Democracy for Dummies

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May 6, 2013 · Volume 144, Issue 1

FIRST PEEK

Dear Moe, On the last article you wrote: “If you claim that just because not enough people voted, the election process is somehow flawed, or that the legitimization of the incoming directors should be questioned, then you are directly negating and undermining democracy and the time and effort of those active members of our community that actually voted in the last election.”

Moe, this is exactly what democracy is about — questioning decisions to gain a better understanding of issues. I read Joe’s ar-

ticle as addressing the broader concern of student apathy, and relating your vote score (which you were the first to bring up), does not mean you get to stop

May 6, 2013

listening to these voices of criticism. 23 per cent voter turnout out of 25,000 students equals 5,750 students. Of those who voted, only 1,962 students voted for you, or 34 per cent of all voters in this election. Thus, those votes don’t actually represent the voting majority in this election, as 431 students voted no and the other 3,357 students spoiled the ballot.

I think the main point in all of this dialogue (Facebook comments, Peak articles, and Peak article comments) is that the SFSS executive continues to approach student issues in a top-down approach by telling us students that this society is “yours” and to “take it back.” This communicates a fundamental separation of the Board from the rest of the student body in an “us-versusthem” mentality.

I hope I speak on behalf of most students when I say that this student society is ours and that our voices and concerns need to be heard and acted upon by the executive. We need to be respected by them, as it is your role to serve us students, and not for you to boast about your votes.

Further, the disqualification of Alia Ali goes to show how troubled the state of our student politics is if people can run for board while knowingly ineligible.

I want to let you know that I am a student who has attended Board meetings, SFSS committee meetings, and Forum meetings only to have my concerns fall on deaf ears.

SFPIRG is still without a lease from the SFSS, even after the Space and

Oversight Committee violated SFSS policy to recommend the termination of the lease without consultation (which has been renewed and re-negotiated every time over the last 30+ years).

A room in the Women’s Centre all-gender space is still mouldy and has posed a health hazard for over two years. In the time since this has been brought to the board’s notice (two years ago), we have seen the creation of a Build SFU space (which is empty most of the time). What message does this send? You were present at the meeting in which the Women’s Centre Collective brought that up, so I ask you now, when is that going to be fixed?

This call for student accountability is nothing new. Remember the Annual General Meeting when the Yoga Club called on the executive board for more transparency and accountability? I do.

We need better behaviour from our board and more than kind thanks for our input. We need more than fortuitous action.

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NEWS

On an average day on Boylston Street in Boston, Massachusetts, the air hums with conversation, the rustling of shopping bags and take-home restaurant containers, and the clicking of swaying metal flower baskets hanging from old-style lampposts. At first glance, Boylston Street looks much like parts of West Vancouver and Gastown.

On April 15th at 2:50pm, the scene was much different. After the explosion of two bombs set off thirteen seconds apart — the first within moments of the finish line — the area smelled like a mixture of fresh fireworks and smoke, according to SFU psychology professor Rachel Fouladi. She was minutes away from the Boston Marathon finish line when she heard the blasts, still nestled amongst nearly 5,700 other runners yet to complete the race.

“The police didn’t automatically recognize what happened,” Fouladi said. “They were walking a bit slowly, and one officer was reaching for his communication device. It’s a difficult sound to recognize at first — how often do we hear a bomb go off?”

Fouladi said she stuck to positive thoughts as she continued to run, with no one immediately stopping her and no visual indication of what had occurred.

“It certainly did cross my mind that the explosion was a bomb.

But, I thought, it could have also been an accident, a blast at a construction site, bleachers falling — of course, I had hoped not — or the scaffolding archway for photographers near the finish line.”

Spectators and volunteers then stopped her and 25 other runners between the intersections closest to the bombing sites. If they had been even a second later in stopping her, Fouladi would have found herself amidst the chaos and destruction created by the packed pressure-cooker bombs.

After the scramble to borrow spectator’s cell phones and send text messages over a poor

May 6, 2013

connection, groups of on-foot enforcement, police on bicycles, and a SWAT car rushed towards Boylston Street. Fouladi’s group was instructed to evacuate away from the bomb sites a few minutes later.

Although she is now safe and sound in Vancouver, Fouladi encourages increased marathon participation after witnessing the warmth and kindness of other participants in Boston. It’s crucial, she notes, that people continue to put one foot in front of the other to demonstrate the power of community engagement.

“These are beliefs I take to

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heart. I try my best to encourage other people to discover for themselves what I’ve discovered through marathon running,” she says. Fouladi herself progressed from relaxed interval training to running a half marathon in 2007.

“At this race, I even met a fellow running his 19th Boston Marathon. He had a little pot belly, and by the look of him you’d never have guessed he was a runner. People of all ages came from a variety of places like North America, Colombia, Japan, and Scotland — everywhere. Many repeat participants get to know each other and recognize people that they see at these races and ask, ‘How have you been this past year? What other races have you run this year? Is your foot feeling okay now?’”

With hundreds of volunteers and 42 kilometres of clapping and cheering spectators, much of the marathon’s spirit also comes from those people who selflessly administer race packs and run aid stations whether they take part in the race themselves or not.

Alison Roach news@the-peak.ca / 778.782.4560

“Kids even offer the runners cut oranges, liquorice sticks, gummy bears, water — all sorts of items. If you’re thirsty as you run, there’s probably somebody along the route that will offer you something,” she says. “It’s really sweet. All of these actions are so innocent and positive, so it makes me extremely sad that these bombings happened.”

Besides organizing SFU’s Terry Fox Run and hosting informal run groups on a weekly basis, after her experience in Boston, Fouladi invited the community to join her for a run on the university’s Burnaby on a rainy Sunday afternoon. A total of eleven runners participated, including three children, the head of the university’s Health and Counselling office, a Lower

Mainland resident, and two SFU students. One student brought her father along, who had participated in the Boston Marathon in 2011.

“She had been standing where the bombs went off this year when she had gone to support her father two years ago.

For them, it had also been a close call. If they had been there this year instead, they would have experienced what I and others had experienced,” said Fouladi.

After 45 minutes of running around the track through a mixture of hail and snow, the runners stopped to change direction at 2:50pm — the time of Boston bombing — and ran silently for ten minutes in recognition of others’ sorrow and as a sign that people should not stop running or living their everyday lives.

“Even for those people who emailed me and couldn’t come to run because of other obligations, they were still thinking of us,” said Fouladi. “That’s another great thing. Not running with us doesn’t actually mean that you aren’t participating at all. You’re still there in spirit.”

NEWS

May 6, 2013

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By Alison Roach

NOTICE OF STUDENT ELECTION – SUMMER 2013 CALL FOR NOMINATIONS FOR STUDENT REPRESENTATIVES

Students have an opportunity to become involved in the governance of SFU by submitting a nomination form for positions on Senate.

Committee Positions Term of Office Senate Two students, elect- June 1, 2013 to ed by and from the May 31, 2014 student body, with at least one student from the Faculty of Communication, Art and Technology and one student from the Faculty of Education.

Information Senate meets once a month and is responsible for the academic governance (all matters that bear on teaching and research) of the University. www.sfu.ca/senate.html

Nomination Deadline: Monday, May 13, 2013 at 4:00pm Campaign Period: May 14, 2013 to May 24, 2013 Online Voting: May 22, 2013 to May 24, 2013 Nomination Forms and Candidate Info: http://students.sfu.ca/elections/students.html Questions may be directed to the Electoral Officer, Senate & Academic Services at 778-782-3168 or kristofer_nordgren@sfu.ca.

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PRECISION DECISION

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NEWS

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Conservatives Green party 12%

Liberals 34%

10%

NDP 41%

NEWS

Along some shorelines and oceans bordering the Alaskan and British Columbian coasts, shellfish numbers are quickly dwindling as sea otters, once listed as endangered, continue to recover and consume them. Though these sea otters are a natural part of temperate coastal ecosystems, their population recovery and growth leaves few shellfish behind for the First Nations people that rely on these invertebrates as a source of food and livelihood.

Marine ecologist Dr. Anne Salomon has recently been awarded a $150,000 Pew Fellowship for a collaborative investigation on the issue. Salomon has been involved in marine conservation issues for over 12 years. She continues to teach courses in applied ecology at Simon Fraser University, direct the university’s Coastal Marine Ecology and Conservation Lab, and function as a primary investigator with SFU’s Hakai Network for Coastal People, Ecosystems and Management.

“I was shaking in my boots when I was nominated for this award because I didn’t think there was any way I’d receive it.

In my field, it’s a huge honour to receive a Pew Fellowship, and as a young graduate student, it’s something that I hoped I would earn one day,” said Salomon.

“I feel very humbled about this whole experience.”

Each year, the Pew Fellows Program in Marine Conservation selects five outstanding scientists from around the world who are tackling the challenges confronting the world’s oceans through interdisciplinary research projects. With her Pew Fellowship, Salomon will examine sea otter recovery and bring academics, First Nations Elders, and resource managers together to analyze the past and present plights of local marine ecosystems, blend western science and traditional knowledge, and create viable

May 6, 2013

solutions for aquatic environments in the future “I think the reason I was selected for this award is because of the strong and productive partnerships I’ve had with coastal First Nations people in Alaska,” said Salomon.

“Our team is dedicated to really listening and working with coastal communities to provide solutions for issues that they feel are important to their coastal ecosystems, their societies, and to their people.”

The struggles created by shellfish declines are multifaceted and long-standing in Alaskan and British Columbian First Nations history. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, sea otters were hunted to near extinction and became locally eliminated from coastal oceans. In the absence of this

primary reef predator, shellfish became abundant in coastal communities and fed on kelp beds in these ecosystems. The recovery of sea otter populations in the 1950’s in south central Alaska turned formerly lone otters into rafts of over thirty individuals, and kelp beds grew freely at the expense of fewer shellfish due to sea otter consumption.

“Sea otters are a keystone species, which means that one individual sea otter has a disproportionate effect on an ecosystem,” explained Salomon.

“Only a few of them are needed to trigger a large impact, and when you start to see shellfish declines like that in your coastal refrigerator, you become very worried.”

Through work with two Sugpiaq native tribes, Salomon and her partners documented the serial decline of shellfish fisheries as sea otter populations recovered and fishing by humans intensified and became more concentrated.

Having observed this pattern in Alaska, Salomon knew the same pattern had been reported by scientists working on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Sea otter recovery, shellfish decline, and kelp forest expansion had also been observed by the Heiltsuk on BC’s central coast where sea otters began recovering in the late

1980s and the Nuu-chah-nulth on the west coast of Vancouver Island, where sea otters were intentionally reintroduced in the early 1970s.

“If you don’t know anything about the past, you would have no idea that Vancouver once had an old growth forest and that there were massive cedars here,” said Salomon. “But, if you know something about the past, you can assess the magnitude of change from today and identify baselines that give you targets to shoot for when it comes to recovery.

“By collaborating with the Haida who have not yet experienced any sea otter recovery, different first nations knowledge holders like the Heiltsuk, Nuu-chah-nulth, and Sugpiaq who are experiencing different stages of sea otter recovery, and marine ecologists and archaeologists who’ve studied sea otter effects over time, we essentially have a crystal ball into the past and the future,” Salomon continued.

Haida matriarch Barb Wilson and Sugpiaq seal hunter Nicolas Tanape Sr. will act as Salomon’s cultural guides, ensuring that her group follows each First Nations’ community protocols as they begin their research synthesis.

Wilson described that her ancestors explained that sea otters were not only kept at

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low numbers close to native villages, but special focus was placed on hunting males, who segregate themselves from females into their own raft of otters. Because sea otters feast on shellfish, First Nations groups had several forms of traditional management to control the effects of this predator.

“The reason I found this so interesting is because there is strong evidence that male sea otters are responsible for expanding their territory or ranges. If you can control the male rafts, you can partially control where in space sea otters hang out,” says Salomon.

“This is just one little gem that Barb Wilson shared with me that I think are the kinds of gems that will arise when we bring everyone together.”

Two marine spatial planning processes, including one joint provincial and First Nations process, are currently in progress in BC. Salomon hopes her findings will further First Nations contributions to scientific research and allow these groups to voice their concerns on choices affecting their native homes. “Canadian First Nations have a constitutional right to be involved in cooperative decision making,” said Salomon.

Local First Nations artists will also attend Salomon’s meetings with policy makers and other workshops with First Nations’ people to document the process and outcomes of each event through art.

“Scientists are typically poor communicators to the public, so another goal here is to communicate this collaborative science to everybody, including the public and policy makers,” said Salomon. “People learn and listen with their eyes, nose, and ears, so I think this is a way to capture the attention and interest of people far beyond our scientific meta-analyses that are dry and hard to communicate to the public.”

“When sea otters come back, it catalyses controversy and ignites people’s emotions because people are invested in these issues,” Salomon concluded.

“This project truly is about bringing people and scientists together to inform marine policies to balance the needs of people and nature.”

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OPINIONS

not necessarily follow from the premises. More helpfully, a fallacy is when you try to argue for some proposition, but you bring up facts that have no bearing on whether the proposition is true.

Information bombards us every day in the form of news, advertising, and entertainment.

This wouldn’t be a problem, except for the fact that our brains evolved to hunt and gather food on the savannah, not to sort out large amounts of information and separate truth from opinion. As a result, our human brains are prone to many biases and heuristics that can lead us to believe things without good reason. This isn’t to say that humans are not capable of sound reasoning, but it takes a conscious effort. The purpose of my column will be to outline a few of the fallacies and persuasion techniques used in the media, and how to avoid being taken in by them.

With everyone discussing the news on the internet, it’s more important than ever to know the difference between a valid argument and a fallacy.

Formally, a fallacy (pronounced “phallus-ee”, so get your giggling out of the way now) is an argument where the conclusion does

To illustrate this, I am going to start with a statement that I hope we can all agree on: one plus one is two. This statement is true no matter which language you translate it into; if you say “eins plus eins gleich zwei,” it is still true. The truth remains if you say it with a sarcastic tone in your own voice, if you write it out in sticks and stones, if you shout it on a street corner, or if you append it to the end of a misogynistic YouTube comment. It remains true no matter who says it, whether it’s you, your grandmother, Neil deGrasse Tyson, or Adolf Hitler.

It’s even true if you include it in a fallacious argument: If you say, “The moon is made of

May 6, 2013

cheese, therefore, one plus one is two,” the argument as a whole is a fallacy, but that doesn’t change the fact that the conclusion is true. This means that if I come along and say, “one plus one can’t be two — Hitler believed one plus one is two, and he was evil!” I am wrong, because I’m using irrelevant information to try to conclude that one plus one is not two. You’re probably familiar with the “argumentum ad Hitlerum” — a popular fallacy on the internet — and a special case of “argumentum ad hominem,” (a case in which one attacks an opponent instead their argument).

If this all seems condescendingly obvious, bear in mind that what holds for “one plus one equals two” holds for any true statement, and what holds for “one plus one equals three” holds for any false statement.

In practice, fallacies are covert, and they come up when dealing with more complex real-world topics. This is no excuse to stop exercising basic reasoning skills. As long as a fallacy continues to persuade an audience, it will continue to be used. It is my hope that, through this column, I can help make the most common fallacies a little less effective.

opinions editor email / phone

Tara Nykyforiak opinions@the-peak.ca / 778.782.4560

The sun is shining, the season is new, and you are going to rock this semester. With spring semester’s courses behind you, the sun is here to propel you through the next four months (and really, who doesn’t like solar power?).

Without the misery of rain and fog and many pitchers among friends, summer

semester seems pretty damn good. And how could it not be? You can read with the koi fish beside the pond while working on your tan, and finally let those pasty legs of yours breathe for the first time in months. With all your new notebooks and pens and extra large Iced Capps, nothing can stop you from getting that “A”.

The sun is shining, the season is new, and you really don’t want to be here. With spring semester’s courses behind you, the sun makes you wanna be out on the water while experiencing that summer vacation of a lifetime. Instead, you’ve signed yourself up for another four months of hell, and you wonder what makes a person put themselves in such

a torturous situation. I mean, come on! You’re up on a freakin’ mountain nowhere near a beach! The only thing making it worth it is that ice cold pitcher of beer you share with friends every day after class. Because with all your new notebooks and pens and a semester stuck inside, you’re gonna need more than an extra large Iced Capp to see this through.

OPINIONS

May 6, 2013

needs to be regarded as such. I can say that I side with Stephen Harper when he says, “what we are dealing with in some of these circumstances is simply criminal activity. It is youth criminal activity, it is violent criminal activity, it is sexual criminal activity and it is often internet criminal activity.” This is further exemplified when violent and sexual youth criminal activity results in the suicides of multiple female adolescents. So now the question is: why do we continue to provide our teenagers with the technologies appropriate to commit these crimes without the direct and open communication necessary to prevent them from happening?

It is obvious to me this communication is not being taken seriously. If it was, Todd, Parsons, and Pott would not have been driven to suicide when those who distributed their photos were not seriously dealt with. Is it not enough that the victims came forward to speak about the wrong that had been committed against them? That

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the rights to their bodies were taken away the night criminals spread private and damaging photos of them without their consent?

By stepping forward, these young women knew the crimes that were carried out against them, but the schools and police did not treat them as such. Just as anti-bullying campaigns are made, so should the awareness of these violent sexual crimes being carried out by young people today. These incidents are out there in our media, so the excuse of lacking knowledge does not exist. It is time we addressed the issue and call it by what it really is, a crime.

LOUGHEED VILLAGE BAR & GRILL

What do the tragedies of Amanda Todd, Rehtaeh Parsons, Audrie Pott and the Steubenville rape trial conjure up?

For one, the disheartening state of rape culture in our North American society. Second, a re-questioning of the impacts cyberbullying has on its adolescent victims. And third, the painful awareness surrounding teenage suicide.

Outside of the case involving Port Coquitlam teenager Amanda Todd, rape was carried out by adolescent males toward their intoxicated female counterparts. In a society that teaches “no means no,” these young men took the absence of a no as their

opportunity to do what they wanted to their victims.

It is not good enough to simply say “no means no” without further elaborating what that really means. No can mean a verbal expression of the word, but it also means being able to speak that word, and when a person is not in their right mind to express their consent (ie. under the influence of alcohol), it is the responsibility of the other person involved to step back and stop from going any further. This should not be up for debate, and needs to be better communicated to the younger members of our society in order for these misconceptions and episodes of rape are not perpetuated.

In all but the Steubenville rape case, each of the victims saw no alternative but to take their own lives after nude photos were spread of them without their consent. These young women were victimized twice over when

the rights to their bodies were violated — once when they were raped, and twice when their rapists distributed their private images with classmates.

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When a young woman’s private photos are shared online, not only does bullying occur, but so do many more grave problems.

This is serious and criminal, and

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e’ve all heard the term “dine and dash.” It’s when a customer goes to a bar or restaurant, runs up a tab with a server, and then takes off without paying. It’s theft, but people steal all the time. But the difference between shoplifting and dine and dashing is that it’s the server, not the business, who pays the bill at the end of the night.

As a result, many bars have created what’s called a “dine and dash fund.” Every time a server works, it’s mandatory that they contribute anywhere from $0.25 to $1 to the business. This money sits in a pot held by the manager of the establishment so that in the event of a walkout or “dine and dash” the money they have slowly accumulated pays for the bill.

It may seem like a good idea: pubs and bars in the Tri-Cities are struggling enough as it is without adding theft into the mix, and it’s only a dollar from an employee. However, the problem with this fund is that it completely contravenes the Employment Standards Act. Sections 1F and 21 explicitly state that neither employee wages nor gratuities (tips) may be deducted or used in any way by an employer for the “cost of doing business.”

While a server or bartender has a responsibility to try to stop people from stealing from the business they work for, holding the employee responsible for the money against possibly dangerous assailants makes it seem as though a $40 bill is more important than an employee’s life.

I’ve been working in the service industry for the past two years. In that time, I have been robbed at gunpoint and had a customer pull a knife on me when I wouldn’t start a tab for him.

I have also been forced to pay into dine and dash funds and for walkouts.

And though I’ve never actually been harmed by a customer, it is not unrealistic to assume someone may be armed and dangerous. There is no way of knowing what

someone will do — especially if they’re drunk.

Oftentimes, there’s nothing more someone could have done to prevent a customer from walking out on his or her bill. A server at the Meridian Arms Pub in Port Coquitlam, who asked not be named, once had to pay out over $300 for a customer’s bill. “I had taken over the table from another server who was finished their shift, and then the pub lost power,” she said. “I couldn’t remember everything that had been on the bill so I manually wrote up as much as I could but there was $300 unaccounted for when we got power back.”

That money was taken out of her next paycheque.

When asked if she thought it was wrong for the business to take that money from her, although it was not her fault, she said: “Yeah, it sucks that I lost that money, but I’ve made a lot more in the time I’ve been there than what I’ve had to pay in walkouts.”

She also told me that while the Meridian Arms does not have a dine and dash fund, every server has to pay for a walkout when they occur.

One of the only ways to ensure payment is to ask for a credit card, but this is often not expected of employees in a pub and not consistently done. “I would ask for credit cards for tabs at the (Meridian) Arms but no one else does and customers would look at me funny or get mad if I did,” she said.

Danielle Piasecki, a former floor manager at Port Coquitlam’s San Remo Pizza Home, agrees that servers should pay for walkouts.

“Most servers don’t end up paying income tax on every single dollar they make and there aren’t a lot of jobs like that out there.”

Piasecki says she believes no one speaks up against the violation because it’s part of “a deal” between employers and employees in the serving industry. “There are a lot of things that happen in this industry that shouldn’t and not just dine and dash funds,” said Piasecki. “There

are a lot of indiscretions— like servers drinking on shift with customers — that employers ignore and there’s a lot of good money to be made really fast.”

The way in which bars choose to enforce dine and dash policies varies greatly from place to place, but of the six I investigated, they all had some policy that resulted in the server paying for a dine and dash.

A nighttime shift supervisor at the Treehouse Neighbourhood Pub, Erica*, who has also worked for The Foggy Dew and The French Quarter Pub (which closed down last year) said she has never paid into a dine and dash fund or for a walkout.

“It’s illegal for them to make me pay and so I don’t,” she said. “I’ve also only ever had one walkout in the time I’ve been serving and it wasn’t my fault.”

Erica also said The Foggy Dew had a slightly different approach. “The management there makes it clear during the orientation that any drinks you take from the bar to a table become your own drinks once they leave the bar.”

time we worked for a big staff party.”0 But after a year of working there, Erica said the little “social fund” slot changed to “D+D.” Erica confronted the owner of the bar, as well as the manager, about the change and was told it was now a mandatory dine and dash fund. When she argued about the legality of the decision to create the fund, she was told that if she didn’t pay it then any walkouts that occurred would be taken out of her paycheque.

I also worked at The French Quarter and during a shift change (where the night staff relieves the day staff ) I was dealing with a customer who wanted to pay their bill and turned around to find one of my other customers missing. I looked everywhere for the gentlemen who still owed me $45 but he was gone. He made it past two other servers who were talking by the door and my manager, who was also standing by the door, but I was still blamed.

The next paycheque I received was short $45. When I asked the owner and the manager what had hap-

This means that if someone doesn’t pay the server for that drink, the onus is on the server to pay. She also said she watched The French Quarter “sneak” their way into having a dine and dash fund. “Originally there was a slot on our cash out sheets that said “social fund” and we were supposed to put in $0.50 each

pened, the owner told me: “Well, you had that walkout a week ago so I just took it out of your pay.”

Dorothy, a representative with the Employment Standards Branch, said there are no loopholes to the regulations. “It’s explicitly stated in Section 1F and Section 21 that an employer cannot take money from

an employee for a dine and dash fund or for walkouts.”

When asked why every bar was violating the Act, Dorothy said; “If people don’t report it, then we can’t fix it.” If there is an incident or wrongful garnishing of wages or gratuities, Dorothy said they (Employment Standards) would send an officer to recover the wages for the individual.

Of the servers I spoke to, only Erica knew someone who had taken action against an employer. “There was one girl I worked with who got the labour board involved when her wages were garnished at The French Quarter, and she did get the money back. She also lost her job in the process.” Erica didn’t remember the official reason the server was let go on, but said she believed the girl would have kept her job longer if she hadn’t fought against it.

No one, however, was able to answer why — since it’s against regulations — employees are still paying for walkouts. Not one of the servers, managers, or even the Employment Standards Branch had a reason.

Interestingly, there is a lot of fear from employees on the issue. Only one server I interviewed agreed to have her name printed, despite the number of people who were willing to speak with me about their bar’s policies. It would seem as though, with servers being at the mercy of an industry of management that believes it is up to the server or bartender to collect money for the booze they bring to people, no one wants to get caught pointing a finger for fear of losing their place within the industry.

It’s unclear whether or not policies will ever change, but for now, servers will continue to pay when customers don’t.

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May 6, 2013

Project

A few years ago, I received a distressed phone call from a friend.

She had just found out that she was pregnant. Her doctor strongly advised abortion because of an abdominal x-ray he had ordered to assess the cause of her abdominal discomfort. He had failed to recognize that her symptoms may be due to pregnancy and recommended abortion because of the x-ray dose her baby had received at such an early stage in pregnancy. It would seem her doctor recognized he could be held liable for any harm caused to the unborn child due to his failure to first determine if his patient was pregnant. Abortion would cover up his mistake and protect him from potential litigation. Abortion, however, was not what his patient wanted or needed. I helped my friend find a different doctor who treated both mom and unborn baby as equal patients, and my friend went on to deliver a healthy baby girl.

I was reminded of the difficulties facing pregnant mothers when witnessing some of the recent responses to the Genocide Awareness Project by SFU Lifeline. Opponents seem to believe restrictions on abortion undermine women’s rights. I am now seven months pregnant and like my friend, have seen how the prevalence of abortion undermines a mother’s rights. The general acceptance of abortion by society and by large segments of the medical profession has created a culture which limits a mother’s choice to receive optimal care for herself and her child during pregnancy. Too often, mothers facing a pregnancy crisis are steered towards abortion presumably because it is a cheaper, easier or a more convenient choice. Abortion, like any medical procedure, is never 100 per cent safe. While

abortion is always lethal to the baby, abortion can also carry significant risks to the mom. The recent high-profile death of a New York mother following a botched 33-week abortion testifies to the risks, as do the numerous documented cases of mothers being taken from abortion clinics in ambulances following emergency complications.

Unrestricted legal access to abortion is based on the notion that legal abortion is safe, and illegal abortion is unsafe. A recent study examined the effect on maternal mortality following a ban in 1989 on therapeutic abortions in Chile. Instead of maternal mortality rates increasing as mothers turned to illegal abortion, the mortality rate decreased.

Chile now has a lower maternal

mortality rate than the US. The study attributed this decrease to delivery by skilled birth attendants, access to maternal healthcare services such as nutritional programs, and an increase in women’s educational levels.

Mothers and their unborn children deserve good medical care, not abortion. Direct abortion is never medically necessary

to save the life of a mother. In order to understand this statement, it is necessary to first recognize there is a fundamental difference between abortion and necessary medical treatments that are carried out to save the life of the mother, even if such treatment results in the loss of life of her unborn child. A pregnant mother diagnosed with uterine cancer, for instance, can have her uterus removed in order to save her life. That the life-saving surgery results in the death of her unborn child is not the intent of the surgery. In the case of medical complications that arise after the unborn child has reached 22 weeks (the age of viability), the child is delivered prematurely to allow both mom and baby to be cared for. Restrictions on

abortion do not affect the availability of care offered to mothers during pregnancy.

Pregnant mothers are vulnerable. Unrestricted access to abortion increases the vulnerability of mothers and their unborn children. Initiatives like the Genocide Awareness Project should be welcomed because they help us recognize that a pregnant woman is not one patient, but that mother and child are two equal patients who should each be afforded the greatest care medicine can provide.

Suzana Kovacic holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry and is studying towards a master’s degree in bioethics.

ARTS

The Flying Pig has just opened its second location in Gastown (the first location was Yaletown). This new location was previously filled by chain restaurant Chronic Taco, but the replacement is considerably classier. Entrees include Red Wine Braised Beef Short Rib and Wild Seafood Pappardelle. Or, if you’re looking for something a little more low-key, try Andrew’s Pulled Pork Poutine or the Jumbo Shortrib Macaroni.

arts editor email / phone

May 6, 2013

The Biltmore Cabaret will host The Smiths Tribute Night on May 9th, an evening not to be missed. For $5 at the door you get entry to several performances by different bands, including Easy Meat, Louise Burns, In Medias Res, Christopher Smith, Pleasure Cruise, Devon Lougheed of Beekeeper, and Dead Soft, among others. There will also be a screening of The South Banks Show with The Smiths at 9 p.m., so get there early and don’t miss out. Cheap beer and “Hand in Glove”, what else are you going to do on a Thursday night?

DOXA is on from May 3-12, and with 74 screenings at 5 different venues, there’s bound to be something that appeals to everyone. The documentary film festival features films from around the world. The opening night film, Occupy the Movie, is directed by Vancouverite Corey Ogilvie, who will be present at the screening. Other highlights include East Hastings Pharmacy and Backbone: Vancouver Experimental Cinema from 1967-1981. Check out doxafestival.ca for screening times and tickets.

Daryn Wright arts@the-peak.ca / 778.782.4560

Pay a visit to the Vancouver Art Gallery for a lecture by Jean-Francoise Chevrier. The Paris-based curator and art historian will be discussing the work of Patrick Faigenbaum, focusing on the artist’s photography in this context of its first showing in North America. Stop in early and check out Faigenbaum’s work first, and while you’re at it, check out the newly installed Grand Hotel: Redesigning Modern Life exhibit.

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Lost & Found Market is hosting a Project Space Fundraiser, running from May 10 until June 2. Project Space is a volunteer-run bookshop, publisher, and alternative art space. Head out to the Lost & Found space, located in Gastown, and dig through the mountains of vintage and gently loved goods. The selection includes furniture, clothing, shoes, housewares, artworks, ceramics, board games, books, records, and more. There will be an opening night event on May 10 at 8 p.m., so pay them a visit and support your local artists and authors. Hey, you might even find that one Cole Porter record you’ve been looking for.

QUESTIONS? For more information, contact david@the-peak.ca. More details are available at the-peak.ca, at http://goo.gl/BqgdL, or at the web page this thing to the right will send you to.

16 ARTS

Caroline Adderson is a prolific author as well as former mentor for The Writer’s Studio at SFU. She continues to teach courses through SFU’s Writing & Publishing Program. Adderson is a writer of both adult novels and children’s books, with 12 books published and at least two confirmed for release next year. She finds an interesting complement between these two different genres, and finds that having multiple projects actually balances her writing life.

“Kids books are shorter, you can put it aside and come back. An adult book you could work for three years on it, while kids books may only take about six months.”

Her work is also balanced by a new interest in the heritage of Vancouver houses.

Her fascination began when exploring the history of her own house. In an essay about this research published in Geist magazine, Adderson says when her 96 year-old neighbour Pearl passed away, the house she’d lived in since she was 11 years old was slated for demolition. “[The house’s] stories and secrets, which were intertwined with the stories and secrets from my house, would be lost forever when the house went down. These old houses are repositories of narrative. Not only do they contain the histories of all the successive owners, but also they carry the history of all the materials that were used to build them.”

And so Adderson began watching the other houses in her neighbourhood, and soon became distraught about the houses being torn down. She began to research

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the stories behind the houses, inspired to do something even just personally, to document these disappearing houses. She now runs a Facebook page called Vancouver Vanishes, posting photographs of demolished homes and who the original residents were.

Adderson is currently working on an adult novel told through multiple short stories. Some have dubbed these types of novels — consisting of collections of stories rather than the traditional novel form — “Linked Short Stories” and Adderson is interested in form and experimenting with the label “novel-in-stories”. Some of the stories have already been published, including “Poppycock” in Best Canadian Stories 12 and “I Feel Lousy” in Eighteen Bridges magazine, which won the Alberta Magazine Publishers Association Gold Medal for Fiction.

Caroline Adderson’s books for children are also constantly receiving nominations and awards, such as the first book in her new John Dooley series. The first two early chapter books for kids have already been published, with four more expected. Each book takes place during one week in the life of a young boy, named John Dooley of course. Adderson’s middle-grade novel, Middle of Nowhere, has also been shortlisted for the Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize as part of the BC Book Prizes.

Earlier in April 2013, Adderson joined the BC Book Prizes On Tour for a week, visiting schools, libraries, and bookstores in the Peace Region of British Columbia.

E.R. Brown — or Eric as friends call him — has been a full-time writer for more than 20 years but only recently published his first novel. He began as a technical writer working for advertising agencies and government, and now does freelance compiling annual reports and website copy. “Corporate writing is an invisible presence,” Brown explains, mentioning he had fiction aspirations for a while before completing The Writer’s Studio at SFU in 2004 with Caroline Adderson as his mentor. Almost Criminal was inspired by a conversation with a friend about the pervasiveness of marijuana in British Columbia, and published by Dundern on April 20, 2013.

“There is an enormous economy going on [with marijuana], nearly $8 billion annually, and no one talks about it.”

Brown’s previous creative writing had been literary pieces published in magazines such as EVENT and Prairie Fire as well as a radio play on CBC. So when his novel began taking form, it was initially as literary fiction. However, his agent told him “if there are Hells Angels, it’s not a CanLit novel” and suggested he explore the crime fiction genre. “Canada is very uptight about divisions [between literary and genre fiction], which isn’t the case in the UK,” states Brown. Once he allowed the crime thriller to come through, the story took off.

The research process was not as difficult, despite pot being an illegal substance in Canada. “There are lots of textbooks,

including a book on Amazon called How to Start a Grow Op,” explains Brown, who also cited a CBC documentary about the weed business as a helpful source. But he had difficulty verifying facts and descriptions. He travelled to Nelson and Harrison, which are “big weed towns” according to Brown, but no one wanted to talk.

Fortunately, Marc Emery, BC’s ‘Prince of Pot’ was one of Brown’s early readers of the manuscript and caught several factual errors. Brown also had a friend-ofa-friend, who wished to remain anonymous, who would answer questions.

During our interview, the question of legalization or decriminalization arose.

“Once you understand what’s going on, you see just how the policies influence things.” He explains that the police find weed a “massive pain in the neck” whereas opponents believe it feeds Hells Angels’ activities, which “would only get worse if it was decriminalized, but if you legalize it, you can tax it and put it in stores.” But Brown says he “can’t see it [legalization] happening anytime soon, unless tempted by tax dollars.”

Almost Criminal is available in print and ebook format. Brown is already working on his next novel, also crime fiction, but isn’t ready to disclose the subject except to say it’s a completely different world from weed. “Crime fiction is a lot of fun. There is more plot than literary novels but you still have to be a good writer.”

ARTS

The best punk rock album of all time is barely a punk rock album at all. As much Bob Marley and The Beatles as it is The Stooges and The Sex Pistols, London Calling manages to say something more subversively political and unabashedly honest about England in the seventies than any straightforward punk rock outfit, before or afterwards.

Sprawling an astounding 19 tracks, London Calling’s musical diversity is still a revelation. The group co-opts everything from reggae and funk to rockabilly and jazz in order to deliver their snarling — but never sloppy — message. Mick Jones and Joe Strummer, surely punk rock’s McCartney and Lennon, balance their diametrically opposed musical tendencies

I’ve tried to put my finger on why Bankrupt!, the latest release from Versailles foursome Phoenix, doesn’t speak to me the way their effortlessly brilliant Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix did. Maybe everyone is asking themselves the same question — with its impenetrably

May 6, 2013

beautifully, letting the album precariously balance on the verge of total hysteria.

On album highlights like “Lost in the Supermarket” and “Train in Vain”, Jones proves that his comparably delicate and measured vocal style can be just as subversive and insurgent as Strummer’s rebel yell. Even bassist Paul Simonon, the often overlooked beating heart of The Clash, gets his moment in the spotlight on “The Guns of Brixton”, one of the best anti-police anthems of all time. Bobbies beware.

That London Calling manages to come off as so well-balanced, so deliberate, is to underrate just how bravely rebellious its songs are. London Calling is a viciously veracious account of life in London’s merciless seventies underbelly; “Hateful”’s frank portrayal of drug deals and addiction rivals The Velvet Underground’s “I’m Waiting For the Man”; “Spanish Bombs” brilliantly uses the Spanish Civil War as a metaphor for the political unrest of the time.

The album’s best quality might be that it’s still fun to listen to, despite its weighty subject matter: The Clash manage to say something completely worth saying, something no one else was saying at the time, without lecturing or sermonizing. London Calling is as much a musical masterpiece as it is a masterpiece of social commentary; I dare you to try and find another punk rock album that can boast the same.

simplistic peach cover and emotionally vacant singles, the group’s much anticipated follow-up to Wolfgang seems like its carbon copy, infused with twice the Euro-trash synths and half the historical references of its predecessor.

Bankrupt! even features a sprawling, mostly instrumental mood piece halfway through the album, reminiscent of Wolfgang’s “Love Like a Sunset.”

To be fair, Bankrupt! is a lot of fun to listen to — its synths are warm and tasteful; its choruses are plentiful and suitably catchy. The lead vocalist Thomas Mars’ smooth vocals soar in all the right places. Lead single “Entertainment” is a modern-day “Hong Kong Garden”, and “Drakkar Noir” joyously apes 70s funk. The album has its high points, and it’s light on the low ones: there’s a consistent string of likeable tracks from start to finish, and it rarely seems to drag or overstay its welcome.

Bankrupt! is a perfectly pleasant, well-made pop album, and it’s sure

Bradford Cox, Deerhunter’s crossdressing, gaunt frontman, has described Monomania as an avant-garde rock and roll record, and listeners of the band should expect nothing less.

The band — whose core is the writing partnership between Cox and lead guitarist Lockett Pundt, the latter’s talent for pop melodies grounding the former’s experimental bent — have built a rewarding musical career in subverting expectations and treading their own path. Monomania is no different in this respect. Shedding any leftover shoegaze tendencies the band had acquired since 2008’s Microcastle, the album feels like a return to the punkrock inspired sound of Deerhunter’s earlier albums.

The majority of Monomania’s twelve tracks build on a fairly straightforward, tried-and-true guitar, bass

to soundtrack many a summer and inspire more than a few sunbathed make-out sessions. But it’s forgettable and shallow. Wolfgang, on the other hand, hit me right away: I still know every song by heart, whereas I had to listen to Bankrupt! a third time while I wrote this review just to remember what half the songs sound like. With so much incredible, breathtaking music in the world, listening to an album as unremarkable as Bankrupt! feels like time wasted.

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and drums skeleton. The limitations of this setup seem to have inspired a completely new musical tone in the band: Cox’s airy tenor has never sounded so acidic and impassioned, and the band behind him has never sounded quite so insistent and loud.

The songs seem to draw inspiration from artists like The Rolling Stones and Bo Diddley more than ever before.

Monomania is the closest that Deerhunter are likely to get to a straightforward rock and roll record, as though Cox and company are doing their best impressions of the hip-gyrating, sweat-coated rhythm and blues bands of old.

This doesn’t always work as well as it’s intended to. As good as the songs here are — something we’ve come to expect from the band — they lack the diversity that other Deerhunter albums have hinged on. Instead of giving Monomania the singularity and focus the band surely intended, this sameness gives the album a tiring, repetitive quality which keeps it from ascending to the level of most of their previous work. Overall, though, Monomania comes off as an interesting and mostly successful new musical direction for the band, who’ve once again solidified their status as one of the most interesting acts playing today.

18 ARTS

May 6, 2013

Daryn Wright Arts Editor The race for the title of best ramen in Vancouver has been going on for a while now, the West End being the hub through which all noodle-spokes meet. Some of these Denman and Robson-housed establishments require long, but worthwhile waits. Ramen Santouka of Robson St. often features hordes of noodle seekers huddling outside in the rain, and Kintaro Ramen of Denman St. (only a couple of blocks away) is usually filled with steaming bowls and slurping mouths late into the night. Evidently, Vancouverites love their ramen noodles, and Japanese chefs are forever trying to one up each other in creating the very best bowl.

Newly opened in Gastown, at the corner of Cordova and Carrall (in the old Boneta spot), No. 1 Noodle House has set itself apart from its West End competitors. The concept’s brainchild is Mark Brand of beloved Save on Meats, The Diamond, and newly anchored Portside, to name a few. Having only opened its doors in the past week, the joint is running on a soft opening, meaning that menu items are still being worked out and, most unfortunately, there is still no liquor license. So while you can’t enjoy your noodles the right way — with a frosty bottle of Asahi — the service was incredibly friendly and made up for the lack of alcohol by giving us cards for free beers at Portside, to which we immediately scampered afterwards.

This reviewer, accompanied by two equally eager noodleaficionados, decided to order from an array of offerings on the menu, which is small but not limited to ramen noodles. First came the green salad, accompanied by pickled cukes, carrots and daikon, with a sesame miso dressing. It was sweet and flavourful, with a bit of a tangy kick, although it was too ordinary and lacking in creativity; we would have preferred if it had focused more on the pickled vegetables than the greens.

Next came a stack of crispy pork spring rolls, which won our hearts immediately. The pastry was crispy and salty in the best way, and the entire roll was bursting with flavour. The dipping

sauce accompanying it was spicy and sweet, a perfect addition to the rolls. These were so good they’d be worth the visit alone.

Next came the two steaming bowls of ramen, one of each kind currently offered on the menu.

The pork tonkatsu was a misobased soup, topped with half a hard-boiled egg, a thin piece of crispy seaweed, a tender piece of pork, and a few arugula leaves.

The noodles were springy and done perfectly, but the broth was disappointingly bland in flavour.

Even with some added spices, we found it to be less flavourful than

desired, and a tad too oily.

The Shoyu ramen replaced the spicy chicken on the menu for the day, and had a much more flavourful broth than the tonkatsu, being soy-based and consisting of a mixture of both fish and pork broth. Upon the bed of noodles sat an egg-cake, a thick slice of pork, and more arugula leaves, which was a nice peppery addition. The flavour combinations were much richer and more complex than the first bowl, but it still didn’t live up to our previous experiences at Ramen Santouka on Robson.

Not yet satiated, we finished off with an order of the chicken wings, the crowning achievement of the night. These deepfried salty morsels were topped with cilantro and perhaps the best spicy sweet sauce I’ve had.

The chicken remained crispy while maintaining the perfect amount of sauciness, and the balance of salty to sweet was

like a great caramel. These babies beat out the noodles, sadly enough, but we still left satisfied and hankering for our free beers.

Despite the less than awardwinning ramen and the lack of alcohol, the service was friendly and the food was very affordable,

meriting No. 1 Noodle House another visit in the near future.

I’d recommend the pit stop for those sniffing out noodles far from the West End, and particularly for those with a hankering for wings — which I, for one, always have.

HUMOUR

May 6, 2013

humour editor email / phone

Brad McLeod humour@the-peak.ca / 778.782.4560

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20 HUMOUR

BURNABY—BC Liberal Party leader, Christy Clark, made a startling admission this past weekend during a campaign stop by revealing that her over 20-year political career has just been the result of a dare placed on her by a child.

The news comes less than a week after it was revealed in a Vancouver Sun profile piece that Clark had been coaxed into running a red light by her 12-year-old son, Hamish, a

known scoundrel.

“I know I shouldn’t have done it, it was a horrible, horrible mistake” Clark said of her career as a politician, “I don’t know what I was thinking, I don’t even have the slightest interest in government... but I couldn’t let that goddamn kid get the better of me.”

Clark explained that up until her twenties, her life goal was to simply to go out, travel the world and pretend to go to universities, but she was suddenly launched into a life of politics after being confronted by a 12-year-old boy.

“I remember I was just minding my own business, hanging out as usual at the Diner Cafe chatting with my perfectly diverse group of friends of all ages, races and target demographics, when this kid came up and double-dog dared me

May 6, 2013

to become premier of BC,” explained Clark “Well at first I just ignored him, but after he said it a second time I had no choice but to dedicate my life to provincial politics.”

Although Clark had little interest in actually being premier, she slowly worked up the political ladder beginning by briefly winning a scandalous SFSS election at Simon Fraser University before eventually becoming a scandalous member of Gordon Campbell’s Liberal government and then replacing

him as premier after his many scandals, all just to stick it to some kid.

According to those in Clark’s inner circle though, the incumbent premier is now at a loss at what to do next having now proven that kid wrong, and the only way her party has been able to have her continue on in this election is by taunting her with a series of escalating dares.

“We started out with small stuff, like getting her to wear silly glasses during press conferences and having her work in the words ‘growing our economy’ into every single question she answers,” explained a member of Clark’s cabinet who preferred to remain anonymous “But for the last week of the campaign we have some really outrageous dares planned, I can’t really talk about them but believe me she’s going to

being saying some really crazy shit, it’ll be even more ridiculous than the time we dared her to convince people that Family Day was a real thing!”

Although Clark’s revelation has sparked many to believe that her main opponent in the election, Adrian Dix, is also just fulfilling a dare, according to inside sources he is absolutely genuine in his political career, or at least that’s how he was programmed to be.

In her closing remarks to reporters Clark once again revealed that she wasn’t a perfect parent, or a perfect person but that she was trying really hard, she was then interrupted by an audience member who dared her to jump over 14 garbage cans on her motorcycle. The stunt is expected to take place this Saturday outside of the Victoria parliament building.

HUMOUR

VANCOUVER— According to a joint statement from the two schools early last week, Simon Fraser University and longtime on-and-off rival, the University of British Columbia, are officially taking “a break” from their hatred of one another this summer in order to pursue other rivals.

The decision is apparently a mutual agreement according to sources close to the schools, amid rumours that the universities desire to compete with each other has been lackluster in recent years and that UBC has been in a not-so secret secondary rivalry with UVic for some time now.

“It’s really a private matter between the combined 80,000 students of the two schools” explained UVic undergraduate Todd Barker, “but to me it seems like UBC really hasn’t been holding up their end of rivalry recently and has been way too respectful of students choosing to study at SFU without making snide comments about how they just couldn’t get into UBC… that’s probably because UBC is full of pussies and UVIC FOOTBALL RULES!!!”

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Neither UBC nor SFU have had anything negative to say about each other since the announcement, but both schools are optimistic that they’ll be able to think of something by nextfall.

“I just really respect UBC as a great learning institution right now” admitted one SFU student about their former enemy, “I mean, it seems like they’ve got a really nice campus, they’re one of the top ranked schools in the world, and plus my brother goes there now… I’d love to hate them but I can’t really think of any real reasons to other than their close proximity to us.”

UBC students have been equally silent and polite about their feelings towards SFUers and in a visit to the UBC campus last week The Peak actually overheard a student legitimately remark “well I’ve heard SFU’s got a good communications program” without even a trace of sarcasm.

“You know since we moved to the NCAA and don’t really have many sports competitions anymore it’s been really had to keep up a healthy rivalry”

commented John Scott, a senior at SFU “Of course, the rivalry has always been a little rocky but now that the sports are gone we can’t even fake any animosity.”

While UBC has already been linked to hating UVic, Capilano and Langara over the summer, SFU has not been as active in picking up rivals.

“Well, I’ve been trying to spark a little rivalry between us

and the University of Toronto because there’s a guy who goes there that went to my high school and he’s a bit of a dick,” explained first year SFU Kinesiology student, Alan Parker, “but you know how it is with these long-distancerivalries, they never work out.”

Although all indications have been that the pair of schools will be willing to give the rivalry another go once the

summer semester is over and they’re done exploring, some students however, like UBC’s James Durant, believe that it might be over for good.

“The rivalry doesn’t really work anymore, we’re just too different” Durant told The Peak upon hearing the news, “All of our competitiveness just seems kind of silly now, you know, it’s like…wait did you just call it the SFU-UBC rivalry?”

22 HUMOUR Well, it’s the start of new semester and that can only mean several things! One of those things is playing a hell of a lot of Icebreaker Games, your first opportunity of the semester to introduce yourself to the people who over the next 13 weeks might just become some of your closest acquaintances!

These games can be tough though, so it’s important for you to know how to conduct yourself properly. Remember: the impression you make here is how your peers will think of you for the entire remainder of the first class! (After that they’ll go back to judging you based on your looks like the rest of the world) Anyways, here’s a basic guide to some of the most important things to remember in order to make your icebreaker introduction memorable this week.

This is definitely the most difficult step but if you want to do a good job in your icebreaker games, you’re probably going to have to actually show up to the first week of class. I know it’s pointless and they’ll just go over everything again next week, but as famous nervous person Woody Allen once said “showing up is 80 per cent of success.”* *This statement should not be confused with “showing up will get you 80 per cent, success!” which I learned the hard way on my English 203 final exam last semester.

No matter what icebreaker game you’re doing, you will almost always be asked to say something interesting about yourself. This can be very challenging since you are probably a very boring person, but just remember that the phrase “I’d like to say more but I promised Barack that I wouldn’t” can make any boring old male strip-club story more interesting.

While being yourself is important in an icebreaker game, if you really want to be remembered, you are going to have to be better than everyone else. So, if the class is going around the room each saying what one thing they would bring with them to a desert island and the person next to you says “well I’d probably bring my iPod because I love music,” you have to take it up a notch and say “well I’d probably bring my iPhone because I love music too, but I’m richer than you… plus I could use it to call The Rolling Stones who are friends of mine.”

This should be pretty obvious, but if you don’t already constantly lie in your everyday life, you should at least do it during an icebreaker game. “Two truths and a lie” is always much more difficult than “Two lies and a third more ridiculous lie.”

This one might not be quite as obvious as some of the others, but unlike most social situations, racism is actually frowned upon during ice breaker games. I know it can be very tempting if you have to introduce a fellow student to the class, to comment on their inferior bone structure but you should probably be advised to stick to just describing their hobbies, goals and body odor.

May 6, 2013

DIVERSIONS / ETC

May 6, 2013

Across 1- Bone to pick 5- Mikhail’s wife 10- Excuse me 14- French 101 verb 15- Dadaist Max 16- Brazilian soccer star 17- Official records 18- One-twelfth of a year 19- “___ Rider” starred Clint Eastwood 20- Vacuum bottle 22- Arm coverings 24- Destined 26- Comic Boosler 27- Company of actors 30- Mary of “The Maltese Falcon” 32- In any way 33- Fictional Jane 34- Flat sound 38- Debussy subject 39- Rapturous delight 42- GI mail drop 43- Attention getter 45- Elevator man 46- Swiss mathematician 48- Steel girder 50- Facet 51- Hindu incarnation 54- Surround snugly 56- Pungent sauce 58- Attack 62- Astronaut Shepard 63- Fit to be tied 65- Eye drop 66- Centers of activity 67- Female fox 68- Writer Wiesel 69- Slang expert Partridge 70- Excrete 71- Repudiate

Down 1- Fluff egg whites 2- Draw with acid 3- Harper’s Bazaar illustrator 4- Anxious 5- Distant 6- “______ by any other name…”

7- Roadside stop 8- Fast fliers 9- Sporting competi-

tors 10- Becomes visible 11- Leaden 12- Actress Barkin 13- 1980s attorney general 21- Sap tree 23- “Evil Woman” band 25- Between sunrise and sunset 27- Pack down 28- Numbered rds.

29- Rowing implements 31- Ladies of Sp. 33- It is in Spain 35- Cut-price retail event 36- Blueprint detail 37- Category 40- Strong-arm 41- Affirmatives 44- Of great size 47- Modernised 49- ___-relief

50- Missing 51- Start of a Dickens title 52- Boldness 53- Primitive calculators 55- Ships’ officers 57- Not a dup.

59- River to the Ubangi 60- Reclined 61- Deuce topper 64- Chopper

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24 LAST WORD

features editor email / phone

The popular perception of Western feminists is of militant misandrists — chips firmly lodged in shoulders — perpetually decrying societal repression both real and imagined.

Perhaps this is an unfair designation, and most feminists might claim that those doing the designating are closeted misogynists. They may be right, but it’s hard to identify with a movement that tries to encapsulate an enormous range of issues within a very narrow us-versus-them mindset while actively romanticizing, even fetishizing, historical inequality and gender warfare.

But how does one define feminism? It seems like a straightforward enough answer to an arbitrary question, but the way we answer it pigeonholes the ongoing march to equality into separate camps: feminism as a definition of an individual’s quality versus feminism as an evaluation of an individual’s worth. Let me explain.

Mary Berry, a judge on The Great British Bakeoff, made her name as a food writer, publishing over seventy books in a wildly successful career spanning four decades. She is, by all accounts, an ideal pin-up for feminism: a self-made woman who has gained international fame and respect as an authority in her field without having to make personal sacrifices (Berry has been married for almost fifty years and is a mother of three). But she doesn’t buy into feminism, labeling it a ‘dirty word’. Berry specifically knocked the idea of protracted maternal leave, believing it affects small businesses from employing women with or planning to start families. She’s not anti-female mind you, claiming she “would always stand up for women,” but she doesn’t want “women’s rights and all that sort of thing.”

Feminists have lined up to castigate Berry in the press as an antique who took advantage of rights won by suffragettes before slamming the door behind her. Others, like veteran broadcaster Joan Bakewell, strangely went into damage-control-mode on Berry’s behalf. “When I read that, I felt that Mary belonged in a completely different world,” Bakewell noted before trying to reclaim Berry’s allegiance to the feminist flag: “I think Mary would expect to be paid a decent wage for the job she does. . . as

Rachel Braeuer features@the-peak.ca / 778.782.4560

much as a man. So to that extent she is a feminist without realizing it.”

In a moment of reflection, Barbara Ellen of The Guardian pointedly inquired whether feminists sport a bizarre form of sensitivity or neediness that drives a desire to claim every successful woman as one of their sisterhood; but then regressed and concluded it best to treat every successful anti-feminist woman with the same disdain they treat the movement. Two steps forward, one step back, as though success and feminism are mutually inclusive. It is no longer sufficient for women to attain success on the same level as a man; they are required to exceed them in the public sphere to be considered a proper feminist while their efforts in the private sphere are labeled irrelevant. And God help them if they’re not on board with the movement.

This infighting is set in relief by feminist movements in the Middle East and India. A month ago, a nineteen-year-old Tunisian woman posed topless online with the statement “my body is my own and not the source of anyone’s honour” provocatively writ across her chest. Her actions inspired a number of others to similarly protest the aggressively paternalistic Arab governments that claim absolute morality by way of religious interpretation and attempt to “own” and oppress women. While flawed, this idea of controlled nudity is an absolute expression of freedom, transcending womanhood. A person has the right to govern themselves, their bodies, careers and actions without fear of persecution, assault, or belittlement; their quality unrelated to gender.

Feminism is no outdated concept. Gender driven inequality and violence are international pandemics akin to sectarian aggression and terrorism. Unequal access to literacy and professional opportunities has hamstrung women globally, condemning innumerable lives to endless subservience. The need for a united voice, the so-called ‘sisterhood,’ is integral to women realizing their full potential.

This is where the functional definition of feminism fails. While modern feminism has retreated from its more radical roots, wherein sects called for the systematic eradication of female-male relationships and

proselytized societal upheaval. The core tenets of feminism have always been emancipation of women from dependency and establishment of equality. But equality is seemingly no longer satisfactory.

Feminists cannot agree on who is a true feminist nor what constitutes true feminism; instead of focusing their efforts on eliminating qualifiers and perceived inadequacies associated with one gender or the other, ultra-feminists (irrespective of the degree of radicalism) demand a certain type of woman.

In an article for Slate, author Hannah Rosin bemoaned the anxiousness of angry young feminists to sharpen their pitchforks as she recounted memories of book signings around the country: “I can feel it when they [the audience] save their applause… for when I mention a sin committed against the women of America. Or when a well-prepared member of the crowd…reads back to me [statistics] about the tiny percentage of female CEOs, as if I’d never heard them before.” Even more incredulous was the hypersensitivity over the obituary run in The New York Times for Yvonne Bell, which led off with, “She made a mean beef stroganoff.” Critics of the obit lambasted the paper for highlighting Bell’s domestic abilities, as though sharing an endearing personal trait somehow minimized her extraordinary accomplishments.

Modern radical feminism dwells in a loop. Despite envisioning a utopia populated and managed solely by women, it constructs a hierarchy where domestic achievements are considered lesser than professional accomplishments. Despite reaching out to men to achieve acceptance and a status as equals, it identifies men as enemies, reinforcing divisions. It feeds on its own identity crisis, while sullying its own name.

The popular movement Who Needs Feminism? wisely elected not to define the term itself, instead focusing on eliminative negative connotations associated with it. This is probably feminism’s best bet as the weight of unfocused internal arguments, demanded allegiance and petty divisions may yet sink the entire enterprise, rendering the movement irrelevant.

But then again, I’m a man. What do I know?

May 6, 2013