Vol. 20 Issue. 30
November 14 – 20, 2012
www.ufvcascade.ca
Undergoing a metamorphosis since 1993
Be afraid. Be very afraid. Fly infestation at TTC leaves students searching for solutions p. 6
Give me my tampons back, UFV! p. 8
The latest on AfterMath: EGM coming Nov. 21 p. 3
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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2012
INSIDE THIS WEEK’S ISSUE News
Opinion
Arts & Life
Sports & Health
There’s a Liberal Among Us!
Well, the Weather Outside is Frightful...
Theatre Galore!
Turn up the Heat!
You’ve probably heard the name “Darryl Plecas” in the news as the expert viewpoint on crime. He’s UFV’s premier criminologist, and last week he announced that he’ll be seeking the Liberal nomination for Abbotsford South. Nadine Moedt talks to him about the economy, the competition, and the problems he hopes to solve if he gains office.
How soon is too soon when it comes to Christmas? In the midst of picking up rotten chunks of pumpkin off of her driveway, Jess Wind discusses the pitfall of starting the Christmas celebrations too soon. Like the unwanted houseguest that just won’t take a hint, Christmas shows up too early, and doesn’t want to leave.
UFV Theatre and Gallery 7 played shows this week, and writers Nadine Moedt and Brittni Brown attended. UFV theatre students took on a challenging three-act set in Once in a Lifetime; Gallery 7 performers—including a UFV theatre student— treated the audience to Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility.
Mike Cadarette and Karen Aney have been spending a lot of time at the rink lately, maybe (in Aney’s case especially) too much time. Get the stats, the summary, and the skinny on those “adorable” OKC Barons superstars from last weekend’s doubleheader.
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pg. 19
pg. 4
pg. 7
NICK UBELS THE CASCADE
British Columbia should legalize recreational marijuana. That’s right. MJ. Weed. Reefer. BC bud. Marijuana cigarettes. Doobies. Who ever thought that some U.S. states would pursue a more progressive substance policy than us? Colorado and Washington recently voted to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. Concerns about tightened U.S. border security and the detrimental impact on trade if British Columbia liberalized its pot laws were once a major obstacle to similar measures north of the 49th parallel. But these fears can now be put aside considering the incoming Washington legislation. So why should marijuana be legalized in BC? First, I need to admit something: I don’t smoke pot. I know, I know. Canadian university student, English major, into music, yada yada yada. But it’s not my thing. However, that doesn’t mean that I think that other adults across this province shouldn’t be allowed to enjoy the relaxing effects of a natural substance. There are a number of problems with the way marijuana prohibition works in BC. For all the hand-wringing about the morality of smoking pot, I think it should be pointed out that, by
Image: screenshot from The Breakfast Club (1985)
and large, choosing to smoke is a decision that only affects the person who’s using – and the number of McDonald’s chicken nuggets sold at three in the morning. Unlike hard drugs, moderate marijuana use yields relatively few harmful effects. Most of these are more similar to that of cigarettes or cigars. If we are willing to trust adults enough to make their own choices about substances such as alcohol, tobacco, caffeine and refined sugars (all of which can be harmful), certainly marijuana would also fall into this category. BC needs to stop treating its citizens like children. It is not the responsibility or the right of the government to legislate personal morality. Look, I get it. People are afraid that as soon as the government
Editor-in-chief nick@ufvcascade.ca Nick Ubels Managing editor amy@ufvcascade.ca Amy Van Veen Business manager joe@ufvcascade.ca Joe Johnson Online editor michael@ufvcascade.ca Michael Scoular
EDITORIAL
Toke up, Johnny!
Volume 20 · Issue 30 Room C1027 33844 King Road Abbotsford, BC V2S 7M8 604.854.4529
Production manager stewart@ufvcascade.ca Stewart Seymour loosens up on these laws, everybody and their dog will be lighting up joints, tie-dying their shirts and renting summer cottages on the Sunshine Coast. But do you honestly think that whether or not marijuana is legal is going to make a difference in whether British Columbians use it or not? Legalizing pot would dramatically reduce gang violence in the Lower Mainland by cutting off the profitability of their primary source of income. The Centre of Addictions Research of BC reports that approximately 680,000 British Columbians use marijuana each year and another 12,000 use other illicit substances. This makes marijuana the most sought after substance on the black market. These gangs are motivated by profitability and a move such as this would discourage this sort of activity from the source. Most of the people I know who enjoy marijuana are otherwise law-abiding citizens who would greatly appreciate the opportunity to obtain weed through legitimate channels. Some argue that these gangs will turn to other sources for income, including more violent crimes and extortion. I will admit, legalizing would likely result in a potentially difficult period of transition, but one that would result in a safer province in the long run. No other criminal activity is so attractive to gang organization than the dealing of illegal goods through a businesslike struc-
ture. Other criminal activities are much less profitable, requiring more work for a smaller payday. These crimes are also easier for police to investigate and make arrests for, making them riskier for criminals to attempt. If marijuana is legalized, regulated and taxed, it will not only help further police resources in improving public safety, but greatly increase revenue at the provincial level, which could be invested in schools, hospitals, infrastructure and all kinds of things that would greatly improve quality of life in BC. Especially considering the economic hardship this province has been valiantly trying to stave off over the past few years, additional revenue and tax-eligible jobs in a new industry would be a welcome if not necessary move. The Washington law is set to come into place in the next year and, for the first time, a sitting BC MLA has announced his support. The political climate is right for a strong push for legalization. With a provincial election just around the corner, expect to see one or both major parties announce a platform that includes marijuana legalization as one of its main items. And we should support such a policy. It’s not only the clear choice for public safety and the economy, but for responsibility and trust in the public. It’s time to grow up.
UPCOMING EVENTS November 19
November 12-16
Tuesdays and Wednesdays
November 23
“It’s a Girl!”
Celebrate international flavours all week
Time for a classy meal
Good guy CIVL brings beats to campus
In most parts of the world, this is a happy announcement. But this isn’t always the case; the Centre of Indo Canadian Studies will be bringing a documentary to campus this week that addresses the problem of an estimated 200 million missing girls. You can catch the film in B101 at 6 p.m. – tickets are $10, and all proceeds go to the GirlKind Foundation.
Looking for something to get you through the mid-November slump? Have no fear – international week is here. There are multicultural events every day this week designed to get you thinking of our global community. Visit www.ufvtoday. ca for more information or drop by U-house for the deets!
One of UFV’s best-kept secrets is the fine dining experience at Rivers Dining Room at the Trades and Technology Centre. After classes have ended for the day, culinary students under expert supervision put together a four-course meal and an elegant environment. For only $29.95, it could all be yours! Phone 604-8475404 or email rivers@ufv. ca for more information.
Catch some wicked bands at your local campus pub. Where else can you support local talent for only five dolla dolla bill, y’all? Beer! Burgers! Rock and roll! This is what university is about. Show up at AfterMath at 6:30 and we’ll get the ball rolling. It’s gonna be hip. It’s gonna be fly. It’s gonna be whatever else the kids are calling it these days.
Art director anthony@ufvcascade.ca Anthony Biondi Copy editor joel@ufvcascade.ca Joel Smart News editor news@ufvcascade.ca Dessa Bayrock Opinion editor opinion@ufvcascade.ca Sean Evans Arts & life editor arts@ufvcascade.ca Sasha Moedt Sports editor sports@ufvcascade.ca Paul Esau News writer jess@ufvcascade.ca Jess Wind Photojournalist blake@ufvcascade.ca Blake McGuire Staff writers Karen Aney, Taylor Johnson, Nadine Moedt Contributors Kyle Balzer, Trevor Braun, Brittni Brown, Mike Cadarette, Jeremy Hannaford, Hailey Rollheiser, Ali Siemens, Tim Ubels Printed By International Web exPress The Cascade is UFV’s autonomous student newspaper. It provides a forum for UFV students to have their journalism published. It also acts as an alternative press for the Fraser Valley. The Cascade is funded with UFV student funds. The Cascade is published every Wednesday with a circulation of 1500 and is distributed at UFV campuses and throughout Abbotsford, Chilliwack, and Mission. The Cascade is a member of the Canadian University Press, a national cooperative of 75 university and college newspapers from Victoria to St. John’s. The Cascade follows the CUP ethical policy concerning material of a prejudicial or oppressive nature. Submissions are preferred in electronic format through e-mail. Please send submissions in “.txt” or “.doc” format only. Articles and letters to the editor must be typed. The Cascade reserves the right to edit submissions for clarity and length. The Cascade will not print any articles that contain racist, sexist, homophobic or libellous content. The writer’s name and student number must be submitted with each submission. Letters to the editor must be under 250 words if intended for print. Only one letter to the editor per writer in any given edition. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect that of UFV, Cascade staff and collective, or associated members.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2012
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NEWS
The current state of AfterMath
An update on the campus pub in light of SUS’s upcoming Extrodinary General Meeting JESS WIND
THE CASCADE
Students and SUS are pulling together to find a way to reopen the doors for the winter semester. In a SUS board meeting held on November 2, students asked for more time to find a solution. As the situation sounds right now, AfterMath will remain open until November 30. According to AfterMath manager Brad Ross, it is an on-campus issue that students are finally getting passionate about. “It solves the apathy problem on this campus for the first time, big time,” he said, noting that there are nearly 400 members on the “Oppose Closure of Aftermath Socialhouse” (sic) Facebook group. SUS board members, Ross and determined students have all been thinking of creative solutions for the preservation of the pub since the decision passed to keep AfterMath open for the remainder of the fall semester. SUS president Shane Potter highlighted some of their efforts. “We’ve worked on a task force of sorts. The whole goal behind this group is essentially to put . . . people with insight for numbers and insight for communication [together] so that we can efficiently and effectively inform the students,” Potter explained. He has elected to step out of the meetings, appointing VP internal Greg Stickland as chair. “I really feel that this task force should be a bottom-up solution; a from-the-students solution,” Potter explained, “So I wanted it to be lopsided with . . . student voice.” This is why, Potter explained, there were three SUS board members (including Stickland as
AfterMath’s future is uncertain after it closes early for the season on November 30. chair) in the room, compared to eight student representatives. The goal of this task force was not to come up with a solution to save AfterMath, but to determine the most truthful and comprehensive way to present the numbers to students who will be voting at the upcoming general meeting on November 21. Aaron Levy, manager of UFV’s CIVL radio, was part of this task force. He pointed out some of the miscommunication surrounding the AfterMath and SUS budgets, which are available online. “It’s my impression that students are under the impression that AfterMath costs $80,000 a year to run . . . The more accurate way to explain it is that SUS budgets to lose $80,000 on AfterMath,” Levy explained. AfterMath’s budget shows a cost of $306,135 to run from April
2012 until the end of March 2013. They projected to make back $225,450 of that total cost in sales. This is where the $80,000 comes in; this is the deficit that SUS accounted for in their current budget. Levy went on to describe the best case scenario for AfterMath. “Right now, if AfterMath makes more money than previously projected over . . . the rest of the year, that deficit wouldn’t have to remain a loss,” he explained. However, AfterMath is on track to exceed the $80,000 deficit, which is how it is being viewed on the SUS budget. Anything over this number and SUS is put into financial jeopardy. Whether it is referred to as a budget or a deficit depends on the perspective, but the result is still the same – there is no more money.
AfterMath service staff debate wages DESSA BAYROCK THE CASCADE
As part of the effort to cut costs at AfterMath, employees have begun discussing the possibility of giving up their paycheques for the remainder of the month. However, this is not as simple a process as it seems. There are several issues with this idea; first of all, all parties have to careful to stay within BC labour laws. According to these provincial guidelines, workers cannot simply waive their wages. They also cannot purely work for tips. The two options currently on the table, according to interim SUS president Shane Potter, would be for staff to still receive paycheques and donate them back to AfterMath after the fact, or for servers to quit and work as volunteers for the rest of semester. It’s currently unclear what stage this proposal is in. AfterMath manager Brad Ross commented on record last week that it has already been implemented.
“Staff has forfeited their hourly salary and they’re going to work for tips which is going to save us a ton of money,” he said. Brad Ross later retracted this statement, saying that he expected the changes to take place by the time his comments would be published and this was not, in fact, the case. “I think that it’s a very selfless and valiant effort to offset the cost of AfterMath at this time,” Potter says. “We just, as a society, have to look at the legal ramifications of this.” The second issue in play is the importance of it being a unanimous move on the part of the servers, which is currently untrue. Dakota Ross, one of the current servers at AfterMath and son of manager Brad Ross, was the first to bring up the idea of giving wages back to the pub. “I brought that up, and the staff seemed to be somewhat on board about it, for the most part,” he says. “I’d say at least eighty per cent of them were for it.” While saving the server wages ould help cut down on AfterMath’s losses for this month
(Potter estimates no more $6000 in saved wages would be saved out of a $10,000 budget for the month), it is by no means a permanent solution. “It’s a question of, okay, I love this place, I really love the people I work with, I respect my boss – but can I afford to work for nothing?” Ally Schuurman says. She worked at the pub both this year and last, although she is currently on leave for unrelated reasons. “It’s only meant to be a shortterm solution,” Dakota Ross admits. “It’s not meant to solve the problem. It was only really meant to try to give a couple more weeks for SUS to figure stuff out for the next year.” These options are still on the table and being discussed, but the clock is ticking. Potter notes that it’s fairly late in the month to still be discussing these options – AfterMath is slated to close on November 30, no matter what happens at the SUS EGM on the 21. These changes would not apply to kitchen staff or Brad Ross’ salary.
Image: creative commons
SUS has depleted their capital this year to make up for oversights and financial mishandling of previous boards. They requested a loan from UFV, but were informed that the university is not in a position assist. If the money is going to be reallocated from somewhere else in the budget, Potter said he refuses to decide on behalf of the entire student body whether or not other services should be cut to pay for AfterMath. “The information is widely spread in the community,” Potter said, “[and] they will be able to make informed decisions.” The task force will be meeting again before the general meeting on November 21, and all the budgets are available on the SUS website for anyone looking to get informed. Since this issue goes beyond a
SUS budget problem, AfterMath is doing their part to save pennies too. AfterMath’s menus were printed in September, but since then food costs have skyrocketed and are eating into revenue. Ross has spoken with Sysco—their food distributor—and arranged a freeze on prices to see them to the end of the month. “Sysco has locked the price in, at least for November, to guarantee that what we paid at the beginning of the year is what we’re going to continue to pay,” Ross said, as well as noting that as of November 12 some items have been cut from the new menu. The kitchen has also done their part in producing homemade specials and soups. “We’ve cut costs by making our own soups . . . We have sold out almost every day on the soups or the daily specials which are all pretty well homemade for the first time ever,” Ross added. Another factor in the mix is the increased revenue AfterMath has received from the success of the newly-introduced pub nights. Ross and Potter both urge students who are against this closure to get informed, get involved and vote. “Sitting at home, liking [the page] on Facebook is great, but you have to be here,” Ross explained. They have to reach a quorum of 100 voters on November 21 for any motions to be considered, and Ross says he would like to see the 400 members from the Facebook page or the names on the petition come out to vote. Potter wants students to understand the situation from both the SUS and AfterMath perspectives. “All I ask is that students are informed of the situation so that we can all make proper decisions,” he said.
What’s AfterMath worth to you?
What SUS would have to do to keep AfterMath open until March According to average projections, the SUS would need to cut $50,000 from elsewhere in their overall budget to keep AfterMath operating until the end of the fiscal year in March 2013. In a worst-case scenario, it’s possible this money will not be sufficient to keep it open until the next budget year. In order to reach this number, other budgets will need to be eliminated or cut entirely. It’s likely these measures will be put into a motion to be voted on in next Wednesday’s EGM.
Cut out
The remainder of these budgets would need to be liquidated and put into AfterMath: - Chilliwack events budget; - Abbotsford events budget; - Conference fund (CASA and other conferences); - Remainder of CASA budget; - Mileage for directors; - Handouts and swag (mints, pens, t-shirts, etc); - Advocacy fund (planning advocacy events including Cinema Politica); - Accessibility.
Cut down
The following budget lines would need to be cut down, but not drained: - Athletics (free varsity games for students); - SUS president honourarium; - SUS executive honouraria.
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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2012
NEWS
“Let’s get the friggin’ job done.”
Darryl Plecas chooses to run Liberal in Abbotsford South, talks solutions, passion and the competition NADINE MOEDT THE CASCADE
UFV criminologist Darryl Plecas has announced his decision to run in Abbotsford South as a BC Liberal MLA candidate in the 2013 provincial election. Plecas, who has taught at UFV for 33 years and currently holds the RCMP research chair, cites economic factors as a large part of his decision to run. “Most governments in the world are in pretty serious financial trouble,” Plecas says. “If they’re not in economic disaster they’re on the brink of disaster. I worry about that happening in BC.” While BC has managed to keep its head above water, Plecas says he doesn’t trust the NDP to maintain success in that area. They’ve done “absolutely catastrophically economically,” he says. “They drove us into the financial gutter.” It is not simply our flagging economy that motivated Plecas to run. Without a stable economic foundation, he says, there’s no money for education, social services and public safety. “We do not provide enough care for people with mental health issues, we do not provide enough social services, we do not do what we need to be doing for the homeless,” Plecas says. “Why don’t we? Because we don’t have the money.” Plecas’s solution? Resource development and strong economic policies.
Image: ufv
Plecas has taught Criminology at UFV for 33 years and is now seeking the Liberal nomination.
ness-owner Lakhvinder Jhaj, who will be running for NDP, and John van Dongen, who won the riding—as a Liberal—in 2009 with 59 per cent. Van Dongen has since defected, joined the Conservatives, and then left that party to run as an independent. He is a strong candidate, and likely to be Plecas’s major opponent. Plecas respects van Dongen, but doesn’t agree with his decision to run as independent. “It’s just not speaking to being a team player, [and] not speaking to being inclusive,” Plecas says. “I don’t believe you can serve a community well by being an independent.” An edge Plecas has over his opponents is his work as a prison judge and his long history of successfully resolving the disputes related to some of the most violent offenders in the country. So although he has no experience in politics, he’s not too worried. “I hope I never ever sound like a politician,” he says, laughing, “and anyone who hears me talking like one should tell me to shut up because I’m going into this being who I am and hopefully people will like that.” Plecas says that while he might not have the experience, he has the passion. “I’m so sick of apathy, bureaucracy, things not happening. I want to see action,” he concludes. “Let’s get the friggin’ job done.”
BC is an “extremely resourcerich province,” Plecas states. Resources that are “no use to us are sitting in the ground.” Plecas looks at projects like the proposed pipelines as a question of how to help the economy grow or stabilize, or work in a different way to appease protesters. Another issue Plecas says he would like to see addressed as MLA is public safety. While crime has been reduced in BC, he
believes there is still more to be done and points to our clogged court system as a perfect example. “Our criminal justice system is under enormous strain,” he says, and offers the solution of establishing of a “night court.” If every other part of the justice system works 24 hours a day, Plecas asks, why shouldn’t the courts? Our clogged court system is “an inconvenience for citizens and an inconvenience for offenders,” Ple-
cas says. “Dozens of things like that need to be changed.” Plecas’s decision to run as a Liberal stems from his belief that the NDP and Conservative parties are “inherently less inclusive then Liberals.” As a Liberal, he feels he can be someone who is interested in everyone’s opinion and not polarized by views that are “too extreme.” As Liberal candidate, Plecas’s competition includes small busi-
Image: lanier67/Flickr Creative Commons
Image: Reuters
Image: Taylor Martin
Image: Reuters/Mark Blinch/Files
Minimum pricing lowers high-alcohol drink consumption: study
Three more killed by Italy floods, hundreds evacuated
Two UBC students avoid Vancouver’s high cost of living.
Canada’s Supreme Court strips Viagra patent from Pfizer
U.S. to soon determine post-2014 troop presence in Afghanistan
OTTAWA (CUP) — A team of researchers led by University of Victoria professor Tim Stockwell concluded raising the minimum price of beverages with high alcohol content reduces their consumption. A study focusing mainly on pricing strategies in Saskatchewan concluded that prices should be raised for any drink over 6.5% alcohol content. “Often incentives are set up the wrong way — the stronger alcoholic drinks are cheaper and the less hazardous drinks are more expensive,” said Stockwell. “All the incentives seem to be geared towards giving people access to cheap, high-strength alcohol.”
FLORENCE (Reuters) — In all four people have died in flooding that forced part of the country’s main north-south highway to close and has damaged many homes and shops as well as thousands of acres of farmland. “Even if you listen to the oldest inhabitants this has never happened before,” said Orte resident Luca Seccese. “It has completely destroyed us.” Water levels were receding in Venice, the lagoon city and UNESCO World Heritage Site that at the weekend saw its sixth-highest water levels since records began in 1872.
VANCOUVER (The Ubyssey) — Taylor Martin and Rene Allain, both UBC students, have been living on a sailboat anchored off the shore of Kits Beach since September. Martin said that Allain has always dreamed of owning a boat, so when the two saw a free one on Craigslist last spring, they decided to seize the opportunity. “[We] didn’t want to deal with finding a house or a sublet and kind of had a cheaper option, so we just decided to live on a boat.”
OTTAWA (Reuters) — Canada’s Supreme Court struck down the patent on global pharmaceuticals giant Pfizer Inc’s Viagra erectile dysfunction drug on Thursday and opened the door to generic competition. The court backed an appeal by Israeli-based Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd—the world’s largest generic drug maker—which argued Pfizer had been too vague when filing its patent, which runs out in 2014 in Canada. In a unanimous 7-0 verdict, the court said Pfizer had not provided enough details to identify the active ingredient in Viagra.
USA (Reuters) The United States will determine in the next several weeks how many troops it will keep in Afghanistan as part of a residual force following the drawdown of most combat forces at the end of 2014, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Monday. “My hope is that we’ll be able to complete this process in the next few weeks,” Panetta told reporters. “I’m confident that we’ll be able to get to the right number that we’re going to need for the post-2014 enduring presence.”
NEWS BRIEFS
Image: Reuters/Francois Lenoir
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2012
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NEWS
CEP campus turns into film set , and not for the last time JESS WIND
THE CASCADE
If you look closely at Canadian comedian Brent Butt’s new film No Clue you may recognize UFV’s Chilliwack Education Park (CEP) campus – maybe even some UFV students. This past Halloween, film crews took over CEP and transformed UFV’s new building into a series of executive offices, reception rooms and a formal gala hall. Filming took place over the following two days, and students were encouraged to take part as extras for the gala scene. UFV facilities manager Craig Toews described how the opportunity to film at CEP manifested itself. “The former military engineering building that was out at CEP had a lot of inquiries [over the years] . . . because it looks like a big concrete bunker,” he said, adding that the land is part of the filming industry database, which lists available filming locations. “I had a call from this group who was filming in Vancouver,” Toews explained. “They had
toured through our facility and really thought the architecture lent itself to the one big scene that they were looking for.” The connection was made through Chilliwack Economic Partners Corporation (CEPCO), the economic arm of Chilliwack that worked closely with UFV during the purchase of the land for the CEP. Toews was part of the contract negotiation ensuring both the campus and the film crew’s needs were sufficiently met. “The first part of the arrangement is negotiation – the scope of what they want to use. The times, the places, the spaces, what type of equipment, what type of impact,” he explained. “Then the next step was . . . getting an idea of how disruptive it might be, talking to the academic side around what the impact would be with this type of activity.” There were some requests put forward by the film crew that Toews and the campus were not comfortable with and needed to be altered. “They wanted to set up a big light rigging arrangement in the atrium. I [said] ‘that’s not going to
work because we’ve got the wood’ . . . so they put lights up on the roof and installed some sheets to bounce the light down into the atrium,” he explained. Other campus spaces that were utilized included a classroom, which acted as an executive office, and the aboriginal service area, which transformed into a reception space. “The aboriginal services area was ideal for [the reception] and they were really ecstatic to have their space in the movie,” Toews said. The film’s formal investors’ gala scene, which featured roughly 100 extras, was one of the biggest scenes of the shoot. Extras signed up from both the Chilliwack community and the UFV community. “This was an opportunity for our theatre students to get involved. It was really interesting [to see] how the director was orchestrating the whole rehearsal. [It] would be very much like a theatrical program,” Toews explained. Extras were involved for about half of the two-day shoot, staying on set until the wee hours of Saturday morning. They were
Rank, tenure and why it matters to students KAREN ANEY THE CASCADE
Rank and tenure has long been a focus of discussion at our university. As the Faculty and Staff Association (FSA) begin their bargaining process with university administration, ideas of how to implement such a system at our institution are at the forefront of many instructors’ minds. However, it’s important for students to pay attention as well. Tenure is a by-product of rank in that it is often awarded with the title of professor (as opposed to assistant or associate professor). This means, essentially, that the professor has job security – excepting extraneous circumstances, they will not be let go. In the Canadian university system, rank and tenure are typically directly related. Because our college and university systems are distinct, rank is even more critical. Colleges do not refer to their instructors as professors, and universities do. Generally, those referred to as professor have obtained a doctorate of some sort. Vicki Grieve, chief negotiator for the FSA, explained that implementing a system of rank could elevate the status of our institution. “Some of our faculty who have come from big universities, they lack a kind of cache if they go to conferences or to present papers. It seems like the rank of instructor might hold them back, certainly in terms of prestige,” she notes. Elevated prestige makes our
institution more attractive to potential instructors (or professors). This means the introduction of rank at UFV could result in an elevated calibre of instruction. It could also result in our degrees holding more weight post-graduation. Virginia Cooke, FSA president, worries that the lack of rank at our institution impedes the ability of her students to achieve entrance to graduate schools. “Every single reference letter and form I write . . . will ask me what my rank is, and I will have to explain on every single one of them that we don’t have a rank here,” she says. “I worry when I’m writing references for students without that title.” Given Cooke’s experience at our institution, including time as a dean, this idea—that her recommendation could hold less influence than references from a professor—is indicative of how crucial the issue of rank truly is to students. Another direct correlation is related to tenure. There are ongoing discussions in the academic world of whether tenure is beneficial to students or not. It creates potential for professors to decline in the classroom yet continue teaching. This, in conjunction with the consistently full classes at our institution, could create even more fierce competition to be in favoured classrooms. However, achieving tenure does give professors the pleasure of academic freedom. Being (mostly) impervious to institution backlash allows professors to research and publish without catering to their employers. It allows
for an environment of academic integrity. In this same vein, it creates opportunities for students. Grieve elaborated on this, stating that many instructors feel a system of rank and tenure will attract more research grants. “[These grants] will provide students with research opportunities,” she said. Not only are these generally paid positions, but working in the capacity of a research assistant is sometimes a critical asset when applying for graduate school and adds depth to any professional working resume. The FSA has documents on their website regarding this discussion dating back as early as 2009. The most recent of these, from May of this year, lists priorities in the “consideration of ranking processes and tenure systems; . . . the primary importance of teaching; the value of research and its relationship to teaching; the diversity of faculty research and scholarship; the significance and wide range of service as measures of excellence.” Given current contract negotiations, Grieves and Cooke were unable to discuss specific aspects of what the faculty will be requesting of the administration. These priorities, though, suggest that the implementation of rank will be a positive shift for the student body.
responsible for bringing in a selection of their own costumes— black tie formal wear—for the gala scene. Extras took part in the two day shoot, staying on set until the wee hours of Saturday morning. They were responsible for bringing in a selection of their own formal costumes for the large gala scene. Theatre student Alissa Benteau described the experience as a love-hate relationship. “It is a lot of repetition. Everyone seemed to be very nice and helpful which was good because I didn’t have a clue what I was doing in the beginning,” she explained, adding that she would like to see more opportunities like this on campus. “It would be great if there were more chances like this one ... I’m sure students would hop on the idea [and] be involved.” This may be the first film that UFV has lent space to, but it isn’t likely to be the last. Toews mentioned that there are already more production companies showing interest in filming opportunities on UFV property. “We’ve had some inquiries about our Chilliwack North cam-
pus [and] we would be completely open to filming opportunities there,” Toews described, noting that it would be perfect for school scenes. “And if [you] want to blow up the motel, we’ve got a building just for you!” he continued, laughing. Toews added that he would be more cautious with the next project. “There were minor damages [from the shoot] that need to be repaired,” he said. “Now that I was personally involved in this, it was quite time consuming and I think we’d want to be cautious [in the future].” It was a learning experience for the university as well as an opportunity to showcase the new campus. In the end everyone’s needs were met and students were given an opportunity to gain practical experience on a film set. “Overall, it was a positive experience,” Toews concluded. “I think the filming industry . . . left with a good feeling that we’re film-friendly.”
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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2012
NEWS
Film critic defends independent cinema DESSA BAYROCK THE CASCADE
“Why are the movies so bad these days?” That’s the question David Spaner pursues in new book, Shoot It!, inspired by his work as a film critic for The Province daily newspaper, and it was also the question he discussed with a Film 110 class last week as a guest lecturer. As film professor Michael Dayan introduces him to the class, Spaner raises his eyebrows, as though he’s incredulous at his own accolades. Movie critic for nine years. Editor. Columnwriter. Winner of the Publishers Award for best feature writing. Co-founder of the Vancouver Film Critics Circle. “What you find when you work as a film critic,” he tells the film class, “at least 80 per cent of it is absolutely awful.” As part of his lecture, Spaner presents clips of several iconic actors—from James Dean to Miranda July—explaining the difference between the eight big Hollywood studios and independent films. When “the talkies” started becoming popular, he says, Hollywood imported actors, writers and directors from New York to keep up with demand. “The studios didn’t mind them, as long as they were writing things like Casablanca,” Spaner says, noting that this is where the split between big movie houses and filmmakers began, which evolved into the culture we live in now – where “car crashes replace dialogue.”
Image: Dessa Bayrock/The Cascade
Dayan visited a first-year film class last week to talk about the history of independent film. Spaner tracks the process of evolution from studio to smaller-scale films with exhilaration, stopping to show clips as examples. He likens the first wave of filmmakers who started “making movies outside the system,” to modern culture of independent filmmakers, where anyone with a camera can make a film. The main way to differentiate between studio films and independent films, Spaner says, is the motivation for making a movie.
Studios are defined by their intent to make profit rather than their subject matter, which sometimes embraces counterculture in an effort to capture a counterculture audience. He grins as he shows the clips that demonstrate this – counterculture coming up against the old ways. “I try to show how film reflects what’s going on in society,” he says. “The way it’s evolved by now is these giant global con-
glomerates . . . aimed at audiences everywhere.” “What does that do to independent filmmakers,” he continues, “when they’re dominated by this global system?” Spaner goes on to talk about Korea as an example of a country where independent filmmakers are encouraged, and a certain quota of Korean-made films must be shown in theatres by law. This system, he says, has potential to work in Canada.
It’s similar to the Canadian Content (CanCon) laws in place in Canada’s music industry, which Spaner notes is part of the reason Canadian music has such a strong footing in the industry today. “I think if you did do a quota in Canada, that people would rise to the occasion. There’s a lot of talent in Canada,” he says, especially in the era of digital filmmaking. Shooting a movie is no longer as lengthy nor as expensive. Spaner notes that only 30 or 40 independent films used to be shot in the U.S. per year, in contrast to the 12,000 films submitted to the Sundance Film Festival last year alone. “Digital’s changed everything,” Spaner says. “Now anyone can do it and give it a try.” Although this means there is more selection when it comes to what to watch on movie night, Spaner says that audiences have more to decide these days than just popcorn flavours. Supporting local or independent film will allow those filmmakers to keep working. Watching the latest installment in a superhero franchise will only support Hollywood’s obsession with blockbuster movies. But at the end of the day, Spaner says, it’s important to follow your heart and watch what you enjoy. “I got into this because I love movies,” he says. “What I like in a film is something that makes me feel something emotionally. And I think most audiences will agree.”
TTC fly problem leaves students disgusted NICK UBELS THE CASCADE
Students at UFV’s Trades and Technology Centre (TTC) are fed up with the uninvited guests invading some of their classrooms. The second floor of the original CEP building has been suffering from a fly problem since at least 2007, but students are saying little is being done to find a permanent solution. Dead flies used to accumulate in the casing around fluorescent lighting fixtures, but facilities has since replaced these with metal grates to avoid such build up. Instead, hospitality student Jarin McSween says, the insects now
drop directly onto students when they die. “I was doing an accounting midterm and one landed on my ear,” he says. Evidence of the flies can be found on desks each morning and in untouched corners of the classrooms where the insect carcasses continue to pile up. McSween has collected a number of the dead flies in a plastic cup to demonstrate to staff the severity of the problem. “That was over the course of an hour of my time,” he says, referring to the container, “and that was how many flies I caught, so it’s crazy.” Fellow hospitality student Anastasia Barkman says that the fly
Image: Dessa Bayrock/The Cascade
Cup of flies collected by hospitality student Jarin McSween.
problem affected only classrooms on the southern side of the building originally, but the insects have been steadily migrating northward each year. “It wasn’t so much of a problem in this class,” she says, “but now it’s progressively traveling; you can see them traveling through the lights.” The problem flares up during the warmer months and dies out when the flies freeze during the winter. That means that the problem is starting to subside, but it’s a yearly cycle and has returned every spring without fail since the building was opened. Students say that since this problem disappears for the cold season, it has never been fully addressed; as soon as complaints reach fever pitch, the flies subside only to re-emerge when the weather warms up again. According to one electronics student, the flies are already starting to slow down as December approaches. “It seems to be better the last week,” he says, “but it was real bad for a long time.” He went on to explain that the flies are more of a nuisance than a health concern. “Every day we come in here and there’s just,” he says. “You constantly have to wipe your bench off. It’s just bad.” Hospitality students, who call
Image: Dessa Bayrock/The Cascade
A row of flies found along TTC classroom window sill. one of the afflicted classrooms their home for their full-time studies, finally decided enough was enough and contacted the SUS board to see if they could push the university to find a solution. “We all emailed the SUS president and he returned every one of our emails,” Barkman says. SUS president Shane Potter has since delegated the issue to new Chilliwack representative Annika Geurtsen. McSween and Barkman say they have yet to hear from Geurtsen, though she has been in contact with facilities to try to find a solution to the [infestation?]
There is widespread speculation that the fly problem is caused by eagles depositing fish carcasses on the roof of the building after hunting in the nearby Vedder River. According to this theory, maggots form on the decomposing fish and then enter the building as flies. “Flies are gross,” McSween says, “but it’s also gross to know they’re coming from dead fish guts.” The Cascade was unable to gain rooftop access before going to print. With files from Dessa Bayrock.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2012
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OPINION
All that is wrong with our society: Christmas in November JESS WIND
THE CASCADE It’s ironic that a day called Remembrance Day is forgotten about, along with American Thanksgiving, term papers and everything else in November due to the fact that Christmas comes a little earlier every year. I have barely washed the pumpkin remnants from my driveway and my neighbours are already hanging red and green lights from their eaves. If you were running away from the rain on Halloween and you happened upon a Starbucks, there is a good chance you could have ordered a hot cup of their seasonal coffee, Christmas blend. Is this because they want to spread Christmas cheer to their customers? Doubtful. Christmas blend—or Holiday blend in certain multicultural demographics—is only offered during the holiday season and it still manages to outsell all other beans that are offered year round. If they start selling it earlier, there is more time to capitalize on sales, so why not offer it the whole year? Clas-
Bobbles should be boxed until December 1. sic marketing; if Starbucks offered the customer favourite all year, people wouldn’t need to go into a purchasing frenzy during November and December. But their brew isn’t the only thing that Starbucks brings us at the beginning of November. Red cups, Christmas pastries, eggnog, caramel brule and gingerbread lattes – calories have never taken such a hit. Starbucks is not alone in determining when Christmas begins. Canadian Tire has started promoting their
Image: mianprou/Flickr
extensive holiday decoration collection as well; all the massive chains are getting on board the consumer train and Santa is due in the malls later this week. Some companies are holding off the season, in response to customer complaints – so I’m not alone. Shoppers Drug Mart has stopped Christmas music from playing in their stores. They explained on their Facebook page on November 2: “Due to recent
AmPol: Sour grapes
complaints around the Christmas music being played in stores we want to advise you that as of midnight EST tonight, all Christmas music will be suspended until further notice.” This was met with 7600 “likes” from other people who, like me, feel that Christmas comes too early every year. In the 5700 comments that followed the post, employee sanity was taken into account. As someone that worked at Starbucks for six years, I can promise you that after seven weeks of Christmas carols and spilling eggnog on yourself, retail employees are ready to set fire to Christmas trees everywhere. Don’t get me wrong, Christmas is my favourite time of year. I wholly embrace the season and its cheery, giving nature. I can’t wait to watch the Grinch save Christmas along with Chevy Chase, Macaulay Culkin and Will Ferrell. Christmas movies grace my television from December 1 until December 26, and not a day sooner. I just can’t buy into this Christmas in November ridiculousness. Profit hungry business giants have decided that we should start emp-
tying our wallets in November. As consumers, we are pathetically predictable – if they give us Christmas early, we will buy into it. And with every year, the snowy holiday will swallow up another one in its path. We’ve already forgotten to respect Remembrance Day, although I suppose poppies match Christmas. It won’t be long before pumpkins start wearing Santa hats and Halloween disappears altogether. What’s more is that while everyone is running around getting prematurely excited for Christmas, while my television is being taken over by bad holiday commercials advertising eternal familial bliss, I am still slaving away with my studies. While Christmas carols are cheerily taking over store soundtracks, I am trying to determine which term paper to start first. I would be far happier if retailers would wait for December to start cramming Christmas cheer down our throats. Christmas takes up more and more of the calendar each year, and succeeds in making me good and bitter by the time I am finally able to enjoy it.
Readers should be free to read what they want TAYLOR JOHNSON THE CASCADE
John “Sean” Adams and George “Nick” Washington. Rivals to the end.
NICK UBELS and SEAN EVANS THE CASCADE
Fresh from their trip to America, Sean and Nick tackle to results of last week’s U.S. election. Obama won the top office in the land, but Republicans still control the House of Representatives. Does this mean four more years of legislative gridlock? Without a second term to worry about, will Obama take the gloves off? How will the re-elected president work to become leader of the whole country again, rather than just the folks who voted for him? Stay tuned. AmPol starts . . . right now. Nick: Four more years! Four more years! Sean: Of what?! Of what?! Of what?! All joking aside, I am mildly relieved Romney didn’t win, albeit more disappointed that there was much less drama than we had hoped for (ie. NASCAR explosions). Nick: So much for our apocalyptically-entertaining split ticket result. Sean: Too bad. Although, the popular vote was fairly close, as it always is. This brings to mind the fact that historically there were no candidates for vice-president. The runner-up in the election was given the vicepresidency. For example, in the very first presidential election, George Washington won the election quite handily, while the crotchety John Adams came in a distant second (which, unsurprisingly, got Mr. Adams into a sour mood). So, Adams was the first Vice-President – a position that he de-
spised. In any case, it would make some degree of sense to have the person that 49 per cent of the nation believes to be the best choice for president, be somehow involved in the leadership of the country. Obviously this would be difficult in the current political environment, but it was difficult in the political environment of George Washington’s day, too. American politics have always been somewhat polarized. Perhaps America would be greatly served if leadership from both sides of the political spectrum could learn to work together. Perhaps some degree of moderation would take place. Thoughts? Nick: It might lend some civility to the proceedings if each candidate were reasonably sure he or she would be working with their primary opponent once the campaign was said and done. Yet I get the feeling this would make for a very tense, if not outright antagonistic relationship between the president and the VP. There would always be a certain amount of trust and good faith missing between the president and what should be his or her closest advisor. But returning to the results, it really seemed like we were in for a much closer battle than the way things actually transpired on November 6. Once the western states started revealing the results, it was over faster than you can say, “the electoral college is a fraudulent and outdated way of selecting a president.” Luckily, Obama also won the popular vote, much to Donald Trump’s chagrin, by nearly
Image: Stewart Seymour/The Cascade
three million votes once California’s numbers came pouring in. Still, there hasn’t been this much outcry against the electoral college system since Gore won the popular vote but lost the presidency to Bush in 2000. Do you think we’ll see a reform of the way presidents are elected before 2016? Sean: No. I think it will take some sort of disastrous election in which no winner can be determined for months (think tie, or multiple recounts in multiple states) before the brutally-outdated system is replaced or reformed. Nick: Abandoning the electoral college system is something I think will be met with a lot of resistance from at least some states. If each vote is to be counted at the same value, there will have to be more regulation of presidential elections on the part of the national government. Sean: I think that what is most disappointing about these results is that we are likely to see two more years (until the next congressional elections) of more of the same. We came out with the same results as we had going in: Democrat administration, Republican-controlled House of Representatives and a Democrat-controlled Senate. I think we could draw the comparison to a minority government in Canada. Unlike Stephen Harper, Barack Obama has not been given a free hand to do what he wants – compromise will be necessary. Check in next week as Sean and Nick discuss some of the challenges that those elected last week will face in the coming years.
Recently a school in California, Rocklin High School, banned Stephen King’s novel Different Seasons. The novel contains a collection of four classic King novellas – Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, Apt Pupil, The Body and The Breathing Method. In an interview with CBS Sacramento, board members were questioned in regards to the book ban issue. Three of the four stories are not the responsible for the rising concern among parents and staff. Apt Pupil contains a graphic page-and-a-half rape scene, which the school committee decided was too much for students and pulled the book from shelves. Aside from Amanda Wong, the decision to ban the book was unanimous. In her interview with CBS Sacramento Wong stated, “I thought it was completely wrong of them to do that. I was really upset. Although I understand this parent’s concerns—I wouldn’t want my little brother reading this— I don’t believe it’s the school’s right to take the entire book out of [the] library just over that.” To make matters even more controversial, Wong was the only member of the committee whom had actually read the book. Other committee members had not heard the entire story before deciding if the book should be banned or not. Wong stated her concern that by banning the novel, it will open the opportunity to ban other books. The issue was taken to the school board, and on Friday it was determined that the novel will remain in the library. Ultimately, it is up to the reader whether or not they want to read the novel. Books and stories have for centuries been the way to pass down information and share experiences, and some experiences are horrible and highly controversial. However, what the reader takes from that story can be beneficial to their own lives. Growing up we heard stories like Hansel and Gretel which warned kids about strangers and wandering too far from home. In literature classes we analyze
novels and texts in order to understand the social issues of the time. Should we really be able to ban books? Are we banning the book because we are unable to handle the message it gives? Or, are we banning the book because we are sheltering students? As an avid reader of all types of books, I feel that this is a violation of personal choice. As students, we are exposed to all kinds of real life controversial issues through books, news broadcasts and texts, some we analyze in class. Some issues are very graphic and horrific, however we do not ban them from the classroom. King’s novel was banned because of a fictional rape; do we ban the news from classrooms for covering a real life rape? Real life issues are an important part of a students education. Being aware of what is happening in our world can better protect students and open their eyes to their surroundings. We cannot escape the horrible things that happen to people everyday but it’s easy to avoid reading a book; if you do not like what you are reading you have the opportunity to turn the page or find a new book. It’s the reader, not the school board, that should make the decision.
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OPINION
I want my tuition to include tampons ALI SIEMENS CONTRIBUTOR
I don’t believe it is a surprise to any man or woman that women bleed approximately every 28 days. It’s something us women have learned to deal with, and it is often a celebratory moment in a young girl’s life. A period can mean many things, the start of womanhood, a signal that you aren’t pregnant or just that you’re going to feel bloated for the next few days and eat too much chocolate. For half of my life, I have been bleeding for five days once a month, and it is something I have become used to. I can’t say I am happy about it, but at least I get to text my significant other and remind him that we don’t have to pay back my student loans and support a child. The world and its services have actually dedicated small features that I have come to enjoy, like the zippered pocket inside my purse that dutifully holds my tampons
Image: Amy Van Veen/ The Cascade
and pads, or the “wallet” that really only holds pads and is decorated in flowers and hearts (to hide those embarrassing things of course). There are scented tampons, unscented, biodegradable, with an applicator, without, thick pads, light pads, winged pads, wipes, the Diva Cup and of course, the savior known as Midol. It really is quite amazing to think there is an entire industry dedicated to our bleeding lady bits. And really, I thank the
period CEOs for their help. Unfortunately, the UFV bathrooms aren’t so forgiving of that time of the month. Last year, the Student Union Society (SUS) put stickers in all of the female washrooms explaining that they have started providing free feminine hygiene products in C-building at the SUS office. How exciting! You mean to tell me, if that zippered pocket in my purse is empty, I can obtain period supplies for free? Oh happy
A tale of two twenties
day. It really was quite the treat to know I could walk in to the office and ask for something to help aid my vagina in its bloody woes when I forgot to stock up. On one recent, ill-fated day it finally happened. I forgot my tampons at home. Then I remembered the sticker and headed to the SUS office to obtain the free supplies to hold me over for the day. Except, the receptionist informed me, they were all out. Damn. In a last-ditch effort, I began searching the halls for a bathroom with a tampon machine. Eventually I found one in building B. Inserting my quarter, I turn the knob and nothing comes out (not my quarter either). SUS informs me that they heard a rumour that the gym possibly has a supply, so in a venture to obtain the almighty tampon and before I have an embarrassing spot on my jeans, I run over there. No luck. The university is tamponless. Now this all happened a month ago, and I thought, I’ll give it till my
next period before I let my mood swings get the better of me in hopes that the university will better support me and my menstruating cycle. A male friend offered to go into the SUS office for me, to enquire about the promised feminine hygiene products. Upon his return, he looked at me and said they are still out, “but they gave me these Multi Grain Cheerios for you.” Multi Grain Cheerios are hardly the kind of absorbency I needed. I bleed, okay? So do all the other non-pregnant and pre-menopausal women at this university. As great as it is to think the SUS actually wanted to provide something useful to the female students, I just want the ability to get a damn tampon when I need one. I don’t want any more free SUS merchandise – that includes a SUS lanyard, Cheerios or pens. I want tampons. Editors Note: At time of print, the stickers directing women to SUS to find feminine hygiene products had been removed from washrooms.
A breath of fresh air (smoke): U.S. states legalize recreational marijuana JOE JOHNSON THE CASCADE
Image: Bank of Canada
DESSA BAYROCK THE CASCADE
We live in the future. Case in point: our money is now made out of plastic. Fine. Be a stick in the mud. It’s polymer. Canadian $50 and $100 bills have been made out of this polymer stuff for a while, and, as of last week, the $20 bills also made the switch. Apparently it means that our dolla-dolla bills will be more secure – seems that plastic is harder to fake than paper. There are transparent windows, raised ink, and the queen’s face in mysterious places. I’ve got no beef with the plastic. My beef is with the focus groups. Every time the government decides Canadians need a new bill, they do up a couple of new designs and test them with focus groups to gauge the reaction. Will this new bill be loved? Does this new bill look stupid? The most Canadian requirement of all – are we offending anyone with this new bill? Well, maybe it’s time to stop being so polite and just skip the focus group stage; from what I can tell, they’re being consistently stupid about the whole process. Take the new $100 bills, for example, when they hit the streets in November of last year. Bank of Canada comes up with the new security features, the whole polymer angle, and the design of the
bill itself. It’s not all that bad looking – you’ve got a strand of DNA, a woman looking at a microscope, and (in keeping with Canadian history) the stern face of Sir Robert Borden. “Well, hold it right there,” whine the focus groups. “That DNA looks like a sex toy!” . . . Sure it does, focus groups. Have you ever seen a sex toy? I have never ever known anyone to mistake DNA for a sex toy. The only thing that comes up when you Google “DNA sex toy” is the Canadian $100 bill. Look what you did, focus groups! Now Canada is known for putting sex toys on our money. Which we didn’t even do! But the fun doesn’t stop there. These same focus groups somehow saw a skull and cross bones on the $50 bill. (I stared at that sucker for hours and all I got was a weird sense of déjà vu that tossed me back to the unfruitful magic eye pictures of my childhood.) Finally, we come to the brand new $20s. They are green, as they have been since the beginning of time. They still have the queen on them. Like the other polymer bills, they have a transparent window shaped like a leaf, and another one along one side like a stripe. These are all fine and dandy things. Focus groups apparently love the queen, so no issues there. We do, however, run into issues with the central image. The old bill used a sculpture by Canadian artist Bill Reid, who
is known for his sculptures Raven and the First Men and Spirit of Haida Gwaii. Focus groups can’t argue with that, because to argue with aboriginal art makes you a racist. You know what they can argue with? The Vimy Ridge memorial in France. Every Canadian student learns about Vimy Ridge in high school; it was the site of a battle in WWI where approximately 3500 Canadian soldiers lost their lives but ultimately prevailed against the Germans. To this day, 100 hectares around the site are preserved as a national park, part of which is the Canadian National Vimy Memorial. Focus groups mistook it for the twin towers. Then they called it pornographic. Honestly, I think it’s fairly obvious that it’s not the twin towers, and I’m not too sure why (a) focus group members would think Canadians would put that on their money and (b) why that would be offensive. It’s true that there are half-naked women or possibly angels, but that’s only because that’s what the memorial actually looks like. Is the real memorial pornographic? No. It was unveiled in 1936, and nobody complained that it was pornographic then. Aren’t we supposed to be more open and accepting of art in 2012 than 1936? Well, here’s the moral of the story. Focus groups, you’re fired. Everyone else, welcome to the future.
A major milestone in American history occurred on election day last week, and it wasn’t Barack Obama getting a second term. It was Colorado first—and then Washington shortly after—passing state law that would see marijuana become taxed, and legally distributed by the government, for personal recreational use. It’s hard to believe some states are becoming this liberal on their drug policy despite being part of a country that has, by some accounts, spent upwards of $35 billion on a never-ending war on drugs. But the passing of these two initiatives marks the difference between the federal and state governments. Each state is unique and can understandably progress faster than the much larger federal government. That’s why progressive measures have been moving forward, such as initiatives for same-sex marriage as well as medical marijuana usage. But here I’m talking about a straight up regulated supply chain of marijuana to the average American. It’s unfortunate that Oregon couldn’t join them, as they also had a similar measure on ballot. Their effort failed by the inverted percentage that it passed by in the two other states, roughly 45 per cent support and 55 per cent opposed. Even as Oregon failed this time, it will likely not be their last try. This wasn’t Colorado’s first go around, as they tried earlier in 2006. And there’s also another state on the west coast that failed as well, in 2008; California was looking poised to become the first state to legalize, but it seems at the last minute their feet turned pretty cold. I would bet that both California and Oregon will be taking another attempt not too long from now, though. But going two states out of four that have come forward on this isn’t bad. In fact, alcohol prohibition ended in much the same way – it was also pushed by individual states. Obviously, just as with alcohol, there will be laws on usage. For the most part they will be similar to alcohol. There will be an age limit and, at least in Washington, a DUI limit of .05 nanograms per millilitre of THC
Image: Vaporizers_/Flickr
in the bloodstream. That last point is contentious as THC does stay in the bloodstream after the impairment factors have worn off. Roadside testing will also be a difficult process. It’s honestly kind of interesting how these initiatives come forward. They are proposals brought forth by the people, not the government. It’s the same way our referendum to eliminate the HST came about – people in those states collected petitions and brought them to the state. To get this onto the ballot in Washington, at least 241,153 valid signatures were required. In Colorado there were eight different initiatives filed, each with slight variations, in hopes that one would be able to move forward to the signature-collection process. And an interesting fact on the ballot measure in Colorado, the first $40 million in tax revenue will actually go to the public school capital construction assistance fund. Because everything does boil down to money, how much do the states expect to bring in? Well, in Washington, the tax rate will be set at 25 per cent and that could bring in over $2 billion over the next five years. For Colorado over that period, it’s a lower estimate at $300 million, but after five years it’s expected by bring in at least $1 billion annually. In the end, this change in perspectives boils down to two things. Certainly the first is a new source of revenue as costs continue to grow while economies flounder. But the other is about civil rights. If this is what the people want, the government needs to listen. Marijuana is not a drug that harms communities. If it’s regulated, handled correctly, kept out of the hands of youth and revenues are kept from criminals, this is the right move for the United States. Hopefully Canada will join in some day as well.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2012
www.ufvcascade.ca
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ARTS & LIFE
CROSSWORD 1
The name’s Bond. James Bond. ACROSS
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1. This 1995 film starring Pierce Brosnan was also the inspiration for a classic N64 first-person shooter. (6 letters, 3 letters) 6. The very first Bond film, released in 1962. (2 letters, 2 letters) 8. The screenplay for You Only Live Twice was penned by this famous author of children’s books like James and the Giant Peach and Matilda. (5 letters, 4 letters) 11. Infamous henchman with steel teeth. (4 letters) 12. This 1997 film got its name from a production assistant’s typo, but the studio liked it: Tomorrow ____ ____ (5 letters, 4 letter)
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Aquarius: Jan 20 - Feb 18
2. Ex-Beatle Paul wrote the theme for this outing.(4 letters, 3 letters, 3 letters, 3 letters) 3. Arrested Development’s parody of Bond-esque espionage: ___ ___ Eyes Only. (3 letters, 7 letters) 4. Bond’s plane is destroyed by a solar beam in this 1974 take: The Man With The ______ ___ (6, 3 letters) 5. The only film to star George Lazenby as 007: On Her Majesty’s ______ ______ (6 letters, 7 letters). 7. This 21st centruy Bond opens with a black and white, noir-ish sequence. (6 letters, 6 letters) 9. This theme was latter sampled by Kanye West : _____ _____ Forever. (8 letters, 3 letters) 10. Panned and non-canon Thunderball remake also starring Sean Con nery: Never Say ____ ____ (5 letters, 5 letters)
NICK UBELS THE CASCADE
LAST WEEK’S Answer Key Across 1. Pterodactyl 3. Protoceratops 5. Albertasaurus 7. Archaeopteryx 8. Velociraptor 10.Maiasaura 11.Troodon 12.Brontosaurus
Down 1. 2. 4. 6. 9.
Parasaurolophus Dinosour TRex Stegosaurus Compy
The Weekly Horoscope Star Signs from Lady Oracle Gemini: May 21 - June 21
Libra: Sept 23 - Oct 22
You have a woman’s soul; not of motherhood, but of a huntress. The moon dominates your passions, you wake at night unsatisfied. You must dominate. Do not submit to a life of caretaking, choose your path carefully now or the moonlight will steep you in regret.
Draw upon the coldness of the sterile night. The blankets of clouds smother the hot, sensual stars and in these times you must be alone, without yearning or fire.
Pisces: Feb 19 - March 20
Cancer: June 22 - July 22
Scorpio: Oct 23 - Nov 21
You belong to no one, and you never shall until your capture under the glance of a rebel. But their gaze will pass over you, and your arrogance in your freedoms now will be your greatest regret. Walk softly.
Satiate yourself. Press your hand against the tumultuous passions of your lover, let the maelstrom of colour cloak your soul and be young, be reckless, and fill yourself until you overflow.
Darkness is good. You surround yourself with conformity because in your heart you are an animal. Prowl in the night, if you insist on entrapping your spirit in the day.
Aries: March 21 - April 19
Leo: July 23 - Aug 22
Sagittarius: Nov 22 - Dec 21
Do not ignore the rainfall. Let it penetrate your mind; feel the wet like a lover’s touch and drink the grey of the air deeply.
A stranger will love you, but do not reach out. You will only ever desire one with courage; surround yourself with the noise of the mundane and wait.
Release those you’ve captured under your spell. Choose the one that stays and ignite a fiery passion with them; monogamy is colourless until it blooms under scrutiny, blossoming hot reds and liquid blue, a rapture of ecstasy.
Taurus: April 20 - May 20
Virgo: Aug 23 - Sept 22
A flash of red will cross your eyes, your hands will tremble and your heart will pound. But your passions and anger and insecurities are wrong, you with the sign of Taurus. Do not let her go, for she’ll not come to you on her own.
Lust and desire are two different things, Virgo. You will forever in your heart be a virgin; white-souled, innocent, and easy to fall prey. To be a predator, wear your lust as a mask, and keep your desires hidden in your heart.
The winter leaves you desolate. But don’t take for granted what you’ve gained. Do not make yourself the exception, for no one is. Let your lover hold you without the complications, because they do not exist; do not sacrifice needlessly for the glory of being a martyr.
Capricorn: Dec 22 - Jan 19 You must continue moving; not wandering but pacing. Inside you are a creature of revolution. You lust for change. Do not remain with one man. You will wither; your dominance extends beyond the man to the men. Do not yield to the system.
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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2012
FEATURE
Art at UFV: Alicia Williams’s e-cards SASHA MOEDT
THE CASCADE
If you’ve seen those sassy e-cards in the C-building tucked here and there in the hallway by your classroom, you’ve got to wonder why they’re there – it’s like seeing your Facebook feed come to life. Here’s the answer to your curiosity: an interview with the artist, Alicia Williams.
What class is this project for, and what kind of stuff are other students doing? This project is for Art History: Art Practices and Popular Culture I. Other students have done stuff like a fake Twitter account for Mario, fake magazines, photos on bullying, spot the difference, binoculars and audio/radio projects. All as commentary on popular culture, social spaces and media in general.
What inspired you to do this particular project? My projects generally always have to do with popular culture in a post-modern kinda style. I used “Your Ecards” because they are things you see every day through social media. On any given day I’ll have like three on my newsfeed on Facebook, and I don’t know about you, but every time I see one I’ll stop and have a cheap laugh, or get mad, depending on the content. I guess the idea was to transform them into something positive, I mean, [in the past] I read one that said “you wouldn’t have to worry about AIDS if you weren’t such a slut” or something like that. And lots of them deal with social issues like that, be it slut-shaming or calling down someone for being poor, or glamourizing bitchiness, gossip and alcoholism. You’d think we as people would be past all this bullshit by now. As well, around the time of the creation of this project I read this list about things you should have done by the time you’re 25 and one of them kind of spoke to me on a level personal enough for me to not feel like sharing with The Cascade. So, I decided to do quotes on family values. Who better to quote on family values than a Prime Minister?
Can you describe the process of picking quotes, and playing around with changing them? I chose the easiest quotes to manipulate. Or the funniest ones to be manipulated. For example, one Stephen Harper quote was originally “I’ve always been clear, I support the traditional definition of marriage,” which I changed to say, “I’ve always been clear, I support [all loving family structures.]” What I liked about this project was learning more about our Prime Ministers past, but it was kind of terrifying to see how much more progressive everyone was in comparison to ol’ Steve-o.
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ARTS & LIFE How did you find quotes and pick between them? I picked the Prime Ministers who had the most quotes listed on the internet. I kind of wish I dug deeper and found one from every/most Prime Ministers, but I think the four I chose got the message across fine.
What did you want students to think when they saw them around the school? I wanted people to stop and look. Maybe have a laugh about the goofiness of the quote changes. But mostly think about their families, what they mean to them, and how they impact their lives.
What would you call this kind of art? I’m going to say art as social commentary.
Do you know anything about those weird owl-things with the shiny mirror eyes around the C-building?? A woman in my class did those! It was like a comment on how people act based on whether or not they think they are being watched. During her crit she talked about how prison guards will be in the centre of the yard and prisoners don’t act up because the guards are there watching, even though they are in separate spaces. But yeah, it’s about surveillance . . . I don’t know her name and I can’t remember the exact terms she used to define it.
Any aspect or element of this project I’m missing that you want readers to know about? I don’t want to sound preachy, because I’m totally guilty of it too, but the world would be a better place if we all thought about content and context before we laugh. Shit that perpetuates social elitism isn’t funny. So if people who saw them didn’t see them as a project on family values, I hope at least they could make someone reflect on what they’re laughing at.
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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2012
ARTS & LIFE
Film Review Skyfall MICHAEL SCOULAR
THE CASCADE
There is an order to things in the world of James Bond. Almost completely absent of progression— defined by and doted on for its minimal variation, with one part indistinguishable apart from another, rather than every entry being memorable—the James Bond series is a house style, containing nothing like an individual touch, save the face that sells it. With its undeviating structure and everforgetting succession, the Bond movies have always had something of the television series at its core, and on that note, that would make Skyfall, number 23, the penultimate part of the first season, where all the accumulated danger arrives at the “complex” hero’s doorstep, and little shocks to the system provide additional reasons to not miss the next one. Sam Mendes—working again with regular director of photography Roger Deakins—has a collection of over-serious, arch, facile treatises on history catching up and getting out to his name, and provides the most notable break from tradition here. The major theme of Skyfall is the pounding literalization of major themes, but the emphasis on shadows, broken only by outlines, slants of standout light, and particles in the air, gives Deakins’ work a singular look among the Bond tradition. Unexpected light—spotlit advertisements of rainbow hues and the sky, sunken in orange after destruction—marks Skyfall’s best moments, and public endangerment in broad daylight serves as another thread of tension, not unlike Christopher Nolan’s superhero movies. For anyone watching Skyfall that’s kept tabs on recent action heroism—even without delving into the obscure—names like No-
lan’s come up not out of a desire to compare and play the better-than game, but because Skyfall both encourages and unstealthily borrows from all corners of the current state of the genre – an attempt to update itself. There are two major themes, said verbatim approximately 30 times: the shadowy past, and Bond, as series of movies and central character, as having lost a step and caught between the tropes of past eras and the technology of the present. “It’s a young man’s game,” muses one character, and like most of the closed-room dialogue, it has everything to do with the series – the Bond series is both older than its contemporaries, and has had a gap between installments, a horrible idea in the mind of producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, who desperately claw at relevancy with nods to Nolan most notably overall, but also Bond’s spy rivals. The worry, it’s said, is that Bond is “played out.” By both stated competition and similarity, Skyfall invokes the series of Jason Bourne (single dwelling spectacle), Resident Evil (steady rush selfexplication), and Mission: Impossible (skyscraping mechanisms and mangled transport) but is inferior to the most recent installments in all three. Skyfall is narcissistically about itself, lengthily so, and in the end, has nothing individual to its name – it is the same, even as it says, self-awarely, that it is all going to be different. After the film’s fairly woeful first quarter, it opens up its immobile parts, with Bond (Daniel Craig) analyzed amid his permanently semi-drunk state, before a leader, Bond villain (Javier Bardem), swoops in, discards the broken pieces of the movie up until that point, and digs under the character we know, at once con-
firming the attributes people love and deriding their essence in an idclown performance. It’s the only enjoyable instance of this recurring dialogue, if it can be called one. Even in this instance, there’s an illusion to Skyfall’s supposed transparent look at its hero. The questioning of allegiances in the wake of poor management as temptation is a plot familiar to anyone that’s seen Goldeneye. Here it’s amplified, turned into some type of moral reckoning, quickly forgotten once Skyfall becomes about who has the most strategically-placed weapon. Bond, as always, is unshakable in his devotion to those that guide his body, technologically or otherwise. With Craig at the wheel, this is done so wearily as shorthand for the “realism” veneer of this generation – even if the whole British spy as acrobat-god-in-the-flesh is parodic to begin with. Bond is the great conformer, submissive to rule, iconography as valid reason for dehumanization. A far distance from The Bourne Legacy’s concentrated conflict of biology and bureaucracy, Skyfall is even more dated by its focustested “old-fashioned” dictum. It’s not that old-fashioned, however, in the sense of favouring solutions less digitally-inclined, or climaxes more local and rural rather than exponential and nonsensical. It’s that the core of the Bond worldview is found in the first face-toface meeting with the Bond girl (Bérénice Marlohe): “I know when a woman is pretending not to be [afraid],” he rumbles, as ashy cigarette smoke drifts from her quivering lips and shaking fingers. If in Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace women were at least granted the ability to do things besides undress and be snatched out of danger (they can be human, they can drive!), here there’s no role
for women except to die for Bond. This has always been the way in Bond films, and perhaps for some it’s so conditioned and usual it’s hardly worth attention. But the scrape of Skyfall’s criticism of Bond’s character never touches that nerve, tellingly, and whether it’s an offhand execution followed by Thomas Newman, as in every second of this movie, doing all the feeling for us (as
in, triumph!), or the conclusion, where “field work isn’t suitable for everyone” (where “everyone” means “not our cultured man’s man”) means we get the old role of secretary for the most qualified woman in the series. It’s clear that Bond isn’t complex, or engaging, or worthwhile in any but the most intermittent, colour-sprayed sense. Order has been restored.
Film Review The Man with the Iron Fists JEREMY HANNAFORD
CONTRIBUTOR
What do you get when you put a former member of the Wu Tang Clan, Lucy Liu, Former WWE Superstar Dave Bautista and Russell Crowe in the same movie? A film equally as odd as that casting line up. The Man with the Iron Fists is a strange undertaking of Chinese martial arts and Kung Fu legends as it follows the story of a local blacksmith who gets caught in the middle of a war between rival tribes. The film doesn’t waste any time with getting to the violence. Within the opening credits, we see ridiculously fit tribe members flying around the room and performing hysterical fight scenes all the while listening to modern age hip hop music. The mix is erratic at first, but over time it begins to sink in as a norm. The same can be said of the overall movie experience. The film isn’t trying to be real; it is trying to be atypical, at least with this current generation. With names like Silver Lion, Lady Silk and Brass Body, the first thing that comes to mind are the
old Kung Fu legend flicks from the ‘70s and ‘80s. But unlike those films, the actors know how absurd their characters really are. This in turn actually makes the film more entertaining. Bryan Mann’s character, Silver Lion, can be best identified as an evil version of Prince while Russell Crowe brings a bizarre and entertaining performance the likes of which hasn’t been seen since Virtuosity. From grooming extremely large and stylish eyebrows to revealing ancient martial art styles last minute, Man with the Iron Fists is showing its appreciation for these classic films all the while still taking a light, humourous poke at it. But while these funny moments are numerous throughout, there are many parts of the film that are unintentionally funny or give off a far different vibe then what was originally intended. The performance from some actors is pretty dreadful. This is especially true for the director (and actor) Robert Fitzgerald Diggs, better known by his stage name RZA. When he is narrating certain scenes in the film, it is difficult to make out what he is mumbling. In person, he rarely
looks fully awake or fully aware of what is going on, which stands in contrast to the intensity of his fellow cast members. In his directorial debut, RZA pays homage to several genres of the past including western, martial arts and even old romance films. The amount of genres, themes and objects shown serve their purpose but can also be very overwhelming at times. RZA reportedly met Quentin Tarantino on the set of Kill Bill and gained a lot of influence from Tarantino (who is a producer for this film) on making movies and constructing stories. While some of this is evident, it feels like nothing is his own work and rather a mix of different films and themes. Man with the Iron Fists is entertaining no matter how you look at it. Whether the humour is intentional or not, it truly helps make it an interesting watch. While RZA isn’t a great director by any means, this is a decent debut with heart and a whole lot of kick.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2012
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ARTS & LIFE
Theatre ReviewOnce in a Lifetime NADINE MOEDT
THE CASCADE
UFV Theatre Department’s ambitious fall production of Once in a Lifetime opened on Friday night to a capacity crowd. By the evening’s end, the audience was enthusiastic in expressing its appreciation for a lively, entertaining and zany evening of theatre. Once in a Lifetime, a comedy by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, originally opened on Broadway in 1930. It is the story of three vaudeville actors who travel west to cash in on the revolution that was taking place – the advent of the Vitaphone, the invention that brought sound to motion pictures. Thanks to their audacity and bizarre good luck, the three end up running a school of elocution for movie stars attempting to make the transition into the new era of talkies. This production by the UFV Theatre Department, skillfully directed by faculty member Ian Fenwick, pulls out all the stops in presenting an evening of delightful theatre, at times reminiscent of a Marx Brothers movie. The large cast of 24 (almost all of whom are students in
Image:Used with permission by Rick Mawson
Left to right: Danielle Warmenhoven, Eli Funk and Thomas Smith in Once In A Lifetime. the Theatre department) handles a dazzling array of characters: cigarette girls, rangy movie executives, bellhops and chauffeurs with ambitions of becoming movie stars, a quirky German director, waiters with ambitions of becoming scenario writers, vapid secretaries, a frustrated playwright, and so on.
Discussions Below the Belt A question of size JOHNNY RODDICK
THE CASCADE
Few queries have consumed the minds of men, inspired scientific studies and informal polls in hushed curiosity with such fervor as that of penis size: How big is big enough? What kind of cock gets the job done best? How thick and how long should it be? It’s an interesting question that says a lot about our culture’s conception of manhood. Thankfully for most men, the answer is that the size they’ve got will almost certainly do the trick. The discourse on penis size has two major camps: those who claim that large penises are inherently superior in pleasing a partner, and those who say size doesn’t really matter – it’s what you do with it that counts. Of course, both sides oversimplify. It can’t be denied that some people have preferences. Some people prefer the way a larger penis feels inside of them. Or, for some, it’s just the idea of a gargantuan cock that arouses them. However, there are also many people that prefer the way a smaller penis feels; it might be more comfortable to them, or they might find it allows closer contact and for some women, that can mean more clitoral stimulation during sex. The vast majority of people fall somewhere in the middle, with no strong preference either way. As long as a penis isn’t extreme in size one way or the other, most people will gladly accommodate. It’s worth noting that both vaginas and anuses can stretch to snugly fit most sizes. As well, the G-spot is located only about two inches inside the vagina, and almost all of the pleasure nerve endings are within the first three inches. Less commonly spoken about is the power a big penis carries – a form of cultural capital that puts men in an unspoken hierarchy. Here is the main reason partners
might brag about the size of their boyfriend’s penis, or friends might joke about the enormity of their dick. It should be emphasized that this role of penis size has nothing to do with what is most pleasurable to a partner, and everything to do with masculinity – who is the bigger “man.” It probably doesn’t surprise you to see “manhood” used as a euphemism for “penis” because it’s done all the time, usually without anyone really considering the implications of its use. It’s an odd concept in a culture where most men never directly compare their penises, let alone use them as some kind of trump card in determining alpha male status. Yet, it’s probably the main reason so many people feel insecure with their completely normal sized penises. Evolution—or your favourite deity of choice—designed a fairly standard size of penis for the average human male. The vast majority of penises, an astounding 91.3 per cent, measure within the five- to seven-inch range when erect, according to a 2001 Lifestyles Condom study; half of men have penises within the five-and-a-half- to six-inch range. Additionally, these sizes have no significant correlation to either height or race. It’s interesting that even though the vast majority of men fall within that two-inch range, size is still such a common insecurity and topic of debate. Regardless of where a man falls on the spectrum, it’s a genetic trait they are best off learning to embrace. A loving partner will accept them and work with what they have. The idea that penis size says something about who a man really is, or what he’s worth, is one worth consciously rejecting. What all the searching and studying about penis size really seems to conclude is that we’ve all been wasting our time, making a big deal out of nothing. You’ve just got to love the dick you’ve got.
The play takes a lunatic turn when one of the three vaudevillians, thanks to an ingenuousness that is misinterpreted as genius, is made supervisor over all movie productions at a leading Hollywood studio. To say anymore would be to give it away, but let it be known that the final outcome is far from
predictable. The cast manages to negotiate all the twists and turns of character and story with aplomb and panache. It is a lovely piece of ensemble playing. Adding to the evening’s delight are the costumes, all designed with a sharp eye for the styles of the late 1920s. The women’s formal dresses are sumptuous. And the men are quite striking in their suits and tuxedos. The set, reflecting the early twentieth century vogue of Art Deco, is flexible enough to quickly transform from New York apartment to train compartment, to Beverly Hills hotel, to movie studio reception area, to Hollywood movie set. The scene changes are effected effortlessly by the cast while in costume. A special mention must go to the entertaining videos shown on two overhead screens. The audience was treated to a clip of Al Jolson singing “California, Here I Come,” as well as images of early Hollywood. These images, along with the music, really helped in transporting the audience back to that earlier era. This is a one-of-a-kind production and it would be well worth your time to go see it. Although the
comedy is lighthearted, there is a bite to the satire about how Hollywood goes about making movies, which makes it still relevant today. The budgets may have gotten bigger, but the egos and the ambitions have remained as grandiose as ever. There is much to laugh about and the zaniness that the director and cast have added to the script provide an evening of solid entertainment. As one member of the audience was overheard saying while leaving the theatre, “I felt like I was on acid.” That comment hints at the adventuresome spirit of this latest venture by the UFV Theatre Department. The show runs during the week of November 18 through 25. Evening shows are on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and a matinee plays on Sunday. There is also a weekday matinee on Tuesday, November 20. For more information, contact the box office. For information and tickets call 604-795-2814 or email theatre@ufv.ca.
UFV student Amanda Thiessen shines in Sense and Sensibility BRITTNI BROWN
CONTRIBUTOR
UFV’s theatre student, Amanda Thiessen, played in Gallery 7’s production of Sense and Sensibility this week. Performing as a volunteer for Gallery 7’s Theatre and Performing Arts Society, Thiessen is delightful to watch. The play requires big talent to fill the emotionfelt role of Marianne Dashwood, and Thiessen certainly delivers. Sense and Sensibility, a Jane Austen love story, follows two sisters through the emotional journey of young love and heartbreak. As Marianne, Thiessen plays the younger of two sisters, a woman naive in her approach to love; she relies purely on her senses, and follows all of her heart’s desires. She ends up falling for bad-boy heartthrob John Willoughby (Matt Veenbaas). In contrast, Elinor Dashwood (Katherine Hill), the elder sister, is sensible. She chooses to bottle her emotions in lieu of accepting what is best for her future. Her suitor, Edward Ferrars (Kenzie Hall), is not chosen based on compassion or love, but his ability to guarantee a comfortable future. Inevitably, both girls find heartbreak – but this is no tragedy, it is a Jane Austen story, after all. Thiessen successfully engaged the audience through her complete embodiment of character. During the play, I felt Marianne’s sorrows and recovery as if I were a part of her journey. Not only did she perform with a flawless English accent, but her monologues and discourse appeared smooth and natural. Afterwards, I was lucky to catch-up with Thiessen for a few brief moments, to discuss the production. Thiessen is a full-time UFV student who has a passion for storytelling. She began performing at just three-years-old, but took the
main stage for the first time in high school; that’s where she developed a passion for acting. She is currently working towards her extended minor in Theatre, as UFV does not offer a major in this department. Upon graduation, she intends to audition for enrolment in Studio 58, a prestigious acting school offered by Langara College. In discussing the play, Thiessen described her favourite scene, a pivotal moment in the play. Her character, Marianne, falls and hurts herself, unable to regain her footing. Willoughby comes to her rescue, lifting her from the ground, and carries Image:Promotional Poster her to safety. Thiessen ex- Gallery 7 performances take place at plained that this was also MEI high school. her most “challenging impressive to the audience. They and uncomfortable piece.” This scene, Thiessen said, pre- said it is helpful to understand the sented two personal challenges. scene objectives and relevance of Firstly, the young actress had to the lines to the individual characconquer the difficult acting tech- ter – this helps them understand niques associated with “falling” the meaning behind the scene and safely on stage. She emphasized see the big picture. Along with the other Gallery 7 that making a fall look completely performers, Thiessen put approxireal—without causing injury—is mately 85 hours of rehearsal time certainly not a natural process. Secondly, being in the arms of an- into the production – not including other is no safe haven for Thiessen script memorization. They began – on the contrary, it is her biggest working on the play two-and-afear! She hates being picked up, half months prior to its opening and the transition is not made less night. These hours are all volunawkward when wearing a full- teer time for Thiessen, work she length dress. Regardless, her fears puts in on top of her school studies were undetectable on performance and other life commitments. Thiessen encourages “everyone night. to come see the show!” She hopes So how do these actors memorize a two-hour script? I asked a for the audience to “laugh, cry few of Thiessen’s fellow perform- and come on a journey.” Remainers, who said that line memoriza- ing shows for Sense and Sensibility tion is the minimum expectation run from November 15–17, at 7:30 for all actors. They giggled when p.m., with a 2 p.m. matinee showasked the question, explaining that ing also running on November 17. sometimes they forget this task is
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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2012
ARTS & LIFE
Grape Soda
Ty Segall
Little Big Town
After registering a few bars of their debut full-length, Form A Sign, it’s clear why Grape Soda takes its name from the saccharine Crush spinoff. Hailing from Athens, Georgia, Grape Soda is a sibling drum and organ duo with MGMT aspirations. I cannot stress this enough: Grape Soda love them some organ. Paper-thin layers of whirring rotors, echoing arpeggios, fuzzy bass keys and Ryan Lewis’s steadily plunking drum beats are matched with brother Mat Lewis’s strained, just-out-of-reach vocals. I’m not a stickler for what would be considered a traditionally-good vocalist, but Mat’s weak singing chops definitely don’t help things on an album already lacking in substance. Aside from lacklustre, sad robot dance party soundtrack fare like the ill-fated two-step of “Big World,” Grape Soda’s lyrics are often ridiculously banal. Take the bridge of “Obvious Signs” for example: “We all should be dancing/So why aren’t you dancing?/Everyone is dancing/You’re the only one not dancing.” With its mechanical, rhythmless delivery, it feels like something straight out of a Flight of the Conchords satire.
Ty Segall’s output has always been both ambitious and diverse, but this year Segall has outpaced most manufacturers. On Twins, the San Francisco garage-rocker’s third full-length release this year, Segall is beginning to strut. A psychedelic-heavy outing that toys with acoustic pop, stoner vibes and an expansive range of swirling guitars, Twins is richer and more densely packed than any of Segal’s previous releases. The opener “Thank God for the Sinners” begins with a biting guitar riff, with Segall infusing some blown out Thin Lizzy guitar harmonies and a chorus that burrows its way into your head. The glam rock inspired “They Told Me To” has a distinct undercurrent of melody, but a relaxed and everpresent sense of psychedelic groove. Relaxed, but unsatisfied, Segall knows how to save the best for last; Twins stands as his most accessible album to date while retaining the edge of earlier 2012 projects Slaughterhouse and Hair. What direction he decides to go next is anyone’s guess, but whatever it is, you can be assured it will be done with quality.
Little Big Town finally gets it right with their latest album Tornado, thanks to new producer Jay Joyce (Erich Church/Wallflowers) and writers Natalie Hemby (Miranda Lambert/ Carrie Underwood) and Luke Laird ( Jason Aldean/Rodney Atkins). While the group has traditionally stuck to their slow and swanky four-part harmonies, they take a bold new approach with their fifth album, which debuts several country-rock hits. Tornado may seem to be a shameless proclamation of the group’s midcareer identity crisis, but the album’s departure from the lazy countryside seems to be a major breakthrough for the group. The album’s new direction better showcases the band’s vocals without putting you to sleep. “Pontoon,” the album’s debut track, went viral this past summer, and quickly became a must-have party hit. While the band proclaims there is no lead singer, Karen Fairchild’s voice clearly steals the spotlight in this midtempo track. I recommend skipping straight to “Tornado,” a good footstomper, featuring two electric guitars, also led by the strong vocals of Karen Fairchild. “Self-Made” is another upbeat track definitely worth a listen; it really builds momentum as the chorus approaches and the instrumentals intensify. The band’s made-over look is debuted on Tornado’s album art. The crew gains curb appeal by sporting their new sleek and polished look.
NICK UBELS
TIM UBELS
BRITTNI BROWN
Mini Album Reviews
SoundBites
Form A Sign
Twins
Album Review DESSA BAYROCK
THE CASCADE
This album came out last spring and I somehow missed it until now. I started being a Patrick Watson fan in my first year of university with Wooden Arms – and it turns out that Adventures in Your Own Backyard is a symmetrical bookend to that album. They’ve added more brass to this album than I remember them having before, but other than that, they’ve continued playing with the same elements of good old Patrick Watson classic sound. Just so you don’t think that I have absolutely no grasp of verb conjugation, it’s probably important to note that Patrick Watson is a band (with lead singer Patrick Watson) and not just a single guy. One of the core elements of both band and album is Patrick Watson’s whispery, soaring tenor. It’s a little dreamy and surreal, and it always makes me feel like he’s completely detached from the world, floating in midair somewhere and describing what he sees. The new element that differentiates this album from past work is the addition of a brass section that makes an appearance in several tracks and is reminiscent of a mariachi band or Wild West soundtrack.
One of my favourite tracks from the album is “Into Giants,” which sounds like it belongs on a children’s show: I imagine real people fake-walking around a world cut out of paper. It’s that kind of uplifting sound that’s intended to get children excited about life, and Watson’s somewhat ghostly vocals make it just a hint of creepy and save it from being utterly sickly sweet. Patrick Watson has a perfect blend of simplicity and variety that makes my heart crumble: the melodies are relatively simple, and often the background tune of guitar, violin or piano aren’t too complicated either, keeping one line of the song going rather than a chord. At the same time, each song climaxes into a complicated nest of an immense variety of instruments and weird percussion that knits together into an indie orchestra. When I put it that way, it sounds like a hipster’s wet dream, but it’s actually just cute. “Jumping over all the bad times,” Watson croons, “it’s easy
Tornado
Coheed and Cambria
The Afterman: Ascension
Three years after releasing the final chapter of their five-album epic known as The Amory Wars, progressive rock and storytelling extraordinaires Coheed and Cambria have returned with the first of a two-part project dubbed The Afterman. Needless to say, they haven’t skipped a beat releasing arguably their greatest, albeit shortest, effort to date. After the haunting sci-fi intro, The Afterman: Ascention truly takes off with an instrumental intro that only sets the pace and tone of what will be a great album. Ascension does not disappoint. Anybody looking for some excellent air guitar material, mixed with a dash of catchy vocals should look for this album. A few tracks may falter, but the lofty goals set in place before listening to this album are exceeded by leaps and bounds. Between stories of prize fighting Domino, butcher Vic who harbors a pyrotechnic side, and a gentleman caught slipping a drug into a drink, Ascension is a fun ride and makes listeners eagerly anticipate the conclusion. Notable tracks: “Domino the Destitute,” “Vic the Butcher,” and “Mothers and Men.” Credit must be given to any band that can use the word “implore” in the chorus of a rock song.
TREVOR BRAUN
Adventures in Your Own Backyard – Patrick Watson
when I’m holding your hand.” But then it gets weird again with “Strange Crooked Road.” “There was a woman who sewed a man to a bed, took a baseball bat so she could talk to him instead,” Watson sings, “It didn’t take too long.” Dear Patrick Watson, did you pull a Mars Volta and write these lyrics with a Ouija board? We’re treading into creepy children’s story territory, and I can’t say that
I mind too terribly. I’m just afraid these odd and unlikely lyrics have a deeper meaning that’s going to make me hate the song when I find out what it is. (Like Sufjan Stevens’ most ultimately creepy “John Wayne Gacy, Jr,” although in hindsight I probably should have seen that one coming.) Other than that, two tracks definitely jumped out at me: the title track, “Adventures In Your Own Backyard,” and “Step Out For a While,” both because they are extremely similar to tracks from the band’s 2008 r ecord Wooden Arms. “Adventures In Your Own Backyard” has the same lead-in and the same selection of odd, unplaceable percussion sounds as “Beijing,” (albeit with a healthy portion of brass missing from Wooden Arms), and I would say that “Step Out For A While” is basically a reimagining of “Travelling Salesman” – it’s so close that you could play them at the same time and still make sense of the overlapping sounds. I’m
tempted to combine the two into some kind of mash-up, but maybe I’ll just wait for the internet to do it for me. I like to believe this is on purpose – hence the title Adventures in Your Own Backyard. The band hasn’t really explored any new territory, but sometimes the best adventures can be found in your very own backyard – by taking a look at what’s already there and reimagining it into something new. Don’t get me wrong, I love it when bands and artists go exploring and push boundaries. Norah Jones, for example, has changed her sound every single album but has only become more herself. But at the same time, many bands are already themselves and have no need to change too terribly much. Patrick Watson is one of these bands. I love this album just as much as I love Wooden Arms; they’ve taken what they’re good at and remade it. It’s a combination of sequel and second draft, with enough new elements mixed with the familiar to make it an irresistible combination. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to put both albums on shuffle and call it Wooden Adventures in Your Own Arms.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2012
www.ufvcascade.ca
15
ARTS & LIFE
English Student’s Association hosts student-led poetry slam event at AfterMath HAILEY ROLLHEISER
CONTRIBUTOR
CHARTS
1
Godspeed You! Black Emperor ‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!
2
Babysitter / Korean Gut Babysitter / Korean Gut Split
3 4 5 6 7
White Lung Sorry
Shuffle AARON LEVY CIVL GUY
CIVL Station Manager is obsessed with the Toronto Blue Jays, and currently focuses on this week’s blockbuster trade with the Miami Marlins, which make’s Canada’s team an instant playoff contender for 2013.
Teen Daze All Of Us, Together
Ty Segall Twins
Slam Dunk Welcome To Miami
King Tuff / Total Control Screaming Skull/Scene From A Marriage
8
Peace The World Is Too Much With Us
9
The Hellbound Hepcats No.2
10 11 12 13 14
July Talk July Talk
Mise En Scene Desire’s Despair Diamond Rings Free Dimensional OPOPO Extracts
You’ll Never Get To Heaven You’ll Never Get To Heaven
15 16 17
Nun Un Nun Un II Parallels XII
Run With The Kittens Letters From Camp
The Bat Boys – “OK, Blue Jays” In Toronto this song is a classic at Jays games. But yes, Canada’s team does have it’s own theme song, and a bulk of the lyrics simply explain various aspects of the actual game of baseball. It’s no Hanson Bros, but we make do with what we’ve got in hogtown. The Beatles – “Blue Jay Way” Why is there a song on The White Album, of all recordings, that name checks what 15 years later would be the first Anglophone non-American team in the only sport that’s more American than Apple Pie? The Jays’ home field is actually on Blue Jay Way, just like Gretzky’s bar. Guns n Roses – “Sweet Child of Mine” I feel about the Blue Jays the way that Axl Rose feels about the subject of this song. Ownership, awe and bewilderment at the wonder of being lucky enough to earn the satisfaction that comes with having your adoration accepted by that which you love. Also, Greg Zaun loves G’n’R. Ozzie Ozbourne – “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” The Prince of Darkness really butchered this tune at a Chicago Cubs game in Wrigley one time a while back. He actually sang the words “I don’t know what I’m doing” in pretty good tune and rhythm. Luckily he’s a limey, otherwise it would be a pretty big scandal IMHO.
The English Students Association held their bi-annual Poems, Pints and Prose event at AfterMath on Thursday, November 8. Students came out to enjoy a chilly fall night indoors with live entertainment. Participants in the literary open-mic event had the option of reading anything from poetry, prose, monologues or basically anything they had written themselves. Singer-songwriters were also welcome, adding a wellrounded touch to the evening. Walking through the door, anyone and everyone were welcomed and encouraged to sign up to read a piece – or even improvise on the spot. As I heard one reveler ask, “Can I like, tell a story?” He could and did. In between readings, Ryan Peterson hosted trivia games such as spelling antidisestablishmentarianism, naming the writer of The Canterbury Tales (Chaucer) and identifying Ernest Hemingway’s favourite drink from multiple choices (gin). The winners of these intermission games won leftover Halloween candy that was often also pelted at the audience. Prize incentives included a Kobo E-Reader and a gift basket put together by ESA secretary Jordyn Seimens. Anyone who read a poem had a shot at winning the prizes through random draw. As ESA president Scott Sparrow said, “the purpose of the event is to bring people out, you know, give that kind of shy person with a poem who’s too afraid to read it some incentive, and . . . making it
Image:Sasha Moedt
The English Students Association knows how to wise-crack. completely random makes it less competitive and more friendly for those kinds of people.” Ashley Mussbacher won the Kobo EReader and Beau O’Neil won the gift basket. Mid-way through the reading, ESA perforformed a Dada poem, involving a crazy owl mask. The ESA holds events like these to “create community among likeminded people,” Sparrow said. Attending UFV is not a requirement to participate. Sparrow said of one very enthusiastic performer a la Mean Girls, “This guy is so excited . . . he doesn’t even go here!” Performers came in all styles and genres but performers with energy stood out the most. “Pas-
Dine & Dash
sion is what makes people stand out,” Sparrow noted. “If you have passion for what you are doing, I could listen to you talk about that for a long, long time.” The next Poems, Pints and Prose event will be early next semester. Coming up late this month or early next, the ESA is planning a community dinner at the U-house; it will be a $2 dinner, with proceeds going to the local food bank. The ESA is also busy looking into hosting a self-publishing seminar. “I am really hoping we can bring in a local publisher – that’s what we really want to start doing, bringing in local writers and local people in the field,” Sparrow added.
Hide-A-Way Café 45639 Lark Road Chilliwack, BC 604-824-5634 Prices: up to $11.95 Hours: Monday to Tuesday 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday to Saturday 7:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
AMY VAN VEEN
THE CASCADE
Do you ever have those moments when you’re eating breakfast but at the same time you really have a hankering for butter chicken? I do. And now I know a place that can satisfy both cravings. Hide-A-Way Café is the place. The directions say to drive south on Vedder and eventually turn right on Lark Road, a bit of a long drive when you’re not prepared for it. After a little while, you may start to wonder if you’re going to end up in Yarrow, but not to worry, Lark pops up and Hide-A-Way hides away in a little strip mall on a one-way street. It may not look like much on
the outside with big poster-sized photos of the food they serve and a sign that offers free Wi-Fi—a selling point for any student— but once inside, it’s a place where people can eat and be. Void of any pretension, this all-day breakfast, lunch and Indian cuisine hotspot offers simple food at simple prices. Their menu is bursting with classic breakfasts from basic bacon, eggs and pan fries to omelettes to eggs benedict, as well as other lunch options such as burgers, sandwiches, quesadillas (adorably spelled “quesidilla”) and a separate Indian menu boasting some savory smelling butter chicken. As an aside, I was at first worried about sitting so close to the kitchen with the smell of butter chicken lingering in what would become my breakfast haven, but thankfully the smells and tastes never competed with one another. Those I was with ordered a plate of the biggest eggs benny I had ever seen. The eggs sat atop a pile of veggie filled hashbrowns, drowning in a sea of hollandaise. Some restaurants feel they can get away with just a dollop of hollandaise on top of the benny, but Hide-A-Way does not shy away from spoiling its customers. I or-
dered the two-by-two-by-two, which was a hot cakes plus eggs plus bacon or sausage situation, but I asked for French toast instead of pancakes and was given them – at no extra charge. You had me at French toast. Thick slices of fluffy French toast topped with sprinkled powdered sugar befriended my order of sausage and eggs and left me completely satisfied for under $10. The décor in the restaurant didn’t blow my mind, but it didn’t leave me feeling like I was sitting in a school cafeteria. Shades of blue, grey and black were the standard from wall to wall and their preference of booths over tables made me feel as though I could carry on a conversation with my tablemates without worrying about being eavesdropped on. With hotel lobby art and faux flower arrangements, I felt like they knew what they wanted to give customers and they gave it – a place to eat good food to put you in a good mood. If their breakfast was any indicator of the quality food they serve in a simple diner atmosphere, I will return for their butter chicken, and I will love it.
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www.ufvcascade.ca
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2012
ARTS & LIFE
Haute Stuff Doubling up as the weather drops AMY VAN VEEN
THE CASCADE
Now, I know when a West Coaster says it’s getting cold, the rest of Canada perks up their heads from behind their mountainous snow banks and out of their balaclavas to laugh and point at our wussy attitude, but it’s true. It is colder this month than it was last. There are more leaves on the ground than there are on the trees and more accidents on roads because people see frost on the median and freak out. But the big question is, how do we still look cute in dresses and tights when the moist cold air nips through our many layers straight to the bone? We add another layer. Tights have this way of reproducing in the back of closets everywhere. You think you have one pair and then you look and there are pantyhose spilling out of every corner. Some have runs, certainly, but some are perfectly fine. They were that one pair you bought for that one occasion that you forgot about. Or that other pair you bought at the drugstore on the way to work when you found a run from where your untrimmed toe nail made destructive contact. There are the fun tights with crazy patterns like stripes and polka dots you once bought on a whim
Tight-on-tight action is the way to go when the temperature drops. at H&M but have never had the guts to actually wear. There are the colourful tights in a range of hues that punch up your dull winter outfit. And there are the many shades of grey that sit beside the many shades of black.
All these tights just waiting to be used, but it is way too nippy outside to brave it. Or is it? Why not double up? Put black on black for an extra opaque look. Or stripes on grey for a really cute layered look. Go crazy
Image: Robin Hood Men In Tights
with stripes on bright blue to complete a Pinterest-worthy look. Throw on ankle boots to let the fun tights reign or, for colder days, tall boots with long socks peeking out over the top. Really, anything is possible
NaNoWriMo Update
Dessa Bayrock
Working title: The State of Giraffes in Absolute Darkness NaNoWriMo username: DessaYo Confidence to finish 50,000 words in one month: 85 per cent and rising, because I’m trucking through like a boss. Current wordcount: 20,224 The weird thing I noticed about my novel is that I’m writing it in present tense. I never do that. Is that weird? Still keeping roughly up to where I should be – I think. I’ll pull a day-long marathon sometime and get well and truly caught up. I’m not even going to look at Tony’s word count because I get too depressed about it. Maybe the one mistake I made was promising my boyfriend that writing this novel would never cut into “us time.” Thanks a lot, past self. Now I just have to convince him to play more video games so I can type out some secret chapters while he’s not looking. (And if you’re reading this, honey, these are not the droids you’re looking for. Didn’t the new Assassin’s Creed just come out? Sounds kick-ass!) In other news, I’ve killed off my giraffe a couple of times but keep bringing him back to life. His name is Gavin. You’re welcome. I also gave one of my characters a bedbug infestation. Am I a bad person?
Karen Aney
Working title: working titles are still for suckers NaNoWriMo username: KarenAney Confidence to finish 50,000 words in one month: that’s what she said. Current wordcount: 14,000 I think I’ve officially given up on having one coherent novel at the end of this. That being said, I’m hovering around a respectable wordcount. What I’m most pleased with is that it seems to be a habit now to sit down an write a chunk before going to sleep. Since I’m writing chunks of differed projects (this week’s was a female version of Tucker Max), I think December might end up being the coherent month of the novel for me. Yes. Telling myself that helps me sleep at night, anyway . . .
Sasha Moedt
when you start marrying your tights. I know what you’re thinking, though. Two pairs of tights? Isn’t that a little . . . claustrophobic? Wouldn’t my waist have permanent indentations from the multiplied control top? Wouldn’t my toes start to freak out from being trapped under two, possibly three layers if I were to add the socks? Wouldn’t a level of bunching occur in all the wrong areas? It depends which tights you marry with one another. I would avoid doubling up on two 100 denier tights with major control tops – make sure the coupled tights lean towards the “opposites attract” cliché. If you have one pair that has a less Spanx-like fit, I would put it overtop the more constrictive one. And I would avoid, at all costs, putting together two pairs of looser fits. There will be bunching and slipping and crawling and readjusting going on at all hours of the day. And as for your toes, I’m sure in this kind of weather they wouldn’t mind being pulled closer together for warmth. Mothers everywhere tell their kids to keep their toes warm for a reason, so listen to your mother and double up.
Anthony Biondi
Working title: The Virgin NaNoWriMo username: smoot Confidence to finish 50,000 words in one month: 78 per cent Current wordcount: 21,817
Working title: The Big Smoke NaNoWriMo username: ABiondi Confidence to finish 50,000 words in a month: 90 per cent Current wordcount: 27,681
Okay, I’ll admit it: I just did all the easy, fun parts, and now I’m going to be stuck with the boring, necessary explanations and in-between points in my plot. My confidence level has now dropped because I know that I won’t want to deal with the details. It’s boring, it’s slow, it’s necessary. I like to jump around to the dramatic moments, when someone is in pain or love or ecstasy, or when I am describing the really super cool setting. Like cobblestones. So I write 500 words of awesomeness here, 1000 words of awesomeness there. I named my main character Wilhelmina. And she’s actually a very exciting person. I’m really crossing boundaries here. But I’m not even half-way there! I have what, 16 days left? All that boring stuff . . . And now I’m dealing with a question that needs to be answered: why did my serious criticism of Western sexuality turn into a Harlequin romance? Why?
The pace has definitely slowed. For a little while there was this lull where everything just seemed to stand still. I had a situation, I had characters, but nothing wanted to happen. I tried to get it moving but nothing interesting was going on. I felt like I was floating face up in the Fraser. Thankfully, I’ve found my muse. It’s not rushing, when the plot point is so needed that the story depends on it. So now the steam is picking up once again. In terms of time, I only really have time for about 1800 words a day. That involves disregarding any semblance of free time I may find. I work, I eat, I go to school, I write. Such is my life right now. Gods, I can’t wait for November to end and I can just relax and play a mindless game or two.
Interested in writing? Have a passion for the campus and community? Come to our weekly writers’ meeting, Mondays at 10 a.m. in room A421, or visit us in C1027 and see what all the fuss is about.
www.ufvcascade.ca
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2012
17
SPORTS & HEALTH
Whistleblowers:
CIS basketball referee Jim Cervo on a difficult job PAUL ESAU
THE CASCADE
Age: 59 Officiating For: 28 years Sports Officiated: Basketball, baseball, soccer Day Job: Insurance underwriter What levels of the sport have you officiated at? CIS of course, some high school games, PACWEST, which is the junior colleges, and I’ve done a lot of national tournaments, 10 national tournaments, at the college level and CIS level. How did you get into officiating? I’ve refereed soccer, I did that for quite a long time, and I also did some basketball refereeing when I was in high school. I played senior ball and reffed junior games and grade eight games. So it’s hard to say how I really got into it, it was something I just really enjoyed doing. I coached soccer and reffed soccer, and then I just really like basketball a lot, so I decided to give it go. You say you enjoy this, even though most people find officiating to be a very scary thing. So why did you get into this? That it is interesting, a lot of people do find this scary, even players. I think you have to have a certain kinds of personalities and mentalities. One of them is that you have to be a very easy-going – that really is a critical piece in officiating. You have to learn to be mellow, even-tempered, not get rattled . . . we’re out there making sure everything is done properly and resolving issues . . . the other reason [I got involved] is that after high school I knew I wasn’t tall enough and didn’t have some of those attributes to play any further, so officiating helped me stay involved. Which sport is most difficult to officiate: basketball, soccer or baseball [having officiated all three]? No question basketball. Soccer you are out there by yourself for the most part . . . and you have a lot of time to make a decision. There’s not a lot of off-ball stuff in soccer. In basketball you have 10 people in a tiny space, moving, there’s a lot more chess type plays that go on . . . there’s so many variables. How does someone rise to become a CIS referee? Really what it is, is someone needs to have a real good understanding of the game, have a good feel for it. If you are athletic, if you’ve played basketball, and you understand the nuances of the game, that’s going to help you. And then you’ve got to have some nerve, some guts to blow the whistle with some authority, and that’s confidence as well. And once you gain some of those kinds of things you start doing high school games and people notice that you’re fairly competent at that level, and then someone within our own group will say “you really should have a look at this guy.” Nowadays, a lot of officials go to referee camps [as well] . . . you’re taught all the things about the techniques and floor position and a lot of other intangibles—court presence, how to manage the game—and during those times as well, you have other individuals which watch you . . . it’s really throwing you into the deep end and seeing how you do. In the CIS I’ve heard unusual things about how one of the three refs for a game is always flown in from out of town. How does the CIS work and who makes the regulations? It’s not so much the CIS as Canada West. The conference has a management group, and that group hires a supervisor, and that supervisor then hires all the referees. So he contacts us, offers us a contract and then we
go on to a web-based system and receive our assignments . . . so at every game there has to be a traveller. Tonight I’m the local official, I only live 10 minutes from here, but another official has to be the traveller. The purpose of that would be? There’s more than one purpose. The coaches don’t like to see the same referees all the time, and the referees don’t like to see the same teams all the time. As referees we need to go into it with an open mind, we can’t have any biases or prejudices from what happened the night before or the week before. So the less we see a team, the more fair or unbiased we are about it. And when we work with different [officials] that strengthens us as a group. And the third thing is that coaches will think that this person is from this area so they’re favouring . . . from my perspective I’ve watched a lot of games and officials don’t do that. But the perception is there. To avoid the perception, this is a good compromise. Run me through a normal working night outside of the games. Well the first thing is that prior to me coming here, most of us pack our bags two to three days in advance . . . especially if you’re going out of town. So we usually come and meet just over an hour before the game starts, the three people who are doing the game . . . and then start talking about things—about the teams, who the players are—then we talk about rule changes, make sure we’re all on the same page. Then we go out on the floor 15 or 20 minutes before the game and observe the teams. Then one of us, the crew chief, will go over and check the score sheet to make sure the 10 players are all signed off, that all the coaches’ names are on there and that they’ve signed the score sheet and approved it. And then after the game you head back to the change room and post guards outside (laughs)? No, everyone is very good. They know the referees’ room is out of bounds, so no coaches ever come. At the high school level you get people who don’t quite understand and they’ll want to talk to the referees, but in CIS that never happens . . . So we go back to the dressing room and then we’ll do a post-game. We’ll talk about what happened in the game – the good things, and what we think we didn’t like and what we could have done better. We give good feedback to each other and no one takes offence to it. One of the other officials will say “Jim, I didn’t like something you did tonight” and we’ll talk about it. Then after the game we’ll go home and watch the game tape, we usually watch it once or twice. Three officials out there on the court, what are they all watching during the game? In football each of the officials have assigned tasks, in basketball is it the same? The difference between [basketball] and any other sport, is that the three officials all have a role to pay prior the game and [immediately before] the ball is tossed. After that all of us are equal, and we rotate our positions . . . the play and where the ball is dictated [the rotation]. If the ball is on one side of the floor you always have two officials over there, if it moves to the other side of the floor we have two officials over there, so that’s what rotates. No one stays in one spot like in football. During the game what are you looking for (to call) and what habits do you cultivate to make officiating easier? The most important thing we’re looking at is to have the game flow. We want the best players to play and not be hindered, so that’s what we’re looking for: things that players are doing to hinder the better players, hold-
ing them, impeding their progress. We always look to see how rebounding is if things start to get rough. Post play is a huge aspect . . . which is why one official is always near the post players, because you want him communicating with the post players and ensuring nothing gets to rough down there. Post play has changed a lot in the last 10 to 15 years. You’ve obviously seen shifts over your 28 years, so can you speak a bit about what’s changed in officiating post play? I think for the most part it’s that the game has become more physical. Not physical dirty, but good physical play. The players like that. A lot of times during the game I’ll say to the post players “how are you guys feeling? How’s everything going?” and if they say to me “hey, we like the way things are going” then we’ll let things go . . . if they don’t step over the line then I’m gonna let things go. So we’re seeing a defender allowed more contact now and we let the post player back down the defender as long as he’s not displacing him. We do let a lot more go because they’re better athletes, they’re better conditioned than they were years ago, and if you look at the CIS, the post players for the most part are pretty good-sized guys. A guard doesn’t like that, a guard wants hands-off; he’s a lot more finesse. But the post players are like fullbacks, they like that good physical play. When you have a 50–50 call to make, what goes through your mind? You have to make the decision for what you see. If you haven’t seen the whole thing and you have to blow your whistle to make a decision then you have to call what you’ve seen, and if the coaches ask, you have to be honest. In a three person game, there’s a lot more ability to see the entire play. In a two person game it’s a lot more difficult; there’s a lot of educated guessing going on. A lot of people believe in the power of the crowd or an aggressive coach to sway or intimidate the referee. Is there some truth to that? To me that’s total mythology, it doesn’t happen. For myself, I hardly even hear the crowd, and as far as the coach goes, if one coach is more vocal than the other, that has no influence on me. Now, if there’s a brand new referee maybe that will influence them. The only time, and we talk about this in the pre-game, is if the coach makes a comment and the crowd makes a comment and you’ve made a call, especially a directional call, then we say [to each other to] have enough courage to think “I might have got it wrong” and go talk to your partners. Like the Olympic ref should have done during the Canada-U.S. women’s soccer semifinals? I bet the soccer referee in you just . . . Oh the soccer ref in me, I tell you when I saw that play, I cringed. A good example is, if you watch a CIS game, notice how many times “three in the key” is called. It’s very, very seldom. In high school it’s called more because we have a lot younger referees and they think that’s a big rule, but you’ll very seldom hear a coach yell for it. The only time they’ll yell for it is if one person towers over another and takes total advantage, that’s why the rule is there.
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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2012
www.ufvcascade.ca
SPORTS & HEALTH
Rowing team prepares for part two of the season TAYLOR JOHNSON
ing on the water. They will do that until the end of January, when we move back onto the water full time. Probably about 20 hours a week of training. The summer is usually about the same.
THE CASCADE
With their season winding down, Liz Chisholm discusses the past success of UFV’s varsity rowing team, what we can expect in the upcoming spring season, and some details about the sport. What were some highlights from last season? We just finished the Canadian Rowing Championships this last weekend. We were out three days at Burnaby Lake, there were 22 universities represented from across Canada. The highlights were not always predictable. The men’s pair, the women’s pair [and] the men’s lightweight double were probably the biggest highlights. We’ve been participating since 2003. It’s a little different than basketball tournaments where there are [many] tournaments or games happening. We have to bring boats with us, and we need water. There are specific water ways needed. It is 2000m, that’s Olympic distance; the water has to be still. With the Canadian Rowing Championships, if you can fill a team as a university you go. Sometimes individuals who don’t have a full team go and represent their university. How many championships do you and your team try to attend a season? In the fall we race five weeks, that is five weekends and sometimes six. That prepares us for C [rank] Canadian Universities. The
Next season do you have some new recruits we can look out for? I have a high school recruit, Helena Ram. She is a strong girl. She’s in her first year with the women’s open single. She’s been rowing as a high school student for three years. I hope to see her in the women’s open single. Chantelle Fawcett is another women’s upcoming student, [while on the men’s side we have] Lukazs Grabowski, Ryan Tucker and Alex Lawrie.
Image: UFV Rowing
The lightweight mens four-plus with Emmett Campbell, Cole Steere, Jordan Ramsay and Antony Dayton. reason it is in the fall is because we compete across Canada and in the East their water ways will start freezing up anytime now. They’re typically off the water from this point forward. Only really in BC can we practice on the water all year long. Our home venue is Fort Langley Channel. We do freeze up over Christmas. With the season coming to an end, what can we expect in the spring? We do dry-land training now until January. We [still] go out on the water until January. I have one
rower who is competing in the Canadian National Championships this weekend, Mat Morrison; he is part of Team BC. He is competing in the open men’s pair with one of UVic’s top rowers. I also have a development athlete who has been flagged by National Rowing Canada, Adam Postmus. He fit all the test markers to be developed at a higher level. They will be in camps. In February we will be on the water again; we race in Victoria the first week of March. Usually some of the NCAA teams will come out from Washington and Oregon. They’re just starting up
their season . . . End of January is the indoor championships, on the rowing machines in Vancouver and Victoria. There are 15–20 rowing machines in a line with a big screen, with a boat simulation . . . Those results will matter for the World’s selection. What kind of training does the team do between seasons? They have 11–13 training sessions a week, with so many hours in the gym and on the water. Right now they move into cardio and rowing machine training. They still do six hours a week of train-
What are you looking forward to next season? After holding 10th place, men and women, the last six years in cross country, we finally broke into the top 10 this last year. The men placed ninth and the women placed eighth. We would like to go higher and make top seven in the country. To do that we are fighting some huge varsity teams, with a roster of fulltime coaches. Just to break into that top seven would be great. We do take in late entries, we intake new people twice a year. We are looking for new athletes. If you are interested in joining the rowing team, please email liz.chisholm@ufv.ca This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Weekend split for UFV’s B-Ball squads Scoreboard
KYLE BALZER
Last week’s scores
CONTRIBUTOR
It was a good day to be inside on a cold Saturday evening. What better way to spend it than watching our UFV Cascades take on the University of Victoria Vikes in Canada-West basketball action? Both the UFV women and men were ranked in the CIS top 10 poll and were looking to make a statement that they’re ready to play with the best in the nation for the 2012-2013 season. Women The women cam into Saturday night with a 3–0 start and were hoping for another win against an aggressive Victoria team. The first quarter got off to a great start as the Cascades scored nine straight points courtesy of rookie forward Shayna Litman and her quick moves in the key. The team got to an 11-point lead that would continue to climb in the second quarter as Sarah Wierks dominated on the offence, scoring seven straight points. Second-year general studies student Kayli Sartori showed outstanding defence, leading to eight Victoria turnovers in the first half. The score was 35–23 in favour of UFV. The third quarter got the best of the Cascades when the Vikes outscored them 13–20, bringing the game to a five-point differential. But thanks to four-year veterans Nicole Wierks and Courtney Bartel and their teamwork on the offensive end, the Cascades earned their fourth straight win of the season by a final score of 62–52.
Basketball Men
Nov. 9 UFV vs. Victoria L 69-73
Nov. 10 UFV vs. Victoria L 72-78
Women
Nov. 9 UFV vs. Victoria W 63-49
Nov. 10 UFV vs. Victoria W 62-52
Volleyball Men
Nov. 9 UFV vs. COTR L 1-3
Nov. 10 UFV vs. COTR L 2-3
Women
Cascade Kevon Parchment running the floor. Top scorers were Sarah and Nicole Wierks, scoring 14 points each. Coach Al Tuchscherer, in his 11th year as a UFV coach, was very pleased with his team’s performance. “It was great to win this game,” he said, “especially against a quality team like Victoria. A lot of valuable lessons to take away from the challenges they presented.” Men The men’s varsity team was heading into Saturday night with a record of 2–1 to begin their season, facing, literally, a tall team from the island. The green men kept the game tight with the incredible defensive play of kinesiology student Kevon Parchment. He would contribute eight defensive rebounds all together. However,
the Vikes would quickly bounce back, scoring 10 straight points to take the lead. Parchment would score all of UFV’s six points in the second quarter, which wouldn’t be enough as they trailed Victoria 23–42 at the half. A spark was ignited for the Cascades in the third quarter; they scored five three-pointers in less than four minutes, a contribution from Klaus Figueredo, Nathan Kendall and five-year veteran forward Kyle Grewal, who went 67 per cent from the three-point line. UFV would outscore Victoria 27– 16 in the third quarter, cutting the lead to just eight points. Despite the spirited comeback by UFV, in which three players sacrificed all five of their fouls, the Vikes would hold on to win the game by a score
Image: Blake McGuire
of 72–78. The top scorer for UFV was Kevon Parchment with 23 points; Kyle Grewal would followup with 21 points. Although it was a tough loss for the Cascades, coach Adam Friesen was delighted with team’s confidence late in the game. “We played great in the second half,” he said. “Our offence came alive and we hit key baskets to get back into the game.” UFV’s record now falls to 2–2. The Cascades will head into Vancouver this weekend to play the UBC Thunderbirds, but you can catch them on November 23–24 when they take on both the University of Manitoba Bisons and the University of Winnipeg Wesmen.
Nov. 9 UFV vs. COTR W 3-1
Nov. 10 UFV vs. COTR W 3-0
www.ufvcascade.ca
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2012
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SPORTS & HEALTH
Quick Facts: 95.7%: penalty kill efficiency (1st in AHL) 24.4%: power play efficiency (2nd in AHL) 75%: Chance of winning when the Heat score first 1.82: Goals against per game (2nd in AHL) 4-0-0-1: Heat record when leading after two periods
Heat off to their best start in franchise history MIKE CADARETTE CONTRIBUTOR
The hearts of Canadians from Tofino to St. John’s were crushed when NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman announced the lockout. The sky was falling around everyone’s most precious past time – the NHL. And if one good thing has come out of the work stoppage, it’s the influx of NHL-calibre talent now on every AHL team in the league. Just look up and down the roster sheet and you’ll see recognizable names of some of the best young players in world. With this incursion of talent in the AHL, naturally there is going to be greater competition and challenges each and every game. But don’t tell the Heat that. They’re in the upper echelon of most team- and player-based statistics right now, despite playing against most NHL teams’ future core players. I’m not saying it hasn’t been a challenge for them to get to the upper crust, but they couldn’t make it look more effortless. Take, for example, their special teams. Currently, their penalty kill is ranked first in the AHL. The Heat have stopped 44-of46 power plays (95.7 per cent). That’s no easy feat especially when they’ve had to stop the likes of Jaden Schwartz, Nazem Kadri, Brendan Gallagher, and more recently the Oilers’ young stars: Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Justin Schwartz. Their power play is set in cruise control as well, converting on 24.4 per cent of their chances. “We have a deeper organization than we did in the last couple of years,” explained head coach Troy Ward. “With that we’ve been able to work solid with two groups. The difference is a lot of times in certain organizations you only have maybe a group-and-a-quarter, groupand-a-half and it makes a difference in how you prepare and how you practice. We’ve had two good groups here this year where we have some depth to our team. It makes for a really competitive situation . . . Both groups are competitive and they’re battling against each other.” That internal competitiveness has paid off in a big way. In fact, if we consider their three shorthanded goals, the Heat have a
special teams goal differential of plus-nine, which is the best in the AHL. What all of this success leads to, then, is a team that has the second-best winning percentage in the league, coming out victorious in 77.3 per cent of their games. Their record after this weekend sits at an outstanding 7-1-1-2 and they are off to their best start in their four-year franchise history. Not lost in all these team accomplishments are the individuals that have gotten the Heat where they are today. It’s difficult not to spot a Heat player somewhere on the AHL’s player statistics sheet. Tied for fifth in AHL points with 12 each are Heat forwards (and linemates) Sven Baertschi and Ben Walter. Filling out the Heat’s most potent line is the league’s leading goal scorer Roman Horak, having scored 10 goals in just 11 games. While their primary scorers are getting the job done, secondary scoring has been huge for the Heat as well. Dustin Sylvester, last season’s Heat top rookie, is second on the team with five goals, while defencemen TJ Brodie and ex-Canuck Steve McCarthy each have eight points in 11 games. The Heat’s goaltending couldn’t get much better either. They’re in a unique situation rolling with three goalies on the roster. Danny Taylor, Barry Brust and Leland Irving have given their team a chance to win every single game. Taylor has started in seven of the Heat’s 11 games. He currently flaunts a 1.69 goals against average rating, which is good for fifth in the AHL. To say all this good fortune will continue for the rest of the season is unlikely. The Heat are hot right now. Unfortunately, there are some worrisome trends emerging. For instance, the Heat sit at 27th in shots per game with 27.3. Despite that, they have scored the fourth most goals per game, averaging 3.6. Do the Heat have extremely efficient snipers or are they getting lucky? Unfortunately, in hockey, the latter applies. Eventually the Heat will begin to regress to the mean, so be prepared for some cold streaks in the near future. Until then, let us rejoice in the fact the Abbotsford Heat are in the upper echelon of an extremely talented pool of teams and players.
Not kidding around KAREN ANEY THE CASCADE
I’m going to go ahead and be super honest here. I find the term “the kids” to be the most obnoxious thing to happen to sports since Tim Thomas. It makes sports journalism a freaking drinking game, and quite frankly I don’t need help getting drunk while watching hockey. That being said, it’s difficult to watch a game with 19-year-old Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, 20-year-old Taylor Hall, and 21-yearold Jordan Eberle without calling them kids. Especially when you interview Ryan Nugent-Hopkins after a morning skate, and he proudly crows about the 10 pounds he’s gained over the summer. “I think part of it is just getting older,” he chimes, “but I’ve been in the gym every day.” That’s nice, sweetheart. The “younger players who seem to be kind of good and make the Barons-Oilers franchise fun to watch” (YPWSTBKOGAMTBOFFTW), as I am dubbing them (think it will stick?), are joined this year by Justin Schultz. This rookie found a loophole in the collective bargaining agreement and left the University of Wisconsin in order to become a free agent. It didn’t spark a bidding war, but only because his entry-level contract salary was already dictated. He essentially had his pick of teams, and the Kelowna-native chose Edmonton over Vancouver. He’s proven to be an amazing asset: his overtime winner on Saturday night made him the leading goal-scorer on the team, with seven. And yes, he’s a defenceman. And yes, he’s playing with the three “kids”—or “YPWSTBKOGAMTBOFFTW”—that make those enraptured by the world of hockey soil themselves every time they step out their front doors. Schultz also has more assists than anyone on the team, with nine. I really wanted to write an article about all the things they did this weekend that are not kid-like at all, but there wasn’t enough content. So, rather than crowing about how adorable they all are for 800 words, here’s a nice little mix. Kid-like: Ryan Nugent-Hopkins’ “moustache.” It’s kind of like the sparse piles of downy fluff that those creepy boys in floorlength coats in high school sported the second their testicles descended. Apparently, it’s socially acceptable to grow this kind of moustache if you make a crap-load of money and play hockey kind of well.
Image: Abbotsford Heat
Kid-like: Each of the “YPWSTBKOGAMTBOFFTW” sneaking out behind the media while their coach was being interviewed. You’re professional athletes, play nice for the cameras for two flipping minutes please. Not that I’m bitter or anything. Kid-like: The six-foot, newly-185-pound “Nuge” attempting to shoulder-check the Heat’s six-foot-two, 200-pound Captain Laing into the boards. It was kind of like when a little kid bowls with the bumpers in the gutters – he bounced right off Laing like the veteran was his own personal bouncy castle on the ice. Wee! Kid-like: The celebration after Taylor Hall’s goal. Sure, it ended a 187-minute scoring drought, but after his fist pump was interrupted by his linemates (Eberle and Nugent-Hopkins), they were all literally jumping up and down on the ice. It may have been a teensy bit of overkill. A more mature player would have nodded in satisfaction, then taken a sip of Gatorade – probably with his pinky in the air. Kid-like: Justin Schultz’s reaction to the loud boos every time he touched the puck on Friday night, and the suggestion that it could be bitter Vancouver fans. “I thought it was pretty funny. I didn’t notice it until the third period, all the guys gave me a hard time. It was good.” Classy response to a classless question. And I’m allowed to say that, because I’m the one who asked it. Not Kid-like: Taylor Hall giving the longest post-game interview on Saturday night, and specifically ensuring that the high school and elementary school students were able to ask him as many questions as they wanted. He answered them as seriously as he answered the folks from TSN, even though the questions were partial repeats of earlier ones and somewhat irrelevant (hey, they’re learning – and doing a great job). It was adorable, and made me want to pet him. Whoops, I promised I wouldn’t talk like that. Oh well. Not Kid-like: The Barons came back on the ice after the game was over and saluted their fans in the building – there were quite a few of them, including three charter buses of fans who came from Edmonton. Not Kid-like: The view as they milled around outside the locker room. Their six packs had six packs. I’ve informed my boyfriend that it doesn’t count as cheating if they have bodies like that.
Quote of the scrum: “Indefinitely ... sounds like Notting Hill. ‘How long will you be here? Indefinitely.’ In case you’re a movie buff.” ~Head coach Troy Ward on Lance Bouma’s injury status.
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www.ufvcascade.ca
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2012
SPORTS & HEALTH
STUDENT UNION SOCIETY
E.G.M
Extraordinary General Meeting
Wed Nov 21st
9:00am—12:00 @
AfterMath
If needed the second attempt will be scheduled for November 28th
1. Adoption of Agenda: 2. Information items: (i) information item about AfterMath finances
3. Motions: (i) WHEREAS there is a proposal for budget reform BE IT RESOLVED THAT we create a new budget system. (ii) WHEREAS the current quorum impedes the Society’s ability to do business.
BE IT RESOLVED THAT we amend bylaw 17 as presented (iii) WHEREAS there is no clear indication of when incoming SUS directors are given voting rights BE IT RESOLVED THAT we add bylaw 34.5 as presented.
4. Question Period: 5. Adjournment
YOUR VOICE