The Cascade Vol. 20 No. 16

Vol. 20 Issue. 16

www.ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 06, 2012

Hungry on campus since 1993

Save Our Socia1hou5e? p.3

What’s the best pizza joint in Abby? p10

Steven Schroeder on the West Bank p7

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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6, 2012

INSIDE THIS WEEK’S ISSUE News

Opinion

Arts & Life

Bike To Work Week

The meaning of a men’s centre

The Fraser Valley gets GameSparked

The Cascade’s Ali Siemens talks bikes with Abbotsford mayor Bruce Banman and local bike shop owner Harv Bergen.

Abbotsford’s bike lanes have never looked more appealing.

Xbox’s and foosball tables or relief from the pressures on conforming to the restrictive norms of masculinity? Joel Smart and Paul Esau discuss the controversy around the SFU’s potential men’s centre.

Read more on page 5

Read more on page 8

This week’s Cascade Arcade talks exclusively to the creators of the Fraser Valley’s new and dynamic video game website GameSparked.com, and takes a look at their novel idea to match gamers with the games they’ll love.

Read more on page 17

Sports & Health EastVan PillowFight Club Pillows. Liberated women. The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat. It’s hard to explain, so you might have to go read the article.

Read more on page 18

EDITORIAL

What’s it worth to you?

PAUL ESAU

THE CASCADE Before reading this, go read my article on pg. 3 concerning the closure of AfterMath. Otherwise you won’t know what I’m referring to, and you might draw conclusions you shouldn’t be drawing.

In 2011-2012, AfterMath cost the SUS $159,000. This means that SUS spent more on AfterMath last year than any other item in their Operating Budget (which does not include programs such as the U-Pass or the Health and Dental Plan). SUS did not mean to spend this much money on AfterMath, and they did not mean for it to become the single most expensive item on the budget.

But it did, and your and my money paid for it.

When I first began to pursue this story, I was appalled by some of the numbers. Yet I quickly discovered something that, I think is important to bring to the discussion.

Campus pubs, restaurants, grills, they all lose money. It’s the nature of the game. A normal restaurant on South Fraser or McCallum can draw its patrons from the entirety of Abbotsford; AfterMath draws customers from the entirety of UFV. That isn’t a winning proposition, in fact, that’s a death wish for any eatery needing to turn a profit.

So the real question is: how much money are you as a student prepared to pay to keep AfterMath on campus? How much do you care

about cheap burgers, drinks and an alternative to Sodexo?

The president and vice president of the Biology & Chemistry Student Associations, Jennifer Martel and Gagan Mahil, have made their choice. Their perspective, having been organizers of the highly successful “Big Bang” event at AfterMath last semester, is an interesting one.

“We want to do whatever it takes,” said Martel, “Whether it’s getting more students to go and eat there, or if it’s signing petitions, sending letters, whatever it takes.”

“For hosting events for any of the associations,” said Mahil, “AfterMath is the most viable thing. If you wanted to have a meeting or some sort of event like The Big Bang was, you would have to have an outdoor stage, catering services, fenced-off areas, liquor licensing, all those things that would add up to a lot more. It might not feel the best to lose money in that sense of paying for the deficit, but it’s better to some sort of community at the school.”

As AfterMath grows and matures as an organization the deficit will shrink, hopefully to a level more reasonable for a restaurant of its size. But is the student body of UFV willing to provide the time, the patience, and the finances for it to do so?

How much is AfterMath worth to you?

Have you ever wanted to be the boss of a big time paper like the NY Times?

Applications are now being accepted for Editor-In-Chief at The Cascade.

Check out page 9 for the job description and requirements.

Volume 20 · Issue 16 Room C1027 33844 King Road Abbotsford, BC V2S 7M8 604.854.4529 Editor-in-Chief esau@ufvcascade.ca Paul Esau Managing Editor ali@ufvcascade.ca Ali Siemens Business Manager joe@ufvcascade.ca Joe Johnson Online Editor michael@ufvcascade.ca Michael Scoular Production Manager stewart@ufvcascade.ca Stewart Seymour Art Director anthony@ufvcascade.ca Anthony Biondi Copy Editor joel@ufvcascade.ca Joel Smart News Editor news@ufvcascade.ca Paul Esau Opinion Editor opinion@ufvcascade.ca Sasha Moedt Arts & Life Editor arts@ufvcascade.ca Jennifer Colbourne Sports Editor sports@ufvcascade.ca Sean Evans Staff Writers Karen Aney, Leanna Pankratz, Alexei Summers

Contributors Kenneth Muir, Nick Ubels, Tim Ubels, Aaron Levy, Jess Wind, Katie Tegtmeier, Aaron Levy, Nadine Moedt, Paige Hoblak, Jeremy Hannaford, Darren Blakeborough, Daryl Johnson

UPCOMING EVENTS

Printed By International WebExpress

June 14

June 15-17

June 19

June 8,9,14-16,21-23

Chair Massages at Abbotsford Campus

Vancouver Men’s Show at the Tradex

John Mellencamp at the AESC

Gallery 7: The Fantasticks

Tired and burdened?

Massages will be available in C1001 at the modest cost of $25 for 20 minutes or $40 for 30 minutes. The math doesn’t make sense, but once you get into that chair you won’t care.

Trust us, we’re a newspaper.

Are you a man? Would you change if you had to? Come see “the only large scale men’s specific consumer trade show in western Canada.” There will be poker, stunt riders, live motocross, and a “Strongman Contest” involving the “Big Boys of BC.” Tickets are $12 for adults. Stereotypes are free.

See the No Better Than This Tour at the Abbotsford Entertainment & Sports Centre, a one-time opportunity. Mellencamp will be playing a number of his own hits, as well as showcasing as a special guest the Canadian band Cowboy Junkies.

We think it sounds like a dangerous combination.

Tickets range from $42.50 to $95, and an be obtained through the AESC box office.

A story of love, intrigue, “innocent bliss and romance.” Features the classic song “Try To Remember.”

Sounds like a good place to send the girls, while the men appreciate the cultural value of live motocross.

Performances are being held at the MEI Theatre.

Tickets are $18 for students ($15 for matinees)

The Cascade is UFV’s autonomous student newspaper. It provides a forum for UFV students to have their journalism published. It also acts as an alternative press for the Fraser Valley. The Cascade is funded with UFV student funds. The Cascade is published every Wednesday with a circulation of 1500 and is distributed at UFV campuses and throughout Abbotsford, Chilliwack, and Mission. The Cascade is a member of the Canadian University Press, a national cooperative of 75 university and college newspapers from Victoria to St. John’s. The Cascade follows the CUP ethical policy concerning material of a prejudicial or oppressive nature.

Submissions are preferred in electronic format through e-mail. Please send submissions in “.txt” or “.doc” format only.

Articles and letters to the editor must be typed.

The Cascade reserves the right to edit submissions for clarity and length. The Cascade will not print any articles that contain racist, sexist, homophobic or libellous content. The writer’s name and student number must be submitted with each submission. Letters to the editor must be under 250 words if intended for print. Only one letter to the editor per writer in any given edition.

Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect that of UFV, Cascade staff and collective, or associated members.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6, 2012

www.ufvcascade.ca

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NEWS

Closed on campus: Doing the math on AfterMath AfterMath I understand now that the SUS has always seen it—and I see it this way too—it’s a service that we pay for. We are always striving to break even, that is our main goal with AfterMath, in a perfect world we would want AfterMath the restaurant to break even.”

PAUL ESAU

THE CASCADE The UFV Abbotsford campus will once again be without the services of the AfterMath Socia1hou5e over the summer, following a motion to close the SUSoperated restaurant at the May 25 meeting of the SUS Board.

The move is a repetition of last year’s closure of the previous establishment (Casey’s On Campus) for the same reason: mounting operational deficit. Since the end of the fiscal year at the end of March, AfterMath has amassed $33,000 in debt.

SUS president Carlos Vidal said, “We gave the summer semester a shot, knowing that it had closed every year for the last four at least, and in the end the numbers just didn’t let us feel we were being fiscally responsible.”

The motion passed at the May 25 meeting also calls for a “forensic audit” of AfterMath’s operations, the results of which will determine whether the social house continues its previous level of operation in the coming year.

The Board has called for an audit because there was a lot of financial differences,” stated VP Finance Samuel Broadfoot, “mostly because of the lag between [the] UFV Finance [Department] and between our own accounting systems and between the invoices that our manager was getting.

We wanted to make sure that was clear before we made any further decisions on AfterMath.”

AfterMath, like its predecessor, has consistently run at a deficit during its history at UFV. In 201011, the then-current SUS Board budgeted $20,000 towards a potential deficit run by the restaurant. By the end of the fiscal year, Casey’s had accumulated $163,990 in debt, with the extra $143,990 having to paid from surpluses in other areas of SUS finances, as well as transfers from the SUS Capital Fund.

In the summer of 2011, after closing Casey’s, the SUS Board attempted to address the restaurant’s financial problems.

“The most major step that the board took,” stated Broadfoot, “was that before the last summer we completely revised the entire management structure; we hired a new manager [Brad Ross] who had the skills to be able to turn it

image:Poster for Aftermath

around.”

In the 2011-2012 budget, the SUS board chose not to allocate any money towards a potential deficit at the on-campus restaurant. In an article printed in The Cascade on October 26, 2011, Broadfoot attributed this action to the new management, saying “we have all the confidence that [Ross] can break even.”

AfterMath came into existence in fall 2011 already $53,000 in the red from the last two months of Casey’s operation in May and June. By the end of the fiscal year in March 2012, AfterMath had reached a deficit of $159,000.

“In hindsight, that was pretty foolish,” said Broadfoot, when asked why the SUS Board thought a new manager could balance the books within one year. “At the time we wanted to put action to words and show our dedication to making it work.”

Vidal echoed the sentiment. “I think it was naive to think that we could do that big of a change in one year,” he said. “Now. I can say that now after seeing the actual operations and what it takes, the expenses it takes to run that place. I think we were shooting a bit high.”

The unforeseen expenses have taken a toll on SUS finances. The proposed operating budget for the 2011/2012 year was $592,000 while the actual amount spent

(which included unplanned expenses from several sources including the My Safe Ride Home program and the Health and Dental Plan) was $637,000.

Unbudgeted expenses are paid first from general revenues in other areas of the budget, and then from transfers from the SUS Capital Fund. “The capital budget is a budget that is set aside from the surpluses of the previous years that is meant for extra equipment, extraordinary expenditures, paying of large debts, other such things,” Broadfoot explained.

At the beginning of the 2010/2011 fiscal year, the SUS Capital Fund held $116,000. At the end of the 2011/2012 year it held $26,000. Now it holds less.

Brad Ross, AfterMath’s manager, said he discovered many differences between the operation of a normal food and beverage venue and that on a university campus. “When I first came in,” he said, “I took all the knowledge I have running normal food and beverage outlets and I applied all those skills and everything I knew to running this place like that, and within the first semester had to come back to the Board and go ‘hmm’. This place isn’t normal by any means, there are so many oddities to this that I have to now adapt to.”

Ross said that at first he lost money through overstaffing and

attempting to recreate Casey’s famous pub nights. He also said “I didn’t account for—and again my first year here with the different circumstance—the second semester … It was either people were already out of money, or they really concentrated more on their classes. That second semester, with Reading Week specifically, where we did stay open as a service and lose money ... we might as well have handed it out at the door. The drop off in the second semester was disastrous.”

Still Ross said the real problem is in the perception of AfterMath’s purpose. “Everyone hired me to determine if it was feasible to run as a business. We determined after the first semester it is not tangible to run as a business.

Is it tangible to run as a service, and keep the prices low and the quality and the quantity high for students who don’t want to play $12 for a burger off campus? Yeah.

It’s viable. And going forward is it viable to have less of a deficit?

One hundred per cent. Yeah.”

The idea of AfterMath as a “service” provided by SUS was one echoed by Vidal. “Ever since I’ve come to school here, before I was even Student Union, I’ve always heard the notion that AfterMath cost money ... and being a member of the Board and seeing firsthand the operations and the challenges that come with operating

Day art exhibit, just to name a few from last semester. As well, they host Wednesday community dinners for $2 and free pancakes at U-House the same day. Stephanie Van Dyke, SWSA’s faculty representative, shared some of her own thoughts on participating in Pink Shirt Day. “Along with Curtis Magnuson and Rhonda Styles, Pink Shirt Day was organized in a short period of time, and the success was phenomenal,” she said. “It was definitely neat to be part of a group of organizers, who when all was said and done, could step back and say, ‘wow.’”

Stephanie Van Dyke is a Bachelor of Social Work student with a minor in Child Welfare. There were a number of factors that drew her to the program. “I liked

the idea of a group of social work students doing things in the community that incorporate the theory and techniques that we learn in class,” she explained. “The idea of a group that can work on behalf of the Social Work and Human Services students, advocating to better our education, while giving back to the community and being active on campus was something that I think really drew me to SWSA.” For those interested in the association, Van Dyke shared a few parting thoughts. “SWSA is open to all students at UFV – those who are currently in the Social Work and Human Services department and those who are not. I encourage all of these students to join!

[SWSA] has provided me with a

Ross’s argument is simple. “My basic belief in AfterMath, is that if you were to look at all the things that SUS puts money into on campus to create an atmosphere of community on campus [all the events]...Aftermath is the single largest attended, most popular event SUS hosts on their budget. If you were to have a one-off where you just dump that money into one huge band...we could dump $200,000 today and have Metallica play on the green in September and 3000-4000 students would show up and be happy as can be for that day. Great event. We have that many people who go through our doors over the course of the year, which makes [AfterMath] the single largest event on campus, and the only event SUS generates that does at least have that potential of sustaining itself over time.”

The SUS budget for 2012-2013 allots $80,000 to AfterMath. If the social house deficit exceeds this amount during the year, it will close until the end of the fiscal year for reevaluation. Both Vidal and Ross believe that some of the restaurant’s financial trouble will be eased when it moves to the new SUB building upon completion. Both Vidal and Broadfoot agree that Ross is the man to accomplish that transition to better fiscal responsibility.

SUS communications officer Jhim Burwell was firm on this point. “Brad continues to have the confidence of the Board based on the fact that they trust his skill set, they trust his ethics, and they trust that he is going to be able to manage this operation in this place with the limitations that it has until we can open in the SUB. And the financial realities of that, the amount of money that’s going to be spent on it, is capped at $80,000,” he said.

If the SUS Board finds the results of the audit satisfactory, AfterMath will reopen at the end of August.

Small group, big impact KATIE TEGTMEIER

CONTRIBUTOR

SWSA: Students Wearing Ski Attire? Students Who Swim Association? You could keep trying, but chances are unless you have heard of it, you wouldn’t guess the acronym stands for Student Association of Social Work.

They may not be a very wellknown association here at UFV, but the Student Association of Social Work (SWSA) has made a substantial impact both on and off campus. If you visit their UFV site (www.ufv.ca/swhs/swsa.htm), you will find a basic description of what the group is all about.

This webpage notes many of the important causes they support

and plan. For example, the SWSA planned UFV’s End Racism Day in March. The SWSA cares not just about UFV students enjoying life on campus, but also the wellbeing of the communities they live in.

According to the previously mentioned website, SWSA is a student organization that “strives to support, represent, and advocate for students in the Bachelor of Social Work degree program.”

Yet, despite this, they also accept students from any program path.

They also welcome volunteers to help out with fundraising events.

These fundraisers include the samosa sale, Pink Shirt Day, Miss Representation (a movie showing in U-House co-hosted with AIM), and the International Women’s

strong group in which I am able to voice my ideas and opinions, while hav[ing] the opportunity to give back to [the] University community and [the] University at large,” she said. She also spoke of the way it had affected her life. “It has humbled me greatly, and has presented me with a number of learning [opportunities] through teamwork, personal growth, and community development.”

According to Van Dyke, getting involved is easy, even during the summer. “SWSA is still running in full force for the summer semester, and [we] welcome student participation at our meetings, events, and through email!”

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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6, 2012

NEWS

Province or territory: All of it or Nunavut joe johnson

the territories exercise delegated powers under the authority of the Parliament of Canada.” Notably, the provinces have autonomy over their natural resources while the territories do not.

According to Hamish Telford, a UFV Political Science professor, “What makes the territories fundamentally different from the provinces is that the provinces derive revenue from natural resources. So when oil is taken out of the ground in Alberta, the government of Alberta collects a royalty. But when diamonds are mined in the Northwest Territories, the royalties go to the government of Canada – not to the territorial government.”

What the territories do get

in exchange for the royalties, though, is revenue back in the way of transfer payments calculated through the Territorial Formula Financing program. Essentially, it’s enough money given to the territories above what they are expected to generate themselves in order to provide services for their people.

Since their beginnings the territories have always been second to the provinces. However, the capacity exists for them to become official provinces. If it were to happen it would require the consent of at least seven provinces and 50 per cent of the population, and an amendment to the constitution. The reality of it though, according Telford, is that the

pieces to become full province just aren’t there.

The problems facing the territories in being able to sustain themselves without the assistance of the federal government include a low and sparse population, lack of educational institutions, a limited skilled workforce, aboriginal land claims in the Northwest Territories and Yukon, and economic development in Nunavut. This is in addition to direct concerns of “poverty, unemployment, addiction, suicide, etc.” according to Telford.

Together, the territories comprise roughly 40 per cent of the landmass of Canada, yet hold very little of its population. Telford commented, “We have to really consciously think about the population. The population of the three territories combined is about half that of Abbotsford.

We’re talking about 75,000 people up there in three territories, there’s a massive territorial area.”

So instead of making the move to a full province, it’s devolution that they want. It would bring them closer to provincehood, in terms of retaining royalties, without actually having to give up some of their benefits of being a territory – namely the transfer payments.

In the 2012-2013 year the provinces will receive $3.1 billion from the federal government.

Telford commented on where the territories are at with their devolution, “The Yukon has made some progress in negotiating that with the federal government, Northwest Territories is further behind, and Nunavut’s way be-

Image: Hera Chan, The McGill Daily

Image: Eric Magnuson, Flickr

Image: Reuters

Image: Reuters

Image: Flickr

Egyptians protest to reclaim their revolt CAIRO (Reuters) — Thousands of Egyptians poured into Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Tuesday to reclaim a revolt they say has been hijacked after Hosni Mubarak was jailed for life and his top security officials freed in a sign they say his old guard is still in charge.

Although Mubarak was imprisoned on Saturday over the killing of protesters, he escaped the death penalty and senior officers tried with him were acquitted for lack of evidence, so many now believe the deposed leader could win an appeal.

Calls to take to the streets, almost 16 months after Mubarak was toppled, have also been fuelled by a looming June 16-17 presidential run-off vote between Mubarak’s last prime minister and a conservative Islamist, a choice that has polarized Egypt.

More body parts found in Canada as suspect faces German court VANCOUVER/BERLIN (Reuters) — Packages containing a human hand and foot were delivered to schools in western Canada on Tuesday as the suspect in a cannibalistic murder and dismemberment told German police he would not fight a Canadian extradition request.

There was no immediate evidence to link the two parcels sent to the Pacific port city of Vancouver to Luka Rocco Magnotta, who is wanted in Canada on charges of killing and dismembering a Chinese student, then posting a video of the crime online.

But Vancouver police investigator Warren Lemcke said local police were in contact with the authorities in Montreal, where police say a foot and a hand are among the body parts still missing after the gruesome murder of Jun Lin, 32.

Nintendo pins hopes on holidayready “Wii U” LOS ANGELES (Reuters) — Nintendo Co Ltd will launch a console with a dedicated “Super Mario” game title for the first time in 16 years as the struggling Japanese company hopes its new Wii U will score the rave reviews that helped make its predecessor the world’s biggest gaming hit.

Nintendo hopes the Wii will appeal to families as well as traditional gamers, global president Satoru Iwata said in an interview in Japanese on the sidelines of the E3 entertainment expo in Los Angeles.

Nintendo, which was knocked off its perch at the pinnacle of gaming industry hardware by Microsoft Corp’s Xbox in recent years, formally unveiled a white console on Tuesday, saying it will support two “GamePad” controllers designed to look and function like tablets.

Proposed SFU men’s centre resisted by Communist group VICTORIA (CUP) — A proposal by the Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) to establish a men’s centre at Simon Fraser University (SFU) is being met with resistance. The Young Communist League of Canada has officially spoken out against the idea, arguing that men do not face systemic barriers and do not need a safe space.

“There is a Women’s Centre on campus,” said Young Communist League of Canada British Columbia provincial treasurer Erin Searle. “Its goal is in part ‘to struggle against all forms of oppression and demand justice’. Searle pointed out that men still make more than women and hold a large majority of the seats in provincial legislatures and federal parliament.

UNB researchers investigate deadly bat fungus FREDERICTON (CUP) — Researchers, including those based at the faculty of biology at the University of New Brunswick, are searching for a way to explain and stop a phenomenon that has killed nearly seven million little brown bats in just six years, pushing the species to the verge of extinction.

In 2006, scientists in New York state noticed a decrease in the bat population. After surveying some caves, they discovered some hibernating bats had white spots on their muzzles and wings. The fungus has been aptly dubbed white-nose syndrome. Now UNB researches roughly estimate the population of bats in New Brunswick — that was not abundant in the first place — has decreased from 10,000 to 3000.

THE CASCADE

It’s called “devolution” and our territories north of the 60th parallel are working hard at it.

Depending on their level of development, they could potentially obtain a province-like autonomy and fiscal control of their land.

But it’s much more than gaining independence from the federal government that they are looking for.

Historically, the tale of the territories is very much Canadian. In 1870, three years after the country came into its own through confederation Canada bought the territorial land (the NorthWestern Territory as well as Rupert’s Land) from the Hudson’s Bay Company. A decade later more land would be added as the British government conceded the Arctic Islands. Together this land was much vaster than today’s three territories, and stretched south into areas that would later to be divided into provinces. The north remained, and as granting territorial status is a simpler act than creating a province—done through Parliament rather than amending the constitution—the three territories were created: the Northwest Territories in 1870, the Yukon in 1898 and Nunavut in 1999.

The main defining factor of a territory is the dependence they place on the federal government.

In the wording of the Intergovernmental Affairs website, while “provinces exercise constitutional powers in their own right,

hind in that respect.”

Many changes have already occurred, though, such that there is now “a legislative assembly and executive council for each territory.” But the negotiations are almost always towards the economies.

Not moving towards absolute provincehood is something that the federal government is in an unsaid agreement with. During past negotiations with the Northwest Territories and Yukon, it was implied that the federal government wouldn’t want to give up their influence. The same should be true with the upcoming negotiations with Nunavut. The Harper government deems the north to be part of a strategic defence and will be key in retaining control of Canadian sovereignty in the contested waters. Of course, they also would like to keep access to the resource royalties.

Telford explained that it’s also the other provinces that “wouldn’t welcome them as full provinces.

It changes the underpinnings of the Canadian constitution, and to bring in three new provinces sort of upsets the balance of power, if you will, that already exists between the provinces.”

In the end, it’s all about the economic negotiations and not about an idea of provincehood. Highlighted by Telford, it’s something that the federal government, other provinces, and “the territories don’t even want. You know, if the territories decided it was something they wanted, it would at least force the conversation. But it’s not in the cards for any of the territorial governments.”

NEWS BRIEFS

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6, 2012

www.ufvcascade.ca

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NEWS

If Portland can do it, we can do it

The Scout Market takes the town by storm

ALI SIEMENS

PAIGE HOBLAK

Chicken burgers, veggie burgers, hot dogs, watermelon and vegetables lined tables at a free outdoor BBQ that started the kick off to “Bike to Work Week” running from May 28 to June 3.

Bikers of all ages peddled over to Clearbrook Library where Abbotsfordians visited and talked to local programs about the benefits of biking to work, getting healthy, saving money and putting the bike lanes to use while doing it.

Abbotsford is one of 23 communities in BC to participate in Bike to Work Week, and according to Mayor Bruce Banman, the amount of biking in Abbotsford should only increase.

“It is terribly important, the city has gone to great expense to put in bike lanes and I hear from residents all the time, ‘we never see anybody use them,’ so I think this is a great opportunity where people can actually use the bike lanes out there.”

Making the switch to a more eco-friendly and bike-friendly city has been on Abbotsford’s agenda, so an important part of Bike to Work Week is changing the way people think about biking around town.

Banman went to school in Portland, Oregon, and is confident it is possible for Abbotsford to become more like the bike-friendly town he was educated in.

“Portland is the number one bicycle-used city in North America and if they can figure out how to do it, we can do it. They live in a very similar climate, and it’s a

Last Saturday Abbotsford got a taste of the vintage art scene which was beautifully showcased at the Scout Market held at 1920 North Parallel Road. The market was hosted by Lily Ellis and Rachel Janzen whose natural flair for creativity is the motivation behind the Birch and Bird blog and online shop. The women, who describe themselves as “moms, wives, and vintage junkies extraordinaire,” are trying to bring a fresh blend of art and decor to the community of Abbotsford.

The market had an impressive turn out for both Friday night, which was a pre-sold wine and cheese event, and Saturday, where tickets were sold at the door to the general public. The space was filled with eager patrons who were in awe at the beautiful vintage and handmade items that were up for sale. The items represented the work from some of the best local talents. The market provided something for a great variety of attendees: refurbished jewellery and furniture, handmade journals, even delicate treats to satisfy the sweet tooth.

Abbotsford’s Ellis and Janzen were the heart and soul behind the weekend’s festivities and I spoke with them to get what’s what on the Scout Market. The name “Scout Market” came from a play on words which literally combines scouting vintage goods with hosting a vintage market.

The artistic duo has hosted similar markets in Abbotsford before; however, it is the first time they have gone with the “Scout” name.

CONTRIBUTOR

THE CASCADE

image:Creative Commons

mountainous region, the same as our city is, lots of hills, and what we need to do is encourage people to do it and make it easy for them.”

Harv Bergen, owner of Life Cycles, a bicycle shop located near the University is a biking enthusiast and avid supporter of Bike to Work Week. Life Cycles donated a $1000 prize that was raffled off at the end of the week – as well as free bicycle tune-ups at the BBQ. Biking to work himself, Bergen said, “It’s a great opportunity to bring some focus to the idea that [a bike] is not just a toy, it can be a vehicle, and it can be used for practical purpose. There are really very few pieces of sporting equipment that have that level of practicality that is attached to

Come to

The Cascade’s

Annual General Meeting!

Thursday, June 21 in C1429

6:00 PM

them. People can say, ‘our second vehicle is a bicycle.’”

Along with biking participants, local businesses such as Neufeld Farms, Abbotsford Parks and Recs, and Healthy Abbotsford also supported the cause.

Banman encouraged cyclists to crowd the bike lanes and make it impossible for residents to complain about their implementation.

Deemed a success from all people involved, all that is left is making Bike to Work Week an event that takes place every day, all year round.

With a busy week at the shop, Bergen has nothing but praise for the event, “I’d like to see more of it, it helps the environment, [prevents] obesity, it only has advantages.”

Their main goal for hosting these events is to highlight their local vendors and give them an outlet to showcase their wares.

Birch and Bird also has a booth at the market where they can interact with customers and vendors face to face – a nice change from web-based interactions done through their original online shop, which can be found on Etsy. com.

The duo explained the effect that an event such as the Scout Market has on the community.

“Events like Scout give artisans and craftspeople a chance to showcase their wares in a friendly and comfortable environment.

They get a chance to meet their customers in person and network with other vendors, an opportunity that they might otherwise miss out on if selling online or by consignment only.”

The internet and social media has had a huge impact on their success as an independent business. They said that they “depend on it” for the survival and progression of their business; they have seen success where many others have seen failure. When asked where they saw the future of arts-based businesses they responded: “We hope that we’ll continue to see a resurgence of all things handmade but it will take a conscious effort from consumers to be willing to pay a little bit more for something that was made by hand locally, not overseas.”

Birch and Bird can be supported and followed on their website www.birchandbird.com.

Prepare for the outbreak: BC government has a plan! aNTHONY BIONDI

THE CASCADE

Nearly anyone who has played any sort of zombie video game or watched a zombie movie has formulated their own plan in the event of a real life outbreak. It may involve holding up in a super mall, or running away to the countryside to avoid populated areas. These fictional plans may be well formulated, but the BC government has released a blog that challenges the public to do better.

A few weeks ago, the BC government released a blog on the Emergency BC Info website. It contains a detailed personal blog of a survivor during a Zombie outbreak, highlighting the daily activities and methods of survival. The blog emphasizes not just the importance of being prepared, but the application of government emergency programs, such as the Emergency Info BC Twitter-feed and blog. “The B.C. government is hoping its fictional advice will generate interest in a

set of social media tools that aim to help the public in real emergencies,” stated the article in The National Post, “The campaign is meant to get the public watching for real alerts and updates using the online tools, including Amber Alerts, earthquakes, avalanches, wildfires, floods and tsunamis.”

The blog itself is composed of a series of articles. A large portion of the release was a personal blog of a girl trying to survive the outbreak. She follows the guidelines and preparedness checklists on the body of the site, to serve as a guide for the reader. The website also includes a short video that highlights the importance of what the blog is attempting to portray.

Of course, the BC government is not expecting zombies any time soon. They released this as a fun way to raise awareness on how to be properly prepared for any emergency situation. “While the chance of zombies a-knockin’ on your door is pretty slim, we do believe that if you’re ready for zombies, you’re ready for any disaster,” the blog states, rather for-

wardly. The idea is quite simple: items such as emergency kits, blankets in the car, even making sure there is enough gas in the tank at all times are just the basics that everyone should have.

Though, not all the information is so obvious. Some of the tips given can be easily overlooked, such as keeping an out-of-province contact.

This has not been the only attempt in the zombie instructional craze. According to the blog, “Last year, the US Center for Disease Control created a graphic novel, Preparedness 101: Zombie Pandemic, that demonstrates the important of emergency preparedness.” It would seem then that the popular genre has caught the attention of governments everywhere to attempt to educate its citizens with a fun yet relatable scenario that may prepare us for the worst, whether it be zombies or earthquakes.

The blog can be found at http:// www.emergencyinfobc.gov.bc.ca/ zombie-preparedness-week-areyou-ready.html

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OPINION

Bill C-38 threatens Canadian environment SASHA MOEDT

THE CASCADE

The Conservative government is trying to pass a 452 page bill that has cuts to crucial aspects of social and environmental Canada. Bill C-38 is huge, proposing to make drastic changes to everything from Employment Insurance, Old Age Security and The Fair Wages and Hours of Labour Act. But worse yet is the complete gutting of environmental protection laws.

It’s just crazy. With 753 clauses, the bill is overwhelming and confusing, and the Conservatives are trying to push is through fast. It is entitled “Jobs, Growth, and Longterm Prosperity Act,” and picking through it, you can see the environmental ramifications could be dire if this beast were passed.

The list of cuts will be long and painful. The Kyoto Protocol, making the government responsible for the environmental damage, will be killed. The crucial advisory body, the National Round Table on Environment and Economy will be killed. There will be a considerable narrowing of public engagement in resource review panel hearings, especially for major oil projects, pipelines and mines, because citizens will have to prove they will be affected or that they have relevant information to participate in these hearings. Parks Canada will have staffing cuts. The National Energy Board will be exempted from species at risk protections, and the cabinet will be allowed to override a ‘no’ on the NEB’s decisions on projects that might harm the environment. And on it goes.

An aspect of bill C-38 that has been deeply criticized is the changes made to the Fisheries Act. In the bill, the old framework of protection is taken away, and replaced by a new one, one that could leave out

THE CASCADE

“There is no bad job,” Jim Flaherty said in a statement at a news conference, “the only bad job is no job.”

Ominous words for students hoping that an education will give them a better job and a better life. Flaherty’s statement was essentially a warning, that the definition of “suitable employment” may be soon changed for unemployed Canadians. A BA grad working at a gas station? Suitable.

But that seems so far away, it’s summer, and Shell gas stations are suitable employment right now. It’s job hunting time. There is one point of advice I would like to begin with: if you have a job already that you are unhappy with, do not quit until you have a new job that you are reasonably settled in with. Or just don’t quit. We can take some of Flaherty’s words to heart. Cling to anything.

Let me highlight a few facts for you. We are living through some form of a recession or another, and employers are getting stingy. They are giving fewer hours and paying less. They want to make the most out of their employees while paying as

Is attachment parenting normal?

Image: Jack Booth/Flickr

any fish that isn’t of “commercial, recreational or Aboriginal value” – and with the other cutbacks on regulatory boards, even those habitats are at risk.

The Fisheries Act is crucial to the health of Canada’s waterways and fish. Selecting only fish of “value” to protect is a moot point; it’s just a front, the Conservatives pretending they give a rat’s ass about the environment. Long term prosperity?

A basic understanding of any ecosystem will tell us that if this change to the Fisheries Act goes through, the fish that are being “protected” by the Tories will dwindle in population.

Species are directly connected; if a food chain is unbalanced, eventually this will impact the protected fish.

I can’t imagine a Federal scientist would okay this change in the Act. I wouldn’t, and I haven’t completed my lab requirement. But maybe they didn’t approve it, but their disapproval was muzzled.

Sounds plausible.

Elizabeth May called Bill C-38 “The Environmental Destruction Act” in her article published in The Tyee condemning the legislation.

She’s spot on there. The fact that the Conservatives are even trying to pass this is something to think about. Are they assuming Canadian’s won’t take notice? Are they taking advantage of Canadian apathy? Are we going to be apathetic about a bill that could be so detrimental to the environment? We can no longer sacrifice the environment for short-term economic gain.

So this is what the Conservative majority is trying to do with the power we handed them. Let’s take it away and smack them with it. We can do that, you know. It’s easy to forget under Harper’s lead.

The Conservatives can talk all they like (and they will) but Bill C-38 is the opposite of “Long-term Prosperity.” There is no prosperity if the environment continues to deteriorate, and if this bill goes through, that’s what will happen.

The great hunt is a great failure ANTHONY BIONDI

WEDNESDAY,JUNE 6, 2012

little as possible.

On top of this, the minimum wage was increased to $10.25 this year. This makes it so that employers want to make sure they are hiring the right people for the job. If you are unskilled or need training, this will make it much harder for you to start fresh. The job market these days is about what you can already do, not what they can train you to do. Even lower end jobs have some level of skill requirement.

I had recently gone through a difficult time with my previous employer. They had cut back hours to nearly nil. Because of this I went on a job hunt that lasted several months.

I sent out resume’s everywhere, and did not receive a single call back. It became discouraging and frustrating.

On my journey, I found that most places were not hiring at all. Half of Abbotsford, it seems, had no openings and the other half were above and beyond what I could do. There is a flood of people in the Fraser Valley, and all of them want work. Unfortunately, unskilled work is the first to fill, since there are so many of us that need to start from the bottom.

The minimum wage has gone

up, and the amount a company can pay its employees has gone down.

Throw in a dense population and you have a recipe for unemployment or minimal hours. This can make living in the Fraser Valley a veritable job hell. It is an unfortunate situation. Job hunting can now take months or longer, and the likelihood of finding something worthwhile is even harder.

So thanks, Flaherty. A lot of us have the “bad job,” i.e no job. Most of us have figured out that in any customer service, retail, hard labour minimum wage situation is like the inner circles of hell. But at least you have money – the purgatory of unemployment is worse yet. Flaherty’s message to the world: drop your dignity. And as students, we’ll do it, for now.

For those of us who are in college and trying to move forward with our lives—and out of the parent’s house—it can be a terrible experience. However, there is no choice.

Unless you know someone or have a killer resume, you will just be added to the heaping pile of other resumes with skills just like yours. Have a good summer.

Image: bricolage 108/Flickr

LEANNA PANKRATZ

THE CASCADE

When Time Magazine released its May issue, public outcry was heard over the cover story, featuring the image of a North American mother breastfeeding her toddler, emblazoned with the headline: “Are you Mom enough?” The article detailed the concept of attachment parenting, often described as extreme motherhood.

Attachment parenting is a child rearing concept that often includes a natural childbirth, baby wearing, co-sleeping, natural health, stay-athome parenting, homeschooling, and practicing discipline in a gentle and sensitive manner. Women who practice attachment parenting believe in child-led weaning, allowing the child to breastfeed more or less wherever he or she wants to. This is sometimes called “extended” breastfeeding.

While the article has provoked heated debate on the concept of attachment parenting, it is extended breastfeeding that has produced perhaps the most ardent duality of the conversation. Is it truly healthy for a child to be encouraged to rely completely on his mother?

My own mother took a missions trip to Kenya in her early years as a nurse, and told me stories of impoverished mothers who, without other means to feed their families, breastfed toddlers – and even children up to the age of seven. Sevenyear-olds would run up to their mothers, and tug on their dresses to be fed. For North Americans, whose average age to wean a child is one year, this might seem very odd. But for those Kenyan mothers, extended breastfeeding it is a necessity.

This, perhaps, is just a difference of cultural and economic lifestyle. When faced with desperate circumstances, a culture will naturally grasp hold of a more primal way of life to survive. This can mean feeding their children in the only way available to them, demonstrating what was natural for humans to do before economic and social development.

This extended reliance on parental support due to limited means seems natural in that situa-

tion. But what about in a home that has more than enough food for the children?

A common argument is that it’s a natural progression, and with humans being the only species on earth to not practice attachment parenting, it must make sense for us to return to our roots.

In our society of abundance, however, where most children grow up healthy, with everything they need at their disposal, the concept does ring strange.

I question whether or not it would be detrimental to a child.

There are numerous animals on our planet that do not coddle their young, or keep them closer than is necessary. Mother birds push their babies out of the nest in order to teach them to fly. How else would they if they didn’t fall to the ground a few times and experience the rush of something new, and perhaps something a little bit dangerous.

Parents who practice attachment would heartily disagree, stating that a child should stay as close to his mother as possible, until he sees it fit to distance himself.

But what if the age he sees fit is 13? Would a 13-year-old schoolboy pining to cuddle in bed with his mother appear to be normal?

Skeptics, according to The Globe and Mail, state concerns that “attachment parenting can have negative effects, such as baby not learning that there must be boundaries or exhaustion in overlyavailable moms who must wear many hats in a day. They challenge whether a culture of total motherhood should be seen as the ideal, as it can lead to anxiety, guilt and depression.”

As demonstrated by last year’s Tiger Mom phenomenon, parents who take their domestic careers to the opposite extreme, any method of unorthodox parenting will be met with either disapproval, admiration or some combination of the two. Attachment parenting has proven to be no different.

I still find the idea of a sevenyear-old latching onto his mom’s breast on the Skytrain a little disconcerting, but to each their own.

OP www.ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6, 2012

7

OPINION

Prof Talk: Walking the West Bank Featuring: Dr. Steven Schroeder (UFV History Department) PAUL ESAU

THE CASCADE Israel is a small country with a lot of history and a lot of problems.

The history goes back thousands of years, and the problems are nearly as old and just as complicated. Places such as Gaza and the West Bank are constantly appearing in the media, and things always seem to be getting worse rather than improving. With Jewish Israelis one side, and Arab Palestinians on the other, it begs the question: “Why can’t Jews and Arabs just get along?”

UFV actually offers a whole course on the topic (History 335: Arab Zionist Relations) created and taught by Dr. Steven Schroeder, who also teaches History 320: The Holocaust. Schroeder had the unique opportunity during the winter semester to visit Israel for the first time, a visit that actually occurred while he was teaching the Arab-Zionist Relations course. The trip was part of a program organized by MCC (the Mennonite Central Committee) to educate participants in the issues faced by Palestinians and Israelis in the West Bank. As an expert on the modern history of Palestine, and both a member of and an authority on a diasporic community, The Cascade asked Schroeder to answer some questions about Palestinian-Jewish Israeli conflict, and his experiences in the occupied territory of the West Bank.

Schroeder’s Take When I sat down to talk to Schroeder to discuss his trip, I asked him to describe two or three “shocking” things he had discovered about the reality of the West Bank. It wasn’t meant to be a loaded question, nor is Schroeder a man who allows himself personal bias on contentious issues, yet I could tell the question had hit a nerve.

“What struck me,” he began, “well I can think of two things. One is the intentional component of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.

It became very clear that the barrier that is being set up is not to separate the people first and foremost for security reasons, which is what the IDF [Israeli Defence Force] will tell you. It’s not necessarily an either/or … sure maybe people sleep better at night with this wall up, but it’s certainly porous. But it’s being used to annex, to create facts on the ground, to annex West Bank territory as part of the Judaisation of the West Bank.

That struck me.”

“Secondly,” he continued, “the pervasiveness and nature of the occupation, which is astonishingly cruel. Now I’m referring mostly to the experiences that were related to the Second Intifada*, with the collective punishments. We toured the Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem and we heard a number of stories and saw actual evidence of people being shot and killed just because they were Palestinians and they lived in the refugee camp, by snipers in the separation barrier towers.”

Schroeder then related the story

Image: Ryan Beiler, MCC Palestine

An IDF guard tower at sunset.

“I’ve never had so many soldiers in high places in buildings looking at me and pointing their weapons in my general direction ... As Canadians we’re not used to having M16s pointed at us on a regular basis.” of a Palestinian man living in the Aida camp in Bethlehem during the Intifada, who was shot and killed as he was leaning out the window to call his children to dinner. The meaninglessness of it was what most caught Schroeder’s attention.

“We see the suicide bombers,” he continued in a criticism of the western perspective, “and in the media we have the connection between Al Qaida and the Palestinians as this monolithic threat to western democracy, and [I] don’t really see these components in this way. We see the IDF confronting militants, arresting militants – and these are Hamas people, or Islamic Jihad people – and we think these things are understandable and maybe resonate with those security measures, but the [reason for these actions] is a different thing altogether.”

On the ground in the West Bank, Schroeder argued, the military rule goes beyond what is necessary for even the strictest safety measures. “[The IDF] was everywhere,” he said, “Absolutely everywhere. It was unnerving, even though we as western internationals are privileged. We can walk through checkpoints rather quickly in most cases and aren’t questioned a lot as long as people

don’t portray any overtly pro-Palestinian views. “ Schroeder said that the tight security from the military made him quite uncomfortable. “I’ve never had so many soldiers in high places in buildings looking at me and pointing their weapons in my general direction ... As Canadians we’re not used to having M16s pointed at us on a regular basis. And it was everywhere. They were everywhere: on the streets, on the highways, in the marketplaces,” he explained.

“Any time you stopped or looked up there was someone looking at you with a machine gun. You really have to wonder, who’s paying for all this? And we know it’s coming from a lot of international aid.”

In fact, having seen the Israeli presence in the West Bank firsthand, Schroeder has fundamentally changed his perspective on what a peace settlement between Palestinian and Jewish Israeli camps would include. “I’ve seen pretty clearly,” he began, “at least from the evidence that I’ve come across and people with whom I’ve spoken—and by putting it through my own filters— that the two state solution has been manipulated by the Israelis to realize their goals and there will be nothing

left of the state for the Palestinians.

It’s really a non-starter.”

“I think it’s pretty unrealistic to count on the U.N. to declare a Palestinian state based on ‘67 borders when you have half a million Jewish settlers in that territory and you have a huge concrete wall that carves into that territory,” Schroeder continued.

“It sounds great, you can say ‘they did it in Gaza.’ [But Gaza was] nothing compared to half a million settlers in the West bank. And that has been the war which has gradually crept over the decades since ‘67.

“It’s been ongoing. It’s been a slow takeover of the West Bank, making it basically impossible for a viable Palestinian state to exist. Where that leaves us I don’t know ... I did meet some Israeli Jews who believed that one state could exist with equal rights, a bi-national state kind of along the ‘47 UNSCOP Proposal* with a shared economy and a shared parliament. It could be a long ways off, but we’ve seen the unthinkable happen in South Africa ... so we can’t say it’s impossible.”

The big question, how much Schroeder’s experience will influence the way he teaches his course on Arab-Zionism, was given a mixed response. “I think that it won’t change fundamentally,” he said, “it’s terribly important to maintain as much objectivity as is humanly possible and you have to remember that I teach a history course so we are basing our examination on the evidence of the past.”

Schroeder maintained that his

experiences and discussions with Israelis and Palestinians has essentially “shifted a few things from the speculative to the verifiable.”

“I am committed to objectivity, not to having a polarized view or skewing students’ interpretations,” he explained. “I’m not interested in doing those things; I think people can make their own decisions. As I make changes [to the course] I will always be searching for new IsraeliJewish perspectives from a wide range of people to broaden that scope fairly across all perspectives.” * The second Palestinian uprising which began in September, 2000 when retired Israeli general and politician Ariel Sharon visited the AlAqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The uprising includes protests, strikes, armed attacks, and suicide bombings, ** The nation of Israel was declared in 1948 amidst a period of intense fighting involving Arab and Israeli communities in Palestine, as well as Syria, Jordan, Egypt and irregulars from several other neighboring countries. The 1947 UN Partition Plan created by UNSCOP (United Nations Special Committee on Palestine) was voted through the UN and accepted by Jewish Zionists, yet refused by the Palestinian leadership. It became the basis for the resultant declaration of the Jewish state, as well as the ensuing conflict.

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www.ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY,JUNE 6, 2012

OPINION

Misogyny or misandry: the rhetoric of SFU’s men’s centre Cascaders Paul Esau and Joel Smart discuss the potential, criticisms and controversy of SFU’s men’s centre

The apocalypse: a study of society’s death-wish

PAUL ESAU

THE CASCADE

ALEXEI SUMMERS

JOEL SMART

THE CASCADE

THE CASCADE Paul: It’s been a long and winding road since SFU students and Student Society members Keenan Midgley, Danielle Hornstein and Jeff McCann set out to create an SFU men’s centre, a road that has meandered through just about every gender-sensitive debate known to mankind. Much of the nastiness of the debate stems from SFU student Natasha ClearlyDulai’s poorly-spliced video warning that a men’s centre may become a “heteronormative space” in which men will gather to “celebrate hegemonic masculinity,” yet some of the video’s critics have reciprocated in an equally inflammatory manner.

With such an abundance of ammunition on both sides it’s easy to understand why the debate has slipped somewhat from the feasibility of an SFU men’s centre to the feasibility of blaming all the world’s ills on either “male privilege” or “femofascism.”

Yet (at least from my perspective) the heart of the issue lies not in gender dynamics, but in practical application. Most universities across Canada have supported women’s centres on campus for 30 or 40 years, and have seen the services of these centres expand to include a number of disenfranchised groups. The centres generally have clear mandates, obvious demographics, and (currently) strong historical basis. What do you think a men’s centre would bring to the table, Joel? What is the Simon Fraser Student Society getting in return for potentially $30,000 of student money?

Joel: Well, it’s tough to say what they’ll really get, but it’s not likely going to be a men’s club with Xbox’s and foosball tables, the way some people seem to be imagining. In a class I took a few semesters ago, we watched a clip on YouTube by a sociologist and author named Michael Kimmel. He spoke about the way men tend not to see themselves in a gendered light. Yet, whether they see themselves that way or not, there are immense pressures cast upon men by masculinity, and there are many issues that can arise due to various pressures they face. I listened to a show on CBC Radio One about these men’s centres, and in an interview, a man spoke about the way he struggled in an abusive relationship for years; in this case, his partner was manipulating him for his money, but he had no one to reach out to and struggled even to admit the situation to himself. I assume that the men’s centre at SFU will offer support and solutions for men with such issues as coming to terms with sexual-orientation or homophobia, as well as aggression, abuse and power. Plus it’s worth pointing out that such a centre might actually help men who might otherwise become abusive to their female partners work out their issues, or realize that that isn’t who they want to become – before the problems ever start. Where do you

Image: Anthony Biondi

stand Paul? Do you see it as a waste of money, or do you think there is a legitimate need for such a centre? Do you have any reservations about it?

identity, abuse, and power relationships, so why do we need another one? What is unique and necessary about a “man” centre?

Paul: It seems we listen to the same radio programs Joel, and I think it’s worth noting that Anna Tremonti’s first guest on that particular show was former SFU Student Society president and potential men’s centre founder Jeff McCann. He addressed a couple of my big reservations with the proposed centre, most prominently the accusation that the founders (who were all part of the SS Board at the time of the proposal) had been handed $30,000 on a silver platter while other SFU advocacy groups were fighting “tooth and nail” (as Clearly-Dulai put it) for scraps. McCann was clear, first of all, that the Student Society is operating with a $200,000 surplus at the moment, which allows them some leeway to pursue new (and old) initiatives without the intervention of teeth or nails. McCann also outlined his and Midgeley’s non-existent role in the board decision to allocate the money to the centre, and the contingent nature of the funding. In fact, only $500 of it is currently available to him and the other founders as they seek to consult with experts and other relevant parties to develop a clear mandate for the men’s centre (standard procedure for the creation of such an initiative). I am still concerned that the centre might be created partially as a reaction to the bigotry it has uncovered, but I feel more confident knowing that McCann and his crew are forced to do their homework before the purse strings are untied. I think that I’m going to ask you a question that Tremonti asked McCann, Joel, since you were brave enough to suggest some issues that the men’s centre might actually address: there are already places on most campuses to help men struggling with sexual

Joel: Well, I think part of the problem is just how unique it is – to the point where people aren’t quite sure how to make sense of the idea. The men’s centre is “everywhere else” as the now-famous quote (from the SFU Women’s Centre website) goes.

Yet, I think the concerns illustrate the need, in a way. Masculinity norms are restrictive, and anyone who has been through the public school system knows that there are certain things you’re not allowed to do if you don’t want your reputation as a man called into question.

A real man doesn’t take Home Ec! A real man doesn’t like flowers! A real man doesn’t get emotional! Just as women have fought to eradicate the value judgments that devalue them based on how many sexual partners they’ve had, the same is true of men (just in the opposite way). In a way, these issues all tie into each other. A men’s centre would seek to deconstruct and provide relief from these norms. Plus, it offers a space that really doesn’t exist anywhere else on campus. There might be unisex counselling services available, but maybe men would be more likely to check out a men’s centre. Theo Boere, who works for the decadeold Nanaimo Men’s Resource Centre, told The Vancouver Sun that their centre had over 5000 clients last year.

“Men, just as much as women, have unique issues that need to be dealt with,” he said. “Just the fact that the suicide rate is so much higher among men than women tells you there is a need.” Critics seem to fear that the development of a men’s centre is somehow competition to women’s centres, or that it delegitimizes the unique and important concerns women face in our culture. But, I

think that’s an unsubstantiated fear; I suspect that a men’s centre is the type of place that can work on stopping sexual violence and abusive relationships before they occur. In the end, I really think they have the same goals. Any last thoughts, Paul?

Paul: I agree with you, Joel, that there is a need for such a centre. I also agree that those worried about it becoming a “frat house” or “a room with a PS3 and a bunch of douchebags playing video games” are being highly unfair to McCann, Midgely and Hornstein’s vision, as well as to “masculinity” in general. It does worry me though that in our age of advocacy and awareness such controversy could erupt over an initiative designed to help a vast segment of the population, as if that collective population itself (by virtue of playing the historical villain in the stories of a number of other communities) is not worthy of having legitimate problems or even being a community. That same article you mentioned in The Vancouver Sun goes on to state that women’s organizations in BC receive $80-100 million from the provincial government while men’s organizations received around $500,000. While I understand that many other similar organizations receiving funding do not have a specific gender-based mandate, and that not all financial contributions have to be equal to be “fair,” this is still a massive discrepancy. Kudos to the SFU Student Society for seeking to better protect, educate and aid the men on campus.

Joel: To be fair, because we live in a patriarchy, it makes sense for women’s shelters and women’s reproductive rights issues—among other issues women face—to receive more funding. Yet, as you state, men’s issues matter too, and it’s a positive step to see that recognized.

In 1945, the USA sent an airplane on a mission across the ocean. It was no ordinary plane. The plane was a Boeing B-29 Superfortress. It flew higher than most planes, and its cargo was like nothing ever seen before.

The plane was named the Enola Gay, and when it reached the city of Hiroshima, Japan, it released its nuclear arsenal, and the famous Little Boy rolled out of the aircraft and incinerated the civilian city below.

So started the Cold War. By 1949 the Soviets followed suit and developed an atomic bomb of their own. This scared America silly, and the first sets of survivalists were born. They had the smart idea to build massive fallout shelters – mansions underground, to sustain a comfortable life in case the Russians ever decided they wanted to attack and invade.

Recently, I’ve been window-shopping for a fallout shelter online. A few houses in North America still have them, if the home’s previous owner was a smart enough to prepare for the worst. They are expensive – but for your safety, you can never pay enough. It’s not only nuclear bombs that people fear. There is a group of survivalists that believe a potential zombie outbreak may be imminent – a load of guff, really. The recent attack on a homeless man, whose face was eaten during the attack, received wide coverage as it was seen as evidence for the outbreak of the undead.

Anyways. Let’s not deny it. There’s also a certain thrill to the end of the world, isn’t there? The real rush of excitement a lot of people get when thinking about the apocalypse is because of the lawlessness. Free from all system of government—it is simple life of humanity living like the basic primal animals they truly are—fighting to survive. It’s society’s deathwish. The world is a dark, dangerous place, and we all want to be truly free deep down inside. Because of that the apocalypse at some times can make things seem pretty appealing.

My advice is this: it’ll happen. One day, somebody is going to be very stupid. Judging from what I’ve been hearing in the news about North Korea lately, it’ll probably have something to do with them. Invest in building a place that can keep the radiation out, or zombies (if that’s your thing). Stock it up with foods, medical supplies and a firearm if you have one. You’re going to be there for a long time. Of course, if you’re rich and lazy, you can always go buy a pre-made one. Those old shelters work – they can take a formidable attack. However, be prepared to dish out a ridiculous $2 million for one of them. After that you’re all set to survive 35 years underground in your new home.

We all secretly want to see the world crumbling down around us. It gives us pleasure to prepare for the ever-anticipated apocalypse. So go on, plan ahead.

www.ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6, 2012

9

OPINION

ecological footprints How to use the Earth we have

Two Earths too many

ALI SIEMENS

JESS WIND

THE CASCADE

CONTRIBUTOR

Flyers come to our doorsteps by the dozens, bright and bold, with the latest deals on electronics, furniture, food and clothing.

Big company businesses like Wal-Mart and Costco always seem to have the best deals on toilet paper, soup and underwear. It’s hard not to swoop in on these cheap buys, especially in this economy, where we’re all trying to save a buck.

I recently visited Nelson, British Columbia, a small city surrounded by mountains, lakes and mom-and-pop businesses that seems to be thriving. While I was in there, I noticed there was hardly any franchise big businesses. The people in Nelson were happy supporting their local venders, going to local restaurants, and shopping at the resident-run grocer. Their city is sufficiently running off people supporting people.

The “Global Footprint Network: Advancing the Science of Sustainability” launched a footprint calculator in 2010, allowing people all around the world to take a test that tells them how sustainable their lifestyle is.

The website is linked with facts such as, “If everyone lived the lifestyle of the average American, we would need five planets.”

Upon reading that fact, I was hardly shocked. It’s not news to anyone that we live in a consumer society; we like buying things, and most of us don’t have trouble throwing away items when we are done with them, even if they are still useable.

The “Global Footprint Network” has partnered with Calgary to do specific research on Calgary’s ecological impact. They found that the average ecological footprint was 30 per cent higher in Calgary at 9.86 global hectors (gha) per person. Canada’s average is at 7.6gha per person, and at that rate, we will need four planets to keep up with our habits. What has been uncovered

I’ve never considered how much space we would need if everyone on the planet lived like me. As a full time student, I have no time to take a massive chunk out of our planet’s resources. Taking an online survey to find out my ecological footprint at myfootprint.org, I figured I’d be told to keep on doing what I’m doing. The website takes you through a series of questions about your diet, habits, energy use and so forth, then calculates how much land you take up – from the manufacturing of your clothes to the land on which your food is grown and processed.

Well, before the results came in I thought I was doing fine. Yes, I only do dishes and laundry when the loads are full (because I don’t have time to do them any sooner). Yes, most of my furniture is second hand (because I can’t afford a new couch). And yes, I only replace things when absolutely necessary (because a combination of the last two).

So with a click, my results were tallied. I didn’t do so well. Apparently, if everyone lived the typical student lifestyle, if we all lived off of Mr. Noodles and bananas, we would need over two Earths to sustain ourselves.

What on Earth (pun intended) am I doing wrong? After this survey, I realized that these days, it takes time and effort not to use up the Earth’s resources – and nothing at all to use it up. If there’s one thing student’s are low on, it’s time and effort.

My average consumption was pitted against the Canadian averages and measured by global hectares. My carbon footprint is comfortably below average, as is my housing and goods/services footprints. Yet I still need to improve drastically. The survey told me that in order to reduce my ecological footprint I need to change my dietary habits, the food footprint being the only one I scored

Image: Natalie Maynor/Flickr

is that humans need to reduce their footprint to 1.8gha in order to live sustainably.

We need to return to the days where we support mom-and-pop grocery stores, buying what we need, and fixing what is broken. As students, this seems like something we should all be able to accomplish, because none of us make much money, yet we all still find the ability to buy the things we don’t need at the big department stores and franchises we all have learned to love.

There are places all over the world that have worked to reduce their ecological footprint. Rather than placing blame on political parties, oil companies, or WalMart, we have to take the right steps ourselves.

We are educated individuals, living in a first world country. It is time to quit using excuses and return to healthy living, for us and for our Earth. Rather than heading to Target for the latest deal and supporting some CEO, support local, and help pay for the owner’s children’s swimming lessons. We need to become a society that helps our neighbor, which in turn helps our planet and us. What may seem like a good deal in the newspaper is only detrimental to the Earth we need in order to live. We need to live within our means, and support what matters.

above average, 27.57 global hectors (gha) against Canada’s 23.67gha.

I did notive that The survey seemed a little misguided at times. For instance, nowhere was I able to explain that I live in a basement suite. My closest options were a single family home or a building with four or fewer units. I didn’t feel that either of these accurately reflected the impact that my home would have on the environment, but, being well versed in multiple choice, I chose the best possible answer. I was also not given the option to explain that some of my appliances are energy efficient; it was all or nothing.

Following the survey is a link to a generalized list of how to reduce your ecological footprint. While the survey asked some pretty specific questions, the methods to fixing the problem are tired. Walk or take transit to work, recycle, eat less meat – nothing new to me.

As students we constantly hear that we are responsible for tomorrow’s change, that we are in charge of fixing the damage done by generations past. It would be wonderful if this survey gave a little insight on how to do that. We already know that recycling is good for the environment, and so is turning off lights in our homes – we are inundated with this information every day. After clicking on a link that promises tips on how to reduce my footprint on our planet, I don’t like being told what I already know. I’m tired of that.

Maybe I’m waiting for something more, something tangible and dramatic, a stick that I can shove into this spinning wheel that’s driving us into complete self-destruction. It’s clear that how we live isn’t sustainable, but now the question is, how do we change? Picking up the pieces from the mess our elders have left behind is a big job, and it looks like we’re going to have to get creative with the solution, because we don’t have two Earths.

HIRING: EDITOR-IN-CHIEF (we need a boss for these crazy people) All current UFV students are welcome - nay, encouraged! - to apply!

The responsibilities of the Editor-in-Chief include overseeing all aspects of the paper’s production, including (but certainly not limited to): managing the paper’s editorial board; hiring, training and tutoring staff; and liaising with the Canadian University Press. The Editor-in-Chief reports to the Cascade Board of Directors and is ultimately responsible for the editorial content of the newspaper.

The job requires a heavy time commitment and is not recommended for full time students.

Candidates will be required to pass an editing test to be considered for the position.

The position has a term of one year, after which the Editor-in-Chief may re-apply to be hired again.

The Editor-in-Chief is paid an honouraria of $300 per issue.

For more information, or to apply, email esau@ufvcascade.ca by 4:00 p.m. July 3!

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www.ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 06, 2012

FEATURE

PIZZA BITES ...

The Cascade’s guide to Abbotsford’s pizza

Image: rusvaplauke/flickr.com

We’re all familiar with Panago, Little Caesars and Pizza Hut – but what about all the little local pizza chains and restaurants? The Cascade staff takes a look at some of the best—and worst—smaller places in Abbotsford to get a slice of the good stuff.

DEAN’S LIST: Top four pizza joints

Ricardo’s Pizza

Ah Beetz New York Pizza

6-32750 George Ferguson Way 604.859.1112

2664 Gladys Ave 604.746.2121

Pizza Quality: A Variety: A+ Service: A $$ Lg Pepperoni: $12 Image: Ricardospizza.com

The variety of toppings, sauces and dips they have is quite astounding, including smoked oysters, pulled pork, sundried tomatoes and artichoke hearts. I was especially impressed that they offer a gluten-free crust. Their specialty perogie pizza is delicious and well worth the visit. Ready incredibly fast.

-Jen Colbourne

City Pizza

Pizza Quality: A Variety: AService: A$$ Lg Pepperoni: $15

Image: imonlyhereforthefood.com

Ah Beetz uses crust stretched thinly by hand over their pizza peel. They have unique toppings like fresh basil, and all ingredients are purchased locally whenever possible. The dedication to quality shows – this is amazing pizza. The crust is thin, crispy and charred, the toppings are abundant and it’s definitely worth the price.

-Karen Aney

Jim’s Pizza

107-32883 South Fraser Way 604.850.1035

32224 South Fraser Way 604.850.1122

Pizza Quality: A+ Variety: B Service: A $$ Lg Pepperoni: $24.99 (2for1)

Pizza Quality: A Variety: BService: A $$ Lg Pepperoni: $23.88 (2for1) Image: City Pizza Abbotsford/facebook.com

A very greasy pizza, but oh-so-delicious. No skimping on toppings or cheese, a tasty crust and especially good meat. Great place for late night munchies, as they’re open until 4:30 a.m. on Fri/Sat and 2 a.m. the rest of the week. Killer walk-in special $13 Lg/6 toppings.

-Jen Colbourne

Image: Jen Colbourne

Hands down the best ham and pineapple in town. Their Chilliwack counterpart is notorious for burnt crust, but this place’s was golden and perfectly tasty. Not much variety, but great if you love the classics. Very prompt and friendly service.

-Jen Colbourne

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 06, 2012

www.ufvcascade.ca

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FEATURE

Me-n-Ed’s Pizza Parlor

Value: C+ $$ Lg Pepperoni: $27.99 (2for1)

Pizza Quality: A Variety: AService: B $$ Lg Pepperoni: $19.65

Their taco pizza is good, and their tandoori chicken pizza is delicious – spicy chicken with crunchy green peppers, mushrooms and fresh cilantro. I loved the fusion of Indian food on a pizza. I would go back again just for the Tandoori Chicken and their vegetarian options.

2010 Sumas Way 604.859.3616

Me-n-Ed’s is a classic chain with great wood-paneled and big-screened traditions. Unfortunately, while the thin-crust and exotic ingredients are appealing, the price (at $27.90 for any large specialty pie) is not. Bring a coupon or peruse their specials beforehand... or invite mom and her credit card along and break for the bathroom when the check arrives.

-Paul Esau

Fresh Slice

2362 Whatcom Rd 604.853.7789 Pizza Quality: AVariety: A Service: A $$ Lg Pepperoni: $19.99 Whether picking up, eating in or stopping by, Fresh Slice has an array of options. One of its best qualities is the crust they use – it has a perfect amount of crunch and doesn’t sag when you are lifting the wedge to your mouth. The vegetarian pizza on their multigrain crust is an absolute must try, as well as their Garlic Lover Feast.

-Ali Siemens

Valley Pizza 2657 Ware St 604.855.9262

Pizza Quality: AVariety: B Service: A+ $$ Lg Pepperoni: $20.99 (2for1) A hidden gem on Ware St, Valley Pizza certainly offers wonderful prompt and friendly service, along with pizza that is delicious and traditionally appealing with toppings we are all familiar with. For a budget friendly and tasty addition to pizza night, choose Valley Pizza.

-Leanna Pankratz

-Ryan Petersen

The crust was a little overcooked, but the pizza had lots of tasty veggie toppings. It’s rare to find good pizza by the slice, but this place was pretty good. Great joint for vegetarians, but a no-go for dedicated carnivores as they offer no meat options.

Dream Pizza offers $1.25 by-the-slice pizza, specialty pizzas and an assortment of other items.

The flavour was adequately greasy and delicious. Despite a tasty homemade sauce, Dream Pizza is not trying to be gourmet. It doesn’t pull any punches. Due to its close proximity to UFV, Dream Pizza is a location to keep in mind – just don’t expect to be greeted at the door.

-Joel Smart

Abby Pizza

33995 Old Yale Rd 604.859.9777 Pizza Quality: B+ Variety: B+ Service: F $$ Lg Pepperoni: $26.50 (2for1) I have never in my life had ruder service over the phone than at Abby Pizza and I’m pretty sure it was the owner herself. The pizza, however, is good, though nothing special. I enjoyed the strong taste of oregano in the sauce, and the crust was nice and crisp without being overcooked.

With such poor service and high prices though, I don’t feel it is worth it.

-Jen Colbourne

Delux Pizza

-Jen Colbourne

J’s Pizza

31940 South Fraser Way 604.854.3299 Pizza Quality: BVariety: B Service: A+ $$ Lg Pepperoni: $21.95 (2for1) J’s Pizza has been around for years and their service is always top notch and speedy. J’s is by no means fancy, but their 2 for 1 deal makes pizza ordering cost effective and easy. Their Chicken Special is a company favorite: mushrooms, onions, green peppers and extra tandoori chicken.

-Ali Siemens

Tops Pizza 31205 Maclure Rd. 604.864.2225 Pizza Quality: C+ Variety: B Service: B $$ Lg Pepperoni: $13 Deciding to try something new, I went to order the butter chicken pizza on the menu only to find it’s no longer offered. I settled for the nearly as delicious sounding tandoori chicken. Upon biting in, I was unimpressed when what should have had some kick to it was ultimately bland and lacked in sauciness.

2388 McCallum Rd 604.746.3636

Delux Pizza is your typical hole-in-the wall pizza place. While the quality isn’t sensational, it is incredibly cheap; for $3 you can get two decent

Pizza Quality: C Variety: BService: B $$ Lg Pepperoni: $10

101- 30537 Blueridge Dr 604.746.3000

Pizza Quality: AVariety: BService: C $$ Lg Pepperoni: $9.99

1990 McCallum Rd 604.746.2900

Pizza Quality: AVariety: B+ Service: C+

MJ’s Pizza

MGJ’s Veggie Pizza Hut

Dream Pizza

31789 South Fraser Way 604.557.9922

Pizza Junction & Snacks

-Nadine Moedt

Pizza Quality: B Variety: C Service: B $$ Lg Veggie: $17

Pizza Quality: B Variety: A Service: B $$ Lg Pepperoni: $9.99

Classic Pizza & Fish Pakora Ltd

sized pieces and a can of pop. The vegetarian was the best I’ve tried in some time. The price is right, and so is the taste.

-Joe Johnson

FAIL

D-Hut Pizza

Mona Pizza & Curry House

Pizza Quality: C Variety: BService: C $$ Lg Pepperoni: $10

Pizza Quality: CVariety: C Service: B $$ Lg Pepperoni: $10

Pizza Quality: F Variety: B+ Service: C$$ Lg Pepperoni: $12.99

Reasonably friendly, but confusingly large menu, average prices and mediocre quality pizza. Very confusing décor and signage. I had a pepperoni pizza and while the toppings were substantial, the quality was nothing to write home about. Probably would not return.

Everything was overcooked on this pizza, and both the crust and meat were burnt. If it hadn’t been burnt, it would have been an average pizza as far as taste goes. I was ignored by four people while I waited to pick up our pizza, and overall I was pretty unimpressed.

-Michelle Fietje

-Jen Colbourne

The crust was terribly undercooked and doughy. As for the toppings, the meat and sauce was of noticeably cheap quality, and the cheese was rubbery. It tasted more like a microwave pizza. No topping variety either. The store itself seemed really dirty and grungy. I didn’t feel well after eating at this one and would never go back.

While visiting the place twice—first time picking up the menu, second time ordering—the service was terrible. Both times I was left waiting in an empty room for minutes. When I did get my butter chicken pizza, there was an unfortunate hair sticking out of one of the pieces of chicken. On the plus side they offer a decent variety of non-pizza meals.

6- 32442 George Ferguson Way 604.746.0246

105- 30461 Blueridge Dr 604.746.3377

2420 Clearbrook Rd 604.854.4466

-Jen Colbourne

2582 Mt. Lehman Rd. 604.556.0100

-Joe Johnson

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www.ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 06, 2012

American Authors Pt. II

NICK UBELS

ARTS & LIFE

CROSSWORD 1

2

3

5

ACROSS

4

6

7

8 9 10

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12

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3. “The Raven,” “Annabel Lee” (3 letters) 5. Goodbye, Columbus; American Pastoral (4 letters) 8. The Hollow Men, The Wasteland (5 letters) 12. Their Eyes Were Watching God, Jonah’s Gourd Vine (7 letters) 14. “Song of Myself,” “Facing West from California’s Shores” (7 letters) 15. A Game of Thrones, A Feast for Crows (6 letters) 16. The Red Badge of Courage (5 letters) 18. Tender Buttons, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (5 letters) 21. The Corrections, Freedom (7 letters) 22. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (4 letters) 23. The Plague of Doves, Love Medicine (7 letters)

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17 18

19 20 21

22 23

EclipseCrossword.com

Aquarius: Jan 20 - Feb 18

LAST WEEK’S Answer Key Across

1. Dos Passos 6. Wallace 10. Miller 11. Twain 13. Lee 15. Plath 16. McCarthy 21. DeLillo 22.Vonnegut 23. Emerson

DOWN

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CONTRIBUTOR

1.

2.

4.

6.

7.

Herzog, The Adventures of Augie March (6 letters) “The Road Not Taken,” “Mending Wall” (5 letters) A Streetcar Named Desire, Glass Menagerie (8 letters) The Sun Also Rises, A Moveable Feast (9 letters) “Wild nights! Wild nights!,” “Yesterday is history,” “If I can stop one heart from breaking” (9 letters) 9. “Howl,” “America” (8 letters) 10. Walden (7 letters) 11. “Rip Van Winkle,” “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (6 letters) 13. The Turn of the Screw, The Ambassadors (5 letters) 15. V for Vendetta, Watchmen (5 letters) 17. Catch-22, Something Happened (6 letters) 19. Rabbit, Run, The Witches of Eastwick (6 letters) 20. The Recognitions, J R (6 letters)

Down 2. Salinger 3. Steinbeck 4. King 5. Fitzgerald 6. Wright 7. Anderson 8. Spiegelman 9. Faulkner 12. Hawthorne 14. Buck 15. Pynchon 17. Kerouac 18. Melville 19. Morrison 20. O’Connor

The Weekly Horoscope Star Signs from the Sumas Sibyl Gemini: May 21 - June 21

Libra: Sept 23 - Oct 22

Bacon-grease is not an advisable lubricant while camping.

If travelling, it is not recommended to buy cocaine from the man on the beach on a horse.

You’re on the edge of glory. Don’t fall off.

Pisces: Feb 19 - March 20

Cancer: June 22 - July 22

Scorpio: Oct 23 - Nov 21

Drink copious amounts of tequila instead of water. Your summer will be exhilarating, although perhaps not entirely memorable.

All Cancers will be most successful without sunblock.

All visits to White Rock will result in ridiculously large crowds and overpriced parking.

Leo: July 23 - Aug 22

Sagittarius: Nov 22 - Dec 21

An air-conditioner will be a fruitless investment for you right now.

It is your fault there is rain. Appease Ra by doing a naked sun dance on your patio.

Aries: March 21 - April 19 Vacation plans for Tripoli do not look favourable.

Taurus: April 20 - May 20

Virgo: Aug 23 - Sept 22

Go to the lake. You will catch a fish within which you will find a four-drachma coin to pay your taxes.

If swimming in Molson lake, be wary of a family of drowned cats.

Capricorn: Dec 22 - Jan 19 Don’t listen to your GPS. It’s trying to murder you.

Visit us at www.monktucky.com!

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 06, 2012

www.ufvcascade.ca

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ARTS & LIFE

The Cascade Cookbook

Drink o’ the Week

Darren Blakeborough’s Death Metal Garlic and Rosemary Prawns

Darren Blakeborough is an instructor in Media and Communication Studies. He is a connoisseur of things Metal and Food and is thus constantly at war to not be too evil or too Jabba the Hut.

Boston Sidecar

“While away at grad school, this recipe was concocted to impress the visiting wife. Unlike the George Bush declaration, this was in fact Mission Accomplished.”

(All measurements are approx. and as with all recipes, have fun and experiment) Ingredients: 1 lb medium or larger fresh prawns/shrimp (peeled and deveined is best but not requisite) 2 tbsp butter 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil 1 large garlic bulb 1/2 cup dry white wine 2 tbsp white wine vinegar 1 lemon (half and squeeze) 3 dried red chili peppers 1 tsp coarse sea salt 2 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary 1 tsp dried oregano 1/2 tsp dried crushed red pepper Garnishes: lemon slices, red chili peppers, fresh rosemary sprigs Preparation: 1. Melt butter with oil in a skillet over mediumhigh heat. Cut garlic bulb in half crosswise; separate, peel and chop cloves. Add to butter mixture; saute 2 minutes. Do not burn.

2. Stir in wine and next 7 ingredients; cook, stirring constantly, 1 minute or until thoroughly heated.

3. Add shrimp; cook 5 to 6 minutes or just until shrimp turn pink. Garnish, if desired.

A very dry and strong drink that’ll make you classy and trashed at the same time.

Image: Marcom

*I always eat just like this but I imagine you could do these over a pasta if you wanted. Tastes significantly better with a nice “beverage” and some Morbid Angel, Deicide or Carcass playing in the background. Dig up the best prawns you can find. In the immortal words of Jeff Walker, “Exhume to Consume.”

Estimated cost: Who cares? It’s that good.

¾ oz light rum ¾ oz brandy ¾ oz triple sec ½ lime (juiced) Pour ingredients into an ice-filled cocktail shaker.

Shake. Pour into cocktail glasses.

Ideal for: The country club Bad for: Ho-downs On The Cascade scale: B+

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www.ufvcascade.ca

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 06, 2012

ARTS & LIFE

Q & A: The Fisher Kings (of Kingfisher Drive) ALI SIEMENS

THE CASCADE

1 2 3 4 5

CHARTS

The Ketamines Spaced Out Grown Ups Spare Time Elvis Was A Blonde Elvis Was A Blonde CFCF Exercises

The Joel Plaskett Emergency Scrappy Happiness

6 7

Leonard Cohen Old Ideas

Various You Can Dig My Grave In the Mammoth Cave

8 9 10 11 12

Apollo Ghosts Landmark The Men Open Your Heart TOPS Tender Opposites

Beach House Bloom Cousins The Palm At The End Of The Mind

13 14 15

The Courtneys K.C. Reeves Raygun Cowboys Cowboy Up!

Shuffle Daryl Johnson

CIVL DJ

Daryl Johnson attends UFV as a student, and hosts Disposable Existence on CIVL Radio Mondays 1-3 (11-1 during summer semester). He likes long walks on the beach and getting kicked in the face by inbred donkeys.

Piglet - “Bugstomp” For those either unversed or unaware of the mechanics of Math-Rock, “Bugstomp” is a perfect introduction. Known for their super sparkly tone and chaotic time signatures with ultra smooth transitions, “Bugstomp” is nearly a perfect example of this. It’s jaunty and fast, while maintaining a light-hearted nature.

Washed Out - “Blessa” Heading into summer, personally speaking, no other artist gets more play than Washed Out; specifically, this song. It runs the gambit from ethereal and expansive to collected, at times, funky. I recommend this song to anybody who enjoys being so chill it hurts. Pair with sunshine and/or late HAWT nights.

Sleep - “Dopesmoker” Sleep’s eponymous one-hourthree-minute track is implicit in its name; it would not take a MENSA member to figure out the inspiration of this recording. That being said, you might ask why you should listen to a 60-plus minute song; I would say … because sometimes a riff is just that fu**ing good.

Moonface Connor Oberst - “Milk Thistle” With Siinai: Heartbreaking Bravery “Milk Thistle” is hands down

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Cold Specks I Predict A Graceful Expulsion

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The Lions A Sampler

Yamantaka//Sonic Titan YT//ST

one of the best songs I’ve ever heard. Slow, deliberate and without pretence, this song is nice weather presented alongside of a terrestrial experience. Imagery of florida orange groves and rockets blazing over Cape Canaveral make this song delightful – more delightful than a car-accident.

Who does what: Dave: lead guitar, vocals, harmonica Darcy: keys, vocals, hypeman Ryan: bass, vocals, attitude Truman: beats, tones, vocals, atmosphere Name of latest EP/Single/Album: Self-Titled What brought you guys together as a band?

Truman: Initially, coincidence ... we all live together as roommates and began playing together as an excuse to piss off the neighbors, but it quickly became so much more than that ... We were perfectly in sync – I thought that’d be a really cool name for the band ... but the other guys quickly dismissed the idea.

Ryan: N*SYNC is already a BAND! Darcy: I’ve always wanted to be in a band, so this worked out nicely.

Truman: Yeah and chicks dig ‘em, so that’s coo.

Who do you guys find inspiration from?

Ryan: One of the bands we take greatest inspiration from [is] the … Hot Moonbeams, their alternative-style, nostalgic guitar riffs and smooth bass lines were a call to the stage for the Fisher Kings ... and we rose to their challenge.

Truman: I listen to a lot of radio static on my way to and from work, and I find incredible melodies in the void of the white noise.

Images: Trueman Proudfoot

If you could open for a touring artist/band, who would it be?

Ryan: Hologram Tupac.

Truman: That’s it. That’s it.

If you were going on tour, who would play what role?

Ryan: Hmm, that’s a tough one ...

I’d have to say that Darcy is the party-man, he’s always been the one to live this dream to the fullest and take advantage of everything we’ve made for ourselves. Dave is definitely the serious one, pretty much the only guy truly committed to making this band work – without him we wouldn’t have so much as an interview to our names. I’d say Truman is certainly the laziest member of the group ... but godDAMN can he hit that beatpad.

Truman: I’d agree with all that.

What are you hoping to accomplish with your music?

Truman: We’ve really already come farther than we ever could have imagined ... it seems like such a short time ago this band was nothing but four guys and a pipedream, but things are happening so quickly now, my only hope is that we can keep getting word out and continue to make a name for ourselves as a band.

Ryan: I’d agree with all that.

Darcy: I think we can ALL agree with that.

If you could play any instrument that you don’t know how to already, what would it be?

Truman: I’d pick the kazoo ... never could figure those things out.

Ryan: I really would like to learn how to whistle.

David: The guitar – I really thought that would have happened already Darcy: I’d have to go with the tuba.

Really helps me keep a nice pace for walks around the hood.

Album Review

Matt Lowen – Junkie’s Bank Account PAIGE HOBLAK CONTRIBUTOR

Vancouver-based Matt Lowen introduces himself with his debut album Junkie’s Bank Account. The album definitely portrays Lowen’s ability to have fun with music.

Light-hearted lyrics accompany traditional folk music to create that simple folk sound that appeals to any listener. The album epitomizes the folk genre, staying true to simple, worry-free sounds that can ease any situation.

Junkie’s Bank Account was recorded at Spiderlodge Studios in Chilliwack, BC, and co-produced with Rick Genge. Lowen’s inspiration comes from his journeys across Canada as a young and inspired musician. His education has also contributed greatly in developing lyrics.

With the recent finish of his debut album, Lowen is focusing on promoting the album by touring around the country to get his name and music heard. The indie folk scene can be difficult to break into, considering reigning bands such as Mumford and Sons who have set the bar high.

The album opens up with “Back to Me,” which accurately sets the tone for the entirety of the album.

The track is then followed by

“Samson or Delilah,” taking on a more uplifting tone and catchy beat as does “Other People Said.” The lyrics stay true to the straightforwardness of traditional folk tales.

The album has an ability to put your mind at peace with gentle melodies and lyrics that smooth over your stresses. It keeps a similar tone throughout, as the songs do not fluctuate too much in their energy from track to track. Somewhat static, Junkie’s Bank Account doesn’t have you jumping off your chair and on your feet by any means.

Personally, I found that the songs lacked the capability to keep me engaged. As a folk music lover, I found the album to be a somewhat disappointing representation of my favourite genre. I have high expectations when it comes to folk.

I want it to send my mood soaring into the clouds. I want it to have me on my feet. Maybe it is asking too much, but I just didn’t get that from Junkie’s Bank Account.

The simple fact could be that Lowen is still developing his sound and learning about music. This is

only his debut album and experience comes in time. Lowen seems ambitious enough to dedicate himself to the hard work it takes to develop a signature sound; I believe he will soon transform into a more dynamic musician with a lot more to offer in terms of instrumental and sonic complexity.

Lowen definitely has the fundamentals of folk music covered; however, they are yet to be mastered. Within time, I believe that Lowen will mature into the brilliant musician he is well on his way to becoming.

For a free download of two tracks off the album, check out www.mattlowenmusic.com

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 06, 2012

www.ufvcascade.ca

15

Mini Album Reviews

SoundBites

ARTS & LIFE

Jack White Blunderbuss

The Walkmen Heaven

4mat

This isn’t a debut record for Jack White.

Last April, White’s eldest brother, Ray, died suddenly at the age of 54. In a recent interview with Josh Eells of New York Times Magazine, White opened up about the importance of Ray in his life and how “Blunderbuss is dedicated to him.” Ray had lived as a priest, worked as a private investigator and at one point opened up a spy shop, all while having a close-knit relationship with his little brother Jack. Blunderbuss stands out as White’s most personal album to date as he examines what makes his relationships fail, along with other facets of his psyche, in the aftermath of tragic loss. The new-found maturity of his twelfth studio record is new but long overdue. The strange creative and emotional blend of White’s previous projects resonates throughout Blunderbuss, but it’s the country and rockabilly style from the Nashville setting that really starts to infiltrate his reputable sound. Third Man Records strikes again.

The Talking Heads describe heaven as “a place where nothing ever happens,” some place totally unthrilling and antithetical to the rock and roll spirit.

But for The Walkmen, it represents a brimming and lively, if sepia-toned, transition to adulthood. While some might expect the title of the DC/NYC group’s seventh album in 10 years to likewise anticipate a disillusioned portrait of paradise, it’s a pretty honest appraisal of their fortunate lot. Over their last few records, The Walkmen have eased away from the raw immediacy of their earlier recordings into a stately grandeur that is not without its share of domestic trials to accompany the many causes for jubilation. Hamilton Leithauser’s impassioned drawl works wonders on “Song for Leigh,” a sweet and steady hymn to his daughter in which he pushes his voice to the verge of breaking on the refrain: “I sing myself sick about you.” The band’s steadily gathering confidence allows for moments of remarkable vulnerability like the broken “Southern Heart” that bring the familiar heartpounding numbers like “Love You Love” into sharper relief. With Heaven, The Walkmen have found a way to age gracefully by writing honest and compelling music about their current stage in life. So why begrudge them a little well-earned happiness?

It starts with the scratch-hum of a record needle, a paradox, yet in tune with a thick strand of current electronic music that, as it pushes forward looking for the “next” beat, breakdown, dubstep remix moment of ecstasy, frequently looks over its shoulder – collecting and collating and curating the old that contains what they’re looking for now. It takes a good four minutes and change of Origins for chiptune (re) arranger demoscene innovator 4mat (Matt Simmonds) to hit start, a design that apes that object from which his work’s design and construction pulls from: videogames. Simmonds recognizes the beauty of the now mostly lost aesthetic of videogames when they were sprites and bleeps, but doesn’t recreate it. Instead, Origins, like all of his albums—that’s four extremely diverse albums in the span of two years—is an amalgam of familiar sounds, reconstructed into almostdance, almost-trance tracks of allbuildup. Interrupted only by a phonecall and a short stream of vocals on album-clincher “Strobelights,” Origins races through Simmonds’s established repertoire, acknowledging and claiming the past, producing a present that continues to laugh at the “Chipmusic is dead” joke title on 2011’s Surrender.

TIM UBELS

NICK UBELS

Origins

ORBO and the Longshots Prairie Sun ORBO and the Longshots’ sixth album Prairie Sun offers listeners something smooth and summery that could easily have come out of Nashville or Memphis instead of Bergen, Norway. With the combined vocals of lead singer/songwriter ORBO (Ole Reinert Berg-Olsen) and Ine Tumyr, Prairie Sun takes off on a journey into the horizon with “Highway Tears,” a song which mirrors the album’s cover art. “High Grass Dog” and “Nights Don’t Belong To Us (No More)” welcome swaying and toe tapping in time with the snare. There isn’t much in the category of instrumental complexity, but the syrupy, country harmony of ORBO and Tumyr is the real success throughout the tracks. If you are looking for an album to compliment your Saskatchewan road trip this summer, Prairie Sun deserves a dusty sunset.

MICHAEL SCOULAR

JESS WIND

Discussions Below the Belt TITS MCGEE

THE CASCADE

There’s an increasing trend lately of people getting hymenoplasty – yes, that’s what it sounds like. They’re getting new hymens put in. Yes, really. So, in keeping with the trend, I decided it would be fun to write an article about the exact opposite.

So what’s the opposite of hymenoplasty?

A hymenectomy. If you’ve watched enough House, you can probably guess what this is: it’s when a hymen is surgically removed.

It turns out that some women have what’s called an imperforate hymen, which means that instead of a hole they have a solid piece of skin stretching to the vaginal wall in all directions. The “imperforate” bit also means that it ain’t going anywhere: tampon, penis or even Tay Diggs (yes, please) aren’t getting through these things.

There are variations in severity. Typically, the imperforate hymen has tiny holes in it that still allow discharge (menstrual and otherwise) to pass through. Some even have holes large enough to allow a tampon entry, though this is rare. The whole thing seems like a pretty crappy deal, if you ask me. The only solution I’d come up with in that state would be to do the nasty with a scalpel, but apparently that’s not advisable. So, I interviewed someone who went through it herself. Because thinking of my pseudonym took all my creative powers, we’ll call her Jane.

The hymen from hell

So when did you realize you had an imperforate hymen?

Jane: Well, I always knew something was wrong. Um, I hoped something was wrong.

Because the alternative was me not understanding where my hole was, which millions of women do by themselves without trouble.

Did you ever worry that it was just you not understanding?

J: Yes. Not, like, all the time, but it was one of those quiet worries at the back of my head.

Every time I saw a tampon commercial, every time I watched a sex scene in a movie, every time I thought about childbirth.

So when did you figure out that you’d need a hymenectomy?

J: Well, I never went to the gynecologist because I wasn’t sexually active. My period was on the long side, but pretty normal.

When I was 19, I started dating a guy and we were never able to have sex. It took two years of that ... I was 21 ... then I went to my family doctor to tell him something was wrong. He referred me to the gynecologist.

The gynecologist sat me down before examining me and I told him about my troubles (not being able to get anything in). He tried to get in a Q-tip and couldn’t, so he diagnosed me.

What were your symptoms?

J: I couldn’t get anything inside me. If I used a finger, I could get it in as far as the bottom

of my fingernail. Obviously I couldn’t use tampons. If my boyfriend tried to get inside me, it was the same problem with not being able to. Also, it hurt ... not a bruise type hurt, but a sharp, stinging pain. I’m not a wimp or anything, but it was like there was a brick wall inside me that nothing could get past and that wall was made out of nerves or something.

Tell me about the surgery?

J: It was an outpatient thing. I couldn’t eat or drink the night before, then went to the hospital in the morning. I was really freaked out, so the anaesthesiologist couldn’t put me to sleep until I calmed down because my blood pressure was too high I think. When I got on the operating table, I freaked out about the anaesthesia again, crying and just panicking.

They held the mask a few inches above my mouth and gave me a needle and I was out.

Apparently there were six stitches. The next thing I knew, I was awake, still scared, but now was very sore inside my vagina. It was pretty terrible, because I had never experienced a sensation like that there.

So it was quite painful?

J: No. Really, the pain wasn’t much worse than typical period cramps. But I was put to sleep, so I had no idea how much time had passed and I woke up sore in a place I was too scared to touch myself. I didn’t know what had happened and it was just scary ... I woke up still freaking out and crying, so they

let my boyfriend see me after a few minutes.

I wouldn’t let them touch me after that. It’s not that I didn’t trust them, I was just still hazy, still sore there and still scared. So my boyfriend gave me some juice because they wanted me to urinate to make sure I could.

After I did, the nurses let me get dressed.

I had to use a pad, because there was still bleeding. Then they let me leave, about 45 minutes after I woke up. Apparently that’s normal.

What was recovery like physically?

J: It was fine. I had self-dissolving stitches and it was pretty tender going to the bathroom. That took longer because I had to go slow – same with showering. I bled for about a week, but not much more than my average period. I slept almost the entire next day, but I think that was just emotional exhaustion.

What’s your recovery been like mentally?

Sexually?

J: It took a long time, like, years. But I think that’s just me and how I deal with things. I tried to use a tampon about a month after the surgery and it hurt so bad that I clenched up and couldn’t do it. I think there was scar tissue. Because of that, I was too scared to try sex. I developed vaginismus, which is an involuntary clenching of the vaginal wall muscles.

To read more about vaginismus and how Jane’s doing, check out my blog at titsmcgee3.wordpress.com

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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 06, 2012

ARTS & LIFE

Haute Stuff ALEXEI C. SUMMERS

THE CASCADE

Dressing well is not something that you can force yourself to do, and lots of people do not like dressing up. They’re perfectly comfortable going to a job interview in a t-shirt and a pair of jeans, while the next fella who comes along might be donning a nice pair of khakis and a simple sweater with a collared shirt. Who do you think is going to get the job?

It’s been proven time and time again that people are judged by how much they dress up, and if you want to be taken seriously in today’s world, it’s time to learn the importance of wearing a suit.

If you want people to take notice of you, you must dress noticeably, and a suit screams confidence and exudes class. A man must go everywhere with confidence, taking pride in one’s appearance and appearing to be brimming with pride.

I used to work in a suit store. It was one of the most entertaining jobs I’ve ever had. But oftentimes, when customers would come into the store, they had no idea what they wanted to buy. They just knew they wanted a suit. My advice to these people is to think things over. My other advice to

The importance of suiting up

these people is to start with the basics. A good conservative blue suit is a very important thing to have, as well as black and grey.

You can never go wrong with a simple, elegant style. These conservative styles have been around for a century – and they always will be. Don’t spend money on a flashy trendy suit that will go out of fashion. And whatever you do, do not make the mistake of buying one of those shiny silver suits that you can see your face in. You’ll just embarrass yourself and it will fall apart because it’s cheap.

This year has seen a return to both 1920s and 1960s themed fashion in the suit world. Banana Republic recently just released a Mad Men themed line and Ralph Lauren earlier in the year released a line inspired by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby. As such, linen suits have been very popular this year. I myself started this year wearing a ’20s themed closet of suits and have since swayed a little over towards the ’60s themes. This is probably because AMC’s Mad Men has replaced HBO’s Boardwalk Empire as my television obsession. I combine these fashions with a nice pair of black leather dress shoes and some dress shirts with vintage cuff links.

Cuff links are important – every man needs a pair of cuff links.

However, with all this talk of dressing up, I feel it should be mentioned that wearing a suit is not always appropriate and no one really expects you to do it. In fact, if you study the wearing of suits throughout history, it never has been. There are always occasions where one must dress down to fit in. Because the suit is the wealthy gentleman’s garb of choice, he must dress properly for all occasions – and most of all he must never out-dress the others he is with. It is a gentleman’s role to make others as comfortable as he can. So, if you ever feel like you must stand out when you’re going to a social engagement, a sweater and a blazer accompanied by a simple, pressed white dress shirt and some slacks will never do you wrong. People will resent you if you are overdressed around them. It will come off as arrogant.

Do your best to fit in.

A suit is a very personal thing and its wearer must love and respect it. It must be like no other suit, and by that I mean it must be yours and yours alone. It must be tailored. This is perhaps just as important as buying the suit itself.

A good tailor is hard to find. It’s a pursuit much like finding that perfect hairdresser who knows just what you want. You have to

Image: paul goyette/flickr.com

describe how you want this new suit you purchased to fit on you, if you want it looser in one place and snugger in another – there is a bond between a man and his tailor, a certain communicative understanding of the goal in mind. After the suit is finished at the tailor’s

it will come out customized. And then you’re free to wear to your heart’s content, turn heads, looking suave and, most of all, successful.

POSTCARD LITERATURE Sleep Walk

Nick Ubels

That wavering, faraway slide guitar spills from the corner jukebox as the negative resolves into a pretty figure on a stage: midnight curls, eyes like gloss caramel. Transfixed, she twists softly over chess board tiles and trampled confetti, looks up with a smile that says everything and nothing all at once. She’s alone in the middle of the dance floor under the low light after everyone else has gone.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 06, 2012

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ARTS & LIFE

CASCADE ARCADE

BOOK REVIEW

A Game of Thrones V1 (Graphic Novel)

The Fraser Valley gets GameSparked JOEL SMART

THE CASCADE With Vancouver now host to a great number of video game development studios, it has become a major player in the industry. We’ve even got programming and game design schools in the area. Yet, big name gaming magazines and news websites still tend to be based out of Los Angeles, San Francisco or New York.

At just 19, Mat Paget has recognized that unfilled niche. Living in Langley, he grew up playing games. “I’ve been playing video games for as long as I can remember,” he said. “I started out on the PC when I was a very young child.” For him, the fascination with games never stopped. He loved games so much, in fact, that when he went on the Internet, it was to try to find out what new games to play. That’s when he had the idea.

Paget dreamt up a novel concept – a dating site where people don’t hook up with other people, they hook up with new games. “We basically want to make a dating site ... where a person will be able to find the video game they’ll fall in love with.” Or, he noted, maybe just a fleeting “fling” if that’s what they’re in the mood for.

He partnered up with his close friends Damian Turner and Nick Dodd, and together the trio developed the details and the layout of a new gaming website called GameSparked.com. The site has been up for just seven months, and already it’s got over 30,000 hits.

The staff has jumped to 12 people, including eight writers, two musicians and an artist. The last month or so has been especially busy. “It was amazing to see how fast we went from 15,000 to 30,000 views,”

Image: fred baby/flickr.com

he noted. “Things are going really well.”

Though the site is still in its early stages, with the “dating” Connections service set to launch shortly, it’s already stuffed with game reviews, original features, weekly game industry podcasts made by the GameSparked team and plenty of giveaways. They also plan to expand to include video content and more community-oriented services. “We’re also very devoted to the indie scene. We review many indie games and spend a lot of time with developers from the Fraser Valley,” he said. They’re currently looking for more local writers.

The podcasts, especially, are a major part of the site. They offer insights and plenty of humour for those who love games. “We’re like the Team 1040 of videogames” he laughed.

The Electronic Entertainment Expo, known by most as E3, is like Christmas for gamers. It starts June 5 and ends June 7. GameSparked will celebrate the bevy of new game announcements, trailers and game industry news with nightly podcasts and major giveaways.

The site’s E3 giveaways include an inflatable chainsaw from Lollipop Chainsaw, a soundtrack and art book from Catherine, two Steam keys for Bastion, three copies of The Humble Indie Bundle V, two copies of Batman: Arkham City and much more. “We’re extremely happy with what we’ve been able to pull together,” Paget said. All people have to do to win is to like GameSparked on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter.

While the site is booming as it stands, Paget can’t wait for the Connections service to launch, which will also include a total site overhaul. Connections will allow gamers to search for games through over 15 major categories.

“Each game can be connected by ... genre, theme, protagonist, perspective, publisher, developer, etcetera,” he said. “We’re also developing an untitled ‘other’ category, where it will basically describe how the two games are connected, and why if you loved Devil May Cry you should play Bayonetta.”

Part of the appeal of the service is also how it will allow the community to improve the results.

“The site will work like a wiki,” he explained, “allowing users to edit the database.” If the service seems comprehensive, that’s because Paget has done his homework. “I spent months researching and using dating sites to see what features could be used in a videogame sense.”

With so much passion for video games in the region, and so little competition from other media outlets, it’s no wonder that GameSparked has been able to take off within such a short timeframe. For those looking for a local dose of gaming news, there’s nowhere better to turn.

FILM REVIEW Snow White and the Huntsman MICHAEL SCOULAR

THE CASCADE

A movie of blatant gestures and pre-determined narrative, Snow White and the Huntsman is, at its core mentality, not that different from the Disney image it wishes to distance itself from. This, you see, is a fairy tale for a supposedly new generation with a different attitude, but isn’t that what Disney was all about? One chose sterilized simplicity, the other the acrid and mud-caked, but both are fables with their subtext wrung out, leaving the vestiges of familiar but mundane details about parental figures of abuse, the perils of vanity and quick thinking on the part of the younger generation.

It’s lovable heroism to be sure, but instead of the type of delineating that might make said heroism (Kristen Stewart, Chris Hemsworth, and friends) the kind that has to grapple with the problems above, everything is conveyed through the lens of Destiny, an iconic framework that makes every scene one step towards the inevitable Great Battle of Destiny.

Militaristic might takes over per-

sonal inquiry. Queen Ravenna, (Charlize Theron), rendered as a tortured soul through backstory, becomes less and less complicated as the story progresses, transformed from person to figurative force, evoking nothing more than the petulant misanthrope Theron played in Young Adult.

Almost everyone in Snow White and the Huntsman is similarly laden with backstory, furthering the dissonance of the hero’s journey plot at its centre. From the huntsman (see also John Carter) to the dwarves (“We used to have pride”), everyone is intent on shying away from the present to dwell in their own narratives, a mismatch with the overarching premise that everyone is working together to achieve their final goal of victory. This provides some of the movie’s few awkwardly weighty moments, as in a mountain trek that draws comparison to similar shots in The Lord of the Rings, but cast here as a plodding flight, rather than heroic run (with music to match). The narrative stifles it, but these are characters bogged down by history.

Director Rupert Sanders is a

simulacrum of a stylist, applying the lifeless thrills of Ridley Scott to the mechanic, disconnected battles and showing off spells in all their forms using the shorthand imagery he garnered a reputation for as a commercial director. Whether cataloguing a menagerie of sub-del Toro creations (twice) or carrying over the inky spills and burning flesh of his work for Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Sanders shows an instinct for getting things to look “right,” in a way that matches what medieval reconstruction experts, battle choreographers and previous imaginers have established as a capital-S standard.

Where a real attitude emerges the most is in Snow White and the Huntsman’s deliberate cautiousness. Never so bold as something like The Company of Wolves nor navigated through conventions as easily as Stardust, this Snow White is one who spends the majority of her onscreen existence reciting, whimpering and staring, waiting for something to happen that “no one’s ever seen before.” When it does happen, it’s gone in a flurry and one wonders if it was anything special to begin with.

JEREMY HANNAFORD

CONTRIBUTOR

With the show a major success and the books flying off the shelves, it was only a matter of time before George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series was adapted into graphic novel form. Writer Daniel Abraham takes on the challenging task of adapting the first half of George R.R. Martin’s first novel A Game of Thrones while Tommy Patterson provides possibly some of most detailed and beautiful artwork ever provided for a graphic novel adaptation.

Being that this was my first take on the series, I looked at this graphic novel with fresh eyes and saw for myself what all the wonder and hype was about. The first volume goes through roughly the first half of the original novel, introducing all of the main characters.

Eddard Stark rules over Winterfell and the surrounding wilderness, and his family live a comfortable life within the walls of their keep – but the summer is ending and Stark can sense that “winter is coming.” However, a lingering winter is not the only threat that approaches Winterfell. King Robert is coming with his wife Cersei and the other members of the conniving Lannister family. Upon arriving in Winterfell, a tale of greed, lust and betrayal ensues as everyone is looking to gain from others’ misfortunes or even deaths.

Adapting half of the novel’s 846 pages into 183 illustrated and detailed comic panels is definitely no easy feat, as Daniel Abraham is forced to condense much of the novel’s backstory into small cliff notes as the main story plays out across the pages. With Patterson’s detailed sketches, all the main characters in the story are given proper introduction and develop throughout the novel. The story itself feels like stage play with characters conversing and plotting against each other all the while a war is beginning to brew. The most interesting shared trait of all the characters is that no one has a clear conscience or is in fact a good person at heart. Everyone has their se-

crets and it’s only a matter of time until they are betrayed by them.

Tommy Patterson also faces many challenges of his own with squeezing so much information into a limited amount of comic panels. This can be seen at times when the certain actions are skipped across the panels and one is left to fill in the blanks about the characters’ motions. This does not interfere or take away from the main story ark but merely causes inconveniences.

Patterson’s art is absolutely astounding, not just in the crisp outline of the characters or the intricate clothing and armor designs, but in the immense detail in the surrounding environments. Each panel looks like a small mural as the same ridiculous amount of dedication and skill is put forth onto the page. However, this makes for an unnecessary amount of establishing panels rather than concentrating on the character actions and evoking the story. Despite this, the detail of the characters is impossible not to appreciate. All have distinguishing facial features and hair styles, while their attire consists of various furs and pelts to intricate fabrics and clothing.

Daniel Abraham and Tommy Patterson provide a visual and literal take on George R. R. Martin’s saga and they have done an exceptional first job. They even impress Martin himself, as evident in the intriguing introduction that talks about the creation of the graphic novel and Martin’s take on the art medium itself. This, along with an extensive look at the creation of the graphic novel, makes it a worthy purchase at $30. I highly anticipate the second volume of A Game of Thrones to be released in December.

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www.ufvcascade.ca

SPORTS & HEALTH

EastVan PillowFight Club partake. We are able to travel and do shows with the crew that we currently have.

How does someone interested get involved as a player?

We are always looking for new fighters. If interested you can contact the club and we will get you in. email: evpfc.mail@gmail.com How does one find out about upcoming events?

Our next event is on June 16. For tickets contact the club by email.

All the info is also on our Facebook page.

JOEL SMART

How much are tickets to get in? $10

the cascade

After the initial shock and bewildered joy resided, my next thought upon learning of the relatively new all-girl EastVan PillowFight Club was “Well, how does it work?” So, that’s what I set out to learn. Along the way I met club founder Melanie Porodo, who fights under the alias Melitia, and EVPFC commissioner Steve Watts.

After a brief glance at the club’s official rule book, and a perusal of the various YouTube videos of the EVPFC in action, I gathered that the pillowfights have a lot in common with more recognized fighting styles, like boxing or wrestling. There are three twominute rounds in which two pillowfighters earn points through take-downs and knock-outs, as distributed by the EVPFC judges. Fighters also earn points for pulling off creative “signature” moves, striking combos, dodges, and through theatrics that get the crowd going. Of course, points can also be taken away for illegal

Take downs work by hooking your opponent with your pillow behind the knees and tripping them to the ground. Scores are based on a 10-point judging system, similar to that of boxing.

In each fight there are three twominute rounds. Each round is judged on the 10-point system.

How do you respond to criticism that this sport is taking advantage of stereotypes of women?

Umm, the “pajama party pillow fight” reference? Well, we put that stereotype on its arse. We do not pillowfight in lingerie, and we are proud of our femininity. We don’t feel the need to act unintelligent and sexy in order to get attention like our “raunch culture” female counterparts. It’s fun to play with the irony I suppose. Our fights are aggressive. I personally have received countless bruises, a black eye, and many matburns in the ring.

Is there any plan to expand outside of East Van, either in terms of a different team/league or in terms of travelling out to other locations to play?

Other leagues to fight from other towns would be a dream come true! We are going to keep doing what we are doing and if that happened we would be delighted to

Is there anything else we might like to know?

All the fighters have developed an alter-ego for themselves. Mine is Melitia. Others are Medikated, Hunter Down, Angella Kill, Serbian Scrambler, and Blondie Bedlam. We also have trading cards and theme songs. Hope to see you at our show on June 16.

images:EastVan PillowFight Club

moves, such as pinning an opponent, or attempting moves without the use of a pillow.

When they’re not beating each other up with sleeping equipment, the pillowfighting club also likes to help those in need. Recently the group was featured in a 24 hours article, for the bike wash fundraiser they did to raise money for the Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter. “We’re in that thicket everyday and we think it’s important, on a ground level, to collectively do things that can make a difference,” Porodo told the Vancouver daily.

Delving deeper into the mechanics of the club itself, I was fortunate enough to speak with

Porodo about the origins of the group, how it works, and what’s in the future for the sport: Where did the idea come from?

How did it get started?

Melanie Porodo: EastVan Pillowfight Club got started in Steve and Mel’s art studio in Gastown. It began partly as a way to engage the public and partly out of a desire to put our rage and frustration to good use. It began with four pillowfighters and a jujitsu master.

We made the rules up as we went along.

How do the take-downs work?

How is the score kept?

Sports History: Top five infamous cheats SEAN EVANS the cascade

Sports have the power to bring out the very best and worst in people; thousands riot and murder over soccer games and nations come together around a team.

Sports mean a great deal to people – so much is at stake. Money, fame and the lure of pushing to the next great accomplishment have led many athletes to break the rules.

When they get caught, all hell breaks loose. We love it, because it brings them down to our level.

These are the top five infamous cheaters, in my humble opinion.

Spanish Paralympic Basketball Team: At the 2000 Summer Paralym-

pics in Sydney, the Spanish basketball team won gold. Following the close of the games, Carlos Ribagorda, an undercover journalist, blew the cover off of one of the biggest scandals in sports history. Of the 12 members of the Spanish team, 10 were not at all disabled. Players were required to return the gold medals and were shunned by the international community.

The 1919 Black Sox The Black Sox? Well, that’s what people were calling them, because the owner of the White Sox, Charles Comiskey, was too cheap to pay for the uniforms to be cleaned – forcing the players to do it (and we can guess how that worked out). The players hated

Comiskey, and when they made it to the 1919 World Series, eight members conspired to throw the series just to spite their boss.

When news got out, all eight players were banned for life, including Shoeless Joe Jackson, one of the best players in baseball history.

The French Judge We are all probably familiar with this one. During the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City in the pairs figure skating competition, the Canadians skated near perfectly. Everyone watching knew that they had sealed up a gold medal. That’s when the numbers came in. They had lost to the Russians, all due to one suspiciously low score from French Judge Marie Reine le Gougne.

When she was questioned, she broke down and admitted that she had been pressured by the French Skating Federation to give the high score to the Russians in order to secure a medal for the French Ice Dance team. Canada was outraged, but in typical Olympic fashion, everyone was a winner – both the Canadians and Russians got to keep their gold medals.

Rosie Ruiz’s “Marathon” In 1980, Rosie Ruiz won the Boston Marathon, destroying 26.2 miles in a record time of 2:31:56.

Following some investigation, however, it was discovered that Rosie had simply registered for the race and then jumped in near the finish line, after making her-

self look like she had just run a marathon, of course. Well, at least she was creative about it.

Ben Johnson At the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics, Canadian Ben Johnson set a world record, running 100 metres in 9.79 seconds. Canada was proud, sitting atop of the world of running – for approximately 9.79 seconds. Immediately following his victory, Johnson tested positive for anabolic steroids and was stripped of his gold medal, which was then awarded to American rival Carl Lewis.

Ironically, 15 years later it became clear that Lewis was allegedly using steroids at the time.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6, 2012

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SPORTS & HEALTH

Who Says You Can’t Teach an Health Kick: Old Drug New Tricks?

That’s a sport?

KATIE TEGTMEIER CONTRIBUTOR

Have Arthritis? Chances are, if you don’t, someone you know does. Arthritis.ca states that this chronic condition affects over four million Canadians, mostly adults in the 65+ range. It is characterized by how it causes inflammation of joints causing pain and stiffness.

Usual treatments for this disease consist of exercise, dieting, medication and in severe cases even surgery.

Now, have you ever travelled down south for a tropical getaway and developed excruciating abdominal pains? These may have been accompanied, unfortunately, by not-so-pleasant diarrhea and lasted from four days to over a week. What you may have contracted was a bacterial infection or parasite in your large bowel; Amoebic Dysentery isn’t by any means a welcome buddy on your vacation, although that is most likely where you will contract it.

Bodyandhealth.canada.com states that it is transmitted through interaction with contaminated food or water; this generally occurs because of poor sanitation and hygiene.

Now you ask yourself, what in the world do these two condi-

tions have in common? Both are unpleasant, yes, but a new study shows that the two are linked by a drug initially used to treat arthritis symptoms. Auranofin is a gold containing salt compound categorized as a ‘Disease Modifying Anti-Rheumatic Drug’ (DMARD).

Used since 1985, this rheumatoid arthritis prescribed drug has proved effective in the laboratory at killing Entamoeba histolytica (the bacteria that causes Amoebic Dysentery), as the previous drug used, metronidazole. The search for an alternate drug began by testing old drugs that had already been approved for use, cutting costs astronomically.

The BBC reported that initially the testing for a new drug began because the disease has been thought to kill nearly 70,000 people a year, the majority of them in countries where extreme poverty is common. A BBC News article quoted professor James McKerrow saying “When we’re looking for new treatments for the developing world, we start with drugs that have already been approved.”

This is a cost-effective way of finding the solution without wasting unnecessary money on something where the solution may already have been created. The drug used before, metronidazole, is an antibiotic used specifically to treat cer-

tain parasites and anaerobic bacteria. This specific bacterium thrives in oxygen-poor environments, making it understandable that the main areas of infection to occur in humans would be the abdomen, liver and pelvis. While metronidazole was effective enough to help patients recover, auranofin does the equivalent and in some cases performs better.

Only so far being tested on small animals infected with the amoeba, auranofin has shown amazing results compared to other tested drugs. Also quoted in the same BBC News article as previously mentioned, was Dr. Graham Clark on the subject; “Although auranofin has to date only been tested in animal models of amoebic disease, this means that there is now a potential alternative treatment for individual cases where metronidazole fails to cure the infection or in the event resistance to metronidazole emerge as a clinical problem in the future.”

This is great news seeing as people may develop an immunity to certain medications if taken often or in high dosages. So in countries where metronidazole is commonly used to treat a frequently occurring disease, there is now an alternative for people not experiencing results with the previous drug.

The hunt for Lord Stanley’s Cup: Sutter vs DeBoer KAREN ANEY the cascade

It’s officially here. Playoff time.

The lens has narrowed to just two teams, and it’s become much easier to focus on minute details of every player. In an attempt to be a little different, here’s a look at something a new: what’s going on behind the bench?

It’s a dichotomy of coaching.

Darryl Sutter, coach of the LA Kings, has been to the playoffs 10 times before, and to the Finals once. Peter DeBoer, head coach of the New Jersey Devils, is currently coaching his first playoff team. In fact, he was fired from his position with the Florida Panthers after failing to make the playoffs for three consecutive years.

Sutter took over the royal reins in mid-December, and has since managed to bring the team from the back of the pack to the illustrious final series. To get to the final, the Kings eliminated the first, second, and third seed teams. This is only the second time this has been done in NHL history. The first time was in 2004, when the Suttercoached Calgary Flames managed the feat.

Given his most recent track record, one might ask what general manager Lou Lamoriello was thinking when he hired DeBoer.

In an interview last summer, Lamoriello explained that he thought the losses in Florida made DeBoer a better coach. Over the course of the three interviews it took to hire him, DeBoer gave “answers that were ... Open, down to earth and

honest.” And apparently it worked – the Devils are in the finals for the fifth time in franchise history, just one season after missing the playoffs for the first time since 1996.

Sutter is often touted as being a player’s coach. He inspires them by getting them angry, expecting them to fulfill their roles, and bringing an intense passion to the locker room. He surrounds himself with people he can trust – and if he can’t trust the people he’s working with, he manufactures it by surrounding himself with family. When coaching the Flames, five of Sutter’s seven brothers worked with the franchise. While Sutter was head coach of the Blackhawks, in 93-94, two of his brothers were actually playing on the team.

Though not unique in the world of professional sports, Sutter is also superstitious. He drives to every game by himself, and abhors cameras in the locker room. Further, explains Bernie Nicholls (who played with Sutter in Chicago and

San Jose), Sutter doesn’t do much coaching from video. Instead, he says “it’s all about teaching.”

In contrast, DeBoer analyzes video to excess. In fact, when talking about the difficulty of days off between games, he cited the video work as a main frustration.

“You get to this point, you know, as coaches you get tired of looking at tape, analyzing, you analyze it to death.” This isn’t to say that Sutter hasn’t reviewed any of the tape himself, but the attitudes clearly have differing viewpoints.

Beyond that, not much information is available about DeBoer. It could be that he steers clear of the media, but it’s more likely that no one really cares about a coach that misses the playoffs three times in a row. Given the Devils’ performance this season, that will likely change in the future. Sutter clearly has some coaching skills, but would likely get recognition by his name alone. Maybe this series will be the one that makes DeBoer a household name, as well.

KEN MUIR

CONTRIBUTOR

The word “sport” gets thrown around a lot these days, and the average person probably pays no mind to the apparent evolution of its use in arguably incorrect circumstances. However, those of us who take the word seriously, perhaps pretentiously so, do pay attention, and some of us feel that the line has been crossed.

The problem is, activities recognized as “sports” are growing rapidly, under a spectrum that ranges from gymnastics to competitive Minesweeper. Call me a traditionalist, but I don’t think those two disciplines should be related under any circumstances.

You may recall a similar article run in this very paper that debated the possible inclusion of e-sports (read: competitive video games) to the umbrella of what’s known as normal sports. However, the issue extends a bit farther than that. There’s also large grey area that lies between basketball and Call of Duty, and it includes activities such as motocross, Formula 1 racing, IndyCar racing and so on. When viewed separately I’d hesitate to call them sports, but when compared to the competitive video game scene, does make for more of a case.

Could one argue that activities should only be labeled as sports if they are physically taxing? Unfortunately not. Professional StarCraft players can reach speeds of 200600 actions per minute, or clicks of the mouse and keyboard, and have to maintain these speeds for up to 45 minutes if a game goes on long enough. A popular StarCraft II star of the alias TheLittleOne suffered from an extreme bout of carpal tunnel syndrome last year as a result of “training” too much.

And racing car drivers must be capable of extremely precise driving for hours on end. They must also deal with the physical demands of having their bodies attacked by

G-forces in the corners. So how, then, is race-car driving any less demanding than curling? There are some Olympic sports that are classified as purely technical sports: archery, shooting, curling and so on, wherein the difficulty lies not in pushing the body to its limit, but rather in being as precise as possible. Why is that more difficult, or more “sport-like” than piloting an 800-horsepower racecar around chicanes at speeds of 200 mph?

Could the argument be made that activities that sufficiently depend on some mechanical device, such as an engine or a computer, should be made distinct from those which do not? Again, the argument is nullified by shooting being an Olympic event. Hell, even equestrianism is recognized by the IOC, and that’s a sport which partially depends on the abilities of an entirely different species. I don’t even know where to start with that one. If that’s a sport, than why not rally racing? Why not Halo 3? A true conundrum, in my books.

Though I have no real concrete evidence for saying so, I personally draw the line after most Olympic sports. And I’m not saying the IOC is the holy tribunal for all things sports related; in fact, I’d probably remove a couple from the official Olympic program. Call me un-Canadian, but I’d cut curling.

I just can’t take it seriously. To me it’s just bocce on ice. And though the matter is way too convoluted to be unanimously agreed upon, the line really has to be drawn somewhere, because as Yeats said, “Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.” For a full-time athlete to be lumped in with competitive gamers is just plain insulting, for both parties. In any case, I hope that this mislabeling problem can be tailored before it gets too out of hand. Already there’s more highlight reels of poker than of actual sports on ESPN. I mean, really?

Breaking News: Barnaby Craddock is moving on After five years at the helm of the UFV Cascades Mens Basketball program, Barnaby Craddock has left to become the head coach of the University of Alberta Golden Bears. The move was announced Tuesday, June 5, a month after Golden Bears coach Greg Francis accepted a job

with the Waterloo Warriors. Craddock was an integral part of the Cascades’ rise to prominence over the past five seasons, culminating in their fourth-place finish at CIS nationals in March.

Goodbye Craddock, and thanks for four years of competitive basketball.

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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6, 2012

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