When did ‘masculinity’ be-come such a dirty word? I feel as though my own identity as an innocent man has been beaten and bruised by the feud between feminists and men’s rights activ-ists — two vicious children fight-ing for toys in a sandbox. Now, each time I even utter the word ‘masculine,’ I’m confused by how guilty I feel.

Unfortunately, this just seems to be a quagmire of iden-tity that plagues universities, as of late. It’s escalated so much at Ryerson University that a men’s issues group is taking the stu-dent union to court after being refused group status.

The debate stands: feminists seek equality through the lens of historically oppressed women and minorities, while ‘menin-ists’ claim ‘true’ equality through strict anti-feminism in the belief that their issues are misunder-stood. In turn, men like me are walloped over the head by a pair of stances stubbornly unwilling to take a perspective on life that isn’t their own.

As such, I’ve slipped into a confused crevice that separates the feud, clawing at either side to hoist myself to a definitive shelter, before realizing that this crevice is a shelter in itself.

I am a cautious bystander who sees merits to both ideolo-gies, but I avoid siding fully with either camp. Maybe this is the result of working with so many opinions over the years as opin-ions editor. Perhaps it’s because, as a man who doesn’t consider himself to be overly ‘macho’ or

‘masculine’ in the stereotypical sense (nor do I want to be) I feel I have a clearer view on my posi-tion in society than many who voraciously subscribe to these two groups seem to.

The truth is, masculinity is vastly diverse, and is becoming even more so. Traditional mas-culinity has, for many men, be-come a layer of prosthetic skin peeling from what was once

thought to be natural biology. The fresh layer seeks to toughen itself from the battle of words waging in society — much less universities.

To be a man is not what it once was; more men have recog-nized this and, despite the criti-cal world they face, are striving to become comfortable with their evolving identities.

I think this is the ideology that men’s rights activists try to convey, if it weren’t stifled by their misunderstandings and harrowing insults toward femi-nists — especially SFU’s men’s advocacy group, which portrays itself as almost hatefully anti-feminist. This makes the col-lective seem far more ignorant

and undignified than what their intentions probably are.

I find these ‘new’ men are the ones who would muster enough bravery to seek support from something like a men’s centre, while not only avoiding, but be-lieving in the efforts to avoid the ‘old boy’s club.’

This is something many ter-rified feminists need to under-stand, rather than to point a fin-ger to the wrongful notions that men will turn savage if thrown into a room together, because ap-parently that’s what men have al-ways done.

I’m sorry to say it, but these beliefs are a far cry from equal-ity. Yes, women and minori-ties have been historically op-

pressed, and recovering from these wounds is strenuous. But feminists can only draw from the past — they cannot live in it.

Instead, they must be open to the winds of change; their ideologies must

evolve by steadily realizing that men have been riding these winds ahead of them for a while now; we’re just waiting for them to catch up, to accept and trust differing masculinities just like they would trust any human from their own belief-circles.

That’s a step toward true equality.

Common ground exists, so as soon as meninists grow from an infantile mindset into something a little more open-minded, ma-ture and dignified — and as soon as feminists understand that to survive with societal change they’ll need to give today’s men a little more credit — I’ll continue to hide my ‘unconventional’ mas-culinity in this lonely crevice.

4 News Jamal Dumas / News Editornews@the-peak.ca

Thirsty summer students hanker-ing for a beer may need to find a new watering hole: the SFSS re-cently announced that the High-land Pub would be closed for the summer. The move comes as Food and Beverage Services (FBS), a branch of the SFSS, tries to grapple with its trend of yearly deficits.

SFSS CEO Martin Wyant and newly elected SFSS President Deepak Sharma sat down with The Peak to discuss the closure. Wyant noted that the pub has accounted for a lion’s share of the approximately $3 million loss weathered by the society over the past eight years. The past several years have seen deficits up-wards of $100,000. Current estimates for 2016 point to around a $360,000 loss. “When we say it loses money, what that really means is student dollars that are going to cover the deficit,” said Wyant.

According to Food and Bev-erages Services General Manager John Flipse, the pub “usually ends the summer with about $100,000 loss” due to fewer students being on the Burnaby campus during the summer semester. “The board has no more appetite for such a loss,” he said.

The SFSS board began consid-ering measures to address the defi-cit, including considering whether the FBS might run as a “for profit” business or as a service that would need continual subsidies.

Wyant looked into the his-tory of the student society’s food and beverage operation when he began at the SFSS and was un-able to find any record of it ever making money. Similarly, when reaching out to student societies that run pubs at campuses across the country he found that “almost all” had lost money. “We’re not alone. That’s kind of cold com-fort,” said Wyant.

He pointed to the challenges associated with providing student-run food options on campus. Just last semester, a Big Smoke Burger

(which is licensed) and a BC Li-quor Store opened in the Corner-stone building on campus. When the Higher Grounds coffee shop originally opened, competitors like Starbucks and Tim Hortons did not operate on campus.

In addition to competition, Wyant noted that although food prices have been rising, particu-larly in BC, FBS hasn’t raised its own prices in a while. “We’re sensi-tive that students have limited ca-pacity to pay,” he explained.

Furthermore, unlike most res-taurants, FBS workers are union-ized, resulting in higher labour costs. Wyant didn’t see a problem with this, arguing that workers should make a living wage; how-ever, he notes that it is one of many challenges the pub faces. “I don’t want to give up on it but we have to stop the bleeding,” said Wyant.

Wyant and Flipse both noted the need to change the pub’s busi-ness model when the pub reopens, likely in the first week of classes in September.

Wyant in par-ticular pointed

to the success of events such as SFSS pub nights and those held by other clubs which can prove profitable for the pub. The new pub could focus on events and catering, an area under FBS which Wyant remarked is finan-cially sound.

“I think we’ve got some op-portunity there. We have 200–300 clubs here at SFU, that are tied to SFSS. [The pub] is a wonderful space. We would like to reimag-ine that space.”

Wyant suggested that changes to licensing could be an option on the table, with a space for under-age students to lounge in the pub area. Sharma, however, noted that changes to licensing may prove challenging, as the university holds the liquor license and not the student society.

Wyant was optimistic about the pub adopting a new business model while still providing a space for stu-dents to socialize. Said Wyant, “I would love to find a way to have that space better used with less money coming out of student wallets. That’s what it comes down to.”

5May 9, 2016News

NCAA Division I hockey might come to SFU as early as the 2018–2019 season. Athletics director Theresa Hanson has launched a three- to six-month consultation process that she hopes will lead to a decision from administration by the end of the summer or Sep-tember 2016.

“DI hockey makes sense on a lot of levels, certainly in our market,” said Hanson in an interview with TSN 1040. “We’re a hockey-crazed country, [but] we have no DI uni-versity hockey in our country,” she said, adding that many great stu-dent athletes leave Canada to play NCAA Division I in the US.

SFU is the only Canadian uni-versity that competes in the NCAA, with 17 teams competing in Divi-sion II in the Great Northwest Ath-letic Conference. SFU is allowed two Division I teams, and is exploring the possibilities of men’s hockey and beach volleyball to make the jump. Division I is the most prestigious division in the NCAA, and features

the most competitive schools and athletic programs.

SFU men’s hockey has played against NCAA Division I teams in exhibition and has games with said teams scheduled for next season as well. Two years ago, the team played against NCAA Division I champions, North Da-kota, a game they lost 4–3.

Men’s hockey currently com-petes in the BC Intercollegiate Hockey League against UVic, Sel-kirk College, Trinity Western, and Eastern Washington.

Moving to NCAA Division I would be good for SFU, Burnaby, the province, and the country,

said head coach Mark Coletta to CKNW 980.

Former Ex-ecutive VP Busi-ness for the Van-couver Canucks, Jon Festinger, told The Prov-ince that SFU

Division I hockey would engage audiences on local, regional, and national markets.

It’s “a game changer” said Hanson, due to the uniqueness in the hockey market and the story associated with it. Imagine, the only NCAA school in Canada, of-fering Division I hockey for Cana-dian-born athletes to play while

receiving the world-class edu-cation SFU has to offer, Hanson explained.

In the most recent Frozen Four NCAA national champion-ship 10 BC-born players were on the North Dakota, Quinnipiac, and Denver teams. In addition, Canucks first-round pick Brock Boeser played for North Dakota in the national championship; goalie Thatcher Demko, another Canucks prospect, played for Boston College in the semifinal.

“Sustainability is the biggest thing,” said Coletta. He noted that while the move would be years away, stakeholders must look “50 years down the road.” Coletta also argued that the consultation process will help the school decide whether to move forward.

There are some significant challenges that the consulta-tion must address, the most prominent being the venue.

SFU does not have a rink, and therefore external rinks must be looked at, such as the Pa-cific Coliseum.

Other factors include con-ference aff i l iation, travel , equipment, revenue streams, and number of student ath-letes on scholarships.

SFU’s scholarship fund cur-rently sits at $11.5 million. Hanson aims to increase the funding to $20 million.

Joining Division 1 could mean SFU could compete on an even larger scale, but at this point it’s too early to tell if SFU could sustain an NCAA Division I team.

SFU has contemplated one in the past, but with the consul-tation process now in place, it shows this time around there is a serious intention of pursuing the distinction.

“It’s a lofty goal, but I think it’s doable,” said Hanson.

On May 15 at 8 p.m., SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts will host an evening of music and dance in Studio D at the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts. Musician Makigami Koichi will begin the event with a solo performance, later joined by musician Stefan Smulovitz and dancer Jay Hirabayashi for an improvised performance. The event is $25 for general admis-sion, and $15 for students.

Surrey City Centre Library will host another Philosopher’s Café event on Wednesday, May 18 at 7 p.m. Somayeh Bahrami, a PhD student in the Gender, Sexuality, and Wom-en’s Studies Department at SFU, will moderate a discus-sion on the topic of “barbaric cultural practices.” This forum is in response to the recent Conservative government’s attempt to “create an RCMP tip line for Canadians to call if they believe a child or woman is a victim of barbaric cultural practices.” Admission is free, and the event is sure to engage.

On May 12, SFU’s Manage-ment and Professional Pro-grams, Continuing Studies presents an information ses-sion on the Career Develop-ment Practitioner Certificate. The event will be on the Sur-rey campus in room 5360 from 5:30–6:30 p.m. and is meant for those interested in a career in employment counselling or career development. The event is free, but guests are being asked to register in advance.

6 News Jamal Dumas / News Editornews@the-peak.ca

Sharing their passion for beer, six SFU students have teamed up to create Brewstr: a startup that facilitates simple beer brewing at home. Specifically, Brewstr is an automated home brewing sys-tem controlled by an application on mobile phones.

Ryan Lymburner, a fifth-year Mechatronics student at SFU who helped to create Brewstr, described the beer-making pro-cess as “tedious,” “boring,” and “quite [a lot] of manual work.” Brewstr was designed to allow users without the usual knowl-edge or experience to make beer and cider that can be personal-ized to suit the owner’s taste.

The Technology Entrepre-neurship@SFU program at Sur-rey campus was where it all

started. The program’s main goal is to successfully commercial-ize projects and establish new startups. There Lymburner first met his team: Jeremy Thompson, Derek Muxworthy, and Jordan Sciberras, all of whom are Me-chatronics students, and Busi-ness students Karan Thakur and Kavi Sekhon.

Lymburner called his team “a great blend of everything,” de-scribing their diverse skill sets and backgrounds.

Brewstr has gained much at-tention from local media, de-spite having begun in January of this year. Lymburner added that the team is very “motivated” to know that their projects are gaining popularity and “going [quickly]” to the next stage.

1A duo of professors from University of Alberta’s Faculty of Agricultural, Life, and Environmental Sciences have rein-vented the “Mediterranean diet” for the Prairies.

Catherine Chan and Rhonda Bell’s goal was to find a dietary pattern that would help diabetics in their region re-main in good health. They deduced that the Mediterranean diet — plant-based and well-known for its health benefits — was an ideal starting point. Noting the challenges of obtaining necessary food items so far from the Mediterra-nean coast, they adjusted by replacing more “exotic” food choices with homegrown items that are easily accessible to people in the Prairies.

2A University of Toronto professor recently unveiled an app designed to help users avoid pollution in their city.

By measuring “ultrafine particles” released into the air by cars, Marianne Hatzopoulou’s Clean Ride Mapper app shows users the least-polluted route through the city to the destination. Factors exacerbating the levels of air pol-lution include speed of traffic, the height of buildings, and the width of roads. Cyclists and transit-goers are currently being polled regarding the extent to which they care about evading polluted routes. Hatzopoulou believes that know-ing which routes are cleanest will have a significant effect on those with ailments such as asthma or diabetes.

3Researchers affiliated with the University of Victoria have produced a digital encyclopedia mapping the flora and fauna of the Great Bear Rainforest.

Central Coast Biodiversity, available through the App Store, caters to a wide variety of users ranging from re-searchers and students to nature enthusiasts. Users world-wide now have the opportunity to remotely explore the spe-cies that call the rainforest home. At the moment, the guide encompasses approximately 290 animals and 330 plants.

2

13

Regarding Brewstr’s near fu-ture, the complete prototype will be finished soon and ready for public tests and funding. In ad-dition, the team will work closely with local breweries to ensure that the quality of the beer is suited to the tastes of consumers.

Lymburner and his team see their inventions as a “comple-ment” to the local beer industry, rather than a competitor to it. They suggested that local brew-eries could create their own in-gredient packs and kits for pur-chase, allowing them to share their recipe with people more easily. Ultimately, the Brewstr team hopes that their invention might help to create a commu-nity of people who, like them, enjoy a cold brew.

7May 9, 2016Opinions Adam Van der Zwan / Opinions Editoropinions@the-peak.ca

On April 26, Albertan couple David and Collet Stephan were found guilty of neglecting their 19-month-old son, Ezekiel Stephan, who died of meningi-tis in 2012. The defence argued that the parents, who attempted to heal Ezekiel through natural remedies rather than by seek-ing professional medical help, believed he simply had the flu.

Prosecutor Lisa Weich noted the Stephans had been warned by a registered nurse that Ezekiel likely had meningitis, and additionally that they should have been able to interpret their son’s symptoms as something more serious.

Having been born and raised in Eugene, Oregon, a city known for its Birkenstock-wearing, organic garden-planting, and vegan-eating residents, I’m fa-miliar with the type of people who swear by their home rem-edies. My own family exists in this circle. For Christmas, my sister once gave me an awful serum that supposedly reduces anxiety, and my mother keeps a bottle of echinacea to treat colds and the flu — the same medici-nal mixture that the Stephan parents used — stocked in the medicine cabinet at all times.

I’ve never complained about my family’s alternative health practices because, if need be, we seek professional advice. We have healthy diets, exercise, and yes, take echinacea. When that isn’t enough, we pay the doctor a visit. This is what the Stephan family should have done.

I have plenty of qualms with the population that favours alter-native medicine. Scientists have developed amazing medicines, remedies, and cures, so why do some of us refuse to use them?

I understand the distrust in big pharmaceutical companies, and I understand the anger to-ward powerful higher-ups who care more about their bank ac-counts than patients (looking at you, Martin Shkreli). Ultimately though, doctors are here to treat us, to cure us, and to save us. Why would they want to do any-thing else?

It’s foolish to believe other-wise. Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, says turning to un-proven alternative medicine is not the answer to our cynicism about conventional medicine.

Alternative medicines are considered inherently less harm-ful because they are perceived to be more natural. However, al-ternative medicine lacks testing. According to doctors Phil Fon-tanarosa and George Lundberg, in the Journal of the American Medical Association, “there is no

alternative m e d i c i n e . There is only scientifically proven, evi-dence-based m e d i c i n e s u p p o r t e d by solid data or unproven medicine, for which scien-

tific evidence is lacking.” At worst, these medicines

can hurt us. At best, they heal us. Often, they simply do noth-ing. Such was the case with Ezekiel Stephan.

The world of ‘unproven’ medicine extends beyond one tragic case with a sick child. This is about a generation of children raised without vaccines that have worked for decades be-cause ignorant parents are wor-ried they may cause autism.

This is about children dying of suffocation because parents no longer trust the chemicals in inhalers long-known to treat asthma. We now live in a world where germs, viruses, and bacte-ria have become increasingly dan-gerous, and now there’s an entire generation of children whose im-mune systems are perfect targets.

There is no doubt that David and Collet Stephan loved Eze-kiel, but as Weich put it, “some-times love just isn’t enough.” Ultimately, had the Stephan family sought medical help for their son earlier, he would prob-ably still be alive today.

The crop top: Honey, I shrunk the T-shirt in the wash and it actually looks pretty cute now.

This top is a symbol of freedom, liberating lower ab-domens and absolving body complexes everywhere. Check this belly out, baby! White crop tops make me feel like an elven queen wander-ing through the forests in her large feminist kingdom, looking for hot forest nymph babes to make out with.

We all have dreams, and the crop top always helps bring me a little closer to mine. The crop top is also Lara Croft’s go-to garment, and I absolutely love that “I am fully capable of killing you right now” aesthetic. The crop top is also great because it barely takes up any space; I have 300 crop tops in my backpack right now! What? What do you mean it’s strange that I have a bag purely filled with crop tops? Diversity is the spice of life!

Look, it’s not that I’m deny-ing that baby crocs look great. Baby crocs do look great. Crocs were made for babies — crocs be-come art when tastefully matched with the baby. The shoes reveal just the right amount of cute, fat baby foot to effectively entrance and seduce. The croc is a modern revolution in babywear.

My issue with baby crocs is that they’re everywhere: lying sus-piciously in parks, beaches, and

on sidewalks. Who are all these babies? Where do all these crocs come from? What happens to lone baby crocs once their part-ner has been lost? Why do these babies keep losing their crocs? At this rate, the whole city is going to become covered in baby crocs and we will all descend into chaos. Baby crocs will flood the streets, the sea, the lakes, the parks, and the lives of unsuspecting citizens.

The a-croc-alypse is coming.

By Janis McMath

Legal marijuana is upon us! Health Minister Jane Philpott announced on April 20 (oh, the irony) that the process of legalizing pot would begin during the spring of 2017. Students, stoners, and probably several of our professors rejoiced.

As most Canadians know, the federal government has been prom-ising to legalize marijuana since the beginning of Trudeau’s campaign. It’s a promise that really resonated with the younger electorate, and I’d bet was at least partially responsible for Trudeau’s popularity at the polls.

Considering the upcoming changes to drug laws in Canada, why are law enforcers still wast-ing their time and our tax dollars enforcing outdated and soon-to-be-off-the-books laws? Both the general public and members of the judicial system have already begun questioning the morality of criminal marijuana charges since the government announced the pending changes.

According to CBC, tens of thou-sands of Canadians are still con-sidered criminals in the eyes of the law, despite the obvious change in attitudes around personal and medical marijuana use. The delay between promise and (hopefully) implementation of this law has cre-ated a moral and legal quagmire that is difficult to navigate. The only sane solution is to stop enforcing existing laws around possession for personal use and the sale of canna-bis products in shops.

Criminal marijuana charges seem especially ridiculous when compared to actual violent or disrup-tive crimes that occur daily. Some direction for law enforcement on ne-gotiating the interim period would go a long way to settling the concerns for those caught between old laws and new attitudes.

Unfortunately, to most law en-forcement agents, the law is the law, illogical logistics be damned. It seems the responsibility falls on the Lib-eral government’s shoulders to urge law enforcement to stop the crimi-nal pursuit of petty drug charges — which are a waste of time and mor-ally ambiguous at best. This would be the best way to protect innocent Canadians from marring their (other-wise clean) criminal records.

Luckily for us, the Lower Main-land and its associated police forces have adopted a much saner stance on drug prosecution. CBC stated last September that Vancou-ver Police have made it clear they barely pay attention to marijuana dispensaries. Other than instances in which dispensaries have been accused of selling to minors, or

being involved in organized crime, the Vancouver Police Department won’t pursue charges.

Moreover, the current dispensary crackdown in Vancouver is due to the fact that these shops are, by city rules, too close to public schools and com-munity centres; not because people may have been found with illegal possession of the drug.

Vancouver Police Chief Adam Palmer has publicly spoken of Trudeau’s legalization of pot, stat-ing that more dangerous drugs are

his priority — as they should be! Politicians like Tom Mulcair, and Neil Boyd, director of the school of criminology at SFU, have publicly urged Liberals to pardon past and present offenders.

The entire legalization procedure is complex, and I understand that the logistics of such a major change in the law take time and planning. Still, this doesn’t negate the fact that these offenders aren’t really criminals any longer, and therefore should not be treated as such.

10 Diversions

LAST WEEK’S SOLUTION

EVENT LISTINGS ARE FREE FOR SFU STUDENTS AND

STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS. SEND THE DATE, TIME, LOCATION,

NAME, AND A 15-WORD DESCRIPTION TO

CLASSIFIEDS@THE-PEAK.CA

EVENTS AT (OR AROUND) SFU: MAY 9 — 20

onlinecrosswords.net

Clue: “Aided” is another word for “assisted.”

11May 9, 2016Opinions

Leave it to the UBC administration to consider a means for sexual as-sault control that’s so shortsighted it’ll leave you questioning the pro-fessional competency of the insti-tution. The Globe is currently frol-icking in a sticky story that involves potentially ‘legislating love’ be-tween students and faculty mem-bers at the university.

UBC faculty say they’re “‘abso-lutely’ willing to consider a ban” on consensual relationships between these two parties, The Globe reports. This is primarily as a means to avoid the coercive power dynamics in-volved in any sexual assaults on stu-dents. The school’s interim president Martha Piper alludes that such a ban may be necessary to stop such trou-bling behavior — a ban akin to that between a doctor and patient.

Of course, all the hoopla sur-rounding sexual assaults on school grounds has Canadian universities frantically ensuring that assault policies are given a thumbs-up from their politically correct pa-tronage. But sadly, this is a case in which executive action may be tak-ing measures that are more invasive than needed to secure everyone’s safety on campus. Dr. Piper openly admits that she is unaware of any other Canadian university to have implemented this kind of ban.

Wake up, Piper: it’s because every other university realizes that such a ban defies the natural sexual attrac-tions that occur between two con-senting adult humans.

Now, the same could be said for the school’s current conflict-of-in-terest policy requiring that faculty do not formally assess any student-lover with whom they have current classroom connections. But the ban UBC is proposing would be a trivial restriction on freedom of choice outside the classroom.

While The Globe references one incident of alleged assault by a former PhD candidate at UBC to explain the school’s willingness to implement a campus-wide ban, Dr. Piper doesn’t use any evidence to prove that all ‘academic love’ is dangerous. So maybe she should draw upon actual data, or conduct

some proper research to prove that this dirty romance epidemic propels unrelenting assaults — as if that’s the only thing faculty members want to do.

If this is the case, we might as well ban people from consensual relation-ships altogether. Yes, sexual assault occurs, but because student-faculty romances are so rare, it’s safe to say that non-consensual encounters hap-pen far more often outside the aca-demic world than within it.

Further, to liken this kind of ban to a patient-doctor relationship couldn’t be more misguided. It insinuates that patients can’t date doctors from a hospital they visit, even one who isn’t registered as their doctor. It simply doesn’t make sense.

I hope never to see the day when school exec-utives power trip so much that they start blindly pull-ing Orwellian pol-icies out of their rears to restrict who we sleep with when there are no professional con-nections involved. While we’re at it, how about they

restrict with whom students and faculty marry and have children?

Cite your sources, Dr. Piper. Sure, it might be a little weird to see second-year Sally from psych class necking with a 65-year-old, nearly retired Nobel winner, but in the end our choices are ours to make as consenting adults, re-gardless of your opinion.

Oh, hookup apps. Never before has it been so easy to communicate sexual interest. A simple swipe to the right on a screen unlocks access to a wide market of potential mates. But can we really blame Tinder or Grindr for an STI outbreak?

Alberta Health Services cer-tainly thinks so.

“To the extent that social media could be enabling these hookups to occur more often/frequently, social media would also be contributing to the STI rate increases we are seeing,” Dr. Gerry Predy, Alberta Health Services medical officer of health, told CBC News. Alberta does have a crisis: there were 3,400 reported cases of gonor-rhea in 2015. This represents an 80 percent increase from 2014.

There isn’t any doubt that Tin-der and Grindr facilitate hookups without the strings. However, a few issues arise with placing sole blame on ‘hookup apps.’ These apps only make it easier to meet new people, while the nature of the relation-ships is left to the users. It seems much more prudent to blame our culture of independence and aver-sion to commitment on this issue.

Admittedly, I have Tinder. So do many of my friends. It is a ste-reotype to say that Tinder is purely for hookups. The majority of peo-ple I’ve spoken to on Tinder say they aren’t looking to hook up (or maybe they just deny it). Many are innocently searching for platonic relationships, and many others are looking for long-term commit-ment. In fact, the CBC reported last year that a study by UBC instructor Jocelyn Wentland found most Tin-der users are primarily looking for relationships over sex.

A Tinder match doesn’t con-firm one’s interest in hooking

up. I swipe right any time I see a profile from SFU. It’s a wonder-ful platform for breaking the ice and meeting new people. In fact, I had three Tinder matches from one of my classes this year, and it was great for sharing notes.

Tinder is just a new player in the already-existing hookup market. Clubs, bars, and parties were, and still are, notorious for sexual encounters. At least on Tinder you can view pictures and talk to somebody before deciding to hit third base. At a club, the lights are too low and the music’s too loud to properly meet somebody. On Tinder you can find out if somebody knows the difference between ‘their,’ ‘there,’ and ‘they’re.’

We live in a culture of non-commitment. I look at my circle of friends and good, healthy re-lationships are few and far be-tween. They exist, but I’d imag-ine less than five percent of my friends are in committed relation-ships. How many excuses have I made to justify my avoidance of commitment? “I don’t know where I’ll be next year.” “What if I find somebody better?” “Every relationship ends in a breakup or marriage, so why bother right now?” “I’m too busy.”

Maybe I try too hard to con-vince myself to avoid the long-term. I’m young, have a decent job, and my education hopefully promises me a good future. Why stay single? Will there come a time when it’ll just ‘feel right,’ or is it a conscious decision to pursue something real?

Tinder reinforces the single life by exposing a wide world within the dating market. But I blame our culture and not our apps for the STI increase. Al-bertan authorities should stop making blanket statements about causations for sexual in-fections that they don’t have any data to support.

What I do know is that I’m scared of hookups now. Gonorrhea is the last thing I want.

12 Arts Jess Whitesel / Arts Editorarts@the-peak.ca

You can feel the endorphins rushing to your brain watch-ing Sing Street. It’s like the sweet-spot of a run when you only feel the euphoria, a drug trip right before the freefall, or an orgasm that lasts nearly two hours. This is superlative wish-fulfilment: unashamed, delightful, and frequently quite awesome. It’s so unabashedly earnest you couldn’t find a subatomic particle of cynicism in its genetic makeup.

Set against a job crisis and an eroding Dublin in the 1980s, a group of delightfully weird teenagers search for them-selves by creating music in-spired by their life in a crappy Catholic school, and their fa-vourite countercultural artists of the time — Duran Duran, Elvis Costello, and many more. It’s an angst-ridden search for identity. If we all had to be perfectly honest, though, the whole band thing was just to get a girl and pass the time in a place that can be more boring than watching the plaster peel from their homes’ deteriorat-ing walls.

I could tell you that the boy gets the girl, that the band nails their climactic gig, and that ba-sically everything works out. But what good would that do you? Would you be any closer to understanding the moment where Conor, the high school band’s frontman, imagines a candy-coloured music video with a ‘50s prom? Do I need to tell you that the band nails every note in this hallucina-tion? How about the sequence where Conor and the lead gui-tarist write their first song, sur-prising themselves with how

damn good it is? How about Conor’s sloppy first make-out with Raphina, an orphaned and mysterious girl, when he goes in for a kiss while she is still chewing on a mouthful of cookies?

Sing Street transcends cli-chés and formulae, actively reinventing what we thought possible in our snarky and ironic times.

This film was directed by John Carney, a man whom I suspect hasn’t told a lie in his life — unless, of course, it was for the sake of graciousness. He has made two other mu-sically-inspired films: the sur-prise indie-hit Once, and the totally inauthentic yet com-pletely sincere Begin Again.

Sing Street, like two of his other musical films, has a killer

soundtrack; at times it p r a c t i c a l l y mounts the entire film on its air-less wave-lengths. All of his films are varia-

tions on familiar rhythms. There is always a girl and a boy and a band. They play music. They fall in love. They struggle, but create something special along the way.

That last part, the struggle, is just as important for Car-ney. He is not reducing any-one’s pain in Sing Street. He is resolving it, finding a way for his characters to heal at a time when it’s hip to be bleak. This doesn’t minimize sadness or reduce its importance. Conor’s anxieties are founded on a world collapsing around him. His older brother, who listens to records and smokes pot all day, is a victim of his country and family’s degradation. There are real problems on display here, real tragedy lurking un-derneath the sweet charms.

This is a great film of the rarest kind: simply beautiful, essentially perfect within its own constraints, and so com-mitted to making you fall in love with the world, even if it only exists for the brief mo-ments it is on screen. Sing Street is a nostalgic, clichéd, and catchy fantasy. It also doesn’t give a damn what you think about it.

The latest Hollywood ‘rac-ism’ scandal that has ethni-cally minded moviegoers filling up their skivvies is a photo of a stoned-looking Scarlett Johans-son gazing at what appears to be a wall of glass. The still-shot from the upcoming Hollywood remake of Ghost in the Shell, based on the popular Japanese anime, shows Johansson as the lead character — an ostensibly Japanese cybernetic policewoman.

All would probably have passed more smoothly if the filmmakers hadn’t decided to give Johansson the character’s original anime-style hair. Further, the fact that her clearly Caucasian film character goes by the name “Motoko Ku-sanagi” is so hokey it’s comedic — almost as if Johansson were a guest on Saturday Night Live.

Given the ongoing public dis-taste with Hollywood’s recent casting choices (think Oscars 2016), I’m left unphased by Twit-ter’s accusations over the film industry’s choice to ‘whitewash’ what would otherwise be an Asian character.

Though diluted from all the claims that ‘Hollywood is racist,’ there’s a fleeting truth that proves we activists are forgetting how the film industry actually runs. As

always, it boils down to money, folks.

What’s for-gotten is that the film studios acquiring super h i g h - b u d g e t films aim to make all of that money back when the

film is released. Given that Holly-wood currently has only a handful of actors that we could label ‘A-list’ — roughly 95 percent of whom are white — filmmakers are aware that if they do not acquire wildly popu-lar actors from this small group of people, then film studios will have less interest in acquiring the rights to their expensive films.

In other words, Scarlett Johans-son is what’s saving this film from being bumped to the ‘B-list’ that makes only a fraction of what it would make with a white actor playing the lead role. Sad, isn’t it?

So, let’s revisit this question. Is Hollywood racist? When it comes to making money, Hollywood will be as racist as it needs to be, while playing off the majority of mind-less American film fans who enjoy the same darn actors re-packaged in mildly different ways. This means Scarlett Johansson dressed as every action-oriented, superhu-man character in spandex — re-gardless of the ‘proper’ ethnicity.

The real question we should be asking ourselves is why the pool of A-list actors comprising Holly-wood’s successful films is so small. Why aren’t there currently any mainstream female Asian celebri-ties to fill these roles? Let’s face it, our blockbuster entertainment in-dustry is a system run by profit and trepidation — something of which we should all be ashamed.

So next year, don’t boycott the Oscars because you think it’s rac-ist. Boycott it because it symbol-izes an industry that takes your hard-earned money to stab your eyes with the same old crap be-cause it’s scared of delivering any-thing else. Every single time.

You want a proper portrayal of Kusanagi? You’ll have to download the original.

13May 9, 2016Arts

The Summer Set’s latest album very much echoes their previous records, featuring an all-around pop sound with a hint of rock. Although their sound seems to have matured on the opening track “Figure Me Out,” the rest of the album, while fun, leaves the listener wishing for more of that depth. They deliver the same themes over and over again: youth, nostalgia, and their signa-ture we-did-some-crazy-shit, most prominent on “All My Friends.”

“Figure Me Out” is the best track on the album musically. It reads as an autobiography of the band, unsure where they fit in: “I’m a bit too pop for the punk kids, but I’m too punk for the pop kids.”

“Jean Jacket” is the only other track that experiments with saxophone and a groovy, out-of-character bassline. It has the makings of a great summer album with catchy hooks and riffs, but there’s nothing risky about their music.

I’ve always found Explosions in the Sky to be great study music. With mostly instrumental songs, their previous albums have been studying gold. Alas, all good things must end. This album, though recognizably Explosions in the Sky, doesn’t contend with 2003’s The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place.

The entire album is minimalistic and heavily reliant on percussion. There is a cultivated monotony to the track, like they decided to deconstruct their sound and left most of it at the side of the road.

“The Ecstatics” builds into a powerful pep talk, full of motivation. “Tangle Formations,” which follows, keeps the energizing feel, climaxing in a rollicking tune. Other tracks like “Disintegration Anxiety” and “Landing Cliffs” are relax-ing, calming tunes, with the latter adding in a dreamy, subdued quality.

For any fan of ambient music, Brian Eno’s newest release is a bountiful one, both innovative and recognizable. Listeners of 2016’s The Ship will immedi-ately identify with the chorus’ over-sustained vocals and light strings that have typified Eno’s most well-known works: 1978’s Ambient #1: Music For Airports and 1983’s Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks.

The four tracks that make up this album inevitably build off one another to form the sense of a movement rather than an album. This will be no surprise to those familiar with Eno’s early ambient works mentioned above. Aside from the thematic inspiration of the sinking of the Titanic, Eno actually provides verbal narration in a couple of tracks that pull off as omnipresent poetry. A must for Eno fans.

Until the moment you devour one of Angelina’s fresh berry pan-nekoeken or their locally famous eggs benedict, you are missing out on seriously amazing shit. Throw Denny’s in the bin and sit yourself down at a patio table at Angelina’s, enjoy the view of the New Westminster Quay, and weep joyfully over the Dutch-inspired breakfast and lunch.

Angelina’s is a small daytime restaurant quite conveniently lo-cated across from New Westmin-ster Station, open weekdays 6:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m. and weekends until 3:30 p.m. It has the nos-talgic local diner feel that every-body seems to love and is often very busy. So busy that the only open tables without a waitlist

are on the patio overlooking the river. Like any brunch place, Sundays are the craziest, so don’t be dumb like me and show up on Sunday at 2 p.m. starving after a night of drinking — there may be quite a wait for the food.

The menu has greatly expanded since opening and they offer all the standard break-fast fare such as waffles, French

toast, omelettes, and oatmeal. But what really stood out as differ-ent was the sa-voury and sweet p a n n e k o e k e n . A pannekoek is a Dutch pan-cake that is the happy medium

between a pancake and a crepe — it’s every breakfast lover’s dream. Light but flavourful, it’s delicious when served sweet with berries and cream but also savoury with housemade hollandaise sauce and ‘yummy hash’: a mixture of hash browns, various vegetables, and your choice of protein (or mushrooms for vegetarians). You

will be fully convinced that you can eat 40 of them in one sitting after a single bite.

Their omelettes, although quite ordinary, are done right: chock full of fresh vegetables and five cheeses to choose from, served with toast and perfectly seasoned baby potatoes. A highly recommended local favourite is the eggs benedict — even ru-moured to be the best in Van-couver. I definitely neglected the lunch menu as Angelina’s is noto-rious for its bragging rights over a damn fine brunch, but a lunch menu does exist and consists of sandwiches, wraps, soups, salads, and burgers.

Although maybe not the op-timal hotspot for vegans — its menu does not include fake meats, tofu, or vegan pannekoek — Angelina’s Restaurant offers many vegetarian options along-side their bratwurst. The coffee was good but not great, and the service was friendly but not brisk enough for a busy restaurant. Price range is about $15–$20 per person, which I found a bit on the pricier side, but fair for the por-tions and quality of food.

At the end of the day, Ange-lina’s is a charming local brunch place with a nice view and home-style fresh breakfast food, that never fails to receive a thumbs-up in response. Definitely worth a visit — just not on a hungover Sunday.

14 Humour Justin Stevens / Humour Editorhumour@the-peak.ca

than being raped is being raped in Burnaby.

P: All three RIR&E shows in Vancouver sold out. How does it feel to have found a topic that’s clearly resonating with people?

HJR: Really, really wonder-ful. It’s something that’s always been close to my heart, even be-fore what happened two years ago. There’s this conversation not happening, in schools or in

the workplace, it’s not happen-ing fucking anywhere. So we’re just living in this epidemic, where we’re casually not ac-knowledging that one in four of the women and one in every 33 men you know has been sexu-ally assaulted, and for some rea-son we’re all just cool with it. We’re just pretending this isn’t a thing where clearly, if there was a little bit more conversation, it wouldn’t be such an epidemic.

P: Has there been any nega-tive feedback to the show, or people who struggle with the

concept of finding humour in a systemic issue like sexual assault?

HJR: Mostly no. People have been very supportive, even sur-vivors who’ve said they would never come to it themselves. The only negative things I’ve had have been guys I know sending me messages; I don’t even know how to articulate it, sending me messages saying, “I don’t know if I agree with the fact that you call

it real and every-where, and I feel like consent is a very grey area, and I also feel that women are liars.” It’s been re-ally weird. I’ve de-leted three people from Facebook who’ve been, “Um, actually…”

P: The show is hitting the road later this month for a Canadian tour. What in-spired the transition from local show to a national one?

HJR: When we sold out the first show, we had people ask-ing, “Why aren’t you in Toronto?” We encouraged people that if they wanted this show in the city, then they should do it, and then we thought, “Why don’t we just fucking do it?” People were ask-ing across the country, survivors who liked the idea or comedians who wanted us to bring it to their city. The demand was there.

P: Aside from being per-formed in different cities, how will RIR&E change when it’s on the road?

HJR: We’re going to have local talent, which will be really inter-esting because we’re going from, “Hey, I’ve talked to you on the In-ternet,” to, “Hey, let’s talk about the worst thing that’s ever hap-pened to you,” which is going to get pretty weird, but I’m excited for it. I just hope we reach the people we want to reach. Van-couver was much easier because we had a network already; with these different cities, we have to find people. It feels funny to go through my old contacts and be like, “Hey Charlie from univer-sity, want to come to my rape show? Hey Diane who I used to be a reporter with, want to come to my rape show?”

P: If there’s one thing you hope people take away from the show, what would that be?

HJR: Let’s talk about it. Let’s laugh about it, let’s talk about it, and let’s kill this epidemic. Rape is real and it’s everywhere, and it shouldn’t be. Let’s talk this out, let’s find out what’s going wrong, and let’s change this.

The Rape is Real and Every-where: A National Comedy Tour Launch happens on May 15 at the Rickshaw Theatre, where Ross and Cooper will be co-hosting and per-forming alongside six other local comedians. Tickets are $15 and can be bought online in advance.

An interview with Heather Jordan Ross

Three years ago, Heather Jordan Ross made the jump from being “one of, like, two female stand-up comedians on Prince Edward Island” to part of the burgeoning Vancouver comedy scene. Since then, she’s co-founded several local shows (Poke the Bear, Comedy Deux Soleils), but none as resounding as her latest project: the show Rape is Real and Everywhere (RIR&E). A brainchild between Ross and fellow comedian Emma Coo-per, Rape is Real and Everywhere is a stand-up comedy show where survivors tell jokes about their rape and discuss the humour in an oth-erwise traumatic experience. Read on to learn more about how telling rape jokes is like “free therapy” for Ross and how she feels about taking RIR&E on a national tour starting later this month.

The Peak: Where does the idea for a comedy show about rape come from?

Heather Jordan Ross: I was raped and I reported it, and then immediately after reporting it I went onstage and did a set, and it was terrible. But I realized that a) I wanted to make rape jokes, because I wanted to joke about it, and b) I never wanted to hear rape jokes again. So it was a really weird place to be in. I was talking to Emma Cooper over beers, and said, “Wouldn’t it be great if we

did a comedy show about rape jokes, but only by survivors?” and Emma said, “Yes, it would. We’re going to call Hot Art Wet City, I have five people we can do this with,” and she just went with it.

P: Historically, rape jokes have been at best controversial. How are the performers with RIR&E changing that standard?

HJR: When it comes to writing a joke, you have to think about why you’re writing it, and who you’re sup-porting when telling it. Always be punching up. If you make a rape joke and the person who laughs are the rapists, and the person who cringes are victims, you kind of suck. If you can tell a rape joke and you make me laugh, then you’ve done your homework. People doing this show, it’s great for them because they’re parsing through the experience and they’re making jokes about it, which is super cathartic. It’s been amazing for me, like free therapy where I tech-nically get paid.

Funny shit still happens throughout your whole life, through the best parts and the worst parts. So it’s great to be able to talk about it. We want people to be able to talk about their rapes, but also talk about the funny parts. The fact that I got raped in Burnaby is the funniest thing in the world. The only thing worse

On taking her rape show on the road and starting the conversation

“There’s this conversation not happening, in schools or in the workplace, it’s not happening fucking anywhere.”

After her sexual assault two years ago, Ross was torn between wanting to make rape jokes and never wanting to hear a rape joke again.

Photo courtesy of Niko Bell (Facebook)

Jacey GibbPeak Associate

15May 9, 2016Humour

Last month, the SFSS announced that Highland Pub would be closed for the summer semes-ter, causing an unplanned four-month hiccup in drunkenness to SFU’s Burnaby campus. But do not fret, my fellow classmates, as the notorious student-fee sink-hole isn’t the only place folks can go to for a drink on Burnaby Mountain; here are five alterna-tives for where you can get boozy after — or, let’s be honest, before — class.

Club Ilia: With happy hour everyday from 3 to 5 p.m. and a formidable menu to choose from, Club Ilia seems like the candidate most likely to become the go-to destination for Burn-aby students to get gooned. The summer is also prime time for drinking on a patio, which Ilia counts among its amenities.

Mountain Shadow Pub: Lo-cated just a short 135 bus ride

away, the Mountain Shadow Pub has been a staple of an SFUer’s liquid diet for the past three de-cades and… oh really? It did? Just last year? They tore it down to make room for more condos? Huh. Weeeeell let’s just keep the Shadow on this list as an in me-moriam, okay?

The parking lot down the street from the new BC Liquor Store: April 13 marked a brave new era for Burnaby Moun-tain, with the opening of a BC Liquor Store within walking dis-tance of campus. What the park-ing lot down the street from the BCL lacks in food and services, it makes up for in sprawl and pavement, solidifying its spot as a fan favourite for students to go drinking.

Visitor’s Parkade, West Mall: Are you a summer baby, but your birthday falls on a weekday this year? After class is over, round

up your favourite classmates and head on down to the Visi-tor’s Parkade, which is adjacent to the lower bus loop. Sure, there are no fancy ‘chairs’ or ‘tables’ in this echo-filled, multi-floor parkade, but one student’s place to park their car is another stu-dent’s summer hangout spot.

Just remember to keep an eye out for moving vehicles, and you’ll be making memories in no time.

A goddamn field: Let’s dou-ble-check the requirements a place needs to be a perfect haunt for you and your school chums to partake in the consumption of

alcohol. Does it have ground or a floor for people to sit/stand on? Yes? Then this field passes with sky-flying colours. Just quit your complaining and make sure you keep an eye out for any buzzkill security guards who are really just trying their hardest to stop you from having fun.

met the newly elected Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) president, Deepak Sharma, on his fourth day of presidency. Outfitted in a suit and tie, the edge of which was taken off by his wide smile, he gave me a

firm handshake followed by a soft-spoken introduction. As the interview progressed, I realized that in many

ways, Sharma is composed of these two opposing sides: exuding professionalism and experience, but always with a tinge of the astute self-awareness of someone who’s still surprised to find himself in such a position.

Sharma, having grown up in Whalley, describes his beginnings as humble. While it was a slip of the tongue that he regrets during a debate, Sharma still identifies with the “inner-city kid” who may find himself out of place in a student body president’s office.

But his experiences growing up in a fairly unknown school in a fairly unknown part of town also led Sharma to one of his greatest passions to date: youth mentorship. His experience attending a small-town public school in which students were more likely to act out due to neglect, abuse, or misguidance inspired Sharma to return to his community as a mentor. “It’s easier for students to connect with someone they’re aspiring to be like in a couple of years. . . who won’t judge them,” Sharma says.

Sharma’s impressive level of community involvement, which includes volunteering in hospitals and homeless shelters, playing and then refereeing community-based football, and being a general ambassador for TEDxSFU, earned him a spot in Surrey Board of Trade’s Top 25

Under 25 in 2015. But it was his lack of SFU-specific-involvement that led Sharma to student politics. Sharma’s political career began as a science rep, followed by VP Student Life, and now president of the SFSS.

According to Sharma, his disconnect with SFU’s extracurriculars stemmed in part from the fact that his early university experience was at SFU’s Surrey campus, which he maintains has yet to have a complete sense of unity with the Burnaby and Vancouver campuses.

In his opinion, SFU’s reputation as a “commuter campus” pre-empts students from being proud of their choice of institution and from getting involved on campus. But Sharma envisions using SFU’s commuting culture as an advantage: “If we don’t address the fact that we’re a commuter campus, how are we going to have a presence at Vancouver and Surrey?” Sharma asks. “There needs to be a way to work alongside the [three campuses] instead of just being Burnaby-based.”

Sharma’s focus on providing an equally fulfilling student experience to membership attending all three campuses seems to contradict his support for Build SFU, a project to build a student union building (SUB) and stadium that may cost the university, and thus students, up to $65 million. One of the major arguments against this controversial project has been that it unequally benefits Burnaby-based students, but students in Surrey or Vancouver will experience the same increase in tuition fees to fund it.

Sharma maintains that his support for the project was far from contradictory, as the benefits of the project would percolate out of Burnaby to benefit Vancouver and Surrey students as well: “We [are trying] to say we’re all part of one community. . . [the SUB] is [a step] towards building that community instead of further dividing it.”

Sharma seems the most at ease when discussing policy, rattling off the three main goals of his board: governance reform, enhanced communication among students and between students and their elected officials, and efficient reimbursement programs.

However, when Sharma is confronted with specific questions that his rehearsed rhetoric can’t adequately answer, his hesitance seeps to the surface. His shortcomings in addressing concerns spontaneously garnered the new president criticism during the debates leading up to the election. Sharma admits that a personal challenge he already anticipates for

himself is effectively communicating the work that is being done by the SFSS.

“If my board and the rest of the membership doesn’t know what I’m doing, that’ll be a poor

reflection [of our work] and will limit the momentum we have,” he says.

When asked for his opinion on additional concerns directed at the personal projects that dominated his

work as VP Student Life, Sharma concedes that his agenda has thus far been portrayed as highly focused on

social aspects, but that it is not an accurate representation of what he hopes to accomplish as president.

Specifically, Sharma mentions four values that his board aims to address in the next year: along with student life, he plans to focus on student finances, academics, and (mental) health and welfare.

In a manner I had come to expect by the end of our time together, Sharma softens all the bold promises with an acknowledgement of the other possible outcome of his term as president: “Of course, you may come back next April and ask me, ‘Deepak, what about this, this, and this that you promised to do but never did.’ That wouldn’t be very good,” he chuckles.

“I’ve just got to make sure my actions speak louder than my words.”