august 16, 2011
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Uthe ubyssey
He was a figment of your imagination, Vijay SINCE 1918 August 16, 2011 | Vol. xxViii iss. Viii
UBC optSoUt of CopyrIghtAgrEEmENt
No DAtE SEt for koErNEr’S opENINg AS SUmmEr
ENDS
UBC ends partnership with Access Copyright over costs and surveillance P3
T-BirdsKicK off
graduate Student Society faces legal action from workers’
union P3
CoS & EffECt INVADES CAmpUS
After four years in the wilderness, UBC begins its quest to make the playoffs for the first time since 2006 P5
UThe Ubyssey is the official stu-dent newspaper of the University of British Columbia. It is published ev-ery Monday and Thursday by The Ubyssey Publications Society. We are an autonomous, democratically run student organization, and all stu-dents are encouraged to participate.
Editorials are chosen and written by the Ubyssey staff. They are the expressed opinion of the staff, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Ubyssey Publications Society or the University of British Colum-bia. All editorial content appearing in The Ubyssey is the property of The Ubyssey Publications Society. Stories, opinions, photographs and artwork contained herein cannot be reproduced without the expressed, written permission of The Ubyssey Publications Society.
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Letters to the editor must be un-der 300 words. Please include your
phone number, student number and signature (not for publication) as well as your year and faculty with all sub-missions. ID will be checked when submissions are dropped off at the editorial office of The Ubyssey; oth-erwise verification will be done by phone. The Ubyssey reserves the right to edit submissions for length and clarity. All letters must be re-ceived by 12 noon the day before intended publication. Letters re-ceived after this point will be pub-lished in the following issue unless there is an urgent time restriction or other matter deemed relevant by the Ubyssey staff.
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editorialCoordinating Editor Justin [email protected]
Managing Editor, PrintJonny [email protected]
Managing Editor, WebArshy [email protected]
News EditorsKalyeena Makortoff & Micki [email protected]
Art DirectorGeoff [email protected]
Culture EditorGinny [email protected]
Senior Culture WriterTaylor [email protected]
Sports Editor Drake [email protected]
Features EditorBrian [email protected]
Video EditorDavid [email protected]
Web WriterAndrew [email protected]
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businessBusiness ManagerFernie [email protected]
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ContributorsWill McDonald, Catherine Guan
ContaCt
Business Office: Room 23Editorial Office: Room 24Student Union Building6138 Student Union BlvdVancouver, BC V6T 1Z1tel: 604.822.2301web: [email protected]
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The Ubyssey August 16, 2011, Summer volume XXVIII, No. VIII
legal
2 | Page 2 | 08.16.2011
Jonny [email protected]
Greg Neher is about to take the stage in front of a very tough crowd. Darth Vader is in atten-dance, as well as a recent-crucified Jesus Christ. A group of Final Fantasy heroines stand in the wings, swinging their blades and occasionally pausing to adjust their gravity-defying cleavage. Some girls dressed in Victorian era finery twirl parasols in the aisle.
Neher is building an army. An army of steampunks, furries, otakus, lolitas and gamers of all stripes. He is reaching across the geekdoms and creating a force of unstoppable power. When he stepped onto the SUB ballroom stage last Sunday, he did so with a bit of a swagger.
Neher, creative director of last weekend’s Cos & Effect cosplay convention, is an unlikely King of the Nerds.
Born and raised in Vancouver, he labelled himself a recluse growing up. He finally broke out of his shell by donning costumes and attend-ing anime and cosplay conventions.
“Cosplay is short for costume play,” explained Neher. “It’s the act of dressing up as a character and then acting in character. People just want to dress up as their favou-rite character and do something silly and hang out with friends.
“People were very friendly, and [the conventions] were filled with people who have not always gotten the most acceptance from society.”
Neher has been attending con-ventions since 2004. He worked his way up from an attendee to a volunteer, and eventually began his own production company in order to run this year’s event.
When he’s cosplaying, Neher embraces everything pompous. His favourite characters include the bumbling Zapp Brannigan from Futurama and Bandit Keith from Yu-Gi-Oh! who he admires for be-ing “kind of an ass.”
“I enjoy Zapp Brannigan be-cause he’s almost a polar opposite to my personality,” said Neher. “So I can be silly and be that charac-ter and explore that side of things without really being like that. He’s kind of incompetent and he’s always hitting on women. He’s
definitely a very silly person in a real life scenario and I enjoy that.”
“In real life” is a distinction Neher makes often. Neher’s pro-duction company, which he runs with fellow “Evil Overlord” Dan Barbier, bears the same name—In Real Life.
It’s an admission that eventually the costume must come off. In real life, Neher sells recordable media and AV equipment. “It’s my hope that one day I’ll be able to quit my day job,” he said.
For now, Neher is happy just to be putting on the events that helped him find acceptance. “Now I just feel like I’m giving back,” he said. U
Got an event you’d like to see on this page? Send your event and your best pitch to [email protected].
What’s on this week, may we suggest...
bikes >>
WeD17 Farm >>
TheaTre>>
saT
TheaTre >>
bikes anD Farms >>
P&Y Volunteer Night: 6-9pm @ The Bike Kitchen The Bike Kitchen’s Pink & Yellow Volunteer Night is a truly magical experi-ence. You descend into a subterranean lair peopled by fierce, mounted warriors. In exchange for a few hours of menial labour in their smithey, you are granted a magical key which allows you to access any of the golden steeds in the realm. Spending some time here will pay serious divi-dends when you need to get across campus in a hurry.
Terror at Rock Out Beach: @ Waterfront TheatreTerror at Rock Out Beach bills itself as a ‘burlesque strip-sical,’ which we assume means a burlesque show with musical numbers. Or perhaps it combines scantily clad women and deli-cious frozen treats. Either way, the press release promises tentacles. See screamingchicken.net for more info.
Fermentation Workshop: 6-9pm @ The UBC FarmLearn to make your own pickles, kimchi and sauerkraut at the UBC Farm. Tickets start at $50, so make a cost-benefit analysis based on your consumption of brine-based vegetables before signing up.
Cycling Resource Centre: 9am-1pm @ UBC Farm MarketWe seem to notice a bike/farm theme developing on this week’s What’s On. If you’ve had issues with your brakes rubbing, or if you’ve noticed your rear derailleur is shifting kind of weird, stop by for a free Bike Co-op tune-up.
Tue16
ThU18
Fri19Party this Weekend: 8pm @ 518 Kaslo StreetSite-specific theatre with a boozy twist. Follow around one of four characters in a dramatic retelling of a house party. The audience makes up the attendees. Tickets start at $15. Bring extra for beer.
Our Campus one-on-one with the people who make UBC
Greg Neher: uniting the geekdoms During last weekend’s convention, Greg Neher sits next to fellow Cos & Effect director Dan Barbier (right).
GEOFF LISTEr /ThE UBYSSEY
sudoku by Krazy Dad
20
UWriteShootEdit CodeDrink
ComE By thE UBySSEy offICE SUB 24, foLLoW thE SIgNS
Greg neher OccupationCreative Director of IrL Events
UBC ConnectionsUBC Anime ClubUBC Wargamers Club
Favourite cosplay charctersZapp BranniganBandit KeithChester Cheeto
newsEditors: Kalyeena Makortoff & Micki Cowan
08.16.2011 | 3
Sarah-Nelle Jackson & micki [email protected]
UBC is opting out an agreement with Access Copyright (AC), a Canadian licensing organization that facilitates compensation to publishers from universities who use their works. In a broadcast email, the university stated that the proposed cost increases, as well as AC’s surveillance of insti-tutional copying activities, were unacceptable.
Now, the university will no longer rely on agreements fleshed out and maintained by AC, but deal with publishers directly under Canada’s copyright laws.
Last year, AC proposed a 308 per cent increase in the fee universities pay for its services, which in part motivated several other universities—among them Queen’s, Waterloo, Athabasca and Saskatchewan—to also opt-out of licensing agreements with AC.
According to AC, the price in-crease is meant to reflect growing rates of digital copying of materials. Under the Access Copyright Post-Secondary Educational Institution Tariff, the total fees for UBC would have risen from $650,000 to $2 mil-lion from 2011 to 2013. This would have translated to a fee increase per full-time student from $3 to $45, if the tariff were to pass its current review by the Supreme Court of Canada.
Paul Smith, UBC’s associate VP academic, said that the increased costs would not have been a worth-while exchange for the benefits received from AC, and that UBC already has a stock of independent licenses.
“We have many license agree-ments with publishers, something
like $10 million dollars worth. Those cases allow copying under the copyright act.”
“There’s a residual number, often smaller publishers or journals, and that’s what AC was covering. As the years go by, we’ll take up more and more licenses as we realize where the money’s best spent. The compo-nent that AC is covering is going to get smaller and smaller,” he said.
As for new coursepacks, Rebecca Irani, UBC Bookstore’s marketing and communications manager said that the bookstore “will ensure that all copyright clearances are obtained for the material.
“This process may take a bit longer as the store will be clearing copyright using a different process which will include working directly with publishers.”
Smith said that paying copyright fees to the smaller publishers will not amount to more than the $650,000 that was paid to AC to cover them. However, the cost to students is yet to be determined.
For universities who stay with AC, experts say that students will likely be footing the bill if the new tariff is passed.
“Ultimately students will pay the cost of the increased fees,” wrote Michael Geist, University of Ottawa law professor and Canada Research Chair in Internet and e-Commerce Law, in an email to The Ubyssey.
Geist added that the cost increas-es aren’t necessary.
“As [alternative] licenses have expanded in recent years and open access has grown, it seems to me that the tariff should be going down, not up,” he wrote.
But upped-fees aren’t the tariff’s only point of controversy.
Section 6 of the tariff would re-quire institutions to deliver monthly
logs of all “Digital Copies emailed by or on behalf of a Staff Member.” Links to copyrighted material such as blogs count as digital copies.
“There are two trends that I see,” said UBC professor Mira Sundara Rajan, Canada Research Chair in Intellectual Property Law. “One tries to make people pay more for
uses of digital information…because our economy’s digital dependence is growing. The other is in higher edu-cation in this country, demanding higher and higher levels of payment from students.
“That is the really undeniable trend of the past 10-15 years: stu-dents pay more.” U
ams calls for UbC governance review
The AMS has asked the province to initiate a governance review of UBC after a motion at Council last week.
“We began a governance re-view last year,” said AMS President Jeremy McElroy . According to McElroy, the provincial government dismissed the council working on the project. “We’d like to see it resolved.”
UBC currently functions without an elected body. UBC pulled out of the Greater Vancouver Regional District in 2010, leaving the campus without municipal representation.
VP External Katherine Tyson said that discussions with Premier Christy Clark revealed that she was largely unaware of the issue.
UbC to host special Olympics Canada summer Games
UBC will be the primary venue for the 2014 Special Olympics Canada Summer Games, according to a statement issued earlier this month.
Athletes will come to Vancouver from across the country to compete in 11 sports, including basketball, bocce ball, golf, swimming, bowling and track and field.
The Special Olympics are open to athletes with mental disabilities. UBC hosted Paralympic sledge hock-ey in 2010 —an event for elite athletes with physical disabilities.
UBC first hosted the games in 1990. According to the release, some residences will be used as the ath-lete’s village.
U-Pass opt-out a possiblity for distance ed students
Distance education (DE) students will be included in the U-Pass program for the first time this September—but some don’t live in the Lower Mainland.
As new fee-payng members of the AMS, over 1300 DE students will now be added to the U-Pass program.
Due to contractual limitations for the U-Pass, only 400 opt-outs can currently be granted in a school year—which may not cover all the DE students who wish to opt out if the AMS were to allow it.
Council passed a motion to review policy to see if exceptions can be made.
inception spoof gets two students a phone call with Christopher nolanUBC students Yuri Cabrera and Ian Holliday got to chat for ten minutes with their idol, director Christopher Nolan, after their Inception parody won a contest hosted by cellular company WIND Mobile.
“He told us to enjoy filmmaking while you’re in a situation to be free to film-make, because once you get in a studio and big budget movies, while they’re bigger films, you’re also fighting to have the freedom you had when you were a student,” said Holliday.
Nolan donated $100 000 from WIND Mobile to the Canadian Film Centre in Toronto. U
Conrad Compagna & kalyeena [email protected]
The AMS has asked that the univer-sity review one of its major travel policies for students abroad, which allows UBC to restrict travel to dan-gerous countries.
Policy 69 was most recently used by the university to call back all stu-dents after the Japanese earthquake back in March, which was followed by a number of student complaints.
“There was a well-publicized student backlash towards Policy 69 after the incident at Fukushima because there were a few students that felt that Policy 69 infringed on some of their rights and abilities to make their own decision,” said AMS VP Academic Matt Parson.
“It is written in a way that UBC doesn’t necessarily consult with the students.”
Contention was also raised over the punishments for students who ignore the policy, which includes discounting research and class credit. The AMS also questioned whether faculty sponsors of student travel were the best judges of dan-gers abroad.
Go Global, which runs the travel abroad program, research and exchange programs at UBC, gives the final word on travel restric-tions and evacuations. Tlell Elviss, Go Global’s manager for Safety and Learning Abroad said liability was not at the “core of the policy,” and that “from a Go Global perspec-tive, the implementation for the policies has been quite successful.” He added that students needed to follow the office’s instructions for their own safety.
Parson said that despite the university’s concern over student well-being, the policy is “something that’s separate but not very supple-mentary” to Canada’s program to inform and evacuate all citizens in case of emergencies overseas under the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. U
No date to reopen Koerner’s Pub as union files labour board action
Coursepacks may be delayed as UBC sets agreements with individual copyright holders.DUNCAN CAIrNS-BrENNEr PhOTO ILLUSTrATION/ThE UBYSSEY
news briefs
Will [email protected]
It’s been one headache after another for Koerner’s Pub since it was shut down for the summer in May. Little progress has been made towards getting the pub up and running for the new year, and the union for the pub’s staff has taken legal ac-tion against the Graduate Student Society (GSS).
GSS VP External Jamie Paris said that there is no set date to reopen the pub, but the GSS is negotiating with
third parties who could help run the pub and share the financial risk.
“These third parties would be outside businesses,” Paris said. “The GSS would hope that they would take on all of the liability of the pub, and would allow us to consult with them to make sure that the pub keeps its current look and feel.”
Paris was clear that it would be GSS Council that would make the final decisions on any options they are now considering.
“We’re still just accepting initial offers. Everyone who’s pitching
[ideas] is pitching a different vision of how to make sure that the pub stays student-run in terms of focus, but not necessarily student-run in terms of man-hours and cost,” said Paris.
Paris declined comment on the pub’s former staff, who were sus-pended after it shut down in May.
“We’ve gone above and beyond to respect the labour rights of all the employees,” he said.
“Obviously, whenever you do this kind of shutdown, things happen. But we’re currently negotiating with
the union...we feel bad for the staff in this situation.”
David Lance, vice presi-dent of CUPE 116— the union that represents Koerner’s employees—believes the GSS has not met its obligations to staff members.
According to Lance, CUPE 116 has filed submissions to the Labour Relations Board “to com-pel resolution of the issues, both in terms of the closure of the pub and in terms of redress to make sure that the individual members
concerned and affected are com-pensated properly.”
Paris said he hopes the workers will continue to work at the new pub, but Lance was not optimistic.
“There could have been consul-tation and dialogue with the union. Neither of those things happened. As a result the staff feel marginal-ized and disenfranchised,” he said.
“The main issue is communica-tion. And ultimately we believe that is symptomatic either of respect for your employees or a lack of respect for your employees.” U
Copyright now responsibility of UBC—AC dropped UBC asked to review safety abroad policy
COPyriGhT>>
kOerner’s shUTDOWn >>
UniVersiTy POLiCy >>
INDIANA JOEL ILLUSTrATION/ThE UBYSSEY
CultureEditor: Ginny Monaco
08.16.2011 | 4
UWrite for newskayleena makortoff and micki [email protected]
hope: dark roast with cream Catherine guan Contributor
Hope can take some pretty strange forms. In BFA film production stu-dent Mackenzie Sheppard’s new documentary, it trundles along in the form of a hot drink delivered by a vintage yellow Volkswagen.
His film, Yoshi’s Blend, fol-lows Nagoya University Professor Yoshiharu (Yoshi) Masuda and his mobile HOPE Café as they transverse the earthquake-rav-aged landscape of northern Japan. Masuda’s mission: to rebuild com-munities with judiciously roasted, rigorously brewed coffee.
Yes, that’s right, coffee.The idea of doing a feature on
Masuda had been percolating in Sheppard’s mind. “I’ve always thought he was a fascinating char-acter and person,” confessed the filmmaker.
But it wasn’t until the dev-astating earthquake and tsu-nami off the coast of Japan last March that the project took off. Masuda, in partner-ship with HOPE International Development Agency—an interna-tional non-profit based out of New Westminster—started serving free connoisseur-grade coffee to survivors.
The disaster had a particular flavour for Sheppard, who was raised in Japan from the age of five. “Japan is so small [that] the physical urban landscape feels the same in most cities and towns,” he said. “It wasn’t hard to feel the
fear that the locals there must have been experiencing.”
According to Sheppard, filming has just wrapped in the tsunami zone.
“Things have improved a lot. But besides the debris trucks and diggers, the coastline is a ghost town at the end of the day,” he said. “There is deep mistrust of the government now, as to how much is being revealed to the media and public.”
Nevertheless, hope remains. “You can still feel the communi-ties holding themselves together,” Sheppard said. “The one thing I was aiming to capture … was the happiness that Yoshi was bringing to people in the tsunami zone.”
Over the two month shooting period, Sheppard has seen how the professor’s elaborately prepared brew restores a sense of normalcy for the locals. A day in the coastal area of Babanakayama was par-ticularly memorable.
“When we got there, much of the debris was still visible outside and the atmosphere was cold and bleak. Yoshi set up the café in the fisherman’s gazebo beside the water, and within minutes of the fisherman drinking the coffee, the place was cheery and warm. It was a great moment.”
The coffee that Masuda serves is from HOPE’s organic learning farm in the Philippines. With his brew, Masuda wants to build a partnership between coffee grow-ers and the Japanese, both strug-gling to return to self-reliance.
Yoshi’s dream, the director ex-plained, is to motivate the locals in the area to take over the café. “[It would be a] new job to start their lives off of,” he said. With his “café start-up kits,” people are given the tools to operate a café and can repay the costs once they start showing a profit. Or, as Sheppard calls it, “coffee micro credit.”
The art of coffee-making, ac-cording to the professor, serves as a metaphor for life. Coffee beans undergo the ordeal of roasting, grinding, boiling, dripping and steeping. Agonizingly long pulls fi-nally extract a few drops to reward the palate.
Amidst the complex aromatics of Yoshi’s Blend, perhaps there is the taste of hope. U
UBC filmmaker tells story of one Japanese professor’s caffeinated tsunami relief
Mackenzie Sheppard’s film follows Professor Yoshi Masuda, whose mobile café brought fresh coffee to tsunami victims. YUrI KOOKABUrrA/FACEBOOK PhOTO
mOre inFO• Yoshi’s Blend was shot on a strict budget of $4,650. • The film will be completed October 22nd, 2011.• 15 per cent of money raised will be donated to Professor Masuda’s coffee van.
sportsEditor: Drake Fenton
08.16.2011 | 5
Video contentCheck out the premier of The Ubyssey Weekly Recap today @ ubyssey.ca/multimedia.
Drake fenton [email protected]
“Training camp is kind of like Christmas morning for a coach,” said Shawn Olson, the head coach of UBC’s football team.
Though UBC’s training camp, which begins August 18, may re-mind Olson of Christmas morning, it should remind him of Easter.
This year is a chance for rebirth.“We have some veteran guys
that have been through some lean years,” Olson said. “They are ex-cited for the prospect of making the playoffs and to start fulfilling the aspirations they had when they first came here.”
UBC finished with a 2-6 record in Olson’s first year as head coach. The program has been stagnating since 2006, the last year the team made the playoffs. In 2009 former Coach Ted Goveia managed to lose the confidence of his locker room before being shown the door. When Olson was brought in last season, he was tasked with reinvigorating the program and creating a football cul-ture that players would buy into.
Though the ‘Birds didn’t win many games, Olson felt that he took the first steps towards re-establish-ing a winning tradition.
“I think that we have a group of guys that have bought into what I am preaching,” he said. “You need to work hard and you need to be consistent.”
The team’s mentality is ostensi-bly in place, but whether or not that translates into wins will depend on the arm of fourth-year quarterback
Billy Greene. Greene’s athleticism and ability to move the chains with his feet has never been an issue, but his consistency in the pass-ing game has perennially been a question mark. Last year he led the team in rushing with 668 yards, but he only completed 53.8 per cent of his passes.
“[Greene] has been a guy to this point who has been physically very blessed and he has gotten by at be-ing a very good athlete at this point in his career,” Olson said.
Olson said that Greene has been working hard this off-season on improving his timing, footwork and consistency. That, paired with the bonus of having been together for a full year, has Olson believ-ing that this is Greene’s year to blossom.
“I know him a lot better now and I know where his strengths and his weaknesses are, so we will structure things offensively to work towards his strengths,” Olson said. “I am expecting a big year from him, and maybe that means him scrambling less and gaining fewer yards with his feet and being more
efficient with distributing the ball.”Greene’s maturation as a quar-
terback will be aided by the bevy of weapons at his disposal. Eight starters will be returning from last year’s offense, including fifth-year running back Dave Boyd. Boyd spent the majority of last season hampered by an ankle injury and was only able to compile 186 yards rushing, a far cry from when he led the team in rushing the previous season with 816 yards.
A healthy Boyd will go a long way
to help establish Olson’s offensive philosophy.
“I believe it is important to run the football and I believe that is something that sets the table for the whole offense,” he said. “There is a physicality that is important to have to run the football effectively and that is something we are going to commit to.”
An improved offense will un-doubtedly help the ‘Birds gain ground in the Canada West, but if their defence is unable to slow teams down, or at the very least keep games close, UBC will have little chance of returning to the
playoffs. In the 2010 campaign they ranked dead last in the Canada West in total defence and second last in run defence.
“Defence is one area we are look-ing to improve,” Olson said. “I think we are going to be slightly different, a little less complex and be in a posi-tion to just let our guys play aggres-sive in the scheme.”
Defensive end Serge Kaminsky is a player Olson expects to lead the defence and play with the aggres-sive attitude needed to shut down an opposing team’s running game. The fourth-year, six-foot-three, 245 pound Kaminsky will be asked to anchor the defensive line from the weak-side defensive end position, and help mentor the host of younger linemen that will be receiving min-utes in the rotation.
If things click during training camp, Olson feels like his team will be able to make some noise in the Canada West.
“I think we are going to be a team that is going to surprise some people,” he said. “I think we are go-ing to be a team that is going to be competitive every single week. We are going to work hard and we have more talent than we’ve had in past years.”
Whether or not the ‘Birds will make the playoffs, Olson wouldn’t say. He has high hopes for the team and the direction they are head-ing, but right now his focus is on training camp and the 100 players expected to be there.
UBC’s first game of the seaso n will be September 2, on the road against the University of Regina. U
2-6 UBC’s record last season.
2006 The last time UBC made the playoffs.
20.4 UBC’s points per game average last season, second to last in the conference
31.9 Average amount of points UBC conceded per game last season, second to last in the conference
53.8 Quarterback Billy Greene’s completion percentage last season.
65 Quarterback completion percentage Coach Olson wants Greene to have this year.
3912 Total amount of yards gained against UBC last season, the most conceded in the Canada West.
100 Amount of people expected to attend UBC’s training camp.
by the numbers
rebuilding a winning program
I think that we have a group of guys that have bought into what I am
preaching. You need to work hard and you need to be consistent.
Shawn olsonUBC football coach
GEOFF LISTEr/ThE UBYSSEY
On The COVer >>
opinionEditor: Brian Platt
08.16.2011 | 6
Should you ever be masochis-tic enough to delve into the inner workings of power at UBC, you’ll be disappointed when you realize that President Stephen Toope and his merry band of vice presidents don’t really have much to do with your university experience. The decisions they make won’t really affect you over the course of your degree unless things go terribly wrong. They’re too focused on the macro, not the micro, and the choices they make go through any number of committees and deans, and committees of deans, before reaching any student.
Except for the VP Students de-partment. Focused on the “student experience,” if you do something at UBC that has nothing to do with taking a class, that department is probably behind it. Enrolling at UBC, using the SSC, living in Totem, going to a T-Bird game—all are ultimately overseen by the VP Students. And now, for the first time in 11 years, we’ll be getting a new one.
Louise Cowin, formerly of the University of Toronto, was ap-pointed the new VP Students last month and will be taking over the position in October. In the world of university administration, it’s a big deal. Anytime somebody new comes into a job where they’re in charge of hundreds of millions of dollars and the experiences of 45,000 people,
things change, priorities get shifted and causes get championed.
But the delightful thing is that right now, none of that is known. We don’t know who Louise Cowin is and what she will bring to the posi-tion. Will she wear a bow-tie on her first day of work? As supervisor of housing, will she mandate that every Friday in Totem Cafeteria be Haggis Day? As supervisor of athletics, will she advocate that UBC become na-tionally competitive in croquet? We are waiting for Cowin to speak. To date, she has been silent.
Okay, those were jokes and poor ones, at that. What isn’t a laughing matter, though, are UBC’s results in the National Survey of Student Engagement, where we rank seventh-worst in the country in creating a “supportive campus environment.” It isn’t a laughing matter that housing on campus is so expensive—despite UBC being the owner, developer and manager of every property here—that many would consider staying at home with parents or finding a basement suite on Main rather than applying to live here. It isn’t a laughing mat-ter that UBC puts millions of dollars into financing the most competitive university athletic program in the country, while putting profit margins above public access for most of their fields and gyms.
That isn’t to say that Brian Sullivan, who was VP Students from 1999 to March of this year, did a poor job—far from it. But no executive is perfect, and a new pair of eyes guar-antees a new way of thinking and a new set of priorities. Either way, her first steps will be intriguing to watch. U
New VP Students, same questions
Solving conflict through film
I am far from a professional actor.My most substantial role oc-
curred in my graduating year, dur-ing which I graced the stage in a spoof of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
I portrayed the evil Claudius, and am still amused at having been cast in such a diabolical role.
However, when I turned up for the pitch session for participants in Peace it Together (PiT)—a filmmak-ing program designed to encourage cooperation and dialogue between Israeli and Palestinian youth—a rookie filmmaker from Tel Aviv pegged me as his ideal leading man. With a healthy dose of skepticism, I considered his offer, and ultimately agreed. After all, the opportu-nity to team up with an Israeli, a Palestinian and a Canadian of Iranian descent for a film project is one that surely doesn’t present itself every day.
In all, 30 university students from Israel, the West Bank and across Canada came to Vancouver to dis-cuss their fears, ambitions and per-ceptions of life in the Middle East.
“Sometimes, I feel like making a film that simulates the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict,” said the 26-year-old filmmaker Shoni Aronovich. “You could present it like: ‘We’ve got this situation, no-body planned it like this, we’re kind of stuck in it and we need to find a way out of it together with the ma-terials we have.’”
Aronovich had to deal with producing a film with no budget, in a matter of days. Add to this
generations of animosity between Israelis and Palestinians, and you’ve got a volatile combination.
The students were separated into teams with one representative from each nation, and pitched ideas for a series of short films.
“We had lots of conflicts during the editing,” Aronovich added. “But sometimes, we know we just have to put aside all that separates us.”
Yet somehow, we all got through the filming process unscathed. Even more impressively, our relations remained amicable, and we’re all satisfied with the product—a film depicting the tragedy of a life cut short by war.
“Filmmaking is a stress-filled, sleep-deprived, caffeine-injected enterprise,” said Aronovich. “It demands much more of the students than basic civility.”
Amal Adawi from Bethlehem said that before PiT “I had never seen any Israelis outside of the checkpoints...or when they would attack my house.” Virtually every day, she passes through check-points, making travel through her homeland arduous. Her father has been arrested by Israeli authorities. She says she is accustomed to living in fear.
PiT does not pretend to ad-vance a solution to conflict in the beleaguered Israel-Palestine region. There are too many un-healed wounds, too many puzzles of autonomy and citizenship and too much ongoing turmoil for one single organization to resolve. But in the peaceful surrounds of UBC, far from the disarray that mars the Holy Land, a multinational group of student filmmakers has taken a step in the right direction. U
koerner’s goes from bad to worse
Back in May, when the Graduate Student Society (GSS) decided in a two-week span to shut down Koerner’s indefinitely, fire the food and beverage manager, engage in a public showdown with a union upset that jobs had suddenly been terminated—all while promising to bring back the pub as soon as a sustainable business model could be developed—we did our fair share of mocking and predicting Koerner’s would never come back. GSS execu-tives countered by applauding their own leadership, promising the pub would return and downplaying the rift with the union.
So GSS, how’s that working out for ya? Because right now, as far as we can tell, there is no date to open up the pub—only a vague hope that someone will take financial liability while keeping it “student-run in terms of focus” and no end in site to a dispute with CUPE 116. The bumbling would be hilarious if it didn’t mean that the chances of Koerner’s returning is disappearing faster than a $12 pitcher of Hachet at Mahony’s.
happy trails, mr Tompkins
The student government at Kwantlen University is currently embroiled in a massive scandal that involves identity cover-up, million-dollar lawsuits and shady firings. It’s a reminder that for all the oc-casional screw-ups of our AMS, it hasn’t had the type of idiocy that causes permanent damage to its le-gitimacy in representing students.
Part of the reason for this is that for many years, the AMS has had a speaker of council who takes no bullshit, has no dog in any fight, knows his way around Robert’s Rules of Order and can diffuse a tense situation with jokes that always come close to the line, but rarely cross it.
His name is Dave Tompkins, and sadly for our student govern-ment, he’ll be moving to Ontario next week to take a teaching job at
the University of Waterloo. To say whomever replaces him will have a tall order in front of them is redun-dant—no one will immediately be able to fill his sizeable shoes.
London and Vancouver rioters birds of a featherThe riots in London were sparked by the death of a man at the hands of the police, which is certainly a more serious issue than the local hockey team losing a big game. In that sense, the London riots are a very different phenomenon than the Vancouver riot in June. But in both cases, an inadequate secu-rity response to a few incidents of street violence gave large numbers of people the opportunity to smash and steal with impunity.
Despite the dissimilar initial circumstances, it didn’t take long for the London riots to become just as meaningless and tragic as the hockey riot was here. Looting and destroying the shops of innocent people is never a necessary or rea-sonable response to social issues, regardless of how compelling those social issues are. The London riot-ers, as with the Vancouver riot-ers, are not deserving of anyone’s sympathy.
ams frosh kits unrealistically expensive The AMS is expecting students to fork up $80 for a frosh kit this year. That’s eight pitchers on a Tuesday in the SUB.
And while it includes admission to First Week events, a $20 ticket to whoever is playing on Friday night and may just be the snuggliest frosh kit you’ll get this year, expect-ing students to fork up that much money for what is essentially AMS advertising is unrealistic.Students receive free or steeply discounted frosh kits from their faculty and that is what students identify with. The AMS should focus on support-ing students and throwing events during First Week.
Besides, no one actually buys the AMS frosh kit.
Taking UbC governance off the backburner
Last week, the AMS made a essen-tial move towards having a stake in the long-term governance at UBC, asking for a seat on any review body created. Of course, that means the province actually has to create one.
The university has been in limbo since 2010, when the province put UBC in charge of its own land use. This was intended to be an interim solution. But here we are 18 months later with little more momentum towards a long-term solution.
The fact is, between cabinet reshuffling, ministerial overturn and a new premier, UBC’s lack of municipal representation has faded to the background. And the distance between UBC and the province is so large that the government will prob-ably end up taking direction from the university with few questions.
However, the AMS has rightly tried to ensure that, somehow, the 46,000 of us can have our say—that is, if the province remembers that we still exist.
Cheaterville.com is sick and twistedCheaterville.com has recently become available in Canada. The website allows individuals to go online and post photos and information about a former partner that they believe cheated on them. The caveat is that there is no way to know if the person whose reputation is being threatened actually cheated or not. A guy can be made to look like a pig and a girl can be made to look like a slut—all on the whim of a person that’s pissed off that they have been dumped and have gained five pounds from eating ribs and ice cream in bed. Undoubtedly, there will be some people on the website that actually cheated, but is a website like this re-ally necessary? Do people’s private lives need to be made this public? Where do we draw the line? To avoid being slandered on the internet, we suggest you avoid dumping someone via Facebook chat after you have just slept with their best friend. U
Editor’s Notebook
Justin mcElroy
The Last WordParting shots and snap judgments on today’s issues
VIrGINNE MENArD ILLUSTrATION/ ThE UBYSSEY
Perspectives>> By Kyle Farquharson
scene 08.16.2011 | 7
Pictures and words on your university experience
Once every aeon, a prophet is born. Gifted with powers beyond mortal ken, they channel the zeitgeist of their generation, inspiring the un-washed hordes and forever alter-ing the course of human history. Jesus Christ, Gautama Buddha and Captain Beefheart all fall into this category of gifted individuals. And, on August 3, our world was graced with another.
In response to Jonny Wakefield’s opinion piece about the The Ubyssey’s renewed format and mis-sion, “A new look, a new paper, a new way of thinking,” online commen-tator Student D treated us to this divine revelation:
QUOTE
Sorry but I still dont see how my hard-earned 1 dollar is used in this process.
And there are 47000 students?Information that I want to read
about in Ubysseys:1) Where the free food is2) Where the free giveaway is3) Shoppers vs Saveon vs Safeway
flyer price comparison4) Where hot girls are5) how to get laid6) some brain teasing games /
puzzles7) Where to explore on campus,
like an article about the under-ground tunnel dated back in the 1999
8) Where are the free parkings9) how to by-pass exiting service
/system, like everyone opt out the AMS fking fees
10) Where to find free textbooks11) On campus job posting12) commentary on how UBC
sucks (I dont want to read anything that says UBC is good)
13) what is S. Troope doing?14) an explanation on the function
of each UBC department, like the plant operation shit
15) an explanation on the nature of each course, may be feedback from students
16) how the fuck is AMS spending the money
17) who the fuck voted YES to the new SUB
18) why the fuck is UBC accepting so many students
19) when the fuck will cheap and tasty food be availble on campus
20) what the fuck is wrong with people who make noise at 1:00am in the rez
21) where to buy weed, rumour says totem
22) where to buy crack, BCIT has
a huge supply23) where to buy cheap coke, I
mean cocacola the drink24) how much do people editting
“The UBC Report” earn25) musical and theatre perfor-
mance news
END QUOTE
When I first read this comment, I took it for an example of the compul-sive, chimp-like keyboard masturba-tion that stains most of the inter-net. But in the days and nights that followed, Student D’s Twenty-Five Queries haunted me.
Where, indeed, are the free park-ings? What is S. Troope doing? And, perhaps most perplexing of all, what the fuck is wrong with people who make noise at 1:00am in the rez? Each of these koan seem simple on the surface, but they are designed to unlock higher levels of conscious-ness in the individuals who study them.
The Ubyssey has a duty to students to answer these riddles. In the weeks and months to come, I will, to the best of my limited, mortal ability, at-tempt a reply to each of Student D’s 25 Queries. It will not be a simple task by any means, but it is what you, the students, demand and deserve. Check this space regularly to see how far your hard-earned one dollar goes. U
The 25 Queriesof Student D
bryce Warnes
The 25 Queries of ‘Student D’
Lolita fashion was popular at last weekend’s Cos and Effect cosplay convention. Lolita is a style that originated in Japan and mimics Victorian era clothing. People also dressed as “the fan favourites of any geek fandom,” said Creative Director Greg Neher. “Sepiroth, Cloud, Mario, Luigi, Link. Sometimes you get some really crazy things...like people dressing up as bowls of ramen.”
GEOFF LISTEr/ThE UBYSSEY
LasT WeekenD >>
8 | games | 08.16.2011
across1- Publicity 4- Cavern 10- Cairo cobras 14- Anonymous John 15- Fame 16- Singer Amos 17- Where it’s at 18- Functional 20- Actress Gardner 21- Org. 22- Fish 23- Admit 25- Kind of kitchen 28- Fish appendage 29- Spahn teammate 30- Ancient 31- Em, e.g. 32- Uneasy 35- Fair-hiring abbr. 36- Be human 37- Additional 44- Football kick 45- Make into law 46- Specks 48- Japanese sash 49- Hiding place 50- Outer coat of a seed 51- Golden Horde member 53- Bristle 55- Hesitant sounds 56- Requiring an acidic environ-ment 59- ____ the season... 60- Actress Gershon 61- Consecrate 62- Calendar abbr. 63- Nervously irritable 64- Playground retort 65- Dash lengths Down1- Standards of perfection2- Recently created
3- Insoluble protein4- Moan5- Workout count6- Ego7- Violent whirlwind8- Defunct airline9- Mich. neighbor10- Lots and lots11- Melodious12- Sugarcoated almond13- Soundless19- Author Fleming24- Commence26- Thrice, in prescriptions27- Purpose30- Beaten egg dish31- Scrape off33- Alley ___34- Illustrative craft37- Slightly sour38- Unific39- Bambi’s aunt40- Bulky and heavy41- Level of command42- Floral ornament43- Rare metallic element44- Thick soup47- Talks back to49- Hit sign50- Be silent, musically52- Forever’s partner54- Bandleader Puente57- Palm Pilot, e.g.58- That girl
Crossword