The McGill Tribune Vol. 25 Issue 27

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Vol. 25 Issue 27 I Tuesday, April 4, 2006

P U B L I S H E D BY T H E S T U D E N T S ' S O C I E T Y OF M C G I L L U N I V E R S I T Y

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Six execs resign in protest over ‘stifling of debate’ NIALL MACKAY ROBERTS

The Trib takes a look back in a special pullout section celebrating our 25th anniversary. See pages 15-18.

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Adm inistration refuses to reconsider eviction JAMES G O TO W IEC The saga of the Sexual Assault Centre of McGill Students' Society continued through last week, as stu­ dent leaders brought the issue to Senate and pressed administrators to commit to a negotiated solution to the office-space problem.

On Feb. 28, SSMU VicePresident University Affairs Max Reed received a memo from the office of Vice-Principal Administration and Finance Morty Yalovksy advising him that SACOMSS would have to vacate its confidential night office by May 31. This marks the second time in two years that volunteers at the serv­ ice have had to scramble to find office space.

At Wednesday's Senate meet­ ing, Reed asked administrators to

explain why they are asking SACOMSS to leave the office space, and how McGill can claim to be a student-centred university when it is taking space away from "essential, award-winning, student-run services."

Students packed the Senate meeting room to hear Provost Anthony Masi's response. Supporters of the service lined up at the back of the room and held up large laminat­ ed signs reading, "SACOMSS is..." along with several messages com­ pleting the thought, including "patient," "anonymous" and "being evicted (again)."

Masi began by noting McGill does provide assistance in sexual assault cases through Mental Health Services, McGill Security and other offices. He said that SSMU had been allocated university space in accor­

dance with its current memorandum of agreement, which it had chosen to give to SACOMSS, and that this space allotment would come to an end when the MOA expired at the end of May. "The university is currently expe­ riencing a shortage of space," he said. "It was made clear to both the SSMU and the student groups involved that the space was only allocated to them temporarily."

Masi said that student leaders were free to bring up space for the service in the ongoing negotiations over the MOA. "SSMU has been told on more than one occasion," he said, "that if it wants to raise the possibility [of allocating space to SACOMSS] it will have to do so in the discussions

See PROVOST, page 3

The remnants of the Queer McGill executive passed two con­ tentious resolutions condemning Héma-Québec on March 27, after hours of heated debate spanning two executive meetings and a sud­ den spate of executive resignations.

The first resolution, . which passed with six members in support, none against and one abstention, demands that Héma-Québec review its policy barring sex workers from donating blood, insisting instead that the provincial blood bank's personal history questionnaire distinguish between those who practise safe sex and those who do not. The second resolution, which passed with four votes in favour, none against, and three abstentions, calls upon the Students' Society to refuse to allow Héma-Québec to conduct future blood drives on its premises.

Craig Ross, Queer McGill's trans/gender issues resource coordi­ nator, brought forward last Monday's motions. He explained his initiatives as a natural outcome of the anti-dis­ crimination clauses in the SSMU and j Queer McGill mandates.

"Since Queer McGill is a SSMU ; service and SSMU's constitution states that Students' Society endeav­ ours be undertaken with full respect J for human dignity and without dis­ crimination on the basis of 'irrelevant j personal characteristics,' we're asking them not to let [Héma-Québec] con­ tinue to perpetuate harmful stereoi types on our Students' Society prop­ erty," Ross said.

Though debate on the motion lasted less than ten minutes, at least j one of the seven executives present j objected to the idea of permanently banning blood drives in the Shatner building.

"I very much reject the policy that prevents men who have sex with men from donating blood," said Volunteer Coordinator Nurit Shir, "but most people who give blood in

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school would not give it otherwise. In this case, I would think more about the people who need blood than about our discrimination."

Ross and others responded, however, that Héma-Québec's deci­ sion to ban donations from men who have sex with men (MSM) was politically motivated, citing oftrepeated claims that consumer groups pressured the organization into maintaining its restrictions in spite of medical evidence recom­ mending the contrary.

Queer McGill Co-administrator Floh Herra Vega, who will be dealing with the ongoing controversy next year as SSMU vice-president clubs and services, remained unconvinced on the issue.

"I'm perpetually conflicted on this," she said, as she, Shir and Political Coordinator Chiara Klaiman abstained on the motion to recom­ mend a ban on Héma-Québec func­ tions.

Decisive action demanded Queer McGill has been at the centre of the blood-drive controversy since last year, when its current polit­ ical wing first demanded that HémaQuébec revise its policy of perma­ nently excluding MSM from donating blood because of their presumed risk as carriers of HIV. After the radi­ cal queer group Second Cumming shut down the last blood drive in late January, the pressure mounted on Queer McGill to take significant action. However, recent talks between SSMU and Héma-Québec have stalled, and Vice-President Communications and Events Roz Freeman has offered little evidence of a forthcoming solution.

Ross described his motions in the context of past failures at political action.

"After the Second Cumming incident, we knew Queer McGill had to define its position on the blood drive a little more clearly. Either we

See RESIGNATIONS, page 3

Well, it's the last issue of the year. If you haven't taken advantage of news

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news CAMPUS

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S A C O M S S external coordinator disappointed with answers at Senate Continued from cover

regarding the MOA between SSMU and McGill."

Masi added that since the nego­ tiations are ongoing, it was inappropriate for him to comment on them at Senate.

In his answer, Masi attempted to address many of the arguments that have swirled around the contro­ versial issue.

"If the university were to make space available outside of SSMU, it might be required to do so in other cases," he said, possibly alluding to the issue of Muslim prayer space currently sitting before the Quebec Human Rights Commission after a challenge by McGill's Muslim Students' Association.

The university has denied MSA further use of campus facilities for daily prayers, and some see the SACOMSS eviction as an attempt at enforcing a more coherent policy against the student use of campus space.

Masi went on to address the suggestion that the service needs a mere 70 square feet of space and could operate by means of a "virtual office" that would constantly move

tor, dismissed Masi's interpretation locations.

"The space required need not of the liability issue.

"We don't give advice," she be on campus," he said. "Could SACOMSS obtain a small amount of said. "It's a listening and referral service, and that's really strongly space off campus? Would students stated in our protocols," which have support a minimal increase in fees to been approved by McGill Mental support such a space?"

He also added that the universi­ Health Services.

Marcushamer said that she ty could face liability in the event that was disappointed with Masi's the advice offered by SACOMSS is response to Reed's questions and "inappropriate or problematic."

Munroe-Blum's approach to allow­ After Masi's response many senators pressed for answers to fol­ ing questions from other senators.

"It was really frustrating to see low-up questions. Principal Heather Munroe-Blum, as the chair of the the reaction of the McGill admin, specifically Heather Munroe-Blum meeting, had to step in more than and Tony Masi," she said. "There once to rule questions out of order, were senators who were asking as they were straying into debate on really pertinent questions and those the issue. questions weren't getting Arts faculty Senator Elizabeth LUKAS BERGMARK answered."

Elbourne asked Masi how the issue She also questioned Masi's of liability is different for SACOMSS A cardboard cutout A d am Conter holds up a sign in the S S M U office logic in including McGill Security as than for any of the other mental one" of the services available to sur­ publicizing the eviction of S A C O M S S . health services the university offers.

"Issues of liability are very vivors of sexual assault. is unsuccessful in reaching a resolu­ don't know if we would have to shut "McGill Security is not a support tricky," Masi responded. 'They affect down our help line, but we would tion through the MOA, SACOMSS system; it's not a listening system or us in many ways... the issue can be definitely reduce our hours. That would be "in serious trouble." support service," she said. 'To hear explored in an MOA. It can explored "There really is no viable alter­ would obviously hurt survivors and him say that McGill Security is a form in the appropriate context." people who are trying to reach out to native," she said. "Being in Shatner is of support for students to me was But Sharon Marcushamer, who us, because help lines shouldn't be absolutely unacceptable.

The idea of attended the Senate meeting and is just outrageous." being off campus is unacceptable. I nine to five." ■ Marcushamer said that if SSMU the SACOMSS co-external coordina­

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regard for their concerns regarding the HémaQuébec motions. take a hard line, or we don't, and not taking a Tzoulas presented the issue in unequivo­ position is going to alienate just as many peo­ cal terms. ple as taking a stand will," he said. "Personally, “I think, fundamentally, [the other execu­ I... was more than willing to make [this issue] tives] saw it as we lost, so we got up and left," the hill I was willing to die on. Apparently, oth­ he said. '"They don't see it as an issue of free Resignations reveal internal tensions ers felt the same way."

At least six Queer McGill executives, how­ speech. It's a fundamental difference of vision."

In spite of her abstention on the bloodAfter tabling a motion to push to twoever, disagreed with the procedure by which drive ban, Klaiman also expressed a frustration thirds the number of votes required for adopt­ Ross's motions were proposed.

At the March with past methods and an enthusiasm for ing new policy, Tzoulas and the other dissent­ 20 executive meeting at which the motions future political action targeting both Hémaing executives first surfaced, CoQuébec and Canadian Blood Services, its coun­ hoped to settle "One major problem this year was the fact administrator André terpart in the rest of the country. the tension "I would not rule out a mass demonstra­ van Doom, Political that we had a very young exec... and so some marring last Coordinator Nick tion at Héma-Québec headquarters in Quebec have a tendency of acting like petulant week's meet­ City or at Canadian Blood Services headquar­ Tzoulas, Discussion ing. However, Group Liaison Chris children when they don't get their way." ters in Ottawa," she said. "I think it's safe to say when the new Parkes, Internet —Craig Ross we're stepping up our game. We've had the motion was Coordinator Ali Bloch, same policy on Héma-Québec's discrimination Queer McGill trans/gender issues rejected, the six Secretary Adriana for about 10 years, and it's gotten us almost resource coordinator Queer McGill Nigro and Treasurer nowhere. It's time to try another avenue." executives pro­ Haley Wightman Héma-Québec representatives declined duced a prepared resignation letter, signed stood up and left Queer McGill’s conference requests for comment. In the past, however, their names one by one and left the room. room after several hours of intense debate. coordinators of the McGill blood drive have Several of the remaining execs have At the next week's meeting, the dissenting defended the organization's exclusion of MSM accused the group who resigned of acting in executives returned with a prepared statement as an issue of public health taking precedence bad faith, pointing to their prewritten resigna­ explaining their actions and expressing frustra­ over anti-discrimination policies, citing figures tion as evidence that they never honestly placing the gay population at a significantly tion at the "disrespectful, reprehensible, and sought to resolve their concerns. childish" level of dialogue that they said had greater per capita risk for having or contracting "I think, by the end, [resigning] was more characterized the previous executive debate.

HIV than their straight counterparts. about them being martyrs than it was for any According to the executives who had walked The issue of sex works, on the other hand, personal moral reason," Ross said. "One major out the week before, the principal source of is a relatively new one for Queer McGill, though the organization specifically refers *t© -itself- as- contention -was Their-colleagues'- perceived dis- - -problem This year .was the-fcct -thattwe had aContinued from cover

"sex-positive" in the latest draft of its constitu­ tion.

"A number of us were looking to move in a more sex-positive direction generally," Ross said.

very young exec... and so some have a ten­ dency of acting like petulant children when they don't get their way."

Tzoulas, meanwhile, accused Ross and the remaining-executives of attempting to stack the \?otes on the Héma-Québec motions by notifying only supporters of the blood-drive ban that a vote was to take place at the execu­ tive meeting. He also claimed the motion on sex workers was unjustified and poorly researched.

"It would be very helpful if /all could come so we can push [these motions] through... The important thing is that we have the votes to make the changes," wrote Ross to a handful of executives in an e-mail released to the Tribune.

For his part, however, Ross said he had no regrets about the way his motions were pre­ sented.

"As for regrets, seeing as how we’re fight­ ing for rights and taking a stand for equality, I can't see any of us regretting that," he said.

Klaiman agreed, expressing hope that the McGill community would see past Queer McGill's internal squabbles and rally in support of its position.

"I think that students who care strongly about the rights of minorities will support this move," she said. "I do not think the resigna­ tions will negatively affect Queer McGill as an organization. We are still here, running our - office, having events." ■ --------------------------

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news j 4.4.06 | the mcgill tribune

CAMPUS W A R M -S P A R K

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P R O JE C T

(Supported by the VP Research Office, Associate Vice-Prinopai (Communications), and the Faculties o f Agriculture & Environment# Sc»ences. Arts. Engineering. Medicine, and Science)

M in e r v a

W ARM (Writing About Research at McGill) S P A R K (StudentsPromoting Awareness o f Research Knowledge)

C o n tro versial course registration service,

Lookingfor Student Writers

Coursealerts.ca, shut down by M cGill admin K A Y V O N AFSHARI Minerva, McGill's goddess of course registration, has often caused frustration among undergrads who find themselves unable to register for popular classes. The system current­ ly lacks any waiting list for capped courses, leaving students to frantical­ ly log on and hope for the best.

Earlier this year, CourseAlerts.ca, a website created by Concordia stu­ dent Alexandre Roche, aimed to fix the problem by notifying fee-paying McGill students via email or text message when spaces appear in fully registered courses. The website was shut down in late January because of concerns raised by both the Registrar's Office and Information Systems Resources, the office responsible for Minerva.

Roche said he was dissatisfied with McGill's arguments for the nec­ essary shutdown.

'They were saying that it creates a tiered system and that it's unfair for certain students. But it's not like five dollars is a huge amount of money.

You might as well be getting into the course that you want. Why settle for the course you don't want?" said Roche.

ISR was also apprehensive about the security concerns that are involved in having a program repeat­ edly access Minerva's server.

According to a message posted

on CourseAlerts website, "Course Alerts is currently closed and is not accepting new sign-ups due to a dis­ pute with McGill University," and indi­ cates that the site will continue to "actively advocate for a solution to the course overload problem at McGill." However, according to administrators, the university is not prepared to work with CourseAlerts anytime in the future.

Tony Masi, McGill provost and acting chief information officer, explained the university's reasoning for denying Roche access to Minerva.

"What we did was to protect McGill data related to course enrol­ ments from being accessed by any­ body other than university staff or students," he said. "We also took the opportunity by means of these measures, to remind all members of the McGill community that our poli­ cies do not permit the use of either home-grown or commercially avail­ able computer software to repeated­ ly access [the Minerva database]."

However, Roche believes this concern to be illegitimate.

"As far as I'm concerned there is a secure way for me to access their database if they gave me a legitimate deal where I set up CourseAlerts for free," said Roche.

However, Masi said that this is not a consideration because Roche had "exploited a weakness in our system that we have now

addressed."

According to Masi, McGill is looking into initiatives that would rec­ tify the problem on their own.

"Our information systems and technology units... are indeed exploring potential solutions to the waiting list problem in an effort to resolve some of the legitimate stu­ dent concerns regarding course enrolments," said Masi.

In early January, Doug Jackson, director of ISR, told the Tribune that trial waitlists will open for Fall regis­ tration in the Faculties of Law and Continuing Education.

Not only was Roche's service effectively shut down, but in early January Roche received a letter from Enrica Quaroni, Associate Dean of Arts, accusing him of violating various sections of McGill's computing code of conduct, specifically relating to using McGill computer facilities for commercial purposes.

Minerva, along with other McGill information services such as Webmail and WebCT, are part of a new online system known as MyMcGill, launched yesterday. The service, located at my.mcgill.ca, aims to be a one-stop portal for McGillrelated services. It is currently avail­ able only to Science, Arts and Engineering students, and the administration has not given any indication of when it plans to roll out the service for all students. ■

2006-2007 Join an energetic group of WARM-SPARK student writers dedicated to writing about research for a general audience.

WARM-SPARK writers work as a writing community. They edit each other’s texts with the objective of publishing their articles in McGill-related and local newspapers. For further information see www.SDark.mcaill.ca The program accommodates 8-10 writers and is open to McGill undergraduate and graduate students in all faculties Participants must be able to attend weekly meetings throughout the academic year.

Students interested for the 2006-2007 academic year . should send a résumé, university transcript, and a short writing sample by A pril 30. 2006 to: Prof. Linda Cooper (w a r m -s p a r k Linda.Cooper@mcaill.ca Redpath Museum Faculty of Science

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the mcgill tribune ] 4.4.06 | news 5 NEWS

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Both sides hope that new executives can heal this year’s wounds RO BERT C H U R C H Students' Society executives and rep­ resentatives from provincial student lobby group la Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec are hoping that next year's executive councils at both organizations will be able to smooth over the tense rela­ tionship that has developed this year between SSMU and FEUQ, which is responsible for representing nearly 150,000 post-secondary students in Quebec.

With the possibility of a provincial election next fall or spring, SSMU person­ nel concede that working with FEUQ next year is essential. Flowever, the professional and personal relationships between SSMU and FEUQ executives have been strained this year, coming to a head during a policy conference in March that degenerated into a shouting match, resulting in at least one executive of the lobby group breaking into tears.

Outgoing SSMU Vice-President External Affairs and President-elect Aaron Donny-Clark said that the problems stemmed from what he called FEUQ's "you're-with-us-or-against-us" attitude.

"There were problems both with the executives themselves and their way of functioning,” he said. "[Personal issues] were definitely a big problem, and it's a

ment was elected in April 2003, will likely be calling an election before next summer.

Charesfs popularity dropped significantly after his election, and he has clashed with many provincial political groups, especially labour unions and students. Last spring, Charest backtracked on a controversial plan to scrap $ 108-million worth of bur­ saries for Quebec students after mass protests across the province and near-uni­ versal student strikes.

SSMU's membership in FEUQ will also become an issue next year, as it comes up for renewal by referendum next spring.

problem that's been brewing in FEUQ cul­ ture for several years. It's not like this year's culture came out of nowhere at the execu­ tive level."

La FEUQ President François Vincent agreed with Donny-Clark that relations this year were strained, but said that disagree­ ment is inevitable in student politics. ""Sometimes [the relationship] was more difficult, but it's part of the life, part of the political student's life, and now I think we have to work with the future," he said.

Donny-Clark said that while it's unfor­ tunate that this year's disputes turned per­ sonal, SSMU has been working to address the problems for next year.

"I think that for the year coming, espe­ cially because of the SSMU's actions in the organization, everything has been brought to the front," he said. "Everything has defi­ nitely been identified, and I think that any­ one who's been in a relationship knows that the only way to ever move forward is to bring into the open the problems so that you know what you're dealing with and how to fix it, and that's exactly what we're doing at FEUQ."

Fresh èxec, fresh start?

La FEUQ in the spotlight FEUQ will play an increasingly impor­ tant role for Quebec universities next year, as Premier Jean Charest, whose govern­

Vincent said that the inclusion of two McGill student names on the ballot for next year's FEUQ executive, Trevor Hanna and current SSMU VP Finance and Operations Erik Van Eyken, could strengthen ties between the two organizations.

"What I see are two people from SSMU in FEUQ's election, and I think they are going to be real good members of the national executive of la FEUQ, and coming from McGill they're going to be able to maintain constant communication and show to the students of McGill that it's pos­ sible to be at la FEUQ." Max Silverman, who was recently acclaimed as the 2006-07 SSMU vicepresident external affairs, said that la FEUQ

needs to pay more attention to issues like differential tuition in order to better serve McGill students. About 43 per cent of McGill students come from outside of Quebec.

"My best-case scenario is that la FEUQ will take out-of-province and international students' issues seriously, and get beyond the childish issues that we had this year," Silverman said. "By the end of next year, I hope we'll be thoroughly convinced that we can tell our students to vote yes for la FEUQ." Silverman also wants to continue pressuring the federal government to restore nearly $5-billion in federal transfer payments that were cut during the 1990s.

SSMU has engaged in its own federal lob­ bying efforts since withdrawing from CASA, a national student lobby group, in the fall.

"We still haven't gotten our transfer from the federal government. Mr. Harper has hinted at it, but still hasn't really taken any concrete action, so if II be interesting to see the Throne Speech and see if he men­ tions it," Silverman said. "I don't know what the political landscape is going to look like come September, when students are back, but I'm going to spend the summer trying to feel out all parties involved, both [politi­ cal] parties and la FEUQ, and everyone else involved with education across the country." ■

This year, the SSMU will wo* hard to inform you of the latest developments in McGill s undergraduate community. Expect a SSMU half-page every second week in the Tnbune, on page 5.

The SSMU Executives would like to thank all McGill Undergraduate students for a fantastic year. We would also like to extend our gratitude to all the people we worked with this year.

We could not have made this year such a success without you.

Good luck on your exams and have a great summer !

Cheers!

Adam Conter, Max Reed, Aaron Donny-Clark, Roz Freeman, Eric van Eyken and Leon Mwotia

T h a n k y o u !

BILLBOARD

6

news | 4.4.06 | the mcgill tribune

CITY ÎW**

F i n d e r s ’ f e e s H ig h

v a c a n c y

r a t e s

MARIT MITCHELL As the semester draws to a close, first-year students are begin­ ning to face their inevitable move out of Residence. Many have already chosen roommates and secured an apartment for the coming fall, but for those who have yet to make arrange­ ments there is no reason to panic.

So said Pamela Chiniah of the McGill Off-Campus Housing Office.

Although the prevailing opinion seems to be that decent and afford­ able apartments are difficult to find, Chiniah disagreed. "[Apartments] used to go like hotcakes," she said. "My phone is not ringing like it used to ring."

A number of factors have con­ tributed to a reduction in competition for apartments in neighbourhoods near McGill. Low mortgage rates mean that more families are buying rather than renting, and many are moving out of predominantly rental areas like the McGill Ghetto. This phenomenon, combined with the presence of New Residence Hall, has considerably weakened demand.

"New Rez" has ensured that every first-year student coming to McGill from outside Quebec is guar­ anteed a place in Residence. This means that first-years are no longer forced to find apartments close to school. In addition, more secondand third-year students have been moving out of the Ghetto, also known as the Milton-Parc communi­ ty, in favour of neighbourhoods with lower rent that are slightly farther from campus.

According to Chiniah, the biggest factor in easing the pressure over finding housing is the burgeon­ ing condominium market.

"The housing situation in Montreal has changed tremendously over the past two years... If you walk along the street there are 'à louer' signs all over Montreal, and I think it's a good thing that there are more apartments available," said Chiniah.

"The main reason is the condomini­ ums."

The high availability of condo­ miniums also means that more peo-

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pie are buy­ ing rather than renting, including stu­ dents and their families.

Often, those who can afford to will buy as an investm ent, then rent to students as "a little business on the side," Chiniah said.

C u rre n t trends mark a major change Ghetto-dwellers have from the housing crisis Montreal experienced four years ago, when demand for housing vastly exceeded supply. It was out of this hot market that many finders' fees arose. Students willing to pay tenants for the right to sign the lease with the landlord vyere charged hundreds or thousands of dollars for miscella­ neous services and items, such as furniture.

Although charging a finder's fee is illegal, many students who want to live in the Ghetto are still willing to pay them. Chiniah, however, feels the practice is waning.

"We have found that the num­ ber of people that have participated... has reduced tremendously. This is really a great change, and if every­ body keeps saying no, it will stop," she said. "If we don't want to have to deal with finders' fees next year and the year after, we should say n o even if you can afford it, even if this is your dream apartment."

One student, who asked to remain anonymous because of the illegal nature of the exchange, paid $2,000 extra for his apartment, his third of the $6,000 finder's fee.

"We saw it as an investment," he said. "The guys we paid the money to had themselves paid the same find­ er's fee, and if they paid it and are getting it back, we assume that we, too, will be able to get it back."

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been seeing a lot more of these. desirable apartments can escalate into bidding wars between interested parties. One such bidding war for an apartment in 900 Sherbrooke, across from the Roddick Gates, went as high as $11,000. According to the student, roughly half of first-years are still agreeing to pay finder's fees.

"I have a lot of friends who are adamantly opposed to paying and some that recognize that... if you find the ideal apartment it's just some­ thing you have to deal with," he said.

"But certainly, if you don't want to [pay a finder's fee] there are still places you can find."

Chiniah believes that students are becoming sawier about apart­ ment hunting.

"I think students know their rights," she said. "They're more aware of what reasonable rent is, or when a landlord is taking advantage, or that to go and live on Duluth is not the end of the world."

The greatest rush for apartments occurs in late January and February, when they are still in relatively short supply. Chiniah estimates that she has 350 apartments for rent listed on the Off-Campus Housing Web site during those months, as opposed to more than 1,000 listings during March and April. This means apart­ ments are widely available this time of year, and students can sign leases with landlords directly, thereby avoid­ ing finders' fees. ■

Speed

Nigerian soccer referees were instructed last week by the Secretary General of the sport's gov­ erning body that they are permitted to take bribes ■%?.>•; from either side during a match, but that such bribes should not affect the outcome of the match. Nigeria is reputed to be one of the most corrupt states in Africa, and apparently soccer matches are no exception. • According to a .recent phone survey conducted by Opinion Research Corporation, pop-singer-in-exile Michael Jackson was voted most foolish American. Jackson, who narrowly edged out Dick •tic Cheney, Paris Hilton, George Bush and Oprah Winfrey, hasn't confirmed whether he is sporting a maple leaf on his backpack in Bahrain, his recently adopted home. • British Columbia has passed a law ensuring that companies and individuals could apologize without admission of liability. This new legislation SVec was also introduced in central Canada, but it failed to pass because Ontario was being stubborn. • Twentieth Century i J*■ »!

Fox has confirmed the release of a full-length film featur­ ing the Simpsons, scheduled to hit theatres in 2007.

Sim psons creator Matt Groening explained that his writ - . ers would continue to produce episodes as long as they could come up with fresh ideas. Note that <• ■ U*Mt Groening said fresh, not good. ’ be %m4 iu Sources: Reuters, Yahoo!, BBC îh-â K Iff* UK M fdKtv

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T h e editors deeply love you TRIBUNE NEWS TEAM Tribune news team 2005-06: Nearly eight months and 27 issues later, the Tribune news section is calling it quits for the 2005-06 school year. This year the Trib has been lucky to have a ton of great contributors, and we wouldn't have been able to do the job without the help of everyone below. Thank you to everyone who contributed to news this year. The news editors would like to give a special thanks to incoming editors Matt, Kayvon and Kate, and wish them the best of luck next year.

—Jam es, Rob and Niall

Kayvon Afshari, Terri Alderfer, Daniel Amin, Miriam Aronowicz, Andrew Bauer, Ines Beatrix, Megan Briggs, Margaux Carson, Nora Coghlan, Natalie Earl, Sarah Fraser, Joshua Freeman, Melissa Gaul, Sarah Giynpas, Emily Harris, Kelly Harris, Erin Kimmel, Rita Kreynin, Heather Haq Lawrence, Christine Ledoux, Allison McNeely, Sergio Roldan Mejia, Marit Mitchell, Katherine Spirgen, Mikelis’ Steprans, Richard Tseng, Vincci Tsui, Lisa Varano, Nora Webb, Jacqui Wilson, James Young

The Faculty o f Arts and the African Studies Program present

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Professor Renfrew Christie

S p r in g 2 0 0 6 T O

A L L

C o n v o c a t io n

G R A D U A T I N

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C e r e m o n ie s

S T U D E N

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I n p r e v io u s y e a r s , a c o n v o c a t i o n p a m p h le t w a s m a ile d t o a ll g r a d u a tin g stu d e n ts.

I n o r d e r t o b e t t e r m e e t M c G i l l ’s s u s t a in a b ilit y n e e d s , th is w ill n o

lo n g e r b e d o n e .

A ll in f o r m a t io n r e g a r d in g c o n v o c a t i o n w ill n o w b e m a d e

a v a ila b le o n - l i n e at: w w w .m c g i l l . c a / c o n v o c a t i o n s .

DeanofResearch, UniversityoftheWesternCape, SouthAfrica General Secretary, Royal SocietyofSouthAfrica DeanofResearchoftheUniversityofiheWesternCape. Professor RenfrewChristiewritesonpoliticsand economics, militaryandnavalaffairs, thehistoryofscienceandtechnology, aodnuclearhistory. Hewasa co-founderoftheNational InstituteforEconomicPolicy HeistheChairpersonoftheUniversityofthe WesternCapeCommunityl awCentre, whichwasseminal «tdraftingtheSouthAfricanBill ofRights. He haschairedtheBoardof Directorsoftheanti-apartheidnewspaperSouth, andassistedinthepost-apartheid transformationoftheSouthAfricannavy. From1970to1<>86,RenfrewChristiewasheldasapolitical prisonerundertheTerrorismActafterbeingfoundguiltyofspyingontheapartheidstate'snuclear weaponsprogrammeforNelsonMandela’sAfricanNational Congress.

Friday, April 7,2006 4:00 p.m.

Reception to follow Stephen Leacock Building, Room 232 855 Sherbrooke Street West

Formort(«formationcontacttheAfricanStudiesProgramTel:(514139H-4S04 Email: ini<.seharBwriK:m:«icgtfl.ea

A lin k t o G a s p a r d & S o n s ( a c a d e m ic d r e ss s u p p lie r s ) w ill b e a d d e d t o t h e w e b s it e . W h e n t h e lin k is a c t iv e , y o u w ill

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n e e d t o o r d e r y o u r a c a d e m ic d r e ss b y M a y 17, 2 0 0 6 . **The FacultyofArtswouldliketothanktheOfficeoffheVice-Principal Research, Universityof Ottawa, forarrangingRenfrewChristie'sCanadiantour.

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If you had asked us at this time last year what we thought of Comer's chances for a suc­ cessful presidency, we would have joined in with the cynical majority and said "not good."

His trademark fedora just boded poorly. Of course, Conter probably didn't care what we thought, and it's a good thing. By the time his term is done, SSMU should have a new lease for the Shatner building and the daycare, and a new memorandum of agreement signed, unless that gets derailed by the SACOMSS issue. He campaigned last year on team-build­ ing and has actually delivered, and we're sure his will go down as one of the most cohesive execs in recent—or even distant—memory.

Conter has also tried-and, for the most part, succeeded—at getting students out to athletic events, and he has suggested changes to the way athletics are advertised to keep students coming out in the future. He can occasionally seem uncaring or sarcastic when dealing with the more mundane aspects of his job, howev­ er, that has been a small price to pay for a strong president who actually stuck around the whole year.

The incoming president made a lot of friends in the fall semester by withdrawing from CASA, which various SSMU councillors have been trying to make happen for the past two years. Whether the decision was the right one isn't up for debate here, but Donny-Clark could have done a better job communicating CASA's role and its shortcomings to students. * He’s done good things outside of CASA though, and made sure that SSMU's name was in the media during the federal election, going so far as to have SSMU buy advertising time during pre-election episodes of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He has made it clear to provincial lobby group la Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec that SSMU's voice should not be taken lightly, and to some degree they seem to be listening. However, there is still the issue of federal representation, one that was supposed to have been resolved—or at least discussed—long before now. Next year's VP External must get on this issue quickly to make sure that answers are forthcoming.

The VP Fops this year ran on a platform of getting more people to Geifs, and he's been moderately successful at following through. The pub has become a muchimproved place for students to hold events, but unfortunately this hasn't translated into overall profitability. However, Cert's has had many profitable months and at least won't lose any more money than expected—and certainly less than in previous years.

Unfortunately, van Eyken has been less suc­ cessful in the rest of his portfolio. Sadie's Tabagie will close at the end of April, and it's unclear whether he really tried to keep it open. If he did, he did a poor job of commu­ nicating that to SSMU Council and the stu­ dent body. Also, despite repeated questioning from this paper, he still shows no interest in publishing SSMU financial statements, as he is required to do under the SSMU Constitution. He will be moving on to become Secretary-General of la FEUQ, how­ ever, and will be a strong McGill voice to have at that table.

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After Frosh ends, most students proba­ bly think that the C&E job does too, but this year Freeman has managed to keep herself busy with other projects, notably the blood donation policies of Héma-Québec. The response to the Second Cumming protest was handled poorly, but Freeman and the other execs recognized this and said so publicly—a credit to them. However, Freeman hasn't otherwise made much progress on the file, and last we heard was waiting for HQ to call her and arrange a meeting. Now that Queer McGill has pub­ licly demanded that SSMU stop HémaQuébec from holding blood drives in the Shatner building, Freeman's successor is going to have a tough time navigating this tricky issue. That being said, Freeman has managed a few notable accomplishments, including finally getting the SSMU Web site up and running in both French and English-however limited some translations remain-which C&E execs have been prom­ ising in every election since Al Gore invent­ ed the Internet.

After a year as a senator and another as VP University Affairs, Reed has certainly read more than his share of committee reports. The question is whether he's done more than just read them. Fortunately for us, it's an easy answer. Reed has been good at distilling the major points and finer details of what happens at Senate and other meetings into easily digestible bites for ordinary students. When SACOMSS found itself without office space on the first day of his term, he jumped right into the fire. Since then, he has been in the admin­ istration's face about any number of issues, including the A+ grade and-once again, at the end of the year-space for SACOMSS. He has also written submissions to the Principal's Taskforce on Student Life and Learning and the Master Plan Taskforce, which may help shape McGill policy for years into the future.

B+

Eric van Eyken

Leon Mwotia

VP Finance & Operations

VP Clubs & Services

C+

B+

It seems that people on campus either love Mwotia or- hate him, depending on which side of their particular issue he comes down on. Yes, he handled the pro­ posed merger of Queer McGill with the Union for Gender Empowerment badly, but managed to put that behind him and move on, while taking important lessons from the experience. He has always been ready to provide reasons for the decisions that he makes, which may not have been popular but are at least thought out. One of the only strikes against him is that club execu­ tives have complained that he has been slow in getting back to them.

He hasn't left very much unfinished for his successor to deal with, except for defining SSMU's relationship with CKUT. Now that the radio station is more closely tied to SSMU it will be up to next year's VP C&S. PHOTOS BY LUKAS BERGMARK, VLADIM IR EREM IN AND KIYOKO GOTANDA

8

news j 4.4.06 | the mcgill tribune

SPEAKERS

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"About one out of two people in North America thinks the scien­ tists are wrong about evolution," Alters said, suggesting it is not just right-wing religious groups that sup­ port the idea. "Evolution does not mean there is no God. We went to great lengths in the trial to show [believing in] evolution does not make you an atheist."

One of Alters' repeated claims was that support for creationist ideas is rooted in ignorance. He said

stayed on message while answering them.

Professor Brian Alters discussed "Virtually anything can be used intelligent design and its main­ for good or bad, including evolu­ stream acceptance in front of a large tion," he said, in response to the group of students, faculty and com­ final question of the night. munity members at a lecture The audience reaction to the Wednesday. Alters, who holds the event was mixed. While there was a Tomlinson Chair in Science lot of laughter and Alters received a Education and is the director of the strong ovation after the lecture, Evolution Education Research audience members had different Centre, spoke to a capacity crowd in takes on the event. the Leacock auditorium about the "I thought the lecture was landmark Pennsylvania court great," said Norman Lévesque, a case that he took part in last student at UQAM. "I've never had "The occurence of evolution is not year. a problem living with both [reli­ Biology Professor Graham seriously debated in the scientific gion and science]."

Bell, who introduced Alters, literature. It hasn't been in m y lifetime."

Another student, who would described him as "the leading only identify herself as Zoe, said international authority on evo­ that she didn't think Alters was —Professor Brian Alters specific enough. lution education."

Aware that he was dis­ "I thought it was very broad cussing a controversial topic, Alters that recently, 10,000 clergy in the and not very far-reaching," Zoe said. began with a warning.

United States signed a statement "But it was entertaining."

"I might offend some of you supporting evolution, and that the Lévesque agreed. tonight," he said. "Some of your Vatican supports it as well.

"That was the only problem," ideas, tonight, I might attack."

"It's largely a problem of scien­ he said. "He didn't discuss specifics His focus was the widespread tific illiteracy, and, more so, religious of evolution. He just presented the belief in and support for the teach­ illiteracy," he said. 'The occurrence news about it. There wasn't any spe­ ing of intelligent design in public of evolution is not seriously debated cific information." schools. In the fall, he was one of in the scientific literature. It hasn't After the lecture, the National the chief witnesses in an important been in my lifetime."

Centre for Science Education pre­ trial in Dover, Pennsylvania, where Alters dedicated a significant sented Alters with a Friend of the local school board had altered portion of the lecture to evolution Darwin Award for his work in sup­ its curriculum to present evolution education, even showing some port of evolution education. and intelligent design as opposing videos to support his claims. He said Alters claimed that all the lead­ scientific theories. The judge in that that there is immense pressure on ing scientific organizations have case ruled that ID was not science teachers not to teach evolution, and come out in support of evolution. but a form of creationism, and that that those who do are often He called it "the fundamental theory teaching it in public schools was harassed. As a result, it is de-emphaof biology." unconstitutional. sized in classrooms.

'The occurrence of evolution is He .focused much of his atten­ The two-hour lecture was fol­ considered fact," said Alters. "What tion on the widespread support for lowed by questions, some quite is debated is the method and the intelligent design. heated, from the audience. Alters modes." ■

CAMPUS

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A N D R E W SEG A L McGill's campus-community radio station is looking for ways to put a little more "campus" into its pro­ gramming.

CKUT, which broadcasts from its studios at 3647 University at 90.3 FM, saw upwards of 60 per cent of students vote in favour of renewing its four dollar per semester fee for the next five years in the recent refer­ endum. But Rachel Doran, CKUT's McGill outreach coordinator, is inter­ ested in what those students who voted against the fee renewal have to say.

"We're looking for ideas in the wake of the 30 per cent who voted no in the referendum," she said. "We want to know how to change the sta­ tion's operations. Come with an idea, come with a proposal."

Doran pointed out, however, that it's difficult to come up with con­ crete solutions if no one shows up to

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voice them, as was the case at to make it easier for students to get Wednesday's "Have Your Beef With involved," Zackon said. "We're willing CKUT' event held at Gert's. Only two to listen." reporters were present to meet with He pointed to the buddy sys­ representatives of CKUT, which tem, in which new volunteers are included Doran, Zackon, chair of the paired with station veterans, as an CKUT Board of Directors, Nithya example. Doran also noted that the Vijayakumar, U 1 Political Science and station plans to implement an intern­ coordinator ship program of the show "We want m ore [student] content fed into in conjunc­ "All Things tion with the other show s. W e try to cater to people McGill," and Faculty of D o n a l d looking for a com m unity outlook and a Arts, where­ Hall, com- different m edia spectrum on cam pus." by students m u n ity —Rachel Doran could receive member credit for C K U T M cG ill O utreach Coordinator their work at and volun­ teer host of CKUT. the roots-reggae show "Full Circle."

However, Doran and Zackon While disappointed by the seemed somewhat resistant to a fre­ turnout, the CKUT members present quent complaint that the station has strll took the opportunity to pitch the little student-oriented programming. ways in which CKUT is changing to Currently, "All Things McGill," which make itself more student-friendly. airs from 2:30 to 3 p.m. on Fridays, is "We realized student concerns the only show produced by students aren't reflected, and we've attempted for students. The CKUT- representa­

a f t e r

r e f e r e n d u m

tives said that they think students aren't interested in campus-related content and that student-created pieces can be placed across the broadcast grid in shows with themes related to the pieces' content.

"We want more [student] con­ tent fed into other shows," Doran said. "McGill can be funnelled in. We try to cater to people looking for a community outlook and a different media spectrum on campus."

That aside, the CKUT reps stressed the station's openness to students and tried to dispel the com­ mon misconception that there are roadblocks to student involvement.

Instead, members noted that stu­ dents need to take the first steps.

"Students can participate equal­ ly," Zackon said. "If 90 per cent of vol­ unteers were students, then the sta­ tion would be student-oriented."

"I've been trying to get people to come [and work on "All Things McGill"] all semester," Vijayakumar

w in

added. "It's a launching pad for get­ ting involved."

Ultimately, Zackon acknowl­ edged that CKUT's previous relation­ ship with McGill may not have been stellar, but that the station is looking to turn things around.

"We were starting from a very bad place for students, and now we're in a good place," he said. 'The goal now is to make students take advantage of it."

Hall, who said that his show has no student volunteers but that he is open to them, summed up what he felt was the prevailing sentiment at the station.

"Forget about the past," he said.

"Come to the new CKUT" ■ Send com ments and suggestions. to promo@ckut.ca, or raise them at CKUT's General Meeting, April 24 at 6 p.m . at Thomson House. If you'd like to get involved with "All Things McGill, " email mcgill@ckut.ca.

FITNESS & RECREATION CLASSES SPRING 2006

MAY 1 - JUNE 19 DAY & TIME

CO URSE

WKS

COST Member/Non-member

KIDS' AQUATICS Olympic Way - White (3-14 yrs) White Adv {3 -14 yrs) Green {3 -14 yrs) Blue (3-14 yrs) Bronze (3 -14 yrs) Silver (3-14 yrs) Gold (3-14 yrs) Aquatics - Adults Adults Learn To Swim

27.82/40.86

_________ I 6

18:30-19:25 11:15-12:10

27.82/40.86

6

18:00-18:55 19:00-20:25 19:00-20:25

20.81/33.90 33.04/46.08 33.04/46.08

6

17:30-18:40 17:30-18:25 17:30-18:25 17:30-18:25 17:00-17:55 18:00-18:50 18:00-19:25 17:30-18:25

39.99/44.34 38.24/64.33 28.68/54.76 28.68/41.73 28.68/41.73 30.42/56.51 34.77/60.80 52.15/78.24 34.77/60.86 39.99/44.34

75 mins.

6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 75 mins.

Saturday

10:30-11:15

Saturday

11:15-12:00

Tuesday Saturday

Tuesday Monday Tuesday

McGill

_ _ _ _ _

DANCE Hip Hop Latin Dance Social Dance

A T H L E T I C S

6

2006 SPRING & SUMMER SESSION

FITNESS & WELLNESS Fitness Appraisal ..............* ■ ■ ■ *............ ...........

Hatha Yoga Outdoor Bootcamp Pilâtes Power Yoga Spin............ ........................ . _.rr...

Spin 8iTrim ------- -------* _ ST.----------Tae Box Weight Training (Private)

By appointment Mon & Wed Mon & Wed Tuesday Thursday Mon & Wed Tues & Thurs Mon & Wed Tues & Thurs By appointment

Registration opens April 18, 2006 in the Sports Complex Through th e spring and sum m er months, M cG ill students must purchase a m em bership in order to gain access to the Sports Com plex. Special student rates are in effect fo r all those w h o w e re registered th ro u g h th e 2006 w in te r semester.

FULL SPRING & SUMMER MEMBERSHIP

PAY-AS-YOU-GO FITNESS Body Design Boot Camp Hi/Lo Power Yoga Step Spin

$2.17/1 ticket $2.17/1 ticket $2.17/1 ticket $2.17/1 ticket $2.17/1 ticket $2.17/1 ticket

Tuesday Thursday Wednesday Thursday Tuesday Monday

18:00-18:55 17:30-18:25 17:00-17:55 18:30-19:30 17:00-17:55 17:00-17:45

Tuesday and Friday Tues & Thurs Mon & Wed

17:30-19:30 17:00-20:00 17:30-19:00 19:00-20:30

48.68/74.77

6

29:56/42.60 29.56/42.60

6 6

Tuesday Wednesday bv appointment by appointment Monday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Saturday Sunday Tues & Thurs by appointment by appointment

17:30-18:25 18:00-18:55

12.60/16.95

6

May 1 tn June 22

M c G ill S t u d e n t s

$99*

STUDENT M AY SPECIAL

$33

...

MARTIAL ARTS {IV iMrx I f\ï\ lJ

Kickboxing Moo Kwang Tae Kwon Do

Squash Intro Squash (Private) Squash (Semi-Private) Tennis Cardio Tennis - All Levels

Tennis - Private Tennis - Semi Private

18:00-18:55 19:00-19:55 17:30-18:40 18:00-19:55 17:30-18:40 10:00-11:55 10:00-11:55 18:45-19:55

* Includes free access to Pay-as-you-go fitness classes through M ay & June • Non-members registered in courses may use the facility only during their designated class times.

• Most classes begin the w eek of May 1 and run through w eek of June 5, 20( • Pay-As-You-Go classes begin May 1 and run until June 23, 2006.

• Classes will not be held May 22, 2006.

16.52/20.87 12.60/16.95pp 36.51/49.55

45 min 45 min 6

All prices listed do not include GST & QST CO URSE STAFF FITNESS Aqua Fitness Badminton Belly Dancing Body Design Dance Aerobics Easy Rider Riders on the Storm Hatha Yoga 1 Hatha Yoga II In The Ring Intro to Pilâtes Intro to Running Pilâtes Power Yoga Lite Recess Tennis Tai Chi

36.51/49.55 59.12/72.15 36.51/49.55 59.12/72.15 59.12/72 15 73.02/99.11 19.99/24.34 13.90/18.26pp

OUTDOOR PURSUITS Equestrian (transportation required)

Hiking

Rock Climbing

I N F O

Saturday Sunday Sat, May 6 Sun, May 14 Sat, May 27 Sat, June 3 Sat, May 13

:

13:30-15:30 13:30-15:30 All Day All Day All Day All Day All Day

126.06/134.74 126.05/134.74 40.86/43.47 40.86/43.47 40/86.43.47 40/86.43.47 65.20/69.54

3 9 8 - 7 0 0 0

o r

6 6 1 1 1 1 1

w

w

w

DAY & TIME Mon & Wed Tues & Thurs Mon & Fri Tues & Thurs Tues & Thurs Tues & Thurs Mon & Wed Tues & Thurs Tues & Thurs Mon & Wed Mon & Wed Tues & Thurs Tues & Thurs Mon & Wed Mon, Wed & Fri : Mon & Wed 1 Mon & Wed

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BRANDON CHUDLEIGH

RICH TSENG

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o mark the end of the year, I decided I would write a sonnet. Well, actually, a friend of mine convinced me to write a sonnet, and then broke all the formal rites of the pinkie swear by hooking that dainty digit around mine and then disappearing when the time for lyricism was nigh.

Thus began the hunt for the song of my year and rallying cry of my column. That I pursued it alone is no surprise; I've been doing it all along.

Flying solo was what I thought "The helpless Romantic" was all about, until I began to get feed­ back. I was pleasantly surprised to realize that I have considerate, intelligent friends and belliger­ ent, ox-headed enemies, both of whom have classes boring enough to actually read this rag.

I kid of course! I'm more than grateful for the comments and glad to have had others along on this quixotic exercise of mine. Hopefully you'll all protect me when the CKUT hit squad or the anti­ smoking police get here.

This column was not intended to change the world or to inspire action, merely to offer my point of view. We do what we will. I just hope you emjoyed reading this column as much as I enjoyed writing it. Whether you like what I say or not, I hope you let me know with as much verve and wit as you can muster, and if others have expressed your thoughts better, don't be afraid to use their words. After all, as Whitman once wrote, "Stranger if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me?

And why should I not speak to you?"

Strangers and friends have asked me to champion their causes, and most know I have a thing for damsels (or dudes) in distress. There was never a column I wish I had not written, although there are ones I wish I had. The McGill bureaucracy is notorious for its inefficiency, and it sometimes forgets who really pays the bills. Take

heart, though—after three or four years of this, you'll have no problem pushing your CV through even the most Kafkaesque secretarial staffs when seeking employment Everyone should also email Save a Child's Heart at sachmontreal@gmail.com. I am convinced they have the solution to the Middle Easts problems.

As for the sonnet, I ended up in a hookah café on construction-stricken St. Denis, looking for poetry and finding instead that my chess and backgammon skills had considerably im proved from lack of practise. Ouzo changed everything, bringing with it a particularly ugly and brain-dead muse. Regardless, what follows isn't nearly as bad as what I consumed in order to produce it:

The McGill Way Farewell to writing, readers—'ere I go!

A romp through saner pastures we could take To lesser glories: ride past not thro' The clean-lung Nazis, and smoothbore-strapped fake Around admini-snakes and bureau-sloths Who sap my patience, steal rooms from the raped Avert the poli-cocks, whose mouths do froth At Tribunes—thank God Silverman was taped!

In these befuddled lands and troubled times On shrapnel-strewn roads, men teary-eyed, We once did long for sense and gentler climes But I've known; meaning lies beyond my ken.

So charge on—headstrong—into this melee Mad, as we both know, is the way to be.

Helplessly Romantic, Helplessly Yours, Rich Tseng ■

I

t's spring! Stoop parties, not studying for exams and OAP Lite are all within reach. As the semester draws to a close I am forced to reflect upon my year of whipping it.

I've waxed on the merits of physi­ cal attractiveness, condoned the anti­ poop 'n' scoop contingent and torn apart a few of the many things that irk me. You in return have written furious letters to the editor, attempted to out me and sought an end to my rants. For that I would like to thank you.

I understand why you do it. I know that it is jealousy that fuels your fire.

There's no need to be embarrassed about it. Hell, I'd be jealous too. The fact is, columnists are lucky bastards.

We get to confabulate in a highly pub­ lic forum. We stir emotion and prompt discussion. Unlike wannabes, who take to their blogs and post artistic pictures of clouds, acrostic poetry and lists of meals consumed, people beyond my social circle actually read and respond to my thoughts. That's so rock star!!

Because of you I'm broaching on D-list campus celebrity. I would judge you if you weren't jealous. Don't you feel less ashamed now? When people rag on me, I remember that it is simply a misguided expression of their true feelings. Anyone who submits himself to popular opinion pines for the sling­ ing of arrows. It proves that people are reading.

If you had a column, you poor sap, you'd wet yourself upon the arrival of letters like I do. Continuing criticism suggests that you keep reading, in spite

of your dismissal of my rambling as poorly-written/sexist/classist/antiMontrealist/other -ist drivel. It is much more gratifying than lavishing praise, which is comparatively so insincere. I even forgive the name-calling, which I'm sure is just a reflection of your unfulfilled desire to have your very own soapbox.

Some of you mask your true feel­ ings under the cloak of being offended or oppressed. I like it when you're coy like that. Speculating about my doltish logic, lack of intellectual capability and sexual inadequacy. It just shows how much you care.

Most writers I know are insecure people whose egos are fuelled by see­ ing their names in print and on Google.

I'm no different. While I do believe that I have contributed to campus dis­ course, "Whip it" has been a boon for my psyche. As if having my biweekly slurry of iconoclastic ideas in print weren't enough, your constant atten­ tion was pleasing to no end. If they have accomplished nothing else, this column and the response it received have buffed away many insecurities.

After all, next to imitation, covetous­ ness is the sincerest form of flattery. If I had a therapist, he would declare a breakthrough and praise my high self­ esteem.

So thank you, dear readers. For all the ways in which I've given to you, you've given back exponentially more.

Yours, Brandon ■

Kleinium

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JONATHAN KLEIN

S

o it has come down to this. One final column to finalize and sum up a year's worth of ideas, proposals and thoughts. One third of a newspaper page to compose a fitting farewell to my readers, a proper summary of my time at the Tribune and a tribute to the last four years at McGill.

I hope I have been able to shed some light on the ways that science and technology have an impact on our lives.

From education to justice to television, there really is no area of human endeavour that is not informed in some way by sci­ ence. I've tried to stress the importance of being well-versed in underlying scientific principles in order to take an informed position on the impact of future discoveries.

But this was not my only reason for writing. Of course, the average undergraduate student has so many other things to think about that athletic doping and the quotations of Albert Einstein may rate only a passing fancy before another, more urgent, concern comes along. So it's important to rec­

ognize what science is really about.

Science is not just an amalgam of facts related to a small subset of subjects. Instead, it's based on a model that directs a method of thinking, not just about the workings of the nat­ ural world, but about any issue. Science is about not accept­ ing claims at face value, regardless of the prestige of the per­ son who makes them. It is about demanding evidence, and what's more, repeated instances of that evidence under com­ parable, controlled conditions.

A recent trend has emerged in which people tend to jump on a health craze based on a single reported study. But one study can never be considered authoritative, especially not when its purportedly revolutionary finding flies in the face of many years of investigation. Just because a study, as air­ tight as it might seem, reveals that calcium may not be impor­ tant to bone health or that fatty foods may not affect one's risk of heart disease does not mean that we should stop

drinking milk or start eating at McDonald's every day.

Repeated studies are always necessary to ensure that seem­ ingly shocking new results are not the products of statistical anomalies or other problems.

The scientific mind demands a wide body of evidence, not just a single res.ult, before overturning a theory. This does not mean that entrenched orthodoxies should not be tested, but it does mean that these ideas should not be discarded just because of some flavour of the week theory or fad. It is just as important to test results of experiments as it is to con­ duct those experiments in the first place.

These ideas form the basis of the scientific method and direct a way of thinking. These principles can and should be applied both to academic subjects and to our daily lives. If there is one idea that I hope I have conveyed through my tenure with the Tribune, it is that science teaches one how to think, not what to think about. ■

The

the mcgill tribune | 4.4.06 | opinion | | EDITORIAL

M

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T r i b u n e Vol. 25, Issue 27 LIZ ALLEMANG EDnOR-IN-CHIEF

Liz Allemang editor@mcgilltribune.com M anaging Editors

Jennifer Jett Andrew Segal seniored@mcg illtribune.com N ews Editors

Robert Church James Gotowiec Niall Maclcay Roberts news@mcgilltribune.com Features Editors

Genevieve Jenkins Cristina Markham features@mcgilltribune.com A&E Editors

Ben Lemieux Melissa Price arts@mcgilltribune.com Sports EDnoRS

David Blye Adam Myers sports@mcgilltribune.com Photo Editors

Lukas Bergmark Vladimir Eremin photo@mcgilltribune.com C opy Editor

Traci Johnson copy@mcgilltribune.com D esign Editors

Matt Campbell Tiffany Choy Geneviève Friesen design@mcgilltribune.com O nune Editor

Marco Avolio online@mcgilltribune.com A dvertising M anager

Paul Slachta advmgr@ssmu.mcgill.ca

I

am a stubborn student of life. Prior to my indentured servitude at the Trib, the only sage wisdom I would openly heed was that of humourist Al Franken. I rarely learned from my own mistakes, and learned even less often from those of others.

But for the past two years I have subjected myself to the odd realm of student journalism. I have learned in that time that humility is invalu­ able and openness to learning essential. Ego and stubbornness need to be checked at the door. And each year nearly two dozen students sit on the Tribune editorial board and subject themselves to such lessons, as well as under­ eye circles and a Vitamin D deficiency, the result of far too many hours spent working, fretting and creating.

It has been this way since the paper's founding, as a mouthpiece for SSMU, in 1981. For 25 years the keen and the curious have flocked to our fluorescently lit hub, devoting themselves to the publication. With each passing year comes new ideas that mould the Tribune, perpetually driving it forward. We wouldn't be where we are today-in terms of design, quality and presencehad it not been for the editorial boards preced­ ing us. Education, evolution—whatever you want to call it-the ed boards that came before have schooled us, inspired us and humbled us.

But this year has been a particularly exceptional one for the Tribune. Even if every editorial board member had sat down before the year and scru­ tinized every archived issue-a time-consuming feat, as editors would be inevitably distracted by the prehistoric design capabilities of the early eighties-there are certain circumstances we couldn't have possibly prepared for.

Good journalists, something that the Tribune has in abundance, do not devote themselves so tire­ lessly to their craft with the goal of getting atten­ tion. They feel more comfortable on the side­ lines, writing about media whores rather than being some themselves. If we had any desire to make headlines, we would have sold our souls to student politics or leaked a salacious home

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Chad Ronalds ONUNE AT WWW.MCGIIXTRIBUNE.COM C ontributors

Marshneill Abraham, Kayvon Afshari Saud Al-Dawsari, Eric Alper, Daniel Amin, Matthew Amot, Mohit Arora, Charlie Blore Dave Brodkey, Crystal Chan, Brandon Chudleigh, Julie Collins Clarice Connor, Matthew Cronkite Melissa Gau, Jamie Goodman, Conor Graham, J.S. Hancox, Meaghan Hoyle, Niki Hyde Jonathan Klein, Mohammad Miraly Marit Mitchell, Kristen Morrison, Elizabeth Perle, Resham Popat, Aaron Sigal, Rich Tseng, Ariela Weinbach, Areiyu Znang T ribune O ffices Editorial. Shatner University Centre, Suite 110, 3 48 0 McTavish, M ontreal Q C Tel: 514398.6789 Fax. 514398.1750 Advertising. Brown Student Building, Suite 1200, 3 60 0 McTavish, Montreal Q C H 3 A 1Y2 Tel. 514.398.6806 Fax. 514398.7490

headaches we've had and the public admonish­ ments we've experienced, I genuinely believe that this year has allowed us to lay a solid foun­ dation for the ed boards to come.

The pronounced judgment from critics forced us to challenge ourselves to work harder. We dis­ covered a lot about politics and how to triumph over adversity. We learned to constantly strive for improvement. We moved past the uproar and set ourselves to fulfilling our role as an editorial board, just as every ed board had done before us: Shaping the future of the Tribune.

While the Tribune's reputation may have taken a hit in some quarters, I still feel our paper stands on firm ground. I am immensely pleased with the work we've done and the quality content we've produced. Any plight endured has only worked to strengthen u s-as a paper, as an edi­ torial board, as individuals. ■

BOARD

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Rieh Choe

video to the Internet. As reporters, always on the hunt for a story, it is in our best interest to avoid conspicuousness. But this year has been an exceptional one.

The Tribune has been forced into the spotlight this year. Perhaps I was naïve in thinking that our edgier content would pique interest rather than prompt controversy. To me, our actions reflected the very nature of joumalism-always digging deeper, ever questioning and eager to challenge the norm. We did consciously take more risks this year, and we were pleased to elicit a reac­ tion on campus, a fact corroborated by a strong increase in readership.

But we did not anticipate such intense scrutiny.

To say that working in a fishbowl this year has been a distraction would be an understatement.

The harsh public response to our decisions crept, consciously or not, into every aspect of the paper and its production. But for all of the

M

odem dogs are generally thought to be descendants of the grey wolf, a proud and dignified animal that for millennia has earned man's reverence and respect Nobody is certain whether man approached the wolf first or vice versa, but it is clear that a mutually beneficial relationship emerged from the encounter: Man earned a loyal companion to help him hunt and manage his flocks, and the wolf was guaranteed food and security. At least that's how things start­ ed out Considering the current state of the species, I'd say the wolf got seriously short­ changed.

Next time you see someone walking a Pekinese, Dachshund or a Chihuahua—as is so common around campus when the weather warms up-think to yourself, "This is what we did to the wolf. Thousands of years of controlled inbreeding have finally culminated in our greatest achievement: A rat-sized, slobber-drenched, sweater-toting runt that can't even control its own bladder-a veritable canine Übermensch" At least rats have som e dignity.

I know a lot of small dog owners are now

preparing to throw out the paper and write (another) nasty letter to the Tribune. Well, first of all, that's too bad, because we're not publishing any more issues. Second, at least hear me out before you do. Your dog is not cute. It's not even a dog; it's a sandwich. It's a disgusting abomina­ tion better suited to a George A. Romero film than your purse. There are at least two reasons why.

The consequences of inbreeding in dogs are devastating to their species. Chihuahua puppies have to be delivered through a cesarean section because their heads are too big to come out nat­ urally. Dachshunds often develop ruptured spinal discs because of their long backs, which can lead to paralysis. Pekinese-perhaps the most abom­ inable of all small dogs-are known to lose their eyeballs because they don't have sockets big enough to contain them. That mutually beneficial relationship is starting to look a lot more one­ sided; these degenerate descendants of the wolf couldn't fend for themselves if they had to. But then again, what do we get out of exploiting a once noble and useful creature this way?

The social ramifications of breeding small

dogs are just as horrific as the physical ones.

There's a good Cultural Studies honours thesis to be written about the breeding of small dogs as a pathetic parody of Genesis 1:27 : "So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them." Think about it. How do people react to small dogs? The same way they react to babies: They kiss and cuddle them and dress them up in absurd sweaters. Does anyone else think there's something more than coincidental and at least slightly creepy about the fact that Hollywood's small dog fad seems to be paralleled by an apparently rampant spread of pregnancy amongst female celebrities?

So if we breed small dogs in our own image, what are we saying about ourselves? Small dogs are helpless, dependent, annoying, pathetic and lack any self-respect whatsoever-they are useless and excessive accessories that, like all such things, seem to have become status symbols for the sick­ ly opulent. That isn't a particularly positive self-por­ trait. Adam and Eve may not have been perfect, but at least God tried to make Himself seem half respectable when He created them. ■

! 2 opinion | 4.4.06 | the mcgill tribune

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MOHAMMAD MIRALY

RACHEL DORAN

I

p r e d ic a m e n t s

n an era of on-line voting, you no longer number of their own broadcasters are CKUT even need to get your butt off your couch to alumni. have your say in the democratic process. I, If Tseng believes the only hope for onfor one, feel that is somewhat unfortunate. campus media is to host adolescent cameo Anyone can spend the half-second necessary appearances, I think he is misjudging his fellow to cast a "No" vote, in the recent CKUT refer­ students. Every week at the station, McGill stu­ endum, 31 per cent of McGill students did. dents host jazz shows, hold law discussions, To those people, I say only "helpless contribute to the news collective, attend board Romantics" believe that you can stay on that meetings, and more. The idea that there are couch and complain that student radio is not no students at CKUT is a fallacy. However, reflective of you or your friends. CKUT is 100 here they are people; respected for their con­ per cent run, coordinated, programmed and tributions and given the freedom to discuss managed by our members. Each McGill stu­ the topics that interest them—on-campus and dent is already a member and has the right to off. contribute to programming and even sit on the As for those "minorities" who should be board. This year, amidst an enormous amount paying their way, rather than depending on the of hoopla, many students claimed that CKUT "bourgeois and academics" of McGill-they do. was not open to student input and contribu­ External funding makes up 60 per cent of tion, the two elected student members to the CKUT's budget,while student fees comprise 40 CKUT Board of Directors didn't even have to per cent. But that is an enormous simplifica­ campaign-they were acclaimed. tion. McGill is not a homogeneous population.

My job at CKUT has been to convince stu­ There are undergraduates from 153 countries, dents to come out and get involved. Last week and numerous races, religions and sexual ori­ we held a "Have your beef with CKUT." entations. Just because your friends don't care Despite the 30 per cent of those casting bal­ about Latin American politics doesn't mean no lots who would have happily voted the station one on campus does. In five years at McGill I off of campus, only two brave souls ventured never went to a football game, nor did any of out to express their concerns. I thank them, my friends. But I never launched an angry because we can't make changes based on an campaign trying to deny funding to student angry and dismissive article. We can only do so sports. Respect our differences and appreciate based on concrete suggestions. that CKUT does appeal to some students— As for Rich Tsenj?s specific complaints in 63.4 per cent voted 'Yes." last week's opinion piece: The in-depth paral­ All that said, CKUT is a dynamic organiza­ lel between CKUT and the fire channel, while tion with doors open to anyone with a voice. catchy, discounts the evidence that many feel We are open to change and to making CKUT CKUT has not only quality but outstanding pro­ something even more students will want to gramming. The M irror's readers' poll has participate in and contribute to. It is incredibly repeatedly voted us the best station in easy to click "No," and a different thing entire­ Montreal. The CBC (which Tseng claims to ly to invest the energy to make radio that inter­ love) felt the referendum deserved national ests you. ■ coverage, as did the Gazette, the Mirror, CH and CTV, perhaps because of their belief in the Rachel Doran is CKUT's M cCill outreach importance of CKUT as a voice in the coordinator.

You can reach her at Montreal/McGill community, or because a promo@ ckut.ca.

T

he end of the year marks the time to set sail and move to greener pas­ tures. However, for many this time is marred and scarred by exams, papers, and other inconveniences. They will pon­ der—is the proverbial juice worth the squeeze?

When push comes to shove, many will answer in the negative and, in order to get done what needs to get done, they will consider "piracy," the act of copying someone else's work. Beyond its recent glorification by Natalie Portman on SNL ("When I was in Harvard...I cheated every test"), piracy is a mainstay of our world: In fact, it's "tradition"—the habit of doing what people before us have done.

Piracy is in our blood. From the first, we are taught sternly not to go against the grain or go out on a limb, lest the bough break. We are bred from birth, in the tra­ dition of the gingerbread man, to be cookie-cutter conformists. We are taught to repeat blindly the teachings of Plato or Madonna.

Famously, our papers and exams are not required to display any original think­ ing. Indeed, it is preferred that submitted work be mundane, repetitive and imitate the ideas in the source material, so that markers will not have a tough time doing their jobs. Well, if it's control they want, give it to them: "CTRL+C" and "CTRL+V." Or consider these facts: Today's most popular form of television, "reality TV," is a rip-off of real life. Even our legal system, based on precedents, has us copy what people before us have decid­ ed to do. And people who consider themselves different by wearing clothes that are either "funky" or "grungy" are, just like everyone else, copying an already well-established look. Yes, of course, these arguments have been made

before, but I'm not ashamed of using them myself.

Stealing Isn't wrong; it's a right.

Everything we are comes from else­ where: We don't conceive of our own val­ ues, perceptions or notions, but we still call them our own. And why not re-use ideas—that would be environmentally friendly, after all. Let's be honest and call this spade exactly what it is: We are all pirates.

We're all on the same ship, so instead of acting as sour as green apples, let's revel in what we really are. Don't be a closet pirate: celebrate. Wear it on your sleeve; if you don't have one, take some­ one else's. Let's have a Pirate Pride Parade. Sure, the outfits would look almost exactly like those worn in the gay pride parade, but that sort of imitation only punctuates the core message of Pirate Pride. Montreal may very well be the perfect place for this sort of celebra­ tion—in addition to having loads of parade paraphernalia ripe for stealing, Quebeckers sound like pirates.

In the final analysis, piracy, as the act of imitating others, is not only acceptable; it is the norm. Originality is not consid­ ered to be that grand nowadays: For example, being anti-establishment (like the fare of most of my columns) is cool not because it's subversive, but because everybody's doing it. There is safety in copying the ways of our predecessors, says traditional wisdom: After all, if one does not change horses in midstream, then one is not forced to make the choice to sink or swim. So let's not waste time with originality—close your eyes, put on two eye-patches, do what you're told and go seek your treasure.

Speaking of booty—enjoy your sum­ mer. Arrrr. ■

N u - k y u h - la r b la s t

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ERIC ALPER

O

ver the past semester, I've taken on issues in which there has been a clear divide between progressive val­ ues and those represented by a louder and more pow­ erful opposition. At the core of this effort is the realization that information can be a powerful mechanism for inducing change. Today, I hope to compel you to help reshape a com­ munity that has been a crucial component of your life for the past four years—your university.

McGill's administration perpetually harps on about how McGill is underfunded, and their emphasis is on deficient public support, but why hasn't McGill leveraged the power of its alumni to cover this deficiency? Harvard didn't become the world-class university that it is by asking for government handouts-it got there by strategically milking Harvard grads and community partners in support of university development.

The University of Texas, a public institution founded in 1883-62 years after McGill-sits on a war chest of US$ 11.6-bil­ lion and sees returns of over 20 per cent annually. Compare this to McGill's C$760-million endowment, and it's clear that our university's private funding is abysmal. So the question is,

are we challenged by a lack of successful alums or have we failed to capitalize on their success?

McGill's Alumni and Development Office consists of 110 full-time and 75 part-time fundraisers. With so many people, one would think that this division would rake in money.

McGill's Phone-a-thon attracted CAD$5.8-million last year—a pittance. Total donations were slightly in excess of $55-million, according to McGill's Report on Private Giving. This means that our total private gifts were dwarfed simply by the returns generated y the University of Texas's endowment fund — by 42.18 times to be precise. Clearly, there's a problem here.

Our university's fundraising efforts are appalling. The Alma Mater Fund's Phone-a-thon is not chaired by an experi­ enced fundraiser. Pay for fundraising staff is not tied to per­ formance. Someone who raises $10 a day earns the same amount as someone who raises $500,000. The Alma Mater Fund also raises money for million-dollar rock gardens. This seems to say that we're an institution flush with cash and without productive uses for it.

This year, McGill's administration gloated about receiving the largest private gift in the history of Canadian universities.

The donation of C$22-million, made by University of Manitoba alumnus Marcel Desautels, pales in comparison to Steven Ross's US$105-million gift to his alma mater, the University of Michigan's newly-renamed Ross School of Business. This is only one case of many in which McGill has shown lamentable performance in attracting private gifts.

With an alumni pool highlighted by such noteworthy individuals as John Cleghorn, Moshe Safdie, Jake Eberts, Samantha Bee and others, McGill isn't challenged by a lack of successful students; we're challenged by a dearth of compe­ tent strategy to advance this university's mission.

Our institution's continued insistence that the public sec­ tor increase our funding, coupled with negligent management of our private fundraising campaigns, tarnishes our reputation.

It's a problem that won't be solved by the formation of a com­ mittee or calls for more funding. It's a problem that can only be solved by more strategically soliciting our graduates' sup­ port. ■

the mcgill tribune | 4.4.06 | opinion 13

L e t t e r s Artsy-fartsy types respond

I am writing to notify you of two errors in Kate Spirgen's article "Art history profs, courses vanish" (28.3.06) and express my general concern about the liberal interpretation of my words and the overall tone of the article. Firstly, my name was misspelled (Jacqueline, not Jacquline) and secondly, I am not currently nor have I ever been a member of AH SA While the temporary loss of Prof. Chang and Prof. Nelson is certainly an unfortunate coincidence and has had a recog­ nizable impact upon next semester's course offerings, I feel that your article seemed to imply that the professors are some­ how at fault. The professors in the Art History department, in my experience, are consistently accessible to students and encouraging of their academic aspirations. They have gone— and, I have no doubt, will continue to go—beyond the call of duty. When one considers the limited means of the depart­ ment, the commitment of our professors is especially remark­ able.

Perhaps Spirgen's attention would have been better directed to critiquing the actual source of the problem—the lack of funding for the Art History department Or, alternatively, cel­ ebrating the hard work of the department to make the transi­ tion as smooth as possible for the students. Such hyperbolic and inflammatory rhetoric does not help us deal with the prob­ lems at hand, but merely serves to divert attention away from what needs to be done.

Jacqueline Mabey Honours Art History • I would like to respond to the implication that the Art History department is in disarray, and invite students to acknowledge its success instead.

While it is true that two professors have left the depart­ ment partway through this semester, both left for personal rea­ sons. They did not mean to create difficulties for students.

Furthermore, I doubt that their absence has entirely disrupted the department One of my own classes was affected by the changes, but we have made a seamless transition between professors with the help of a dedicated Ph.D student The small number of courses being offered next year is likely unre­ lated to these losses, as classes are planned months in advance. Finally, this variance is inevitable within a small department such as Art History, which has only a handful of full-time professors; when anyone goes on leave, it directly influences course offerings.

I would especially like to point out that the Art History department itself has been the opposite of quiet this year.

Within six months, the relatively young Art History Students Association has published two editions of Canvas, the new undergraduate journal, hosted a series of movie nights, organ­ ized a gallery crawl around Montreal, and taken a trip to the National Gallery of Canada. A new art history professor has

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e d i t o r that surrounds it I will also share my story. Three weeks ago, I opened the door to CKUT. Thanks to a two-day workshop on radio produc­ tion 101,1 now know how to use a recording station and cover news events. If I was seeking a return on my four dollar invest­ ment, I'd say I got it, but you caa't put a price on the real thing I found at CKUT. My guess is that its 100,000 listeners would agree on that point Chloe Sondervorst East Asian Studies II

been hired for next year, and we have received an independ­ ent academic advisor. I feel that I am graduating from the department at a great moment, and that more has been gained this year than lost Jenna Winter U3 Art History, member o f the AHSA CKUT-loving types respond Rich Tseng is speaking beyond his competence. The radio signal issue for Upper Rez is completely irrelevent; all of the shows on CKUT are easily accessible on the station's website for streaming or download. What is his point, then? As for the links on the CKUT website, is his internet connection really that bad? I would be very surprised.

It appears that one of his beefs with the station is that none of his friends at McGill is "on if or featured. Time to grow up, Rich. Time to snap out of the suburban mentality as well.

It is a shame that he feels the station should increase its "McGill" programming because the students pay for it Well, it is this narrow-minded and selfish view that is depriving him of one of the most rewarding experiences as a student at McGill and as a student living in Montreal. We have an alternative radio station that supports local artists who he won't find on commercial radios, and gives them an opportunity to produce quality music and talk radio programming. Just look at the four dollars we pay every semester as a small donation we can make for the enrichment of people's mind and soul.

This begs me to ask: What does Tseng want to listen to on the CKUT, anyway? Gossip and student politics from SSMU? Features on his McGill buddies and friends? Campus news and events? Campus sports coverage? Don't we have enough of those already from our student newspapers? Burst your cam­ pus bubble while you still can, Rich, because it is making you deaf and blind.

Hank Wang U4 Civil Engineering

Uppity in Athletics

In a recent article by Kayvon Afshari on the state of main­ tenance of our University buildings ("Campus crumbling away," 21.3.06), Afshari included a picture of a damaged wall at the Athletics Complex with the caption that.reads "This is what a 3 million dollar renovation will get you." [Ed. note: The writer was not responsible for the caption.]

Mr. Afshari is fully aware that this damaged wall is specif­ ically due to broken shower pipes inside the wall directly above the damage site. This area has nothing to do with the recent renovations. In fact, we never discussed the renovations to the Athletics Complex It is unfortunate that Afshari should choose to intentionally mislead your readers and compromise his jour­ nalistic integrity.

Angelo Battista Assistant Facilities Manager Department o f Athletics Scalp Alper

• I'm delighted that Rich Tseng shared his life experience with Tribune readers ("CKUT is dead to me," 28.3.06). But, as a Tribune enthusiast, I'm not yet ready to acquiesce that writ­ ing a piece under the label "opinion" dispenses the writer to provide me with some hard facts for his case. The thing is, I didn't find it in Tseng's piece.

Sure, CKUTs programming is eclectic. It is a campus-com­ munity radio station, which means that, besides the McGill related topics (e.g. the "All Things McGill" program; the partner­ ship with Le Délit), it broadcasts community news, music from the Montreal scene, local theatre news, etc. I wonder whether Rich heard any of that, or just tuned in during the Korean or Haitian shows and thought he was on the wrong channel. You see, there is something that CKUT represents damn well: The diversity which is characteristic of both our campus and the city

Eric Alper (and the Tribune) should check the facts before running an article like Alperis on abstinence-only "education" programs ("The war on sex ed,” 21.3.06). The US has spent far more than the $270-million he attributed on abstinenceonly programs [Ed. note: The figured cited was for one year; Alper never implied otherwise]. The correct figure is more than double that amount, maybe four times. And it's not exactly news as the federal government has been funding it for years.

There are more compelling arguments for Alper1s point than he makes in his article, such as that studies have found that real sex ed raises the likelihood that people will use pro­ tection when they have sex without affecting the likelihood that they will have sex And that abstinence-only programs don't actually manage to convince students to abstain from sex, but they do lead them to engage in riskier behaviour when they do have sex. Or that some recipients of federal funding for this dogma-based program were found to be essentially proselytiz­ ing on the taxpayer's dime.

The actual report commissioned by Rep. Waxman and the Alan Cutmacher Institute are excellent resources on this topic.

Jon Morgan M aster o f Urban Planning candidate

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■ » h re e years ago I had both a desire to go away to I university and an acceptance letter to Queen's. I I also had an Italian mother who could not bear to see me leave Montreal.

I enrolled at McGill, bitter to still be living at home in Montreal North. As a compromise, my mother prom­ ised that after a year I could get an apartment down­ town.

My friend and former Tribune co-editor Jenn loves to tell the story of how I moved out without telling my father. As someone who came to McGill from Tucson, Arizona, it baffles her that a move within the same city was kept secret.

She's not Italian.

As I reflect on my time at McGill in anticipation of graduating this semester, I associate it with first experi­ ences. My first apartment, editorial board meeting, seri­ ous boyfriend, heartbreak, published freelance article and shrink come to mind.

What all these experiences have in common is that they had nothing to do with classes. School often turned into a backdrop for what I really learned at university.

McGill could use major improvement in almost every respect. The university rides on its reputation, leaving dissatisfied students feeling that the school is overrated. Life at McGill can feel impersonal, lonely and just plain mean. It's hard to find a place to belong.

My smartest move, and what really made the last

few years worthwhile, was getting involved with this newspaper. Too many students from Montreal treat McGill like it's a nine-to-five job. They go to class, hang out with their CEGEP friends, do their work and go home to the suburbs. Meanwhile, most Ghetto-dwellers think Montreal is only what exists within walking dis­ tance of campus.

If all I'd chosen was to stick to the familiar, the past few years might not have had much to offset universi­ ty's disappointments. But through the Tribune, in partic­ ular, I found what makes McGill decent: a place in one of its communities.

Now I have somewhere to sleep if visitihg Toronto, Manhattan, Tucson or Dubai. I have friends from those places and beyond who have shared their stories and listened to mine. It's remarkable what you can learn just by talking to people, whether they are friends or sources for a story.

It takes a lot of effort to get involved in an extracur­ ricular activity with the aim of contributing, meeting peo­ ple and making new friends, but it's worth it.

Now, I'm ready to leave McGill. In fact, I'm looking forward to it. What I want to take away from this place is the nerve to tackle challenges and ask for help.

Dealing with McGill, I hope, has taught me how to deal with what comes next. ■ Lisa Varano was a Tribune news editor in 2004-2005.

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Dr. Norman Cornett is a sessional lecturer in the Faculty o f Religious Studies. His unorthodox courses, which are focused around "dialogic sessions" boasting a list o f guest speakers that includes Ethan Hawke, Dave Brubeck and Lucienne Bouchard, have becom e im m ensely popular among McGill students o f all disciplines. Here he is speaking with The Trib about Woody Allen, William Jam es, M iles Davis and ju st about everything in between.

p la t f o r m Your teaching m ethod is very unorthodox. Could you explain it for readers w ho might not be familiar with what you do?

M A R SH N EILL A B R A H A M

The recent federal election has ignited a fair amount of political activism within the McGill community. The Green Party of McGill is the most recent addition to the political scene. Founded in November by Benjamin Rankin, a U1 student and who ran for MP in La Pointe D'lle, the group has been work­ ing tirelessly to establish itself as an outlet through which the voices of likeminded students can be heard.

The Green Party of McGill prides itself on appealing to a wide spectrum of people, particularly those with both socialist and conser­ vative views. "This club is not just for tree-hugging hippies or hard-line conserva­ tives," explains Scott Baker, the club's Director of C o m m u n ic a tio n s .

"Party membership includes leftist activists, hardline right business leaders and everything in between."

Although the Green Party shares similar socially pro­ gressive values with the NDP, such as uni­ versal health care, gay rights and low cost housing, the main dif­ ference lies in the Green Party's approach to achieving its proposals. The party strongly sup­ ports Canadian prosRankin and Baker, working hard to dispel the perity in order to Green Part/s tree-hugger image. implement such costly programs, but with the future at the forefront.

"The Green Party encourages businesses to conduct themselves in an envi­ ronmentally responsible manner, ensuring prosperity now and into the future, when we still require a sustainable earth," says Rankin.

The club got off to a successful start on election night and has been actively recruiting members ever since. Rankin, Baker and the two other exec­ utives have a plethora of ideas in the works, but refuse to disclose the details because it "wouldn't be politically savvy to do so." Students can rest assured, however, that joining this club is the ideal way to be truly involved because of the party's distinct living platform. "It is quite possible that the very ideas that emerge over drinks at a bar could transmit into the party's national plat­ form," explains Rankin.

Despite being a relatively new addition to McGill's list of clubs and soci­ eties, the executives are confident in their ability to significantly influence both tf^e school community and larger Canadian society. Three out of the four exécutive members are in their first year at McGill and plan on leading this club to the front line of McGill's political scene with fresh ideas and unique initiatives.

Baker and Rankin's enthusiasm is further validated as they earnestly pro­ claim with fists high in the air: 'The True North Strong and Proud, the time is now, the choice is_ ours!" The diversity of the club's voices, particularly when coupled with the unparalleled fervor of the executive members, is enough reason to give the Green Party of McGill a try.

Interested students can contact partivert@ yahoo.ca for additional informa­ tion.

As a historian, I always value primary sources. When I was work­ ing with the Jamesian idea that all we know about the world we know through people, I said to myself, well the ultimate primary sources are people. So why don't we meet people and talk with them? So I start­ ed to invite the people we were reading and discussing in class. I start­ ed to invite Preston Manning, Ed Broadbent, Jacques Parizeau, and one after another they all started coming in. We talked knowledge, we talked learning, we talked issues, etc. As we just did with Lucien Bouchard this semester. And we did this in music with Dave Brubeck, did this in film with Ethan Hawke, with Peter Greenaway. A lot of this came about as a result of Woody Allen's The Purple Rose o f Cairo. In that film, everybody's watching a movie, and all of a sudden the char­ acters come off of the screen and into the movie house and people go subjects we study came off the pages of the books and walked into the Birks building. iFs possible, and for me learn­ ing is exploring what is possible.

Where did you get the idea for your approach?

I've been teaching for about 15 years now at McGill. I began very traditionally, with quizzes, midterms, finals, essays. But I will never forget the time up in Birks 203 when I was teaching a course, and a twenty-three year-old stu­ dent had a nervous breakdown right in front of me. And that profoundly disturbed me. I said, "What am I doing, that this intelligent, articulate, young, otherwise healthy student is living a crisis?" That was one of a sequence: I was see­ ing people I knew had the wherewithal being paralysed, freezing up with a kind of intellectual sclerosis.

So I started to look at how we could de-mythologize university education, so that we could learn what is etched in stone in our main library: "Beholding the bright countenance of truth in the quiet still air of delightful studies." My goal became to figure out how we can put delight back into education. That became a mission, a pedagogical spiritquest: How could we love learning, so that knowledge became a natural high? And so as I started to look I understood that there are many ways to learn. I came to the conclusion that one of the first principles of cognitive acquisition is sensory perception, so why don't we use all of our senses in learning? Why do we work just with reading a book when humans have all these other senses whereby we can apprehend truth? That's why my classes go to concerts, muse­ ums, galleries; that's why we listen in total darkness or look with earplugs. The ability to focus goes hand in hand with the access of sensorial perception, so that when somebody is looking and has earplugs, they are seeing sharply and are less distracted.

What is your philosophy of education?

My philosophy of education is experiential. If you experience it, if you live it, it will stick with you. If you can learn something in this classroom that you can't shake, and it sticks with you, and it's on your mind, not just that afternoon, that semester, that year, but the rest of your life, then it's mission accomplished.

—Compiled by Marco Avolio

THAN K-YO U M o re O nline

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F e a t u r e s

• Check out Resham Popat's interview with Continuing Education Professor Richard Andrews,

FE A T U R E S ED ITO R S

along with the full version of Marco Avolio's interview The Features editors thank their contributors: Resham Popat, Rachel Melnik, Marshneill Abraham, James Young, Kimberly Faldetta, Alexandra Chevalier, Julie Peters, Anthony De Souza, Terri Alderfer, Carol Burbank, Louis Burroughes, Lise Treutler, Daisy Tao, Sana Yusuf, Julia Raponi, Tessa Blanchfield, Genevieve Grey, Emily Harris, Katherine Fugler, Ross Margulies, Kristen Morrison Congratulations to Rachel Melnik and Liz Perle, Features Editors for 2005-06.

with Dr. Norman Cornett, Professor of Religious Studies.

• Ross Margulies recently spent a day in the

shoes of Principal Heather Munroe-Blum. Read his firsthand account.

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Sexual Assault Centre of McGill Students' Society

Thursday, April 6, 7-9 p.m.

Café Shaika/ Gallerie IV, 5526 Sherbrooke 0.

"Andy G o ld s w o r t h y : Rivers & Tides/ Working with Time -----------------------

McGill Programs in Whole Person Care

Tuesday, April 11, 7 p.m.

Moyse Hall, Arts Building

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Editors—including A & E Editor Ben Lem ieux, News Editor Niall M ackay Roberts and C o p y Editor Traci Joh n son -parted a sea of "redbooks" to com pile the clips for this issue. It was a long, strange journey into a world of m ovable type, perm ads and Carlos and Pepe's coupons from the 1980s we hope are still valid.

24 Sept. 1981 The Trib begins

Though it might seem an unfamiliar face on cam­ pus, the McGill Tribune is simply a new (and , I might add, more exciting) format for an old idea. Basically, the Tribune exists to cover student govrnment, student activ­ ities, student clubs, students' Society, and to providea forum for presenting, explaining and and discussing Society's positions.

Those of us who have been involved with the gen­ esis and production of the Tribune hope that, with the changes in form and responsibility that have been made, the McGill Tribune's role on campus will become a per­ manent one. If you have liteary or artistic talents that are wasting away unused, If you are interested in having a hand in the evolution of McGill's newest publication, if you want to be able to say to your grandchildren, "I was there when the Trib started...", join us!

—Luranah Woody

T

he McGill Tribune would not exist if it weren't for the McGill Daily. In 1981, after a long period of tension between the Daily and its publisher, the Students' Society, students voted 56.6 per cent in favour of a refer­ endum making the Daily fully independent. Out of spite and self-interest, Council established another newspaper around the same time with an initial budget of $11,000.

The Daily ceased to be a SSMU publication on May 31, 1981.

In the Sept. 24, 1981 issue, editor-in-chief Luranah Woody explained the idea behind the Tribune: "Basically, the Tribune exists to cover student government, student activities, student clubs, Students' Society, and to provide a forum for presenting, explaining and discussing the Society's positions." Reaction was mixed. In poll results pub­ lished Nov. 5, students said by an almost two-to-one mar­ gin (56 to 29) that the Tribune fulfilled a worthwhile func­ tion. "It's government propaganda," one student com­ plained. Others welcomed an alternative to the Daily: "Finally, a paper that tells us what's going on on campus, instead of El Salvador."

In its early years, the Tribune was indeed a mouthpiece for executives, who often authored articles themselves. On the same pages, however, students discussed international issues like apartheid in South Africa, American adventures in Latin America and nuclear proliferation. The Tribune also devoted a substantial number of pages to McGill sports teams, including scoreboards and game reports.

By the 1990s, the Tribune had solidified its identity, its editors gaining more confidence every year and shaping the paper into what it is today. SSMU executives no longer saw their bylines appear, and the Tribune placed greater emphasis on provincial news like the 1995 sovereignty ref­ erendum and the 1998 ice storm. Features gained a promi­ nent place in the newspaper, providing in-depth spreads on AIDS activism and the student movement. Since the turn of the century the Tribune has further refined its reporting, photography and design. The Tribune reported on interna­ tional events—like the buildup to the Iraq war-from a cam­ pus perspective, while at the same time focusing on cam­ pus developments like SSMU accreditation and the arrival of new principal Heather Munroe-Blum.

Browsing through the earliest issues of the Tribune, it is hard to believe how far it has come, and how quickly.

Thousands of students have passed through the Tribune office since 1981, each in their own way contributing to the paper's progress. Because of these students, the Tribune has expanded and improved every year for 25 years—and with their help, the Tribune will continue to be an integral part of the McGill community for decades to come. ■ -Jennifer Jett

T h e Road to Autom ation

Since last May, with the installation of the new microcatalogue system, McGill's libraries have finally entered the computer age. Although not yet as advanced as Queen's University, where students can find on their computer screens information about cooks without going to the cards or to the stacks, as efficient as Concordia, where students need only flash their I.D.'s to borrow a book, McGill is halfway on the way to eventu­ al computerization.

Though McGill will probably always have some remnants of the card catalogue system, it is encouraging to note this large step towards modernizing a system which students now regard as bulky and inefficient.

-Joanne Bayly

16 25th anniversary special | 4.4.06 | the mcgill tribune C o ach of the Year Leaves M cG ill

Daily Rejected

Eddie Pomykala, the QUAA basketball w la The M cGill Daily will continue to tntf coach of the year, has resigned as head coach belie its name and publish only three of the McGill Redmen. Pomykala has also issues a week. That's the result of the announce that he will take over as the head senate's decision last week to disap­ coach of the Bishop's Gaiters. prove a student referendum which This move came as no surprise, as would have increased the Daily fees paid by students in some faculties.

Pomykala has been disenchanted with the athletics department at McGill since he took Senate voted to recommend non­ over as head coach last December. At that implementation of the student referen­ time, he was given a ten day contract while rid b dum of last March, which approved the increase. The referendum was voted on the department sought another coach. Even though he had been the team's assistant by students in all faculties; many sena­ coach for five years, Pomykala was, for some tors seemed to feel it was unfair for all reason, not thought to be capable of leading students to vote on a measure that the Redmen. For a man who is Quebec's would affect only a minority. provincial basketball coach as well as being However, Daly Editor-in-Chief the person who has recruited such standouts Melinda Wittsock points out that the as Carlo Del Bosco and Vilhelm Boggild, this Daily was well within its constitutional snub was an insult. rights. "According to our constitution, all referenda must be voted on by all stu- »!

Whatever the case may be, Eddie Pomykala is no longer the head coach at dents. We couldn't have legally run a 5 McGill. The administration did not see fit to l * referendum for just the affected stu- — dents." reward the man who led the basketball team to a runaway title in the QUAA with a substan­ "(The additional fees) would help J§ us get back on our feet again and make — tial contract. McGill's loss is Bishop's gain. us a better paper overall," she said. 'As § There is no word on a possible successor it is, we're counting ever penny." to Pomykala.

—Frank Young —M ichael Smart

I

20 March 1984

Plutonium over Canada

Should just one of the planned hun­ dreds of plutonium-filled aircrafts crash en-route over the Canadian North, radioactive plutonium powder could be blown straight into the heart of populated areas.

What? Radioactive nuclear waste?

Why is Canada, a supposedly dedicated member of the non-Proliferation Pact, allowing this toxic substance anywhere m d C h near its borders in the first place? These questions plagues Tad Homer-Dixon and t o c k T Carolyn Lee, two Canadian PhD candi­ dates at M.l.T, when they discovered an article about the proposed flights in the *** tow* a Christian Science Monitor several months m&mmm ago. They became enraged.

To Homer-Dixon, the American gov­ ernment's failure to consult Canada ______ denotes a "lack of respect for Canadian sovereignty." He feels, however, that this failure was "an oversight, not a conscious attempt to hush-up negotiations until they reached a point where Canada would be powerless to stop them."

-Kim Farley

24 Sept. 1985

It's final: Scott's waves bye-bye on M a y 15th

Following a March 4th meeting between Scott's Foods and Student's Society, both sides say that their 22month partnership is over. Scott's, which manages Gerfs, The Alley, and the cafeterias in the Union, Arts, Redpath, Law, Management and Music buildings, will default on its contract effective May 15th.

At the heart of the matter is the question of Scott's rent, which amount to either 12.5% of gross sales or a “base minimum" figure, which this year is $440 000. Scott's, suffering from two years of low sales, wanted to eliminate that base mini­ mum, but Student's Society refused to negotiate on that point The fate of Scott's 90 full­ time and 60 part-time employ­ ees is still undetermined.

"When Scott's came in, they just hired everyone the previous contractor had employed. We'll see if the next contractor wants to do the same thing," Bukhman said.

—Alex Usher

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1 18 Sept. 1984

U n ion gets A T M

The McGill Student Top Ten Songs for Union Building will be the week of Septem ber 18th location of a new 24Purple Rain - Prince hour-a-day automated Born in the USA - Bruce Springsteen teller machine (ATM) that Sports - Huey Lewis is to be implemented by Private Dancer - Tina Turner the National Bank of Mirror Mores - Psychedelic Furs Canada

by October.

1100 Bel Air Place - Julio Iglesias Applications for use of Rebel Yell - Billy Idol red the machine are present­ bsuejv ly available in the foyer of Phantoms - Fixx Eliminator - ZZ Top the Union Building.

Instincts - Romeo Void —Dudley Cortell _ hewsgsa.______ ,f 5 am **»

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to have.

Paul Slachta has worked as the Tribune's advertising manager since 1992, so he's seen a lot: What do you do as ad manager?

I make your paper print every week. I generate all the revenue in order to have money for the editors' stipends... and for all the incidentals of running a weekly paper.

How do you think the Trib has changed most since 1992?

The change started about five to six years ago.

Historically, the Tribune was supposed to have a Globe and M ail look to it and was supposed to cover important events on campus. When I came on, there was no full colour, only spot red and black and white. Now, it's a little more lively and has a much greater appeal to students on campus.

Do you think the Tribune's relationship with SSMU has changed considerably since you have been here?

The relationship depends on the execs. There are times when they have no problems with the paper and other times when they are criticizing it and you wonder why when they're not participating.

What are your general feelings about the job?

I love the students and I am constantly amazed that they can turn this thing out every week and make a prod­ uct in such a short space and time. It's great because I still have students from around the world who keep in touch with me. This has given me an extra dimension into a market [campus] that was a mystery to me before I came to McGill.

—Compiled by Genevieve Jenkins

Bill 101 : Language and M edia Sensationalism

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The December 22 Quebec Court of Appeal ruling that the r-nj "French-only provision of Bill 101 «*■1 ran counter to the Quebec Bill of Rights seems to have sparked a 8 marked reaction among some 8k?, members of the Montreal populace; resulting in pro-FLQ graffiti h and violence. Recall the bomb threats at OgiIvy's, Simpson's and Birks' downtown stores, the broken windows at McKenna Cote-des-Neiges Flower susses ? shop and the firebombing at the St Laurent Zellers store. The Bourassa government has 90 days from the date of the decision to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Parti Quebequois leader PierreMarc Johnson began to make noise about the number of English signs there were in downtown Montreal and in the predominantly English west end of the dty. In fad, the perpetrators were made up of a few relatively stubbom and shortsighted individuals some of whom could not even spell the English words on their signs prop­ erly.

—M ichèle Dupuis

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N ew M cG ill bookstore on its way

With any luck, the new McGill bookstore you've been hearing so much about should be completed by October 1989. The building will have four floors, two below ground and two above ground. On the lowest level, space will be allotted for parking. The next level will sell McGill clothing, sta­ tionary and supplies. Non-class­ room textbooks will be sold on the third and fourth floors, with certain sections reserved for students with special needs, such as architecture and music students. Recreational books will also be sold on these floors.

Once the new bookstore is completed, McGill's present book­ store in the Bronfman Building will be converted into more class­ rooms, to deal with the university's chronic lack of classroom space.

—Deborah Rosenberg

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"Gertrude's is dead!"

"Gertrude's is dead!" said Santo Manna, president of SSMU. A hush fell over the assembled multitudes. Then, he explained, "We thought it was kind of a dis­ gusting name, so we changed it" This is how he justified the $30 000 renovations of McGill's stu­ dent drinking hole which took place over the summer for the sec­ ond time in three years. The new name, G eifs Pub, can be found in Day-Glo neon on the t-shirts sport­ ed by the staff and a lucky few.

Those who were not fortunate enough to be at the grand premiere on Friday night missed the opportunity to test out the new tables which can be moved only with Arnold Schwarzenegger-like strength.

Inquiring minds might want to know why there is a metallic wall to block light strategically placed four feet behind the new door which is designed to let in light. Of course, these same minds also comment that the new mobile shooter bar is triangular, the shoot­ ers come in neat little test tubes, and they have four bottle filled with colourful and questionable sub­ stances.

Seriously, while it was not something worth writing home about, it was better than what I expected from Gertrude's—I mean Gert's—and well worth trying for at least on Friday night-Cifiorfe Quinn

W om en in sports get short end of the hockey stick

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27 Nov. 1990

The women's rugby team has seized three championship titles in a row.

The women's novice rowing club competed in the finals at the championship races at Sainte-Catherine. McGill has had a women's synchronised swim team for forty years which packed the Weston pool trophy case.

Nevertheless, the press and public alike have neglected to acknowledge their triumphs.

Some women on McGill teams blame lack of coverage on sexism. Citing soccer as an example, Jane Anna Chapman, a first year field hockey player, complained that "when [the pres] so interviews, it's always with the men."

Synchronised swimmer, Jennifer Henaff, argued that undoubtedly exists, “It comes down to [the fact that] you want to swim for McGill or play for McGill, and you're proud."

—Naomi Fox

the mcgill tribune j 4.4.06 | 25th anniversary special 17

Gloria Steinem speaks on the Revolution from Within

New w omen's studies major offered at M cG ill

"As far as women's As Gloria Steinem began to speak, she studies is concerned, turned a 700-seat amphitheatre into a cozy living McGill is not avant-garde. room, a standing-room audience into an intimate In fact, we're even a bit group of confidantes. She wanted this to be an late," stated Professor Peta Tancred. "Still, I'm thrilled "organised meeting," not a lecture.

In accordance with this plan, Steinem spoke that it has actually come for only 20 minutes at Concordia on March 8 as true. It's like a gift."

After five years of part of International Women's Week, bit fielded negotiations, the Quebec questions for over an hour.

Steinem enthralled the mostly female audi­ Ministry of Education has approved Tancred's origi­ ence with her humour and exuberance through­ out the discussion. Of course, Steinem is no § nal proposal for a new women's studies major at stranger to quotable quotes. She got her start in journalism as an undercover reporter posing as a McGill. The program could Playboy bunny, and went on to write for New York be available to students as magazine and to found Ms. magazine. Her most early as next January.

-Joyce Lou recent book is Revolution from Within: A Book o f Self-Esteem .

Steinem ended her talk by exhorting 4 Sept. 1996 women to take control of their live and realise their dreams for themselves and for society. A feminist is someone who not only believes $ Ê jlÊ that women are equal, she declared, but someone who acts on that belief.

"The only alternative to being a feminist," |she said, “is being masochist."

—Mark Cohen

Candlelight vigil for slain gay youth

C K U T : Is anybody listening?

Although all full-time McGill stu­ dents contribute four dollars each term The scene calls to to CKUT 90.3 FM, few take an active mind a church altar or interest in it. In a survey conducted in a shrine. Candles flicker on recent tutorial for Survey of English Lit I, the doth-adorned table. A 83 per cent of students reported that vase of flowers stands beside a picture of a young ^ they never listen to CKUT. The question ( is, are students missing out on some- » man. There is a somber thing valuable or is CKUT really not feeling in the room, one of worth their while? reflection on past and pres­ In return for volunteers' dedica­ ent events. Most of all, one tion, the station trains them in various senses that here is a com­ areas of the radio industry. munity grieving the loss of Some students, are skeptical of a fellow human being.

A candlelight vigil was 1 whether CKUT's good intentions transr ■ i . •I I I * I * ! j J 7^4-U A r late into a good product. Other listen held for Matthew Shepard ers believe that, although the station on Thursday night in the has on-air blemishes, the content Shatner Building. Shepard makes up for it. James Renihan, a was a Wyoming university CKUT volunteer and a U2 Philosophy student beaten to death student, says students can't just over two weeks ago. expect CKUT to be as polished as Organized by Queer the mainstream media.

McGill, the evening accom­ "It's very likely that you aren't panied similar vigils held going to get the level of profes­ across the United States sionalism you would get on differ­ and Canada since ent radio stations," he says, "but I Shepard's death on don't think that's as much at issue October 12. [as good quality content]."

—Laura Robitaille —Christina Heyding

M cG ill makes its choice: C o k e to be exclusive on cam pus

Space Moose, a comic that con­ tains humour once described by one student as “wonderfully warped and delightfully irreverent," has garnered a lot of attention since a recent strip was refused publication by the University of Alberta's student newspaper, the Gateway. Instead, the editorial staff pro­ vided a URL reference to the Space Moose homepage.

The 12-panel strip which was refused publication depicted an armed moose-the title character in Space Moose—killing women participating in a Take Back the Night rally. Take Back the Night rallies are annual demonstrations against violence toward women. The strip provoked controversy among U of A students, administration and faculty -j as letters flooded the Gateway and the U of A's Dean of Students.

—Val Jepson and Olympia Lau

McGill and Coke last For the first time since week wed themselves to an 1990, SSMU -owned eleven-year partnership for the sale Sadie's Tabagie has of cold beverages on campus. With reversed its trend of losing the signing of a letter of agreement money and turned a profit.

by McGill, Coca-Cola has replaced Though no figures have been Pepsi-Co as the primary cola distrib­ released, SSMU VP Finance Paul utor across campus.

Johnson has indicated that the The deal, which will distribute Sadie's at the Shatner University an undisclosed amount of money Centre and the Faculty of Law's to both the University and the Chancellor Day Hall turned profits Students' Society of McGill in the period from September to University, has fired both positive December 1993. and negative opinions.

This tum-around in Sadie's -Rhea Wong operations appears in stark con­ trast to the doubts which sur­ rounded Sadie's future last fall. In October, Sadie's financial difficul­ ties culminated in the controversial suspension of its manager Robert ^ concrete j.

Werbin. In light of Werbin's sus­ >oi mfy. The crowd at Les * * P w w d iI m i tom es were generally pension, SSMU called an emer­ 0'ls,ve to the group's Q u e e r M cG ill protests blood drive questionnaire gency session of council in which jT lJ * “/ hen a*a,n- mayt* l To give blood or not to give blood was not the SSMU's future connection with J only question students wanting to donate blood « I'm trying to conform.

Sadie's was considered. faced in last week's blood drive, run by Hema —Steve Smith Quebec and the Students' Society of McGill University.

The event became the subject of heated debate after Queer » > < * * « Jbte' to r m a m McGill deemed two of the other questions asked of potential donors to ! 4 N a rc h 1995 be discriminatory.

-Julanar Green T h e candidates talk themselves silly The last week of campaigning for SSMU executive positions offered students a plethora of opportunities to hear the candidates make their case. For those of you who missed the action, stay tuned for a few high­ lights.

History is replete with great battles for the world's thrones. This year's battle for SSMU president is proba­ bly not one of them.

The candidates were asked what cuts and sacri­ fices they would urge the university to make. Ahn sug­ gested that professors' grants could be used to provide jobs for students, and that McGill bureaucracy should be eliminated. Myers also focused on bureaucracy, and argued that faculties should be responsible for deciding budget cuts.

Red Herring editor in chief Steve Goodinson saw the major issues differently. He wants to rename the Shatner building the Kurt Cobain Youth Drop-out Centre and spend half of SSMU's budget before he ful­ fils the third aspect of his platform-his resignation in May. —Monique Shebbeare and Steve Smith

As the M cGill Tribune was about to break the story that Students' Society presidential can­ didate Saeed Fotuhi knowingly engaged in campaign impropri­ eties, Fotuhi confessed to violating campaign by-laws by placing posters with his name and the words “Slanderous and Biased" next to McGill Daily stands, some of which are in full view of polling stations.

Fohuti said Monday afternoon that he again jeopardized his eligi­ bility in the SSMU presidential race "because they printed stuff that calls me a 'schmuck.' Forget about the elections, I have pride."

Lawrence Cinamon, U2 Economics, wrote a letter to the editor in yesterday's D aily that included the above phrase.

SSMU President Martin Doe said on Sunday that he intended to challenge the SSMU elections if Fotuhi won the race.

-Jam es Grohsgal

AIDS: W hat do you mean it hasn't gone away yet?

Censoring of offensive cartoon cre­ ates controversy at U of A Sadie's Tabagie reverses historical downward trend

C R O censures presidential candidate Saeed Fotuhi

As a gay man, it's been interesting to watch and read about mainstream society's gradual acceptance of homosexuals... From Queer Eye for the Straight Guy to Boy M eets Boy, gay men have become the darlings of the straight world.

While this may aid in the push for legalizing same-sex marriage, what has become of the ______ other political causes that used to be linked to the queer agenda?

Although approximately 12,000 walkers showed up on September 21 to participate in Montreal's 7-km AIDS walk, Harvey Cohen, president of the Farha Foundation, reports that attendance was down by 7000 or 8000.

But it's not just apathy that AIDS activists are up e against—a massive segment of the population is still disadvantaged by ignorance. From over 2000 phone interviews conducted for the Health Canada survey in March 2003, 25 per cent of respondents cited kissing and mosquito bites as ways to spread HIV...

Although the chances are overwhelmingly against the possibility that I could have been infected with HIV, naturally, I still wonder what would happen if I did test positive... Hopefully, it won't take personal contact with HIV/AIDS to get everyone to start caring about others in such a time of crisis.

-Brody Brown

II

■ * Chad Ronalds has been the Tribune's publish­ er for 16 years, since 1990. As publisher, he deliv­ ers the paper to the printer and back to campus, distributing it in the early morning hours.

How do you think the Trib has changed most?

It has definitely matured in terms of content It's a much more mature approach to the business of putting out the paper... I think the team is much tighter than it was 16 years ago, and the process and the quality of what is written in the paper has been better.

What are your general feelings about the job?

I enjoy it, it's a lot of fun, It's great to work with young people. I'm turning 46 this year, so when I started at this paper 1was just turning 30, and I would say that having continued working with you guys has helped keep me young. It's actually , _____ helped me with my kids, to be a little more aware of what's important to them and what will be important to them as they get up into CEGEP and university.

13 O c t. 2004 Board Rep Bum ped

Starting in January, Students' Society acting President Andrew Bryan will replace Matthew Howatt, the democratically elected representative to the Board of Governors, the university”s highest governing body.

While some student leaders say the decision was inevitable due to changes in the Board's structure, others questioned the constitutionality of the decision and the speed at which it was made.

Bryan argued that designating the president as the only SSMU representative would strengthen the case for a student seat on the executive committee.

'This does not have wonder­ ful optics. It's true," Bryan said, but he added that long-term student representation is more important than SSMU's short-term image.

“I think that's an acceptable trade-off," he said.

-Jennifer Jett

LETTERS T r ib

FROM

a lu m n i

THE

r e f le c t

EDITORS

on silverfish, pad thai and com puter crashes

O

ne of my favourite Trib memories goes a "c," not an "s." Check the CP style guide. back to the 1995 Quebec referendum. I was news editor that year and was responsible for all the logistics leading up to vote nightsecuring press passes for our reporters, organ­ izing runners to bring film in from the field and a slew of other tasks I can't even remember. s a native Montrealer, I never thought that The referendum was held on a Monday, I would get involved in McGill University our regular production day. We got the rest of life. My goal was to be the traditional com­ the paper to bed but left the front page blank. muter student—get in, get out, get graduated.

That evening was a total blur. I remember we But alas, a good friend of mine, Jeremy had three computers set up with three differ­ "Kuz" Kuzmarov was Assistant Sports Editor in ent stories in the works-one for the 'Yes" 1999-2000 and needed a writer to cover the side, one for the "No" side and one story that McGill baseball team. Since the team's home said results were undetermined by deadline. field was a 30-second walk away from my We were watching the poll results on TV house, I begrudgingly agreed to the assign­ and finally decided to go with the No story. We ment. It was love at first write... There was made the right call and got the story and nothing better than having my name in print... photo off in time for our press run. We were What I remember most about the Trib exhausted but we all felt amazing. Drank many was our bonding experience during 9/11. beers at Gert's that night. The next morning, Although we knew that we were only student when our paper came out, our front page journalists, we felt that it was very important to photo was almost identical to the one that ran get a McGill-related perspective to the tragic on the cover of the Montreal Gazette. It was so events taking place in New York. All of the edi­ satisfying, turning a quality package on such a tors worked an 18-hour day on 9/11 and tight deadline and feeling like we were actual­ managed to get, what I feel, was our greatest ly competing with the big boys... even if the issue out on the next day. big boys didn't know it!

There were also some great friendships Flash forward a couple years to Ice Storm fostered at the Trib. Ian '"The Speegler" Spiegel '98. By then, I was editor-in-chief. The ice spinning great yarns, Stephanie "Bruiser" storm hit just after New Year's and crippled the Levitz giving her unique brand of tough love, city. School was cancelled for a good two John "Spider" Salloum being amazingly anal weeks and downtown was practically on lockretentive, Raquel "Rakie" Kirsch being funny down. I was so proud of my ed board—before and bubbly. Lest we forget "Mistress" Rhea the power was even restored, we were meet­ Wong taking herself all too seriously and not ing by candlelight to plan our first issue after seriously enough at the same time... A better winter break. I remember Chad, our produc­ leader I could not imagine... tion guy, was so impressed because once we And of course John "Chow Chow" did get da juice back, we were up and running.

Sciascia, who every day would bring a carton We were the first campus newspaper to hit the of soy milk to the office, until one day Mike stands, before the Daily or any of the papers Bargav, Ian Spiegel and I dared him to drink at Montreal's other universities. the whole carton in an hour.

Needless to say, he couldn't do it, and there may be some soy milk remnants in the office today.

Happy 25th, Tribune\

I

probably should have turned around that first day I walked into the Tribune's offices. It was the fall of 1995. I was bored one day, and decided to poke my head into the Trib's offices in the basement of the Shatner Building. s a lowly, aimless frosh, I stumbled into the I was greeted by an editor and the sound Trib's rat-infested cave, tucked behind the and smell of the largest indoor air-conditioning dark Alley in the basement of Shatner, and it unit I'd ever seen, sucking in a stream of hazy was love ever since. I met John Salloum, who blue air from the campus's only café that waved his arms frantically about as he spoke allowed smoking, the Alley. Thankfully, the about journalistic integrity, Jason Sigurdson smoke left the offices a year or two later. and his smirky smile, sleepless Dorn Michaud A few thoughts on my time at the Tribune, who napped on the stained futon by day and at the turn of the millennium: worked layout by night. Mostly though, I was in 1.

Was it ever frustrating? Never. Well, awe and enamoured of visionaries like except for the time the news editor nearly Stephanie Levitz and Maria Simpson, who changed all of the distance markers for a foot­ inspired a tough-as-nails approach to reporting ball story to meters instead of yards (after all, and a taste for unfiltered Quebec cigarettes we are in Canada, right?). That, and every and stiff drinks when on deadline.

Monday from September 1996-April 2000.

I remember Eric Oest ranting and raving 2.

How has the newspaper changed? about Earth's garbage in outer space and Neil Aside from moving offices, the biggest change Schnurbach unspooling yards of meaningless has been technology. When I started, most copy in between his naps on the brown articles were either typed by the writers in the couch. Marie-Helene Savard wondering aloud Trib's offices, or submitted on disk. By the time whether she'd contracted pinkeye while com­ I left, just about everything came in by e-mail. menting on the global direction of pop culture So what's the big deal, right? In my mind, it and music. As I rose up the ranks of the Trib, I totally changed the way editors and writers remember always being one step away from interacted. Instead of seeing each other twice sheer panic while silently repeating, "Fake it to a week, some never saw each other. We had make it. Never let them see you sweat." to develop new ways to interact with writers, We covered everything from the contro­ to teach them about the Tribune, about writing, versial (the Cold Beverage Agreement, about the paper's mission.

Shatneris renovation, campaign scandal) to 3.

What hasn't changed? The people,the I mundane (Valentine personality quizzes, hope. I wrote in my closing editorial that this fluffy artist interviews). Once the agony of late, place was an awesome microcosm of the uni­ late nights, harrowing deadlines, computer versity as a whole. Where else, I said, would so meltdowns, SSMU executive panic attacks and many students from so many different fields overloaded schedules faded, all that's left is and programs come together with this com­ the memory of good friends, lots of laughter mon goal? and the comfort of finding a life raft full of Thanks, Trib. Here's to the next 25. Earl neurotics, psychopaths and geniuses in the the Pearl, if you're reading this, I remember: middle of the stormy sea that is university life.

this week is this week. Last week was last week. And I still think defence is spelled with

At the very least, we would have amused our­ selves silly and been able to kill each other for

food if necessary.

here are things about the Tribune experi­ ence that are as much a part of an editor's life as story lists and graphics gone AWOL, things that I will forever associate with the Shatner office that became my second home.

An editoris diet, for example, consists of equal parts pad thai and panini. And a steady supply of caffeine.

I joined the Tribune as a writer but I was soon bitten by the layout bug and it stuck. I did, however, contribute the occasional story.

MACHO's trip to Kingston is a favourite, a leg­ endary night which those of us who were there still recall fondly. Any Redmen Hockey diehard would kill to travel with the team. This diehard got to tag along to Ottawa and write about it It was the best day of my life.

There were challenges. We struggled with fonts and temperamental computers. One small slip of the mouse and the last half hour of your work could disappear. Bonnie's mock­ ing tone in such instances was particularly galling—"It's not my faulf-and you'd feel like pitching her through the window.

You bitched about how much the Tribune consumed your life, but secretly you thrived on it. By 5 p.m. on a Monday, you wanted to be anywhere but the office, yet on any other day, you'd drop in to eat your lunch, check your e-mail or just hang out. It was the great­ est apartment you never paid for.

I met some of my greatest friends at the Tribune. We were 18 in a long line of dedicat­ ed undergrads who, for 25 years now, have endured the same weekly crunch to put out a paper. I'm honoured to be among them.

n the old days, the Trib lived in the basement of Shatner, where Gert's is today. The office was dark and damp. Silverfish would scurry into backpacks left on the concrete floor. On late nights, we'd type away on the ancient Apples (we used floppy disks back then) and ash our cigarettes into beer cans. There was the tiny broom closet in the back, into which a large SSMU councilor once shoved me to say that whatever scandal I was writing about "isn't news." He then made vague threats about what would happen if we ran it. Ah, the good old days.

Then the Brown Building was built and the Trib moved where it lives now, in the vast sun-filled former SSMU offices. In my first weeks as news editor, I spent an inordinate amount of time on the floor, where, holding scissors and covered in Scotch tape, I would construct inverted pyramids from the shards of bad articles. Then my editors and I discov­ ered that, just as production days ran so much better when the editors had a steady infusion of pad thai and chocolate-chip muffins, so our writers gave us much better copy in the weeks after news meetings with cookies.

M m es Gmlrngdi iÿàxm Skÿitni, SSSEBHBg ~ rh e McGill Tribune. After three years on ed board, two different sections, one cheeky column and a head of premature white hairs, these are the memories that stay with me...

I remember mumbling asinine apologies and doling out half-baked excuses about Internet crashes when I missed deadlines. The tables would turn, however, and I remember wanting to strangle writers' necks when karma came back to bite me in the toosh and I was on the receiving end of those same uncon­ vincing excuses and lame recycled pleas for grace. This would be, of course, after leaving

many a voicemail message in which I threat­

ened to terminate lives in the name of miss­ ing assignments. The words " I remember nights of editing, coffee, writ­ ing, editing, coffee, going to the bar for a quick drink... or two or five, coming home and edit­ ing again, coffee, passing out, waking up and rewriting all my work from the night prior due to the seemingly harmless (hiccup!) five drinks that somehow crept into copy in the form of gratuitous profanity and misplaced punctuation.

I remember running A&E meetings in which I worked myself into a frenzy over some obtuse art show or obscure local band, only to be met with blank stares and suppressed yawns from writers.

I remember nights of passing out on that hideous, flowered puke-yellow couch in the Trib office. I remember waking up to the night custodians taking out the garbage. I remember dinners of Swedish berries and peanut M&Ms from the 25-cent candy machines in the Shatner lobby.

But I paint too bleak a picture.

I remember the warm fuzzies I got when I encountered people reading or discussing the Trib. I remember the excitement of inter­ viewing an artist I adored, and joy from being able to give other writers the same opportuni­ ty. I remember gleefully waking up Tuesday mornings and sprinting to campus to get my grubby little hands on the newest issue.

I remember the fabulousness of Brody Brown, the drunken shenanigans of Nathan Lebioda, the quiet but strong leadership of James Empringham, the bubble of happiness that was Sarah Wright, the giggles (but also the drive and the vision) of one Natalie Fletcher.

I remember being in awe of the support­ ive, creative environment which was the Trib office, and the inspired, committed Tribbies I worked with. Thank you for an amazing three years.

first walked into the Tribune office in January 2004 to see my friend Kate Rhodes, who was then a news editor. One of the photo edi­ tors was trying to convince the news team to cover a two-day conference on the Environment and Human Rights. Since I hap­ pened to be going to the conference, I volun­ teered to cover it Style guide in hand, I set off to write my first news article ever, determined to single-handedly remedy what Chesterton called "the modern innovation which has sub­ stituted journalism for history." My first attempt didn't work so well. A few hours after I submit­ ted my piece, news editor James Grohsgal called me into the office and guided me through a rewrite. I learned a great deal that afternoon, and the learning curve only got steeper in the coming weeks. But the excite­ ment and the camaraderie made the hard work worthwhile as I wrote story after story.

Printing the facts at Trib News was thrilling. I especially remember reporting on the protests against the French government's ban on the wearing of religious clothing like the Muslim hijab in schools: A colleague and I handed off pen and notepad to each other as we scribbled down interviews with the protest­ ers outside the French consulate, alternately putting gloves back on to keep our fingers from freezing on that frigid February morning.

Although I missed the interaction with my co­ editors, I found that writing columns in the milieu of professional journalistic and intellec­ tual excellence was also immensely rewarding.

I hope and pray that the Tribune will continue to be a home for generations of McGill stu­ dents, where the journalistically inclined can grow and flourish. 0 Tribune, may your pages remain forever hot off the press!

student AROUND

living

TO W N

Escape w ith an over-$20 plate E v e ry

in d u lg e n c e

I

f you cannot afford a ticket to visit a sparkling city or country that you've been fantasizing about on while you try to catch up on an entire semester of econom­ ics, you may want to consider treating your­ self to something a lit­ tle more practical like a night out on the town.

Fancy Montreal restau­ rants have it all: the chic ambiance, the cool crowd and perfect lighting. Just waltz in the door, and voila— you are transported elsewhere, forgetting all about impending final exams and muddy, melting snow for an evening.

Buona notte: 3518 St Laurent, 848-0644 Ignore the fact that you're on Rue St. Laurent and imagine yourself spending the night in marvelous Milan. Let the hot girls and sexy guys serve you the taste of Italy in the heart of down­ town. Enjoy the great food, exotic drinks and let your soul enjoy the DJ playing just in the comer. So if you can afford the mini­ mum charge of $25, spice up your Saturday night with a classy dinner before heading out to party the night away. Or, you can stay right where you are and witness 'Buona' morph into a sup­ per-club. The light get darker, the music louder and tables sud­ denly become dance floors. So, dress up, have your dinner and enjoy the after-party. For all the bambinas and bambinos: Don't forget to ask for the 'Coco Chanel' cocktail. It's a house special­ ty, but it isn't on the menu!

Similar them es: Club-Med, Sophia and The Clobe, all on St. Laurent and Rosalie's on De la Montagne.

h a s

p r i c e . ..

a

A

R

o n e

is

w o r t h

it

ulous Manhattan life-visiting a great new restaurant every night?

Well, you don't have to go very far because your dream is right down Peel Street. Although Cavalli is not related to the designer, the dress code is definitely "Cavalli couture." So if you're on the hunt for a Mr. Big of your own, complete with a fancy car and hot suit, your journey must start here. Sip your Martini and let it glow under the purple lighting of the bar, or dine on a selection on pasta and seafood. But be warned! The food looks better than it tastes. If you have a car, don't worry about it, it will be valet-parked right in front of the restaurant beside the Porsches and Ferraris (ever-present throughout Formula 1 weekend).

L'entrecote Saint-Jean: 2022 Peel, 281-6492 If you think the city's French heritage is only represented in old Montreal, you may need to think again. Just next to Cavalli restaurant on Peel, you will find a little piece of Paris.

L'entrecote Saint-Jean is a small and cozy restaurant with a limited set menu and a typi­ cal French-bistro feel. For about $22, you can devour a threecourse meal and enjoy the Paris-in-the-1920s feeling. The restaurant specializes in one type of steak and a unique sauce that might well have been made in heaven.

Although the theme is French, the food isn't really. This restaurant is the most afford­ able on the list and it's good place for a date or just to chat with friends over something other than pizza.

Le Queue de Cheval: 1221 René-Levesque, 390-0090 Considered one of the

Cavalli: 2042 Peel, 843-5100 Do you love Sex and the City? Do you want to live the fab­

E

t h is

N

$

$

most expensive restaurants in downtown Montreal, Queue de ChevaDsteak house and seafood is probably one of the city's greatest attractions. It's a two-story continental restaurant where appetizers run for more than $20. The restaurant specializes in professionally selected steaks and seafood under the supervision of extremely well-trained chefs. Some of the steaks are import­ ed from exotic places or aged for more than 8 months. The dec­ oration of the restaurant is a bit more than amazing. It seems as if you are dining in an old-fashioned study room with wine cel­ lars instead of bookshelves. Once you've been seated by the lovely lady with the wireless headphones and placed your order, the waiter/waitress will show you your choice before putting it on the grill. This restaurant is an exquisite and, unfortunately, expensive experience. You may want to celebrate your gradua­ tion there but it's unlikely to become one of your regulars... at least until you get that high-paying job your Arts degree is so like­ ly to land you.—Compiled by Saud Al-Dawsari

$

TH IS SUM M ER

A p p ly

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v a c a t io n

22 Sept 2005

The McGill community was shocked to discover allegations of a hazing incident involving members of the varsity football team. Head Coach Chuck McMann announced before the game that five players would be suspended for the game. They joined one player who had already been suspended for the season.

The allegations stem from a rookie initiation ritual known as Dr. Broom. According to sources at the event in question, the team brought the rookies into a squash court with the lights off, demanding that they strip down to their boxers and then taunted them with a broomstick. However, one rookie in question refused to comply and left the court visibly upset.

M e n s FHockey

31 Jan 2006

Students protesting the blood donation policies of Hema Quebec manage to shut down a Hema blood drive in the Shatner Ballroom. Posters and notices sent out over e-mail encourage people to “lie about their sexual history," which is interpreted by HQ staff to mean those ineligible to donate blood are being encour­ aged to lie so that they can donate blood. Staff shut down the drive to protect the blood supply, despite assurances from SSMU executives and protestors that the intent of the message had been misinterpreted. It is unclear whether Hema-Quebec will be returning to McGill in the near future.The protest exposed deep divides within the queer community on campus, with many exec­ utives at Queer McGill pushing for a stronger stance on the issue.

7 M a r 2006

The Redmen hockey team ended 60 years of hurt on the weekend, sweeping Université de Québec du Trois-Rivieres two games to zero to win the Ontario University Athletics Eastern Conference title. The win guaranteed the Redmen a spot at the Red 'n' White National Championships in Edmonton. In game one, McGill staged a dramatic comeback. Down 3-1, McGill ral­ lied to score three late goals, including the game-winner with just five minutes to play, to give the Redmen a 4-3 win. Game two saw McGill open up an early 1-0 lead, only for UQTR to tie the game up in the third. McGill retook the lead, only for UQTR to tie the game back up, forcing overtime. Neither team could score in the first extra period, but in the second extra frame, McGill's Benoit Martin scored his second goal of the night, giv­ ing the Redmen the conference crown.

W om ens S occer 8 N o v 2005

The Martlets soccer team finished a remarkable QUSL season, defeating Université de Montreal 1-0 in a nail-biting conference championship game. Played under a severe thun­ derstorm, the match was a virtual stand still for 90 minutes, with neither side able gain a significant advantage playing on a soaked and unforgiving field. After finishing regulation time scoreless, both sides retook the field for a sudden-death extra­ time period. While the conditions showed no sign of relenting, the Martlets were able to quickly take advantage in the extra frame, with rookie striker Magalie Kolker firing home the win­ ner, giving McGill its third straight conference title.

w a v e 1 N o v 2005

Though the concept of Couch Surfing may have appeared foreign to some at first glance, Ezra Glinter brought the modern student travelling phenomenon to light for the McGill community. Writing an insightful piece about the inception and evolution of the online travel aid, Glinter introduced readers to the purposes of the group, as well as experiences that members and founder Casey Fenton have shared.

P i n k ’d 31 Jan 2006

11 N o v 2005

After a mere 20 minutes of debate on the issue, SSMU Councillors voted unanimously to withdraw membership from the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, a federal lobby group. The move comes after a long history of problems that SSMU has had with the organization, and leaves McGill under­ graduates without representation at the federal level. In the wake of the decision, the external affairs committee is charged with finding alternatives to CASA—to date, none have been proposed.

It will be up to next year's executive to propose a solution.

M c G ill shuts out M a rtin 17 Jan 2006

On the election trail, the Prime Minister’s Office attempts to book space at McGill for a campaign event announcing educa­ tion policy and tuition credits for youth joining the Canada Corps.

However, representatives of the youth wing of the Libearl Party of Canada (Quebec) report that PMO staffers had a difficult time dealing with staff members in the ancillary services department responsible for room bookings. The problems illustrate the larger issue of room bookings at McGill. "If the Prime Minister of Canada cannot get a room at McGill, how are students and stu­ dent groups supposed to get rooms for their events?" asked Adrian Angus, VP Academic of the AUS. The issue went all the way to McGill Senate, where Vice-Principal Morty Yalovsky told senators that he contacted members of the PMO who had been responsible for booking the room and they said the rooms at McGill simply did not meet their needs.

Tessa Blanchfield, an argumentative force to be reck­ oned with, went out with a bang this year, using the Hands Off the Canvas space to tear pop-rock singer Pink a new one.

Actively decimating the singer's latest music video, Blanchfield criticized Pink's presentation of anorexia and bulimia as uni­ dimensional diseases afflicting merely the 'Stupid Girls" amongst us. Blanchfield stressed the importance of appreciat­ ing the complexity of disease, and affording victims a little more credit and constructive solutions as opposed to making ridiculous and fraudulent claims about their plight.

C h i c k s

w it h

d is c s 8 N ov 2005

A seldom explored area of the Montreal music scene, Leila Brillson tackled the troubles and recent successes of the female deejay. Interviewing a collective of women spinners, known as Women on Wax, Brillson discussed the antagonistic stereo­ types working against female deejay's in Mo n t r e a l , and the which wi taken to overcome them. Brillson's "Chicks with Discs" stands as one of the most thought-provoking pieces of investigative journalism the Tribune's A&E section has seen all year.

the mcgill tribune j 4.4.06 | features 21

fe a tu re s C H A TTER B O X

'Gun violence hits home"

In s p ir in g a n d

1 Mar 2006 Liz Allemang revisited the death of Aidan Lumley, a 20-year-old Trent University student mur dered on Nov. 27 in Montreal. She revealed the grief of Aidan's mother, Elaine Lumley, as well as Elaine's hope that her son's memory would live on and that his killer(s) would be found. When the article went to press, police had no idea who , was responsible for the shooting or why Lumley was targeted-there were no motives and no suspects Allemang stressed the rising threat of gun violence to urban Canadians, and emphasized that it's not just a prob- ^ lem found in ghettoes anymore. Update: As of press time, no arrests have been made and the investigationj is ongoing.

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I w as inspired to teach because... I was not a veiy good student myself. I did not enjoy school and wasn't terribly successful in elementary or secondary school. Every day, I went to school with a knot in my stomach. It s not that I was being bullied... It took me years to understand that I learned differently.

—Education Professor Jon Bradley (4 Jan 2006)

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REPLAYS

With so many forms of media available to choose from, there is a possibility that îîjj •■fjifc. \ W too many North Americans are select^ ing the equivalent of junk foods in their media diets. So says Jennifer Jett, who interviewed professors and students and compiling online surveys in an attempt to \ figure out what the average media diet is and how \ far it falls from the ideal. Not unexpectedly, common "sense consumption-mingling the good stuff (hard news from reliable sources, for example) with the “junk" (such as entertainment television)—is what benefits people most. But Jett's sources also surprised when they suggested that even soap operas could be worthwhile forms of media.

W h e n one love just isn't e n o u g h ..

14 Feb 2006 Terri Alderfer took us on a tour of the much-debated Montreal swingers' clubs, speaking with both couples and singles in an attempt to understand the swinging mentality. It turns out that , there are actually rules to the multi-partner sexual encounters, and not all swingers actually have sex—there's a distinction between the , m elangist (not looking for sex) and echangist (looking for sex). Many , swingers distinguish between sex and love, as well, so the sexual act isn t nec­ essarily expressive of love; they are able to maintain long-term loving relation- , ships while still swinging with other partners. Finally, Alderfer pointed out that swing- . ing, despite its official legality, is often frowned upon by society. Swingers, therefore, are likely to keep their identities under wraps, lest they pay the price in the workplace neighborhood for their outside-the-norm sexual practices.

An ideal Saturday night is spent... one of two ways, depending on the week I've had. It either includes a bottle of wine, girlfriends and some good TV, or a bottle of wine, girlfriends and dancing.

M y favourite w ord... is epistemophilia, which means love of knowl­ edge. I don't get nearly enough opportunities to use ib -English Professor Andrea Brathwaite (24 Jan 2006) Why are you doing this? I'm just a regular guy. I'm not doing this to get on Entertainment Tonight or be a presenter at the Oscars. I'm not doing this because I own a sneaker store or factory, or because I own stock in Nike.

This is a pure petition.

Describe "sneaker activism." I am credited with coining the term "sneaker activism." I am applying activism to sneaker culture. There's old-style activism with people like Naomi Klein. This is new-style activism. The tradi­ tional activists are saying yes, Cabino is an activist, but they try to make nuances because they're uncomfortable with me. But they can't beat Oxford.

They can't beat Merriam Webster. If you look in the dictionary, you'll see, I'm an activist. This all started with a simple question, can sneaker activism work?

I won't know the answer until I go to Nike, to Beaverton.

—Sneaker activist Al Cabino (31 Jan 2006) How did you decide you wanted to teach? I was never going to make a living being a poet. I worked for a few years in Corporate America before I realised I couldn't bear to do that, and I realized that I'd be more intellectu­ ally and aesthetically fulfilled doing this. I've always loved literature; that's how I spent a lot of my alone time as a kid-what a great job, to be able to read these great books and then talk about them.

-English Professor Thomas Heise (7 Mar 2006) So why McGill? What appeals to you about McGill University versus other Canadian universities? McGill's history is extraordinary, its student

population is extremely intelligent, its faculty is extremely gifted. Its willing­ ness to make a difference in its students' lives is profoundly and deeply felt...

McGill has already improved incredibly on many fronts. I think it's just a jewel, and it is recognized internationally as a jewel... I came to McGill with very high hopes.

-Editor of Macleans' guide to Canadian univerisities and colleges Ann Dowsett-Johnston (28 Mar 2006) What are your pet peeves w hen it com es to the classroom? My daughter is an academic as well; she is teaching at a big university in the States, and she brought something to my attention that I didn't notice before she told me about it-cell phones and iPods. And not in class, but I notice now the way students will come out of a classroom and immediately start talking on their cell phones or listening to their iPods. They have absolutely no inter­ action with each other in the hallways. I think that leads to a rather shrivelled university experience. The university setting offers students a great opportu­ nity to meet new people and have new experiences, and if you are talking to someone on your cell phone it's probably someone whose number you already have.

-English Professor Kerry McSweeney (14 Feb 2006) M y own experience in the courtroom... I had a short and very undis­ tinguished career as a courtroom lawyer. I appeared once in an uncontested motion-that means I stand up, the other lawyer says, "No contest"-and I lost!

I took that as a big, strong signal in my life as a lawyer I really wasn't head­ ed for a career as a practitioner. I guess I would have done what people call solicitor's work. The courtroom is taking up less and less space in lawyer's work. That's a good thing. Courtrooms tend to be often, not always, but often, very bad places to work out problems.

-Dean of Law Nicholas Kasirer (17 Oct 2005)

- Compiled by Cenevieve Jenkins, Cristina Markham, Rachel Melnik, Julie Peters

MUSIC

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Canadian new com ers talk successes and the musical landscape B E N L E M IE U X

Did Juno what went on this weekend?! For the 35th con­ secutive year, awards were handed out to the finest performers, songwriters and artists in the country. In a series of pre-emptive interviews, the Tribune was able to collect thoughts from some of the nominees on Canadian music and its place in the world.

Anik Jean—now nominated for the Francophone album of the year—bounded onto the Montreal scene last August with her back-to-the-roots rock 'n' roll triumph, Le Trashy Saloon.

Produced by the legendary Jean Leloup and written in both national languages, Jean epitomized the best of what Quebec had to offer.

In the wake of Shania and Keith Urban, roots & traditional nominee Elliott Brood provided Canadians with a reason to enjoy country music again. The band's nation-wide debut, Am bassador, was met by vast critical acclaim across the nation, receiving a place on the Tribune's own yearly top 10 album list.

Banjo player/singer Mark Sasso of Elliott Brood.

Tribune: The first and most obvious question related to the nom ination—did you expect it? Now, bear in m ind that most people answer that it was a great surprise, and if you want to colour it up you could always say that it w ould have been an absolute travesty or crime against humanity if you hadn't been nominated.

Mark Sasso: Okay, quote me on that one.

Okay.

Nah, I'm just joking, obviously not. Never, actually. I was just talking to my wife last night, and I said, "If somebody would have told me a year ago that we'd be nominated for a Juno a year from now, while we were working on the album, I would­ n't have believed them." But, I mean, who really sets to write an album and says, "Okay, you know what? We're going to get nominated for a Juno on this one!"

I'd actually argue that quite a few artists and record labels have that in m ind w hen certain album s go into pro­ duction.

Definitely not ours. We had put out a small EP prior to this album, just the guitarist and myself. Ultimately, maybe you go into it with a naïveté, but when we were going to release this album we were just hoping that people would like it. We love it.

But you never know what somebody else is going to think of what you've made, and you kind of have to make it that way.

You can't create it for somebody else.

So you basically set out to m ake the album that you wanted to make.

Yeah, with nothing else in mind other than that. The only people we really wanted to make happy were ourselves. We spent, actually, an extra bit of time mixing it, taking the time to do the things we really felt that it needed. It would be horrible to be rushed by a certain record label, where it's just like, "Well, we need it out for this time. We want what you have right now; it's going to be put out." Whereas Six Shooter allowed us enough time to do what we needed to do.

Do you think the painstaking lengths to which you guys have gone to make this album , to have it the way you want­ ed it, will be apparent in the m inds of listeners, reviewers, a selection committee, etc.?

When people are looking at it, 1don't know what they actu­ ally see. I know what I see, and that's when you're too close to the project. 1just hope that the music comes across as soulful.

Has that been the reaction from people w ho have heard the album —from friends, from fans?

Yeah, it appears as though they've gotten it and it's come across that way. What we've created seems to have appealed to them, and that's a beautiful thing. Because you never can con­ trol it. You can't even control your own career, or anything like that. What you love, it's kind of the selfish part of art, right? You have to do what you want to do, and that's it—and hope for the best.

The Junos exist as a celebration of Canadian music, hopefully drawing attention from audiences at hom e and abroad. What specifically do you think makes our country's musical landscape unique or appealing to an outside audi­ ence?

I think it is our landscape that defines us that way. There's so many distinct areas and such a vast distance between them.

Toronto to Winnipeg, or Winnipeg to Victoria. That distance actu­ ally creates a distinct environment for everybody. That's kind of the nice thing about it. The people in Toronto are obviously cre­ ating different music than the people in Winnipeg or in Montreal or in Halifax, and everything is actually respected. The music that's created out East is just as important as the music that's created in Toronto or out West.

It's quite a unique album design. How did you com e up with it?

Our first album—I should harken back to that just because we hand-made our first album—was made like an old photo album. We wanted to continue along those lines, where it's something that you find. A personal object. Something that you might find in a pawn shop or anywhere, where somebody's kind of thrown it away. On this album, it was more like the idea of someone losing a wallet or a workbook. You kind of try to fig-

COURTESY OF SIX SHOOTER RECORDS Death cou ntr/s favourite sons—Elliott Brood.

ure out who that person is, just by the small pieces that are within the package. We want the music and the art to work together, to create... just a moment for somebody, actually.

Back to the Junos, I don't know how it works at these types of ceremonies. Do you ever think of, let's say—I don't know how to put it tactfully—"disappearing" contenders?

Disappearing them?

You know, you get to the show, they don't show up.

They may or m ay not have fallen dow n an open elevator shaft...

Oh, you mean knocking them off?

Yeah. Has this ever crossed your mind?

(Laughs) No, no. Confront a couple, maybe—people whose music we don't like.

'Cause, like, there are five contestants in each category, and one-of-five and one-of-four are distinctly different odds.

But the whole thing is, they don't have to be there to accept, right? So even if [we] actually do that, it doesn't guaran­ tee us winning.

Right.

You'd have to knock over the judges. ■

H A N D S OFF THE C A N V A S

Emos: a N a tio n a l G eographic p resentation C O N O R GRAHAM

W

hether we see them working at a McDonald's, com­ plaining about how no one understands them or pil­ fering their younger siblings' clothing emos are an ever-expanding and integral segment of modern society.

Unfortunately, few people realize the long and illustrious histo­ ry of the emo—how it rose from its humble beginnings to become one of the biggest pests people face in everyday life.

The emo first appeared on the planet 9.6-million years ago in the early pliocene era. They compensated for their small stature and low cranial capacity with several rows of razorsharp teeth that lined the mouth and upper throat. With tough skin, bushy fur and enough jaw strength to crush a small car, the emo was a force to be reckoned with. The race lived hap­ pily for several million years, but around 4 million BC, when their natural food supply of bi-curious 17-year-old boys started to dwindle, they were forced to adapt or become extinct.

Over the next several hundred thousand years, the fero­ cious appearance of the emo slowly turned into something similar to their current form. While the rows of teeth shrank

and the cranial capacity grew to slightly below the size of the average homo sapien, a new era of emo culture was ushered in with a parade of anti-depressants and black eyeliner. With their marginally increased brain capacity, emos slowly gained the ability to store information beyond the format of oral tradi­ tion: a rudimentary language of symbols and pictures began to form.

It was around two million years ago that the first Livejoumal is suspected to have been created. Recently, arche­ ologists have discovered scribblings on a cave wall near the small town of Jacques-Sur-Merde, France, that suggest the beginning of an early journal entry. They believe the wall insciption to translate as follows: "March 10, Mood: Apathetic.

Dear Diary, I saw Gronk making out with Cindy Klarbnut today!

I can't believe he'd do anything to hurt me that badly. Hold my heart while I make the next incision, okay?"

Although chronology is muddled at this point in history, it was around 1.6-million years ago that scientists suspect the emo genome underwent its most significant change yet

Following millions of years of evolution, the genome became similar enough to that of early humans to allow for inter­ species breeding. Emo-human hybrids, dubbed Emonoids by the anthropological community, began to appear everywhere.

As interbreeding became more commonplace, the two races merged into the modem homo sapiens.

Most of us are able to recognize an emo: corduroys, tightfitting shirts with outdated or depressing band names on them, flat dyed-black hair, unattractive piercings; the symp­ toms are easy to spot Although emo, being a genetic condi­ tion, is not technically contagious, studies have shown that excessive time spent in the company of one can cause symp­ toms to spread to so-called "normal" individuals.

If you find yourself lost and unarmed in the urban jungle one day, do not be dissuaded by the emos' passive appear­ ance; if you aren't careful, you could soon find yourself rock­ ing back and forth in the fetal position listening to the mindnumbing ramblings of Simple Plan while day-dreaming about Aaron Carter. ■ H

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the mcgill tribune | 4.4.06 | a&e 23

Tribune: Were you expecting this nomination when you were recording the album?

Anik Jean: Not at all. I'm really sur­ prised and it's really an honour for me.

Actually, when I got the call I was sleeping, and I noticed I had about 10 messages on my phone-1 was like, "What's going on?"

And then [all the recordings] went some­ thing like, "You're nominated for the Junos!” I just wasn't expecting it at all, but its really flattering.

Your album has been nominated for Francophone album of the year.

Apart from containing songs in both of the province's primary languages, how do you feel that your album is represen­ tative of Quebec, musically, thematically or otherwise?

I'm really surprised about this because I never thought that I would write [music] in French. So to be nominated for the Francophone-album award is kind of [unexpected]. At the beginning, when I was writing it, [producer] Jean Leioup was saying, "You're going to be fine, you can write in French,” and I was like, "No, I can't!" The whole thing has been pretty weird for me, but I'm really happy.

Why didn't you see yourself writing

in French?

For me, French is a really complicated language. You can sound really cheesy in French if you don't work hard enough; you can easily sound like someone who's about to go out and chop down some trees in the forest or something. I find it hard to write really good French music.

When I write lyrics in French, I spend about 10 times more effort on them than I do writing lyrics in English.

In that respect, linguistically, do you identify yourself as a Francophone artist or a Canadian artist or do you prefer not to attach a nationality to your work?

I'm not sure yet I feel like I'm a bisex­ ual of language—I'm not sure of my "orien­ tation." I love English and I love French, and I've discovered how to sing in French and how fun it is. I never thought that I would. It's... I'm confused now.

If you do win the award, what kind of impact do you feel that could have for you personally in terms of your music and your career path?

For sure it's going to open some doors for me in the rest of Canada. If s not just going to be Quebec [anymore], ifs going to be the rest of the country, to play some shows in Ontario and whatnot I

mean... ifs good to win, right?

But given that in January you opened for the Rolling Stones, a band that has both substantial Anglophone and Francophone audiences here, don't you feel some of those doors are already open?

Well, when I opened for the Stones it was kind of weird. Because if you look at the other bands who were opening on that tour in the States, it was huge bands like Metallica and the Black Eyed Peas. Me, I'm a French artist in Quebec But it was cool because I felt that the public was lis­ tening—it was a good ambiance.

You're also nominated in the same category as another Tacca singer/songwriter, France d'Amour. Between you and me, if she were to win the award...

1 don't know how it works at these award shows. Do you secretly hope that she'd trip on her way to the stage, dislo­ cate a shoulder or something like that?

Not at all, no. I'm already happy to be nominated. I never thought that I would be, I didn't even think about that The fact that I'm going to be there is enough for me. If she wins, she wins. And ifs cool, you know. I'm just going to go drink more after the show. ■

QUEBECPOP.COM

Anik Jean-all about the tats and the tude.

A R T

T H E A T R E

Easy o n th e d e c o r

T h e o t h e r e x h ib it

Prodigy makes the most with the least

A glance at M A CM ’s hidden gallery

LIZ PERLE

facility. This design choice reflected the role of the piano in the lives of all three women, and how their identities revolved around their con­ suming passion for music. Their lives, in fact, were completely devoid of any masculine influ­ ence, every male character in the script appro­ priately represented on stage through comput­ erized voice recordings. This lack of emotional and physical male presence in the women's lives contributed to the overwhelmingly senti­ mental and artistic female landscape of the story.

Although the plot of Prodigy was a little trite at times, this can easily be attributed to the editorial process associated with translation.

The sounds of many words and phrases in the French language simply cannot be reasonably represented in English. In fact, perhaps Prodigy would be better suited for that French café after all. ■

I felt as if I were sitting in an alleyway.

Théâtre Ste-Catherine (264 Ste-Catherine E.), the venue for Persephone Productions' play Prodigy, is a small, narrow room composed of brick walls and lined with cumbersome rows of folding chairs. In fact, it is vaguely reminiscent of a small, dark French café, and I half expect­ ed poets with berets and pretentious handrolled cigarettes to appear when the show began.

Instead, when the lights rose, the stage was bare save for a grand piano. After the show, artistic director Gabrielle Soskin explained that Prodigy is based on a novella written by acclaimed Canadian writer Nancy Huston. This particular dramatization was origi­ nally written in French, and Soskin asked Huston if she would translate it into English specifically for Persephone Productions.

Prodigy runs at Théâtre Ste-Catherine (264 Prodigy is a warm-and conspicuously French—story about mothers, daughters and a Ste-Catherine E.) through April 9. For tickets, call compulsive obsession with the piano. It is 481-1327. structured as a series of dramatic monologues alternated back and forth by the all-female cast. The tiny stage, in fact, held only three actresses.

The feisty grandmother, or "Babushka," is played energetically by Karen Cromar from a white wicker chair for the majority of the show.

Lara, Babushka's daughter and the central character in the story, is given vivacity and pas­ sion by Nathalie Stechysin. In fact, she arguably performed a little too passionately: The subtle metaphors and humour in the script, which presumably would have been central elements of the French version, explod­ ed violently as she belted out her lines. The "prodig/' of the show is the young Maya, Lara's innocent and animated 10-year-old daughter, played by Amanda Sargisson. She stood out as the only actress who captured the delicacy of the text, particularly in her response to her increasingly disturbed mother, while maintaining the character's charming naïveté.

One of the play's most creative elements was the set, which consisted solely of a grand piano, monopolizing the stage and cast. The actresses, consequently, had to manoeuvre themselves around it in scenes ranging from running outdoors in the rain, giving birth in a P ro d ig y —drama meets grand piano. hospital and being relegated to a psychiatric

ARIELA WEINBACH

nature of photography. Because it's a photo­ graph, what it depicts is an instant; it represents a very brief moment—a split second. It is a moment of instant peace; it may vanish from one moment to the next."

The most invasive work in the exhibit is Arnaud Maggs' Joseph Beuys: 100 Frontal Views.

Maggs is known for "grid-based portraits that contain dozens and dozens of images that are, paradoxically, both clinical and intimate." The one hundred frontal views of Beuys are lined up in rows and span an entire wall. Their arrangement is odd because the last row is incomplete and throws off the systematic order of the piece. What is most jarring about the work is how it consumes the mind and plants a desire for the eye to find the differences in each photograph, a furious search that is ultimately fruitless.

Each work brings the viewer into another world that, thanks to the perfect layout of the exhibit, is entirely separate from the last. The experience of travelling through-these "worlds” leaves one with,the sense that they've seen and experienced much more than a dozen pieces of artwork. ■

The only way a Montreal dweller would not know about the Anselm Kiefer exhibit at the Musée d'Art Contemporain (185 Ste-Catherine 0 .) is if he or she has not left home for the past two months. However, a less publicized, but in no way less impressive, exhibit at the museum displays 12 works from 10 renowned Canadian and international artists. It is simply titled "Remarkable Works from the Musée Collection/' and features works by Anselm Kiefer, Paterson Ewen and Ron Martin (paint­ ing), Roland Poulin (sculpture), Jeff Wall, Arnaud Maggs, Angela Grauerholz and Roberto Pellegrinuzzi (photography), and Cary Hill and Nam June Paik (video). The artists achieve the common effect of challenging the boundaries between artwork and viewer through drastically different choices of media and technique.

Gary Hill's video entitled Dervish is project­ ed in a pitch-black room by a series of bursts from a spinning cylindrical object suspended from the ceiling with rotating mirrors. The view­ er's body seems to disappear as it is absorbed into the world of the video. Like the Sufi ascetic ritual involving spinning dances and ecstatic Visit www.macm.org or call 847-6226 for prayer that is the video's namesake (and the more information. inspiration for its delivery), watching Dervish is an out-of-body experi­ ence.

Citizen captures a moment that is so deeply personal that looking at it almost feels like an intrusion.

Jeff Wall's large blackand-white photograph shows a man resting on his back in the mid­ dle of a small field. His rest is obviously per­ manent because it has been recorded on film, but the moment cap­ tured seems so fleet­ ing that it would not be surprising if the man suddenly rose. In the words of the artist himself, “Citizen corre­ sponds to something Welcome to the M ACM -w here the best are "the rest.' that is in the very

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a&e ] 4.4.06 | the mcgill tribune

V I S U A L

M U S I C

A R T

B aD _aR t fo r a g o o d cause

Indie city— c o u n tr y soul The Jimmyriggers: Montreal veterans join forces MATTHEW CRONKITE

Aiming for A ID S awareness JULIE COLLINS

on excellence, skill and quality." Duff describes the event as "bordering on Crumbling visages, semi-naked the line between seriousness and men and provocative imagery carnival. The show is critiquing the abound in BaD_aRt, an interdiscipli­ melodrama associated with nary art exhibition focusing on the HIV/AIDS discourse." re-examination and re-interpretation The event is not simply an art of sex and desire within contempo­ show, but an interactive series of lec­ rary H1V/AIDS discourse. The exhibi­ tures, art creation and an auction, tion, featuring painting, sculpture, whose proceeds benefit the photography, installation art and an Concordia HIV/AIDS Project. For the audio/visual remix by both students opening of the event at 7 p.m. on in Concordia's multidisciplinary April 4, Don Rhine's SILENT/LISTEN, HIV/AIDS course and guest artists, a concept art installation, will be cre­ runs April 4 to the 15 at the VAV ated in plain view of the audience.

Gallery (1395 René Lévesque).

Rhine, an artist and teacher, co­ The course, a joint class within founded Ultra-red, an AIDS activist the Fine Arts and Social Sciences group, in 1994. His audio-visual departments at Concordia University, exhibit will include four people from has been linked to art shows for over different community groups speak­ 10 years, but this is only the second ing about the virus from their van­ year that the exhibition has become tage points. Once the recording is a community project. BaD_aRT is complete, the sound will be remixed not a show of landscape impression­ and "memory and experience ism or seascapes that leaves the become source material for analysis patron with a warm and fuzzy feel­ and action." ing, but a thematic exhibition driven Whether you are interested in by the absence of representation passively viewing, purchasing or wit­ and discussion that has plagued the nessing the creation of art, do not HIV/AIDS community since the very underestimate the power of beginning of the Bush-era in US pol­ images—you may just leave with a itics. Tagny Duff, the show's produc­ broadened perspective. And remem­ er and co-curator, characterizes the ber, art isn't always pretty—in fact, it present era as a "sterile phenome­ may be shocking. But if shock is non"—a state of "desexualization" of what is required to generate an the sero-positive community. inquiry into the status of HIV/AIDS, Stereotype and cliché feature then BaD_aRt has achieved its prominently in the exhibited images goal.» as a means of deconstruction. The exhibition explores the potential for bad art—"art that overachieves its B a D jjR t runs through April 15. message and intention through its For more information, visit aids.conunderachievement of criteria based cordia.ca/badart/badarthtml

They've only been playing together since October, but the Jimmyriggers are already far from amateurs. The Montreal-based band plays country and folk songs backed by hard-rock energy, and you can check them out at their show on Thursday at Barfly (4062 St-Laurent).

On Thursday, the Tribune sat down for a beer with band members David Pearce, Andre Kirchhoff and Ram Krishnan.

Tribune: How did you come up with your band's name?

Dave Pearce: It's something I came up with with a buddy of mine....

He was trying to hang something up, and it took him a long time. I asked him why it was taking so long, and he said he had to jimmyrig something. I liked the name, I liked the word.... It kind of makes sense, because to jim­ myrig is to make do with what you have, to throw something together and hope it holds up.

What are some of your stylistic influences?

Andre Kirchoff: I'm kind of folky, but there is a lot of rock that I'm influ­ enced by as well.

DP: I have been influenced a lot

by Blue Rodeo, the Beatles and recently by Bob Dylan—I think he's starting to come out a bit more in the stuff I'm writing these days.

Ram Krishnan: I grew up playing a lot more loud rock, so it's been real­ ly interesting joining a band like this and seeing what that brings to it.

Where do you like to play or hang out in the city?

AK: It's fun playing at Grumpy's bar. The Barfly is always a lot of fun as well.

Rigging up a good show.

DP: There's only a handful of places that we've played, but only because the places we have played we really like.

Who would be the members of your music supergroup, if you could choose anyone from music's history?

AK: Basically, I would just take the line-up of The Band and maybe add a glockenspiel.

RK: It's kind of a tough question to answer—different bands you listen to in different genres, it wouldn't real­ ly work to throw those together.

AK: But in a way, that's kind of like what this band is. In a way, it's a bunch of somewhat disparate ele­ ments that somehow manages to work.

I couldn't help but notice that in "Brand New Me/' there are a lot of religious references.

DP: A lot of people say that AK: Dave's a bit of a Bible thumper.

DP: I don't know what that means.

Singing w ith soul A capella groups on campus create magic In January, McGill had the honour of hosting the regional quarterfinals of the International Championships of Collegiate A Cappella, where two McGill groups, Soulstice and Effusion, took first and second place, respectively. As a result, the two groups hit the road to sing on March 25 in NYC for the semifinals. McGill went in representing the two sole Canadian groups left in the mix. So why, then, is a cap­ pella such an unsung phenomenon on campus? The Tribune caught up with Soulstice in New York to uncover what a McGill a cappella group is really about.

"Soulstice," director Brenden Smith explains, "began under the most humble of conditions, as the brainchild of two first-years rejected from the other two groups, which somehow managed to become a highly ranked musical ensemble with diverse membership and repertoire."

From the first audition, likened to American Idol, Soulstice members know they are getting into something unique. Anthony Field, a management student, describes the group's draw: "I had been in a church choir for a long time, but with a cappella groups there's just more room for creativity."

The group certainly has a lot of fun with music, spon­ taneously breaking into song as soon as they arrive in New York. They serenaded passerbys outside Washington Square Park, the famous hangout of such artistes as

Kubrick, Dylan, Kerouac and Ginsberg.

The diverse community of a cappella was most appar­ ent at the concert on the March 25, which showcased everything from barbershop to hip hop. Asked to comment on the concert and the strongest groups, an audience member said, "It's been so much fun; all of the groups have so much energy. The two Canadian groups, in my opinion, stand out from the rest of the groups because of their stronger musicality—I mean, I think some of the other groups had such great choreography, but their sound was­ n't as rich—[McGill] had just beautiful sound, and you felt their dedication and passion to the music."

Anna Goren, a first-year member of Effusion, is ecstat­ ic about the group's chance to move on to the final round of ICCA after their performance in New York. "This compe­ tition was never our end goal," said Goren. "I'm mostly hon­ oured more than anything... it's just nice to get the judge's compliments on exactly the things we worked to improve."

There must be a magic to a cappella- abracadabra a cappella, they should say-because I was transformed from an a cappella neophyte with little appreciation or knowl­ edge into a full-fledged wannabe singer. Maybe the magic lies in one of the most emotional high notes in Soulstice's set, when they belt the lyrics to "His Eye is on the Sparrow": "I sing-because I'm happy." It seems that in the thriving McGill a cappella community it works the other way around as well: Singing makes Soulstice happy. ■

Visit www.myspace.com/jimmyriggers/ for song clips and more information. The April 6 show at Barfly (4062 St-Laurent) starts at 9 p.m. Call 284-6665 for tickets and more information.

R oom to re n t, n o v ie w , u g ly n e ig h b o u rh o o d a n d w ic k e d g u a r d .

P erfect fo r th e su m m e r.

M U S I C

CRYSTAL CHAN

RK: You hit people with Bibles.

AK: Yeah, that's all. You're not really religious, you just like to assault people with the Book.

DP: No, I'm not religious at all. A lot of that song is actually about a trip I took down to New Orleans, and I got pulled over for speeding. I just sort of played with that. I said, okay, what if I had gotten thrown in jail or some­ thing? You never know what's going to happen when you're travelling through Mississippi.... I was toying with the imagery a bit, and I just liked the way the line sounded. Jesus Christ forgiving all of our sinning. I'm not an openly religious person.

AK: He's not even a particularly open sinner.

RK: I would, you know, rather change that line to Vishnu forgiving all of my sins.

AK: But we’re indie, not Hindi. ■

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the mcgill tribune [ 4.4.06 | a&e 25

M U S I C

PREVIEWS

T h e n e w e st n e w D y la n

The singer/songwriter genre is not one that is typically lauded for its originality, but in eclectic troubadour Josh Ritter, the genre seems to have found a redeemer. Here is an artist being championed as no less than the potential messiah of the modern music scene, the new Bob Dylan.

He received tremendous critical support for his first two albums, The Golden Age o f Radio and Hello Starling, both of which showed an artist who could comfortably fill the rambling man's shoes both in musi­ cianship and lyrical content. On his latest, The Animal Years, Ritter ambi­ tiously combines influences from such greats as Johnny Cash, Dylan and Leonard Cohen with a healthy appreciation of the current trends in modern music. The Tribune had the opportunity to talk taboos (love, reli­ gion and politics) on the phone with Ritter, who was back in Idaho gearing up for his North American tour.

Tribune: What was the musi­ cal inspiration for you to go into songwriting?

Josh Ritter: "Girl From the North Country"—it's by Bob Dylan, but the version I heard was Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash. I never really had heard Dylan before, but being from Idaho, I knew Johnny Cash. That song just blew me away—it changed my life, kind of like punk rock.

Your songs contain a lot of lit­ erary references. Is that an active strategy on your part, a way of courting a certain type of fan?

No, not actively. All you can do is write about what you are interest­ ed in and concerned about, and if other people find it interesting then they pick up the record.

My favourite artists, either writ­ ers or songwriters, are not afraid to talk about faith—that's ground that they can walk on. Religion is far more a part of our culture than any­ body is ready to admit, and it's so easily devalued. It's something we need to talk about. Look at Leonard Cohen: He is not afraid to say reli­ gion is a human thing, a beautiful thing but also an ugly thing.

I read you were a neuro­ science major. Do you ever feel that you still posses the scientist's mentality when you're writing songs?

Your album has been com­ pared to Green Day's A m e rica n Idiot. Thoughts?

Not really, but I think art and sci­ ence are the same thing-the/re about discovering something new, a new way of talking about things.

They're social constructs developed at a time to get people through a certain period of their life. My par­ ents are both scientists, and I want­ ed to do something that made me as happy as it made them. When I realized it was music, I kind of freaked out—I mean, who really does this? It took courage to really pursue it.

Green Day went out and made an album saying Bush is a bad guy and it's like, "No kidding." It's not telling anybody anything new, it's not adding to the debate; it's further polarizing things. People aren't idiots.

I don't want to be someone who stands up there with a microphone telling people what to think. It's like being a war photographer. So much of songwriting is just writing the cap­ tions; all the real poetry is gone out of it. You've sucked it dry, and that's boring. I understand that a lot of people relate to that kind of anger, but I would rather turn the anger into something I consider art. ■

You use a lot of religious ref­ erences in your songs. As an American living in a country where the religious right still maintains quite a powerful influ­ ence, do you ever feel the need to censor yourself?

YOUR

GIG...RUN

learn m o re at www.newgradnursing.com

Josh Ritter plays Cabaret (2111 St-Laurent) on April 7. Doors open at 9 p.m. Call 790-1245 for tickets and more information.

WITH

IT!

Every New Graduate nurse hired between now and June 30, 2006 receives an iPod nano.

And if you think that's cool...just wait.

D a r t m o u t h -H it c h c o c k M e d ic a l C e n t e r N e w H a m p sh ire 's O n ly A c a d e m ic M e d ic a l C en ter L eb an o n , N e w H am p sh ire

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Music. AIDS Wolf—Sala Rosa-4848 St-Laurent-April 7

Josh Ritter focuses on innovation NIKI HYDE

compiled by Melissa Price

EOE/Affirmative Action

This show's lineup, which also includes The Nihilist Spasm Band and CPC Gangbangs, gets a prize for sounding more like a list of things that might be trying to kill you than anything you'd want to spend money to see. This is, apparently, partially true: AIDS Wolf is a painful, grating noise-punk band that is extremely likely to injure your eardrums. But some people like that kind of thing, and those nuts will tell you that this band is pretty wicked. Doors open at 8 p.m. Call 284-3804 for tickets and other information.

Music. Neko Case—Club Soda—1225 St—Laurent—April 4

Neko Case is probably the most famous figure in Canadian music who isn't actually Canadian. Yep, despite making her musi­ cal breakthrough on the New Pornographers' M ass Romantic and playing with a healthy assortment of Canadian punk, alt-country and indie outfits, Case is originally from Virginia. Who knew? Either way, she's collaborated with about 73 influential bands and released several noirish altcountry solo albums, making her a force to be reckoned with on either side of the border. Doors open at 9 p.m. Call 286-1010 for tickets and other informa­ tion.

Art. M im ic-La Centrale-4296 St-Laurent-through April 9

1 found this exhibit quite randomly, while wandering drunkenly down St-Laurent late Friday night. It stopped me in my tracks, and then cracked me up: a television set glowing from a window, K,u r,.B u clip of a girl laughing inexplicably and ceaselessly into the night. playing Sheena Hoszko, who made the film in collaboration with Geraldine Ah-Sue, was looking to take such a simple, everyday emotion and place it in a strange context, in order to bewilder passers-by as to its reason. The fact that the laugh cycles between genuine and forced only adds to the intrigue. It's quite a sim­ ple concept, but you'd be amazed at how long you can stand there watching

GREAT BANDS INCONCERT NTHE SAME STAGE.. 1 GREAT Nil EDNESDAY APRIL 1 2 th SPECTRUM

26

a&e | 4.4.06 | the mcgill tribune

M U S I C

You don’t need to speak French to dig this guy Steve Marin is a universally palatable slice of Quebec folk-rock BEN LEMIEUX

Marin—bridging the linguistic listening gap.

A great musician, one who truly transcends the boundaries of language as Ali Farka Toure or Miriam Makeba were able to, is often said to be one who has music streaming through his veins, whose emotional attachment to his work is discernable beyond the confines of mere words. Quebec has seen a rash of such performers and composers in recent years. American tourists visiting the province no longer exclusively seek the excessively lauded Arcade Fire album, but also demon­ strate growing interest in ebullient singer/songwriters such as Steve Dumas and Daniel Bélanger.

The tall, rugged, gravelly-voiced Steve Marin and his recently released debut album, Passager du temps, are the next link in the chain. Hailing from Gaspésie, and relocating to Saint-Jeansur-Richelieu and Montreal in his youth, Marin's cultural backdrop and upbringing reflect Quebec's proverbial heart 'n' soul.

"My grandmother raised me dur­ ing my early years, because my par­ ents were busy playing," explains Marin. "In the 1970s, what was popu­ lar were piano bars. These were bars in motels, and the fashion of the time was to have duos playing the top 20 hits and whatnot."

As an only child in a household of musicians, Marin's growth as an instru­

mentalist and, more notably, a song­ there won't be words to go on top of writer, was all but inevitable. it. For me, it's primordial: A tune that "I'd say most of the influence doesn't have melody won't pull me in." came to me when I was 13-years-old," For his part, Marin seems to be Marin elaborates. "[After my parents pulling in droves. His album launch last separated], my mother met another Tuesday at O Patro Vys (356 Montman; she got remarried. I was an only Royal E.) attracted a throng of support­ child and he was a drummer. He had ers and press representatives alike. played gigs his whole life and was The conversation floating atop the mad about the Beatles and Paul vapour of cigarette smoke and candle­ McCartney. When he lived with us, he light was a veritable buffet of English took note; he felt I had a knack for and French, and the only common composition. And he introduced me to thread among those in attendance the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin— was a love for music. a whole stack of 33s."

"I think it's a mix of the phrasing, This particular introduction to the the melodies and the consonance of world of pop music goes a long way in words," Marin hypothesizes of his lyri­ explaining Marin's approach to song- cal and musical appeal. "My girlfriend writing and production on his debut is from Vancouver and goes to McGill.

While Marin recognizes that meaning­ She got a lot of her friends back home ful lyrics must be at the forefront of to listen to it, as well as fellow Francophone music-lest it completely McGillians—a lot of Anglophones—and lose the interest of its listener-he and people liked it, despite the fact that producer/longstanding collaborator these are not people who speak a Hugo Perrault also have an affinity and whole lot of French. I don't know if remarkable skill for imbedding instru­ French music has become a la mode, mental subtleties and Floydian tex­ but I have noticed a growing interest in tures within gorgeous ballads such as Francophone music on behalf of the "La tourmente" and the fluid, delight­ English population." fully drawn-out title track.

Not surprisingly, if you've got gen­ "For my part, every song begins erations of melody in your blood, the with a melody," Marin explains of his language you're speaking shouldn't approach to songwriting. "The words make a lick of difference. ■ arrive a few at a time, I try to work out a theme, the rhymes tend to fall into Passager du temps is in stores place with the melody. But if the now. Visit www.stevemarin.com for melody is no good from the get-go, more details.

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the mcgill tribune | 4.4.06 j a&e 2 7

FILM

Heist flick bound to bamboozle Spike Lee’s Inside Man for the thinking man J.S. H A N C O X When men walk on the moon...

When the Red Sox win the World Series...

When Spike Lee makes a main­ stream movie...

Dammit! That's one more expression of derisive incredulity that I can't use anymore. That's right: Spike Lee's latest joint is, well, a heist flick. Clive Owen plays the slightly megalomaniacal mastermind behind a very strange bank robbery.

That is, instead of grabbing the loot and running, the robbers take 50 or so hostages and hole up in the bank like they're checking into a hotel for a weeklong vacation. Denzel Washington plays the detective assigned to head up the police response, while Jodie Foster plays a high-priced fixer called in by the bank's owner to protect certain "interests" of his. Willem Dafoe, Christopher Plummer and Chiwetel Ejiofor (you may recognize him as the villain from Serenity or Keira Knightley's bland beau in Love Actually) round out a rather stunning ensemble cast.

All the actors inhabit their roles quite nicely—I doubt anybody will be up for an Oscar, but they make it real enough that suspending one's dis­ belief is no burden. They fit into their places. Nobody, not even Dafoe, does any scenery-chewing. It's a pleasure to watch professionals do their jobs well, as opposed to mere­ ly flashing their pretty faces with a range of approximately three expres­ sions: happy, angry and confused (coughAlbacough).

QNEMATICAL.COM "I'm gonna have to let you go. That attire is n o t workplace-suitable, foo!"

I won't reveal too much about the true nature of the plot. It's lay­ ered, and finding out just what's going on is of course a principal pleasure in this and any heist movie.

What's good is that the plot in this one revolves around more than just whatever clever gimmick the robber has up his sleeve. The twists tran­ spire on other levels as well.

What makes Inside Man stand out is Lee's eye for detail. For some movies, there's point A, where the plot starts, and point B, where every­ thing gets wrapped up, and the rest of the movie is basically a straight line from A to B. There are none of those little touches that crop up in life; it's as if the world has been stripped down to the bare necessi­

ties. Inside Man has rich asides that make the movie far more enjoyable.

The police in the command truck erupt into an argument over the finer points of a riddle posed by Owen—after they've solved it. Ejiofor has a particularly hilarious moment while interviewing a female hostage.

It's the little things that count, in love and cinema, and Lee packs Inside Man full of them.

What's nice, among other things, is that Inside Man doesn't really have a message. It's not trying to say anything, to teach its audi­ ence any grand lesson about society or government or whatever the cause of the week is. It's just enter­ tainment, pure and simple, and good entertainment at that. ■

REVIEWS From Fiction. Bloodwork. Working as dishwashers at the University of Toronto by day and gathering to spew forth spunky punk rock by night, From Fiction is not comprised of lacklustre phonies. Their debut album, Bloodwork, has seven dementia-induc­ ing tunes, each expressing a variation on the disenchanted youth theme, basing some of their inspiration on artists comparable to fellow Canadian punkers Billy Talent From Fiction's sound is difficult to classify succinctly within the ■ genre of punk. But somewhere between the dissonance, seemingly random chord progressions and chaotic power of their sound and a harsh, melodically vacant exterior, there is a band that cares about being angry and going all out Anyway, who needs pleasantries like a coherent chorus when it can be replaced by the musically-inspired urge to smash something? Having received some critical acclaim for their live performances within the punk scene, you have to give them some credit for their sincere desire to make ears bleed with the over­ whelming amplitude of their noise machines (instruments, that is). There isn't much gimmickry in the band's temperament and they have an explosive propen­ sity for rawness that can only be described as unabashedly experimental punkrock. Although lead vocalist Adam Barnes' uninspiring lyrics are often inaudible against the sound that accompanies him, From Fiction is definitely a ferocious and skilled group, indubitably worth looking out for.

—Matthew Arnot Saucer. Dallaire. The first release by this 10-year-old Toronto four-piece opens with the soft, glowing tones of "Oslo," a slow-jam starter that builds in intricacy to a languid solo. It's such a sweet song, that you don't even notice that lyrics haven't kicked in until it's over. Then, immediately, the second song starts up, assaults you with an irresistible need to headbang and/or run around and crash into things, and shortly, suddenly relents. And this is only the first five minutes. The next nine tracks are equally captivating, at times reminiscent of a Maynard-less and slightly less metallic Tool in their heady and atmospheric use of heavy bass and interwov­ en guitar. The most impressive part was that, without a scrap of vocals anywhere on the album, Saucer managed to convey an intensity and depth of emotion that seems pathetically out of reach for a lot of bands these days. Do//o/re-which, inci­ dentally, is named after the Canadian general who witnessed the Rwandan geno­ cide—is an often weighty and always melodic instrumental album, one that speaks quite well for itself. I guess sometimes we're better off mute.

—Melissa Price Lacuna Coil. Karmacode. I have been suspicious of Evanescence for years. The problem was, I didn't hate them enough. I thought they were a poor band, and I disapproved of most things related to them, but for some reason, I found it impos­ sible to actively dislike their music. And I tried—Lord knows I tried.

“Ludicrous!" I said to myself. "They must be ripping someone off."

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you the band Evanescence is prob­ ably ripping off. Lacuna Coil is an Italian outfit that has been putting out albums since 1996. What Lacuna Coil has in common with Evanescence is the use of competing, almost operatic male and female voices soaring over throbbing metal riffs. What sets them apart is that, quite frankly, Lacuna Coil does it much better.

For one thing, its music is a far cry from the pliable rap-metal we've been expect­ ed to subsist on these past years—it's dark and viscous, with as many genes from artists like Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds as from hard rock. More importantly, though, singer Cristina Scabbia uses her soprano in a way that makes Amy Lee's sound like a plaintive whine. She goes from spooking up a gloomy solo with ethe­ real sighs to staring down a thick guitar chord with an equally throaty howl in a matter of seconds. Italy 1, America 0.

-M elissa Price '

3 4 8 0

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Film. Beowulf and Grendel. If you are particularly fond of the poem Beowulf, written in the first half of the eighth century, director | Sturla Cunnarson's cinematic adaptation, entitled Beowulf and \ Grendel, may not be for you. The filmmakers explain that they wanted to engage'the original text by posing two distinct questions: "What if the hero was a complex, thoughtful man7' and "What if the monster weren't really a monster?" While in theory their approach seems intelligent and refreshing, the end product departs so drastically from source material that much of what made the story timeless and intriguing is lost Perhaps the most striking addition is the character Selma, played by Canadian indie starlet Sarah Polley. Selma's distinctly contemporary perspective on the events appears anachronistic among the brutish views of the Danes and Geats. Of course, in our modern times, it seems that the narrow and stringent Code of the Multiplex requires Beowulf to have a love interest. This Hollywood romance, surprisingly, stands out against the more redeeming qualities of the film.

Though the purist might not appreciate the free adaptation of the poem, often accomplished at the expense of all reasonability, one can nevertheless enjoy the view. Gunnarson shot the film in his native Iceland and brings a land­ scape to the screen that has seldom been meditated upon for an entire featurelength production. As the director explains, "It's a landscape that's never been seen on film, certainly not in any kind of a mass-market film. I mean, [James] Bond has shot there, and Lara Croft shot there, but they sort of represent three or four minutes in the films. This is a film that lives and breathes entirely on that landscape."

Oh yes, and the costuming is quite good too.

—Melissa Gaul

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A g r e a t b ig t h a n k s t o a ll t h o s e w h o c o n t r ib u t e d t o A & E th is y e a r .

W e c o u l d n ’t h a v e d o n e i t w i t h o u t y o u .

— B e n a n d M e ls

Y E A R

IN

R E V I E W

20 0 5 -0 6 , y o u w e r e an in terestin Eight months of McGill sports in one article ....___

ADAM MYERS

This past school year saw dramatic and remarkable events occur across the wide world of sports. Fans witnessed a muchimproved NHL returning from its lockout, a baseball team win­ ning the World Series for the first time since 1917 and the his­ toric—yet depressing—final Monday Night Football game aired on ABC. Closer to home, McGill sports also entertained and left us with some unforgettable moments. There was much to praise as several McGill teams celebrated championships, while others competed. There was also much to lament as the football team suddenly became the subject of a hazing scandal that shocked the country. So without further ado, the good, the bad and the ugly of the sports year that was, and a look ahead to next sea­ son.

The Good

McGill iced two championship teams in hockey this season.

The Martlets won the Quebec Student Sport Federation hockey title in grand fashion on home ice, taking the decisive third game against the Ottawa Gee-Gees. They took their show to Nova Scotia, where they picked up a bronze medal in the national tournament, defeating St F-X in a shootout to claim third place in the country.

The team will lose a minimum of four players and a maxi­ mum of seven to graduation, highlighted by starting goalie Kalie Townsend. Nevertheless, next year's outlook is still promising with strong young talent.

Not to be outdone by their female counterparts, the Redmen hockey team had a nice run of their own. They rolled through the regular season with only one conference loss and used that momentum to propel themselves to an OUA Eastern Conference championship. McGill also clinched its first-ever berth at the national championships, where the Redmen played hard, but in the end were defeated by powerhouse, and even­ tual champion, Alberta in the semi-finals.

With a young core including the OUA Player of the Year Mathieu Poitras, and with the possibility of only losing two play­ ers to graduation, the Redmen are poised to make another run at the title next season.

The Martlets soccer team also took their show to nationals this season, after earning a berth in the tournament by defeating l'Université de Montréal in the QSSF final. The women, led by captain Shari Fraser—who was named McGill's female athlete of the year-lost one game all regular season, but only managed a bronze at nationals. The medal was the team's third in the last

T H E

RED

three years, and this one came by defeating two Canada West teams that have given the women trouble throughout Marc Mounicofs eight years as head coach.

Both the men's and women's rugby teams had successful years as well. The women's team won the QSSF championship yet again, although they were handily beaten in three of four games at the nationals, earning only a fifth-place finish. The men's team, meanwhile, failed to defend its title as it was upset in the QSSF championship game by Concordia.

The Bad

This was a rough year for McGill hoopsters. The men's bas­ ketball team struggled to a 2-14 record and missed the playoffs for the second straight. The team is mired in rebuilding mode, as this season there were 10 freshmen on the squad, and the team was hurt by rookie centre Olivier Lamereux's broken wrist.

However, they may be significantly better next year, as the squad will only lose one player, steady guard Elliot Siemiatycki.

The women didn't fare a whole lot better, finishing the sea­ son with a 6-10 record. They did, however, qualify for the play­ offs, where they were ousted in the first round by a strong Bishop's team that went 13-3 during the regular season. The team will lose senior Sarah Gagné, but return other key players like 6'4" centre Julianne Noseworthy.

LUKAS BERGMARK

The Ugly Calling the Redmen football season atrocious would be a compliment. The team was involved in a hazing scandal in which a rookie was abused and then left the school, and the season was cancelled well after the fact in what seemed to be a lack­ adaisical response to the incident by the university. The QUFL also imposed sanctions upon the program that will hurt it in the future.

Hazing aside, the actual season was a disaster. McGill was 1-5 before the season was cancelled, and Head Coach Chuck McMann does not look like he is capable of running this team.

In what was the first season with entirely his recruits, the offence struggled to score and the defence struggled to stop.

Quarterback Matt Connell, coming off an all-star campaign, was particularly bad, seemingly completing more passes to the oppo­ sition than his own team. And the future doesn't look much brighter, as the Redmen appeared destined to be fodder for Laval again next year.

In all, it's been an eventful year for the Redmen and Martlets alike. Hopefully, next season will bring more cheers and less jeers to the men and women in Red and White. ■

VLADIMIR EREMIN

Z O N E

B r in g in g

it

a ll

b a c k

h o m e D A V ID BLYE

nquestionably, the biggest story in McGill sports this year was the hazing scandal involving the football team. It was front page news across the country, and it ended up costing the Redmen their season.

In the course of the hazing and its aftermath, two ques­ tions were raised. The first was: "How could this happen at McGill, a bastion of academic and professional excellence?"

The second was: "Doesn't the hazing incident simply rein­ force the patriarchal and heterosexist nature of these teams?'

Why do we bring this up again at the year's end?

Because there are parallels to be drawn with the alleged actions of members of the men's lacrosse team at Duke University. It was reported last week that at a Duke lacrosse party, three members of the team raped and assaulted a stripper who was there to entertain the team.

But the story goes deeper. The stripper was black and attends a state school in Durham, where Duke is also locat­ ed. The alleged perpetrators—and 46 of the 47 lacrosse team members—are white. Durham is about 45 per cent black, but African-Americans make up just 11 per cent of Duke stu­ dents.

These two stories bring into question the character of a marquee university. And to a greater extent than the McGill hazing, it touches on issues of race, gender and class. By

U

now, every paper in America has commented on the weak town-gown relations between Duke students and Durham residents. The media is also playing up the obvious issue that the alleged victim was black and not very wealthy, while the alleged participants were both white and—since they're Dukies—probably wealthy.

And therein lies the problem. While the actions of the McGill players—and Duke players, if the allegations are true— shouldn't be legitimized or played down, we really don't need the over-analysis. Media outlets sensationalize the inci­ dents, trying to take these revered institutions off their posts.

They have a field day when an incident occurs at a suppos­ edly elite school, going out of their way to put the big univer­ sities down.

Still skepticâl? In January, Le Journal de Montréal attempted to give Management Carnival a black eye, publish­ ing' photos of students willingly participating at underwear parties. Forget the fact that these photos were from 2005all they proved was that university students party, and that Le Journal would rather publish an anti-McGill story than check its facts.

Meanwhile, social commentators try to spin these prob­ lems. They postulate that the incident at McGill was a group of heterosexual men trying to emasculate their teammates.

rather than making the obvious assertion that it was an uncalled-for team ritual. And the Duke situation is spun as white, privileged Dukies subjugating and mocking poor blacks, instead of pointing out that it occurred because a bunch of drunken males acted like animals.

But this is far from true. Occam's Razor postulates that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible. The incident at McGill was a ritual to build a bond between the rookies and their teammates.

Did it cross the line into humiliation? Yes. But it wasn't an example of heterosexism or homophobia. It was a group of student taking an initiation rite too far. That simple.

The Duke incident, if true, must also be viewed as what it is: a cowardly and heinous attack, committed by drunk stu­ dents who couldn't have cared less about the stripper's race f or social standing. There was no thought process, only a sup­ posed animal instinct that led to allegations of a terrible crime.

The lesson here is to judge people by what they do, not who they are. Black or white, rich or poor, McGill or UQÀM, Duke or North Carolina Central—none of it matters. If people are guilty, they should be punished. But don't rush to judge f people because of a background that they can't change.

That's no better than racism or homophobia itself. ■

the mcgill tribune j 4.4.06 j sports 29

P R O F I L E — C U R L I N G

T E A M

McGill curlers rock the house

G im m e s o m e M o

F r ie n d s ,

New Tier III team parlays sport’s new appeal into

c o u n t r y m e n ...

successful start D A V ID BLYE

le n d

Most McGill students try to make it through the year while still passing all their courses. It's tough enough to do just that, let alone establish a club or start a sports team.

But that's precisely what four female students did this year. In curling, no less.

In January, after seeing a lack of top-flight curling on campus, Christie Lang, Anna Sampson, Paige Mattie and Maegan Hough approached McGill Athletics with a proposal to establish an official McGill curling team.

"We went to Athletic Director Derek Drummond with a proposal to start a team," said Lang, who plays third. "He was very receptive to the idea and soon after we were approved as a Tier Ill-level varsity team."

With their approval in tow, the curling team set out to begin the long haul towards the Canadian University Curling Championship. Needing some practice together as a team, the women began training at the Royal Montreal Curling Club, where they also participate on Sundays as members of the McGill Curling Club.

After two months of training, the women headed to Winnipeg for the championships, which were held from Mar 22 to Mar 26. While the team didn't have the best performance, they were still proud of their accom­ plishments, especially considering the program's young age.

"Unfortunately, we only finished 1-4 in the roundrobin play, but we're a really new team and next year we'll be back with more experience and training," Lang said. "That being said, it was a truly amazing experience to represent McGill at nationals. The tournament was a lot of fun, with the organizers arranging an event for all the teams every night. I'm already looking forward to next year's championship."

One unfortunate aspect of being a Tier III team is that McGill couldn't provide them with any funding. As such, the team had to raise all the money for the trip to nationals on its own. However, while McGill was unable to aid the team financially, the university was still able to provide the women with school warm-up gear, which they felt was extremely useful.

"While McGill couldn't provide us with actual cash, the gear they let us have allowed us to be easily the best looking team at nationals," Lang said.

Olympic gold makes us all curling fans

While curling has always been fairly popular in this country—especially in the prairies-the sport's appeal took off nationwide after Canada's men captured the gold medal at the Turin Olympics.

"The coverage of curling during the Olympics was phenomenal," Lang said. "After Canada took gold, I had

COURTESY McGILL CURLING The curling team will hope to sweep away the competition next year.

all sorts of people come up to me who seemed to know about Brad Gushue and his rink. Their win was really great for Canadian curling. But, this is the same wherever curling goes. After the Salt Lake Games, there was a huge curling boost in the US. And during the last Olympics, I think there were close to one million Italians who watched curling on TV" Lang thinks that the sport's charm is helped by the fact that it's not as adversarial as some other sports.

"Curling is great for a bunch of reasons,” she said.

"First, it's a relatively easy game to learn how to play.

Second, it's a game based on sportsmanship and integrity. Players will call themselves for fouls, such as touching—or burning—your opponent's rocks, even if your opponent does not see you do anything. Third, curling really is quite a social sport. During nationals, all the teams would congregate together after the games.

Now, I've got a number of friends from across the coun­ try."

While the team did not do as well as it hoped to this season, it's clear that with another season of train­ ing, they should be able to make some noise in the years to come. ■ The McGill Curling Club has beginners' lessons every Sunday from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Royal Montreal Curling Club, located at 1850 de Masioneuve Ouest.

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ometime in the Madness of March, Joakim Noah made himself a lot of money. The University of Florida centre flew under the radar for most of his NCAA career, but took his game to the next level in lead­ ing the Gators all the way to the championship game, and in the process turned himself into a likely lottery pick should he forego his senior year of college and enter the NBA draft.

Despite all this, when reporters asked about his future plans, Noah made it clear that, as tempting as it is to bolt to the NBA and start collect­ ing phat paycheques, he really enjoys college life and is leaning towards another year in Gainesville.

That really made me think. People who aren't sports fans don't seem to appreciate that sports often teaches us valuable life lessons, and this story taught me something really important.

-I hate Joakim Noah.

Don't get me wrong. I respect Noah's decision. For one thing, it's not like he’s the last hope for his family and feeling intense pressure to move them out of a bad living situation. He's the son of a tennis player/jazz musician dad and a beauty-queen mom, so his family is in fine shape. I also respect that he'd rather spend another year in a low-pressure envi­ ronment surrounded by friends than enter the cold business of profes­ sional basketball.

It's actually because of these reasons that 1 despise the man. You see, while he has options, I do not. While he's debating between a mil­ lion-dollar contract or staying in his safe little bubble and having fun for another year, I'm being pushed out the door into the real world, without any money waiting for me. To make matters worse, my bubble is being burst behind me so that I don't get any ideas about coming back to it.

But while being herded out of this fine institution with a cattle prodfiguratively speaking, of course, lest you get any Dr. Broom ideas—the last thing I've clung to is this piece of real estate that is my column.

Once a week, I've had the opportunity to drop whatever it was I was doing and act like I know something about anything. Somehow, my most annoying trait—arguing incessantly about sports—was repackaged into a noble pursuit. Instead of hearing "Shut up already! Nobody cares about Vernon Wells' slugging percentage," the usual reaction became some­ thing along the lines of "Oh, you write a column? That's fantastic! Here's my number."

Okay, maybe that's wishful thinking, but nevertheless, this column has been a fantastic experience, and I would be remiss if I didn't thank the people responsible for making it so.

Thank you, Matt Bonner, for dancing like you do in the Toronto Raptors pre-game intro video, often the lone bright spot in watching Raptor games this season. You earned NBA first team All-Goofy White Guy honours.

Thank you, Lindsey Jacobellis, for falling while trying to showboat in the Olympic snowboardcross event and costing yourself a gold medal.

We'll take snowboarders seriously now, I'm sure. Congrats. You must be "stoked," dude.

And of course, thanks to the Redmen football team for providing a year's worth of jokes, most of which couldn't be printed. I'd offer you a seat at the head of the table, but you might find sitting down uncomfort­ able.

There's an old saying that it takes a village to raise a baby, and the same is true of raising a writer. A lot of people had a hand in making this column what it was. My friends were gracious enough to talk shop with me and let me field-test my material on them before I put it in writing.

Sports editors David Blye and Adam Myers let me bogart the right side of their section's second page every week [Ed. note: What else would we put here? Off the Beaten Path?] And special thanks to managing editor Andrew Segal, the village Shaman, who kept me in check all year and put up with my attempts to act like the pampered superstar I'm most certain­ ly not.

And of course, thanks to you, the reader-indeed, there might only be one, but I digress. As much as I love the sound of my own voice, it rings hollow when it falls on deaf ears. I spent every week trying to enter­ tain you, so thanks for giving me a goal to shoot for.

In true "You-don't-know-what-you-got-till-it's-gone" fashion, I'm kick­ ing myself for having ever taken this gig for granted. It's not easy coming up with a fresh column idea for 27 weeks, and there were times I felt like : I was at the end of my rope, but now that my lease is up, I'm sad to be vacating this space.

How often in life are we given carte blanche, the opportunity to speak our minds to a captive audience? Every week I had such a soap­ box, but now it's being taken from me.

I guess that's part of the bubble bursting, though. Real life awaits, and though we don't have million-dollar contracts to rely on, there is still something out there for all of us. Here's hoping we all find what we're looking for. ■

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sports | 4.4.06 j the mcgill tribune

O FF

C A M P U S

T h ir t y - fo u r ye a rs later, it all c o m e s b ack t o 7 2 Mini-series, exhibit allow Canadians to wax nostalgic A A R O N SIGAL

Ask Americans what the most famous moment in US history is, and you likely won't find two people with the same opinion. But in Canada, it all boils down to hockey.

Nothing galvanizes Canadians like the national game, and no games captured Canadians' collective atten­ tion like the 1972 Canada-Russia Summit Series.

It is this passion that CBC intends to reignite when it airs the two-part mini-series Canada-Russia '72 on Sunday and Monday. The docu-drama recreates the intense eight-game series between a Canadian team chock full of NHL greats like Ken Dryden, Phil Esposito and Frank Mahovlich and a Soviet team full of "amateurs." What was supposed to be a Canadian land­ slide turned into a war on ice, mirror­ ing the Cold War between the East and West In conjunction with the mini­ series, CBC, along with the Hockey Hall of Fame, has put together a trav­ elling exhibition of 14 pieces of Summit Series memorabilia, which on Thursday could be found at Concordia University. And if there set any doubt as to the Summit Series' resonance today, it was erased by the large crowds that flocked to the exhibit in an attempt to catch a glimpse of Canadian lore.

"Anyone over 30 in Canada knows exactly where they were for four events," said Booth Savage, who plays Canadian Head Coach Harry Sinden in the mini-series.

"JFK's assassination, Armstrong's moon landing, 9/11 more recently and Paul Henderson's goal in 1972."

The experience, of the Summit Series has been burned into the col­ lective Canadian psyche, so much so that even recreations of it can inspire fanatical responses.

"We showed an advance screening of the show to the media in Toronto," said Rick LeGuerrier, one of the executive producers of the mini-series. "And it was amazing.

When Henderson scored that last goal in the mini-series, the whole room leapt up and started cheering and high-fiving."

"The real story was the Cold War," LeGuerrier added. "It just had a hockey fabric. But it really turned into who had the better system: Canada and the West, or the USSR; democracy versus communism. We were worried that their system as a whole was better."

Exhibit brings out the best in Canadians

The display itself contained Canadian game-worn jerseys, track jackets, Canadian and Soviet hel­ mets, Soviet Head Coach Vsevolod BobroVs suit. But the crown jewel of the exhibit was Paul Henderson's simple, wooden CCM stick from Game 8, with which he carved out one of the most famous moments in Canadian history. For Savage, there is no question that Henderson's goal is a major part of our nation's lifeblood.

'The whole country was watch­ ing," he said. "Fifteen million people out of 22 million were tuned into the game."

However, this fact caused some anxious moments for the mini-series' creators.

"This is one of the biggest sto­ ries in Canadian history," LeGuerrier said. "It was a scary story for us to tell. Canadians who watched it know everything: how Henderson taped his stick, what the stripes on the socks looked like, how Bobby Clarke skated. If we screwed up in this mini-series, everyone would know.

'Today, a successful show is watched by two million of Canada's 30 million people," LeGuerrier added. "Clearly, this was more than just a sports story and we had to tell it again."

That it transcended sports and begat a moment indelibly etched in our national consciousness seems to be the beauty of the Summit Series. Even though Russia is democratizing and is now a Canadian ally, the victory over the Soviets remains a part of the Canadian fabrid. And as CanadaRussia '72 shows, whenever Henderson's goal is mentioned— even 34 years later—it's still a refer­ ence point for Canadians to gather around. ■

Wouldn't it be great if we could go back to '72, when Canada was hockey"s unquestioned master?

Thank y o u to the all writers. W ith o u t you we would have had no section.

Thank you to Mohit Arora, whose column was always a pleasure to read. Its presence saved our collective asses too many times to count.

Thank you to Tiffany Choy, our design deity, who laid our section with such daring and grace, and never got too upset when our stuff was late.

A massive thank you to Andrew Segal, our senior editor who decided to take a chance on a couple of green sports writers and showed never-ending patience when our stories were never in on time.

And finally, a huge thank you to the readers. O u r goal was to enlighten you on all things sports and we just hope that you enjoyed the past 27 issues.

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the mcgill tribune | 4.4.06 j sports 3 1

R E P O R T

C A R D S

A te rm ’s w o rth o f w o r k co m es dow n to a letter W e evaluate the p erfo rm an ces of the men and w o m e n in Red and W h ite MARTLETS

Second term was a mixed bag for McGill Athletes. O n one hand, we had three conference champs, four teams represented at nationals and no major scandals to deal with. On the flip side, many teams failed to make the playoffs, and most of those who did were unsuccessful in their drive for gold. Here, we give our final feedback on some of the teams that had the privilege of representing us in Quebec and across the country.

MARTLETS In 2005-06, the Martlets reclaimed their place as the pre­ mier hockey team in Quebec. After being dumped in last year's play­ offs, they successfully bounced back, managing a league best 12 -2 1 record and taking the conference championship in dramatic fashion, eliminating Ottawa in the thirdgame of a three game series.

Advancing to the CIS champi­ onship for the fourth-straight sea­ son, McGill was unable to break its spell of bad luck at nationals, losing in the opening round to defending champs Wilfrid Laurier. But the Martlets recovered in the medal round, defeating St. F-X 6-5 in a dramatic shootout.

HOCKEY While the Martlets were unable to take gold at nationals, they are stacked for next season.

The team will lose goaltender Kalie Townsend, but the returnees are highlighted by team and QSSF MVP Shauna Denis, all-Quebec forward Christie Hartnoll and goaltender Catherine Herron. Add the fact that Coach Peter Smith won't be going on Olympic leave next year, and this team just might surprise the country next season.

BASKETBALL

The Martlets endured a dismal year in 2004-05, going 3-13 and missing the playoffs. But the women in Red and White managed some improvements this season, finishing the season 6-10 and making their return to the post-season.

Led by fifth-year forward Sarah ‘ Gagné, the Martlets finally seemed to be coming into their own under Head Coach Ryan Thorne. Gagné was quite impressive, coming back after missing all of 2005, leading the team in both points per game

MVP: Shauna Denis Player to Watch: -Catherine Herron

—David Blye

McGill had a mixed season on the track this year. On one hand, the Martlets were dominant, winning the QSSF championship. Mid­ distance runners Genevieve Jenkins (a Trib editor) and Deborah Lightman were especially strong, each winning three gold medals at the Quebec championship. At nationals, the performances weren't quite there, although McGill was denied a medal in the 4x800m relay after being disqualified on a questionable call.

Meanwhile, the Redmen did not have quite as good a season in Quebec action, finishing second in the QSSF championship and only taking two events at the provincial championship. However, the CIS championships were a different story. In the 1000m, Stephen Douglas earned a surprising bronze medal after entering the finals seeded 10th of 10 competitors. And in the 4x400m, the Redmen shocked the country by earning a photo finish victory for their only win of the meet.

While both squads will be losing veterans—notably Jenkins and Jeff McCabe-with runners such as Lightman and men's 4x400m anchor Aaron White returning, this team should be in good shape for next year.

REDMEN MARTLETS AND

AND TRACK

FIELD

(10.9) and rebounds (5.2) per game.

Rookie forward Catherine Parent had a strong campaign as well, adding nearly nine points per game. So despite another losing record, the squad should be able to use this year as a stepping stone to success in the future.

MVP: Sarah Gagné Player to Watch: Catherine Parent

DB

It may be difficult for Coach Martin Raymond's squad to acknowl­ edge it following their .disappointing loss at the University Cup, but this will be looked back on as arguably the most successful season in the 130year history of men's hockey at McGill.

McGill finished the regular sea­ son at 20-1-3 and its first-ever No. 1 national ranking. But perhaps the most important team accomplish­ ment of all was finally getting past UQTR in the playoffs; the Patriotes had eliminated the Redmen in all 12 of the two teams' previous post-sea­ son encounters, including last sea­ son's OUA semi-final.

The driving force behind the Redmen's record year was the phe­ nomenal goaltending of Mathieu

Poitras. In only his second year, the OUA player of the year set a CIS record with seven shutouts, which went along nicely with a GAA of 1.40 and a save percentage of .943. The future looks equally bright up front, as third-year winger Shawn Shewchuk notched 33 points in just 22 games, while second-year rearguard David Urquhart anchors a strong corps and was the top scoring defenceman in the OUA. With most of the major parts returning, the Redmen should be ready for another championship run next year.

MVP: Mathieu Poitras Player to watch: Guillaume Demers

—Charlie Blore

Outstanding Male: Aaron White Outstanding Female: Genevieve Jenkins Persons to Watch: Stephen Douglas, Deborah Lightman

MARTLETS

-DB

REDMEN

BASKETBALL After going 2-14 in 2004-05, there were very low expectations for McGill's bailers. With a squad stocked full of rookies recruited by Head Coach Craig Norman—highlighted by centre Olivier Lamoureux, a transfer from the University of Massachusetts—McGill endured another 2-14 season, miss­ ing the playoffs for the second straight year.

However, while the team itself did not enjoy the great­ est season, there are some bright spots for next year. The Redmen's top two scorers were rookies—Yannick Chouinard and Lamoureux-and the entire starting lineup will be return­ ing next season with another year of experience under their belt.

While the young team has nowhere to go but up, Norman needs to make some progress in his third year at the helm. McGill suffered its worst loss in more than 40 years this season (78-28 to Bishop's) and was outscored by an average of 14.4 points per game. While this year's failings can be written off to youth and inexperience, McGill needs to show improvement next season to inspire their fans' faith again.

VOLLEYBALL

The women's volleyball squad made the greatest strides of any McGill team this year, rebounding from a disastrous 111 campaign in 2004-05 to go 16-5 this season and place second in the Quebec conference. The Martlets also marked Head Coach Rachèle Béliveau's 300th victory at McGill in January, as she became the first McGill coach in any sport to reach that plateau.

Surprisingly, it was a rookie who vaulted the Martlets into the spotlight. Jennifer Thomson, a 57" power hitter from Rosemere, sparked McGill by ranking in the top five in Quebec in points per game and kills. Thomson was named the CIS rookie of the year for her efforts, while she was joined on the Quebec all-star team by senior Christine Borisov and junior Gillian Johnson.

The Martlets may lose Borisov, who has completed four years, while libero Maxime Lefebvre and power hitter Catherine-Anne Murray have used up five years of eligibility.

But led by Thomson and a number of other strong rookies, the Martlets—who lost to Univeristé de Montréal in the Quebec playoffs-have a shot at making it to nationals next year.

MVP: Jennifer Thomson Player to watch: Rebecca Gomez

—Andrew Segal

MVP: Yannick Chouinard Player to Watch: Olivier Lamoureux

-D B

PHOTOS BY LUKAS BERGMARK AND VLADIMIR EREMIN

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a c a d e m ic y e a r !

W e a r e a l s o lo o k in g fo r c o o r d in a t o r s a n d v o l u n t e e r s f o r t h e f o l lo w in g S S M t e v e n ts:

c u r r e n tly s e e k in g e n th u s ia s tic a n d d e d ic a t e d p e o p le to

Frosh, Activities Night, SNOW AP, Blood Drive, Culture Fest, Equity Week.

f ill t h e f o llo w in g

W e a ls o n e e d s t u d e n t in v o lv e m e n t

p o s itio n s :

a s m e m b e r s a t la r g e to s e v e r a l c o m m itte e s :

SSMU Representative to McGill Board of Governors Layout and Graphic Designer Interest Group Finance Administrator Speaker of Council (2) Recording Secretary Faculty Relations Commissioner Francophone Commissioner (2) Judicial Board Justice (3rd or 4th Year Law) Student Equity Commissioner Academic Research Commissioner Student Involvement Commissioner SSMU Handbook Editor and Chief McGill Tribune Editor and Chief Safety Commissioner Mini Course Manager (2) Post Manager SSMU Front Desk Staff Elections McGill Chief Returning Officer Elections McGill Deputy Returning officer Elections McGill Election Coordinator Environment Commissioner

Senate Committees (mcgill.ca/senate) Constitution and Bylaw Review Committee Media Board Financial Affairs Committee Student Equity Committee Library Improvement Fund Committee Presidential Affairs Committee University Affairs Committee lubs and Services Committee nal Affairs Committee lunications and Events Committee Operations Committee Recording secretary for the SSMU legislative council.

Financial committee coordinator.

O r ju s t

v o lu n te e r :

F ro s h : le a d e r s a n d O -S ta f f O A P serv ers SN O W A P S erv ers S S M U V o lu n t e e r s P r o m o tio n s , t e a m p o s t e r s e tc .

5343

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