2 July 28, 2014 · Volume 147, Issue 13FIRST PEEK

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C A N A D I A NCOMMUNITYNEWSPAPERAWARD 2013

C A N A D I A NCOMMUNITYNEWSPAPERAWARD 2014

I believe in the power of positive thinking.

Before you discount this arti-cle as some mumbo jumbo about new age meditation, let me ex-plain. You may have heard that if you just think positively, you will achieve your goals or get what you want. I don’t exactly believe that, but I think that keeping a positive attitude and believing that you will succeed will get you much far-ther in the right direction.

I’ve always been an optimist, and, in general, things tend to go my way. It’s not that bad things never happen to me, but when they do, I think having a positive attitude is extremely important. While watching the Monty Py-thon cast sing “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” during their re-union show live from London last weekend, I was inspired to expand on these ideas.

Looking on the bright side means being able to see the posi-tive aspect of any outcome. For example, last week it took me three hours to get home by bus when the Skytrain stopped run-ning. Instead of being grumpy the whole way home, I accepted it and used the time to relax and chat with other people who were in the same position. Even in situations that seem completely hopeless, there is almost always something positive.

Rejection is another thing that can be turned into something pos-itive with the right attitude. When I first came to SFU, I auditioned to be part of the School of Contem-porary Arts’ dance program. When

I didn’t get in, I tried not to dwell on that rejection. Eventually, I ended up studying something else that I found incredibly rewarding. If you approach life with the atti-tude that things are meant to hap-pen for a reason, you will be less devastated when they don’t turn out a certain way.

I have also found that a posi-tive attitude leads to more positive outcomes. I’m not sure if there is any proof of this, but I believe that patients who stay positive and think they will get better actually help their body to do so. I am con-vinced this helped my mom when she was fighting cancer.

In a similar way, thinking you will succeed at anything will in-crease your chances of doing so, as you are guided by positive en-ergy on the way there.

I don’t want to imply that you shouldn’t put effort into getting

what you want, but a balanced approach of your best effort and a positive attitude will lead to happiness. Putting your mind to something and wanting it badly is important, and by doing this you will always get much closer to your goal than if you assume you can never reach it. At the same time, it’s important to re-member that if your original plan isn’t successful, it means that you are being led down a different path in life. And this path will probably be better than you ever expected.

I guess what I’m trying to say is this: always look on the bright side of life. In the words of Monty Python: “When you’re chewing on life’s gristle / don’t grumble, give a whistle!”

Have a good sense of hu-mour, don’t take yourself too se-riously, and always look for the positive aspect of any situation. This will help you lead a happier, more productive life. And if that doesn’t work, just turn on some Monty Python.

3FIRST PEEK July 28, 2014

4 news editor Leah Bjornson associate news editor Melissa Roachemail / phone news@the-peak.ca / 778.782.4560NEWS July 28, 2014

A recent study conducted by the Western Convenience Store As-sociation (WCSA) found that 17.2 per cent of cigarette butts col-lected in BC contained contra-band tobacco, which refers to any tobacco that enters the country il-legally, or cigarettes from untaxed or counterfeit brands.

The number one hot spot in the province for contraband cigarette smokers was a smoking pit at SFU, where they found that 51.6 per cent of the cigarettes were contraband.

In a province which has the highest compliancy rate for youth smoking in the nation, these statis-tics complicate combating under-age smoking for Andrew Klukas, president of the WCSA.

Klukas explained the origin of these products: “Usually [contra-band tobacco products] come from two sources: one is central Canada. [The] RCMP tells us that a lot of the contraband is found in Canada — it’s smuggled from the US from an area near Cornwall, Ontario that sits right on the border of New York and interior Quebec and it makes the perfect entry point for smugglers.”

The second source is here on the west coast. Klukas said, “BC is kind of unique because we’re right next to Asia. There are foreign products manufactured in Asia and they too shouldn’t be sold in

Canada; they’re not taxed but they will appear here in a fair amount because we’re exposed to that.”

In the study, cigarette butts were taken from the ground and ashtrays, then shipped to Mon-treal for analysis. Legal cigarette butts have brand marks while the illegal ones don’t, so they are easily distinguished. Others are branded, but these are notice-ably foreign or native brands that haven’t been taxed. Tobacco made on reserves in Ontario is not taxed, and while it is legal in Ontario, it is illegal in other provinces.

“It’s not very glamorous work, I’ll tell you,” Klukas laughed. “Some-times [researchers] get hassled, but they’re very hands on, and what you see is what you get.”

For the WCSA, this study raises concerns over the issue of youth

smoking. Age testing in conve-nience stores has shown that BC has an over 93 per cent percent compliancy rate, which is the highest in Canada. The tests are done by sending underage cus-tomers into stores to see if they are able to purchase cigarettes.

With contraband tobacco, however, underage customers are much more likely to be able to obtain tobacco products. “Con-traband stuff is not subject to age testing, people selling it out of the back of their trunk or wherever

they sell it are not asking for age. Often there are no warning labels, it’s stuff just sold in baggies and they’re really cheap so kids can get access. That undermines all of the efforts to prevent youth access to tobacco,” Klukas said.

With a 51 per cent contra-band level at SFU and a 0 per cent level found in Kelowna, it raises the question of why this school is using illegal products more than half of the time.

“That was a real surprise to us but I suspect that it [occurs] if peo-ple go to school and they smoke, and university students are really good communicators and they don’t have a lot of money,” Klukas laughed, “So if someone says ‘Hey I can get pretty good quality smokes from over there for 50 bucks a car-ton,’ then word gets around.”

Three adventurous SFU filmmak-ers will embark upon the world’s most famous spiritual pilgrimage route, the Camino de Santiago, this September.

The trek will take current SFU film student Will Ross, and SFU film alumni Devan Scott and Daniel Jeffery two months and approximately 800 kilometres to complete on foot, and it will all be recorded for their film documen-tary titled, We Three Heathens.

The film will focus on the essence of a universal spiritual-ity that exists in all individuals, regardless of their religious be-liefs. Ross said of the pilgrimage, “I think people go because we are all attracted to the idea of self-realization and self discov-ery. To an extent, I think we all want to be able to change. The

pilgrimage is a physical actual-ization of that journey.”

The Camino de Santiago is known as The Way of Saint James in English, and is composed of a large network of pilgrim routes across Europe. These routes all come together at the tomb of St. James, who was one of Jesus’ twelve apostles and is the patron saint of Spain. The main pilgrim-age route follows an early Roman trade route, which visitors first followed to the shrine in the ninth century.

The Way of Saint James was a popular pilgrimage in medieval

times and is still well traveled today, drawing thousands of pil-grims from all around the world. The several stops that comprise the tour make it a perfect setting for Ross, Scott, and Jeffery to directly observe how people connect with their religion and spirituality.

“We are expecting to meet a lot of different people from dif-ferent countries and different walks of life,” Ross said. “I know we will find small communities who have been supporting this pilgrimage for generations.”

Preparing for the journey is no easy feat, as all three filmmakers

will be walking the equivalent of a half marathon a day. To improve their fitness, the team is currently going on long physical walks with their equipment on their backs.

They are also promoting their Indiegogo crowdsourc-ing campaign in order to raise funds for better filming equip-ment for the trip. “The com-munity response has been very positive,” Scott told The Peak. “I was initially concerned that such an idiosyncratic and per-sonal little project would be greeted with a chorus of con-fusion and general skepticism,

but the opposite has been true; we’ve received great input and encouragement from the com-munity around us.”

The three hope the film itself will be a thought provoking and interesting one, as it is being told through the unique perspective of secular individuals.

Ross also hopes that this doc-umentary will bend the struc-ture of a formulaic travelogue — the team will have no cam-era crew, and all of the filming will be grounded in first-hand personal experience, with each individual’s perspective shining through in the storytelling.

Scott said, “The whole affair of crafting a feature-length doc-umentary out of three separate personal experiences is a task both daunting and incredibly enticing; it is [. . .] completely within my wheelhouse and to-tally alien to me.”

He continued, “It’s frighten-ing, but I tend to gain the most from frightening experiences.”

As for what he hopes to gain from the journey, Ross said, “I want to come out of it with a deeper, sympathetic under-standing of what attracts peo-ple to religion, and the com-mon ground [of beliefs] that everyone shares.”

Approximately 50 per cent of the butts found at SFU were contraband.

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Local restaurant workers took a break from the grind of mixing, cooking, and washing to don a pair of boxing gloves and duke it out for the title of Restau-rant Rumble Champion.

Woodward’s partnered with Aprons for Gloves to present the third annual fundraising event, Restau-rant Rumble Fight Night, last Wednesday, July 23.

Why are purple umbrellas hanging around SFU Surrey campus this July?

The umbrellas are a vi-brant new feature of the Rakhi Project, which is a campaign against domestic abuse; they symbolize pro-tection and the work done to educate and raise awareness.

The project is developed from India’s Rakhi (thread) ceremony. Rakhi tied around the wrist of a brother by his sister symbolizes love and respect, and is meant to en-courage kinship and respect amongst brothers, sisters, and cousins.

Students from Communica-tions 460, a seminar in dia-logue and public issues, held a dialogue event on July 23 at Creekside Community Recre-ational Centre on the topic of debt and forgiveness.

Rather than focusing on financial debt, the discus-sions focused on everyday instances of debt. These in-cluded moral debt, historical injustices, public apologies, justice and forgiveness, and environmental debt.

SFU’s Dining Services is ex-ploring the possibility of a new dining venue in Univercity on Burnaby campus, and has been asking students via Twitter and Facebook to complete a survey as to what they would like to see.

The vision for this space is similar to that of the residence Dining Hall, the only 24/7 uni-versity dining service in Can-ada. It would be open 24 hours a day and provide not only stu-dents, but the Burnaby Moun-tain community, with a place to eat, study, and interact socially.

Once public interest and demand has been gauged, a proposal will be put forward to the university for a new dining venue at Cornerstone’s Centre Block, right across from Nest-ers. If accepted, Dining Services would like to implement this plan by 2017.

Ancillary Services’ executive director, Mark McLaughlin, gave The Peak the scoop on all that the near future holds for dining on the Burnaby campus, starting with a centrally located Jugo Juice to open this September.

There are currently 3,500 residents on campus and that figure is expected to increase to 10,000 in the long-term. McLaughlin explained that as the SFU population grows, its dining services will need to grow as well.

The next change that the SFU community can expect is a new food court at Discovery 1. This extension is expected to open January, 2015. Both this location and the potential space in Univercity would be rolled into SFU’s meal plan, which serves students in residence and even some commuters.

McLaughlin explained some of the overarching goals for these plans: “Our vision for Dining Ser-vices is to create engaging, trendy, popular spaces where students

can study, hang out, make friends, [. . . and] to drive up the school spirit and break down some of the social isolation.”

He believes that there’s a great need for such a space in Univercity, which is home to students, faculty, and inde-pendent families. “There’s no space for the community and

the students to come gather,” said McLaughlin.

The more specific details of the proposal for the Centre Block space will be worked out after the consultation process ends on July 31. The online survey asks about dining habits, frequented loca-tions on campus, and the need for a meal plan among other things.

“It’s a really exciting proj-ect. We’re trying to create social spaces for students, places where students can engage each other,” McLaughlin continued. “It’s still in the planning phases. We’re just sort of planning and testing the water and we’ll see what the reac-tion is. So far, the reaction has been pretty positive I think.”

6 NEWS July 28, 2014

An SFU professor recently re-turned from Whitehorse, Yukon, where he was on set for the new documentary series, Wild Archae-ology, which explores the history of First Nations across Canada.

“We just finished filming two episodes and I love it!” says Rudy Reimer, professor of First Na-tions studies and archaeology.

As the host for the new se-ries, he brings with him more than 20 years of experience working in the field of anthro-pology, archaeology, and First Nations studies.

Reimer was first introduced to the concept when producer Tracy German contacted him about the idea. He told The Peak that he had always wanted to be involved in a project such as this,

and this series sounded like an excellent opportunity to do so.

Wild Archaeology tells the story of archaeology across Canada, region by region, Re-imer explains. He feels it is im-portant to create an experience that connects people to the culture, the geography, and the history that exists within the land we live in and the people

we live alongside. Reimer also hopes the program will help “dispel many myths that non-First Nations people might have about indigenous cultures that are alive and well.”

According to producer Palefox Pictures, “the series rec-ognizes the importance of con-sulting and partnering with ar-chaeologists, anthropologists

and indigenous studies research-ers of Aboriginal origin.”

The series, set to premiere in 2015/16 on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN), takes the audience through an educa-tional and cultural exchange that brings them across the country to active research projects, archae-ological sites, and First Nations cultural heritage sites.

Alongside Reimer are two young First Nations co-hosts, Khelsilem Rivers and Jenifer Brousseau. Together, the three ex-plore dramatic landscapes within and outside First Nation territo-ries, including the Squamish Na-tion Territory, locations in Yukon including the White River Nation Territory and the Little John site, Richardson Island in the Arctic, Central Ontario around Lake Huron, and many others.

“What we do as indigenous archaeologists is bring oral his-tory, place names, traditions, and integrate those under cultural un-derstandings into the archaeolog-ical records that gives us a much more nuanced understanding of the ancient past,” Reimer ex-plains in the teaser.

The series is different from other television programs in many ways. As Reimer explains, the story is told from the indig-enous perspective, with the ar-chaeological analysis conducted by, with, and for the First Nations. The program will also promote real archaeology and First Na-tions heritage to a large and di-verse audience on a national and international level.

Currently, there is only one 13-episode season which is being filmed in two summers. Because Reimer teaches at SFU during the fall and spring semesters, the break in filming is meant to allow more time, effort, and long-term planning to be put towards work-ing collaboratively with First Na-tions and archaeologists.

To quote Palefox Pictures, “Without the support and in-volvement of Canada’s Aboriginal Peoples, we would not be granted access to vital information, loca-tions, and oral stories required to convey this exciting history.”

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8 NEWS July 28, 2014

A research team at Dalhousie Medical School, led by professor Richard Langley, has identi-fied and confirmed the protein that causes psoriasis.

Psoriasis is a chronic medical condition which causes patches of skin to become red and itchy. It affects nearly two per cent of the population, and is most commonly found on the elbows and knees.

“We know that patients who have psoriasis are at a higher risk of diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, depression, arthritis, even inflam-matory bowel disease,” Langley told CBC news.

The study also identified an effective treatment that targets IL-17, the psoriasis-causing protein.

With files from CBC News

Anthropology professor Carney Matheson of Lakehead University, along with former stu-dent and Oxford University PhD candidate, Margaret-Ashley Veall, has been invited to Italy to study the tools Ötzi the Ice Man was carrying at the time of his death.

Ötzi was discovered in 1991 when German hikers found him frozen in the Italian Alps. He remains frozen in Bolzano, Italy, and is con-sidered Europe’s oldest, naturally preserved mummy — over 5,000 years old.

The two hope to have research results released by 2015. “I’ve dreamed of being able to work on mummies like the Ice Man and Egyptian mum-mies since I was a child, so this is pretty well a dream come true for me,” said Veall.

With files from CBC News

The University of Calgary is planning to show new students a video this fall titled, “Shooter on Cam-pus: Know You Can Survive.” The nine minute film is intended to teach students how to react if a shooting occurs on campus.

The video was originally filmed at the Univer-sity of Alberta, and has been distributed to other universities across the province.

U of C hopes this will give students the tools they would need to survive in a crisis situation. However, some students have responded with distaste to the video; one student told The Gaunt-let that they believe it is an “unnecessary dramati-zation of a school shooting.”

With files from The Gauntlet

A new website created by the SFU Medical Research Group aims to expose the pros and cons of the medical tourism industry by sharing stories of people who have sought health care abroad.

The site, MedicalTouris-mAndMe.com, was created by Jeremy Snyder, associate pro-fessor in the Faculty of Health Sciences, in collaboration with geography professor, Valorie Crooks, as well as several other SFU master’s students and PhD candidates.

Canadian citizens enjoy the luxury of a socialized health care system; the tax dollars that people contribute to health care make treatment available to all who have need of it. One down-side to the system, however, is the time people spend waiting to receive proper treatment.

Crooks explained that some Canadians wait years for simple surgeries to erase chronic pain, or experience rushed diagnoses due to an overload of patients, making foreign health care an at-tractive option for some.

This is where medical tour-ism comes into play. Medical tourism is essentially the act of travelling to another country to receive health care due to cost or efficiency issues in one’s home country.

MedicalTourismAndMe shares a variety of different stories from those who have procured health care abroad. Some are positive — getting approval from their Cana-dian physician and experiencing hospitals that were more like five star resorts — while others reveal a darker side to the industry.

Crooks told The Peak that, be-fore 2009, there was barely any existing research on this practice,

which is becoming more com-mon as rumors spread of spa-like hospitals in Asian and Central American countries.

After failing to find much aca-demic research on the subject in preparation for a lecture, Crooks decided to take action and pur-sue medical tourism as a course of study. “It is a highly geographic

emerging global health services practice, and thus as a health ge-ographer I believed that I could make an important contribution to our knowledge about medical tourism,” said Crooks.

Crooks detailed some of the drawbacks to medical tourism, including not allowing enough recovery time due to being un-able to afford the expense of stay-ing in another country, as well as the guilt that could come with receiving five star health care in nations affected by poverty.

Crooks was drawn to the fact that these injustices are so often glossed over, saying, “I have worked to establish the SFU Medical

Tourism Research Group as the global leader in producing research-based insights into the ethical, eq-uity, and safety issues associated with medical tourism.”

Snyder, a team member and de-veloper of the website, said, “During our research, we learned that [those considering medical tourism] are typically unaware of many of the safety and ethical issues related to medical tourism.” When develop-ing the website, he also noted that many of the sources of information for prospective medical tourists are biased at best.

MedicalTourismAndMe uses personal stories rather than hard facts as a way to convey what re-searchers feel is a more honest point of view. The developers of the site decided that relaying sto-ries from former medical tourists was one of the best ways to con-nect potential tourists with the social, ethical, and medical im-pacts of receiving private health care in other countries.

While the team continues to build the website, they are unsure as to what the future of this practice may be. “Industry reports suggest that medical tourism is growing. [However,] I have learned to question all numbers I see about medical tourism for a number of rea-sons. Because of this, it is diffi-cult to articulate specific future impacts,” said Crooks.

9opinions editor Joel MacKenzieemail / phone opinions@the-peak.ca / 778.782.4560OPINIONS July 28, 2014

The federal government has re-cently taken steps to introduce a new piece of legislation regu-lating prostitution. After the Su-preme Court deemed previous prostitution laws unconstitu-tional, the Conservative govern-ment proposed Bill C-36, a bill also known as, “The Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act.”

Unfortunately, the sex work-ers the bill is supposed to pro-tect are now in greater danger because of it.

The bill follows the premise of a Nordic or Swedish model in which the pimps, johns, and clients involved in the trade are criminalized, but the actual sex workers aren’t. The aim of this course of action is to target those who fuel the demand for prostitutes so that the industry will eventually die out.

However, this is hardly the case. Rather than prostitution dying out, it will just move else-where — a more dangerous elsewhere. Since the bill forbids communicating and offering sexual services, street-based sex workers can be arrested for advertising. This clause will certainly force them to con-duct their services in secret, spending longer hours looking for clients, and being forced to choose worse clients, thus

making them more vulnerable to rape and violence.

The term “sexual ser-vices,” which is used regularly throughout the bill, is broad and vague. Sexual services can define a stripper’s line of work through dancing at a bachelor party just as much as a prosti-tute selling sex on the street.

Bill C-36 is one-sided, tar-geting prostitution as a form of male sexual violence, when this is just a small portion of

the type of sex work which goes on in the industry.

All in all, the bill seems to suggest that human dignity can only be realized when one is no longer working in the sex trade. This ignores the fact that there are many who work in it will-ingly, enjoy what they do, and take pride in their work.

A reasonable alternative to consider, which is currently en-forced and working, would be the legislation in effect in New Zealand. New Zealand has de-criminalized prostitution and it operates under public health laws. There is still regulation in place as prostitution that is not consensual (for instance, in terms of human trafficking) or involves a minor is still il-legal. Yet sex workers under this model receive protection,

support from police, and better working conditions.

This system is in line with how WorkSafe BC would protect workers in any other line of em-ployment. It protects sex work-ers from exploitation while still respecting their human rights.

People can forget that sex workers are also human beings. A bill that is involved in regulat-ing their line of work should also include their voice, and not just target the pimps who run their businesses. They deserve respect like any other person, which this bill does not provide. Nobody, regardless of their occupation, should have to live in fear.

Would you risk your life for your cell phone? I wouldn’t, but there are those who would.

American media website CNET reported July 20 that a woman from Houston, Texas had a mugger threaten to shoot her on the street if she did not surrender her cell phone. When the woman refused she then crouched to the ground in prep-aration for the bullet. The man shot and just grazed the wom-an’s head before she ran to her friend’s house to escape.

It saddens me that people are both willing to kill and be killed for a small electronic device.

I understand that many may initially find this a tough choice. A cell phone could almost literally contain someone’s soul. There are pictures, videos, passwords, and deeply personal information stored on them, information that is permanent and not locked away in the safe haven of our minds. With all these thoughts we’ve filtered out through our fingers, some people may choose death over exposing their personal or even embarrassing self, such as the lady in the news report.

These concepts can even be applied to a broader scale. In some impoverished countries there are people who designate most of their money to main-taining a cell phone rather than to their own families.

A couple years back I travelled to Sao Paulo, Brazil, where I vis-ited a couple of Brazilian slums, known as favelas. Knowing that

technology is expensive in this city, I was shocked to realize that many people in these im-poverished communities owned and maintained monthly cell phones, but could barely af-ford homes, or provide for their families.

“They really don’t need cell phones,” my Brazilian friend claimed. “They just choose to

put what little money they have toward them.”

We must remind ourselves that our lives — our real lives — do not live in our technology. In an instance where one must choose between life and death over a cell phone, if one chooses death, tech-nology has won that person over. The second, intangible self has be-come more important.

As beings who create tech-nology, we must pride ourselves on maintaining dominance over it. And as much as I hate to say it, this means surrendering the cell phone, whether to a mug-ger, to live a healthier life, or in any other circumstance.

Heck, with the way our society has become so digitally-depen-dent, we would probably all take bullets for our technology if given the ultimatum!

Seriously, if I found myself in this woman’s shoes, I would have gladly surrendered my phone. Yes, there are personal conver-sations and information that I would not want others to witness, but in the end I would have taken alternative routes to saving my information, and immediately re-alize that it’s just a cell phone.

So, take a good look at your device. Would you be willing to die for it? Do you have deeply personal information on it that would influence this decision? Perhaps we should be finding alternative ways to express per-sonal feelings or to store invalu-able information, rather than put-ting it all into the digital system. Letters on paper or a face-to-face conversation may be more ideal.

Give the mugger the phone, and think about what really matters.

10 OPINIONS July 28, 2014

Surgery to allow deaf persons to hear is becoming a real-ity. If a deaf person wants to and is able to receive it, that’s fantastic. I can’t even fathom attaining a new sense, let alone being introduced to the world of sound.

I don’t consider myself a very manly man in a number of as-pects. But, after many a year believing otherwise, I’m real-izing how much of my idea of “manliness” was imagined, or pushed on me by adver-tisements. Now, I’m trying my best to make my own identity.

For students who have suf-fered through classes all summer, it’s finally vacation! It’s time to do all those damn things those damn profs held you back from doing! Read-ing for its enjoyment! Taking tests for their enjoyment! Working for its enjoyment . . .

Hey, coffee shops: tip jars reading “Would you rather be blind or deaf?” disrespects the communities and worlds that these individuals live in. We with these senses should con-sider the idea that these peo-ple don’t want to be like us, before making them a “would you rather” horror scenario.

I can tell you, though, the “manliest” thing about me: I can’t stand musicals. Yes, I’ve tried watching Grease. And Hairspray. And Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Call me crass; blame my pessimism caused by editing Opinions all day err day. I don’t care, I just can’t watch them.

How can you even breathe with all the school work you’ll have to do in a few weeks? Are you saving up money? Good luck scroung-ing up more hours in this one month. Just start study-ing for next semester now.(But seriously: take time to relax, and do what you love! You deserve it.)

Did you know that there were two professional hockey teams in the Greater Vancouver re-gion? Unfortunately, the key word here is “were.”

In addition to our NHL team, the Vancouver Canucks, there used to be an American Hockey League (AHL) team, the Abbots-ford Heat. The AHL is a lower-tiered professional league that serves as a farm team. This is where either young players de-velop or where players who don’t quite cut it in the NHL play.

The Heat, who came to Ab-botsford in 2009, served as a farm team to the Calgary Flames, which meant that fans got to see future NHL players rise to the Flames, like Sven Baertschi and Max Reinhart.

However, the team suffered from low attendance and pre-sumably didn’t make too much money. On weekends, the atten-dance was pretty pitiful, and it was easy to shuffle from your lower priced seats to empty rink-side ones. I don’t even want

to know how empty a weeknight must have been.

I understand why tickets didn’t sell.

To start with, they were the Calgary Flames’ farm team in Vancouver territory. I can’t imag-ine any Canucks fan liking the Flames. As a matter of fact, they are my least favourite team (aside from the Bruins, that is).

This may be a bit harsh, but I would wager that my senti-ments are hardly unique. The players are being groomed to face the Canucks, a thing most fans would (an-’ould cheer for a team that wears, essentially, Flames jerseys? It doesn’t help that those jerseys are nearly identical to the Flames’ either, with matching colour schemes right down to the Flames’ unique shoulder flag crests.

It should be noted the few games that really did sell were those against the Canucks’ farm team — proof, perhaps, that being associated with the Flames probably hurt their sales.

However, it’s not all on the fact that the two teams are es-sentially the same. Location probably didn’t help too much

either. Abbotsford is probably just not a good enough location for a pro team. It’s very small, and I would guess that most people don’t want to venture that far away to catch a game.

In the last few games, even the Utica Comets (the Canucks’ new AHL affiliates) did not draw that many people to the Heat. That’s the writing on the wall: if the Canucks can’t draw in fans, no one can.

Finally, Abbotsford was the only AHL team on the West Coast with the rest of the teams located in the east. This has no impact on the fans, but it may hinder player development, with extra travel time and odd schedules to accommodate.

You’re probably think-ing I had some grudge against the Heat, but I loved going to games. They had cheap tickets (hovering around $20), cheap concession foods, along with an entertaining, high-level game to watch. Plus, they displayed the prospects of both the Flames and whoever they faced.

Sure, I cheered against them each time. I hate to say it, but with them gone, I find myself sentimental for the Flames. It’s no doubt the Heat will be missed.

11OPINIONS July 28, 2014

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LETTER TO THE EDITORThe letters to the editor section is a space for less formal opinions pieces, particularly geared towards responses to content in The Peak. Do you have a complaint, compliment or comment? Contact opinions@the-peak.ca to have your say!

Dear editor,

RE: “Zero Waste design is garbage”

I am pleased to have the opportunity to respond to Anderson Wang’s article titled “Zero Waste design is garbage”’ published in The Peak last week. In this article, Wang described flaws with the design of SFU’s Zero Waste stations at the Surrey campus, which are failing to accommodate student’s garbage demands. This is an issue that has been identified by the SFU Sustainability Office and Facilities Services, and larger bins for the recyclables and landfill streams are currently on order. These will be installed over the coming weeks as funding and resources become available — in time for the busy fall semester.

With regards to design, the waste stations were chosen through extensive consultation with university architects, Facilities Services, janitorial staff and other invested parties. While we realize that they will not please everyone, we are confident that they are the best overall fit for SFU’s needs in terms of aesthetics, capacity, engagement, and user-friendliness.

In addition to diverting waste from landfills through these stations, an increasingly important part of the Zero Waste initiative will be focusing on reducing the amount of waste produced at SFU to begin

with. Several reduction projects are currently underway, with a particular focus on reducing or eliminating Styrofoam and coffee cup landfill waste at SFU. This should also go some way to reducing the over-filled bins that Wang mentioned, and therefore encourage more positive sustainable behaviour.

Students can greatly assist us in our efforts to reduce waste before it needs to be disposed of by choosing to use reusable containers (e.g., coffee cups, water bottles, go green containers). They can also assist us by carefully reading the signs on the stations and placing waste into the appropriate bins.

SFU’s Zero Waste program is a learning and research initiative that is still in its first phase (launched in January this year). As one of the most advanced zero waste programs in BC, it is inevitable that issues will arise that require us to adapt and learn in order to improve. This is one of the strengths of the program — it is flexible and adaptable and can respond to community feedback. For example, feedback from the first semester informed changes to the Zero Waste signage that you will now see at stations. Community feedback is an integral part of the program and we welcome it any time at www.sfu.ca/zerowaste or no_waste@sfu.ca.

Sincerely,

Rachel Telling, Zero Waste Coordinator

Doctors are not slaves — they have rights, freedoms, and opinions just like anyone else. But they don’t have the right to deny care to patients in need. It is simply not the responsibility of the doctor to decide what is and is not an ‘urgent’ and nec-essary treatment.

Last month at a walk-in clinic in Calgary, a young women was told the physician on duty would not prescribe her the birth con-trol pills she needed. While this treatment may not be a ‘life threatening’ one, the patient had decided it was essential for her all the same. Not many of us have time to drop by multiple clinics or come back a different day.

One of the reasons I love this country is knowing that if I needed medical attention, I would get it, no questions asked. But the policy review of the Col-lege of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario may change that. Ca-nadians need to feel safe in the system. No one should worry they will be turned away or judged by their healthcare professional.

Last week’s article mentioned that referrals would be issued

explaining why patients were being refused care, and how, according to Carolyn McLeod, that would some how ease the humiliation. Well, according to Kate Desjardins — a young women who was given one of these letters in the middle of a busy walk-in clinic — it doesn’t.

As she rightly says, a piece of paper doesn’t make the walk out the door in front of a group of people any more comfort-ing. Having a doctor explain to you that they will not help you because of moral reasoning and leave you nothing but a referral will only make patients feel embarrassed and vulner-able. Is that really how the sys-tem should work?

According to the Vancouver Division of Family Practice, there are 100,000 people living in Van-couver who do not have a fam-ily doctor. That is 100,000 people relying on walk-in clinics to ser-vice their medical needs. Many of these people are currently searching for family doctors, says the Vancouver Division of Family Practice, but will have no luck.

The sad reality is that there are not enough doctors to go

around; the demand has sur-passed the number of available physicians. One of the disadvan-tages of walk-in clinics is that you never know which doctor will be available to care for you. What this means for the ‘moral’ debate is simple: doctors need to care for whomever walks in their door. The system is already stretched thin, so why create more barriers for patients?

Canada’s medical profession-als who, after all, work in a pub-licly funded system, should put the patient first in order to guar-antee timely and comprehensive care for any patient in need. Po-lice don’t choose whom they pro-tect and teachers don’t handpick their students — doctors have the right to an opinion, but a respon-sibility to the patient.

Instead of getting mixed up in the ambiguous philosophical de-bate, people should be focusing on what is practical. And if you ask me, small inconsistencies through-out the system that make it difficult for patients to predict whether they will be cared for is neither practical nor ideal. If a doctor truly can’t do their job because personal beliefs, then what attracted them to the public sector?

Until there are enough fam-ily doctors available, and every-one has the opportunity to select a medical professional who best aligns with their values, it is unrea-sonable to divide the system and open the door to possible discrim-ination, humiliation, inadequate care, and untimely services.

Doctors having the right

to deny care is unfair to

the patients funding the

system

Tamara Connor Peak Associate

Patients need to come first

DR. SHAME

If a doctor truly can’t do their job because of personal beliefs, then what attracted them to the public sector?

o p i n i o n s @ t h e - p e a k . c aBurst someone’s bubble.

n July 11, SFU student Anthony Jano-lino tripped over a discarded hose in the Shrum Science Centre. Now, he’s making it his mission to bring on-cam-

pus accessibility issues into the spotlight.This isn’t the first time that Janolino, a visu-

ally impaired student, has encountered prob-lems getting around SFU’s Burnaby campus. After repeatedly struggling to navigate the cam-pus’ staircases, bridges, and slopes, Janolino de-cided to stand up for his own needs and those of other visually impaired students on campus.

He recounted an incident in 2010, when a folded up rug was left in front of the stairs near the Highland Pub going down to the bookstore in MBC. “I almost swan dived down that,” Janolino told The Peak.

Such hazards are typical of those Janolino says he encounters on a daily basis. These include chairs, tables, and objects that obstruct path-ways, lips on tiles and uneven surfaces, stairs of mismatched heights, and a lack of proper signage in construction or out-of-service areas.

“Other problems that I’m finding are things that are changeable,” said Janolino. “For a while, in 2011, I was ending up going into out of ser-vice elevators where they would put just a sticky note on the door saying ‘out of service.’ They wouldn’t even put on the yellow caution tape. It’s a lot of sloppy things like that.”

Even when such issues are addressed, the warning signs may be placed at head or neck level, where they can’t be detected by canes. Similarly alarming are overhanging trees or gut-ters, which Janolino’s cane cannot find.

The 2006 British Columbia Building Code recommends that pathways be free from ob-structions for the full width of the walk to a height of not less than 1,980mm. In the AQ alone, one can find trees hanging over walkways as low as four feet from the ground.

Janolino says that last summer, he was forced onto the road because of overgrown trees near Residence. “I did file my reports and told people, nothing was being done, so I resorted to chopping them up myself,” said Janolino.

Janolino claims that SFU has been late to re-spond to reports of hazards on campus since he began attending the university in 2009. The July 11 incident proved no different, when he found himself passed around from contact to contact until being called by Anne Carchesio, an SFU safety assistant, five days later.

“The fast response doesn’t happen,” explained Janolino. “There’s been repeat incidents, there have been things that have been left for a while, nothing is really happening.”

Carchesio pointed Janolino in the direction of TJ Aujla, SFU’s Environmental Health and Research Safety (EHRS) coordinator, who agreed to accom-pany Janolino on a walking tour of SFU’s Burnaby campus to examine the hazards on campus.

“He pointed out a lot of areas of concerns that I wasn’t aware of previously,” Aujla told The Peak. “Each concern that he pointed out was valid, and would require a response from EHRS and the Cen-tre for Students with Disabilities (CSD).”

Aujla said that EHRS is hoping to make a coor-dinated response with the CSD and Facilities Ser-vices to address Janolino’s concerns. “With his rec-ommendations, we can move forward,” he said. “It helps having the people with concerns, like [Jano-lino] did, provide recommendations. These are con-cerns that he’s very familiar with.”

For the director of the CSD, Mitchell Stoddard, a coordinated effort is the key to making a differ-ence on campus, especially when different hazards fall under the purview of different departments. Currently, the CSD is a frequently used channel by which students report hazards on campus; the CSD can then connect with Facilities, Housing and Resi-dence, or other organizations to handle the issue.

Stoddard explained how a reported hazard is handled: “If it’s a high risk situation, then we’re going to notify whoever can address that high risk situation as soon as possible. If it’s some-thing else, then it’ll go through other channels and we will make a determination.”

For example, CSD recently received a mes-sage that pointed out a potential head-strike issue across from Starbucks on the stairs down towards the bus loop. “Literally, we got notified of it, and within the same day we contacted facilities, and they had a tempo-rary barrier up. Within that week there were formal bars around that would allow a cane to detect it,” said Stoddard.

“The majority of [hazards on campus] that can be readily addressed are addressed well,” Stoddard continued. “Where we struggle and scratch our heads, the walkway across the pond [being an example]. My understanding is that’s been looked at several times in the past, trying to find a way to create something that gives the right kind of signal to everybody without actu-ally making the problem worse.”

Janolino has himself complained about the koi pond’s design to the university before. How-ever, “they said that if they did some changes to it, it would wreck the architectural design,” Janolino reported.

This tension between art, architecture, and functionality is a constant theme on the Burn-aby campus, which, as a half century old build-ing, was built without considering the accessi-bility issues that we face today.

“Erickson loved horizontal planes,” Stod-dard said. “The way the university was designed almost 50 years ago doesn’t lend itself to the kind of awareness that we have about the needs of a diverse community or student body.

“I do think there’s always an aesthetics balance, but the aesthetics can’t trump the functionality.”

For Stoddard, the next logical step is working towards formalized, systematic changes in how the university addresses accessibility issues. “In the same way the university has adopted sustainability [. . .] I think the next level is to see the university con-sider [. . .] accessibility as an item that needs to be signed off [on].

“If you ask me relative to five years ago, ‘Are we moving in the right direction?’ Yeah, we’re moving in the right direction and things are coalescing. Does that mean that there’s not a lot of work to do? No, there’s a lot of work to do. But I think now you’re starting to see groups come together that can move those kind of things forward.”

For now, Stoddard hopes that the students will take the initiative and bring these accessibility issues to the university and the community at-large. “I think having more students with disabilities hav-ing conversations with this office, but then be will-ing to have them on their own, as their own entity, I think that’s powerful and I would like to see more of that,” he concluded.

On Thursday, July 17, in conjunction with the SFSS Accessibility Fund Advisory Committee (AFAC), Janolino took four SFSS board of direc-tors members on a similar tour of SFU to ex-perience the various hazards visually impaired persons encounter on campus. The catch? All members of the tour were blindfolded.

Arts and social sciences rep Brady Wallace and health sciences rep Ayla Kooner were blindfolded and assisted by members of The Peak, while at large rep Jeremy Pearce and VP finance Adam Potvin were blindfolded and given canes.

Pearce, who sits on both Students United for Disability Support (SUDS) and AFAC, said of the multitude of hazards, “We were blown away.”

The four, led by Janolino, walked from the Dining Hall to the Renaissance near the bus loop, navigating stairs, uneven tiles, gutters and overhanging trees at head height, and an array of objects such as chairs and tables blocking main paths.

In an attempt to offer SFU students with disabilities an easier way to report hazards and accessibility is-sues on campus, SFU’s Accessibility Fund Commit-tee is launching an awareness campaign centered around their feedback form on the SFSS website.

The society hopes that students with ac-cessibility issues will use the feedback form to report issues commonly faced on the Burnaby campus, so that the SFSS can take these issues to the university for consideration.

“Obviously it is a little embarrassing and de-meaning to have to come into the [general] office or any office and talk about a problem that you’ve had with our campus,” said Pearce. “So, through this anonymous feedback form, any student would be able to anonymously post whatever accessibility issue they are having on our campus.”

However, SFSS members are confident that changes can be made. “It’s really just a lot of little, simple things that can be done, but need some pushing,” said Potvin.

Although the SFSS is only responsible for so-ciety space — namely, within the MBC — Potvin said that the AFAC is hoping to take “more of a

lobby stance” throughout the next year. To promote awareness, they plan to host events similar to the blindfolded tour.

Although SFU president Andrew Petter re-sponded with hesitation to SFSS president Char-daye Bueckert’s invitation to participate on a similar walk, he did say that the university will be following the SFSS’ initiatives closely.

Though it may be a while before students like Janolino can walk across Burnaby campus unim-peded, the steps being taken for visually impaired students bode well for the future.

“It seems as though this year is filled with re-ally proactive people from the SFSS as well as [uni-versity representatives] in our school,” Janolino concluded. “It seems as though there’s a bunch of people in different positions right now that could be really essential and pivotal to the situation, that could make it happen this time around.”

Halfway through the tour, as Potvin cautiously made his way up the AQ stairs, he said, “There’s a lot of random crooks and corners, I feel like I’ve turned a million times. There’s so many edges.”

Walkways with shifting edges, which are a sta-ple feature at Burnaby campus, were particularly challenging. When visually impaired persons navigate paths, Janolino explained, many use the “shoreline” technique, in which they track their cane along the edge of the walkway. Without an even edge, navigation is hindered.

The four were most concerned when walking across the koi pond bridge. “I’m terrified. This was my biggest fear,” said Pearce, approaching the pond.

“The AQ pond is a place you can have a lot of trouble with,” explained Janolino. “Blind people who are not as mobile as me, you have to teach them specific skills to get through that [. . .] because the general ways will not protect you getting through that pond. You either avoid all the way or memorize a specific motion to make sure you don’t fall in. And go very, very slowly.”

The four participants took approximately 15 minutes to cross the pond bridge. Wallace and Kooner narrowly avoided falling in, eventually having to crawl across.

Janolino, who has himself fallen into the koi pond, had previously suggested to the university that they might install tactile tiles, similar to the textured tiles that mark the end of skytrain platforms, which would signal the edge of the pond pathway to visually impaired visi-tors. However, as of yet, no changes have been made.

The participants reached the end of the walk after an hour and 15 minutes, with minimal scrapes and bruises. Upon removing her blindfold, Kooner ex-claimed, “Why do we have water things everywhere?” Wallace echoed her, saying, “Why do we have rocks that come out of the middle of nowhere?”

Potvin and Pearce were left somewhat stunned after the experience, one which Pearce feels every-one should have to go through: “You know that age old saying ‘walk a mile in someone else’s shoes’? [. . .] I would encourage the people in charge of mak-ing decisions for the university to go outside and do what we just did, ‘walk a mile in his shoes’ so that they can understand these issues first hand.”

14 arts editor Tessa Perkinsemail / phone arts@the-peak.ca / 778.782.4560ARTS July 28, 2014

Taste in art can differ among personalities as well as so-cial and cultural lines, but the human spirit shares the capac-ity for greatness and innovation. To some degree, creators trick us into watching what they have done, but at some point one needs to understand that art re-ally is a social need.

Art is food for thought; it is a way to let our brains ‘breathe’ a little, a way to get inspired as well as an emotional loophole (catharsis). Because of this, it is essential to rethink one’s ap-proach to art to better appreci-ate it. In a day and age where jobs may consume our lives, art is all the more important in that it may be one of the only refuges we have left.

However, the psychology of art has changed in a nega-tive way. On the one hand, going out to see a movie or a play means engaging, and pre-sumably thinking about what you are seeing, but the use of a computer to watch a movie, on the other hand, means watching it in a totally different mindset. One might stop mid-way and pick another film on-line for instance. One is likely to be multitasking, at least at some point.

The point is, we live in a cul-ture with a growing attention deficit. Commercial movies adapt themselves to that real-ity, and cuts are multiplied as the attention span of the aver-age audience has decreased.

All of this changes the way we approach art, and technol-ogy may, in that sense, have decreased the quality of our ar-tistic experience. As Moby put it in PressPausePlay, there is a danger on the side of the pro-duction as well, much like the

sci-fi scenario of grey goo: “Art and culture potentially might succumb to that same principle where if everybody is a musi-cian, everybody is making me-diocre music, eventually the world is covered with medioc-rity. And people start to become comfortable with mediocrity.”

In the same film, author Andrew Keen states, “When you fall into the trap of confus-ing the artist and the audience; when you believe that the audi-ence knows more than the art-ist, [. . .] then art ends and you have something else: cacoph-ony. You have simply an apol-ogy for radical democratization, and it’s wrong to confuse de-mocratization in real or political terms with the creation of art, which is, by definition, for bet-ter or worse, an elitist business.”

These days, the danger of a cacophony, and that of getting comfortable with me-diocre art is greater than ever before. Especially online, it is hard to imagine virtuosi of the past being able to break through the mass of garbage that exists on Youtube for in-stance. In this sense, while technology has been a bless-ing for many artists in their creation and distribution processes, it has also changed the distance there used to be between the artist and their audience. While that isn’t a problem on an individual level, at the social level it means that as art is less re-vered, it is devalued.

That is why I believe it is really important to take our artistic experiences out of the virtual realm. This means tak-ing steps to “sanctuarize” our experience of art. Whether you choose to go to exhibits more often, to a public perfor-mance of some sort, or just to shut your email and put your phone away when doing some-thing similar at home, it’s all up to you. Just as you work more efficiently when you are in a neutral place with few sources of entertainment, your artistic experience is better when you focus on it. Paradoxically, it may help you open your eyes to what is happening around you.

With summer in full swing, there are several Shakespear-ean productions that are being brought to life onstage. The Winter’s Tale is one such play that has been beautifully re-imagined by director Lisa Wolpe of Classic Chic pro-ductions, a company that is founded on the notion of cre-ating a platform for women to explore great roles and oppor-tunities in the acting world.

Thus, this production of The Winter’s Tale features an all-female cast. The tale is unique in that it features a range of the story elements that the bard does best: his classic dark tragedy as well as some light-hearted comedy are incorpo-rated into one of his most fas-cinating problem plays.

The play is set in two sepa-rate locations with comedic scenes in the land of Bohemia transitioning into the darker events that take place in the land of Sicilia. The story centers around the insecurities of King Leontes of Sicilia, who becomes convinced that his wife Herm-ione is having an affair with his best friend, King Polixenes of Bohemia. Leontes’ jealousy

manifests itself in his leader-ship with devastating results.

Featuring swordplay, ty-rants, dancing, and song, the production also has women cast in authoritative male roles. Corina Akeson plays the star-ring role of Leontes, the jeal-ous tyrant who is held in a tight grip by his insecurities.

She says of the play’s prem-ise, “The themes of the play are very current. It deals with the issues of the general energy of male against female, and how a feminine divine energy is ex-pressed in life. It also questions how they function against each other, or with each other, and what the repercussions of that are in society in general.”

The play also provides op-portunities for women to play “beautifully defined, strong, classic roles [. . . with] every-thing from clowns to kings,” ac-cording to director Lisa Wolpe. Seeing such a dynamic story performed by an all female cast is a rare one, especially consid-ering the historical context of all characters in Shakespeare’s plays being performed by men, as it was once illegal for women to perform on a stage.

Akeson echoes Wolpe’s sentiments and says of the all-female ensemble, “I think that this [play] gives women several opportunities in the field, both onstage and offstage.”

The poetic language of Shakespeare, while eloquent and beautiful, is not easily un-derstood by modern day audi-ences. “We have become such a monosyllabic society,” says Akeson, “but the human heart is still full of poetry. There is imagery in Shakespearean lan-guage. When people watch our performance, our bodies will be telling the story and effec-tively opening the portal to that language. “

Indeed, the vibrancy of this performance of The Win-ter’s Tale cannot be compared to a reading of Shakespearean works within a classroom set-ting. Rather, the bard’s work will come to life through the performances of a unique and talented cast. Akeson encour-ages people in the community to watch the play as she says, “If we continue to watch and support Shakespeare, we can make sure that his art form doesn’t die.”

15ARTS July 28, 2014

BAWA  SINGH’S  GARDEN

A  poem  2630  lines  long

ByDr.  Gurdev  S.  BoparaiAn  e-­‐book  at  Amazon/Kindle  for  $5

Have you ever seen a movie where you were fairly entertained but you thought it could have used a bit more polish? Perhaps the pac-ing, characters, story, almost every aspect could’ve use a bit more cooking. Well, All Cheerleaders Die is that movie.

The movie is about undead cheerleaders who need to con-sume human blood. That sounds awesome, and is kind of awesome — once it gets there. It takes half an hour (out of a 90 minute run-time) to actually get to our un-dead cheerleaders, and it’s a slow half hour.

The movie opens up with Maddy (Caitlin Stasey), our main character, videotaping her cheer-leader friend Alexis (Felisha Coo-per) and her fellow cheerleaders. However, the movie gives a pretty legitimate shock as Alexis falls on her head and dies during a routine in the first five minutes.

Maddy’s boyfriend, Terry, moves on too quickly with fellow cheerleader Tracy (Brooke But-ler), and this angers Maddy, so she schemes to ruin them. The scheme involves Maddy seducing

Tracy to make Terry jealous. In his jealousy, he ends up running the cheerleaders off the road to their deaths in a car chase after punch-ing Tracy.

Perhaps more fortunate for them is that Maddy’s witch ex-girl-friend Leena (Sianoa Smit-McPhee) happens to be watching them, and brings them back from the dead, as well as switching the bodies of two of the cheerleaders. However, now they have a thirst for blood.

Nearly every character is some variety of teen movie cliché. Terry is your standard psychopathic jock, the cheerleaders all fit the ‘dumb blonde’ trope, and of course there are two stoners. Even our main character, Maddy, fits that typical outsider character who isn’t really that much of an outsider. The whole Wiccan girl who has actual powers seems pretty familiar too.

The characters being walking, talking clichés is not a bad thing as it works in the context of movie — a horror comedy that makes fun of some of the typical horror movie conventions.

With that being said, the movie does falter in its characterizations. I’ll admit no one should walk into

this movie expecting Oscar worthy characters, but they seem incon-sistent, shifting motivations and traits from scene to scene.

Once the cheerleaders be-come undead, the movie starts to work and becomes quite en-tertaining. The scene where Tracy walks into a random guy’s house and discovers that she is hungry sets the mood for the rest of the film.

Tracy pokes the guy in the neck causing him to bleed, and all the cheerleaders show up and feed on him. It’s funny because the movie doesn’t really treat it as a big deal that the girls kill this innocent man with no apparent moral consequences or serious af-terthought. The movie doesn’t go in the direction that they are evil after becoming undead. No, they just eat people sometimes. Their victim, after some initial scream-ing, resigns himself to his fate pretty easily, adding to the fact that this feeding is no big deal.

However, the movie takes too long to get to this point and seems a little unstructured at times — perhaps this can be chalked up to the fact that directors Lucky McKee and Chris Sivertson are remaking their student film.

As it stands, it is still a fairly entertaining Friday night movie and is worthy of a watch, but be warned that you might walk out thinking this movie could have been a whole lot better.

In Halving the Orange, Michael Hetherington forges a universe in which SFU’s medieval stud-ies program is not a small rump, but instead bolstered by quirky, world-renowned, (and unfor-tunately fictional) Allenbeigh College. Amidst the seemingly idyllic academic environment, however, are the seeds for con-spiracy, drama, and intrigue which slowly become more ap-parent as the plot progresses.

While Hetherington flips back and forth between over half a dozen different viewpoint char-acters, the bulk of the novel fol-lows the journey of Isabella Allen-beigh, daughter of the college’s founders. Raised completely inside its walls, she is kept clois-tered by fear of the outside and devotion to her parents’ wishes for her insulation. The crux of the novel’s plot revolves around Isabella’s deliberation about whether or not to challenge this status quo. These deliberations amount to an incredibly taxing personal struggle, intended to be emotionally evocative.

Yet Halving the Orange is not Isabella’s tale alone. Her story is complimented by a range of characters including her patriar-chal father Richard, the wayward Malcolm, the mysterious Filbert, and even a flashback to the per-spective of her deceased mother. One thing that shapes nearly all the characters, though, is their academic environment and as-sociation with the focused study of Allenbeigh College.

Many of the characters ex-press anxieties and obsessions that we students should find all too familiar — worries about job prospects, enthusiasm for ob-scure books, and fixation on each other’s educational pedigree. Perhaps the greatest strength of Hetherington’s work is his ability to realize his characters distrac-tions by mundane mental mean-derings that readers like us will surely emphasize with.

Unfortunately, the ability of the characters to come to life on the pages of this book is greatly hampered by his narrators’ in-distinctive voices. Each seems to

approach the world in a matter-of-fact way. Dialogue and inter-nal monologues alike seem to be more reminiscent of a technical manual than vibrant living be-ings, bubbling with emotion.

For example, when the gar-dener, Gregory is faced with an unsettling proposition, Heth-erington writes: “He thought more about his predicament. He was not certain he would consider himself in a predica-ment, but that was the way he felt. He had to be careful how much he disclosed.”

If one is to pick Hethering-ton’s chief literary sin, though, it is that he violates the sacred authors’ adage of ‘show, don’t tell.’ Indeed he has the subtlety of a rhinoceros, seeming to have absolutely no confidence in his audience to pick together anything on its own or draw the most basic conclusions. Every plot turn and character attri-bute seems to be directly ex-plained, re-explained, and then re-re-explained once again.

Another deeply disappoint-ing aspect of Halving the Orange is simply the prose itself, which is as flowery as a dry tumbleweed. Hetherington, with his three university degrees from two top-notch schools (as well as UBC), seems to bear the curse of an academic writing tradition that values concise clarity over any measure of confusion or florid-ity. This greatly undermines the ability for the story and charac-ters to truly come alive on a vis-ceral level.

The advantage of Hether-ington’s style affords the reader a great deal of clarity. I do not think I was left confused about what was happening at any point in the book, despite the some-what convoluted plot. While I believe Halving the Orange lacks the emotional punch Hethering-ton aspires to, anyone who opts to pick up a copy can fully expect to read something that is both complex and coherent.

16 ARTS July 28, 2014

Taking a walk down the Down-town Eastside of Vancouver, it’s easy to see the prevalence of pain; neglect and poverty is spread across a range of fragmented communities. While these diverse communities exist in a shared space, a local grassroots art proj-ect sees them as lacking a symbol to rally behind, a physical repre-sentation of their unity through oppression. Enter the Survivors’ Totem Pole project.

The project aims to raise a totem pole somewhere in the heart of the Downtown Eastside. Spear-headed by Raven Haida Carver Skundaal, also known by her Eng-lish name, Bernie Williams, the Survivors’ Totem project aims to provide the Downtown Eastside with a physical manifestation of not just the communities’ strug-gles, but also their bonds. Symbol-izing the resistance, persistence, and inclusion of their communi-ties, the carving aims to combat the exact opposite: oppression, neglect, and exclusion.

I sit with Skundaal in the com-mon area of the Sacred Circle So-ciety. The workbench nearby is a hodgepodge of machinery and art supplies. The pool table is working double time as its backup, hous-ing crafting tools and billiard balls.

“This community has a big history,” she explains. “The Sur-vivors’ Pole is about the history of who we are.” Her confident demeanor carries the discussion forward. “It’s going up,” she says, “just pull the community together and start fresh.” This is at the core of the project, the joining of frac-tured communities that share a common struggle.

“I think you know that’s my big thing, because we are so divided out here. I think that this pole is just giving [people] that hope, that hope for everyone who wants some change here.” And according to Skundaal, people want change.

The Downtown Eastside faces many problems. Basic human needs such as adequate housing still aren’t being met. “It’s very

scary,” she says, “When I talk to the homeless people up here, they’re afraid. They wonder where things are going, where they’ll be in the next couple of years.”

These basic needs are still lacking in the Eastside, and their absence has spurred activism in many of its residents. “They want the simplest things, basic human rights that everyone should have, and to have proper housing for themselves. And you know at the end of the day, that the people in this community have come to-gether to fight for this.”

Skundaal often considers the perceptions of Vancouverites; she contemplates the outsider’s view of the Downtown Eastside. “There’s such a stigma down here,” she explains. “When they talk about the Downtown East-side, they see the drunkenness, the addictions.” She believes that it’s hard for people to look past the common tropes that are ap-plied to the residents of the area. “I am just mindful,” Skundaal says. “There is a reason why these people ended up down here, and they [all] have their own stories.”

It’s at this point in the conver-sation that I all too casually used the term “homeless.” She stops me and speaks, “They are never homeless; they are houseless.

They have a home. They are just needing a house to live in.”

The Survivors’ Totem aims to disassemble these common misconceptions. “It’s just this big stereotypical mindset. What [Survivors’ Totem] is trying to do is to go and educate. It’s all about education.”

The community of activists behind the project don’t see these people through the common lense. “I don’t take things for granted, be-cause things can happen to you so quick out here, or even in your own home, and you could end up down here. It’s the most giving and wel-coming community that I’ve ever been in,” expresses Skundaal. “They are wonderful people down here, but we have to lose this mentality.”

The medium behind the art has its roots in First Nations culture, specifically Haida, but it’s intended message is not exclusive to these nationalities. The pole, as a sym-bol, is intended to unite a plethora of cultures in the Downtown East-side, some of which have been op-pressed throughout Canadian his-tory. “I’m hoping [that] this pole will unify us,” says Skundaal, “I think about the land we are on, [and] I would like to acknowledge the four Coast Nations here.”

The medium itself expresses these ideas through the materials and design. The lumber, dated to be over 982 years old, originates from BC’s own Haida Gwaii. Once com-pleted, an eagle will perch at the top. “In my culture, the eagle is the closest messenger to the creator,” explains Skundaal. “Our prayers, they go with it.”

Underneath this eagle, a raven will sit. “The raven is about transfor-mation,” she continues, “It’s about what all of us have gone through, and how we’re transforming [our-selves] everyday.” Nestled below the raven, will be the whale: “The whale is the largest mammal of the waters. [Their size shows] how strong they are, and this also [represents] the people,” she explains. At the base of the pole, holding the other animals up, will sit the mother bear.

“I’m a female carver,” she explains — a rare occurrence in Haida tradition — “So when we [other female carvers] carve it, we always put it at the bottom, where the women hold and carry [the weight]. This animalistic im-agery intends to weave together the narrative of the people who have lived, and are still living, in the Downtown Eastside.

Creating a piece to rep-resent all these ideas is a tall order, but Skundaal is deter-mined. “We can never right the wrongs,” she explains, “but we can sure as heck make a state-ment and move forwards.”

17ARTS July 28, 2014

THE PEAK IS LOOKING TO HIRE A

PROMOTIONS COORDINATOR!

The job is for an outgoing person who canorganize and manage events, recruit

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It pays $14.50 per hour for an averageof eight hours per week during the regular

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Contact DAVID@THE-PEAK.CA to inquire.

Woody Allen’s fascination with France in the 1920’s seems far from over. While in Midnight in Paris, Owen Wilson’s char-acter travels back and forth between present-day Paris and the Paris of the Jazz Age, Magic in the Moonlight is set in the south of France during the late 20’s. The experience of watch-ing Magic in the Moonlight is in some ways similar to that of Midnight in Paris: there is a lot of jazz music, Gatsby-like costumes, and a picturesque French setting.

While the visual experience of the two films may be similar, Allen presents a very different and — as with most of his other films — original story in Magic in the Moonlight, offering a wel-coming respite from the sum-mer blockbuster films that often regurgitate familiar storylines.

Stanley (Colin Firth), a re-nowned illusionist and a rigid rationalist, travels to the south of France to expose a spirit me-dium named Sophie (Emma Stone) at the request of a magi-cian friend. While Stanley is ini-tially certain that Sophie, like all other people who claim to be spiritualists, is a fraud, he soon finds himself believing that her gift is real and begins to question his own worldview.

One intriguing aspect of the film is its constant juxtaposition

of spirituality and logic. It seems to ask if it is worthwhile to be an unbending rationalist if that leads to a hopeless, pessimis-tic life, or if it is better to live a more meaningful life as a spiri-tualist, even if it means that we may have to believe in illusions.

While Magic in the Moonlight raises these thought-provoking questions, it also oversimplifies the spirituality versus rationality debate. Yet, that may be inten-tional on Allen’s part. The film is filled with humour (it is sup-posed to be a romantic comedy after all), thus the very questions that it raises are perhaps not to be taken all that seriously.

If there is anything close to magical in the film, then it is the performances by the lead actors. Emma Stone handles the theat-rical, stereotypical character of a spirit medium nicely without making it seem ridiculous.

Colin Firth is brilliant as an arrogant rationalist. There are several moments in the film that showcase his talent, one of which is a conversation that his charac-ter has with his aunt near the end of the film. In the scene, Firth ef-fectively juggles the various con-tradictions of Stanley’s character such as his wittiness, his ego, his rigid rationalism, and also his growing desire to heed some-thing other than logical thought.

While it may not be abso-lutely magical, Magic in the Moonlight is still entertaining to watch. Fans of Woody Allen will not be disappointed with this film, as it possesses the aes-thetic feel that is unique to Al-len’s work blended with some impressive acting and several amusing moments.

18 ARTS July 28, 2014

What happens when a film company takes the pain of loss as artistic inspiration? Broken Palace, the new short docu-mentary by Next One produc-tions answers this question. Noticing that the gorgeous single screen theatres found all over Greater Vancouver were closing, this creative team took to the streets to document their sudden demise.

Next One productions is a company committed to BC film, creating pieces that are “excit-ing and relevant.” Directed by Ross Munro, Broken Palace is their most recent work. After at-tending film school in Toronto, Munro came to the West Coast where he acted in and directed many shows, eventually joining Next One productions.

Broken Palace is an “im-pressionistic journey” into the beautiful past and sad pres-ent of single screen theatres. Glorious, decadent buildings, many single screen theatres were built in the 1930’s. Archi-tecturally beautiful, and full of the history of cinema, these theatres made the moviegoing experience truly regal.

When The Ridge theatre in Vancouver closed down, Munro and his team were inspired to “get moving on the idea of this documentary.” Munro wanted to explore “what happens when the theatre gets knocked down” and to “preserve memories of the theatre.”

Ross got nostalgic when dis-cussing his past with the the-atres, remembering the “wow factor of single screens” when he was young. “With a little bit of a sad heart,” he described the theatres as elegant little palaces: “It’s like wandering into a fantasy world . . . exotic and magical.”

“The documentary,” Ross says, “is a celebration, but . . . the film is a bittersweet re-minder of a bygone era.” This film aspires to immortalize the theatres, Ross says “you only have one chance to preserve the past. It’s important we really maintain our heritage.”

Filming was a haunting expe-rience, explains Ross, describ-ing the closed theatres empty and forgotten reminiscent of walking among ghosts. Ross

tries to embody this feeling in the character of the usherette, played by local actress Kristen Brown. The usherette pulls the audience into the film, giving the audience someone with which to identify. The viewer is brought full circle through eyes of the usherette.

Munro explains that the uni-versality of the documentary comes from its short length. It allowed the company to focus on the commonalities of the theatres, so that viewers would recall their own memories. Ross also explains that the time frame fits perfectly into that of the short documentaries that used to play before movies in the old theatres. Ross says that they tried to “create the movie going experience” once more.

The documentary, for me, had a haunting, poetic quality. I found the use of destructive footage highly effective, espe-cially when juxtaposed beside the beauty of the theatres still standing. Gorgeous, panning shots of local single screen the-atres really accented what we are losing culturally as these buildings get torn down.

Growing up watching mov-ies at my local single screen theatre, I certainly know the pain of losing a beloved artistic landmark. Broken Palace takes this terrible trend of loss and turns it into cinematic magic, bringing the viewer once again into the drama and glory of the single screen theatre.

– September 12Featuring Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth, Before I Go To Sleep tells the story of Christine, who can’t remember who she is or anything about her past each morning when she wakes. With the help of her husband, journals, video dia-ries, and her doctor, she goes through the process of find-ing herself each day. Until the accident that caused her memory loss just doesn’t seem to add up . . .

– September 19Estranged twins, played by Saturday Night Live alums Kris-ten Wiig and Bill Hader, cheat death on the exact same day, and decide to try to fix their relationship. The Skeleton Twins is sure to be full of laughter and sweet sibling bond-ing moments.

– September 26Featuring Jessica Chastain and James McAvoy, The Disap-pearance of Eleanor Rigby was created uniquely as a set of three separate yet interrelated films. “Them” will be coming out in theaters this year. “Him” and “Her” were screened last year at film festivals. All three tell the story of a relation-ship break down following a tragedy, from their different perspectives.

– October 3The latest in our line of end of the world films, Left Behind is based on the series of the same title. It stars Nicholas Cage and Chad Michael Murray as some of the people who are left behind once a large population of the world sud-denly vanishes, leaving destruction in their wake.

– October 17The newest in Nicholas Sparks’ line of romantic books turned into movies takes place in two timelines 20 years apart. High school sweethearts Amanda and Dawson are reunited when they are both visiting their hometown, only to realize they haven’t lost their high school love. The Best of Me stars Michelle Monaghan, Liana Liberato and James Marsden.

– November 7Director Christopher Nolan’s latest, Interstellar, is a dys-topian space adventure featuring Matthew McConaughey, Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway. In a catastrophic fu-ture, astronauts discover a wormhole they believe may lead to saving the fate of mankind.

– November 14Foxcatcher follows the tragic true story of wrestling broth-ers Mark and Dave Schultz and their Olympic trainer, John du Pont. Starring Channing Tatum, Mark Rufalo, and Steve Carrel, this sports thriller already has Oscar buzz surround-ing it.

– November 21With everyone’s favourite Sherlock, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Kiera Knightly, this biographical drama is sure to be popular this fall. The Imitation Game follows English logi-cian Alan Turing, who races against the clock to crack the Enigma code, which transmitted secret enemy messages, during World War II.

19DIVERSIONS / ETC July 28, 2014

Across1- Form of poem, often used to praise some-thing4- French school9- Castle water pits14- Dr. Dre’s genre15- Giver16- ___-ski17- Evaporate19- More wise20- Uneven21- Recurring series23- Sandberg of baseball24- Overact27- Break, card game30- Parched32- Uno + due33- Gratification37- Author Zola39- Green citrus bever-age40- One whose name ap-pears under the head42- Astrologer Sydney43- Sicilians, e.g.44- Involuntary muscular contraction45- Wave riders48- Agitate50- Intervening, in law51- Indian exercise method

55- Shoot for57- Closes58- Threepio’s buddy60- Robot64- Orchestra section65- Habituate66- Charlemagne’s realm: Abbr.67- A trainee in a profes-sion68- Bridget Fonda, to Jane69- Isr. neighbor Down1- Command2- Pyramid category3- Big name in printers4- Actress McClurg5- One with a beat6- ___ roll7- Destiny

8- Puts up9- Not fem.10- October birthstones11- Republic in S South America12- Driver’s aid13- Georgia, once: Abbr.18- Compass dir.22- Are we there ___?24- Israel’s Barak25- Bog26- Bauxite, e.g.28- Senator Specter29- Equals30- Autocratic Russian rulers31- Shouts33- Schemes34- Boundary35- Skinny36- ___ Lingus

38- DI doubled40- Bingo call41- Dextrous, lively43- Conditions46- Actress Thurman47- Keep possession of49- ___ Janeiro51- Verily52- Vows53- Renown54- “Lou Grant” star56- The majority of57- Hook’s helper58- Rainbow shape59- “Michael Collins” actor61- Verse starter?62- Calendar abbr.63- Tolkien ogre

Do  you  want  to  hear  your  voice  on  the  radio?  To  attend  various  music  events?  To  have  fun?  Then  CJSF  radio  is  for  you!

Join  CJSF  90.1  FM  as  a  volunteer  and  take  a  45-­minute  orientation  tour  

can  do  and  learn  at  your  campus  radio.  (We’re  in  TC216  right  over  the  

Burnaby  campus  main  entrance.)

1st  Friday  of  the  month  at  3pm2nd  Tuesday  at  4pm3rd  Thursday  at  3  pm4th  Wednesday  at  6:15  pm Hope  to  see  you  there!

CLASSIFIEDS@THE-PEAK.CA

20 July 28, 2014photo editor Anderson Wang email / phone photos@the-peak.caCOMMUNITY PHOTOS

July 28, 2014

21humour editor Brad McLeodemail / phone humour@the-peak.ca / 778.782.4560HUMOUR July 28, 2014

isn’t for the faint of heart . . . you might be offended by all the cardiac arrest jokes.

A child was awoken late last night with significant sores on his back after he foolishly al-lowed himself to be bitten by bedbugs despite being warned repeatedly not to let them bite.

Joey Foreman, who is nearly six-and-a-half and really should know better, is now having to deal with the repercussions of his actions according to his dis-appointed parents.

“We tell him every night to not let the bedbugs bite and he never listens,” his mother Sheryl told The Peak. “Maybe now he’ll think twice before ignoring us and just sleeping carefree and happily.”

Sheryl explained that Joey had continually let his guard down at night, going to sleep without taking proper safety precautions and, as a result, was bitten by the bugs.

“‘I think he thought we were just kidding or something, he’d always just laugh and say ‘good night’ instead of agreeing to ward them off,” she continued. “He got lucky for the first cou-ple years that we didn’t have much of an infestation prob-lem, but now he’s facing reality.

“He’s got to know that part of growing up is conquering

bedbugs and not just letting them crawl all over you and then take as many bites as they want to.”

While Joey might have be-lieved that the sores were enough of a punishment, his parents say they are also ban-ning TV for a week to teach him a strict lesson for not doing as he was told.

In response, Joey has issued the public statement that “It’s not fair.”

22 HUMOUR July 28, 2014

The number of university stu-dents who are chronically un-derweight and aren’t eating properly is staggering, accord-ing to a study conducted by their grandmas.

According to their research — staring at you and your “loose pants” — today’s college student is not receiving nearly enough proper nutrients and should definitely take some of these leftovers with them when they leave.

“It’s absolutely astonishing how skinny these kids are when they come home,” explained Betty Green, the grandmother of two of the test subjects, SFU students John and Carol. “It’s appalling to be honest, why aren’t they having more home-cooked meals?”

Green believes that immedi-ate action needs to be taken to help today’s youth before they “wither away and die.”

When asked what could be done, she answered immedi-ately, “Have a second helping, I’ve got plenty of food.”

“Eat, eat, eat,” she contin-ued, outlining her health plan to combat the massive mal-nourishment problem. “I’ve got roast beef, a casserole, veg-etables — you need to eat more vegetables, how often are you eating vegetables? They’re good for you, you know.”

Green’s sentiments have been echoed by grandmothers all across the country and even

the world, although there have been disagreements as to the specifics of how to combat the egregious problem.

While some claim that offer-ing another piece of lasagna is the key, others believe that filling plates with more dumplings and spring rolls will solve everything.

Although there is a split when it comes to what foods are best to return today’s starving, sickly students to prime health, there is a consensus that they should de-finately “come visit more often.”

The study is expected to con-tinue indefinitely, with grand-mothers stockpiling more and more food each time subjects are in their presence and forcing upon their plates.

The entire research is not supported by the world’s grandfathers, however, who are reportedly too busy conducting their own study on why grand-mothers “can’t just leave these kids alone” and also trying to determine precisely the reason why “things aren’t the way they were when they were young.”

23July 28, 2014HUMOUR

24 LAST WORD features editor Max Hillemail / phone features@the-peak.ca / 778.782.4560 July 28, 2014

assumption undermines the efforts of women’s rights groups, and acts decon-structively to reinforce barriers within a gendered society; it is a flashpoint us-or-them argument that debilitates open discussion and is, frankly, pretty smug.

#YesAllWomen was borne from the same well-intentioned wellspring as #NotAllMen, before the latter was hijacked by MRA zealots. No, Not All Men are psychopathic deviants who enact sexual violence on women. No, Not All Men have their heads buried in the sand over the progression of gender norms. No, Not All Men har-bour a hatred of women that leads them to murder.

Not All Men are Elliot Rodger, just as Not All Men are Ted Bundy or Jef-frey Dahmer.

It is clearly illustrated by the stories of women whose tales of abuse and vio-lence and fear were shared through the Yes All Women hashtag that, while Not All Men are psychopaths hiding under a cloak of benign behaviour, some are. But to automatically qualify all men as a ‘potential threat’ is patently ridiculous.

If this were reversed, then Yes All Men should feel terrified of leav-ing their wives or girlfriends home

with their children, because they might drown them in bathtub à la Andrea Yates. It is a leap of logic so strenuous that you would need seri-ous stretching in advance to prevent blowing a hamstring.

According to the blog Finally, A Feminism 101, men are incapable of being discriminated against. Similarly, feminist ideas of sexism and patriarchy repeatedly refute the idea of reverse sexism, i.e. sexism directed towards men. In this view, men cannot experi-ence sexism because, ancestrally and historically, we have enjoyed nothing but power.

This is ridiculous. In essence, femi-nists have labeled being born a het-erosexual cis-male a crime — a crime of existence. I cannot choose who I am, nor what I am, any more so than I can choose what freedoms and benefits my ancestors enjoyed. I cannot speak for them, and I am not responsible for their decisions or reasoning. I am me, in the present day, and I want to talk.

The gross assumption that all men are predators and therefore cannot play a part in the revolution is absurd. The civil rights movement was abetted by whites who championed those causes.

The same can be said, in part, of the gay rights movement.

Yes, all women struggle with a pa-triarchal society that establishes cer-tain behaviours as norms. But the term “women” is generally inclusive of all

women, irrespective of sexual prefer-ence or race or upbringing. This broad scope facilitates inclusion. The same broad scope when turned towards men, however, only facilitates conflict.

As Courtney Enlow of Pajiba.com tweeted in response to a #YesAllPeople counter-trend, “We don’t have to try so hard to make ourselves male-friendly or male-inclusive. It’s OK for us to focus on the us part of equality.” Hers is a lovely sentiment. But how can we be expected, as cis-males blinded by our apparent privilege, to become better educated or aid in change when we are greeted with a “No Boys Allowed” sign on the club-house door?

This is not about agitation, or label-ling feminists sexist. It is about the pro-cess of reconciliation and healing. All too often, there is a strict yes or no mentality when it comes to diplomacy, which only sends us deeper down the rabbit hole. Feminists: Stop. Engage. You just might be surprised.

ftentimes, the best course of action when faced with a topic that explodes in social or traditional media circles is to step back

and examine it from afar. This has be-come difficult in the era of the ‘hot take,’ where the desire for instant gratification and analysis informs nearly every aspect of life, particularly media cycles. As such, the initial opinion formed — however incorrect — forms a lasting impression which becomes nearly impossible to avoid.

Given that preamble, you may be-lieve that Eliot Rodger’s murderous rampage in Isla Vista was borne from a systematic, even institutionalized, male hatred of women. Never mind the fact that most of Rodger’s victims were members of his own gender; the image seared into our collective conscious is that of a highly disturbed individual espousing a deep-seated hatred of women, ensconced in his privileged mentality and repeated sex-ual rejection.

But to assess Rodger’s ramblings as an astute dissection of human na-ture and pan-male behaviour is to afford it way too much credit — this is an oversimplification as damag-ing to gender discussions as Rod-ger’s own arguments.

Rodger was not a scholar of gender theory; nor was he a worldly, educated person immersed in a wide range of cul-tural viewpoints. He was a freewheeling sociopath, whose central thesis was qual-itatively obtuse and inconsistent with his actions. But that same thesis grated on the edges of a bundle of raw nerves, and was seized upon to build a strawman ar-gument while the families of his victims wept on the six o’clock news.

It was easy, especially at first, to get caught up in the stunning tide of the #Ye-sAllWomen discussion. As a heterosexual male, I have no idea what it is like to be a woman. I have no idea of what it is like to be gratuitously objectified or made to feel uncomfortable or cornered in society’s fringes. I cannot truly empathize because I cannot truly relate, and I do not want to sympathize because that approach is, to me, belittling and patronizing.

However, I believe that it is important to be inclusive in terms of discussion, as communication and education are pow-erful tools. Opening one’s mind to learn and appreciate and understand is a con-structive pathway that facilitates resolu-tion. But what has become apparent is that most women — at least those who advocate feminist theory — are unwilling to be inclusive.

No, I do not think that “all feminists hate men,” an oft-repeated yet utterly idiotic argument seized upon by many Men’s Rights Activists. But I do think that too many feminists are unwilling to en-gage men in their discussions.

Perhaps the most egregiously false assumption made by numerous femi-nists is that ‘\”sexism” — a loaded gun catch-all accusation — flows unidirec-tionally from men towards women. This