESDAY NIGHTS @ THE BOMBER Every Wednesday, DJ Whitegold flows in and out of mixes with a very precise, structured set. His ability to beat match, scratch, and breakdown backspin is exceptional. However,
Whitegold lacks a little something called creativity. Wednesday after Wednesday, his set is nearly identical to his set the previous week. At one point, a colleague of mine could tell me the next three tracks he would play or what time he would be spinning ODB’s “Baby I got your money.” If every story has the same plot line, the same structure, then you’ve got issues with being predictable — and who wants that?
from DFA remixes, the Rapture, or Justice. While Fancypants’ track selection and crowd reading abilities is as strong as an improperly mixed rum and Coke, her ability to mix and beat match is the polar opposite. However, unlike many DJs, Fancypants will always hear and try to play drunken requests from the crowd which further emphasizes her ability to positively interact with the dance floor.
DJ SURREAL — WEDNESDAY NIGHTS @ PHILS & THURSDAY NIGHTS @ CAESAR MARTINI’S DJ Surreal is like the Detroit Redwings in the league of DJs, he is consistently on top of his game and can blow you away anytime. His blend of new and classic hip-hop is fresh while his technique is nearly flawless. Surreal rarely has “off nights” because he can read crowds as well as English majors read Shakespeare. The only flaws to which he can be faulted are the respective locations in which he spins. You have a choice of listening to great hip-hop in a nauseating, deeply rooted puke-stench bar at Phil’s or at a pretentious martini bar that has the most concentrated amount of alpha males since a free Dave Matthews Band concert.
DJ CHARLESS – FRIDAY NIGHTS @ THE STARLIGHT: Charless can’t mix for shit. As a DJ, he should not be spinning. Regardless, he is a master, scholar, and modern guru of classic funk, Motown R&B, and classic hip-hop. In a given night, you will hear Prince, Bowie, Kool & the Gang, MJ, and James Brown (quite possibly in that order). He understands that people who go to Starlight on a Friday night want to dance and sing until they have blisters and a sore throat. Unlike the heap of today’s current DJs, Charless uses actual vinyl records and spins without a laptop or the use of Serato Live Scratch. What makes him even more badass is that he is an old bearded white guy that sits in a chair on the stage when spinning his set.
DJ FANCYPANTS – THURSDAY/SATURDAY @ PHILS: Since Phil’s decided to shift musical formats from “Throw Down Thursdays” to “Thermo Thursdays” it has been a second coming and positive revival for the cult like basement bar. Dju Fancypants has an eclectic taste for electro and indie dance tracks and will bust out anything
DJ CLIMAXX – FRIDAY NIGHTS @ REVOLUTION NIGHTCLUB Of all the bars and clubs in Waterloo, Revolution Nightclub is comparable to the homecoming queen in high school. They know they are popular, they know that people like them, and they possess all the qualities that make you either want to spit in their face or embrace them depending on which social group you belong
to. Revolutions resident DJ Climaxx is a wellestablished, highly knowledgeable DJ. He plays top 40, radio friendly hip-hop and much like his competition, Climaxx can beat match, scratch, cut, fade and blend tracks like my Magic Bullet mixes smoothies. On a given night, Climaxx will mix close to 250 tracks with precision. However, much like DJ Whitegold, Clamaxx’s set is very similar in sound and you can expect the same tracks week after week. In his defence, since he is playing for a “Live to Air” radio station, it wouldn’t be surprising if he had to sacrifice his artistic creativity with radio friendly commercial hip-hop for 91.5 The Beat. DJ ALIENBOY – SUNDAY NIGHTS @ PHILS There aren’t very many places in Waterloo to shake your ass on a Sunday night. Retro night at Phil’s provides that safety net for the few hardcore animals that want to truly go on a “weekend bender.” I don’t know what it is about Phil’s and DJ’s because DJ Alienboyis very similar to DJ Fancypants in terms of both technique and style. To elaborate, ALIENBOY has an extensive knowledge of retro music ranging from the late ’70s and ’80s. This is showcased throughout his set where will hear everything from Run DMC and the Smiths, to the Violent Femmes. Conversely, Alienboy, like Fancypants, does not beat match, crossfade, or blend tracks together, but rather focuses more on track selection and relies on musical flow. hcolosimo@imprint.uwaterloo.ca
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Arts & Entertainment
Imprint, Friday, June 13, 2008
MoCCA: the mother of the indie sequential art
F
rom what I’ve seen, the world of comics is at its prime. Not only are there comic book characters to which any layperson can make a reference, but there are newer and fresher ideas that are always arising. It consists of many types or genres, the comic’s subject material can either be for children or adults, and can either choose to write as a simple comedy or a heavily controversial tragedy.
I admit I’vr been a fan of the more recent and contemporary comics and graphic novels — or “indie comics” — ever since my interest in webcomics moved towards more than the regular videogames faire. My first taste of indie comic and cartoon festivals was the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF), a brilliant display which only occurs bi-annually. Last weekend, I decided to go for the big time: the seventh annual MoCCA Art Festival, a fundraiser held by the members of the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in New York City. Of course, I didn’t go unprepared. I had a goal: to learn. I had no time to take any Broadway tours or to visit the NBC Studios. I had been planning to go to the MoCCA Art Festival for years, and I was fortunate to finally attend some of the panel discussions being held, and to greet some of my favourite comicists.
What is MoCCA? Founded in late 2001, the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art is a not-forprofit arts organization. Their purpose is to promote and educate the public about the history and development of comic and cartoon art, as well as the importance and influence it has on society. Residing in New York City, they help sponsor and promote local book signings as well as lectures and workshops related to the field. As well,
the museum had the proud honour of hosting both the 2004 and 2005 Harvey Awards, which many comicists regard to be one of the highest honours in comic and cartoon achievement. Some of the artists and writers that earned Harvey Award nominations in these two years are ones that I’ve mentioned before, such as Bryan Lee O’Malley, Craig Thompson, Alan Moore, and Chester Brown. According to a MoCCA promo comic by Raina Telgemeier (The Baby-Sitters Club graphic novels), they previously resided along the eastern part of Union Square. As of 2007, the museum resides on the fourth floor of 594 Broadway. Their largest event, the MoCCA Art Festival, is hosted at the Puck Building, which is two blocks from the museum. Day One The event was held on June 7 and 8
It Will Go Easier On You If You Just Come To Our Store.
between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m., and with the intense 30-degree-Celcius heat and humidity hitting down on me, I was so glad that the facilities had air conditioning. The first part of my game-plan was to go to the exhibitor tables and find some of my favourite comic artists. Some of the comicists there, like Jeph Jacques (Questionable Content) and Meredith Gran (Octopus Pie), remembered my face from previous events, so it was a little easier to greet them without feeling weak in my knees. I saw faces new to me as well, like Randall Munroe (XKCD), John Green (Jax Epoch, Teen Boat), and Marion Vitus (No In-Between). Hailing from the comics group known as the Comics Bakery, the latter two shares the group name with Raina Telgemeier and Dave Roman (Agnes Quill, associate editor of Nickelodeon Magazine). The first panel I attended was a MoCCA award presentation to Bill Plympton, a man famous for his independent classical animations such as the 1987 Oscar-nominated short Your Face, and his popular Dog shorts: Guard Dog, Guide Dog, and the MoCCA-premiered Hot Dog to be featured in the 2008 edition of The Animation Show. For seven years, Plympton has supported the museum for its work in independent comics and cartoons at their festival, and he was proud to receive the award he deserved. Plympton was inspired from many discoveries. He argued that “a good artist has to be curious about life. They have to have a sense of wonder and daydream a lot.” After the ceremony, I attended a conversation panel between two comic authors: Rebecca Donner (Burnout) and Brian Wood (DMZ, The New York Four). It was only until later that I discovered that it was a panel that discussed their work for Minx, a comic publisher that creates graphic novels aimed towards
teenage girls, which would’ve explained the addition of Mariko Tamaki (Emiko Superstar) and Cecil Castelluci (The Plain Janes, Janes in Love). Despite the demographic for their comics in discussion, I decided to stay. They gave a great discussion on how the writer and the artist of a comic communicate with each other, usually by giving each other constant feedback to their approach, something I knew little about. It gave me a great insight on different creative processes that each writer had, such as Castelluci’s own image of an art posse which she constantly adds and supports to from life experiences. Day Two With the day quickly moving, and the street signs quickly melting, I had a lot to cover. Again, I chose to attend two panels; one was a presentation by artist and illustrator David Heatley (Deadpan, illustrations for The New Yorker), and the other was a workshop with comicists Matt Madden (99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style) and Jessica Abel (La Perdida). Heatley’s presentation was called “Give Yourself a Decade,” based on his approach towards the comic and illustration field within the past ten years. He explained about some of his biggest influences, like his family’s support, his dreams which inspired many of his comics, and some of his most embarrassing moments in life. Also, he talked about his published works, like his work in the Kramers Ergot anthology, his own comic anthology Deadpan, and his current achievement of being published by Pantheon Books. His presentation was very specific and revealing, much like his many comics, and it was greatly entertaining. As well, he discussed with Chip Kidd from Pantheon Books about how he quit his previous day job in June after signing with them, later adding, “I
don’t do work that I don’t like anymore. I like to do art that I love. It can be commercial, it could be a services or announcements product, whatever, but it has to be me doing exactly what I do.” You can read his blog at www.drawger. com/heatley, and keep a lookout for his comic memoir, My Brain is Hanging Upside Down, which is coming out in late September 2008. Madden’s and Abel’s workshop helped promote a textbook that they co-wrote called Drawing Words & Writing Pictures, which gives a descriptive look in some of the traditional and contemporary methods of comic-making. The workshop included a description of methods such as creating concepts, tools for making comics and cartoons, and working on storyboards. The interactive part of the workshop focused on storyboards to illustrate its importance for solidifying ideas, understanding the flow of narrative, and expressing action within (and even with) the frame through thickness and motion of lines. I find the book to be a great idea, and I will definitely have to check it out. I believe comics and animation to be a proper form of media that a person can educate him or herself. Of course, the cartoon media is meant to be fun, but also informative and intriguing like any other novel or film. The MoCCA Art Festival was an amazing time for me. It taught me that the comic and cartoon media is still growing, and remains to be a vital source of entertainment and education, as well as a continuing influence for people of all ages and cultures. If there is anything I learned from the festival, which there definitely was, it was that the most complex of ideas can be explored through the most simplistic of presentation. ptrinh@imprint.uwaterloo.ca
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Arts & Entertainment
Imprint, Friday, June 13, 2008
19
movie review
courtesy of imdb.com courtesy of imdb.com
Sex and the City: The Movie Darren Star Warner Brothers
G
oing to see the Sex and the City movie was like going to see the female equivalent of Star Wars — everything from the theatre to the dressed up women. Shoes, cosmo glasses, and even a Manhattan skyline added to the Manolo-fueled excitement as a radio station ran giveaways and rallied the already buoyant crowd, and about three guys — obviously dragged there on dates — sunk down in their seats in an attempt to escape the palpable level of estrogen in the air. It was hard not to have fun in that environment; however, once I left the theatre, and the astmosphere began to wear off, I realized that yes, the movie was entertaining, but that was about it. I laughed and cried at all the right times, and I was engrossed for over two hours; this does not mean, unfortunately, that I left the movie satisfied.
The show itself may have tamed in the later years as the ladies aged, but until the last it always had substance, purpose, and character development in every episode. It was the strength and believability of the story lines that drew us in, but it was the weakness of those story lines that lost me with this movie. Even though the movie picks up five years after the show ended, most of the women are right where we expect them to be — and the movie ends the same way. Charlotte’s plot line is notably empty, as her biggest problems include pooping her pants and being afraid to go jogging for fear of miscarriage. Miranda’s is overly predictable, with her “workaholic” lifestyle once again infringing on her family life — an issue that was certainly covered to death in the show. A story that, for me, in all its reoccurring glory, is now only reaffirming that it may, in fact, be impossible for a woman to be wife, mother, and New York power lawyer. And if Miranda’s story isn’t already beating a dead horse, Carrie and Mr. Big — surprise! — break up and reunite once again.
The movie redeemed itself, however, by finally what an indelible effect the show had on me, and liberating Samantha of Smith, and subsequently many of my friends, becoming comfortable with repairing one of the major inadequacies with how sex and sexuality throughout adolescence. It could the show ended: that none of the women were easily be argued, by those who veer further right single. The whole point of Sex and the City was than myself, that the show corrupted us since we that it is okay for a woman to choose to be single, started watching it at such a young age; but I prefer and that the old maid is finally dead. Ending the to believe it liberated us. show the way they did made everybody happy, Musing over the effect the show had on me but it was the kind of fairy tale ending that they as I left the theatre, I began to wonder how a were supposed to be working against. show that was once so revolutionary became the For me, and undoubtably thousands others, Sex overly-produced, vacuous, and overly-consumerist and the City was a show that I grew up on. I started (even for a show that prided itself on its ridiculous watching it when I was 15, and for the first time fashion standards) drivel I just spent two hours had a source of information regarding sex that lapping up. was neither sterilized pro-abstinence sex ed nor Seeing this movie is like finding a top you the patriarchy of American Pie. It portrayed women adored in high school at the back of your closet: not only enjoying sex, but abeing frank and open something tells you it would be a good idea to wear about their own sexuality. I’ve already written about it again, just for old time’s sake. But it usually isn’t how I believe Sex and the City liberated brunch table a good idea, and just ends up being too tight conversation throughout the Western world when in the chest. IMPRINT/ab.patio/rawbco© 4/30/03 4:14 PM Page 1 I was a columnist, so I won’t rehash that here, but it wasn’t until after I saw this movie I realized — Ashley Csanady
Book Review
Chiggers Hope Larson Ginee Seo Books
H
ave you ever gone to summer camp or on a fishing trip and seen these miniscule, red, bug-like creatures move about on huge rocks? That’s probably a chigger; the larval form of the harvest mite, known for feeding off the blood of mammals (including humans) and causing extremely itchy welts to form on your body. This creature is the basis for the name of the latest graphic novel by Eisner-Award winner Hope Larson. Larson, known for works such as Salamander Dream and Gray Horses, returns with a simple yet meaningful story that is fleshed out with flowing artwork and imaginative design. The story involves Abby and her trip to summer camp in her home state of North Carolina — the same camp that she’s been going to for years. Things have changed since her last time there — specifically between herself and her regular camp friends — leaving Abby feeling a bit uneasy about the experience. The biggest change at the camp is her
new bunk-mate Shasta, a girl who shines as a completely different breed from everyone else in terms of personality. Although she’s told many of the kids at camp about being struck by lightning, Shasta doesn’t attract as much positive attention as she’d hoped for — except from Abby. Chiggers a heart-warming story of camping, ghost stories, nerds, and friendship. Larson is one of those comic artists who knows how to meld her words and narrative into her art. With impressive lettering by Jason Azzopardi, Larson achieves a positive flow between dialogue, layout, and action while Azzopardi maintains and adds to the flow to give a moving, dream-like quality. All of the characters are well-written and move the narrative along quite nicely. One of my favourite characters in the novel is Teal, the cousin of Abby’s long-time friend Rose, and a regular player of Dungeons & Dragons. Abby happens to be attracted to Teal after he compares her to an elf. The characters help the story continue in a real and relative pace. For a more in-depth look into Larson’s novel, you can visit her site at www.hopelarson. com. Currently, her site is set up to promote Chiggers, so check it out before the site changes. There, you’ll find a lot of neat parts about the book, such as the tools she used to illustrate her pages, a collection of fanart that she’s received from anticipating fans, and even a theme song for the novel by fellow cartoonist Lucy Knisley. Reading Chiggers gave me the same meditative emotion I had when reading Salamander Dream and the comic “Weather Vain” in Flight Vol. 2 — a feeling I enjoyed immensely. While the intended audience for the novel is the 10to-14-year-old range, it can definitely be read and enjoyed by a broad range of people, no matter what their age may be. It’s very entertaining to read a comic that makes you feel like you’re dreaming. — Peter Trinh
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Science & Technology
Imprint, Friday, June 13, 2008 science@imprint.uwaterloo.ca
Physics of our astronomical origins Aletheia Chiang reporter
W
hen you see the word “evolution,” you might be tempted to think about a man named Charles Darwin. Perhaps you’re also thinking of primates. For you, evolution in a nutshell means Darwin and the monkeys — although any zoologist will tell you that primates differ vastly from monkeys. But that’s not the kind of evolution that Alex De Souza is studying. For De Souza, a recent physics undergraduate, evolution is all about the atoms. Under the supervision of Dr. Michael Balogh, an associate professor of physics, his research focuses on chemical evolution: how elements have “evolved” to make up life as we know it. “When we think about an explosion, we think about hydrogen, helium, and very simple atoms forming,” described De Souza. “But where do heavier elements such as iron or oxygen come from?” It’s these heavier elements, he explained, that make up “most of what we see today.” The explosion that De Souza alluded to is the Big Bang — the ultimate detonation of space within space that forced our universe to take on a finite timeframe. Balogh explained that the Big Bang provided just enough time and energy to have protons pull together to form simple atomic nuclei. But when it comes to the formation of heavier atomic nuclei, such as those needed to make up the human body or a planet like the Earth, physicists have turned to studying the stars. Through stellar processing, stars modify the gaseous products of the Big Bang explosion, converting them into heavier elements. The modified products are then sent back to the interstellar medium by means of supernova explosions or stellar winds. The details of such processes are calculated using computational and theoretical models. For De Souza, seeing theory match observation is one of the most rewarding aspects of his research.
For more information, visit: http://astro.uwaterloo.ca/observatory/index.html or contact David Gilbank, observatory coordinator, at dgilbank@ scimail.uwaterloo.ca
joyce hsu
Taylor Helferty staff reporter
Windows 7 starts driver testing early
First off, yes, they are already working on their next operating system. Now that that’s out of the way, Microsoft is hoping to avoid the biggest problem that occurred during the release of Windows Vista — the drivers. Many hardware drivers didn’t work well with Vista, and this left many customers very unhappy. This time, during beta testing, Microsoft will not give approval to hardware makers until they test their hardware on the first beta of Windows 7 and hand the logs over to Microsoft as soon as possible. A Microsoft bulletin entitled “Windows Hardware Logo Program Requirements” Microsoft stated that “Beginning with the first beta of Windows 7, all Windows Vista submissions must include a complete CPK with test logs from Windows 7. The test logs generated are not required to pass.” This means that any bugs and non-working drivers will be caught early, so
“When the graph matches the actual measurements, [it shows] that the mathematical theoretical equation is a very accurate representation of what’s actually going on.” Although present characteristic models employed are specific to our galaxy, Balogh explained that the Milky Way is just a representative example of galaxies far away. Because we consider “space” to be a composite of galaxies, learning about the evolution of elements, then, is not so different from learning about the history of the universe. And learning about the origin of the universe cannot be separated from learning about the origin of mankind. Ultimately, for physicists like Balogh and De Souza, it is nearly impossible to separate the science from the philosophy. “I don’t think they’re that separate,” Balogh insisted. “[In my mind], the only good difference between science and philosophy is that we concentrate on questions that we can find answers for by testing.” In fact, for both Balogh and De Souza, the root of their passion for astrophysics stems from an inherent desire to better understand life itself. “Why are we here? Why do we exist?” said De Souza. “I think these are very fundamental question. Maybe they’re not questions that are directly relevant to our everyday lives, but at the same time they are questions that everyone has pondered at some point in their own lives.” And, said De Souza, the research they do allows them, at least in part, to address that question scientifically. “I’ve realized that all of the questions that I’ve ever asked myself have all come down to questions about the functions of life: how my hand works, why certain music appeals to me, and why certain music doesn’t,” said Balogh. “Everything has to do with physics.” Alexander De Souza plans to attend grad school to pursue his interests in astronomy and gravitational physics. If your philosophical or astrophysical salivary glands have been enticed — and you’d like to get an even better taste — take advantage of the Gustav Bakos Observatory, which is situated right on the UW campus.The observatory holds free public tours on the first Wednesday evening of each month. Everyone is welcome and will be offered a chance to look through the university’s 12-inch telescope on the roof of the Physics building.The tour starts with a short talk on astronomy (around 30 minutes) plus an opportunity to ask questions, followed by a tour of the dome. Sounds like the perfect starry-eyed date to me!
another release with many pieces of hardware left incompatible can be avoided. They also don’t plan on changing any hardware requirements between Windows Vista and Windows 7; so, together, these two pieces of news should mean a stable release for the next Windows operating system. Scientists using flies to engineer flying robots
By tethering flies to flight simulators, scientists are studying how and why they fly the way they do. Using a cylindrical array of lights, they observe how the fly flaps its wings in order to fly towards or avoid the shapes displayed by the light. Flies will fly towards long, skinny objects because they believe they can easily follow it to a safe haven (like a tree), while they avoid smaller blobs that are shaped like their predators. As we all know from spending hours swatting at the insects during the summer, they are fast, agile, and can switch direction on a dime — even if surprised by a threat. All these movements it can make are
autonomous and can be mimicked in small flying robots. These robots could be used for exploration, search-and-rescue, and whatever else you can think of. With a robot able to move as easily and quickly as a fly, the possibilities are vast. The defeat of the mighty iPhone?
Google recently revealed the software for its new phone, software that could very well spell the end for the massive popularity of Apple’s iPhone. The phone will be made by companies such as Samsung and Motorola and will have the obvious Google web browser, Gmail, Google Maps, and even a version of Pac-Man — which, I sense, will increase incidents of people walking into poles on sidewalks. The popular “Street View” feature of Google Maps will even turn in the direction of the person holding the phone, so that you can use it as a handy GPS tool. It will have a touch screen, but can also use a tracking ball. So how will it defeat the iPhone? Well, it’s free for the first 500 megabytes of storage and
five million monthly website hits. For 10 million views per month and more storage, users will pay around $40 or $50 a month. Th!nk City
Most of us don’t have cars yet, and don’t even want to think about it. Though, I’m sure most of us also wouldn’t mind the idea of not having to pay $1.30/L for gas when we decide to make our investment. Well, we may not have to. Norway’s Th!nk City electrical car — no, it isn’t an actual city — is coming to the U.S., and I assume Canada soon after. The price isn’t too bad either at around $25,000. It is able to travel 100 km/h and travel 180 km on a single charge. Not only is it a good gas alternative, it comes complete with WiFi and internet capabilities, and sends you e-mails when it needs servicing. You can even ask the car its battery charge level via text message. Can anyone see Steve Jobs marketing an iCar soon? thelferty@imprint.uwaterloo.ca
Science & Technology
Imprint, Friday, June 13, 2008
Google Games comes to UW
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Google Games is a series of challenges that tests the “creative and mental mettle” of university students. The event, sponsored and run by Google, takes place at UW, Stanford, Harvard, and MIT. On June 7 this popular event filled UW’s South Campus Hall from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Teams of five UW students (mostly from engineering and computer science) competed in a series of mental challenges, including • Geek trivia in computer science, math, and culture • Lego building challenge distance competition: build a working trebuchet out of Lego blocks and a weight • Mind puzzles Teams were awarded points for the fastest time completing the challenge, distance achieved (in the trebuchet building challenge), correct solutions in the mind puzzles, and spirit points for participation and enthusiasm. Google Games is a recruiting opportunity for Google to interest students in the company and give them information about the “Google culture”— which includes the fact that no employee can be more than 150 feet from food at any time. Photo (left): UW students work on the Lego trebuchet building challenge. daniel lewis
Heat and your brain
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t’s summer in Southern Ontario and sun worshippers are in heaven, greedily soaking up the UV rays while others — myself included — become virtual vampires, hiding in dark basements until the cool of night descends. Regardless of your feelings about the season, it’s easy to agree that the recent record-setting heat wave in our region has begun to test our tempers. Research into the physical and psychological effects of extreme temperatures hasn’t pinned down all of the specifics yet, but most professionals agree that uncomfortable heat can have some equally uncomfortable effects on our emotions and cognitive capacities; heat can not only make you pissy, but it can also affect how you think. Although researchers still argue about the directness and strength of the effect that heat has on aggression, data seems to agree with the conventional wisdom that heat makes us irritable. Aggressive behaviours have long been linked to warm weather, with multiple studies linking warmer climates to increased homicide rates in regions of the U.S., Italy, Spain, and France; rising violent crime rates to warmer seasons; and higher rates of family assault and domestic violence on days with higher temperatures. Studies have shown that dehydration, which becomes a serious concern when the thermometer climbs, is linked to fatigue, light-headedness, dizziness, confusion, and even delirium. Heat affects your entire body, including raising your heart and breathing rates, but three important portions of your brain — the reticular activating system that’s involved in attention and wakefulness, the autonomic structures that assist in regulating motor functions, and the cortical and mid-brain structures that underpin perception, thought, and memory — are particularly vulnerable to uncomfortably high temperatures. If warmer weather and its associated dehydration can make us sleepy, dizzy, clumsy, hinder our perception, confuse our thoughts, and impair our memory, it’s reasonable to fear that it might put a bit of a damper on our academic aspirations. Although some of our more dedicated peers may rather die than get lower grades, it is also important to acknowledge that in addition to affecting our
ability to study, extreme heat may also cause heat stroke — a potentially fatal condition where the body’s internal temperature rises to dangerous levels. Whether you’re more concerned about an academic death or the real thing, it’s clear that it’s smart to take some precautions in the face of this summer’s weather reports. Health Canada provides many tips for dealing with the heat, including: 1. Limit Exposure:
• Limit activity to morning and evenings when temperatures are cooler, and seek shade if you must be out during midday. • Wear light, loose clothing, sunglasses, and a wide-brimmed hat while outside. 2. DRINK (no, not beer...)
• Drink plenty of water and natural fruit juices, and do so often — don’t wait until you’re thirsty. • If you have to do physical activity, drink two to four glasses of cool liquid per hour. • Avoid alcohol, caffeine, or large amounts of sugar; these substances may actually cause your body to lose more fluids. 3. Pay attention!
• Keep an eye out for cramping in legs, arms, and/or stomach, feelings of mild confusion, weakness, or problems sleeping. • If you do notice these symptoms in yourself or others, take immediate measures to get out of the heat and cool down. • If you or anyone you know is suffering extreme symptoms, including any of the above, and in some cases, vomiting, call 911. Remember, the elderly, the young, the overweight, and people with some medical conditions (like heart problems) are particularly prone to difficulties in the heat. agaetano@imprint.uwaterloo.ca
Cum works in mysterious ways
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have oral sex on my mind today. When volunteering at the AIDS Committee, part of my training involved protecting myself from STD transmission, and I can’t help but feel that the contraceptive methods they encouraged pairing with oral sex cannot be popular in real life. Oral sex with flavoured condoms? Dental dams? Come on! (If you don’t know what a dental dam is, it is a thin layer of latex used to cover the vulva or anal opening to prevent oral transmission of STDs.) From my understanding, what makes oral sex great is the thrill of skin-to-skin contact, which is often dulled during intercourse with the presence of condoms. Oral sex provides pleasure without the risk of pregnancy, which is reason enough for some people to forego contraceptives; consequently, this choice also ups your chances of catching an STD through bodily fluids, including semen, pre-cum, vaginal secretions, and menstrual blood. I think this factor should be stressed more strongly in contraceptive campaigns, because conception isn’t the only thing people should be worried about when engaging in sexual activity. I really wish I could convince people to protect themselves during oral sex, especially with casual partners. It’s a dangerous world out there, and a night of partying could land you with an incurable STD, like herpes or HPV, which places a great deal of responsibility and limitations on your future sex endeavours. Sorry if that got you depressed. On the bright and slightly contradictory side, semen could help lift your mood. Recent studies by Gordon G. Gallup, Ph. D., a psychologist at the State University of New York in Albany, found that some chemicals in semen may act as antidepressants for women engaging in sex without barrier contraceptives like male and female condoms. Gallup found that women’s bodies respond to semen exposure with decreased depression and decreased suicide rates. He concluded this after studying the behaviour of 293 college women during the standard Beck Depression Inventory questionnaire. Female depression tendencies scoring over 17 rated as “moderately depressed.” Gallup found that women whose partners never used condoms scored an average of eight, those who sometimes used condoms scored a 10.5, those who usually
used condoms scored a 15 and those who always used them scored a 11.3. On the down side, this study also suggests that semen may have addictive properties, as the longer the interval was since last sexual involvement, the more depressed women who never or sometimes used condoms got. Suicide attempts were also found to be more prevalent in the group of women who used condoms when compared to the ones who didn’t, though that causal relationship is far more tenuous. Gallup reported that sperm is very chemically dense, containing testosterone, estrogen, prostaglandins, luteinizing hormone, and follicle-stimulating hormone — some or all of which is absorbed into the bloodstream through the vagina. The results of his study led him to conclude that semen is an addictive substance for females — evident through the observed withdrawal females went through after long periods of intermission between sex acts with their partner. More research is being conducted to explore Gallup’s controversial study results. But back to the subject of ingesting sperm, did you know that a man’s diet is a major factor in the way his cum tastes? Well, there you go, a brand new way to spice up your love life — just sneak some of these foods into your mate’s dinner, and you’re on for a tasting contest every day of the week. Sacha Tarkovsky, internet sexpert, provides edible advice on this subject. Since sperm is generally salty and bitter tasting, the goal would be neutralize or sweeten the flavour, and so the obvious choices would be high-fructose foods, such as watermelon, melon, papaya, mango, grapes and cherries. While vegetables are good for neutralizing the taste, any members of the cabbage family — such as asparagus, broccoli, and cauliflower — are best avoided. Foods that are spicy, overly salty, or loaded with garlic translate to very particulartasting cum, but cinnamon, peppermint and lemon can be used for a sweeter taste. Try to steer towards foods that are high in chlorophyll, such as celery, parsley, wheatgrass, chard, and kale, which can add sweetness. It takes about 12 to 24 hours for the food to take its effect, so keep that in mind in case you ever want to take revenge on someone using only a curry and some willpower. alomako@imprint.uwaterloo.ca
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Photo Feature
Imprint, Friday, June 13, 2008
Campus Clicks UW Architecture campus at night
Jesse Brenneman
Maple leaf
Lightning strike
Daniel Lewis
Student expression though the lens of a camera.
Michael Seliske
Share your art with us!
Garden by the PAC at dusk
Peter Kreze
Send your campus photos, along with the names of consenting individuals in the photos and a brief description, to photos@imprint.uwaterloo.ca.
Comics & Distractions
Imprint, Friday, June 13, 2008
Crossword
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Maggie Clark
Sudoku 9
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What else would you like to see built on campus? by Michael Gregory
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61. Adjectivial synonym for 43 down 62. The kind of school that teaches mechanical or industrial arts Down 1. A tank of gas might soon cost you this 2. Something wanted or required 3. Row or rank, when stacked vertically 4. Football term for cutting off a pass 5. Out of fashion 6. The pores in a sponge are called this 7. As opposed to “closed” 8. Sound your IM system makes when someone’s messaged you 9. Northern third of Great Britain Island 10. Uncertainty 11. British nobleman ranked above viscount 12. Latin for being or existence 13. Parent-Teacher Association 21. Terse; also, small 22. Help 25. Rocky is one nickname for this, meaning “rest” 26. Opposite of “same” 27. Relationships and bread alike can come to be this
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28. Addictive first-person shooter with three sequels and numerous spinoffs 29. Vessels for the dead 30. Skin 31. One who eases 32. Troglodytidae (birds) 34. Journey 35. Tiniest 37. Varieties include “democratic” and “rigged” 38. Competing against 43. To inquire in a meddlesome way 44. Scummy 45. Friendship or harmony 46. To fill with high spirits 47. Cultural movement peaking from 1916 to 1920 48. Variation on the word for “shield of Zeus” 49. Residentially-challenged person 50. No Clue 51. Japanese rice wine 52. Retired St. Jerome’s Prof.; also, “Will” of Will & Grace” 53. Japanese for front or forward 56. To the ___ degree
“A better club, like Laurier’s Turret; bird feeders.” Kelly Elker
1b Geo and Environmental Sciences
“Take down an old building and make a new green space.” Kyle Tran
4A Kinesiology
“Playground, waterslide, small water park, multi-seasonal.” Emilie Pickell and Nitin Milik
Maggie Clark
4A Arts Anthro and 4B Science
May 30 solutions
editor@imprint.uwaterloo.ca
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Across 1. Opposed to (suffix) 5. Everybody does this, but especially our geese 10. Very intense, as with a profound thought 14. To restrain or control 15. Jelly of meat or fish stock 16. Kiln for drying hops or tobacco 17. To be introduced 18. Abbreviation for stenographer 19. Major or minor, of the beer variety 20. A vanity, as in the furniture (2 wrds) 23. Daughter of Uranus and Gaia; mother of the Olympian gods 24. Can___, a term for Canadian writing 25. Dukes of Hazzard sheriff 28. Rectangular area surrounded on all sides by buildings 30. Water that accumulates in the early morning 33. A female of this water- frequenting mammalian species is called a “queen” 34. To change orientation or direction 35. Shred 36. To cite precisely, as from the Bible, is to quote these 39. One of many European peoples occupying Britain and Spain before Roman times 40. Male gatherings in certain species for the purpose of mating displays 41. Country bordered by Saudi Arabia and Oman 42. Source from whence rocks and minerals are extracted 43. Abreviation for Chinese small, shortlegged dog breed 44. Iraqi currency 45. A segment of a circle’s circumference 46. Sea eagles 47. To remove the mythical element from 53. Three of these are said to have shown up in Bethlehem 54. Many very small amounts 55. To gain by means of merit 57. Mine entrance built into side of hill 58. Newspaper section detailing death notices 59. Short play 60. “____ come, ____ go.”
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Dear Sexy Guitarist, I first saw you when you played with your band at the Science end of term last term. I love your sexy tattoo. Why don’t you show me the rest of your body? — Your Personal Groupie
you said were beautiful, your big blue eyes were the only singing I could hear. I know one thing for sure: there is a strange tingling in my pants... and the Reason is you. — AK
three, and then I’ll never have another chance. I should go for it, I know, but if you don’t feel the same way will that ruin everything? Give me a sign — any sign. Even if it’s a red light, at least I’ll know for sure. — Waiting Too Long
I saw you at the Spur, singing “The ReasonHoobastank”.You were wearing a t-shirt with the number 36.. and though the words
It’s funny how I’ve finally realized how much I love you, just as our time together is drawing to a close.Two months, maybe
Missed a connection? Wanna break the ice? Send your missed connections to distractions@imprint.uwaterloo.ca
“Private lake for dragon boats.” UW Dragonboat Team
“Creative design students for new start-up companies.” Majid Mirza
4b Arts and Business
“Ask me when they’re finished Bomber... and DP... and Accounting...and...” Jonathan Menon
4B History and Political Science
Sports & Living
Imprint, Friday, June 13, 2008 sports@imprint.uwaterloo.ca
Warriors in the heat
Photos by Dinh Nguyen
Top: Computer design PhD student, Aniket Kate, drawing from “the force” to score in a friendly game of cricket in the field between Lyle Hallman and the SLC. Bottom right: Third year bio-med student Nisha Khosla (black shorts), 3A kinesiology student David Chiang (blues shorts) and friends watched amazed as 2nd year nano-technology miracle worker Matt McDonald preformed his finishing move in a game of post-intramural meeting beach ball outside Federation Hall. Bottom left: Campus Rec fittness class lead by 4A kinesiology student, Heather Reilly, recreates Eric Prydz’s “Call on me” with style, and done the right way.
MiniEuro 2008 — Waterloo’s first annual 5 v 5 outdoor soccer tournament When: Saturday, June 21st, 2008 Registration: June 1, 9 a.m to June 18, 4:30 p.m. at the PAC Athletic office (eight people per team max) Cost: $60 per team, all proceeds will be donated to the varsity soccer program
Mandatory team captain meeting on June 19, 5:30 p.m. at PAC 2021. (one representative per team)
Fitness Core Land Class
— A 30 minutes class that focuses on the muscles of
the body core - back, hips, abs - for less pain, better posture and sculpted abs. See left picture above.
When: Every Wednesday from 7 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Columbia Icefield. Next meeting on June 18, 2008. Program ends on July 28, 2008. Make sure to bring a valid WATcard.
Campus Recreation Yoga club meeting
— Relieve stress and main-
tain physical strength and stamina with yoga. The Campus Rec Yoga club is lead by professional instructors and teaches both Hatha and Power yoga (Ashtanga.)
Registration: In person at the next meeting When: Next meeting are on June 14 and 21, 2008, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Also on June 20, 2008 from 2:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Cost: $30, cash and chaques only Students must have a valid WATcard to attend.
joyce hsu