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FIRST PEEK

October 20 , 2014 · Volume 148, Issue 8

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FIRST PEEK

October 20 , 2014

The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Colorado in Boulder; it entailed observing 347 pairs of identical and fraternal twins as they worked through tasks, and analyzing them on their abilities to set and reach goals.

Everybody deals with deadlines in different ways, but generally speaking, most people procrastinate to varying degrees.

Time pressure has a different effect on different people.

For some, it overwhelms and overcomes them, and results in missed opportunities and late penalties. For me, fear of failure is like an Epipen to the heart — the less time I have, the more focused I become.

A study published this spring in Psychological Science reported that procrastination is a genetic tendency and, therefore, some people are more prone to it than others.

Procrastination has a reputation for being a bad habit.

However, the results of this study suggest that a genetic tendency toward procrastination is linked with impulsivity — a trait that would have aided our ancestors in survival.

This could explain how habitual procrastinators, like myself, keep getting away with it. When the 11th hour hits, the adrenaline

kicks in and I am able to finish something under extreme pressure. The satisfaction of pulling off a paper mere hours before its due date, resulting in average grades or better, can be addictive.

While procrastination is usually seen as a waste of time, I justify myself by not spending this ‘wasted’ time worrying. I delay tasks with a purpose, and trust that I will be able to handle them at a later date. After each lastminute triumph, I am reminded of how fragile a balance this is and a seed of doubt reminds me that I just might drop the ball next time. But, even with the risks and doubts, I continually find myself in the same situation.

After a few instances of coming through in a tight frame of time, it’s easy to rely on your own ability to rally at the last minute. I can’t say that this is a good strategy, but it’s simply a crutch that I’ve become accustomed to leaning on.

Generally, people don’t make masterpieces under pressure, but it’s a damn good motivator.

Thin k yo do b u ca ette n r?

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NEWS

The Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) will hold their Annual General Meeting (AGM) this Wednesday, October 22, at which students in attendance

news editor email / phone

October 20, 2014

will decide the immediate future of the Build SFU Student Union Building.

In addition to the usual society business handled at the AGM, the membership will vote on two questions related to the Student Union Building and stadium projects.

The first is a special resolution that, if passed, will allow the society to pursue a loan to proceed with the construction of the Student Union Building. The second is an addition to the bylaws that will ensure that the Build SFU levy, which will be used to pay back any loan related to the project, will not be cancelled before the loan is repaid.

Marc Fontaine, Build SFU general manager, explained the significance of this vote to The

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Leah Bjornson associate news editor news@the-peak.ca / 778.782.4560

Peak: “This AGM is particularly important because the Build SFU project won’t continue on schedule if undergrad students don’t attend the AGM to vote to allow the student society to take out the loan to build the building and to amend the bylaws to add a new bylaw.”

He continued, “What’s coming at the AGM is completely expected and it’s just the next step in the project. The student society and the Society Act of BC have rules saying that societies need to ask their members — in this case undergraduate students — to approve loans.”

Fontaine also spoke to the bylaw addition: “We have a source of revenue to pay for the building, and that’s the Build SFU levy that students voted on and approved, but we need to make sure that students won’t take back that money to pay for the building before the building is paid off.

“So it’s pretty simple: it’s just the addition of the bylaw to give the banks more comfort that we will repay the loan, and that we won’t get a loan, build the building, and then stop paying the loan.”

In order to pass these questions, the SFSS must achieve quorum of 250, which is the minimum number of members needed at a meeting to conduct business. The SFSS speculates that the last time they made quorum at at an AGM was in 2008.

Zied Masmoudi, SFSS VP student services, emphasized that this AGM is markedly different from those held during the past few years. He explained, “The main difference is the agenda items. Over the last couple years, we’ve only had the standard agenda items — approval of minutes, going over the annual report, [and so

Melissa Roach

on] — it’s been pretty standard, nothing really exciting.

“This year we have more high-level decisions on the agenda, and that’s why it’s really important to have quorum this year, and that’s why it’s really important for SFU students to come out and to make a difference.”

If the questions are passed on Wednesday, the SFSS will be able to return to the banks that have made offers and sign off on those offers, meaning that construction can begin on time in April 2015.

If the questions are not passed or if the meeting fails to meet quorum, Fontaine expects that the SFSS would host a Special General Meeting in January, at which they would ask the same questions of students.

“There isn’t much benefit in waiting until January — there’s actually some disadvantage in that the project will be delayed and the opening date will be delayed, and there will be some cost implications,” Fontaine said.

The AGM will take place at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday in the SFU Theatre on Burnaby campus, and, according to Masmoudi, will provide students with “a unique opportunity to make a difference and make decisions that will affect both the student experience and the future of this campus.”

NEWS

The Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) food bank has officially expanded its reach to the Vancouver campus at Woodwards, and plans to expand to SFU’s Surrey campus in the near future.

According to the SFSS board of directors, $500 has been allocated for 100 Dining Hall vouchers for Burnaby, $1,875 for 75 Safeway vouchers for SFU Surrey, and $2,000 for 80 Nester’s Market vouchers at the Burnaby or Vancouver locations.

Vouchers are now available at the SFSS general office or at Nester’s Market opposite Woodwards.

The SFSS took over responsibility for the program on October 1, 2013 after Student Services withdrew its support.

According to SFSS president Chardaye Bueckert, the SFSS was “committed to making sure that students could access needs based food support on campus.”

This led to the aforementioned

CLIVE (Coastal Impact Visualization Environment) is a project co-directed by an SFU professor. The project won the People’s Choice Award at a major MITsponsored contest that concluded in early October.

The contest, entitled ‘Communicating Coastal Risk and Resiliency,’ focused on identifying projects that facilitate the communication of climate change data to the public, while also providing a

October 20, 2014

voucher system that is currently in place at SFU campuses.

In an interview with The Peak, Bueckert and Faculty of Communications, Art and Technology representative Shirin Escarcha explained the role of the SFSS in the food bank program and its expansion to Vancouver.

The SFSS’ Food Bank Working Group, which is spearheading the project, wanted to explore the possibility of “serv[ing] the students who are primarily based in downtown campuses, not only in Woodwards but at Harbour Centre as well,” Escarcha explained.

The two lauded the voucher system, which offers redeemable coupons worth $25 at a time, broken down into two $10 vouchers and one $5 voucher.

The vouchers can be used to purchase any food product in Nester’s Market. Bueckert commented, “Instead of just having canned, non-perishable foods, they [students] can access produce and dairy and people with dietary restrictions have a larger variety of options.”

The receipts that are given to students are copied and returned to the SFSS, who then reimburse Nester’s Market for items purchased with the

system from which real solutions can be identified.

CLIVE is the product of a crosscountry collaboration between SFU’s Spatial Interface Research Lab (SIRL) and the University of Prince Edward Island’s (UPEI) Climate Research Lab. This technology combines sea level rise and coastal erosion predictions with complex spatial data from PEI, and runs this data through a 3D game engine.

Operating as a computer program, it is controlled with either a keyboard or a game controller. The user is able to navigate within a virtual representation of PEI and trigger visual projections of sea level rise and coastal erosion for a given year (ranging from 1968 to 2100) to see how the land is impacted.

“The dialogue it has stimulated is one of our greatest success stories. It has brought science, our best science, into the public realm,” said Nicholas Hedley, director of SIRL,

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The Vancouver Polish Film Festival came to SFU Woodward’s over the weekend of Oct. 17-19. The festival featured screenings of 12 different noteworthy Polish films.

The three-day event showed films of various genres, including documentaries, dramas, thrillers, and comedies.

vouchers. Statistics compiled by the board from these vouchers show that 63.63 per cent of all food purchased between January and March 2014 was perishable.

Of this percentage, nine per cent was junk food and 2.89 per cent was frozen food.

Bueckert explained these findings: “Clearly people are using [the voucher system] for healthy food, they are making good use of it [. . .] I feel like this program has a real advantage over a traditional food bank model.”

Students using the vouchers can also pick up granola bars,

and a SFU professor of geography.

Hedley is one of the co-creators of CLIVE, and brought his extensive background in 3D geovisual analytics to the team.

Hedley continued, “People are no longer relying upon abstract names of government science projects, wondering what it means to them. CLIVE allows them to see what it means to them, what the implications will be.”

Although the program is focused on PEI — a region identified as particularly susceptible to sea level rise and the accompanying consequences — Hedley explained the broader applications available:

donated by Nester’s Market Nester’s Market also encourages customers to contribute their Nester’s Points to the SFU Food Bank program.

The Food Bank Working Group is working to establish ties with other stores around the Surrey campus in order to launch the program there sometime over the next few months.

Escarcha remarked, “At the end of the day, it’s about erasing stigma for students, and so we want to ensure that everybody from all campuses has the most convenient access to this program.”

“One of the greatest accomplishments with this is not just with what we’ve built, but having created a workflow that is scalable and can be applied anywhere.

“We’ve had interest from countries in Europe, the Caribbean, down in the States; some are small communities [. . .] but some are whole municipalities, cities, and a couple of international governments,” added Hedley.

Hedley spoke to the real world implications of the data offered by CLIVE: “It is about designing ways to deliver data to citizens and stakeholders of all kinds, giving people infomocracy — democratic access to spatial information.

“If we’re going to make decisions about big serious problems, whether they have to do with health, environment, quality of life, every taxpayer is entitled to the information on which decisions will be made.”

SFU’s World Literature Program presented An Evening with Anosh Irani in the Westminster Savings Theatre last Thursday evening. Irani, a novelist and playwright, spoke to the role of literature in addressing social issues such as terrorism.

In his talk, “The Discomfort Zone: Why Literature Should Unsettle Us,” he discussed how literature helps us to understand absurd social phenomena, as well as the inspiration for his own works.

This month’s Lunch Poems brought poets Tim Bowling and Donato Mancini to SFU’s Harbour Centre campus last Wednesday, Oct. 15.

The event occurs at noon on the third Wednesday of each month and includes readings from the featured writers.

Participants are encouraged to bring their lunch and enjoy a “unique vibrant exchange of poetic ideas.”

6 NEWS

Construction crews have finally broken ground for the Trottier Observatory, a $4.4 million project on SFU’s Burnaby campus dedicated to engaging the community and its youth in science.

According to Howard Trottier, an SFU professor of physics whose brother and sister-in-law have provided the funding for the project, the observatory and its surroundings are meant to be a “focal point of campus life.”

The building is expected to be completed sometime in February or March 2015.

Trottier, who has worked in the physics department for over 20 years, has been an integral part of the observatory’s development and creation. However, this project is not one man’s work. The original proponents of the observatory imagined its opening alongside of Simon Fraser University back in the 1960s.

October 20, 2014

The idea had bounced around between different professors and community members since then, before finally being set into motion over the past few years.

An integral part of the project expands outside the walls of the observatory itself, something many community members are not yet aware of. The observatory is being built in conjunction with the Science Courtyard, which is meant to benefit everyone in the SFU community and greater area.

The Science Courtyard will include a community table, with room for two more tables to be added later on. These tables will have room for groups of 20, ideal for hosting groups of friends — when weather permits — to enjoy the sights, and perhaps small classes who opt to learn outdoors from time to time.

The area will offer many other astronomy attractions besides the main telescope within the observatory, which will be nestled between the AQ and Strand Hall. There will be two eight-foot tall concrete barriers, creating a sort of tunnel reminiscent of ancient observatories, through which attendees can view the stars. There will be star charts

for each of the four seasons on the inside of these barriers, with the smaller and fainter stars etched into its surface, and LED lights illuminating the larger and brighter stars.

There will also be a few smaller telescopes scattered around the site, which people can also use to see the star formations, as well as a sundial.

Another interesting architectural design for the space manifests in the long concrete bench that runs along the entire site, divided into six sections. Each division will put out a faint light representing the electromagnetic spectrum

and six of the different elements, and will also be spaced to show the powers of 10. From the atom to the horizon of the atmosphere, the bench will also show the scales of important structures in the universe.

Trottier emphasized that the observatory will be open and inviting to all, within and without of the SFU community on Burnaby Mountain.

Science in Action, for example, is a school program for all young students in the area led by SFU professor of chemistry Sophie Lavieri. With this new observatory, SFU programs such as this will be able to branch out into the

province, giving schools the opportunity to enter project contests and win the chance to control the observatory telescope, all virtually from within their own school walls.

For Trottier, the most important part of the observatory is that it will foster a personal connection between students and their universe. “If you’ve experienced science, you feel you are a part of it,” he concluded.

The grand opening of the SFU Trottier Observatory is slotted for sometime in May, but the goal is for the space to be functional as soon as it is completed early this spring.

Queen’s launches support group for sexual assault survivors Student swaps sandwiches for stories University of Calgary third-year communications student Sam Sawchuk has begun Sandwich for a Story, an initiative where he provides a homeless person with a sandwich in exchange for the story of how they came to live on the streets.

Working with fellow Calgarian Evan Beck, Sawchuk said the stories they’ve heard countered popular stereotypes about homeless people.

“Everyone has a unique story. There are a lot of successful people these days that grew up in harsh environments and I don’t think that the circumstance of being homeless can really dictate where your life could be headed,” Sawchuk said.

ISIS supporter hacks UNBSU website A new support group at Queen’s for survivors of sexual assault, called Psycho-Educational Group for Survivors of Sexual Assault (PEGaSUS), is looking to help students cope with their trauma and work towards recovery.

The support group — which is kept to around 10 to 12 students in order to maintain an “intimate” setting — meets every Thursday, but anyone is able to join.

“The primary goal is for students to have a forum where they can be invited to use their voice, express themselves in a safe environment, to break that isolation and to develop [. . .] that sense of empowerment through the collective experience,” said Arig al Shaibah, assistant dean of student affairs and support group chair.

With files from The Journal

The University of New Brunswick Student Union website is back online after it was overtaken by an organization supporting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria last Monday night.

A group called Team System DZ hacked the site, along with hundreds others, and posted their organization’s name as well as anti-American rhetoric and the following phrase: “God’s law is in progress. The Islamic nation is coming and god’s law will be applied. You have been warned.” Below the organization’s name on the site read, “i love you isis.”

UNBSU vice president external Nicole Saulnieri said, “We are working with our website provider to protect ourselves from this type of vandalism in the future.”

With files from The Gauntlet With files from The Aquinian

NEWS

At their meeting last Wednesday, the SFSS board of directors moved to appoint four people to their independent electoral commission (IEC) for the upcoming referendum. The IEC is made up of one chief electoral officer (CEO) and three commissioners.

VP finance Adam Potvin raised concerns regarding the billable hours caps attached to those appointed positions. He suggested that the maximum number of billable hours for all members of the IEC was too high and that CEO and commissioners would ‘find’ work to do in order to max out their billable hours.

“I don’t think it is a matter of cracking down on people who are lying about working, I think it is a matter of finding work that isn’t necessary in order to max out their total billable hours,” he said. “And I’ll be completely honest, I think that a lot of board members do it as well.”

A motion was carried to cap billable hours toward the referendum at 150 for the CEO. The other commisioners’ hours were reduced to 15 from 60.

As the SFSS falls under the legislation of the BC Society Act, the board moved to request clarification regarding certain changes which will arise due to the retooling of the act.

One change that board members found concerning is the ability for a nonmember to take legal action against the society for any actions believed to not be in the best interest of the public. President Chardaye Bueckert explained this, “could open [the SFSS] up to frivolous or vexatious litigation.”

Bueckert found most of the other changes to be “favourable” to the SFSS.

October 20, 2014

An SFU professor has joined a newly formed international research project to assess the impact of the workplace on climate change, and to make recommendations as to how certain sectors can improve their carbon footprints.

John Calvert, an SFU adjunct professor of political science and an associate professor of health sciences, is part of the team which has been awarded a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) grant to pursue their research.

The team’s project, called Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces to Respond to Climate Change (ACW), will investigate how Canadian workplaces can be modified to minimize greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, ACW will examine what changes should be made in law and policy in order for businesses and workplaces to be as green as possible.

Over $2.5 million dollars has been given to the York Universityled project. The SSHRC team is a collaboration of 36 participants from 17 organizations in Canada, the US, and the UK. Team members represent a range of 20 different disciplines, professions, and trades.

Project members will conduct their work in six stages, and in four groups. As an associate director of the Built Environment group — which will consider human-made surroundings that provide the setting for human activity — Calvert will have a leading role.

Although Calvert acknowledges that changing law, policy, and getting the government on board will be a challenge, the aim of ACW is to transition Canada into a lower-carbon economy.

The industries that the ACW project will look into are construction, energy, manufacturing, and public and private services.

Calvert emphasized that action will be needed with or without the full support of the government. “Regardless of what party is in office, we will need to develop the skills, knowledge base and best practices in order to address climate change in the workplace,” he said.

Calvert already has some experience creating policies for the BC government, as well as with policies concerning monitoring, training, equity, and employment related to the Vancouver Island Highway project. With regards to the SSHRC project, Calvert told The Peak that he will apply this experience, with a more pronounced green focus, to his research.

Specifically, Calvert will be examining the construction industry; his knowledge of policy related to construction projects in BC provides him with suitable insight into the inner workings of the industry’s workplaces.

“My focus is the impact on work in the construction industry and the extent to which ‘green’ working practices are being integrated into the training and skills development of building workers,” he said.

According to Calvert, conducting research in climate change, investigating new laws and policies, and developing

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new strategies for greener work environments will allow ACW project to anticipate the jobs and workplaces of the future.

NOTICE OF STUDENT ELECTION — FALL 2014 CALL FOR NOMINATIONS FOR A STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE (FACULTY OF ENVIRONMENT) A student from the Faculty of Environment has an opportunity to become involved in the governance of SFU by submitting a nomination form for a vacant position on Senate.

COMMITTEE

POSITIONS

Senate

One student from the Faculty of Environment, elected by and from the student body.

TERM OF OFFICE Present to May 31, 2015

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: Thursday, October 23, 2014 @ 4:00 pm Campaign Period: October 24, 2014 to November 6, 2014 Online Voting: November 4 -6, 2014 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 senate@sfu.ca.

8 NEWS

October 20, 2014

LOST AND FOUND

SHAKE IT OFF

Commemorative Shakeout BC hits SFU plaque returns to Freedom Square

The plaque commemorates a protest that occurred in the area in 1967.

After 32 years in UBC custody and 10 more in storage, the plaque has come home Melissa Roach Associate News Editor The Freedom Square plaque has been returned to SFU’s Burnaby campus after appearing and disappearing multiple times since its installation 47 years ago.

The Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) finally managed to track down this elusive piece of SFU history after beginning the search last year. It was restored to Freedom Square earlier this October.

The uncovered area east of Convocation Mall was given the name Freedom Square for its history of student political action.

In 1967, 2,500 students and faculty engaged in a sit-down

Photo courtesy of the Montreal Gazette

protest in the area to demonstrate their opposition to the firing of five teaching assistants.

The staff were reinstated as a result of the demonstration.

The plaque was installed the following year in commemoration of that protest and to recognize the spot as an important place for student activism, but has since spent more time away from SFU than at its home in Freedom Square.

UBC engineering students stole the plaque shortly after its installation in 1968, replacing it with an antagonizing ‘Fool’s Square’ plaque.

The plaque spent some years as a TV stand before being returned.

The plaque went on to reside in a UBC fraternity house for many years and eventually served as a TV stand for the UBC alumnus who returned it to SFU in 1990.

After its return, the Freedom Square plaque was rededicated in fall of 2000, only to disappear soon after.

The SFSS recently discovered that the plaque made its way into a storage space under a staircase in Convocation Mall. Facilities services told the SFSS that it was there for at least 10 years.

“It was a bit of a challenge to get it remounted, because nobody actually knew where it went,” explained SFSS president Chardaye Bueckert.

She also commented on the SFSS connection to the plaque: “It’s actually kind of cool. [The group that installed the plaque] was the equivalent then of the SFSS. They called themselves the SFU Student Council, but it was actually the student union who paid for it and mounted it in the first place.”

The mock-up of a post-disaster zone demonstrated the importance of securing your space.

73,000 people across the province participated in the international earthquake Melissa Roach Associate News Editor Members of the SFU community were encouraged to “drop, cover, and hold on” last Thursday, October 16, as the university participated in Shakeout BC. Shakeout BC is an annual event that involves people not only in BC, but all over the world, performing the same earthquake drill. This year’s drill took place at 10:16 a.m. and approximately 73,000 people participated in BC alone.

“We want to encourage people to stay away from buildings and move into more open areas.”

Miranda Myles, emergency and continuity planner, SRS The event was held at all three SFU campuses from 9:30 a.m. to noon. SFU’s Safety and Risk Services (SRS) set up information booths and displays in order

to educate passersby about earthquake preparedness, and even practise the drill with people walking by.

The day held a particular relevance for the SFU community, as the university is located in the Lower Mainland of BC, one of the most seismically active regions in Canada.

The main goal of the organizers was to stress the importance of being familiar with the internationally recognized safety procedure, “drop, cover, and hold on.”

“A lot of people are unsure of what to do if they felt an earthquake,” said Miranda Myles, emergency and continuity planner for SRS. She explained that a surprising number of people who came up to the booths were unfamiliar with the procedure.

There was also a session on earthquake safety hosted by ResLife staff in the Dining Hall the night before.

For the event, SRS staged a mock-up of a post-earthquake scene. The rooms demonstrated how an office might look if none of its furniture had been secured prior to the earthquake.

Myles explained this was “to show the importance of securing your space and making sure the things around you are secure.” This could mean fixing furniture in place or removing heavy items from high places.

Anderson Wang / The Peak

Last year, SRS published a video in which McFogg the Dog demonstrates how to respond to an earthquake in various campus settings.

“You do the same thing no matter where you are,” said Myles. “Drop to the ground. If you don’t have a table to get under, you still cover your head with your hands, and try to tuck up against something like a wall, something sturdy that you can brace yourself against.”

“A lot of people are unsure of what to do if they felt an earthquake.”

Miranda Myles She continued, “After the shaking stops, you should stay wherever you are for about a minute just to let things settle, and to take a minute to look around. Then proceed outside.

We want to encourage people to stay away from buildings and move into more open areas like parking lots and the field.”

The video also includes some advice from SFU president Andrew Petter on how to prepare for an earthquake.

“Prepare an emergency kit with items like food, water, a flashlight,” he said. “And any other essential items,” he added, as he put a stuffed bear into his go bag.

WANTED REFERENDA QUESTIONS Notice of Fall 2014 Referenda Nominations:

From Wednesday, October 22 at 8:30am to Wednesday, November 5 at 12pm

Campaign Period:

From Wednesday, November 5 at 12pm to Wednesday, November 18 at 11:59pm

Online voting takes place from November 19-20 No positions are available on the Board of Directors Referendum Campaign Registration forms are available at the SFSS General Office (MBC 2250). The form will be available online during the nomination period. Campaign budgets may not exceed $300.

All petitions for referenda must be submitted to the Board of Directors. To submit a petition, contact Chardaye Bueckert, SFSS President: pres@sfss.ca.

Election Rules and Regulations

The general election and referenda are governed by the Society Constitution, By-Laws, and the Electoral and Referenda Policy (R-17). These documents are available via http://elections.sfss.ca.

For more information, please contact Chief Electoral Officer Stephanie Munez at ceo@sfss.ca or visit http://elections.sfss.ca

10

OPINIONS

Last week, a BC Supreme Court judge granted the City of Vancouver an injunction to evict all people living in the recently erected tent city at Oppenheimer Park in the Downtown Eastside. This legal battle is a decent indicator of everything that it is wrong with how our society advocates for the rights of the homeless.

The policies implemented by the city do nothing to improve the condition of the homeless, and perpetuate a disturbing pattern of behaviour which treats the homeless as intruders on land that ought to belong to them.

The logic behind the court’s decision is dubious. While acknowledging that the reality of a tent city poses many unique safety concerns such as drug use, open flames, low sanitation standards, and frequent incidents of violence, the court has failed to recognize that these concerns are not resolved simply through eviction, but rather are everyday realities of being homeless.

Most doctors recommend that people engage in aerobic exercise for 30 to 60 minutes, three to five days a week, in order to maintain a sufficient level of overall health. For many people, this means cramming a run or a visit to the gym into your busy schedule, but as it turns out, this may not be your best option.

The belief that going to the gym and jogging on a treadmill are effective workouts is wrong; not only do these inflict stress on our hip, knee, and ankle joints, but they are

October 20 , 2014

Adam Van der Zwan opinions@the-peak.ca / 778.782.4560

These policies are ineffectual and harm society as a whole.

The Canadian Homeless Research Network cites a report

estimating that “between 1993 and 2004, Canadian taxpayers spent an estimated $49.5 billion maintaining the status quo on the homeless problem.” The status quo is that the homeless population has a far greater level of mental health problems, and institutionalization in both jails and hospitals.

According to the CBC, current prison costs are at an alltime high. Meanwhile, providing social housing for a basic standard of living costs approximately $200 a month. This research empirically shows that policies to combat the

homeless, as opposed to combating homelessness, have little more practical consequence than producing exorbitant costs for society at large.

This is not to say that the court’s decision is without merit. Proponents of the eviction might argue that indoor shelters and increased oversight might substantially improve the welfare of the residents, while others may argue that the shelters will be uncomfortable, dirty, and overcrowded. However, both situations share a glaring commonality.

Both are temporary and thus fail to solve an intrinsic problem in the lives of the homeless: a lack of permanence. Without permanent housing and a basic standard of living for subsistence, these policies are simply maintaining the status quo. Permanence provides an individual with the security and basic conditions necessary to escape a cycle of poverty.

Is Oppenheimer Park a superior option to the city’s proposed temporary shelters? I would argue that it does not matter. The very fact that the issue has devolved to quick-fix solutions for a systemic problem proves that our society has failed in its duty to protect the most vulnerable and at risk.

Coronary Heart Disease Foundation, cycling regularly can take you to the fitness level of someone 10 years younger, and dramatically reduces the risk of heart diseases.

What about that beer belly you’ve been trying to get rid of? According to research conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, those who bike as few as five minutes a day lose significantly more weight than those who do not.

The benefits don’t stop there. Unlike running and other high impact activities, biking strengthens your hips and knees without stressing your joints. It is unlikely to lead to knee complications such as arthritis and other orthopaedic problems. Cycling could significantly benefit people who have difficulties with

mobility, not just those who are overweight or inactive.

Visiting the gym is a time consuming activity — it’s a luxury that can be difficult to fit into a busy day. However, something as simple as biking to work will save you time and money. Not only will you liberate yourself from the gym, but your commute may be faster, not to mention more enjoyable.

Depending on the gweographic features of your daily commute, cycling to work could be significantly beneficial in saving you transit time. Even if it doesn’t, the added time would likely be offset by covering your exercise component for the day.

If you need further convincing to embrace your

two-wheeled companion, talk with Louis Goddyn, a veteran Burnaby Mountain cyclist. Louis believes that his annual savings from cycling to work total $6,150. That’s a lot of coffee (or paid-off student debt).

But don’t just do it for yourself, do it for the rest of us as well. By doing something as simple as running an errand by biking, we can realize significant savings to our health care system. The more we cycle, the better the infrastructure becomes.

The better the infrastructure, the more people cycle. It’s a wonderful positive feedback loop.

If you’d like to live an active lifestyle that saves you time and money, take the plunge and embrace your two wheels.

Similar to city police ushering homeless youth from the downtown prior to the 2010 Winter Olympics, the injunction was less about the welfare of homeless populations and more about removing the ‘social nuisance’ that the city and our society seem to see homelessness as.

We generally implement programs for the homeless that push their problems out of our field of vision. This happens so that we can proceed with our lives without the residual guilt that accompanies being a ‘winner’ in an economic system that favours the lottery of birth, and a political system

that has left Aboriginal peoples — who are disproportionately represented in the homeless population — far worse off in society.

time-consuming activities that burn fewer calories than other forms of outdoor exercise. What if I told you about an aerobic exercise that could improve your fitness, while also saving you time and money?

Cycling is one of the best aerobic exercises for losing weight, shaping your figure, and enhancing the strength of your lower body. According to a study conducted by the National Forum for

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OPINIONS

Trinity Western University is once again in the news, and for once, they’re not under attack. A graduate from the university was recently denied a job on the basis of her faith.

While the organization, Amaruk Wilderness Corp., claims that the student’s application was denied because she failed to meet the minimum requirements for the position, the e-mails that followed display an extreme antiChristian bias, to the point where the company’s hiring manager, Olaf Amundsen, stated that if he “was to meet [God], [he] would fuck him.” Though it has since been revealed that Amaruk is not a real company, the e-mails and the discrimination are very real.

Sadly, this kind of antiChristian bigotry is rapidly becoming the norm. Back in July, I wrote an article about the Nanaimo city council and their near-unanimous decision to ban a church group from using a public facility to simulcast a leadership conference, while equating the group with both organized crime and terrorism.

In both these cases, the reasoning behind the anti-Christian

October 20 , 2014

bias was based off of wrongs committed in the past; in Amaruk’s case, centuries in the past, as the e-mails reference the forced conversion of the Norse peoples to Christianity, which occurred around the 11th century. Both of these cases are clear violations of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which, ironically enough, are founded on the dual principles of “the supremacy of God and the rule of law,” in a country whose head of state is titled “defender of the Faith.”

In the name of tolerance and inclusiveness, Canada is becoming increasingly intolerant to the nearly two-thirds of the population who claim Christianity as their religion.

While it would be foolish to claim that all members of this group are innocent of the alleged homophobia used by the Nanaimo city council to justify its ban, it is equally erroneous to state that all Christians are guilty.

Unfortunately, there are many people who paint all Christians with the same brush, immediately labelling all of us as gay-bashing, hypocritical, judgemental folks who deny science in favour of faith.

This is despite the fact that Canadians seem to be able to separate the good from the bad in other religions, as very few people believe that all Muslims are terrorists.

But when the Prime Minister is accused of being a fundamentalist — those evangelical Christians characterized by their militarism, separatism and biblical literalism — for his private beliefs, while Justin Trudeau can visit a mosque with links to al-Qaeda and not have the media comment on it, we have a problem.

Canadians seem to be unable to accept the fact that there are Christians who follow Christ to the best of their ability — displaying the compassion of Jesus — while others fall short of the mark. Which makes a lot of sense, as conversion to the Christian faith does not automatically mean that one becomes perfect; mistakes will always be made in how faith is expressed.

We are not perfect people, nor should we claim to be.

Have Christians made mistakes in the past? Of course.

We are only human, and are no better or worse than anyone else. To my fellow Christians, I ask that we learn to be better representatives of the Christ we claim to follow, emphasizing compassion and grace. To the rest of our readers, I ask for your forgiveness for the wrongs mistakenly committed in His Name, and also for a chance to prove that we are not the people that the media portrays us to be.

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Apart from the occasional nosewhistle, nasal breathing is by far the superior way to inhale oxygen. In breathing through the nose, one can feel collected and sophisticated, while accentuating the jaw line. There’s nothing like the fresh feeling of a steady airflow as it filters through the nasal cavity, down the windpipe, and into the lungs.

Apart from keeping the sinuses moist and increasing circulation, blood oxygen and carbon dioxide levels, nasal breathing helps one to remain unnoticed on more unsociable

days. The silence allows one to slip through crowds unnoticed and avoid certain people. In a sense, nasal breathing is a companion, a shield from the world.

Personally, I make an effort to breathe through my nose on a daily basis. Few can deny that nasal breathing equals health benefits, peace, and social prosperity. If you’d like to strengthen your relationships, breathing with your mouth closed will help you emit confidence and composure — traits that will aid you in befriending others, especially fellow nasal-breathers.

Apart from sounding relatively creepy and gross, mouth breathing poses some major health risks.

In addition to drying out the oral cavity, causing throat pain, bad breath, gum disease, and general stickiness, mouth breathing can shrink one’s jaw over time, causing crooked teeth and discomfort.

Mouth-breathers tend to awake during the night to urinate due to bladder shrinkage, tend to eat more due to increased appetite, and tend to look dull-witted or

slightly unconscious. Many researchers feel that mouth breathing leads to hyperventilation, asthma problems, high blood pressure and even heart disease.

That being said, I’m simply terrified of mouth breathing. With so many health risks, why would anyone capable of breathing through the nose choose to do so through the mouth? Our lives are practically at stake, so for the love all that is good: keep that mouth closed and save yourself!

12 OPINIONS

We live in a highly sexualized world, so it’s ironic that most high school sexual education classes still use random objects and ‘old timey’ public service announcements to teach their students about sex. Sexual education in public schools must be more straightforward so that we can properly inform students of what sex entails. This would ensure that they become properly educated about sex and are able to avoid early pregnancies and unwanted STIs. Remember the banana that sex ed teachers would use to show boys how to wear a condom? This sex ed lesson is ridiculously common, having been mentioned in every other Teen TV show or film. Yes, it’s important to show students how to use a condom, but this is not enough to adequately teach them about sex.

Our society accepts the restaurant industry’s hyper-sexualized, customer-driven culture as normal. Many customers feel highly entitled and inherently deserving of impeccable service, regardless of their behaviour toward restaurant staff catering to their every whim. Unfortunately, this entitlement often turns into verbal and sexual harassment.

According to a report from the New York Observer regarding sexual harassment within the service industry, 90 per cent of female restaurant workers have been verbally and sexually harassed at work. This may be due to the current cultural structures that surround the service industry, as they perpetuate certain attitudes that enable harassment.

Not only can customers be culprits, but many servers have accepted this system as a fixed set of cultural norms. Having worked

Students in middle school (and younger) are exposed to sex on a daily basis through the media and from their peers, and it is no longer sufficient to leave sex education until the senior year of high school. Instead, sex ed must begin around the time that students enter middle school, and then be taught every subsequent year. By eighth grade, 13-year-old students

October 20 , 2014

typically use the internet, so there is no reason for teachers to treat them like children when it comes to these mature topics.

Sex is natural and there is nothing to be ashamed of when speaking about it in a mature and sincere manner. As such, students in class should be able to ask open questions and have them answered directly and honestly if

they need clarification or are confused about anything.

To make sexual education more straightforward, school districts should hire trained sexual health counsellors who can give students a concise explanation of sex and its derived topics. If the district is unable to do so, then certain teachers should take a ‘crash course’ on how to teach sex in modern society.

Moreover, the resources used to teach children about sex must change. Do away with the ‘Trojan bananas,’ and replace them with more current resources.

Youtube has education channels that cover such topics — “Sexplanations” is a series of sexual education videos that are hosted by a licensed sexologist and are aimed at a teenage audience.

Educators should also inform their students about intercourse among people with different sexualities. Although it may not serve the same biological purpose, sex among homosexual couples is also for pleasure and intimacy. Opening students’ minds to these notions

would prevent misunderstandings and help to promote respect between individuals.

While sex saturates our media, people can still be very sensitive when discussing the topic. Of course, adopting a more mature and open curriculum will provoke controversy. To that, I would strongly advise educators to treat both the topic and their students in a mature fashion.

Students should be told, without any biased perspectives, that sex is more than what they hear about in the media, and that it’s biologically important.

Adults often underestimate teenagers, but with proper education, teens can be mature about sex, and can avoid unwanted consequences. This isn’t to say that a more direct education is going to completely eradicate unwanted youth pregnancies or other problems, but our schools do need to employ more precise sexual education to prevent sexual confusion.

longer feel obligated to tolerate inappropriate customers.

While this model provides a straightforward solution in theory, it has faced some resistance. The Smoke ‘N’ Water restaurant in Nanoose Bay initially began business with a no-tip policy, though it recently switched back to the classic tipping-system due to customer preferences. Owner David Jones believes that his restaurant was slightly ahead of the curve — despite

popularity with the staff, customers were unhappy with the policy, as many of them believed that tipping promotes good service.

The reality is that tipping culture creates an environment where customers are ‘always right’ and servers are placed in vulnerable positions.

Rather than encouraging impeccable service, tipping fosters a work environment that encourages servers to humour or tolerate inappropriate customers who enjoy pushing

boundaries. Servers should not have to throw away their dignity in exchange for a 20 per cent gratuity.

Transitioning to a ‘no-tip’ policy will not happen easily, as it always takes time to shift a cultural paradigm. However, despite the skepticism, I believe this model would change the restaurant industry for the better; without it, servers will continue to accept different forms of harassment as part of their job description.

in the service industry for a number of years, I’ve often felt pressured to cozy up to my customers to get to know them on a more personal level. I understand the rationale behind this — it encourages customers to return and ultimately fills a server’s pocket with more change. Often, though, the fine line between ‘friendly’ and ‘too friendly’ is crossed in order to make that 20 per cent tip.

To change this established dynamic between customers and servers, a shift in power must be employed, and my solution would be to introducwe a ‘no tip’ policy. While restaurants rely on customers to subsidize servers’ wages, they could instead mark up their menu prices by a certain percentage, and pay their servers a living wage. To revoke a customer’s tipping option changes the dynamic between the customer and server by creating a level playing field — one in which servers no

ARTS

arts editor email / phone

October 20, 2014

Tessa Perkins arts@the-peak.ca / 778.782.4560

The Production of the Artist as a Collective Conversation, an exhibition by Rio de Janeiro-based artist Ricardo Basbaum — the current Audain Visual Artist in Residence — opened at the Audain Gallery at SFU Woodward’s on October 16. The show will transform over the course of its eight-week installation as audience contributions are added.

Basbaum’s conceptual and participatory art practice asks the audience to consider the nature of what constitutes an artistic experience through his ongoing project (since 1994) titled, Would you like to participate in an artistic experience? As part of this ongoing project, for the duration of this show, and for up to a week at a time, members of the public can sign

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Theatresports’ Superhero Show!

Each night, the improv masters of Theatresports entertain audiences at The Improv Centre with a different caper involving a unique superhero created from audience suggestions. For example, the night I was there the hero was the Pecker, a bird

out a large steel object called NBP (New Bases of Personality). This object resembles an eye, but also calls to mind a large cake pan, or some kind of communal urinal.

Basbaum tells audiences, “You can do whatever you want with it. Use it as you like, the way you think is best.”

As members of the public interact with the object over the course of the exhibition, they are invited to upload digital documentation to Basbaum’s website (www.nbp.pro.br). These images will be added to one of the two projection loops in the gallery

whose special ability was spaghetti fingers.

The narrator has a bit of control over the action on stage as he asks for the audience to shout suggestions or signals a scene change for the performers. There is also a basic structure and setting to the show — it’s set in Big City, and the narrator asks the audience specific questions in order to create the tale. Other than that, nothing is scripted, and the performers have to make up a hilarious story on the spot, given only a couple of pieces of information.

I was impressed by the performers’ ability to maintain the continuity of the story, especially when they were switching back and forth between characters and settings so often. Some played up to four characters, all of whom had different accents — I suppose

— one video, the other still images — which are currently displaying documentation of a variety NBP experiences over the object’s 20year lifespan.

I am currently enrolled in the course Basbaum is teaching alongside SFU faculty member Sabine Bitter as part of his residency. After seeing what seemed like several dozen images of people sticking their heads, arms, and legs through the NBP, or various participants laying down in it like a human yin yang, I was skeptical of how taking selfies with this cumbersome metal

the voices help the actors keep things straight for themselves.

Margaret Nyfors did a great Russian accent during scenes where she was doing yoga in the park. She was also great in scenes where a plumber was fixing up her pipes and she offered him a drink from her bathroom liquor cabinet.

Of course, there is always a villain in a superhero story, and this one was so evil that he had a hummingbird for a thumb. The hummingbirds were the Pecker’s mortal enemies, and the climax was a hilarious scene of birdbrained mayhem.

If you have never seen a Vancouver Theatresports League show, it’s time you did. These improv artists are so talented, and no matter what kind of superhero tale they come up with, it is sure to be a memorable experience.

object would be the fulcrum of an ‘artistic experience.’

Along with four other students in the class, I took the object, strapped to a handcart, to a Do the Hustle night at the Astoria for dance lessons — our attempt to slightly subvert nature by inviting the object to take part in an artistic experience. Some of my skepticism dissipated as people, with no prior knowledge of the NBP and its history, wanted to dance with it and get their picture taken with it.

Without having seen any of the documentation of the previous participants, people were sticking

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their appendages through the hole of the object, and one couple insisted on getting their picture taken in the ‘classic’ human yin yang.

One could make the argument that, in the age of social media narcissism, the desire to get your picture taken at an event while doing funny things is the norm, but the people who were interacting with the object were also curious about it. They all seemed genuinely excited when we told them that it was part of an art project.

Another participatory element of the exhibition will be a live event which will take place at the end of this month. Collective Conversation will function as a workshop to create a cooperatively written script, which will result in a live reading and a sound document.

The recording of this performance will be added to the exhibition, alongside the previously recorded sound pieces and the corresponding scripts that are already available to check out at the gallery.

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16 ARTS

October 20, 2014

The play is set during the Tudor Dynasty, specifically the reign of Henry VIII. Henry became the ruler of England at the age of 17 and married his older brother’s widow, Catherine of Aragon that same year. After tiring of her inability to produce a

male heir, he became besotted with Anne Boleyn, who was later executed based on accusations of witchcraft.

Still desperate for a male heir, Henry sought the hand of Jane Seymour, who managed to produce a frail and sickly baby boy before dying in childbirth.

Next came Anne of Cleves, a marriage which lasted only six months before being annulled.

Shortly after, he married Kathryn Howard, Anne Boleyn’s cousin, whom he executed due to her adultery. His final wife was Catherine Parr, whom he remained wedded to until his death in 1547.

You may initially be concerned that a one-woman show depicting seven historical figures would be a difficult undertaking, but Travis makes it seem effortless. The play veered away from a standard production and brought the characters to life in such a way that it never felt as if one person on the stage wasn’t enough.

After the show, The Peak spoke with Travis, and she explained how she is able to perform all of the different characters. “I spent a lot of time in rehearsal walking around the room, finding [each of the character’s] gait, the way they breathe, and which body part led first. Over time I found their voices [and in time] their faces became more nuanced.”

I am a fan of the band Teen Suicide, a lo-fi noise-pop band based in Baltimore, Maryland, comprised of two core members, Sam Ray and Eric Livingston. Unfortunately for me, and many other fans of theirs, they never venture to the west coast to play shows. A while ago, I liked their Facebook page hoping that one day I might find out they were coming to Vancouver.

That day came about a week ago when they announced their west coast tour beginning on October 1, including a Vancouver date.

Fans living on the west coast, myself included, were thrilled to receive the news that their dream of seeing Teen Suicide was finally going to come true.

However, the post was strange — no venue was listed for any of the 15 advertised shows. As the concert date approached, and no ticket or venue details were released, I became more concerned. Finally, on October 4, three alleged concerts having passed, Teen Suicide posted this status on their Facebook page: “If anyone still believes it, the tour was a lie. Sorry. Our social media strategist fucked up.” So it was all just a bad joke.

Naturally, fans were devastated, or simply annoyed, replying with comments like, “You guys are gonna lose your fan base.” Teen Suicide responded by saying, “Our fans are all idiots, and we hate them.” This

Unexpected and characterdriven, Tara Travis’ performance in the one-woman show Til Death: The Six Wives of Henry VIII portrays a story that has been heard time and time again. However, Travis and director Ryan Gladstone have created a production that uniquely deviates from the original tale.

Tara Travis plays all six of Henry VIII’s wives in this hilarious play.

Photo courtesy of Monster Theatre

This was particularly evident in a scene where each of the six wives began to detail their stories and how they came to marry Henry. Each of the wives had her own voice — ranging in different accents from Northern English to German — and each had different physicalities. For instance,

Travis played Anne Boleyn as just a decapitated talking head without a body. Her ability to draw the audience in with her facial expressions — which were incredibly strong, and varied with each character — is to be admired.

This is a show that will resonate with audiences, in part

due to a strong performance by one-woman show artist Tara Travis, and also due to Ryan Gladstone’s formidable script, which has a killer ending.

Til Death: The Six Wives of Henry VIII was performed by by Monster Theatre Productions October 10 and 11 at the new Surrey City Hall’s Centre Stage.

comment doesn’t stand alone — their whole page is riddled with mean comments directed at fans.

So, should we all hate Teen Suicide and stop listening to their music? There is a difference between liking a band and liking a band’s music, and I’d almost go so far as to applaud Teen Suicide for creating this ‘asshole persona.’

lot of people in the world of fandom blur this distinction or even throw it out completely.

It seems intuitively strange to judge art based on the artist. About a year ago when Woody Allen, a celebrated film director, was accused of pedophilia, his work was put into question. It just seems strange to me that we held Allen’s body of work in such high esteem prior to the accusation, and then suddenly, when we find out that he might have molested Dylan Farrow, the general public started to question his cinematography.

Art should be appreciated independently of the artist, and Teen Suicide should perhaps be commended for their meanness, as it can be seen as a way to try to alienate fans — the bad kind of fan, who is infatuated with Teen Suicide as a band as opposed to their music.

Teen Suicide doesn’t want people

to like them — they want people to like their music.

On the other hand, maybe Teen Suicide is taking their asshole persona too far. It’s possible that their blatant rudeness towards fans is just another marketing strategy.

Their disrespectful conduct is so excessively over the top that it’s caricaturesque. They are creating hype for themselves through playing up the whole ‘pretentious artist’ persona. Maybe they’re just trying to be controversial for the sake of controversy.

I was never a fan of Teen Suicide as individuals, and I can’t say that I respect them as artists, but what I can say is that I’m a fan of Teen Suicide’s music. Although artists can take care to conduct themselves in a professional manner, I maintain that their actions should not have a bearing on your opinion of their creations.

An artist’s actions should not have any bearing on our judgments of their art. To truly appreciate art, we should appreciate the qualities it has in itself, not the qualities of the author — a separate entity. A

ARTS

October 20, 2014

17

Thin White Line is a collection of overlooked objects ‘found’ objects, does your interest lie more in each individual form, or rather in how the works speak to each other as a collection?

For most dance styles, the basis of choreography is the human body, but as Bboyizm’s choreographer Yvon ‘Crazy Smooth’ Soglo explains, street dance is different.

“For a lot of contact improv and contemporary dance, bodies are the base of the movement — their weight and shape. I quickly realized that for us, the rhythm and the music is the base.”

This realization came out of workshops the company did with Sylvain Lafortune, who has a ballet background and a PhD in partnering. Soglo found analyzing the mechanics of partnering fascinating, and has always wanted to go back to these ideas that he had begun exploring a few years ago. “I never got a chance to get deeper and explore that possibility,” said Soglo.

While creating his new show, he brought Lafortune back and worked with his dancers to explore what partnering means for street dance. “I wanted to create something that has the principles of partnering, but for street dancers. I call it ‘rhythmic contact,’” he said, explaining that the music is their partner, as they make contact with the rhythm.

Bboyizm first performed in Vancouver in 2012 with their impressive, energetic show, IZM. They’re back this month with Music Creates Opportunity, and Soglo said the troupe is excited to be back on the west coast.

“When we premiered IZM, it was our first big theatre piece — you get attached.” Soglo explained that this new show is different in a few ways, as his personal choreographic style is always evolving. “IZM was a little bit of a roller coaster. This one is different in the sense that the music is very different and the pacing is very different. There’s more breathing between acts.”

This show marks the first time the company will have live music, and there are also some new street dance styles featured in Music Creates Opportunity. “IZM was 90

per cent bboying and 10 per cent rocking,” said Soglo. This show includes bboying, lots of rocking, house, and pantsula — a South African street dance style which bgirl Melly Mel will perform. “The vocabulary we’re using is from dif-

ferent dance styles. It comes out in a very interesting way,” said Soglo.

“It’s also different because the company has matured a lot, and I’m happy that’s some of the feedback we’ve been getting.”

Soglo feels that this show is a natural growth from their previous work. “If you liked IZM, you don’t lose that aesthetic. You just get more, you get into the dancers a bit more.”

The choreographic process for Music Creates Opportunity has been much more collaborative than Soglo is used to.

“Ninety-five per cent of IZM was already in my head,” he said. “I always have the dancers as collaborators. It’s important to see that the dancers are comfortable with the movements, but with

this show I was letting the dancers have more input than usual.”

He found himself asking the dancers what they thought or felt about the movements, and there was more of a reciprocal creative process. “The dancers were much more involved, and you see that camaraderie; the coming together.” This dynamic is one of the characteristics of street dance in general. “It’s real emotions and real vibes that we’re sharing.”

Bboyizm’s tagline is ‘Dance to express, not to impress,’ and Soglo explained that this personal philosophy of his has become a part of everything he and his company do. “When I see a dancer doing their thing — when the intentions of that person are pure — I think it’s always impressive. It’s easy to be phony and disguise what you’re doing, but to truly do what I feel and express myself from a place of purity and honesty is different — I think it’s more powerful.”

This pure expression that comes from within is what the dancers of Bboyizm strive for, and it shows in their impressive physical feats and dynamic, smooth moves.

For a year now, the School for the Contemporary Arts office staff have invited current MFA students to exhibit and curate projects in their makeshift gallery space. Because the office allows artists to exhibit their work on location, the context of the space generates a different set of possibilities for the interpretation of each work.

The current exhibition, Thin White Line , is a project by second year MFA candidate Lucien Durey.

The Peak: A simple explanation of this show could be to call it a collection of objects you have put on display. Some objects have simply been framed while others have been placed on shelves. Others have been visibly manipulated. How do you decide what to do with each object?

Lucien Durey: What draws me differs from object to object, but generally I’m attracted to things that have the potential to be overlooked. All of the source objects in this exhibition have been overlooked or nearly overlooked in some way: discarded, forgotten or only revealed through careful searching. My interaction with each one is an effort to affirm the discovered aspect — the nearly overlooked. As such, physical alteration is not always an appropriate gesture. It’s often enough to present the object itself within the gallery context, to give it a name or to place it in proximity to like objects with like aspects.

P : As you develop your methodology, working with

LD: I’m interested in the material form of each object as well as how they present collectively. The group enhances the individual works, but each is a distinct element nested within the greater whole. Varying material approaches help the works to maintain a separateness from one another that is contradicted by their close arrangement. Both gestures combine to convey the scope of my survey for objects of this type. I don’t see this exhibition as an installation; I’m only invested in transforming the office space insofar as to co-opt its walls as tools to communicate the inarticulable through a relationship of things.

P: If you were to imagine yourself having an internal dialogue with one of these objects, would there be a certain voice associated with it?

LD: There’s a certain quality in each of these objects that has set them apart for me, but it’s difficult to think of it as a voice that is capable of dialogue. I don’t see the objects as megaphones for previous owners or as containing some kind of ghostly message, even if specific individuals have enriched them somehow. Perhaps the best part of my attraction to them is inarticulable and this is how they assist each other.

They are similar objects in that they have engaged my interest in the same inarticulable way. I’m not certain yet what it is that they possess, only that it becomes louder in chorus.

18 ARTS

October 20, 2014

From October 6 to 11, the Vancouver International Improv Festival (VIIF) lit up Granville Island. As Marc Rowland, a performer in the festival, said, “It’s a celebration of improvisation from groups across North America and the world.�

The art of improvisation means to create without preparation, and involves high levels of bravery and skill. This festival brings the spontaneity and adventure of improvisation to Vancouver. According to performer, Brent Skagford, “[This fest] bring some of the best acts from all across the country.� He continued, “There’s a great community here

in Vancouver, and this festival just helps promote that.� Another artist, Rick Andrews, says that the VIIF is his “favourite festival because of the great energy.�

The first group I saw on October 10 was the Magnet Theatre Tour Co, featuring Rick Andrews, Lewis Kornfeld, and Megan Gray. From New York City, they started the night in front of a packed house. The audience was loud, and the troupe quickly proved to have wonderful timing and chemistry. From the hilarious relations between a butler and a black widow, to an idiot taunting huge birds and zookeepers, the series of skits was lively and detailed. The group had solid transitions, was consistently funny and outrageous, and made sure to tie up all loose ends.

Next was troupe Ferrari McSpeedy, starring Mike Fotis and Joe Bozic from Minneapolis. Demanding major audience participation, we all got very used to screaming ‘Fighting danger! Fighting crime!’ as this troupe did their short skits.

They started off strong with a baking-inspired skit, but the performance became confused as the act progressed. The versatile voices of the actors were overwhelmed by their breaking out of character, which became distracting.

Hip.Bang! was up next, featuring local boys Devin Mackenzie and Tom Hill. This performance was extraordinarily fun, with tons of audience participation. Within five minutes, my cheeks began to hurt from smiling too much. Pregnant men, overly sexual scuba divers, and a biology lesson about trees created a crudely hilarious performance. The use of silences made the dialogue

funnier, and the extensive fake kissing was a hilarious choice.

The night ended with Easy Action, a Montreal based group starring Brent Skagford and Marc Rowland. Unlike the other shows, Skagford and Rowland created one cohesive storyline in their performance. Their show was brilliant, full of chemistry, slightly disgusting, and extremely well acted. Skagford played a woman in a style reminiscent of comedian Ryan Stiles, creating a hilarious plot with Rowland, whose characterizations were also excellent.

In a short interview, Rowland and Skagford let me in on the life of an improv performer. Rowland is the director of both the Montreal Improv Theatre and the Montreal Improv Festival, and Skagford is the co-creator and co-star of The Bitter End web series, and both are fully engaged in Easy Action.

As Skagford explains, every show starts with “a single suggestion from the audience that inspires

[the] show [then] the two of us together try to create a cohesive narrative with relationships, emotion, action, drama, and sex.�

As international performers, Rowland explained the importance of showcasing their work all over Canada, highlighting the importance of festivals like VIIF. In particular, Skagford said they like to “see what the scene is like in other cities, what their style is, and absorb it.�

When asked to describe improv as an art form, Skagford charracterized it as “an incredible adrenaline rush.� He continued, “You have no guarantees.

It’s about experiencing that moment, right now, there is something interesting, and if [we] can find that, we can create ourselves a story.� Rowland added that “improv has a lot in common with the world’s great philosophies and religions — life is but breath, which is very much what we try to experience on stage.� They ended the interview by chanting, “SFU, we love you!�

What is success? Is it being wealthy?

Having a spouse and children?

Being highly respected? Or . . .?

Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash is an occasionally invigorating thriller about a jazz drummer who is pushed to his physical and emotional limits by his abusive, unorthodox instructor in order to become the best he can be, at the expense of relationships and everything else in his life. The film presents a young man, Andrew (brilliantly played by Miles Teller), who would do anything to achieve prestige. But is this real success, and does it matter how he gets it?

Mediocrity is profusely encouraged and raw talent isn’t developed into something monumental in Andrew’s society. His father is an unremarkable high

school teacher and those in his extended family are praised for their role in a third division college football team. Andrew directly contrasts these characters as he is enrolled in the superlative music school in the United States where the feared and respected Fletcher teaches the studio jazz band.

Andrew wants to be something special, so he ignores his family, rudely drops a love interest, and doesn’t pursue friendships. He is achieving what many would consider success, but shows no hint that he enjoys his craft or does it for love’s sake. He’s talented and driven, but we are never given a glimpse of him getting fulfillment or happiness from his drumming.

Near the end, Andrew is a better and more refined player, but he has also allowed his ego and devotion to his craft destroy the environment and relationships which would have made it worthwhile. Is this success?

Chazelle directs his movie like a thriller, with Andrew’s action (accompanied by sweat and blood) of crashing snares and cymbals to the conductor’s precise tempo overlaid with being screamed at to stay in

time. The editing and other stylistic choices are precise and calculated, as the use of handheld cinematography and powerful close-ups of the wickedly talented actors amplify the tension (J.K. Simmons is an explosive scene-stealer as Fletcher). The storytelling diverges from clichĂŠs and plays with the archetypal idea of a teacher as a mentor.

Yet Whiplash does not fully succeed beyond being like a good drum solo; you leave impressed at the artist’s talent and precision, but really there is little to ponder. The director is hitting the skins as hard as he can while keeping an entertaining pace, but forgetting the depth of sound that would have made the film unforgettable. Whiplash lacks profundity and sympathetic characters.

We admire Andrew’s skill, but for the most part he’s one dimensional and acts deplorably. I understand that this is the point, but by consequence, Whiplash is about as successful as Andrew.

As I ponder Andrew and what it took for him to achieve prestige and climb above the mediocrity, I can hear that haunting question: what is success?

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SPORTS

Rookie seasons can be tough for athletes. Not only do they have to prove themselves to their coaches, but often they lack the experience and size of the veterans that they play amongst and face. In some sports, freshmen are redshirted — this means they won’t get to play with the team until their second year. Meanwhile, they have to learn the ropes of university athletics.

On the track field, though, Oliver Jorgensen has already met with tremendous success during his freshman year, becoming the first male at SFU to compete at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championship, and in steeplechase, winning the Great Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC) title. As a result, he was named the GNAC Freshman of the Year.

To top that off, Jorgensen says that this success came as a surprise to him: “My first year competing was kind of a shock. In high school I was never really front of the pack, kind of always in the middle, not the best.

“I came here and the program just clicked, and with Brit [Townsend] as a coach it all just

sports editor email / phone

October 20 , 2014

came together. And then I kept improving and improving, until in outdoor track I won the steeplechase at the GNACs . . . it was kind of like, ‘That actually happened.’”

He explains that qualifying for the championship in the first place came as bit of a surprise. “I honestly didn’t think I was going to make it, it came down to the last minute. I ran a pretty fast time for my first steeplechase early in the season in California and we didn’t think the time would hold. We kept trying to run faster, but I got sick, I hurt my ankle, things just kept adding up and I wasn’t able to get as fast for the rest of the season. Right as they were making the national list, I was in the 20th spot and they took 20.

“It was kind of a shock, and then two people dropped out, so I was 18th, two more people were allowed in, and I was guaranteed a spot. It was pretty crazy, it happened so fast, and next thing I know I’m in Michigan [for the tournament].”

Despite his preference for track and field — a more individual sport than cross country — Olivier puts a lot of emphasis on the value of the team, saying, “It’s mentally straining and it’s physically straining, and sometimes your teammates support you a lot.”

This team dynamic extends beyond the field, as Jorgensen points out that the team motivate each other academically as well. “[School work] can definitely be hard, especially when you’re away on the weekends. It can be really hard to do work when you’re driving in a bus for nine hours, or flying across the country. It’s hard to do homework, but that’s another team aspect: If someone starts doing homework, everyone starts doing homework.”

He explains further that he lives just off campus with six of his teammates, and the same thing applies at home.

“It’s a messy house,” chuckles Jorgensen. “It’s good because it motivates you to keep [working]. You see them going for a run, you’ve got to go too. Definitely keeps you focused on track, and focused on school, instead of doing other things you probably shouldn’t be doing.”

Despite his quick ascendance on the field, he admits to some difficulty in his first year with a

Austin Cozicar sports@the-peak.ca / 778.782.4560

university workload, saying, “It wasn’t so much right away; it was in the second semester [that] it happened to me. The first semester was fine and I kept improving. and then in the second semester my grades started to drop.”

Jorgensen adds, “When things went down for a bit, as I got injured and school got tougher, I realized, not only running-wise, but also academically, this is a lot harder than high school.”

He notes that he is “in-between majors,” stating that he did not like his original area of study, geography, and is contemplating a move

19

into health sciences. This year, he wants to focus more on his academics and raise his grades. “[I’d like] to be in a spot where I’m not worried about failing a test, where it’s okay if that happens, or not okay, but it wouldn’t be the end of my academics,” Jorgensen says, laughing.

He has also set his eyes on another goal, focused on his team: “My main goal right now is to get the entire cross country team to nationals [. . .] that would be the first time we’ve gotten a [men’s] team to nationals [. . .] that’s a huge accomplishment.”

Right now, he believes the team is on the right track, saying, “[We’re] doing really well right now. We’ve got some great new team members adding to the team. This year is going to be really good for us. I have a feeling we’ll have our highest placing ever in the GNAC.”

20 SPORTS

The thesaurus doesn’t include an antonym for the word ‘titans,’ so it’s hard to describe the battle that took place Thursday night, featuring SFU’s women’s soccer team, ranked seventh in the conference, falling to the sixth place Northwest Nazarene Crusaders (NNU) by a score of 2-0.

Despite their less-than-stellar records, the game featured

The SFU men’s soccer team played to a frustrating 2-1 defeat at home Thursday against the Seattle Pacific University Falcons (SPU). It was expected to be a stern test, as the Falcons — who now sit atop the Great Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC) standings with their eight wins — are ranked fourth nationally.

The Clan took to the pitch with confidence in full force, and were once again leading the match instantly following kickoff. Alex Rowley’s corner kick was headed in by last year’s GNAC Newcomer of the Year, Magnus Kristensen, for his first of the season.

SFU nearly lost their advantage just moments later, when goalkeeper Brandon Watson couldn’t play his clearance away

October 20 , 2014

its fair share of exciting moments from both sides.

The Crusaders were in control of the match right from the early stages, dominating possession and forcing SFU freshman keeper Priya Sandhu to make several big saves.

Despite being outplayed in the opening 45 minutes, SFU almost caught a break at the 42nd minute when forward Olivia Aguiar received a long pass and beat two defenders almost leading to a breakaway.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t find a path to the net, and the two teams ended what was a relatively uneventful half still deadlocked at 0-0.

Sandhu continued her sharp play at the beginning of the

from the 18-yard box, but Joel Malouf rushed across the face of goal to stop a near equalizer.

In another flurry of chances, the Clan nearly doubled their lead when midfielder Ryan Dhillon sprang loose down the right wing and made a cross to Jovan Blagojevic, but the conference’s top scorer couldn’t convert from the tight angle.

The Falcons clawed their way back into the game in the 15th minute thanks to SPU forward Stephen MacDonald’s strike on the counter attack.

Another rapid response came from the Clan when Nico Espinosa unleashed Dhillon with an

second half with a monster stop on a header from NNU midfielder Laura Seymour in the 49th minute.

After sustaining a long stretch of pressure around the SFU goal, the Crusaders finally broke through in the 63rd minute, when forward Lexi Fesenbeck’s corner connected with the head of defender Makena Dandley and sailed into the back of the net.

The goal was a huge blow to the Clan’s hopes and ended Sandhu’s chances at a clean sheet.

“It’s disappointing especially being on a set piece,” Sandhu said, adding that this is something that they will definitely work on in practice.

From that point on, SFU couldn’t generate much attack and, despite one crowd member’s high volume insistence that “you can do it,” the girls were unable to threaten NNU’s lead.

Adding insult to injury, the Crusaders doubled their lead in the last minute of play following a questionable non-call and sent the Clan off the pitch on a particularly sour note.

“I think the whole situation, that being a foul and not

accurately lobbed pass to the edge of the penalty area, but the winger saw the one-timer painfully fly into the side netting.

Seattle continued their confident play and would eventually capitalize on some defensive unease in SFU’s back line to take the lead. MacDonald netted his second of the night in the 28th minute with a low strike off the post that was well out of reach for Watson.

With the game’s second half underway, the Falcons seemed content to soak up the pressure from the Clan with plenty of men committed at defence. As Seattle fought for additional counter attacks, Watson was crucial in handling the aerial balls from the Falcons to keep his side’s hopes alive.

Seattle keeper Rodney Greiling was equally impressive after being subbed in at half time, with two vital stops on chances from Joseph Martin and Callum Powell. Ultimately, the high flying Falcons were able to claim a record 10th straight win.

“They’re a very good team, they’re confident, and they

getting called rattled me a little bit,” Sandhu explained. “I think it was unfortunate and I don’t think [NNU] deserved those two goals.”

Despite losing their fifth straight game to what was most likely a beatable opponent, the Clan have not lost faith and believe that they will still be competitive going forward.

“We played really, really hard and the girls came out with a lot to prove,” Aguiar told The Peak. “It was a good game, just an unfortunate result.”

First half Second half

SAVES

Priya Sandhu (SFU): 7 Saves Daniele Ortiz (NNU): 5 Saves

wanted it more than we did,” said Clan head coach Alan Koch. “I think if we’d scored more goals early then we would’ve won tonight, and that’s the nature of the game.”

First half

Second half -No Scoring-

The Clan men’s and women’s cross-country teams competed at the 41st Annual Western Washington University Classic on Saturday, October 11 in Bellingham, WA. The women’s team achieved first place among Division II competitors while the men placed second. Rebecca Bassett led the women with a time of 21:42, placing eighth individually, while Oliver Jorgensen was the top runner for the men placing 17th with a time of 32:02.

SFU Lacrosse headed down to California for their fall tour over the Thanksgiving weekend. Facing off first against Sonoma State University, they lost 11-9, nearly coming back from a disastrous second quarter in which they were scored on six times and only scored once. SFU also dropped their other two games, 15-6 to Diablo Valley College, and 14-8 to Dominican University of California.

The tournament was the first for many of the players, as 13 of the 26 players are freshmen.

Clan volleyball won in four sets against Western Oregon University on Saturday, October 11, taking their winning streak to three. SFU dropped the first set 25-19, but would win the next three. Amanda Renkema led the team in kills with 14, followed closely by Christine Howlett, who had 12. The Clan are now 6-3 within the conference and 12-5 overall.

SFU’s golf teams will compete Monday and Tuesday, with the men headed to Monterey Bay, CA, while the women head to Victoria, BC to play at the Vikes Invitational. Sophomore Kevin Vigna will not play due to injury. The men’s golf team is ranked fifth in NCAA Division II competition according to the first Golfstat ranking of the season.

SPORTS

The SFU women’s wrestling enters the 2014/15 season looking to improve upon their last season, in which four Clan members were named Women’s Collegiate Wrestling Association (WCWA) champions in their respective weight classes.

The team is currently ranked sixth in the WCWA; having finished their 2013/14 season second at the WCWA National Duals, and third overall as a team at the WCWA Individual Nationals.

Returning to the lineup will be: junior Darby Huckle, 103 lbs; senior Nikkie Brar, 116 lbs; sophomore Maegan Kuruvita, 143 lbs; senior Bailey Halvorson, 155 lbs; and junior Monika Podgorski, 170 lbs.

After notching their first victory of the season, SFU had a break from conference play. Unfortunately, that break was in the form of a game against a Division I opponent where they were soundly defeated 66-14.

The Clan travelled to Pocatello, ID to face the Idaho State Bengals (ISU) of the Big Sky Conference of Division I FCS, who were 2-3 going into the game. Backup quarterback Tyler Nickel once again had the start.

SFU got off to a seemingly good start with the opening kick return, when running back Earl Anderson managed a 60yard return to the ISU 33-yard line. However, a holding penalty eliminated much of that yardage — 57 yards to be exact — putting the Clan at their own 10-yard line. This was the start of a long game for SFU.

October 20 , 2014

After suffering a knee injury early last season, Halvorson — among the returners in their last year at SFU — is ready to get back to competing for the Clan: “It feels great to finally be able to compete after undergoing surgery on my knee so early last year. I am very excited for this season, and the WCWA Individual Nationals, where I plan to compete for the gold medal at 143 lbs.”

Also entering her senior year is Nikkie Brar, whose goals for the season are to “beat Oklahoma City in every dual we

wrestle them, [. . .] win the WCWA Individual Nationals at 116 lbs, and improve on my third place finish from last year.”

As a team, women’s wrestling have their sights set on winning the WCWA National Duals, which will be held January 10-12.

SFU returns to the mats October 25 and 26, when they travel to Oklahoma City, OK to compete at the Cliff Keen Duals hosted by Oklahoma City University (OCU). Last season, the Clan placed second at this dual tournament, after dropping the final dual to King’s University.

The team will then continue their season the following weekend as SFU wrestling hosts the annual Clan International at home in the West Gym on Saturday, November 1. “[SFU] has been hosting the Clan [International] for [around] three years, for the men and the women, and it’s an excellent blend of talent from all over North America,” Justin Abdou, the head coach of the men’s team, said. “We have had several Olympians and

In their first drive, SFU could only manage five yards. The Bengals punished them swiftly just over a minute later, with ISU running back Xavier Finley rushing 20 yards for a touchdown — the first of many.

The next drive proved slightly more fruitful for the Clan; they notched 34 yards total, 28 of them from a pass to wide receiver Lemar Durant who had 94 yards receiving in the game. This proved to be SFU’s best showing in the half; however, they did not manage to convert for points.

ISU continued their dominance, scoring on their next drive. The Bengals scored a touchdown on all but one of their drives in the first quarter, ending the quarter 21-0.

The second quarter did not treat the Clan much better, with the Bengals scoring three more touchdowns to take a commanding 42-0 lead.

Bright spots emerged for SFU, though, with the Clan holding two Bengal drives to only four plays, as well as achieving two drives with relatively good movement, gaining 22 and 32 yards during each. However, they still could not find their way onto the scoreboard.

SFU managed a better second half, however, eventually putting up some points.

The Clan started the third quarter by holding the Bengals to another four-play drive. Unfortunately ISU came out swinging in their next drive, reaching the goal line. The Bengals fumbled the ball, though, which SFU recovered to prevent a scoring play.

A subsequent fumble by Cole Tudor, however, gave ISU their next touchdown, taking the score to 49-0. For the rest of the quarter, SFU allowed only a field goal, and set themselves up for a solid fourth quarter.

Quarterback Ryan Stanford, who was put into the game after halftime, led a 75-yard drive for the Clan which ended with SFU’s first touchdown: a 25-yard pass to redshirt freshman Justin Buren.

SFU notched another touchdown with another 75 yard drive later in the quarter, fuelled by a 41yard pass caught by Buren.

ISU responded to both drives with a touchdown of their own, off of 69- and 72-yard rushes by Bengal running back Jakori Ford, before capping the game with a field goal.

Among the highlights of the game for SFU were middle linebacker Jordan Herdman’s team high 17 tackles and Buren’s 92 receiving yards. Stanford also threw a respectable 190 yards, going 16 of 22.

21

Photo courtesy of Chris Hunkeler

World Champions wrestle [here] in previous years, with future Olympians competing each year, [. . .] it’s a high caliber tournament worth watching.”

Also competing in the Clan International is the SFU men’s wrestling team, who open their season at home, before they start their busy collegiate season.

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22 SPORTS

October 20 , 2014

SFU men’s hockey team wins big in home opener Truthfully, it’s too early in the season to be singing the Canucks’ praises, especially as the majority of their competition has been from Alberta.

However, it’s hard not to get giddy watching them so far. They’re scoring goals, even power play goals, and they’re just fun to watch (even if their defence looks more than a little questionable at the moment).

On Friday night, the SFU men’s hockey team gave a dominant performance, with a 6-2 victory over the Selkirk College Saints (SC).

A crowd of close to 1,500 — the biggest since 2011 — packed into the Bill Copeland Sports Center to watch the season’s home opener.

The fans were rewarded with an exciting game.

The game started off with both teams exchanging chances, with an excellent cross crease chance from the Saints foiled by goalie Andrew Parent, and SFU’s Tyler Basham stopped on the partial break.

SFU got on the board first with a power play goal by Jesse Mysiorek that fortunately banked off his skate and into the net.

The Clan were not done yet, as they scored a second goal just before time expired in the first. The point shot came off the backboards and went right in front of the net, where forward Trent Murdoch was there to bury it top glove.

The second period began with a sprawling glove save 1:30 in by Parent.

This seemed to spark the Clan, and a few minutes later defenceman Jesse Williamson put the puck in the back of the net for a 3-0 lead, with a deadly slap shot off a Selkirk shot block right under the crossbar. Parent then stopped another breakaway, making it look effortless; this was indicative of the confidence that the entire team played with all night.

The fourth goal of the night was scored on a bad giveaway behind the Selkirk net which led to SFU forward Taylor Piller quickly passing the puck up front, where Jono Ceci easily scored — it was a milestone moment for the forward from North Vancouver, as with that goal he became the program’s all-time leading scorer, with a total of 129 points.

Tyler Basham scored from the high slot on the power play to make it 5-0. Selkrik answered to make it 5-1 before the end. Despite scoring three goals, SFU was badly outshot in the period, getting only five shots on goal while Selkirk managed 14.

In the third period, Selkirk switched their goalie, putting in James Prigione.

Once more Parent had to make a big save at the beginning of the period: another great glove save off a two on one.

The Selkirk Saints got a goal eight seconds into a power play to make it 5-2.

Forward Nick Sandor scored to restore the four goal lead, courtesy of a great pass across the crease from Taylor Piller.

Piller, Sandor, and Ceci formed the top line for the Clan, and looked dominant throughout the entire night.

The highlight of the rest of the game was an incredible windmill glove save by Parent, much to the crowd’s delight.

Despite winning by a comfortable margin, SFU should not be complacent. They were outshot 40 to 23, and gave up multiple odd man rushes and breakaways. If not for Parent, this could have been a much closer game. Luckily for SFU fans, Clan offence seems to be clicking into high gear. If they clean up the defensive lapses, the men’s hockey team could be a force to be reckoned with.

But most of all, the Sedins appear to be rejuvenated — they look dangerous again. On nearly every play, they look like an offensive threat.

In their first two games, the Sedins combined for eight points, with Henrik getting two goals and two assists, while Daniel had four assists. Obviously that’s an incredibly small sample size, but it’s a comforting sight, even if just for a short time, to see them at an over a point per game pace.

Playing on the same line is new addition Radim Vrbata, who has been dynamite with the Sedins so far, already notching three points, two of them goals. This is a dangerous-looking line that seems like a match made in heaven.

This is a big jump from last year when people were questioning whether or not the Sedins were done, or at least done as elite first line forwards.

If what we’ve seen so far is any indication, it would appear

that they still have something to prove.

It also seems as though the rejuvenated Sedins equal a rejuvenated power play. The power play problem is one that goes further back than last season; for some reason, the feared Canucks power play seemed to have died in the aftermath of the 2011 Cup finals, replaced by an unsure, ineffective power play that usually served the other team better.

But now, we’re seeing glimpses of that long lost power play. The Canucks have still had a few terrible power plays, but they scored three goals on the advantage in their first two games. There have also been shifts where they don’t score a goal, but they do manage to keep up pressure and keep the momentum in their favour, rather than deflating it.

As I said before, it’s too early to say — especially considering that the Canucks have played mostly weaker teams, and they have yet to really get into the grind of an 82-game season — but what we’ve seen so far looks pretty good.

(A)Side Jab: Why did the

Canucks have a bye week now? Why not when they are all injured and wearied by a tough schedule, instead of two games in? It seems like a waste when the Canucks could probably use one later in the year.

DIVERSIONS / ETC

October 20 , 2014

23

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HUMOUR

October 20 , 2014

On October 16, residents across the province participated in the Great BC Shakeout, taking time to practice the three main steps for what to do during an earthquake: drop, cover, and hold on.

With nothing to do but ponder under a desk for 60 seconds, here are the top nine thoughts you had during the Shakeout.

With so many Wikipedia articles floating around today, it’s hard to distinguish fact from the fantasmical. But The Peak’s got you covered with our very first installment of “Who invented it?,” a recurring column meant to tackle the tough, shrouded truths behind some of society’s most fascinating inventions. In this week’s edition, we’ll look at the first time people started buzzing over alcohol, who invented music festivals, and the correlation between greeting card companies and ol’ Saint Valentine.

Alcohol: invented by the karaoke industry When karaoke was first introduced in the 1960s, it was an utter disaster. The absence of professional vocals confused patrons, who failed to recognize why embarrassing themselves onstage

humour editor email / phone

Jacey Gibb humour@the-peak.ca / 778.782.4560

in front of friends and strangers would be desirable, much less enjoyable. A lurking sense of dignity continuously prevented people from selecting catchy pop songs from decades prior or attempting all of the rap parts in “Lose Yourself” to little success. The industry knew they had to take action; karaoke-goers needed something that would lower their guard, instantly allow them to be better dancers, and make even Ke$ha seem like a good idea. Alcohol was invented only a couple of months later.

Music festivals: collaboratively invented by several drug cartels The sale of hallucinogens and other illegal substances reached an all-time low in 1968, forcing cartels to think creatively if their businesses were going to survive. No one wanted to smoke weed and then have to worry about getting called into work, or run the risk that their parents might unexpectedly drop by. But then it dawned on them: what if there was a way to avoid all of that commitment and paranoia? What if there was a place people could go to for three to four days where the only responsibility was maybe

putting on pants in the morning; they could be free to smoke as much weed as they wanted, no longer inhibited by anything that might keep them from being inhibited. The following year, rock ‘n’ roll was bought out by several drug cartels and music festivals became a beacon for debauchery.

Greeting card companies: invented

by Saint Valentine Tired of having to use original words and thoughts to describe his feelings, Saint Valentine devised a brilliant scheme: he’d mass produce the same cheesy lines and rhyming couplets, and make them deliberately ambiguous so that anyone reading would assume the praise was about them, then pair each card with a sizeappropriate envelope for the somehow reasonable price of $6. While the cards themselves were an utter waste of resources and capital — people rarely held onto them for longer than a couple of weeks after the special occasion had passed — the false sense of sincerity and relative ease of mass production resulted in greeting cards becoming a hit.

HUMOUR

After months of rampant speculation and backroom meetings, area cat Whiskers has confirmed that she is sick of her human treating her toilet as if it’s a litter box.

“Enough is enough,” Whiskers declared at a press conference, held yesterday sometime between her early mid-morning nap and her late mid-morning doze. “If Jim can’t remember where he’s supposed to take care of his business, then I’m not sure how much more of this I can take.

“If I catch him pissing on my good toilet one more time [. . .]

I’m so mad, I can’t even think straight right now.”

Whiskers has confirmed that the Jim she’s referring to is the same human she acquired through a Craigslist posting in August. Following a then-recent breakup, Whiskers had been looking for something to

Members of the Occupy Central movement were surprised this week to learn that one of their most vocal supporters, ex-Special Air Service commander Percival Harrington III, has only been encouraging the protests in hopes that Hong Kong will reunite with its former, more favourable ruler: Great Britain.

Putting the ‘civil’ back in ‘civil disobedience,’ the Occupy Central protests have been active since September 22. Formed in response to the Communist Party of China’s decision to select its own leader over those chosen by the people of Hong Kong, the pro-democracy protest has been attracting media attention from around the globe.

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help fill the void and came across Jim’s photo in a posting.

“I’ll be the first to admit that I should have done more research on humans and then made an informed decision on if they were right for me,” said Whiskers. “Other cats always tell you about how great it is having a human around the house, but they never tell you about all of the incessant ‘accidents’ that happen when you’re not around.”

Though Jim’s previous cat told Whiskers that he was wellbehaved and fully trained on how to use the litter box, Whiskers was almost immediately disappointed to find Jim going to the bathroom in the bathroom.

Whiskers explained: “I’ve tried everything to get him to stop. I’ve tried following him into the bathroom and eyeing him while he

Harrington, a 77-year-old veteran of the Falklands War and several other British struggles of decolonization, has thus far been an outspoken supporter of the young protesters and their wishes for freedom — though his motives are only now coming to light.

“It’s good to see people finally realize the mistake of giving the Chinese sovereignty over Hong

goes; I’ve tried meowing loudly whenever my food dish is even slightly empty; I’ve even tried falling asleep in a sun beam in the living room. Nothing seems to be getting his attention.”

When asked to make a statement, Jim would only tell press that Whiskers was “a pwetty kitty” and

Kong,” Harrington told reporters. “I tell you, the moment you give the ‘natives’ any authority, it all goes down the loo and you’ve got civilization committing suicide.

“You just can’t trust them reds.

One moment they’re shaking hands with you after fighting the Japanese and then bam, they take all your colonies right from under you in socalled national liberation.”

his “little snuggle monster,” but refused to comment on the toiletrelated allegations being made against him. So far the claims have gone unconfirmed.

While Jim’s tenancy with Whiskers remains up in the air, it has been suggested that the Vancouver cat might be entertaining

the idea of welcoming a female human into her household — though Whiskers is hesitant.

“I’m really more of a male human cat. I don’t think I’m home enough to give a female human all of the attention she would need. I hear they’re a lot of work.”

While still lamenting the loss of Hong Kong in 1997, Harrington remains hopeful for the future with the current protests and has publicly encouraged current Prime Minister David Cameron to take advantage of the situation immediately by conquering Hong Kong.

governments of the past, including those of Apartheid-era South Africa and Rhodesia, then spoke of how he would govern Hong Kong based on their example. When told that these ideas contrast with the very demands of the protesters and have a rather colonialist slant, Harrington responded with: “It’s not colonialism if it stops communism!”

The irony of Harrington’s statements were not lost on the people of Hong Kong, as one anonymous male student protester commented with a simple, “Same shit, different day.”

Unfortunately for Harrington, his plans for annexation are likely to be forgotten, as rumours claim that the colonel suffers from extreme delusions caused by years of opium usage. The rumour has all but been confirmed by Harrington himself, who abruptly ended his interview, saying, “If you would excuse me chap, this bloody dragon keeps flying around the air and I feel the sudden urge to chase it.”

When asked what he would do if Westminster did not agree with his plan, Harrington assured reporters, “I’ve watched Apocalypse Now enough times to know that if the government doesn’t have the stones for it, then you need to set up a covert rebel army and do it yourself with music by The Doors playing menacingly in the background.”

Harrington proceeded to praise notably ruthless and oppressive

26 HUMOUR

October 20 , 2014

HUMOUR

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28 LAST WORD

am sad watching my uniform, school bag and geometry box. I felt hurt on opening my wardrobe and seeing my uniform, school bag and geometry box.

Boys’ schools are opening tomorrow.” Eleven-year-old Pakistani Malala Yousafzai wrote this in her diary on February 20, 2005 — nine years later, she would become a symbol of resistance for an entire generation.

Malala was named by her father after Malalai of Maiwand, the famous warrior woman of Afghanistan.

Malalai is an Afghan folk hero who is said to have rallied Pashtun fighters against British troops in the late

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19th century. She is sometimes called the Afghan Joan of Arc. Like Malalai, Malala has become a heroic beacon for her country — and suffered the consequences that come with this status.

Years after this first diary entry, Malala became breaking news at a time when Pakistan seemed to receive breaking news every half hour. She was shot by the Taliban on her way to school — they claimed full responsibility for the attack and said that, if she survived, they would attack again.

Malala had already become a household name in Pakistan.

Before the attack, she was an education

activist who wrote an online blog under a pseudonym and appeared on many different news channels, advocating for equality, women’s education, and a progressive Pakistan.

How could she not be seen as a threat? She fought to make Pakistani women engaged, educated, and independent — the extremist Taliban would never tolerate this.

After the attack, Pakistanis came together to pray for this brave young girl; at a time when my country was in a very fragile state, she became a symbol of hope and peace. If she survived, we would survive.

And boy, did she survive. She was transported to England where she received treatment for her lifethreatening injuries and decided — very reluctantly, I might add — not to return to Pakistan, at least for a while. Given the threats from the Taliban, it’s hard to blame her.

However, Malala didn’t let a bullet stop her. After relocating to England, she continued to advocate for education in her home country with determination.

Malala was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on October 10, becoming the youngest Nobel Laureate and the first from Pakistan. The honour is richly deserved.

She was a young girl, completely aware of the threat the Taliban posed to her and her family; yet she continued to stand up for her rights and the rights of fellow Pakistanis. How many in her position would have done the same?

Very, very few.

Of course, many Pakistanis continue to believe that Malala represents the ideals of the white saviour complex.

Her story, to them, represents all that is wrong with

Pakistani activism: she was shot tragically in Pakistan, moved to England, and now lives happily with her family, away from the threat of extremism.

Being from Pakistan myself, I understand these arguments — but I believe she represents all that is right with my country.

Far from being a political puppet, Malala has openly criticized President Obama’s policy on drone strikes in the Middle East and has never wavered in her commitment to education and equality, even when these beliefs stand in opposition to western ideas.

According to Time magazine, Pakistan ranks second last on issues of education, economic empowerment, national health, and political empowerment of women.

UNICEF figures indicate that Pakistan ranks extremely low on the global literacy scale: 113th among 120 countries.

Amidst all of this, it is essential to recognize the significance of a girl who fought the powers that be with her words — writing a public blog speaking out against the Taliban’s unfair laws towards girls’ education.

Hers is a powerful voice not only because of the attention her life story has garnered, but because her cause is an immensely powerful one: to educate the women of Pakistan. However, her struggle has led her to be cast as a westernized figure — a remarkably ill-fitting title.

Malala’s story bears many parallels to that of Nabila Rehman, another brave young woman from Pakistan.

But unlike Malala, Nabila’s story is mostly unknown; the West has largely ignored her

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experiences, much like Malala’s criticisms of drone strikes have been swept under the rug.

Nabila Rehman and her brother travelled to Washington to share their story of how they narrowly survived the drone attacks which killed their grandmother, and urged Obama to stop killing innocent victims.

Where Malala’s journey has been covered by multiple media sources, Nabila’s has fallen on deaf ears. But both Rehman’s powerful testimonies and Malala’s continuing activism show how heroism and resistance can withstand even the most intense and horrifying acts of violence.

In an article for Al Jazeera, writer Murtaza Hussain argues that “Malala for her struggles was to be made the face of the American war effort — against her own will if necessary — while innumerable little girls such as Nabila will continue to be terrorized and murdered as part of this war without end.”

Whether or not the western world casts Malala as a symbol benefitting its own ideologies, Pakistanis need to understand that she fights for the same things that they fight for — the right to education, and a life free of oppression.

This young woman’s wisdom, influence and strength continue to inspire people of all cultures and backgrounds. She doesn’t raise her voice, yet it never quivers. She openly admits to missing her country and hopes to one day return. With a dupatta on her head, she always carries a face that shows her strength and fearlessness.

Malala has made great strides in the fight for human rights in Pakistan, but her gift to the world is even greater: she is an enduring example of how anyone can change the world, providing they’re willing to work for it. In rewarding her the Peace Prize, we’re recognizing a remarkable woman who continues to give her life to make her country — and the rest of the world — a better place.