The Cascade Vol. 21 No. 12

Vol. 21 Issue. 12

www.ufvcascade.ca

April 3 to April 9, 2013

Tired and wired since 1993

My double life Varsity althlete Jasper Moedt on his battle with mental illness and how the stigma is hurting us all

p. 10-11

Chilliwack firefighter fights ageism p. 3

How to be a good cinema citizen p. 15

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NEWS News

Opinion

Arts & Life

Scholarly what?

The treachery of an unpaved path

Farmville meets drugs

It’s no secret that professors have another life outside of the classroom ... and it’s called research. More than a few professors have brought their work to the Scholarly Sharing Initiative on campus, where students and faculty alike converse and enjoy snacks. Isn’t that what university is supposed to be about?

You know that muddy spot right between the C and D building that you have to navigate over to get to your class / AfterMath / the gym? You’ve never found a way to do it that isn’t akward-looking, but Dessa Bayrock knows. Check out her article and learn about new tactics to avoid a face-plant in mud.

What do Farmville, drug dealers, Robin Hood and academic studies have in common? Joel Smart lays out the economics of video games in the Cascade Arcade column, and will lead you through the hypothesis that sooner or later Facebook games will become completely free to play.

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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Sports & Health

Iggy pops over to to Pittsburgh

Jarome Arthur-Leigh Adekunle Tig Junior Elvis Iginla has played his final game with the Calgary Flames. The 16-year veteran will suit up for the Pittsburg Penguins for the rest of the season alongside one of the top contenders for Lord Stanley’s Cup. Tim Ubels delves into the details and what it will mean for the Abbotsford Heat.

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EDITORIAL

Towing the party line

Why leaving the Commonwealth will help increase parliamentary freedom nick ubels THE CASCADE

Party politics are hurting Canadian democracy.

Conservative Langley MP Mark Warawa’s recent mini-rebellion against Stephen Harper’s ironclad grip on his caucus has been promptly silenced – for now.

Warawa introduced a motion that sought to ban sex-selective abortions, a measure which he says 90 per cent of Canadians support. One of Harper’s 2010 campaign promises was not to re-open any parliamentary discussion of abortion during his term as Prime Minister. This was ostensibly the reason the bill was quashed before being brought to a vote.

This is only the latest in a long list of examples of how Stephen Harper’s ruling Conservative Party has consolidated party communication, reduced press access to government and kept MPs voting the party line on most issues. This sort of muzzling hurts an MP’s ability to represent the concerns of his or her constituents in the House of Commons.

Moreover, the Conservatives’ governing practices as a whole have decreased the openness of Canada’s federal government.

Strict adherence to party lines reduces Members of Parliament to mere voting machines, cogs in a grand machine designed to achieve whatever legislative aims the party in control of parlia-

ment happens to have. How can citizens be expected to have their voices heard in Ottawa when any local concern is subject to Harper’s approval?

The Conservatives should take heed of their Reform Party roots and allow for more free votes in the House of Commons. It would only strengthen the party’s rapidly deteriorating image; any step back from the closed door, authoritarian governing practices the Conservative Party is becoming known for would be a step in the right direction.

This recent incident brings to mind my own frustration with my local MP, Cloverdale Conservative Russ Hiebert.

For the last few elections, Hiebert has ducked out of the local debates, but handily won the election anyway because of his Conservative affiliation. My letter to Hiebert about one of the copyright bills some years ago was answered with a form response and his signature.

I feel like I’m being represented by a Conservative robot, not a human being attuned to the local community.

This points to what I think is a bigger problem with the structure of Canada’s government.

Because our head of state is the Queen, most people tend to vote based on the national leader of a party rather than the quality of their local candidate. After all, selecting a national leader tends to take priority over your local

Editor-in-chief nick@ufvcascade.ca Nick Ubels Managing editor amy@ufvcascade.ca Amy Van Veen 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 Dessa Bayrock Opinion editor opinion@ufvcascade.ca Nadine Moedt Arts & life editor arts@ufvcascade.ca Sasha Moedt

Image: Steven W. Dengler / Wikimedia

Warawa’s futile feud with party policy shows need for reform. representive.

Hiebert is a product of this system in which negligible local candidates can get elected based solely on their party affiliation.

He’s the perfect Harper Conservative cog: impersonal, unavailable and always votes the party line.

There are two ways to restore the strength of our local representation in Ottawa, both of them somewhat drastic.

The first is to abolish political parties. This, however, is both impractical and poses other problems of its own.

The second is to leave the Commonwealth.

I know many Canadians will bristle at the idea. After all, our

connection to the monarchy is a big part of our heritage. But the way it stands, the Prime Minister (head of government) functions as a sort of de facto head of state.

Such a move would allow Canada to elect its own head of state.

This move would revitalize the strength of our indiviual Members of Parliament by distinguishing the selection of a national leader from local representative. If Canadians could vote for a head of state, it would be much easier to justify voting for a strong local candidate rather than feelingobligated for a local representative as a surrogate for their choice of national leader.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Sports editor sports@ufvcascade.ca Paul Esau News writer jess@ufvcascade.ca Jess Wind Photojournalist blake@ufvcascade.ca Blake McGuire Varsity writer Jasper Moedt Staff writers Katie Stobbart, Griffy Vigneron Contributors Emad Agahi, Katherine Gibson, Jeremy Hannaford, Ashley O’Neill, Ryan Petersen, Adarm Roper, Melissa Spady, Tim Ubels Printed By International Web exPress

April 5

April 5

April 6

April 10

Big Bang time

Bed of Stars

Give blood, save a life

Open mic, anyone?

Maybe you’ve heard of them, or maybe you haven’t, but this super cool band is coming to B101 on friday at 7:30 p.m. to show off some more tunes. CIVL helped bring them to campus just for your enjoyment, so show up and nod along to some never-before-heard music. Bring a friend! Bring a family member! Bring a professor!

Did you know that six pints of blood is enough to save the life of a gunshot wound victim? One of those pints could be yours! Enter your details at blood.ca and sign up for a time slot at Abbostford Pentecostal Assembly.

You’ll be entered to win a Galaxy tablet by signing up through the website, and your blood will help heal someone.

Pound back a PBR and discover your courage at CIVL’s monthly open mic session at AfterMath. The glorious event returns to the campus lounge next Wednesday starting at 7 p.m. and offers the perfect opportunity for you to strut your stuff – be it spoken word, delicious harmonization, or offering your ukulele skills for all to see.

All good things start with a big bang. Or is it all good things end with a bang, not a whimper?

Whichever it is, head on down to AfterMath this Friday to listen to some live bands, partake of the food specials and win prizes courtesy of a coalition of science associations on campus. Action begins at 5 p.m. and runs until 11 p.m. so don’t miss out.

Volume 21 · Issue 12 Room C1027 33844 King Road Abbotsford, BC V2S 7M8 604.854.4529

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.

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NEWS

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Chilliwack firefighter contests age discrimination KATHERINE GIBSON THE CASCADE

Russell Shellard is not your average senior citizen.

At 63-years-old, Shellard is used to living life at a normal pace – except for the days that he spends running into burning buildings to fight fires as a paid on-call firefighter (POC).

At least he used to.

A little over a year ago, the Chilliwack Fire Department (CFD) dismissed Shellard from his position as a POC, citing a mandatory retirement age. “[The CFD] has what they call a mandatory retirement policy in place,” explains Shellard, “which says that firefighters must retire at the age of 60.”

All new recruits of the CFD now sign a legal document accepting this mandatory retirement age, but Shellard was never told about this procedure upon his hiring.

“The policy was never made known to me,” Shellard explains.

“I never had to sign any legal

documents.”

“In fact, I didn’t find out about the policy until the first year I started serving,” he continues.

One of the main concerns that the CFD has regarding older firefighters is directly health-related.

However, the medical tests that POCs undergo are fairly minimal.

“Medical requirements for POCs are not that stringent,” says Shellard. “There could be all sorts of [POCs with] health and safety risks out there despite their age.”

The lack of these requirements has Shellard questioning the validity of the CFD’S argument that his age would put him in danger and hinder his ability to continue doing his job effectively.

“I have passed all of the medical and cognitive requirements to be a firefighter,” Shellard explains. “I feel that it is because of my age that my job was lost.”

Shellard’s case also opens up larger questions regarding age discrimination in the workplace.

The BC government passed new

laws in 2008 that amended human rights legislation in the province to protect individuals from discrimination on the basis of their age – something that Shellard views as important and worth fighting for.

“I feel like I’m carrying the torch for others that will come up after me,” Shellard says.

“There are lots of people in the CFD—POCs—that are approaching their 60th birthday and are looking with anxious eyes and hearts at [my] particular case,” he continues.

Shellard has taken his complaints to the Human Rights Tribunal, where he hopes the validity of his argument will be recognized.

“One of the biggest frustrations is to be told that you are too old,” says Shellard.

“I would like to make that choice for myself.”

Image: Used with permission from Russel Shellard

Shellard was an on-call firefighter until he was forced to retire.

“It’s not just about the classroom experience.”

Co-curricular record coming to UFV this spring

DESSA BAYROCK THE CASCADE

There’s a lot going on at UFV that students don’t get credit for.

But with the introduction of a new program this May, that will all change.

Serving as a sort of activities transcript, the co-curricular record program will launch this spring. In short, it will be an official university report detailing volunteer work and other experiences on campus but outside of the classroom.

Jill Harrison is the manager of Student Life and Leadership at UFV, and is more than familiar with the work that students put into extra-curricular abilities – from clubs to associations to events.

“We were thinking of ways we could give credit for the work that the students were doing,” she explains, noting that the cocurricular record has been in the works for almost half a decade.

The project was given new life when Jody Gordon came to UFV last year as vice president of students. She unsuccessfully advocated to institute the program at her last school, and was thrilled to find it was in the works at UFV. Joining her voice with Harrison’s and forming a committee to look into it further, the two started to make the plan a reality. “[There] are ways that we can now help students demonstrate the activity involvement that they’ve had,” Gordon notes, “in addition to what their grades were, and what courses that they took, and the programs they’ve completed.”

The record will document any activity outside of the classroom that students spend at least 20 hours on between September and

Image: UFV Archival/flickr

VP students Jody Gordon is one of the UFV administrators behind the co-curricular record.

April. Students will be responsible for submitting reports to a co-curricular committee, which then follows up with the group or association to validate the student’s involvement.

It’s a cutting-edge program in effect at only a handful of Canadian universities, and UFV will be one of the first in BC. Gordon says UFV was just in the right space at the right time.

The university recently put both time and energy into developing nine institutional learning outcomes describing the skills UFV hopes to instill in its students. They range from critical thinking to leadership to writing proficiency.

The co-curricular record program was able to use these learning outcomes as a foundation – something other universities

have to build from scratch.

“A lot of schools that launch co-curricular spend a year and a half just developing learning outcomes,” Gordon says. “They don’t have the advantage that we have – we already had them.”

She also notes that other universities’ co-curricular programs use guidelines completely separate from institutional learning outcomes.

“The further advantage we have is that we’re tying the cocurricular and the curricular, so what you’re doing in the classroom – to the same learning outcomes,” she says. “If you think about your experience in the classroom versus what you’re learning outside ... put that together – there’s your whole experience.”

Wilfred Laurier University

(WLU), Acadia University and the University of Calgary all have similar programs, which the UFV co-curricular committee used as a springboard.

“When I was visiting [WLU] a few years back, they said that employers in their local area of Waterloo are asking for it,” Gordon explains. “So, ‘Where’s your resume, where’s your transcript, where’s your co-curricular record?’ Because they’re understanding now – they want to see what students are involved in.”

As an unexpected benefit, Harrison notes, UFV also expects the record to boost student involvement. In the first year the program launched in Calgary, the university saw a 10 per cent increase in student engagement.

“It actually drove engagement and increased the level of

engagement the first year they launched – which they didn’t expect,” Gordon explains. “Where they were used to getting 10 volunteers, suddenly they were getting 15 and 20.”

The program will slowly build a comprehensive list of activities on campus that students can get involved with – from events, to job opportunities, to organizations on campus like SUS or CIVL radio. Each position will have a job description tying directly into the institutional learning outcomes, so students will be able to see exactly what’s involved and what skills opportunities will draw on and improve.

The program will see a “soft launch” in May, when the software behind the record will go online for the first time. Students and organizers will be able to log in and begin building a co-curricular record – either inputting job descriptions, or applying to have experience added to a record.

“We know not everything is in there yet, but we need to start getting the software used by people and used by students.”

For now, the record will also be retroactive – allowing students to add experience up to January 2013. Unfortunately, Gordon says, going any further back would add too many problems to track accurately.

Starting in September, students will see a marketing campaign swing into full gear – helping balance priorities between schoolwork and campus experience.

After all, Gordon says, it’s all part of a university education.

“This is part of the whole process of learning,” she concludes.

“It’s not just about the classroom experience.”

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NEWS

IN BRIEF March was bloodiest month in Syria war: rights group BEIRUT (Reuters) — March was the bloodiest month yet in Syria’s two-year conflict, with more than 6000 people killed, a third of them civilians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Monday.

The group opposes President Bashar al-Assad but has monitored human rights violations on both sides of a revolt that began as peaceful protests but is now a brutal war between forces loyal to Assad and an array of rebel militias.

The Britain-based Observatory, which has a network of sources across Syria, has documented 62,554 dead in the conflict, said Rami Abdelrahman, the head of the group.

“But we know the number is much, much higher,” he told Reuters by telephone. “We estimate it is actually around 120,000 people. Many death tolls are more difficult to document so we are not officially including them yet.”

Exxon oil spill cleanup ongoing in Arkansas, pipeline shut MAYFLOWER, Ark./HOUSTON (Reuters) — Exxon Mobil continued efforts on Monday to clean up thousands of barrels of heavy Canadian crude oil spilled from a near 65-year-old pipeline in Arkansas, as a debate raged about the safety of transporting rising volumes of the fuel into the United States.

The Pegasus pipeline, which ruptured in a housing development near the town of Mayflower on Friday, spewing oil across lawns and down residential streets, remained shut and a company spokesman declined to speculate about when it would be fixed and restarted.

The spill has stoked a discussion about the environmental dangers of using aging pipelines to transport heavy crude from Canada, including tar sands, as a boom in oil and gas production in North America increases volumes moving across the continent.

Hockey helps Canada’s economy grow again in January OTTAWA (Reuters)— Canada’s economy bounced back from a year-end slump in January thanks to factories, mines and the return of professional ice hockey, but growth still looks too weak to match the central bank’s upbeat outlook and interest rates are unlikely to budge until 2014.

Gross domestic product expanded by 0.2 per cent in the month, Statistics Canada said on Thursday, following the weakest two quarters since the 200809 recession and a 0.2 per cent contraction in December.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

SCIENCE ON PURPOSE

Catching cybercrime comes at the expense of privacy ASHLEY O’NEILL CONTRIBUTOR

How comfortable do you feel about giving out your personal information online? Have you given an internet company your mailing address? Phone number?

Credit card information?

How would you feel about letting them read your emails?

This is exactly what the FBI has planned for your Gmail account and other email profiles as an effort to crack down on crime.

Gmail is among the forms of internet-based communication the government wants to monitor to more effectively intercept crimes as they are being planned and committed.

This access to instantaneous data would help the FBI track and apprehend troublemakers before they engage in criminal action.

It would be much quicker than the current method of waiting for service providers to hand over archived copies of emails, texts and instant messages (IMs), a process that usually has authorities waiting months or years.

Essentially, the FBI wants to wiretap our emails. “[W]e are not focusing on access to stored data,” stated Valerie Caproni, former FBI General Counsel in an address to the House Judiciary Committee in 2011. “Rather, we are focusing on the interception of electronic communications and related data in real or near-real time.”

Andrew Weissmann stated the same opinion at a Washington talk, saying “the ability to intercept communications with a court order [is becoming] increas-

Image: aranarth/flirckr

Do you relish the idea of living in an Orwellian future? ingly obsolete.”

The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act allows network surveillance, but the law is outdated by almost 20 years – so it can’t be specifically applied to email, cloud-based servers or real-time communication like Skype, Facebook and other chat platforms.

Since information is readily available in many places online, there are all kinds of sneaky ways to “wiretap” information sent from user to user online, even without a court order. The reasoning is that once you post something online in your email or profile, be it your personal information, random chat or a deep dark secret, it becomes part of the public domain.

There is obviously a negative aspect to this issue – regular users consider a conversation between themselves and a buddy to be just a two-person chat, and the idea of someone monitoring that chat is directly in conflict with an idea of personal privacy.

However, there is an ugly truth

about the virtual world. Someone else is usually listening, and they could be recording your conversation. You are constantly being monitored either by system administrators or an electronic server, so what’s so different about letting the government tap your conversations?

A positive aspect behind a third-party listening to our conversations is definitely the response time to criminal behaviour.

“Without the ability to collect these communications in real or near-real time,” Caproni stated, “investigators will remain several steps behind and left unable to act quickly to disrupt threats to public safety, or gather key evidence that will allow us to dismantle criminal networks.”

This includes anything from murder to verbal abuse to cyber bullying. Most of these crimes operate “beyond the reach of law enforcement’s investigative tools” according to the FBI’s 2011 request for better control. The way they see it, there is a whole

network of drug cartels and human traffickers eluding the government’s grasp, and evidence of these felonies is protected under the same law protecting us from the investigators accessing our account logs.

The government would have to dedicate a huge investment into monitoring all the messages on the internet. Think about all the Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Tumblr, Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, LinkedIn, MySpace and Skype instant messages, statuses, updates, posts and emails generated every second. Crime finds a way to operate. Even popular massive multiplayer online role-playing games like World of Warcraft or Star Wars: The Old Republic are victims of illegal cyber activities.

It would take a serious amount of computer power to record and search the millions of simultaneous conversations.

But don’t worry, the FBI is not ruffling through your personal stuff just yet – they still need a warrant to access any part of your email.

The effort to reduce crime online comes at the cost of our personal privacy. There is a battle between our notion of privacy and the FBI’s online security system; only time will tell which will be sacrificed in favour of the other.

The current Canadian government has said that it will not attempt to bring another internet wire-tapping bill into existence, after its internet surveillence bill C-30 was overturned earlier this year.

Guest lecturer advocates alternative cancer therapy MISSY SPADY CONTRIBUTOR

Can alternative therapies help fight cancer?

It’s a big question – and one that Dr. Linda Balneaves endeavored to answer on campus last week.

Every year UFV holds a nursing lecture to provide continuing education opportunities for students hoping to work in the health-care system, as well as faculty and UFV alumni.

At this year’s lecture, UFV welcomed back Balneaves, a BC nurse researcher, associate professor at UBC, and principal investigator of Complementary Medicine Education and Outcomes (CAMEO).

Brad Whittaker, UFV’s director of research, introduced both the doctor and the program.

“CAMEO is a unique, nurseled, research intensive collaboration between the University of British Columbia and the BC Cancer Agency,” Whittaker said.

“She has a special interest in how individuals and families touched by cancer can be best supported in making safe and informed treatment decisions about complementary and alternative medicines.”

This is an area that Balneaves has studied for the past 16 years.

CAMEO focuses on researching alternative or complementary medicine practices and passing

that knowledge on to both doctors and patients. Any health care system, practice or product that is not presently considered to be conventional medicine is termed complementary or alternative.

This includes acupuncture, meditation, herbal remedies, hatha yoga and many others.

The inspiration for creating the program arose when Balneaves was still a nursing student.

“I had patients continually coming up to me and saying, ‘Hey, do you know anything about essiac [herbal tea], vitamin C, [or] some herbal remedy in the treatment of my cancer?’ and I could not answer those questions,” she said. “I had not been taught about it. I didn’t even have any knowledge about these therapies and what their role could be in cancer care.”

Studies show that up to 80 per cent of people living with cancer use a form of complementary medicine at some point after their diagnosis. After surveying patients at the BC Cancer Agency it was found that complementary and alternative medicines were the top therapy patients lacked information about. The truth of the matter is that there is very little reliable information available about alternative medicines.

“If you go onto Google and type in ‘complementary medicine’ and ‘cancer’ you’ll get 13 million or so hits,” Balneaves

Image: Dione1986/flickr

Dr. Balneaves studies alternative medicine at CAMEO. explained. “Most of those are either selling something or they’re based on anecdotal stories.”

Some patients continue to use other therapies while undergoing chemotherapy or radiation without informing their doctors, either because the patient feels it is either not important or that their doctor will not approve.

In a survey of health care professionals, many were under the impression that their patients were not using other medicines, whereas 75 per cent of the patient surveys showed they were. Although some therapies might not conflict with one another, there are many that do and could cause serious side effects.

Balneaves’ hope is that there will one day be open communication between patients and doctors without the fear of judgement – and this is a task that she and CAMEO are both working towards, little by little.

The long-term goal of the CAMEO program is to bridge the gaps between patients, health care professionals and complementary and alternative medicine practitioners.

“I’m very committed to doing research that isn’t stuck in the ivory tower of the university,” she concluded, “but is brought right to the bedside.”

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NEWS

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Motions, money and Robert’s Rules What went down at the SUS annual general meeting JESS WIND

$18,000 towards weeks of welcome.

THE CASCADE

If anyone had questions regarding Robert’s Rules and the proper protocol for SUS meetings, all was made clear at Thursday’s annual general meeting (AGM).

President Shane Potter had the SUS governing manual close to hand, and University Christian Ministries (UCM) president Derrick Uittenbosch held a copy of Robert’s Rules. Both rule guides were referenced again and again as students voted on board honoraria, budgets, board reform and more.

In true SUS fashion, the meeting was extended twice and adjourned only after four-anda-half hours. The agenda was adopted with 13 motions, many of which were brought in at the meeting rather than being submitted beforehand. Some motions were stricken from the agenda in favour of discussing them at the next SUS board meeting. Of the motions that remained, more than one required over 90 minutes for a decision to be made.

Attendance dropped throughout the course of the evening, and by the end of the meeting the minimum quorum of 15 voting members was barely met.

At the end of the day, the AGM marked several major changes; community representatives had their honoraria reinstated, the 2013/2014 budget was approved, and a board reform committee was created among other decisions.

The honoraria debate

November’s budget reform saw the loss of honoraria for representatives-at-large and community representatives. At the time this was considered a temporary measure, but debate surrounded the suggestion of returning monthly payment to these reps.

Returning VP internal Greg Stickland presented the motion to reinstate honoraria, noting that

Board reform?

Image: Blake McGuire / The Cascade

The last SUS general meeting, pictured above, had greater attendance than the AGM. accountability in the form of reports and meeting attendance are both tied to honoraria.

Derek Froese, former Computer Information Systems Student Association (CISSA) president and author of the board reform motion in November, spoke out against the motion.

He pointed out that many students work 15-20 hours a week for free within other clubs and associations – so why do SUS reps deserve payment?

“A lot of very big things have been done on campus by people who are not members of SUS and not a single one of these people ever got paid for any of their work,” he said.

UCM president Derrick Uittenbosch and Biology and Chemistry Student Association (BCSA) president Jennifer Martel also spoke against the motion.

Incoming VP social Zack Soderstrom highlighted the differ-

ence between receiving honoraria and working for a wage.

“It’s not a reward for doing work,” he said. “It enables us to work.”

Stickland agreed, pointing out that student associations volunteer for things they want to do, whereas representatives do things outlined in their job description.

Froese suggested the money used for honoraria instead go towards a bursary for student leaders, a term that could be applied to students inside or outside of SUS. No motion or amendment to this effect was ever constructed.

The main motion was eventually amended to reinstate the honoraria for community representatives, but not the representatives-at-large. This amended motion passed.

Point of information: SUS representatives are mandated to work five hours a week, and

many argue that they work far more than that. Reps-at-large and community reps were previously awarded an honoraria of $250 a month.

Budget talks

Incoming rep-at-large Thomas Davies served on the external budget committee and presented a report regarding the motion to adopt the budget for the 2013/2014 year.

“We believe that this budget is fair, realistic, and above all, financially prudent,” he said.

Petersen followed this report with a presentation of the budget.

Calculations still remain to be made to distribute the funds originally allocated for rep-at-large honoraria, and the full version of the budget will be released soon.

In brief, $53,000 was allocated towards clubs and associations, $130,000 towards AfterMath, $29,000 to emergency grants, and

Potter introduced a motion that would start the process of a larger board reform within SUS, which sparked debate between students and SUS board members alike.

The motion would see the creation of a board reform committee within SUS, which would look into the options and feasibility of reform.

Stickland spoke to the need for a board reform.

“Right now we’re trying to make a board structure set for about 2500 students work for a membership of 10,000,” he said, adding that management and execution of tasks often fall to the same person. A board reform would look at fixing this.

Outgoing aboriginal representative Harrison Depnar moved to amend the motion, calling for a referendum to ask the student body if they approved the creation of the committee before SUS spent time researching something that didn’t reflect the wants of the students. This idea was contested among the assembly.

“Instead let’s create the commission and trust them to come up with the best way to implement it,” countered Froese.

Potter and Doyle both argued that a commission can choose to hold a referendum at the end of their findings, one way or another.

Hepnar’s amendment failed, but the motion passed.

Grab bag

Other motions included a request for faster implementation of SUS governing manual updates, which passed. Motions calling for a lower quorum for SUS general meetings and travel reimbursement for clubs and associations executives to attend SUS board meetings were tabled until a later meeting.

No plan to manage loan debt in new budget KATIE STOBBART THE CASCADE

Student debt is skyrocketing in Canada.

In 2011, a report on the Canada Student Loans Program released by the Federal Government revealed that student loan debt in Canada would exceed its limit of $15 billion by 2013.

According to the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), national student loan debt has now surpassed that limit – and continues to rise.

CFS National Chairperson Adam Awad addressed the House of Commons in October with recommendations for the government’s next budget.

“Average public student debt is now over $27,000 after an undergraduate degree alone,” Awad said. “Paired with rising tuition fees, it’s easy to understand how we’ve arrived at a situation in which Canadians collectively owe $15 billion to the federal government alone, not including the billions more that they owe to

Image: yum9me/flickr

The Canadian Federation of Students is lobbying to lower BC’s student debt. provincial and private loans.”

By 2016, federal student debt will likely be more than $19 billion.

“Continuing to download the cost of post-secondary education onto students is a short-sighted policy that will harm Canada’s

economic recovery,” Awad said.

The CFS recommendations to the government included reducing tuition fees to 1992 levels, increasing the value and number of grants, and to cut student loan debt over a three-year period.

Their publication, Public Educa-

tion for the Public Good, which was distributed in parliament in October, cites a number of studies supporting the recommendations and exploring the impact of debt on students and society.

“High levels of debt also discourage individuals from starting families, working in the public service, purchasing a home, and pursuing low-paying or volunteer experience in a career-related field of study that may be necessary to get the experience needed to get a middle-income job,” says the CFS publication.

Figures in the document show that tuition fees in BC more than doubled between 1992 and 2012, that Canadian tuition fees increased faster than all other student costs (transportation, food and rent) in the last decade, and that since 2010, Canada’s global ranking for economic competitiveness dropped from eighth to 15th place.

“Over 147,000 Canadians are currently unable to make any payments on their loans from month to month,” Awad revealed in his

presentation to parliament. “In conditions like these, how could we possibly expect students and graduates to participate fully in the economy?”

Canada’s new Economic Action Plan was presented in March and introduced a new Canada Job Grant which focuses on skills training.

“In 2011, we expanded eligibility for student loans and grants.

Right now there are more than 500,000 students benefitting from these programs,” Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty said in his 2013 budget speech. “Expanding educational opportunities and skills training will help Canada compete.”

But CFS maintains the current budget falls short when it comes to making post-secondary education affordable for Canadians and dealing with rising levels of debt.

“The 2013 budget is not an economic action plan for students and recent graduates,” Awad said.

6

NEWS

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Defeated motion; shift in scientific priorities KATIE STOBBART THE CASCADE

Late last month, the Conservative government defeated a motion intended to enable scientists to openly discuss their findings.

The motion, if passed, would have acknowledged that basic research and scientific information is essential to evidence-based policy-making, and demonstrated the government’s commitment to science by renewing its support for the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA) research facility.

Burnaby-Douglas MP Kennedy Stewart of the NDP proposed the motion.

“Science is not test tubes or data sets or microscopes or space stations, but a method by which we explore and attempt to explain our world,” he stated, continuing on to say that, without public disclosure of scientific data, “we do not generate science but mere propaganda.”

Conservative and ChilliwackFraser Canyon MP Mark Strahl took the other side of the issue and voted against the motion.

“The motion was unnecessary,” he said in his statement to The Cascade. “No government in Canadian history has invested in science and technology like our Conservative government has.”

The motion was debated in the House of Commons for two-and-

Image: freefoto.com

Conservative MPs voted against a motion to allow scientists to release findings last month. a-half hours before it was defeated in a vote of 157 to 137. The vote was divided by party, with exclusively Conservative MPs voting against.

Another Conservative Fraser Valley MP, Randy Kamp (representing Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge-Mission) also spoke up during the debate.

“The nature of science requires us to look at what we are doing from time to time and ensure that it is focused on the things we need to know and the priorities we have set for ourselves as a department and as a country,” he said.

However, according to a letter from former operations manager of the Experimental Lakes Area facility John Shearer, at least some scientists would disagree.

“Only in relatively pristine lakes, under relatively controlled conditions, and over years of study, can we begin to find meaningful solutions to problems that are damaging our lakes, rivers and fish populations,” Shearer wrote to the editor of the Kenora Daily Miner and News in December. He alleged that the government funding “is for industrial and commercial science, not environmental science. It is for science

intended to […] extract natural resources and promote industrial development.”

Since the 1960s, the ELA has been a resource for the international community in studying aquaculture and human effects on the environment. The ELA costs the government about $2 million to run each year.

Kamp, who is also the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, asserted that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans “has been spending $200 million or so every year on science, and it continues to do so.”

Taking these numbers into ac-

count, ELA takes up one per cent of that annual estimation.

“It deeply saddens me when I think of how this government […] has surrendered this critical international research facility to loggers’ chainsaws.” Stewart said in the debate. “Instead of being used to solve questions such as the effect of silver nanoparticles on the environment, the forests around the lakes are likely to be logged bare.”

Gary Goodyear, Minister of State (Science and Technology) noted that “what we want to do is ensure that the tax dollars we are spending on science and technology, at record historic levels, are spent on the needs of the nation.

Those needs change. The world faces different challenges from one year to the next.”

Goodyear emphasized that the Conservative government is building research capacity that will benefit society economically.

In a statement released by Stewart after the motion was defeated, he promised that “despite the Conservatives’ rejection of this motion, [the NDP] will not waver in our commitment to defend scientific freedoms, evidencebased policy and basic scientific research from the Conservatives and the reckless policies.”

Learning never stops JESS WIND

THE CASCADE

Many university professors work on their own projects between spending countless hours marking student work – but when does that research get to see the light of day?

Enter the Scholarly Sharing Initiative – a place for professors to share what they’re working on and get feedback from faculty and students alike.

Developed in 2011 by sociology instructor Chantelle Marlor and former political science instructor Rita Dhamoon, the initiative is designed to bring members of the university together to discuss personal research.

The Scholarly Sharing Initiative provides an opportunity to flesh out ideas, ask questions and engage with their research. A theme is developed for each discussion around which interested individuals can gather from different faculties; speakers present for roughly half an hour before opening discussion up to the table.

This year, English instruc-

Instructors prove it at Scholarly Sharing Initiative

tor Melissa Walter and communications instructor Michelle Riedlinger have taken over organization and the initiative has featured discussions from the Writing Centre, library tech, English, communications and geography departments so far.

At the most recent sharing initiative on March 27, refreshments and casual discussion were on the menu.

Heather Davis-Fisch of the English and theatre and Rajnish Dhawan of the English and IndoCanadian studies departments shared their projects. Currently, Davis-Fisch is looking at performance genealogies and Dhawan is investigating the correlations between the Iliad and the Mahabharata.

Davis-Fisch presented the early stages of her research, acknowledging that she is still in the process of asking questions and navigating the material.

“I’m not sure what the newer body of work is yet,” she said of her research into Chilliwack’s Lady Franklin Rock, a geographical landmark that features in lo-

Image: UFV.com

UFV instructor Rajnish Dhawan. cal lore and legend.

“I’m really interested in this site and I originally thought that it was going to be a part of a bigger project,” she said, “but now I’m kind of wondering ... if it’s part of a different project perhaps about intercultural encounters here.”

Dhawan’s research also looks at

intercultural connections, focusing on two major works.

“The idea for this particular project, it happened while teaching an English Homer class,” he described. “While teaching, it was just, ‘Oh my god, I’ve heard of this story somewhere else ...

I know this story, in some other context.’”

From there he discovered the relationship between the stories—one from ancient Greece, one from India—has a foundation in historical geography. He passed maps around the table to illustrate his findings.

The professors’ anecdotes highlighted the relaxed atmosphere in the room. Faculty from various departments and interested students gathered around the table as the instructors elaborated on their research and asked for feedback to further develop their ideas.

Riedlinger described the goal of Scholarly Sharing Initiative as a way for people to discuss a work in progress rather than a formal presentation.

“Being able to eat and talk ideas

is one of the things that people love about the university environment,” she explained. “People come and go, that’s what’s nice about it ... the more it can be informal, the more there’s that sense that people feel welcome and involved.”

The final Scholarly Sharing Initiative of the semester will take place on April 11 at 1:15 p.m. in the Centre for Indo-Canadian Studies. Christine Elsey and Douglas Hudson of social and cultural media studies, as well as Wenona Victor of the history department, will be sharing their research.

Attendance is open to anyone and students are encouraged to come and participate.

“I’m really excited when students come because it’s that whole idea ... that learning never stops for people.” Reidlinger said.

“I think we all come to university because we love ideas and want to share those ideas. So being able to participate in those discussions is a really good thing.”

The Cascade is hiring a new editor-in-chief!

The position runs from September 2013 to August 2014 Full details can be found at ufvcascade.ca/employment Applications must include a resume, cover letter and sample article and be submitted to nick@ufvcascade by Monday, April 15.

www.ufvcascade.ca

Curtailed commentary on current conditions

SNAPSHOTS

7

OPINION

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2013

Melissa Spady

Nick Ubels

Dessa Bayrock

Toolbars are for tools

Dr. Pill and the bad medicine

Eggs are weird

I never click “yes” when prompted to update software on my computer. I have learned not to trust any update. That’s when they change everything behind your back. “We just need to fix some bugs,” they say. But it’s a lie. Every time I give in and relent to my day being interrupted by another useless update, they add a new annoying feature I can’t turn off, change the entire layout, or sneakily make me download their third party toolbar. Pure evil manifests itself in the form of an obnoxiously-coloured and ad-littered toolbar attached to my internets.

Working on a netbook allows me just enough space on my screen to see all the necessary components, until someone makes me download a toolbar.

The fact that I somehow have to see this teeny-tiny box and physically unclick it myself to avoid the quarter inch of concentrated evil I’ll be subjected to is my main concern. I know, #firstworldproblems, I admit it, but my issue is that these companies are (1) assuming I want to download their crappy add-on, (2) using carefully marketed dishonesty to ensure that I download it by accident and (3) making it so difficult to uninstall once the initial mistake is made that I actually rage quit on my computer. After 40 minutes of attempting to remove the unholiest of all evils, I cursed loudly, flipped my computer off my lap, and trudged off to my bed for a sulk.

While Dr. Oz is a qualified cardiothoracic surgeon, that hardly makes him an expert on nutrition, neurology, mental health or any other range of health issues sure to crop up in the deadline demands of his daily show.

TV doctors are not selected for their competency or expertise, but their charisma, their ability to sell advertising minutes. The ability to keep an audience glued in is tied to these doctors’ abilities to scare viewers into watching after the commercial break. As a result, Doc Oz functions more as a fear-monger than a reliable source of medical advice.

In 2011, he proclaimed that arsenic levels in apple juice were above FDA-approved levels in drinking water, causing one school district to pull apple juice from their cafeteria menu. Critics challenged the results. Nevertheless, one healthier beverage was removed from a school cafeteria.

Why do we so easily accept what we see on these sorts of shows?

Medical advice should be catered to the individual’s physiology.

Surely someone’s personal doctor would be much better equipped to diagnose and treat any conditions or recommend lifestyle changes.

As far as TV personalities go, I’d be more willing to consult Ken Jeong (a former medical doctor who currently plays Ben Chang on NBC’s Community) than Dr. Oz or Dr. Phil or any of their contemporaries about my personal health.

Eggs are kind of weird when you think about it.

As people, we put a lot of odd things in our mouths. Think about cheese – it’s basically milk that’s been allowed to harden.

But eggs – eggs might be the weird food to top all weird foods.

I consider myself lucky to have never cracked an egg into a pan and had a baby chick fall out instead. But I’m not going to lie – every time I crack an egg, I’m secretly terrified I’m going to get a bird instead of a friendly yellow yolk.

But why is that so off-putting?

We eat birds. We eat eggs. Is connecting the two stages together really that weird?

For some reason, it is. I don’t know about you, but I prefer to think of eggs as completely inanimate and in no way connected to reproductive organs.

Oh, but now we’re both thinking of them as reproductive organs. Good luck with breakfast. I think I’ve just turned myself into a vegan.

Amy Van Veen Why

library books frustrate me

It’s that time of semester – term papers are due and students are rushing to the online journals, ebooks and, yes, even the stacks to find all the research they need for that paper they’ve been ignoring all semester.

And that’s when you see it – not in the online journals or the ebooks, but in all those stale-smelling hardcovers you take off the shelf. You see the faded markings of students past. All those underlines and circles and incomprehensive notes in the margins stare back at you while you’re trying to glean all you can from the paper pages.

On the rare occasion you hit a jackpot: a previous reader of the book was a genius – highlighting the exact passages you need and giving the perfect insight in the limited margin space. However, most of the time it’s just distracting. I don’t want to be following the sporadic and useless underlines of some student with an eager pen. I don’t want to have to try and read through their ill-placed circles that cross out sentences. And I don’t want my eyes to be distracted by the empty coded messages within the margins.

So please, be kind, don’t write in library books.

Image: photoscott/flickr.com

A crawl through the media circus KATIE STOBBART THE CASCADE

Is it okay for people to willingly participate in embarrassing activities?

Apparently not.

This month, engineering students at Ryerson were condemned in the public eye because of a so-called hazing episode, where new student leaders crawled halfclothed through a cold, slushy puddle at the encouragement of senior students. The goal of this event was allegedly spirit-building, and it was completely voluntary.

Rose Ghamari, president of the Ryerson Engineering Student Society (RESS), told the Globe and Mail that “only half of the newly chosen student leaders took part in the optional event.”

Having been through a winter in Ontario myself, I’m not going to pretend I understand the foolishness of getting down on all fours, let alone underwear-clad, in an icy puddle. But the activity itself

doesn’t seem so unusual – look at the Polar Bear Swim every year on the West Coast. Thousands of people participate in that event and are even celebrated in the media for taking the plunge, even though the activity is often associated with curing that hangover from New Year’s Eve partying. Yet prominent figures like Ryerson’s university president and even the Premier of Ontario have both expressed shock and disgust at the impropriety of engineering students’ actions.

The crux of the debacle seems to be the fact that a female student was slapped on the butt by a male student (though a spokesperson from Ryerson was paraphrased in the Globe and Mail clarifying that the students were friends, and the woman involved doesn’t plan to press for punishment). Apparently snowballs were also thrown at students participating in the crawl.

Was the crawl humiliating?

Maybe. Was it fun? I can’t see how it would be. Was it hazing? I’m not sure.

StopHazing.org defines hazing

Image: Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson/Flickr

What some call hazing, others call voluntary participation. as “any activity expected of someone joining a group that humiliates, degrades or risks emotional and/or physical harm, regardless of the person’s willingness to participate.” It sounds like the event might be hazing, but for one stumbling block: were students expected to participate?

Engineering students from Ryerson have paraded through down-

town Toronto for years, thought this is the first time the event has gone this far. RESS representatives did apologize to the university for the nature of the event, though it was not planned as a hazing ritual.

Much of the media feedback on the issue seems to portray students as victims in the situation, declaring that peer pressure is what forces students to participate in

the activity, so it’s not really voluntary. However, that’s not a standpoint that’s well-supported in our society: for example, if someone is pressured by their peers to riot or sell drugs or drive the getaway car, that person is still completely accountable for those actions because he or she ultimately chose to participate. The students who elected to participate in this case were adults, and capable of making their own sound decisions.

They decided to do something they knew would be humiliating.

If it’s a hazing activity, then the RESS members involved should be reprimanded as the university sees fit. If it’s not hazing, perhaps there should be some effort put into defining what is and is not okay in university policies – when has an event gone too far? Draw the line so that it’s clear when someone has crossed it.

Ultimately, it boils down to this: crawling through a freezing puddle isn’t worth a crawl through the media circus.

8

OPINION

OPINION

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Sexism, mudslinging hurts more than the politicians GRIFFY VIGNERON CONTRIBUTOR

Ever since the blog Madam Premier was posted online, the media has been concerned about sexism in attitudes about and coverage of BC premier Christy Clark. Some claim the sexist remarks are a reflection of Clark’s poor ability being premier, but that just seems like a poor excuse for a case of scapegoatism.

The blog is a collection of YouTube posts, tweets, Facebook comments, news response posts and the occasional news article. Almost all of the posts show sexism towards Canada’s several provincial female premiers.

“Trying to be more like men throws away the only advantage [women] have. Floppy grey pant suits don’t suit,” is a sexist comment reposted on Madam Premier from Iain Hunter’s article on Clark for The Times Columnist. It is one of the few examples of blatant sexism directly taken from media coverage.

I’m not personally a huge fan of Clark, or the Liberals for that matter. But at the same time, it is unfair to criticise her or her leadership abilities based on the fact that she is a woman.

That being said, I don’t think that anyone should be harping at anyone in politics for reasons unrelated to their jobs. Constructive criticism of our government officials would seem to be far better than mudslinging, which goes on in politics all the time.

Humanity as a whole is marvellous in its ability to find problems with things. We’re not so good at finding solutions. Instead, we find it easy turn those in leadership positions into scapegoats. We expect our leaders to find solutions for everyone and every problem, on their own. When they don’t, as is always going to be the case, we start mudslinging – blaming it on whomever was supposed to fix things. After all, it’s not like we’re supposed to find solutions right?

Of course, sometimes we assume a politician is going to fix a problem and they don’t. We vote them in for a reason, and they don’t follow up to our expectations. It’s kind of obvious that no one can please everyone, right? But we seem to expect that. We get upset when a politician is unable satisfy the unique needs of every individual who voted for them, especially when that need is ours.

The easiest and most thought-

Image: World Economic Forum / Wikimedia

Premier Christy Clark has been the target of sexist commentary. free way to deal with the unsatisfactory performance of government officials is to start mudslinging.

While this may be a sign of a real problem at hand, it doesn’t solve anything. It just makes people feel worse, and not just premiers.

If a sexist comment is directed towards Christy Clark, implying she can’t do her job because she’s a

woman this is going to make other women doubt their ability. It’s the same if a male premier is criticized on his job because he’s old, and as such, obviously a “creep.” Comments like that shift the perspective to older men being seen as creeps; this affects men even when they’re not the initial target.

That being said, aside from a few

posts involving coverage directly from the news, like Hunter’s, it seems to me like most of the sexist coverage on Madam Premier is mainly the outcome of internet trolling. YouTube comment feeds, Facebook, Twitter, all of these are places known to attract outrageous offensive comments. People are able to hide behind the anonymity of their computer screens, without taking any real flack.

No matter the source, sexism is harmful. Mudslinging is the same.

While I think offensive sexist commentary is harmful to Christy Clark and other women, I think it brings to the bigger picture all the mudslinging and negative commentaries that go on around politicians.

While sexist commentary may or may not reflect a poor public opinion of Clark, it doesn’t change the fact it’s wrong. Whether it’s Clark or any other politician, none of them deserve the psychological abuse. It is not constructive criticism.

Any sexism or mudslinging harms not just the politicians, but others too. And it certainly doesn’t constructively help in the making of a better government.

A guide to navigating mud DESSA BAYROCK THE CASCADE

It’s kind of an unspoken rule that you aren’t supposed to walk on the grass. But let’s be honest: we all do it.

I’m thinking of one campus route in particular – the grassy knoll between C building and the curve of D building. You know, where the sidewalk heads out that way but then circles back for no reason?

There’s a gentle slope leading down from the edge of the extremity of C’s concrete path to the one winding around D building, and I’m sure there’s a perfectly good reason why there isn’t a path between the two.

Somehow that reason becomes less obvious when I’ve lost a shoe in the mud.

On dry days, the dirt path connector can be followed with ease.

On wonderful spring-showery days, it becomes a deceiving obstacle course of puddles, potholes and the kind of mud that stubbornly clings to shoes all day.

And no matter how many times I tell myself I’ll loop around and stick to the (much longer) properly paved path, I never do. I’m either too lazy or in too much of a hurry.

After all, it is the most direct path between C and AfterMath, or C and the gym, or C and the Envision Athletic Centre, or C and the bookstore ... my list could go on.

There are a couple of ways to navigate the mud, depending on how waterlogged the path is.

The first tactic is to pretend that it’s a perfectly serviceable path, regardless of its state. Walk normally – not too quickly, not too slowly, and only casually looking at the ground. With this approach, you’re trying to trick the ground into being stable and dry. I must admit that this hasn’t worked too well for me in the past, but maybe you’re more persuasive than I am.

The second tactic is to regress

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The infamous mud spot between C and D buildings. to kindergarten and pretend the floor is lava; ignore your surroundings entirely, except for a two-foot radius in front of you. Pick the most likely dry spots and don’t be afraid to occasionally twirl like a ballerina to get enough momentum to leap across the last stretch.

Note: requires a complete lack of self-consciousness, since you will most likely end up looking like an idiot. Keep in mind that you are a stressed and tired student, not a gazelle, and your leaping skills are woefully lacking. If you’re walking with anyone you’re even remotely trying to impress, this tactic is not for you.

Tactic three: be idiotically brave and badass. Take the most direct route regardless of puddles. Cultivate an attitude of I-don’t-givea-fuck and prepare for your shoes to be soggy the rest of the day. Upside: this is the fastest way through

any rough terrain. Downside: there is no way to tell how deep those puddles are until you’ve actually stepped in them, and it’s not going to be pretty.

The fourth tactic, of course, is just to stick to the more roundabout route and take the paved path.

It’s possible that one day someone will build a path between the two, but on the other hand, green space is part of what makes our campus beautiful. Do we really want paths connecting everything?

Besides, work crews seem to have their hands full reconstructing the ceiling in the lowest level of B building. I’m sure I can suffer a little longer – either by leaping like an idiot or walking around with wet shoes.

Because let’s face it – I’m clearly never going to take the paved path.

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OPINION

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Are you a cyperchondriac?

Give me all the bacon you have AMY VAN VEEN THE CASCADE

When hypochondria takes a digital turn.

NADINE MOEDT THE CASCADE

I was having a bad time of it. It was my first semester at UFV and I was entering midterm week.Having recently split with a significant other, was feeling what I thought was an unusual amount of guilt and sadness.

I’m a psychology major, so the possibilities of self-diagnoses were endless: generalized anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder, depression – the list gets increasingly ominous.

I had myself completely classified and categorized to the point of imagining new and destructive symptoms. I was becoming psychoneurotic, and convinced that I was suffering from a debilitating and hopeless condition. I was spiralling. A week later, everything was fine and back to normal, and I realized how dangerous a little knowledge can be.

Nowadays you don’t need to be a psych major or a medical student to self-diagnose. With the introduction of handy, one click online symptom checks, health discussion forums and the mental health/pop psychology fad, everyone can be a doctor. And, as simple Google search yields rare and life-threatening diseases, everyone can become hypochondriacs. This phenomenon is known as cyberchondriasis, defined as an escalation in concerns about symptoms found based on search results on the web. People with cyberchondriasis are often convinced that they are afflicted with disorders with vague and ambiguous symptoms. Confirmation bias, or the tendency to seek informa-

Image: jfcherry / Flickr

tion that confirms your preconceptions, is a dangerous thing when sifting through the endless information available online.

I’m not saying that the internet can’t be used to answer some health questions. It’s a useful resource when used correctly. Its problem is that it’s unfiltered; if you have a headache, your search is likely to yield results like “brain tumor,” “hydrocephalus” and “brain aneurysm.” It’s likely that you’re a sensible person and you will pass over these suggestions, though not everyone does. And when you really think about it, and let the paranoia get to you, you might start thinking that you are experiencing the symptoms of a person afflicted with a brain tumor! Don’t go down this path. It’ll lead to nothing more than some sleepless nights and a painfully awkward doctor’s appointment.

Cyberchondriasis is becoming an increasingly serious issue in the world of psychology. With normal emotions being catastrophized and everyone becoming a semi expert on pop psychology, the role of a diagnosis-happy internet is prominent. So take care to check yourself while you investigate yourself; know where the information is coming from, especially when connected to a certain medication. Mental health is the next “in” thing, but that doesn’t mean that all of our emotions can be pinned to a specific condition and it certainly doesn’t excuse your every volatile outburst in your English 105 class.

Knowledge is only powerful when you have enough to realize that you don’t know everything.

Remember that time swine flu put a dent in the pork industry because its misnomer made people run away screaming when they saw anything swine-related?

Well that was four years ago, and things are a little different.

Bacon historians believe the baconmania can be traced back to the 1980s fad diet Atkins where protein is the key in ingredient in every meal. Even though the swine flu epidemic gave everyone a scare and the end of bacon was predicted, the ominous “end of days” prediction for the world of bacon turned out to be false.

Bacon is king.

I mean that in the most non-literal sense – because if bacon was king we’d have to deal with the complications of being knighted by cured meat products and begin singing songs like “God Save the Bacon” and things would get awkward because how is bacon supposed to wear a crown?

But I digress.

It seems in recent years the love of bacon has reached a viral state of omnipresence. There are websites devoted to the love of bacon, bacon news and why bacon is the greatest food of all time. Nonfiction books have been written, like Heather Lauer’s Bacon: A Love Story, A Salty Survey of Everybody’s Favourite Meat. Bacon has moved Image: http://www.usda.gov/oc/photo/opclibra.htm / Wikimedia from breakfast to lunch to dinner Poor Babe, he has no idea what’s coming to him. to dessert to cocktails and even to the world of condom flavours. You It seems that even asking that do this weekend?” “I had bacon can buy t-shirts, mugs and post- question is redundant. Why the for breakfast, lunch and dinner.” ers expressing your love of bacon. love of bacon? Because ... bacon! “Nice.”

Whole Foods even had a contest Bacon is one of the most socially Bacon has a way of making for a year’s supply of smokehouse acceptable ways to eat strips of things better. It can make boring bacon. artery-clogging fat. Eating from meals amazing and it can heal broThe classic itself—without all Fatburger draws scornful, accus- ken hearts. the thrills and frills of merchan- ing looks from friends, but eating Ron Swanson said it best, “I’m dise—is sold with numerous vari- some bacon is celebrated. Most worried what you just heard was, ations; whether it be low sodium, people feel insecure when deep- ‘Give me a lot of bacon and eggs.’ thick sliced, lean, nitrate free, or- frying things in their home be- What I said was, ‘Give me all the ganic, antibiotic and hormone free cause the pervasive smell of oil bacon and eggs you have.’ Do you and uncured. And for those who seems to stick in every pore, but understand?” either require pork free diets or when guests walk in and smell baWe understand, Ron. We do. prefer opting for a “healthier” ver- con, heads nod with jealousy and sion of the original, there’s turkey appreciation. bacon.

It’s become a culinary humbleBut why the love of bacon? brag among friends. “What’d you

Why the term “settler” needs to stick COREY SNELGROVE THE MARTLET (UVIC)

This semester, I’ve heard at least one person express their love for this land and their discomfort with the term “settler.” This individual did not see how the term applied to their situation and found it divisive and hurtful. They chalked up conflicts within indigenous-settler solidarity efforts to simple differences in cultures and worldviews.

The latter statement is fundamentally connected to the speaker’s discomfort with the term “settler.”

Simplifying these conflicts ignores and hides the ongoing colonial power dynamics that shape indigenous-settler relationships. This logic frames colonialism as historic, rather than an ongoing structure.

This is why the term “settler” is used: to denaturalize our—that is, all non-indigenous peoples’—status on this land, to force colonialism into the forefront of our consciousness, to cause discomfort and

Image: University of Alberta Libraries / Flickr

“Settler” is not just a historical term, but one that signifies contemporary colonial settlement as well. force a reckoning with our inherited colonial status, to create the understanding and desire to embrace, demand and effect change.

“Settler” is a political and relational term describing our contemporary relationship to colonialism.

It is not a racial signifier. Rather, it

is a non-homogenous, spatial term signifying the fact that colonial settlement has never ceased. Colonial settlement is ongoing and it will remain so as long as we continue our implicit consent by remaining willfully oblivious to, or worse, actively and consciously defending,

colonial power relations.

Dispossession, disconnection and destruction is the story of Canada. But it doesn’t have to be our future.

If we don’t acknowledge and understand our settler status, how will we work together, in solidarity

and in practice, for a better future?

Of course, being called a settler or self-identifying as a settler doesn’t mean we understand this relationship – perhaps we never will fully understand the extent of it. Nor is it an end in itself. Unsettling is a longer and larger-than-life process involving the emotional, psychological and mental, but more importantly, the material.

We have inherited “settler” status because the structures of colonial domination remain to benefit us, whether you are first or 11th generation on these lands (though these benefits flow unequally amongst us). Understanding this is the first step in creating new relationships based on peace and mutual respect – the first move towards producing the conditions for solidarity.

But this is only the first step.

10

FEATURE

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Invincible, untouchable

Varsity athlete Jasper Moedt describes his struggl

by Jasper Moedt EDITOR’S NOTE: Six months ago, Jasper Moedt was facing the most important decision he’d ever had to make: the choice to give up and step off of a third story roof or to find a way to keep on living. Six months and several treatments and explanations later, Jasper is at peace with himself and has found the courage to speak out about the personal demons in his past.

He is now a university ambassador for the Canadian Mental Health Association, and is speaking at a district education conference in April on the importance of mental health awareness. He chose to share his story with The Cascade because he truly believes his vulnerability will allow others to speak up about their struggles and get the help they need and deserve. ~Paul Esau

W

hen I was first asked to write this article I have to admit I wasn’t thrilled.

I knew that at some point I would need to speak up, I would need to follow through on my self-talk about the importance of bringing awareness to the struggles that had plagued me for almost a year. But when I sat down to type, I froze. I had spent months and months holding everything in, and I was scared to stop hiding. Yet I realized that whether or not I liked the idea of baring some of my darkest moments, it was something that needed to be done. Like so many mental health advocates had told me over the past few months, unless I speak up I am just another part of the problem.

The beginning Last March, I underwent shoulder surgery because of an injury I suffered playing for the varsity basketball team.

In the months following my surgery, I slowly slid into a rut. It began with a lack of emotional control - excessive fighting and arguing with those

I knew I loved. I would slide into depression and then suddenly experience periods of hypomania (a feeling that I was invincible and bigger than the world). I knew something was not right in my life.

I didn’t know what it was but I could feel it.

Early on I began to realize things that I had previously taken great pleasure in doing no longer appealed to me. Basketball, a sport that I had dedicated a large part of my life to, suddenly meant nothing to me. I found it difficult to sleep at night and even harder to wake up in the morning. I began to find difficulty in enjoying everyday life. I felt no spark. Most days I would drag myself through the motions in hopes it would get better. It was only during those periods of hypomania that I would feel near normal. I was dragging myself through the day waiting for those highs, which did not come often enough.

I became a shell of my former self. Either depressed and too down to care about anyone around me, or too high to care or even be truly aware of the damage I was doing. I was a poisonous and difficult person to be around and I began to damage the relationships with those who had been so supportive of me.

I began to realize there was something wrong inside of me. I had always been a physically strong person who felt a strong sense of self control. In my mind, this issue was something that I could take care of myself. That was the worst decision I made throughout this ordeal; I was surrounded by people who loved me, people who would have helped me if I had just asked for help.

Then in June, I found out that my basketball coach, Barnaby Craddock, was taking a job at the University of Alberta. In a moment of hope I began to think that this might be the fix. In my altered world all I needed to do was change my external environment and all my internal problems would be solved.

By mid-June I had developed paranoid delusions about my life. Everyone was against me.

Teammates, friends, family and loved ones seemed to be the target for my delusions when I was in a low. These delusions were without any reason. An example that stands out was that I began to believe my mother, who had always been there for me in every sense, was out to physically harm me. I began to fear that she intended to kill me. Completely unfounded and unreasonable beliefs similar to these began to define my thoughts patterns.

I pushed people away from me, denying that I needed help. I lived under the assumption that if I told anyone that I felt I didn’t have control of my emotions and thoughts they would persecute or abandon me.

The decision to leave for Alberta did not come easily. In my state of mind, it seemed like the solution to my depressive episode. But my inner thoughts became a battleground.

Day to day, week to week, I would settle on a different solution, each time genuinely believing

that I had put the issue to rest for good. It was in this time that my symptoms took a serious turn for the worse.

It was mid-June when the thought of selfharm first crossed my mind. It became a constant throughout my depressive episodes. This new low was counterbalanced with new moments of elation that today I recognize as full-blown mania. As the month went on I did my best to learn to hide myself from the people around me. It was also at this time I first heard voices in my head. Initially I wasn’t sure if the voices were “real,” but as time passed the voices became more pronounced and I realized I was the only one who could hear them.

I began writing notes describing how I was feeling and notes about people I felt were conspiring against me, but most of all notes begging for help. I remember leaving them out in places people might find them in a futile cry for help.

One moment in particular stands out through the ups and downs. I was on vacation in Mexico. A few days of sun passed and I was feeling as stable as I had in months. I felt strong. Then one morning, I woke up early and left the room without telling anyone where I was going. I felt as low as I ever had from the second I woke up that morning.

I found myself on the rooftop beside a hot tub. I felt the overwhelming urge to jump off the roof, three stories up.

Barefoot and shirtless, I stood there waiting for the right moment. The scene feels surreal to me, standing there in the early morning sun, fists clenched and sweating. I stood there for what seemed like forever, not debating “why jump?” but “why not?” instead. My life at this moment felt like nothing. I felt I had failed my loved ones, hurt too many people to possibly repair things. Before I could make the decision to jump a young couple came up the stairs behind me and I quickly stepped down from the ledge feeling shocked and foolish and rushed back to my room.

This was the beginning of nearly six months of suicidal fantasies. I had already pushed away my loved ones and in my delusional state, I truly believe no one could help me and all that I could do was pretend everything was normal. I began to feel like an actor. I was playing the role of my previous self, doing all I could to fit the role of myself.

It was at about this point my paranoid delusions were no longer beliefs in my head. They simply became my common knowledge of the world around me. In my mind, if I had told anyone around me, they would either abandon or persecute me. Living life was a strain.

By mid-summer I had made the decision to leave for Alberta. I packed up all my belongings and headed for Edmonton in late August.

Alberta When I arrived I knew almost immediately that moving to Edmonton was not the solution that I had built it up to be. By the end of August,

I began to experience more consistent auditory hallucinations, voices telling me that I was worse than nothing in my depressive episodes, and then voices telling me that I didn’t need anyone and I was untouchable in my periods of mania. To accompany this, I started getting splitting headaches.

Maintaining “normal” social interaction became a daily test. The stress of hiding what was really going on inside of me became the greatest priority in my life.

It was during this time that I damaged my relationships the most. I began to lash out at anyone that attempted to comfort me. Those I left behind in BC just saw me as a poisonous, self-centered individual. And that was exactly what I had become.

During the first week of September, I blacked out for the first time. I experienced many similar episodes over the course of the next few months. I would lose consciousness for a moment, less than a second, and wake up again almost instantaneously.

I kept this new development as quiet as I possibly could. It just played into my prior belief that if anyone knew that something was wrong, things would only get worse for me.

I dropped out of classes before I stepped in the classroom and took up a minimum wage job. Over the fall I went through too many highs and lows to describe. If I wasn’t sitting alone in my room planning self-harm or suicide, I was out at a bar drinking as much as (and sometimes more than) I could handle.

The voices in my head became the driving force behind my actions. I would lash out at people around me because the voices in my head told me I should and then go into suicidal-depressive states where I would sit and listen to voices telling me that I should end my life.

It was at that point I am confident people who knew me would have been able to see that there was something wrong. At home I had been surrounded by a loving family and close relationships and I have no doubt that if given the chance theses people would have helped me. But since the only people I regularly came into contact with had known me for less than two months, my actions generally went unnoticed or dismissed.

My life continued this way for two months. I passed out several times, but managed to play it off as a joke to friends or just not tell anyone that it had happened. I had continued to write notes, but they began to resemble suicide notes instead of pleas for help.

Just as suddenly as I had arrived, I made the decision to buy a Greyhound ticket to leave. Although this was not a well thought-out decision, it may have been the one that saved my life.

Returning home Upon my return home, my loved ones knew something was wrong. I had become unrecognizable. My depressive periods became longer and more severe. My periods of mania seemed to come

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

11

FEATURE

and out of control

le with mental health, and what he learned from it

Art by Anthony Biondi

far and few between. Planning self-harm became a daily ritual. I began to hear multiple voices in my head and often felt like I lacked the will to do anything they did not want me to do. I continued to blame my behaviour on external circumstances, doing anything to deflect suspicion of mental illness.

Over this time I abused those that still wanted to be part of my life. My closest loved ones became the targets for my unhappiness. There were times when I convinced myself that my family was conspiring against me. I lashed out against them among others in a mislead attempt to regain control of my life – another delusion I had built for myself.

In was during these months that I really began to notice the physical toll this struggle had taken on me. Since my surgery in March ,I had lost nearly 45 pounds. I rarely slept more than an hour or so at night and I began to experience a shaking in my hands that I could only control if I focused all my attention on it.

In early January, all my issues came to a head. I passed out, just like the times before, but this time I did not immediately wake up. I spent hours in the hospital unconscious before I was treated. My red blood cells were not functioning properly and oxygen was not being carried to my body. I had contracted anemia which had taken a serious toll on my body. It was suspected that this disorder had originated from my surgery and my body’s reaction to the the antibiotics I had been given. Over time, the anemia had gotten worse and eventually caused the severe symptoms that had landed me in the hospital.

The medical staff could not determine a clear answer as to why I had experienced such severe symptoms not normally expected of someone who is anemic. Even at this point—in the hospital surrounded by doctors who were clearly there to help me—I dared not share what had been happening in my head. I felt a paralyzed, numbing feeling.

Eventually the doctors decided on treatment. I was to come in once a day for a week to receive steroid treatments and I was projected to be healthy by the end of the week. Such a simple fix did not seem possible in my mind.

Recovery After treatment, I felt as though I came out of a fog that had surrounded me for so many months previous. It was like the world’s weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I began sleeping normally again and the depression and mania disappeared. Treatment had been successful. I had physically begun the journey back to health.

It was not until a few weeks later at a follow-up appointment that I began to talk about the symptoms of mental illness that I had experienced. I only began to talk about it once I felt I was not going to return to that state of mental illness. Doctors and specialist could not come up with a con-

clusive reason as to why I had experienced what I did. The best explanation I could get from my various medical caregivers was that surgeries and antibiotics can often affect the chemical balance of my brain. Imbalances in my dopamine and serotonin levels were likely to blame. Other theories were developed, but in the end, nothing held up.

The medical staff explained that the experience was an anomaly in my health and the anemia and chemical balances were interconnected and together had caused some seriously dramatic changes in my body. By treating the blood disorder, the chemical balances were somehow set right. The doctors regarded this as a miracle, it was extremely rare to find such a simple fix to a complicated issue such as chemical imbalances of the brain. None of these symptoms were anything I would ever have to deal with ever again. I was given a 100 per cent clear bill of health and multiple assurances that this whole ordeal was a thing of the past.

It took almost a month, post-treatment before I opened up to anyone outside of the medical staff about what had really gone on in my head since that surgery. I feared their reaction to my suffering; I feared they would not accept what had happened to me. I did not want use this health disorder as a crutch, I had done some terrible things over the course of ten months and caused more pain than I would have liked to remember.

At first I shared bits and pieces. Little insights into what I had gone through to test the waters.

Some people were more open to what I had to say than others. I had damaged relationships; people that I had once had special connections to no longer could see me for who I was.

I had been so focused on my internal struggle that I neglected to see the hurt I had caused to the ones around me that I love. I caused real, deep, and lasting pain.

Eventually, I began to share my story with others. The process of being able to explain myself in the entirety of the story has been a raw and emotional process, but it has been something that has helped me make peace within my world.

Time heals all. Wounds heal, both my wounds and the wounds of those around me. There are people who I, to this day, have not gotten a chance to thank – never got the chance to thank for supporting me even when I had not treated them with the love they deserved. To thank them for saving my life.

Almost four months have passed since receiving a clean bill of health and the whole experience seems worlds away. I feel stronger and healthier than I ever have, mentally, physically and spiritually. I have been taking a full course load at UFV in the winter semester and, as of last week, I officially recommitted to the Cascades varsity basketball program. I feel a new perspective on life. This experience has given me the opportunity to view the world differently. This experience, as terrible as it has been, has given me a new, brighter outlook on life. Optimism runs high in my life. It is surreal

for me to look back at the past year of my life and realize I did the things I did. Life is a strange and beautiful thing.

Learning from experience I realize that the only way to set any of this right is to share my story and do my part in tackling the stigma surrounding mental illness. We live in a world where mental health is not regarded as a tangible and “real” sickness.

It would have taken tremendous courage for me to speak out about what I was experiencing at the time of it occurring. That was courage I could not find, I was a coward, unable to ask for help in the early stages while I still could. Initially I did not want to speak out about what had occurred in my life over the last year. I had recovered and had found happiness in my life again after so long, why revisit something so painful? The truth is that hiding this would be the easy way out.

Being mentally ill is not something to be ashamed of. The only way we can overcome this sickness is to speak out about it. Overcoming the stigma that comes with mental health is the first step to eliminating it from our world.

I think back to the initial stages of my illness.

What if I had understood what was happening in me before I became too wound up in it? What if I had found the courage to come forward before I slid too deep?

This is my motivation to share my story. Mental health issues are a taboo topic in our society.

People do not find it to be a comfortable topic to speak on. People that are willing to step forward and discuss mental health are something our society sorely needs.

The sad fact is that many university students suffer from a mental disorders on some level throughout their university years. Suffering in silence is not the answer. If we do not speak out about this issue it will never be addressed.

Everyone has a part to play. The recognition that mental health issues are all around us is desperately needed. It is something that as a university population and a society as a whole we have done a poor job of making a priority.

To address the stigma surrounding mental health is a monumental task. But it starts with each and every individual. Do your part. Talk about it.

This is me, doing mine.

“Everybody accepts that when we have a physical injury our body needs time to heal and we cannot function in the same ways until we have healed. Unfortunately, our culture/society does not accept or view the psychological systems in the same way ... The result of this is that negative and unhealthy stereotypes develop around these ‘psychological injuries’ .

First, we are reluctant to acknowledge the psychological system and thus deny that an ‘injury’ has occurred. This leads to not accepting that healing and recovery is needed within these systems just as healing and recovery is needed on all other human systems.” ~ Roger Friesen, sports psychologist

12

ARTS & LIFE

“I wanna hear a poem:”

ESA hosts Poems, Pints, and Prose

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Haute Stuff

Eyeglasses

KATIE STOBBART

THE CASCADE

Last Wednesday, the English Students Association hosted another “Poems, Pints, and Prose” event at AfterMath campus lounge. The dim room hummed with conversation as students gathered, mingled and sipped their drinks.

After distributing writing materials to each table for the purpose of on-the-spot compositions, emcee Ryan Peterson began the evening with a humorous poem that allegedly came to him three seconds before taking the microphone.

“I drew a smiley face in pink ink / It made me happy / Now where’s my drink?” he quipped.

Readings officially started following the ESA president Scott Sparrow’s recitation of Steven Colman’s “I wanna hear a poem,” which seemed like a fitting way to encourage those in attendance to step up and read.

A number of students did, including James Linde who read a poem inspired by Terry Pratchett’s “Reaper Man” and Alison King who shared her poem, “The Divine Internet.” Jennifer Colbourne read her poem, “The Prayer” from the third issue of the Louden Singletree literary magazine, and a new politically-focused poem she wrote about Justin Trudeau.

“You’re hot / You’re not Stephen Harper / You box / You’re hot,” she read, eliciting laughter from the crowd.

As per tradition, Petersen called on (and dragged if necessary) members of the audience to participate in a trivia game entitled “Things Pertaining to Literature

Image: kwote scripture

Find the glasses you like, not the ones you’re told to like.

Image: English Students Association / Facebook

and Other Things I Could Find on the Internet.” Participants were asked questions ranging from Canadian history to Harry Potter books to the colours of the Polish flag, and were rewarded with miniature candy bars.

Writer-in-residence Rex Weyler took the stage, impressing the crowd when he delivered two of his own poems entirely from memory, “I will wait for us” and “Water love.”

“Sometimes I wonder what happened to generosity – do you really think we were made to watch each other like hawks?”

Weyler recited. He added that he welcomes students to come to him with any projects they might have over the next few weeks, and declared glowingly that his term at UFV has been one of the best experiences of his life.

Peterson then called more stu-

dents to read, including James, Fred, Catherine and “Mr. Red Shirt with the Nice Eyes.”

Towards the end of the evening, UFV professors John Carrol and Rajnish Dhawan performed a short skit they had written for their CIVL Radio series, “We have the WMD!” They were followed by the ESA vice president Sasha Moedt—who read her poem “Bukowski on the bus”—and by Scott Sparrow – who read his short story, “The Sentence.”

“Poems, Pints, and Prose” events are clearly venues for a thriving literary community at UFV, full of spontaneity and comic relief. Is there any better way to spend a Wednesday night than with good entertainment, good company and a pint of liquid courage?

Discussions Below the Belt

How to lose your virginity LADY ORACLE

THE CASCADE

Oh, virginity, how do you shame me? Let me count the ways!

You make me out to be a prude.

Too ugly, too awkward or too uptight. Too scared, too shy, too religious. Too different, Too weird, an a-social failure.

But is it better to be sexually active? I remember high school, discussing sex with friends. I’d both have to hide the fact that I was a virgin, but not to the point where I made myself out to be too experienced, because there are probably more labels for a girl who does have sex than a girl who doesn’t.

It’s a pretty fine line to walk for young women. And on either side there’s stigma and shame.

So I’m thinking, fuck you, virginity. You’re nothing but trouble.

We may as well just get rid of the concept altogether, because there are way too many issues with it in the first place.

Firstly, what is virginity? Is it the intact hymen? That thought in itself is flawed; many women never had a hymen to begin with.

Some girls take their own virginity with fingers or dildos. Some girls tear theirs while stretching

after a workout. The hymen isn’t something to be “broken.” It’s a membrane that essentially stretches – often it tears during penetration. But if you’re going to define “losing your virginity” as “having sex,” going by the hymen isn’t going to cut it. Besides, what about sex with another woman? Can a girl lose her virginity to another girl?

The Oxford dictionary describes a virgin as: A person, typically a woman, who has never had sexual intercourse.

Typically a woman? Sounds like a sexist definition, but it reflects something important. All this stigma and shame towards women about what they do with their body, with their ever-treasured flower of virginity – it becomes a method of control. At the bottom of sexism, we have this equation: body = mind. What we do with our body directly reflects our minds.

If I am a virgin, I am a prude.

If I am not, I am a slut. And honestly, there’s nothing wrong with these things ... Yet all the assumptions and stereotypes come with these labels. Prudes are bitchy, uptight killjoys who are unattractive.

Sluts are amoral and dumb, with

nymphomaniac tendencies.

Following the Oxford dictionaries definition once more – sexual intercourse is defined as: Sexual contact between individuals involving penetration, especially the insertion of a man’s erect penis into a woman’s vagina, typically culminating in orgasm and the ejaculation of semen.

Ah! So it’s vaginal penetration.

With a man’s penis. There’s a fundamental issue with this definition. Sexual experiences go far beyond just vaginal intercourse.

Sex isn’t black and white; vagina and penis. You can have it with another woman. You can have it with yourself. Stop focusing on the vagina, because trust me, there’s something else that’s going to want attention. (Ahem.

The clitoris.)

You’re pressured to “get rid of it,” but you’re also pressured to “keep it.” What is virginity but an outdated method to control the bodies of young women? To make sure there’s blood in the matrimonial sheets the morning after the wedding night?

The only place you should lose your virginity is in your head – lose the concept itself, because sex shouldn’t be boxed in.

SASHA MOEDT

THE CASCADE

I recently bought a new pair of glasses. Not sunglasses, but just regular glasses. This is a huge investment, of course, not only because of the price but because I wear glasses every day and they’ve got to look alright.

I ended up choosing round ones that sort of emphasized the roundness of my chin, and not in a flattering way. But I’m convinced I made the right choice because they are a gorgeous red, they feel comfortable, and they fit me – I don’t think my face was meant to be pretty in the generic sense.

Anyway, my experience made me think about glasses as an accessory rather than a necessity. Sunglasses are appearing once again on the racks in all shapes and sizes.

After a few hours of putting glasses on and taking them off, I can give you few tips about the kind of frames you should be looking for.

I read in Best Health that there are basically five face-shapes: round (face width and length are nearly the same, no angles), heartshaped (wide forehead, narrow chin), square (strong jaw and wide forehead), oblong (a long face) and oval (chin narrower that forehead).

You’re probably somewhere in between those. I would say I am fairly oval, with a chin that isn’t quite narrow, so maybe a mix between square and oval.

So how to best compliment your face with frames? I’ll tell you how.

For all you round-faced people out there: avoid matching frames and features – no round frames.

No Harry Potter glasses. Create some angles with sharp, squared glasses. No one wants to see your face being too round, so you best stay away from round frames.

Yep, I’m just yanking your chain.

Who cares? I ended up going with glasses that don’t necessarily “flatter” my features, and I feel awesome about my choice.

Your face shape is what it is. I love unusual faces and features.

Play around with thick frames, thin ones – round, square, hornedrimmed, cats-eye and oval. I don’t know why Best Health needs to dictate what your face should or should not look like.

And I am still waiting to be awed by the man or lady who rocks a wrap-around on campus. I could see it now: “I’m gonna pop some tags / Only got 20 dollas in my pocket.” That song would be your theme song.

Besides frames, there’s the actual lens: something to think about is the tint. Sunglasses are meant to protect your eyes from the sunlight and glare, and there are different kinds of tints that can change the way you see things (literally). Of course, never buy sunglasses that don’t actually protect your eyes from UV rays – look for the label that either reads either “UV 400” or “100 per cent UV protection.”

If you’re active and don’t want to be impeded by glasses that are too dark, look for rose-coloured tints or grey tints. If you don’t want colour distortion, keep it simple with grey tints. To enhance contrast, copper and brown tints are ideal; in low lighting yellow can work as well.

There are also a number of practical qualities to look for.

Do you want glass, or plastic lenses? Glass tend to be more scratch resistant, but is also much heavier.

The same goes with frames: if you pick out weighty glasses, they tend to slip down your nose. Also, if you’re not used to glasses they might be a bit distracting. Make sure when you’re trying glasses on that you’re going to be able to wear them without being bothered by the weight.

There are special features you can have with sunglasses.

Polarizing films—lenses treated to reduce the glare—are popular especially on the beach because of the sun’s powerful glare.

Photochromatic lenses become darker when exposed to UV radiation. So if you go from being in the shade to direct sunlight, the lenses will darken. This is pretty useful, because it’s annoying to have extremely dark lenses in the shade, or alternatively, extremely light lenses in the blazing sun.

Of course, the more features, the more expensive. You can go waterresistant with a hydrophobic coating. You can get an anti-reflective coating to keep the sun from bouncing into your eyes when it hits the back-side of your lenses. You can get scratch-resistant lenses, mirrorcoated lenses—for blocking more light—and even glasses with ventilation for the athletes.

The majority of us just want to shade our eyes in the summer. We want a pair of aviators to make us look like a boss. Make sure the shades are designed to protect you from UV rays, make sure they’re comfortable, and make sure you feel like Tom Cruise in Top Gun. You’re ready for summer.

Four takes on Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience

www.ufvcascade.ca

SoundBites

13

ARTS & LIFE

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2013

Tim UBELS By waiting nearly seven years to release a follow-up to his 2006 multiplatinum FutureSex/LoveSounds, Justin Timberlake has drummed up an unseemly amount of buzz for The 20/20 Experience, the first of two albums to be released by the former ‘N Sync member this year. By playing hard-to-get, Timberlake shrewdly removed much of the pressure that comes along with following up a critically-acclaimed hit record, because he was able to release 20/20 on his own terms.

His performance on this year’s Grammys was also a very measured step back into the American pop music scene. Dressed to the nines in a Frank Sinatra inspired attire, Timberlake grooved along to 20/20’s first single “Suit & Tie” and album opener “Pusher Love Girl” in front of swing band. It seems as though the pop music icon is done pushing boundaries for the moment, as Timberlake has chosen the fashionable route of the dapper retro-crooner.

The most appealing part of The 20/20 Experience is the length of the songs, with Timberlake continuing the trend of FutureSex/LoveSounds, where the album becomes more than just a collection of short-lived singles. Each song averages around seven minutes in length, giving producer Timbaland the room to give each song various movements, with edgy beats, high-pitched synths and brilliant crescendos all invading the album’s inherent R&B undertones.

The themes and lyrics on 20/20 are straightforward, some critics might even say that they’re immature and indulgent. On “Pusher Love Girl” he utilizes an overused metaphor about drugs and love and on “Strawberry Bubblegum,” Timberlake overstretches the gum metaphor with lines like “I’ll love ya til I make it pop.” However, Justin’s never been a self-professed poet. Instead, he always lets the complexities of his music do the talking, something akin to Michael Jackson’s lyrically simple, but engaging “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin.”

As intriguing as the songs on this album are, it’s the subdued closer “Blue Ocean Floor” that is the most striking, with the visceral impact of a Sigur Ros song. It’s subtle, where others are indulgent, and Timberlake is the most vulnerable here, singing, “If my red eyes don’t see you anymore / then I can’t hear you through the white noise / just send your heartbeat I’ll go / under the ocean floor.” “Blue Ocean Floor” grounds 20/20, making it both authentic and relatable.

NICK UBELS

JOE JOHNSON

dessa bayrock

Justin Timberlake occupies a peculiar place in American pop culture. With origins in the ‘90s flourishing boy band “scene,” the unfairly talented and charismatic entertainer has since proven his mettle beyond just a pretty face.

It’s been hard to justify hating on JT since his surprisingly compelling turn in The Social Network or his recent slew of top-notch appearances on Saturday Night Live.

All this makes it easy to forget that Timberlake is a singer, first and actor, second.

In the course of his 10-year, threealbum solo career, Justin Timberlake has pivoted between strutting around like a cleaned-up James Marsters in Buffy the Vampire Slayer to shedding his bubblegum blonde image in favour of a supposedly more distinguished suit and tie swagger.

On his third album, and first since 2006’s FutureSex/LoveSounds, JT takes his “SexyBack” vision one step further in the retro soul-tinged pop vein. Most of the album’s songs feature prominent horn and orchestrated sections and groovy basslines married to sleek and modern pop production, harkening back to smooth R&B records of the 1970s from folks like Isaac Hayes or Barry White.

Also noteworthy on The 20/20 Experience is the song length. Only one song clocks in under five minutes, with the majority of these 10 tracks pushing beyond the seven-minute mark.

Clearly, JT is not concerned with typical pop running times on this record, investing in deep grooves over quickstepping pop numbers.

The result is something of a soulful jam record: unassailably dense with surprising moments of ecstatic pleasure, but predictably top-heavy, overcome by its own impossible premise.

And then there’s the lyrics.

The album reaches the zenith of its sexualized insanity with “Spaceship Coupe,” a track dedicated to “J” in which Timberlake croons to his lady friend about his two-person space coupe and their plans to “make love on the moon,” in the same couplet in which he mentions something about his “space lover cocoon.” That’s to say nothing of the Van Halen-esque guitar solo that materializes in the coda.

Welcome to the world that Timberlake lives in: an uncomplicated stream of beach-front patios, slick dance floor seduction and space age pleasure trips.

It’s hardly subversive art, but there’s something awesome about the sheer scale of Timberlake’s indulgence.

But none of this would work without an armada of ear worm melodies.

“That Girl” is Timberlake at his most nostalgic, recreating the atmosphere of a southern soul concert from a bygone era. The album’s strongest track is “Mirrors,” one that dials back the suave confidence to reveal a more vulnerable singer. Set against an undeniable beatbox groove and incessant handclaps, it is a surprisingly welcome nod to his pre-tuxedo phase that finds a more mature Timberlake stumbling across the perfect balance between his new persona and old strengths.

What a mistake it would have been to write this album off after a quick first listen – one done through YouTube and tin speakers. Jumping a few days later for the unexcited second listen to this 70 minute-plus album and I don’t know where I was coming from.

Mind you, I came back at it with much better speakers and really this music needs a quality system to truly appreciate it. Always a Timberlake movie fan and a music fan from a distance, I’ll say it right now: this is an outstanding album. Call it R&Binfused, neo-soul, or whatever; it’s got something special and obviously influenced by the 1970s. With seven of the 10 tracks sitting at lengths over seven minutes, going through the album is a journey in it’s own right.

Starting things off is “Pusher Love Girl” which has an interesting theatrical opening spin. One thing about the song is that it’s ultimately the one that seems to be the most fun. It also becomes obvious that Timberlake made great use of the length of the songs.

Radio edit versions are likely but when it seems the song’s coming to an end it just changes up style.

Next up is “Suit & Tie,” the first single, which was one of the turnoffs for me the first time around. But there’s a lot of that ‘70s soul here, sweet sax and Jay-Z. The sound is enticing and gets in your bones, so smooth. Then coming up a few tracks later is another one that stands out, “Tunnel Vision.”

I get glimpses of Usher in his prime here. And although it’s a bit repetitive, damn if that backing dirtied vocal isn’t catchy. “Spaceship Coupe” is definitely a track for cruising, but also love making on the moon. The non-intrusive guitar riffs are a nice touch but it’s that blown speaker distortion which puts it over the top.

Ultimately, “That Girl” is my personal favourite song. It’s a little simple but warm and intoxicating, it’s a classy track. It would also be amiss to not at least mention “Let The Groove Get In” which has a pumped up Latin beat. Of course, with “Mirrors” there isn’t a lot to say but will be remembered as this album’s song. While it’s made for the airwaves, it’s still astounding. Finally, things end with “Blue Ocean Floor” which is a slow moving, beautiful listen as you hear his light vocals over the quiet night waves, until the album concludes.

In the end, I really don’t know if there are songs on there that will be hits like on FutureSex/LoveSounds, but as a whole album, it’s really at an astounding quality production, lyrically and musically.

Apparently when Justin Timberlake and Ryan Gosling were kids in the Mickey Mouse Club, they got into all sorts of trouble together, like stealing a golf cart and riding it around the studio. Imagine Justin Timberlake and Ryan Gosling riding around in a stolen golf cart! But I digress.

In a phrase, JT’s got the smooth sound of a jazz artist and the vocabulary of a rapper. He’s trying to bring sexy back in a whole new way – combining a neo-soul croon, electronic distortion, and the string orchestra of old-time movies. It’s a weird and funky juxtaposition that almost works in so many ways. After much internal debate, I’ve decided to give it a thumbs down.

The lingo lost me pretty quickly. I’m a fan of poetic conceits and unlikely imagery, but I think images still need to go somewhere. For example, I’m not entirely sure how “pusher love” serves as an adjective for “girl.” I think it’s a drug metaphor? JT falls a little too far into repetition, and I was kind of bored by the time he finally explained it. “I’m just a junkie for your love. I’m hopped up on it.” (So yes, it’s a drug metaphor.)

The more I thought about it, the Auto-Tuned sound and simple lyrics reminded me of High School Musical ... in the ghetto. Just imagine Zac Efron singing this, and you’ll have a pretty good idea what I mean: “Hey little mama ... you so fine.”

In any case, repetition is the name of the game – and I’m not just talking about catchy choruses. Instead, if you were to imagine JT singing the name of the track over and over in the exact same (albeit sexy-LICIOUS) way, you’d have a pretty good idea of this album.

By my third listen of the album, I was caught on the question of where, exactly, this style of music is supposed to fit in. The blend of elements is smooth, interesting and occasionally exotic, and I suppose it would make a good soundtrack for Bond movies and car commercials, but I’m not sure what else. The neo-soul crooning isn’t exactly fit for a dance floor, although I suspect we’ll see dance remixes hit the scene with relative speed.

Then, finally, it hit me – the crooning plus futuristic elements plus slow jazz foundation combines into the perfect soundtrack for softcore pornography.

I know that’s not what you want to hear, JT, but once I thought it I couldn’t unthink it. I’ve got images of scantily-clad women licking lollipops in my head – and now that I think of it, that’s probably what the music videos are full of.

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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Cascade Arcade

Farmville devs are drug dealers, but “free” games could be amazing JOEL SMART

THE CASCADE

CHARTS

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

This Hisses Anhedonia Devendra Banhart Mala Suuns Images Du Futur Close Talker Timbers

Shuffle ADAM ROPER

CIVL DJ

Birds Of Canada host Adam Roper is an avid bird watcher this time of year, which conveniently explains why you may have seen him walking around Baker House with a pair of binoculars recently. Here are a few of his favourite folk troupes named after birds.

All Out Panic Pig

Pissed Jeans Honeys

Cascadia Level Trust Classified Classified Whiskey Chief Love You Miss You My Bloody Valentine mbv

11

The Sweet Lowdown May

12 13 14 15 16 17

Tame Impala Lonerism FIDLAR FIDLAR Pizza Sub Pizza Sub Pants And Tie Women’s Complaints Hollerado White Paint

Swollen Members Beautiful Death Machine

18

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds Push The Sky Away

“Animal Or Man?” – Eagle Lake Owls A mischievous trio out of Winnipeg that wonders aloud about the difference between indecisive lovers and common mutts. Their songs are as allseasonal as a softshell MEC jacket.

“Blueprints for our Failed Revolution” – Ruffled Feathers This one is a Balearic-tinged folk-pop song that catches the listener off guard with the sudden arrival of a flighty trumpet section. For bonus points, try tracking down their video which prominently features burning pianos.

“Grace” – The Geese Originally from the East Coast, Vancouver’s The Geese are selfproclaimed purveyors of West Coast danger folk. Not that you should expect the folk equivalent of Gogol Bordello, but The Geese have been known to craft highly participatory/comfort zone challenging songs.

“Manoah” – Goose Lake Victoria’s Goose Lake is on the quieter side of folk music, creating hauntingly calm baroque songs for a windy day. I’d recommend filing them in your spring playlist next to Hem.

I used to be addicted to a Facebook game. Actually, two of them.

The first one was called Battle of the Bands, which allowed you to “level up” by engaging in band “battles” against other Facebook players. The second was Rockstar’s buzz-hyping Red Dead Redemption: Gunslingers. Both games were awful, but the appeal of moving up the rankings among my friendslist and even the global charts pulled me in. Even at the time, I knew it was stupid – but it only took a couple minutes every couple hours to stay competitive. These free-to-play games have captured the interest and ensnared plenty of others like me.

Farmville is perhaps the most well-known of them. The worst part is that almost all of these games allow hopelessly addicted players to get an additional leg up by plugging in their credit card numbers. In other words, the game is rigged and dangerous.

It’s for this reason that I was initially quite sceptical of Stephen Richards’ Gamasutra article entitled “Free to play: a socialist alternative.” He spoke of the general negative perception given to these ruthless profit-at-all-costs ventures.

“Just as technology [allowed developers] to experiment with unique forms of narrative and artistic expression ... [business

people] realized there was a much easier, less risky way to build a game,” he wrote. But, then he said something that really threw me off guard.

He explained that these games have to actually offer something to players for free, they can’t be overly unfair or buggy or expensive, or players would stop playing them before they could become profitable. As well, the paying players actually begin to subsidize the experience of the new and non-paying players – a Robin Hood effect, Richards explains. Because games like these will be the most successful and therefore replicated in the future, he believes free-to-play games in the future “will be closer to Robin Hood than capitalist leech.”

In other words, while many of these games use trickery and an unlevel playing field to swindle a profit out of an unwitting user base, time will hopefully weed these games—like Farmville—out of existence. In their place should arise new free-to-play gaming models that are actually fun to play – games that don’t treat their players like hopeless addicts, that don’t corrupt the experience with cheap tactics.

In another Gamasutra article, game designer Bennett Foddy (known for the hilarious free online game QWOP) addressed many of the problems with freeto-play games that rely on microtransactions. At one point, Foddy compared these developers to

drug dealers, and added, “It’s like selling players steroids to cheat with.” Foddy went on to suggest some ideas for improving these games – ways that could push us towards Richards’ Robin Hood ideal.

You could charge players for the opportunity to have their high score added to the list, he suggested, or to unlock different difficulty levels. He also made a vague suggestion that got me thinking.

“You could charge money for permanent changes to the game that apply to everybody,” he said.

This is an idea that could really work. What if—although they could still have certain individually-driven goals—games put more players on the same team.

Paying and non-paying players alike could enjoy the game to the full effect – but together players would have to work towards certain funding goals to unlock new areas, new adventures, new features. Rather than fostering an addict-dealer relationship, a community-growing focus would develop.

I used to be addicted to a Facebook game. I know many people who still are. Right now, many of these games are a symbol of what’s wrong with the gaming industry – but they don’t have to be.

They could be amazing – but it can only happen when gamers realize that they deserve better.

Live Music

Yeahbotsford & Champion Jack’s Emporium presents: Total Ice, Slates and Losses MELISSA SPADY

contributor

Until very recently, I was convinced there was no such thing as a local show anymore. I’m not sure what brought on this completely wrong thought process, but I’m glad it’s been corrected thanks to Yeahbotsford. A collection of music aficionados, radio programmers and musicians, Yeahbotsford’s goal is to support the local music and arts scene by working with venues, bands and media outlets to promote events once a month. They consider themselves music ambassadors, hell-bent on supporting the local scene because, “it’s the only one we[‘ve] got” they state on their Facebook page. The event admission price is set firmly at an affordable $5 per person, with the proceeds going to the artists who perform. The shows are held at local clothing shop Champion Jack’s Emporium.

Champion Jack’s is already one of my favourite non-chain stores in Abbotsford, but now that I know they’re hosting local musicians, they have scooted right to the top of that list.

If you’ve never been down on George Ferguson to check out the vintage clothing and music mecca of downtown Abby, then you are supremely missing out. Lined from ceiling to floor with various hilariously-dated apparel and jewelry, every time I

wander into this store I come out with a new favourite piece to add to my wardrobe. For those of us who enjoy finding treasures from second hand and consignment stores, or have misaligned tastes with the current generation, Champion Jack’s will not disappoint. Prior to last Monday’s adventure I would have already been ready to talk up this store at the drop of a 1950s sun hat, but I now find myself bubbling in anticipation for someone to to bring up a legitimate segue for me to plug the awesomeness that is Champion Jack’s Emporium.

So our scene is set: odds and ends pieces from every recognizable fashion era, newly dated and seriously old-school records everywhere, and the intangible smell of vintage. An assemblage of sound equipment and musical instruments come through the back door to set up a makeshift stage at the far end of the shop. While it may seem odd to host a concert in a clothing store, considering the delightfully mis-matched group of attendees it fit like a sequined glove.

A variety of uniquely-styled people walked past me to fill the already intimate setting. Everyone at this show knew each other. There were a lot of hands being shaken and bodies being hugged, but without the subtle yet distinct sense of elitism not uncommon to places where “everybody knows your name.” As an outsider, I

felt comfortable to enjoy myself without judgement. The whole set up was brimming with those warm and fuzzy community-related feelings that we all know and love.

The line up included local Fraser Valley math (a-typical and rhythmic rock) rockers Losses, three piece punk rockers Slates from Edmonton, and the raunchy Vancouverites, Total Ice. Slates made the biggest impression on me with their expressed personal enjoyment of the venue, and despite a rocky start, their distinct Canadianness engaged my attention until the end of their set.

The night as a whole proved to be a fast-paced and upbeat adventure into the local rock scene. It left me with a feeling of nostalgia for the teen years I spent crammed inside a studio listening to Langley’s finest emo bands. Although some of the night’s performers had more presence and charisma than others, the room was filled and the crowd cheered to signal they enjoyed themselves throughout the show. Tapping feet, bobbing heads and shaking hips were all that the tiny space would allow in terms of dancing, but the many last-minute attendees that crammed inside just in time to see Losses get on stage spoke volumes for the overall success of the event.

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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Please shut up, you District Public House assholes Dine & Dash

Courtesy, civility and etiquette at the movie theatre

Image: mychilliwacknews.com

District Public House offers a wide selection of craft beers.

45975 Wellington Avenue, Chilliwack 604-703-0866 Hours: Mon to Sat 10 a.m. to 1 a.m.; Sun 10 a.m. to 12 a.m.

Prices: Food ranges from $10 to $15-$20 Beer averages about $7

JESS WIND

THE CASCADE With so many restaurants focused on locally-produced ingredients, it only makes sense that places would start to get creative.

District Public House in Chilliwack’s downtown core is situated on the corner of Wellington Ave. and Young Road where they intersect with Yale Road West. Its menu features kicked-up combos of traditional pub food, but more importantly, it features over 30 options of locally-brewed craft beer. With that many options, many of which are on tap, and new seasonal offerings coming in frequently, there is always a new flavour to try. While the District Public House isn’t exactly a cheap dining option, it sure is a great option for good beer and food that is a step above the traditional deep fried everything that comes with pubs.

I went with the White Bark, a hefeweizen out of DriftWood Brewing Company in Victoria. It is a relatively light brew but lacks the usual carbonation that comes with a lighter body. It is smooth with just a hint of citrus that compliments a warm spring lunch. A Rueben is a pretty traditional option on standard sandwich menus.

Sauerkraut is cheap to make and rye bread is always more interesting than white. District Public House’s Rueben features lightly toasted marbled rye, a healthy dose of sauerkraut, warm smoked brisket and Swiss cheese, but the thing that took this Rueben a step further was the heat. Banana peppers are featured frequently on District’s menu and my sandwich was no exception. A house-made grainy dijon mayo offered the final spicy kick – it had me soaking up every last drop that escaped onto my plate. Fries come standard and are lightly salted and peppered after being fried to golden brown perfection, but salad and daily

soup specials are also an option.

The creamy chicken bacon soup was featured, and didn’t disappoint. Large chunks of bacon and chicken paired with vegetables made for an excellent partner to my Reuben. Instead of the usual individually wrapped, stale premium plus, soup is served with a small dish of fresh gold fish crackers.

The beer menu isn’t the only place that options are in abundance at the District Public House.

Instead of their usual beef chuck slab patty, you can get your burger made with “District brined chicken” for no charge or a black bean or salmon patty for a bit extra. A gluten-free bun is also offered on the menu. Few options have traditional names, and force you to salivate over the ingredients before picking.

The Angry Pig Wrap boasts pulled pork, red onions, lettuce, banana peppers, jalapeño havarti and house-made four pepper ranch as well as an option for “Habanero Hot Sauce” or “Slow Burn Liquid Fire Suicide Sauce.”

Most dishes cost under $15 but some, like “The Stacker” come in at $21.25. Presumably because this is a pulled pork sandwich and a burger in one, with a half pound of yam fries on the side – and believe me, the title doesn’t lie. The kitchen keeps differently sized sandwich skewers depending on the size of burger ordered; the skewer for “The Spicy BBQ,” featuring fresh onion rings on top of a beef patty, and of course more banana peppers, had a skewer that was at least five inches long.

The District Public House offers a classic bar atmosphere. One wall featured floor to almost ceiling windows, the other a real brick facade. The front of the room had a raised platform with tables and chairs that doubles as the stage for their live performances every night. The chalk menu boards, the beer and performance schedule being the most prominent, give off a local, fluid feel that is reinforced by the servers relationship to the lunch regulars.

If you are looking for good food and even better beer, and are willing to pay a few extra dollars to get it on tap, the District Public House in Chilliwack has you covered.

Image: Anthony Biondi/ The Cascade

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right.

TIM UBELS

CONTRIBUTOR Everyone has different ideas about what’s considered appropriate behaviour in movie theatres, mainly because everyone has different reasons for attending a film in the first place.

On the surface, we are drawn to movies because we enjoy them, and we take pleasure because they don’t necessarily follow the rules and values society has established. We enter a world without responsibilities, a place where we can leave our worries in the corner and freely watch tales about ageless secret agents, charming psychopaths and misfit teenagers with hearts of gold. We all want to feel satisfied, surprised, but most of all, we want to register with the movie on some level.

There are some people who embrace this movie-going approach as a form of escape. They become completely subsumed once the lights go down and wish to have a cinematic experience for the full length of the film.

There are also people who attend movies for the communal experience. The movie selection isn’t as important as the selection of friends they are going to the theatre with. They’re experience is fulfilled by hearing the opinions of their friends, the gut reac-

tion of the audience, whether it’s a laugh, a gasp or a jeer, and an overwhelming feeling of belonging.

Now these two groups are generally the extremes in a movie theatre crowd—the focused and the casual—with most of us falling somewhere in between. Speaking frankly, I lean more towards the former than the latter.

Movies are a passion of mine, and I have a lot of respect for the filmmaking process. I know that they cost an unseemly amount of time and effort to create, and I want to respect that. I demonstrate this respect by sticking to the golden rule of being a good cinema citizen: being quiet.

This is where I often clash with the other faction of moviegoers, who often view consistent chatter with friends and yelling at the screen acceptable behavior for a movie theatre. Outside screenings of cult classics like The Room or Rocky Picture Horror Show, the last thing you want to hear is the opinion of the jerk behind you who thinks he’s just as good as what’s going on in the film.

My reaction to this behavior varies from movie to movie. It really does depend on the film’s quality, mood and show time. I can’t expect the audiences of a midnight screening of The Last Stand to keep their traps shut, and

in fact the outbursts of laughter and gasps of horror can add to the overall thrill of the film. Similarly, I can’t expect the newest Pixar film to be free of crying children and immature reactions from young adults yearning for the simplicities of the past. However, when the communal aspect of the film consists of people distracting the entire theatre with their behaviour, then there’s a problem.

While I have been tempted to go all Constanza on these people by threatening the offenders to “Take it outside and show you what it’s like!” I usually take the route of polite moviegoer, whispering something along the lines of, “Can you please stop talking, I’m trying to enjoy the movie.” And this simple gesture often works, and if you’re lucky, is followed by an assurance that it won’t happen again. But then there are those who see this gesture as an act of verbal war, and they are willing to escalate the situation.

I implore my fellow patrons of the theatre to simply be aware of your personal space, keep within that personal space and be discreet with any checking of cell phones or trips to the bathroom.

Tread softly moviegoers, because you tread on my dreams.

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Om-nom-nom ... Cookies!

by AMY VAN VEEN

ACROSS

2 3

4

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2013

5 6 7 8

3. Despite the rather disturbing name, this cookie goes great with coffee or in

trifles and tiramisu. (4, 6 letters) 4. ____ cookies most often show up in a variety of shapes in tins with different

paper-separated comparments. (6 letters) 8. This delicious cookie often has a fork-like grid mark on the top and elicits fear

in a very specific allergy. (6, 6 letters) 9. This cookie is a bit confusing, since the Passover version is rather different

from the French version. (8 letters) 11. This cookie either shows up as men or houses. (11 letters) 12. This buttery cookie is covered in cinnamon sugar and sounds like it could be

a song sung by Sharon, Lois and Bram. (14 letters)

DOWN

9

10 11

12 EclipseCrossword.com

1. ____ cookies are the best part of Chinese take-out. (7 letters) 2. Technically a type of cookie, this hardened treat is paired best with tea or

coffee where it can be dipped and therefore consumed without break ing teeth. (8 letters) 5. This crumbly cookie is said to hail from Scotland and can be baked plain or

topped with sprinkles and/or chocolate and caramel. (10 letters) 6. These cookies are made with cinnamon, nutmeg and most notably the spice

they’re named after. They’re often rolled in sugar and baked with

molasses to make them gooey and delicious. (11 letters) 7. ____ cookies are often cut out in shapes and smothered with icing, especially

around Christmas time when families get together to decorate them.

(5 letters) 10. According to the commercial, people are supposed to open this cookie, lick

the icing, put the cookie back together and dip it in milk. (4 letters)

LAST WEEK’S Answer Key Across 1. GARFIELD 5. GETFUZZY 9. HERMAN 10. DOONESBURY 11. PEANUTS 12. PATTERSON 13. ADAMATHOME Down 2. DILBERT 3. CALVINANDHOBBES 4. CATHY 6. ZITS 7. FOXTROT 8. LUANN 10. DUCK

The Weekly Horoscope Star Signs from Swamp Bob Aquarius: Jan 20 - Feb 18

Gemini: May 21 - June 21

Libra: Sept 23 - Oct 22

Mars declares you will be caught up in the exploits of a misguided military general as he tries to cause a nuclear holocaust. You will also meet Peter Sellers in a wheelchair with a funny accent.

Saturn warns you to keep your head in the game—even though you are close to the end of another semester—otherwise your distracted nature will lead you to enjoying the smell of forgotten burnt toast in the morning.

Pisces: Feb 19 - March 20

Cancer: June 22 - July 22

Scorpio: Oct 23 - Nov 21

Jupiter sagely advises that happiness hides in the strangest of places. Sometimes it’s hidden in a small town in Scotland, trapped in time, and sometimes it’s right in front of your face.

Neptune vocalizes that life is too short and that you should just not give a damn about what others say or think.

Saturn warns against running into neogothic hunting lodges to avoid terrible weather when you are traipsing through the woods, especially ones that are hosting unconventional conventions.

Aries: March 21 - April 19

Leo: July 23 - Aug 22

Sagittarius: Nov 22 - Dec 21

Jupiter reminds you that—even though you will experience the unavoidable pain of loss when your favourite African violets spontaneously combust—tomorrow is another day.

Mercury pontificates that regrets are a tricky thing. Sometimes they creep up on you – maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow but once they have you, they have you for life. Don’t let regrets pin you down. Get on that plane!

Taurus: April 20 - May 20

Virgo: Aug 23 - Sept 22

Capricorn: Dec 22 - Jan 19

Venus speaks in whispers that the time for exercise is upon you. Put on your best bedazzled pair of sweats and get those bodies rockin’.

Mars states that you will awaken to find yourself trapped in a dystopian nightmare where the world is controlled by a select elite and the rest are forced to work and toil away their lives to support them.

Somewhere a scientist will successfully turn a robot into a living woman.

Pluto states that as the semester comes to a close you should remember that others exist in this world, and you should really phone home and see how they are.

The planets caution that sometimes life requires some joy ... and you can’t always trust the stars or fate to rain it down upon you. Sometimes you just have to sing in the rain ... then your joy will come.

Uranus cautions that though you may find yourself swept off into a world unlike your own (that bears no resemblance to a wellknown prairie state), you will be fine if you stick to your path.

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ARTS & LIFE

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Film Reviews

Olympus Has Fallen JEREMY HANNAFORD

CONTRIBUTOR

A man with experience placed in a situation—set in an expansive building—beyond his training or control must fight his way through several adversaries to save his love interest. That is what Die Hard was in a nutshell. Replace the love interest with a bro-mance between the President and an old bodyguard and you have Olympus Has Fallen.

This film is more Die Hard then the recent A Good Day to Die Hard catastrophe was. They’ve finally put Gerard Butler back in the style of film he should be in – and we have a solid action film! It is quite a relief to see the former Leonidas on screen in something that isn’t rom-com.

Gerard is in his element as a former secret service agent Mike Banning as he takes down bad guys with guns and his fists. The quips and cocky insults Butler pulls are so reminiscent of John McClane, I nearly expected him to say, “Yippee ki-yay mother fucker!”

His brutality is a distinguishable quality unlike that of John McClane, however. While McClane was a cop, Mike Banning is sworn to protect the president and he has no time for laws and rules. This

element of his character is intriguing but unfortunately only briefly touched on before it could fully develop.

While it does sing and praise Die Hard, Olympus Has Fallen isn’t on the same level. Strong antagonistic characters are left to the wayside for one-sided, America-hating North Koreans. Having already suffered an attack from them in last year’s Red Dawn remake, the

North Koreans are once again the focus of anti-capitalist aggression.

They don’t like America and they want them to suffer and that’s about as far as their story goes.

Rick Yune’s portrayal of the evil mastermind Kang doesn’t hold a candle to Alan Rickman’s Gruber. But Kang isn’t trying to be a Gruber. Kang represents the other side of the film that isn’t trying to be a Die Hard rehash. Instead

of disguising a bank robbery as a terrorist attack, these guys are just straight out terrorists. These guys are unapologetically, stereotypically “bad” and you aren’t going to form any sort of bond with them at all.

Director Antoine Fuqua has certainly taken an interesting route in his career since Training Day. While keeping the camera tight and making interesting action sequences,

he has made less-than stellar films in the last decade. That hasn’t stopped him from continuing on and making unique action films.

Always making sure he has strong lead characters, Fuqua—in his best effort—can miss certain pieces of information such as codes being accessed out of thin air or people getting where they shouldn’t. It’s the pacing of the film that keeps Olympus Has Fallen from being truly great. Sure, we are seeing an attack on the White House. But to help build the believability, we as the audience need to be kept in the loop about how things are coming to pass and we are unfortunately left out sometimes.

Along with a good supporting cast including Aaron Eckhart as the President (which makes one think what would have happened if Harvey Dent didn’t get half his face blasted off in The Dark Knight), Olympus Has Fallen is a great action flick with a strong lead character.

Parts are certainly not fleshed out as much as one would want and the CGI is certainly below par, but it still beats A Good Day to Die Hard in every way imaginable and is certainly a good start for 2013 in terms of action films.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation MICHAEL SCOULAR

THE CASCADE

There might not be a stronger case of corporate synergy going than the successful partnership of Hasbro and the United States military.

It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to turn the real estate grabbing and search and destroy objectives of popular board games into something cynical, but the metal and war cum recruitment advertising appeal of the Transformers, Battleship and G.I. Joe “adaptations” have made this the only way to associate the two – they are inextricably, enduringly linked. The only possible—possibly unintentional—counter to this is that, more than the overlong attempted humour of a nuclear summit, the most successful joke in G.I. Joe Retaliation is the repeated image of military orders to destroy the entire planet dutifully carried out by straight-faced uniformed faces.

The “talent” associated with anything this large and pre-directed might as well be incidental, and it is into this framework Jon M. Chu enters.

In the slightly odd, nearly unique situation of a continuing franchise not given an exceptional budget, high expectation or marquee cast, Jon M. Chu made the two best Step Up movies, with Step Up 3 maybe the best made in the modern studio era. The clear definition of movement, crossing of spaces, compression and contortion of bodies Chu was able to deliver might suggest action cinema a translatable genre jump, but there is too much ground already set to be covered by the demands of studio-genre homogeneity.

The more summer entertainment exposure, the more likely the definite patterns of forgettable

“fun” rise to the surface. Anticipating fast forward, movies like G.I. Joe: Retaliation divide crammed together gun and fist action with dialogue thought to develop quirks, introduce themes to be brought up in climactic confrontations, or “reveal character.” Characters must always be pre-demonstrably good – though we’re never spared attempts at demonstration. They’re good with kids or leadership or some other way of standing up for their own goodness. Early scenes with Channing Tatum and Dwayne Johnson recall the way housebound Step Up scenes always lied between exaggerated get-through-it convention and awkwardly earnest drama, less successful is Adrianne Palicki’s single speech to herself, lacking both the jokey passion of and absence of leering at Step Up 2’s Briana Evigan.

Compared to the first G.I. Joe, Chu might be said to have added a degree of physicality – in an initial raid to recover vital materials (the G.I. Joe series is single-mindedly nuclear), action is arrived at through climbing, leaping, and absent the CG that choked every frame of the original. But this is only the finer details – everything is integrated in a mediocrity of barely-discernable violent whatever that doesn’t suggest a clearer look would lead to anything better. The attitude toward action in necessarily large studio productions is the barest minimum of discretion in editing to achieve the kind of gun and fire showoff that only fulfills expectation. (Flash, noise, sounds of death and defeat.) To create greater expectation by providing a hint at more, at difference; to be in any way imaginative in the first place would be to create the possibility for disappointment. G.I. Joe: Retaliation can be said to be better

than the first in the series – this means basically nothing to someone looking for a work of craft or excitement or joy, and all that is needed to a studio or to those relying on the repetitions of formula of last summer or last week. Like any formula, the reused conclusion of crosscut teamwork (always in some way incomprehensible, but cut quick enough to make noticing pointless), climactic destruction, and final confrontation, does not suggest anything of quality by its use alone, but is so interchangeably worked, ossified into recognition, that it in a way is intelligent design – everything bleeds together, becomes forgettable, allows

for historical copy to appear new again.

Suggesting that perhaps, with the right conditions, Chu could make something great in the future, there are two unexpected, improbably sustained moments that show more than competence.

Introing what turns out to be video game competition, the screen is left black, conditioning us to the pounding of violent sounds only to reveal it as a joke – there’s nothing beyond this because the entire production lives on the idea of the necessity of this, but it holds more than the tired guitar rock of the actual action scenes. And for 10 wordless minutes of snow and

wood-constructed clarity, a fleet, acrobatic echo of Step Up contact that surpasses anything else before or after in the movie appears, showing there is some kind of ability even in a first production of this kind. But it is, as a whole, swallowed by the interest that says all entertainment must do is bombard us, the only way government could go wrong is through nefarious imposter plot, and all that matters in the end is that there’s enough earth left for the next installment.

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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

HEAT REPORT Iginla trade underwhelming, but a step in the right direction TIM UBELS

CONTRIBUTOR After months of speculation about the fate of longtime Flames’ captain and franchise player Jarome Iginla, the events of last Wednesday night let the hockey world know that a trade was imminent. Iginla was noticeable in his absence from the line-up as his Calgary Flames took on divisional rivals Colorado Avalanche at the Scotiabank Saddledome without their captain for the first time in over five seasons. That same evening, players on the Boston Bruins and their minor league affiliate Providence were late scratches for their respective teams. All the pieces were in place for Iginla to join an elite team from the Eastern Conference, and by Thursday morning, the deal was done.

However, in a shocking turn of events on that same morning, the Calgary Flames announced that they had not dealt Iginla to the Bruins, but rather came to agreement with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Iginla was traded in exchange for Pittsburgh’s firstround pick in the 2013 draft, as well as two college-level prospects.

So as the dust settles on the Iginla trade, Flames and Heat fans alike may have questions about who these NCAA players are, and why Calgary pursued them in exchange for franchise icon Jarome Iginla. Their names are Kenneth Agostino and Ben Hanowski, and they both are projected to one day play in the Flames’ top six forwards.

However, the honest truth is that these players are not bluechip prospects. They will likely see more time with the Heat over the coming years, as their development continues to be slow.

This may not be what Flames fans were expecting, especially considering the circumstances that brought Iginla to Calgary in the first place – 18 years ago.

Calgary traded aging superstar Joe Nieuwendyk to the Dallas Stars in exchange for high-end prospect Jarome Iginla, but no one like Iginla is even remotely available in today’s hockey market. Flames’ general manager Jay Feaster has gambled that these marginal prospects can play with the Flames one day, even if Feaster isn’t still with the Flames’ organization to see it happen.

Kenneth Agostino, the former fifth-round pick of the Pittsburgh Penguins, is a tenacious puck battler who isn’t afraid of getting into those rough situations to help his team win. In the 20122013 season with Yale University, the native of Flanders, New Jersey, notched 15 goals, 37 points and 32 penalty minutes in only 33 games. Agostino’s good work ethic makes up for his small stature, as the 20-year-old has been a consistent point-per-game player since he started at Yale University three seasons ago.

Ben Hanowski, now 22-yearsold, was a monster performer when he was in high school.

The offensively-minded forward somehow managed to post 405 points in only 117 games while playing in Little Falls, Minnesota as a high schooler. Since then, Hanowski has spent the past four seasons adjusting his game with St. Cloud State. Not a very fast skater, Hanowski’s upside lies in his hard shot and solid playmaking skills. At the age of 22, Hanowski will be looking to turn pro soon, and with his contract expiring in mid-August of this year, the Flames need to focus on locking him up to a contract so he can showcase his skills in Abbotsford next October.

The prospects recently traded for Jarome Iginla will likely see time playing for the Heat

image: wikimedia commons

Vegan babies: making educated choices about your child’s diet MELISSA SPADY CONTIBUtor

Any time someone lets the highly-stigmatized word “vegan” pass through their lips, there is usually a barrage of negativity waiting on the other side. As someone who has a restrictive diet, I can understand and empathize with those who get sideways looks when they admit to their voluntary dietary eliminations. It’s not always easy living as a herbivore in an omnivore’s world. Thankfully the tides are beginning to turn and the acceptability of no-meat or no-animal by-product diets is on the rise.

This is only in terms of adults though. What about children and infants?

Instead of jumping right in to the mechanics of nutrition, let’s take a step back. Eating vegan is a lifestyle choice and since infants are not in the position to make

autonomous decisions about their diets, it is left in the hands of their parents. Is that really an okay decision to make for your biologically omnivore child? Since there are infants who have grown up on a vegan diet I don’t think it’s worth anyone’s time to argue that it isn’t possible. My questions are, however: how difficult is it to properly monitor your infant’s diet without any animal by-products and how can it be done without force?

I did some digging to find out.

I have to admit a lot of the online articles concerned with feeding your infant a vegan diet are pompous at best. I do know many people following a vegan diet who are not so in-your-face about it, but for some reason there is still an overarching air of pretension attached to adapting to a strictly monitored diet.

Consequently, the arguments against are equally standoffish.

Finding middle ground amongst the polarized literature wasn’t

an easy task. Thumbing through the comments posted as replies to these articles proved to be the best method for getting evidencebased arguments on either side of the debate.

Vegan parents weighed in on their experiences from pregnancy to properly raising their children on a plant-based diet. “My husband and I have been vegan for 15 and 17 years, respectively. As an organic, whole-foods, vegan family, our (almost) five-year-old daughter eats more healthfully than most adults. Her favourites include beans, kale, quinoa, almost any vegetable, and so much more,” one commenter posted below a Huffington Post article about the new trend. “I have been a vegan for years now ... while I maintain a vegan kitchen at home and my daughter does not consume animal products or meat at home, I have never denied her healthy non-vegan options while at her grandparents or friends’ homes,”

explained another.

I think it’s important to note two things from these comments: the first comes from an experienced vegan parent and the second offers the option of choice to the child. I feel both are crucial to implementing a no animal byproduct diet in a child’s life safely and respectfully.

On the flip side, there have been several cases where uninformed/ inexperienced parents have chosen this diet for their babies with mortal consequences: death from malnutrition. The New York Times published an op-ed article

by Nina Planck, titled “Death by Veganism” in which she foolishly attempts to link the vegan diet to the cause of the baby’s death, when it is really due only to a parental lack of nutritional knowledge. She uses the example of a couple in Atlanta who fed their infant son a diet of primarily soymilk and apple juice, technically vegan, and when he passed away

at just six weeks, the responsible parties were left to face criminal charges of cruelty, involuntary manslaughter and murder. Veganism didn’t kill that six-weekold baby, ignorance did.

This is why the debate should carry onwards, and why it’s important to have all the facts before making a rash dietary change in your (or your child’s) life. In the case of infants, misinformation can literally kill, and as a child grows up allowing them the choice of a vegan diet empowers them to make decisions autonomously. Even though the debate can often get nasty and sometimes downright deplorable, continuing to discuss every facet will only inform more people. Hopefully the discussion will lead to more people making educated choices about their diets, and cut the chances of another innocent baby falling victim to the unfortunate ignorance of his or her parents.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

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SPORTS & HEALTH

Keeping UFV’s athletes extremely eligible In the academic sense at least PAUL ESAU

THE CASCADE

One of the easiest ways to send a season sideways in the Canada Interuniversity Sport (CIS) is to be penalized for an ineligible athlete. No matter an athlete’s performance on the court or field, ineligibility has caused the destruction of many teams, the end of playoff hopes or even the loss of national medals.

UFV men’s basketball had its own brush with ineligibility in February when second-year Yale recruit Nathan Kendall was temporarily removed from his classes. The change in his status wasn’t discovered for several weeks, and the team was forced to forfeit the two wins they’d accumulated while playing with the ineligible Kendall on the roster.

UFV self-disclosed the violation when it was discovered, and Athletics was fined only $2750 for the relatively minor infraction.

Unfortunately, Kendall himself was given a four-game suspension that he was forced to serve over the first four games of UFV’s playoff run. The CIS follows a strict policy when deciding upon disciplinary procedures for eligibility violations, one that doesn’t consider playoff games to be any different than the regular season.

UFV Athletics checks the eligibility of its competing student

Nathan Kendall inadvertantly became ineligible to play due to dropped classes athletes weekly. The mistake which allowed Kendall’s status change to go unnoticed was partly a result of a system error and partly a miscommunication between Athletics and Admissions and Records (A&R), recently renamed Office of the Registrar (OReg). In the last week the two departments have been examining both errors as they work to create a cooperative approach which will eliminate the possibil-

ity of future mistakes.

The major change, according to Athletics director Rocky Olfert, will be to consolidate both departments onto the BANNER student record system, instead of the current arrangement under which Athletics uses an external platform that interacts with OReg’s BANNER system. Olfert explained “when upgrades happen or something happens to the system, BANNER gets updated

image: abbynews.com

but all these external systems they just say the same. So there’s a system there that’s flawed.”

Olfert doesn’t know how the current system came to be implemented, or why two separate systems would have been considered advantageous over the universal use of BANNER. As for the miscommunication that allowed Kendall to be removed from his classes only after Athletics’ weekly check, Olfert and OReg

are considering solutions.

“Some other schools use BANNER for their student athletes,” said Olfert, “and their [student athlete files are] coded so that if an athlete would be removed [Athletics] could actually see that on the screen. So there would be a warning or something.”

Such a change wouldn’t result in special treatment for student athletes, but simply insurance against any further eligibility violations.

Olfert also stressed the need to educate the athletes themselves on maintaining their own academic status: “Most importantly, educating our student athletes on the importance of them taking care of their accounts, making sure they’re following up on the emails to them. They have to do their due diligence as well,” he said. “This isn’t just department heads trying to figure this out, this is also about educating our student athletes and making sure there’s accountability on their part.”

UFV is currently serving a 24-month probation in its CIS membership as a result of the recent eligibility violation. Any further violations within that period will be subject to more severe disciplinary measures, including possible suspension from the sport in question for a period of up to two years in the case of a serious offence.

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SPORTS & HEALTH

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2013 www.ufvcascade.ca

Men’s soccer springs into action against Albertans

The Cascade is now hiring an interim sports editor!

We’re looking for someone to fill in for our six biweekly summer issues published between May and late July.

EMAD AGAHI contributor

UFV men’s soccer continued their rigorous spring schedule this week, as they finished off a run of five games in six days. After losses to SFU and UBC and a tie versus Trinity Western, the Cascades hoped to taste victory in their first game on home soil.

First up was the under-18 Alberta Canada Games team, a squad composed of a selection of the best 16- and 17-year-old players in the province of Alberta.

An 11 a.m. kick-off at Exhibition Park in Abbotsford meant UFV had to field an undermanned squad with players missing due to class commitment. Cascades goalkeeper Mark Village was presented with an early test, 15 minutes in, as a cross in the 18-yard box forced two back-to-back saves in close.

Just before half time, midfielder Ryan Liddiard hooked up with

Daniel Molendjk off of a corner kick to open the scoring for UFV. The referee’s decision to reward the Cascades with the corner kick was a questionable one that proved to be costly for the Alberta Canada Games team. Molendjk doubled the lead for UFV midway through the second half, ultimately putting the game out of reach for the young Albertan team. The goal came from a mistake deep in Alberta’s half, which allowed Molendjk to come in unchallenged and calmly finish in the bottom corner of the net. That accounted for all the scoring in the match as the Cascades won 2-0.

On Wednesday, USL squad Edmonton FC rolled into Abbotsford to take on UFV as part of their pre-season schedule. Although most the FC regulars would not be playing; a professional team would present UFV with some serious competition. Similar to Tuesday’s game, many Cascades players were scratched due to class commitments. This forced

head coach Alan Errington to field another improvised line up.

Unfortunately for UFV, this led to a fairly lopsided affair. Edmonton FC scored first and scored often on Cascades goalkeepers Mark Village and Jake Kubanski, who split time in net. Despite the large deficit, UFV player continued to play hard for the full 90 minutes. The best moment in the game for the Cascades came midway through the first half when Ethan Collins curled in a free kick from just outside the box, only to be turned aside by the Edmonton keeper.

The Cascades fall to 1-1-3 this spring with the loss and have struggled offensively. In the five games so far, UFV has managed to score only three goals, and have been shut out three times. There is room for concern now; however, Errington and his coaching staff have plenty of time to fill this void with training camp still five months away.

Applicants must be registered in at least one, three-credit class at UFV during the fall 2013 semester.

Responsibilities include assigning, writing and editing copy for the sports section as required; attending editorial and writers meetings; completing final edits in inDesign.

Please send resume, cover letter and sample sports article to Paul Esau at esau@ufvcascade.ca by April 9 to be considered for the position.

Good luck!