McMaster Alumnus becomes an AIDS activist.

Cirque de Soleil crawls its way into Toronto with a new look.

InsideOut B10

andy C6

McMASTER UNIVERSITY'S STUDENT NEWSPAPER / THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2009

www.thesil.ca

The Silhouette Striking CUPE requests mediator Est. 1930

VOLUME 80, NO. 12

University offers little revision in its proposal to striking CUPE 3906

WILL VAN ENGEN / PHOTO EDITOR

Picketers at Sterling Street entrance talk with motorists during a five minute staging on Monday afternoon. CUPE 3906 is currently pushing into its fourth day of striking. SELMA AL-SAMARRAI SENIOR NEWS EDITOR

As of Saturday Oct. 31, the University presented its best offer to the CUPE 3906, Unit 1, which was rejected by the union and consequently lead them to calling a strike. As reported by the CUPE 3906, Unit 1 communications committee, the best offer made steps back from the offer presented on Oct. 30, with the same benefit levels presented in 2006, along with a small wage increase. Some changes were made in the University’s best contract that was offered on Oct. 30, compared to the University’s previous offer. One

of the changes was a wage increase for undergraduate and graduate TA’s. Over the course of a year, the University’s best offer included an increase of graduate TA and RA wages from $38.85 to $39.40, and an increase of undergraduate TAs from $21.60 to $22.15. Other changes include an increased monthly contribution from the University to the dental plan, and protecting TAs and RAs from working past the end of the academic term. Other pressing issues for the union that weren’t addressed or changed include having class size caps, the erosion of take-home pay due to increasing tuition costs for graduate students that aren’t

compensated by an increase in wages or benefits, Rebecca Strung, a CUPE 3906, Unit 1 bargaining team member, explained that on the night of Nov. 1, a four-hour general membership meeting was held, with approximately 300 attendants, where the University’s best offer was presented. This was followed by a vote as to whether the union should take the University’s offer to ratification, and the majority voted against it. Starting Monday Nov. 2, the Union began picketing on two locations on campus, the gates of Sterling and Cootes drive. On both days, the University offered

to have meetings where Strung and fellow bargaining member Derek Sahota explained that the University made no new offers. On Tuesday Nov. 3, the union showed their most recent proposal, which was made Sat. Oct. 31 after the University left the bargaining table, to which they responded with the same offer presented on Oct. 31. Andrea Farquhar, Director of Public Relations at McMaster, added to that point, explaining, “We re-enforced the best offer… and normally when an offer is rejected by a union, it is then withdrawn… and you see what comes next. In this case we’ve taken the somewhat unusual step of leaving the offer on

the table and we’ve informed them that we will do that and it will be there until 12.01 a.m. on Nov. 10. We hope that offer is the basis for settlement. At that point it will be withdrawn.” Sahota explained that on the second day of negotiations of Oct. 30, the University made new movements on the $150,000 benefit fund. The benefit fund has been a major issue for the union, as they believe it is not enough for the 2,700 members of the union. The union rejected the offer that included the benefit fund change due to a lack of satisfaction with • PLEASE SEE UNION, A3

McMaster research in sixth place Hamilton copes JACKIE MCNAMARA THE SILHOUETTE

McMaster University was ranked sixth in the 2009 rankings of Canada’s Top 50 Research Universities conducted by Research Infosource. McMaster had $374 million dedicated to research, up from $346 million in 2008. The top five ranking included University of Toronto with $845 million, University of Alberta with $492

million, University of British Columbia with $470 million, l’Université de Montréal with $468 million, and McGill University with $419 million. McMaster is considered one of Canada’s smaller big universities, and usually ranks high in terms of research intensity, which measures the research income per full-time faculty member. “We’re a research powerhouse and our size allows for great opportunities,” stated Dr.

McMaster upsets Ottawa and will face Queens in the OUA semi-finals on Saturday. Sports, B1

Inside the Sil this week

CUPE strike FAQs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .A3 QSCC Pride Week . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .A5 Learning from the strike . . . . . . . . . . . . . .A7 In swine and in quarantine . . . . . . . . . . . .A7

Mo Elbestawi, vice president of research and international affairs. “[We offer] opportunities for cross-disciplinary research, for example, knowing what’s going on in other departments and faculties and engaging in research with our colleagues from every discipline. It also creates incentive for us to develop strategic partnerships and areas of priority and allows for us to build a critical mass of expertise in these area.” This year, McMaster moved up to second place in the country in research intensity, improving its rank from third in 2008. McMaster was well above the national average of $165,000, pulling in an average of $312,800 per full-time faculty member, according to McMaster Daily News on Oct. 27. “We’re globally recognized for our materials, manufacturing and health sciences research,” contended Elbestawi. “The changing landscape in the automotive industry presents enormous and exciting opportunities for McMaster, particularly in the area of “green” automotive We plan to build on our research momentum and attract the best and brightest researchers and students.”

…

with H1N1 virus

SILHOUETTE FILE PHOTO

LILY PANAMSKY

ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR

New actions to help mediate the H1N1 virus pandemic are currently being implemented in the city of Hamilton and at McMaster University. Two H1N1 Assessment Centres opened up in Hamilton on Oct. 31 in response to increased reports of H1N1 in local Emergency wards. The centres are designated for patients with flu or flu-like

Mac football off to semi’s . . . . . . . . . . . . . B1 Hoops stand tall in US . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B4 Culture and health care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B9 Google Street view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B10

symptoms, and they will not treat patients with other illnesses. Patients are encouraged to go to their family doctor before coming to the centre. According to the news release, the centres are a collaborative effort of Hamilton Public Health Services, Hamilton HealTh Sciences, St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton and family physicians in the Hamilton area. • PLEASE SEE FIRST, A3

Type 2 diabetes increases . . . . . . . . . . . . B12 Canadian women’s short stories . . . . . . .C4 Hamilton City Roller Girls . . . . . . . . . . . .C6 Saskatchewan-born music . . . . . . . . . . . .C10

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A D V E R T I S E M E N T

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THE SILHOUETTE • A3

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Union decides to hold ratification Quick FAQs on • CONT’D FROM 1

other changes, and when the best offer was presented the following day, the benefit fund change was retracted. “One of the frustrating things was [that] they put some benefit money into the fund Friday afternoon. [They] finally put money into benefits which we’ve been asking for, for almost six months to cover off deficits… then for some reason in their [best] offer they took it back,” explained Sahota. Farquhar explained that this was due to the fact that the University decided to focus on wage increases instead. Sahota explained, “From what we’ve seen, the pattern form the University is that they weren’t intent on negotiating from the start… we’re a pragmatic bargaining team, we could’ve come to the table before the job action. Their pattern of behavior shows they weren’t intent on a deal at all and weren’t willing to listen at all and that’s why we’ve ended up where we’re at.” Regarding the apparent lack of support from some undergraduate TAs, Strung explained, “We take opinions of undergraduate TAs very seriously and have tried very hard to make them a part of the process and have reached out to them in many ways in the consultations we’ve done. We’ve had less interest from them talking to us about

what they care about than the grad TAs unfortunately. However, the undergraduate TAs who have come forth and gave us opinions, what they’ve said has gone in the package we’ve been trying to make. We are offering a lot for undergrad TAs. We’ve repeatedly said their wages are too low.” A University FAQ document created for CUPE 3906 Unit 1 employees was created on Nov. 3 for the purpose of clarifying the rights of union members throughout the strike. Some of the information presented includes the right of union members to continue working, their ability to receive payments, scholarships and benefits, the inability of the union to affect a member’s employment within the university, among several others. In addition, on Nov. 3, the CUPE 3906, Unit 1 strike update sheet explained that a member from the University’s senior administration angrily and aggressively acted towards picketers. His actions reportedly resulted in the involvement of the Hamilton police liaisons. On the Nov. 4 strike update sheet, the issue was discussed again, and it was reported that the behavior of the senior administrator had not ceased. Neither Strung, Sahota, nor Farquhar was willing to divulge the individual’s name. However, Sahota

added that the individual’s behavior violated what he believes are antioppression tactics that should be expressed by the University. Strung added that this specific individual has been attending the meetings between the University and, “using the exact same tactics at the bargaining table and has not been involved in bargaining until now… he comes in and tries to intimidate us and prevents us from having productive discussion with other members of the team.” Strung added that it was for this reason that the union has now requested the presence of a mediator in the upcoming days of negotiations. As of 4.00 p.m. Nov. 4, the union publicly announced that they have contacted a mediator to request that the unanimousrecommendation clause be taken off the table, and to extend an invitation to continue negotiations on Thursday and Friday with the present of a mediator. At approximately 7.00 p.m. of Nov. 4 it was announced that that the teaching assistants at McMaster are preparing to take the University’s best offer to a formal and secret ratification vote. The vote is not to end the strike. The union was informed in the released document that the Union’s bargaining team members unanimously recommend that the union members reject the University’s recent best offer.

Trick-or-eat helps locals SAM COLBERT

SILHOUETTE STAFF

On the afternoon of Halloween, teams of Mac students beat trick-or-treaters to the streets of the Westdale and Ainslie Wood communities, going door-to-door in costume. Shopping carts in tow, they collected 3000 pounds of food from the local residents. The students were McMaster’s 268 participants of Trick or Eat 2009, a national youthdriven food drive. The Trick-orEaters gathered in Twelve-Eighty on Saturday, where each team was sent out on an assigned route. All returned soon after with carts full of non-perishable food items. Their efforts and the generosity of the residents will provide 2400 meals to Hamiltonians in need. The event was run by the McMaster chapter of Meal Exchange, a national charity initiated and operated by students dedicated to food security and raising awareness of hunger issues in Canada. A 17-year-old Wilfrid Laurier student gave Meal Exchange its start in 1993, and the organization has since raised more than $2 million in food through a number of programs. The McMaster chapter of Meal Exchange is

the CUPE strike

Quick answers to strike questions Where are Go Buses dropping off and picking up commuters? Go buses are dropping commuters off at the HSR stop on Main Street opposite Bowman Street. They are picking up commuters at the HSR stop on Main Street at Emerson Street. Where are HSR buses dropping off and picking up commuters? 51 University and 5C Westbound buses drive on King but instead of turning on Sterling, they turn on Dalewood until they hit Main Street and then makes the left onto Emerson and continues on its normal route. 51 University and 5A Eastbound drives from Emerson onto Main, then it turns on Dalewood, then King, and then continues on its normal downtown route. Where are Coach Canada buses dropping off and picking up students? Buses are both dropping off and picking up students on the HSR stop on Main Street opposite Bowman Street. Where are Greyhound buses picking up students? Buses heading towards Brantford or London will be picking up students at the HSR stop on Main Stret opposite Emerson Street. Buses heading toward downtown Hamilton will be picking up students at Main Street at Bowman Street. Will the strike be affecting other Unions work on campus? No, under the Unions’ collective agreements they are required to work during another union’s strike.

TIMOTHY LAU / THE SILHOUETTE

Mac students participate in Trick-or-eat the afternoon of Halloween. embedded in Mac BreadBin, the campus food distribution service of the MSU. “It’s a complex system, and you never know how small things affect the big picture,” said Kris Hughes, Director of Meal Exchange at McMaster. “So by getting youth involved at a young age and in such an active way, we really hope that will effect the social change we need to start eliminating food insecurity in Canada.” McMaster was one of 57 universities, colleges, high schools and community centres in North America that participated in Trick or Eat 2009. Final totals from all participating groups are not yet in, but the campaign is well on its way to achieving its goal of raising 160,000 meals. This year, Trick or Eat comes at a time when food banks and service agencies are most in need of it. Given the economic climate, the number of food bank users is increasing, while the agencies are finding it harder and harder to feed the hungry. In Hamilton alone, 19,600 people use food banks every month, and more than 8,300 of those people are under the age of 18. “Children have no options, they’re just thrown into the situation,” said Hughes. “They are totally dependent, and they end up in a situation that so harmfully affects their future.

Being hungry and being food insecure as a child really perpetuates the cycle of poverty within the community.” Along with the positive effects of this event for Hamilton, Hughes believes students stand to benefit from Trick or Eat. Tension between local residents and students living in the McMaster community often becomes a problem, and actions of students living in offcampus housing sometimes leave neighbours with a negative attitude toward the student population. An event like Trick or Eat “shows residents another side of students that they might not have seen,” said Hughes. “This is really a great community outreach event, because it shows students, again, affecting positive social change, doing good things in the community, supporting the community, being a part of the community, as opposed to just living in the community.” Other events run by Meal Exchange include Skip a Meal, which occurred at McMaster in March. At that event, students could donate money remaining on their meal plans by swiping their student card at a station in Commons. It was only within the last few years that Mac BreadBin adopted Meal Exchange activities into its set of programs, but events like Trick or Eat have become annual at McMaster.

Are TAs allowed to work during the strike? Can they be eliminated from the union if they do so? Yes, TAs are allowed to work during the strike, and will be paid

as normal, provided they fulfill their regular TA duties. No, they cannot be eliminated from the union if they choose to continue working during the strike, as the University employs them. How will my classes be affected? This decision is entirely up to the professor. Professors cannot take over duties of Teaching Assistants; therefore the professors will determine the change to the class structure. Are members of the CUPE union still able to receive their scholarships during a strike? Yes. What happens to the benefits of members of the CUPE union during a strike? Since the University pays a standard $150,000 benefit fund to the union at the beginning of the school year, the decision to continue providing benefits throughout a strike is made by the union. Are members of the CUPE union still eligible for the dental plan? Since a part of the dental plan is provided by the University’s monthly contributions to the dental plan, it is different than the provision of other benefits. The union and the University reached an agreement that allowed the continuation of the dental benefit during a strike. Do members of the CUPE union get paid during a strike? Those who choose to work during the strike will continue to be paid by the University. Pay from the University ceases only for those who choose to partake in the strike and forego their TA duties. However, those who choose to strike are eligible for up to $200 a week if they fulfill their strike duties.

Royal couple to visit Hamilton LILY PANAMSKY

ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR

The Prince of Wales, Prince Charles, and his wife, the Duchess of Cornwell Camilla, are visiting Hamilton on Thursday as part of their 10-day tour of Canada. The royal couple will be taking a 45-minute tour of Dundurn Castle Thursday morning, followed by a visit to the HMCS Haida at the historical at the Hamilton Habour. The Haida is the last remaining example of the 27 Tribal Class World War II destroyer ships built for the Royal Canadian Navy, the Royal Navy, and the Royal Australian Navy between 1937 and 1945. Hamilton’s Lancaster WWII bomber—one of only two surviving bombers in flying condition in the world—will make a special flight when the couple visits the Haida. The bomber remains in the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum, of which Prince Charles

is the patron. Prince Charles and Duchess Camilla began their Canadian tour on Monday. It is their first visit to the country together. They will visit 12 cities in Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, and British Columbia. Prince Charles’ last visit to Hamilton was in 1996. Duchess Camilla is the great-great-great granddaughter of Sir Allan MacNab, the builder and laird of the 174-year old Dundurn Castle. 2000 burgundy ribbons to be given out to the public on a firstcome-first-serve basis have been created to commemorate the Royal couple’s visit to the castle. The couple will arrive at the site of the Haida at approximately 11:55 a.m., and Hamilton’s Lancaster bomber will fly over the ship at 12:12 p.m. The public is being encouraged to see Prince Charles and his wife along Catharine Street North, the street leading to the Hamilton Harbourfront.

THE SILHOUETTE • A5

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2009

QSCC holds Mac’s first Pride Parade Mac research finds drugresistant bacteria in dirt

WILL VAN ENGEN/ PHOTO EDITOR

Mac research finds research milestone in anti-drug bacteria in dirt. MELANIE FERRIER SILHOUETTE STAFF

JONATHON FAIRCLOUGH / SILHOUETTE STAFF

The QSCC will be holding its annual Mac Pride Week from Nov. 9 to Nov, 13. SELMA AL-SAMARRAI SENIOR NEWS EDITOR

McMaster University will be holding its annual Mac Pride Week on Nov. 9 to Nov. 13. The week will be concluded with the first ever Mac Pride Parade, arranged by the Queer Students Community Centre (QSCC). The Mac Pride week will begin with the Opening ceremonies in the McMaster University Student Centre on Monday Nov. 9, “free hugs” on Tuesday Nov. 10 and a movie showing of the movie “Milk” in the QSCC room in MUSC, 221. On Wednesday Nov. 11 there will be a Gay Trivia night at the QSCC

office. On Thursday Nov 12, there will be a drag show at the Marauders bar in the basement of the restaurant Kelsey’s on Main Street. On Friday Nov. 13 at around 12.30 p.m., the Mac Pride Parade will begin at Les Prince Residence; it will continue through the centre of campus, and ending at Mary Keyes residence. This will be followed by a Laser tag event in the evening. Anyone is welcome to participate in Mac Pride Week. “Mac Pride is about celebrating diversity and sexual diversity at McMaster. It’s more about raising awareness and letting people know we’re here and we support you. Mac Pride Parade is

something all the coordinators in the past have wanted to do… it would be a lot of fun to have something like that,” explained Suzanne Kane, coordinator of QSCC. QSCC is a McMaster Students Union service which offers support for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transvestite, and queer students at McMaster, and an open social space five days a week from 9.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. As of recently, a new health initiative titled Tuesdays with Nurse Don has begun where the QSCC Health Awareness Executive will answer any health related questions in person or through e-mail, to members of the service.

First H1N1 vaccine brought to Mac • CONT’D FROM A1 Community physicians, hospital nurses, and support staff are working at the centres. The Hamilton H1N1 West End Assessment Centre is located at the Hamilton Health Sciences West End Clinic at 690 Main Street West, and the Hamilton H1N1 East End Assessment Centre located at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Urgent Care Centre on King Street at 2757 King Street East. Both centres operate from 3-10 p.m. Monday to Friday, the West End Centre is open from 11a.m-7p.m on Saturday and Sunday, while the East End Centre is open from 11 a.m - 6 p.m on the weekend. McMaster University Health Educator Kathryn Patterson reported increased activity at the Campus Health Centre. “We certainly have had some busy times in the last week or two with students who are calling in or coming in with symptoms that meet some of

the criteria for H1N1…It is in the community of Hamilton and it is in the community at McMaster.” Patterson stated that the Campus Health Centre has increased its availability for students in response to the high numbers of patients and student inquiries. “We have stepped up some appointments—some availability during the day—so we can see as many students as possible, and also we have more phone contact available with nurses in the clinic, so that students can talk to a health care professional about their symptoms.” Students who need to see a health care professional after the Campus Health Centre has closed are directed to the Hamilton H1N1 West End Assessment Centre. In addition, Patterson disclosed that McMaster has been able to get a hold of 200 doses of vaccination that will be administered

Friday morning to students at high risk of complications if they contract H1N1—those who chronic medical health problems and those who are over 20 weeks pregnant. “So we’re hoping that we get 200 students on Friday morning who require it, because those are the students who need it the most first. And then as soon as we can get vaccine from public health we will run a clinic for the rest of the student population. We’re just waiting to get it.” The City of Hamilton is offering vaccinations to people of high-priority, including health physicians that come in contact with H1N1 patients, pregnant women, and young children, but the city has not yet offered vaccinations to the general population. McMaster students are asked to check the consistently updated H1N1 page on the Campus Health Centre website to address any questions or concerns.

Paradise Catering receives award

CHRISTOPHER CHANG/ SILHOUETTE STAFF

McMaster University’s Paradise Catering won two prestigious awards on Oct. 27. CATHERINE BRASCH

THE SILHOUETTE

On Oct. 27, Paradise Catering received two prestigious awards, the Gold and Grand Loyal E. Horton Dining Award and the People’s Choice Award both of which were voted by NACUFS members and consisted of Universities and Colleges from all over North American, including UCLA and Harvard University. Albert Ng, the Director of Hospitality Services at McMaster University explained in greater detail how the awards are judged and organized. “The way the competition goes is they have the small, medium, and large school competition. With the size of McMaster we belong to the large school so we actually compete against the entries for all the large schools. So we are lucky enough that we got the gold metal for the

large school. Then you enter into the next round then in the next round all the gold medalist enter for the grand prize, we also got awarded for the grand prize,” explained Ng. To be considered for entrance into the competition, Paradise Catering had to submit a formal copy of the catering menu, a sample of a typical kitchen production, sheet recipes for specialty items, an essay statement, and marketing materials for catering program/services. After all of this had been submitted, the Paradise Catering was accepted into the competition. In the competition, judges used specific criteria to judge all the schools. The four areas of criteria that are used in judging are menu selection, merchandising and presentation, marketing, and overall impression. The judging committee is comprised of different directors and administrators that

are nominated from different Universities and Colleges, so every year the judges are different. Paradise Catering not only provides catering for on campus but also off campus. However, a lot of services that are provided on campus range from the basic coffee service to high-end functions. Some of these high-end receptions include the major donor’s reception and when delegates from other countries come to visit McMaster University. Some recent events that Paradise Catering has catered include the grand opening of the new Engineering building, where food was provided for the public and afterwards, there was a separate function for the VIPs and donors of the building. Ng takes pride in the service that Paradise Catering provides because they care about their customers and also because they employ a large percentage of students from McMaster. Ng is very pleased with these awards because, “you normally don’t get a lot of thank you, but when you get an award like this it makes everyone feel proud.” Paradise Catering was established in 1992 and has now grown into a huge success. Ng gives credit to the amazing team that is the foundation of Paradise Catering. “I am really thankful for a great team we have, catering is only part of what we do in hospitality... Every single day I know they are doing their best to deliver the best quality and service to the customer.” Paradise Catering is a business that runs 24 hours a day as there is always something going on, especially last year with the Brandon Hall fire in which the company provided food.

Research by Dr. Gerald Wright, now Director of the Michael DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research, has led to a number of discoveries that are milestones in the clinical realm of infectious disease prevention. Since his arrival at McMaster in 1993, his research has focused on the resistance of bacteria to antibiotics. Wright, who studied Biology and Chemistry at the University of Waterloo and received his PhD in Medicinal Chemistry, has a rich intellectual background in antibiotic resistance. After his PhD, he went on to complete two years of post-doctoral research at the Harvard Medical School, working on drug resistance. “I just love to discover new things. It’s just an amazingly exciting job to be in,” explained Wright. When Wright arrived at McMaster, his initial research focused on the molecular details of antibiotic resistance. Whereas any regular microbiologist would identify a bacterium as resistant to antibiotics and leave it at that, Wright went one step further in search of the specific molecular details, which would explain how resistant genes work. According to Wright, this was groundbreaking work. Through a chemical-biology approach, Wright discovered that, “the chemistry used by microorganisms to evade antibiotics is very much the same kind of chemistry that we use in our cells.” This discovery led to a new realm of research, focused on answering the question of where resistance is derived from. Led on by the belief that the environment may be a reservoir for resistance genes, Wright began to study the bacteria collected from dirt samples. His research was prompted by his realization that, “the organism that makes dirt smell like dirt is super drug resistant. We tested a panel of about twenty antibiotics and – on average – the organisms were resistant to even or eight different antibiotics.” The significance of this discovery is, “the genes that you find [in dirt], that are associated with resistance, are the same

kinds of genes that we find in the organisms that are drug resistant and that cause disease.” In other words, his research suggests that there are over one-novillion (1030) bacteria on the planet and, though most do not cause disease, many are drug resistant. “There have been all sorts of efforts over the years to try and make some antibiotic that is going to be the one that gets rid of everything, the ultimate drug, but there isn’t a chance that that will ever happen. There are just too many micro-organisms out there.” The truth of this has caused many drug companies to stop their research, but Wright tends to see the discovery in a positive light. It will allow scientists to focus their research. Potential antibiotics can be screened against the resistant, environmental organisms to determine their worth. If an antibiotic tests unfavourably, it can either be rejected or “securitized” through the use of a diagnostic. In this way, the spread of resistance can be inhibited. Though his research focuses on the microscopic, the importance of Wright’s discoveries is anything but. Most of the antibiotics that we have in use today were discovered in the 1940s and 1950s, after Alexander Fleming made the influential discovery that fungus could kill bacteria. Since then, research has petered out, with most scientists turning to other lines of inquiry. Unfortunately, resistance hasn’t petered out along with the research. Drugs continue to face bacteria resistance, and Wright is focused on finding solutions. Besides the clinical importance of finding solutions to antibacterial resistance, Wright is proud to be able to bring quality, internationally competitive research to McMaster. “The more acclaim that research brings to this place,” stated Wright, “the greater the value of a McMaster degree.” He is also excited about the training experience that research provides to McMaster students: “I have had more than fifty undergraduates come through over the years, as well as summer students, graduate students and thesis students. They’ve all gone on to bigger and better things.”

A6 • THE SILHOUETTE

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2009

EDITORIAL

Letters:

McMaster University’s Student Newspaper

The Silhouette

Re: Bite-sized TA Strike Update

TheSil.ca Editorial Board Executive Editor Jeff Green Managing Editor Bahram Dideban Senior News Editor Selma Al-Samarrai Assistant News Editor Lily Panamsky Features Editor Paige Faber Opinions Editor Peter Goffin Sports Editor Brian Decker Assistant Sports Editor David Koots Insideout Editor Lindsay Jolivet Assistant Insideout Phyllis Tsang Photo Editor Will van Engen Staff Photographer Terry Shan Multimedia Editor Ava Dideban Production Editor Katherine Marsden Web Editor Jason Lamb Health Editor Sarah Levitt Distribution Coordinator Jonathon Fairclough Ad Manager Sandro Giordano

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Sam Colbert, Joey Coleman, Kevin Elliott, Noah Nemoy, Julie Compton, Jenifer Bacher, Michael Hewak, Christopher Chang, Lauren Jewett, Jacqueline Flaggiello, Natasha Pirani, Amanda Fracz

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PHYLLIS TSANG / ASSISTANT INSIDEOUT EDITOR

Scabs and solidarity

Strike, solidarity and scabs seem to have flooded my vocabulary in the last week, and while I’m not quite sick of the picket lines, protestors and propaganda – from both sides – it is endlessly tiring to observe lack of support from undergraduate teaching assistants. I am in short supply of sympathy for a collection of scabs so confused and selfish that they could not support the graduate teaching assistants and research assistants that were generally fighting for undergraduate rights. The majority of concessions that were graduatespecific were met with the university’s final/best offer, yet in a sign of solidarity they decided to strike for the rights of a group that least deserves it. As a result the university has rescinded its graduate concessions, adding to the length and fueling a longer labour dispute. Perhaps they have never been in a union; perhaps they are part of a privileged group that has decided to ignore how they managed to stumble upon a job that pays well.This group of privileged and pretentious undergraduate scabs is crippling the union that is also fighting for them. I can understand if you are a graduate research assistant and you’ve spent the summer collecting cell samples and you need to use the samples in the next two weeks. I can understand the few that are finishing up their studies, with possibly months to go in what may have been a nineyear journey. These people have a reason to cross the picket lines and continue to work. A first year psych TA? You have no reason not to join the picket line. You complement a pre-recorded video, and ask cookie-cutter questions; and because of the union before you, you enjoy a healthy wage in doing so. Show some support, show some backbone. Unfortunately, these selfish TAs will be the Achilles’ heel of many selfless people. The current situation is gloomy and pathetic for CUPE 3906. Their own members have left them hanging out to dry, barely slowing the train of studies, while causing an irritation for students they won’t soon forget. Without the complete support from all of the union members, this strike will not only fail, it will last longer. What the undergraduate scabs have created is a situation in which the union has no power, and to which the university has responded with less and less in each successive proposal. With minimal TA’s, the university can prop itself up and continue to run, all the while letting the continual itch of annoyance linger. At this rate of communication and mediation, the strike is set for the long haul. The deeper the strike gets, the harder the work-to-rule negotiations (the ones that back pay the striking workers) will be. You’ll get a situation similar to Toronto’s garbage strike, where it almost seemed harder to get the back-to-work terms settled even after the strike itself was settled. While the strike has a minimal effect on me and many of my peers, I empathize with the union. They have fought for the privileged wages that so many exploit, and it is painful to watch a select, self-interested group impair an organization with such fortitude. I’m positive that it is no one’s intention to prolong the strike and move into a York University situation, but cornered as they are now, CUPE has no choice but to continue to strike. With no clear end in sight, little power and limited support, neither CUPE nor the university will get the short end of the stick – the students will – and neither Mac or CUPE will be to blame. •Jeff Green

Volunteer Want to get involved? Come attend one of our sectional meetings in the basement of the Student Center, room b110 News: Wednesdays @ 12:30 pm InsideOut: Mondays @ 1:30 pm Sports: Thursdays @ 1:30 pm Andy: Mondays @ 1:30 pm Photo: Fridays @ 3:30 pm Opinions: Tuesdays @ 1:30 (all opinions can be mailed to opinions@thesil.ca, keep them 500-700 words)

Corrections

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Last week, the two sides could not agree. Then, the Union held an info meeting Sunday night at which those in attendance voted about 200-100 to *not* put the current offer to a ratification vote (i.e., a vote on whether to have a vote), and to proceed with the strike. Some have argued that this result sends a clear enough message that the TA’s support the strike. Others suggest that the other 2400 TA’s were too hung-over from the night before to come to what was advertised as an “info” meeting, but may have come out if they knew we were going to vote (on whether to have a vote).  This latter interpretation has inspired some TA’s to sign a petition trying to force a ratification vote---some

eagerly want to vote YES to the current offer, others simply want to gauge where we’re all at. Rumor has it that at least one other TA is ignoring everything and is continuing to work.  Finally, the University seems to be on to us, and seems to be standing back for a week, waiting for the TA’s to sort this out amongst themselves. Late breaking update: As of Wednesday Nov 4 at 7pm, the Union---although unwilling to endorse the current offer (perhaps rightfully so)---has decided to hold a ratification vote this coming Sunday and Monday. Stanley Govenlock Psychology TA (and Grad Student Rep on Board of Governors)

Re: It only takes 15 minutes to save a life Through out the decade McMaster University has been proud to be the home of many large scale philanthropic efforts. From Relay for Life to the Bath-Tub project, it has been quite clear that helping society is an important value instilled within McMaster students. This Monday November 9, we will be able to witness McMaster’s latest philanthropic event, and one of large magnitude and influence. We speak of the upcoming “Got Swabbed?” initiative. Got Swabbed? is a mission set out on collecting cheek swabs from McMaster students and members of the community. The OneMatch Stem Cell and Marrow Foundation, a subsidiary of Canadian Blood Services will use the information from each swab to add to a national database of potential bone marrow donors. By participating in this event, and swabbing your cheek, you are giving hope and a better chance to help find the match for someone in need of a transplant.

This wonderful effort is being coordinated in partnership between a coalition of student groups, spearheaded by the Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity of Hamilton, Ontario. Their philanthropic chair, Dustin Shulman, has been working on Got Swabbed? since last spring after being inspired by a family from his home town who helped encourage the community to join the hunt for a bone marrow match for their father. To help other families like this one, Dustin set out a goal to conduct a large-scale marrow search here at McMaster. In only 15 minutes of your time, you could give the gift of life to someone in need. Reaching for the goal of 1000 new registrants, Got Swabbed? will not only try to help save lives but also place a spot in The Guinness World Records for being the largest marrow search of its kind. So on Monday November 9 don’t forget to drop by the student centre and take 15 minutes of your time to get your cheek swabbed. It could save a life.

to balls of heaven.

to scabs in general. you ruin everything. even scab editors. especially scab editors.

to my scab hockey team. to jim sturgess. to bill murray.

to no p.g. - i used the dick joke, but it’s just not the same.

to the other kind of green.

to no dinner plans at koosh.

to ho ho hoes. l.p. m.c. & j.m.

to shaving my moustache.

to moustaches and mario costumes. damn.

to the swine knocking us down one by one.

to mo-vember.

to headlines.

to the travelling truck sharpener. $10 for a sharper katana? how can i go wrong!

to elm sucking. again.

to that thing you do with your hair. mmm.

to cheap, thin latex.

to pvc on hot girls. ‘nuff said. to prince. to post secret. it’s a good thing.

to prince charles. to christmas in november. fuck you mariah carey christmas album. to no t.s. i still think you have sars.

to more cowbell.

to spain, europe’s third world country.

to the mario’s princess. ay bay bay.

to drugs. whatever. i do what i want.

to carol in spain.

to that layer of sweat and grime that i got from the basement of absinthe. ugh.

to n.p. you rock my world.

THE SILHOUETTE • A7

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2009

OPINIONS

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Idealistic fallout of the TA strike

Chris Erl OPINION

Feedback

Alyssa Visram

“I live on campus, it doesn’t effect me at all.”

Compiled by Jonathon Fairclough

opinions@thesil.ca

What do you think of CUPE’s protest Hopefully the TA strike has made you think about what university should be, rather than what it’s not tactics?

“We don’t even know their cause.”

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production office: extension 27117

Grace Tong

“I wish I could take the bus to school.” Vince Leung

Though the hierarchical divide is often broad, this week it seems that students and professors share a common conversational consensus, all centered around the most Marxian of struggles: that of the worker and the capitalist. Granted, if you’re a Political Scientist or a Sociologist, nearly anything in our school could be broken down into a Marxist conflict between two opposing sides, each vying for an advantage over the other. T.A. and administration, student and professor, educated and uneducated. But, if you think about it, does it really need to be this way? What is a university for? It’s a place where we, the eager and driven, come to study our specialties and emerge as professionals in whatever we choose, be it Slavic Languages or German History or Conflict Resolution or Mechanical Engineering. University is where knowledge is shared, debates are held and learning is paramount. Yeah, it’s idealistic, but that’s what our school is meant for. Well…was meant for. University is now a profitdriven operation, whose sole function, in the cynical observations of some, is to direct students onto one of two distinct paths. School now either trains you for a job behind a desk or relegates you to the world of permastudent/professorship, where you will try desperately to cram another single morsel of knowledge into the

WILL VAN ENGEN / PHOTO EDITOR

Picketers stall cars at the Sterling Street entrance on Monday afternoon. uninterested, unresponsive and unmotivated minds of 420-some-odd 19-year-olds, completely unprepared for the world before them. Dark, eh? Well here’s an idea that would end the need for students’ unions and T.A. strikes and classes the size of small rural communities. How about we bring university back to its roots as a place of universal, close-knit, student-centered solidarity? To do this, we need to, first and foremost, freeze tuition, and transition into a universal post-secondary system where everyone who is intelligent, willing and determined enough can get an education. Instead of a bill every Sept. 1, the charge would be on your yearly tax statement. Even if we use the hyper-inflated $6,000

rate, distributing that cost amongst the family, commercial and industrial taxpayers province-wide would be barely noticeable. Second, we cap class sizes while securing fellowship for more “sessional” professors. Classes crammed with upwards of 400 students are cold, impersonal and are analogous to the factory farming operations that provide us with cheap, lowquality meat. Only through meaningful connections with familiar professors and T.A.’s will education re-enter the forefront of university affairs. Thirdly, we students take back the school. Rigid structure, lack of communication and seemingly arbitrary regulations need to be thrown out, and replaced with a student-led directive

on how our schooling can best serve us as a community of learners, not just us as individual actors. We all need to make our opinions heard on the organization of our schooling; otherwise we are just being subjected to the same mundane, capitulatory rules that have gotten us to where we are today. Our school isn’t here for the advancement of one individual over another. It is here for us as a community and we need to return it to its natural place as a center for knowledge and understanding and progress, not individualistic monetary advancement. This strike has people talking, but hopefully it will get people thinking about how to make university a better place, and drive them to act on those ideas.

Sympathies from quarantine

I thought I wouldn’t get the swine, but the letters are nice

“They have to do what they have to do.” Hadi Bedhad SILHOUETTE FILE PHOTO

Peter Goffin OPINIONS EDITOR

“Best way to get more attention.” Kiren Sangha

Hadi Bedhad

This is really personally embarrassing, and I don’t know if I want to tell you this, but at the end of September, in this very publication, I wrote an impassioned plea for apathy with regards to the Swine Flu. Because no one was going to get the Swine Flu. It was a red herring of a health scare and you and I were going to be just fine. I guaranteed it. Well, guess what: I got the Swine Flu. I have it.

Currently. As we speak, my body is the setting of a turfwar between germs and antibodies wielding shivs and broken bottles and calling each other “man” a lot. My bloodstream is 90 per cent Benylin. Wow. Love those fever-dreams. And on top of all that, I get to be sheepish and humble and know that I was so very wrong. Let it be a lesson to you all: don’t believe everything you read, especially in a university newspaper’s opinions section.

But aside from having to accept that my medical predictions are unqualified, uneducated, and unreliable, I’ve gotten a chance to think. And I’ve thought. I have a lot of time to do that now that I’m effectively in quarantine. Anyway, I thought about it, and I came to the conclusion that being sick hasn’t been all that bad. Not really. Not emotionally. In fact, I’ve been getting a lot of sympathy. And I usually don’t like sympathy, or positive attention of any kind like that, you know, but

I realized that I don’t ever really get any sympathy at all in the course of my regular routine, so maybe I should enjoy it while it lasts. It isn’t that I don’t have kind friends or a loving family. I’m fairly certain that I do. It’s just that I’m being held to a higher standard these days. And sympathy rarely accompanies higher standards. I’m not the only one being shut out. None of us get any of the old kind of warm feelings directed our way when things go • PLEASE SEE SWINE, A11

A8 • THE SILHOUETTE

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2009

THE SILHOUETTE • A9

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Nothing November, the loser of the calender year Kaitlin Peters SILHOUETTE STAFF

It’s November, the month that is officially known for nothing. I really dislike November, particularly because nothing happens; no holidays, no events, no breaks, or anything remotely exciting. The weather is stuck in this grey fog, and gone are the bright colours of fall with just the right amount of nip in the air. Welcome to overcast skies and the always-impending drizzle that usually begins just as you’re about to run for the shuttle bus and conveniently finishes as you make it in to class. But the drop in temperature and lack of foliage isn’t even accompanied by a nice snowfall. I don’t even fight for one of the window spots in Mills anymore; looking outside just makes me depressed. A typical November scene mostly involves students running in between buildings as fast as physically possible and hunching over in joint combination from a massive load of textbooks and keeping their snot from running directly down their face. Outdoor scenery usually holds no fascination for me until around a week before Christmas, where I can then look outside with my fingers crossed praying for some kind of snowfall and then cursing Mother Nature when I wake up to yet another wet and slushy Christmas day. Crappy weather combined with the fact that it’s almost pitch black at 5:30 is almost too much to bear. I start having mad urges to pop Prozacs when I realize I’ve spent every moment of daylight inside at a desk. Maybe the problem isn’t November itself, but the fact

that it’s positioned between two really awesome months. I’m not going to lie, I really enjoy October and December, which probably has something to do with the fact that I love to eat. Nothing tops Thanksgiving, Halloween, and Christmas in the department of smorgasbordness; after Oct. 31 there’s a definite lack of edible splendor and I find myself eating potatoes and ketchup while watching reruns of Rich Bride, Poor Bride on the Slice network. November is the slow and painful transition month, kind of like how everyone feels about Wednesday when you’re waiting for the weekend. You’ve just finished up most of your midterms and are now twiddling your thumbs until you can start studying for finals. Now of course by “twiddling thumbs” I mean massive amounts of readings, essays, and critiques. But that feeling of anxiety is gone, replaced by this feeling of extreme monotony. There have been some efforts to spice up November, namely the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto (always fun) and National Novel Writing Month (write 40,000 words in 30 days, have fun with that one), but they can’t cover up the fact that November sucks. I thought I might be possibly overlooking some major event, but other than finding out some random and interesting facts (the Roman Catholic Church dedicates November to the holy souls in purgatory), there was really nothing going on.The only thing left to do is continue to cross off each day in red sharpie, while fighting the looming Seasonal Affective Disorder I always seem to get at this time of the year. . . wahoo.

The insignificant significants

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It was probably a fridge box, but now it’s a totally wicked fort. Kara McGowen OPINION

Boxes and envelopes are simply, insignificantly, significant. Whenever you throw out a box or envelope you throw away something more important than you can imagine. These simple items have been a part of human history, through the bad and the good. As small children we all famously ignored that brand new shiny toy and played with the box it came in.These boxes became our playhouses, forts and hideouts; the first place that we could call our own. Boxes were a part of the most important protest in American history, the Boston tea party. Colonized Americans tossed wooden boxes full of tea into the Boston harbor in protest of the “tea tax,” the act significant, the boxes insignificant. And Lee Harvey Oswald hid behind boxes in the Dallas Book Depository before he took that fatal shot killing President Kennedy. Boxes and envelopes have always been on the sidelines of history, the inner workings of government procedure, containing plans, sealed and stamped with blood red ink marking it full of meaning. Our lives can be defined by the things boxes hold: wedding rings, books, shoes, our most beloved items. A casket is nothing more than a box which significantly holds the body of those whom we hold most dear. When we begin the painful process of packing up the possessions of the departed into cardboard boxes, I can’t help the sobering realization that the sum of a person’s life fits into a few boxes.

And then there are envelopes. Birthday cards, holiday cards, birth announcements, and divorce papers, all the significant points in our lives are communicated to us in envelopes. University acceptances and rejections came in that neat package. We all waited with bated breath for that big envelope from the school of our choice. Then when we moved into our residence halls or student houses boxes were there, lending themselves in support. In Japan it is custom to offer money in condolence to a grieving family. The funereal envelope is decorated with black and white cords that symbolize life and death. This proves the significance that envelopes still have. And how many families of soldiers killed in the line of duty have received the terrible news in an envelope carried by a man in uniform? Even the digital envelopes we see in e-mail pay tribute to the past significance of the paper envelope. Today it is the digital envelope that is the bearer of news good or bad, of love letters, of break-ups. But the history of the traditional envelope is still a proud one. Many of the greatest authors the world as ever read would have submitted their wonderful tales of friendship, love, whales, overcoats, dreams, and passion, which make us think, study and philosophize, would have been sent to their publishers in envelopes. The significance of things as easy to overlook as boxes and envelopes proves that so often, the most integral parts of life are the simple ones. The objects that no one ever notices are often bitter sweetly, insignificantly, significant.

Lawlerbone by Zach Ellis and Peter Hindrichs

You give me a strike, and I’ll give you the middle finger Perri Maxwell OPINION

I have zero sympathy whatsoever for CUPE 3906 and their inconvenient, unwarranted, and counter-productive strike. Here’s the first thing I don’t understand. These people agreed to certain terms and conditions in order to work as Teaching and Research Assistants in the first place. Why then, do they have any right to strike? If you didn’t agree to those terms and conditions, why did you take the job? If you’re unhappy with the terms and conditions or the bargaining protocols, why don’t you just quit? What gives you the right to selfishly inconvenience almost 25,000 full and part-time students and nearly 1,500 faculty members? How dare you say you’re the good guys fighting for better educational standards while you’re toying with my right to education right in front of me? I’m pretty sure most students would rather settle for larger tutorials than no tutorials, rescheduled exams, limited office hours, plus the added eyesore of having to watch you parade around like hooligans while we’re on our way to class. Let’s be honest. I only have the members of CUPE 3906’s best interests at heart. This strike could not be more counter-productive for everyone, including the union members who are on strike. You’re inconveniencing yourselves. Think about it: your decision to strike has left you picketing in the cold and

SILHOUETTE FILE PHOTO

wind of an upcoming winter with no pay cheques in your pockets. You’re wasting valuable time that could be spent warm and comfortable indoors, grading papers and helping students who are trying to achieve academic goals and contribute to society. Not to mention, you’d be making money for your time and effort. Doesn’t that sound great? It sounds like… (could it be?)... a job. Isn’t that what everyone wants these days? I wonder if these people have ever turned on the news or read a newspaper in the past year. In case you didn’t already know, we’re currently experiencing an economic crisis. How dare you complain about having a job when finding work is so difficult now, especially for students? I also have a hard time understanding the logic behind a strike and the subsequent picket lines. If you really want the support, respect and sympathy of the faculty members, student body and Hamilton community, do you really think you’re going to accomplish that by putting added pressure on professors, holding up traffic and

rerouting buses? No one other than the university administration has control over your pay, benefits, or tutorial sizes. Why should we suffer this cruel and unusual punishment as a result of your unsuccessful negotiations? The vast majority of people does not even know or care what you’re really fighting for. All people see is a hoard of pirates causing a ruckus over a battle that has already been lost. Don’t even get me started on the loitering, carbon dioxide emissions, and wasted gas money that you’re imposing on faculty members and students who are just trying to do their jobs. Don’t you have jobs you should be getting to? Give it up already. You are embarrassing yourselves and disgracing this institution and the students who pay to attend this school. I hope you shiver in the bitter cold and suffer deafening honks, dirty looks and middle fingers until you finally come to your senses. Your efforts are futile. Quit, or shut up and get back to work already.

A10 • THE SILHOUETTE

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Cooking for one

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Cooking for yourself is way better than commons food, microwave food and Gino’s. Alex Steiner I got to residence I brought my pans and I OPINION bought spices. I shopped regularly and tried to make real food to counteract the food It seems like now more than ever cooking that Commons provided. But over time that is a convenience rather than a necessity. As desire caved to convenience and I cooked students we have several options when it less. Then I moved out and started cooking concerns food. We eat out; we eat in. If we again. Real food. And now I’ve run out of eat in we prepare something pre-made or we space on top of my stove because of all the cook. If we cook we cook simple or we cook spice jars. like we’re on the Food Network. Students in It was an odd feeling to talk to residence have even fewer options.You will be people about food and find that those who forced to eat out and if you are the cooking cook real food instead of plastic-wrapped type, then it will be hardest for you, especially meals are by far the minority. I’m not sure if those on your floor dislike people cooking if it’s our culture that has made us lazy or if proper meals while they watch their beloved we’re coming full-circle to the Roman ways shows on TV. of always eating out and leaving the food I was the rarity in residence as I’m preparation to the professionals who know one of those people who love to cook. From what they’re doing and enjoy doing it. meat to full dishes, desserts and random There is, of course, the extreme concoctions of food left over from past opposite to me. I know several people now endeavors, I cooked in residence and now who live off of a combination of supplement that I’m off campus I cook at home. But an shakes, vitamins and various powders to fill in interesting thing happens to us all at the point the chemical building blocks. I suppose they when we move off campus. We can continue are motivated by the annoyance of cooking, to eat out, eating on campus or getting take- or even going out to eat. I’m actually surprised out from neighboring restaurants (see the that a pharmaceutical company hasn’t yet put ever growing tower of Gino’s pizza boxes), out a pill that contains everything a person or we can learn to cook. We decide whether needs for the day. One less human trait to food is a concern or an annoyance. If it’s the have to worry about. latter then the most important tool in the We may try to change our habits as kitchen will inevitably be the microwave. If we grow through university and our eating you grew up with this appliance then you’re habits are no exception. So before you more likely to fall into the category of the commit yourself to a life of take-out or pre“instant cook” as I’ve come to call them. If made frozen meals, consider the alternative you’re one of these people then the vast and try it out. Go outside of campus and buy section of frozen foods in supermarkets is some groceries. Fresh fruits and vegetables. aimed directly at you. Meat that has never touched a block of ice. Ramen noodles will be the basis of Pasta that still has flour on it and breads that most of your meals and your cutlery drawer aren’t squeezed out of tubes. Try your hand will be scarce and devoid of variety. My family at cooking, regardless of whether you’ve ever never had a microwave as my parents were done so before. Eat good food and spend continually around cell phones and felt that the extra money to get the ingredients to they received enough radiation without make it. There are a handful of places to throwing even more into their food. buy groceries within walking distance of Misguided perhaps, but this McMaster and dozens if you jump on a bus. continued up until a few years ago when my Make the effort, try something new, and be sister bought one for the family. Now it sits creative. in the basement and is used for popcorn Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go and the occasional bowl of soup. When take lasagna out of the oven.

THE SILHOUETTE • A11

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2009

The grey hairs are right, we’re lazy as fuck

No support Without a hard working bone in their body, this gen gets by here for TA’s Joe Finkle

Peter Goffin OPINIONS EDITOR

In olden days a glimpse of stocking Was looked at as something shocking, Now heaven knows, Anything goes. - Cole Porter “Anything Goes” Maybe it was Halloween, but I’m starting to think that our generation was better off by far than the children growing up today. Our costumes were better. None of that store-bought plastic crap. And we got better candy. Remember that hard sticky dark brown toffee that came in the orange and black Halloween wrapper and tasted like gasoline? Yeah, that was the good stuff. Kids today don’t know what they missed out on. Then again, maybe things weren’t so great when we were running through the streets as kids. As I recall, that early-90’s candy could break your teeth better than cement block, and I’m sure there were more pathetic bedsheet-with-holes ghost costumes in our day than there were this year. Maybe kids today are a little more discerning than we were, a little more sophisticated in their tastes. Halloween is probably a bad example. Because ask anyone, and they’ll tell you that with regards to almost anything else, the kids today are no good. They’re too soft. They’re too lazy. They don’t care about anything. Well now, there’s a shockingly original expression of concern. Everyone from Adam on down has thought that their younger counterparts were out of control. It was already enough of a cliché for Cole Porter to satirize it 75 years ago. And I’m sure the ancient Greeks thought their kids were spending altogether too much time hanging around and getting stoned with elderly philosophers. But no matter how long they’ve been saying it, I think the oldsters complaining about “kids today” have generally been right. Kids these days aren’t any good. But neither were we. Neither were our parents when they were young. Kids have never

OPINION

Has the age of the strike as a worthwhile measure come to an end? If you gage the pulse of the McMaster undergraduate student population recently, the answer is an obvious and emphatic yes. The actions taken by CUPE representing the university’s Teaching Assistants this week has been met mostly by anger and disbelief. Personally, I believe that the time of the big union championing workers’ rights has passed, but I am not advocating their abolition.The massive, crippling strikes that many of us learn about in history class have no place today. I understand and support the right to strike, but NOT if it is at the primary expense of a third party. The holding of my education, and the education of 20,000 students, hostage is absolutely despicable. I say to those striking that you will not find support here, and that I, and many I have spoken to, are completely taken aback by the outright selfishness displayed. I challenge any of you to talk to some The next generation is always more lazy, but what we lack for in will we make up in.. well, something. of the thousands currently out of been as hard-working or as tough uniquely inactive lifestyle. And we What does it all mean? work in Hamilton and explain to as their predecessors. have technological advancement to Essentially, that kids today are them why you have turned turn an With every generation thank for it. indeed lazy of mind and body, as offer to be paid near $40 an hour. we’ve made life a little bit easier, a Now, it could be argued the grey-hairs have been saying all I challenge you to explain to any little less demanding of toughness that the focus of strength has along. And it isn’t even their fault. student making minimum wage why and ingenuity. That’s cultural shifted from the physical to the They simply happen to have been you have turned down such an offer. evolution. Life has gone from being mental. We do, after all, live in the born into a society that has tried In a time of such uncertainty one a challenge to being a relative information age. So what if we’re too hard to make life livable without would think you would be happy skip through the park in a few getting physically weaker? Our brains physical exertion or mental strain. simply having employment. Simply generations. Of course we’re slowly must be stronger than ever before. No And as long as all that put, you are lucky to have a job. diluting that hard-tack resolve dice. these kids encounter in life are Simply put, you asked the university and stick-to-it-iveness, because Only a select few of us are easily-answered trivia questions, for more and they offered you that’s progress, that’s the aim of forced to grow with new technology. they should be alright. But we’ve more, and yet you turned it down. technological advancement. Sorry They then dumb it down in the automated the cognitive process of It is these plain facts that have most Granddad, we just don’t need to be form of manuals and how-to guides knowledge retention and problem students shaking their heads, and as tough and strong as you did to for the rest of the population to solving. So any curveballs that openly laughing at you. get by.We have computers, we have understand and consume with require more than a computer- Among the people, you central heating, and we have indoor minimal effort. If anything, the generated answer will leave them are hurting are yourselves. The toilets. Internet has served to make helpless. university is saving hundreds of But this is where we’ve information available at the click Tough luck, kids. No one thousands of dollars by not paying committed a misstep. Evolutionary of a button, removing any mental ever meant for cultural progress you, the professors will continue progress is supposed to produce effort from the task of learning. to move us backwards. They to grade our papers (we will just stronger specimens, but our Spell-check, Google, Wikipedia, the were trying to make life easier, have to wait a little longer to get cultural evolution is producing automated thesaurus have all made they weren’t thinking about the them back), and the students get weaker ones. We’re starting to the memorization of information consequences. some more free hours a week. You, atrophy from physical laziness. obsolete. Ask a question of a class- Try to ride it out. With on the other hand, will stand in the The life expectancy of children full of students and they’ll turn a little luck your kids will be even cold and the rain while the bills pile born in North America in the last their gazes to the computer screen, worse off than you are, and you can up and the pay ceases, all the while ten years is expected to be lower not furrow their brows trying to feel generationally superior for the losing the respect of thousands of than their parents’ because of their remember the answer. first time. students. SILHOUETTE FILE PHOTO

Swine, sympathy and a week off

Take the silver lining, it’s only going to get worse from here out • CONT’D FROM A7 pear-shaped. Because we’re adults now. Sort of. In all the bad senses, anyway. We’re expected to know how to deal with life’s basic problems. And after a few years or months, even, of university, we’re supposed to know how to handle that facet of life, as well. So there’s no one to complain to when you have three papers due this Friday, or five exams in a week and a half, or your professor has a speech impediment and isn’t loud enough to hear, at that. You just have to deal with it. “Because you’re old enough and responsible enough to know how.” And because your friends have at least that many problems and possibly more. They’re not going to want to hear about your personal inconveniences. And your parents think you’re a diligent hard-working student prepared for every assignment and test that comes down the pipe. Why spoil that illusion? And that’s just academics. What about that Sunday-hangover, or those pictures you don’t want anyone to see? No sympathy to be found, friend. On your own once again. See, everyone we know is either too involved or too farremoved to feel sorry for any of us. Our friends are experiencing the exact same pain, or are planning to in the very near future and our families don’t really understand the cocktail of agony and terror that is born out of consecutive allnighters at mid-term time, fueled by coffee and grain-alcohol. And

there’s that awful “being mature and responsible” stuff too. It’s only going to get worse from here. The older we get, the meaner our problems will be and the better we are supposed to be at solving them without tears. The hitch is that I’m not as wellprepared for that eventuality as I thought I was. Having been sick I’ve gotten a taste of being the poor helpless patient and, well, I’m hooked on it. Sympathy is a dangerous narcotic. Now I want the tears. I want to fall to pieces whenever adversity comes my way. And I want people to be concerned. I want get-well-soon cards and e-mails, sympathy in every medium, really. And while they’re writing those cards, would it kill people to send another card for my having been wrong about that Swine Flu thing. That was a difficult development, too. Please, feel sorry for me. Aw, it won’t last. I’ll get better and someone else will get sick and everyone will turn their attention away from me and on to them. It’s not fair. But at least I got to be sick for a while. And I’m going to soak up all that glorious sympathy while it lasts. It isn’t every day that I contract a semi-serious illness and attract this much attention. Now, I would never suggest that anyone should go out and actively try to get sick. But opportunities like these only come along every so often. God knows we’re not getting anyone’s sympathy for much else.

A12 • THE SILHOUETTE

SpeculatoR The Hamilton

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2009

INSIDE THE SPECULATOR

A10: Theater TA’s break out into West Side Story at picket lines. C5: “This is almost it” movie review. Ugh. L19: SARS, West Nile, and Avian Flu make agreement to whip swine’s ass to get rep back.

Thursday, November 5, 2009 F I have the swine, so I’d like to meet your parents.

Junior High Model UN sparks WWIII

Despite 9 p.m. curfew, Russia decides to stay and beat up Belarus

Vladimirovichm (on Red Blackberry), calls home to let his mom know that he has to stick around because of high tensions at Leon Troytsky Junior High. She called his father as a result and Vladimirovichm is in more trouble than when he beat up Georgia last week. A two week grounding is expected when he returns home. BUCK HOROWITZ SPECULATOR In the early hours of the morning, several of the world’s nations declared war on each other, marking the beginning of what will surely be an extremely costly conflict. Tensions rose out of a particularly heated meeting of the Model UN Club at Leon Troytsky Junior High School in Hamilton, and what began as a general assembly quickly escalated into a world war. Early reports indicate that Wales had told Bolivia that his mother looked like Kofi Anaan in a dress, after which Bolivia said he

was accepting that as a compliment because Kofi Anaan is a very attractive, accomplished man who, chances are, smells pretty good too, and he would be proud to have him for a mother. But when Wales shot back that she thought the interest fees charged by the World Bank were exorbitant and only perpetuated a black hole of debt for Third World countries, it was on. Violence began around the blackboard in room 201 and spread like wildfire to the auxiliary gym, and then the soccer/baseball/waterpolo field. A mid-day offensive

through the cafetorium ended in stalemate when Myanmar got gravy in her eye and the coalition forces had to turn back to their stronghold of beanbag chairs in the library. Overall, casualties have been high on both sides. The Democratic Republic of the Congo broke his glasses and Armenia can’t find his retainer. And also the club’s faculty supervisor, Mr. Johanssen of the History and Social Studies department, is missing in action. There will be vigils for both the pair of glasses and the retainer starting this evening in front of the second-floor boys’ washroom. Mr. Johanssen’s next of

kin has been notified not to expect him home for dinner. Despite several pleas for action from the international community, the members of the Model UN Security Council will not approve the deployment of Model UN peacekeeping troops. Speculation abounds as to the cause of this inactivity, but some experts say that France is hesitant to intervene in any conflict which involves other European nations, China does not want to draw attention to itself lest its own transgressions in Mongolia be brought to light, and Russia has a 9:00 curfew and her mother is

really super strict like she’ll totally ground Russia for, like, no reason at all. For the innocent bystanders at Leon Trotsky J.H.S., there does not appear to be any end in sight, as leaders on both sides refuse to give up. “We’re just trying to take back the French classroom, which we believe is rightfully our territory,” explained coalition leader Trippi-Lou Leecox, grade 7. “We are confident that we can annex the entire languages department by early spring. And if we have to dig defensive positions in the foyer, then so be it.”

Bake sale proceeds fund library hostages-taker-guys BUCK HOROWITZ SPECULATOR Elsewhere in scholastic violence, a militant McMaster student group has launched a guerilla-style campaign against Mills library. Calling themselves the Readers’ Liberation Front, they have pledged to rape and pillage the campus book-lending system until such time as their demands are met. Says guerilla leader Melvin “Che” Finkelstein, “The library has become a bourgeois oppressor and we think it’s time we limit its power over us. The Magna Carta states that all people are subject to the laws of the land. And the library is no exception. Viva la revolution. Viva Finkelstein.” Asked for comment, one Mrs. Ida Finkelstein, presumed to be his mother said, “I’m just glad to see he’s getting involved with other students. Besides, everyone knows that libraries are just an opiate used by the elites to control an oppressed minority.” Mrs. Finkelstein is suspected by many to have been responsible for the “Death to

Above is an artist’s rendering of the events inside Mills, to the best of his memory. Libraries” rally and bake sale held hijacking book-carrying trucks, want it in the library. They also say earlier this month. and taking reference material out that one of their friends’ friends lost The RLF’s campaign of of the designated area for reading and can’t find one of his contacts attrition has so far included talking reference material. and if anyone finds it could they in an inappropriately loud stage In a statement released please turn it in to the Mills Lost whisper in the library’s quiet areas, by the RLF, the guerillas have and Found. taking out books and then not listed their demands as longer loan They have pledged that all returning them until days after their periods, lower fines, pornography hostaged librarians will be returned due dates, accruing fines in excess on microfiche, and the allowance safely at such time as their demands of 20 cents and not paying them, of food and/or drink wherever they are met and the contact lens is

found. This is not the first time that students have rebelled against the iron fist of the library’s totalitarian power. In 1962 a revolutionary campaign to regulate renewal policies was brought to an end when its ringleader was captured and executed by officials from Thode engineering library.

“What Did You Learn This Week, Timmy?”

“I learned that scabs aren’t always found on your knees.” Disclaimer: Stories printed in The Hamilton Speculator are fact. Any resemblance to persons real or dead is likely intentional and done out of spite. Opinions expressed are those of The Speculator and if you disagree with them you are wrong. And stupid. Possibly ugly as well.

THE SILHOUETTE • B1

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2009

SPORTS

production office: extension 27117

e-mail: sports@thesil.ca

Mac takes down Ottawa in playoff action Marauders earn date with Queen’s after topping Gee-Gees 27-15

PHOTOS C/O JC PINHEIRO / FREESTYLE PHOTOGRAPHY

Joey Nemet gave the Marauders a 20-15 lead with this four yard touchdown run, a lead Mac would never relinquish. Nemet ran for 123 yards and two touchdowns in the win. DAVID KOOTS the scoring on a 37-yard field goal took the ball up the sideline deep right place at the right time. The better throughout the day. Ottawa ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR with the wind behind kicker Matt into Gee-Gee territory. Mac quickly entire secondary played the Ottawa ended up with 12 penalties for Falvo (Welland, ON), the first of his took advantage of the excellent receivers well and Mac refused to 88 yards whereas Mac remained After finishing the year with a 6-2 three field goals on the day. field position and Joey Nemet give up the long pass and as a result disciplined and had only four calls record, the Marauders football team The Marauders would (Burlington, ON) would run the ball the Gee-Gees longest completion against for 21 yards. deserved to host a home playoff tilt. respond by utilizing a fake punt in for a touchdown from two yards was for only 22 yards. Despite not The Marauder offence However, because three other teams to set up great field position. On out. giving up the long ball, the defence was once again spearheaded by the finished with the same record they the Marauders first two punts of The entire drive was set gave up ample yards to the powerful three headed monster that is the were forced to travel to Ottawa on the game, punter Andy Waugh up thanks to an interception by Ottawa offence but stepped up offensive backfield. Quarterback Saturday for the OUA Quarterfinal. (Perth, ON) struggled to find any Ryan Chmielewski (St Catharines, their game when Ottawa got close, Kyle Quinlan (South Woodslee, Despite not having the home field distance against the fierce wind. ON). The Gee-Gees had called for holding the Gee-Gees to three field ON) and running backs Kozina and advantage, the Marauders showed So when Mac had its third chance a screen but Chmielewski read the goals and a major despite netting Nemet would terrorize the Ottawa they were the better team by beating to punt, the coaching staff instead play perfectly and picked off the 548 yards on the day. defence all day. Quinlan would the Ottawa Gee-Gees 27-15 to called for a direct snap to running pass by Ottawa quarterback Brad The Gee-Gees continually finish with 180 yards passing and 48 advance to the OUA Semi-final. back Jordan Kozina (Brantford, Sinopoli (Peterborough, ON). shot themselves in the foot by yards rushing but more importantly The game was immediately ON). Kozina took the ball the Cody Lynch (Stoney committing penalties at crucial he never turned the ball over and impacted by the playing conditions, right sideline where he was met by Creek, ON) also had a stellar day times. A crucial holding penalty allowed the Marauders to win the with the wind blowing strongly and Ottawa tacklers. Instead of going for the defence, making Sinopoli on Ottawa’s first scoring drive battle for field position. disrupting both the kicking and down, Kozina pitched the ball to and his receivers’ day extremely prevented the Gee-Gees from Nemet led the charge for passing games. Ottawa would open Mike Dicroce (Hamilton, ON) who tough by consistently being in the finding the end zone and it got no • PLEASE SEE MAC, B2

Men’s soccer upsets Vets lead Marauders in final games Lancers in playoffs Women’s rugby takes OUA bronze again

BEN ORR

THE SILHOUETTE

Heading into their OUA quarterfinal matchup against the McMaster Marauders, the Windsor Lancers had reason to be confident. Ranked seventh in the nation, the Lancers had beaten Mac twice during the regular season and had earned themselves their best record since 1993, going 8-2-5. Still, it would be the Marauders going home happy. The Halloween afternoon game began with a spirited first half, both teams working the ball effectively but unable to convert on their chances. The deadlock broke early in the second half, as the Lancers ramped up the intensity and began to control play. The momentum culminated when Ryan Wise (St. Thomas, ON) gave the Lancers their only lead of the game in the 49th minute. The stress level of McMaster coach Dino Perri undoubtedly rose as the end of the second half grew closer, but he would find relief in the 72nd minute. Following a Khalil Rajan (Markham, ON) corner and a scramble in front of Lancer goalie Dan Mendonca (London, ON), Marauders’ midfielder Kyle Grootenboer (Brantford, ON) buried the ball and tied the game at one. After the remaining regular time solved nothing, the game entered a 30 minute overtime period. Despite numerous chances − including an open net for the Lancers which was cleared off the line by McMaster defenders − the teams remained deadlocked. A five man shootout would decide the winner of the OUA clash. For this Marauders team, it was familiar territory. Three days earlier they had defeated the Guelph Gryphons in similar fashion, a come-from-behind shootout victory, with captain Anthony Costa (Stoney Creek, ON) making the final strike, sending his team to Windsor. The shootout began as much of the game had gone, with both teams netting three goals on five chances to keep the game all

tied up. The Marauder goal scorers were For their sixth shooter, the Lancers would turn to keeper Mendonca. In the goalie-on-goalie matchup, the Marauders would come out on top, with Matthew Grant (Hamilton, ON) making the diving save. With the chance to send the Windsor faithful home disappointed, Omar Nakeeb (Mississauga, ON) stepped up and sent the ball just out of the reach of the Lancer goaltender, giving the Marauders their second nail-biting victory of the week. The win sends the Marauders to Toronto next week to compete at the OUA Final Four for the first time since 1994. In any other year the Marauders would have likely entered as heavy underdogs, but Saturday was a strange day in OUA soccer as three of the four favourites were knocked out. The most surprising was the Western Mustangs’ 1-0 defeat of the York Lions, who had come into the match ranked No. 1 in the country and first in the OUA West. The Lions loss means the defending CIS champions will not travel to Langley, BC to defend their title. In the OUA East quarterfinals, the Carleton Ravens upset a strong Queen’s Gaels team 4-2 in penalty kicks. The only favourite to move on was the Toronto Blues who defeated Laurentian 4-0 and will enter the weekend as heavy favourites. Toronto was rewarded for their victory by being named the country’s top team, leapfrogging several squads from their fourth place ranking. McMaster kicks off the tournament on Nov. 7th at 11:30 a.m. against the Ravens with all games available on www.ssncanada. ca. The Ravens are ranked tenth in the country while Mac remains unranked, but if last weekend was any indication, none of the ranked teams are safe in OUA soccer. A win would put the Marauders in the gold medal game and would qualify the team for a trip to Langley. The team’s second game will be Sunday, check online for the time.

ON), Anna Parulski (Alliston, ON), Melanie Tri (Nepean, ON), Allison Morris (Stoney Creek, ON) and In the opening minute of the Lindsay Yuille (Landsdowne, ON) McMaster women’s rugby team’s put in a spirited effort to take home bronze-medal match against the their second consecutive OUA Queen’s Gaels, Nina Bui went bronze medal, leading their team down to the ground, clutching her to victory one final time. Flanker right calf in pain, and casting doubt Gina Leach (Barrie, ON) is also on whether the Russell Division graduating from the team after this MVP would be able to play the rest season. of the game. “This week was a game of Instead, she got up, walked pride. The girls really dug deep, it it off, and led her team to a 24-0 was about the fourth and fifth year win in the final match of her storied players that were graduating and OUA career. played their last game on the home Bui (North York, ON), field, and we played for them,” along with fourth and fifth-year said Head Coach Sandro Fiorno, veterans Sarah Van Hoof (Lindsay, emphasizing that the girls would BRIAN DECKER SPORTS EDITOR

have preferred to be playing for the gold medal, but found their focus and put forward their best effort. A win last week against the Western Mustangs would have put McMaster in the final, and given them a ticket to the CIS championship in Vancouver. Using a stiff tailwind to their advantage, Van Hoof and Natasha Turner (Ottawa, ON) put the Marauders ahead early with tries in the game’s first five minutes. Turner would add another try in the second half, as would Russell Division Rookie of the Year Maggie Cogger-Orr (Thornhill, ON), effectively squashing any hope for a • PLEASE SEE SEVEN, B3

CHRISTOPHER CHANG / SILHOUETTE STAFF

OUA All-Star Sarah Van Hoof scored an early try to help the Marauders to a 24-0 win in her final game.

B2 • THE SILHOUETTE

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Mac to face Queen’s in semifinal

ALEX SMYTH / THE FULCRUM

Kyle Quinlan quarterbacked Mac to the second round of the playoffs.

• CONT’D FROM B1 the ground game and finished with 123 yards along the turf. While Nemet carried the rock, Kozina took advantage of several coverage mismatches and had three catches for 114 yards. Kozina’s biggest catch happened with Mac up by a score of 20-15 and needing to close Ottawa out. A play action fake left Kozina wide open downfield and Quinlan connected with his star running back for a 65-yard major that effectively closed out the game. The special teams played a crucial role, and proved a key to the victory. Late in the fourth, with the Gee-Gees in Marauder territory, Ottawa attempted a fake field goal that would have extended their drive and possibly won the game. But McMaster forced an awkward pass that could not be brought in by the open Gee-Gee, ending the drive. The Marauders now travel to Kingston for a match against the top-seeded Queen’s Gaels on Saturday. In their regular season meeting, Queen’s came out on top 8-7 in a low scoring affair. In that game, star quarterback Danny

Brannagan (Burlington, ON) was hurt in the first half, which Queen’s supporters will point to for the low point total. But to counter, Quinlan had yet to take control of the Mac offence, so Queen’s has yet to see the Marauder offence at its best. Once again the defence will rely on Lynch and Chmielewski to shut down a powerful Gaels’ offence. In the other OUA Quarterfinal, CIS all-time passing leader Michael Faulds (Eden Mills,

ON) led his Western Mustangs to a 37-18 victory over the Guelph Gryphons. Western will now go on the road to face the second-seeded Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks. The winner of that game will face the winner of the Mac-Queen’s tilt for the Yates Cup the following week. Kickoff for the Marauders is at 1 p.m. in Kingston and will be shown live on The Score with the Mustangs-Golden Hawks game to follow at 4:30 p.m.

PHOTO C/O JC PINHEIRO / FREESTYLE PHOTOGRAPHY

Jordan Kozina had a clutch 65-yard catch in the 4th to seal the victory.

Women claim silver, off to CIS nationals MIKE CHONG

THE SILHOUETTE

The women’s cross country team had their best result in program history, capturing silver at the OUA Cross Country Championships last Saturday at Brock University. According to head coach Rory Sneyd, the game plan was to have the top five Marauders place in the top 20 overall – plain, simple, but easier said than done. Sure enough, the women did their coach one better, scoring 7-11-13-17-19, securing a comfortable 38-point lead over the third place Queen’s Gaels. Notable performances by Jessica Pearo (Richmond Hill, ON), Sara Giovannetti (Dundas, ON), and Jillian Wyman (Dundas, ON) highlighted McMaster’s silver win

at the OUA championship. Pearo, a third year veteran, led McMaster placing seventh overall with a time of 17:57, which earned her the accolade of OUA first team All-Star for the third consecutive year. Giovannetti and Wyman were named OUA second team All-Stars because of their day’s work, finishing with times of 18:23 and 18:28 respectively. With a star-studded roster, McMaster’s cross country women’s team have a realistic shot to contend for gold at the CIS Championships on Saturday, Nov. 14, hosted by Queen’s University. The Marauders, the no. 2 ranked team in the country, had a strong showing at the OUA Championships, but in order to contend for the gold they will need to make up some ground on

the dominating Guelph Gryphons. McMaster came second to Guelph at the OUA Championships, where Guelph’s top five runners all placed in the top 10 and as a team finished with a total score of 30 points, 37 better than McMaster. Guelph has now won the OUA Champions in five consecutive years and more impressively has won the CIS Championship the past three years, so this will be no walk in the park. If the McMaster team is to stifle Guelph’s cross country dynasty, the women will have to turn in a series of personal bests and have a collectively strong outing from the entire team. The men’s cross country team had an off year in 2009, falling to sixth place at the OUA Championships and consequently

failing to qualify for the CIS Championships. Last year, they claimed fifth place in the OUA Championships, but this time, the battle for the fifth and fourth positions were much tighter with the Toronto Varsity Blues claiming fourth with 130 points and the Western Mustangs narrowly missing out at fifth-place with 132 points. The Marauders scored 18-24-26-40-47, totalling 155 points. The Guelph men proved to be even more dominating than the women, taking first place overall with 17 points. This is the third lowest point total possible as Gryphon runners finished 1-2-3-5-6. The first three Marauders to cross the finish line were veterans Larry Abbott (Sarnia, ON) and Jonathan Little (London, ON), as

well as rookie Taylor Reid (Terra Cotta, ON) at times of 31:44, 32:09, and 32:16 respectively. The men had hoped to place better and move on to the CIS Championships but the silver lining amidst the clouds is the performance of Reid, who placed 26th overall and third for McMaster at his first OUA Championship. “I was really impressed with rookie Taylor Reid, who raced like a veteran,” commented Captain Abbott on Reid’s performance. With the cross country season over, some of the men will now focus on the Track and Field season while others will take time off before returning for the 2010 cross country season, a year in which the Marauders hope to improve on this year’s placing.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Water polo teams split weekend matches FRASER CALDWELL SILHOUETTE STAFF

McMaster’s water polo teams posted identical results this past weekend, beating the York Lions on Sunday morning before losing to the University of Toronto later the same day. The men’s team kicked off their doubleheader with a 9-5 demolition of the Lions, on the strength of an incredible five-goal performance from national standout and Marauder rookie Jack Park (Waterdown, ON). His brother Graham would contribute a goal of his own, rounding out McMaster’s scoring alongside tallies from Ian Stanley (Hamilton, ON), Robert Hale (Dundas, ON), and Tristan Colterjohn (Hamilton, ON). However, it would be the Marauders turn to be dominated later, as they fell 17-6 to the defending OUA champions from Toronto. Despite another strong performance from the Park brothers, who combined for five of the six McMaster goals, they would prove unable to deal with the constant pressure of the Varsity Blues. The rout was led by a five goal effort from University of Toronto freshman Alan Chung (Ajax, ON). With the loss, the Marauders’ record dropped to an even 3-3, good for

THE SILHOUETTE • B3

Men’s rugby off to Queen’s First-round win gives Mac shot at redemption

third in the OUA standings behind Toronto (5-0) and Carleton (5-1). The women’s team enjoyed a similarly dominant start to their Sunday slate, blowing out the York Lions by a score of 10-3. Leading the way for the Marauders was Carleigh Carter (Ottawa, ON) with four goals in the romp. Rookie Bryn Sutherland (Hamilton, ON) added a pair, with Kate Feather (Rockwood, ON), Danielle McCallum (Ancaster, ON), Chaneesa Ryan (Hamilton, ON), and Olivia Wells (Stoney Creek, ON) completing the scoring for McMaster. Much like their male counterparts, the McMaster women would be humbled by the Varsity Blues to close out their day. After the Marauders jumped out to an early Lucas McIvor (left) and Sam Roberts (right) both scored tries in McMaster’s 15-0 win over Laurier. 2-0 lead in the first quarter, Toronto asserted its dominance, streaking to a 12-4 victory. Chaneesa Ryan led McMaster in a losing cause with a pair of goals, with Nadine Asmis (Toronto, ON) and Carleigh Carter chipping in one each. The Blues’ convincing victory was fuelled by the impressive five goal efforts of Nicole Brown (Burlington, ON) and Casey Pottier (Kitchener, ON). The men see their next action on Wednesday night, when they travel to London to take on the Western Mustangs. The women will enjoy a week off before an away rematch with Toronto on Monday.

CHRISTOPHER CHANG / SILHOUETTE STAFF

Seven Marauders conclude careers with bronze medals

CHRISTOPHER CHANG / SILHOUETTE STAFF

Nina Bui was named MVP of the OUA Russell Division. • CONT’D FROM B1 The program is great, the sport is Queen’s second half comeback. great. Just being a part of this team The Marauder defence proved to just helped me grow a lot, and I be impenetrable, barely allowing owe a lot to my teammates over the the Gaels to threaten reaching the five years here to help me be the end zone and stopping any runs player that I’ve become,” said Bui, with suffocating force that left no a fifth-year Communications and question as to who was the top team. Sociology double major. Van Hoof was also The announcement of Bui as the league’s MVP last week came effusive in thanking her teammates. on the heels of a season that saw the When asked about her and Bui’s 5’1” centre score six tries in the accomplishments over the five regular season and lead the team to years, the 5’7” prop made sure to mention Yuille and her other a 4-1 record. Van Hoof was also named graduating teammates first. The bronze medal win MVP in 2006, and the two have been the pillars of the program, caps off a season which saw the which has grown by leaps and Marauders lose to just two teams the no. 2 nationally ranked Guelph bounds since their arrival. “They built a foundation Gryphons and the no. 5 ranked for the future of this program to Mustangs. The two programs have move forward. This program 4 or combined to win all but one OUA 5 years ago was an 0-6 team, over championship in the sport’s 14-year the last four years we’ve lost three history, but the Marauders’ 2009 games… we can’t replace them, campaign serves notice that there but we’ll build around their legacy” is a new contender for the OUA said Fiorno, who rounded out a crown. In addition to sweeping McMaster sweep of the Russell Division awards in being named the major Russell Division awards, five Marauders were named to the Coach of the Year. “Five years – a great division All-Star team, including experience. Coming in here I was a Bui, Van Hoof, Turner, Cogger-Orr newbie, and every year I just built. and Kirsten Shedden (Barrie, ON).

CHRISTOPHER CHANG / SILHOUETTE STAFF

Back row Richard Andrews tries to avoid a Laurier player in the first half of Mac’s OUA quarter final win. BRIAN DECKER Mac’s second try after a total team players. Noble becomes the sixth SPORTS EDITOR effort to reach the goal line, and player from last season’s OUA Shawn Windsor (Stoney Creek, Championship-winning team to go It was déjà vu all over again for ON) added a 30-yard penalty kick down with a season-ending injury, the Laurier Golden Hawks, who to his conversion of McIvor’s try to joining the likes of Joel Waldock for the second time in a month give Mac a double-digit advantage. (Tottenham, ON), Chris Dickenson came to play the McMaster men’s Second-year outside centre Sam (Oakville, ON) and Andrew rugby team and were shut down Roberts (Oshawa, ON) was also key Housley (Burlington, ON) on the by a tough Marauder defence. This in Mac’s defence, and was named sidelines. time, however, it came in the OUA Man of the Match for his efforts. The win gives McMaster quarterfinals, and McMaster lives to “Persistence was key not only a rematch of last year’s play another day while the Golden today. The wind was such a big OUA final, but also a chance for Hawks are done for the season. factor in the game, and Shawn redemption and pride against On a very windy day Windsor gave us composure in the Queen’s Gaels in a semifinal which made finesse passing and different situations. I thought Mike match up. The Gaels destroyed communication difficult, the Sheppard was outstanding today, the Marauders 59-5 on Sept. 26, Marauders played a disciplined playing back row and flanker,” said giving a sobering wakeup call in a second half and held their ground Head Coach Dr. Phil White, noting season that has seen its fair share of for the whole match, coming out on the dominance of Mac’s defence in adversity. top with a 15-0 victory and trip to the second half. “All we can do is focus on the OUA semi-finals. Once in the lead what we do… we’re hungry, and Mike Sheppard (Brampton, comfortably, McMaster eased up we get better as the season goes on, ON), who switched to lock for the slightly and took three yellow cards, and although they can’t help but first time in the game, got things giving Laurier some halftime hope think they’re gonna beat us because started off right for McMaster, for a comeback, especially with they beat us big [last time], the touching the ball down in the end the wind now in their favour. The playoffs are different. We’re pretty zone just over five minutes into the maroon and grey made sure this confident,” said White, who is game. was not to be, however, working proud to emphasize that Marauder McMaster shut down with the referee well in the second rugby teams have always improved the Hawks’ offensive attack right stanza and preventing the Hawks as the playoffs go on. Last season, from the get go, using a first half from taking advantage of long, the Gaels defeated Mac in regular downwind advantage to keep the downwind kicks. season play, but fell to the maroon ball in the Laurier end. Sheppard Unfortunately for the and grey in the championship game. helped anchor the squad on defence, Marauders, inside centre Kevin The Marauders will be looking to throwing down a massive hit in the Noble (Dundas, ON) went down find their playoff spark, and punch second half and setting the tone with a broken wrist early in the a ticket back to the finals to defend for Mac’s intense playoff effort. game, adding to McMaster’s the Turner Trophy. The game kicks Lucas McIvor (Guelph, ON) scored already crowded sick bay of rugby off at 1 p.m. in Kingston.

B4 • THE SILHOUETTE

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Women lose to Lions 2-1, season over year with 14, which was six more than the Waterloo Warriors scored as a team. The Marauders closed out the half on a high note when they took advantage of a throw-in deep in York territory. McMaster would carry their momentum into the second half and came out ready to play. The team got close to tying it all up when they were rewarded backto-back free kicks from the edge of York’s 18-yard box but neither kick would result in a goal. Mac’s pressure finally paid off when in the 68th minute a York defender cleared the ball from deep in her territory straight through her own box and after Mac took control the ball reached Kristen Lowe (Acton, ON) who would score the Marauders’ first goal against the Lions in 2009. Haley Marler (Ancaster, ON) proved to be a thorn in the Lions side all day as she continually threatened to score on long runs. Marler had a pair of close calls with the Lion’s keeper that culminated Keeper Michelle Spadafora and the rest of the Marauders fell 4-3 in a season ending shootout versus York. in a hard collision that saw both DAVID KOOTS The game was played Star Ami Otaki (Kanagawa, Japan). players crash to the ground. ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR in poor conditions with the wind Campbell received the ball at the With the score still tied playing a significant role. Most high top corner of the 18-yard box and after 90 minutes, a 30 minute The women’s soccer season ended balls and long shots were drastically blasted it into the right corner of the overtime period was needed. York on Saturday after being defeated in affected, forcing both teams to net. winger Nicole Markowitz (Toronto, penalty kicks 4-3 against the top- adjust as the game went on. Despite the early goal, ON) had the best chance in overtime seeded York Lions. The game ended The teams exchanged the Marauders kept the game when she used her speed to get past in a 1-1 draw and following an early scoring chances but as the close by limiting the number of the defence after a Mac corner additional 30 minutes of overtime half wore on the Lions began to quality scoring chances by York. In was quickly cleared the other way. the game went to a shootout, where take control and were rewarded in particular, the defence played Otaki The Lions would have one final York’s last shooter closed out the the 27th minute. Nicole Campbell extremely well, something that few shot to end the game when they match. With the win, York now (Scarborough, ON) capitalized on teams have been able to do all year were awarded a free kick from a advances to the OUA Final Four. a beautifully placed corner by All- long. She led the league in goals this dangerous location right before the WILL VAN ENGEN / PHOTO EDITOR

end of the overtime period but they failed to capitalize on this chance, sending the game to penalty kicks. In the shootout, Mac jumped out to an early 2-0 lead when Tara Dawdy (Burlington, ON) and Samantha Batten (Hamilton, ON) both scored with low shots to the corners. Keeper Michelle Spadafora (Dundas, ON) would then shine by stopping the Lions’ first shooter on two separate occasions as the shooter’s first shot was called back due to early movement off the line. But York’s second shooter was Otaki, who lived up to her billing by placing the ball perfectly behind Spadafora. Marler would shoot next and failed to score after hitting the crossbar, allowing York to tie it up on their next shot. Lowe would give Mac back the lead by executing a perfect chip into the net but after another York score tied the game once again, Maria Cusimano (North York, ON) sailed her shot over the net. This left it up to Lion Gina Kripotos (Vancouver, BC), who scored York’s biggest goal of 2009 to avoid the major upset. The Lions now advance to the weekend’s Final Four, while the Marauders end a season of highs and lows. Mac started slowly, going 1-3-2 in September before finishing the year as one of the OUA’s hottest teams with a 6-3-1 record in October and handily defeating Western 4-1 in the playoff’s first round. Look for the team to start quickly next year in order to contend with the OUA West’s top teams in the 2010 season.

Mac stands tall against NCAA teams BRIAN DECKER SPORTS EDITOR

As if beating up on their CIS opponents this preseason wasn’t enough, the McMaster men’s basketball team took their new and improved game to the Big Apple to play a pair of NCAA opponents, continuing to show they are ready to be one of the best teams Canadian hoops has to offer. The Marauders split a pair of scrimmages against Army and defeated Wagner College 71-61 on a stateside trip, concluding their preseason and proving they are ready for the 2009-2010 conference season. Keenan Jeppesen (Stoney Creek, ON) once again paced the Marauders, scoring 31 points against Wagner and leading McMaster’s defensive attack. The first stop on the trip saw Mac take on Army, based out

of West Point Military Academy just north of New York City. Army plays in the Patriot League, an NCAA Division 1 conference in the northeast United States. The teams played two one-half scrimmages, with Army taking the first 32-27, while the second scrimmage saw the Marauders come back and take a 32-27 victory of their own. A trip to the City that Never Sleeps was next up for McMaster, who traveled to Staten Island for a game against the Wagner Seahawks, a Division 1 team in the Northeast Conference. Jeppesen’s 31 points came in handy as the Marauders stopped a second half comeback by the Seahawks to pull away for the win. Guard Jermaine DeCosta (Hamilton, ON) and centre Ryan Christie (Hamilton, ON) went to the bench early in the game after picking up two quick fouls each,

but the situation merely gave the Marauders a chance to show off their considerable depth. Rookie guard Victor Raso (Hamilton, ON) filled it to control the offence, and forward Cam Michaud (Grimsby, ON) helped control the glass, grabbing seven rebounds. Wagner made a run in the fourth quarter to cut the Marauder lead to five, but the maroon and grey turned to Jeppesen to close the deal. The 6’7” forward made two key jump shots to pad the lead and give McMaster the win. Second year guard Scott Laws (Gormley, ON) scored all 12 of his points in the second half, continuing to show his presence this season as a viable scoring option on the wing. Playing against a quick, scrappy Wagner squad, the Marauder successfully used a small lineup to adapt to the Seahawks’ defence and work their halfcourt

sets. Christie was the only true post player to play for the Marauders, with forwards Jeppesen, Michaud and Matt Wilusz (Stoney Creek, ON) filling in to patrol the paint. McMaster will tip off their regular season this Friday

against Royal Military College and Saturday against the Queen’s Gaels. The Marauders, ranked fourth in the nation in the season’s first rankings, will play their home opener Nov. 13 against the Toronto Varsity Blues at Burridge Gymnasium.

THE SILHOUETTE • B5

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Men’s volleyball cruising along Western drops FRASER CALDWELL SILHOUETTE STAFF

The country’s second-ranked volleyball team continued to show why it warrants that honour this past weekend, as the Marauders victimized the Windsor Lancers (25-12, 21-25, 25-17, 25-23) and Western Mustangs (26-24, 2523, 27-25). The successful road trip brings McMaster’s record to a perfect 4-0 to begin conference play, and sets up an intriguing home matchup with fellow undefeated squad Queen’s (4-0), whom the Marauders defeated to win the OUA title last season. If nothing else, the team can take heart from the hardfought nature of their wins this past weekend, which both involved their fair share of adversity. Friday’s encounter with Windsor saw the Marauders lose their first set of this young season, before closing out the Lancers in four. Initially, the game looked set for a quick conclusion, as McMaster turned in a dominant start to take the first set 25-12. However, the Lancers were not to be routed, and

would rebound admirably in the second frame, eking out a 21-25 win in the process. With the game tied at a set apiece, the Marauders grabbed the initiative once again, storming to a 25-17 victory in the third. The fourth would finally see both teams playing on even form, with the sides exchanging leads before McMaster stole the set, and the match, at 2523. All-star veterans Tyler Santoni (Kingston, ON) and Jeremy Groenveld (Welland, ON) led the Marauders with 17 points each, followed by an impressive 14 point performance from rookie Tyson Alexander (Shanty Bay, ON). Setter Ryan Hudson (Winnipeg, MB) provided the creative spark with a total of 47 assists on the night. Saturday’s match with Western proved to be an even tighter affair than that of the night before, with the Mustangs pushing their nationally-ranked opposition to the limit despite losing in straight sets. With no set being won by more than two points, the deciding factor in a given frame was more often than not, McMaster’s focus and

resolve under pressure. These traits were on display at the end of the third set, when the Marauders found themselves a point away from defeat at 23-24. After blocking an effort to square the set, McMaster fired a serve long, giving the Mustangs the lead once again. But when Western missed a dig, tying proceedings at 25, Mac produced a crucial block to grab the advantage. With the match on the line, the Mustangs would flinch, botching a play at net to gift the match to their opponents. Jeremy Groenveld once again led the Marauders to victory, with a team-leading total of 16 points, including 15 kills. Setter Ryan Hudson set a game high with 32 assists in the win. With wins against two wily opponents, the Marauders prepare for what will be their toughest test of the season against Queen’s at home on Friday night, with the winner taking sole possession of first place in the OUA standings. The next night, McMaster welcomes the 0-3 Royal Military College to the Burridge Gym. Both games will be played at 8 p.m.

Mac to 2-1

PHOTO C/O LARRY SKELLY

The 4-0 Marauders will play the 4-0 Queen’s Gaels this weekend in a battle of OUA titans.

PHOTO C/O LARRY SKELLY

Mac hosts wrestling invitational BEN ORR

THE SILHOUETTE

The annual McMaster Invitational wrestling tournament was held this past weekend, with teams from all over Canada and the United States making the trip to Hamilton to compete. Top performers for the Marauders included Carter Nicoll (Toronto, ON) and Sean House (Hagersville, ON), who finished third in their respective weight classes. This season is full of promise for the Marauders, with returning veterans and impressive recruits looking to make a splash on the OUA wrestling scene. For the men, top competitors include Kevin MacLellan (Hamilton, ON), Sean House, Ryan Blake (Hamilton, ON) and Dusan Milakara (Toronto, ON). In 2008-09, MacLellan was the Provincial Junior champion, captured OUA bronze and finished eighth at the CIS tournament. Wrestling in the 82kg class on

Saturday, MacLellan hopes to improve on past successes. House, finishing third the 90kg category last weekend, is also an OUA bronze medalist and finished sixth at the CIS tournament last year. Wrestling in the 68kg class is another OUA bronze winner, Ryan Blake. Blake hopes to improve on his impressive seventh place showing at the CIS tournament last year. Leading the way for the men is Milakara, last year’s Ivory Wynne Trophy recipient as McMaster’s top athlete. A former Junior National champion and World Team member, Milakara captured OUA and CIS silver last season. Caitlyn Goodfellow (Barrie, ON) and Sydney Duggan (Orillia, ON) lead a strong women’s team. Goodfellow was the OUA silver medalist both 2007 and 2008, adding a sixth place finish at the CIS competition. The rookie Duggan,

McMaster’s top female wrestling recruit, is a former Junior and Juvenile Provincial and National champion. She also added OFSAA silver and a Canada Games bronze medal to her trophy case last season. On Saturday, she finished sixth in the 51kg class. Other top finishers for the Marauders included Adam Benish (Hamilton, ON), who finished fourth in the 130kg category, Stephen Tricarico (Woodbridge, ON) who finished fifth in the 65kg class, Allan Middleton, who finished sixth, also in the 65kg class and MacLellan, who finished fourth wrestling in the 82kg class. The Brock Badgers, defending CIS champs, took the men’s team title, on the back of Jake Hergenhein’s performance in the 57kg class. McMaster finished fifth with 18 points. On the women’s side, Cumberland took the top spot, with strong performances from Katy Yoder and Lauren Louive in the 55kg and 63kg classes, respectively.

Larissa Puhach led Mac with 25 points against Windsor and Western. FRASER CALDWELL 5 service aces, and would receive SILHOUETTE STAFF McMaster’s player of the game award for her efforts. It was a tale of two halves for the The powerful Larissa McMaster women’s volleyball team Puhach (Burlington, ON) had 11 this past weekend. The Marauders points with a team-leading 11 began their two-game road trip by kills, and rookie Kailee Stock thumping the Windsor Lancers on (Newmarket, ON) also contributed Friday night (25-9, 25-10, 25-18), 11, including 7 kills and 4 service allowing them to score only 24 aces. points in the entire game. The Halloween match up Saturday saw a total with the Mustangs would be an reversal of Mac’s fortunes, with the entirely different proposition for Marauders losing their first game McMaster, as they were defeated of the season in straight sets to the in straight sets. The first frame was Western Mustangs (28-30, 16-25, fiercely competitive, and offered 20-25). The loss drops the women the greatest chance for a Marauder to 2-1 on the season, and puts them victory, with momentum constantly in a three-way tie for third in the swinging between the two sides. OUA West division. However, it would be the Mustangs On Friday, the Marauders would who come out on top after an were on fine form, demonstrating exhausting battle, winning the first their superiority over a struggling set 30-28. Windsor side which has yet to The disheartening loss of win this season. The McMaster such a close set seemed to take the onslaught began early, with the sting out of the McMaster attack, Marauder’s earning a quick 5 point as they would never again manage lead in the opening set. to mount a similar effort. Instead, From there, the rout was Western rode out their momentum, on, and the first set would finish taking the second set rather easily with the score a lop-sided 25-9 in at 16-25, and closing out the match favour of the visitors. After Windsor with a score of 20-25 in the third grabbed an early lead in the second and deciding period. Larissa Puhach frame, McMaster stormed back into led the Marauders in a losing cause, the driver’s seat, winning 11 straight contributing 14 points, including points to take a 16-2 stranglehold an impressive 12 kills, and a single on the set. With such an advantage, ace. it was hardly surprising when the With their first loss behind Marauders closed out the second them, McMaster looks to rebound with a 25-10 score line. this coming weekend, with two Windsor would raise their games at home in Burridge Gym. game somewhat in the third, but They will meet the Queen’s Gaels their opponents proved to be too on Friday and the winless Royal much, closing out the set and the Military College Paladins on match at 25-18. Shannon McRobert Saturday. Both games are set to (Whitby, ON) led the Marauders start at 6:00 p.m. in the Burridge with 12 points, including 6 kills and Gymnasium.

B6 • THE SILHOUETTE

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2009

THE SILHOUETTE • B7

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2009

INSIDEOUT

Sometimes it’s okay to be grumpy. Lifestyle tidbits, B8

production office: extension 27117

e-mail: insideout@thesil.ca

Dr. Anne-Marie Zajdlik opening Tespong Clinic, literally translated as “A Place of Hope.”

Bracelet of Hope

Mac Alumnus Dr. Zajdlik fighting to end AIDS pandemic in Lesotho PHYLLIS TSANG

ASSISTANT INSIDEOUT EDITOR

“Are you going to help the people who are [HIV] positive?” A South African crossing guard at South Africa’s border asked Dr. Anne-Marie Zajdlik on her way to Lesotho, a landlocked nation surrounded by South Africa, where her HIV treatment clinic is located. “You bet I am,” Dr. Anne-Marie Zajdlik, a mom, a family doctor, a McMaster alumni, and HIV/AIDS activist, recorded in her journal, “all 300,000 of them.” Her battle against the global HIV pandemic, which brought her to Lesotho, began in Canada. Dr. Anne-Marie Zajdlik attended McMaster medical school after studying three years at University of Guelph in Biomedical Science and Human Biology. In 1987, during her second year at McMaster, Zajdlik studied an elective in Infectious disease at Dalhousie University in Halifax and worked with a team that was treating the first HIV-positive patient on the east coast. “He,” referring to the first HIV-

How-to-do-it

positive patient, “was left by his partner, disowned by his family, and deserted by medical staff,” Zajdlik remembered, “nurses were afraid, even cleaning staff wouldn’t go into his room.” At that time, Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine, a 3000 pages textbook used by medical students, internists and junior doctors, only had a paragraph on HIV. Stigma, fear, and a lot of unknown surrounded the then 6-year-old incurable disease. “ I was quite moved by his isolation,” Zajdlik said. She spent hours sitting at his bedside talking to him. The depth of his pain, his incredible strength, and his will to survive inspired her to go back and study more. Zajdlik opened her family practice in 1989, right after graduating from McMaster, and began treating HIV positive patients. By 2002, her clinic became the only remaining HIV-treating facilities in southwestern Ontario. The HIV positive population in her practice had grown to an overwhelming number of 75.

PHOTOS C/O DR. ANNE-MARIE ZAJDLIK

What followed were a series of doors miraculously opened and strings anonymously pulled. First, she was invited to speak in front of the AIDS Bureau Clinic Directors. Then, with the help of the AIDS Bureau funded by the Ministry of Health, and a health planner whom she was told to hire, a team of thirty “all passionate, all eager and all ready to work” professionals came together and became The Regional HIV Clinic Planning Committee. She was no longer alone and a regional HIV clinic was forming. In 2004, Zajdlik and her team named the yet-to-be-born clinic, “The Masai Centre for Local, Regional and Global Health.” Masai was the name of a baby Zajdlik delivered a year earlier at the Guelph General Hospital. He was the first HIV-negative baby born by an HIV-positive mother. “Holding that baby inspired me to open this clinic,” said Zajdlik. The first Masai Centre opened its doors to the public in 2005; Four years later, a satellite clinic was opened in Waterloo. On Dec. 1, 2005, coincidently on

annual World AIDS Day, Zajdlik decided to do something about AIDS in Africa after reading—four times in two weeks—Stephen Lewis’ Race Against Time, a discussion on United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. Zajdlik trail-blazed a campaign to raise one million dollars in support of an HIVtreatment clinic in Leribe, Lesotho, a district in a landlocked nation in southern Africa. The Tsepong Clinic, literally translated from Sesotho, “Place of Hope,” provides life-saving care and antiretroviral (ARV) treatment to this HIV/AIDS-stricken district. According to Stephen Lewis Foundation’s website, 30-40 per cent of the people in Lesotho are already infected, a number which has been growing rapidly since the first reported case in 1986. In December 1999, the Ministry of Heath of Lesotho reported 10,880 cases of “full-blown AIDS.” Six years later, Zajdlik said there are 300,000 people infected with no treatment at all. • PLEASE SEE MAC, B9

Survive the picket line protest

JEFF GREEN

EXECUTIVE EDITOR

Normally, you support unions. You’re dad was a steel worker, and his dad too. Your dad’s dad would have worked on steel given the chance, but grandpa says that they didn’t have steel then. Either way, you’ve got a lot of steel, and know enough people to weld. Despite all that is in your blood to support TA strikes and unions in general, you hate sitting on the university entrance idling your truck while they play Billy Bragg all day long. You’ve got class, and it starts despite the labour strike. You could wake up earlier; give yourself that extra five minutes (or thirty) to get onto campus. But you have an 8:30 and short of a morning blowjob, you’re not waking up for anything. What you need, my brother, is a good ol’ protest-tipper on the front of your two-door accent. You need two 4 x 8 sheets of steel. If you’re not

AVA DIDEBAN / MULTIMEDIA EDITOR

the progeny of a Hamilton steel worker, you can find this in the form of two car hoods at a junkyard. Gather that, a bunch of steel pipes and book it up to Binbrook. In Brindbrook, you’ll find the hicks that oversee Hamilton. While they claim to live in the “country,” they live 5 minutes from Westdale. But these people have the tools and the skills to weld. With your metal hoods and pipes in tow, fasten the two doors to form a point on the front of your car. The metal pipes can be used to reinforce the plates on the front, remember triangles are the strongest shape. If you have any extra pipes left over, you may want to break the glass on your driver side and replace it with pipes. It is a highly effective way to clear out protestors while giving you a space to give them the middle finger at the same time. Your last step will be fill your car up with gas and do what needs to be done. Clean em’ out and pave the way for your fellow students to get to class on time.

NikMust

1st Year PhD French Reformation History Sunglasses: $15 Canadian Tire

Define your personal style: Strike casual.

2010 Olympic Sweater: $30 The Bay Scarf: $30 The Bay

What do you look for in a significant other: An interest in history.

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Favourite Quote: "If there was ever a monk that got to heaven because of his monkery, it was I." - Martin Luther

WILL VAN ENGEN / PHOTO EDITOR

B8 • THE SILHOUETTE

Coining a new travel term

The “Staycation” deemed a relevant concept

S E X AND THE STEEL CITY Sue sexes up Mac once again

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Sex with Sue Johanson CASSANDRA JEFFERY

are portrayed as proper individuals who have been moralized. We do not constitute learning about our Last Wednesday, Oct. 28, the an- sexuality the way men are enabled ticipated cheers coming from 1280 to learn about theirs. Johanson exwere overwhelming as international plained that the difference between sex therapist and television host, men and women, when it comes to Sue Johanson talked sex with an exploring sexuality, is that men, reeager crowd of Mac students. gardless of outside influences will Johanson, a Canadian do as they please. sexual educator and counsellor, Whereas women, “we are has become notorious for provid- terrified of rejection” and incorporing blunt, but honest answers about ate this fear into behaviour that does sexuality. With three novels, num- not allow discovery of ourselves as erous radio programs sexual human beand lectures, and a ings. Johanson broke couple of television Johanson not only down the barriers beshows under her belt, lectures the impor- tween gender sexuJohanson finds time ality and emphasized to tour different uni- tance of good sex the importance and versities, educating education, but she the benefits of feus with the “awksexuality; enintrigues the audi- male ward” sex talk we couraging not only never got from our ence with her knowl- males, but women parents. Johanson edge on how to get as well, to be open may be a grandminded as a sexual mother, but her lec- the best out of your individuals. tures on sex are anyJohanson not own sexuality. thing but awkward. only lectures the “ Ta l k i n g importance of good about sex is far harder than doing sex education, but she intrigues it,” explained Johanson. If you’re the audience with her knowledge going to talk about sex and engage on how to get the best out of your in sexual activity then you should own sexuality. She defies the myths be educated and be confident in that imply sex as this mind blowing, making well informed decisions. Hollywood, extravagant, makes you Johanson discussed everything scream 10 off the Richter scale kind from sex toys to diseases. Her intent of ordeal that propaganda and Jenna was to make sexuality a comfort- Jameson made you believe is real. able subject, open for discussion, Johanson did not deny and of course, enticing to a young that sex has the potential to be oraudience. gasmic and enjoyable, but the key The root problem of sex word here is potential. Similar to education, Johanson said, was that almost anything, good, satisfying it “didn’t do a very good job at giv- sex not only requires practise, but ing you good sex information. We an educated view on the subject. taught you what we thought you The more you understand about sex ought to know but we neglected to and the greater knowledge you have teach you what you need to know, on your own body will only benefit what you want to know, that’s the your ability to communicate with important part.” Instead of lectur- your partner about what you want ing the rights and wrongs of sex, in sex. Johanson helped “fill in the gaps” Although not all decion confusing, personal questions sions about sex turn out to be the dealing with sex so that we can best choice, with Johanson’s hilview sex education as something arious presentation on everything that isn’t negative, but helpful in from male and female reproductive decisions leading up to sex. organs to how to achieve the best Learning about ourselves orgasm, at least they will be wellas sexual human beings, especially informed decisions. Who needs for women, can be a controversial Cosmopolitan when we have Sex issue. Women are “nice girls.” We with Sue Johanson? THE SILHOUETTE

AVA DIDEBAN / MULTIMEDIA EDITOR

This new trend has Home and Garden magazine shouting “genius,” but will young people care? LINDSAY JOLIVET INSIDEOUT EDITOR

Since the economy began to dive in 2007, people have been looking for new ways to live life on a strict budget without holing themselves up in their attics. Things aren’t looking so grim anymore, but we are left with a few creative inventions. One of them probably comes from the minds of those who could not afford to leave their houses on vacation, so had nothing better to do but invent words. I’m talking about the “staycation.” Its origins are about as cheesy as the sound of the word, but media outlets have been giving this concept a great deal of attention over the past two years. It was added to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary in July 2009. Reported to have been used first in an episode of Canadian-made Corner Gas in 2005, the term “staycation” refers precisely to what it seems like it should—a vacation during which individuals don’t travel anywhere too far. Relax in the backyard, head

to some local sights or to the lake, but don’t hit the airport if you’re looking to save some money and fit into this new trend. Although the idea of enjoying time at home isn’t ingenious, the tendency of individuals and families to replace their annual vacations with a stayat-home break over the past two years has been remarkably high. Statistics are mostly available from Britain where the staycation has really caught on. In the summer of 2008, 58 per cent of Brits stayed in the country rather than travelling abroad. In August 2009 Sky News reported that 17 per cent fewer British people went overseas in the first six months of the year. Media outlets from Canada A.M. to CNN have referenced the popularity of the staycation in Canada and the U.S. and its benefits for domestic tourism. In an era that largely supports the local (which has produced another addition to Merriam-Webster, “locavore”: one who eats locally) the staycation is widely supported by many groups.

Environmental groups encourage sticking close to home because it saves gas, energy and supports local business. A common suggestion for a staycation activity is a visit to a local farm or farmers market. Will this trend catch on for starving students and recent graduates? Many advocators of the staycation cite its benefits for working parents that need a break from chores and monotony. Articles in NBC’s family section and Home and Garden magazine support this trend for those with big responsibilities. As many students do not have families of their own and are not generally living nine to five, Monday to Friday lives, a trip to the farmer’s market may not quite cut it as a break from the everyday. If nothing else, this trend can be a reminder for students that there are opportunities for experiences right under their noses. When expensive flights and hotels are not feasible, the staycation reminds us that our options for fun haven’t run out.

TERRY SHAN/ STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Sue’s charisma captured another generation of students last week.

Lifestyle tidbits Get Grumpy

Professor Joe Forgas, a psychology researcher at the University of New South Whales in Australia has reported that occassional grumpiness is good for you. Forgas told Australian Science Magazine, “While cheerfulness fosters creativity, gloominess breeds attentiveness and careful thinking.” Apparently, a slightly downcast mood can help you look at the world in a clearer, more realistic way, making you better able to communicate your ideas. But keep in mind, constant grumpiness probably won’t do much for your relationships.

SILHOUETTE FILE PHOTO

Grumpy deserves some respect.

Rated “N” for not a video game

Clear the streets, because there is now a Dodge minivan that can be controlled via an application on the iPhone. Users can actually hit the gas, brakes, and steer the car around using the phone from a distance. Apparently it works from as far as the fourth floor of an apartment. The car, named “Spirit of Berlin,” was designed by the Artificial Intelligence Group at Berlin’s Freie Universitaet. Hopefully it stays out of the hands of any video-game obsessed adolescents.

THE SILHOUETTE • B9

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Mac Alumni turned AIDS activist Bracelet of Hope offers hope to Lesotho, an HIV-stricken nation • CONT’D FROM B7 “They are all left to die,” Zajdlik said, leaving behind “more than 100,000 orphans.” The first Tsepong Clinic opened in Dec. 1, 2004, also on World AIDS Day. Zajdlik visited and worked at the clinic in August 2006. “I haven’t been the same person since. I will no longer be the same person ever again,” Zajdlik said with a definite tone, “The world is a tough place—a lot of poverty, a lot of suffering; a lot of unnecessary poverty, a lot of unnecessary sufferings.” The goal of a HIV treatment is to bring the amount of virus in a person’s bloodstream down to a number that is undetectable. When the virus is undetectable, it is also non-transmittable. Zajdlik used to prescribe patients with a handful of 7-8 pills three times a day with many side effects. Now, treatment is down to one complete-pill daily with very few side effects. Patients could live normal lives with a normal life span, even though HIV cannot be completely eradicated. In Third World nations, however, there is “[an] absence for HIV-positive pregnant women to have the drug that can prevent the transmissions of virus, and then have the drugs to keep them alive after they’ve given birth,” Stephen Lewis pointed out in a University Seminar on Global Health at Duke University.

According to Lewis, only 30 to 33 per cent have access to drugs to prevent transmission of the virus to their babies. Fifty per cent of the infants that are born HIVpositive die before the age of two and 80 per cent die before the age of five. “It’s so, so destroying that [these women] might not get the antiviral treatment when they need it and worse in their mind would be the birth of an infant who is HIVpositive when the infant doesn’t have to be,” said Lewis. An HIV positive pregnant woman has a 40 per cent chance that the virus will transmit to her newborn. The introduction of ARV (Antiretroviral drug) at sixteen weeks of pregnancy decreases this risk to less than 1 per cent, or to 2 per cent if one dose of an ARV is used at the time of labour, Zajdlik explained. Since the introduction of a national antenatal screening program in Canada in 1996, which provides all pregnant women an opportunity to be tested for HIV and be treated if they are found to be HIV positive at no cost to them, there has not been a child born with HIV in Canada. “The infant could be HIV negative,” said Lewis, referring to the situation in developing nations. The suffering of these children is unnecessary. A study has shown that if everyone who is at risk on the planet is being tested and treated

PHOTO C / O DR. ANNE-MARIE ZAJDLIK

HIV treatment clinics in Lesotho change lives for parents and children in this African country. appropriately, the AIDS pandemic global pandemic of AIDS,” said Za- be sold at $5 each—$1 goes to the could end within six months. All jdlik who is convinced that one na- workers and $4 to the campaign. It that an AIDS-pandemic-free world tion could be AIDS free and set an was a stunning success, according needs is $100 billion. Does that example for the world. to the Bracelet of Hope website. sound like a lot? Well, the Bush ad- In April 2006, six students Successful enough that the “Masai ministration was spending $10 bil- from University of Guelph caught for Africa” campaign changed its lion a month on war in Iraq. onto the campaign and pledged to name to the Bracelet of Hope cam “If ordinary people knew raise $100,000 for the Tespong clin- paign within months. that, and were given the opportu- ics. They hired an African-based Today, the Tsepong clinic nity to take a stand, and have their craft agency, Inina, which em- in Leribe cares for 21,000 HIV posisay on how global money is spent, ployed women to work from home tive patients, with 280,000 more to I believe they’d choose to end the and produce beaded bracelets to go.

Health care around the world

Lecture considers cultural barriers to health AYDA ASKARI THE SILHOUETTE

When faced with the notion of cultural barriers, language is often the first idea that jumps to mind. But as Mac for Medicare—the student run health policy outreach initiative— would have it, this is not the only issue. At a guest lecture given by Dr. Karen Trollope-Kumar (MD, PhD), she argued that there are a multitude of access barriers to globalized health care. To begin, Dr. TrollopeKumar addressed the idea of culture in a variety of definitions. One common definition is a set of “shared traditions, beliefs, and practices.” However, Kumar attacked this definition, which she considered flawed and limited. Consider the example of an immigrant family living in America. As children are enrolled in Westernized schools, they are culturally influenced by their peers and surroundings. Gradually, their cultural attitudes begin to differ

from those of their parents. As such, the lecturer set aside a broad definition of culture. Instead she defined culture as “unconscious rules of engagement”—meaning the subtle cultural aspects that inform our everyday behaviour. One pertinent aspect of the lecture dealt with the study of Indian women living in remote areas. Dr. Trollope-Kumar’s Master thesis was entitled “the Obstetric Emergencies in Himalayan foothills.” She conducted research on the emergency procedures and methods of execution in medical practice in these areas. Her research focused on three levels: identification, decision-making, and type of care. The first step in dealing with a medical emergency, identification, would be subject to initial perception: what is deemed a medical emergency and what is not? The second, decision making, is subject to that of social power: who is qualified to lay judgment on seeking emergency care? And finally, the type of care is reliant on medi-

cal pluralism: should the patient be taken to treatment via a spirit healer or should he/she be given hospitalized assistance? Even if we assume a patient will be treated at the hospital, Dr. Trollope-Kumar elaborated that this decision in itself would set up an additional set of barriers. These barriers include access to roads, the lack of emergency road transport, great travel distances to the nearest hospital, and once there, issues of cost, social power, and fear of possible treatment. All problems considered, it became inevitable that there was a great deal more to the loosely defined term access barriers. Dr. Trollop-Kumar discussed barriers to health care around the world. Another topic of Dr. Trollope-Kumar’s discussion was health (MDRTB) is becoming more and nutrition. The potential for effective issues in Haiti. People in this region more prevalent among such indig- of the world afflicted with HIV are enous people. This MDRTB arises health care around the world is reconsidered more susceptible to Tu- through the failed completion of stricted by various factors. For Dr. berculosis (TB). There arises a dan- TB prescribed drugs as prescribed Trollope-Kumar, it is necessary that ger in the synergy of both diseases. by health care providers, which is individuals and health care physiAlthough TB may be considered due to, again, a network of barri- cians become increasingly aware a disease of the past, an emerging ers—namely clinical attendance of of the barriers to develop better culmulti drug resistant strand of TB patients, cost of drugs, and patient tural care. JONATHAN FAIRCLOUGH / DISTRIBUTION COORDINATOR

B10 • THE SILHOUETTE

A view of your yard, online

Google Street View has Canadians’ attention MANORI RAVINDRAN

CommunityEvents

Nov. 5 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Making Hamilton More Walkable Waterfront Banquet and Conference Centre, Chamber of Commerce, 555 Bay St. N. An update and discussion on how Hamilton can become more pedestrian friendly. Participants can suggest initiatives and discuss issues. Sponsored by the City of Hamilton.

SILHOUETTE STAFF

Google Street View became an overnight sensation upon its launch in Canada earlier this month. The service has been available in the United States since 2007 and has finally made its way up North. Street View, which is integrated into the well-established Google Maps service, provides users with a high-resolution, street-level image of fifteen cities across Canada. With the click of a mouse, Canadians are treated to a 360-degree experience of their desired destination: they are able to zoom in, turn the corner, and tour an entire city. The rising popularity of Google Street View is staggering. One explanation may be the userfriendly interface of the service, which provides arrows, cursors, and highlighted businesses and landmarks to facilitate navigation. Groups especially benefiting from Google Street View are backpackers and tourists who find the sharp images extremely helpful in getting around unfamiliar streets and attractions. And for individuals who have difficulty reading traditional maps, the visual aids will complement ambiguous directions. When surveying students at McMaster, Jane Kree admitted to being a fan of Google’s latest brainchild. “I think it’s awesome. I always use it when searching, even if I know where I’m going.” Kree is among many users who appreciate the Street View photos: “I especially love the feature that allows you to view the map as if you’re walking along the streets. I found I could view my old house as if I was standing in front of it.” Third Year Commerce Student Claudia Zawadowicz, however, had mixed feelings about Street View: “It could be convenient for people looking for directions and unable to visualize their direction. In another sense it can be an exposure of privacy for many people who might not desire this.”

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Nov. 6 from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. Public Intellectuals and Sexual Justice Togo Salmon Hall Room 719 Judith Stacey, professor of Sociology and Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University and author of a book entitled Brave New Families speaks at this lecture presented by the Department of Sociology, Women’s Studies Program, and the Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition. Nov. 6 starting at 7 p.m. A Woman’s Journey, A Photo Voice Project - Opening Gala The Freeway Coffee House, 333 King Street East Images and music project the complexities of a woman’s journey, developed over four months of discussion. Nov. 9 from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. The Empathetic Imagination: Integrating Affect, Reason, and Faith in the University Classroom McMaster University Student Centre Room 224

SILHOUETTE FILE PHOTO

Google Street View shows photos of houses right to the front door. Privacy experts in Canada would agree. Many have expressed alarm over Google Street View’s possible violations of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. The concern stems from Google capturing, storing, and distributing images that may contain personal information without the consent of the individual. Although Google has taken measures to blur the faces of people and license plates documented in the photos, Canadian privacy commissioners insist that further steps, such as prior notice of photo-taking, be implemented by Google to ensure that privacy regulations are upheld. Anxieties over security are also beginning to surface. The CBC recently spoke with Patrick Mates, an Ottawa home security inspector who checks locks, windows, and doors, and provides owners with tips

on how to improve security. Mates advanced that Google Street View could potentially facilitate break-ins and burglaries: “They could choose a house to break into simply by sitting at their computer and going down the street and looking for the most vulnerable ones.” According to Mates, the high-quality images of home exteriors make it too easy to identify sliding doors and windows. Despite the controversy surrounding Street View, Google continues to offer images from over a hundred cities in nine countries including Italy, France, the U.K., and Australia. Although it is currently unclear whether Google is taking measures to restructure its policies in Canada, it is likely that as Street View expands internationally, the public will be forced to decide what they value more: a useful online device or the extent of their own privacy.

Grace Kehler of the Department of English and Cultural Studies and Jean Wilson of the Department of Linguistics and Languages will speak at this event to promote discussion on faith in the classroom. Presented by the Ecumenical Chaplaincy as part of the Faith Matters Series. Nov. 10 from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Exchange Information Session: University-Wide McMaster University Student Centre Room 311/313 International Student Services presents an information session about institutions abroad with which McMaster has exchange agreements. Come out to look into studies around the world. Nov. 11 from 12 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. HIV and Children McMaster University Downtown Centre Sandi Siegel, Associate Clinical Professor for the Department of Pediatrics and Jose Franco, Director of Support Services for the Hamilton AIDS Network give practical assistance and emotional support for families affected by HIV and AIDS. This program uses examples, information, education and innovation. Nov. 11 from 5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Meals & Manners Etiquette Dinner Alumni Memorial Hall Dining Room McMaster Alumni Association presents this yearly etiquette dinner to teach students proper manners that will help them in their professional and personal lives. Don’t underestimate the impression of good or bad manners.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2009

Interactive

Breadbin

Crossword

Perhaps reminiscent of much simpler and happier times associated with childhood, the desire to return home is a natural instinct. Comfort foods remind us of the safety and security of home, and can come in all varieties. In times of stress, depression, frustration, or anger, a dish “just like mom used to make” can bring a much welcomed sense of peace. This momapproved recipe presents a layered dessert guaranteed to satisfy your need to regain that sense of being at home.

Across 1- Ooze 5- Chilled 9- Antiquing agent 13- Asian sea 14- Acts down 16- Vincent Lopez's theme song 17- "___ grip!" 18- Student 19- Golf club which can be numbered 1 to 9 20- Loses heat 22- Axilla 24- Echo 27- Annapolis sch. 28- Complete 29- Desecrate 33- Flax refuse 34- A single time 35- Franklin D.'s mother 36- Actor Vigoda 37- Impostor 38- Bad-mouth 39- Hit with an open hand 41- Engrossed 42- Guide 44- Cut into two equal parts 46- Ancient Palestinian 47- 9th letter of the Hebrew alphabet 48- A dish with many ingredients 49- Place in bondage 52- Actress Balin 53- Burden 57- Serbian folk dance 58- Retract 60- Area of 4840 square yards 61- Biblical birthright seller 62- Russian revolutionary leader 63- At that time 64- Puts in stitches 65- French 101 verb 66- "___ quam videri" (North Carolina's motto)

Mississippi Mud Pie Ingredients:       

9 4 2

6 7 3

3 5 7

8 2 9 1 4 6

4 6 8

7 3 9

1 2 5

4 6 3

8 1 7

9 2 5

2 8 1

5 7 3 9 6 4

1 7 2

6 5 8

3 4 9

7 2 9

6 3 5

1 8 4

9 4 6

2 3 7 5 1 8

5 9 3

4 1 2

This recipe is made in 4 layers as follows: By Sandy Chase / CUP Graphics Bureau Chief

1. Mix graham crumbs, ¼ cup of sugar and margarine; press on to the bottom of a baking/pie pan 2. Mix cream cheese, remaining sugar, milk, and ½ tub of Cool Whip; layer on top of graham crumbs 3. Prepare chocolate pudding according to the directions on the package; let it cool to room temperature and layer on top 4. Dollop remaining Cool Whip on top of the pudding, and carefully smooth out the layer.

Crossword puzzles provided by BestCrosswords.com (http://www.bestcrosswords.com). Used with permission. Down 1- Droop 2- Before 3- Chow down 4- Platelike 5- Wager 6- Was able 7- Actor Omar 8- Agnus ___ 9- Creatures 10- Trail mix 11- "The Time Machine" race 12- Tirade 15- Laciniate 21- Belonging to us 23- Genetic messenger 24- Go over again 25- Make possible 26- Flowing water 27- Not abridged 29- Not appropriate

30- Soup implement 31- Betelgeuse's constellation 32- Squander 34- Mountain spinach 37- Irritable 40- Pathetic 42- Trident-shaped letter 43- Set apart 45- Sun. talk 46- Comic Boosler 48- Broadcasting 49- Supplements, with "out" 50- Centrepiece of the human face 51- Deli side 52- "___ She Lovely?" 54- Publisher Adolph 55- Ancient Athens's Temple of ___ 56- Sand hill by the sea 59- Born

Tip: When making the second layer, cream the sugar with cream cheese before adding the milk and Cool Whip. This prevents clumping of the cream cheese. •Katelyn Tieng, Bread Bin Volunteer

Sudoku 7 5

7 6 8

2 3 9

5 2 1

8 3 7 9 4 6

1 4 7

6 5 3

9 8 2

8 6 3

9 2 4

7 1 5

4 7 9

5 2 3 8 6 1

6 9 2

1 4 8

3 5 7

7 9 2

5 3 1

6 8 4

3 6 8

2 4 1 7 9 5

8 5 3

9 2 7

1 8

8 6 7

4 1 5

1 ½ cup graham crumbs 2 x ¼ cup sugar 1/3 cup margarine 8 ounces of cream cheese 2 tablespoons milk 1 tub Cool Whip 1 package chocolate pudding (6 servings) SILHOUETTE FILE PHOTO

Solutions 5 8 1

THE SILHOUETTE • B11

1

9

4

2

3

1 5

7

9

4

6

5

3

3

4

2

9

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8

3 4

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9

2

5 8

7 4

6 1

2 3

4 9 3

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9 5

1 7

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7

3

5

5

1

9

8

4 1

3 9

6 5

2 9

9 8 1 2

6 1

7

6 8

7 3

1 4 6

Unscramble the words to discover what’s so spooky about this Halloween! PUMPKINS GHOUL WITCH

CANDIES COBWEB HALLOWS

What has invaded the student centre to scare everyone on Saturday night? GHOSTS

“Excuse me, could I, I mean would you allow me to…. Perhaps, take your picture?” Or sometimes, I may just point, snap, and upload, because you’re out of reach and your outfit is too fascinating to pass-up. A new style blog will be devoted solely to McMaster students. It will capture those who have the audacity to dress unconventionally well, or those who do it unconsciously. Those who have exceptional awareness of art and authenticity, expression and proportion, balance and innovation, colour and of course, the slightest of details. It’s ethnography and culture, subculture and counterculture, global style and trends, but especially non-trends. Interrupted conformity. Love and Strife. Fashion/Anarchy. • Jaqueline Flaggiello

B12 • THE SILHOUETTE

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2009

HEALTH

production office: extension 27117

in partnership with SHEC

Start your day with a healthy meal

Eating a nutritious breakfast will leave you feeling good for the rest of the day RANDAL DESOUZA THE SILHOUETTE

Waking up in the morning as a university student is probably one of the hardest things to do. Unless you live at home with your parents, there is really nobody to tell you what to do or when to wake up. A good number of us sprint out of bed and race through a shower and dressing ritual at a speed that would turn any tri-athlete green with envy. This morning rush to school rarely varies on any given day, but what about breakfast? As unlikely as a healthy breakfast on a rushed morning might sound, it is certainly not as elusive as something university students term ‘free time’. While some of us prefer to have breakfast on-campus, others opt to have their first meal a la brunch. Does your oncampus breakfast involve a bagel or a pizza? Is it swimming in syrup, whipped cream, or fruit? Quiche, Quiznos or Quaker Oats? There are several reasons why it is important to eat a healthy breakfast. Skipping on breakfast has more than just the morning consequence of a growling stomach; it can actually affect your daily performance. Short attention spans, a decreased ability to learn, a potentially crabby or temperamental disposition and a decline in selfesteem are all the result of a nobreakfast policy. You will notice a tendency to focus less in class, fall asleep more often throughout the day, and feel a general decline in productivity levels should you skip

this morning meal. Exams on an empty stomach can be brutal. Trying to derive some obscure function or deciding whether or not the Romans fought in the Trojan War can become a hellish nightmare indeed, when combined with a stomach that demands to be fed. Missing the most important meal of the day tends to compromise your ability to function as a confident, capable Mac student whether it is in your academic pursuits, athletics or extracurricular activities. Breakfast is also helpful in our attempts to control our weight. Those who skip breakfast tend to consume more calories on average at every meal, meaning eating breakfast daily is good for weight loss and maintaining a healthy weight. First years are particularly susceptible to the Freshman 15, but generally those who skip breakfast will end up gaining more weight than those who do not. Carrying some granola bars and dried fruit with you will certainly help satisfy those mini-cravings throughout the day – just be sure to read the labels to find that that are high in fiber and protein, but low in any sort of fat. A healthy breakfast is also essential for a balanced diet. Eating your way through the right combination of breakfast choices can balance your diet, brighten your day and leave you with a feeling of inner satisfaction. While American-style breakfasts might seem appealing for their deep fried goodness, think of your arteries when you chow down on fatty

Making a healthy breakfast also gives you time to wake up and start your day feeling relaxed. sausages, biscuits drenched in gravy, Guide, you are well on your way stress less about catching the bus or or starchy home fries. It certainly to consuming healthy mix of the getting to class, and improving your tastes divine, but perhaps some four food groups: grain products, general outlook for the rest of the healthier options would satisfy your vegetables and fruits, milk products, day. daily nutrition requirements, while and meat and alternatives. Eating breakfast every still being delicious. Give yourself a little extra morning is an incredibly important When deciding between time in the morning to eat a healthy aspect in the life of a university your breakfast options, think of breakfast. Instead of waking up and student. While achieving the task oatmeal, scrambled eggs, deli rushing to class, consider leaving itself requires you to manage your meat sandwiches, fruit smoothies, 10 to 15 minutes to make some time efficiently, maintaining a fruits themselves, or even your breakfast. Use this time to mentally healthy weight, improving your favourite cereal swimming in cold prepare yourself for the rest of the daily performance and balancing milk. There are many ways in day while you toast your bagel, your diet are only some of the which one can have a creative and scramble eggs, brew tea/coffee positive benefits that will surely healthy breakfast, but they just or pour a glass of some delicious follow. You will certainly feel like require a little time. If you follow juice. This little window of time a better person in the long run, so the recommendations and read will allow you to eat something, take some time every morning and up on some breakfast suggestions and give you some time so that you devote it to your most important by looking at Canada’s Food are not rushing to school. You will meal of the day: breakfast.

of youth consume fast food almost daily. It is estimated that Americans eat food at an establishment that is not their home four times per week. The food at these restaurants tends to contain far more calories than what would be consumed at home. Furthermore, people who eat fast food often are more likely to have high energy and fat snacks, like potato chips and pop, at home. Poor nutritional choices can lead to unhealthy weight gain and increased risk of T2DM. T2DM is characterized by chronic high blood sugar, which leads to cellular resistance to insulin. Dietary excesses of sugar have two major consequences. Spikes in blood sugar levels lead to

excessive pancreatic insulin release. Moreover, the pancreas secretes excessive insulin for a lengthy period of time due to heightened blood sugar levels because the muscles do not use all of the glucose. Muscle cells subsequently become desensitized to insulin, which decreases the amount of sugar uptake into these cells. This leads to a cycle of excessive insulin release, muscle cell resistance to insulin, and high blood sugar. Also, insulin signals the liver to produce more glucose instead of storing sugar as glycogen, further exacerbating hyperglycemia. Eventually the pancreas burns out, becoming unable to produce insulin, and

CHRISTOPHER CHANG / SILHOUETTE STAFF

T2DM cases are steadily increasing JESSICA LYDIATE THE SILHOUETTE

injected insulin supplementation becomes required. This condition can have major consequences. Having T2DM drastically increases a person’s risk of developing diseases of the kidneys, eyes, nerves, brain, and cardiovascular system. In adults aged 18 to 55 in the United States diabetes is the leading cause of blindness, with 12,000 to 24,000 people becoming blind each year. According to the Center for Disease Control, T2DM accounts for 44 percent of new cases of endstage kidney disease. This disease requires dialysis treatment and possible kidney transplantation. Diabetes can also lead to nerve and blood vessel destruction

The prevalence of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) in North America is steadily rising and reaching endemic proportions. In the past 10 to 15 years the incidence of diabetes in children and youth has increased more than ten fold. This rise is especially drastic and shocking as T2DM used to be a disease seen mainly in adults. The increased prevalence among young people is linked with increasing rates of obesity. In Canada, children as young as eight are being diagnosed, and it is estimated that one in three children born in 2000 will be diagnosed with T2DM in their lifetime. Obesity is a major risk factor for T2DM. In the last 30 years the number of young people considered over-weight has increased three fold. 95 per cent of young people with T2DM are classified as over-weight, according to their body mass index (BMI), when they are diagnosed. As well as being over-weight, there are other factors that may make a person more likely to develop T2DM. These risk factors include, having family members with the disease, being part of certain ethnic groups, having polycystic ovarian syndrome, having high blood pressure, leading a sedentary lifestyle, and having high levels of fat in the blood. The rise in obesity has been paralleled by changes in eating habits. As parents and households become busier, convenient, but not necessarily healthy, eating choices have increased. In North America this phenomenon has correlated with a rise in the consumption of fast foods and pre-prepared foods and snacks. In America, 30 per cent Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus develops when heightened blood sugar levels in your body leaves it resistant to insulin.

CHRISTOPHER CHANG / SILHOUETTE STAFF

in the lower limb that can necessitate amputation. A person with T2DM is 15 to 40 times more likely to have a limb amputated, for a non-traumatic reason, than a non-diabetic person. Finally, people with T2DM are far more likely to have fatal heart attacks and strokes. Diabetes is a prevalent and often disabling disease, but studies show that in most cases it is preventable. Large studies have examined people classified as high risk for developing T2DM. Prevention was achieved through a lower-calorie diet combined with increased physical activity. Both these changes lead to weight loss. In people under sixty, it was shown that thirty minutes of physical exercise each day and losing five to seven percent of body weight decreased participant’s risk of developing T2DM by 58 per cent. The same changes in people over sixty lead to a 71 per cent decrease in risk. Diet and exercise is also the most effective treatment for early T2DM when weight loss is achieved. Making healthy lifestyle choices and maintaining a BMI in the recommended range of 18 to 25 can significantly decrease your risk of developing T2DM. As a student, it is easy to make unhealthy food choices; fast food is readily available and constraints on time and money often make cooking healthy meals challenging. However, constant unhealthy choices can easily lead to negative body changes. With the pressure of school it is easy to justify poor nutritional choices and sedentary behavior, but in the long run being healthy is much more justifiable as excessive food consumption and weight gain will have serious longterm implications.

it might get loud • hammer city roller girls • rah rah canadian short stories • young galaxy • cirque de soleil • rosanne cash

index

C2 • the silhouette’s art + culture magazine

thursday, november 5, 2009

Senior Editor: Grace Evans Entertainment Editor: Myles Herod Music Editor: Corrigan Hammond Contributors: Julie Compton, Chris Hoy, Michael Clemens, Caitlin McKitrick, Dan Hawie, Phil Wood, Roxanne HathwayBaxter, Graydon Simmons

Cover: Terry Shan

this week

what’s inside

in the hammer

feature

Young Galaxy: “With the release of their 2007 selftitled début album, Young Galaxy, fronted by the boyfriend-girlfriend couple Stephen Ramsay and Catherine McCandles have become one of the most respected units in the Canadian music industry.”

p.8

p.10

nov.18 nov. 18 nov. 19

You Say Party We Say Die Casbah 8:00 p.m. Pilot Speed Casbah 8:00 p.m. Rural Alberta Advantage Casbah 9:00 p.m. The Trews Hamilton Place Studio 8:00 p.m. The Balconies 1280 9:00 p.m.

andy’s pick

Don Henley Copps Coliseum 8:00 p.m.

now

Rosanne Cash: “Her new disc, The List, didn’t just resuscitate her career, but critics quickly recognized it as one of the most important and impressive country music releases of the past two decades.”

nov. 5

music

nov. 8

make words not war... write for andy. musc b110.

art Modernist Photographs Art Gallery of Hamilton 123 King St., Hamilton 905-577-6610 info@artgalleryofhamilton. com

oct.10-jan.3

p.12

nov. 9

It Might Get Loud: “Equipped with string, wood and a coke bottle, Jack White of White Stripes fame assembles with unspoken ingenuity a homespun slide. Plugged in, it wails. Jack, decked out in fashionable black vest and fedora, authoritatively controls his concoction, audibly dense in distortion.”

Junior Boys Rokbar 8:00 p.m.

nov. 10

film

nov. 11

p.4

Holly McNarland Casbah 9:00 p.m

Young Galaxy Casbah 8:00 p.m.

nov.11

music

Stone Temple Pilots Copps Coliseum 8:00 p.m

nov. 13

Canadian Short Stories: “These stories force the readers to recollect the moments of their days that felt static, tangible, and less dislocated than the expedited pace of work or school.”

Westdale Theatre Law Abiding Citizen Fri-Sat, Tue: 9:20 Sun: 7:00

Ron Hawkins Hamilton Place Studio 8:00 p.m.

theatre oct.28-nov.8

culture

opening

p.6

The Men Who Stare at Goats A Christmas Carol Precious The Fourth Kind

playng

film

nov. 17

HCRG: “The new film Whip It starring Ellen Page and Ali Shawkat has brought a lot of attention to roller derby, and many girls are surprised to learn about the HCRG, which has been operating strong for years in the Steel City.”

Why We Tortured Him By Sky Gilbert James St. North Theatre 126 James St. North www.jamesstreetnorth.ca/ blog/

tom petty. zine fairs. being an awkward intern. having a crush. mom jokes. being stifled.

how gay is that? write for andy’s pride issue article deadline nov. 10 email us your ideas andy@thesil.ca

thursday, november 5, 2009

f.u.b.a.r.

no North American musical tradition that has not been shaped by the act of protesting in one way or another. editorial column Most famously, corri hammond activist singers like Woody Guthrie and Pete Although my fellow editors and Seeger largely invented the genre of I didn’t anticipate doing so, this music during the thirties and forties week we put together a very strike that we now think of as American friendly edition of Andy — whether folk. These singers travelled across we’re looking at our album reviews the United States and Canada, of artist like Bob Dylan and Jarvis performing for often starved and Church, who (especially with regards sometimes beaten workers who to the former) both very much had been locked out of work. Their come out of protest centred musical songs became manifestos that genres, or our feature article about demanded, above all else, human Rosanne Cash and our interview dignity. When the depression with Stephen Ramsay of Young ended, they sang songs for the Galaxy. Indeed, while our TA’s take victims of Japanese internment abuse on the picket lines (both from camps. Then they marched on students and at least one, unnamed, the frontlines of the civil rights senior administrative official who, movement — demanding better according to a CUPE handout, of governments that employed verbal harangued protesters and thugs to beat school children physically accosted a police officer and imprisoned preachers who on Tuesday) and exercise their demanded the simple luxury of civil democratic right to protest, it might rights for minorities in a nation that be a worthwhile exercise to reflect billed itself as the “land of the free.” on the long history of activism And they were punished within popular North American for it. They were put on blacklists music. And while it may seem like and barred from work. Some of a bold statement to make, there is them were beaten and others

column

were killed because of the protest songs that they sang. Then we have American gospel and soul music. If you doubt the activist credentials of singers like Otis Redding or Mavis Staple, you might want to ask yourself, where was Martin Luther King Jr. shot while attending a Memphis sanitation workers strike? He was standing on the balcony of the same motel that Stax Records put out-of-work talent in, outside of the very rooms where some of the most memorable soul anthems and protest songs of the sixties and seventies were penned. And that was no coincidence. King travelled in the same social circles as many of the talents who sang for Stax. But protest music hasn’t always been obscure. Rather, there is a long tradition of radical sentiment being expressed in otherwise mundane pop-music. Indeed, beginning with the success of “Old Man River,” taken from the 1927 Broadway musical Show Boat, for nearly fifty years there was an unspoken expectation that show tunes demand the ethics and inequalities of their ordinary lives. At a time when African Americans were expected to live lives of

the big tickle compiled by michelle ng &

“sido (german hip-hop).” andreas deschner

the silhouette’s art + culture magazine • C3 absolute deference to authority, through the popular music of midcentury America they were granted unprecedented freedom to sing uncensored songs of their hardship. And as singers like Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong lamented their hardships, the act of protest was not silenced but rather applauded. Rock music likewise is very much indebted to the act of protest. After all, John Lennon, arguably the most beloved rock artist of all time, sat in Montreal motel and on live television penned a little jingle for tolerance, a pacifist anthem entitled “Give Peace A Chance.” It wasn’t his first televised flirtation with activism either. Three years prior, in the first globally broadcast television event, he premiered “All You Need Is Love,” a plea protesting war and hatred and arguing for peace and love that he had composed especially for the occasion. Building upon the example that Lennon set with his music, during the nineteen eighties, protest became a vogue act for the music industry elite. While country artists like Willy Nelson and Johnny Cash protested the plight of farmers with “Farm Aid” benefit concerts, their rock peers raised

awareness for Ethiopian famine. At the same time the upstart genre of hip-hop, led by Public Enemy front man Chuck D (who saw himself as a cross between Malcolm X and Mohammed Ali), transformed itself from ‘novelty music’ into a form of militant, urban poetry. Hip-hop quickly became the most dangerous protest music in America as Chuck D blasted the likes of John McCain and Strum Thurmond in verse for opposing Martin Luther King Day and Congress debated banning Ice-T’s violent 1992 single “Cop Killer.” It seemed Ice-T, in the wake of the Rodney King Riots, had decided to voice his disenchantment with the racist state of law and order in his country. Next time you walk past the barricades that our TA’s have erected at the Cootes Drive and Sterling Street entrances to the school, before you voice your frustration about the strike to the picketers (who don’t want to be there), it would be worth considering the long tradition of protest that they are participating in and the benefits that it has brought to your own daily lives. Let’s hope that a resolution can be reached soon.

q: what’s the soundtrack to your strike?

jonathon fairclough

“rage against the machine.”

bennett banting

“bob marley.”

“gaga’s ‘papparazzi’.” blake mccall

brennan jerred

“beatles ‘revolution’.” laura pin

C4 • the silhouette’s art + culture magazine

literature

thursday, november 5, 2009

snapshots of everyday canadian life

julie compton does some recreational reading penned by canucks Incited by No One Belongs Here More than You, by American author Miranda July, and Junot Diaz’s Drown, this summer’s literary conquests emerged through an infatuation

with the short-story genre. They quickly progressed into a search for the most poignant stories, the ones that could quell September’s rush, October’s restlessness and

anxiety, through their pacifying camaraderie. While at first tempting to greedily ingest everything from David Sedaris’ arranged anthologies to a collection of pieces by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, there is something about the robust, yet delicate descriptions of Canada’s own shorter-genre authors that captivates and unnerves, obscuring the lines between poetry and fiction. Short stories carry the power to make a reader disengage from their surroundings. Perhaps this can be attributed to one’s ability to actually invest undivided attention for ten, twenty, or thirty pages, on a morning commute, between classes, or before sleep. But it also lies in the authors’ abilities to capture instants that would otherwise go unnoticed or without analysis, like pivotal tensions in relationships or momentary lapses of judgment that bear awkward consequences. As Lisa Moore writes in the introduction to her anthology The Penguin Book of Contemporary Canadian Women’s Short Stories, “First there must be a mechanism that allows entry: an invisible zipper, a wave of heat shimmer that ripples the landscape, an incantation, a click. But once you’re in, you’re in.” Without a doubt, this element of intensity, this undiluted writing, is what lures us in, albeit briefly. Authors like Moore fabulously channel the neurotic repetitions that catapult through our brains in tense situations, the obsessive observations we track in our lovers, the subtle irritations we know so well in our families. And then we are abruptly cut off, as in many stories there are no neatly tied-up endings or conclusions. It isn’t that the honest, quirky writing is a feature unique to Canadian literature. But it is an attribute that characterizes many Canadian authors, and is equally recognizable among our musicians, and other creative professionals, too. There seems to be less of an emphasis on conventionally polished work, and much more energy devoted to exposing raw honesty and humanistic tendencies such as

the inexplicable, spontaneous actions that arise out of boredom and routine. In Zsuzsi Gartner’s story, The Nature of Pure Evil, she tells of a young woman who spitefully and irrationally sends bomb threats to the building across from her office – her exboyfriend’s workplace – in order to disrupt his business lunches with new female prospects. Annabel Lyon writes of how family members observe each other in flux: “sometimes Suzy is pie-happy. Other times she is the pale queen on the dark shore, watching for stone ships that never return. At four she ties her shoes, recites the alphabet and dreams of winged men with glass hands that shatter and bleed. Ice is her favourite food. Morris puts food colouring in the ice cubes they eat together for a bedtime snack. He watches Suzy suck, then bite down. Her pyjamas still have feet. She is the black queen, pale and dolorous in her steel crown, mouth running with colours.” Hilarious in their dialogue and commentary, heart wrenching in their imagery and descriptions, these commonalities contribute to what render the fiction so relatable. Although it’s enjoyable to be swept up in a fantasy of extended plot, or captivated by the unraveling of a narrated disaster, these stories are snapshots of daily life, amidst the insipid daily routine. These stories force the readers to recollect the moments of their days that felt static, tangible, and less dislocated than the expedited pace of work or school. Specific to Canada, authors such as Lisa Moore, Neil Smith, and Alice Munro each explore regionally specific mythology and lifestyles. Varying the landscape from rural Ontario, to urban Quebec, and small-town Newfoundland, they reflect on Canadian society both through their writing styles and their thematic content. In a country as territorially spread and diverse as Canada, it can be surprising to note both the similarities and discrepancies between collections of people. How are Canadian idiosyncrasies patterned across the country’s towns and cities, and in what way do these storytellers defend our cultural tendencies, politics, and ways of speaking? Undoubtedly one of the most rewarding aspects of reading Canadian literature is the allegiance to these works – recognizing places, terms, events, or even stereotypes in ourselves and experiences. •Julie Compton

film

thursday, november 5, 2009

the silhouette’s art + culture magazine • C5

rock of ages

three guitar heroes bridge the generation gap

It Might Get Loud Directed by: David Guggenheim

 The electric guitar is more than an instrument; it’s a symbol of power, sex and rock and roll. Believe me, I tried to learn the thing; I just couldn’t seem to get my head around it. And yet, what about those who can? What separates the good from the great? At the beginning of It Might Get Loud, we get a glimpse of what that special something might entail. Equipped with string, wood and a coke bottle, Jack White of White Stripes fame assembles with unspoken ingenuity a homespun slide. Plugged in, it wails. Jack, decked out in fashionable black vest and fedora, authoritatively controls his concoction, audibly dense in distortion. As his blues riffs resonate, he stops as fast as he starts, addressing the camera, “Who says you need to buy a guitar?” David Guggenheim’s rock documentary embodies just that, a mantra of the DYI spirit,

observed both in aptitude and innovation. The picture brings together a summit of three guitar greats: Jack White, The Edge, and Jimmy Page. The talent, which is impressive, stylistically bridges the gap from the 1960’s to present. The film itself is structurally divided into two parts, letting us witness the rare interaction of the three in an informal roundtable while also delving into each specific past, following their roots and aspirations. Behind the flashiness associated with the individual, this film is actually about the guitar and its evolution through the person. The Edge, whose actual name is David Evans, is the most technologically inclined of the bunch. Wielding a panel of effects pedals that would make Kevin Shields from My Bloody Valentine blush, the man performs for the camera, isolating U2’s signature sound from the zealous pretentiousness often associated with their signature voice, Bono. In a revealing moment, he turns off the gimmickry and acoustically plays the opening intro to “I

Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” Stripped from its sonic grandeur, I was shocked how minimal its chord progression was, defining The Edge not so much as a guitar virtuoso but as a sound sculptor. He then goes onto describe U2’s humble beginnings, taking us to the elementary school in Dublin where the band met and rehearsed, humorously juxtaposing their influence, The Jam performing on Top of The Pops to U2’s first television appearance: a pimple faced foursome doing their best pseudo-punk imitation. Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page comes off as the complete opposite in contrast, interpreting the sensuality of the guitar. “The curves of the guitar are like a woman’s,” he describes in one scene, going on to deconstruct “Stairway to Heaven’s” source of intimate exchange, from its tranquil beginning to its legendary coda, “it builds and builds like an orgasm.” An accomplished session man in the early 60’s, he details his discovery of the guitar by pure accident, it being left behind in his family’s newly purchased

home. Page comes off as a reluctant presence, retorting with soft-spoken recollections of his former band as a safety net. In one scene he is taken back to the house where Zeppelin recorded their seminal record “VI,” where he discusses the mansion and its wonderful acoustics. He is a man of few words, but one of immeasurable influence. As the lead guitar player for the legendary Led Zeppelin, he treats us to his infamous double neck guitar, one of the most iconic trademarks that defined him as the predominant entity of rock and heavy metal music. While both musicians aptly fit into the elder statesmen role now into their careers, Jack White represents the second coming, a purist of blues and a revivalist of punk. Dressed in black, and unnaturally pale, he assesses what has lead him to success, citing obscure bluesmen and a cheap, plastic guitar purchased from Sears, a mainstay since The White Stripes’ formation. Raised in Detroit, Jack’s most captivating moment comes from archival footage. Vigorously playing on a song entitled “Blue

Veins,” his hand bleeds profusely onto the instrument as the song, steeped in blues influence, steadily intensifies. I can understand why Jack White was chosen for this film. Bringing clarity and a traditionalist sensibility, he does not come off as a formulaic showman, but an original, just like the other two. The film is music, a visual account as well as a historical one, with each artist adding something extra in terms of depth to his creative persona. Unfortunately, when we do get scenes of the three together, it merely consists of them showing off — rather boring and forced. The finale almost makes up for it though. Met with a rousing cover of “The Weight,” it showcases The Edge and Jack on vocal duties, while all three, you guessed it, jam on guitars. A nice little picture for rock fans, although it does raise the question: of all the other guitarists out there, why these three? Sequel possibly? How ‘bout Robert Fripp, Thurston Moore, and Keith Richards? Now that might get really loud. •Myles Herod

feature&film pushing and shoving C6 • the silhouette’s art + culture magazine

thursday, november 5, 2009

the hammer city roller girls think that you can do it too The Hammer City Roller Girls have been around in Hamilton since 2006. The new film Whip It starring Ellen Page and Ali Shawkat has brought a lot of attention to roller derby, and many girls are surprised to learn about the HCRG, which has been operating strong for years in the Steel City. I attended the meet and greet for the HCRG a few weeks ago at This Ain’t Hollywood on James Street North. The women there were incredibly friendly, enthusiastic and welcoming. The gathering was presided over by Chainsaw Mary, a Hamilton Harlot’s skater who made every effort to welcome the timid newcomers into the meeting and find out what their attraction to roller derby was. What made me most excited about the meeting was the way Mary and others kept repeating, “You can do this.” They seemed so sure that even girls who had never put on a pair of skates before could learn to roll with the best of them. The environment was so positive during the hour that I was there that I can only imagine how rewarding and fun the team is. Perky Set, a.k.a. Renee Baker, skates for the Hamilton Harlots and Hamilton’s travel team, the Eh! Team. Like Chainsaw Mary, Perky’s attraction to roller derby has a lot to do with the atmosphere energy of derby: “Derby appeals to me because of its grassroots nature. It is skater owned and operated. We have no one telling us what to do or how to do it. It is a great sport and the drive that I see in the players of derby matches no other...we really don’t have an off season and we practice more than any other amateur sport out there.” The HCRG was established in January 2006 and held their first public game the following July. The league has two teams including the Hamilton Harlots and the Death Row Dames. There is also an All-Star travel team called the Eh! Team. The most exciting recent development for the HCRG is their new membership as one of eighty leagues in North America to be a part of the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association, which promotes the growth of women’s flat track roller derby. The derby scene in Hamilton is a growing one. However, the biggest challenge to the women organizing derby practices and games seems to be finding an appropriate venue. Perky explains, “The one thing that makes derby a hard sell to the public is that the majority of our home games are in the summer (we use hockey arenas for our

events). Until we get a heated venue with say 10,000 [square-feet] of unobstructed space… we will be at the mercy of our summer schedule.” But the games seem to be well attended for a relatively underground sport that can’t seem to find venues. The first game of each season usually attracts 600 to 900 spectators, and for the rest of the summer season 500 some odd people make it out. While the HCRG starts training for their home season in January, and plays their first home game in April in hockey arenas, as soon as the ice comes back to arenas in August the season is over. The skaters on the team range from twenty year-olds to forty eight year-olds. Perky says of the diversity of the skaters: “The beauty of derby is it takes all kinds into its ranks…There are many women involved that have had no previous athletic background to women who were once very competitive in other various sports… Each girl brings her own talents to the table... and that is what has allowed us to prosper.” Being a non-athlete, I find my eyes glaze over during sports sequences in movies. However, in Whip It I found that for once I was able to focus and follow the action of the game. The HCRG promoted the film on their website, and Perky reports that the general consensus of the league was four out of five give it “skates up.” Perky compares the film to real life derby: “The shots where all of the girls stopped and punched out their opponents and Drew’s character’s (Smashley Simpson) continuous fighting is definitely not how we play the sport, if you look beyond some of the Hollywood glorification and watch the skating, other than being on a banked track, it is very realistic. The love for the sport that Bliss shows is also very true for all of our players and is especially true in those new to derby. It’s always so refreshing to see new girls come in and want to be involved in as many ways as possible. I know within North America, leagues from all over have seen a huge influx in new girls wanting to join and many leagues have also boasted record attendance at their bouts...I think Whip It was just what we needed to reach more of the mainstream attention.” Check out the Roller Derby Art Crawl Party on Friday, Nov. 13 at the Red Mill Theatre at 80 James Street North. McMaster girls are welcome as Perky told me: “We currently have a couple of McMaster students skating with us and we’d love to have more.” •Grace Evans

Andrew Bailey

thursday, november 5, 2009

feature

the silhouette’s art + culture magazine • C7

acrobatic insects

cirque de soleil crawls its way to toronto with a whole new look OVO is the name of the newest incarnation of Cirque de Soleil that is playing in Toronto. The description on the event’s website reads: “OVO is a headlong rush into a colourful ecosystem teeming with life, where insects work, eat, crawl, flutter, play, fight and look for love in a non-stop riot of energy and movement. The insects’ home is a world of biodiversity and beauty filled with noisy action and moments of quiet emotion.” The show is paused in Toronto for a brief spectacular stopover before hitting the road again, and this is a fleeting opportunity that you might want to take advantage of. Founded in Montreal in 1984 Cirque de Soleil is the brainchild of creator Guy Laliberté. The idea behind the show was to take all of the enjoyable parts of the circus, such as the acrobatics and the big top tent, and leave out the more controversial aspects of the circus, such as the animals. The show also links all of its acts together into a cohesive story line, rather than leaving it as a string of variety acts. Basically the idea was to turn the circus into one sensory experience, rather than a series of skits. Deborah Colker, a Brazilian woman, is the creator and director of OVO. She is also the first woman to create a cirque production. OVO, the latest Cirque de Soleil creation, takes you on a journey into an enchanted insect world. The plot revolves around the discovery of a giant egg (ovo is Portuguese for egg) and the mayhem that ensues when every insect tries to get their hands on it. Three characters in the show: a clown, a

bluebottle fly and a chubby ladybug, take you through this narrative, and provide comic relief throughout the show. Some of the standout acts include: the amazingly flexible contortionist spiders, the incredibly in-sync foot juggling ants and the remarkable grasshopper trampoline-wall act. While all of these performances were astounding, if any one act stole the show it would have to have been the spider on the slack wire. The slack wire, a rope tied loosely between two points, appeared to give the performer virtually no support. While the wire swung back and forth in the air, he managed not only to walk back and forth across it, but also to balance on the wire at a 45-degree angle, and to unicycle across it upside down. Almost as wonderful as the performances were the set design and costumes. The performances took place on, or in the air, above a center stage, with pieces added (such as nets, ropes and trampolines) depending on the act. The set also featured two giant flowers that hung out of the air, and bloomed and wilted at various times throughout the show. The costumes and makeup on each of the performers is so detailed it must take hours before each show to get them ready. All of the detail also made it apparent exactly how many performers there were. No matter how little time a character had on stage, there’s no way that performers could play more than one character (as you might see in a play). The show also featured a live band, dressed in full insect costumes and makeup, for the second half of the show.

While the performances, sets and costumes were highly engaging; parts of the show seemed a little bit over the top and unnecessary. The three actors, who were there solely for comic relief since they took no part in the acrobatics, became more and more irritating as the show went on. The love story between the ladybug and the bluebottle was more trivial than engaging and their insect voices were downright annoying. And although the big top tent looked amazing, aspects of it were less than impressive at times. Doorways that led to much of the seating area as well as to the washrooms, were located outside. While this may be kitschy and enjoyable on a nice summer’s day, on a rainy autumn evening it left me wishing the show had taken place in some sort of a theater. Also, because of the big top, the seating arrangements could be rather troubling depending upon who you were seated behind. With tickets priced between $65 and $250 (not exactly within the student price range) it was a little bit disappointing. No wonder Guy Laliberté can afford to play space tourist, with prices like that. That being said, the show was spectacular. The music, costumes and performances were astounding and unique. Definitely not a show you’ll be likely to find elsewhere. Sadly, OVO is nearing the end of its run. It will be playing in Toronto until Nov. 8, at which point it is moving on to San Francisco. •Caitlin McKitrick

C8 • the silhouette’s art + culture magazine

music

thursday, november 5, 2009

are you ready for the country?

rosanne cash sings her father’s favourite songs

Although she was one of the biggest country music stars of the 1980’s, Rosanne Cash, until this October, hadn’t had a chart topping album in twenty-two years. Her new disc, The List, didn’t just resuscitate her career, but critics quickly recognized it as one of the most important and impressive country music releases of the past two decades. The story of The List began in 1973, when Rosanne, then an eighteen year-old aspiring songwriter, had a little heart-to-heart with her father Johnny — himself a musician of some acclaim. As things turned out, daddy Johnny became quite alarmed upon learning that his daughter, raised just north of Los Angeles in the suburban community of Ventura, California, knew blissfully little about the history of American country music. Little Rosanne, who had been the president of her high-school Beatles fan club, had grown up listening to the sunny tunes of 1960’s rock and roll radio. And so Johnny, doing what any bonafide Grand Ole’ Opry inductee (yes, he’s that Johnny) would do upon learning that his offspring didn’t know the difference between Hank Snow and Hank Williams, does: he wrote out a list of what he considered to be 100 essential country music songs. Although The List, only consists of 12 of the original 100 songs, with each new positive review that it receives, the voice of her father, who, prior to his death, had been highly critical of some of the less savoury practices of the Nashville becomes heard louder and louder. Indeed, with the release of The List, the spectre of the “Man in Black” has become felt in the city of Nashville in its most haunting way since his long-time family home, famously dubbed the “House of Cash,” burnt down two years ago. After that famous fire, a superstitious sentiment emerged in Nashville that Johnny Cash’s angry ghost didn’t care for the indignity of tourists sightseeing in his most private quarters, in the same rooms where he raised his children and comforted his wife during her dying days, and was making those feelings known from beyond the grave. Likewise, when the story behind The List first began making the media rounds last month, a sense began to emerge that, like the House of Cash fire, Johnny’s spirit, working in mysterious ways, was issuing its own final judgment on an industry and city that, had largely disowned him

and many of his peers in the early 1980’s. In 1986 his long time label, Columbia Records, ended his contract. He had been one of their all time bestselling artists. During the 1990’s, when Johnny Cash made his comeback on Rick Rubin’s American Recordings label, his music largely consisted of traditional folk and country material and alternative rock covers by groups like Sound Garden and Nine Inch Nails. Like his daughter’s new disc, the five albums he recorded with Rubin were a statement about his musical roots and the direction that he felt music was heading in. Nashville, it seemed to him, was growing less and less relevant. As a result, The List has, in the minds of many country music traditionalists, become a reminder of the lacklustre quality of music that Nashville has been churning out since 1973. It was around that time that the Nashville music elite, tired of their city’s worn reputation as a bastion of Old South styledracism, wrongly thinking that country music was a short circuit signifier for racist and vice versa, decided to begin building a new, more cosmopolitan brand for their industry. They wanted ‘urban cowboys,’ chiselled men who looked like the Marlboro Man and sang like Don Henley to become the face and voice of the new style of country music. Inevitably, the result was soulless, corporate packaged music utterly divorced from its roots. However, this commercial shift had the unintended result of producing three distinct new subgenres of country music. The first, “Outlaw Country,” emerged in the mid-seventies as Nashville singers who set up camp in Austin, Texas producing unique new music. Second, in the early eighties a distinct brand of folksingers in the Canadian and American West began producing a breed of purer country music without the commercial aspirations of their Nashville counterparts. And finally, fronted by groups like Uncle Tupelo and The Cowboy Junkies, ‘alt-country’ emerged as a form of protest against the slickness of the mainstream music . Although The List doesn’t necessarily give these still vibrant movements the nod they deserve, the badly needed spirit and sense of longing that the album brings to mainstream country music has established it as an equally crucial statement regarding the blandness of the ‘urban cowboy’ ethos of the New South, the New Nashville and of the New Country. •Corrigan Hammond

thursday, november 5, 2009

under the radar

internet anagram server www.wordsmith.org/anagram

off the web tiny mix tapes www.tinymixtapes.com If you are looking for a comprehensive music website with more personality than Pitchfork, you should point and click your way towards Tiny Mix Tapes. This website offers a wide variety of album and film reviews, band interviews, and pop culture related articles. There is also a selection of creative mix tape ideas suggested by users and created by the site. The site is colourful, funny, informative and definitely worth checking out! •Roxanne Hathway-Baxter

Ever wonder what else you could spell using the letter of your name, but were too lazy to ever sit down and try to work it out? Well the internet anagram server might be just what you’re looking for. You simply type in up to 30 characters, and the site will come up with hundreds, if not thousands of different possibilities. Entertaining? Definitely. And who knows, it might come in handy in some weird way in the future. •Martini Click Tick aka Caitlin McKitrick threadless www.threadless.com

Threadless sells user designed and rated clothes. Each week, competing artists have their designs scored from 0 to 5 by members of the site and the staff choose the winning shirts to be printed from the more popular entries. Winning designs get $2000 and can see their art be placed on t-shirts, long letters of note sleeves, hoodies, and prints. The site also www.lettersofnote.com provides an online community for users to Need a new class distraction that educates blog, receive critiques on their designs, post you on more than peoples’ texts from photos of themselves in Threadless products last night? Check out Letters of Note – and comment on other users’ work. The bulk an online collection of letters, memos, of the sales are done through the internet. telegrams and other archaic forms of If you’re looking to snag that new fresh tee, human interaction penned in a non-digital, test out your creative skills as an artist or but timeless age – each with a profound just browse some very unique clothing, you story worthy of piquing your curiosity. definitely want to check out Threadless.com. •Graydon Simmons •Dan Hawie

the silhouette’s art + culture magazine • C9

off the rack

The Virgin Suicides Directed by: Sofia Coppola Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Josh Hartnett For Sofia Coppola’s debut directorial piece, complementing Jeffery Eugenides prose, her work, while not always perfectly refined, is backed by her considerable talent. The film does offer gorgeous wide shots, which although different from those conjured in my imagination whilst reading, do provide tangible imagery and scenery. Likewise, the soundtrack is flawless from start to finish. Featuring songs primarily by Air, which nicely juxtapose with the intensity of ambulance sirens, and screams of adolescent girls, as well as tracks reminiscent or reflective of the time period, like those by Sloan and Heart. If the movie falls short in its justice to reflect Eugenides’ work, it would perhaps be that the narration takes away from some of the more unnerving descriptions and representation of the Lilsbon girls and their parents. One of the central themes of the book is undoubtedly an analysis of the fissures that emerged in a seemingly typical 1970s American household, how

the problems sweltered behind closed doors, and their tragic outcome. Although Giovanni Ribisi’s monotonous narration nicely poses a strangely banal attitude, it lacks the same eeriness achieved by reading the words on the page. As is often the case with book to film transcription, The Virgin Suicide’s speedy shots sometimes gloss over the nuanced descriptions in writing, a loss imposed of course by time limitations. Whatever happened to Kirsten Dunst? She plays a fantastic Lux in all her fourteen years of flirty, taunting behaviour, coupled with untouched beauty and naive introspectiveness. What is never explicitly established in the book is why the girls killed themselves. Perhaps it was allegiance to their fellow sisters, or maybe a solemn rebellion against their imposed settings and seemingly bleak prospects. This is something that the film allows alternative insights into. Through Coppola’s interpretation, for example, we see a darkly comical depiction of the criticisms and gossip that unfold throughout the neighbourhood, reflecting upon the incestual and claustrophobic environment of suburban Michigan. In a final credit to Coppola, I never could have pictured Josh Hartnett as Trip Fontaine while reading the text - a lanky, gap-toothed charmer who definitely translated well from print to screen. •Julie Compton

C10 • the silhouette’s art + culture magazine

music

thursday, november 5, 2009

three cheers for saska-rock regina’s rah rah tells andy about their hometown’s music renaissance Regina, a city best known for being bland and cold has experienced a bit of a musical renaissance in the past year. Indeed, the slow moving prairie city’s sudden production of acclaimed up-and-coming acts like Rah Rah is being hailed as a hip new centre for Canadian indie music. “It’s encouraging that people are talking about us,” Joel Passmore, the bassist for the Regina based six-piece, Rah Rah, explained to me. “I’ve always felt that Saskatchewan has a lot to offer when it comes to music and the arts. So it’s nice that our city is one of the towns that people are starting to [pay] more attention to. There is always one city in Canada that people are talking about at one time,” he continued — “so it’s… awesome to have Saskatchewan looked at a little [more] closely. I think people will definitely find some stuff that is of upper quality.” “I think [Regina] has always done well,” Passmore explained, “[but], for the first time in more than a while there seems to be more bands than one or two bands that are out on the road and have records coming out.” His group, who’s 2008 full length début Going Steady has been at the forefront of the Regina hype, have become Canadian indie rock darlings. Rah Rah has achieved success despite many of the challenges of being a small band, based far away from the geographic centres of Canadian music, Toronto and Montreal. In Regina, Passmore explained, “there’s always a pack of great bands that have never really played shows outside of the city or the province.” “It just takes a little more effort from us to get organized and to find a way to play our [music] and book and tour and get out to those various [communities]. I guess the challenge is getting to the next show. I mean Regina to Saskatoon is almost three hours away and there’s not a whole lot else, there’s Moosejaw — and you probably should play Moosejaw” he laughed. “You’re looking at five or six hours in any direction before you really get to your next stop, and that prevents some people from getting in the van and doing [touring.]” Indeed, up until this spring, the group hadn’t properly toured Eastern Canada.

Even though the group was already receiving positive press for Going Steady, as guitarist Marshal Burns explained to me the group, largely made up of students, was restrained by their academic calendars. “May was when the semester was done,” Burns explained. “But we…had done a couple February tours of just western Canada before, in 2008 and 2009 over reading week...just like two week tours out to Vancouver and that sort of thing.” “Once you get into Southern Ontario and into the Maritimes,” Burns continued, “it’s pretty awesome because, there are lots of cities right in close together.” As part of their recent travels through Eastern and Central Canada, the group did a two-week stint at the Pop Montreal festival. “It was awesome,” Burns laughed. “We’ve played [Montreal] a few times now, and in terms of the shows, this was probably the best time. We had actually two shows there [that] were awesome. One was with Colorado, from Montreal, super nice guys. It’s nice to be in Pop Montreal. It’s a super energetic time to be [in the city], with so many shows going on and so many people out and about. That’s fun to be a part of.” “The scene [in Montreal] is obviously a lot bigger [than in Regina] because it’s a bigger city. Whenever we’re in Montreal it seems like there’s always so much going on music wise … because there are so many more people.” “ In Regina, there is a lot happening all the time [too, but] its just it’s a really small community of people who are into music, or [our] kind of music, so you sort of have to know where to go … it’s not going to be all around you the same way. At Pop Montreal it’s every block [where there are] different shows happening. You wouldn’t get that in Regina obviously. But there still are a lot of great bands playing, great bands coming through. You just have to know where to be.” The follow up to Gong Steady is due for release next spring. “We did it at the Treatment Room with our friend Kees [Decker, from Plants and Animals,]” Burns told me. Based on the strength of Rah Rah’s last disc, it should be an exciting album. •Corrigan Hammond

thursday, november 5, 2009

classic review

in stereo

the silhouette’s art + culture magazine • C11

featured review

Even before the infamous incident at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, Bob Dylan shook the foundations of the music world and created a schism between folk purists and emerging Dylan fans. Like a Houdini straightjacket escape, Dylan once again evaded the bondage of convention that he created for himself only a year earlier. Removing himself from the protest music of Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan and The Time’s They Are A-Changin’, and the straightforward songwriting of Another Side of Bob Dylan, Dylan infuses folk, blues, and rock and roll traditions to

create a hybrid album that remains one of the most influential records of all time. Bringing it All Back Home marks an important transition in Dylan’s career: the hard and gritty jangle on “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and “Maggie’s Farm” were shockingly aggressive compared to his acoustic predecessors; and the lyrics oddly esoteric and long winded. Influenced by the poetry of Arthur Rimbaud, Dylan’s songs delve into the personal (“She Belongs to Me”), the political (“Gates of Eden”) and the surreal (“Mr. Tambourine Man”) without sounding disjointed. The album also contains brilliantly composed love songs (“Love Minus Zero/ No Limit”) and “It’s Alright Ma (I Am Only Bleeding),” arguably Dylan’s best piece ever. Sung with unchecked momentum, as though the words are propelled by their own scathing phrases, the bleak

imagery tumbles out of Dylan as if they are conscious themselves. Much of Dylan’s legacy has been his ability to elude, and confound his audience. By going electric, and by consciously moving away from the typical protest song he became associated with in Bringing it All Back Home, Dylan eclipses expectation and produces a timeless record. This begs the question: how is he bringing us back home? In another ironic twist, the songwriter leads us on a bizarre journey that leaves us wondering where or what home actually is. For Dylan, the only place of residence is the momentary. This album reveals more about Bob Dylan than any other of his records. •Michael Clemens

Jarvis Church The Long Way Home

Alec Ounsworth Mo Beauty

Creed Full Circle

Baptized in Blood Gutterbound

Jarvis Church is the stage name of Gerald Eaton, front man of the Philosopher Kings (“Hurts to Love,” 1997). He took this name from two parallel streets in Toronto – his hometown since the age of eight. In this, his second solo effort, Church goes back to his original home of Jamaica. The CD is filled with dance hall grooves and some excellent reggae featuring local talent: Supreme, Mr. Peppa and others. The CD starts strong with two dancers: “Just Like That” and “I’ll Rock Your Body.” “Wine It” and “Shake It Off” are also strong cuts while “So Beautiful” is more like Church’s earlier material. Jarvis Church is one of the top names in Canadian music today. He is a Juno award winner, Grammy nominee (for his work producing Nelly Furtado on “Whoa Nelly”) and is an excellent songwriter. This return to his Jamaican roots is a nice change. •Phil Wood

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah frontman Alec Ounsworth has moseyed down south for a bit of New Orleans soul searching. The resulting project, Mo Beauty, takes on the Dixieland sound. Backed by a collaboration of hometown heroes – each adding a touch of southern feel, Ounsworth has proven successful in showcasing a more experimental side of his distinct oddball croon. Notable tracks exhibiting this bluesy quirk include “This Is Not My Home (after Bruegel)” and “South Philadelphia (Drug Days);” both defined by punchy horns and even punchier vocals. Yet the soft ballad “Holy, Holy, Holy Moses (song for new Orleans)” is perhaps most defining of the album, with Ounsworth asking: “How can I claim New Orleans?” – an implication that the sound he’s reached isn’t orthodox, and interestingly enough, is the best reason to check it out. •Dan Hawie

Remember how in 2003, after a disastrous concert Creed fans sued the band for their money back? Thirty seconds into their new disc, Full Circle, it is painfully apparent that somewhere, lawyers are probably queuing up for the next impending class action against the now reunited group. Essentially, the band simply mimics the worn formula that tragically brought them commercial success in the late nineteen-nineties. The only change the group has made is that now, a decade after 1999’s Human Clay they sound more tired and more worn. Some bands should stay broken up. •Corrigan Hammond

London, Ontario’s Baptized in Blood on the surface seem like a outlandish metal parody, from their ultra-brutal band name to their excessive guitar wankery. Combining elements of thrash and hardcore, Baptized in Blood shred out duelling Van Halen-esque theatrics over powerful guttural screams and a thick, syrupy rhythm section. Contrary to their name, this band actually sounds fairly upbeat and positive, almost like a punk band playing metal. Despite a handful of righteous jams on Gutterbound, the rest of the disc seems to rehash a lot of the same ideas, failing to be memorable. Playing their own unique brand of self proclaimed “party metal,” Gutterbound still provides a fun soundtrack to getting drunk and throwing up the devil horns. •Chris Hoy

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Bob Dylan Bringing it All Back Home

The Flaming Lips Embrionic

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When Pitchfork announced their top 200 albums of the decade at the beginning October, they would have been well advised to wait an extra two weeks for the release of the Flaming Lips thirteenth studio album, Embrionic. This new disc, which harkens back to the groups more experimental and improvisation based early work, is a distinct departure from the Flaming Lips’ highly structured music of the past fifteen years or so. Indeed, Embrionic, which features a number of instrumental tracks, feels like The Stooge’s doing a Miles Davis tribute in outer space. Literally. Lyrically, the album is similar to the Flaming Lips’ work in the mid-nineties – as the group, once again enhance their usual psychedelic musings on metaphysics with children’s themes and animal imagery. The effect, particularly on tracks like “I Can Be A Frog,” feels like children’s author Shel Silverstien on acid. This track is further enhanced by Karen O’s weird back up vocals as she apes Lips’ front-man Wayne Coyne’s lyrics – ribbiting for instance after he sings “she can be a frog.” These songs are more brief than those on 2002’s Yoshimi Battles The Evil Robots and 2006’s At War With The Mystics, produces an auditory sense that the group, unlike on the relatively conservative At War With The Mystics, are once again having fun with their usual weird antics. •Corrigan Hammond

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music

music for the people

C12 • the silhouette’s art + culture magazine

thursday, november 5, 2009

young galaxy’s stephen ramsay chats with andy about his band’s new album, invisible republic With the release of their 2007 self-titled début album, Young Galaxy, fronted by the boyfriend-girlfriend couple Stephen Ramsay and Catherine McCandles have become one of the most respected units in the Canadian music industry. “We made the first record without a band and then we put the band together after that,” Ramsay explained to me over the phone. “We basically went through the community and asked our friends, ‘do any of you have any experience as a musician?’” Ramsay continued. “And you know, a few of them came forward, like for instance our roommate at the time, [who] had never played in a band but had piano playing experience. There were [also] a few people kicking around, [like] our bassist Stephen Kamp, who had played in a band in high school but hadn’t played in one in a while. So it was basically just us asking our friends to join.” “But then after that record we sort of re-evaluated [things] based on the fact that … [they] hadn’t been really involved when we started the project or when the record was made and they had other lives that they wanted to return to.” “When started the second record … [more] people had heard us and seen us and I think it was easier for us this time around to sort of ask people with more of maybe a focus on music to help us out,” he continued. Indeed, the new line up, Ramsay explained was “sort of a combination of having a partner already and being known at this point and sort of circumstance.” “When Max Henry [keyboards] joined the band, he was fresh out of music school and associated with our

drummer at the time [from] another band, so, he’s a lot more musical right away. We’re sort of all in a room together making music together, as opposed to the first album when we sort of made that record in the studio cobbling it together.” “It was mostly Catherine and I,” he continued. “[We] asked some friends to help out when they could. We made it at Break Glass studios, which is run by Jace Lasek of the Besnard Lakes, so he helped out a lot, he was probably the other person who was most involved in this. And then his wife Olga played bass and then Chris and Patty from Stars also played on the record and Kevin Land from Besnard Lakes and Murray Lightburn [the Dears] and Patrick Watson and a lot of guys who we had just met actually, having just moved to Montreal and who happened to be around and were willing to help us out. So we were very lucky. We didn’t realize the extent of the heavy hitters that helped us on the record.” “With the “heavy hitters” [though,]” he explained, “[they were] guys who are just around for an hour or a couple hours or a night or two. In the studio they weren’t explicitly involved every step of the way, whereas the people who are less experienced … were involved for much longer periods of time in the actual recording process.” “They were there often, two or three weeks at a time as we worked on the record, so it felt like we were really going deep,” Ramsay laughed — “whoever didn’t have much experience in the studio certainly had it by the end.” Before transplanting the project to Montreal, Ramsay and girlfriend McCandles formed the group in

Vancouver. Ramsay told me, “We sort of played with some friends in Vancouver, just sort of picking away at stuff in our spare time. But most of our musical experience in Vancouver was sort of behind closed doors, like working on the computer. It was mostly writing and recording music on the computer.” “Montreal, it’s [a] much more vibrant place in terms of the community of people who work on music,” he explained. “You have a sense that there are people who come there with a common goal in mind, just to be in the music industry, and they share information. “ “It’s an interesting community musically because the English community in Montreal is small. So we kind of know everybody who does make music and happens to be English in Montreal. It felt very suddenly like… we were around all of these people who were very like minded and had common goals to go on, as we had, and do music full time or trying to make a living at it.” “In Vancouver we didn’t know any professional musicians. I think bands like Black Mountain and other Vancouver bands that do have some status in the world now, are bands we only ran into once I was touring with Stars — and that didn’t happen until I moved to Montreal. I became reacquainted with the Vancouver music scene only once I had actually established myself in the Montreal music scene,” he laughed. Young Galaxy is playing with Montreal rockers Malajube on Thursday, Nov. 5th at the Casbah. •Corrigan Hammond