170.8 ◆ thursday, march 7th, 2013 ◆ www.theontarion.com

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crackdown on noise in Downtown GuelphCity amends noise bylaws, aims for stricter fines

nick hegedus

Stricter noise bylaws and steeper fines for noise violations are probably the last thing students in Guelph want to hear about.

However, this bylaw change be-came a reality last week, with an increase in fines likely to follow. On Feb. 25, Guelph’s city council voted to make amendments to its noise bylaws, which have been in place since 2000. Some of these amendments were aimed at reducing noise from air con-ditioners and motorcycles, problems which downtown residents consid-ered significant enough to warrant immediate attention.

But students will likely consider the most important change to be the introduction of a 24-hour ban on un-necessary noise downtown.

Under the noise bylaw introduced in 2000, Guelph’s downtown was classified as an area in the “other” category. This meant that unneces-sary noise such as yelling or shouting was prohibited from the hours of 11 p.m. until 7 a.m. (9 a.m. on weekends and holidays).

Last week, council voted to amend the city’s noise bylaw to designate downtown as a “mixed-use” area, in order to better reflect the increasing number of residents living in the area. The mixed-use designation has sev-eral implications for the rules against

unnecessary noise in the area. As a mixed-use area, these types of noise are now prohibited 24 hours per day, except in the case of city events and other activities.

So why has the city chosen this par-ticular time to make these changes?

“A lot of it has to do with the change in dynamics downtown,” stated Doug Godfrey, manager of By-Law Compli-ance and Security in Guelph. “We’re seeing downtown become a lot more residential.”

These changes have been a work in progress since at least 2011, a year which saw what was considered to

be a particularly raucous homecom-ing celebration. Godfrey said that the council felt that the old noise bylaw lacked the strength required to deal with noise during the day.

The city council is also currently seeking to increase the fines attached to the noise bylaw. Currently, the fine for unnecessary noise in Guelph sits at $130, approximately half that of sur-rounding municipalities.

Students will surely be wonder-ing if the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day celebrations motivated the council to amend the noise bylaws at this par-ticular time. It doesn’t seem as though

this is the case.“St. Patrick’s Day last year was

amazing,” said Godfrey. “We thought it was a very successful event.”

Regardless, it remains to be seen if the recent changes will result in seri-ous crackdowns on noise during the upcoming celebrations. Fortunate-ly, students can usually avoid being slapped with immediate fines in the event of unnecessary noise. God-frey said that bylaw staff and police would continue to issue warnings be-fore actually handing out fines, and that “Nine times out of 10, everyone complies.”

Tuesday, March 12, 20139:00 pm

Tickets $24.00 @ The Brass Taps & SFOAC officeticketbreak.com

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No more “unnecessary yelling” will be tolerated in Downtown Guelph, at any hour of the day.Kai JacobsoN

news 3170.8 ◆ march 7th, 2013

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Global to Local: Students, staff, and

faculty on international and national news

On March 5, students in Montré-al convened at what seems to be their favourite hangout location: the streets. Thousands turned out to protest the Parti Québécois’s de-cision to raise tuition by $70 per year as many had hoped that, after an ed-ucation summit held last month, a tuition freeze would be implement-ed. The peaceful protests soon turned violent, and at least 50 people were reportedly arrested. The Ontari-on spoke to several members of the Games Club/Flash Club to get their opinion on the often-discussed issue of tuition fees, and what this news story means for Ontario students.

The Ontarion: First of all, have you heard about this news story?rebecca Howe: I’ve heard about the stuff from before, but I haven’t heard about what happened yesterday.sam engstrom: I’m not surprised, I mean they seem pretty quick to take to the streets if something hacks them off. I just find it [funny] that they have the lowest tuition, but they’re so ready to protect it. In Ontario, it’s a well-known fact that we’ve got the highest tuition and the lowest government subsidization, and no one here does that.The Ontarion: Do you guys think that Ontario students should care about the news topic?rH: I think if anyone should be pro-testing, it should be us.sam titizian: We had a rally recent-ly though.se: It’s nothing on the scale of what they do.st: Obviously not […] Maybe we should be protesting harder. As I said, we had the rally recently. That being said, I don’t know if rallying is the answer. I don’t necessarily want to riot.James Kelly: Probably not the best way to go about it.se: I just feel like Ontario students are a lot more complacent.st: That’s true, you’re definitely right.se: I don’t think riots are the answer, but less complacency is. st: Because you’re not actually help-ing your case if you take to the streets and be violent.rH: You’re just going to make peo-ple resent you, and that’s not going to help move your issue forward or get your issue respected.

Thanks to the participants for this week’s interview. If you have some-thing to say about international or national news, and would like to be contacted for future issues, or if you want to see a particular news story covered here, contact News Editor Alicja Grzadkowska at onnews@uoguelph.ca.

are you affecting lives downstream? Toxicology symposium explores human impacts on aquatic ecosystems

emma wilson

Did you know that wastewater tests are used to determine illicit drug use? Or that human phar-maceuticals remain biologically active after excretion, and can harm humans, fish, and other animals?

These were some of the fas-cinating topics discussed at the 27th Annual Toxicology Sympo-sium on “Life Downstream of Pesticides and Pharmaceuticals in Aquatic Ecosystems.”

Dr. Chris Metcalfe, Director at the Institute for Freshwater Science at Trent University, ex-amined the topic, “What are we flushing down the drain?” He ex-plored the ultimate fate of our pharmaceutical, cleaning, and personal care products once we are done using them.

Metcalfe noted that many pharmaceutical products are biologically active even after excretion as they make their

way down our drains, through wastewater treatment plants, and even when they end up in the aquatic ecosystem. The products include synthetic hormones, an-tibiotics, psychotherapy drugs, chemotherapy drugs, and anti-inflammatories.

Of interest to Guelph residents, Metcalfe has found these drugs in the Grand River area, especially when water treatment technol-ogies have not been up to date. This leads to concerns about drinking water contamination. In most cases these drugs are not acutely toxic, but Metcalfe sug-gested at the conference, “If we can do something to reduce our exposure, then let’s do it.”

Metcalfe’s most recent research used wastewater to determine il-licit drug use in Peterborough, Hamilton, and Montreal. Sub-stances such as cocaine, MDMA, methamphetamines, and other drugs were found. The data from this study indicated that about five per cent of people in Montre-al and Peterborough use cocaine.

Dr. Thomas Moon, a distin-guished professor of biology and Vice-Dean Research Facul-ty from the University of Ottawa,

was another lecturer at the sym-posium, and presented on how fish adjust to changes in their environment. His most recent exploration looked at how the metabolic and reproductive performances of fish are affect-ed by human pharmaceuticals. Moon explored questions such as, “Are the intended effects of these pharmaceuticals apparent in fish? Are there any unintend-ed effects?”

In humans, Moon notes that serotonin-based pharmaceu-ticals regulate mood, emotion, sleep, depression, and eating disorders. He has found that the pheromones that drive re-production in fish are negatively affected even by relatively small amounts of these pharmaceuti-cals. For instance, impacted fish will also stop eating.

“Serotonin stimulates anorexi-genic factors – this meant that it suppresses feeding. This causes major problems,” said Moon.

Dr. Mehran Alaee examined persistent organic pollutants (POPs). POPs are organic com-pounds that persist in the environment, and bioaccumu-late or biomagnify in human

and animal tissue as they are resistant to environmental degradation. These include flame-retardants, siloxanes (a natural bonding chemical that is also used to repel water), and phthalates (chemicals found in plastics). Alaee’s exploration of the sources and fate of these pollutants informs people of the harms of not properly dispos-ing of domestic and industrial POP waste.

Several pairings of fourth-year toxicology students presented on areas related to the theme of the symposium. These includ-ed explorations of the effects of golf course pesticides on aquatic ecosystems, toxic red mud from aluminum mining and its nega-tive effect on sea urchin fertility, the affect of ocean acidification on plankton, and many other captivating topics.

Hosted by the Toxicology Stu-dents Association, the event drew a full crowd and fostered many lively discussions among the attendees. Sponsors included Aquatox, Wellington Laborato-ries, Cantox, and the College of Biological Science Student Council.

www.theontarion.com news4How do you define beauty?Contest seeks alternative definitions of beauty

olivia Zollino

The Wellness Centre on campus is looking to reclaim the meaning of beauty with their latest video contest. The venture is partnered with Project ReVision and Dr. Carla Rice, a leader in the field of body image and the Canada Re-search Chair in Care, Gender, and Relationships at the University of Guelph.

“I thought [the project] was a really great opportunity for stu-dents to get involved and put it out to our community, for students to have a voice,” said Melanie

Bowman, manager of the Well-ness Centre.

Interested students were invited to put together a one-page pro-posal, answering such questions as what will be included in the final video and why they chose to tell the particular story. No previous experience was required. Funding was contributed from SLEF, the Student Life Enhancement Fund.

The videos are meant to show an alternative to the notion of what is beautiful.

“In Reclaiming Beauty, the idea came out of the fact that people with body differences and dis-abilities are rarely represented in media, and are not repre-sented well,” said Bowman. She adds, “They’re often shown as the

‘freaks,’ and [there’s] a real focus

on their difference – being outside of what is ‘normal.’”

However, the focus isn’t sim-ply on different body types. The videos are also intended to also show an inclusion of different sex-ual preferences and orientations. Bowman observes the monu-mental lack of LGBTQ couples in advertising, commenting on how media is rather heteronormative.

Ultimately, the objective is inclusivity.

“We wanted to include and invite everyone around the conversa-tion from these videos through their own narratives about dif-ference,” said Bowman, adding that the videos are a backlash to the mainstream narrative. The contest is an important opportu-nity for those who feel different

and unrepresented in the media for various reasons to have a voice, says Bowman.

“Media impacts all of us. There are several television shows that are geared towards perfection that most of us cannot connect to.” This need for perfection can sometimes manifest into eating disorders, as Bowman has observed from vari-ous cases at the Wellness Centre, among other things.

“People are largely impact-ed,” said Bowman. “Media sends messages about the size we are supposed to be and what we are supposed to look like.”

The proposal submissions se-lected will be turned into a video, made in the REDLAB – an expres-sive arts institute and advanced high-tech multimedia lab on

campus. The winning students will be given access to a two-day storytelling and video production seminar, along with $50.

Participating professors on cam-pus will use the videos as teaching tools in their lessons. Rice will also use the videos as part of her clini-cal and community talks during her duration as the Canadian Re-search Chair.

For Bowman, it is important not only for Guelph students but everyone in general to be able to

“engage in conversation in an ac-ademic setting about breaking down what is beautiful and chang-ing these perspectives.”

“Spending more time on what’s on the inside and less on the in-side isn’t a bad thing for any of us,” said Bowman.

Breakthrough study at the u of GOmega-3s and their role in breast cancer prevention

garry go

A study done by the University of Guelph found that omega-3 fatty acids have a direct link in the pre-vention of breast cancer growth by up to 30 per cent. It is a significant finding in that it is the first study done demonstrating incontestable evidence that omega-3s play a role in reducing the risk of cancer.

“Demonstrating the linkage between omega-3`s and breast cancer in humans is very chal-lenging due to the complexities of trying to study one nutrient amongst many in the diet,” said David Ma, a professor in the De-partment of Human Health and Nutritional Sciences at the U of G and co-author of the study.

“Advances in genetic tools now allow nutrition researchers to tackle questions that we could not previously,” said Ma. He provided details on how the ex-periments during the research process functioned.

“The novel mouse model we developed can produce its own omega-3s and spontaneously de-velop breast cancer. Mammals including mice must get their ome-ga-3s from diet, which is why they are essential,” said Ma. “Using this approach, we showed that it was the presence of a foreign gene, which also happened to produce omega-3`s [that] was the driver of the beneficial effects on tumour size and numbers.”

According to cancer.ca, breast cancer is “the most common cancer

among Canadian women” and “One in nine women is expected to develop breast cancer during her lifetime, and one in 29 will die of it.”

Students had several opinions on the benefits of the research, relat-ed to the risk of developing breast cancer.

The general consensus? We should care about these findings.

“I think students should care be-cause I know that there are a lot of people who are impacted by breast cancer,” said Lois Opoku, a first year Biological Sciences stu-dent. “And so to see that there is this new breakthrough, maybe they can contribute more to the research in a way to help develop it and get more answers out of it.”

Tyler Valiquette, a fourth-year International Development student explained, “This research is high-ly important. Not only is it great for our own health and physical well-being, but it also makes our university look great at the same time.”

Ma discussed the reactions of the researchers to their discovery, which is undoubtedly a positive step forward in the fight against breast cancer, and the notes that people should take from the research.

“Our initial reaction was disbe-lief, because one of the potential outcomes was to observe no ef-fect,” said Ma. “Our mouse model develops a highly aggressive form of human breast cancer, thus the cancer could have overwhelmed any potential beneficial effect of the omega-3s. Given that we observed such a benefit in an aggressive model, this gives us greater confidence that omega-3s should be part of everyone’s lifelong diet.”

news 5170.8 ◆ march 7th, 2013

students hope to make HIV/aIDs history Weeklong events held in the fight against HIV and AIDS

kelsey coughlin

Worldwide, over 64 million individ-uals have been infected with one of the most serious health problems known to man, HIV and/or AIDS. Of that number, 30 million have already lost their lives.

It is because of this statistic that the Canadian charity group I Have Hope In the Fight Against AIDS held edu-cational events and workshops from Feb 26 to March 1 around the uni-versity campus. Since Hope In the Fight’s mission is to build a commu-nity of youth committed to ending the spread of HIV and AIDS, the events were focused on communication and the sharing of information.

The week’s events included: HIV and AIDS trivia at Brass Taps, cannon painting at Branion Plaza, live music and speakers at the Bullring, and a special screening of Start With Us at War Memorial Hall. Start With Us is a documentary about AIDS awareness

created by University of Guelph alum-nus Abid Virani. The film intends to show young people how they can make a difference in the fight against HIV and AIDS.

“The film really makes you think. The subject of AIDS doesn’t come up much in our area, but in other parts of the world it is one the most present and horrifying experiences imagin-able,” explained University of Guelph student Rebecca Arsenault, who was at the screening.

In addition to the formal events held at the university, students were also encouraged to wear red all week in support of ending AIDS. Numer-ous students took this opportunity to show their support and prove that they have hope that one day a cure will be found.

I Have Hope is an organization that does not wish to simply fundraise for the cause, but ultimately wants to en-gage and empower students and the community through knowledge. By empowering students to get involved, I Have Hope can move one step closer to their ultimate goal: putting an end to the spread of AIDS.

Above all else, the organization is

determined to inspire hope in the fight against AIDS. Emily Johnston, also a student at the University of Guelph, believes that “hope is the eas-iest and cheapest way to educate the

community about AIDS and its det-rimental effects. Without hope there would be no reason to more forward.”

According to I Have Hope’s phi-losophy, we need a generation who

participates in all areas of work to care about HIV and AIDS, to fight against HIV and AIDS, and to ultimately end HIV and AIDS. Hope is a necessary in-gredient in ending this deadly disease.

singers serenaded the crowd during the live music presentation at the bullring for the HiV/aiDs campaign week.

abiD ViraNi

The beef on beefCanadian research finds zero horsemeat in our burgers

Jordan sloggett

Canadian carnivores can be assured that they’re not getting any mystery meat in their hamburgers after an investigation from the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario (BIO).

University of Guelph-based BIO took a break from cataloguing DNA barcodes to use their advanced genomic sequencing techniques on a number of different frozen and fast food burgers.

Six popular fast food chains were tested: A&W, Burger King, Dairy Queen, Harvey’s, McDonalds and Wendy’s. The Canadian Centre for DNA barcoding, the section of the institute which conducted the

research, announced that all of the burgers were 100 per cent beef. The Brass Taps’s kangaroo burger was also tested, and was found to be pure kangaroo.

Uncooked frozen patties were also tested from the following companies: Schneiders, Lick’s, M&M Meat Shops, Homestyle, No Name, President’s Choice and Webers. The same results were discovered, with nothing but pure bovine to be found.

“This testing is something all Can-adians should be proud of – knowing the hamburger meat they are buying is beef with no substitutes detected or additions,” said Paul Hebert, Guelph professor and director of the BIO.

The BIO has been involved in past cases of food identification.

“For a number of years, we’ve been doing work on substitution in the seafood marketplace. That’s now ex-panding out into other areas such as

herbal medicines, foodstuffs, teas, other things of that nature that may be a blend,” said Hebert in a January interview with The Ontarion.

The tests come as a response to the European horsemeat scandal that took place early last month.

In France, horsemeat was discov-ered in frozen food packages, which had been labelled as beef lasagne. The controversy sparked an in-depth look into the accountability of the European meat industry. Due to the fragmented nature of the Euro-pean food industry, and the nature of European trading, a number of countries were involved in the fin-ger pointing.

The French accused the Roma-nians, who supplied the horsemeat. Romania, which has some 25 horse-meat slaughterhouses, responded by assuring that all of their export-ed meat would have been labelled

correctly, and that the error must have occurred somewhere along the shipping line.

Although clearly a case of fraudu-lent labelling, horsemeat does not pose any health risks. The primary concern is that if the type of meat can be unknown, what other infor-mation about the preparation of our food is being hidden?

Interestingly, the scandal has caused a spike in horsemeat con-sumption by Canadians, curious to try the still fairly taboo dish.

“People are inquisitive and they say, ‘well, what’s wrong with it? Let me try it,’” said Bill DesBarres,

chairman of the Horse Welfare Al-liance of Canada.

Although more difficult to find here in Ontario, horsemeat is still commonly sold in grocery stores across Quebec, with stores like Metro providing an abun-dance of recipes on their website. In any case, the fallout from this horsemeat scandal will hopefully result in a more transparent global food industry. Improvements in DNA sequencing technology have allowed us the ability to assess the contents of our dinner plate, which can only result in a better informed consumer.

canadians can breathe easy knowing that canadian burgers from multiple chains and stores are in fact 100 per cent beef.

sylVia NayouNG HaN

www.theontarion.com news6shell oil co. pauses 2013 drilling in the arcticShell forced to shut its lucrative Arctic drilling for one year

andrew donovan

Last week, Royal Dutch Shell PLC announced that it would be “paus-ing” its Arctic drilling expeditions in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas on the northwest shores of Alas-ka for 2013. The temporary pause comes after a slew of violations found in Shell’s operations.

Among the astounding 16 vio-lations the Alaskan coast guard found were: a lack of permits to drill two separate wells, a violation of Shell’s air-pollution permits, and problems with the spill con-tainment system.

In an announcement to the media, Shell Oil Co. President Marvin Odum said, “We’ve made progress in Alaska, but this is a long-term program that we are pursuing in a safe and measured way […] Our decision to pause in 2013 will give us time to ensure the readiness of all our equipment and people.”

Mike LeVine, spokesperson for Oceana, an environmental group in the Arctic, praised the deci-sion, saying it was the first good decision he’s seen from Shell. He also mentioned that government

agencies are going to have to re-assess Arctic oil exploration if they intend to protect our ocean resources.

Government oversight was a popular speaking point for many who were worried about Shell’s high amount of safety violations. Jennifer Silver, PhD and assis-tant professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Guelph commented on the paus-ing of the project.

“From my perspective, strong state-led regulatory oversight, in-cluding clear rules stipulating firm responsibility for covering the full costs of any accident, is crucial.”

Clear rules and responsibilities in case of an “accident” are what many, like Silver, are asking for. With the sour taste of the British Petroleum oil spill of 2010 still fresh and an overwhelming feeling that these mega oil companies do not receive the punishment they ought to when they cause environmental disasters, it comes with little sur-prise that people would like to see some restitution and retribution.

Shell has promised that prior to starting up their drilling again, they will make improvements to their regulation and procedures.

Shell has stated that they will “develop world-class industry stan-dards and ecological and cultural protections to safeguard the Arctic.”

However, the optimism had by activists and concerned citizens alike may be short lived. Accord-ing to the U.S. Geological Survey, the Beaufort and Chukchi seas hold roughly 25 billion barrels of oil; at today’s price of oil, that will sell for $2.3 to 2.5 trillion dollars. It is hard to believe a resource so lu-crative will go untouched forever.

In fact, Shell has made it quite clear that drilling will resume in

2014 once they implement the world-class industry standards they spoke about.

“It is possible, depending on the result of the ongoing review and the readiness of our rigs, and frankly, the confidence that les-sons learned from our 2012 drilling program have been fully incorpo-rated,” according to the company.

Some aren’t convinced by the big promises for improvement

that Shell is making. Cindy Shogan, executive director of Alaska Wil-derness League, made it clear that the activism will stop once Arctic drilling has ended permanently.

“If the top oil company in the world has failed in its quest to drill in the harsh and unpredict-able conditions in the arctic, it is time to assess whether any oil company can safely drill in the Arctic Ocean.”

Groups who advocated against the drilling project can take a break, for now.

courtesy PeaK oil

spotlight on women’s issues and empowermentInternational Women’s Day events promote engaged dialogue

sabrina groomes

International Women’s Day is a day to recognize and celebrate the accomplishments of women, and to raise awareness about current issues regarding women’s health and rights. March 8 marks this day, and the Women’s Health Alliance (WHA) of Guelph-Cambridge held many events to celebrate.

“[The WHA] believes that a full and healthy life for women involves emotional, social, cultural, spirit-ual, and physical well-being,” said Megan DePutter, on behalf of the organization, adding, “but issues such as poverty, sexual assault and violence against women, repro-ductive health issues, childcare and transportation needs, gender norms and other barriers can neg-atively affect women’s health and access to services.”

The theme this year, Gaining Mo-mentum, is directly related to the pressing issues concerning women in society today. The WHA’s focus at the moment is economic dispari-ties as more women at the moment

live in poverty than men, and are often affected by salary inequi-ties. This issue was explored at the WHA forum on HIV, Pregnancy and Motherhood on March 5.

The week’s events were open to the public, and they encour-aged everyone to come out and get

involved. These events were aimed at playing “a role in individual learning as well as in building our community’s capacity to address issues related to women’s health,” said DePutter.

The University of Guelph was en-couraged to get involved and play

an important role by “bringing awareness to women’s health is-sues, participating in the dialogue, and sharing what they learn with peers or colleagues,” said DePutter.

On March 4, an event titled Cre-ative Flow included fun activities like karaoke and free pizza, and was

aimed at drawing in the youth of the community.

The youth of today have a large affect on the future of tomorrow.

“Empowering youth, recognizing youth voices and valuing their ex-periences plays an important role in building community capacity to challenge barriers,” explained DePutter. These barriers include stigma, racism, homophobia, and violence, among others.

A few of these events took place on campus at the university such as the “Health at Every Size” work-shop. As well, on March 7, there will be a presentation from noon to 1 p.m. in the J. T. Powell building, Room 207, that will focus on HIV awareness campaigns, and imagery of women and mothers in media, led by Dr. Linda Hunter.

On the big day, Guelph-Welling-ton In Crisis and other community groups will be holding events that include “Take Action for Peace” and “One Billion Rising” at 12 p.m. Continuing the tradition, the WHA along with other community mem-bers will be at the Heffernan Street Bridge near the St. Georges Angli-can Church downtown, where the group will come together to campaign battling violence against women.

The Gaining Momentum with resilience event explored the challenges faced by business women in the surrounding communities.

VaNessa tiGNaNelli

news 7170.8 ◆ march 7th, 2013

newsology: subway line gets too long, prompts uc riotNot really, but headlines are key

alicJa grZadkowska

Since the beginning of Newspaper Time, trumped-up headlines have been used to sell print and online media. And in the technological age, where information is processed in mil-liseconds by audiences and computers alike, the five-to-ten-letter title of an article can either cause a stir, or help file the work into the black hole of in-ternet news archives.

The Enquirer and The Onion can get away with over-the-top headlines for very different reasons, but when so-called serious news sources rely on them to attract people to equally exhilarating or lackluster article mis-representations, the entertainment value for frequent newsreaders spikes dramatically.

Take for instance a headline that ap-peared on The National Post’s website on March 4. “But by how many de-grees? Kevin Bacon discovers he and wife Kyra Sedgwick are cousins” is undoubtedly eye-catching, and draws the reader in to read more about Find-ing Your Roots, a TV shows hosted by

Harvard professors that traces the lin-eage of famous people to other notable individuals in history.

Another headline that appeared on the site under the “Most Popular” section claimed, “Boyfriend pushes girlfriend off Utah cliff – she ‘breaks up with him’ on her way down,” was another witty play on words and the topic (the pair was actually participat-ing in a rope swing stunt for a film), effectively encouraging the reader to read further.

With its classification as one of the most popular articles read that day, the headline and others that appeared alongside it, like “‘TP Slider’ aims to

change the way toilet paper is dis-pensed” unveil the unsurprising truth about the type of news people read in the modern day: simple, funny, fast.

But is this a huge change from the delivery and reception of news since the first newspaper Acta Diurna was published in 59 B.C. in Rome? While the headlines from that paper might not be available to the general public now, the use of headlines from the period of yellow journalism around the turn of the century are reminiscent of cur-rent news tactics to attract readership.

According to PBS, gazettes like The New York Journal and The New York World saw the headline as the key part

of the story, perhaps more important than the information itself, particu-larly when selling newspapers during the Spanish-American war. Graphic imagery like “Peace Treaty is Ratified, Awful Slaughter” and titles signifying the horrors of the world (physical de-formations, rampant murders) were commonly utilized to sell papers. The tactic seems to have continued into today.

So, as long as reporters keep writing headlines like “Hungry Swedes queue up for Obama’s sausage” and “Gordon Ramsay sex dwarf eaten by badger,” reading the news may never go out of style. Take that, naysayers.

Discussing experiences travelling abroad AIESEC presents for the Better Planet Project

lindsay Pinter

The University Center hosted a Better Planet Speaker Series event on March 4, featuring AIESEC (International Association of Students in Economic and Commercial Sciences), which is a student run international internship organization aiming at breaking down international barriers and preparing students to become future leaders.

Founded in 1948 after the devastat-ing impact of World War II, AIESEC gives young people an opportunity to discover and develop their potential, as well as create international con-nections between very different and diverse cultures.

Karen Mehltretter, a second-year marketing management student at the University of Guelph and vice presi-dent of corporate relations for AIESEC Guelph, explained at the lecture that AIESEC is the “first organization in the world to have internships between democratic and communist countries, as well as the first internship organiza-tion to provide internships to the black

community, which was huge during that time period.”

Mehltretter also states that AIESEC encourages its members to strive for six major goals, including “activating leadership, demonstrating integrity, living diversity, enjoying participa-tion, striving for excellence and acting sustainably.”

“Every student that joins AIESEC makes their own experiences that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives,” said Mehltretter at the talk.

The next speaker was Katrina Ray-mundo, an AIESEC Guelph intern from the Philippines who works for the Or-ganizational Services at the University of Guelph Library. Raymundo dis-cussed her personal experience with AIESEC.

“I wanted to experience a lifestyle and culture completely different than my own, while also gaining interna-tional work experience to assist me in the future.” She described the culture shock that she experienced upon arriving in Canada, explaining,

“I thought myself to be very proficient in English, but when I landed I heard all this slang and I couldn’t understand it. That along with having to figure out living on my own with bills and

responsibilities was very overwhelm-ing.” She soon realized that she was not alone in this whirlwind.

“AIESEC members were there for me; we became friends and I didn’t feel so alone anymore. They helped me adjust.”

The final and third speaker was Carly Vandergrendt, an AIESEC Guelph

exchange participant who participated in a global internship program in India. Vandergrendt was amazed at the feel-ing of inclusiveness and acceptance she felt throughout her internship.

“For the first time, during that ex-perience, I felt that the world could open up its arms and include me.” She explained that the exchange changed

her perspective of the world. “The world suddenly became a much

smaller place. It’s important to make connections and learn from your ex-periences, and AIESEC provided me with an amazing experience to learn.” Vandergrendt added, “AIESEC is an amazing organization, we are all just a big family.”

The presentation featured individuals who had been involved with aisec in a variety of ways.

beN DerocHie

Beware the arts degree (vs. anything else)More to add to the age-old rift between liberal arts and everything else worth studying

katie shum

Imagine this: a college graduate and two university graduates have the same amount of student debt after having recently graduated from graphic design, anthropology, and biomedical engineering degrees, respectively. Moreover, all three graduates are receiving the same earnings. According to new research,

the anthropology graduate is more likely to default on their student loan than the engineering graduate, but the college graduate is most likely to default on their loan compared to the others.

A new paper published by so-ciologists Laura Wright (Western University), Dr. David Walters (Uni-versity of Guelph), and Dr. David Zarifa (Nipissing University), has shed light on choices that may vary the likelihood of graduates meeting timely repayments – or avoiding de-fault – to their student loans within two years of graduation.

The study examined the bridge be-tween the “field of study and loan default on government-supported

student loans for graduates,” with focus on Canadian colleges and universities, as employed by the ap-plicable data from Statistics Canada’s 2005 National Graduates Survey.

As Walters explained, the research team suspected that there would be favourable differences for university graduates versus college graduates, and for applied majors versus liberal arts majors, based on a number of so-ciology and economic theories – and what they found is that these odds still exist. Sorry, liberal arts friends. How-ever, Walters added that when they controlled for socio-demographic factors, what surprised them was that this pattern existed regardless of earnings.

The big question then is “why?” When posed with this question,

fourth-year marketing student Ben Bickers offered his sense of the results.

“Right from the get-go [university students] have more of a theoretical mindset and analytical mindset maybe than some college students [and] as a business student I’m definitely at an advantage over maybe an arts student

– I know maybe a little bit more about finance and financial managing and the job market right now.”

Sarah Cordeaux, a fourth-year stu-dio art major, explained that “from a fine art perspective […] you want to take the time to find a job that’s going to be in your sector, that’s ap-plicable to what you do, that’s going

to make enough money to support your [art making] practice.” How-ever, Cordeaux added that the balance between making ends meet and job searching is critical, and expressed concern for her peers that “miscal-culate and don’t have any help along the way” heeding that they don’t fall short of their financial responsibilities.

Degree programs offered at the University of Guelph give students the opportunity to choose free elec-tives every year. Given the mounting reports of a difficult job market in nearly every sector, and statistics to back those reports, it seems as though choosing a course on personal finance should be the next big campaign on campus.

for web-exclusivephoto Reel

arts & cuLture 9170.8 ◆ march 7th, 2013

Cabaret takes stage at war MemCurtain Call keeps musical theatre tradition alive

nick revington

Continuing one of the universi-ty’s longest traditions, spanning 56 years, student-run musical theatre company Curtain Call Productions is staging this year’s performance, Cabaret, from March 6 to 9 at War Memorial Hall.

“The show is set in 1930s Berlin. It’s about a young American writer who travels to Berlin in search of inspira-tion,” said Director Tim Clarke.

“He’s a closeted homosexual, and it’s based on a play called I Am a Camera, which was based on a se-ries of Christopher Isherwood short stories, The Berlin Stories, which were actually published in the 30s,” said Clarke.

“The original Berlin Stories are, like most of Isherwood’s writing is, semi-autobiographical. But he left out the very major detail in the origi-nal stories that he was gay, because it was the ’30s and probably wouldn’t have been palatable to audiences of the day, publishers of the day,” said Clarke. “But then he wrote a series of revised, more truthful accounts of what his life in Berlin was like, one of which is called Christopher and His

Kind, which very plainly states that to Isherwood, Berlin meant boys.”

The writer, Clifford Bradshaw, falls into the boisterous world of Berlin’s nightlife, epitomized by the Kit Kat Klub. Actor Devin Dos Santos, in the role of the club’s emcee, managed to capture this atmosphere brilliant-ly with witty banter and a spirited, raucous delivery. Indeed, Dos San-tos’s performance was among the highlights of the show, including a humourous walkabout in the audi-ence during the Entr’acte.

“It was a period of sexual libera-tion; it was a few years before the Nazis came to power. The Weimar years, particularly in Berlin, it was sort of a crazy party where you could get away with a lot of things,” said Clarke.

Cabaret explores this era of sex-ual liberation. Originally staged as a Broadway musical in 1967, the modi-fied 1998 revival version of the show remains provocative today. Not only is Bradshaw a closeted homosexual – an aspect that was less explicit in the original – but the show also explores the themes of promiscuity and poly-amourous relationships, including a catchy number called “Two Ladies.”

“One of the ladies is actually a boy in drag, which wasn’t something they did in the original 1967 staging of Cabaret, but it became popular in the 1998 revival,” said Clarke.

The show featured strong vocal performances by all soloists, includ-ing Ronald McKenzie-Lefurgey as Clifford Bradshaw and Flo Labrie as Sally Bowles, the free-spirited Caba-ret singer who becomes Bradshaw’s roommate and female love interest. The dance numbers were high-ly evocative of 1930s nightlife, and having the orchestra visible onstage added to the illusion of being in an actual nightclub of the times. In the meantime, an incredibly minimal-istic set did not hinder the viewer’s ability to understand the setting of each scene; instead it led to greater focus on the actors themselves.

Particularly telling about the qual-ity of Curtain Call’s production is not in how it captured the party atmo-sphere of Berlin. Rather, as is the case with all parties, the festivities came to a close with the rising specter of Nazism, and Curtain Call managed to strongly convey the sense of a soci-ety descending into darkness in the second act.

Despite the darker overtones of the latter part of the show, Caba-ret left the viewer with a number of catchy show tunes firmly entrenched in their head. It is certainly among the more memorable of Curtain Call’s recent productions.

Flo labrie stars as cabaret singer sally bowles in curtain call Productions’ staging of the broadway musical cabaret at War Memorial Hall March 6 to 9.

VaNessa tiGNaNelli

suzie ungerleider, better known as oh susanna, treated the ebar to a

performance on Feb. 28, sharing the stage with birds

of chicago.

leiGH licHteNberG

oH susanna

THEONTARION.COM

www.theontarion.com arts & cuLture10Bob Marley’s granddaughter visits u of G Screening of RasTa: A Soul’s Journey

colleen mcdonell

Maybe you’ve seen the dreadlocks, smelled the marijuana, and heard Bob Marley sing about “positive vibration, yeah!” but do you really know what defines the Rastafari culture?

Donisha Prendergast, grand-daughter to Rita and Bob Marley, visited U of G on Feb. 28 to show her documentary on Rastafari-anism, titled RasTa: A Soul’s Journey. The event, among oth-ers, was part of the Student Help and Advocacy Centre’s Black His-tory Month on campus. The film followed the 28-year-old film-maker as she journeyed to eight countries around the world ex-ploring the roots and evolution of Rastafarianism.

Rastafarianism began as a spiri-tual movement in Jamaica in the 1930s after Ras Tafari was crowned as Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia, who many believe was the second coming of Christ or Christ’s incarnation. From then, Rastafarianism has come to in-corporate the themes of spiritual use of cannabis, the rejection of Western society or “Babylon,” the repatriation to Africa for the de-scendants of those slaves forced into the West, and, of course, reg-gae music.

“Reggae music is the voice of Rastafari…reggae music and Ras-tafari are one,” Prendergast says in the film. “You cannot distin-guish one from the other.”

Travelling to the diverse cities of Washington, Toronto, Lon-don, Mumbai, Tel Aviv, Cape Town, and Addis Ababa for four

years, Prendergast explored the progression of Rastafari; which was popularized by reggae’s best-known icon, her grandfather Bob Marley. Patricia Scarlett, Ras-Ta’s executive producer, grew up in Montreal and met Marley as a teenager. She was reminded of his legacy while working as a travel agent.

“Everywhere I went I encoun-tered not only Bob Marley and his music, but I encountered Rastafarians of every culture, every nationality. These weren’t just people wearing dread locks, these were people living the Rasta lifestyle,” Scarlett said during a Q&A session. “I thought it was a big story, if you consider where it started. In a relatively short period, it has taken root in liter-ally every continent in the world,

except Antarctica – but it’s just a matter of time.”

It was clear the film did not set out to strictly define Rastafarian-ism, but to explore its multiple facets. Although some believers in Israel stated that, “Rasta [is] rooted in the Bible,” Prendergast later mentioned, “Rasta for me is not a religion.” She explained that it is more about positive energy and the full-time lifestyle she has taken on since she “locked” her hair in 2003. While visiting To-ronto, the young traveler discussed how some people want to adopt the image of Rastafari through wearing the dread locks or the sporting the colours of red, green, and yellow, but don’t want to deal with the “burden” or politics that comes along with the commitment to being a true Rastafarian.

“Rasta has been marketed a lot, to the point that the real tenets of Rastafari have been stripped away and removed on purpose for con-venience, for what suits people,” Prendergast said in the film. Her grandmother Rita, the wife of the late Bob Marley, agreed: “When I see Rastafari now, it is more like a fad and fantasy.”

Prendergast was born three years after her grandfather’s death, and therefore her knowledge of him and his Rastafarian beliefs have been handed down primar-ily through family lore, music, and the media. During the film, she mixes her exploration of Rasta-fari with her own self-discovery.

“As I traveled, my grandfather revealed himself to me,” the young filmmaker said on the mystical moments when Marley spoke to her through song, giving her more faith in Rastafari during the trav-elling portion of the eight years of total production. After the

screening, Prendergast treated the audience to excerpts from 60 Visions, a book on Marley’s phi-losophies taken from his lyrics and interviews.

RasTa: A Soul’s Journey is an important film to see whether or not you believe in the Rasta-fari faith; its underlying message was one of love, shared among

people all around the world, and of yourself, which Prendergast ar-ticulated during her final message at the event.

“Insecurity – that is an insult to the universe,” Prendergast said, to the audience composed predomi-nantly of university students. “So figure out your purpose, [and] love yourself.”

The film by bob Marley’s granddaughter takes the viewer to eight vastly different countries and explores the roots and progression of the rastafari culture.

courtesy

The new boarding House Gallery opened in Guelph on Feb. 28, at the location of the former

Guelph civic Museum at Dublin street and Waterloo avenue.

Pictured is sculpture “Jalouse” by James carl.

iNa XHuNGa

GaLLery openInG

“As I traveled, my grandfather

revealed himself to me”

– Donisha Prendergast,

on how her exploration of

Rastafari helped her understand

Bob Marley

arts & cuLture 11170.8 ◆ march 7th, 2013

sheepman and walrus rock albion’s second floorHalifax imports treat concertgoers to inventive and spirited indie rock

robyn nicholson

After over a week of touring Cana-da’s East Coast, Halifax natives Walrus and Sheepman graced the Albion’s second floor with surprisingly sun-drenched indie rock that was equal parts shoegaze, experimental, and surf-rock-infused psychedelia. De-spite the small crowd, the show was a uniquely intimate experience that was well worth braving the cold and the cover charge.

To kick off the evening, Walrus, composed of brothers Justin and Jor-dan Murphy, on vocals/guitar and drums respectively, guitarist Justin McGrath and bassist Adam LeDrew, quietly took to the stage and slowly but surely built up a swirling, reverb-heavy sound which soon filled the Albion’s upper floor.

Echoing fellow retro-indie rockers

Tame Impala, Walrus’s set was warm-ly infused with spacey floating vocals underlain with laid-back surf-rock guitar and all backed by Jordan Murphy’s impeccable drumming. Consistent variation in tempos and styles – at times sweet and at times snarling, both steady and rollicking

– made for a continuously absorbing and welcoming set to start the night.

Without any lost time, Sheep-man had launched into their own set. While sharing shoeless – or in Sheepman’s case, sockless – singers, also carrying over to the second set was Walrus drummer Jordan Murphy, joining Harley Alexander on vocals and guitar, and bassist Adam Gravelle. The trio proved to be a powerhouse, crafting a sound much larger than they appeared capable of.

Justin Murphy’s wandering and ambivalent vocal style was traded for Alexander’s more deeply set reso-nation, at times echoing Joy Division’s Ian Curtis. The pace continued to pick up as the set progressed, maintaining an intensely present and alive sound, at once effervescent and captivating.

The audience size had increased, albeit marginally, and the sound continued swelling, pausing brief-ly for a song which was as close to a ballad as had been approached all evening. Alexander demonstrated a devastatingly emotive range, while drummer Murphy and bassist Grav-elle stayed completely in tune with each other, ensuring a tightly knit, intimate sound. Alexander’s guitar work was heavily laden with effects

pedals but they were not used in ex-cess, as can be the issue with such set-ups.

On the second-to-last song, Sheepman really opened up, show-ing off in a freak-out of sorts that resulted in a blistering pace and an unbridled raucousness of orches-trated noise. Unfortunately, due to time constraints set by the Albion’s ever-popular funk night to fol-low, Sheepman’s set closer was cut

abruptly short – mid-song, in fact. Despite the disruptive early end-

ing, the general feeling following the sudden silence was jovial and sincere. The dual sets were equal-ly impressive and pretension-free. While Walrus and Sheepman would return to Halifax shortly, their im-pression left on the Albion and on the handful of concertgoers will re-main in downtown Guelph. Here’s to many happy returns.

March 2 saw east-coast indie rockers sheepman visit the albion Hotel for a show alongside Walrus for a surprisingly intimate performance.

robyN NicHolsoN

Folk rockers The treasures performed a noon hour concert in the uc

courtyard on March 1, much to the delight of fans of all ages.

VaNessa tiGNaNelli

tHe treasures Graphic novel review: Minutemen by Darwyn cookeAdapted series brings new perspective to old characters.

andrea connell

If you haven’t read any of the new series Before Watchmen, DC Comic’s homage to Alan Moore’s sensational graphic novel The Watchmen, put down that textbook and get busy. The first four of the nine titles were released in June of 2012 and the lim-ited edition miniseries is soon coming to an end.

The Before Watchmen checklist includes Minutemen, Silk Spectre, Nite Owl, Comedian, Ozymandias, Rorschach, Dr. Manhattan, Dollar Bill and Molach. Each title is the cre-ation of different artists, but solidly based on source material gleaned from the original Watchmen.

Minutemen is written and drawn by the fantastic Toronto-based Dar-wyn Cooke, known for his work on Catwoman, The New Frontier, and adaptations of Richard Stark’s Parker novels into graphic ones.

In the first of the six-issue Min-utemen, Cooke brings Moore’s characters to life based on the in-formation found in Hollis Mason’s, a.k.a. Nite Owl’s, fictional tell-all biography called Under The Hood. (If you haven’t read The Watchmen, read it and all will be clear!)

Hollis Mason has retired from masked and unmasked crime fight-ing. He is a New York City beat cop by day, Nite Owl by night. Mason’s

soon to be released book is not going over well with the masked heroes he worked with throughout the 1940s. They don’t want the public to know the Comedian sexually assaulted Sally Jupiter, Hooded Justice was a psy-chopath, and the Silhouette was a lesbian.

Cooke has added some heft to these characters, especially those who did not really get their due in

The Watchmen. The story of Ursula Zandt – the Silhouette – is of her past fight against child pornographers, busting them and saving children from harm. She and her lover were brutally murdered as a revenge crime years later.

Where Moore gave her charac-ter only a paragraph or two in the original book, Cooke gives Ursula her due in this rendition. Cooke adds to

the character’s depth by building on her experience as an orphan in Nazi Germany. The six Minutemen issues build into a mystery surrounding what Ursula was investigating when she died and why Nite Owl promises to finish what she started.

Cooke’s art is nowhere as gritty as the original graphic novel and this may fool some into thinking the stories are also not as gritty. Not so. The gentle cartoony drawings and soft colours disguise the bloody and violent murder scenes on the page. Cooke also manages to keep the char-acters just as human and pathetic as Moore’s. Byron – the Mothman – is a drunk and barely a superhero. Sally Jupiter saw dressing up as a “crime fighter” as a lucrative way to boost her modeling career. She never re-ally fought crime. Yet Cooke gives her character a twist by giving her a murderous role in avenging Ur-sula’s death.

The thread running throughout the series is Hollis Mason’s de-sire to share the truth about how it was being behind the mask for over two decades. Truth is a funny thing, though. Sometimes even those be-hind the mask don’t quite know what their counterparts are up to. It’s hard to see what is in front of you. No spoilers here: just know Cooke brings the story to a shocking con-clusion. It may be sacrilege to say but the Minutemen series has far better art and deeper characters than the original. Of course it is no ground-breaker, like The Watchmen was in 1986, but it’s a more enjoyable read.

Dc coMics

www.theontarion.com arts & cuLture12

pop QuizzicalCritical hits (and misses)

tom beedham

Pop culture can be hard to wrap your head around. Operating as a sister column to Pop Machine, Pop Quizzical was born out of a general sense of estrangement that is at times brought on by the entertainment industry and its ambassadors. Come here for a round up of generally mystify-ing, contradicting, and alienating pop culture tidbits and revel in my frustration by reading my my lack of comprehension hidden behind thinly veiled sarcasm.

taylor swift goes all st. peterInstead of writing a song about it, Taylor Swift has found another way to react indirectly to comments Tina Fey and Amy Poehler jokingly made at the Golden Globes about her prefer-ence to become romantically entwined with famous men. As the only arbiter of heavenly admittance that matters, Taylor Swift reacted to the digs by cit-ing Katie Couric, who she told Vanity Fair was one of her favourite people be-cause “she said to me she had heard a quote that she loved, that said, ‘There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.’” Poehler is okay with the news that she is going to hell, although she admitted to the

Hollywood Reporter it’s probably “for other reasons. Mostly boring tax stuff.” So she probably deserves it, right? Fey has responded by admitting she might take a page out of Swift’s book and “do a whole song” about the experience.

What’s not recognized by most is the alarming irony that Twist isn’t really helping Fey and Poehler by circulating this information. As one modestly following in the footsteps of Jesus, shouldn’t she try to help these lost souls? Are her bangs doomed to burn in a special place in hell too?!

ed the sock returns to Much MusicIn its ongoing bid to test our under-standing and tolerance of a channel

that is at this point riding on a label stretched so thin you barely even asso-ciate the brand with its programming, Much Music announced it would re-introduce audiences to everyone’s favourite sock puppet personality, Ed the Sock on March 13. While the green-haired, cigar chomping, celeb-rity razzing sock puppet will certainly reel back Much audiences from the

’90s and Ed will appear on Much pro-grams New.Music.Live. and Video on Trial, Much’s decision surely comes as a recent effort in attempting to get away with avoiding the morality test-ing task of obtaining copyrights for airing music videos, and instead airing longer blocks of house content.

Kanye west does(n’t) care what you thinkBecause he really doesn’t care what people think of him, Kanye recent-ly took time to call up Hot 97’s DJ Enuff to complain about being placed seventh on MTV’s 10 “Hot-test MCs” list. West said he should have been in the top five, and com-plained that he was probably only exempted from that bracket be-cause the list makers didn’t like his newest Cruel Summer album

– a minor indicator of buzz defla-tion that should surely not prevent someone from being considered worthy of inclusion among the world’s “hottest five” MCs.

Things I hate about the music sceneFour things that need to stop

nick revington

My job assures that I spend lots of time engaging with the local music scene, which is great, usu-ally. Here are the bits that aren’t so great.

when bands release their album on cassette: There seems to be a re-emerging trend of indie bands releasing material on cassette. It can only be assumed that this is an attempt to come across as ret-ro-chic or something. Except just

no. You can almost hear a group of synth-playing hipsters ask-ing themselves, “You know what would be ironic? Putting our music in a format no one uses anymore.” Whatever novelty value a cassette tape may have is far outweighed by the fact that they are bulky, have poor sound quality, and no one ever listens to them.

when people clap along to songs at live shows… on the wrong beat: This happens more than you might think, and if you do it, you’re a square. Generally, clapping should come on beats two and four in most music, which is based on a four-beat pattern. That’s called the

back beat, and it’s what drives the overwhelming majority of popu-lar music. The reason people get it wrong is that beats one and three often intuitively feel stronger. In case you don’t have the music theory background to figure out which beat is which, your safe bet is to sync up to the snare drum, which usually accentuates the backbeat. You may find it help-ful to tap or stomp your foot on beats one and three to identify two and four.

when one of the musicians in the band feels the need to fiddle around on their instrument be-tween songs: You know the type

– the guitarist who throws in a couple licks while the lead sing-er is trying to introduce the next song, or the drummer who prac-tices a fill after every tune. It’s annoying for sure, but also un-professional. We came to see you play well-rehearsed songs, not practice on stage.

Generic singer-songwriters: They are a dime a dozen. You better be an impressively innovative song-writer, or have a really unique voice, or be a guitar virtuoso. Preferably, you are more than one of those things, but if you are none of them, just stop. As Barenaked Ladies might say, “it’s

all been done.” As poet-musician CR Avery might say, “folk singer, you make me wish that your mom never fucked your dad.” Of course, no one can be amazing at what they do right off the bat, so if you need time to develop your solo singer-songwriter style, spend some time in a band. At least in the meantime you don’t need to rely entirely on your own ability to create musical interest. If that’s not feasible, make it your mission to develop something that sets your music and performance apart from other singer-songwriters before you book yourself shows at every coffeehouse in town. It’s not a gimmick, it’s a selling point.

album review: The Folk Sinner – Lee Harvey osmondBig name, big expectations, big delivery

makenZie Zatychies

Be prepared to be swept away by the new album The Folk Sinner, from Lee Harvey Osmond. Close your eyes, kick back, and let the music take you through this eclectic mar-riage of sounds.

This is the second album from the band, fronted by the distinct bari-tone growl of Tom Wilson, also of Junkhouse and Blackie and the Rodeo Kings. Wilson has the writing and vocal credits on all tracks, but is happy to have had the opportuni-ty of such wonderful collaborations throughout the album, with names such as Hawksley Workman (“Break Your Body”), Oh Susannah (“Big Chief”), Margo Timmins (“Deep Water”) and with his son, Thomp-son Wilson of Harlan Pepper (“Big Chief”) making an appearance.

As for the name The Folk Sinner, Wilson explained that as a child he

wanted to be a folk singer but wasn’t accepted by that community. These people didn’t get him, and didn’t un-derstand what he was doing, causing him to become an outsider in that genre.

Wilson said that “trying to be ac-cepted by any group that identifies in a certain way, with its own rules is a dead end, but it pushes you to cre-ate music in your own way, therefore creating your own audience.”

Wilson deemed the title an ac-knowledgement of his roots. Wilson didn’t end up a folk singer, but a folk sinner.

Wilson said that “music is back in the hands of the people and the artists.”

The idea is clearly proven when a band refuses to conform to any genre, and as Wilson said, “They sought to make folk music in a way that hadn’t been done before,” therefore creat-ing a genre unto themselves labeled

“acid folk.”It refuses to fit any mould, creat-

ing an honest sound that you can’t quite compare to other things out there, and that really comes through on the album.

This acid folk genre is a unique marriage of jazz, blues, hypnotic bass lines and folk sensibility. Like a puzzle, containing many differ-ent pieces, this album contains many components that come to-gether to make it a great listen as a whole. “Devil’s Load” is a mix of bluesy folk, where “Easy” is psy-

chedelic jazz juxtaposed with soft percussion accompanied by Wil-son’s smooth vocals. Folk Sinner has layers and a big sound working together to create a unity, forming a complete album.

Wilson attributed this to the fact that, “all the songs come from the

same roots, the same room” in Wil-son’s Hamilton home.

He said it allowed him to “cre-ate varying songs that can exist together.”

A few stand out songs on the album are “Oh Linda,” “Big Chief” and “Break Your Body.” A great ren-dition of a Gordon Lightfoot song,

“Oh Linda” is very raw and cre-ates the perfect opening. Wilson penned “Big Chief” with his son, with a message.

“Leadership, which does not have to be the love of power, but leader-ship in the hands of people who are loving and caring for fellow man, opposed to caring about money or war or religion” is what is impor-tant, said Wilson.

The vocals of Wilson and Oh Su-sannah elevate one another to a new level, creating a stunning duet. Fi-nally, “Break Your Body” was written and performed in collab-oration with Hawksley Workman. Wilson claims this is one of the songs he is most proud of on Folk Sinner.

“I love co-writing and have co-written with a lot [of artists] on this album. I’ve known Hawksley

Workman for or 15 or 20 years and we hit it off… we decided to write something and wrote ‘Break Your Body’ in 10 minutes.”

Wilson explained how past expe-riences were reflected in the writing of this record.

“We all have challenges, broken hearts and dark corners and places we’ve crawled out from, but I’m more vibrant than I’ve ever been. My new productivity and focus come from 14 years of sobriety. I’ve been given a chance to live again. Saying you’re an artist and drinking through that statement is false, but waking up and creating is an artist,” said Wilson, adding that Lee Harvey Osmond provides this outlet.

The album reflects this new life and the high note in his creative ca-reer, standing as an example of what we can achieve.

Wilson says, “You can only go up” and that he hopes to get better.

Honest, raw, unique and pas-sionate, this album – like its writer

– speaks from the heart. To better understand the heart of Lee Har-vey Osmond, take a listen to The Folk Sinner.

courtesy

arts & cuLture 13170.8 ◆ march 7th, 2013

from a to ZavitzMoonraker explores uncertainty of memory

nick revington

Nadine Maher’s show at Zavitz gallery Feb. 25 to March 1, entitled Moonrak-er, explored the themes of memory and the questioning of our percep-tions through painting. Most of the paintings were based on memories, some recent and others more distant. Maher often used bold colours with an evenness of tone to represent mem-ory, which the artist referred to as

“imaginative logic.”“I just like to use my imagination

to find what I can logically put in the painting,” said Maher. “Like if it’s a room, then I know there’s a floor, it’s not going to fade out anywhere, so I just make it all one big colour, and I’m not sure what else is on there, but I know that for sure.”

Maher contrasted this with rep-resentations of memory in movies, in which images are hazy and white around the edges.

A particular shortcoming of memory, of course, is that it can be

unreliable, a trait Maher used as an advantage. A number of the artist’s works openly engage with the un-certainty inherent in memory and

choose to celebrate these flaws, such as “Building (Red and Green)” or

“Building (Bailey Park).”“I was going around campus and

different places and drawing build-ings and stuff like that and bringing them back to the studio and trying to paint them. But when I got back I

realized that all of my drawings were not really that adequate to paint from. There were lines missing, I didn’t know what colour anything was, so I just tried to make it up as I went when I was making the paintings,” explained Maher. “So there’s some weird things and mistakes in them that I really like, that happened in all of them. All of them have a weird mistake for some reason.”

Similarly, our inability to fact-check our memories was on display in the piece “Too Fast, Too Low, and Checkered.” This painting featured a white- and red-checkered silhou-ette of an airplane against a sky blue backdrop. After Maher and a friend witnessed an aircraft pass at low alti-tude and high speed, Maher’s friend insisted it had a checkered pattern while Maher insisted it did not.

“But I decided to include that anyway, because it was a weird discrepancy of memory… for all I know maybe it did, but I can’t go back and check it again,” said Maher.

In the end, Moonraker exposes the space between plausibility and skep-ticism, forcing us to draw conclusions we can never truly verify.

Nadine Maher’s exhibit, Moonraker, at Zavitz gallery the week of Feb. 25, represented the vagueness of memory with solid colours lacking detail rather than creating hazy edges.

NaDiNe MaHer

what the tech?Are we breaking the language barrier?

nick revington

In yet another example of “science fiction” becoming merely “science,” live translation between speakers of different languages is quickly becom-ing a reality. The concept is loosely based on the ability of Star Trek’s characters to understand the dialogue of alien cultures in flawless English.

NTT DoCoMo, a cell phone carrier in Japan, has developed software that allows phone calls to be translated

between Japanese and either Eng-lish, Mandarin, or Korean. It expects to increase the number of non-Jap-anese languages to around 10 in the near future.

French phone company Alcatel-Lucent is developing a similar system, with over a dozen languages, and has ambitions to allow conference calls between around 10 partici-pants to converse in as many as four different languages simultaneous-ly. Inventor Will Powell of London, UK, has devised a prototype system that translates between English and Spanish by displaying the translation in special goggles, similar to movie

subtitles. A number of other compa-nies and inventors are in hot pursuit, including the likes of Microsoft and Google.

Most of this technology relies on identifying senones. Senones are comprised of three phonemes – the distinct sounds that make up words. English alone has about 40 phonemes, which combine for 9,000 senones. Using a computing technique known as deep neural networks, which at-tempts to mimic the human brain, senones are discerned from incom-ing sounds and allow speech to be recognized as words and sentences to be translated.

A number of problems arise in translation, however. Some words have multiple meanings, or ambig-uous meanings, or may simply not have an equivalent in another lan-guage. Different languages have different syntactical rules, too. Even if you translate the words correctly, what order they go in may be differ-ent. The result is often a disjointed and unnatural sentence – potentially humourous to native speakers of that language and embarrassing to those speaking. NTT DoCoMo’s technolo-gy, for example, struggles with long sentences.

Jibbigo and Google, which both

operate translation apps, work around this problem by using crowd-sourcing techniques to identify the most appropriate translations for the context, for instance by comparing it to other sentences the software has encountered. Microsoft offers another approach: its translation is pronounced in a voice that mimics the actual speaker, meaning listen-ers are more likely to be forgiving of erroneous translations.

Despite this, problems remain. Background noise, slang, and human tendency to talk over one another still present major hurdles to Star Trek-style effortless translation.

CSA GENERAL ELECTIONS 2013Q: “Why should students vote for you in the upcoming CSA elections?”

FromMarch6toMarch8,allundergraduatestudentswillbeabletovoteintheCSAelections,choosingthefivecommissionerswhowillrepresentthematvariouslevelsinthenextacademicyear.Votingisdonethroughemail,andtheballotisavailable

througheachstudent’sGryphMailaccount. The Ontarionaskedeachcandidatetwoquestions.Thefirstofthetwoisprintedhere.Theanswertothesecondquestion,“Whatdoyouseeas

thebiggestareasforimprovement(orcompleteoverhaul)attheUniversityofGuelph?”areavailableattheontarion.com.

External Affairs Commissioner

Dominica McPhersonI believe in a strong student union ad-vocating for your rights and interests. The CSA should act as your resource, uniting student voices and efforts for positive change. Being in this position has awarded me with the experience and skill set necessary to take it to a new level. I have been a strong voice for greater tap water access and for the student demand to end the sale of bottled wa-ter on campus. I’ve heard from students that food issues – waste, di-etary needs, affordability, etc. – is something that you care about. I am committed to facilitating a task force on campus food issues to address your concerns.With Ontario having the highest tuition fees in the country, it’s im-portant to me to continue the fight against increases. This requires strong lobbying efforts to the university and governments to see post-secondary education on their priority lists with multiple ways for you to be involved! This year, I have learned about how other student unions make their campuses a safer space. Next year, I plan to be proactive in building a culture on campus that prevents discrimination and violence by work-ing with you to take action for a safer campus.

Communications and Corporate Affairs Commissioner

Roisin LyderYou should vote for me because I am committed to defending and expanding student interests, because I have four years of CSA experience, and because I have great ideas for this position.1. Communication Innovation – My communications strategy includes: starting a CSA radio show, recruiting student representa-tives from large first year classes, holding office hours in the UC courtyard, publishing empty classroom times so you know where you can study, and bringing more fun to your life with prizes, competitions, socials, and pub nights!2. Experience that Counts – I spent two years as a member of the CSA Board of Directors and I have also worked as both CSA Out-reach and Promotions Coordinator and as CSA Clubs Coordinator. In addition, I have been a longtime volunteer with many different organizations, clubs, and campaigns across campus including the Guelph Student Mobilization Committee, the Guelph Resource Centre for Gender Empowerment and Diversity, the Guelph Campus Co-op and more.3. Advancing Student Interests – A vote for me is a vote for active CSA campaigns! Campaigns that will work for more study and social space for students, a bottled water free campus, and against tuition fee increases. Together we are stronger.

Christopher Archibald (Photo not available)I am currently an undergraduate student in Human Kinetics and have been heavily involved in student leadership across campus, mainly focusing on Interhall Council to advocate for the rights and opinions of residence students. During my four years on IHC, I have gained valuable experience and skills to allow me to thrive in any leadership role. I have an extensive network, professional and social, across campus that can allow me to seek information and relevant stakeholders quite easily. I plan to utilize my networks to create an open and progressive decision-making body for the undergraduate population.To summarize my platform, it would be to work for the student voices. I am extremely dedicated to finding and abiding by the student voice, and I plan to actively seek out student feedback during large decision-making processes in order to best advocate for what students want. I also want to re-integrate the CSA with the rest of cam-pus and its stakeholders by utilizing my already well-developed relationships with campus professionals.If you are a student, I represent you, and voting for me will ensure your voice is heard.

Human Resources and Operations Commissioner

Kristian Adomait1. I have experience in working well with University administration – Ombudsperson & Residence positions. The current PPP (Program Prioritization Process) has poten-tial to create conflict between students and the administration. This year as the Om-budsman, we implemented the 100-mile restaurant because it worked to meet student desires and didn’t create issues for administration. 2. I understand budgets and realize that the money comes from students. It should benefit as many students as possible. I would act as a watchdog over your money by setting up automatic processes for evaluating the dollars spent.3. I will help implement realistic changes. While I cannot promise to build a new 37-floor infrastructure, I can promise to work with administration to understand stu-dent space needs and to ensure existing space is being used efficiently and effectively.

N. Charles Hamilton (Photo not available)Where are the jobs? Why isn’t there more space? What are these people doing with my money?These are questions I’ve heard continuously over the past five years. We deserve greater outreach and promotion for student jobs, a long-term commitment and solution to student space, provid-ing adequate financial training to CSA clubs, and increased transparency with the CSA’s budget. I promise to bring this to you. I have been involved with the CSA in many capacities, advocating student space and a bottled water free campus. I’ve worked closely with the current HRO Commissioner and I am very aware of the major tasks that will face this portfolio in the new academic year. As the current CSA Clubs Coordinator and VP of Finance for the CBSSC, and through my involvement with Residence Life Staff, Interhall Council, Hospitality Services and the Central Student Association, I believe I am well qualified for the job and ready to work from day one. My name is Charles Hamilton, vote for me for Human Resources and Operations Commissioner.

Academic and University Affairs Commissioner

Peter MillerI have and will always be actively supportive of the campaigns that the CSA runs. These include campaigns against budget cuts, campaigns against tuition fee increases, and campaigns that fight for more study space.Beyond volunteering countless hours to help campaign for the CSA, I have also been an elected representative on the CSA’s Board of Directors. That experience has given me a lot of insight to how the organization is run, as well as the different dynamics within the board.This past year, I have worked diligently on the Guelph Student Mobilization Commit-tee, organizing over 40 presentations at classrooms these last two semesters alone that encouraged you to get engaged.If elected, I promise to continue the current CSA’s work in campaigns that fight for stu-dents’ demands on campus (i.e. Tap-In/Aqua, Freeze the Fees, student space, etc.) while also bringing other important issues to the table.I think it is vitally important to constantly remind ourselves that the CSA is only as strong as its best campaigns. If you vote for me, I vow to spend every minute of my day working to make your voices heard and working to make CSA campaigns stronger.

Julia Forster (Photo not available)I believe students should vote for me because, if elected, I will actively work towards representing the entire undergraduate student body through offering an unbiased opinion and remaining non-partisan. I promise to fight for and defend your aca-demic rights, advocate for students self-identified as having a disability, and expand campus sustainability. I plan to assess the viability and demand for a Fall semester reading week/long weekend, increase awareness of CSD services, and advocate for phasing out of bottled water on campus. I will work WITH administration through previous ties rather than against it in achieving measurable outcomes.

CSA GENERAL ELECTIONS 2013Q: “Why should students vote for you in the upcoming CSA elections?”

FromMarch6toMarch8,allundergraduatestudentswillbeabletovoteintheCSAelections,choosingthefivecommissionerswhowillrepresentthematvariouslevelsinthenextacademicyear.Votingisdonethroughemail,andtheballotisavailable

througheachstudent’sGryphMailaccount. The Ontarionaskedeachcandidatetwoquestions.Thefirstofthetwoisprintedhere.Theanswertothesecondquestion,“Whatdoyouseeas

thebiggestareasforimprovement(orcompleteoverhaul)attheUniversityofGuelph?”areavailableattheontarion.com.

External Affairs Commissioner

Dominica McPhersonI believe in a strong student union ad-vocating for your rights and interests. The CSA should act as your resource, uniting student voices and efforts for positive change. Being in this position has awarded me with the experience and skill set necessary to take it to a new level. I have been a strong voice for greater tap water access and for the student demand to end the sale of bottled wa-ter on campus. I’ve heard from students that food issues – waste, di-etary needs, affordability, etc. – is something that you care about. I am committed to facilitating a task force on campus food issues to address your concerns.With Ontario having the highest tuition fees in the country, it’s im-portant to me to continue the fight against increases. This requires strong lobbying efforts to the university and governments to see post-secondary education on their priority lists with multiple ways for you to be involved! This year, I have learned about how other student unions make their campuses a safer space. Next year, I plan to be proactive in building a culture on campus that prevents discrimination and violence by work-ing with you to take action for a safer campus.

Local Affairs Commissioner

Kara BonisThere is only one thing I love as much as the University of Guelph and that is the City of Guelph. It is my home, and that is not even a cliché answer. I have lived in Guelph for over 20 years. I have been on campus and attending events since elementary school. I was around before the Begging Bear existed! I have the perspective of both a student and a resident to bring to this position. I have seen the changes in transit and housing over the years; what the issues are and what has worked or not. I have also worked at the CSA for the past three years and have organizational knowledge so that the learning curve will be shortened. I can begin working for the benefit of students right away. I won’t need the same amount of time to learn the ropes so I will begin immediate discussions around student issues this summer when the campus is a bit quieter and there is more time to devote to your benefit. A vote for me is a vote for knowledge, immediate action and results.

Tyler ValiquetteMy name is Tyler Valiquette and students should vote for me for three reasons: improved campus safety, municipal engagement and enhanced transit. The University of Guelph campus is a great community. However, there are issues that should be addressed. Sexual assault is a real-ity and we need to make the services for survivors more apparent and accessible. I will publish sexual assault pamphlets in first year orientation packages so students have better access to information. There are political happenings at the municipal level that students need to be aware of. Residential licensing and the nuisance by-law are examples. If approved, these will directly impact students. I plan to keep students informed through my experience in media. I am the videographer at the cannon, I sat on the board and wrote for The Ontarion and I have a news show at CFRU. I know how to engage students. The cost of transit continues to increase. The quality of service must increase with it. I am going to create a student survey to acquire student feedback in order to better present our thoughts to city officials and the transit board.

www.theontarion.com sports & HealtH16National hockey team in yellow?The women’s national hockey team will soon be sporting Livestrong uniforms

chris müller

“It still has the Canadian logo, but it means just a little bit extra,” explained Jayna Hefford, a member of the Cana-dian national women’s hockey team on the team’s new black and yellow alternate uniform. The uniform, to be worn on April 2 in the world cham-pionships in Ottawa next month, is a joint effort between the Livestrong Foundation and Hockey Canada, joined together by the all-powerful Nike Inc.

The “little bit extra” that Hefford mentions should be what concerns fans of Canadian hockey. One might think that in some idyllic perspec-tive of national sports, the country on the uniform supercedes whatev-er alternative motives are in play, be

they charitable or not. And then, my idyllic perspective returns to the 21st century. The hockey Canada logo, the one that sits front and center in our collective memory of our place in in-ternational hockey, has been visually desecrated to include the Livestrong yellow stripes on the sleeves and other jersey elements received simi-lar treatment.

The decision comes just weeks after Lance Armstrong, the founder of the Livestrong foundation, admitted to doping and lying about it for the du-ration of his career as an acclaimed cyclist. I think the limits of our Ca-nadian forgiveness are being pushed here.

That’s not to say that the Livestrong foundation itself is operating under bad intentions: the foundation has helped make great strides in cancer research and awareness. However, in light of recent events, the general public still associates Livestrong with the man who founded it, and this is unlikely to change for the foreseeable

future.So how on earth did the team buy

into this? Are we comfortable as a country in our association with this man, who is neither Canadian nor relevant in any way to hockey? Is this the face we want to put forward on the international stage, that we are shameless in our promotion of this maligned public figure?

It reads like a canary-yellow sign that we’ll do anything for a little pub-licity, including endorsing an athlete who’s effectively been ripping people off for over a decade. It’s nothing short of a tragedy of our national identity.

If they wanted an alternate jer-sey, why not let aboriginal imagery dominate the design? Why not tap in to Canada’s rich hockey-uniform heritage?

In case you were not yet convinced that this is an example of corporate shenanigans at work, Livestrong-Ca-nadian hockey branded apparel will be available at Sport Chek. I think I’m going to be sick.

Find out why yellow on the women’s national team’s jersey is an affront to your intelligence and a crime against our Canadian identity.

Courtesy

CIs Championship UpdateFitzgerald golden in wrestling; CIS finals for hockey and basketball on tap

chris müller

Even without the Gryphon pres-ence, the national championship season is full of excitement for fans of Canadian university sport. In the lone CIS event with Gryphon par-ticipants, John Fitzgerald, Jade Papke, and Kesley Gsell repre-sented the Gryphons with pride as each medaled in their events in the wrestling national champion-ship on March 2.

Papke earned silver in the

51-kilogram weight class and Gsell took home the silver in the 82-kilo-gram division. John Fitzgerald, the imposing 130-kilogram division wrestler, was the lone Gryphon to earn gold, taking the match with 3-0 and 2-0 scores. Mathieu De-schatelets suffered a torn ACL in a semi-final match and was forced to withdraw from the event. Deschat-elets finished fourth, and rookie Navrit Wirach impressed by finish-ing seventh in his first year at the national championship.

Women’s hockey is set to start the March 7-10 tournament that will crown the nation’s best hock-ey program of 2013. Looking to earn the top spot will be Montre-al, St. Francis Xavier, Queen’s, the

University of British Columbia, the hosting University of Toronto, and the Hayley Wickenheiser-led Cal-gary Dinos.

Men’s hockey will begin their last tournament of the season on March 14 when the round robin begins to crown a CIS champion. Before that however, St. Mary’s and the University of New Brunswick will square off in game three of the At-lantic University Sport conference on March 7. The OUA final will pit the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières against Waterloo for the last entrance spot into the national tournament.

Both divisions of volleyball have concluded the CIS finals; the cham-pionship ended on March 2. The

University of British Columbia won their sixth straight national title on the women’s side, beating the Alberta Pandas 25-13, 25-23, and 25-18. Laval beat McMaster for their fourth national men’s title, but the first on their home court. Host Laval won with set scores of 26-24, 22-25, 25-22, and 25-21.

The teams for the women’s bas-ketball final are not yet set, but the men’s tournament is set to happen on March 8-10 in Ottawa. Carleton’s search for a three-peat won’t come easy, as they’ll be con-tested by Cape Breton University, the University of Ottawa, the Uni-versity of British Columbia, Acadia, McGill, Lakehead, and Victoria. The semi-final on March 9 and the final

on March 10 will be broadcast on the Score.

Track and Field is set to partake in the CIS Championships March 7-10. The Gryphons will travel to Alberta for the three-day meet. The OUA-winning Gryphons have their work set out for them as the Wind-sor women are looking to win their fifth straight team victory, and the University of Western Ontar-io Mustangs are hoping to repeat last year’s success. The Gryphon women haven’t won the title since 2007-08 and the men haven’t won since 2009-10. Given their success at the OUA championships, the time could be now for the Gry-phons to reclaim their place at the top of the national pack.

athletic department goes online for job fairPotential employees encouraged to browse available positions in streamlined, online format

chris müller

The University of Guelph’s athletic department has opened several work positions that they are looking to fill with students and alumni. The jobs themselves are what you might expect for an athletic department: Fitness Centre Staff, Athletic Facility oper-ator, Client Service Representative, Lifeguard, and other related positions are all looking to be filled by March 15.

Instead of hosting a traditional job

fair that could take up both time and facilities, the athletic department has opted for a more modern approach, posting the available jobs through a virtual job fair facilitated by Co-op-erative Education & Career Services, an on-campus facility available to as-sist students in career planning and finding part-time jobs.

“This innovative, free online recruitment event connects our tal-ented, enthusiastic students with prominent employers without the line ups and the ‘meet and greets’ of typical job fairs,” states the online release of the program.

Given the reach of the Internet in a university’s student daily life, it makes sense that the job fair be held online.

“The virtual job fair [is] paperless,

efficient, and saves applicants and recruiters time,” explained Sinead Irvine, the Marketing and Website Co-ordinator for Co-operative Education & Career Services. The website also allows the user to upload documents such as resumes and cover letters as well as a calendar where upcoming events and workshops are posted.

The intent is to provide a more ac-cessible job fair for students that might shy away from the intimidation of face-to-face interviews on repeat for a few hours. By setting this up as an online endeavour, the costs associated with holding a day-long event are dis-sipated, not to mention the logistics of having all the associated personnel on site at the same time.

For students, the idea of an online job fair isn’t so far-fetched.

“I can see the benefit of moving it online,” suggested student-athlete Jeremy Snider.

“I’ve been to job fairs in the past where it’s a bit of a mad scramble, this sounds like a much more streamlined system.”

While efficiency is important, the human element remains critical in the eyes of others.

“Making [job fairs] online will fully depersonalize the entire job search experience, and candidates won’t have the opportunity to display their charisma and confidence that they otherwise would,” explained student Erica Mills.

Regardless of personal prefer-ence, the online environment opens the positions up to a larger audi-ence of people, effectively giving the

athletic department an opportunity to reach students outside of the ath-letic community. The fair is meant to be the first point of contact for potential employees, but a face-to-face interview process will correct the missing human element of the online experience.

Even if you’re not interested in ap-plying for anything right away, it’s worthwhile to see what kind of jobs are being posted – a paid internship in Mumbai might appeal to the ad-venturer among us.

Check out https://www.recruitguelph.ca/cecs/dept-ath-letics-virtual-job-fair for more information on the athletic depart-ment’s job fair and other services provided by the Co-operative Edu-cation & Career Services.

sports & HealtH 17170.8 ◆ march 7th, 2013

From the BleachersHome-plate

collisions, a thing of the past?

chris müller

I think playing catcher in professional baseball is one of the hardest jobs in the world of sport. There are so many minute things going on in a base-ball game: the defensive positioning, working good pitch counts, setting up out pitches, and controlling odd-ball pitchers. Be it a 75-mile per hour knuckleball that floats away from the catcher’s glove, or a 108-mile per hour heater from Nolan Ryan, you’ve got to be a little nuts to want to squat and catch.

So it’s surprising that baseball is discussing the possibility of remov-ing the home-plate collision from the game. A collision at home plate gen-erally occurs when a runner attempts to advance from third to home, but when the throw is ahead of the runner and the catcher stands in front of the plate to secure the out and protect the run, the runner can choose to barrel through the catcher and attempt to jar the ball loose in order to score the run.

It’s an incredibly violent moment in a sport that doesn’t require violence as

a means of entertainment or action - it’s out of place in a way.

I played catcher growing up, and in five or six years of playing, I was in one home-plate collision. I was 11 years old, and I’d never known that kind of excitement. It’s a simple matter of

defending a small patch of earth a little bigger than a laptop, and it is with-out fail the great visual descriptor of what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. It’s incredible, and the only rival for ex-citement in baseball is stealing home

– which coincidentally can cause a

home-plate collision.However, as research yields more

insight into the potential harm a vi-olent collision can have on the brain, perhaps it’s time to reconsider the home-plate collision in baseball. Catching equipment hasn’t gone through any fundamental changes in the last few decades, and only now are concussion-preventative helmets experiencing widespread use in the major leagues. Health of the catcher aside, the base runner is essentially un-protected, with nothing more than a loose-fitting batting helmet to protect his cranium. Maybe there’s weight to this argument after all — there’s a lot of room for injury here.

In the lone collision of my ama-teur career, the runner broke his arm. I don’t take responsibility for it; he disregarded a fifty-pound weight disadvantage and dropped his shoul-der. I dug in and protected the plate. In hindsight, our parents must have been terrified.

But in that brief moment of violence, there’s a reminder that all sport is po-tentially harmful. Athletic endeavors are fundamentally a test of the human body’s limits and injuries are bound to occur when we participate in these events. As much as I can recognize the need for an investigation as to the

potential harm of the home-plate col-lision, it’s simply a part of the game.

If you’re not inclined to agree with that, then consider this: down by a run in the bottom of the ninth with one out, and you’re the runner on third. The batter swings and puts it back at the warning track in center field. You

tag up at third and wait for the catch, prepared to tag up and run home. The throw from center field comes in before you reach the plate, and the catcher bends his knees slightly and braces for impact. You’re running full speed, trying to send the game into extra innings and give your team a

This week’s From the Bleachers investigates the excitement and potential for catastrophe when the base runner and catcher collide at home plate.

Charlie riedel

www.theontarion.com sports & HealtH18potentially harmful nanoparticles found in ‘tire crumb’The rubber material used in modern artificial turfs may cause asbestos-like symptoms

chris müller

Modern playing surfaces used as alternatives to natural grass are be-coming the norm in the northern parts of North America. Climatic challenges, labour costs, and ath-letic preference have led to the installation of many artificial sur-faces, the majority of which use pulverized car tires as a padding

and grit material in the new sur-faces. The use of this “tire crumb” might initially seem beneficial – an avenue for recycling old car tires by chopping up the rubber mate-rial and spreading it over the new fields. The university’s soccer com-plex, field house, varsity field, and alumni stadium all sport these ar-tificial surfaces.

Car tires are 30 per cent carbon black nanoparticles, which are not in themselves harmful, so long as they are firmly attached to an-other material. However, many of these particles are found as carbon nanotubes, a human-engineered material that groups carbon par-ticles in such a way as to produce

nanotubes, or minute cylinders that increase the strength and rigidity of the rubber it’s being manufac-tured with.

A carbon nanotube is 10,000 times smaller than a human hair, and structurally ten times stronger than steel. These nanotubes, now in more contact with the atmo-sphere based on a massive increase in surface area (like say, a football field), could yield a higher release of these nanotubes into the atmo-sphere. Disturbing the particles on the playing surface, as is natural to most athletic endeavors, yields a higher potential for these nanotubes to enter the atmosphere.

New research out of the Queen’s

Medical Research Institute at the University of Edinburgh and the MRC Center for Inflammation Re-search in Scotland suggests the potential danger of these particles.

The nanotube possesses a structure that mimics the structure of asbestos, a material formerly used as an insula-tion product in building construction. Dramatic exposure to asbestos, like nanotubes, can lead to serious health concerns. The shape of the nanotube allows for clean entry into the body’s major systems, but the shape is also large enough that the immune sys-tem cannot fight it off. Essentially, it becomes trapped in the body and the particles accumulate. The accumu-lation of those particles can lead to

trouble breathing, scarring of lung tissue, and the possible development of cancerous cells.

Since the size of the nanotube is so small, the potential exists that the particles could move from the lungs into other organs of the body, causing havoc on the body’s life-supporting systems, according to Peter Gehr of the University of Bern in Switzerland.

While more research is required, the reach of findings such as these could be huge, given the number of artificial playing surfaces in use. Just something to think about the next time you see those little black dots spray up from behind an athlete on the field.

Blame it on the city-plannersTime awards researcher for establishing link between obesity and urban geography

chris müller

Cities, and the people who design them, are created with special interest as to how people will get around in the physical space. Most cities respond to this concern by addressing the roads, highways, and freeways that con-nect locations and allow for the fluid and effective movement of citizens from one area to another. But there’s something else to keep in mind the next time you boot up SimCity – par-ticularly if you want healthy citizens.

Research by the innovative James Sallis addresses how the environment we live in affects our levels of physi-cal activity. It’s not so simple as to suggest one city is more active than another, but rather that the location of critical resources for citizens could influence how they get around and subsequently how they maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Sallis noticed that in low-income

neighborhoods (a typical hotbed of inactivity), very few parks, recreation centres and fitness clubs are available. In some instances, sidewalks are in a state of disrepair or do not exist at all. Some extreme cases suggest the neighbourhood itself is too dangerous to go outside for any extended period of time. This led to Sallis investigating his observations, eventually writing over 500 studies in 30 years that ad-dress the issue of how we can make cities healthier and more activity-ac-cessible than they had been in the past.

At the crux of Sallis’s work is the concern of how to motivate people to become more active if there are few chances in their environment to do so. Fundamentally, Sallis believes that the construction of cities that promote alternative means of trans-portation to the car, such as public transit, cycling, and (dare-I-say) walking goes hand in hand with the construction of more parks, athletic fields, and recreational facilities.

For his efforts, Time magazine recently dubbed Sallis an “obesity warrior.” Sallis was also recognized by being awarded the Bloomberg Manu-life Prize for the promotion of Active

Health, accompanied by a $50,000 award through McGill University.

“People living in communities where schools, stores, and recre-ational facilities are accessible by foot or bike are leaner and healthier than those who travel by car,” according to Sallis. Unlike other areas of health research, Sallis’s findings suggest ex-pensive repairs and reconstructions of activity-devoid neighborhoods. Given the cost of such undertakings, cities are instead looking to improve existing facilities and introduce alter-native transportation options like bike lanes on previously unadorned roads.

Current and future city planners are taking his work into account, and new neighborhoods are focusing on accessible services that are not outside the reach of a good walk or quick bike ride. The old-regime of car-orient-ed cities presents a resistance to the greener, healthier alternative being proposed by Sallis. Sallis notes several experiences of citizens attempting to lobby city councils for improvements, but are met with unwavering anger by those who don’t want car traf-fic affected.

Pedestrian walkways are important

to Sallis, who recognizes that those in disrepair are not used as often as their well-maintained counterparts. Makes

you wonder how many might walk to school if the cowpath wasn’t cov-ered in four inches of ice in the winter.

is the urban environment making it difficult to get healthy? research by James sallis investigates the healthy-living potential of urbanized areas.

MuMbling nerd

lIFe 19170.8 ◆ march 7th, 2013

This Week in History “God Bless You,” Is Cried as King Inspects slums in GlasgowAs Italy was bombing Ethiopia in an air attack, King Edward VIII paid a visit to the tenements of Glasgow, where he had actual conversations with the people subjected to living in the overcrowded and dirty spaces. The reporter wrote that the King spoke to a young boy in a pretty casual tone (for those times at least), replying to the kid’s question of “Are you really the new king?” with “Yes, little man, I am.” His Majesty vis-ited six flats, and in a likewise casual manner, knocked on the door of each one to speak to the tenants about the issues they were experiencing living in the slums. According to the arti-cle, the King arrived in the city in a special carriage attached to a regular train, which reflected his principles of modesty, despite his monarchial title. (The Globe and Mail – March 6, 1936)

Ghana celebrates independenceIn the first step to rid Africa of colonial rule, Ghana declared independence from Britain on this day, 56 years ago. While the day was marked with celebrations and included speeches by the Duchess of Kent, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, and the country’s first Prime Min-ister, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. Political instability persisted in the country through to 1992, when a referendum was held to introduce a multiparty system, according to The BBC. Jerry Rawlings was elected president during this time, and was attributed with “leaving a legacy of democ-racy.” (The BBC – March 6, 1957)

Hunger Causes petrograd riotsRioting by the Russian people in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) began the February Revolutions in the country on this day. A dis-patch sent to The New York Times detailed the damage done to shops and factories in the city, and noted “the excitement” of the crowds, some of which simply stood by and watched “other people make trou-ble.” According to the report, “The people have cheerfully endured every manner of inconvenience throughout the long Winter in obtaining food supplies […] how-ever, there has been witnessed the phenomenon of [bread] shortage in certain quarters of the city of the staple food of the common people.” Besides the hunger, the loss of faith in Czar Nicholas II as a result of mass government corruption, the failing economy, and Russia’s involvement in WWI helped spark the revolution, which culminated in his abdication of the throne on March 11. (The New York Times – March 8, 1917)

Compiled by Alicja Grzadkowska

Brew review: My goodness, my Guinnesschris müller

The iconic black liquid and foamy off-white head makes a Guinness one of the most immediately rec-ognized pints on the bar. In fact by 2007, 10 million glasses of Guin-ness were enjoyed each day, and the brew was sold in over 150 countries.

In 1759 Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000-year lease for the site of the first brewery – St. James Gate in Dublin, Ireland. A century and a half later in 1914, the brewery produced three million wood-en barrels full of the delicious beer annually; the wood barrels remained part of the brewing process until 1963. Despite bans on luxury exports during WWII, Guinness’s local markets kept the business alive. Continued em-phasis on marketing and brand innovation has kept Guinness as not only a staple in the beer world, but a staple of the Irish economy as well.

Today, the most commonly

found variety of Guinness is Guinness Draught, which is most commonly available through the

tall cans at the LCBO, and at draught taps throughout Guelph. The secret to good Guinness is the introduction of nitrogen into the

beer during the pour. This creates the smooth, uniform head that is desirable atop any pint, and con-tributes to the smooth mouth-feel and fine carbonation of the brew. The result is the drinker’s access to the finer roasted flavours of the beer, a result of the impeccably regulated and contract-grown barley that is unmalted but roasted to exact specifications. Nitrogen injection occurs through an in-line system at the pub, but draught cans, another of Guin-ness’ innovations, feature the widget – a small plastic ball that traps nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and beer. When the pressure in the can drops (from opening) the widget flies around, effectively agitating the beer and producing the smooth head.

The taste is unique, and the roasted barley is finely paired with a mild sweetness, notes of walnut, and a light hopping that doesn’t steal from the brew’s in-tention as a dry Irish stout.

So if you find yourself in the

mood for a drink this month, reach for the beer 250 years of brewing has crafted, and realize why you too will soon be saying,

“My goodness, my Guinness!”

learn about the unique history of guinness and the 254-year old brewing tradition that goes into every pint of this delicious dry irish stout.

Courtesy

The right way to volunteerHow can genuine volunteer involvement lead you to a career?

wayne Greenway

Many career advice sites talk about the benefits of volunteering for ca-reer job seekers.

Amy Neumann, in a blog for Yahoo! HotJobs, cites five ways that volunteering can be helpful: you can develop new skills; meet new networking contacts; impress em-ployers with your ambition; fill in employment gaps; add experience and boost your confidence with

“that extra spring in your step.”On paper, it seems quite straight

forward. Volunteer in the right area and you will receive these benefits, but in real life these are secondary benefits that come from a genuine desire to volunteer to make a difference in the lives of others. Second Harvest Executive Director Jo-Anne Sobie describes this well in a 2011 charity village blog.

“If they’re just volunteering to get something on their resume and move forward, that’s probably not going to do them well. And that will probably come out during their volunteer period… The risk is they won’t get a good reference.”

As long as your motivation to make a difference in your com-munity is genuine, then there are also two more benefits sel-dom highlighted by career advice sites. Firstly, volunteering can give you the opportunity to create

accomplishments in a job area that you are passionate about. Second-ly, it will help you in conducting the field research that is critical-ly needed for a successful career transition.

Once you have gained a strong understanding of what you want and don’t want next in your life, as well as an idea of a zone (consisting of many careers) where your in-terests and strengths intersect, you are then ready to do field research to narrow down the specific jobs that you would like to target in your search.

Field research is done by se-lecting job titles that are of interest to you and then investigating them to find out what they would be like as a career. You can do this by con-ducting web research or talking with professional associations in the area, but the most important component is interviewing people who are currently in the position. These informational interviews serve a number of purposes. They will help you to understand exact-ly what the job is about, give you more information about the field, help you to develop a list of core skills needed for the job, find out about upcoming opportunities in the field, and get you contacts for more interviews. The most im-portant benefit is becoming known in the field and in the commun-ity, where you are searching for a position. If you leave every inter-viewee thinking that “this person asked great questions” you are going to hear from one of these people about a way to start your

career.So how does volunteering tie

into this field research? Most of our clients are uncomfortable get-ting started in this kind of field research, but once they get under-way, they find it very interesting and they are amazed by how their questions improve after about 15 interviews. Job seekers who are volunteering in an area related to the type of work they want to pur-sue often discover a “gold mine” in getting started with their field research. They can start by just observing the role of people in pos-itions they might like to pursue in the future to see how they might

“fit.” Then they can ask to inter-view the person doing this role within the organization or com-pany where they are volunteering.

If you have done a great job as a volunteer, your supervisor will likely be happy to meet with you and introduce you to others in the field. With this type of inter-view, you are not seeking a job but wanting to learn about how the interviewee entered the field, the core job skills, and ideas for how you could get started in the field and more contacts to interview.

Your timing of this request is important. If you have made a valuable contribution to the or-ganization over the past school year, then your request and the interview is likely to be warmly received.

For some people, the process of determining how to be more valu-able as a volunteer can be puzzling. It is important to know how to do

this throughout your volunteer work and your career. The more you can add to the organization, the more meaning and happiness your role will bring you.

Sometimes opportunities come through just doing what you are asked to do and doing it well. Such effort is always appreciated and it demonstrates your reliabil-ity and commitment. More often, truly adding value to a company or organization involves taking on more responsibility, as well as leading part or all of a project to achieve success. It can also come from seeing a way to make an improvement or streamlining an existing system, asking if sugges-tions would be welcome, and then, giving concrete positive strategies for how the change could made.

The challenge for some volun-teers is that they don’t like to ask for more responsibility. This fear often comes from a mindset that says it is wrong to ask for what you need or want, or from thinking that, “if they wanted me to take on leadership, they would ask me”. The trouble is that the supervisor may be thinking, “ they are doing so much I don’t like to ask them to do more.”

Once you have proved yourself as a reliable volunteer, start look-ing for ways to be more helpful and sit down with your super-visors and let them know that you would like to do more. Once you feel that you have made some progress, start your field research. You will be surprised at how many doors open for you.

“The taste is unique, and the roasted

barley is finely paired with a

mild sweetness, notes of walnut,

and a light hopping...”

lIFewww.theontarion.com20love/sex/You: The Myth of the slutc.r. la croix

If someone asked you to define “slut,” what would you say? Slut: someone who has a considerable amount of sex. Slut: someone

“easy.” Slut: she dresses too sex-ily, her skirts are too short. Slut: she wears too much makeup, she looks like a whore. Slut: she’s ask-ing for it. Consider this a love letter to all those who have been told to go change, to close their legs, who have been told to dress sexy but not “sluttish,” who have had their sexuality used against them, and to all of you who are sick of these things being said to your sisters, your cousins, your friends, and your lovers.

Slut shaming starts early, around the same time that girls and boys get wind of this notion of “purity” – that if you have sex, your “purity” will be tarnished, used up, and ruined forever. It’s violent language, made to make girls back away from sex and sexu-ality in order to somehow preserve themselves. This extends rapidly to their wardrobe, to their actions, to how they view themselves, to how they view others. Sudden-ly they can’t act in certain ways or do certain things or they’ll be

somehow dirty, somehow lesser despite the fact that men face no similar repercussions.

To understand what a load of nonsense this is, let’s talk about some basic biological facts, mainly that upon hav-ing penetrative vaginal sex, the hymen does not disappear. Once again, the hymen does not disappear upon having penetra-tive vaginal sex. You don’t lose anything upon having sex. The hymen is something that can stretch along with the rest of you. Breaking or tearing the hymen during sex is due to a lack of prep-aration, and should not happen. However, even then the hymen can heal and bounce back, good as new. The notion that you get rid of something upon having penetra-tive sex is ancient and outdated.

Once the whole outdated cherry poppin’ notion is gotten rid of, sex-uality is no longer something that can be used against anyone. You’re not a different person because you had sex – you are no better or worse than anyone else. If that is the case, then why would the number of partners you have make any dif-ference? Sex is an enjoyable act, and so long as the two parties are willing and it is understood, casual

sex can be a great way to relieve stress. As long as the parties in-volved use proper protection and keep up with their health – and contact each other if an STI comes into play – it’s pretty safe as well.

Slut shaming is nonsensical in this light, but still persists within everyday life – cat callers objectify women’s bodies, but baulk when these women decide to take charge of their own sexuality. A 16-year-old girl gets harassed online because she chose to wear a top that ex-posed her midriff. She is punished for her confidence, for her choices, for her pride and her body. Why? It’s not wrong for women to be sex-ual, or to be confident, or to make their own choices without regard for the male gaze. A woman can dress herself how she wants, when she wants, and there’s nothing wrong with that. She is autono-mous. She deserves respect.

We, as a modern society, should do away with notions of women as property and virginity as an object to be lost, given away, or taken. It is necessary for all peoples – not just those bestowed with a vagina – to act out against such dehumanising practices such as slut shaming, and embrace the fact that other people exist independently of what occurs

within the bedroom. Stop cat call-ing, stop sexual harassment, stop thinking others are “asking for it” or that dressing in a certain way means you can ignore autonomy in favour of focusing on what has occurred between a person’s legs.

Social change begins with you, the reader.

If you have a question you’d like answered by Love/Sex/You, send an email to oneditor@uoguelph.ca with “l/s/Y” in the subject line.

Movements like slutWalk have responded to a deep enculturation of slut shaming by reclaiming the word “slut” in an effort to render its culturally accepted definitions nonsensical.

Clas thoMas svensson

www.theontarion.com opINIoN22ask before pettingThey may be cute but these puppies are on the job

carleiGh cathcart

If you are a student at Guelph, it is highly likely that you have glimpsed me around campus, and guaranteed that you thought,

“Aww, so cute!” when doing so. Alas, it is not me you have been adoring, but my canine sidekick, Abner. Abner is a four-month-old yellow lab in training for Autism Dog Services – a wonderful orga-nization, I might add. And people, believe me, I know as much as you do that he is absolutely adorable – I hear his handler’s not bad lookin’ either... but I digress. Before you come running up to us with both hands eagerly out, please keep a few things in mind.

If his vest is on, he is working. It doesn’t mean you can’t pet him, but it does mean you should ask. I know different organiza-tions have different rules (there are three main training groups on campus), but for us, it is left

to the discretion of the handler. The general consensus is that our dogs can be pet once they are sitting down and focusing on us. This means they must wait for our permission, so please do not just come up and maul them (easier said than done, no doubt, with a face like that).

If they are lying down, the same etiquette applies. I’d say my big-gest pet peeve, no pun intended, is when Abner is sleeping quietly at my feet, while I’m studying, and some well-meaning but over-en-thusiastic person comes running towards us screeching “Puppy! Puppy! Puppy!” It jolts him out of his sleep, makes the hair on my neck stand up, and leaves me with the ten minute task of settling him down again after you leave. You wouldn’t purposely rouse a new-born baby that had finally fallen asleep, would you? One should dread the day they must face the wrath of a sleep-deprived mother.

Another mistake that people make in public is shrugging off or enabling ‘bad’ behaviour. We know they are cute enough to say,

“oh no, it’s okay,” when they jump

up to greet you/eat your back-pack/pull at the leash, but for us, it actually isn’t okay. Honestly, we don’t mean to be fun-sucking leeches, but every little incident that makes the dog learn some-thing is ‘okay’ contributes to a harder job for us in the long term. While your excitement is most certainly appreciated, so is your co-operation.

Don’t get me wrong, we love meeting people and explaining what we do and how/why we do it. It’s a part of our job, and some-thing we know comes with the territory (I generally take an ear-lier bus for class to permit time for Abner’s plentiful inspections and admirers). But you truly make it so much easier for us by taking the simple step of just asking first. Ninety-five percent of the time we’ll say yes, and the other five per cent we’ll only say no because it would interfere with something we’re trying to work on with the dog.

I hate to be a party pooper-scoo-per – really, I do – but just like you wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) in-terfere with another’s parenting,

you shouldn’t assume we’d be okay with it either. We’re hon-estly a lovely group of people, if I do say so myself, and take plea-sure in mingling with others and

educating them about our pro-gram. So it makes sense for all of us if you contribute to that training in a positive way. It’s a woof-woof situation for everyone.

undoubtedly adorable, guide dogs in training are working puppies, and students should understand the associated boundaries.

vanessa tignanelli

Inordinate ordnancechris carr

After hosting the Oscars, Seth MacFarlane came under fire for his sexist and offensive jokes. Every time this happens – I mean every time inept viewers put down their cans of frosting long enough to make a blog post about a come-dian that went too far – I feel we are de-evolving as a species.

Let’s consider “taking offense.” What does this mean? It means that you felt something some-one (in this case a comedian) said wasn’t satisfying. Either you didn’t think it was funny, it was rude, or it was oppressive. Make no mistake – MacFarlane took his place among the oppressive ma-chine that belittled women; his jokes were oppressive to women.

But what happens in these in-cidents is that the joke tellers and writing catch the brunt of the angry backlash. I argue that this is exactly the wrong thing to do.

MacFarlane’s “We Saw your Boobs” song is taking the most heat over the controversy. In the catchy tune, he outlines all the movies in which the viewer can catch a glimpse at the breasts of prominent actors (in the Jodie Foster sense of the word). Per-sonally, I thought it was hilarious. I took part in the oppressive ma-chine; I am part of the problem? Not really.

We firebomb MacFarlane’s performance, but swoon at the

pageantry of the red carpet. We put these same women – whose breasts were in admiration in the song – and make this stand a pedestal so we can rank how they look on a scale from one to Char-lize Theron. This is okay? Frankly, some of the comments about women’s dresses are downright mean, but a song about how much MacFarlane loves their bodies is met with so much scorn. What’s going on here?

Comedians or anyone who writes comedy at a professional level are only mirrors. They are paid to say the things that we cannot say in normal compa-ny. They act as magnifiers to the ephemeral problems that create the aforementioned oppressive systems. But still, we act in the name of “the offended” to stop these criticisms.

I’ll have early onset crow’s feet because of the amount of times I furl my brow at people who claim to be “offended.” I don’t know what this means. For some, this is some sort of defense against bad words, or blue comedy. So you’re offended, so what? What comes from that? Usually, nothing. Sometimes, reform. Sometimes, a comedian says something that we disagree with so badly, we do something to change the para-digm. Humour is a criticism. MacFarlane’s joke about Rihanna and Chris Brown was a criticism about domestic abuse. His sexist

jokes were a criticism of the en-tire sexist milieu that is the Oscars.

Comedy is self-defeating when it comes to bad jokes. If a joke is so outrageous, racist, sexist, etc., it will fall flat, and likely, won’t be told again. Your silence is more threatening to a joke than your cries of offense. If a joke is sick enough to upset people, maybe they should concern themselves with the society that allows such an oppressive standard, not the court jesters who bring it to the forefront.

What worries me the most, and why I feel that every joke—yes, every and any joke—should be free to be told publically is that once we begin to stifle these free-doms, it may never stop. Either everything should be made fun of, or nothing should be (the latter of which is certainly fucked up on an Orwellian scale).

Once again, if you’re offend-ed, good. Do something about it. Change the way women are utilized (I chose that word for a reason) in main-stream media.

What we should not be doing is getting rid of the people that force us to think about such problems in the first place.

Chris Carr is Editor-in-Chief of The Cannon. “Inordinate Ord-nance” publishes every Thursday in The Cannon and in The Ontarion. The opinions posted on thecan-non.ca reflect those of their author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Central Student Association and the Guelph Cam-pus Co-op, or The Ontarion.

seth MacFarlane came under fire for sexist jokes after hosting this year’s academy awards.

getty iMages

opINIoN 23

Liaison Officers

170.8 ◆ march 7th, 2013

Vote Yes in the Csa referendumDrew Garvie – communications & corporate affairs commissioner

The CSA is your undergradu-ate student union. In order to fulfill our mandate to the best of our ability and increase our capacity for advocacy, pro-gramming, and services, we are requesting a $2.50 increase to the CSA membership fee.

From March 6 through Friday March 8, all undergraduates on campus will be able to vote in the CSA elections. Stu-dents will be voting for their next Executive Commissioners (full-time representatives of students) and Board of Director representatives. Through this election you have the chance to determine the direction and mandate for your student union for the next year. The ballot will also have links to the candidate profiles/platforms so you can read up easily be-fore casting your ballot through your U of G email.

On the same ballot there will also be a referendum question. The CSA is currently running a

“Vote Yes to Better Your Student Union” campaign.

As the student body has grown considerably over the last 10-15 years, the CSA has grown with it. We now find ourselves with 40+ student staff hired each year. Unfortunately our Human Resources structure has not kept up with overall growth. The Executive Committee still su-pervises all the CSA staff and this is taking up a larger propor-tion of time, taking away from the ability to do outreach, pro-motion, events, campaigns and advocacy.

The current CSA fee is $15.50 per full-time student per se-mester and $4.85 per course, per semester for part-time students. All undergraduate students pay the CSA fee as at the same time as their tuition fees. This ref-erendum passing would mean that the CSA fee would be set at $18.00 for full-time students and $5.63 per course, for part-time students.

The CSA feels that a mod-est increase in its membership fee (still below most student unions and many student or-ganizations on campus) will

allow us to better pass on sav-ings to students. This is done through increased advocacy, for example against tuition fee in-creases, which currently rise $200-$300 a year for most stu-dents. Your CSA also offers a variety of cost-saving services to all undergraduate students, for example the free student

“survival guide” day planner, the cheapest printing on campus, the cheapest ATM on campus in the Bullring, Ink refill services and more.

Through the increased rev-enue the CSA hopes to fund a new full-time human resources staff member in order to relieve the Executive Commissioners of duties involving staff supervi-sion and internal administrative responsibilities. This will allow the Executive to focus more on student issues such as ac-cessibility, sustainability and inclusivity on our campus and in our community. As a result there will be more campaigns, more outreach, and more social and educational events. The ad-ditional operating dollars will also increase resources and HR support to our services like the

Bike Centre, SHAC, FoodBank, SafeWalk and the Bullring.

The CSA is also in the pro-cess of creating new student positions: an “Environmental Sustainability Coordinator” and an “Outreach and Pro-motion Coordinator.” These new positions will provide

employment for students, strengthen our connection with students, and make the CSA a leader on campus with a commitment to sustainability and advocacy on environmen-tal issues.

This March 6, 7 and 8, vote yes to better your student union!

douglas raCionzer

www.theontarion.com opINIoN24

Rafaela é,

The other “p” in pppThe Program Prioritization Process: a how-to guide on privatizing a university

Denise martins

The last couple of months we have heard a lot about the Program Priori-tization Process (PPP). I would like to stand back and applaud our univer-sity for yet again finding an inventive way to present budget cuts. In past years, when the university proposed a cut, one at least had an idea of what they wanted to cut and one could strategize accordingly. However, what they have managed to achieve through this round of cuts (a.k.a. the PPP) is the pitting of departments, non-academic and academic alike (kudos to Alastair Summerlee and Maureen Mancuso), against one an-other. Following the completion of a form by each department (from Athletics to the Zoology department), their value to the university will be ranked from 1 to 600.

So now, instead of organizing against the $35 million dollars of cuts, as we have in the past, we are forced

to partake in a process to prove that our department deserves to be saved. In this fending-for-ourselves strat-egy, many have lost sight of what we have all given up. This begs the question: does it have to be this way?

The answer is a definite “no.” One doesn’t have to start investigating our university’s budget to figure out that our sisters and brothers in CUPE 1334 (Trades, Services, and Maintenance) are already stretched incredibly thin, especially consid-ering the fact that enrolment has increased. One doesn’t have to go too deep to realize that we are paying more year after year and getting less. Paying more for larger class sizes; paying more for less TAs per class; paying more for less overall one-on-one time with professors.

We are already on a tight budg-et. You can see the effect of this very clearly in workers’ faces and in stu-dents’ desperate eyes searching for a place to just sit down and breathe.

There has been a push this past year by the provincial government to restructure education – an analysis of how to standardize research and learning. They have recommend-ed everything from more online

learning to year-round university schooling.

When did it come to this? When did it become a race to see which department doesn’t get the boot? When did it become just a number crunching exercise? We don’t have

to play the game of competition between departments, but need to question the fundamental direction of our university. In 2004, when the university called for cuts totalling $8.43 million, people at this universi-ty organized and put up a fight. They

didn’t put up their hands in defeat, nor did they point at their colleagues as possible targets.

We need to do the same today; strategize for a united front against the cuts and stand up to the big bully upstairs.

P r o c e s s

P r o g r a mP r i v i z a t i o nP r i v i z a t i o nP r i v i z a t i o nP r i v i z a t i o nP r i o r i t i z a t i o n

vanessa tignanelli

U of G has duty to protect studentsPhoto releases further victimize women

eileen watson, presiDent, colleGe of social anD applieD human sciences stuDent association; matthew pecore, chair, awareness of sexual assault anD prevention committee; shailaGh Keaney, Guelph resource centre GenDer empowerment Diversity; Dominica mcpherson, csa external affairs commissioner

On Jan. 3, a man was arrested in connection with a series of on-campus voyeurism incidents that happened in 2012. His house was then searched and pictures of women taken on the University of Guelph campus between Sept. 2011 and Sept. 2012 were found on the man’s phone and computer.

On Feb. 7, campus police brought forward a proposal to student lead-ers wherein they hoped to display the pictures they found in the University Centre courtyard, and identify the victims with the help of the campus community. Stu-dent leaders were horrified and gave many suggestions to Brenda Whiteside (Assistant Vice President

– Student Affairs) to be passed along to campus police, including that the pictures should not be displayed

publicly and that there needs to be counseling referrals and resourc-es provided for women who view the pictures. The response was that the relevant administration would take these suggestions into consid-eration and come back to the table with a different proposal.

A second proposal was brought to student leaders on Feb. 25, which outlined the campus police pro-posal to send an email to all women on campus with a link to a website that would include limited sections of the original pictures, such as a handbag or a piece of a shirt along with a written description of the women so that they may be iden-tified. Student leaders remained wary of this, due to the fact that this form of communication could result in an even wider dissemi-nation of the pictures than simply displaying them in the University Centre. This new proposal also re-moved the opportunity to have a support person available to those viewing the pictures. These student leaders were told their feedback would be taken back to campus police and that an alternative solu-tion would be worked out amongst the different parties involved in the investigation.

That afternoon, campus po-lice, in conjunction with the City of Guelph police, went ahead and released the partial pictures and descriptions, which unbeknownst to student leaders had already been created for distribution before the

morning’s consultation meeting. These pictures, along with a request for information (to help with the investigation), were made avail-able on Facebook, Twitter, and the University of Guelph police website.

It was an incredibly poor choice to publicize these photos. While we understand that it is the city po-lice pushing for the release of the information and not the campus counterpart, this school has an ob-ligation to support and protect the women who attend. Nowhere in these publications are there offers of support to women who feel they are in these pictures, know some-one in these pictures, or feel that these pictures are triggering in any way. The only option presented is to call Campus Community Police, an option not everyone would be comfortable with. To publish these pictures not only re-victimizes, but does so in the most public man-ner possible. Despite claims from campus police that the number one concern is the safety of the women involved, this action does nothing to protect their safety and dignity and serves only to publicly identify them for the purposes of city police investigations. An action such as putting the pictures online in fact further removes the agency of the women in this situation, as people may choose to come forward on the women’s behalf without consulting them, thinking they are doing the right thing.

We call, first and foremost, for the

removal of these pictures from all online outlets. We also call for these pictures to only be made available to women at their discretion should they choose to see them, and that extra support be made available to anyone affected by this incident.

Sexualized violence occurs on our campus more frequently than we would like to admit. We encour-age the university to be proactive in creating a culture of preven-tion around these issues. We also want to make students aware of

the supports available to them on campus. A complete list can be found by accessing the Sexual As-sault Guide, which can accessible through searching that phrase on the university homepage.

The views represented in the

opinion section do not necessarily reflect the views of The Ontarion

nor its staff.

The Ontarion is a non-profit organization governed by a Board of Directors. Since the Ontarion undertakes the publishing of student work, the opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the Ontarion Board of Directors. The Ontarion reserves the right to edit or refuse all material deemed sexist, racist, homophobic, or otherwise unfit for publication as determined by the Editor-in-Chief. Material of any form appearing in this newspaper is copyrighted 2011 and cannot be reprinted without the approval of the Editor-in-Chief. The Ontarion retains the right of first publication on all material. In the event that an advertiser is not satisfied with an advertisement in the newspaper, they must notify the Ontarion within four working days of publication. The Ontarion will not be held responsible for advertising mistakes beyond the cost of advertisement. The Ontarion is printed by the Guelph Mercury.

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editorial staff:Editor-in-chief Tom BeedhamArts & Culture Editor Nicholas RevingtonSports & Health Editor Christopher MüllerNews Editor Alicja GrzadkowskaAssociate Editor Colleen McDonellCopy Editor Stacey Aspinall

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board of directorsPresident Bronek SzulcTreasurer Lisa KellenbergerChairperson Curtis Van LaeckeSecretary Alex LefebvreDirectors Aaron Francis Heather Luz Lisa McLean Marshal McLernon Michael Bohdanowicz Shwetha Chandrashekhar

ContributorsChris CarrCarleigh CathcartAndrea ConnellKelsey CoughlinC.R. La CroixBen DerochieAndrew DonovanDrew Garvie Garry GoWayne GreenwaySabrina GroomesSylvia Nayoung HanNick Hegedus Shailagh KeaneyLeigh LichtenbergNadine Maher

Denise MartinsDominica McPhersonRobyn NicholsonQ. BuisMatthew PecoreLindsay PinterNatasha ReddyKatie ShumJordan SloggettAbid ViraniEileen WatsonEmma Wilson Ina XhungaMakenzie ZatychiesOlivia Zollino

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letters

170.8 ◆ march 7th, 2013

Why no two ply?Guelph has consistently ranked among the top universities for many years, but maybe the key to becoming number one is being over looked daily by everyone on campus. I’m not talking about classes or food or buildings. I’m talking about a staple in cleanli-ness, that’s right – toilet paper.

You are not alone if you’ve ever been unsatisfied by the quality of on campus toilet paper. It isn’t even one ply, not even sure if it would qualify at quarter ply. You can actually read this article of

The Ontarian through the toi-let paper – yes I tried. You’re not alone if you’ve strongly considered grabbing the brown crinkly hand paper for drying your hands on your way to the stall. I wouldn’t blame you if you tore out this article and used it instead of subjecting your rear end to that torture any longer.

As a world-renowned uni-versity we host many important guest speakers but yet they’d probably prefer to use the paper they’re presenting for other

purposes after reaching for the university’s TP. We also strive to be more environmentally friend-ly but when it takes ten feet of toilet paper to make something useable, are we really saving the environment? What about those poor first-years living in resi-dence who have no escape from the cruelty?

All we are asking for is to be able to wipe in comfort. A comfortable wipe would allow for less stress and therefore improved study habits and

increased grades. Students could sit easier in class knowing their rear end is clean and paper cut free.

We students are the voice of the university, we pay our hard earned dollars to come here so it’s time we stop flushing away this issue and demand change! If the thing you look forward to most on weekends is some Cot-tonelle or cashmere wipes, make your discomfort known.

– Q. Buis

Fat chance at tackling obesityOntario is considering banning com-panies from marketing junk food to children, stopping stores from building displays of the stuff near checkout, and having restaurants print calorie counts on menus.

These changes are among 23 rec-ommendations in a March 4 report on eliminating childhood obesity, and are part of the government’s larger goal to cut long-term health-care costs. Treating obesity-related medical problems, such as chron-ic conditions that include diabetes, costs the healthcare system $4.5 bil-lion a year.

It’s becoming “a very expensive problem” Health Minister Deb Mat-thews told reporters. Matthews has pledged to act on the recommenda-tions of the 63-page report.

Although exceedingly more pro-active than the Ontario Medical Association’s formerly proposed

junk food tax or “fat tax,” the major changes proposed underestimate consumers’ knowledge of the con-tents of innutritious food, and likely will make little difference in slim-ming down the province’s obese children.

The Healthy Kids Panel presents us with compelling evidence that food companies need to make changes to create a healthier society. Alarming-ly, over the past three decades, the prevalence of overweight children in Ontario has grown by 70 per cent.

Already in Canada there is a vol-untary program in the food and beverage industry that avoids target-ing children under 12 with junk-food commercials. However, under the new agreements, junk-food super-stars such as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, and General Mills will be required to only advertise healthy foods during children’s programming, or not run ads during those times at all.

The goal is to take kids’ minds off of “high-calorie, low-nutrient foods, beverages and snacks,” read the report.

Yet, will eliminating the Ring-Pop and Fruitopia ads on television really change what kids consume? Par-ents, not children, are generally the ones with available income and are the decision-makers in the house-hold. Therefore, the focus should be more on targeting adults for health-ier options during their prime time viewing, whether or not their chil-dren are drooling at the images of Lunchables in between episodes of Dora the Explorer.

Matthews also wants to ban “point-of-sale” displays and promotions at checkouts — starting with sugar-sweetened drinks. This “out of sight, out of mind” strategy could be an ef-fective deterrent for some who too easily grab a Coke after paying for their gas or groceries. However, if the products still exist in the store, those who want them will still find them, right? If you’ve been eating Oreos for dessert since first year, you’ll be sure to hunt them down regardless of their immediate visibility in the store.

Furthermore, we all know by now that a Big Mac scores close to nil on the healthy scale. Documentaries such as Supersize Me and Fast Food Nation have sparked the public’s awareness of the problems in the food and bev-erage industry, especially the lack of nutritional content of our beloved burgers and fries. By proposing that restaurants should be required to print calorie counts on menus, the government is suggesting that people are unaware of what they are putting into their body when they order.

People generally know – or at least have some sort of idea – of what the junk food they are buying is, and what it contains. You don’t grab a Bacona-tor with the impression it will make you healthier (or feel better). You pur-chase the burger – which contains 980 calories and 1960 milligrams of sodium – to satisfy a hunger pang and a craving for something cheesy and salty.

Simply put, consumers often choose to ignore the warning signs. The same situation comes with the

advertising on cigarette boxes – smokers have continuously heard the horrors of cancer and the addic-tive dangers of nicotine, but they still might opt for that puff whether or not the image on the front has a picture of a blackened lung.

That being said, efforts by the gov-ernment and companies to cut down on obesity are not futile. Just as smok-ing has been banned in particular public areas and airliners, the avail-able fast food in our culture should be cut down. Several countries in Europe have already started on this initiative, and so has New York City, which has a ban on the selling of pop and other sugary drinks in sizes above 473 mil-lilitres taking effect within days.

Implementing a strategy on the healthier foods in advertisements

– not censorship – and decreasing portions of junk food could be more effective on curbing childhood obe-sity, and increasing the overall health of the province. After all, we all like a little indulgence once in a while with-out warning signs in our faces.

“The major changes

proposed underestimate

consumers’ knowledge of the contents

of innutritious food, and likely will make little

difference in slimming down

the province’s obese children.”

The government’s plans to ban companies from marketing junk food to children, among other changes, will not be very effective in curbing childhood obesity.

4boys2luv

diffi culty level: 15

2 5 7 8 6 3 1 9 4

6 3 9 1 4 7 8 5 2

1 4 8 9 5 2 3 6 7

7 1 5 2 3 9 4 8 6

4 2 6 5 7 8 9 1 3

9 8 3 4 1 6 7 2 5

3 7 1 6 8 5 2 4 9

8 6 2 3 9 4 5 7 1

5 9 4 7 2 1 6 3 8

subMit your completed crossword by no later than Monday, March 11th at 4pm for a chance to win

tWo Free bob’s dog’s!

Congratulations to this week's crossword winner: Amy Ritsma & Laura Doddsttebron. Stop by the Ontarion

office to pick up your prize!

across1- Vamp Theda5- Stop up a hole9- Auto pioneer13- Son of Zeus in Greek mythology14- Governed16- Oscar winner Patricia17- Ceremonial act18- Foolish19- Mozart’s “___ kleine

Nachtmusik”20- Pie nut22- Swore24- Pioneer27- Bog28- In truth29- Potential to get around33- Author Jong34- River in central Switzerland35- German Mrs

36- Fleur-de-___37- Sign up38- Vessel built by Noah39- Head of France41- Nabokov novel42- 1980 Dom DeLuise film44- Building46- Throughout this document47- Greasy48- Caucus state49- Yellowish brown pigment52- Prince Valiant’s son53- Actor Lugosi57- Prefix with plasm58- From head ___ (2 words)60- Romantic couple61- Salon offering62- Merits63- ___ girl!64- Deuce topper65- Swift66- Capone’s nemesis down1- Ingot2- Shipping magnate Onassis3- Emeritus: Abbr.4- Sterile5- Expensive6- Pertaining to the moon7- ___ Bator, Mongolia8- ___-X9- Ego10- Hula hoops?11- Hamlet, for one12- Hill toy

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www.theontarion.com CrossWord26

sUdoKU & CoMIC

last Week's solution

at the moment his name is rob, but this is always subject to change again. This dwarf bunny

loves to lick people’s hands (who doesn’t?). he understands that he needs to go into his cage when he’s thirsty, but doesn’t yet

understand that he needs to go into his cage to go to the bathroom. Perhaps his confusion is linked to his lack of a sure identity.

natasha reddy

pet oF tHe WeeK

bestCrossWords.CoM

27CoMMUNItY lIstINGs

ClassIFIeds

The Ontarion’s Employment Equity Policy is a proactive measure to recruit qualified people from a variety of ethnic, religious and class backgrounds, lesbians, bisexuals, gays and transgendered people, people of colour, Aboriginal people, people with disabilities and women. Members of the previously identified groups are encouraged to self-identify.

All EDITORS are responsible for providing volunteers with skills in journalism, in the form of individual consultation and workshops with

regards to content, format, style and editing. Editors will participate in the Ontarion’s move towards an increased online presence. Proven

written and editing skills are required along with experience in experience in volunteer management.

HOURS 24-28 PER PUBLISHING WEEK

CoMMUNItY eVeNts THE GUELPH RECORD and CD SHOW - Sunday, March 10th. 10:30am - 4pm at the Royal Canadian Legion. 57 Wat-son Prkwy S. 25000+ Records. Over 30 vendors. Admission $4. For further in-formation contact: 289-689-2734.

Guelph Field Naturalists Meeting, 7:30pm at the Arboretum Centre. All welcome. Dr. Alex Smith of University of Guelph speaking on Biodiversity.

serVICesNEED ESSAY HELP! All subjects, research, writing and editing specialists, toll free 1 888 345 8295 customessay@bellnet.ca. Join our advertising team and make great commissions by placing posters around campus. Details: 416-280-6113.

VolUNteer opportUNItIesVolunteer with the STAR LAB from the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) as it comes to the West Willow Woods neighbourhood group Saturday March 9th, 6-10pm. A mandatory training session for volun-teers will take place Thursday March 7th from 7-9pm. Email projects@dosomuch.ca for more details.

thursday March 7Stratford Shakespeare Lecture Series @ Your Guelph Public Library. The GPL and the Stratford Shakespeare Festival pres-ent four thought-provoking lectures based on this season’s plays. Each evening lec-ture features local Shakespearean experts. 7pm, Main Library (100 Norfolk St.). March 7, 14, 21and 28. Admission free. www.li-brary.guelph.on.ca

Thursday At Noon Concert Series. Concerts start at 12:00p.m. Thursdays in Mackinnon room 107 (Goldschmidt room). Admission free – donations gratefully appreciated. Everyone welcome! www.uoguelph.ca/sofam/

International Women’s Day Event –‘Rep-resenting Women and HIV: Conceptions and Misconceptions’ with Dr. Linda Hunt-er, Assistant Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology. Noon in JT Powell, Rm 207, U of G. www.gwwom-enincrisis.org

Seventh Annual Creative Music Sym-posium March 6th – 8th. The three day annual event presented by the Music Stu-dents’ Association, Music Department, and School of Fine Art and Music showcases student performances, interdisciplinary forums, keynote speakers, guest artists, and open classes. www.uoguelph.ca/sofam/music/symposium. Free.

Interested in being a veterinarian? Animal lover just interested in learning more? OVC

Mini Vet School every Thursday in March (March 7-28) offers 2 lectures a night on topics from animal welfare to anatomy! Register at www.ovcminivetschool.ca

Friday March 8International Women’s Day -Women on the Bridge- 12 noon, St. Georges Anglican Church, 99 Woolwich St. ONE BILLION RIS

ING. Come on your own or as a group. Bring banners or dress in organization colours. Information: wiceducator@gwwomenin-crisis.org OR www.gwwomenincrisis.org.

170.8 ◆ march 7th, 2013