The McGill Tribune Vol. 27 Issue 18

IT'S ME, MARIO! VIDEO GAMES... LIVE, PAGE 10

Published by the Students' Society of McGill University

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HOW MUCH WOOD CAN A LUMBERJACK CHUCK? PAGE 13

Volume 27 Issue 18 • January 29, 2008

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R e s i d e n t s r a i s e v o i c e s a b o u t n o i s e in G h e t t o University reps and community flip-flop on increasing police presence Au Withers In a meeting last Wednesday at Église Notre-Dame, 70 permanent residents of the Milton-Parc Community came to­ gether with student and administrative representatives from McGill and the Montreal police, to vent their frustrations sur­ rounding off-campus student behaviour. Complaints revolved around the conduct of students at 3 a.m. as they return from a night out on the town.

Many of these residents have lived and shared this neigh­ bourhood for several decades with short-term student renters.

For them, September to April in the Ghetto means loud parties, higher incidents of vandalism and yelling students on the side­ walks. The problem is exacerbated during events such as Frosh and Carnival when noise becomes an all-day issue. Many find that it's become worse in recent years.

A resident expressed her feelings concerning the noise to the audience in the church basement.

“What do you do when you have a baby that's trying to sleep and you have kids yelling and screaming outside your window?"

Dean of Students Jane Everett admitted that part of the problem was that there is a high turnover and constant flow of new students moving into the area. Many may not immediately appreciate the community that already exists there.

The Students'Society is stepping up to address this issue by creating a neighbourhood guide that will be distributed to all first-year students in residence who are preparing to move out next fall.The guide includes community services in the area and ways students can get involved.

"If we can get that message out [about community], that See RESIDENTS on page 5

T e a c h i n g a s s i s t a n t s fa il t o a g r e e o n c o n t r a c t Grad students' General Assembly decides next step in negotiations Kristin Maich In the first General Assembly of 2008, the Association of Gradu­ ate Students Employed at McGill debated bargaining techniques for a new collective agreement with the university and held a vote on a new pressure tactics mandate last Wednesday at Thomson House.

The vote was a majority in favour, with one abstention, thus passing the motion to approve the resolution on the mandate for pressure tactics. The motion was moved by Rami Hourani, Ph.D. Chemistry and seconded by Steven Miscione, a graduate student in Mathematics.

"The university has no intrinsic incentive to give us our de­ mands. It's a game of chess: we have to show that we can shove as hard as they can," Miscione said. "[The pressure tactics mandate] is a

good first step for getting them to listen to us more. It will improve our chances. It's the only first step, really; gradual escalation is the way to go. There might have to be more action later.”

Present at the meeting were the AGSEM Executive and Bargain­ ing Committee members, as well as Students'Society Vice-President External Max Silverman and a mobilization advisor from the Confé­ dération des syndicats nationaux.

"We had the highest turnout yet for a GA in the last year.. .peo­ ple are getting more involved," said AGSEM Vice-President External Natalie Kouri-Towe. "Our debate on pressure tactics also went well; there was a wide variety of perspectives and ideas expressed and in the end we were able to unite around a mandate, which was passed [Wednesday] night."

AGSEM's collective agreement with the university expired on

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Jun. 30,2007, and as a result, the association and the administration are now entangled in deliberations over a new agreement with what AGSEM hopes to be better working conditions.

According to their information pamphlet, AGSEM argues that “teaching is the most basic service that the university offers to its students.. .if a university cannot afford to adequately pay its teach­ ing staff, then it cannot afford to function."

On Jan. 14, about 20TAS gathered at the Roddick Gates to stage a small protest during which they distributed information about their bargaining committee and called for negotiatipns with the university regarding their expired collective agreement to proceed.

"We held a small demo that was meant to show our support

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SPEAKERS PREVIEW

CAMPUS BUZZ

Hillel Montreal hosts Ishmael Beah

Do you think that McGill should require students to have a working knowledge of French and English to gain admittance?

Former child soldier brings message of hope Theo M eyer Best-selling author and former child soldier Ishmael Beah is set to speak at McGill on Sunday, Feb. 3 in an event organized

by Hillel McGill, the Student Coalition Against Hate and Students Helping Others Understand Tolerance. Beah's speech, A Long Way Gone: A Story of Redemption and Hope, is titled in part after his autobiographical novel, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, which recounts his experiences in Sierra Leone.

"Mr. Beah's story of a boy soldier overcoming a horrific past while maintaining a message of hope and inspiration fits per­ fectly with our mandate and the goal of [SHOUT],” said SHOUT National Chair Candice Salmon.

However, Beah's reputation has recently been called into question. In two articles published on Jan. 19 and 21, reporters Peter Wilson and Shelley Gare of TheAustralian questioned the truth of some facts in Beah's book.

"We first heard from TheAustralian in early December," said Jeff Seroy, a representative from Beah's publishing house, Farrar, Straus & Giroux. "Shelley Gare called to say that Bob Lloyd [an Australian general manager of a mine in Sierra Leone] claimed to have found Beah's father and two brothers."

After reading Beah's book, Lloyd originally contacted The Australian after one of his employees claimed to be Beah's father.

While this claim was later disproved, Wilson and Gare claimed to have uncovered inaccuracies in ALong WayGone. Beah wrote in his book that an attack on his village of Mogbwemo occurred in January 1993, but Wilson and Gare talked to people in the village who dated that same attack to January 1995. This would mean that Beah became a child soldier at 15 rather than 13 and spent much less time as a soldier than he claimed.

In a Jan. 22press release, Beah stood by the facts in his book and denounced TheAustralianfor their accusations, writing that "they believe anything they are told— unless it comes from me or supports my account." Farrar, Straus & Giroux have stood by Beah as well.

"Ishmael, from what we believe, is right with his dates,"Seroy said. "I don't believe [TheAustralian has] made a case."

TheAustralian made more allegations in articles published

last Friday and Saturday, citing another former child soldier named Kabba Williams who questioned events in Beah's book.

Among the events in question is a January 1996 fight in which Beah writes that six people were killed, but that no one else re­ members occurring.

President of Hillel McGill Eric Goldberg said that he was not familiar with The Australian's allegations, but was not troubled over the ongoing controversy surrounding ALong WayGone.

"I don't think some facts about his age are relevant in the general scheme of things,"he said.

Salmon hoped that the negative buzz surrounding the book will-not get in the way of Beah's messages of tolerance and sur­ vival.

They definitely need a knowledge o f English, be­ cause the courses are in English, but not really French because there are no classes in French.

— Raphaël Thézé, Ut biology No. McGill is an English University.

— Julia Gillman, Ut environm ent No. If that were the case, I would not have been admitted to McGill. I learned French by being and working in Montreal.

— Marcelle Kosman, SSMU VP Clubs an d Services No, absolutely not. Perhaps to take a French course, but as an entrance requirement, absolutely not. It's an English university.

— Sebastien Harart, U3 biology No, because it is an English school, and most peo­ ple here don't know French anyways. I think it's a great thing to know French to live in Montreal, but not necessarily to go to McGill.

— Melanie Shek, Ut international m a n a g em en t

DAGSAVISEN.NO Beah's dates have been called into question.

"We have no comment regarding ... the allegations placed upon Mr. Beah," she said. "We believe that the power of Ishmael's story is important to hear." ■

Beah will speak Feb. 3 at 2:00 p.m. in Leacock 123. Tickets are availableat Hillel House(3460Stanley). Theyarefreeforstudentsand $20for non-students.

I don't think it necessarily should be a requirement to get into this school, but I think it would be nice for it to be incorporated into the curriculum. It's im­ portant for students to feel like such a separate part o f Montreal, which is part o f a problem with McGill right now.

— Gavin Friedman, U3 mechanical engineering No, not at all. I think we are an established English university and because in Montreal, you can speak English or French.

— M ahtab Firuz, U2 psychology

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW— NADEEM ESMAIL

F r a s e r I n s t i t u t e D ir e c to r t a l k s h e a l t h c a r e r e f o r m Esmail calls for governments to realize physicians' full potential EconomistandanalysistNadeemEsmailistheDirectorofHealthSys­ tem PerformanceStudiesandManageroftheAlbertaPolicyResearchCen­ treat TheFraserInstitute.AspartoftheInstitute'sseminaronpublicpolicy issues, Esmail discussedthepotential for changes inCanada'shealthcare system.

You call the Canadian healthcare system broken. Can you elaborate on how it is broken and where the problem is?

You have to look at it from the eyes of the patient, and that's when you realize how dysfunctional the system really is. It starts with an individual who says, "I think I have a problem." More than 1.2-million Canadians in 2003 could not find a regular family doctor.

If you get into the doctor's office, on average, you can expect to wait over nine weeks to see a specialist. You can wait for ten weeks for MRI machines, nearly five weeks for CT scans, nearly four weeks for ultrasounds.The diagnoses with the specialists take an incredible amount of time. Once you go to the specialist, there's a second queue that you have to go through to go to the operating room. On average, it is over nine weeks, but it can stretch into months or even years for some patients.

By the time you actually get the surgery, you often end up get­ ting lower health care than what is available in other nations, because of the way we're delivering health care. All along, the patient has not received the healthcare from a system that is really world-class as we are told. If you look at it from a pluralist perspective, this system has been treating a patient terribly and perhaps inhumanely in delivering their care, does a reasonably good job at saving their life; not a great one, but a reasonably good one, this system is the developed world's third most expensive universal-access healthcare program.

We have one of the most expensive universal-access healthcare systems in the world, yet we deliver some of the worst access to health­ care, technology, to physicians in the world.That is a broken system.

Would you base the healthcare system on a different model that is in place in other countries?

It's not about adopting a model or adopting a different model; it's about adopting the right policies, those policies that have been prov­ en to improve universal-access healthcare systems that have been

proven to allow a population, to allow a group of individuals to better deliver the promise of universal access to healthcare. It's a promise that we are not fulfilling in Canada; it has been shown that cost-sharing is very important in the universal-access healthcare program. Having patients share the cost of the care they receive. Private competition in the delivery of publicly-funded and publicly-guaranteed services is im­ portant to ensure that you're getting the most care for your dollar and the best bang for the buck. Competition in the finance area, allowing patients to pay privately if they choose to do so, also means you get better care for the dollar and the best bang for the buck in healthcare than you would otherwise.

We have, in Canada, chosen the wrong policies in these areas, and we need to begin emulating all of those nations, all of the world's most successful universal healthcare programs, all nine of them who have taken these policies and implemented them into the healthcare program, to the benefit of patients.

"We have one of the most expensive universal-access healthcare systems in the world, yet we deliver some of the worst access to healthcare, technology, to physicians in the world."

— Nadeem Esmail, director of health system performance studies, Fraser Institute Opponents of privatization of healthcare argue that doctors will flock to the private sector for better wages and drive up the cost of specialized care. Do you think this will happen?

It doesn't happen in practice. If you do this properly, you will get a better system. That's not to say that you can't go and muck it up with the wrong policies, but it's often that these individuals that are so concerned with this are trying to embrace the wrong policies. You end up making poor use of your physician resources in either sector; in Canada, we do not let physicians work to their full capacity or desires.

We limit them, in terms of operating hours. It's not unusual to hear a physician operate four or eight hours a week. Truly, they can do more

than that, and many of them desire to do more than that, but that's what they're limited to. We have limits on how many patients can be seen in a certain time period,how much work can actually be billed to the government; we don't let physicians practice to the fullest of their desires, we cap them. In the private sector, depending on who the physician is, in all likelihood, there isn't going to be sufficient demand in that sector to fully utilize those physicians. What many developed nations have figured out, including Australia, Sweden, Italy; any num­ ber of nations have figured out that the best use of physician resources comes from allowing the physicians to work in both sectors.

There are suggestions to potentially shorten medical school times from four to three years to increase the number of doctors in the country.

The problem doesn't lie in how many years we're training physi­ cians for or how we train physicians; the problem lies in the number of physicians we train. We've been limiting it for years. In 1993, govern­ ment decided to restrict physician training in Canada because they were worried about a surplus of physicians. We should let Canadian students who are capable of becoming physicians, who are capable of getting into medical school get into medical school. We shouldn't be so severely limiting it, turning students away by the hundreds at the doors, and having these students go to Ireland, the United States and other countries to become physicians, when what they wanted to do is train here and treat Canadians.

By letting in more students into medical schools, would that lower the bar of medical admissions standards?

There is a truth to that, but look at where the bar is now. The bar now is so high that the people we turn away at the door can go to the United States, can go to Ireland, can go into medical school and become full practicing physicians. Our bar is set exceptionally high. If you talk to the medical schools across the country, what you will find is that many of the students who are turned away are fully capable to do it, they are at the top of their class; they're just not at the very top of their class.

—CompiledbyKenSun

29.01.08 • The McGill Tribune • 3

CAMPUS

C o m m is s io n e r s e e k s r e in te g r a tio n o f F re n c h Fraser states that bilingual graduates will have more opportunities Vincci Tsui Addressing a small crowd last Friday as part of the Students'Society's Francofête cele­ brations, Canada's Official Languages Commis­ sioner Graham Fraser asserted that working knowledge of both English and French should be an entrance requirement for Canadian uni­ versities, or at least a part of the curriculum.

"If the engineering faculty were to say that they would stop teaching students com­ puters, that their employers would teach them, then no companies would hire McGill graduates," Fraser said. "It's paradoxical that Canadian universities are not teaching their students both official languages."

SSMU Francophone Commissioner David-Marc Newman agreed with Fraser, stating that it would not be difficult for pro­ spective students to meet second-language requirements.

"Most school systems across the coun­ try have courses in French or in English, de­ pending on the province, and I don't see what would change much about requiring people to take Grade 12 French as a requirement for entry into university. In the same way in Que­ bec, requiring English in high school or CÉGEP before entering university. I don't see that as a problem, especially on the English communi­

ty's side," he said. "One of the problems in Can­ ada is that we have an asymmetrical bilingual­ ism, wherein the proportion of people who are bilingual is greater in the francophone population than in the anglophones."

While his talk was titled Bilingualism in Canadian Institutions, Fraser also delved into the history of francophone and anglophone relations in Quebec before discussing his work and giving suggestions on what institutions can do to increase language duality. Over the course of his speech, Fraser switched effort­ lessly between both languages.

Despite his criticism of most Canadian universities, Graham praised McGill's com­ mitment to bilingualism, citing the Faculty of Law's language requirements and the fact that students in all faculties can write exams and papers in French. Newman, however, said the university is actually not as dedicated to bilingualism as Graham perceived.

"The only criticism I have of [Fraser's] speech was that he may have oversold Mc­ Gill's commitment to bilingualism, which from an outside view would be harder to tell what's going on, but McGill is actually declining in terms of how many francophone students they have accepted and they're less and less committed to being bilingual," he said. New­ man added that the percentage of franco­

phone students has fallen from 25-30 per cent in the 1980s to 17 per cent today.

Although most people perceive lan­ guage duality as only an issue in Quebec and other bilingual provinces, Fraser said that he has been pleasantly surprised by the franco­ phone presence in other provinces, particu­ larly in western Canada.

"I think there's a kind of understanding that it's possible in western Canada to lead a very successful life in English only, but if you want to play on the national stage, it's impor­ tant to communicate with all Canadians— Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a perfect example of this," he said, citing the fact that 67 per cent of students at the Campus St-Jean, a French-speaking campus at the University of Alberta, are French immersion students who generally come from anglophone families.

SSMU Francophone Commissioner Amé­ lie. Gouin was slightly disappointed by the turnout, but hoped that Fraser made an im­ pression on those that who were there.

"Obviously [bilingualism] is a very big issue in Quebec and in Canada and at McGill, so even though it would've been better if we had more students, I think that if we succeed­ ed in getting even 30 students to be very, very interested in this subject, this is incredible,"she said.*

News B rief

SPEAKERS ON CAMPUS

C o ffin n a ils M ini B e a tty l e c t u r e Microbiologist reviews breakthroughs in virology N ancy P ham Leading microbiologist and HIV/AIDS researcher Dr. John M. Coffin presented a Mini Beatty lecture last Friday entitled Retrovirus Evolution. An American Cancer Society Research Professor and Distin­ guished Professor of Molecular Biology and Microbiology at Tufts University in Boston, Coffin spoke for an hour on topics spanning the field of retrovirology.

Coffin's talk, organized by the depart­ ment of microbiology and immunology, the McGill AIDS Centre and the Beatty Memorial Lecture Committee, aimed to showcase the physiology of retroviruses and how they infiltrate the body.

"You may be surprised to learn that humans descended from viruses,” said Shan-Lu Liu, McGill assistant professor of virology and gene therapy, as she in­ troduced Coffin. "Studying the effects of retroviruses on humans and other species can help us better understand the evolu­ tion of the virus-host association."

Retroviruses can be found in the

NIKIHYDE National roles such as Fraser's job require bilingualism.

family Retroviridae, which includes the leukemia and HIV viruses. They can only survive with a host, as they rely on an en­ zyme called reverse transcriptase to tran­ scribe their genome from RNA into DNA. The DNA is then integrated into the host's genome with another enzyme called integrase; the virus then multiplies as a part of the cell's DNA. Coffin explained that if a retrovirus happens to infect a human sperm cell or egg and the embryo survives, the retro­ virus could declare its place in the blue­ print of the human species. It would be passed from one generation to another.

He pointed out that in many cases, these remnants often do not serve a purpose or cause harm and are thus labelled 'junk DNA'.

"Endogeneous viruses are what they're called after they've replicated viral , genome into the germ line," Cof­ fin explained. "These viruses comprise a good six to eight per cent of the .human genome. There are more of them than genes—there exist more viruses in us,

Coffin's beard brings us back to the retro age.

than there is us in us.”

Coffin initiated the use of genomic analysis to study the biology of retrovi­ ruses, giving explanation to their genetic organization, mechanism of replication, recombination and transduction. His research has also built a foundation for theories concerning the retrovirus-host relationship.

"Retroviruses are important not only as causes of human disease, but also as valuable models for normal and patho­ genic processes," Coffin said. “My research involves understanding retroviral repli­ cation, disease induction and evolution.

These factors explain the. high levels of genetic variation, an important role in the retrovirus'ability to evolve and cause dis­ ease."

Retroviruses infect many animal spe­ cies and cause tumours, immunodeficien­ cy syndromes and aplastic and hemolytic anemias. There are four human retrovi­ ruses that have been identified: HTLV1, HTLV2, and HIV 1 and 2.

"HIV is believed to have derived from related viruses that infect African monkeys, namely the simian immunode­ ficiency viruses or SIV," Coffin said. "HIV 2 is more closely related to SIV than HIV 1 but its transfer from monkey to man is not known."

Coffin discovered the "jumping" pat­ tern of the reverse transcriptase enzyme that can lead to high rates of recombina­ tion. He also discovered the mechanism of gene transfer into cells by viruses and their conversion to cancer-causing onco­ genes. Findings as such earned Coffin the American Cancer Society Professorship.

"The amount of information that I re­ ceived from this lecture was beyond my expectations,”said Neil LaFleur, a Montreal resident and elementary school teacher.

"Dr. Coffin is renowned in the world of bi­ ology as I'd recently read in an article in The New York Times. Hearing him in per­ son today solidified that." ■

MUS resignations lead to winter election The Management Undergraduate Society will be hold­ ing elections beginning tomorrow morning for the positions of Vice-President Academic and VP Information Technology after receiving resignations late last semester.

Vying for the position of VP Academic, formerly held by David George, are Bianca Bolouri, Jeremy Schwartz and Viki Siwic.

George officially resigned due to an inability to fulfill his mandate as described by the MUS by-laws, which require the VP to maintain good relations with the governing insti­ tution.

"It was completely different from what I expected. I wanted to work on committees and student-run organiza­ tion, but people wanted me to work on other issues," said George, who resigned right before finals last semester.

"The role was extensive and it wasn't the right fit and so what was resolved is that the position would be passed on and someone else would run because we didn't have the right fit,"said MUS President Kelly McAndrew.

Paul Jung, VP information technology, resigned before returning to South Korea, where all citizens are required to serve two years of military service. According to McAndrew, Jung had applied to be an army translator but when that fell through he worried that he would be forced to join the army and returned home in early December to reapply. Zaid Naveed and Steve Paseli are applying for the position in the coming election.

McAndrew stated that she had planned to host the elections earlier in the semester, particularly as the MUS by­ laws require that nomination forms be turned into the Chief Electoral Officer no later than seven days before the elec­ tion. As it stands, the nomination forms will be in only two days before.

"It is standard procedure the way we're doing it. This is historically how it's done,” she said. "We also had a bit of a miscommunication with Elections McGill. My initial inten­ tion was to host it last week; it wasn't able to occur last week, so we had to move it up which is incredibly unfortunate, but this is how it works.”

The miscommunication was due to email confusion, according to Elections McGill Chief Electoral Officer Corey Shefman.

"On Jan. 21 they asked me if I received their last email and I hadn't, so there was clearly an email miscommunica-_ tion'he said."Despite the two days'notice we kept the same dates for Jan. 23 and 24 but the MUS informed me they want­ ed to change it to the 30 to the 31."

The election period will last from Jan. 30 to Jan. 31 and results will be announced at 6 p.m. on Jan. 31 in the Student Concourse.

—KateSpirgen

4 - N ew s-29.01.08

The McGill Tribune

G ra d s s e t th e b a r TAs ready to pressure university over wages Continued from COVER for negotiations," Kouri-Towe said. "The general message of the demo was to en­ courage effective negotiations and decision-making at the bargaining table. Last time TAs negotiated for a new collective agreement, it took over two years. It's been over six months now since our collective agreement expired, and we want to avoid going through another two-year [process].''

AGSEM has met with the university three times this month to advance nego­ tiations. The group has largely focussed on the lack of office space for TAs, issues with TA supervisors who double as TA professors and unfair wages. Citing the TA salaries at University of Toronto and University of Ottawa of $35.11 and $3446 re­ spectively in comparison to McGill's TA salary of $22.24. AGSEM is taking issue with McGill's best offer thus far: $24.03 by 2011. TA salaries Cost the university less than one per cent of its operating expenses.

Kouri-Towe said she hopes that AGSEM's recent activities will encourage a speedy and satisfactory resolution to the collective agreement debates.

"We're hoping that things like the Jan. 14 demo will encourage the university to move quickly at the bargaining table and work with us to achieve an even bet­ ter collective agreement than the last one."»

SARAVOUSEFNEJAD

CAMPUS

A c a d e m ia W e e k b r a n c h e s o u t to g a m in g u n iv e rs e Raymond preaches Assassin's Creed T rip Yang Academia Week keynote speaker Jade Raymond addressed a packed crowd last Tuesday, on everything from killing aliens to stresses in the workplace. A McGill alumna, Raymond spoke of her experiences as a game programmer, television personality and producer of Ubisoft Montreal's action-adventure game, Assassin's

Creed.

Raymond advocated professional networking as crucial to any career.

"I've noticed that most'big breaks'happens thanks to relationships,"she said."That's why I always put a high priority on putting people first. You have to build con­ nections."

Raymond learned other important lessons while producing Assassin's Creed, her biggest project to date.

The game was a monumental task, requiring three-and a-half years, 300 employees and the largest Ubisoft de­ velopment budget in history.

"I realized that organic processes that worked fine with 70 workers did not work as well with 100," Ray­ mond said. "Since managing a large team is tricky, I had to adjust my own managerial style. I used milestones and external success to keep the team motivated."

While Ubisoft knew that Assassin's Creed would be a financial success—the company originally projected a sales volume of 5-million copies—the game’s cumula­ tive sales have surpassed original predictions. In its first six weeks, the game has sold 5-million copies, becom­ ing the fastest selling new intellectual property. Ray­ mond believes that risk-taking and the high amount of effort resulted in the sizzling reception.

"We took so many chances with Assassin'sCreed',' she

said."We tried many new gameplay mechanics, and we worked incredibly hard. Seventy-hour work weeks were typical toward the end. We even consulted historians to make the game historically accurate."

Academia Week organizer Nathan Winata, U3 bio­ medical science and vice-president of academic affairs of Bachelor of Arts and Science Integrative Council, envisioned Academia Week to be an informative fiveday marathon of lectures, workshops and symposiums showcasing all types of career paths pursued by science undergraduates after obtaining their degree.

"Instead of presenting the most prevailing post­ undergrad routes, we wanted to focus on the notso-conventional careers. That's why our keynote this year was an acclaimed video game producer," he said.

"That isn't to say we didn't feature medical schools, for example, because we had a symposium dedicated to medical school. We just wanted to diversify the student bodies'options."

Raymond's seminar was well received by many in attendance, including Catherine Lin, U1 anatomy.

"I thought she was very informative, honest and open to share her mistakes,” she said. "She provided an insider's view of an interesting industry and she talked about her experiences in a casual manner.”

NavidTaheri, U3 biochemistry, enjoyed the lecture as well, despite not being an avid video gamer.

"I'm not attracted to video games anymore, but I wanted to know why other people liked the medium," he said. "Jade Raymond provided a lot of detail about her career choice, and I was very interested in what mo­ tivated her. I enjoyed her lecture and I thought she con­ nected very well with the audience." ■

In the McGill school zone, TAs want to slow down.

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www.mcgilltribune.com

29.01.08 • News • 5

R e s id e n ts u n im p r e s s e d McGill reps want community approach

Continued from COVER

might be a way to change student's actions," said SSMU Vice-President External Max Silverman at the meeting.

Janice Johnson, McGill's Residence Life director, also felt that education was the best way to change actions.

"We really need to put the emphasis on that they're living in a community that's not directly the McGill com­ munity on campus" she said. "The message of respect and community is something that the Student Code of Behaviour drives at, though has no measure to enforce off-campus."

Most residents were supportive, yet unimpressed with McGill's suggestions for bottom-up solutions. Many called for an increase in police action including more pa­ trol groups and steeper fines for infractions.

"You need police walking up and down sidewalks to calm down students' rowdy attitudes," said Lucia Kowaluk, President of the Milton-Parc Community Council.

Some proposed a trace-back mechanism for the po-

lice to report students'actions to the university in hopes that McGill could start taking responsibility for their stu­ dents'behaviour.

Several American and Ontario universities have se­ curity systems in which monitoring students'actions is extendable beyond university property. However, Que­ bec's legal structure inhibits McGill Security Services from exercising any authority beyond the gates. Similarly, the Montreal Police are not legally able to communicate tal­ lies and records of student infractions to the university.

McGill representatives were not in favour of the idea, even if it becomes legally viable. Silverman dis­ agreed with employing such law-and-order tactics.

“It needs to be a community approach," he said.

A line of communication and notification has been established for the residents to use to contact the uni­ versity directly about student misconduct. Further ef­ forts are being pursued to increase the amount of inter­ mingling between residents and students. ■

Report to News Meetings on Tuesdays at 17:30 sharp in the Tribune HQ. Ten-hut!

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The biggest prison break in history

T IN T E D G L A S S E S

Dishonouring vets, one frag at a time Kat Gibson KAPPALETTA@HOTMAIL.COM ar is something absurd, useless, that nothing can justify." The man who spoke these words was one of the last living reminders of that truth and he died this week at no years old. One of only two surviving francophone veterans of the First World War, Louis de Cazenave was among our last living links to a history that becomes more detached from us with every year that passes. His death prompts a re-examination of the ways we now en­ gage with the history he experienced—if the young men of de Cazenave's generation were fighting for their lives, what are today's young people doing to remember and hon­ our that sacrifice?

Luckily for us, those so inclined can participate in de Cazenave's WWI battles— and even better, the exciting conflicts of WWII. We can jump from their airplanes, fire their weapons and even experience their shellshock. With just the click of a mouse we can launch grenades and fire automatic weapons, watch the bodies of our enemies fly through the air with sickening realism and if we happen to be blown up ourselves, simply re-spawn and start again. War be­ comes fun!

A quick look at the popularity of warthemed video games—especially those as vivid and realistic as Medal of Honor, Day of Defeat and Call of Duty— indicates the level of detachment in our society concerning the realities of war. All three of these games are specifically designed to be as histori­ cally accurate and realistic as possible, with shockingly life-like graphics depicting actual battles, historically accurate weaponry and detailed characters. Watching the intros to the various missions feels like watching Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers, but unlike these other media, the realism of the video games is designed to increase the fun.

Unless you are a thoroughly disturbed in­ dividual, chances are watching the first ten

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Nasser Mohieddin Abukhdeir s this piece was written, thousands of Gazan civilians freely crossed the territo­ ry's border into Egypt—a journey made nearly impossible under four decades of Israeli military occupation. The Gaza Strip has served as an open air prison for its residents since Isra­ el's capture of the territory from Egypt during the 1967 War. The situation in Gaza has exceeded the breaking point. Last week the Israeli regime imposed a complete blockade of Gaza, on top of recently launching a series of military as­ saults. The resulting escalation ofthe humani­ tarian crisis there has provoked international outcry. This pressure had little effect on Israel, which only recently permitted a handful of supply trucks to come in. While these supplies provided the Gazans with another few days of food supplies and water (fuel is needed to run water pumping stations), by recently breach­ ing the border with Egypt they have decided to take their fate into their own hands.

What is the purpose of this medieval siege? The infamous quote of Dov Weisglass, the advisor to the Israeli prime minister, com­ pares the intent of the siege to some sort of twisted diet:"The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger."

Apart from the clear racism and malice of this comment, he adds insult to injury. The World Health Organization reported that chronic malnutrition and dietary-related diseases are slowly increasing in Gaza. Low birth weights and anemia are present in 68% of children age 1 year and younger. Stunted growth is report­ ed in 13.2% of children under age five.

Gaza has a four-decade history of suffer­ ing under Israeli rule. Total Israeli control over its borders, colonization (commonly known as “settlements") and the resulting brutal military occupation impoverished the Gazan community. After colonies were removed in September 2005, Israel continues to militar­ ily control the territory's land borders, territo­ rial waters and air space. This situation is not livable as-is, but after the Hamas take-over in June 2007, life in Gaza became an order of

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minutes of SavingPrivateRyan isn't"fun", and therein lies the crucial differences between film and video games The video introduction to Medal of Honor:AlliedAssault shows a landing craft full of young soldiers about to land on Omaha beach in amazingly graphic detail. One of them leans over and vomits. Some are pray­ ing, some seem to be crying.The doors open up and immediately many of the soldiers are killed.The rest rush the beach, past the mu­ tilated bodies of the fallen soldiers. A voice over says, "Valour. Duty. Leadership. Sacrifice.

Can one man truly make a difference?" And then the fun begins.

Could anything be more insulting to the real young men those images represent, who really did weep out of pure terror be­ fore being slaughtered on the beach?

Because of these games, the evoca­ tion of Omaha beach calls to many minds not an awareness of the devastating loss of life that took place during this famous battle, but their favourite mission in Medal of Honor, or perhaps some sweet headshot and the excitement of competition.

Gamers may spend hours in front of the computer screens, re-living in excruciat­ ing detail the most tragic battles of the war and all that's missing is the pain, terror and absolute devastation that the world wars actually embodied.

This phenomenon is not the fault of the games alone and it certainly isn't the fault of the individual gamer. The truth is, most gamers don't even consider the moral issues involved, and for that at least as much blame belongs to a faulty education system that allows us to graduate without any real awareness of history. This lack of awareness makes the trivialization of historic events possible, and as the number of those who experienced them steadily dwindles, we must develop new ways of connecting with history lest we lose touch with it entirely. ■

magnitude worse. In addition to the Israeli blockade, an unprecedented set of sanctions by many Western states followed. This leads us to the present crisis, where food, medicine and fuel are running out. Even the fall ofthe southern border wall will not fully alleviate the humanitarian crisis.

International media coverage of the es­ calation of the siege has garnered a great deal of attention. What is lacking in much of that coverage is the message that the Israeli regime, by collectively punishing the Gazans, is committing a war crime. Their actions defy the Geneva Conventions and even the Laws of Armed Conflict.

The targeting of southern Israeli towns with makeshift rockets by Palestinian mili­ tants also violates the Geneva Conventions.

Even so, these makeshift rocket attacks are in no way comparable to Israeli military actions.

Their pervasive use as justification for Israeli assaults is equally absurd. "Qassams are very primitive missiles and their main effect on Israelis in the area is psychological torment..." said Yoram Schweitzer ofTel Aviv's Jaffee Cen­ tre for Strategic Studies. But let the numbers speak for themselves: 12 Israelis have been killed by rocket attacks in the past six years.

On the other hand, between September 2000 and November 2007, about 1,804 Palestinian civilians in Gaza were killed by the Israeli mili­ tary and 11,300 were wounded, 2,931 homes were completely destroyed and 2,848 homes were partially destroyed. Last week alone, the Israeli military killed 19 Palestinians, including 3 women and wounded 72 others, including 24 children and 3 women.

Finally, as the border wall with Egypt is slowly repaired, the Gazans brief respite from captivity will end. Their prison break was a failure in the end because they have no place else to go. Their prison is their home. ■

Nasser Mohiedin Abukhdeir isa Ph.D. can­ didateinchemistryand this week'sguest colum­ nist. If you're interested in contributing a guest column, e-mail oninion&mcaiHtribune.com.

±40°

Cold hands, warm hearts?

David Levitz DAVID.LEVITZ@MAIL.MCGILL.CA alking home at night, as the cold wind burns my nose and cheeks, makes my ears and fingers go numb and freezes tears onto my eyelashes, I consider that moving back to my sunny, native Florida might not be the worst deci­ sion. Of course, home is more than palm trees; it's also about paying for health-care, having no foreseeable marriage or adop­ tion rights, Republicans and many other evils. Montreal and Florida both feel like home, and at the same time, like a sort of exile. With graduation creeping up, the decision of geography in particular is a heavy one and one that has inspired a lot of self-reflection.

One dilemma in this decision is the seemingly unavoidable choice between weather and principles. Why must the majority of warm and beautiful places be hopelessly conservative, if not just hopeless? Why do the most enlightened, liberal places have to be the coldest and most miserable? Compare Canada with the States, the northern States with the southern ones, and the South with everything below it. Or compare Scandinavia with everything south of it. There are exceptions, but this seems by and large to be the trend.

Actually, it may be the harsh weather and consequent suffering that make northern countries such great places to live.

Canadians love to talk about Canada’s history of tolerance going

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back to the Underground Railroad. In reality Canada's rejection of slavery may have much to do with the fact that crops like cotton simply do not grow here and that slaves could not have been left to sleep in fields and shacks when it was -40°C. Montreal is also quite safe in comparison with my home­ town, which is much smaller yet has already had ten murders this year. McGill students can walk home—alone—at any hour ofthe night. While there are surely other factors at play, it seems to me that the deciding factor may be that it's just too damned cold to go around killing people here.

Then there are the East Coast vs. West Coast and big city vs. small town questions to consider. Here, the choice is not between equal rights and not-freezing nine months of the year, but about life priorities. From about the age of seven until recently I dreamed of moving to New York Cify: the centre of the universe, where everyone and everything is always the best ofthe best (and where you have to be the better than the rest and work 6 o-hour weeks to afford rent and groceries). It's where the most prestigious jobs are, where the smartest and most glamorous people live, all contending for their piece of the pie and losing their sanity along the way. Having attended all the right schools and obsessing over my grades for as long as I can remember (possibly since the womb?), it's where I

seem destined to end up.

But then, how much do I really value prestige? Frankly, I prefer bike-rides and baking. Why work like a madman to sup­ port the same sparse lifestyle that I can afford in Montreal wait­ ing tables 2-3 days a week? In essence, the New York question is part of a bigger question that we all should ask: How much do we need society's approval? What do we really value? In New York, where the biggest struggle is that of human will vs. the cost of living, money becomes society's frame of reference and its value system.

In truth, I'm not much better, slaving away so that I can have a better GPA than my friends who plan to enter academia, law, medicine—even though I have none of their ambitions. I start to wonder if there's something wrong with me, that I don't want what I think I should.

If I've learned anything from my prestigious education, it's that looking good on paper is just that. My motto for school this semester is, "you can't take your GPA with you." As for future plans, I'm starting to let go a little, and that seems far more excit­ ing than any real plan. Well call it "back to the. present." I am con­ vinced that others at McGill secretly feel the same way. Hope­ fully, some of us who have been so conditioned to"succeed"will have the courage to redefine this word for ourselves. ■

29.01.08 • The McGill Tribune • 7

E D IT O R IA L

T r TRUNK

In the ghetto

www.mcgilltribune.com

Editor-in-Chief Tiffany Choy

Whenanissueistoo divisivefor our editorial boardto reachaconsensus, wefeel our readersarebetterservedbyduelingeditorials that tacklebothsidesof theissue. This week, the Tribuneweighsinon noisecomplaints in theghetto.

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M C G IL L S T U D E N T S B O O R IS H , D IS R E S P E C T F U L art of living in society is prac­ ticing mutual respect for others. Unfortunately, the teeming student population in the ghetto has forgotten such hallmarks of general decency. In a. meeting last week, 70 long-time residents of the Milton-Parc neighbourhood stepped up in a public forum to de­ mand that McGill take formal steps to rein in the noise, disorder and general brouhaha that characterizes the area—problems that were all compounded by the conversion of a local hotel into McGill's New Resi­ dence hall.

In short, the student popula­ tion that lives in the ghetto is dis­ respectful, inconsiderate and bor­ derline barbarous. The laissez-faire approach favoured by the Univer­ sity and the Students' Society will do nothing to solve the problems of public drunkenness, excessive noise and petty vandalism. The perma­ nent residents of the ghetto— many of whom have owned property in the neighbourhood long before rowdy McGill students got so far out of hand—have a right to some peace and quiet.

Whether the best approach is increased policing of the neigh­ bourhood, greater university in­ volvement in cracking down on vio­ lators, or (most desirably) a commu­ nity-building approach that teaches students that the ghetto is not merely an extension of rez, it is clear that the situation is inexcusable and frankly embarassing to McGill stu­ dents whose mailing addresses lay outside the Milton-Parc annex. Non­ student residents have a right to demand better conditions. Property values and rent in the ghetto are al­ ready among the highest in the city; people who shell out top dollar for a downtown location should.not see

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Contributors Nasser Mohiedin Abukhdeir, Geoffrey Antsy, Emma CabraraAragôn, Steve Campbell, Kathryn Dingle, Sam Drory, Rory Gangbar, Michelle Geesaman, Kat Gibson, Jamie Goodman, Ben Lemieux, David Levitz, Kristin Maich.Theo Meyer, Matt Park, Nancy Pham, Clare Pidsley, William Robinson, Adami Scotti, Renée Sutton, Laura Tindal, Ali Withers, Trip Yang

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dent residents of the McGill ghetto gathered in a town hall meeting to urge police to crack down on noise, garbage and drunken be­ haviour from students living in the area.

The police expressed their sym­ pathy with the Milton-Park Citizens' community, but emphasized the fu­ tility of trying to control a population that is constantly in flux; the McGill student community mostly consists of newly arrived students. Their overindulgence, as many have observed, is partially due to the fact that Mon­ treal's legal drinking age is three years younger than the U.S. and one year younger than Ontario, BC, Saskatch­ ewan and the Maritimes.

Student leaders have prepared guidebooks to teach students about "good conduct," which includes vol­ ume in the ghetto late at night, trash control in the streets and safe drink­ ing habits. Pamphlets are distributed, and first years have meetings with their floor fellows. If this doesn't work, excessively loud, drunk or destructive students in residence are fined hefty fees by the school.

What more do the inhabitants want? Apparently, more policing to regularly occur around the streets of

the neighbourhood.

Police currently don't have enough manpower to regularly pa­ trol neighbourhoods where there are extremely high drug and crime prob­ lems. Do the McGill ghetto inhabit­ ants really think that they should care about an area where the vast major­ ity of all police calls are noise com­ plaints?

First-years ■getting drunk and being rowdy have always been prob­ lems for universities in every province and every state. Moreover, these resi­ dents live in not only an overwhelm­ ingly university student inhabited area, but also one that is blocks away from Montreal's major club and bar district. It's going to be noisy. This is unfortunate, but considering the fact that police are not going to be willing to increase the patrol of this area, the university is doing its best to handle the situation and new students come in everyyear, this is not something that is going to be realistically changed in any meaningful way in the foreseeable future. If you are not prepared to ac­ knowledge the external conditions in which you live, you should relocate.

Young drunken students are not a new phenomenon in this city, nor are they limited to the McGill student ghetto. Every summer, busloads of young tourists journey into the city for the Grand Prix and the Jazz Festival who cause as much— if not more— noise than McGill students. We don't hear the concerned citizens of the city, calling for the cancellation of these events for the temporary disturbance they cause. The same can be said of noise disturbance at McGill that does not (contrary to popular belief) exist at constant baccanalian levels all year round. There are specific times of year when the ghetto is rowdy.

Residents know this and should prepare accordingly. ■

Like an intergalactic Virgin

Paul Slachta advmgr@ssmu.mcgill.ca

Publisher

L ast Wednesday night, non-stu­

O FF THE BOARD

Advertising Manager

Chad Ronalds

their investment tarnished by loud, disorderly, boorish student residents who move in for a year or two; dis­ turb the peace and then dissappear into the night like the nimble va­ grants they are.

Many at McGill have suggested, with some measure of disdain, that residents should have understood the character of the area before moving in or buying property. Milton-Parc's proximity to both McGill and the St. Laurent strip should have been indicators that some level of noise and disorder goes along with the territory, just like buying property in an industrial area would necessarily involve pol­ lution. However, such clamour need not be neccesary characteristics of a student neighbourhood.

What the argument boils down to is that the students are being dis­ respectful. While they may be the temporary residents of the neigh­ bourhood, the people who should ultimately be considered are the permanent residents—those who have made both a financial, per­ sonal and communal commitment to the area. Rather than treating the ghetto like their own personal playground, students should treat it more like their community. ■

M U C H A D O A B O U T N O T H IN G

here is one scene in Fight Club where the narra­ tor says, "When deep space exploration ramps up, it'll be the corporations that name every­ thing—the IBM Stellar Sphere, the Microsoft Galaxy, Planet Starbucks." While Planet Starbucks is still a dream, commercial space travel became one small step (for man) closer to reality last week as Virgin Ga­ lactic released plans to take travelers into space by 2010 for the bargain price of $200,000 US a seat. Un­ like land-based rockets, the Virgin system is powered by carrier jets which lift the rocket before it takes off under it's own power. Rather than research leading exploration and commercial enterprise following in its wake, it looks as if the private sector will become the leader in space development and that govern­ ment-funded research will be a poor second.

One stellar example of this is the British Na­ tional Space Centre's development of an interna­ tional space currency, called the Quasi Universal Intergalactic Denomination, or Quid, which has no sharp edges and would function in place of coins or credit cards, whose magnetic strips would be damaged by radiation. But for the world outside the BNSC, where a jaunt into space is still a big deal, this development seems a little ahead of its time. Rather than wasting tax-payer dollars—albeit not ours— on developing an international currency that isn't

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that likely to come into use any time soon, scientists should be oriented more on facilitating research and less on cash. Interestingly, this is the very thing Virgin Galactic seems to keep sight of.

Further, as reported in the BBC, one selling point of the Virgin system is that it will help support research experiments. This seems a little bit coun­ ter-intuitive. While public companies tend to do far better once they're privatized and money actually matters— PetroCanada and ViaRail, to name a few— skipping the middle-man and heading straight to privatizing space reeks of government failure.

It's ridiculous that commercial enterprises are pushing ahead with technology that government space programs have not first developed and even more ridiculous that they're helping research on top of it. However, the idea of a glorified tourism in­ dustry outstripping governmental programs is not entirely unexpected. Technological developments like the Internet show that advancement is best left in the hands of the private sector, but it says a lot that members of the private sector are both making more developments and getting more press cover­ age than the government in this field.

It's also surprising that Virgin Galactic is playing the good guy. Yes, they're hardly offering free trips to researchers, but the fact they're even allowing

Carolyn Yates

experiments onboard indicates a proclivity towards science that government space programs certainly aren't returning.

While the warp drive by 2050 seems like a bit of a stretch when seen in the light of governmental policies that can't even figure out how to reduce emissions, coming from the tourism industry it seems perfectly possible. No doubt there are nu­ merous old rich dudes—those same who choose cryonic preservation—who would be willing to pay hundreds of thousands to visit remote galaxies. But that they, and notpublicly-funded scientists, should be the first to go seems like a desecration of all that planting-flags-on-foreign-surfaces stands for.

On the other hand, expansion without capitalism is pointless.

Whether nationally funded space programs have simply given up in light of more easily financed commercial success, or whether there's some bril­ liant new space technology about to be released to the public tomorrow, one thing remains clear—the private sector does good things and it's unexpect­ ed. Therefore, we should reevaluate our opinions of the private sector in terms of how freakin cool it is that they're sending tourists into space, and push aside all those sinking doubts about public vs. pri­ vate spheres. ■

The McGill Tribune is an e dito ria lly a u to n o m o u s n ew spaper pub lishe d b y th e S tudents' Society o f M cGill U niversity in co lla b o ra tio n w ith th e T rib un e P ublication Society. O p inio n s expressed d o n o t necessarily represent th o se o f th e S tudents'S ociety o r M cGill University. Letters to th e e d ito r m ay be sent to letters@ m cgiiltribune.com and m ust in clu d e th e co n trib u to r's nam e, p rog ra m and year and c o n ta c t in fo rm a tio n . Letters sh ou ld be ke p t u nd e r w ord s and su b m itte d o n ly to th e Tribune. Submissions ju d g e d b y th e T rib u n e P ublication Society to be libellous, sexist, racist, h o m o p h o b ic o r solely p ro m o tio n a l in nature w ill n o t be published. The Tribune reserves th e rig h t to e d it all c o n trib u tio n s .

Editorials are decid e d u po n and w ritte n b y th e edito ria l board. All o th e r o p in io n s are strictly th o se o f th e a u th o r and d o n o t necessarily reflect th e o p in io n s o f th e McGill Tribune, its editors o r its staff. Please recycle th is newspaper.

300

C a m p u s CHATTERBOX

Letter to the editor

R e a d in g s a n d re v o lu tio n s Curiosity and challenges for anthropology professor

Tribune shouldn't mock the mentally ill On 01/22/08, The McGill Tribune ran a wonderful piece about the activities of a pro­ spective service called "Men­ tal health advocacy at McGill."

Though the article was a use­ ful summary of the meeting that occured, the title was very problematic. "Students go nuts while waiting" does not reflect the image of what we want this group to be. All jokes aside, "nuts” is a stig­ matizing word that would probably alienate prospec­ tive members and one of the things our group wishes to do is remove stigma.TheTrilpune editorial board should have been [mjore sensitive to this.

There are hundreds of more tasteful headlines you could have chosen instead.

— Iris Erdile U3 education, co-founder Mental Health Advocacy

The Department of Anthropology and the Insti­ tute of Islamic Studies have an Assistant Professor in common: Dr. Setrag Manoukian. Beyondthe worldof McGill academia—where Dr. Manoukian’sfocus ison Iran and contemporary Muslim society—the anthro­ pologist also has a secret penchant for German Film directors, Japanandhistorical revolutions.

Iran called Shiraz What I'm trying to understand is the way in which the people in Shiraz think about their city and write the history of their city. Because the city has a long tradition of poetry, it also means looking at the way in which they look at poetry.This, for me, interestingly enough or strangely enough, is a way to understand what is going on in Iran today.

fine it once and for all.

I am currently working on... A book on a city in

If I wasn't a professor I would be... An anthropolo­ gist without being a professor.

If I could have lunch with anyone dead or alive it would be... Probably with that movie director called Wim Wenders. He's a German film director who did some films in the 80s and 90s that I really liked.

I find the most challenging part of teaching is: Trying not to bore students too much. I try to make things interesting and challenging.

To me a culture is... A way of being.

It is a form of life, but it's always a changing form of life. It is some­ thing that becomes, something that transforms and changes. So, in some ways, it is something that is specific and peculiar to certain people rather than others. But that doesn't mean that it is something static or stable or that you can de­

If I could witness any event in world history it would be... A revolution, and because I study Iran, of course I think about the Iran revolution. Just to understand why it is that people wake up one day and decide that the world needs to be changed.

If I won a million dollars tomorrow I would... Travel a lot. I would also give some money to others— not necessarily just to institutional charities, but to peo­ ple that want it or need it.

If I could travel anywhere I would visit... Japan. I've never been to Japan and I'm very curious.

If I could make everyone understand one thing it would be...That there is nothing to understand, of course. ■

—CompiledbyEmmaCabrera-Aragôn

MATTPARK Professor Manoukian explores Iranian history.

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V TVMcGill Feature PresentationftdBP^ Guide to Renting Your First Apartment It's that time of year...apartment hunting time! For all you Froshies getting ready to move out of Rez and into your own place, TVMcGill and Off-Campus Housing's guide to renting your first \ Iplrtm ent is a must-see!

In other news...keep on checking www.tvmcgill.com for our inter­ views with Jully Black, Hot Hot Heat, andPeter, Bjorn and John...not to mention our segment on McGill theatre sepsati&rl Ufifedwn!

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Players'Theatre Presents "Rough Crossing" ; Directed by Jamie Pohotsky, written by fj Tom Stoppard. Stay Feb 7 -9 :8 p.m.

Feb 9 matinee: 2 p.m.

Feb 14 -16 :8 p.m.

Feb 16 matinee: 2 p.m.

Free wine and cheese on Feb 7th.

Players' Theatre, 3rd Floor, Shatner

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Want to advertise in the Campus Calendar? For just a toonie you can advertise your event up to two weeks in advance.

Email calendar@mcgilltribune.com for more information, or drop by the Tribune office in Shatner 110 .

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Saving money through smart bill packaging K athryn D

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Having Internet, telephone and TV is almost as necessary as food and beer. Luckily, many companies offer packages where you can pick and choose the services you want and then "bun­ dle" them together for substantial savings and the convenience of one consolidated monthly bill.

In Montreal, there are four different service providers to choose from. Cable providers offerTV, phone and Internet while phone companies offer cell phone coverage as well. With any bundle, the more services it includes, the greater the savings.

No matter which provider you choose, there are a few im­ portant price traps to look out for. Many of the inclusions in a package expire after a limited time, or the price may rise after the first 12 months. Also, pay attention to excessive inclusions like dozens of unwanted TV channels. Make sure you know ex­ actly what you're paying for and always read the small print.

Because most providers now offer these bundles and at farranging prices, shopping around is an absolute must. Choosing the best company depends on what you're after: High speed Internet versus dial-up, digital TV versus basic cable—the op­ tions seem endless, which is why it's important to know what the major providers are offering.

Videotron Montreal's largest cable provider has Duo, Trio or Quattro packages available, as well as do-it-yourself ones. Their basicTrio package of digital TV, cable telephone and cable Internet goes for $59 a month. High-speed Internet and a larger TV package will push that price closer to the $100 mark. All packages come with free installation.

Cogeco There are six Cogeco bundles to choose from, each com­

bining either two or three services. A basic package with TV, high speed Internet and a digital phone costs $79, but beware that all of their packages rise in price after the first 12 months.

Rogers Rogers doesn't offerTV service in Quebec, so their bundles only include home phone, cellular phone, Internet and Internet phone service. You choose two to four of these options to cre­ ate your own package. Combining two gives you 5 per cent off, three 10 per cent and all four services together are 15 per cent off.

Bell Bell lets you customize your own bundle and their website has a handy tool for helping you choose which is best. Pack­ ages of home phone, Internet and digital TV with a free personal video recorder thrown in start from $72.95 a month. ■

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Sam D rory Clogged drains afflict everyone at one time or another. While making sure to clean debris out of the sink is a good way to prevent problems, sometimes it may back up despite your best efforts.

The simplest solution is hot water. The U-bend under the sink is most likely where the clog is, so light­ ly tap on the piping around the bend to help loosen it. Then, boil a few li­ tres of water and slowly pour it down the drain.

If hot water doesn't work, try a plunger. There are smaller sizes sold specifically for drains, which are both easier to maneuver and more sanitary than using those meant for toilets.

Position the plunger so that it creates a seal and suction away.

If all else fails, you can use a drain auger, which costs around $20 but will almost certainly do the trick. Loosen the auger's set screw and lower the cable down the drain until you hit the clog.Tighten the set screw and slowly rotate the drum with the handle.This should puncture and loosen up the clog. If you extend the cable past the drain trap without encountering resistance, then the clog is further down the drain. While it's possible to unscrew the drain trap to get at the clog, you might be safer calling a plumber.

Note that chemical drain clean­ ers are an unsafe alternative, as they are both corrosive and poisonous.

Not only do they wreak havoc on the environment, but they hurt your plumbing system as well. If you are looking for a chemical solution, keep in mind that vinegar and baking soda is an option, although, just like com­ mercially available chemical cleaners, it is far from guaranteed to work. ■

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M a r io m e e t s M o z a r t a t V id e o G a m e s L iv e The class of the symphony meets the superpower of virtual reality John Semley When the third installment in Microsoft's im­ mensely popular Halo video game series hit shelves across the U.S. on Sept. 25 of last year, sales dwarfed single day records of any entertainment product pre­ viously released. With an estimated 33 millions cop­ ies sold within the first 12 days, it became clear that video games are the entertainment industry's new cash cow. That wiry umptillionaire nerd Bill Gates even hauled himself out of the depths of his hy­ permodern hobbit hole and made appearances in­ store to hock copies of Halo3, smile uncomfortably and shake the hands of scores of devoted fans who camped out in front of stores like they were waiting for the premiere of The PhantomMenace. Numbers like this point to one thing: video games are moving out of mom's basement and dusty arcades and with Pac Man-like voraciousness are staking serious claim to the entertainment market.

So, with silly first person shooters and rockstar simulators trumping sales records set by Spiderman and Star Wars, it would seem only natural (or at least profitable) to move into the concert market as well.

Such is the reckoning of Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wail, the minds behind Video Games Live. A perfor­ mance of video game music by an entire symphony and full choir, Video Games Live is, if anything, an ex­ ceptionally unique experience.

"It's very hard to describe what the show is,"Tal­ larico said."I like to compare it to Cirque du Soleil."

Indeed, like the Montreal-based circus spectac­ ular, Video Games Live evades easy description. Es­ sentially, the event consists of symphonic renditions of music drawn from games such as Super Mario Brothers, Metal Gear, Final Fantasyand the aforemen­ tioned Halo, as well as visual accompaniment pro­ vided by large projection screens and actors dressed up as popular video game characters. The theatrical extravagance expands the show's appeal to audi­ ences beyond hardcore gamers unashamed to go a concert of video game music and the unwilling girl­ friends (or boyfriends) they drag along.

"It isn't just a symphony on stage playing video game music,"Tallarico explained."We wanted to cre­ ate a show where you don't have to know a darn thing about video games to come to the show and be entertained and impressed and blown-away."

The response to Video Games Live has been overwhelmingly positive. Proving that video games no longer cater to some exclusively nerdy niche de­ mographic, the previous tours of tallarico and Wall's

travelling musical carnival have sold out venues across the United States and Canada, inviting gam­ ers to come out of the closet: often in costume as Mario or Master Chief.

"Over the past two years we've basically been doubling and tripling the [number of shows] and a lot of that is by word-of-mouth,''said Tallarico. He and Wall plan on expanding the tour in 2009 to include 100 shows worldwide, a steady upswing from the single one-off gig at the L.A. Hollywood Bowl in 2005 that started it all. "To a lot of people,''Tallairco contin­ ued, "This event leigtimizes their favourite hobby."

Both Tallarico and Wall are passionate about video games. Children of the late-sixties and seven­ ties, they were part of the first generation to grow up on games like Pong, SpaceInvadersand DonkeyKong, and have kept a watchful eye on the development of the medium by working as composers of music for video games.

"We consider ourselves fortunate as game com­ posers to be able to spread the word about how ar­ tistic and significant video games have become,"Tal­ larico said."All us video game composers grew up lis­ tening to Mozart and Beethoven and John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith." As the technology of gaming consoles improves exponentially, and as their graph­ ics approach the believability of movies, video game music correspondingly evolves to become more cinematic. Tallarico projects nothing but continued growth for video games, both as an industry and an artistic medium.

"It's an amazing place to be,"he said of the gam­ ing industry/'lt's going to take another 20 or 30 years, but video games are bound to replace movies."

In the mean time, Video Games Live distills the epic proportion and theatricality of cinema, the atmosphere of the symphony and the geeky in­ dulgences of video games into one wholly unique experience. As the ideal mix of high art and mass culture, it stands as one of the most interesting ar­ ticulations of the current entertainment epoch.

Like Coolidge's oil paintings of dogs playing poker and black velvet renditions of Elvis or Jesus or John Wayne, Video Games Live preserves a moment of the ephemeral climate of pop culture and, like ev­ erything else kitsch, delights in its own confusion of the sacred and profane. ■

Video Games Live takesplace at TheatreSt. Denis (1594St-Denis), Feb. 7and 8 at 8:00p.m. Tickets are a VIDEOGAMESLIVE.COM hefty$65, availableatwww.ticketpro.ca. Ticketsforthe Feb. 8showhavealreadysoldout.

"The perfect prescription for fun!"— Dr. Mario (celebrity endorsement)

P O P R H E T O R IC

The celebrity of Scientology W illiam Robinson n Jan. 21 of this year, an anonymous group (named Anonymous) published a video on YouTube in which a computer-generated voice declares war ; against the Church of Scientology. Minutes after its release, I the official Scientology Web site went down. To be honest, • war is perhaps just what the doctor ordered. For too long, j Scientology has been ruining my ability to enjoy mov: ies guilt-free. No longer can I watch movies starring Tom ! Cruise or John Travolta, or—horror of horrors—the newly I converted Will Smith. As much as I may be excited by their ‘ movies, I cannot take them seriously and as a result fail to I enjoy perfectly good, high-budget films.

Scientology is, as you may have heard, a rapidly ex( panding "religion” that has gained much attention in the I public eye over the last few years. Notable Hollywood ; figures such as John Travolta, Kirstie Alley and Katie HolÎ mes are known scientologists. Andrew Morton's recently I published TomCruise: An Unauthorized Biography speaks of Î Cruise's role as Scientology's second in command. Recently, E speculation as to whether Will Smith was converting to the ? church has emerged.

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Created by L. Ron Hubbard (a noted science fiction writer and kook), Scientology offers a creation myth in which 75 million years ago an evil galactic warlord named Xenu strapped his prisoners to Earth's volcanoes and then H-Bombed them to death. Their souls are in us now. My favourite, however, is the story of the intergalactic walrus.

Needless to say, one would have to be out his or her right mind to join a faith so ridiculous. Hubbard himself was quoted saying that writing was an inefficient way of mak­ ing money and that one would have better luck founding a religion.

I can think of three reasons why Hollywood's stars would join this sham of a faith. The first is for the money.

The Church of Scientology gains profit from its faithful much like the Catholic Church. These funds are then used to pay its inceptors, build bigger churches and fund Holly­ wood stars to endorse the faith. As a result, more followers come knocking at the door.

The second would be a form of career move, which may have inspired Smith's actions. After finishing his recent film Hancock, Smith handed out personality test vouchers

courtesy of the Church of Scientology. Essentially, Smith is expanding his set of connections and funding by joining or at least flirting with the Church.

The third reason has been brought forth just recently

by Ian Halperin. Halperin has come out with a book de­ scribing what his life was like as an undercover parishioner of the Church of Scientology. He posed as a gay member of the Israeli Royal Family (if you haven't heard of the Is­ raeli royals it is because they don't exist). His book has been launched simultaneously with YouTube videos offering footage inside the church where he was offered a "cure"for his homosexuality. Halperin suggests that Travolta would have joined in order to hide his homosexualiy. He also states that they offer such goods as wives for hire.

As amusing as Scientology can be, it's not to be taken lightly. Morton is being sued for 100 million dollars. Hal­ perin is being harassed and all of his associates are being told by the scientologists to avoid him at all costs. Anony­ mous states that they will not underestimate their oppo­ nents and so if your humble Pop Rhetorician goes missing, you know who did it. ■

29.01.08 • The McGill Tribune • 11

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H o m e m o v ie s T a le s o f a B u r m a b o y Cloverfield's handycam creature Stallone not-so on the Sly in Rombo L aura T indal Ever wondered what it was likeforthose nameless, - unimportant civilians, scream­ ing and scurrying as Godzilla destroyed the city? Cloverfield gives us this point of view through a salvaged video recording, taken by a group of 27-year-olds trying to escape as a monster attacks New York City.

By shooting the film through a hand-held video camera held by one of the characters (like a big-budget Blair Witch), the audience feels every step and breath of those we fol­ low; their terrified dashes through military war-zones and heart stopping encounters leave us breathless. The movie clocks in at only 80-minutes, and it's a good thing: if it was any longer, heart attacks from overex­ citement could be a serious problem.

Cloverfielcl's success comes from it's simple and believable story. It starts with a group of friends throwing a goodbye party for Rob (Michael Stahl-David, of TV's The BlackDonnellys) and his video camera is out to document the night. Immediately it feels like you're watching a party you went to last weekend (maybe with a little less tequila and a few more items of clothing), and the relationships between the characters quick­ ly become clear: Hud—the goofy camera­ man played by T. J. Miller—has a thing for Maralena (Lizzy Caplan), while Rob and Beth had something and now still have feelings for each other. It's all pretty basic, but all very real.

The technicalities of the movie stick to this theme. With cheap cameras and no soundtrack, the only extravagance is the special effects. When the monster gets onto the scene and starts trashing New York, the film stays believable because of our quick, bouncy point-of-view that focuses more on the characters than the monster. There's no real attempt to try and explain what's going on. The movie can therefore focus properly on the experiences of its characters, instead of trying to come up with some "plausible" monster-by-numbers explanation for some guy in military fatigues to lay out for us. As a result, what would have been a cheesy, high-tech creature-feature about Ameri­ can heroes becomes a dark, emotional and highly disturbing film.

Cloverfield is so unsettling because it seems so plausible. Early attack scenes, with streets filling with rolling clouds of smoke and debris, seem cut-and-pasted from 9/11 footage, while the intimacy of the camera and the authenticity of the actors causes each scream and injury to be felt by the audience. The only thing not completely believable (besides the giant monster), was that the female leads could navigate all the chaos and debris while running full speed through the city in three-inch heels.

As a result of the faux-documentary style, there has been some noise made over the shakiness of the camera. Just suck it up.

If the camera was steady while they ran from spider creatures, the realism of the film would be ruined. The erratic camerawork is worst when Rob's brother is learning how to zoom, but after that there are bigger things to worry about than vertigo. Much bigger.

Unless you're easily nauseated, afraid of heights and generally leery of seeing giant monsters coming down the street, you can survive the bumpiness to see who survives the film. Just pop some Gravol and remind yourself that it's all make-believe. ■

B en L emieux Leaving the theatre after having seen Rambo— the latest and final installment in the quadrilogy of the same name—a member of your moviegoing party is bound to inquire: "But... wasn't the original Rambo a good movie?"

And that's the true shame here. First Blood was a great movie. Dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder, the soldier's post-war angst and disillusionment and Middle America's neglect and mistreatment of Vietnam veterans, John Rambo's first appearance as an unstable, withdrawn, but ul­ timately sympathetic hero was indelibly engraved on the American consciousness.

Lately, Sylvester Stallone has been following the major studio trend set by Phoenix television programs Family Guy and Firefly, cashing in on re­ newed success generated by favourable DVD sales.

Having not released a decent film in a decade, yet having sold truckloads of Rocky and Rambo boxed sets, Sly no doubt assumed now was as good a time as any to bring two of his most iconic characters back to the silver screen for a final hoorah.

Check www.cinemamontreal.com for showtimes.

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ART

T h e i r n a m e is l e g i o n Jessica Field and her reactionary robots Renée Sutton While attending the Ontario College of Art and Design, Cana­ dian artist Jessica Field fell in love with a course about electronics for artists. Since then, she has worked with electronic arts, generally involving robots. Her current exhibit is a compelling intertwining of the performance arts and cybernetic worlds.

The display takes place in a secluded room in the back of the Optica Gallery. An elementary school-like chalkboard is drawn on the wall approaching the area, where she displays an intricate "brain map"— essentially a large diagram explaining the program she wrote for the robots. Field's work is somewhat ironically displayed in a way that resembles the common setup of a museum.

"I wanted the setup to be similar to that of the Redpath Mu­ seum," she said. Her robots are shown in labelled glass display cases.

Each one has an appealing kitsch quality; the complex colored wir­ ing and little accessories calls to mind the first generation Transform­ ers toys. Having been videotaped in action, the bots are projected on two screens in the dimly lit room.

"I make these videos of the robots and describe them and their actions, I humanize them, and portray them as beings that, have emotions,"explained Field.

Her robots, named Species E, F, G and H, are displayed on a sin­ gle screen, where Field describes their individual traits. The second screen shows all four of them together, interacting with one another.

For example, light flashes from Species E, F draws lines, and they do so only when they hear noise. Conversely, Species G and H are able to self-analyze—they are programmed to focus only on a specific desire. Field described Species G as the "light seeking roboff'and H as the "line reading robot." She said these two are "child or animal-like, because they can't accept rejection of their desires, so they begin to act dysfunctional."

With the robots reflecting human-like obsessive tendencies, the drama of the exhibit becomes rooted in the viewer's desire to pathologize the robots'experience: to reorder their mechanical be­ haviour into something more meaningful, more relatably human.

Ultimately, Field's project is successful in making robots seem like people. This is especially apparent towards the end of the film, when Species G's self-destructive behaviour manages to evokes sympathy in the viewer.

Field's exhibit is visually alluring and original, providing an inter­ esting commentary on the relationship between man and machine.

"I often think of Artificial Intelligence and find it interesting how people attempt to create it in their own image,"she said. Field's piece renders viewers strangely receptive to the robots, especially when they are placed in a setting that is familiar to a human. The effect, ultimately, is quite surprising and at times entirely affecting. ■

JessicaField'srobots takeover GalleryOptica (372Ste-Catherine IN, suite508) until Feb. 22.

The first result of this breakneck cash-grab was 2006's RockyBalboa, which, rather surprisingly, was a highly personal, emotionally resonant film from Stallone, whose sufficiently competent direction and acting elevated the film slightly above B-movie standing. It was a proper, meaningful conclusion to a beloved American character in the wake of the dismal Rocky V. Rambo, sadly, does not pack that same wallop.

Set in South-East Asia, the film finds John Rambo living a life of peace and solitude in the Thailand jungle, making a meagre living, sleeping in a shack and helping the locals when he can. He has seemingly renounced his warrior's ways, yet opted to live about 60 miles downstream from the longest, bloodiest, most brutal civil conflict on the planet. One day, a group of nauseating do-gooder missionaries offer to pay Sly to take them up the river into Burma, where they hope to improve the lives of landmine survivors by giving them Bibles and an affectionate pat on the head. Rambo, ever the cynical eremite, asks: "Are you bringin' in any weapons?" Bible-thumper answers no. "You're not changing anything."

Reluctantly, Rambo agrees to take the mission­ aries upriver after the group's hot blonde (played as appropriately chaste by Julie Benz) has a totally in­ sipid moral quarrel with him. Soon after he drops them off, the missionaries are attacked by the EAD (Evil Asian Dudes), taken prisoner, and Rambo (at the behest of some curmudgeonly church repre­ sentative) must join forces with some ragtag mer­ cenaries and the NSEAD (Not-so-Evil Asian Dudes) in order to save them. Hoorah.

Clocking in at under 90 minutes, Rambo sim­ ply doesn't have time to build suspense or charac­ ter like the original film did so effortlessly. Stallone's direction is clumsy at best, as the film's few action sequences are far from poignant, and the infre­ quent attempts to draw attention and sympathy for the plight of the Burmese people come off as facile and ham-fisted. Whereas the social commen­ tary of the first film was slight but utterly compel­ ling, it feels as if Rambo merely exploits Third World misery to orchestrate a jarring, artless bloodbath of a movie, in which pleonastic gore is supposed to act as a legitimate replacement for story or even a decent action set-piece. It would be all but impos­ sible for Sly to make a film of the same calibre as First Blood today. The least he could have done is make a movie worth watching. ■ Check www.cinemamontreal.com for show-

times.

12 • Arts & Entertainment • 29.01.08

BOOKS

Review s

T h e W rig h t s tu ff A rainy October of the soul

Tomas Jensen. Quelqu'un D'autre. Unbeknown to many Anglophones of Montreal, there ex­ ists in the city a unique and thriving music scene referred to as Quebec Chanson. In this genre the literal meaning of "chansonnier” as "song-maker" refers more specifically to artists whose style of music constitutes a significant aspect of Québécois culture. Tomas Jensen is a typical example of such a chansonnier, whose recordings are characterised by their European folk influence and poetic French lyrics that often aim to invoke an impression of the singer's national environment. Although originally from Argentina, Jensen's move to Quebec in 1998 was the trigger for a succession of album recordings and the first track, "Montréal", from his latest release is a cheerful declaration of the artist's attachment to what he now considers home. The title track takes a more reflective tone as Jensen recites lyrics of self-examination over a background of romantic strings and gentle beats. Although most of the lyrics on the album are spoken rather than sung, Jensen's accent carries its own melody and despite his sudden switch to English in the last track, "Do You Know", which jives somewhat awkwardly with the rest of the album, the song still has a delicate French lilt that rep­ resents the chansonnier's contribution to the French-Canadian music scene, which evidently has more to it than just Celine Dion.

Ezra G unter For many decades, novelist Richard 8. Wright was an unknown name in Canadian literature, despite the early promise of The Weekend Man and the subsequent publication of another six novels. Even after his 1995 work, The AgeofLonging, was nominated for both the Governor General's Award and the Giller Prize, Wright still laboured in relative obscurity. But when he won both awards in 2001 for Clara Callan, the story of an independently minded small­ town Canadian school teacher, his star seemed to have finally risen. While his following novel, Adultery, received the attention one would expect for a writer so recently and so lavishly decorated, his most recent book, October, seems to have made a noticeably lessehsplash in the literary pool. Which is surprising, because October is really no better nor no worse than any of Wright's previous output. While it is a decent enough book, however, it doesn't really deserve to win any prizes.

Toid from the point of view of James Hillyer, a retired professor of Victo­ rian literature, October opens with the narrator's visit to his daughter in England after he learns that she has recently been diagnosed with cancer. While there, Hillyer runs into one Gabriel Fontaine, a polio-stricken childhood acquaintance with whom he had once spent a memorable summer in the Quebec fishing vil­ lage and resort town of Percé. It is at this point that the novel's light and loosely woven narrative really gets going, as Hillyer alternates between the renewed entanglement with Fontaine and his memories of their youthful antagonistic friendship and romantic rivalry.

As he showed in his portrayal of depression-era Ontario in Clara Callan, Wright is adept at writing about the Canada and Canadians of two,or three generations past. In October, Wright tackles Second World War era Quebec, as seen through Hillyer's once-adolescent eyes. Sent by his financially success­ ful father and mentally fragile mother to stay for the summer with his Uncle Chester—a ginger-mustached writer of boys' mystery novels and a closet ho­ mosexual—Hillyer struggles with his own romantic difficulties and social awkwardness.

"I knew what I was," Hillyer recalls: "an ungainly towheaded boy who had grown several inches in the past few months and was still uncomfortable with his new body, bruising his shins on low tables and unaccountably dropping things, affecting a sullen manner that he hoped would be taken for gravitas."

It is not just youth's awkwardness that Wright describes, however, but also its seemingly unlimited capacity for freshness and discovery. "I thought of the strangeness of the entire expe­ rience;” Hillyer says: "there I was in the back of a truck in the wilds of Quebec with two girls I hadn't known existed only six weeks before."

One of those girls, the "slim, dark­ haired" Odette Huard, is the subject of both Hillyer and Fontaine's romantic aspirations and the wounds of their rivalry have still not healed, even sixty years later. Aside from providing a pretext for the young Hillyer's romantic difficulties, the two Québécois girls— both maids at the local hotel—also illustrate the social differences that once defined Ca­ nadian society. The class-conscious interactions between the wealthy AngloCanadian and American tourists and the local working-class French Canadians are not dwelled upon by Hillyer, but are revealed subtly enough to render a penetrating portrait of the time and place.

In between his nostalgic recollections of boyhood, however, Hillyer is forced to deal with his present situation: the overshadowing illness of his daughter and the difficult request the reacquainted Fontaine makes of him.

In a way, October functions much in the same way as the impression left upon Hillyer by Charles Dickens, who, along with Alfred Lord Tennyson, was one of his earliest literary heroes.

"It's never lost on me how my boyhood reading of Dickens' novels has left me with these quaint notions of creature comforts," he remarks. "How his descriptions of food and the family table and the contrasting images of coach rides on rainy nights or damp, foggy streets beyond curtained windows have coloured my imagination." Similarly, the suffering that curls around the cor­ ners of October provides a necessary contrast to the peaceful operations of the aging narrators mind, as he calmly chews over the memories of his youth.

While October possesses few obvious faults, like much of Wright's work, its virtues are largely negative. His writing is crafted with precision and obvi­ ous care, and while his prose contains few jagged edges, it also has no quality that makes it outstanding or even particularly memorable. Though the lack of preciousness is refreshing, October leaves a wholesome but bland impression with the pleasant but forgettable quality of chamber-music. The novel's few stylistic weaknesses— such as several assertions of the narrator's biting wit and sarcasm without any evidence of such in sight—are the more unforgivable for want of any positively remarkable elements. The plot and attendant themes, likewise, while sufficiently engaging to get through the book, lack any real depth or profundity and rely too heavily on the dubious and arbitrary-seeming mechanism of narratorial reminiscence. While there are, no doubt, worse ways to spend an afternoon than reading October, as the novel itself might make clear, life is really too short.B

—ClarePidsley The Scenics. TheScenics Playthe Velvet Underground. The first rule of any decent cover album is to not just record faithful renditions of a beloved band's cannon, but to try to add some­ thing new to old songs and to take them to different places, which The Scenics ultimately fail to do. It's not that the takes on HowDoesit Feel sound exactly like the Velvets, but for the most part the Scenic's main spin on them is to add a more CBGB's-style punk sound, which happens to be a sound greatly influenced by the Velvets in the first place and therefore doesn't take the songs far from their source material. To make matters worse, the sound quality happens to be terrible, making most of the songs on this album sound like they're playing through a shitty HAM radio and even the mic goes dead in a few places, which is bad for bootleg standards. But all of this aside, the album does show that the Scenics could play a few good Velvet covers.Their version of "Beginning to See the Lighf'is solid even with the David Byrne-ish yelps, and manages to add some frantic energy to the song's coda. However, to any VU fan all this will do is remind them how great this and all the other songs are and make it hard not to just switch to the Velvets themselves.

—GeoffreyAnstey Black Mountain. In the Future. The opening track here, "Stormy High" digs its heels in deep: thick riffs that you might confuse for Black Sabbath or Dead Meadow if it weren't for layers of yawning background vocals and frontman Steve McBean's kind-of tender whines. Black Mountain nod, sure, to Master of Reality or Sabotoge-eta Sabbath, but it's not just hallmarks of psych-sludge hard rock that get touched. McBean and co. index a wealth of classic rock radio apocrypha, like they're working through the milk crate of dusty records your dad col­ lected in college (if your dad was either cooler or lamer than he is, I'm not sure). Sparse organs linger in "Wutan" like the microwaved leftovers of Sir Elton's "Funeral For a Friend” and the album's closer, "Night Walks,"turns droning Hawkwind hangover into some exultant hymnal, with Amber Webber's frail vocals holding your hand through the whole thing. But the centre piece is the sixteen-minute and some-odd second "Bright Lights" which for about eight minutes sound like Emerson, Lake and Palmer doing "Sister Ray" before meandering into not-noisy-enough psychedelia which just hangs in the vacuum of space rock, taking too long to build to its predictable crescendo. Black Mountain is like that one friend you had in high school: fun to smoke pot and play video games with but otherwise theirshtick relies too heavily on impressions which, however adept, don't prove compelling in the long run.

—JohnSemley

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IN THEATRES EVERYWHERE FEBRUARY 1

S p o r t s L U M B E R J A C K IN G

L e t t h e w o o d t i m e s ro ll Annual lumberjacking competition sees McGill slip from the top Elizabeth Perle and Kate Spirgen For the first time in five years, the Macdonald Campus Men's i team failed to capture the gold medal at the MacDonald Intercol­ legiate Woodsmen Competition, losing first place to the University of New Brunswick. The competi­ tion came down to the wire with the UNB Men's 1 team scoring 1,267 points, to Macdonald's 1,149 in the single-day event.

The Mac Women's 1 team had a strong showing in the female brack­ et, finishing in second place with 1,117 points, only 20 points behind first-place Nova Scotia Agricultural College.

Variety of events One of the highlights of the

weekend occurred during the pole­ climbing competition where Mc­ Gill's Alexandre Lambert set a team record by climbing a 12-metre pole in just 6.7 seconds with a large, ani­ mated crowd encouraging him on.

"This is one of the largest crowds we have seen in a while," said Lise Cobitz, a member of Mac's Women's 2 team. She noted the sunny weather likely played a part in the big turnout. "Last year was freez­ ing cold,"she explained.

Each event of the day-long competition is timed for scoring, which is kept confidential through­ out the day.The fastest team in each event receives 100 points and all other teams are awarded their score based on their time relative to that of the winner. For example, a team taking twice as long as the winning team would be awarded 50 points.

KATESPIRGEN Woodsmen take part in the water-boil. Campers take note.

The water-boil drew one of the biggest crowds of the day and on­ lookers cheered and chanted as the participants scurried to build a fire and boil water in the shortest time.

Two at a time, the woodsmen split short logs to start their fires and feed chips into the flame to build it up, shielding the makeshift boilers from gusts of wind with their bod­ ies. The watch is only stopped when the bubbles from the soapy water boil over the rim of the tin cups.

"We hopethatthe [participants] do [catch fire]," joked Macdonald Woodsmen Coach John Watson. "It adds to the heat."

Watson, who took the position of coach when his father retired in 1976, is a prime example of the long tradition and family heritage in­ grained in the outdoorsman sports.

Many of the volunteers this Sat­ urday, including referee Elois Chambigny, were former MacDonald stu­ dents and Woodsman participants, who return year after year to take part in the tradition.

"I used to do underhand chop," Chambigny said.

"It's a family thing," said Eric Brealut, a U3 farm management and technology student, who had just won his section of the water boil competition. “My parents went to McGill and they've done this event as well and I decided to try it outsee how it is. Let me tell you, anyone that tries it out loves it."

Tough preparation However, members are some­ times less impressed with the de­ manding practice times for the

KATESPIRGEN Lumberjacks go to work w ith the long-saw. Mohels take note.

Macdonald Woodsman team, they begin at 6 a.m. and run until 8 a.m. four days a week for both the men's and women's teams, who chop to­ gether. Training begins in Septem­ ber and includes calisthenics as well as wood chopping for the lumber­ jacks, who hone their skills by run­ ning through each event countless times.

University-level woodsman team training is not exclusive to Ca­ nadian schools. Saturday's 10-school event attracted four teams traveling from colleges in New England.

"We're excited to be at McGill," said Erica Bolck of Colby College in Maine. Bolck was dressed in a fullbody cat suit with leopard print fur in spirit of the event. "We're hope­ fully going to get to go out in the city."

Bolck explained that the hori­

zontal chop was among the hardest events of the day.

"Strength is part of it but defi­ nitely accuracy and technique are big parts too," she said. "You can have a huge guy who doesn't do a good chop and he might do it fast but accuracy is a big part of it."

The horizontal chop was not kind to McGill teams; both genders failed to place in the top three, but underhand chop was another story altogether. Emma Loosigian and Beth Grant captured first place in the women's competition, while Eric Breault and Chris Allen placed second in the men's bracket.

Other strong McGill showings included first place finishes for Marie Anne Hardy in the axethrow, Alex McTammany in the snow show race and the rookie Women's 2 team in the Swede saw competition. ■

T H IR D M A N IN

Media weak Rory G angbar tarting on January 26, the NFL Network will devote a staggering 213 hours to lead-up coverage of Super Bowl XLII—at 24 hours a day for nine consecutive days, it should be one hell of a pregame show. While oth­ ers' more vacant schedules may allow for such devotion, I certainly don't have that many hours to waste on hype alone. Isn't it about time that the NFL dumped its ridicu­ lously superfluous Media Week? Other professional sports like the NHL, the NBA and the MLB don't have anything nearly as extravagant as the NFL's self-indulgent week off, when for a full fortnight breathless reporters squabble over exaggerated "breaking stories" and analyze minutia of the worst kind.

What's clear to everyone except the NFL brass, is that the hype is unnecessary. The Super Bowl is one of the most widely watched sporting events in the world, ranking be­ hind only the Olympics and the World Cup— both quadren­ nial occurrences and therefore novelties—with Super Bowl XLI’s numbers reaching an astounding 94 million viewers in America alone. To boot (I don't mean Tom Brady's boot but I'm sure the media will keep a close eye on that for the next several days), this Super Bowl, as usual, speaks for itself with fantastic, ready-made storylines that need no extra spice.

The NFL has the New England Patriots coming off the best

S

regular season in NFL history, and their golden boy quar­ terback, MVP Tom Brady, leading the charge against the un­ derdog New York Giants, who just happen to hail from the U.S.'s largest market and who built up significant karma by performing admirably against the same Pats in a meaning­ less season finale. There's also the brilliant Manning family drama, as little brother Eli gets his chance under the bright lights after his brother Peyton won his first championship last year.

There's really no need to saturate the airwaves with hours ofmind-numbing predictions and match-ups. Let the game sell itself. With or without the full two weeks of extra attention, the game will always be the peak of the sporting year for any American fan. Remind us that if the Patriots pull off a 19-0 season, they will become the first team to achieve perfection since the 1972 Miami Dolphins and that if the Giants win it will be remembered as one of the biggest upsets in sports— never mind football— history, but don't make us apathetic by force-feeding us hours of repetitive content. Even the most casual football fan already knows what's at stake, so to continue to harp on this for over 213 hours is really just an absurd waste of everyone's time: Nonetheless, we'll still have to sit through the tedium of the NFL's beloved Media Week and its predictable formu­

la. There will undoubtably be "juicy” gossip, off-field scan­ dals (rich 20-somethings about to play in the Super Bowl get in trouble with a full week off) and whatever other ar­ tificial controversies that can be manufactured by a press corps that is desperate to fill empty pages and time slots.

And most likely one player from one of the teams will "ac­ cidentally" say something ridiculous that will set off a spiral of media-exacerbated rabble-rousing resulting in constant moronic arguments between shouting analysts on TV. By the time the Super Bowl actually rolls around, most of us have been worn down and desensitized.

NFL, spare us please. We're already overwhelmed by the typical week-long coverage from one Sunday to next during the regular season; we don't need the dosage to be doubled for a game that is already a natural monstrosity. It's always a cringing test of patience to watch ESPN, CBS and FOX Sunday pregame shows try to squeeze the last drops out of two conference championship matches to fill two hours of coverage— usually filled by around 16 games. We don't need the networks to try and out-do themselves by providing weeks of reporting for a single game. The Super Bowl is unquestionably America's greatest annual sporting event and contribution to satellite communications, but it's time to reel it back to Earth. ■

1 4 -S p o rts-29.01.08

The McGill Tribune

SUPERBOWL XLII

P a t r i o t s t o d o w n G i a n t 'd o g s in S u p e r B o w l NEW YORK GIANTS

21

Offence: Once thought to be a liability, especially

after future Hall of Famer RB Tiki. Barber retired in the off-season—only to jump into the booth to bash his old team, coach and quarterback—the Giants' offence proved to be a pleasant surprise in the regular season but a true force in the play­ offs. In only his second full year as the starting QB, Eli Manning, the less successful member of the Manning brother-act until this season, has finally matured into the field general that analysts and coaches anticipated when he was selected with the first overall pick in the 2004 entry draft. With a power running game anchored by their northsouth runner Brandon Jacobs taking some pres­ sure off Manning, the quarterback has developed a strong rapport with lanky WR Plaxico Burress.

This chemistry has been essential in New York's highly impressive playoff road victories in Tampa Bay and two of the hardest places to win in the NFL—Dallas and a freezing Lambeau Field. While Manning probably won't be as efficient against a Patriot defence that has two weeks to plan, look for Brandon Jacobs to have a breakout perfor­ mance against an aging and undersized New England linebacking corps.

Defence: While not flashy in the way of scoring or piling up takeaways, the Giants'defence relies on good old-fashioned line play and no team in the NFL boasted a stronger front four than the G-men. With the all-time sack leader Michael Strahan and emerging freak DE Osi Umenyiora patrolling the edges, the New York pass rush has been almost unstoppable this season, putting the opposing quarterback on the turf a league-high 53 times—substantially more than the secondranked Patriots defence (47). Although the Patriots showed in the final game of the season that the Brady-Moss-Welker trifecta could burn the medio­ cre Giants secondary, Brady will have to move the

ball quicker in this second tilt as Head Coach Tom Coughlin will be sure to send Pro Bowl LB Antonio Pierce on more harassing blitzes.

Coaching: Coming into the season, Coughlin was clearly on thin ice with the team manage­ ment, his players and aggravated New York fans.

With the media calling for his departure and his team on the brink of revolting against the notori­ ous taskmaster, Coughlin changed his ways and became a much more forgiving and relaxed man­ ager. In turning over a new leaf, the head coach has pulled off a miracle, guiding the underdog Giants to an astounding 10 straight road victories and three playoff wins in hostile environments.

His masterful job averted an internal rebellion and changed talks of firing to ones of extensions. Also, he should be even more effective in the Arizona climate, as opposed to Green Bay where his face turned a painful hue of red.

Intangibles: Simply put, the Giants have no expectations and nothing to lose. Riding a tidal wave of great karma stemming from their noble fight against these same Patriots in the final, meaningless game of the season in which they played their first string roster, the white hot Gmen have made it to the show and can cement their place as an all-time sports darkhorse should they knock off the mighty New Englanders. Lucky for them, the game isn't in the Meadowlands as the Giants have snapped off an NFL record streak of 10 consecutive road wins. Look for New York to lay it all out on the field in the biggest game of the year—the low expectations and an 'us against the world” mentality have always proven fantastic motivators in pressure-packed situations.

—AaronSigal

31

NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS

Offence: Led by everyone's favourite mancrush QB Tom Brady, the Patriots offence can beat you in so many ways it's downright scary. Want to double team dynamic receiver Randy Moss, who set a single season touch­ down record (23) earlier this year? Well then, Brady will just throw check-downs to the elu­ sive Wes Welker, who led the NFL in total re­ ceptions (112). Think it's a good idea to stack the box to try and stop Laurence Maroney from churning out another 100-plus yards rushing? Then Brady will gun to less-her­ alded targets like third-down running back Kevin Faulk or fourth receiver Jabar Gaffney or speedy wide receiver Donte Stallworth (or his Martian alter-ego Nicco). Get the point?

Good. And don't go thinking that Brady will have another rough game like last week; there's a reason he's been anointed the best big-game quarterback of our generation and he'll prove he deserves that title again on Sunday.

Defence: The Patriots'defence isn't as domi­ nant a unit as in past Super Bowl victories, but the crafty veteran-laden squad turned in one of its best performances last Week against the Chargers— holding San Diego's offence to only 12 points.The Giants will try to attack New England's aging linebacker corps with RB's Brandon Jacobs and Ahmad Bradshaw, but LB Junior Seau has been playing like a man-possessed lately and LBs Teddy Bruschi and Mike Vrabel are big-game players who excel in the clutch. On the line the Pats have an excellent pass rusher in Richard Seymour, who seems to get in everyone's head these days, but the real star has been the under­ heralded Vince Wilfork, who has put forth a

yeoman's effort in stopping the run. The vul­ nerable area for the Pats will be in the sec­ ondary, where neither Asante Samuel nor Ellis Hobbs match up well against big, physi­ cal Giants'WR Plaxico Burress. If Belichick can't find a way to get his corners help against the Giants'star-receiver, then New York will have an easy way to convert third downs and can focus on wearing down the linebackers with their power running game.

Coaching: Bill Belichick is 6-0 in playoff games when he has had two weeks to pre­ pare for an opponent and excels at finding weaknesses in an opponent. Aside from Brady, his savant-like abilities in the film room might be the biggest key to the Patriots'dy­ nasty and as proved by the Spygate fiasco, he will do anything to win. With all due respect to the job Tom Coughlin has done, Belichick has the decided edge in this category.

Intangibles: Super Bowl week is a unique distraction for the participating teams, but rest assured all the media furor will not faze the Cult of Belichick. The Pats are experi­ enced, focussed and well-schooled in the art of avoiding questions. They also have an uncanny ability to derive motivation from perceived slights and in that regard the comments by Osi Umenyiora earlier in the week will certainly find their way onto the Patriots chalkboard. Not that they need the motivation though as this team has a chance to make history by completing a perfect sea­ son and, if they win, go down as the greatest football squad of all-time.

—Matt Chesser

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T R A C K A N D F IE L D

M c G ill c a n 't k e e p u p a t y e a r 's b i g g e s t m e e t Martlets place fifth, Redmen finish tenth Matt Chesser Over 600 of Canada's finest university athletes gath­ ered at Richard Tomlinson Fieldhouse on the weekend to take part in the McGill Team Challenge, the largest Cana­ dian university track meet of the season and for the second consecutive yéar the University of Guelph Gryphons ran away with both the men's and women's overall champion­ ships.

The Gryphons set three meet records, in the women's 1000m, women's long jump and men's weight throw and captured nine gold medals to post a huge margin of vic­ tory in both gender categories. The male Gryphons posted 68 points to best second-place Sherbrooke by 18, while the female Gryphons scored 83 points, 13.5 more than Western.

For McGill the meet was a modest success, as the Martlets placed fifth out of 16 teams with 26 points and the Redmen finished tenth out of 15 teams, posting 12 points.

"The meet was a success from the point of view of a lot of teams being there, but not so much from a McGill per­ spective," said McGill Track and Field Coach Denis Barrett."

The Martlets won four medals over the two-day event,

STEVECAMPBELL A York high jumper sets the bar high, and clears it.

led by silver-medal performances in the 60m hurdles and 4x400m relay. Sophomore Zaria Stoffman posted a time of 9.36 seconds in the hurdles, just 0.06 seconds off the win­ ning pace set by Emily Coxhead from the Western Mus­ tangs, to earn McGill's first silver medal. Stoffman's perfor­ mance was closely followed by a second-place finish from the women's 4x400m team of Fatihat Momoh, Allison Cameron-Vendrig, Catherine Drouin and Hilary Kellar-Parsons, who finished just over three seconds behind the winning team from the University ofToronto.

The Martlets also captured bronze medals in the 4x200 m relay and in the pole vault, where Esther Usborne cleared a height of 3.56 metres.

The Redmen, however, only managed one medal, a bronze finish by Keith Esch in the high jump.

"Our team had a few issues going in such as illness and injuries, so we didn't perform as well as I would have hoped," Barrett said. "We're improving on a daily basis though, and our goal is not to be such a gracious host at Nationals this year. Last year we gave away all the medals and we're hop­ ing to actually win one this year."

The meet was headlined by a special 60 metre dash between two of Canada's elite sprinters, Hank Palmer and Nicolas Macrozonaris, both from the St. Laurent Selects track club. Macrozonaris competed in 100 metre sprint at the 2006 Summer Olympics in Athens, while Palmer is cur­ rently the top-ranked 60 metre sprinter in Canada.

The Canadian national team members did not disap­ point, living up to expectations with an incredibly tight race that came down to a photo finish. Palmer posted a time of 6.6771 seconds to narrowly edge Macrozonaris's 6.6779 second finish, in a race that was so close onlookers couldn't tell who had won. The victory for Palmer was the first time the Montreal native has defeated his rival in the 60 metre dash.

"We invited them in order to give some local sprinters another meet in town, so they don't have to travel," Barrett said. "It adds a bit of publicity to our event,' and gives us a platform to bring in a larger crowd than you would typically see at a university event." ■

Spo rts Briefs Martlets volleyball powers into second place tie Power hitter Jennifer Thomson had 14 digs on defence and 12 kills on offence as eighth-ranked McGill swept the seventh-seeded Sherbrooke Vert et Or in a key women's volleyball match at Love Competition Hall, Friday. The set scores were 25-9,25-21 and 25-22.

The victory moved the Martlets into a second-place tie with Sherbrooke. Both teams are 14-5 with two matches remaining be­ fore playoffs but McGill holds the trump card, winning three of four matches against the Vert et Or. Trailing 7-1 in what proved to be the final set, the Martlets ral­ lied. Down 10-7, they got a break when Sherbrooke captain Amelie Desroches disputed a close call and was given a yellow card, which gave McGill an automatic point to make it 10-8. This seemed to pro­ vide an extra boost for the Martlets who outplayed Sherbrooke the rest of the way.

Thomson also led the Martlets in passing with a stellar 2.67 ratio (out of 3) and was credited with one stuff block. McGill got another above-par performance from setter Amelie Trottier-Picard who registered 40 assists in three sets, with 11 digs and an ace.

Redmen snap streak in Trois-Rivieres Eric L'Italien broke a 1-1 tie at 6:35 of the final period as tenthranked McGill skated to a hard-fought 2-1 road victory over sixthranked UQTR in men's university hockey, Wednesday.The win ended an 11-game regular-season winless streak (0-9-2) in Trois-Rivieres for the Redmen, dating back to 2002. Despite that bump in the-road, McGill is 13-9-3 in the last 25 matchups with their bitter archrivals overall, including three wins in four meetings this season.

Centre Guillaume Doucet gave the Redmen a 1-0 lead at 9:55 of the middle period but rookie Jean-Sebastien Breton evened the score for the Pats at 4:13 of the third. L'Italien, scored his second game-winner of the season just two minutes later.

The Pats outshot McGill 35-24 but were stymied by goaltender Mathieu Poitras who made 34 saves for the win and improved his regular season record to 13-3-0. He is the winningest goalie in McGill history with a lifetime record of 80-27-6 overall, including a 52-15-6 mark in league play. Rookie Olivier Laliberté made 22 saves in a los­ ing cause for UQTR and took his first loss in CIS play, dropping to 3-1-0.

McGill, which improved to 15-5-1, closed the gap to four points behind first-place UQTR (17-5-1) in the OUA Far East standings, with two games in hand and seven games remaining before playoffs.

O N DECK

STtVt CAMPBtLL In a rare moment of McGill success, a Redman runner leads the field.

IM A G E S

Men's Basketball-Bishop's Gaiters at McGill Redmen; Wednesday, 8 p.m. at Love Compe­ tition Hall After a strong start to the season, the Redmen are floundering as of late, losing their last three in a row. The good news for the Red 'rï White is that the only team they've beaten in their last five games, the Bishop's Gaiters, comes to town on Friday night. Look for a strong show­ ing from Coach Norman's squad as they try to turn around a disappointing run in a promising season.

Men's Hockey— RMC Paladins at McGill Red­ men; Friday, 7 p.m. at McConnell Arena The Redmen look to avenge a disappointing 2-1 loss to the Paladins and avoid their first three game losing streak since early October, in a Friday night tilt at McConnell Arena. After embarrassing Queen's 10-1 two weeks ago the Redmen have been underwhelming, losing to Concordia, York and RMC—three teams that the tenth-ranked Red'n'White should be beat­ ing with ease. In their last meeting McGill outshot the Paladins 37-21 and went orfor-8 on the powerplay in a rough, penaity-filled affair, so expea the home-side to be fired up to prevent a repeat performance.

Super Bowl— New York Giants vs. New Eng­ land Patriots; Sunday, 6 p.m. at University of Phoenix Stadium; FOX Well, dub. If you're not planning on watching this game already, then we really don't know what to tell you. Either it'll be a thrilling upset (we have our fingers crossed) or a historic win to cap a perfect season. Not that we endorse gambling, but prop bets make the game even better (our personal favourite is the over-under on the national anthem).

ADAMSCOTTI Kelsey Irwin leaps to corral a shot in the Martlets' 3-0 sweep of Sherbrooke on Friday night.

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