What used to be an ivory tower has now become a “gated data-base,” according to a recent edi-torial for The Atlantic. The target is JSTOR, a company which digi-tizes scholarship for convenient use by universities and other such academic institutions, and its banner is “Free the Re-search!” The author of the piece, Laura McKenna, argues that JS-TOR is a “stubborn tradition” which keeps the public from ever accessing its wealth of in-formation with its reliance on archaic publisher relationships. “If academic journals skipped that needless step of providing

a print version of their journals, they could simply upload the papers to a website and take the publishers out of the process,” she writes.

Admittedly, the established model for publishing scholarly material is not widely known and seldom considered, even by the academics responsible for them. “I’ve never really been obliged, or encouraged, to think the issue through,” said Michael Dewar, Professor of Latin Lan-guage and Literature at U of T. “As a member of the Univer-sity’s faculty I am given access to what JSTOR has to offer free of charge. But, conversely, I have never been consulted about its

business model or its costs.”The price for producing schol-

arly journals is deceptively steep, with respect both to mon-ey and to manpower. Dewar, who spent ten years on the staff of Phoenix, a journal of Classical Studies based at Trinity College, was eventually offered the posi-tion of Editor, an opportunity which he declined. “There were several reasons for that deci-sion, but an important one was [knowing] that taking on the job of Editor would mean yet more weekends and yet more evenings spent doing work that was usually tedious and, when not tedious, annoying, and

“Education is a right. We will not give up the fight,” chanted thou-sands of students, gathered at the University of Toronto King’s College Circle on Wednesday for the National Day of Action. That morning, students rallied outside Sidney Smith Hall call-ing for a reduction in tuition fees and a higher quality, more accessible post-secondary edu-cation.

While this may seem an im-possible feat to accomplish in a four-hour tour around campus, the University of Toronto Stu-

dent Union saw the National Day of Action as an opportunity “to get students questioning why they’re actually paying so much for education,” said UTSU VP External Shaun Shepherd.

The Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) has not or-ganized a National Day of Ac-tion since 2007, but the gov-ernment’s failure to provide a 30 per cent tuition reduction for all Ontario post-secondary students prompted UTSU to organize Wednesday’s event. “Students want their promises kept by the Liberal Party,” said Sandy Hudson, Chairperson

for the Ontario division of the CFS, “[they don’t want] a grant scheme that makes it seem like we were deceived in the elec-tion.”

While eligible university students receive $1,600 back in tuition paid, two-thirds of On-tario’s post-secondary students, including part-time, interna-tional and graduate students, are excluded from the rebate. According to a report issued by the CFS, when accounting for inflation and population growth, cash transfer payments from the federal government to

The University of Toronto’s Independent Weekly Since 1978 VOL XXXIV Issue 18 • February 2, 2012the newspaper

Students, faculty pressure province to slash tuition fees Rally at St. George campus demands more funds on National Day of Action

Students rally at King’s College circle. Jay Z would be proud...

Firewalled gardens of academia

see page 2

Andrew Walt

see page 2

The nebulous practices of convenient scholarship

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Working out more space... page 2

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Inside this issue...B

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Cara Sabatini

Op-Ed:How not to dress like a million bucks

Page 3

The Inside:

Lost in translation in the

E.R.Page 4

The Arts:Sounds of Sweet HoneyPage 6

the newspaper

the newspaper1 Spadina Crescent Suite 245Toronto, ON M5S 1A1

Editorial: 416-593-1552thenewspaper@gmail.comwww.thenewspaper.ca

the newspaper is published by Planet Publications Inc., a non-profit corporation.

All U of T community members, including students, staff and faculty, are encouraged to contribute to the newspaper.

Editor-in-ChiefCara Sabatini

News EditorGeoff Vendeville

Associate News EditorYukon Damov

Photo EditorBodi Bold

Associate Photo EditorNana Arbova

Web EditorAndrew Walt

Design EditorSamantha Chiusolo

Features EditorTalia Gordon

Arts EditorVanessa Purdy

Illustrations EditorNick Ragetli

ContributorsNana Arbova, Suzanna Bala-buch, Rachel Bokhout, Bodi Bold, Samantha Chiusolo, Dan Christensen, Yukon Damov, Wes Dutcher-Walls, Talia Gordon, Vanessa Purdy, Nick Ragetli, Cara Sabatini, Andrew Walt.

Board of Directors:ChairmanSuzanna Balabuch

TreasurerHelene Goderis

the newspaper is the University of Toronto’s independent weekly paper, published since

1978.VOL XXXIV No. 17

THE NEWS2 February 2, 2012

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The University of Toronto keeps rising.

And the surge of construction projects dotting St. George Campus continues unabated. It was announced on Tuesday that the Faculty of Physical Education and Kinesiology has broken ground on the $58 million Goldring Centre for High Performance Sport, which is expected to be completed in 2014.

Ira Jacobs, who has overseen significant change at the Faculty since he became dean last year, said the project will create new facilities to address the dearth of spaces for physical activity and sport while also generating sports and health research.

Situated on Devonshire St. opposite Varsity Stadium, the Goldring Centre is the final phase in the Varsity Centre complex renewal program. The new centre will house international-level volleyball and basketball courts, various sports research laboratories, strength and fitness facilities overlooking the stadium, and an expanded sports medicine clinic.

Goldring will be the only university centre in Ontario dedicated to sports science. Research at the centre will include sport nutrition, developing training strategies that affect physiological systems, kinetics, and biomechanics (the laws of mechanics applied to the athletic body).

While such research might seem highly specialized, President David Naylor sees it as having a wide application. “The research into the field of sports science is still limited. There’s huge potential because it relates more broadly to wellness. With an aging population, you want people to be active as long as they live,” he said.

“Even though this is a centre for high-performance, it will increase the amount of space for the general population, ” said Townsend Benard, co-chair of the Council of Athletics and Recreation, which is responsible for overall athletics and recreation policy. “It will allow high-performance to move out of the Athletic Centre and move to this building, completely opening up the

AC for the recreational user.” Specifically, recreational users and intramural programs will not have to work around the Varsity teams’ schedules for access to the AC’s track, courts, or fitness facilities.

Benard said that the current programming arrangement at the AC will likely transfer to Goldring, and time not reserved for high-performance sports will be set aside for drop-in programs. Benard, President Naylor and Jacobs all emphasized that the Centre will help to alleviate constraints on the intramural program by allowing it to expand, decreasing or eliminating waiting lists.

Though the groundbreaking ceremony is behind us, there are still details to be sorted out. The estimated cost of Goldring

is $58 million. But after a $22.5 million gift from the Province and $28.5 million already given from private donations, there remains a $7 million funding gap.

At the groundbreaking event on Tuesday, City Councillor Adam Vaughn told the newspaper that the project is “a welcome addition to the neighbourhood,” but it is still awaiting the City’s final approval. There are no significant issues with the building, but Vaughn noted that its design has raised questions about how it fits into the surrounding historical heritage. Neither the funding gap nor the pending City approval is expected to jeopardize the project.

yet less time spent on my own scholarship,” he said.

After the exhaustive process of polishing and compiling a journal, its editor sends the final product to a for-profit publisher to produce the physical issue. Publishers then often sell their content rights to companies such as JSTOR in order to cover their expenses, who digitize the material for sale online.

“Universities that created this academic content for free must pay to read it,” wrote McKenna. The privilege of accessing JS-TOR’s Arts & Sciences I collec-tion, for example, costs U of T a $45,000 Archive Capital Fee (ACF) plus an $8,500 Annual

Access Fee (AAF). While U of T, with its annual libraries budget reported to be in the neighbour-hood of $72.5 million, can afford such financial costs rather eas-ily, smaller institutions must devote a considerable share of their budgets to such online re-sources.

But McKenna generalizes and oversimplifies. “The situation is more complex than she pres-ents it, and perhaps worse than she allows,” said Dewar. Upon reading McKenna’s claim that “faculty are given course release time to edit the journal and a small stipend,” Dewar snorted out loud. “Far from ever receiv-ing a single moment’s course release let alone a penny of sti-pend, I do not receive any roy-

alty payment if someone uses JS-TOR to read something I myself have published in, say, Classical Quarterly,” he said.

McKenna may take issue with how JSTOR and services similar to it function, but regardless of their faults, they remain a pleas-ant and useful service for both students and professors alike. “I can obtain without leaving my office much that would previ-ously have been available to me only if I hiked over to Robarts,” Dewar concluded. “I’m person-ally much more concerned by the degradation of undergradu-ate teaching in our public uni-versities than by the ways in which any of the research they produce is turned into a com-modity.”

fund post-secondary education are roughly $1.3 billion short of the level of funding two decades ago.

However, the provincial gov-ernment may not be the only party implicated in the increas-ingly high fees, as the university administration also bears some responsibility in the issue. “I want to see them [the Univer-sity] lobbying for more public funds,” said Shepherd.

“We’re not just talking about accessible education, we’re talking about quality educa-tion,” said James Nugent, chief spokesperson of CUPE 3092, the trade union that represents the university’s education workers. Members of CUPE 3092 saw the National Day of Action as a plat-form to address their concerns. The union, which has been in negotiations with the university administration over the past seven months, set a strike dead-

line for February 24. “The Administration is not

taking the negotiation process seriously,” said Nugent, explain-ing that the university does not recognize tutorial size as an is-sue. With a quarter of tutorials at U of T containing over 50 stu-dents, instructors cannot pro-vide them with sufficient sup-port, especially when they must concentrate on the research that brought them to the institution in the first place. “We get the same amount of pay, but they [U of T] are asking us to do hun-dreds and hundreds of hours more.”

“What they [the provincial government] worry about is ac-cess, not quality,” said President of the U of T Faculty Association (UTFA) Professor George Luste, who expressed concern about the stagnant number of faculty positions as university enroll-ment continues to grow. “The students and the faculty are all in this together . . . to teach and

to create research,” he said. Despite support from the

UTFA and a letter from the Office of the Vice Provost for Students— which called on professors to excuse participat-ing students from academic engagements “when possi-ble”—the number of students only amounted to a fraction of the total university popula-tion. Hudson claimed, “We had a whole bunch of people who were scared to leave class or who had part-time jobs who couldn’t make it.”

According to Shepherd, “We actually came close to 5,000 [students]; enough students to fill the circle at Con Hall.” Shep-herd attributed the relatively low turnout to a lack of “strong campus life,” and believes the next step is to get more students involved in talking about the in-creasing price of post-secondary education.

from ‘day of action’

Goldring Centre for High Performance Sport to complement Varsity ACGround breaks on groundbreaking new facilityYukon Damov

from ‘firewalled’

In the 16th century, the Protestant theologian John Calvin put forward the controversial idea of predestination. We are born predestined for either salvation or damnation, and that’s that. No number of good deeds or displays of piety can change that outcome.

Though a man of a very different religious persuasion, Mitt Romney entered the Republican primary season with just this feeling of predestination. This was to be his year. He exuded the confidence of a man assured of victory. No other candidate seemed to have a fighting chance.

Of course, there were flashes in the pan: the Bachmanns, the Cains, the Trumps, the Perrys. All their antics, from gimmicky tax-code overhauls to calls for scrapping major federal departments, seemed only to emphasize Romney’s almost laughable normalcy. As each of the clownish contenders enjoyed his or her moment in the sun, ever was Romney there, talking jobs and the economy while they spouted

about electric fences on the Mexican border and abolishing the entire Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for being too liberal. He was, as the slogan on his campaign bus reminds us, a “conservative businessman” with the measuredness, consistency, and hair to prove it.

Since Newt Gingrich’s rise to the status of Romney’s rival, the story of the Grand Old Party (GOP) primary season has been one of predestination gone awry.

Gingrich’s success could be attributed to the delicate balance he has struck. By explicitly branding himself as the truly conservative alternative to the political chameleon Romney, Gingrich seems to be just enough like Bachmann or Perry to create a splash. On the other hand, his strong debate performances, his experience, and his political shrewdness seem to suggest a truly viable candidacy.

To the extent that the recent history of the Republican Party can be understood as the interplay of insurgency and establishment, Tea Party and country club, then Romney and Gingrich are living out this

split. Romney, the successful businessman with executive experience and perfect hair, is, as expected, the “establishment” choice, despite the skepticism of many Republicans about his commitment to conservatism. Gingrich, in contrast, has somehow become the insurgent, or at least the more successful insurgent compared to the blatantly-homophobic Rick Santorum and the libertarian Ron Paul.

The fact that Gingrich, a former Speaker of the House, who can probably work the Washington system better than anyone else, is able to brand himself as the non-establishment candidate shows just how square Romney really is. Romney is trying to shed his establishment image—hence the bluejeans and plaid shirts—but this may not even be necessary in the long run. His formidable campaign machine would have rolled over Gingrich long ago if it weren’t for the Adelsons’ gigantic donations to the inanely-named Gingrich-friendly “super PAC” Winning Our Future. Further, a sad truth is that the unsavoury aspects of Gingrich’s personal (spousal)

history will very likely hurt his chances with the more family-obsessed wing of the Republican party.

Many Republicans seem to be coming to their senses and thinking ahead to the general election. An Obama-Gingrich campaign would be nasty, and would almost certainly result in Republican defeat. Those who condemn Romney for tailoring his views to his current political needs--which he absolutely does, by the way--fail to understand the nature of American politics.

While the primary process rewards extremism, the general election demands moderation, and so the traits that are now drawing so much flak may be Romney’s greatest assets when he inevitably becomes the party’s nominee against Obama. Yes, Romney will eventually win the nomination. But thanks to Gingrich, it will not look predestined.

The University of Toronto Students’ Union is holding its Spring 2012 Elections to ll the following positions:

)s(taeSnoitisoPDivision I Victoria College 2

2egelloC ytisrevinU Innis College 1

3egelloC s’leahciM .tS New College 3 Trinity College 1

3egelloC htrowsdooW

Toronto School of Theology 1

At-Large Arts & Science 2

Division II

Faculty of Music 11yrtsitneD fo ytlucaF 1gnisruN fo ytlucaF 1enicideM fo ytlucaF 1ycamrahP fo ytlucaF

Faculty of Law 13gnireenignE & ecneicS deilppA fo ytlucaF 1htlaeH & noitacudE lacisyhP fo ytlucaF 2ytlucaF lanoisseforP egraL-tA

Division III *7supmac aguassissiM

Executive President 1

1 secivreS & lanretnI tnediserP eciV 1ytiuqE tnediserP eciV 1lanretxE tnediserP eciV

Vice President University A 1sria* cross appointed to the Board of Directors of the UTMSU

2012 SPRING

Elections NoticeUniversity of Toronto Students’ Union

Local 98 • Canadian Federation of Students

Important 2012 Dates:Election Nominations (All Positions)

Monday, February 13, 2012 at 09:00 to

Election Campaign Period Monday, February 27, 2012 at 08:00 to Thursday, March 8, 2012 at 18:00

Election Voting PeriodFrom 09:00 to 18:00

Election Results Friday, March 23, 2012

Nomination Pick-up and Drop-o Locations:

St. George campus:

12 Hart House CircleHours: Monday - Friday, 09:00 to 18:00

To run for a position, pick up a nomination package duringthe nomination period at the U.T.S.U. or UTMSU o ce. Please keep in mind the dates and deadlines.

For more information, visit our Students’ Union website at www.utsu.ca or contact cro@utsu.ca Please note that, at the time of this publication, “University of Toronto Students’ Union” and/or “U.T.S.U.” refers to the Students’ Administrative Council of the University of Toronto, Inc. (“SAC”).

Mississauga campus:

UTMSU OfficeUTM Student Centre, Room 100Hours: Monday - Friday09:00 to 12:30, 13:30 to 17:00

The U of T Students’ Union represents all full-time undergraduates at St.

George and Mississauga campuses. U.T.S.U. provides important services such

as Health & Dental Plans, book bursaries, clubs funding and discounted TTC

Metropasses. Your Students’ Union also represents students to the central U of

T administration and government, advocates for students’ rights, and connects

students across all campuses to work on common goals, campaigns and social

programming.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 18:00

March 6, 7, 8, 2012

www.thenewspaper.ca 3 THE NEWS

The inevitability of the Grand Old Party candidateRomney’s spoiled predestination

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Wes Dutcher-Walls

THE INSIDE4 February 2, 2012

For many, a visit to the emer-gency room can be a fright-ening and stressful experi-ence. Patients arriving at the hospital emergency depart-ment (ED) with injury or illness are often physically exhausted or emotionally dis-traught. In addition, research has shown that the discharge process also presents in-cresed potential health risks.

A recent review article co-au-thored by a team from the Uni-versity of Toronto, The Hospi-tal for Sick Children (SickKids), and Children’s Hospital in Bos-ton has found that patients and their families often leave the ED with an incomplete understanding of the patient’s diagnosis, at-home care in-structions (including medica-tion use), and confusion about follow-up visits. The review, published in the January issue of Annals of Emergency Medi-cine, points to poor commu-nication between ED staff and patient-families as the primary cause of many of these risks.

Dr. Stephen Porter, Division Head for Paediatric Emergency Medicine at SickKids and as-sociate professor at U of T ex-plained that the article, which looked at over 50 studies of ED care, broke down the issue of communication into four parts: “We looked at papers that discussed problems with content [of discharge informa-tion], issues with the delivery of content, comprehension that patients or family mem-bers showed as outcomes of the discharge process, and imple-mentation.” Porter added that the review also evaluated exist-ing interventions aimed at im-proving the discharge process.

According to Porter, most studies demonstrated that pa-tients often left with gaps in in-formation regarding their con-dition. When it came to the delivery of this information, challenges with regard to com-munication often had to do with the kind of language used by healthcare professionals.

“Medicine struggles with not putting our words in clear enough language. We found that standard written emergency instructions were almost at an advanced univer-sity reading level, even though in the general population, this is not the case,” said Porter. He also pointed out problems with the overuse of medical terminology. “We have to be

aware of what words we use, what words we write down, and what people will under-stand,” he said. Often, even if a patient is able to read the writ-ten instructions, the medical vocabulary will be unfamiliar.

Porter explained that in the area of comprehension, one of the most interesting papers came out of Chicago, where researchers had conducted standardized interviews with adult patients immediately after discharge. Patients were asked to review what they had just been told by the ED staff with regard to their diagnosis, the emergency care they had received, post-discharge care, and indications for follow-up. “Over one-third of these pa-tients had a deficit [of knowl-edge] in at least one area. And, most of them didn’t even re-alize that they didn’t know.”

This is not uncommon, par-ticularly for patients and fami-lies facing other challenges

to health-care access, such as language barriers or cultural differences. In an emergency health care setting that often involves first-time visits for pa-tients, it can be difficult to plan ahead to ensure that transla-tors or cultural brokers are al-ways present when necessary.

Through a synthesis of the available literature, Porter and his team have offered a num-ber of recommendations to im-prove ED discharge communi-cation and clarify instructions to patients and families.

“One of the lessons learned in the review is that there are some relatively simple and easy to implement strategies. For example, standardizing the most common discharge instruction in simple lan-guage, and making them avail-able in other languages that may be needed,” said Porter.

“If there is any concern with the patient’s understanding, it is important to use a read-back

or feed-back approach, and check in to verify that what we said was understood. Instead of just telling patients what to do, we need to show them and have them show us,” he added.

Simple interventions such as these require lit-tle time and effort on the part of ED staff, but produce tangible improvements to patient health outcomes.

The review has opened up areas of further inquiry when it comes to ED care and long-term health status. “In On-tario, people tend to come to the emergency room first, because that’s the most avail-able resource. Often times it’s not acuity that drives them to us, it’s simply a matter of seeking the best option,” said Porter. Efforts to minimize failures of communication and improve patient-family comprehension are certainly central to ensuring good qual-ity emergency room care.

New review finds poor communication between emergency room staff and patients leads to increased potential health risks

Tell it to me straight, Doc

Talia Gordon

Visit thenewspaper.cafor this week’s food column:

Sal(i)vationTalia Gordon drops a beet or two into a delicious winter dish!

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MMMbeet...

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. But what if those words are taken out of context? This was the prob-lem facing the duo behind The Black Jew Dialogues, a travelling comedy show recently put on at Hart House.

U of T’s Anti-Racism and Cultural Diversity Office (ARCDO), a co-sponsor of the show, asked the duo to replace the picture on their original poster, which showed white comedian Larry Jay Tish sport-ing an afro wig, and black co-median Ron Jones wearing a yarmulke. Until then, the poster had been the subject of only one complaint in the pro-duction’s six-year history. The show’s stated goal is to exam-ine cultural stereotypes and open up a dialogue on racism.

Sandra Carnegie-Douglas of the ARCDO said the poster was not actually banned, as some other media outlets have re-ported. However, the ARCDO decided that the poster “need-

ed to be contextualized with additional explanation.”

“The poster was not banned from campus. In fact, it was used in a press release which explained the full event and it was also used as the front cover of the program that was distributed to attendees at the event, where the dialogue would take place and provide context.”

Carnegie-Douglas added, “A poster with a different image was used to promote the event, without objection from the performers, who have received similar concerns in the past.”

Clarice Mporamazina, Sec-retary of U of T’s African Stu-dents’ Association, corrobo-rated the ARCDO’s version of events. The ASA had been invited to the view the per-formance, and according to Ms. Mporamazina, the poster as well as the performance had elements of cultural ste-reotypes that she did not feel comfortable with.

“It’s all about stereotypes. All the stereotypes they use,

I felt like they were trying to shock. I was also not happy about it. The white comedian was the one wearing the afro. I thought it was a limiting im-age of black people, how they represent the black person as just an afro-- I didn’t like it.”

However, Ms. Mporamazina went on to say that Tish and Jones stayed true to the prem-ise of opening up dialogue about racial and cultural ste-reotypes.

“There was nothing racist about the whole show. They definitely had good goals. They wanted people to stay to the end so that we could talk about all the stereotypes pre-sented and so that we could break them down.”

Despite a perhaps mislead-ing event poster, Ms. Mpo-ramazina was able to see be-yond the dispute and on to a

different approach to the issue at hand.

“I would definitely use a different approach. When it comes to representing those two groups-- the way they did it was very simplistic and ste-

reotypical. I would use some-thing less simple. The two groups have so much history and cultural differences that it’s not easy to represent them with one image. I don’t know if I would even use an image.”

www.thenewspaper.ca 5 THE INSIDE

Politically incorrect comedy show poster denouncedAnti-Racism and Cultural Diversity Office censors The Black-Jew Dialogues posterSuzanna Balabuch

The controversial poster in question...

WearAboutsBodi Bold brings you U of T’s stylish side

Students show off their sleek high street coats and give them a leather edge. These

are bound to be a rare site on campus.

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who >> Sahar, 3rd year Cinema Studies studentwhat >> High neck coat from Queen St.'s Carte Blanche and Wang-inspired creeper bootswhere >>UC courtyard

who >> Ola, 4th year Cinema Studies studentwhat >> Double lapel Asos coat with leather sleeve detailing where >> St. George St.

THE ARTS6 February 2, 2012

The Festival of Original Theatre Steps Up

Toronto is not a city short on theatrical offerings, nor is the University of Toronto commu-nity wanting when it comes to the quality of college produc-tions. But the Festival of Origi-nal Theatre (FOOT) exposes a side of artistic life on campus that is just a bit more unortho-dox than classic productions of Shakespeare or Sondheim.

Celebrating its twentieth year, FOOT showcases the performance and academic work of both students and professors at U of T’s Graduate Centre for Theatre and Perfor-mance, as well as new pieces from around the world. Over the past two decades the festi-val has established itself on a global scale, often welcoming keynote speakers of interna-tional significance. This year, along with professors Helen Nicholson from the University

of London and Kathleen Gal-lagher from U of T, Swedish playwright and professor Su-zanne Osten will be giving an address. “Osten literally revo-lutionized children’s theatre in Sweden and she’s very popular in Europe, so we would like to introduce her to Canadian au-diences and Canadian academ-ics,” said Art Babayants, one of two artistic directors for this year’s festival, and a graduate student at the Centre.

Of the festival itself, Babay-ants said, “It’s a place where students have a place to pre-sent their own work; their own research and artistic work...It’s an experience-building place.” As both a theatre festival and academic conference, FOOT explores and engages with different formats and conven-tions of theatrical production. Theatre is more than simply putting on a play; it often in-cludes audience participation.

“One of the wonderful things about theatre is that it’s very in your face once you’re there.You may hate it, or you may love it, but it’s hard to escape,” added Babayants.

The theme of this year’s fes-tival is “Theatre and Learning,” with three streams of focus: applied theatre (think, theatre in the classroom), theatre for social change (think, political theatre) and theatre for young audiences (think, Degrassi: On Stage). “I personally think that all theatre is inherently linked to learning,” said Babayants, stressing the importance of fostering a “faith in theatre” at a young age. “Something that Suzanne Osten did, is she introduced the taboo topics to young audiences, things like divorce and violence,” Babay-ants continued. “Instead of avoiding dangerous things, you can introduce them and discuss them, and young peo-

ple can have their voice in those works as well,” he added.

Theatre - particularly inde-pendent theatre - should al-ways challenge audiences to open their minds. At FOOT, the audience has the chance to turn that challenge back around through post-show round-tables, which offer the opportunity for comments, questions - even debates. The floor is open for playwrights, performers, and professors to discuss their productions and research with the audience in

the theatre lobby; here, chal-lenging the ideas and choices of those behind the theatrical magic is not only tolerated, but warmly encouraged.

If you’ve ever been curious about what goes on behind the curtains and closed doors of U of T’s academic and theatrical elite, checking out FOOT is a step in the right direction!

Performances are free. February 2nd-5th, Robert Gill Theatre. For more information visit foot2012.wordpress.com

Vanessa Purdy

This FOOT’s got legs to stand on...

Gospel-jazz group harmonizes equality and justiceFounding member talks about Sweet Honey and BarackSweet Honey In The Rock is a gospel/jazz/African-Ameri-can all-women singing group founded in 1973. Singing mostly a cappella songs, their music is a call for justice and equality, a reminder of the past and a call to action for the pre-sent and future. As part of their 2012 tour, they’re performing at The Royal Conservatory on February 10. We spoke to founding member Carol Lynn Maillard about the way the group works, its commitment to accessibility and equity, and moments that have stood out for her during Sweet Honey’s 40-year journey.

the newspaper: You work within a huge variety of mu-sical traditions. How do you decide which songs to sing?

Carol Lynn Maillard: First of all, Sweet Honey’s been around for such a long time, and [so] there is a really large repertoire that we pull from. We try to keep much of that music alive and use-ful, [though] sometimes things fall from the wayside. [Occa-sionally] we try to build on a particular genre. Sometimes we have a theme that we’re trying to address... An issue might come up – for example, we have a song called “We Are

A Nation” that we actually all wrote together to address the Arizona immigration policies and to encourage dialogue on immigration reform, because we felt the laws were so unfair.

tn: You’ve done some ar-rangements for the group, and Ysaye Barnwell has done some. Do the group members have particular musical responsibilities?

CLM: No. We all have to bring in material. Different people have different [inter-ests] and different ways of writ-

ing. That’s why an album will have a range of styles – it won’t all be R&B, it won’t all be spir-itual, or all be jazzy. We respect however [the group members] hear the music.

tn: You mentioned that

you try to keep a lot of your pieces alive and useable. Are there songs that’s you’ve continued to sing through the whole 40 years of Sweet Honey in the Rock?

CLM: I can’t say there’s anything we’ve done over the whole 40 years, but since the 80s, there’s quite a bit of mate-rial that we continue to use... “Ella’s Song” became some-thing we started singing in the late 70s, and we’ve done a new arrangement of “Ella’s Song”, to freshen it up.

tn: What made the group decide to start doing sign language interpretation with your performances?

CLM: In the mid-70s, the women’s rights movement had a lot of energy. Events

were very family-friendly. … And there was wheelchair ac-cess and access for people with any kind of disability, to make sure people could come. Sweet Honey was very impressed by that. [As a result] We have a wonderful deaf audience. It’s always a surprise...Essentially, in deaf culture, people have a tendency not to come to hear-ing events, because they’re not interpreted for them. But because our message is for fair-ness and equality and social justice, it’s important that the

audience can get the message and emotion.

tn: Has there been a really standout moment for you, with Sweet Honey In The

Rock?CLM: One of the things that

I really enjoyed was four of us had the opportunity to be in the film Beloved, and that was marvelous for us. We were part of the 30 women leading the song at the end of the movie. And also, being invited by Mi-chelle Obama to come to the White House to perform for some middle school children. ...And connected with that was the time that we met Senator Obama at an event. He was a junior Senator and he was the keynote speaker and we were the entertainment... When [Senator Obama] came in, he walked by us and said hello. I gave him a bag of CDs, and he said, “These are for me?” And I said, “Yeah.” And he said, “Like I don’t know Sweet Honey?”...And then we got up on the po-dium and he said, “They think I don’t know who they are,” and he started singing “Ella’s Song.” So our music is in their home, and their hearts and their consciousness, and that tells us a lot about the kind of people that they are.

Sweet Honey in the Rock per-forms at Koerner Hall Friday, February 10 at 8PM. Tickets: www.rcmusic.ca

Rachel Bokhout

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The ladies of Sweet Honey In The Rock strike a pose.

Each time I see a horror film, I can’t shake the feeling that it’s going to be terrible. Maybe I feel that horror is such a well defined genre that filmmakers can’t help but recycle the same plots over and over again.

Or maybe it’s because when they make it so clear that their goal is to frighten me, my pride can’t stand that sort of manipu-lation. So I sit stubbornly, arms crossed through the whole pic-ture, determined to be bored to death before I’m scared to death, and thus determined to call the movie a failure.

Consequently, upon seeing the film’s title, I couldn’t re-sist a little snarky speculation on the plot of The Inkeepers. I expected a couple of teenag-ers to show up at an isolated, old-timey motel in the woods and get terrorized by its creepy, geriatric staff, who turn out to be demons or something like that.

So, turns out I was wrong about everything but the old-timey motel. Twenty-some-

things Claire (Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy) are the only two employees working at the Yankee Pedlar Inn on its last week before going belly-up, in the middle of Anytown, USA.

They also fancy themselves a couple of amateur ghost-hunters. Luke even hosts his own Angelfire website (com-plete with traffic counter) documenting the spooks he’s witnessed.

Each familiar with the oft told local bedtime story of the woman who checked in to the Pedlar but never checked out, they hope to use Luke’s equip-ment to record some evidence of her hauntings before the motel shuts its doors for the last time.

Among the Pedlar’s final few guests is Leanne Rease-Jones (Kelly McGillis), who is in town to speak at a seminar about contacting those on the other side. When Claire asks her for help contacting the motel’s eternal guest, she performs a seance and warns Claire that she is in danger and

must not continue chasing the spirit.

While working on 2009 film, The House of the Devil, writer-di-rector Ti West actually stayed at the Yankee Pedlar Inn, and the whisperings from his crew about supernatural occurrenc-es inspired him to write the film.

The unnerving aura about the inn that West manages

to capture provides the film’s most memorable feature. I’ll admit, despite the plot and the scare tactics feeling a little fa-miliar, Paxton and Healy’s per-formances (including her total indifference to his awkward flirting) had me charmed from beginning to end.

However, it proves difficult to become totally enveloped by the disturbing proceedings when both the characters and director take such a casual at-titude. Rather than descending to a place of true discomfort, we find ourselves buoyantly lingering on the surface.

However much I was enter-tained on the first go-round, the basic and practical direc-tion would doubtfully draw out further richness from re-peated viewings. If you’re a horror movie fan, you’d be wise to buy a ticket.

You can be sure to feel vastly more impressed than you were by The Devil Inside. The Innkeep-ers is certainly not The Shining, but the filmmaker actually knows how to make a movie.

www.thenewspaper.ca 7 THE ARTS

Across1. Ready to pick5. Exchange9. Ocular organ12. Vast bodies of water15. Do road work16. Teenager boys; young ___17. Temperature unit18. Pre-owned

19. Bachelor’s place20. Cuss22. Take a nap24. Baseball hat27. Snowboard alternative28. Casual torso garment31. Applications33. Hip-Hop genre36. Informal affirmative

37. Hazard40. Molten earth43. Colouring agent

44. Remove from the pic-ture47. Raise a question50. Faucet problem51. Closer55. Used a doorbell57. U of T college

59. Budhist deity60. Plenty; more than ___63. Acorn producer66. Insane67. Wheel fitting, to a Brit68. Nickels and dimes70. Snitch72. As well74. Fake sings78. Be in debt79. Gage80. Run of luck; winning ___

81. Marry82. Where the heart is, idi-omatically

83. “Nice’n’___” (1960 Sinatra album)

Down1. Fishing tool2. Frozen water3. Golf tee 4. Aural organs5. Cowboy’s heel fitting6. “Fun ___ had by all”7. Turn away from8. Feet, in Latin9. Drained10. Not nay11. Conclusion13. Current events14. Look for; ___ out21. Broadcast23. Bashful24. Slice25. First Wednesday of Lent26. Each

29. ___ Charles (pianist) 30. Definite article32. Look at!34. Similar to each other35. Frying vessle38. Every39. Stalemate41. Delivery vehicle42. Consumed45. Adult male46. Dine47. “Who do you think you ___?” 48. Our star49. Full of tangles52. Computer memory53. Epoch

54. “Epic,” in a 90s sort of way56. Director Ritchie 58. Random exclamation61. Information chart62. Telephone greeting64. Lines up a shot65. Rope binding68. “___ on!” (Exhortation)69. Certain70. Horizontal column71. Wonder73. “Cogito ergo ___”

75. Orage pekoe or English Breakfast

76. Possesses77. Wild blue yonder

The Crossword

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335 6

97

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365

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3 1

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6 4

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79

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The SudokuAndrew Walt

42 43

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47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54

58 57 56 55 59

60 61 62 63

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

12 13 14 15 16

17 18 19

20 21 22

26 30

31 36

37 38 39 40

32 33 34 35

23

27 28 29 24 25

68

64 65

67

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69

66

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81

72 73

80

74

83

75

79 78

76 77

82

Check the guests out any time you like, but you may never leaveTi West delivers quality horror fare, in keeping with his previous workDan Christensen

...why do they always go down into the damn basement?

8 February 2, 2012THE END

GILLIAN Psychology, 4th year“Some kind of government body to allow everyone to vote. Things wouldn’t be organized otherwise.”

LANCE Health and Disease, 3rd year“Determining what all the sources of our needs are. Water, food, etc. Determine how to survive and who I wanna have on the planet.”

NA

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JOHN Human Geography, 2nd year“Most likely something to make the moon more accessible to other companies and people going there.”

KATHERINE Psychology, 3rd year“Creating energy in some way. I don’t know much about the moon, but maybe solar energy, so we can sustain ourselves.”

JOSH Commerce, 1st year“Some type of medical field enterprise. A hospital, something to take care of us up there.”

Dear SuzieNot buying it: When business gets in the way of friendshipDear Suzie,A friend of mine (let’s call her A) recently started another job as one of those cos-metic sales ladies to make some more money. I supported her by buying a few prod-ucts, but when she started becoming too pushy, I basically stopped returning her texts and stuff. That awkward moment in our friendship passed, and I thought everything was back to normal. Then yesterday, I heard from another friend—who had met A at my house—that A was contacting her as well as other friends A met through me in order to sell her stuff. The friend seemed a little put off by A’s sales tac-tics and asked me to talk to her. Frankly, I’m a little torn because A is a friend who is trying to be financially proactive, but I’m also pretty annoyed that she’s basically preying on me, and now my friends in order to make money. What should I do?

Signed,Confidante, not customer

Dear Confidante,There should be an eleventh commandment out there stating that friends and money simply don’t mix. Anything having to do with making money off the important people in your life almost always leads to disaster. It’s nice that you supported A at the start of her new venture, but it was not so nice that you didn’t let her know what was bothering you, and instead just gave her that old elementary school-style silent treatment. Now that someone else has presented you with the opportunity to be a true friend and tell A the truth, you should take it. Thinking about how awkward it’s going to be is not going to help one bit. Bite the bullet and let the Avon Lady know that, as much as you love her and want to support her, your friends are unable to to shell out the extra money on her products right now. If she continues her behaviour after you’ve voiced your concern, then you really have grounds for some grown-up cold shoulder.

Sincerely,Suzie

Want to ask Suzie a question? Email Suzie at suzienewsie@gmail.com, or submit (anonymously, of course!) at www.thenewspaper.ca, in the blue box on the lower left.

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MI Commerce, 1st“I wouldn’t establish a colony on the moon. It’s impossible and impractical. There’s no point.”

the campus comment

In light of a US presidential candidate’s promise to start a colony on the moon by his second term, and also the recent Canadian Lego adventure into space,

the newspaper asked: if you were responsible for establishing the first Canadian lunar colony, what would be your first enterprise on the

moon?