The Concordian volume 29, issue 13

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the concordian theconcordian.com Volume 29 Issue 13 Mo’ter Boat your way through Movember P. 7 life FOFA presents annual undergrad exhibition P. 12 arts Some dog breeds having a ‘roff’ time in Montreal P. 22 opinions music Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2011 sports Stingers leave Rouge et Or seeing red P. 18 Proposed transparency motions touch a nerve at board meeting Board of Governors at odds over how much public interaction should be allowed in their meetings Alyssa Tremblay Assistant news editor Concordia’s Board of Governors is in agreement with one representative’s call for increased transparency at their meetings—they just can’t agree on how to do it. The board is rethinking the way it holds its meetings after graduate representative Erik Chevrier proposed to much debate last Thursday a series of motions formulated to open up the Board’s activities to a wider audience. After rejecting one motion, the board decided to send two discussion points to the executive committee for further review. Chevrier said that the motions were presented in the hopes of getting the board to take “a proactive stance” against controversy. “Concordia picked up quite a big deal of bad press when Judith Woods- worth was let go,” said Chevrier, refer- ring to the dismissal of Concordia’s former president last December, ask- ing that the board take steps to avoid future conflicts by adopting some sort of transparency agreement. The defeated motion called for the location of the board meetings to be able to have no less than 50 seats for those who wish to attend in the same room. Changes were also proposed to the way board meetings are run, calling for all open session board meetings to be video recorded and broadcast, and to establish a 20- minute period in which the public at large can ask questions or comment. The board’s executive committee will study these two ideas, then present their recommendations to the full board. No specific deadline was given for the report. Each motion was presented indi- vidually, resulting in nearly an hour of heated discussion between board members. See ‘Student’ on P. 5 Some expenses show Lowy ‘out of touch’ with students: CSU president Expense report shows university president flies business class and has made numerous repairs to his car Jacques Gallant Editor-in-chief Since taking office in February, Concordia’s interim president Fred- erick Lowy has been reimbursed for over $9,000 in airfare, $4,000 in car expenses, and almost $3,000 in hotel rooms. These numbers, taken from his expense report obtained by The Concordian through an access to information request, are not that surprising to Concordia Student Union president Lex Gill, who de- scribes Lowy’s thousands of dollars in reimbursements as “business as usual.” “It’s actually a little better than what I would have expected, but we all know that senior administra- tion at this university is notori- ous for wasteful spending,” she said. “I’m more interested in the expenses that aren’t here. What is the university buying on his behalf, like golf memberships and cocktails.” The reimbursement forms, all approved by chair of the Board of Governors Peter Kruyt except for one, show that over the past nine months, Lowy has made plane trips to destinations including Toronto, New York, Victoria, and Italy. Although the details in the report are fairly vague and all names except for Lowy’s have been erased, the forms show that Lowy’s trip to Victoria was for meetings of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, while the New York flight was for “alumni meetings” and the May 21 Italian See ‘Gill’ on P. 5 M musters up a mass of musicians P. 13 Graphic by Katie Brioux You say ‘tuition hike,’ we say ‘pay cut’ Editorial P. 20

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Concordia's independent, weekly student newspaper.

Transcript of The Concordian volume 29, issue 13

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theconcordian.com Volume 29 Issue 13

Mo’ter Boat your way through MovemberP. 7

life

FOFA presents annual undergrad exhibition P. 12

arts

Some dog breeds having a ‘roff’ time in MontrealP. 22

opinions

music

Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2011

sports

Stingers leave Rouge et Or seeing red P. 18

Proposed transparency motions touch a nerve at board meetingBoard of Governors at odds over how much public interaction should be allowed in their meetings

Alyssa Tremblay Assistant news editor

Concordia’s Board of Governors is in agreement with one representative’s call for increased transparency at their meetings—they just can’t agree on how to do it.

The board is rethinking the way it holds its meetings after graduate representative Erik Chevrier proposed to much debate last Thursday a series of motions formulated to open up the Board’s activities to a wider audience.

After rejecting one motion, the board decided to send two discussion points to the executive committee for further review.

Chevrier said that the motions were presented in the hopes of getting the board to take “a proactive stance” against controversy.

“Concordia picked up quite a big deal of bad press when Judith Woods-worth was let go,” said Chevrier, refer-ring to the dismissal of Concordia’s

former president last December, ask-ing that the board take steps to avoid future conflicts by adopting some sort of transparency agreement.

The defeated motion called for the location of the board meetings to be able to have no less than 50 seats for those who wish to attend in the same room.

Changes were also proposed to the way board meetings are run, calling for all open session board meetings to be video recorded and broadcast, and to establish a 20-minute period in which the public at large can ask questions or comment. The board’s executive committee will study these two ideas, then present their recommendations to the full board. No specific deadline was given for the report.

Each motion was presented indi-vidually, resulting in nearly an hour of heated discussion between board members.

See ‘Student’ on P. 5

Some expenses show Lowy ‘out of touch’ with students: CSU presidentExpense report shows university president flies business class and has made numerous repairs to his car

Jacques Gallant Editor-in-chief

Since taking office in February, Concordia’s interim president Fred-erick Lowy has been reimbursed for over $9,000 in airfare, $4,000 in car expenses, and almost $3,000 in hotel rooms.

These numbers, taken from his expense report obtained by The Concordian through an access to information request, are not that surprising to Concordia Student Union president Lex Gill, who de-scribes Lowy’s thousands of dollars in reimbursements as “business as usual.”

“It’s actually a little better than what I would have expected, but we all know that senior administra-tion at this university is notori-ous for wasteful spending,” she

said. “I’m more interested in the expenses that aren’t here. What is the university buying on his behalf, like golf memberships and cocktails.”

The reimbursement forms, all approved by chair of the Board of Governors Peter Kruyt except for one, show that over the past nine months, Lowy has made plane trips to destinations including Toronto, New York, Victoria, and Italy.

Although the details in the report are fairly vague and all names except for Lowy’s have been erased, the forms show that Lowy’s trip to Victoria was for meetings of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, while the New York flight was for “alumni meetings” and the May 21 Italian

See ‘Gill’ on P. 5

M musters up a mass of musicians P. 13

Graphic by Katie Brioux

You say ‘tuition hike,’ we say ‘pay cut’

Editorial P. 20

news2

Cockroaches infest Guy Concordia metro

The Société de transport de Montréal has called in an extermination com-pany to handle an infestation of cock-roaches at the Guy-Concordia metro station on the green line. Passengers saw the bugs on walls and stairs of the metro station, which connects directly to Concordia’s downtown campuses via a series of tunnels and underground passages, according to a report by QMI Agency. STM spokes-person Marianne Rouette said the STM has been struggling to get rid of the roaches since the summer, in-creasing the number of times extermi-nators have been called in from once a month to once a week. Food and water left on the metro platforms is being blamed for the infestation.

Search in progress for

new JMSB deanProvost David Graham brought Board of Governors members up to speed on the hiring process for the next dean of the John Molson School of Busi-ness. At Thursday’s board meeting, the Provost said search consultants have been in contact with 122 poten-tial candidates, at least nine of whom have already gone through prelimi-nary interviews and will be added to the list of 12 to 20 candidates. The committee aims to meet in January to consider this list of candidates for the position of JMSB dean. Current interim dean Alan Hochstein was ap-pointed to the position on July 1, 2011.

Big brother is Googling youEducation Minister Line Beauchamp and her department are facing heavy criticism from both the Official Oppo-sition and student groups for manipu-lating Google searches concerning tuition fee hikes. The Gazette reported that the provincial government paid a Montreal-based communications firm $50,000 to buy out certain keywords and bumping www.droitsdescolarite.com, a government-run website, to the top of the list when a student makes Google searches about the tuition fee increase. The method of purchasing key words in order to influence search engine results is commonly used as a marketing tool for businesses.

Extreme sport: crossing the street in MTL

Montreal is doing little to ensure that roads are safe for pedestrians, accord-ing to a recent special report by CTV. The report found that Montreal’s pe-destrian charter, a plan adopted in 2006 aiming to make the city safer for those who walk, was never imple-mented. According to a list compiled by Dr. Patrick Morency of the city’s public health department, the number one collision location for pedestrians is the intersection of Lacordaire and Henri-Bourassa East. For cyclists and motorists, the most dangerous spots are the corner of Parc and Mount Royal and Highway 40 at Stinson, respectively.

City in briefAlyssa Tremblay

Got a news tip? [email protected]

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Concordia publishes salaries for university administratorscampus

Salaries and benefits of 28 senior administrators included in financial statements

Jacqueline Di Bartolomeo News edtior

Former Concordia President Ju-dith Woodsworth received $747,045 in severance and taxable benefits in the 11-month fiscal year that ended April 30, 2011, as well as a portion of her annual base salary of $351,750 for her time in office from June to December 2010, according to the university’s audited financial statements.

The statements were released in the days prior to last week’s Board of Governors meeting, and reveal the salary and benefits of 28 senior university administrators, including several who left before completing their terms.

Woodsworth was ousted by the BoG on Dec. 22 of last year. Soon after her departure it was reported that she would receive $703,500 under the terms of her contract, equivalent to two years’ worth of her annual base salary.

According to university spokes-person Chris Mota, the total amount of taxable benefits Woodsworth received between June 1, 2010 and Dec. 22 also included a “housing allowance of $3,000 per month, car allowance of $1,200 per month, the employer’s cost of health insurance and similar items.”

The former president also received $169,573 in indemnity rights. VP institutional relations Bram Freedman, chief financial

officer Patrick Kelley, university controller Daniel Therrien and VP services Roger Côté met with stu-dent media on Monday to discuss the statements.

According to Freedman, some academic administrators are entitled to a six-month administrative leave after they finish their terms where they continue to receive their administrator’s salary. The leave is meant to allow the administrator to re-acclimatize themselves to the academic world before re-entering it, Freedman said. An administrator can exercise their indemnity rights if they do not use the leave.

Freedman specified that type of arrangement is not unique to Concordia.

Woodsworth was also re-imbursed for $18,230 worth of expenses for university business-related activities.

Kathy Assayag, former VP advancement and alumni relations, was paid a base salary of $283,785 plus taxable benefits of $113,298, the second highest amount of tax-able benefits after Woodsworth. Assayag stepped down on Sept. 21, 2010 for personal reasons.

Former dean of the John Molson School of Business Sanjay Sharma, who left for a position at the Uni-versity of Vermont at the end of the winter semester, was given a salary of $246,174 in addition to $62,504 of taxable benefits. He was also reimbursed for $27,714 worth of business-related expenses, the high-

est of the 28 administrators listed in the financial statements.

Responding to a question about interim president Frederick Lowy’s expense report, which The Concord-ian reported included $9,000 in airfare, $4,000 for car expenses and $3,000 for hotel rooms in the past year, Freedman said, “The intima-tion of that question is that is a lot of money so yes, it is a lot of money but I should add that one of the main roles of the president of the university, especially a large univer-sity like ours, is to travel on behalf of the university and promote the university.”

Asked whether such expenses could be viewed as university waste, Freedman responded, “We

don’t feel that any of these expens-es are wasted, or that the university is hemorrhaging money. Obviously, we feel that these are all justified expenses.

“I think we all take very seri-ously the notion that we work for a public institution that is supported by taxpayers’ dollars, that is sup-ported by students’ tuition fees, and I think we make particular efforts to be responsible and conservative. I understand it may not appear that way, looking at some of these num-bers, [but] we are huge institution. [...] I think it is important to look at it in the context of a $350 million a year operating budget and 7,000 employee operation with, as you know, 45,000 students.”

campus

Donations largely steady from year to year

Jacqueline Di Bartolomeo News editor

Audited financial statements approved by BoG

Concerns that the controversial departure of then-president Judith Woodsworth in December of last year would affect the amount of pledged donations to the university revealed themselves to be unfound-ed, according to figures included in the audited financial statements presented to the Board of Governors on Thursday.

While on paper the amount of pledged donations fell from $7,3 million in 2009-2010 to $5,1 million, university controller Daniel Therrien noted in a meeting with student media that the drop was mostly due

to accounting changes. “In 2009-2010 [...] the CSU

student centre fund money and the CSU library fund, which are funds that are raised by students, were added to those figures last year,” Therrien said. “When we look at our financial statements this year, we considered that those two funds did not meet the definition of dona-tion because they are CSU-imposed fees on the student population so we took them out of the equation, but we did not readjust last year’s figures.” The funds were counted as donation revenue because it was part of funding available for univer-sity premises, Therrien explained.

To meet the criteria for dona-tions, Therrien said, the funds have to be freely given.

At Thursday’s meeting, the BoG approved a motion that mandated that the university hold off on ap-

plying tuition increases affecting international international students in deregulated programs in the John Molson School of Business and the Faculty of Engineering and Com-puter Science until “a greater clarity on the MELS position is known,” according to the motion moved by President Frederick Lowy. The motion specified that the forfaitaire increase had not yet been set by the Ministry of Education, Recreation and Sports for the 2011-2012 year.

Revenue from tuition fees were up from $85,2 million in 2009-2010 to $94,6 million.

A two-year deficit in food servic-es was also subject to questioning at the briefing. While the university’s ancillary services generated revenue of $18,5 million, food services, which are comprised in ancillary revenue, suffered a $203,000 loss.The category, which includes two

administrative components as well as the unit that oversees food service operations, also ended 2009-2010 in the red, with a deficit of $150,000.

The food component, which includes services provided by Chartwells, reported a $51,000 loss for the 2010-2011 fiscal year, VP services Roger Côté explained to stu-dent media. He attributed the loss to considerations such as the “impact of some retail food outlets on cam-pus that we have,” renovations on campus and unused space owned by the university such as the Mon-tefiore Club on Guy Street which could be used for catering events to bring in commission revenue.

“Those are factors that will be adjusted as we go forward,” Côté said. He noted that the university wants vendors to serve the entire community on both campuses, not just the most popular areas.

We don’t feel that any of these expenses are wasted, or that the university is hemorrhaging

money. Obviously, we feel that these are all justified expenses.

- Bram Freedman, VP institutional relations “

Tuesday, November 22, 2011 3Follow us on Twitter: @TheConcordian

Air security agency col-lecting too much info

Privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart has found the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority is keeping records which contain in-formation about passengers not re-lated to air security. According to the Canadian Press, the commissioner studied a random sample of 150 of the 10,400 incident reports kept by the agency. In an annual report presented to Parliament, Stoddart found that the agency keeps files about narcotics, tobacco, and large sums of money which are found in travellers’ luggage. Meanwhile, a visit to the rooms where officials screen full body scans found that the rooms contained a cell phone as well as a closed circuit televi-sion, neither of which are allowed because they can record video. The CCTV was disabled after the visit.

Concerns voiced over Rippers logo

Ontario minor league baseball team London Rippers are stirring up con-troversy after revealing their logo this week, which some say refer-ences serial killer Jack the Ripper, who preyed on women in London, England in the 1880s. The logo fea-tures a “nefarious-looking man,” according to the CBC, while the ta-gline is “Lurking in Labatt Park this Spring.” London Mayor Joe Fontana expressed concerns about the name and wants to speak to the owner about changing it, and the London Abused Women’s Centre has voiced its objection to the logo. Director Megan Walker said she contacted the owner asking for the logo to be taken down. Team president and general manager David Martin said the name was a play on the baseball term “rip.”

Queen’s band suspendedThe Queen’s University marching band has been suspended for the rest of the semester because of ma-terial circulated by the band that the university deemed to be offensive towards women. According to The National Post, circulated guidebooks and songbooks which included de-grading lyrics. The Kingston, Ont. university officials also mandated that band members receive human rights training. Dean of student af-fairs Ann Tierney called the materi-als “unacceptable.” The band, which is partially funded by students, is said to be one of the largest uni-versity marching bands in Canada.

Robbers target sex toys and undies

New Brunswick police are saying 16 cases of stolen sex toys and wom-en’s underwear in the Saint-Paul and Sainte-Marie area have been reported since last Thursday. The RCMP say the thefts began in July, and that the targeted homes were empty when they occurred. CTV reported police do not know how many people are involved in the thefts, and ask that residents come forward to report robberies even if they are not comfortable doing so.

Nation in brief

Jacqueline Di Bartolomeo

Time to get a move on: Mayor

The CSU byelection race is onPolls open for student union byelection in one weekAlyssa Tremblay Assistant news editor

While the tell-tale signs of election time have yet to pop up on campus, the Concordia Student Union has just entered its final week of the byelections period.

Students will be able to choose between four candidates vying for three seats reserved for business students on the CSU council when polling stations open on Nov. 29, 30, and Dec.1, while only one candidate has applied for the two vacant independent seats.

Newly appointed chief electoral officer Ismail Holoubi was given the position on Nov. 2 following the controversial dismissal of former CEO Bram Goldstein. Holoubi has had less than a month to pick up where Goldstein left off.

“Time was the only challenge,”

wrote Holoubi in an email. “I managed to get everything back on schedule.”

Museb Abu-Thuraia, Saradjen Bartley, Yassine Chaabi, and Eduar-do Alves Dos Anjos are competing for three open council seats for the John Molson School of Business.

“John Molson is not very rep-resented at the CSU,” said Chaabi, noting that JMSB councillors rarely showed up to council meetings. “That’s why I decided to get involved in this — to encour-age JMSB students to get more involved with the CSU.”

Alves Dos Anjos agrees with Chaabi that students at the busi-ness school often feel detached from the rest of the university, writing in an email that as a CSU council member he “really wants to give JMSB students a stronger voice within the student adminis-tration at Concordia.”

“In my past years as a JMSB student, I noticed too many JMSB students did not feel that what was going on outside of their class-rooms at Concordia to be relevant

to them,” wrote Alves Dos Anjos.While two seats are available

for independent students, Omar Abdullahi is the only one in the running.

“I have worked with the CSU on several campaigns including ‘Proj-ect Haiti,’” Abdullahi wrote when asked he thinks people should vote for him. “I have been active

on campus for the last 3 years, I have worked in the CSU Advocacy defending the rights of students.”

Also on the ballot are two referendum questions from fee levy groups asking for an increase in funding. Campus radio station CJLO and CUTV are both request-ing to increase their individual fee levies to 34 cents per credit.

campus

campus

Students to vote on new CSU bylawsChanges aim to ‘clean up the rules’ for a more functional, stable union, says CSU president

Alyssa Tremblay Assistant news editor

Students going to the polls at the end of this month will also be voting on whether or not to adopt an updated version of the Concor-dia Student Union’s bylaws.

The updated bylaws need to be ratified by students in order to take effect. According to CSU president Lex Gill, the new bylaws have gone through “hundreds of revisions” and every change has already been approved by council.

“The bylaws have been woe-fully out of date for a long time,”

said Gill, explaining that the pro-cess of modifying the bylaws be-gan during former CSU president Heather Lucas’ term, carrying on into Gill’s.

One of the major changes include the renaming and re-purposing of the student centre fund to the student space, accessible education & legal contingency fund.

This allows the CSU access only to the interest accrued in the fund in order to maintain the union’s general operations in the event of a long-term strike. Gill emphasized that this is a preemp-tive measure for the years ahead and stated that the current CSU mandate’s funds are in order.

The fee levy for the fund has also been lowered from $2 per credit to $1.50 per credit.

“From what we’ve heard from students so far, students aren’t so keen on a centralized building,” said Gill, describing the change of wording of the fund from “centre” to “space” as a preemptive broad-ening to remove limitations as to where student-run areas can be located.

A survey about student space is in the process of being designed by the CSU to be distributed at some point near the start of next semester.

Quorum, the minimum num-ber of members required to make a special general meeting valid, has also been changed in the new version of the bylaws to 450 stu-

dent members. Gill said that this was done in an effort to update the bylaws to accommodate an in-creased amount of undergraduate students represented by the CSU and to make it easier for anyone to call a special general meeting or assembly.

The bylaws require 2.5 per cent of the undergraduate student body to be present in order to make quorum. As it currently stands, the CSU represents over 30,000 undergraduate students. According to the old bylaws, they would need to gather around 750 students in order to reach quo-rum, a logistical problem that was witnessed first-hand last February when nearly 900 students packed onto the Reggie’s terrace for an SGM.

Independent seats JMSB seats

#occupymtl

Sarah Deshaies Chief copy editor

Occupy Mtl announces Phase Three before Tremblay ‘suggests’ they leave

A few hours after the Occupy Toronto movement received an eviction no-tice, Mayor Gérald Tremblay sent a message to Montreal Occupiers on Monday evening suggesting they leave Victoria Square, site of the occu-pation since Oct. 15.

“The time has come for the protesters to find another way to get their message out,” said Tremblay in a statement to OM.

The OM movement has existed in relative peace with Montreal authori-

ties, unlike other occupations where protesters have clashed with police. As long as the movement’s camp was clean and safe, OM was free to stay. But Tremblay said that the safety of the site is now in question.

Recent media reports suggested that there is drug abuse at the sight, and that a knife fight had broken out over the weekend.

Organizer Natasha Hynes, how-ever, denied the allegations, chalk-ing them up to the media “looking for a story.” She also played down Tremblay’s statement, saying “It was more of a suggestion.” Tremblay left

no ultimatum or deadline for OM to vacate.

His suggestion came shortly after protesters unveiled “Phase Three” of the occupation Monday afternoon.

“We’re collaborating, and we’re ready to move on to the new phase [which] hasn’t been determined yet. It will be set by a democratic process through the general assemblies,” said organizer Paul Lebrun. A voluntary ban on alcohol and drugs at the site will continue.

Some reports suggested that people will be leaving the site, but protester Mathieu Tallard said most are staying put: “The people who are working here are not leaving. Some people will, maybe. It’s okay. They

need to take a break, they need to take care of themselves.”

What’s next for those who stay? “Learning, reorganizing, doing

something beautiful, inspiring,” he replied.

Regardless, security patrols are being implemented with Phase Three.

“There are people who are going to continue to stay on the site as long as bloody possible, and there are other people who are going to start spending a lot of energy to grow the movement,” said Hynes. “And that’s what Phase Three is all about: more tangible, direct action, more com-munication with the public, getting people involved.” With files from Athena Tacet

4 Tuesday, November 22, 2011 theconcordian

Congress deems pizza a vegetable

On Thursday, the U.S. Congress passed a bill which allows pizza to continue being counted as a vegetable in school lunches. The move comes after the legislative body blocked proposed changes on Monday to the U.S. school lunch program intended to combat childhood obesity. As they stand, the current rules count a quarter-cup of tomato paste as a vegetable serving. The frozen food industry thought the new rules, which would have required that more tomato paste be included on a pizza to earn vegetable status, would have made the food unappetiz-ing, according to The New York Times.

Craigslist murder mysteryA man and a teenager from Akron, Ohio have been arrested in connec-tion with a plan to murder respon-dents to job search advertisements on Craigslist, the BBC reported. The teen-ager has been charged with attempted murder, while the man has yet to face charges. A first victim escaped from a remote, wooded Ohio property with a wound in the arm after having a gun pointed at the back of his head. The South Carolina man had responded to an ad on the website for a job as a farmhand. After the incident was reported, a woman called police to say that she hadn’t heard from her brother, who had also responded to an ad for help on a farm, in weeks. A body of a Florida man was subse-quently found in a grave nearby; the cause of death is currently unknown.

Brazil oil spill might be bigger than expected

An oil spill that has been leaking off the coast of Brazil since Nov. 8 could be bigger than estimated, Rio de Ja-neiro state environment minister Carlos Minc said on Friday. Federal police said Chevron, the oil company which owns the well, drilled 500 me-tres deeper than allowed. The spill has not yet been contained, and its exact cause is not yet known, the Cana-dian Press reported. While Minc did not disclose how much oil had been spilled, Chevron has said the damage hovers between 400 and 650 barrels of oil, a figure contested by the National Petroleum Agency and nonprofit group SkyTruth. Chevron has 18 ships working to collect oil off the surface and is working on plugging the well.

PM turned pop starFormer Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has announced the im-pending release of his album of love songs, according to ANSA, an Italian news agency. Nov. 22 will mark the release of Il Vero Amore, or The True Love, his fourth studio album with singer Mariano Apicella. Berlusconi wrote the Neapolitan love songs sung by Apicella. The billionaire, who once held a job as a singer on a cruise ship, had planned to release the album in September, but it was pushed back, reportedly due to his efforts to stave off an impending debt crisis in the country. However, Apicella denied those rumours. Berlusconi stepped down on Nov. 13.

World in brief

Jacqueline Di Bartolomeo

politics

Dawson Student Union lends voice to movement to save long-gun registryMontreal students appear before parliamentary committee in Ottawa

Emma Godmere CUP National bureau chief

TORONTO (CUP) — Students from Montreal’s Dawson College visited Parliament Hill last week to join the fight against the Conservative government’s plan to scrap the long-gun registry.

Audrey Deveault, chairperson of the Dawson Student Union (DSU), appeared before the Standing Com-mittee on National Security on Nov. 17. She and other attendees spoke out against Bill C-19, which seeks to end existing federal firearms regis-tration requirements and destroy all records that are currently contained in the Canadian Firearms Registry.

“It was more of an emotional presentation, I think — mainly, how students feel facing the imminent abolition of the long-gun registry,” Deveault told Canadian University Press. “We wanted them to know about what was going on at Daw-son five years later … [and] how many people were affected, in their everyday lives, after that tragedy.”

This past September marked half a decade since the 2006 shoot-ing tragedy at Dawson, when one student died and 19 were injured

after 25-year-old Kimveer Gill opened fire on the campus. One of the three firearms Gill used was a registered rifle.

“We’ve been victims of gun violence … we are always very involved in that battle to keep gun control very active,” said Deveault.

Léo Fugazza, director of internal affairs and advocacy for the DSU, told Canadian University Press that Dawson students have been actively working since the 2006 shooting to make sure “it doesn’t happen again.”

“When we went to the [parlia-mentary] presentation, our main message was, ‘Please don’t rush things, please consider all the op-tions,’” he said.

“Before taking a decision, you need to get in touch with experts, but also victims, and people who are directly involved with the reg-istry — and then take a decision in regards to those experts and those victims,” Fugazza continued.

Deveault explained that the DSU made an official submission to give a presentation to the parliamentary committee, which was accepted — though they still haven’t heard back about a meeting they had recently

requested to have with the prime minister.

“Obviously, we’re not expect-ing necessarily a yes, but we were certainly not expecting to be ignored completely by the prime minister,” she explained.

The Conservatives have stated previously that the gun registry is “ineffective” when it comes to reducing crime, often targeting in-nocent gun-owning citizens instead of criminals.

“The Harper government has al-ways been clear; by eliminating the wasteful and ineffective long-gun registry, we can instead focus our

efforts on measures that actually tackle crime and make our streets and communities safe,” Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said in a statement last month.

While Bill C-19 was officially introduced in Parliament in October, the Conservatives have attempted to end the registry previously but have been unsuccessful due to their minority government status. Now with majorities in both the House of Commons and the Senate, the Conservatives are expected to pass the bill with relative ease.

— With files from Sarah Deshaies

Dawson stuDent union chair auDrey Deveault makes her presentation against Bill c-19 on parliament hill last week. (screenshot)

open data

Lobbyists-turned-watchdog Open Montreal stages 3rd hackathon

Hacking your way to a more democratic society

Sarah Deshaies Chief copy editor

On Saturday, several dozen people and laptops crammed a room near Mon-treal’s Old Port to pour over numbers and fine tune website designs. Fueled by coffee and sandwiches, they col-lectively turned endless spools of data into helpful projects for the average Montreal to use.

To Jonathan Brun, this room full of humming laptops and people quietly working is a sign that Montreal has finally become a leader in open data, and a “testament” to the enthusiasm of a community looking to improve the city.

Brun is one of the four founders of Montréal Ouvert, a group of business types and open data advocates that has been lobbying the City of Montreal to release a ton of information to the public in the open data format.

Everywhere, coders and designers have been culling, or “scrapping” data from government databases in order to create a variety of websites and apps for people to use. But up until a few months ago, Montreal was behind the times.

“It got started because the four of us [were] sort of passionate about open government and making

government more democratic, more accessible to people. And the open data movement has sort of taken off in a lot of Canadian cities, but was not happening in Montreal,” said Brun.

After about a year’s worth of sophisticated lobbying, which involved meeting with elected officials and targeting “key” open data fans at City Hall, holding two hackathons and three public meetings, an eventual formal report into the city’s proposed open data policy was presented last September.

“Montreal is putting together a ‘table de concertation’ - a group of people that think about open data,” said Brun, referencing a project unique to Montreal.

While the open data portal, which is mostly in French, is not yet perfect, the city also provided a venue for Saturday’s Hackathon, and sponsored it, along with other groups like The Montreal Gazette and the local Open-File outlet.

Students made up a modest number of the Hackathon participants, like Concordia undergraduates Tavish Armstrong and Natalie Black, who study software engineering and com-puter science, respectively.

On Saturday, both were work-ing to make the ongoing Resto-Net.

ca website more user-friendly. It uses open data to track restaurant health violations across Montreal. The top offender: a Chinese restaurant near Concordia’s downtown campus that has racked up over $33,000 in fines.

By the end of the day’s marathon session, four students from Univer-sité de Laval in Quebec City had the chance to explain their project to the group. Though still a work-in-progress, LibrariesHub.ca is a search engine that aggregates public library catalogues. A quick search will let you know which libraries have it in stock, as well as the price on Amazon, and whether it’s available to read on Google Books.

Jacques-Olivier Desjardins, a Laval

computer engineering student, said his team did it for the fun of it, but also for the networking and to get their name out in the business.

Montreal has taken its own path to get to this point, said Mercier, Open Montreal’s city hall ‘champion’, a small, smiling woman with grey hair. She was hardpressed to name her fa-vourite project. “I’m like a mother who has many children, I don’t have favou-rites,” she said. “I find it extraordinary. What happened today is the concrete application of what open data is. You have city employees with citizens, and they’re working to make a project with data that belongs to everybody. It doesn’t get better than that.”

conu stuDents tavish armstrong anD natalie Black volunteereD at hackathon mtl. photo By sarah Deshaies

5Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Follow us on Twitter: @TheConcordian

One board member, Robert Barnes, representing the alumni for the Sir George Williams Alumni Association, warned the student representatives to “be mindful of the time other people are giving and in the way that you are trying to get your point forward.”

“I’ve heard probably seven times this morning the underlying reason for something in one of your motions is about your representa-tion on the board. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over,” said Barnes, referring to the decision made in September to lessen the number of undergraduate student reps from four to one.

“If you come in attack mode you’re going to continually see every one of your motions shot down in flames and that’s what’s been happening over the last few meetings. You have not gained

one motion because you’re ticking people off,” Barnes said.

During this discourse, chair Peter Kruyt told undergraduate student governor and Concordia Student Union president Lex Gill to “please don’t interrupt” after she asked for a point of privilege.

Undergrad representative Laura Beach spoke out in support of the motion, which she referred to as “a tool that we can use as a board to demonstrate that what we do is in the best interest of the Concordia community.”

“The media is at best your friend and worst your enemy,” said Beach. “We can’t and we shouldn’t rely on the media to represent what goes on at this board in an impartial manner.”

However, opinions varied on how this goal of transparency could be best achieved. With regards

to the idea of broadcasting board meetings, several board members conveyed their worries that this would make people feel less in-clined to speak openly, resulting in lengthier meetings that have more closed session discussions.

”I certainly don’t want to feel that our board is portrayed as closed so that people in our larger university community feel excluded, but at the same time our board has to operate efficiently,” said Concor-dia president and vice-chancellor Frederick Lowy.

Concerns were also expressed that a 20-minute question period would not be productive, fearing that the open forum would degener-ate into rants as members of the general public lack access to all of the board’s documents and may not be informed enough to make effec-tive cases on issues.

Student rep argues that the motions will help the board avoid a negative media image

Continued from cover

new BoarDroom, less room

the Discussion at last week’s meeting surrounding the mo-tion to increase public seating at Board of Governors meetings to a minimum of 50 seats was stymied by the completion of a brand new boardroom whose capacity was unknown to members at the time.

Located on the fourth floor of the GM building, the new board-room can seat approximately 45 people.

According to university spokesperson Chris Mota, the new board-room may not be available for use until 2012.

“The room has been completed but is not yet available as a result of the major renovation project that is ongoing in the GM building,” Mota wrote in an email, adding that the “room was configured in anticipation of a smaller board.”

Chair Peter Kruyt said at the meeting that the current board had no say in the specifications of the room and that plans were done by previous management.

“We have what we have,” said Kruyt.Board of Governors meetings currently take place in a modified

classroom on the 2nd floor of the EV building.

Round-trip airfare to Victoria, B.C.: business class

top 3 expenses

$3,928.14

$1,131.38

Gill says little surprises her when it comes to university financesContinued from cover

visit a “professional trip” where Lowy was invited to “speak at a conference.”

The April 1 flight to Victoria alone cost $3,928.14, as the deci-sion was made to upgrade Lowy’s flight to business class. While uni-versity spokesperson Chris Mota in-dicated that as per Lowy’s contract “he is entitled to fly business class on flights lasting more than three hours,” Gill said the expense sent the message that Lowy, who also

such as for repairs and mainte-nance. There is no fixed limit on these amounts but, of course, the person authorizing the expenses has to be satisfied that they are reasonable.”

After glancing at the numbers in Lowy’s expense report, Gill ad-mitted that there is very little that could surprise her when it comes to the finances of the university.

“The killer thing is that there’s so much great stuff coming out of this school, and there’s so much waste,” she said. “The university is constantly crying that we’re under-funded. Just manage your books properly.”

receives a salary of $350,000 a year, was “out of touch with students.”

“When you spend almost $4,000, more than an individual student’s tuition bill for the year, on a flight, especially when it’s a needlessly expensive flight, and then you go to the government and you support tuition increases, I think that’s disingenuous,” she said.

The Italian visit especially piqued Gill’s curiosity. Mota said

on Monday that Lowy was invited to speak on university governance at the University of Siena, located in the Tuscan city of Siena.

“This has since resulted in dis-cussions between the two universi-ties about future collaborations,” she wrote in an email, indicating that while in Italy, Lowy, who is a psychiatrist, also attended a confer-ence on psychoanalysis.

The round trip plane ticket to Italy came to $1,951, while hotel costs came in at a little over $1,500 during Lowy’s stay, which also saw him spend time in Rome and Flor-ence. The trip lasted from May 20 to May 29 according to the expense report.

Lowy was also reimbursed on at least two occasions where the receipt was missing: $34 for a meal in Italy and $10.50 for parking. This despite the fact that his hiring contract explicitly states that when being reimbursed for expenses related to university work, a receipt must be provided.

Mota responded that “there is the expectation that receipts be provided in order to be reimbursed. In cases where a receipt can’t be produced, some flexibility can be exercised. We are willing to take people at their word provided the amount is small, the reasons are plausible and there is no pattern or regularity to this.”

“I wonder what the accounting department of the university thinks about that,” said Gill. “I know here

[at the CSU] I couldn’t claim $68 without a receipt and get away with that. We’re all very well aware that Fred Lowy is not hurting for money, so I have a feeling that he has no interest in committing small scale requisition fraud.”

According to Lowy’s contract, the university president also receives a $3,000 monthly housing allowance. When he assumed his position, the university granted him a $1.4 million loan, interest free during the loan’s term, in order to purchase a new condo Lowy was already about to buy outside of Montreal when he was asked to return to Concordia as interim president.

Lowy, who was rector of the university between 1995 and 2005, was asked to return in early 2011 after the Board of Governors ousted president Judith Woodsworth. Lowy’s contract stipulates that he must repay the loan after his term ends and after the sale of his cur-rent condo in Montreal.

Lowy furthermore receives a $1,200 monthly car allowance, which is “meant to cover gasoline and depreciation on the vehicle,” and which he receives as part of his regular salary payments, ac-cording to Mota.

In response to a question about the expenses Lowy charged to the university regarding repairs to his car, Mota explained that “he is entitled to claim expenses related to the vehicle (except for gasoline)

Hotel costs in Italy

$1,546.31

Airfare to Toronto

6 Tuesday, November 22, 2011

lifeWrite to the editor: [email protected]

Erica Commisso Contributor

Everyone knows at least one person who is ad-dicted to pumping iron at the gym and is there more often, it seems, than in class. Every time I go, I recognize at least some of the determined faces surrounding me, wrapped up in working out, some even bobbing their head to the pump-up music blasting from every speaker or iPod.

Looking around, anyone could easily identify the gym regulars: the guys with the huge muscu-lar arms and six packs who seem to barely break a sweat, and the girls who look like they don’t have anything but muscle on their bodies and spend an hour on the elliptical machine. Then, there’s my group of gym attendees, those who go about once or twice a week, “rap” along with the Drake-inspired playlist, and can’t take more than an hour of working out before spontane-ously collapsing. But do those who go to the gym whenever they can get the same effects as the frequent gym aficionados? And why is the gym so appealing to some, and a dreaded necessity for others?

“I go to the gym every day to feel good about myself and my body,” explained Natalie Hodge, a Concordia French translation student. “It’s part of my routine.” Even on the days she feels lazy, she’ll drag herself out of bed to hit the gym, which provides that much-needed energy boost so many of us lack.

Jessica Wilson, a gym enthusiast studying studio art at Concordia, feels the same need to go daily. “I go five to six times a week,” she said. “I like to be fit, and I’ve spent most of my life as an athlete so being active is important to me.”

To get the best results, Daniel Roy, a trainer at Le Gym on Concordia’s downtown campus, says the amount of exercise required varies from per-son to person. “It depends on people’s schedules, or how they’re going to get here, and the amount of time they have,” he said. “Ideally, if you can get here three days a week, I’d say you’d get the best results that way.”

Three days a week, on average, is manage-able for most students. Roy also encourages get-ting to the gym at roughly the same time for each visit, which is also easier on a student’s schedule.

Nathan Hartill, a Concordia political science student, visits Le Gym five times a week, for about an hour and a half per day. “I go because it makes me feel good, and I know that I’m staying in shape,” he said.

Roy, who has been a trainer at Le Gym for

What’s your body type?Many people assume that a hard workout at the gym will provide the same results for ev-eryone. However, an important factor to take into consideration is the type of body that you have. There are three basic body types.

Mesomorphs are muscular and are fortunate because they can easily increase in muscle size. They have a rectangular body shape and characteristically have a well-defined chest and shoulders. Generally, mesomorphs have larger and broader shoulders than their waistline but the hips are about the same size as the shoulders. These are usually the giant muscle men you see at the gym working out their veiny biceps. The downside is that mesomorphs gain weight easily and therefore should watch their calorie intake. A mix of cardio and weight training works best for mesomorphs.

Ectomorphs are the lanky, tall and thin body types. They have trouble gaining weight due to their fast metabolism. In order for ectomorphs to gain muscle mass it is recommended that they stick to short and intense workouts to stick to the lean muscle gain. Supplements may be required.

Endomorphs usually have solid and soft bodies. They tend to have a shorter build with thick legs and arms and they gain fat very easily due to a slow metabolism. Endomorphs have strong leg muscles and excel in exercises such as the squat. However, to keep fat gain to a minimum they must mix cardio and weight training.

Personalize your workout

nearly five years since it opened, said that the training itself also has an impact on your results. “If you’re efficient with your time, you can get really good results.” He added that the type of training you do can also help or hinder your results.

Find the gym exercises that fit your schedule and body type

“[It’s important to be] combining cardiovas-cular exercises with a variety of different body weight exercises or strength training type of exercises. Someone could really get more benefit from that than being stagnant or just doing noth-ing.” Going on the treadmill for 45 minutes isn’t the most ideal way to lose weight, Roy added.

“If you just want to get in shape, the exercises where you work the larger muscle groups are the ones where you get the most bang for your buck, because they’ll burn the most calories for you in the long run. A lot of guys will come and do biceps, and that’s great estheti-cally, but if your focus is on only that, sometimes its harder to reach your goal.”

Exercises that are the most beneficial include squatting exercises, because they work both lower body and abdominal muscles, and workout machines tone more than one muscle group.

Brandan Tannis, a first year JMSB student, follows Roy’s suggestion. He goes to the gym and focuses on toning various muscle groups for one hour at least three times a week. “I need to stay in shape. In high school I’d be playing on some sort of team, so I’d always be active. In university, all we do is eat and sit around,” he said.

Ultimately, though, the workout depends on the individual. “Everybody has got different goals. Some people want to get a lot stronger, so then they might not focus too much on biking or running or cardiovascular exercises, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get cardio workouts from doing strength type exer-cises like circuit training,” said Roy. Even in the case of working out at the gym, and even though everyone is there for similar reasons, to each his or her own.

Photo by Navneet Pall

Graphic by Alessandra McGovern

7Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Follow us on Twitter: @TheConcordianmovember

Meet the Mo’ter BoatersSix Concordia friends band together to raise money for Movember

Paula Rivas Life editor

Six Concordia friends got together to help a cause that they felt strongly about. Each had different reasons for becom-ing a Mo bro, but in the end, they all came together to raise awareness and to inspire oth-ers to contribute because of the many people affected by cancer. The Mo’ter Boaters lead the Concordia network on the Mo-vember Canada website—three of them even hold the top three places in the Concordia network donation rankings. At press time, the Mo’ter Boaters have raised a total of $3,177 towards the cause.

the Mo’ter boaters have raised over $3,000 for prostate cancer in less than three Weeks. photos by navneet pall

Mat Cuffaro, 21, political scienceRAISED $762

Cancer in the family: “My grandfather had prostate cancer, and he’s one of the many reasons I am participating in Movember.”

What inspires him: “Ryan Kelley, our team captain, recruited me. He took notice of my moustache growing potential.”

Favourite man with a ‘stache: “Ron Bur-gundy, Rollie Fingers, Ben Stiller in Dodgeball and my dad who rocked a great moustache before I was born.”

How it feels to have a moustache: “Awk-ward.”

Ryan Kelley 21, history major, education minor (Mo’ter Boaters captain)RAISED $640

Cancer in the family: “My friend’s mom battled breast cancer when we were in high school. It did not directly influence me into taking part in the Movember cause. What influenced me was last year when one of my friends moved to Nova Scotia and we said we should make a team as a way to keep in touch with each other and spread awareness.” What inspires him: “Knowing I would be a

part of a movement that would consequently change men’s health, and helping save lives.”

Favourite man with a ‘stache: “Either Tom Selleck or Hulk Hogan. Both mo’s are trademarks.”

How it feels to have a moustache: “Like I came out of a time machine or I was in the wilderness for a couple of months living off the land. That sums it up.”

Julian Cooper, 21, athletic therapyRAISED $585

Cancer in the family: “Nobody in my direct family has cancer or has died from cancer but there is someone in my extended family with colon cancer.”

What inspires him: “My father has partici-pated in The Ride to Conquer Cancer for the past two years and has raised a lot of money. This year, I felt it was my turn to get involved in raising awareness in a cause.”

Favourite man with a ‘stache: “George Par-ros of the Anaheim Ducks.”

How it feels to have a moustache: “Proud. We are trying to raise awareness so if people stare because I look funny, so be it.”

How long he has been a Mo bro: “First year raising money. I have no problem with people having a good laugh about my facial hair (or lack of). It’s funny, it gets people talking and it raises awareness to the cause. Most people do support us. To those that don’t think it’s serious, before being quick to judge, it would be a good idea to do some research and see how many people are involved in a cause like this. The moustache is a minor part of it all. Women are involved in raising money, too. The important part is that people are working

together to help raise awareness and help raise money for research and this stays true no mat-ter what the cause.”

Daniel Kestler-D’Amours, 21, independent studies RAISED $300

Cancer in the family: “My grandmother died of breast cancer. Even if Movember doesn’t have anything to do with breast cancer, I’d like to raise awareness to help the most people possible.”

What inspires him: “I like helping other people. It makes me feel good to help people become happy.”

Favourite man with a ‘stache: “Rollie Fingers.”

How it feels to have a moustache: “I feel ridiculous but I know it’s for a great cause.”

How long he’s been a Mo bro: “This is my first year on an official team and raising money on a team.”

Humza Khan, 21, accountingRAISED $215

Cancer in the family: “I’ve had a family member who passed away due to prostate cancer a couple of years ago.”

What inspires him: “A very close friend of mine, Madhur Nayan, a medical student and practicing urologist, told me a great deal about prostate cancer and its effects.”

Favourite man with a ‘stache: “Tom Selleck or Daniel Day Lewis (from the movie Gangs of New York)”

How it feels to have a moustache: “To be honest, at times it does feel irritating to main-tain a moustache for one month (I’m not used

to keeping one), but knowing it’s for a good cause definitely makes it worth having and when I look back at it at the end of the month, I know I will have no regrets in partaking in this charity.”

Justin McAran Bourque, 22, finance major, entrepreneurship minorRAISED $140

Cancer in the family: “My dad suffered from skin cancer a few years back, so I sup-pose in the back of my mind, anything we can do to kick cancer in the teeth is a good thing.”

What inspires him: “It was actually Ryan Kelley who offered for me to join the Mo’ter Boaters. I had wanted to do Movember since last year, but I was in Vancouver, and it wouldn’t have been the same without my Mo Bros.”

Favourite man with a ‘stache: “[Actor Danny] Trejo. Because I’ll be honest, I’m fairly certain he was born with a moustache.”

8 Tuesday, November 22, 2011 theconcordianbar

Le Lab: a bar to lose your mind overOrder a flaming absinthe cocktail and relax in a classy ambiance

Elysha Del Giusto-EnosStaff writer

As we sat around an absinthe fountain in the dimly-lit Le Lab, my friend lamented not dressing the part of 1920s dame.

The glossy black brick walls, dim lights, and covered windows made the Prohibition-era bar feel like a well-kept secret.

Each table had a candle flickering on it and we were immediately served water when we sat down. Our party was two parts Vancouver, one part Toronto, and one part Montreal.

We began looking through the detailed menu and got a bit derailed. It would have been nice to have an English version avail-able. Being enlisted to translate ingredients like “sirop Chichén Itzá, Agave, gingembre et coriander,” was a nonstarter for me.

The menu is divided up into absinthe-based cocktails, fruity drinks, dry and strong, heated, and classics. They also have a list of mocktails, beers, wines, and shots.

Since so few places serve absinthe drinks, I trusted Le Lab and ordered the Amazone ($12) - a mix of fresh mint, raspberry puree, lemon juice, simple syrup, Absente 55, and Carpène Malvolti prosecco wine.

Absinthe is notoriously disgusting except for people who like black liquorice, but I question that such people really exist. Today we drink it more for its Fée Verte-inspired bohemian nostalgia than anything else.

My boyfriend, ever the minimalist, ordered a simple shot of Absente 55 ($8). My Van-couver friend knew she wanted something fruity, and talked her way through it with the waiter. They ended up settling on El Fe-licidad ($12), a mix of cilantro, agave syrup, ginger, Triple Sec, Yuzu juice, and Cazadores Blanco tequila. Her boyfriend barely glanced at the menu before entrusting his decision to

the house. As we sat listening to what sounded like

a jazzy remix of The Triplets of Belleville, three bartenders were working expertly on their oeuvres. The one directly in front of us sprayed a short tumbler with an aerosol can and lit the fumes with a blowtorch. The

inside of the glass burned with a tall blue flame and the spray coated the blackening glass with flavour.

“That’s yours,” the waiter said to my friend’s boyfriend.

By 9:30 the bar was starting to fill up but the noise levels stayed reasonable. We could

talk without straining our voices.The ornate absinthe fountain filled with

ice water was duly played with as we talked, watched the bar go up in calculated flames, and waited for our drinks.

When the four drinks came it was hard to tell which was more impressive. My boyfriend’s shot of absinthe was in a long glass with the image of Van Gogh staring out from the side of it. A silver slotted spoon rested across the top with a little sugar cube waiting to be melted. He positioned the cube under the tiny faucet of the absinthe foun-tain and turned it on. An icy stream melted the sugar as it filled the glass to a suggested 3:1 ratio of ice water to absinthe.

My Amazone looked unassuming in its tumbler, but tasted extraordinary. Consider-ing that one of the most unpalatable alcohols was its base, Le Lab created a drink that was complex and delicious.

My friend’s fruity cocktail delivered as well. But if this hidden gem could make absinthe taste good, her sweet, densely fla-voured fruity drink would be an easy win.

The real surprise was the drink that had been ordered in good faith. The waiter put the previously-burning short glass on the table complete with beef jerky garnish. The Jerky Lab Jack ($12) was organic sugar, triple sec, “bitter barbecue” (a house secret), Jack Daniels, with a mild but spicy jerky balancing on the rim.

Our waiter was friendly and professional; he knew when to let us nurse the drops at the bottom of our glasses and when to take another order.

Leaving the dark watering hole into the crisp November air, there’s no busy nightlife around, only stone-cut houses and a view of beautiful La Fontaine Park. Le Lab’s off the beaten path feel reinforces its Prohibition-era bar vibe. Any “choice bit of calico” can definitely count on this speakeasy for a memorable night.

Le Lab is located at 1351 Rachel E. Open Monday to Saturday from 5 p.m. to late.

the bartenders Mix the tasty absinthe cocktail after setting theM on fire.

Food

Gordon Ramsay’s Laurier BBQ serves Quebec on a plateTry some exquisite comfort food in the heart of Montreal

George Menexis Staff writer

There’s no place like Montreal to wine and dine on a beautiful night. Gordon Ramsay, the hot tempered TV chef that stole our hearts as he crushed young chefs’ dreams on Hell’s Kitchen, knew of Montreal’s foodie reputation when he decided to open his first restaurant here.

In its first months of business, Laurier BBQ had already made a name for itself amongst Montrealers. Sure, having a world class chef such as Ramsay to create the entire menu is indeed a bonus, but the restaurant’s location on one of the most charming streets in our city makes it a real winner.

Laurier Avenue caught my attention ever since I was old enough to enjoy the subtle beauty it had to offer. Canada is a country that has been greatly influenced by American civili-zation. Laurier, however, has kept the Euro-pean influence and charm its roots had to offer and a walk down this street makes you feel like you’re strolling along the streets of Paris.

I was therefore thrilled when I heard that Ramsay was opening a restaurant on this street. When I first went, it was a cold night and Laurier was well-lit by old-fashioned street lamps, making it a perfect evening for a hot meal in a cozy, small restaurant.

When you enter

Laurier BBQ, do not expect grand decorations worthy of a castle. I was surprised by the sim-plicity of the decor. To be honest, it looked like a high-class cabane à sucre. The old-fashioned walls were purposefully scraped to create a rustic look. The plain white and low ceilings are reminiscent of a 19th century tavern. The wooden tables and high stools lit by rugged oil lamps produce a comforting atmosphere. The only extremely modern artifact in Laurier BBQ was a flat screen TV at the bar where custom-ers could enjoy Quebec’s finest lager while watching the hockey game.

With this decor, Ramsay was able to do something special. He captured the Quebec culture in the days worthy of La Nouvelle France. To us Quebecers, this is intriguing but also rather flattering. Even more so due to the fact that he managed to accomplish this with the menu.

We are used to seeing international cuisines all over our city. Italian, Greek and Chinese restaurants are swarming every street corner imaginable. However, we fail to realize that Quebec culture has delicious cuisine that is far too underrated and under-appreciated internationally.

Ramsay managed to take extremely simple dishes such as Quebec’s famous poutine plat-ter or Montreal’s smoked meat plate and put a defining twist to them à la Ramsay. I was

stunned by the simplicity of the menu. Ram-say’s international reputation had me expecting dishes that I had never even heard of.

However, his fresh ingredients and added ex-pertise to Quebec’s national dish were mesmer-izing. The smoked meat is, hands down, one of my favourite foods. I was shocked therefore to see creamy mac and cheese as a side dish, with a thick layer of coleslaw right in there between the meat. It was mouth watering.

Other surprises was the Quebec chicken sandwich à l’ancienne, topped off with nice, homemade gravy and decorated with boiling hot green peas. Every bite of the soaked bread separated by Ramsay’s soon-to-be famous chicken melted in my mouth. For a great final touch to the decor, a simple jar of pickles sits on every table waiting to be opened. Salty and crunchy, it’s the perfect entrée to the entrée.

If you still have room left after your main course, I encourage you to try the sugar pie. For all of you out there with an extreme case of sweet tooth, you will surely be satisfied after one bite of this pie. Stop on down to witness how this professional British chef captured our unique culture in a bite.

Laurier BBQ is located on 381 Laurier W., cross street Parc Avenue. Open Monday to Sunday from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.

Photo by Alex Menjivar

9Tuesday, November 22, 2011artsWrite to the editor: [email protected] politica

Brandon Judd Staff writer

Cinema Politica presents environmentally-minded film with a twist

Seeking the Current uses the Romaine River dam project as its launching point for a discussion of the hydroelectric industry in Quebec. Quebecers generate much of their electricity—abnormally high due to the prevalence of electric heat in the province—from dams within the province. Once a symbol of independence for the post-Quiet Revolution generation, Hydro-Québec has become somewhat of a pariah for environ-mental groups due to the ecosystems it has destroyed through damming projects.

Though it’s among the cleaner meth-ods of generating electricity, hydro has an alarmingly large environmental footprint, which manifests abruptly and continues to affect wildlife for decades. Rivers that once supported a gamut of Canadian wildlife—caribou and bears as well as all types of river fish—become artificial lakes foreign and useless to local wildlife, which has only known river life.

And the environmental effects are more

lasting than it seems. It’s common for soil to build up mercury deposits over centuries, though the poisonous element is spread so thin it rarely affects the ecosystem. But when lowlands are flooded by a dam, this mercury is released into the water en masse, pushing water toxicity far over safe limits. Fish capable of surviving in the lake become poisonous to consume, not only for humans but for endemic fauna.

Considering the Quebec government’s commitment to hydroelectric power, there’s an immense amount of wildlife at risk of displacement or death in this province. To highlight what stands to be lost, Seeking the Current follows a group of environmen-talists as they paddle the Romaine River. The film deftly captures the striking beauty and purity of the rugged landscape, where stories-high rock shelves stand alongside pebbled beaches, and where the site of a black bear or a moose is a regular occur-rence.

This film could stand on its concept and its imagery well, but it’s elevated beyond a lament for nature by doing what many similar films fail to do: presenting an alternative. Seeking the Current makes a strong case for a switch to wind, solar, and geothermal power, which have a paltry environmental footprint compared to hydro. The filmmakers achieve this partly through interviews, but it’s the intelligent use of facts and figures that really buttress their position.

Quebec is a world leader when it comes to the potential for both solar and wind power, and the figures associated with this are shocking. Were the potential of Quebec’s wind power to be fully reached it could produce almost a hundred times more energy than if it fully developed its hydro-electric potential. This would provide the ability to power all of the USA and Canada three times over, without burning fuel, damming rivers, or destroying inordinate amounts of wildlife.

The province is also on par with Bar-celona for solar power potential, though the Spanish city is miles ahead of Quebec in terms of implementation. Were solar panels a requirement for large buildings, as they are in Barcelona, many complexes

would produce enough electricity to heat their own water, run their appliances, and some could even export electricity back into the grid. These figures make an incredibly strong case for alternatives to hydroelectric power, and when coupled with the relative lack of environmental damage, it’s almost undeniable.

It’s already far too late for the Romaine River—construction began in 2009—but development of Quebec’s hydroelectric infrastructure continues. But Seeking the Current is about long-term thinking, and the Petit Mécatina River is the next pristine eco-system it says is at risk of being drowned in its own water. Is Quebec’s wealth, as Robert Bourassa said, wasted as it flows away? Or is Quebec shortsighted in its energy strat-egy, as Boisclair and de Gheldere argue?

The filmmakers argue that Quebec’s wealth—and Canada’s for that matter—is better defined by a river’s magisterial beau-ty than by its exploitable power. In watch-ing five canoes float peacefully into a foggy morning, it’s hard to argue with them.

Seeking the Current is showing on Nov. 28 at 7 p.m. in H-110. For more informa-tion, check out www.cinemapolitica.org/concordia.

Footprints should be made in the sand, not the water

As important as environmental documentaries are, it’s difficult not to tire of watch-ing the ‘go green or risk oblivion’ narrative play out again and again. So when I read the synopsis of this week’s Cinema Politica offering, Seeking the Current, I was a bit apprehen-sive. But this Nicolas Boisclair and Alexis de Gheldere documentary is far from routine. It injects an immediacy and a localness into the renewable energy debate and reconfigures the perception of wind and solar power in Quebec.

10 Tuesday, November 22, 2011 theconcordiantheatre

A man can be destroyed, but not defeatedHemingway’s grandson talks about new play Dans l’ombre d’Hemingway

Marie-Josée Kelly Contributor

John Hemingway recently worked as a consultant on a new play about his famous grandfather. Written and directed by Stéphane Brulotte, it paints a rather unfamiliar picture of Ernest Hemingway.

John wrote Strange Tribe: A Family Mem-oir; a book where he explores the complex similarities between his own father and grand-father. He was also involved in the adaptation of Dans l’ombre d’Hemingway, which brought Ernest to a modern audience.

The writer, often referred to as ‘Papa,’ is typically remembered for his unique writing, his hard drinking, and for his love of hunting and bullfighting. To many, Hemingway was the epitome of the stereotypical macho-man.

“Initially when I started talking to Stéphane Brulotte, he had what I would call a rather traditionalist view of Ernest Hemingway,” said John. “Of the unparalleled man’s man, the strong figure, and I said, that’s true but there is a lot more to Ernest than meets the eye, in terms of what he was interested in.”

John helped Brulotte (who had previously written Une partie avec l’Empereur, a historical drama about Napoleon Bonaparte) bring out a side of the celebrated writer that people aren’t expecting: the fragile, drunk and angry man he’d become towards the end of his life. “The beginning of the play is very typical Heming-way, and the crowd likes that. At the end, they see another side of Ernest,” he said.

The play takes place in Cuba in 1950, and sheds light on the troubled years of the iconic writer’s life. Ernest plunged into a vulnerable state following the release of his novel Across the River and into the Trees, which was the object of harsh criticism. The book was in-spired by his love affair with Adriana Ivancich, a young Italian countess who he had met in Venice.

In the production, Ernest is portrayed as

Set in 1950, the play depictS one of hemingway’S troubled writing periodS while he waS living with hiS fourth wife.

submerged in alcohol, completely distraught over his inability to write. The writer had not been able to produce a single sentence in 84 days. The young Ivancich, along with her patronizing mother, pay Ernest and his then fourth wife a visit in the Caribbean. Spectators witness the passion and evolution in Ernest and his muse’s platonic liaison, despite his wife Mary’s presence. Frustration consumes him as he realizes his incapability to carry out his relationship with the youthful aristocrat.

Brulotte’s play revolves around profound themes of love, death and the process of aging. Actors Michel Dumont (Ernest), Marie Mi-chaud (Mary) and Bénédicte Décary (Adriana) deliver powerful and convincing performances.

John is an American expatriate, like his grandfather was. He has been living in Mon-treal for the past four years after having lived in Europe for nearly half of his life. John spent most of his time in Italy, lived a year in Spain and spent a little time in France before coming back to North America. His wife and children are Canadian so moving to Montreal seemed

like a good opportunity. “It’s a great town - there’s a lot going on culturally,” he said.

He also works occasionally as a translator and does public speaking, but lately has been spending most of his time traveling to promote his writing.

“In my book, to understand my father, I had to understand who my grandfather was,” said John. “There were a lot of similarities between the two of them.”

“Ernest was writing in his short stories, as far as the 1920s, about these topics of androgyny, gender games, gay and lesbian relationships,” he said. “If you think about it, it’s something odd for a person who’s known to be the Lord Byron of the twentieth century.”

Gregory Hemingway, John’s father, cross-dressed as a teenager and later in life had a sex change. John makes a point of connecting this to Ernest’s writing.

“There is a lot of stuff in Ernest Heming-way which reflects this need to understand where the man begins and where the woman ends and if there is a point of union between

the two,” he said. While Ernest’s suicide was well publicized,

he wasn’t the only one of the Hemingway lineage to take his own life. His own father, Clarence, committed suicide in 1928, and so did two of his siblings.

John’s father Gregory suffered from mental illness along with alcohol abuse much like Ernest. His mother is schizophrenic.

One would think John might have to endure the same mental and emotional instability, but that’s not the case. He was able to avoid the genetic predisposition his family members have had to cope with throughout their lifetimes.

Just like Brulotte’s latest work depicts an unexplored side of Ernest, so does John’s critically acclaimed memoir. There was more to the famed writer many of our professors reference than meets the eye.

Dans l’ombre d’Hemingway runs until Dec. 3 at Théâtre Jean-Duceppe at Place des Arts. For more information, visit pda.qc.ca.

theatre

Boxing is just show business with blood

Marilla Steuter-Martin Staff writer

Cornered will make you feel sympathy for thugs

What happens when you combine old friends, new schemes and enough testosterone to make your head spin? You get Cornered, a darkly funny tragi-comedy about two thugs who can’t seem to quit while they’re ahead.

Written by Jim Burke, a playwright originally from Manchester now living in Montreal, Cornered will make its Canadian premiere at Theatre Sainte Catherine. Cornered is directed by Paul Van Dyck, artistic director of Rabbit in a Hat Productions. With a tiny cast of two, Howard Rosenstein and Chris Moore manage to keep the action going, and the audience guessing, throughout the two-hour run.

Rex and Vinnie are shady cornermen who are running a youth boxing tournament for their own profit. The racket becomes complicated when a notorious gangster by the name of Doxy approaches Rex, asking him to make sure the game goes a cer-tain way. As the characters try to outmaneuver one another, hilarity ensues, and the true nature of their

lifestyle is exposed. Van Dyck says the first thing that drew him to

the show was its fast-paced dialogue and clever twists and turns. “The script is pretty fantastic. As far as I can tell it’s flawless,” he said.

He describes cornermen as “the men who sponge the boxer’s foreheads,” but that’s not their only responsibility. They are the brains of the opera-tion and handle all the dealings, dodgy or not, that go on behind the scenes.

Though predominantly called a comedy, Van Dyck isn’t so sure. “It’s a little more serious than your typical comedy,” he said. Despite their less than honourable intentions, their ineptitude makes them almost pitiable. “I think there’s something sad about these characters and their lives.”

When casting, it was important to Van Dyck that the actors have “a good stage dynamic.” He had worked with both Moore and Rosenstein before in a previous production, and despite them only sharing one scene, he could tell they were a good match. “With a cast of this calibre, it makes my job easier,” he said.

Rosenstein plays the role of Rex, an older, more experienced low-life in the middle of a mid-life crisis. “He’s been in the game a long time but he doesn’t feel he’s getting the recognition he deserves,” he said.

Despite Rex’s gruff exterior, Rosenstein feels “you have to learn to love your character. [Rex] doesn’t necessarily see himself as a bad person, so neither can I.”

Vinnie, played by Moore, is “a wannabe thug.” He’s younger and gets a lot of abuse from Rex, as the weaker member of the team. “He’s always on the outside looking in. He seeks acceptance, especially from Rex,” said Moore.

It can be hard to relate to a character sometimes, but Moore says there’s always something to form a connection to. “Vinnie really wants to be accepted by Rex, and I think we all want to be accepted by the

people we look up to.”Both actors said the first thing they noticed about

the play was the Manchester accents they would have to adopt. “There’s a lot of slang in the script. You might need a glossary,” joked Van Dyck.

Both Moore and Rosenstein were prepared for the challenge, understanding they would have to master the skill in order to properly capture the spirit of the characters.

Cornered opens at Theatre Sainte Catherine on Nov. 23 at 8 p.m. and runs until Dec. 3. Student tickets are $12.

11Tuesday, November 22, 2011

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November 30, 2011Delta Hotel (President-Kennedy Ave.)6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

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film

Life is a cabaret ol’ chum, so come to Crazy Horse

Sofia Gay Arts editor

Film gives insight into iconic Paris cabaret

Paris is undeniably the city of the cabaret. From Le Chat Noir (considered the first modern cabaret, where Verlaine and Debussy could be found on any given night) to the famed Moulin Rouge (which was immortalized for modern audiences in Baz Luhrmann’s film of the same name), caba-rets are a mythical, mysterious and sensual world that keeps drawing curious eyes.

Director Frederick Wiseman’s Crazy Horse takes viewers into the world of the same-name cabaret. Established in 1951, the Crazy Horse has seen Dita Von Teese glide her way across the stage, and – as choreographer Philippe Decouflé frequently mentions throughout the film – has the reputation to uphold as “the best nude dancing show in the world.”

Following the cabaret for 10 weeks before the debut of its new show, the film deconstructs the process behind making the magic happen onstage. Opening with a montage of full dance numbers – which showcase how the use of lights, costumes and skin (lots of it, naturally) are used to present an illusion to the audience – it then gets into taking away the glitter-speckled curtain and showing how the cabaret is grappling to produce quality spectacles while keeping the team together and meeting the boss’ orders.

Contrary to popular belief, cabarets are not just a titty show. While nudity is featured promi-nently, it is never gratuitous. An illusion is created, as managing director Andrée Deissenberg explains

in the film, through equal parts of frustration and imagination. Every number has a story, which is artfully told through the way the dancers’ bodies

manipulate the space around them. Many of them sport Anna Karina pageboy hairstyles, evoking a sense of old-fashioned glamour. The use of lights,

whether it is to spot the dancers with leopard spots, or to hide them and only allow viewers to see the shadows, is prominent and invaluable in creating a mood.

Perhaps the most surprising part about the performances is the obsessive attention to detail. Everything is taken into account to preserve the show’s aesthetic image. One scene sees one of the wardrobe creators, Fifi Chachnil, telling a dancer that a particularly shiny skirt cannot be used any-more because the way the material interacts with the lights makes the dancer’s buttocks look bony.

Beyond the stage, the tension in the team is palpable. Decouflé fights with management to close the cabaret for a bit, in order to give him and the dancers more time to perfect the show and deliver on the creative side. Deissenberg tells him there is no way this will happen, as sharehold-ers have shot down the suggestion every time. Meanwhile, Chachnil claims the creative meetings are not consistently held, and the shows are suf-fering from it. While it is evident that they are all passionate about their jobs, the film reveals the Herculean degree of effort the shows require.

There are, however, touching and comedic moments. The performers, who almost hold two-dimensional roles (as they are the characters which the film gives least insight into), share a light-hearted moment while watching ballet on a small television in their dressing room.

Although the film could have benefited from more interviews with the subjects, its detached stance does the job and embodies cabaret: you can look all you want, but you can’t touch.

Crazy Horse plays at Cinéma du Parc (3575 du Parc) starting Nov. 25. For more information, go to www.cinemaduparc.com.

light playS a key role in the performanceS, Sheathing the dancerS’ bodieS with different patternS.

theconcordian12 Tuesday, November 22, 2011

visual arts

Let me ask my other selftheatre

Elysha Del Giusto-Enos Staff writer

The play ANA shows a woman who splits in two at life’s tough choices

“She’s the classic, western, depressed woman,” says Imago artistic director Clare Schapiro of the title character in the upcom-ing play ANA. The play has been in develop-ment for six years as a collaborative effort between Montreal’s Imago Theatre and Ed-inburgh’s Stellar Quines Theatre Company.

Ana is a woman born 5,000 years ago who can split herself in two whenever life presents her with a difficult decision.

“It’s a metaphor for what women go through,” says Schapiro. She gives the example of one such decision when Ana chooses whether or not to have an abortion. “The killing of the baby is not necessarily the killing of the baby,” Schapiro says. “It’s killing your dreams.”

When Schapiro met Stellar Quines artis-tic director Muriel Romanes, they discussed how women end up feeling splintered throughout their lives. They fleshed out the idea with the story of an ancient goddess who had the ability to become two people when a tough decision presented itself.

“[Ana] basically gives away everything in order to understand and rise above,” says Schapiro. “That was the inspiration [...] not just the increased statistics in women with depression, but that kind of malaise, that daily weight of ‘what is the point of going on.’”

The play is being performed by Quebe-cois and Scottish actors in both French and English. There will be subtitles so that ev-eryone understands the complete show here

and during its performances in Scotland.Artists working on the project said they

were struck by the similarities between their two homelands.

“Even the language, joual and Highland

Scottish, are very similar,” said Shapiro. “[Including] obviously politically, the quest for identity is out there. The guarding of the language and culture is prominent [in both places].”

So it would then make sense that a col-laboration should happen between these two geographically distant, yet idiosyncrati-cally similar societies. But while Scotland works to further its culture and identity through a vibrant arts community, the real-ity here is quite different.

“The finance minister has already an-nounced that arts organizations should start looking for other funding, because they won’t be doing it anymore,” said Schapiro. “In the history of theatre you see how important it’s been socially, politically, and intellectually. But we all forget that. [...] The arts have always been considered a luxury, a fringe - and that’s so untrue.”

Schapiro admits that there is a lot of bad theatre in the city and the aftershocks of that lowers attendance for all companies. In such an environment, relying solely on the box office for support becomes even more unrealistic. But she says that when com-panies challenge themselves and welcome collaboration “it raises the bar. [...] Theatre needs to be more global.”

While Quebec theatre struggles, Scotland has the flip-side. Arts are such an integral part of the society that theatre houses will have their own restaurants or pubs where “even people who aren’t seeing the play are meeting with the actors. It’s a whole differ-ent culture,” Schapiro says.

Considering the striking similarities found in both Scottish and Québécois soci-ety, along with the dichotomy between how theatre is treated in each, it seems oddly fitting that this transatlantic collaboration should be ANA, the story of one woman split into very different realities.

ANA runs at Espace Go (4890 St-Laurent) Nov. 22 – Dec. 10. Tickets are $23 for at-tendees under 30. For more info: imag-otheatre.ca/ana.

Graphic by Maya Pankalla

Come together right now

Rebecca Ugolini Staff writer

Fine Arts students team up for annual undergraduate student exhibition

Happenstance often breeds great artistic discov-eries - an overheard song becomes a personal anthem, a whimsical shop window alleviates winter gloom.

For many increasingly stressed students cutting across the EV building’s York Corridor this semester, the perfect antidote to end-of-term anxiety just may be a trip to the FOFA’s latest offering: COMBINE 2011, the 26th annual under-graduate student exhibit.

Tempting passersby with a few pieces from the exhibit, the EV building’s brightly-lit, all-glass vitrine and the gallery’s Ste-Catherine street windows feature the installation pieces, photography, drawings, paintings, sculptures and video segments of nearly 20 fine arts students.

Juried by representatives from the VAV Gal-lery, the Fine Arts Student Alliance and the Art History Reading Room, COMBINE 2011 brings together students from all aspects of the fine arts community.

It’s no small feat for the faculty, students, and organizers involved, and it’s something which FOFA director jake moore is exceptionally proud of.

“What we’re presenting is a collaborative effort,” moore said. “Since we’ve been doing the COMBINE exhibits at the FOFA, we’ve been trying to bring forth the full potential of the fine arts faculty.”

“Every fine arts student submitting artwork has been paired with an art history student who writes a responsive text to their piece. Both the images and text will be available in our exhibi-tion catalogue, designed by design and compu-tation arts students,” moore explained.

The emphasis which the COMBINE dy-namic places on collaboration, professionalism and delivering quality work prepares fine arts students for the real working world - and they’re impressed with the experience.

“With the Art Matters Festival, the VAV programming and now the COMBINE 2011 ex-hibition, I was able to practice submission and exhibition procedures, and the exposure from these events is fantastic,” said fine arts student Thea Govorchin, whose video piece Beginnings will be exhibited.

“I thought I would just spend most of my undergraduate degree in fine arts making really bad student art until I secretly found my voice,” joked Govorchin, a Vancouver native, “but Montreal has such a phenomenal artistic com-munity that I’ve been able to bulk up my CV quite a bit.”

Contributor and fine arts student Eli Kerr agrees with Govorchin. Its experience and exposure that make COMBINE 2011 so worth-while for participating students, organizers, and visitors.

“The COMBINE 2011 exhibit is really a rare opportunity for undergraduates to get to work with a gallery on this level, as well as a chance for visitors to see writers and artists putting their work forward at one of the school’s best galleries,” added Kerr. “That’s why it’s such an interesting initiative.”

Kerr’s unconventional work is indicative of the variety COMBINE 2011 offers. “I’ve entitled my piece Reflections on Rietveld and it’s a sculptural re-interpretation of Rietveld’s Red Blue Chair,” Kerr explained.

Setting out to re-create such a complicated reconstruction wasn’t easy, but Kerr credits Concordia and his close friends with making his project a reality.

“I’ve been thinking about this project and working on Rietveld for a while now,” Kerr said, “and the COMBINE 2011 exhibit is a great op-portunity. There’s such a wealth of knowledge and assistance up at Concordia’s metal shop as well, and the technicians who work there are a fantastic resource.”

Moore is elated with student response. “It’s

an opportunity and a challenge for them,” she said, “and they always deliver remarkably well. It’s a pleasure for me to work with them.”

She also announced that COMBINE 2011 will feature guest speaker Josée Drouin-Brise-bois who is curator of contemporary art at the National Gallery. Drouin-Brisebois will give a lecture in the York Ampitheatre followed by a re-ception at the FOFA gallery and adjacent atrium.

“The lecture and reception will bring so many people from the community to the FOFA,” said moore, “which only increases the value of participating in the exhibit for the students and visitors.”

An experience which may be bittersweet for students like Govorchin, for whom COMBINE 2011 will be the last undergraduate arts showing.

“I’ve had a fantastic experience at Concor-dia,” Govorchin said. “It’s nice to be able to bid it adieu with such a quality farewell show.”

COMBINE 2011 runs from Nov. 21 to Dec. 2. Admission is free. For more information, visit fofagallery.concordia.ca.

13Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Write to the editor: [email protected]

musicreview

Friday aFternoon’s Free CMW shoWCase boasted soMe serious talent. MMVa Winners, the MidWay state, Made it diFFiCult For any MusiC loVer not to appreCiate their appeal.

M for Montreal:

rootsy-Folk band Canailles played saturday aFternoon’s FranCo M seleCtion. the eight-pieCe Featured an aCCordion, stand-up bass, a Mandolin and tons oF talent.

this year, M partnered up With

FrenCh FestiVal les inroCks. Wednesday

night shoW- Cased the highly entertaining,

FiVe-pieCe, FeMale-Fronted indie band,

ConCrete kniVes.

Canailles and seVen other FrenCh bands played M: alaClair

enseMble, alexandre désilets, JiMMy hunt,

Fanny blooM, kariM ouellet, peter peter

and alFa roCoCo. leiF Vollebekk gaVe an energetiC guitar-and-harMoniCa-driVen perForManCe at Metropolis on saturday night. text by katelyn spidle, photos by alana la rossa

loCal poWer-pop group Creature Wrapped up Wednesday night’s shoWCase shoWing up Montreal’s Claass and FranCe’s anoraak, Who perForMed earlier, paling in CoMparison.

la sala rossa Was CoMpletely sold out For toronto’s hollerado on Friday night. their highly orChestrated perForManCe Featured synChronized JuMps, ConFetti and gloWing blue Volleyballs.

the roundup

14 Tuesday, November 22, 2011 theconcordian

A ‘new day and new age’ brings Days Into Years even closer to listeners’ ears

Elliott BROOD uses history to tell new storiesprofile

Allie Mason Music editor

Envision yourself cycling leisurely through back-country Europe: the beautiful landscape, historical villages and ruins, and the deeply entrenched emotions lingering in the air from centuries of battles and lives lost. That is the imagery Elliott BROOD’s new album Days Into Years conjures up.

“This is not really your gung-ho, smash pots and pans album,” said Mark Sasso, Elliott BROOD’s vocalist and lead guitarist. “The rhythm and the crazy rocking out took a backseat to, ‘Okay these are different topics and they’re sombre,’ so we need to approach it differently.”

The self-proclaimed ‘death country’ trio from Toronto drew their inspiration from their com-mon interest in military history and their experiences visiting war cemeteries on their recent tour in Belgium and France.

“This album was supposed to be really soft and acoustic, but for some reason the songs kind of went in another direction,” admits Sasso, but that wasn’t so much the case. Days Into Years revels in the rawness and personal struggles of the band’s members through a historical lens.

“[‘West End Sky’] is Casey [Laforet]’s song,” said Sasso. “He had a terrible breakup, so I think real life inspires and you have to use that energy in a certain way and I think Casey made an amaz-ing song. He used the energy in a good way. You can lose it or you can take it and harness it.”

The beautiful banjo, delicate ruthes rhythms, melodic guitar,

and soft-yet-gruff vocals lull you into a dream of lost love, prairie skylines and lonely, barren winter land.

While it might not be the foot-stomping, ukulele-desecrating, hard-rocking sound Elliott BROOD fans are used to, it certainly shouldn’t be shunned. “Northern Sky,” which they released this past summer, pays homage to the style that hooked BROOD fans from the start, making it one of the more popular tracks so far with fans.

“We’ve been playing that one for a while,” Sasso explained. “But ‘Their Will,’ which is the last song on the album, has been

really good. It’s been picking up a lot of dust.”

“Every time you put out a new album you hope that people like the new songs, but the response has been overwhelming actu-ally, overwhelmingly good,” he said bashfully. “It’s really nice. It shows you that maybe they’ve heard the songs already before, where for the most part you don’t think that they would.”

Sasso credits technology for allowing music to become more accessible to fans. “New day and new age,” he declared, adding that despite the negative connota-tion that some people attribute to the term “accessible” in the music

industry, the BROOD boys aren’t going out of their way to make music more marketable to the masses.

“You want your music to get out to as many people as possible, and if that happens then that’s a great thing,” he said. “We’re not going out of our way and being like, ‘Okay, if we write this song then all these people are going to come flock to our album.’ That’s not how we write. I think if you do that you’ve done yourself a disservice.”

No strangers to Montreal, this past Saturday was the trio’s fourth time playing La Sala Rossa. “It’s got such an amazing vibe there,”

Mark sasson, stephen pitkin and Carey laForet ForM the alt-Country trio elliot brood. they played at la sala rossa noV. 19.

he explained. “Those are the places that you really want to play and get inspired to play. The en-vironment that you play in—that room, it’s beautiful, it’s gorgeous, and it sounds amazing—that all factors into how enjoyable you have as a night.”

With an extra day in Montreal to enjoy, the BROOD boys are hoping to tour the city and experi-ence as much as they can. “We’d love to catch a hockey game,” said Sasso, and their timing was perfect with the Habs playing the New York Rangers on Saturday night. “I’ve never seen Montreal play in Montreal, and it’s Casey’s favourite team.”

Client : Université de Montréal

Dossier no. :3016

Titre. : CRM : Gerda de Vries

Publication : Concordian

Parution : 22 nov 2011

Format : 4,1” X 5”

Couleur : Noir

Public Conference

THE LANGUAGE OF LIFE :

WHEN MATHEMATICS SPEAKS TO BIOLOGY

Gerda de VriesUniversity of Alberta

Thursday December 1st, 2011 at 7:30 pmFree admission

Pavillon Jean-Coutu, 2940, chemin de Polytechnique, Salle S1-151, Université de Montréal

Université-de-Montréal or Côte-des-Neiges

A wine reception will be offered after the lectureRegistration: www.crm.umontreal.ca/inscription

Advent Retreat

Concordia University Catholic Student Association presents

Be still and know that I am God (Psalm 46:10)

This retreat discusses how to refocus our resolutions and goals aswe prepare for Christmas 2011Date: Saturday, 26th November 2011 from 1pm to 5pmVenue: Loyola Chapel, 7141 Sherbrooke WestContact: Father Paul Anyidoho at ([email protected])Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/group.php?gid=327188315602Website: http://catholic.concordia.ca/

15Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Follow us on Twitter: @TheConcordian

Andrew GuilbertStaff writer

A final Kiss-off A Kiss fan who died in a freak car accident earlier this month was given a send-off wor-thy of a member of the Kiss army. Family and friends of Philip James “Nino” Negri, 43, showed up to his funeral service dressed in Kiss clothing and memorabilia. Items from Nino’s collection were put on display throughout the parlour’s anteroom, includ-ing a vintage Kiss lunchbox, action figures and a slideshow of his friends and family set to “Detroit Rock City.” The service was closed with a modified a capella rendition of “I Was Made For Loving You” with lyrics such as “I was made for loving you, Jesus,” which the attendees all joined in for an im-promptu singalong in what was an unusual but touching tribute to a true Kiss fan.

Someone should learn to shut

their holeCourtney Love went on quite the rant at the SWU Festival in Brazil last week, saying her status as a “gay icon” allowed her to use the word “fags” and claiming that she was the inspiration for the Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie and the In-finite Sadness. The singer really lost it when she noticed a fan holding a poster of her dead husband in the crowd. “I don’t need to see a picture of Kurt, asshole, and I’m going to have you fucking removed if you keep throwing that up,” said the disgruntled diva. “I’m not Kurt—I have to live with his shit, his ghost, his kid every day. Throwing that up is stupid and rude and I’ll beat the fuck out of you if you do it again.” Love then went on a tirade about Dave Grohl, telling the offending fan to “Go see the fucking Foo Fighters and do that shit.”

Kurt just keeps popping up!It’s looking like this Christmas may enter-tain us more than usual. A new Facebook campaign is calling for Nirvana’s 1991 hit “Smells Like Teen Spirit” to become this Christmas’ number one song. “Nirvana For Christmas No. 1,” was started in response to the X Factor band Rhythmix ignoring ini-tial demands from a children’s charity of the same name to change monikers. Though the band has relented, switching their name to Little Mix, it seems the campaign will con-tinue despite having achieved its goal, with British sporting site Ladbrokes placing the odds of the song reaching number one at 4/1.

And he knows a thing or two about hacks

Oasis’ Noel Gallagher has admitted to feel-ing a little left out from all the phone hack-ing excitement that’s been going on in the U.K. of late. “I was absolutely crestfallen when the phone-hacking scandal broke here in England and my name wasn’t mentioned once.” said the Mancunian* musician. “I’m not even worthy to have my fucking phone hacked. And Steve Coogan is. It is fucking over.”*Mancunian is the proper term for a Man-chester native, in case you were wondering!

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debate

The digital versus vinyl debate

Andrew Guilbert Staff writer

iPods and headphones or records and gramophones?

In the last decade or so, the way we experi-ence music has changed drastically. Many now walk around with a miniature library of music in their back pockets, downloading music directly to their computers for a fraction of what they used to pay in stores. Still others have gone retro, touting the virtues of vinyl as the superior method of music enjoyment. But what makes a person prefer one to the other?

Twenty-four-year-old Cory Pereira, a.k.a. DJ Pinky Pereira, plays shows all over the world, but currently calls Montreal home. Though he began his career on vinyl, he’s since moved on to using nothing but digital music for his shows. “I know [DJs] that still appreciate vinyl, but the majority of them are digital now, including all the international DJs I know; they’re the ones who finally con-vinced me to switch to digital.”

He explains that digital has overtaken vinyl in its once iconic role at the turntables mainly for the ease of use and practicality the format allows. “What made me change was cost ef-ficiency and the amount of stuff I used to have to carry for gigs. Now it’s so much easier; I can travel with my laptop, my two controllers and my soundcard in the same bag and that’s it!”

The other advantage, he says, is the sheer amount of music he now has access to during his shows. “On my laptop right now, I have

maybe 200 GBs of music. On vinyl, I’d only have three, maybe four, songs per record,” he says.

For some, the prospect of having thou-sands of songs at your fingertips is exactly what turns them away from mp3s. “There’s pros and cons to having the ability to access everything,” says Sam Mullen, a McGill gradu-ate in music performance. “If you have endless choices, it destroys your focus. I’d much rather listen to an album over and over again so I can hear the fine details of it.”

Mullen has been a record collector for years but admits that his stance on musical mediums is not for everyone. “I wouldn’t say limiting yourself is an answer for everybody,

but for someone who wants to study music seriously, or wants to get to know music, it can definitely help to limit your choices.” As a musician himself, he says that those limits are what fuel creativity and bring about new variations of music. He believes that when you take away limitations “it leads to mo-notony everywhere.”

Sylvain Plourde, a professor of digital au-dio at Montreal’s Trebas Institute, argues that new technology has allowed casual listeners to experience unprecedented sound quality. “Back in the day with walkmans, you had to deal with the horrible background noise on tapes, so mp3s are better in that sense.”

That lack of “background noise” is also what he sees as the big advantage that digital recording has over the analog process vinyl uses. Plourde says to imagine the recording of analog vinyl as Morse code; “when you make S.O.S. ‘dot dot dot’ sounds, they can come out at the other end of the line as ‘dot dot’ and a lot of garbled noise” whereas the digital method is like “directly writing that S.O.S. on paper,” it has no chance of getting garbled in transit like analog would.

As for the idea that vinyl sounds better? “You’ve got to be careful not to compare apples and oranges. If you take a $100 hi-fi record and put it on a $50,000 turntable, of course it’s going to sound better than an mp3 file. But take a cheap record and play it next to a song in [the audio editing software] Pro Tools, and you’ll get the same result.”

That being said, Plourde believes there will always be differences in sound quality throughout mediums for those with sharp enough ears to hear it. And for the rest of us? “Ignorance is bliss,” he laughs.

“You’ve got to be careful not to compare apples

and oranges. If you take a $100 hi-fi record and put it on a $50,000 turntable, of course it’s going to sound

better than an mp3 file. But take a cheap record and play it next to a song in [the audio editing soft-ware] Pro Tools, and you’ll

get the same result.”

- Sylvain Plourde, professor at Trebas institute

“ “

16 Tuesday, November 22, 2011 theconcordian

SIDE A: Sugar

1. “Never Change” - Yael Naim - She Was a Boy (2010)2. “Lived in Bars” - Cat Power - The Greatest (2006)3. “Tell Him” - Lauryn Hill - The Misedu-cation of Lauryn Hill (1998)4. “Let it Fall” - Lykke Li - Youth Novels (2008)5. “Andar Conmigo” - Julieta Venegas - Sí (2003)6. “Babyfather” - Sade - Soldier of Love (2009)7. “Oh My My” - Jill Barber - Chances (2008)8. “Il y a” - Vanessa Paradis - Best Of (2009)9. “Hex” - Neko Case - The Tigers Have Spoken (2004)10. “Wake up Alone” - Amy Winehouse - Back to Black (2007)

this playlist is a Fist-shake to the popular MusiC biz that so often shines its spotlight on girls who pose with guitars they don’t actually play and mouth words to songs they didn’t actually write. It’s in honour of all the female musicians who get on stage, play their own instruments, and make truly cool and original music.

These women are poets and punks. They’re sweet, sassy and sexually liberated. They take charge of stages, meld genres and push boundaries. Side A is perfect for a sweet Sunday morning sleep-in—the kind of stuff that gets Granny’s seal of approval. Side B is for letting it all go—whatever that means to you. Thumbs down to drawing all the cool women in music under that giant “womyn’s music” umbrella. Thumbs up to just giving them the props they deserve.

Compiled by Lindsay BriscoeStaff writer

Sugar and spice

SIDE B: Spice

11. “F**k You” - Lily Allen - It’s Not Me, It’s You (2009)12. “Coming Down” - Dum Dum Girls - Only in Dreams (2011)13. “Beast of Honour” - Melissa Auf der Maur - Auf der Maur (2004)14. “Lovertits” - Peaches - The Teaches of Peaches (2000)15. “Love me or Hate me” - Lady Sov-ereign - Public Warning (2006)16. “Hardly Wait” - Juliette Lewis - Strange Days Soundtrack (1995)17. “Steve McQueen - Sheryl Crow - C’mon C’mon (2002)18. “Raise your Glass” - P!nk - Great-est Hits...So Far!!! (2010)19. “Maniac” - PJ Harvey - B Sides (1991-1995)20. “Cherry Bomb” - The Runaways - The Runaways (1976)

Listen to the mixtape here: 8tracks.com/theconcordian/sugar_n_spice

mixtape

- Chris Hanna

Janet Jackson - Control (1986; A&M records)

- Paul Traunero

Atlas Sound - Parallax (4AD; 2011)

Long Live the King is a six-song EP by indie crooners The Decemberists. The band already released a full-length album in January of this year, entitled The King is Dead, and these new songs are some of the outtakes from that album. Just like The King is Dead, these songs are heav-ily influenced by country music. They were, after all, recorded on a farm in the band’s home state of Oregon.

These outtakes and home demos may not have a story weaving them together like the band’s previous masterpieces The Crane Wife and The Hazards of Love, but they still stay true to The Decemberists’ talent of marvellously lead-ing one track to the next.

This EP, short as it may be, is a last chance for fans to hear some new material before the band goes on an official hiatus. (Sigh)

Trial track: “Foregone”

-Chloe Deneumoustier

The Decemberists - Long Live the King [EP] (Capitol; 2011)

Quick Spins

- Kristen Dyer

Drake - Take Care (Cash Money/Universal Republic; 2011)

Retro review

7.0/109.0/109.0/10

While his lyrics about fame, money and the haters would suggest that he is a 120-year-old veteran of the rap game releasing his 90th album, Take Care is 25-year-old Drake’s second studio album. Each song feels like a page from his journal. “You tell me I’m just like my father / My one button you push it,” he laments on “Look What You’ve Done.” Drake’s songs are about inspiration, friendships, loves lost and broken hearts, and if that sounds soft, it’s because it is. The sound is mellower; the rhymes, sharper; the lyrics, more personal. Take Care gets some help from an impressive slate of collaborators, includ-ing Andre 3000 (whose verse on “The Real Her” is an album highlight), Stevie Wonder and fellow Canadians The Weeknd and Chantal Kreviazuk, as well as Nicki Minaj and Lil’ Wayne. Compared to Drake’s 2010 effort Thank Me Later, the “real” is definitely on the rise.

Trial track: “Take Care” feat. Rihanna

Both in its songwriting and production, there’s a definite sense of confidence that shines through Parallax, the third proper solo release by Bradford Cox, under the moniker of Atlas Sound. Featured on the album art as a slicked-back greaser clutch-ing a vintage microphone (and by legendary photographer Mick Rock, known for photograph-ing iconic rock and roll musicians no less), we find Cox stepping out of the distorted haze of his bedroom and into the spotlight. Aligning himself with the persona of a modern-day Bowie, he croons his way through the 12 tracks of Parallax with fewer vocal effects, a cleaner production and a pop sensibility that makes the songs flow together more naturally than on previous re-leases. All of these factors allow this album to be his most accessible yet, securing Brandon Cox’s place as one of the important songwriters of our generation.

Trial track: “Te Amo”

For Janet Jackson, 1986 was the year of Control. Her third studio album saw her release her father as her manager, allowing her greater musical suc-cess. Control is a coming-of-age album in which Jackson aggressively expresses her newfound authority. “Nasty” has Janet calling out sleazy men, while “What Have You Done for Me Lately” has her questioning her boyfriend’s indifference. Despite asserting a desire to be in charge, Control still possesses innocence. The ballad, “Let’s Wait Awhile,” expresses a desire to delay hasty sexual intimacy, “Lets wait awhile, awhile before it’s too late/You know you can’t rush love,” while “He Doesn’t Know I’m Alive” has Janet hanging up the phone on a crush, “I got his number, I call him up/Just to hear him say ‘hello’/And when he answers I always hang up.” In spite of her famous family, Control made Janet a superstar. Now, 25 years later, Janet is one of the best-selling artists of all time.

Trial track: “Nasty”

17Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Write to the editor: [email protected]

sportshockey

Friday night dramatics earn Stingers weekend split

It speaks volumes to the Concordia Stingers’ offence that the team is 2-2 in its past four games, despite allowing a total of 27 goals in those four contests.

After an 11-6 loss on the road to Nipissing last week, Concordia had the Lakers in Ed Meagher Arena Friday night to try and right the defensive disaster from the week before.

Trailing Nipissing 6-3 with eight minutes left in the third period, it certainly didn’t look like Concordia learned its lesson, as the team seemed destined for another blow-out loss.

Then the offence awoke.With just over seven minutes remaining in

the third Samuel Morneau got Concordia back within two goals. The pendulum of momen-tum shifted further to Concordia’s side just over a minute and a half later when Olivier Jannard set up Mathieu Dubuc for Concor-dia’s fifth goal.

George Lovatsis would play the role of hero in dramatic fashion tying the game with just 28 seconds left on the clock.

After a scoreless overtime Francois Lanctot-Marcotte would seal the victory for the Stingers, scoring in the seventh round of the shoot-out.

“It was an exciting game for everybody coming back against a top 10 team like that,” said Stingers coach Kevin Figsby. “That was certainly one of the highlights of our first semester.”

The situation was inverted when the Toronto Varsity Blues strolled into Ed Meagher the very next day. Concordia defeated Toronto last week 4-3 in the Varsity Blues’ home barn. This time around it was Toronto playing the roll of spoiler for the home team.

Concordia took a 1-0 lead into the second period, when the wheels suddenly fell off. Toronto tallied four goals in the second frame, en route to a 7-3 victory.

“I think the problem was we went from the highest of the high to having to come back out the next day for another game,” said

Figsby. “I think from my perspective our guys looked a little bit fatigued and that hurt us in the second and third periods on Saturday.”

Concordia allowed over 40 shots in both games, something that is becoming a normal occurrence for the team that has allowed more pucks on net than any other team in the nation.

Still, coach Figsby is not too concerned. “I’m certainly not worried in net, I think we’ve got three of the best goalies in the league,” he said. “I think part of it is our learning curve with our defence. There aren’t

too many teams in the league who have added three first year players to their blue line.”

With the weekend split, Concordia now has a record of 7-5-2 and sits in the middle of the pack in the OUA’s East Division.

The Stingers will spend next weekend on the road, playing on the unusually small ice surfaces at Ryerson and RMC on Nov. 25 and 26.

Coach Figsby is spending the week with the team preparing for the smaller neutral zones on the short and narrow rinks.

Dominic martel (8) checks robert kay (20) in a losing effort on saturDay afternoon at eD meagher arena. Photo by anthony isabella

Julian MeiSports editor

Concordia came from three goals down in the third on Friday

They whacked their sticks against the boards to start periods like war-riors knocking their swords against their shields. They played like war-riors, too.

The Concordia Stingers felt the intensity of the Université de Mon-tréal Carabins Sunday losing 7-1.

It was the second straight loss to the Carabins by the Stingers, which leaves them at the middle of the standings in third place.

Things did not start off well for Concordia as Montréal scored three goals within the first seven minutes of the first period. Montréal domi-nated the period leaving little room for the Stingers to capitalize.

Concordia was able to settle the storm somewhat in the middle

of the period. The calm, how-ever, was just a reprieve from an oncoming storm courtesy of one fierce Carabin.

Five minutes before the end of the opening period, Ariane Barker scored her second and far from final goal.

Period one ended 4-0.“I feel good because my last

game was not very good,” said Barker. “We have a good team. We are complete.”

The second period opened in a cagey fashion with the Stinger de-fence holding strong. Montréal had Concordia pinned in its own zone for about five minutes, but credit the Stinger defence and the goal-keeping of Carolanne Lavoie-Pilon for keeping the game respectable.

At the 11-minute mark, Concor-dia got on the board when Alyssa Sherrard converted a slick cross-goalmouth pass from Véronique Laramée-Paquette.

The joy was short-lived, how-ever, as Barker struck again keeping

the Carabins’ lead at four.Lavoie-Pilon made a couple of

nice saves in the final five minutes of the period, and there was the feeling that if the Stingers kept it tight, they just may be able to get back into the game.

The Stingers did not lay down in the third, and came out with intensity making more forays into the Carabins zone.

Though they got far more pucks on the net, the Stingers were unable to get anything passed goalie Rachel Ouellette.

Eight minutes into the third, Montréal put the game out of reach with a two on one goal from, you guessed it, Barker.

Five minutes before the period’s end, Barker scored again making it a hat-trick plus two for the Napier-ville, Que. native.

The game was a frustrating one for Concordia, who worked hard, but saw its work bear little fruit.

“There was effort, but it wasn’t directed in the right direction,” said

assistant captain Meghan George. “We weren’t angling right. We got two next weekend, so that’s what we’re going to build towards.”

Concordia plays Carleton next Saturday, before their final game of the year 2011 against McGill on Sunday at 3 p.m. at Ed Meagher Arena.

Warrior effort by Carabins’ Barker thumps the Stingers Ariane Barker scores five goals in 7-1 victory

Daniel J. Rowe Staff writer

hockey

battling in front in stingers loPsiDeD loss. Photo by anthony isabella

Tuesday, November 22, 201118 theconcordianbasketball

Despite a few brief mental lapses in the game’s second and third quarters, the Con-cordia Stingers outscored the visiting Laval Rouge et Or by 18 points during the final 10 minutes, earning themselves an 88-72 victory.

Concordia came out strong in the first quarter, playing typical Stingers basketball. They quickly set the tone of game, playing aggressively on both sides of the ball and get-ting out in transition, all of which translated into an early 22-17 lead.

However, in what has been the case of late, Concordia’s intensity and focus seem-ingly all but disappeared in the game’s middle quarters, allowing the visiting Rouge et Or to claw their way back into the game, even grabbing hold of the lead late in the third quarter.

“It’s an issue that we’ve always been talk-ing about in practice,” said Stingers forward Evens Laroche. He was echoing his words from last week talking about how the Stingers want to win big to send a message.

“We have to take our intensity to the next level and that’s what we’re working on. We always start strong and we finish well, but we need to be a killer team that beats teams by 40 points and just doesn’t stop,” he said. “We’re working on it. It’s a long process though.”

Kyle Desmarais, who scored 16 points in the night, also chimed in on the issue. “We have to work on playing a full 40 minutes and we’ll just destroy teams,” said the Sting-ers guard. “We’re trying to see what we can do to get the guys to perform for a full 40 minutes. If we can do that, we’ll be danger-ous nationally.”

Entering the fourth quarter down by a bucket, the Stingers seemed to regain their composure and overall sense of urgency as the lackadaisical attitude that characterized their play over the game’s previous 20 min-utes was nowhere to be found.

They proceeded to crush the visitors, al-most completely shutting them down defen-sively as they outscored Laval 28-10, turning a two-point deficit into a 16-point victory.

The Stingers were led in no small part by Laroche who had a spectacular game, contributing all over the board. The fourth-

year forward registered 16 points on 5-of-9 shooting, to go along with six rebounds, six assists, seven steals and two blocks.

“Evens was all over the court today,” said Stingers head coach John Dore. “He rebound-ed and he blocked shots. I didn’t even realize he had 16 points. It was the other things that

he did that stood out. The intangibles he provided, such as getting in the passing lanes and coming across the court and getting his hands on loose balls was big for us. All those little things that he did for us helped us be successful tonight.”

With the victory, the Stingers are now 2-0 in the season and will play host to the Bishop’s University Gaiters this Friday, Nov. 25 at 8 p.m.

Strong fourth quarter propels Stingers to double-digit triumph

Michael Downs Contributor

havoc ensues on the court over a loose ball as kyle Desmarais gets tangleD with a rouge et or Player. Photo by navneet Pall

Thanks to a key defensive play by first-year forward Natasha Raposo, the Concordia Stingers women’s basketball team was able to secure a 62-60 win over the Laval Rouge et Or.

With approximately three seconds left in the game, Laval’s Chanelle St-Amour dribbled the ball towards mid-court in a last ditch attempt to get a shot off that would either tie or win the game. However, before she could advance the ball past the half court line, she was met by Stingers guard Magalie Beaulieu

who then forced her left towards the sideline. Before she could adjust or make a pass to a teammate, Raposo came over and trapped her against the sideline. With absolutely nowhere to go, St-Amour was forced to hold onto the ball as time expired.

“We got a tremendous defensive stop at the end of the game,” said Stingers head coach Keith Pruden. “Magalie forced the girl left and Raposo came up and trapped. It was an awesome defensive play. [Raposo] picked the right time and the right place.”

“I knew there wasn’t much time left on the clock and I knew that she was one of their star players and would want the last shot,” said Raposo. “When I saw her with her head down I figured ‘why not?’ Good thing my teammates were there to pick up the player

that I left behind.”In a night that saw a plethora of ties and

lead changes, it came as little surprise that the game would come down to a single all-important play. The game was very scrappy and physical and was hotly contested from the opening whistle to closing buzzer. Both teams were locked in a virtual seesaw battle in a game in which no single quarter of play was decided by more than two points.

While pleased with the result and proud of his team’s determination, Pruden came away impressed by the opposing team’s performance. “It was a very close game and I have to say that Laval played very well. I’ve watched a number of their tapes so far this year and this was probably the best game they’ve played this year.”

Stingers guard Kaylah Barrett, who scored 22 points and grabbed six rebounds in the victory, was not at all surprised by Laval’s level of play, given the recent history between both squads. “It was a tough game,” she said. “Last year we beat Laval four times. They were definitely coming at us and they weren’t backing down at all. They came out and played hard and we just fought back.”

The Stingers will host the Bishop’s Univer-sity Gaiters this Friday at 6 p.m. If they win, they will become the first Stingers women’s basketball team to begin a season 3-0 in a little over a decade.

Stingers prevail in nail biter against Rouge et OrKey defensive stop clinches first home win

Michael Downs Contributor

Concordia men win convincingly in home opener

basketball

19Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Follow us on Twitter: @TheConcordianhockey

REGINA (CUP) — It’s been called part of the game. It’s considered an exciting aspect of hockey. And it’s been proven to draw a larger audience — but not everyone feels that fighting deserves a place inside a Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) rink.

The CIS men’s ice hockey playing regula-tions state that in the event of a fight the “instigator of, or aggressor in a fight [receives] a one-game additional suspension along with the one-game suspension for fighting (a total of two games). A player involved in a fight against an instigator (where an instigator penalty is called) — would be ejected from the game, but would not be suspended for the following game(s).”

Whether the rules against fighting in CIS hockey are fair, and if they should be changed, has often come up for debate. Many fans will argue that fighting is part of the game; kids are taught to fight in hockey from the time they are around 13 years old, and every league surrounding the CIS, such as the CHL, has allowed fighting with no suspen-sions.

Although adding fighting to CIS hockey could make the game more exciting and at-tract more fans with the simple prospect of two players being able to duke it out at any moment, other people, such as CIS com-munications manager Michel Belanger, feel otherwise.

“There’s no place for fighting in university hockey,” Belanger said. “I like our current rule. If anything, I think the automatic sus-

pensions should be even longer.”Due to the relatively strict rules against

fighting at the university level, Belanger has one simple view in regards to players engag-ing in on-ice tilts: “Fighting is not allowed in CIS hockey.”

However, Bill Seymour, the Canada West men’s hockey convenor, has a different take on fighting at the CIS level.

“In Canada West [and] CIS hockey, fight-ing is not really against the rules; it does hap-pen,” Seymour stated. “The differences be-tween, say, junior or the pros is that in [CIS] hockey, the two combatants are automatically kicked out of that game, plus they receive an automatic one-game suspension. Because of our relatively short season, players do not like to be suspended, so there is a tendency not to fight.”

In surrounding leagues, teams often have one or two members on their roster whose only job is to fight. These players often become known as enforcers, who stick up for their teammates — in particular, smaller, goal-scoring players who the team cannot risk getting hurt. In a sense, these players are on the roster to fight their teammates’ battles.

While there may not be any distinctive enforcers on CIS rosters, Seymour believes some players are much more likely to fight than others.

“The veteran players seldom fight because they know the consequences and do not want to miss any games. Also, the extra [and] fringe players do not fight because they know

or at least think they will be benched as they are already suspended,” Seymour said.

“We also have the instigator rule, where both are kicked out of that game but the instigator, or the guy who starts a fight, can be assessed an instigator penalty, which is an automatic two-game suspension, while the guy who was attacked or was just defending himself is not suspended.”

Although some hockey players may be more inclined to fight than others, Belanger still believes fights are extremely rare in CIS men’s hockey action.

“While there are a few — very few — fights every year in CIS hockey, I’ve never witnessed one myself in my 10 or so years of attending games,” he said.

It is interesting that Belanger claims to never have seen a fight firsthand, as Seymour has a different take on how many fights actu-ally occur on the ice during the university hockey season.

“I can’t speak for the other CIS leagues, but our Canada West league averages five to six fights per year in 196 games; last year, we had five fights,” Seymour said. “In my time, the worst year was 1998–99 [where there were] 17 fights. So far this year, in 32 games, no fights.”

Seymour has noticed that making the adjustment to the CIS game from the vari-ous levels of junior can be difficult for some players, especially for those who are used to fighting numerous times a year.

“Another point is, you will often see

players who might have fought a lot in their junior or pro leagues now come on to Canada West hockey and not have any fights,” he explained. “I have heard them say that they really enjoy the chance to just go out and play the game for the game’s sake without having to worry or think about fighting.”

Seymour agrees with Belanger that the fighting rule in CIS hockey does not need to be changed. However, the Canada West convenor does not feel that fighting needs to be removed from the game entirely or that increasingly harsh suspensions should be imposed.

“Right now, I like our rule the way it is,” Seymour said. “Every once in a while two guys will go at it and I am okay with that. The coaches and players all know our rules and live with the consequences. If we were to see an increase in fighting, we would probably have to rethink our rules, but right now I’m okay with the way it is.”

Belanger may have a slightly different view on fighting in hockey at the CIS level than Seymour does, but both agree that uni-versity hockey is unique.

“I think CIS hockey has proven over the years that you can have a high-caliber product that doesn’t include fighting,” Belanger said.

With or without fighting, Seymour be-lieves that more people need to realize what Canadian university hockey has to offer. Ac-cording to him, there is nothing else like it.

“[CIS hockey] is the best kept hockey secret in Canada.”

Does fighting have a place in CIS hockey?A look at the chances of Canada’s university hockey players dropping the gloves without getting suspended

Autumn McDowell The Carillon

20 Tuesday, November 22, 2011

opinionsWrite to the editor: [email protected]

Perhaps if the provincial government had indeed zoomed in on how much Concordia pays its senior administrators, or how much any Quebec university pays its big bosses for that matter, the Charest Liberals would seriously rethink their stance on increasing tuition. Maybe, just maybe, they would in-stead focus on working with the money that is already given to universities and advocate for better spending.

Because paying a university president $350,000 and allowing him to fly business class to British Columbia for $4,000, more than a Quebec student’s tuition for a year, is not proper spending. Firing Judith Woods-worth from the Concordia presidential posi-tion and awarding her a severance package of over $700,000 is not proper spending. Why has no one in power realized this by now?

There has never been a clear, coherent answer to that question, just like there has never been a reasonable answer to why students must pay for tuition period.

As demonstrated on the front page of this week’s issue of The Concordian, students pay so much into this institution we call a university, which then takes some of those much-needed funds from students and hands them over to senior administra-tors.

It’s safe to say that the VPs who dominate the GM building are certainly not

Anyone interested in a pay cut? It would be nice to know if the Quebec government has taken a close look at ConU admin salaries

strapped for cash and left scrounging for food and support, unlike many students. These two contrasting realities have existed since universities were created, and yet nothing has ever been done to bring them closer together. Why does a university presi-dent, who oversees an institution of 45,000 students, need to be given a salary that rivals that of the Quebec premier? Why does a Quebec student need to pay $325 more for tuition a year between 2012 and 2017 when that same student must watch millions go toward senior administrative salaries and severance packages?

The student population isn’t even at the frustration period anymore. They’re mad, mad as hell to be exact.

As seen during the Nov. 10 protests against tuition hikes in downtown Montreal, students are fed up with having to pay mon-ey to institutions that all have their histories of bloated, expensive bureaucracies and which have not exactly been champions of transparency.

Quebec premier Jean Charest says students need to pay their “juste part,” or “their share.” If that’s the case, and students really do need to pay more to better their universities, then why doesn’t the same rule apply to senior university administrators? Why don’t they take a pay cut (a gigantic pay cut in the case of some administrators) and allow for the money saved to be in-vested in what really matters at universities: teaching excellence, quality library material, and an overall safe and healthy campus life? The provincial government seems to think that this kind of goal can only be accom-plished by telling students to pay more, but it’s high time they start to consider that this goal can equally be reached by telling senior administrators that they should be paid less.

There is no denying that President Lowy and the multiple vice-presidents, assistant vice-presidents and other senior officers at Concordia put in their hours. Some of them are undoubtedly working exceedingly hard and truly care about the state of this university. But if they really care about the institution they work for, they should think, and think hard, about the largest segment of this institution’s population: the students. There are almost 45,000 of them, many of whom must depend on student loans to get through their degrees, amassing tens of thousands of dollars of debt in the process.

So many students are already struggling financially, so again, this begs the question: why does the government ask students to pay more, but not ask senior administrators to be paid less? The ruling factions of the university’s governance structure will tell you that these massive salaries (not to men-tion the huge allowances related to housing, travel, etc.) are needed to compete against other universities on the education employ-ment market.

letters

It’s time to get yourself heardCJLO 1690 AM is looking for you to approve a nine-cent fee levy during the Concordia Student Union byelection on Nov. 29, 30 and Dec. 1.

As many of you know, we ran for a fee levy last semester but we came up short. What you might not know is that we were the victims of a flawed process and your democratic voice was lost as a result. We are running again to correct that wrong.

Due to the neglect of the CEO supervis-ing the last election, students didn’t have access to correct ballots or information on our proposal.

Had you had access to our reasons for running, this is what you would have heard:

CJLO is currently aired on 1690 AM. Due to the technical limitations of AM, the sounds of Concordia’s students can’t be heard downtown. We have a plan to correct that: voting ‘yes’ will lead to a new FM signal that would serve downtown, bringing CJLO to all of Concordia’s students and residents.

This signal would concentrate on the downtown core, bringing you the best in local

music and an opportunity for your voice to be heard by the entire university. This signal will also remain ad free.

If you vote ‘yes,’ CJLO will continue to purchase new professional-grade recording equipment that any student can use, no mat-ter what class you’re registered for.

CJLO is committed to bringing your voice and the voice of local artists to our city’s increasingly commercialized airwaves.

Stephanie Saretsky, CJLO Station ManagerBrian Joseph, CJLO Program Director

CUTV, your CAMPUS-COMMUNITY TELEVISION needs YOU!

Real-life TV heads may have caught your attention roaming Concordia’s campus this week. This attempt at 3D TV is no joke, these TV heads want you to know that CUTV is YOUR TV.

Students’ concerns deserve more atten-tion in our media and this is why we want to

become the first REAL campus-community channel in Quebec.

To help us make this much needed TV channel a reality, we need your support on Nov. 29-30 and Dec. 1. VOTE YES for CUTV, here’s why:

In the past year, CUTV’s content has exploded. From almost no regular program-ming, the station now has six weekly shows on topics as varied as news, arts and culture, comedy, food and sustainability, music and independent film. All this student produced content has made us the biggest campus TV station in the continent.

In expanding its programming, the station followed two strategies. The first was to offer an uneditorialized look at campus politics as a tool for increased transparency and account-ability at Concordia. CUTV has also broadcast news from all the levels of governance to keep students as informed as possible.

The second strategy was to exhibit the beautifully diverse artistic and cultural com-munities that make up Concordia. CUTV has helped countless groups on campus promote their groundbreaking work.

On campus, CUTV has helped improve the political culture at Concordia. The CSU

Council Livestream Project was the first of its kind in student politics globally. The livestream has become the official archive of the student union and decreased student apathy significantly. This innovative project gave students the means to demand the same access to all governing bodies at our univer-sity. More recently on the province-wide Day of Action against tuition hikes, CUTV sent more than 100 “Dear Charest” video letters to Quebec politicians. These letters portray what students think of the hikes. This campaign ranked in the top 50 most viewed channels on YouTube, Canada wide.

In arts and culture coverage, CUTV is acknowledged as the hope of the English community to showcase its diversity. Groups like the English Language Arts Network of Quebec and the Quebec Drama Federation are partnering with CUTV on special projects and endorse our application for a TV broadcast licence.

Help CUTV broadcast media that repre-sents YOU. We want to amplify YOUR content on our airwaves. Under the CRTC, we have a right to it, so VOTE YES!

Laura Kneale, Station Manager, CUTV

But if these senior administrators re-ally care about the university first and their paycheque second, they shouldn’t be hesitant in accepting a pay cut. Most people get by quite easily on a base salary of $50,000 (while many others work around much less). Will a gross salary ranging between $50,000 to $100,000 really be so detrimental to a senior VP’s life that it will stop them from completing their duties. It’s highly unlikely that such a salary reduction will prevent certain VPs from still doing the rounds and giving the university’s donors the proverbial handshake.

In the long run, smaller salaries for senior administrators would only make sense. Students would still have access to affordable, quality education; members of the university’s higher levels would still be able to carry out their duties and live a decent quality of life; and the university as a whole would greatly benefit from the sud-den influx of cash. Because as we’ve been told time and time again, we really need the money. So let’s be generous.

So many students are already struggling financially, so again, this begs the question: why does the government ask students to pay more, but not ask senior administrators to be

paid less?“

Tuesday, November 22, 2011 21Follow us on Twitter: @TheConcordianadvertising

Benetton’s ad campaign has backfired

George Menexis Staff writer

The Benetton group used to be hip. It wasn’t unnatural to see teens walking down the street sporting the United Colors of Benetton…in 1970.

The Italian clothing giant was founded in 1965 and flourished dur-ing the ‘70s and ‘80s. “In the ‘70s, everyone loved Benetton. It was very stylish and everyone had at least one piece of clothing from them,” said Helen Merk, a credit manager at a clothing distributing company in Montreal.

Nowadays, they’re finding desperate and childish ways to get their name back on the market, no matter how controversial that way may seem.

Recently, they released the “un-hate” ad campaign which portrays world leaders kissing each other. Despite Benetton’s efforts to ensure it was to promote love and “unhate” among populations and people of different religions, they’ve received an enormous share of criticism and even potential lawsuits.

This ad campaign, despite Benet-ton’s assurances that it’s to raise awareness for peace and create an equal world, actually represents an

extremely feeble attempt to get some advertisement.

So far, their ad campaign hasn’t really worked. This attempt at “shock advertising” that made them so famous in the ‘70s and ‘80s has brought forth very negative results.

Perhaps the most controversial shows Pope Benedict XVI kissing the imam of the al-Azhar mosque in Egypt, Ahmed Mohamed el-Tayeb. The Vatican immediately issued a complaint, saying that legal action will now be taken against the United Colors of Benetton. The Vatican has been carefully controlling the pope’s image for more than 500 years, and this is no different.

“It is wounding not only to the dignity of the Pope but also to the sensibilities of the faithful,” said the Vatican after the ads were released.

The White House released a statement stating the absurdity of the campaign and that “the White House has a longstanding policy disapprov-ing of the use of the president’s name and likeness for commercial pur-poses.” Other ads in the campaign showed President Obama kissing China’s President Hu Jintao and the Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.

Benetton has seen a tremen-dous drop in its numbers since the emergence of fashion brands such as H&M and Zara. While these stores have seen their numbers grow immensely in the past decade, the United Colors of Benetton have

struggled to keep a clientele that was quickly turning towards these new trends in fashion.

“Shock advertisement” in general doesn’t have people appreciating the brand but has them jeering at it. People tend to appreciate smart and innovative advertisement that attracts

Screw the rules, I’m famous!celebrities

Celebrities get away with way too much

Myles Dolphin Opinions editor

F. Scott Fitzgerald once said “the rich are different from you and me.” He was right.

It’s sickening to witness, on a quasi-daily basis, how the rich and famous get away with so much.

The latest involves legendary college football coach Joe Paterno, amicably nicknamed “JoePa.” His status at Penn State is larger-than-life: according to a Sports Illustrated article, there’s a library and ice cream bearing his name, statues and murals devoted to him and even a class named COMM 497G – Joe Paterno: Communication & the Media.

It’s ironic how Paterno lacked the communication skills necessary to place his ex-defensive coordinator, Jerry San-dusky, behind bars after he found out the latter had been abusing a 10-year-old boy in the showers.

After being told of the abuse by a witness in March of 2002, Paterno didn’t call the police. He called the univer-sity’s athletic director and told him about the report. Noth-ing happened, and Sandusky kept abusing boys of various ages until 2009. He was arrested Nov. 5 and charged with 40 counts of sexually abusing children over 15 years.

This is part of a bigger problem. The media is respon-sible for giving celebrities, the rich and famous and other important figures too much leeway. Greg Morago wrote a great piece for the Hartford Times in 2003 likening celebri-ties to Teflon.

“Their shiny, impenetrable surface makes them invin-cible. Punishment for crimes and misdemeanours never stick. Bad press slides right off. Ill will ricochets with alarming ease.”

So many powerful people have gotten away with ter-rible things: Schwarzenegger (busy hands, alleged admira-tion of Hitler), Kobe Bryant (sexual assault), Rick James

(sexual torture), R. Kelly (child pornography), Johnny Cash (killed 49 California Condors, roughly half the entire species). The list goes on and on.

What do they all have in common? As Morago said, they all have Teflon armour. We’re partly to blame, though. There’s an innate desire to see celebrities implode, but an equally powerful desire to see them bounce back and start anew.

We encourage this because we allow the media to ap-propriate this crazy notion that celebrities are demigods. The more we talk about these scandals, the more fun their PR machines have in feeding the media frenzy, and the less coverage that goes to victims. In Paterno’s case, it’s unfortunate how he’s been cast into the limelight while the

victims of Sandusky’s abuses are the ones we should be concerned with.

In an ideal world, everyone mentioned above would have taken a stand, and made it clear how wrong their actions were, instead of profiting from the attention. It’s encouraging to see vigils for the victims, and senators rescinding their support for Paterno’s nomination for the Presidential Medal of Freedom, but Paterno himself needs to take advantage of this moment to not only apologize, but offer ways to help prevent this from ever happening again.

Instead, he’ll be sitting at home, enjoying his $554,000 annual pension while the men who were abused continue having nightmares night after night. How fair is that?

Graphic by Phil Waheed

people in a positive way.“It’s barbaric to portray these

people kissing each other. It’s a cheap way to advertise and a pathetic way to get your name out there,” said Concordia political sci-ence student Panagiota Paps.

People recognize that Benet-

ton’s apparent campaign of “un-hate” is but a selfish way of getting themselves attention. Pushing the envelope is one thing, but being responsibly tasteful is another. What the Benetton group needs to under-stand is that there is such a thing as bad press.

Ads of leaders getting to first base are tasteless

Gra

phic

by

Katie

Brio

ux

theconcordianTuesday, November 22, 201122

discrimination

BSL is BS legislationFocus should be on dog owners, not breed

Lauren GuayContributor

Breed specific legislation (BSL) is blatant discrimination.

Two weeks ago, a Lachine man was given a ticket for having a dog that “looked” like a pit bull, and a second ticket for having a “mean” dog because the dog was barking.

Pit bulls are banned in Lachine, as well as in Outremont and Ville St-Laurent. BSL typically targets dogs like pit bulls and rottweilers. The problem is that a pit bull is not a breed. Pit bulls are a type of dog belonging to the terrier family. So when BSL is enforced within a community, dogs are reprimanded just for the way they look.

BSL is also very costly to implement; dogs must be seized, housed, and in most cases, euthanized.

The legislation deems an entire breed dangerous based on the actions of a few of its members. It only considers a dog’s appearance, not its behaviour or how the owner has raised or trained the dog.

Several studies indicate BSL doesn’t actually work. Communities pass such leg-islation in the hopes that it will reduce dog bites, however, the numbers remain con-sistent year after year in BSL communities. According to the Fordham Law Review, BSL doesn’t solve the “dangerous dog dilemma” as those individuals who breed and train pit bulls to be aggressive are not affected by BSL. If their dog is taken away, what is stopping them from just getting another one? Nothing.

Prior to the 1980s, pit bulls were the epit-ome of a family pet. Remember Petey from Little Rascals? He was an American Stafford-shire terrier, one of the breeds identified as a pit bull. The Staffordshire terrier, or pit bull, was considered a “nanny dog” because of its temperament and reputation for being good around children. According to the American Temperament Test Society, pit bulls are no more vicious than golden retrievers.

The media is partly responsible for the breed’s bad rap. Highly publicized attacks give the breed a dangerous reputation. Wan-nabe tough guys, gangsters and drug dealers seek out the breed as status symbols. The

Michael Vicks of the world use them for il-legal dog fighting because of their tenacity.

The National Canine Research Council investigated several dog bites and fatalities that were reported by the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) as homicides carried out by pit bulls. Karen Delise, author of The Pit Bull Placebo, revealed the actual circumstances leading to some of these horrific incidents. Here are a few examples:

A teenage girl gives birth to an •infant. Distraught and frightened, she tosses the infant into a neigh-bouring junk-strewn yard where two pit bulls resided. The dogs killed the

newborn.A man restrains his girlfriend while •ordering his pit bull to repeatedly attack her.

In these instances the dogs have been portrayed as the villain when in fact the real culprits are the individuals who could have easily prevented these deaths.

Consider one of the most recent pit bull attacks that took place in September. A woman was babysitting her infant niece. She put her down for a nap and left her and her young son alone with her three pit bulls. The dogs mauled the baby to death.

Firstly, a toddler should never be left unattended. Secondly, reports suggest that the pit bulls were resident dogs, meaning they never socialized with people and most certainly not with children. This was a case of negligence.

Have you ever wondered what happened to the Michael Vick dogs? PBS’s documen-tary, The Dogs are Alright, based on Jim Gorant’s book The Lost Dogs, tells the story of 51 pit bulls seized from the property. They were considered to be the most dangerous dogs in the country. Anyone who thinks these dogs were un-salvageable should watch this 14-minute documentary. They have all been rehabilitated and one of them works with children as a canine-assisted literacy dog.

Instead of punishing a dog for its looks, the government should consider a screening process for owners. Owners should not own a dog that may require additional attention or training that they are unable or unwilling to give. The dogs being held responsible are the ones who are being abused. Next time you hear about an attack, have a look at who is on the other end of the leash.

Graphic by Katie Brioux

facebook

Are you attending my wedding?Weddings are formal events and thus require formal invitations

Erika HealesContributor

My friend invited me to her wedding on Face-book.

I was speechless. Facebook is great for many reasons: staying in touch with friends, finding old classmates, sharing pictures, and organiz-ing events such as a girls’ night out. But inviting people to a wedding?

Call me old-fashioned, but whatever happened to snail-mail invitations? Whatever happened to cards with beautiful calligraphic writing? I cannot even imagine what wedding invitation keepsake parents would show their fu-ture children. A printed out Facebook event page?

My friend’s wedding invitation seemed like another party invitation, with invited guests leaving comments such as, “Sorry, I already have plans, but have a great time!” or “Count me in!” The wedding has not yet occurred and I already feel that the importance of the event has been devalued.

I consulted the Emily Post Institute’s website to read what authorities in the field of etiquette had to say. According to Anna Post, an “invita-tion reflects the level of formality of the party you’re throwing.” Seeing as a wedding is a formal event then surely it is never acceptable to use Facebook invitations.

I asked students what they thought. Most students used one word to describe a Facebook

invitation: tacky. A few people said it was rude.I also contacted my cousin, Laura Howat,

who got married a few years ago. In keeping with tradition, she sent out beautiful card invita-tions. What did she think of Facebook invita-tions?

“I like to think that if your grandmother can’t access the invitation, it shouldn’t be done!” She explained that not everyone has a Facebook ac-count, or even a computer.

If my friend absolutely wanted to send the invitations electronically, she could have sent a personal email to each guest. There are websites in which you design your own invitation cards. The cards will be sent electronically, thus saving money on stamps. The electronic cards would be more personal and formal than a Facebook invitation.

Not everyone is against Facebook invitations. My sister, Jessica Heales, argued that weddings are very expensive and “the amount of money you save by not sending invitations can be used to pay for something else at the wedding.” She added that it takes a lot of time to choose a design, write the message, and address each envelope.

However, a wedding is a very special mo-ment in one’s life. It does take time and money, but it shows the guests that you are putting in the effort by personalizing the cards.

Another problem with Facebook events is that with online RSVP, people can decide to attend, not attend, maybe attend or simply not answer. This makes it problematic for wedding organizers. The organizers need to know ahead of time how many people are attending to ensure enough chairs are rented. If someone says they

are “maybe” attending, the organizers are left scratching their heads.

Rand Richards Cooper, a New York Times Op-ed contributor, stated that technology can sometimes make life more difficult. In his article, “It’s my Party, and You Have to Answer,” Cooper wrote: “In requesting people to anchor a plan in the distant future of a month hence, you are demanding a kind of navigation that Americans increasingly do not practice. We prefer to remain flexy, solidifying our plans incrementally as the date approaches. Cellphones in hand, we microadjust our schedules as they unfold around

us. We’re like the air traffic controllers of our own lives.”

A formal invitation would encourage people to respond with yes or no, rather than wait until the last minute to attend or not. A generic Facebook invitation is not taken as seriously and consequently, the guests may not provide a definite answer.

In the mood to party this Friday night? Use Facebook and invite your friends. Getting mar-ried? Send a personal card to each guest. Even in our increasingly digital world, that personal touch is still very important.

Graphic by Sean Kershaw

Follow us on Twitter: @TheConcordian

The Etcetera Page

Joe Paterno, the most successful coach in college football history, will live the rest of his days in shame. It was revealed he failed to alert the police after he was made aware his ex-defensive coordinator, Jerry Sandusky, was abusing young boys. He should probably spend most of his annual pension ($554,000) on moving to a secluded island and eventually thinking about maybe treating his lung cancer.

@ElSmoocho: Joe Paterno feels better about his lung cancer now that Coach Sandusky assured him it was just a few carcinomas horsing around in his chest.

@TheFakeESPN: Joe Paterno makes sympathetic announcement that his dog just died as well.

@adamferrara: In the wake of the Sandusky interview Penn State is reconstructing the Joe Paterno statue so it’s looking the other way.

@DanHopp: Joe Paterno was diagnosed with a “treatable form of lung cancer.” Good thing he caught it early so he can stop it.

@PeytonsHead: Boat captain claims Robert Wagner is responsible for Natalie Wood’s 1981 death. Asked why he waited 30 yrs, he said he told Joe Paterno.

Concordia’s weekly,

independent student

newspaper.

Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2011 Vol. 29 issue 13

theconcordian

Jacques GallantEditor-in-Chief

[email protected]

Kamila HinKsonManaging editor

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cHris HannaProduction manager

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Jacqueline Di BartolomeoNews editor

alyssa tremBlay Assistant news editor

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Paula rivasLife editor

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sofia GayArts editor

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allie masonMusic editor

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Julian meiSports editor

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myles DolPHinOpinions editor

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navneet PallPhoto editor

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Katie BriouxGraphics editor

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saraH DesHaiesChief Copy editor

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marissa millerHeatHer riminGtonelizaBetH tomaras

Copy editors

soPHia loffreDaKerry macKinnon

Production assistants

eDitorial office7141 Sherbrooke St. W. - CC.431

Montreal, QCH4B 1R6

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mélissa Kate GaGnonBusiness manager

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ruBen BastienBoard of Directors

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Across1- Fast fliers; 5- Bedouin; 9- Orgs.; 14- _ the crack of dawn; 15- Bundle; 16- Religion founded in Iran; 17- Able was _ ...; 18- Pulitzer winner James; 19- Build; 20- Vessel with two masts; 22- Currency unit in Nigeria; 23- Doo-wop syllable; 24- Arabian Sea vessel; 25- “The dog ate my homework,” e.g.; 29- Ancient tongue; 32- Extend into subdivisions; 34- Annoy; 39- Ex-tended family unit; 40- Ages; 42- “The Time Machine” race; 43- Native; 45- Banner; 47- Beat by a hair; 49- Con-fusion; 50- Evaluate; 54- Egg head?; 56- European wheat; 57- Calcium carbonate rock; 63- Low point; 64- Dies _ ; 65- Make _ for it; 66- Clear the board; 67- Chieftain, usually in Af-rica; 68- Gentlewoman; 69- Continue a subscription; 70- Lacking; 71- Zeno’s home Down1- Diamonds, e.g.; 2- Gush; 3- Edible corm; 4- Flower part; 5- Disconcert; 6- Disheveled; 7- “Hard _ !” (sailor’s yell); 8- Ale, e.g.; 9- Eastern Algonqui-an language; 10- It’s a wrap; 11- Arab chief; 12- Mother-of-pearl; 13- Lute of India; 21- Yeah, right!; 24- Curt; 25- Flatfoot’s lack; 26- Composer Schifrin; 27- Muslim elder and prayer-leader; 28- Common hop; 30- _ Janeiro; 31- Directional ending; 33- Fenced areas; 35- New Age musician John; 36- Inter _ ; 37- Fast-food option; 38- Half of

zwei; 41- Hosp. readout; 44- Lie scat-tered over; 46- Sgts., e.g.; 48- Realm; 50- “Lou Grant” star; 51- Surplus; 52- Four-door; 53- Beethoven dedicatee; 55- Swerves; 57- Falsehoods; 58- “The Joy of Cooking” author Rombauer;

59- Account; 60- Like some history; 61- Unclothed; 62- “Only Time” singering for the head; 58- German pronoun; 59- Hit sign; 60- Appropri-ate; 61- Driver’s aid; 62- Baseball stat; 63- Block up;

Puzzles provided by BestCrosswords.com. Used with permission.

Solu

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issu

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Comic by Phil Waheed

staff Writers anD contriButors Marilla Steuter-Martin, Erica Commisso, Elysha Del Giusto-Enos, George Menexis, Brandon Judd, Rebecca Ugolini, Marie-Josee Kelly, Lindsay Briscoe, Chloe Deneumoustier, Paul Traunero, Kristen Dyer, Andrew Guilbert, Daniel J. Rowe, Michael Downs, Lauren Guay, Erika Heales, Alana La Rossa, Anthony Isabella, Sean Kershaw, Phil Waheed, Maya Pankalla, Valerie Brunet, Alessandra McGovern

+THEATRE - ANA - Espace Go - 19h00+MUSIC - Ganglians and Friends - Casa Del Popolo - 20h00+MUSIC - We Are Star 69 présente � e Cure + Hexes & Ohs - La Sala Rossa - 20h30

+MUSIC - Messe des Morts - Les Katacombes - 17h00+MUSIC - Bassnectar - Metropolis - 20h00+MUSIC - � e Fearless Friends Tour - La Tulipe - 20h00+MUSIC - Mute + Never More � an Less - Foufounes Electronique - 20h00+MUSIC - Devon Sproule - Le Calibi - 20h00+LIT PARTY - Four Minutes to Midnight Expozine launch - Drawn & Quarterly - 19h00+STINGERS - Women’s Basketball vs Bishop’s - Loyola - 18h00+STINGERS - Men’s Basketball vs Bishop’s - Loyola - 20h00

+MUSIC - Hey Rosetta! - � eatre Corona - 20h00+MUSIC - Ingrid St-Pierre - L’Astral - 20h00+MUSIC - John Mayall - Metropolis - 20h00+MUSIC - Deadpan + Fried Clams - Piranha Bar - 20h30+MUSIC - American Royalty - Le Belmont - 19h30+SMALL PRESS FAIR - Expozine - Église Saint-Enfant Jésus - 12h00+DANCE - Involved - Studio 303 - 18h00

+MUSIC - Ghostface Killah - Club Soda - 20h00+MUSIC - Lakes of Canada + Folly & the Hunter - Casa Del Popolo - 20h30+SMALL PRESS FAIR - Expozine - Église Saint-Enfant Jésus - 12h00+DANCE - Involved - Studio 303 - 16h00+STINGERS - Women’s Hockey vs McGill - Ed Meagher Arena - 15h00

+MUSIC - David Simard + Loomm - Casa Del Popolo - 20h30+MUSIC - Terror + Cruel Hand + Fire & Ice - Underworld - 20h30+CINEMA POLITICA - Better the Current - H-110 - 19h00

+MUSIC - Lights - � eatre Corona - 20h00+MUSIC - Judas Priest + � in Lizzy - Bell Centre - 19h30+MUSIC - Pascal Picard Band - Club Soda - 20h00+MUSIC - Close Your Eyes + Lower � an Atlantis + More - Underworld - 18h00

+BOOK LAUNCH - Michel Choquette’s Someday Funnies - Drawn & Quarterly - 19h00+THEATRE - Cornered - � eatre Sainte Catherine - 20h00+MUSIC - Mastadon + Dillinger Escape Plan Red Fang - Métropolis - 19h30+MUSIC - Korpiklaani - Club Soda - 17h00+MUSIC - Monkeyjunk - L’Astral - 20h00+MUSIC - Current Swell - Le Divan Orange - 20h00+MUSIC - Ten Second Epic - La Sala Rossa - 20h00