The Cascade Vol. 24 No. 3

Separated from our loved ones because of school since 1993

JANUARY 27 2016 TO FEBRUARY 2, 2016 VOLUME 24 ISSUE 3

WWW.UFVCASCADE.CA

WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?UFV students on marriage, divorce, and why tying the

knot is — or isn’t — worth it Pages 9-11

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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27, 2016 www.ufvcascade.ca

CONTENTS

CONTRIBUTORS

News Culture & Events

06 17 1904

Opinion Arts in Review

Women’s basketball team signs three new players

Understanding the Israeli-Palestine conflict through film

Does a place lose its identity if it’s saturated with ads?

Three reviewers weigh in on Netflix’s latest superhero hit

New year, new team 5 Broken CamerasBan advertising! Jessica Jones

The Cascade is UFV’s autonomous student newspaper. It originated under its current name in 1993, and achieved autonomy from the university and the Student Union Society in 2002. This means that The Cascade is a forum for UFV students to have their journalism published in an entirely student-run setting. It also acts as an alternative press for the Fraser Valley. The Cascade is funded with UFV student funds, and is overseen by the Cascade Journalism Society Board, a body run by a student majority. The Cascade is published every Wednesday with a print circulation of 1,500 and is distributed at Abbotsford, Chilliwack (CEP), Clearbrook, and Mission UFV campuses and throughout the surrounding communities.

The Cascade is open to written, photo, and design work from all students; these can come in the form of a pitch to an editor, or an assignment from an editor. Writers meetings are held each Monday at 2:00 p.m. in The Cascade’s office on the Abbotsford campus.

In order to be published in the newspaper, all work must first be approved by The Cascade’s editor-in-chief, copy editor, and corresponding section editor. The Cascade reserves the right to edit submissions for clarity and length. The Cascade will not print any articles that contain racist, sexist, homophobic or libellous content. Letters to the editor, while held to the same standard, are unedited, and should be under 400 words. As The Cascade is an autonomous student publication, opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect that of UFV, The Cascade’s staff and collective, or associated members.

Cat BellKodie Cherrille

Joel Robertson-Taylor

Jasmine Hope SilvaTerrill Smith

Scott Stromquist

Volume 24 · Issue 3Room S2111

33844 King Road Abbotsford, BC

V2S 7M8 604.854.4529

STAFFEditor-in-ChiefMichael [email protected]

Managing EditorValerie [email protected]

Business ManagerJennifer [email protected]

Copy EditorKat [email protected]

News Editor (interim)Vanessa [email protected]

Opinion EditorAlex [email protected]

Culture EditorGlen [email protected]

Arts in Review EditorMartin [email protected]

Production Manager Brittany [email protected]

Production AssistantDanielle [email protected]

IllustratorSultan [email protected]

WebmasterBrayden [email protected]

Multimedia EditorMitch [email protected]

Staff WriterSonja [email protected]

Arts WriterJeffrey [email protected]

WWW.UFVCASCADE.CA@UFVCASCADE

FACEBOOK.COM/UFVCASCADE

Cover image: Sultan JumPrinted by International Web exPress

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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27, 2016www.ufvcascade.ca

EDITORIAL

What does a university’s dreams look like? There are, perhaps, too many people working at too many different levels to say, in a simple, resolution-statement kind of way, that there is one dream, and this is where it is, and this is how close it is to reality. But if you pull out a single book, or a single document, sometimes you can find a very clear distillation of what is going on, or dreamt to be possible, in the hallways and offices of an institution.

Campus planning is one department at UFV where it could be said that the people who work there get to dream for a living — it’s not always that simple, of course, but every year they produce a Capital Plan — building projects, renovations, sales, purchases, all figuring in the millions, all dependent on a majority investment from the provincial government. If UFV had its greatest wishes fulfilled, the decision-makers from Victoria gazing down and deciding, yes, UFV deserves to have its requests granted, the contents of the Capital Plan would be the most noticeable changes to the university — buildings that would make its surfaces unrecognizable to alumni, and alterations that would disrupt the background operations of nearly every department at the institution.

Of course, there’s still reality to contend with.“We haven’t received any indication from

government that they’re going to fund any of these projects,” says Craig Toews, the director of campus planning. “It’s really a wish list, to the extent that these are what our priorities are, and these are the needs they would fill.”

Still, the university, not desiring to stand still, will naturally be looking ahead to another project: are any of these close to becoming reality, and what do these priorities say about UFV?

The most direct connection to the individual student’s life is the space all these buildings and construction timelines would take up: currently, UFV is over-capacity in Abbotsford, and in the Chilliwack transition from the Yale Road campus to the CEP building, some departments are now even more split between commuter campuses. The Capital Plan calls CEP a “destination campus,” and mentions that the Student Union Society’s shuttle connector is instrumental in many students actually getting to access the place. Where Abbotsford is aging, filling every available space, as it did this summer following the SUB move-out, with more offices and classrooms, Chilliwack is utilized at under 70 per cent of its capacity.

What, then, are the priorities of the Capital Plan? These fall into two main categories: new buildings and renovations. On the one side, a $40 million idea for a modern, technology-enhanced classroom building in Abbotsford, an additional f loor to C building in Abbotsford, the purchase of a military building in Chilliwack for the heavy mechanics program. On the other, repairs to D building (those exterior cracks do mean something, and it does have something to do with why the building feels less insulated in some classrooms than elsewhere on campus), and maintenance renovations for A and B buildings in Abbotsford.

You may find yourself in a small universityUFV has big plans for the future. But where are we now?

WAIT AROUND, AND PLANS AND TASKFORCES MAY BECOME SOLUTIONS. BUT THE STUDENT LIFE IS ALWAYS IMPATIENT. IT CAN’T AFFORD TO WAIT FIVE YEARS.

“

NEWS BRIEFS

Free National Post newspapers in the SUB

ABBOTSFORD — The National Post daily newspaper is now available at no cost for students in the Student Union Building. “We wanted to bring as many information and news sources into the building as possible and expose students to all the different things that are happening locally and nationally,” said Student Union Society president Thomas Davies. The service comes at no cost to SUS, due to the National Post ’s educational program that provides free newspapers to educational institutions.

Lowndes to stay as men’s soccer coach

ABBOTSFORD — After a successful year as interim head coach, UFV athletic department announced that Tom Lowndes will stay on as the head coach for the men’s soccer team. Lowndes worked as assistant coach to former head coach Alan Errington for two seasons before Errington’s retirement last year. During the 2015 season, Lowndes’ first as head coach, the team defeated the Trinity Western Spartans to win the bronze medal in the Canada West finals. Originally from Undy, Wales, Lowndes performed in his playing career for the Bristol Rovers FC in England, as well as for Baker University and Simon Fraser University.

—UFV Athletics

Founding UFV council member passes away

ABBOTSFORD — The first chair of the Fraser Valley College council passed away on January 23 at the age of 91. Doug Hamilton helped establish the college in 1974 and worked as chair until 1979. During UFV’s 40th anniversary in 2014, an honorary Doctor of Laws degree was awarded to Hamilton. Hamilton’s other community roles included working for the BC Ministry of Agriculture as an extension specialist and as an Abbotsford school board chair.

—UFV press release

MICHAEL SCOULAREDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Illustration: Sultan Jum

As Toews says, none of this is funded. And the calendar keeps turning, and student calendars remain bound to what space their classes are in, and, as it currently stands, nowhere in the Capital Plan does it suggest UFV is thinking about updating already-existing classrooms — it needs to fix what is looking like it will be broken within five years first.

Yet talk to professors, or students, and they’ll bring up inconveniences that pile up: classrooms that might trigger f lashbacks to high school, complete with overhead projectors (the choice: use, or awkwardly transition between rooms); unreliable technology that would make a tech-heavy building a strange beast if UFV were still running on Blackboard by that date; and the strange experience of walking through a supposedly fully-utilized building, only to find, without difficulty, a empty class to rehearse a presentation in.

These are the minutiae of space planning, and not all of them would ever fall within the pages of a large-overview Capital Plan. Toews points

out that there is currently a “course-scheduling taskforce” looking into ways that every interaction with the Office of the Registrar is pain-free and more efficient in the future.

But if a recent discussion at Senate is any indication, while the exploratory work done there may be valuable, it won’t revolutionize the student experience: de-registering students more stringently who don’t attend on the first day, reducing waitlist uncertainty, may make a lot of sense on the back-end of operations, but for students, it would be just another extra step, like the $200 pre-registration fee.

These are all plans, administrators will remind anyone who asks. Plans change, are never meant to be set in stone when they are this broad. Wait around, and plans and taskforces may become solutions. But the student life is always impatient. It can’t afford to wait five years. The reality is what it is, and who can say where it will go, and so on, but right now, the situation is as simple as this: UFV is a commuter campus. Which means a student, on any given day, will walk or drive from a sleek modern structure to an aging classroom that covers the necessities, but does not inspire them. They will be expected to do just as well in both settings; and many will welcome the challenge. But through it all, they will encounter a UFV with a splintered identity — that’s the reality of a place in transition, and no one department is necessarily the cause of this, but it’s still a thing students dream about: a university that looks better than the one they’re learning in.

With files from Sonja Klotz

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NEWS

Preparation never ends for a sports team. For the Cascades women’s basketball team, in the middle of their 2015-16 season, that means recruitment for ‘16-17 is already underway.

The team has just signed three new players: Victoria Jacobse, a 5’11 point guard from W. J. Mouat Secondary in Abbotsford; Jessica Cameron, a 5’10 wing from Western Canada High School in Calgary, Alberta; and Jessica Zawada, a 5’11 forward from McMath Secondary School in Richmond.

“They’ll train with us all spring and summer and then officially begin with us in the fall in September,” head coach Al Tuchscherer says.

With players graduating every year and a constant need to sign new players, Tuchscherer explains why he decided to sign Jacobse and Cameron to the team.

“[Jacobse] can do a lot of things,” Tuchscherer says. “She can create shots for other people, she can be a passer, she’s a smart player, she can shoot the ball, she’s a good rebounder. As a guard, that’s an unusual skill to have, too. I think she brings a lot to the

table, and she’s got a great personality, too.”“Jess [Cameron] is more of an off guard type player for us,”

Tuchscherer continues. “Jess has some versatility in her game. She can shoot the ball a little bit and she can rebound, but the thing I like about her is she plays the game with a lot of determination and a lot of grit, and that’s how we like to play the game here.”

For Tuchscherer, recruitment can come in many different forms.

“Throughout the year I’ll probably have about a hundred kids email me and say that they’re interested in our program,” he says. “We’ll [also] identify kids that are in grades seven and eight — they’re on our radar already and we’ll watch their game. [I’ll] get out and watch them play, and talk to their coach and maybe their parents a little bit and just see what they’re interested in.”

But even then, recruitment isn’t as easy as a couple conversations with a few promises sprinkled in. With universities all over North America recruiting student athletes, including six other CIS teams in BC alone, competition between universities is stiff.

“Recruiting’s probably the most challenging part of our job,”

Tuchscherer says. “There are so many options for [students] now.”

While his team focuses on rising above .500 and making the playoffs, Tuchscherer, as coach, needs to be able to take the long view.

“We’re right in the heat of this season, so the focus is really on getting the most out of this year’s team and maximizing our potential and our talent here,” he says. “We’ve got a lot of really good things going on here with this year’s team, but I’m looking forward to next year.”

With new talent, varsity teams are always in f lux; rarely does success last long enough to be called a sports dynasty, but neither does failure doom a team for too long. Coaches looking to recruit players, then, always have the potential of renewal to believe in, the idealism that anything is possible.

“We want to contend for Canada West championships and for the national championships,” Tuchscherer says. “Every year that’s a goal of our program, to do those things. Every year we want to get better.”

Women’s basketball team looks ahead with new recruitsVANESSA BROADBENTTHE CASCADE

This week’s results

Basketball (Away at MacEwan)Men’s vs MacEwanFriday, January 22: (W) 77-80Saturday, January 2r: (L) 74-54

Women’s vs MacEwanFriday, January 22: (L) 76-61Saturday, January 23: (L) 80-69

Volleyball (Away at VIU)Men’s vs VIUFriday, January 22: (L) 3-0Saturday, January 23: (L) 3-0

Women’s vs VIUFriday, January 22: (L) 3-1Saturday, January 23: (W) 3-2

Next week’s games

Basketball: At UBC-Okanagan Men’s vs UBCOFriday, February 5 @ 8:00 p.m.Saturday, February 6 @ 7:00 p.m.

Women’s vs UBCOFriday, February 5 @ 6:00 p.m. Saturday, February 6 @ 5:00 p.m.

Volleyball: At UFV Abbotsford CampusMen’s vs COTRSaturday, January 30 @ 7:00 p.m.Sunday, January 31 @ 1:00 p.m.

Women’s vs COTRSaturday, January 30 @ 5:00 p.m.Sunday, January 31 @ 11:00 a.m.

photograph: Dan Kinvig

5


NEWS

The annual Student Union Society (SUS) elections are just over a month away.

With their elections policy amended last November, this will be the first election with some new changes in effect. Previously the chief electoral officer, an independent position hired to oversee the entire process, was expected to have all of the candidates vetted, approved, and posted on the SUS’s website when the nomination period closed.

“It never actually happened because it’s impossible,” current president Thomas Davies says.

The new policy includes a review period between the close of nominations and the start of campaign period for Guru Brar, this year’s officer, to complete his duties. As a result, the elected board members will take office in May — a month later than usual.

“We felt that was the best way to balance that,” Davies explained. “[The review process] is deliberately set up that it falls over reading break, which is essentially a dead time for

most of the campus anyways,” Davies says. “From that, it was recommended by the board and then approved by the membership at the general meeting.”

These changes came following last year’s election, which went less than smoothly.

“Last election was a rather unfortunate series of events,” Davies says. All-candidates debates were poorly attended — by the candidates, with one even being cancelled because Davies was the only candidate there. Davies says in some cases the absences were excusable — hospital emergencies and class conflicts, but SUS is hoping to prevent anything similar from happening this year.

“The bigger issue, in my mind, is making sure we have student engagement at those events,” he says. “I’m expecting that one of those events will be in the Student Union Building here, which will help with the level of engagement, and SUS will be working to support [Brar] in the ways he sees best to get the word out and get students engaged in the election.”

Despite the low student attendance at the meetings, the amount of student votes has slowly risen in recent years. Last year’s election saw 473 students vote, compared to 315 in 2014

and 388 in 2013, though all the figures number under six per cent of UFV’s student population.

SUS has a strategic plan to increase the number of student votes, with a goal of eight per cent for this year’s election. That figure may seem small, but Davies says that for a school the size of UFV, they’re above average.

“It’s below the expectation of many large universities, but those universities have on-campus residence structures, which promote a higher level of engagement,” he says. “If you compare us to a similar style of university, for example, Capilano last year had 250 people voting in the election … we’re doing well for the type of university we are, but we definitely need to improve.” [Editor’s note: the 2015 election for the Capilano Student Union was voted on by 290 students.]

In order to attract a higher number of votes this year, SUS is planning an advertising campaign.

“That’s something that we haven’t done enough of in the past … the generic, non-partisan advertising saying that there’s an election happening,” he says. “We did more of that last year, included some really massive posters outside of [the office of the registrar] and

the library and other places, which definitely caught some attention, and we’re definitely going to be rolling those out again.”

Davies also notes that the SUS will be paying for promoted Facebook posts and trying to promote the elections more on social media.

“It’s often said, and I’m speaking more broadly than SUS, that students don’t have an interest and don’t care and don’t want to think or look at anything involving politics or voting,” Davies says. “That’s just wrong. We’ve seen that with the most recent federal election — that shows that students vote.”

This election will also mark the end of Davies’ term as president.

“It’s bittersweet,” he says. “I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my three years involved in the Student Union. I feel I’ve been able to do a lot and bring a lot of positive change and positive growth to the organization, so I’m sad to leave that.”

Voting for the election will take place from March 7 to 10. The Cascade will have full coverage of candidates ahead of the election in its March 2 issue.

Nomination period for SUS elections opens

VANESSA BROADBENTTHE CASCADE

When it comes to federal lobbying on behalf of students, talking to a Liberal majority government is the largest change that will be seen by student representatives this year.

UFV’s Student Union Society (SUS) will be attending the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations-hosted “Advocacy Week” next month in Ottawa to meet with members of Parliament, as well as ministers and stakeholders.

“There’s a lot more to post-secondary education than just what happens here and is decided by the administration at the university,” SUS president Thomas Davies says. “So much is decided at much higher levels of government, and unless those governments hear what students are saying, they’re not going to proactively reach out … even if they do, there’s dozens of issues they haven’t thought about that relate to post-secondary education and the student experience.”

Part of SUS’s involvement with CASA includes drafting policies that are then proposed to federal politicians and political groups.

“A lot of our policies, when implemented, are specifically essentially copied and pasted into government policies — that shows the quality of policy work we do,” Davies says. “We put a lot of work into developing what our advocacy priorities are each year to have the most success.”

Last year, five of the six issues that CASA advocated for were resolved, and Davies is hoping for the same kind of success this year.

This year’s priorities include: increasing loan and grant amounts by 50 percent and making them available for graduate students; increasing qualifications for the repayment assistance plan, a Government of Canada program to help students manage their student loan debt and reduce monthly payments; as well as removing the two per cent cap on the post-secondary student support program, a program under Indigenous and Northern

Affairs Canada that provides financial assistance to First Nations post-secondary students. SUS will also be advocating for $80 million to be invested in co-op placements for all disciplines.

At the provincial level, SUS ended its membership with the Alliance of British Columbia Students in October.

“Ultimately, it was clear this year the organization isn’t operating effectively, and we did feel that it wasn’t an effective use of our resources to be involved in that,” Davies says. But that doesn’t mean that SUS has given up on advocating on provincial issues, some of which are very particular to UFV, such as UFV’s delayed programs last year.

“We’re still communicating with different schools on different issues as they arise, of course,” Davies continued. “The issue about the programs being delayed, that was one of the issues that we’ve been in communication with the government about. I can’t say we’ve been hearing much back from them, but certainly we’ve been communicating with them.”

VANESSA BROADBENTTHE CASCADE

SUS prepares for Ottawa advocacy trip

photograph: SUS / Facebook

6


STUDY BREAK

Across

2. The local mountain range. (Hint: Your favourite newspaper is its namesake!)5. One George, Washington, and island.9. Uniform. Consists of plaid, jeans, and a toque.11. A fern, a heart, a leaf ... a foamy espresso treat!12. Popular photo editor.

Down

1. Queen of the castle (and the city).3. English Cove. Hudson’s Inlet. Guantanamo Estuary.4. Where the big bookstore is.6. Beards and bears have this in common.7. Coniferous (and pointy!).8. Your friendly neighbourhood volcano.10. Unceded territory, under our feet.

Aries Mar 21 - Apr 19If you’re scared of ripping your jeans, don’t fret. There’s nothing to be afrayed of.

Leo Jul 23 - Aug 22If you had invented the telegraph, every sentence would’ve ended with LOLWAT.

Sagittarius Nov 22 - Dec 21You’ll put your soul into your course-work this week — just be extra protec-tive of your liver and kidneys.

Taurus Apr 20 - May 20Try a new sport, a new hobby, or at least a new dry cleaner this week.

Virgo Aug 23 - Sep 22If your goldfish stare at you, it’s not be-cause they are judging your life choices — but maybe put some Netflix on to distract them, just in case.

Capricorn Dec 22 - Jan 19Climb every mountain (provided you have access to WIFI).

Gemini May 21 - Jun 20Let coffee be your spirit guide this week. (A cherry danish will make a great shaman.)

Libra Sep 23 - Oct 22If your parents hassle you this week, block them out by making a fort out of cereal boxes. That’ll show them.

Aquarius Jan 20 - Feb 18It’s Aquarius season! But be warned: a birthday cake made entirely of frosting is probably not going to turn out the way you planned.

Cancer Jun 21 - Jul 22You and your baritone-voiced bestie could be two peas in a podcast. Time to switch your major!

Scorpio Oct 23 - Nov 21Your Amazon orders might be delayed, due to rainforestation and a scarlet macaw with an attitude problem.

Pisces Feb 19 - Mar 20You will mistake a distant relative for a garden gnome who will tell you they are from Oz. They mean Oz, KY.

Crossword

Horoscopes

#thatpnwlife

Star Signs by Sybil la Clair

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EclipseCrossword.com

SPACED BY ANTHONY BIONDI

Last week’s answers

Across

1. ZIGGYSTARDUST2. CAPRICORN3. AVIOPHOBIA4. LAZARUS6. KURTCOBAIN8. FIFTY9. ZOWIE10. LONDON11. BLACKSTAR

Down

1. ZOOLANDER2. CAPTAINHOOK4. LABYRINTH5. DAVYJONES7. LIFEONMARS

by Megan Lambert

7


A lamp decapitated

OPINION

Back in 2005, Telus struck a deal with Science World: a $9 million “donation” in exchange for changing its name to “Telus World of Science.” The public was outraged, not just because “Science World” rolls off the tongue more easily, but because the idea of a corporation laying claim to one of Vancouver’s most beloved landmarks felt like sacrilege. Although the official new name stuck, over a decade later it remains known colloquially as Science World.

The outrage that rippled through the Lower Mainland at the time indicates just how much we dislike being advertised to. We turn ads down on the radio and mute them on the television not just because logos and commercials are annoying, but because they inevitably feel sleazy and manipulative. When visual advertisements are plastered on walls and billboards, they suck the energy and personality out of a place, leaving it with all the plasticky charm of a shopping mall. The statement they make, whether intentional or not, is that the advertiser’s money is worth more than preserving a place’s uniqueness and character.

And that brings us to UFV.While most of the advertising at UFV, such

as the ads on bathroom doors and TV screens, isn’t that obnoxious, in the last year we’ve begun to see enormous wall-sized advertisements hung in prominent locations that draw the eye, like the end of a hallway in Abbotsford’s A building. Then there’s the Envision Gym, an entire building named after the bank that helped fund it, not unlike the so-called Telus World of Science. And while the Student Union Society blessedly had the wisdom not to name the entire new Student Union Building (SUB)

after the highest bidder, the peer mentorship centre in that building features an enormous Coast Capital logo on frosted glass that can be seen from most points on the first f loor of the SUB. (Despite this centre receiving $50,000 from Coast Capital, it should be noted that it remains mysteriously closed and apparently understaffed, despite having been slated to open last fall — yet the logo remains in place.) Considering the trend of students being increasingly treated like customers as universities begin to resemble corporations more than schools, it’s no surprise that blank spaces on university walls have become fair game for external advertisers.

No, it doesn’t hurt anyone to walk down a hallway and see a poster for Scotiabank on the way to class — but that kind of eyesore does have a subtle effect on how comfortable and focused one is in that space. The damaging power of advertising on a location’s sense of place was recognized by the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo, which in 2007 imposed the Cidade Limpa, or “Clean City Law,” banning all forms of visual advertising. This law was based on the argument that advertising on businesses and billboards constituted visual pollution, which was deemed to be psychologically damaging like excessive smog or noise. “You could not even realize the architecture of the old buildings, because all the buildings, all the houses were just covered with billboards and logos and propaganda,” said Vinicius Valvao, a Sao Paulo resident and reporter for Folha de S.Paulo, in a 2007 episode of the podcast Clearing the Air. Some 15,000 billboards were removed from the city, revealing, among other things, an entire shantytown — literally shedding light on aspects of the city that had been hidden by advertisements. Since then other cities around the world, notably Tehran,

Selling out studentsIncreased advertising in universities an unsettling trend

VALERIE FRANKLINTHE CASCADE

Friday, January 22, 11:22 a.m. — A street lamp hangs by its final thread over the McCallum roundabouts. Observe the dent near the base of the post. Clearly, a powerful force was at work. A drunk driver? Or a government experiment?

On my way back from breakfast only an hour later, the lamp was already gone. They are hiding something. Keep yourself wary. Trust no one.

Wear a helmet.

ALEX RAKETHE CASCADE

Illustration: Sultan Jum

New York, and Grenoble, have also begun to follow Sao Paulo’s lead, acknowledging how tacky, invasive advertising can damage a place’s atmosphere and ability to foster community. While a city is very different from a university, UFV should consider doing the same if it’s serious about creating a welcoming place for students.

Admittedly, it would be naive to pretend that advertising isn’t a necessity in our current economy; today online advertising keeps many newspapers and businesses alive, and for universities in BC, ad revenue helps fill in the widening cracks that the provincial government’s $50 million budget cuts to post-secondary education have created over the last two years. But the answer to budget cuts should not be more reliance on advertisers,

which opens the door to much bigger problems than just losing its sense of place. Just like the separation of church and state, the line between education and corporate interests needs to remain sacred in order to preserve the institution’s integrity. While removing the advertising from UFV’s walls may not uncover any shantytowns, it would restore our faith in the university’s independence from external influences; if universities are already willing to sell students’ attention to advertisers, how long will it be until native advertising creeps into classroom content?

Or worse — if we’re not cautious, maybe someday graduates from the Telus University of the Fraser Valley will look back and wonder what the hell happened.

8


I swore off stupid student newspapers like The Cascade a few months ago, after they banned me from writing for them. But ban or no, I’m writing what I want, when I want, to whomever I want!

Anyway, I prefer to read papers of real journalistic quality like the Abbotsford News now, so I just wanted to share with you all what the Abby News had to say the other day.

The City of Abbotsford has partnered with Shaw to bring free, working wifi to several venues across town! This includes the Reach Gallery Museum, the Abbotsford Recreation Centre, and, finally, UFV’s own Student Union Building! What a relief ! Now I won’t need to leave to pointedly read the Abbotsford News online!

Now, you probably don’t believe me. Whatever. No one ever does. So go ask SUS for yourself when the wifi’s coming. I’m sure they’ll love the sudden surge of student engagement!

People wearing shades inside has always gotten under my skin. I could never see a reason to wear such a thing inside other than just to look cool. Personally, I always thought it had the opposite effect; wearing sunglasses indoors was, in my eyes, how many see pairing socks with sandals — an abomination of fashion.

This is one of my many pet peeves, but I have since gained a new perspective. With maturity and heightened savviness, I’ve come to know that sunglasses worn inside might mean the person has black eyes, heightened light-sensitivity, general despair, or any number of other reasons. Now, I still don’t doubt that some of us do, in fact, wear them aesthetically, but I think the lesson here is to not be so quick to judge. Judgment stems from insecurity after all, something we can all do without.

OPINION

Curtailed commentary on current conditions

Thanks for the WiFi!

Indoor shades not just for tools

Scott Protter

Scott Stromquist

S

I’m sure you know about this conundrum if you spend any time shopping on sites that have student discounts. Every single time you sign up for a student account at an American company, it asks for a .edu email address. Surely UFV, as a proper university, should have access to this domain, right?

Nope! Since 2001, the .edu domain has been awarded solely to American educational institutions, because they’re apparently more stringent about their educational regulations than everywhere else in the world. Because of this pointless grandstanding, every student who doesn’t study their post-secondary in America has to submit forms and sometimes intrusive information to the sites that offer these discounts just so they can get 10 per cent off their order. Even community colleges are allowed to use the .edu domain now.

I wouldn’t consider American universities necessarily better than ones in Canada or other countries. I firmly believe that the .edu domain should be available to all post-secondary institutions accredited in their respective countries. Then maybe I could sign up for Amazon Prime in the States!

Where’s my fancy

Cat Bell

There’s this increasingly prevalent trend of entertainers transitioning into roles of authority and influence, particularly in the realm of politics. Roles that are often expected to be filled by someone clad in the conventional qualities of leadership such as confidence and commitment have been lent to the likes of bigoted businessmen and television personalities. Of course this is the beauty of democracy — anyone can “work” their way into office. But in this world of overstimulation of information a voice needs to become louder and more unique to stand out in the torrent of noise. We ask how someone could be so pious, so ignorant. Then we wonder how such lunacy inspires an equally crazy, yet large group of followers. Are they not appalled by their own ref lection?

We mock and wonder at the oddity of their beliefs, but how often do we ask which notions or beliefs we refuse to let go of? What are our key assumptions? Even if they aren’t so radical or polarized, perhaps we could more often re-evaluate our convictions. Everyone believes themselves to be open-minded.

Everyone else is ignorant

Joel Robertson-Taylor

Illustrations: Brittany Cardinal and Sultan Jum (top-right)

9


Do you think marriage is still important?

UFV SPEAKS

Adam Muxlow

I don’t think that the same people can be together for a long period of time. It’s not possible; people change, people grow, y’know? And they either grow together or they grow apart. Most of the time, they grow apart … People change too much. And if they don’t change, then they’re not living.

Rochelle Steedstra

I do [believe in marriage]. It goes with my religious beliefs, so that’s good. But I also have a friend who does not believe in mar-riage, and I agree with his reasoning. So, I think I believe in it if the person getting married does. If you’re coerced in a mar-riage, then it’s a mess.

Jen Sookfong Lee

I think it’s impossible to get everything you need from one person for the entire rest of your life. We need multiple people in our lives, not necessarily partners but friends, family. Contemporary, modern pressure on marriage is for those two people to be each other’s world and for them not to need anyone else, and I think that’s far too much pressure. So, unless we change our percep-tions on marriage, then I’m against it.

Salman Mourad

You don’t want to be alone for the rest of your life. You want to have children, which you don’t necessarily have to be married for but it’d be nice, good, better for chil-dren. If you have children, and you’re not married, and let’s say there are different religions involved, for example. Growing up on a different religion-basis might be a lit-tle difficult. And, I don’t know, dating sucks!

Miranda Louwerse

I think you should get married. It’s like the next step in a relationship, and it’s more of a commitment because it’s harder to break, whereas if you’re not married you can just break up and there’s less conse-quence.

Scott Sheffield

I think that having a partner in life is ac-tually a basic human need that not every-body might feel — but it’s worked for me. I’ve been married for 21 years. No com-plaints so far. It’s all good.

Raymond Kobes

I believe in marriage because it’s a natural thing for humanity. It progresses us, and I think there are some merits to two people being together to make the world a better place. I think that’s how we can grow the world and encourage families to occur. And we can have children raised up in a manner in which they are given two parents that can help them learn the aspects of what it is to be a human being.

Aaron Levy

Yeah, financially it really works for a lot of people. You get tax credits, and, yeah, it’s great that way, I understand. Common-law, that’s a thing, too. Oh! And within the con-text of wanting to make people hate each other over the long term when a relation-ship starts out on love, it also is highly ef-fective!

—— “Mawwiage!”

10


FEATURE

A couple of months ago, I went to a house party. Knowing very few people there, I kept moving, a little awk-wardly, from one group of people to another. I was taken aback by some-thing: there were a lot of people talk-ing about their divorces. One lady had just gone through her second divorce; another ex-couple pulled a Jack White and threw a party after their split was done.

Most of the people at this party were in their early to mid-20s.

“People at a party” is a small survey sample, but I took the frequency of di-vorce discussions to heart. I wouldn’t say that my faith in marriage was shaken, because I’ve been pretty skep-tical about it for a long time. What is

the point of marriage? What does it allow me to be or do that I couldn’t before?

As people are more physically and socially mobile than ever, and as life expectancies have risen, the notion of marriage seems increasingly constrict-ing. Marriage as a religious rite has lost strength as more Canadians embraced atheism, and studies have shown that those that grow up with divorced par-ents are more likely to divorce than those with parents who remain mar-ried.

Ideas about marriage also inform value judgements on what does or does not constitute a legitimate marriage in a social and legal sense. In exclusively enshrining a relationship between two people, it besmirches other relation-ship structures such as polyamory as not worthy of the act of marriage.

If we do invest in the love of anoth-

er, whether it is in actions or a house and kids, does that investment neces-sarily require marriage? Why not do something else, some ritual of your own? Who cares that wedding rings are supposed to imply eternity? If you feel that strongly about eternity, you could also consider getting matching tattoos of a Fibonacci spiral with the ones you love.

There are still plenty of people who like what marriage means to them, but in a culture as secularized as Canada’s, it threatens to look like an aged, bloat-ed, and arbitrary institution when it’s not suffused with personal meaning. If celebrating commitment (or di-vorce) is necessary for you to be happy, then of course you should be able to pursue it. But those who don’t need it to be happy shouldn’t have to put their time, money, and energy into some-thing that they don’t believe in.

January is a time for new beginnings — not only kick-ing off the year with a huge party, but also, with the weather being so dismal, it has us looking forward to spring. And what good is looking forward to springtime if not for planning weddings?

Yet, there is more in the air than the buzz of bridal conventions and notions of forever love. If I’m not mis-taken, the idea that marriage is the great, final expres-sion of true love has sort of been losing steam since we started being embarrassed about the 1950s. A lot of mil-lennial university students especially, seem to share Joni Mitchell’s sentiment: “We don’t need no piece of paper from the city hall / Keeping us tied and true.”

Why do they see marriage as some arbitrary institu-tion? Is it because of their young naivete? Is it because of their goddamn liberal educations? Gathered here are some young, intellectual types, speaking for themselves as to why the traditional institution of marriage isn’t necessarily all it’s cracked up to be by our parents and their bedtime stories.

Your humbly unmarried opinion editor,Alex Rake

KODIE CHERRILLECONTRIBUTOR

A deadly serious symposium on the problem of marriage in the modern age

When I told my mom that I never want to get married, she was shocked and maybe even a little offended. At first I got the standard “You’ll change your mind when you find someone.” She couldn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want to spend the rest of their life with someone that they’re in love with. But that’s just it — not getting married doesn’t mean that you can’t spend your life with someone, it just means that you didn’t feel a need to make a public declaration about it. My mom didn’t understand this ei-

ther. “It’s more than a public declara-tion,” she argued. “It’s a commitment, a promise that you make for the rest of your life.”

If every marriage were like my parents’, I would want to get mar-ried. Having been raised in a home of equality and honesty, I’ve been lucky enough to have an example of what a good marriage is. But my parents’ marriage is one of the few successful ones and, statistically speaking, it’s likely that mine would never be like theirs. While I’ve grown up with a solid example of a good marriage, I’ve also seen my fair share of failed mar-riages. And I’ve even met a lot of un-married couples that are just as happy and committed, maybe even more, than their married counterparts.

PRINCESS CONSUELA BANANA HAMMOCKCENTRAL PERK

Image: Danielle Collins

11


People get married because they love each other and want to commit the rest of their lives to one another. Words like “love,” “commitment,” and “stability” or “settling down” make the institution of marriage enticing. But if we are really honest with each other, why is the marriage registration so important to people? Is it a status symbol of economic and social stabil-ity? Why is a couple’s commitment to one another only legitimized by the state?

Marriage is often characterized as the cornerstone of the family unit. As Rick Santorum, a Republican Party politician, argues in his lecture The Necessity of Marriage, “The evidence is overwhelming: We need to pro-mote and protect marriage to secure a healthier society.” It is these kind of statements that shape our understand-ing of what is considered “healthy” and “stable” in Western societies. There is nothing wrong with wanting to protect the institution of marriage if it provides a sense of security for those who need it; however, there is something wrong with romanticizing such an institution without really un-derstanding the functions of the social contract itself.

Marriage, as with many other in-stitutions, is often understood as an integral part of society. One of the main reasons for this is the govern-ment’s primary interest in managing its population.

Have you ever gone to social gather-ings as a single person and been asked the classic question, “Are you seeing someone?” followed by, “How serious is it?” These questions come out of the assumptions taught to us since child-hood: that we will marry a partner of the opposite sex, preferably before the age of 30, and produce children. If you are at a certain age and are single or in a non-traditional committed romantic relationship, there is something clearly wrong with you according to the tra-ditional status quo. Often, social-eco-nomic instability is equated to a lack of commitment to the government’s traditional understanding of marriage and child-rearing. As a Marxist would say, state-legitimized marriage and child-rearing is only for economic sta-bility within a capitalist society. Fou-cault would expand further by saying that the institution of marriage is also a way for the government to manage the population by collecting data.

“While today’s conservatives em-phasize the importance of parent-child relationships as a decisive argument in favor of the nuclear family, Marx saw that same importance as the primary

reason to reject the family as a means of raising children,” writes Nick Stone in the Cornell University publication Discoveries.

Stone further explains Marx’s per-spective of marriage by saying that, “In his words, this ‘bourgeoisie clap-trap about the family and education, about the hallowed co-relation of par-ent and child’ is ultimately deceptive, as capitalism and property rights cause the transformation of the working classes’ children into ‘simple articles of commerce and instruments of labor’.”

With that said, the love and com-mitment between people should not be determined by the state. There is nothing like someone else telling you whether your most intimate relation-ship is “normal” or not and whether it is for the betterment of society as a whole.

And you don’t have to subscribe to a Marxist zine to think the prescriptive idea of marriage is worth questioning. Hilary White, writing a listicle for Popsugar, sums up the real meaning of relationships just as well: “Love is per-sonal. It’s specific to a person or rela-tionship, it’s constantly changing, and it’s always unique. If love is so change-able and diverse, then in some cases, confining it to an institution like mar-riage isn’t what’s best to help it thrive.”

SONJA KLOTZTHE CASCADE

A deadly serious symposium on the problem of marriage in the modern age

ther. “It’s more than a public declara-tion,” she argued. “It’s a commitment, a promise that you make for the rest of your life.”

If every marriage were like my parents’, I would want to get mar-ried. Having been raised in a home of equality and honesty, I’ve been lucky enough to have an example of what a good marriage is. But my parents’ marriage is one of the few successful ones and, statistically speaking, it’s likely that mine would never be like theirs. While I’ve grown up with a solid example of a good marriage, I’ve also seen my fair share of failed mar-riages. And I’ve even met a lot of un-married couples that are just as happy and committed, maybe even more, than their married counterparts.

I’ve come to the conclusion that marriage does not create a successful relationship — you do. If marriage is something that you want, then go ahead and do it. But it’s not a way to fix relationship issues. If your relation-ship is lacking trust and communica-tion, it’s illogical to expect that mar-riage will bring that.

The one thing that my mom and I finally agreed on was that marriage is scary. There’s nothing more terrifying than making a decision that’s intend-ed to last for the rest of your life. But she pointed out to me that if someone wants to go through something as terrifying as marriage to prove that they’re in it for the long haul, they might be worth keeping around for a long time.

12


CULTURE & EVENTS

JAN 27

UPCOMINGEVENTS

Yellow Umbrella Project hosted by the Mental Health Awareness Club

Location: B161 (Abbotsford)12 to 1 p.m.

Green Team Meeting

Location: A413 (Abbotsford)12 to 1 p.m..

Theatre Students Association Cabaret

Location: Chilliwack North Campus6:30 p.m.

Solve it! Kickoff Workshop (part of a community innovation project)

Location: B121 (Abbotsford)10 a.m. to noon

Within Rust, Comfort, Western Jaguar, and Atodaso

Location: The Basement — 33737 George Ferguson Way (Abbotsford)6:30 p.m.

Gallery 7 presents: The Giver (opening night)

Location: Abbotsford Arts Centre7:30 p.m.

Johnny Reid (with Natalie McMaster)

Location: Abbotsford Center7 p.m.

JAN 30

JAN 28

FEB 2

JAN 29

Sxwoxwiyám, Stories of Long Ago (Stó:lo Storytelling)

Location:CEP Campus11 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.

FEB 3

Pacific Agriculture Show featuring UFV Agriculture

Location: Tradex (Ab-botsford)

When: January 28th (through the 30th)9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m

UFV welcomed poet, scholar, author, critic, and activist Ammiel Alcalay to campus on Thursday, January 21 as part of the peace and conflict studies speaker series. Alcalay gave a lecture on suppressed histories in B101, which was followed by a reception. The lecture was very well attended, with most seats in the lecture hall taken up, and many people simply standing at the back or sitting along the steps on either side.

Alcalay’s lecture dug into the roots of suppressed histories, or in his words, a history that had undergone a “surpassing disaster”; a term Alcalay notes was first used by Lebanese writer Jalal Toufic in his book Forthcoming which discusses and blends together political theory, film theory, and cross-genre writing.

“A ‘surpassing disaster’ is that historical moment when a people undergoes cataclysmic collective trauma,” Alcalay said. “Once a collective has undergone such a disaster the materials of their tradition — their language, idioms, perceptions, legends, and experiences — become unavailable. They are, in effect, withdrawn.”

Using this as the base for discussion, Alcalay took the audience along the route of his writing career and further explained this phenomenon by using examples from locations he had spent time in, from the Middle East to Bosnia. He also explained how these experiences came to shape his corresponding books, After Jew and Arabs: Remaking Levantine Culture and from the warring factions, which delve into the issues he saw rooted in the conflicts in the Middle East and Bosnia, as well as the resulting loss of certain traditions. By building his discussion in this manner, it was easy to grasp the concept of a “surpassing disaster” as Alcalay related it closely to his real-life work.

However, this wasn’t the only way in which Alcalay cemented the term. Alcalay also spoke autobiographically, beginning with his upbringing as a Jewish immigrant in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

“My own family had certainly gone through a surpassing disaster,” he said. “My parents were immigrant refugees who had survived fascism and Nazism during the Second World War. They were both saved by Italian people … [and] came to the United States in 1951.”

Alcalay noted that by having this background in his family, he came to understand that there

Visiting scholar Ammiel Alcalay discusses the “surpassing disaster”JEFFREY TRAINORTHE CASCADE

Photograph: Mitch Huttema

“could be great destruction in the world but there could also be great good.”

The other core aspect of Alcalay’s lecture was the concept of “decolonization” which he believes has been lost within our present-day society.

“We have an academic category now called the post-colonial … [but even though] there is a lot of interesting work being done, it tends to skip over the idea of de-colonization. One of the things that happens is the important sources of decolonization are not known. The struggles the

people underwent … all the documentation of resistance tends to be theorized out of existence.”

Alcalay certainly raised many important points within his lecture, and received a warm ovation and a plethora of questions from audience members, which he noted were excellent. Alcalay’s lecture sought to open up new perspectives on identity and tradition, and everyone who attended surely left with a lot to think about in regards to their own self.

Want to write for The Cascade?

Come to our writers meetings! Mondays at 2 p.m. in room S2111 (in the SUB)

13


Sally Mann, Yousuf Karsh, Henri Cartier Bresson, and Ansel Adams: these are just a few of the 50 or so photographers every student studying photography at UFV will become well familiarized with. But for a more local, contemporary example, there’s Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky.

He and Emily Carr, arguably the most famous artist to come out of the West Coast in the past hundred years, are juxtaposed in an exhibition on display at the Reach Gallery in Abbotsford. A Terrible Beauty, which debuted at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 2014 and has been touring around the province since then, shows the two artists work in parallel as they each confront industrialization of natural landscapes. Carr paints the changes to indigenous lands in the early twentieth century, while Burtynsky’s photography seeks to

represent the beauty still present despite the destruction of the natural environment that we see today.

Bruce Grenville, the curator of this exhibition, chose well to juxtapose these two artists, as Burtynsky’s near abstract photographs match the post-impressionist style of painting Carr is so famous for. Each of the 18 photographs is well over four feet wide, Burtynsky’s perspective giving the viewer the position of a god, gazing over a deteriorating creation. Carr’s six paintings hold their own beside the photographs, her impressionist style parallels Van Gogh but the content of the flowing brushstrokes outlines not just beauty but also destruction.

Elsewhere in the gallery is an exhibition of Lyndal Osborne’s work, titled, Shoalwan: River Through Fire, River of Ice. This work is composed of 7,500 glass jars, punctuated by islands made of organic materials found along the shores of the North Saskatchewan River in Edmonton and the Shoalhaven River in New

South Wales, Australia. This exhibition suits the themes from its neighboring exhibition, A Terrible Beauty, as it tries to show the effects of climate change and urbanization on the two rivers.

The third exhibition to share the space in the main gallery at the Reach is Adrift in the Same Pond by artist Edith Krause. Krause was present on Thursday, January 21 at the opening of the three shows and stood at the base of one of her huge pieces as she spoke about her work and career. After a career as a marine biologist in the 1980s, Krause now, 30 years later, is an instructor at Trinity Western University in the the art and design department. Krause’s work spreads along the expanse of the three enormous walls at the entrance to The Reach, dwarfing the observer. Her background in zoology heavily informs her work — this is most clear through one of her video works, which is viewed by looking into a microscope.

Art and climate change intertwine at the Reach

CULTURE & EVENTS

MITCH HUTTEMATHE CASCADE

photograph: Mitch Huttema

14


CULTURE & EVENTS

Fashion is a pretty weird thing. It’s ever-changing; trends are created at the drop of a hat, and just as quickly abandoned and dismissed as something of a bygone era. It’s awkward in that if you stuffed your closet with baggy clothes in the mid-to-late 2000s, you pretty much had to throw your entire wardrobe away by 2014. And you paid good money for endlessly undulating layers of clothes under which to hide.

Hair’s also a pretty weird thing, but in a good way. Your hair’s as ever-changing as the world of fashion, which so f lippantly does away with whatever perfectly functional items of clothing that the fashion gods happen to have had enough of for a while. And just as shapeless, baggy clothing went out of style, so did shapeless hairstyles for the most part. Nowadays, hair is more of a long-term accessory, rather than something that happens to be on your head.

The thing I can’t stress enough is that we’ve all caught a break when it comes to hair: it grows back. Slowly, sure, but it grows back nevertheless. So honestly, unless you’re

completely satisf ied with your current hairstyle — in which case more power to you — it never hurts to try something new. And by new I mean drastically and completely new. Something you haven’t ever done before with your hair. For example, consider Halle Berry. In a world of long-haired leading ladies, Halle Berry stood alone (relatively speaking, anyway) in her decision to implement the less-is-more mentality to her hairdo. Well, a lone until her move inspired imitators.

I don’t care who you are or where you’re from, if you say Halle Berry didn’t look good with short hair, you’re a liar. But that’s beside the point. The fact is, she made a drastic decision, and it paid off. That’s the lesson here.

There’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t do the same. If you feel your hair’s getting kind of old, cut it, or grow it out, or shave it off entirely.

Having hair is like being alive: Sometimes you think it’s too short, sometimes it drags on, and sometimes you just don’t know what the hell is going on. In the end, we all have to deal with hair and life, but you get an inf inite number of retries with your hair.

Take advantage of them.

Hair: the ultimateaccessory

Just add chia seeds!

Ramen noodles, KD, and coffee. It’s the life, until you burn out from exhaustion. But what else is there? On top of tuition fees, ridiculously over-priced textbooks, gas prices, and boarding costs, there are the soaring prices of fresh produce.

Braden Kuo, a gastroenterologist based in Boston, recently studied the digestive system’s breakdown of ramen noodles. The conclusion: our stomachs need more than several hours to break down processed foods. So, while the stomach may feel full from the consumption of yummy carbs, too much energy is being used to break down “food” that isn’t entirely natural. If our bodies can’t take anything good away from

the processed food, they can’t send anything good through our blood, circulating up to our pretty little brains.

So here’s my student-budget-friendly tip: chia seeds. Chia seeds have been around for centuries, all the way back to when they were used by ancient civilizations in Central America. These magic seeds are packed with an impressive amount of nutrients, including protein and f ibre. Mix a teaspoon with a glass of water, juice, or even a banana spinach smoothie (simple, but effective!), and your body will love you! It’s also an energy booster and sleep stabilizer — all in one. You can f ind chia seeds at your local grocery store for as low as $8.50 / 300g. You can get about 60 servings out of that — that works out to about 14 cents per serving! Super lovely.

JASMINE HOPE SILVACONTRIBUTOR

MARTIN CASTROTHE CASCADE

Not convinced? Here’s a recipe from my experimental smoothie collection. Give it a shot for yourself:

1 banana2 cups almond milkHandful of spinach1 cup frozen blueberriesA knob of gingerOptional citrus fruit

Blend, pour, and stir in a teaspoon of chia seeds.

When chia seeds are combined with a liquid, they actually expand and gel up. This means that you can make your own puddings or use them as egg-replacers.

For all you dessert lovers, here’s my favourite homemade chia pudding:

1 cup of milk (dairy or non-dairy)1 teaspoon of vanilla or fruit juice1 teaspoon honey (or agave or maple syrup)3 teaspoons chia seeds

Stir, and let it sit overnight. The coolest part is how customizable it is. Add in shredded coconut, ginger, more chia seeds, or top it up with fruit; and there you go — you’ve got one tasty treat.

Eating healthy can be as simple as switching up your go-to energy drink, loaded with sugars that slow down your brain, for a natural, frugal option such as chia-infused wa-ter.

HEALTHY LIVINGFASHION

Illustration: Danielle Collins

Illustration: Danielle Collins

15


CULTURE & EVENTS

Palestine film series opens with 5 Broken Cameras

The Palestinian-Israeli conf lict is one that’s complicated, tense, and more than likely going to lead to heated, frustrated debate. But this past Monday, January 25 in room B121 on the Abbotsford campus, UFV students were able to learn more about the issue in the form of the award winning documentary 5 Broken Cameras, which chronicles more than f ive years of protest by Palestinians in response to the Israeli-West Bank barrier. The screening was sponsored by the political science department and was the f irst f ilm of a series focusing on the Palestinian conf lict that will run throughout the semester. The event was organized by UFV alumni Philip Sherwood and current UFV student Colter Louwerse. The duo have recently visited the West Bank, one of the major sites of the conf lict (the other being Gaza).

Immediately upon arriving at the

screening, it was apparent that room would be at a premium. After a short introduction to the f ilm by Sherwood, the lights were dimmed and all that could be heard was the shuff le of feet as more chairs were arranged to accommodate new arrivals. It was startling to see just how large — and how diverse — the audience was. With a quick glance during a lull in the f ilm, you could see it was a group ranging from the young to the old and everything in-between. The audience had a healthy amount of students, but also contained staff, a lumni, and residents of the Fraser Valley who wished to learn more about the Palestinian conf lict.

The f ilm certainly did a good job of that. The 94-minute documentary, which

is based around the peaceful protests in the Palestinian village of Bil ’in and f ilmed by Bil ’in resident Emad Burnat, was punctuated by the destruction of the cameras used to f ilm it — the 5 Broken Cameras — in a variety of different

demonstrations. At every moment where a camera was destroyed, a screen would be shown that described how it had been damaged and how long it had been recording for. During these breaks, it was fairly evident that the movie was having an effect on the diverse group ranged around it. It was a visceral, visual demonstration of just how harsh the situation can be and how easily things can take a turn for the violent.

Following the documentary, there was a short period for discussion. It was surprising just how quiet the vast majority of the group was; what few questions that were raised were most commonly asking how accurate the f ilm had been, to which Louwerse and Sherwood responded with examples of similar treatment of Palestinian protesters in other villages along the West Bank. However anecdotal their responses may have been, they fell in line with the documentary, which punctuated its more violent scenes with shots of Burnat’s

family, his friends, and most poignantly of all, his youngest son. These personal scenes of everyday life in the West Bank, coupled with similar stories shared by Louwerse and Phillips, really drove home the feeling of personal loss and human suffering.

While the discussion period after the f ilm wasn’t actually very much of a debate, with no differing opinions, or views, or ideas being shared, it was quite successful as being a period for ref lection. Perhaps over the course of the semester, as the f ilm series unfolds, more lively discussion will follow. For now though, 5 Broken Cameras succeeds as an emotional, eye-opening, beginning to this f ilm series.

The UFV Palestine Film Series will continue on February 24th at 5:30 PM in Room A252, with the screening of the f ilm Burdrus, a documentary directed by Julia Bacha.

GLEN ESSTHE CASCADE

Writer-in-residence gives first reading at book sale

Monday, January 25 saw the English department and the English student association (ESA) hosting a book sale in the Great Hall of the Student Union Building (SUB). All the books on offer were available for only a single dollar, with proceeds going to the BC Children’s Hospital.

Writer-in-residence Jen Sookfong Lee also gave her f irst reading, along with a presentation of how she f irst made the decision to become a writer and subsequently honed her craft. Reading from a variety of her own works (both already published and upcoming) and also a poem by John Thompson, Lee established a convivial sense of ease with the assembled audience of students, both English and non-English majors, as well as the members of the English faculty.

GLEN ESSTHE CASCADE

photograph: ?????????

16


ARTS IN REVIEW

TV REVIEW

The second of probably an infinite amount of Marvel Comics television series produced Netflix, Jessica Jones debuted last November. That’s two whole months! Which means when three writers for The Cascade convened to talk about the show, there was deliberate intent: talk about all of the plot. And the rest of the show too.

Alex Rake: Basically, Jessica Jones, she’s a private investigator with a troubled past and she’s also really, really, really, really strong, because she’s in the Marvel universe. And there’s this guy named Kilgrave who can make anyone do anything he wants by telling them to. And she’s running away from him at the same time as trying to stop him.

Mitch Huttema: There it is.

Kat Marusiak: In a nutshell.

KM: How did you guys feel about Jessica as a character?

MH: I felt that Jessica was interesting as a character because she has a sort of troubled past thing. They brought that in throughout the series, and it plays into her relationships with other people. … It created a sense of you wanting to sympathize with her because she’s always got it rough, and she’s living in this shitty apartment, and she keeps getting all this tragedy happening to her. I didn’t sympathize with her though. It wasn’t potent enough for me to really get there. It seemed too comic book, it seemed she was still a character, not someone I could relate to.

KM: I did feel like she was a little closer to the human level than a lot of the Marvel characters, having humans problems like PTSD, alcoholism.

AR: One of the things I’ve heard a lot about is that the female characters are all very powerful while the male characters are more stock characters, which is the opposite of how it usually goes in superhero stuff … but I’ve also heard that people took issue with the fact that they worked really hard to make the female characters girl power, strong, whatever. I don’t think that was a problem at all. I don’t feel that was a problem at all. I don’t feel that was shoved in my face.MH: Something I felt the show did

not do well was the dialogue. The interaction between the characters was so weak. You would have these scenes where it felt like they were written to just move the plot forward. That was it. It felt like it was filler.

AR: Yeah, but a lot of that can be fixed if the directing was better … It’s a pacing issue, it’s a directing issue. They’re not framing the story in an interesting way. But there were some really cool images, like, I think the second episode there’s an image of Jessica looking in the mirror, and yeah, that could be a frame from a comic book.

MH: It did have the comic book appeal, the palette. It was gritty, it was real, it was enjoyable to watch, just to see it. There were scenes where she would wake up in the morning in her bed and it would be a really stunning panel almost — she’s laying in bed, the sun’s streaming in.

KM: Great job creating atmosphere. Use of colour.

AR: The soundtrack was really inconsistent. The theme song was cool, really jazzy and Tom Waits-y, but when you get to the actual show, it should be all that kind of sound! Like, just gimme the jazz.

AR: Can we talk favourite characters?

MH: Yeah.

AR: My favourite characters were the twins.

MH: The twins?

KM: Oh god.

KM: Kilgrave was my favourite.

MH: That’s what I was going to say too. I really, really liked him. Let’s talk about the blurring of the good and evil. You have this villain who … doesn’t know he’s a villain.

KM: He truly thinks he’s doing a service —

MH: He thinks he’s doing good things. He didn’t believe he was abusing Jessica, he believed that he was just, like, loving her, and that she wanted to be there as well. So it was interesting to have that in a show, this portrayal of abuse in such a raw way.

KM: One thing I have heard from victims of abuse was that it was portrayed very accurately. A lot of

people seem to love it, they love that they showed it from such a realistic perspective. I also did admittedly love the whole scene, the whole episode where she takes him to do good, and his reactions to it — I thought that was hilarious.

A: That was the best episode! If the entire show was like that, if the entire show was “Jessica tries to make Kilgrave good,” I would watch that for seven seasons! Like, he’s so reluctant, but he does it, you know, because he loves her but she hates him, and it’s so good. But then the rest of the show became just like this, “Oh, we better keep him in a cell forever.”

MH: It felt like the show was doing this sort of like, “If you do bad things to people, they have a right to do bad things to you.”

K: Vengeance over being the better person.

MH: I don’t know what kind of ethics that is, I feel — I just don’t like it.

There were a few scenes in the show where I was surprised by how intense they were. I mean, Hope kills her parents. Some of the abuse scenes where it’s showing Jessica, her past, it was really intense. Like Trish trying to put a bullet into her head.

KM: Disturbing.

AR: I would say I liked the show about as much as Daredevil. Some episodes were better, some episodes were worse. And Daredevil was just like a show you watched, and it was good enough. And this show is good enough.

KM: Overall I enjoyed it. Once I had time to think back on it there were a few issues I had with it, but I would definitely recommend it to fans of the genre, to at least check out a couple of episodes. I’d like to see a second season.

MH: I think I would be interested in seeing a second season, but I didn’t enjoy the show as much as I expected. I found that the show was very representative of the culture of today. There’s a lot of themes that are coming up in this show which are coming up very often in the cultural discussions that are going on — I think it’s a relevant show.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

A roundtable on Jessica JonesMITCH HUTTEMAKAT MARUSIAKALEX RAKETHE CASCADE

17


ARTS IN REVIEW

01 SuedeNight Thoughts

02 David BowieBlackstar

03 GrimesArt Angels

04 Neon IndianVEGA INT’L. Night

School

05 Hot ChipDancing in the Dark

06 Beauty SchoolResidual Ugly

07 The 1975The Sound

08 Young GalaxyFalsework

09 Half Moon RunSun Leads Me On

10 Destroyer Poison Season

11 Kurt Vileb’lieve i’m goin down

12 Modern SpaceBefore Sunrise

13 The ZolasWino Oracle EP

14 The DearsTimes Infinity, Vol. 1

15 El VyReturn to the Moon

16 Teen TopNatural Born Teen Top

17 Teen DazeMorning World

CHARTSShuffle

Attack in Black“Chimes and Church Bells”

A band that oscillated between heavy, raw, synthy and singer-songwriter-y, this one pulls from those last two. From the aptly titled Marriage album, its lyrics open with this line: “When the time comes for marriages to end / when all the black gowns have called and sent / through darkened doors to pay their penance.”

Alvvays“Marry Me, Archie”

If ever there was an original 21st cen-tury pop ballad that sounded like it belonged over the end credits of every single episode of The Wonder Years (featuring Austin Powers: Goldmem-ber’s Fred Savage, brother of Ben from Boy Meets World) ever, this is it. Check it out, you’ll definitely agree.

Detroit Cobras“The Real Thing”

She wants to marry you. She asked your mama if she could be her mom in law, she asked … okay that’s not quite how it goes, too many pronouns, but it’s a song, and it’s a throwback to the garage days supposedly brought back by the Strokes and White Stripes.

Goo Goo Dolls“Slide”

The only reason I include this basic, skillfully crafted piece of commercial drivel (tongue firmly planted in cheek, I could never be that scathing about songs by a band like the Dolls, espe-cially after instant classics like ‘Name’), is because of the line “you wanna get married, or run away.”

CIVL Station Manager Aaron Levy will likely never get married, but he’s glad that you may :) Enjoy!

Making a Murderer is tragic outrage, with plot twists

In 2003, Steven Avery, a man from Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, was exonerated through DNA evidence after having served 18 years in prison for sexual assault and attempted murder. Two years later in 2005, amid depositions for his $36 million civil lawsuit against Manitowoc County, Avery was arrested for the murder of local photographer Teresa Halbach. Soon afterwards, filmmakers Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos began documenting the story. They ended up filming over a 10-year period and, in late 2015, releasing their 10-part documentary series through Netflix, titled Making a Murderer.

As far as true crime documentaries go, Making a Murderer is something of a triumph, succeeding on multiple levels. First and foremost, the series is an outstandingly well-constructed piece of longform journalism. Riccardi and Demos deliver assembled surveillance footage, interviews, press conferences, police interrogations, and courtroom testimonies without inundating the viewer with information. To be sure, the story of Steven Avery is a multifaceted one, but Riccardi and Demos focus on details instead of broad strokes. That is, the series skillfully manages to navigate a decade’s worth of material in an engrossing, as opposed to overwhelming, manner. This is largely accomplished through Riccardi and Demos underpinning their documentary with a focus on the dangers of flawed police work and the very real potential

of corruption.Making a Murderer succeeds as a tragic depiction of

the powerful versus the powerless in the context of the American criminal justice system. The cultural snapshot of Manitowoc County that Making a Murderer provides is of the rural / lower class American Midwest. The Avery family property, on which Halbach’s remains were found, is littered with wrecked vehicles, unkempt foliage, and trailers with antiquated wood panelling. Shots of the property and interviews with the Averys ultimately serve to contextualize Steven Avery’s inability to navigate a justice system designed to fail lower class individuals. “Poor people lose ... poor people lose all the time,” says Avery in the first episode. Indeed, if Avery had come from an affluent community in Milwaukee, he would have been able to afford expert legal counsel, or at least wouldn’t have been such a suitable target of scapegoating and exploitation by the powerful sheriff ’s department and district attorney of Manitowoc County.

The series further succeeds as an intimate portrait of a man who likely endured not one, but two of the most appalling injustices imaginable. Riccardi and Demos create this intimacy by employing a non-fiction style free of voice-over narration, dramatic re-enactments, or digital effects. The filmmakers never once make an appearance on camera, rather focusing their narrative on the arrest and prosecution of Avery. While this could be regarded as a weakness — the courtroom testimonies sometimes feel dull and repetitive — there are enough riveting turns to always bring the viewer back to the edge of their seat.

TERRILL SMITHCONTRIBUTOR

AARON LEVYCIVL STATION MANAGER

18


Cage the Elephant have never truly busted into the popular indie consciousness. Instead, they have seen some anonymous success from singles such as “Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked” and “Shake Me Down.” Despite the lack of notoriety, Cage the Elephant did receive some major critical acclaim for their 2013 record, Melophobia , which is the predecessor to their most recent release, Tell Me I’m Pretty. Although Melophobia seemed to lay the groundwork for the future direction of the group, on Tell Me I’m Pretty, Cage the Elephant ends up taking a step back.

From the top of the record’s opening track, “Cry Baby,” it’s easy to hear the inf luence of producer Dan Auerbach (guitarist and vocalist for the Black Keys). The guitars are gnarly and squashed with distortion

and compression, giving an old-school British pre-amp sound, and the bass is precise and punchy. The only noticeable difference in style between the Black Keys’ and Tell Me I’m Pretty is the percussion, which is much more reserved and less prominent.

In terms of overall sound, the style of the record veers slightly from prior Cage the Elephant releases and embraces ‘60s and ‘70s analog recording sounds that seem to be making a comeback currently. Cage the Elephant have always had a bit of an old school sensibility, but Tell Me I’m Pretty fully dives into this vintage aesthetic. Though this sound is “hot” at the moment, the compressed and mid-heavy sound is close to recent Tame Impala releases, making it hard to avoid thinking of songs found on Currents and Lonerism while Tell Me I’m Pretty spins in the background.

And that’s where Tell Me I’m Pretty fa lls f lat. From the opening sounds of “Cry Baby,” you can’t help but question

if you accidentally put on the Black Keys’ most recent record. Consistently, tracks draw close comparison to, quite frankly, better songs that have been released on better albums over the past few years. Some prime examples of this are the tracks “Mess Around” and “Trouble,” which closely follow the formulas of Portugal. The Man’s Evil Friends and the Arctic Monkey’s critically acclaimed AM respectively.

But even with these negatives, there are still some glimmers within Tell Me I’m Pretty where Cage the Elephant attempt to chart their own path. Though it’s still grounded within the classic Britrock production, the album’s two closing tracks, “Punchin’ Bag” and “Portuguese Knife Fight,” feel less like an act and more true to who the band are. It’s unfortunate that these songs are buried at the end of the record.

Cage The Elephant follows the crowd on fourth album

ALBUM REVIEW

ARTS IN REVIEW

JEFFREY TRAINORTHE CASCADE

F is for Family adds relentless cynicism to the ‘70s American sitcom

TV REVIEW

The phone rings, interrupting the dinner conversation of a wholesome-looking cartoon family. The table goes deadly silent. “Jesus Christ,” hisses the father. “I’m not answerin’ that.” It rings again. And rings. And rings. Finally, fuming, he gets up and answers it — it’s a salesman. The encounter leaves him in such a rage that he slams the phone back on the hook, storms to his punching bag in the garage, and screams, “Get the fuck outta here!” at a small boy who asks him if his son can play.

This is the opening scene of F is for Family, the latest adult animated series to join the ranks of Bojack Horseman, Rick and Morty, and Bob’s Burgers. But while all those shows do revel in black humour, F is for Family takes it a step farther and dances on the line between comedy and tragedy, wrapping a thin veneer of funniness around the crushing, everyday pain of living a mediocre life. Following the foibles of a middle-class family in the 1970s, the show’s bleak humour is rooted in its characters’ deep-seated mutual unhappiness with each other: Frank Murphy, the father, is overworked, misanthropic, chronically disappointed in his children, and has alarming anger problems; Sue, the mother, is deeply depressed and underappreciated, and struggles to reclaim her identity outside of being a wife and mother; and although their three children of varying ages, Kevin, Bill, and Maureen, are fed and have their basic needs met, their parents are too consumed with their own miseries to offer them much more, and they are forced to effectively raise themselves.

But while this cast of characters may sound like the perfect recipe for a darkly funny sitcom, the execution is often more unsettling than comedic. The opening scene foretells the entire series’ tone: a layer of awkward hilarity glossing over the uncomfortably serious problem of Frank’s dangerous temper and burnt-to-a-crisp spirit. Violence, swearing, and childhood trauma abound, and while there are many hysterical, laugh-out-loud moments, the relationships between the Murphy family members often veer a little too close to being genuinely unpleasant for comfort. (“These fucking animals!” Frank often screams, referring to his children.) We all laughed when Homer strangled Bart because, however imperfect and fucked-up the Simpson family was, we knew that they ultimately loved each other. With the Murphys, we’re not so sure.

The show’s less-than-lovable characters aren’t the only reason

it doesn’t stack up well against other adult cartoons. Although comedian and voice actor Bill Burr is the driving force behind F is for Family, the writing lacks the sparkling, high-paced cleverness of shows like Rick and Morty, and fails to portray emotional brokenness as movingly as Bojack Horseman does. Its production quality is similarly mediocre; the show’s too-smooth animation looks almost like it was done in Flash, and cartoon snobs will agree that the occasionally misaligned perspective lines leave something to be desired. Like the lives of its characters, it’s not terrible — it’s just not great.

With only one six-episode season under its belt so far, F is for Family may find its footing in a second season if it’s renewed, but more likely it’ll sink under the weight of its so far mediocre reviews. It doesn’t get an “F” — but it certainly doesn’t deserve an “A.”

VALERIE FRANKLINTHE CASCADE

19


ARTS IN REVIEW

Pusha T has, over the years, dipped his foot in just about every major behavioural staple of the hip hop genre. His solo career took off in 2011 with the release of his f irst individual mixtape, but previously, Pusha, opposite his biological brother Malice, constituted one-half of Clipse. Pusha’s Clipse days, perhaps more than any other factor, inform the music he’s making today. Snoop Dogg raps about pot, 2 Chainz raps about asses, Kanye West raps about Kanye West. Pusha’s thematic bridge is cocaine. Since he started rapping about coke dealing as part of Clipse, his style and content hasn’t noticeably shifted from the powder-covered images he pushed during his early career in the early 2000s. And now, 16 years later, we come to this.

Pusha T stands at a crossroads.On King Push, his latest record, while

Pusha doesn’t rap as overtly about cocaine as he did in his earlier releases (it’s still there, though), the record isn’t actually successful at establishing any other narrative. All we really get is Pusha T not rapping about cocaine.

Sonically, the record is def initely successful at being more immediately accessible than something like 2012’s My Name Is My Name. “M.F.T.R.,” the

third track on King Push, will probably even get some airtime on more niche radio stations. But this success can’t be entirely attributed to Pusha himself. The record stands mostly on production (the credits here include Timbaland, Sean Combs, and Kanye West), with Pusha’s verses either seeming entirely out of place thematically, or so vague as to be applicable to literally any situation. (“I keep cash, case feds connect me / Case kids kidnap me, kids can get back me / Not concerned with your rap beef / Poetic justice watching you sock puppets.”) And even when he does get slightly specif ic, Pusha falls back onto the crack narrative: “They ask why I’m still talking dope, why not? / The biggest rappers in the game broke, voila … Rap fans got hoaxed through it / Ha, the whole time I sold coke through it.”

The one thing this record does have over its predecessors, is that while thematically there’s almost nothing worth noting (nothing’s being said that either highlights or comments on any one sentiment for long enough to be digested by the listener before moving on to the next vague metaphor), Pusha’s delivery has def initely come a long way. His more aggressive, staccato manner of speech has been subdued on this record; it sways back and forth with a palpable conf idence. (It might not even be conf idence, it might be the fact that

Pusha knows the record will do well whether or not he delivers anything of lyrical import.)

Which leads me to wonder just why Pusha T released a record in the f irst place.

Sure, the production, delivery, and song structure is catchy and fun to listen to, but I have to wonder why Pusha, as a songwriter, went ahead and put out a project that’s so devoid of meaning? Pusha was never a “conscious” rapper, but he almost always had something to say. That doesn’t happen on this record.

And what’s more worrisome, nobody seems to have noticed.

Just last year hip hop was legitimized in the eyes of those who don’t listen to it because pretty much everyone had to stop what they were doing for a week and go, “Oh, shit. Kendrick Lamar just gave us the most lyrically dense record this genre has seen in over a decade. Also, it’s good.” What this perspective doesn’t include are all the albums that actually make up the majority of the genre.

As much as I like Pusha T, King Push is about as lyrically stimulating and thought provoking as the ingredients list on a stick of butter.

Get it together, Push. One f ive-second mention of Gil Scott-Heron doesn’t atone for an album otherwise lacking in substance.

King Push: A portrait of a pusherman without a substance

ALBUM REVIEW

MARTIN CASTROTHE CASCADE

I love Britpop. The mid-to-late ‘90s, for me at least, was dominated by the likes of Pulp, Placebo, the Verve, Oasis, and of course, Suede and Blur — those two bands who launched the entire Britpop phase. So it’s been incredible to see the two titans of Britpop releasing new records. First Blur released The Magic Whip in April of last year, and now Suede are back with Night Thoughts, the second release by Suede after their seven-year hiatus.

With that gap, Suede sounds wearier, wiser, having experienced much in the past 16 years. But at the same time, Suede, as a band, are more comfortable in their skin, more at ease with themselves. And this shows throughout the album, which is incredibly lush in texture, boasting the band’s familiar overblown dramatization of hopeless romanticism. From the string section of album opener “When You Are Young” all the way through the record

until its call-back in the penultimate track “When You Were Young,” the album is fraught, moody — almost tense. It’s aclaustrophobic look at the lovelorn, melancholic narrative that pervades through most of Suede’s discography.

Where Bloodsports was a competent comeback album, Night Thoughts is far more grandiose in scope, more atmospheric. The addition of a string section is only one aspect of this turn to the dramatic, the hyperbolic. Lead singer Brett Anderson gives in fully to his more theatrical, glam-rock delivery; with cooing and oohing in the background of his almost breathless singing, it’s clear from the very beginning that Night Thoughts is going to be an album of extremes, with crisp bass-lines, shimmering guitars and battered drums, and that string-section f litting in and out.

The release of Night Thoughts was overshadowed by the release of David Bowie’s Blackstar and the legendary musician’s passing just days afterwards. In a way it’s almost suitable

that Night Thoughts, as an album, is Suede’s most overt acknowledgement of Bowie’s inf luence on their sound. Suede drew from Bowie as much as any other musical act, and while Blackstar and Night Thoughts have nothing in common thematically, it is heartening to hear Anderson’s attempt to deliver his f lowery, poetic lyrics in that familiar, heart-warming style of Bowie, music’s chameleon man.

With the return of the Britpop vanguard, unfortunately, only a handful of those releases have stood well in comparison to the genre’s heyday. With Placebo’s Loud Like Love — released in 2013 — getting middling reviews, and Chasing Yesterday by Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds only hinting at the talent the former Oasis man has, it’d be easy to say that these artists have lost their touch. But between Night Thoughts and Blur’s The Magic Whip, there’s also a display of the capacity to return to favourite haunts with a greater appreciation for scale, and more inventive minds.

Suede continues comeback with Bowie-quoting Night ThoughtsALBUM REVIEW

GLEN ESSTHE CASCADE


Documents

The Cascade Vol. 24 No. 3