September 22, 2011

THE UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA’S INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPERSEPTEmbER 22, 2011 • VOLUME 64 • ISSUE 7 • MARTLET.CA

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> ShAndi ShiAch

A Human Rights complaint filed against UVic and several textbook publishers has preceded substantial improvement in disability services this semester.

Miles Motture is a visually-impaired law student who relies on electronic textbooks (etexts) for his studies. He and other students with learning obstacles are able to read digitally enlarged text or listen to etexts using dictation software. However, extended delays in provision of etexts by UVic and publishers, even after disabled students made their dis-tress known, prompted Motture’s grievance with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal this past November.

“I’m hoping to get the University and the publishers in question to publicly change their policies and, going forward, to always publish textbooks in electronic and paper format,” says Motture.

Students receiving late materials fall behind in courses and may achieve lower grades, affecting stress levels and employment prospects. This is especially problematic in the Faculty of Law, and other areas where employers look directly at grades.

The B.C. Human Rights Code purposes include: “to foster a society . . . in which there are no impediments to full and free partici-pation in the economic, social, political and cultural life of B.C.” It doesn’t require the discrimination to be intentional. Motture is confident there’s a “preponderance of evi-dence” to show that inaccessibility of etexts is a human rights violation, including previous

court cases. But acceptance of the complaint does not mean that discrimination did or did not occur.

The Tribunal notified UVic of the complaint June 7, and over the summer UVic hired new staff to the Resource Centre for Students with a Disability (RCSD). In the past, students reported having to wait up to eight weeks for etexts. This semester is the first time all of Motture’s etexts arrived within three weeks after the start of term; the latest was only a few days into classes. The change is in the way the RCSD handles etext needs.

Of 90 requests handled by the RCSD’s newly appointed Alternate Text Co-ordinator Rowan Shaw, only a couple took more than a week. Shaw is able to work with publishers who may be under-resourced or need a reminder to ensure timely conversion of hard to digital copy, and can keep on top of instructors to get booklists on time. He gets direct access to the textbook database, co-operating with the library and working on a new system where students request by class instead of specific text — so he’ll know what students need be-fore they do. It also means UVic can beat the rush by getting orders to publishers before other universities.

“[Shaw] is doing a good job,” says Mike Allen-Newman, President of the Society for Students with a Disability. “The unfortunate thing is that it took a human rights case to get someone in that position.”

Allen-Newman predicts if non-disabled students had no access to textbooks for half the semester, the university would have made concessions for those students and put more

pressure on publishers.According to Motture, people with dis-

abilities are among the most marginalized in society and it can be hard for them to speak up. That’s why he’s pursuing his complaint, which could lead to financial compensation for pain, suffering and diminished career prospects. He’s also appealing to other dis-abled students to join the Tribunal case.

Motture says that given the profusion of ebooks (Amazon reported in May that Kindle sales surpassed print) etexts aren’t too much to ask. He says technology has always been the friend of people with disabilities —whether it be the wheelchair or the Black-

berry — which makes them early adopters, but thinks ebooks will soon be the standard anyway.

In the description for the Facebook group Etextbooks Now Motture expresses the convic-tion that inaccessibility of etexts not only dis-criminates against students with special needs, but disadvantages all students by requiring them to wait in book store lines and pay more for hard copies than they would for digital.

Having made it through four years of under-graduate studies and three years of law de-spite adversity, Motture says, “You deal with it. But when there’s a reasonable, rational alternative you have to push the system.”

Student’s etext struggle results in better service

> JAninE cRockETT

Despite crammed student schedules, mem-bers of UVic’s Chemistry Department are taking time out to support a good cause.

The Periodic Pacers is the Chemistry Depart-ment’s 15-member (and counting) team that will be participating in the CIBC Run for the Cure on Sunday, Oct. 2. Team coordinators Emma Nicholls-Allison and Natasha O’Rourke, both graduate students within the Chemistry department, are organizing the team.

The team is a collaborative effort with participants from all circles of the depart-ment involved. Nicholls-Allison counts off the 15-member team’s current composition. “There are three professors including new department chair Neil Burford, a graduate secretary, eight graduate students and three undergraduate students” — which is up from

last year’s nine members.The CIBC Run For The Cure is a 5-kilometre

or 1-kilometre walk or run that is held at 60 locations across Canada, including Victoria where it will be held on the UVIC campus. The funds raised for this one-day event are given to the Canadian Breast Cancer Founda-tion.

In addition to the actual run itself, there are information booths, other fundraising initia-tives and support for breast cancer survivors and current patients.

“Survivors wear different coloured t-shirts,” Nicholls-Allison says. “It’s a nice route around Ring Road and Gordon Head Road — it’s about encouraging a healthy lifestyle to sup-port survivors and people currently fighting cancer.”

This isn’t the first Run for the Cure out-ing for the busy members of the Chemistry

Department.“We have done [the Run for the Cure] for

two years with [O’Rourke] and myself as co-ordinators,” says Nicholls-Allison, “and three years before that with different co-ordinators.”

The Chemistry Department also participates in other charitable events, such as the Relay for Life — an event in which a team runs re-lays on a track for at least a span of 12 hours to raise funds in support of the Canadian Cancer Society.

Periodic Pacers team member Sam Minaker organized the Relay for Life team this past summer, which raised almost $5 000 towards cancer research.

“[Periodic Pacers] are fundraising by re-cruiting as many team members as possible, as well as kind donations from team mem-bers, family members and other members of

the department,” Nicholls-Allison explains. In order to become a member of a Run for

the Cure team an individual must either raise at least a charitable donation of $100 or pay a $40 registration fee out of their own pocket.

The team has raised $700 so far with their fundraising goal being “to get as many mem-bers as possible to represent the department and any extra donations are a bonus,” says Nicholls-Allison.

Ninety-five per cent of the funds donated by the Periodic Pacers and other teams will stay within the region in which they were raised.

The ultimate reasons for Nicholls-Allison and her team members participating are “to raise money for a good cause, keep active and have a fitness goal for busy members of the Department. And represent UVic and the Chemistry Department.”

UVic chemistry department runs for a good cause

ERin bALL

Miles Motture, a UVic Law student, filed a complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal after extended delays getting etexts.

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> MARk WoRThing

When Kai Nagata quit his job as CTV’s Que-bec Bureau Chief in July and drove across the country in a pickup truck, he was reincar-nated as a highly insightful, alternative media shape-shifter. Nagata’s fall from grace landed him a job at the online news source The Tyee as writer-in-residence, where the Vancouver native will practice journalism in a less stifled mainstream media environment.

“Can we salvage TV news?” asked Nagata, pointing out that the CEO of CTV used to sell Kit Kat bars in Ohio, and that his credentials are well suited to what is being sold on CTV.

“Something is wrong, and it’s a case of too much sugar and not enough medicine,” he said at UVic last Tuesday during his tour kickoff presentation. “I have decided that TV news is not a medium that I can put another day into. Not to say that we didn’t try.”

Much of Nagata’s personal blog post, that ripped through social media like a B.C. forest fire, pertained to the hardworking nature of many TV news reporters in this country who are forced through the failing corporate bot-tleneck that pours out our nightly newscast.

Nagata says he is in the lab right now run-ning experiments on zero-budget journal-ism. He wants to leverage free technology, mixing the tradition of journalism holding up democracy with contemporary tactics.

“I’ve got a blog, a Twitter account, a bor-rowed laptop from The Tyee and a half-paid-off pickup truck — so I’ve got resources . . . I’m totally committed to continuing my work. But the question is: in what form? What’s the blueprint?” said Nagata. “That’s why I’m here to ask you what you want out of Canadian journalism. That’s why I’m doing this tour.”

Nagata’s relative success and prestige in

mainstream media, considering his age of 24, have been speculatively attributed to his ambiguously ethnic appeal and multicultural name. However, a strict work ethic, willing-ness to accept sacrifices and the motivation to work his ass off have proved steadfast in his transitioning career.

His insights into the inner mechanics of big media are humbling and angering. He exposes the struggling and understaffed light in which corporate media is often portrayed, while also confessing that the airtime allows a narrow spectrum of views. The image he paints is an industry in a fight for its life — if it hasn’t died already.

“Canada, among the G8 countries, has the least public funding, and CBC is understaffed. The fact that I shop-talked on Twitter just blew their minds. So they’re getting lapped by these kids on Twitter in Libya,” said Na-gata. “There are people who are doing visual journalism that are more qualified to tell the story than some news anchor that shows up in a hotel, walking around in a tight t-shirt talking about this revolution.”

In Nagata’s pilot presentation at UVic, he alluded to an exclusive documentary story that he is seeking funding for and presented a challenge to big media.

“You have a media culture that doesn’t reflect the reality of the voting pattern of the public that it supposedly serves . . . I think the burden of proof is on these media organizations to prove that they don’t have a corporate bias,” he said.

A lot of Nagata’s criticisms about big media are old news in many alternative media environments. The “Why I Quit My Job” manifesto posted on his personal blog has received criticism for overshadowing and overlooking the work of many long-standing

alternative media perspectives. Nagata has made friends and enemies in various places on the media spectrum, and many are hold-ing their breaths to see where this media chameleon will end up.

Nagata’s reincarnation, seen as both a descent and an ascent in media culture, poses an interesting question: has Kai Na-gata struck a nerve with the inadequacies

of a polarized Canadian media, or is he just another good journalist who got lost in the corporate empire?

“It’s a blend of both. I mean, I think that if I’ve got Post Media attacking me and I’ve got The Dominion attacking me, then I’ve probably got that Goldilocks spot right in the middle and the porridge is just the right temperature,” he says.

kai nagata, media chameleon, visits UVicFormer bureau chief at CTV makes waves for mainstream media

gREg FoRsbERgKai Nagata quit his job at CTV after deciding he couldn’t spend another day dealing with the corporatization of mainstream media.

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The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) is calling on the Vancouver Police De-partment (VPD) to reconsider their assessment of the “young hooligan” demographic.

Following the Sept. 6 release of the 2011 Stanley Cup Riot Review — an executive report compiled by the VPD detailing a series of issues and recommendations in regards to the June 15 Vancouver riot — president of the BCCLA, Robert Holmes, sent a letter to VPD police chief, Jim Chu, expressing his concern for the docu-ment’s allegedly discriminatory content.

While congratulating the department on its professionalism and use of restraint during the riot itself, he pointed out that “it is not acceptable to blame all young people for the actions of the violent few.”

Holmes referred specifically to a recommen-dation set out in the report that called on the city “not [to] have large-scale public events with ‘festival seating/standing’ that concentrate large crowds of young persons — particularly the young ‘hooligan’ demographic — who have the propensity for drinking in a small area.”

The statement was echoed by Chu in a Sept. 7 article published in the Globe and Mail.

“When you attract a certain demographic, that’s when the radar has to go on,” said Chu. “We have to say, ‘Look, given the number of people that [are] going to be attracted to this particular event, we’re going to have to think twice about whether we want to have it.’ ”

David Eby, executive director of the BCCLA, says recommendations to specifically avoid events that attract large numbers of youths un-necessarily discriminates against young people.

“What most people took the chief to be speaking [about] were people in, around and under the age of 20 years old,” says Eby.

“[There were] police officers who were that age, there were people who came and cleaned up after the riot who were that age and there were people in that crowd that were disgusted by what was happening who were that age,” he says. “So if you say, ‘We’re not going to have events for youths anymore’ . . . you might as well say — looking at the arrest pictures — ‘We’re not going to have events that attract men anymore.’ ”

Deeming it an inappropriate and reaction-ary response, the BCCLA stands firmly op-posed to the VPD’s recommendation.

“We will strongly object to the city or police trying to eliminate public gatherings by youth or young people in Vancouver, as such restric-tions would be illegal,” said Holmes in his letter to Chu.

Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees equal benefit and protection of the law to citizens without dis-crimination based on factors such as age.

The VPD reports, “when an event attracts a large proportion of intoxicated, boisterous, and predominantly male young persons, there is a strong probability of bottle throwing, damage to property, fights and assaults, which sometimes results in riotous behaviour.”

The statement, says Eby, singles out young males and makes an unfair generalization about the way they act in groups.

Statistics from the Integrated Riot Inves-tigation Team’s (IRIT) public identification website (launched on Aug. 30) show that the suspects are almost exclusively young males.

The site allows witnesses to submit photos and video taken from the event.

While not condoning the popular vigilante efforts taken up by many members of the public during the days following the riot, the BCCLA supports the idea of witness participa-tion in the effort to make legitimate arrests.

“The [IRIT] website . . . doesn’t strike us as any different from traditional ‘wanted’ posters and we’ve never taken the position that the po-lice shouldn’t be able to broadcast the images of people that they’re looking for,” says Eby.

Out of the 268 suspects and 1 600 hours of video footage received by the IRIT, no charg-es have been laid. In comparison, authorities in London, England, have already charged upwards of 1 000 rioters from the four-day August riot.

With public pressure mounting on both the IRIT and VPD to lay charges, the BCCLA warns citizens to be patient.

“When police lay charges against someone it can affect the way their friends, family and employers view them even if they’re ultimate-ly determined to be innocent,” says Eby. “I know it’s politically popular for the premier, some people on city council and [the city of] Vancouver to be saying ‘We need these people in front of judges as soon as possible’ . . . but we would much prefer that the police take their time, build a case and do it properly.”

discrimination against youth a problem in VPd riot review

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> JEff McALLisTER

Ryan Levis has big ideas. And, as those that have witnessed his strong presence around campus will attest, they’ve been ruminating for years. Levis has campaigned mercilessly for three years as an independent candidate for UVic Students’ Society chairperson, he’s acted in various theatre groups around Victo-ria, and founded UVic’s Big Ideas Club which promotes innovation, dialogue, and activism among the student body. “I started [the Big Ideas Club] four years ago, with the goal of putting on theatre on campus at relatively low costs,” Levis says.

Since then, Levis has stepped down from club president to assume the role of artistic director, with his focus dedicated to the busi-ness side of things. It’s his innovative business models that have been garnering Levis a lot of attention lately.

On Aug. 25, Levis placed first in Canada’s Impact Apprentice, a national-scale competi-tion that challenges post-secondary students from around the country to put their business skills on display. This year, hundreds of candi-dates submitted online applications and mar-keted themselves through two-minute video profiles to be ranked by their peers. Of these, the 32 top applicants travelled to Toronto to compete in a four-day marathon of collabora-tive and independent tasks.

“[My] business idea is a small-to-medium market rentable space agency that’s built around a co-operative model,” Levis says. These spaces will be multiple-purpose; any-thing from music studios and dance perfor-mances spaces to art classes.

“It’s a multipurpose space that’s designed to help creative individuals start up their own

enterprises,” he explained.Levis wants to emphasize that the project

is not limited to art development, but also business education. He’s sure there are other possibilities as well, but art is what Levis knows best.

Levis introduces himself as an actor fore-most, and says a lot of noise has been made about an artist coming first in this year’s Im-pact Apprentice. But he emphasizes that this is in no way as surprising as it sounds.

“There’s a very talented female actress that won Impact Apprentice and is doing quite well with a company called Talent Egg,” he says.

According to Levis, “everyone is intrinsically an artist.” One of the strengths of Impact Apprentice is that applications aren’t limited to business students. Candidates may come from a variety of backgrounds — in fact, Levis believes that it’s wise that they do.

“The really cool thing about being an art-ist in business is being able to perceive the world in a different fashion and surprise people who work in traditional blue-collar roles. What I brought to the Apprentice was a cowboy hat and a really positive attitude that people appreciated and resonated with,” he says. “I don’t think I won any of the competi-tions by being an artist; I think I won the competitions by seeing the situation differ-ently than the business students.”

Levis, who graduated with a major in Greek and Roman studies, considers himself many things — an actor, an artist, a businessperson and an academic among them. Aside from producing theatre, the majority of his experi-ence comes from working for the not-for-profit Victoria Shakespeare Festival and the now defunct Four Seasons Boutique Nurseries LTD. After watching one business fail and the other

struggle with funding, Levis feels that there are certain skills that business owners lack, and it’s his goal to lead and inspire

As for his background in Greek and Roman studies, Levis says “having a strong under-standing of mythology is incredibly advanta-geous when you’re looking at multiculturalism and the way people perceive value. Greek and Roman studies, to me, was the ideal degree.”

As part of his prize package, Levis will travel to Silicon Valley to tour some of North Amer-ica’s top companies, including Facebook. He will then return to Toronto on Nov. 26 to pres-ent his business plan on a national scale. He calls it the ‘Big Ideas Co-op,’ and he believes

it’s essential to promote artistic growth.“What’s so in need right now, in Canadian

communities, is a cultural center where people can come in and make things hap-pen for themselves. Right now, a lot of artists struggle — and yes, that struggle is what drives everything — but if there are no resources or no way for people to learn about entrepreneurialism, then they just might not do it what they set out to do. My dream is to inspire happiness and productivity and I hope that the Big Ideas Club will connect me with new people to prosper and grow the Big Ideas Co-op as I go forward with that huge, huge endeavor.”

Ryan Levis has big ideas on a national scale

hugo wongRyan Levis won the 2011 Canada’s Impact Apprentice competition.

> DAviD Dyck, — ThE PEAk, (siMon fRAsER univERsiTy)

Kyle McCloy was one of many Simon Fraser University (SFU) students in attendace for a Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) rally in support of the locked-out Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) staff last Tues-day. The SFSS locked out members of CUPE 3338 on July 10. The union represents the SFSS’s 12 permanent staff and five student and temporary staff. McCloy, a first-year arts student, was attracted to the event by the free barbecue that was offered. “I still didn’t know much about the lockout, not many people do,” said McCloy, who found out about the rally via a text from a friend. “When we asked our mentors at orientation, they didn’t even know,” he added.

According to Richard Overgaard, CUPE’s national communications representative, the rally was designed to inform students and draw attention to the lockout. “Our members who are locked out are kind of tucked away, whether they’re at the Maggie Benson Centre or Out on Campus or the Women’s Centre, and the Surrey office especially. We wanted to make a visual statement to students while they’re back, and a lot of first-year students to look up and see all these people gathered, hear some speakers, and start asking some questions.”

Locked out staff member Nadine Chambers, Women’s Centre co-ordinator and co-MC of the event, was more concerned with what she saw as the apathy of the board regarding SFSS student support services, than that of

new and returning students. “We found that after the August 31 orienta-

tions, students came back on their own accord to the picket-lines a week later,” she told the Peak, SFU’s student newspaper. “As for the rally, the next day when I was on the bus a stu-dent reached out to me referencing it specifi-cally . . . Beyond the huge swell from the rally, most importantly we’ll feel the surge response next week. Staff are happy to have had support in the form of the rally as an ongoing strategy to inform students who just spent week one trying to find their way through the school or get into classes they need.”

Speakers included SFU labour studies instructor John-Henry Harter, SFU alum-nus Spencer Chandra-Hebert, NDP MLA for Vancouver-West End as well as CUPE B.C. president Barry O’Neill. They spoke in front of the backdrop of SFSS clubs days. The SFSS board erected barriers to block the rally from Clubs Days attendees.

Harter accused the SFSS board of running on misleading platforms in the spring semester. “When they ran for election they knew they were running to manage the SFSS, which is a unionized environment. This was not a surprise. I was here, I was teaching, I saw their posters. They didn’t say ‘Vote for me, I’m going to lock out the workers.’ They talked about leadership [and] they talked about responsibility, and they have failed on both counts.” Harter called on students to impeach the board.

O’Neill delivered a fiery speech directed towards encouraging the locked out staff. “We will never, ever get along with every employer,

but the kinds of tricks and deceit that’s hap-pening in this dispute is simply unacceptable,” stated O’Neill. “This is not the kind of society that I want my kids and grandkids to grow up in. I want justice for workers because it’s the right thing to do. When you start telling work-ers that their work is not worth their worth, that you should only care for yourself and abandon the next generation, that’s what got us into this god-damned mess, and we aren’t going to stand for it again.”

SFSS president Jeff McCann told the Peak: “We’re too busy running the society and taking care of our clubs to worry about the rally.”

Many of the speakers’ points spoke to the last tentative agreement that was put to the union members several weeks ago. The union voted against accepting the board’s offer, which, while not cutting current staff wages, offered a much lower wage for future employees.

“Knocking wages down for future staff is divisive, it pits future employees against current employees, it pits future employees against their own bosses; it’s bad management practice,” explained Overgaard. “It’s incredibly divisive, and I think the membership realized this, and they voted it down.”

He added that the main roadblock in resolv-ing the conflict was the board’s refusal to return to the bargaining table. “Locking staff out and waving proposals in front of them while they’re locked out isn’t the right way to do things. Come to the bargaining table where proposals can be exchanged. This isn’t a one-way conversation, this is collective bar-gaining. The board made it very clear: they did not want to look at a counter offer.”

cuPE rally targets simon fraser student societyeChoes of the pAst: 2008 UVIC sUB empLoyees stRIke

UVic’s Student Union Building (SUB) is no stranger to long-running strikes. In fall 2008, the SUB was shut down for nearly two months as its unionized employees voted 97.4 per cent in favour of a strike.

At the start of negotiations, workers were asking for a $1.50 hourly raise for the lowest-paid workers. The UVic Students’ Society entered negotiations with an offer of 10 cents for Felicita’s servers and 30 cents for other employees in the lowest wage bracket.

Despite moves from both sides, the strike wore on and the situation turned sour. The SUB lost an estimated $2 000 net profit per day from Felicita’s and $1 000 from other food outlets. Other unions on campus refused to cross picket lines. Somebody scrawled “Pay Our Wages, Open the Damn Bar!!” on the side of the SUB. Someone else wrote “Resign Now” on the door of then-chairperson Caitlin Meggs.

The final result was an immediate 70-cent raise for student workers, with additional raises of 40 cents for the remaining two years of the contract. All union workers received a $100 signing bonus. Union workers voted 74 workers in favour and 16 against the pro-posal. Eleven UVSS directors supported the proposal, with only Director of Finance Tracy Ho opposed. The SUB reopened Oct. 27.

The workers’ contract once again went up for negotiation this summer. Fortunately, the process went smoothly.

September 22, 2011 MARTLET 7 NEWS

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Premier Christy Clark has tried to stave off an influx of public concern surrounding hydrau-lic fracturing (or “fracking”) by announcing that she will create an online registry for fracking companies. The registry will show where companies are engaged in fracking, and which chemicals they are using in the process. It will be in place by January 2012.

Fracking, a process that allows companies to pump out hard-to-reach deposits of oil and gas by fracturing the rocks around them, has been banned in several areas of the world, including France, Quebec, New South Wales and South Africa’s Karoo region.

“Through the registry, we will be able to increase everyone’s understanding of the operations occurring in-province, and will inform many of the questions and concerns raised about hydraulic fracturing activities,” a Ministry of Energy and Mines spokesperson wrote to the Martlet.

The Wilderness Committee has been vocal in raising those “questions and concerns” about fracking in B.C.

“It’s hard to do [fracking] without impact-ing fresh water and impacting peoples’ health,” says Tria Donaldson, Pacific Coast campaigner with the Wilderness Committee. Donaldson points to the immense amount of freshwater used in fracking as the main reason for her concern.

“The end result is thousands of cubic metres of radioactive water,” she says, adding that, given the global uncertainty surrounding po-table water, funnelling freshwater resources into fracking is “a little outrageous.”

Some of the chemicals, she explains used as friction reducers and scrubs are “known car-cinogens” that could leach into groundwater and damage people’s health.

John Horgan, the NDP energy critic and MLA for Juan De Fuca, echoes Donaldson’s concerns.

“Disclosure does not address other le-

gitimate issues of concern, in particular the volume of water used for fracking and the disposal of the toxic waste water produced,” wrote Horgan via email.

One of the most contentious sources of freshwater for fracking is the Williston Lake Reservoir, which Horgan says should not be compromised. Calgary-based Talisman En-ergy was recently given a 20-year licence to pump out 10 000 cubic metres of water a day from the reservoir — without any public con-sultation, Donaldson points out. The Ministry of Energy and Mines insists the decision was not made lightly.

“The province’s technical assessment indicated that the reservoir’s water levels can support the licence. It is at the Regional Water Manager’s discretion to hold public consultation based on potential significance of impact to the resource or to water users,” wrote the Ministry spokesperson.

Both Horgan and Donaldson argue that until an in-depth assessment of the long-term effects of fracking is undertaken, no one — not even the Regional Water Manager — can truly know whether impacts are significant or not. Donaldson is pushing for a complete ban. Horgan isn’t calling for a ban, but he outlines several steps that must be taken.

“In addition to a review of fracking, B.C. needs to strengthen groundwater protections and the Environmental Assessment process, give back oversight powers to the B.C. Utility Commission and ensure there are biologists, agrologists, geologists and other profes-sionals on the ground undertaking regular checks,” writes Horgan.

The Ministry spokesperson counters that strict regulations are already in place — regu-lations that were updated just last year.

Adrian Dix, leader of the B.C. NDP and MLA for Vancouver-Kingsway, is reluctant to condemn or condone fracking and Clark’s approach to it.

“We’ve asked the government to have an open scientific review so that people can get

a factual base of understanding and have a debate on it,” says Dix. “Sometimes in life it’s better to ask questions and learn more before passing judgment and I think that that’s what’s necessary here.”

The Ministry spokesperson says such a study is “imminent.” As for questions about whether the registry will be voluntary for companies or not, the spokesperson is quick to affirm that “[p]ublic disclosure will be mandatory and enforced.”

What no one debates is the lucrative nature of fracking. Government revenue from the natural gas sector was $1.3 billion last year.

Michael Whiticar, a professor of biogeo-chemistry at UVic, says the issues surround-ing fracking are symptomatic of a larger is-sue: our failure to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels, which should have happened “about 10 years ago.”

“As conventional oil and gas are depleted, we hungry consumers are looking for carbon-based fuels to replace those that are being exhausted,” says Whiticar. “You can blame the producers and the companies and the distributors, but ultimately it’s you and I who are using the product.”

Whiticar adds that, without technologies like fracking, we’d probably leave about half our natural gas in the ground, untapped. And the impact on freshwater could be mitigated, says Whiticar, by using fluids like saline water or waste water. They aren’t used now because they aren’t easily accessible in northeastern B.C. This is where government needs to step in, says Whiticar.

“Trust is good, but control is better,” says Whiticar. “The control should be you and I, and that means our government should be protecting us.” And the final question, he says, must be addressed to us — not to gov-ernment or industry.

“What’s more important to us — being able to drive to work or have a glass of water?”

Clark’s fracking registry: a fractionary issuefracking: how it works

To understand how fracking works — and the conditions that oil and gas companies contend with — UVic biogeochemistry pro-fessor Michael Whiticar says it’s best to think of a swimming pool. As you go deeper, the pressure from the water increases, making your ears hurt. This is hydrostatic pressure. When companies drill for oil in shale and other tightly packed rock formations, both hydrostatic pressure and lithostatic pres-sure (pressure caused by the rocks) must be contended with. If you descended to these depths yourself, you’d be squashed until you “look like a thimble” says Whiticar.

“The rocks are actually floating,” says Whiticar. “It’s like a sponge that’s been com-pressed very tightly.”

Like a sponge, the rock formations contain tiny pores. By drilling horizontally, companies are able to connect these pores like dots.

Once the shaft has been drilled, fluid is injected into the rocks at a pressure so great that cracks in the rock fracture further, making it easier to extract oil and gas from the pores. The fluid typically consists of fresh water, chemicals and something called propping agents — tiny beads of sand or silica that help keep the fractures open once the fluid has finished passing through.

“It’s a bit like propping up a house and put-ting stilts underneath,” says Whiticar.

Once the toxic water has rushed through the shaft, it is disposed of in containers or pits. Some of the water may be recycled for future fracking operations, but often not all of the fluid is recovered. The effects of this effluent have been documented in the film Gasland.

In addition, because it is so invasive, frack-ing has been linked to earthquakes in several countries, though none have been particu-larly severe.

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OPINIONSEditorial

letters

Happy? Sad? Enraged? Tell us: [email protected] Martlet has an open letters policy and will endeavour to print every letter received from the uni-versity community. Letters must be submitted by email, include your real name and affiliation to UVic, and have “Letter to the editor” in the subject line. Letters must be under 200 words and may be edited.

It’s not t-shirt time; it’s Opinions time! Send us your erudite ruminations and we promise we won’t send

you a copy of Snooki’s biography.

Is the Coast worse than the Shore? Recently, MSN Travel ranked Vancouver third among the world’s three worst-dressed cities. Why does the online news source believe our neighbours across the Strait deserve such a blow to their egos? It’s because of yoga pants.

Poor Vancouver; they just can’t seem to get a break these days. The city recently lost the coveted title of “World’s Most Livable City,” a title it has held every year since 2002. It was bumped to third place behind Melbourne and Vienna due to the Mala-hat closure last April (odd reasoning, but true).

While being the third most livable city in the entire world isn’t anything to scoff at, it just doesn’t have the same ring to it as “World’s Most Livable City.”

Neither does “world’s third worst–dressed city” — behind Orlando (mom jeans and polka dots) and Maui (Hawaiian shirts).

According to MSN Travel, the thanks for this honour goes to an “insanely popular yoga gear branch which will go unnamed” (yes, we’re looking at you, Lululemon). Vancouver ranked worse than such cities as Harajuku (“fantasy-meets-goth-meets-punk-meets-Hello Kitty-in-pervy-French maid-costume”), the Silicon Valley and neighbouring San Francisco (t-shirt and jeans à la Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg) and our nation’s capital, Ottawa (too ’80s — in a bad way).

There was one name on the list that fared better than Vancouver that truly shocked us, though. And let’s face it: sartorial sensibilities in Victoria are quite similar to those in Vancouver, so this is a slight against us.

The location in question — the place that makes us smart — is everyone’s favourite MTV set-ting: Jersey Shore. The hometown of Snooki and Pauly D ranked 10th on the list.

That’s right. As far as fashion faux pas go, apparently orange spray-on tans, Ed Hardy t-shirts and platform shoes are less offensive than yoga pants. According to the fashionistas at MSN, looking like an Oompa Loompa who got spat out of an industrial Bedazzler is slightly more at-tractive than looking like you’re heading to yoga class.

We’ll admit that yoga pants aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. They are awfully prevalent, and some consider them an equivalent to sweatpants. They certainly wouldn’t make it past Stacey and Clinton’s expert eyes on What Not to Wear (“dressed up sweatpants” are on their top-ten list of trends they wish would die already). But anyone who has the dough to throw down on a pair of these pricey yet comfy pants knows they are glorious to wear.

Many admirers of a curvy body would argue that yoga pants do favours for the posterior region of the anatomy. However, the authors of the list argue that the pants are “a street trend dreaded by all women with wobbly bits and fat deposits in the wrong places.”

Arguments about body composition aside, yoga pants are the ultimate in comfort. Who hasn’t wished they could throw on their pyjamas and head to class after a long night of studying or partying? Yoga pants are a far better option in these situations than a pair of pink leopard-print PJs.

Erring on the side of comfort is surely more defensible than erring on the side of all that’s bouffant. After a long night of studying or partying, who has ever wished they could tease their hair to Marie Antoinette heights and hoist up their boobs until they’re at ear level? The compulsion is certainly not universal or appealing.

Also of note: we’re not so hooked on our dress code that we’ve created a catchphrase like “t-shirt time” to sum it up.

The people at MSN Travel admit they are not fashion police, so really we can’t take the burn against the yoga pants of Vancouver too seriously.

At least they’re not jeggings.

oompa, loompa, DoompaDee Doe . . .

Editorial topics are decided on by staff at our weekly editorial meeting at 12:30 p.m. every Friday in the Martlet office (SUB B011). Editorials are written by one or more staff members and are not necessarily the opinion of all staff members.

Ryan Haak

8 MaRTLET September 22, 2011

MorE MEtal iN tHE MartlEt

One thing that I am sad to see lacking in the Martlet are heavy metal/punk/hardcore mu-sic reviews. The hardcore subculture in Vic-toria is growing and many people, including myself, are very passionate about this music scene. It would be very beneficial to have the independent school newspaper speak to students and community members through this avenue while sparking more interest in your content. I love the Martlet, but would love it even more if it was inclusive to freaks everywhere.    

Amanda BirdPacific Rim College student

laYtoN Will BE dEarlY MiSSEd

Jack Layton demonstrated his political skill in taking advantage of the opportunity pro-vided by the Liberals and Bloc.

He developed his party into a mass move-ment and used a combination of his popular support and behind-the-scenes intrigue to propel himself into the official opposition.

Furthermore, he raised the profile of na-tional socialism, showed how a modern “civi-lized” country could behave and created a virtual certainty that he would be misjudged by opponents.

His shoes will not be easily filled.

William PerryCommunity member

adVoCaCY GroUPS SHoUld UNitE

Re: “Access UVic’s future remains uncertain,” Sept. 8

Over the summer, the SSD invited Access UVic to meet with us to explore ways to co-operate in pursuing common goals. We advised Access that we have no monopoly on advocacy for disabled students at UVic and we respect their right to organize and advocate for disabled students. The response was that the SSD should be dissolved and we should amalgamate with them. This is hardly consistent with the claim that Access respects the right of other groups to organize and advocate for disabled students at UVic.The dispute between Access and the UVSS is a distraction for us. We (the SSD) have one mission — to promote and protect the right of self-identified disabled students at UVic to full and equal participation in the UVic community. We have an ambitious plan to achieve that mission. Instead of trying to impede and discredit us, Access should work with and support us. We are still willing to do the same for them. 

Raymond Lamont Society for Students with a Disability

OPINIONS

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Volume 64, Issue 7

September 22, 2011 MARTLET 9

> JEff MCALLIsTER

For the past year and a half, I’ve run a fashion-oriented culture blog. I’ve inter-viewed creative minds, hung out with innovators and had the luxury of having my opinions read by thousands of people around the world. I wasn’t paid (at least in the conventional sense), but it didn’t matter: I was surrounding myself with something I loved. I was sharing thoughts on something I deemed important. I was contributing to an industry I loved — or so I thought. Lately, however, I’m not sure.

The other day, I was introduced to the web show Put This On, a series about dressing like an adult. It was well-written, funny and professionally shot, but one thing rubbed me the wrong way. The team was asking viewers to donate $68 000 dollars to fund the second season, which will have Put This On travel to and film episodes in London, Milan and New York. My issue wasn’t with the request — these things take time, effort and a large chunk of dough. It was with how quickly the pledges were piling up.

In our financially plagued, problem-ridden world, is this really a good use of nearly $70 000? And who are Jesse Thorn and Adam Lisagor — the series’ hosts — to be doling out such information to begin with? Put This On

comes at a lofty price to both the producers and the consumers in light of the fact that it adds very little to the fashion debate.

Tumblr, Vimeo, Twitter — these days it’s easier than ever to weigh in on fashion. And was there ever a medium better suited to the trend-heavy world of fashion than the ever-updated blogosphere? At a first glance, no, but upon further inspection it appears that blogs are now dictating the speed at which the fash-ion wheel turns, not the other way around.

Prescriptive fashion is nothing new. Trends have always been a by-product of the media. But now that the soapboxes have proliferated, dialogue flows faster than ever. The race to stay ahead has been pushed to an unsustain-able, dizzying pace.

There’s an uncomfortable similarity to tech-nology in the concept of forced obsolescence in the essence of a fashion collection. But unlike an iPod, there’s only so much that can be done to a white Oxford shirt.

We’ve got multiple seasonal collections, short-term pop-up shops and exclusive runs of rare collaboration pieces. The slant toward obsolescence is fiercer than ever — no doubt to accommodate the rapid-fire rotation of our RSS feeds. To stay in the news, one needs to create news. In order to garner the blog publicity it so desires, fashion must turn itself into something disposable.

But there’s another variable in this equa-tion: the reader.

Viewers have always dictated the media; consumers, the products. But with the 24-hours-a-day, geographically untethered, cost-free, all-you-can-read-buffet of the Inter-net, things have gotten out of hand. We’re a hungry species; we demand still more. Com-petition may be healthy in most markets, but the Internet caters to quantity, not quality. Bloggers, desperate to maintain our atten-tion, are forced to work faster. And what we get are paraphrases and re-blogs—not bigger and better stories. Thus begins the death of original content and the loss of intelligent critique surrounding fashion.

There’s something we can do about it, though. The blogosphere contains a workforce extraordinaire. Right now, the emphasis is just in the wrong place.

Fashion is art. Art takes time to create, and that should be reflected in the way we choose to share it. We need to condemn the “load more” button, slow down, filter our updates, and create pockets of solace amidst the white noise. Blogging is grassroots journalism after all, and journalism —professional or not — should be focused on storytelling and truths. Artful story-telling, even about fashion, is immortal.

And then, just maybe, timelessness in other industries will follow.

fashion blogs ruin fashion

> DAVID ChRIsTOPhER

It’s ironic that the new, updated Blu-ray ver-sion of the Star Wars sextet is being released in the same week that The People vs. George Lucas becomes available on Blu-ray as well. The latter is a documentary piece of film criti-cism that any serious film historian or Star Wars fan should see. The former is sure to be loved by the film historians as fodder for criti-cism, and hated by Star Wars fans.

I’m a bit of both. I write film and theatre re-views for the Martlet and studied film as part of my master’s degree. I also have Darth Vader tattooed up a good part of my right arm.

In the new release, Lucas has tampered with the original trilogy even further, whilst mandating that retailers remove all former versions from their inventories. He’s like a child with ADD who’s created the perfect lego spaceship but just can’t resist adding bits every time he plays with it. And Lucas’s ef-forts to eliminate old versions are more than just a marketing mandate. It’s as though he wants to re-write film history: “No, no. Those older versions never existed. This is the real Star Wars.”

In the newest version of the original trilogy, the Ewoks are animated to blink. Okay. So far I can live with that. Also, the massive door to

Jabba’s palace that R2 and C3PO approach is animated to look even more massive. All right. Pointless, but all right. More X-Wing fighters are being added to the attack on the second Death Star. That can only be cool, if equally pointless. Elderly Obi-Wan has a newly added battle cry of some sort. What? Now that compromises characterization pretty severely, and I’m not so cool with it. And when Vader tosses the Emperor into the reactor core in Return of the Jedi, he now howls a lamenting “Noooooooooooooo!” This is presumably an effort to match the same cry he lets out in Episode III upon discov-ering that Padmé is dead. My response? Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo! I used to love that moment of anagnorisis, re-demption, death and resolution. It was very oedipal and entirely cathartic. Now it will just be goofy.

In The People vs. George Lucas, Lucas’s public and political outcry against the colorization of classic black and white films is represented as the ultimate hypocrisy. I understand that Star Wars is a playground, but isn’t there ample new material that could be made without tampering with the original? Lucas seems to misunderstand the mythical place the original three movies occupy in people’s hearts and in film history.

I didn’t mind some of the changes that were made in the 2004 release. I couldn’t have cared less if Cloud City was given a more co-lourful look, and the removal of the smudged force field under Luke’s speeder went entirely unnoticed by me. But Han shooting second (at Greedo in the Cantina in Mos Eisley) seriously compromised his original melodra-matic characterization as a roguish hero. The Empire Strikes Back was better when I genu-inely didn’t want such a scoundrel as Han kissing my beautiful princess. Likewise, Jabba appearing in Episode IV as a simpering worm really detracted from his more ominous pres-ence in The Return of the Jedi. And what is with the growly-voiced jazz singer in Jabba’s palace? Sy Snootles was truly creepy until that little artistic manipulation ruined her.

As for the new Blu-ray, blinking Ewoks do little to hinder my enjoyment of the film. Fortunately, it seems Lucas’s “corrections” are becoming less and less invasive, but even the slightest change will give offence to the emotionally invested. My beef? For all the “corrections,” Vader’s helmet still blows in the wind in the shaft on Cloud City. Isn’t that damn thing part of a vacuum-sealed iron lung? Lucas should have corrected such genu-ine little mistakes as that, and left the teddy bear eyes alone!

George Lucas and Blu-ray BluesChanges to Star Wars re-release ruin Ewoks, offend viewers

RyAn hAAk

FEATURE 10 MARTLET September 22, 2011

Dr. Laurenz Thomsen from Jacobs University, Germany, turns on his laptop, takes a sip of coffee and logs into the NEPTUNE Canada cabled seafloor network. He turns on the light to see the ocean floor halfway around the globe and wraps his hands around the controls of Wally, a deep-sea crawler robot whose name was inspired by the Disney movie Wall-E.

Soon, fish are swimming around their new robot friend and spider crabs are observing him curiously. But the ocean floor is unpredict-able. A big jellyfish drifts in and promptly sticks to Wally’s microsen-sors, which are crucial for his scientific mission. And Wally just can’t deal with it by himself. NEPTUNE Canada rescued Wally during the July maintenance cruise, repaired him and returned him to his home in Barkley Canyon last week.

The ocean floor, reimaginedThe field of ocean science has been transformed. For one hundred and fifty years, researchers studied the ocean by going to sea once, or at most, a few times a year. Through these limited trips, scientists tried to explain and understand what happens in the depths of the oceans that cover 70 per cent of the planet. Oceans give us food, transport our ships, influence our weather, and absorb CO₂ from our atmosphere. But we know more about certain regions of outer space than we do of the ocean. Now, researchers can “be” in the ocean all the time and control instruments on robots like Wally through the Internet.

Dr. Thomsen, who developed Wally the crawler, is one of many scientists involved in a research project with NEPTUNE Canada. The robot is deployed in Barkley Canyon, a submarine canyon 96 kilo-meters off the west coast of Vancouver Island, at about 850 meters depth. The stout undersea robot is equipped with a camera to observe curious deep-sea species, and sensors to measure methane, turbidity, pressure, temperature, water currents and salinity.

NEPTUNE Canada, part of UVic’s Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) observatory, is the world’s first regional-scale underwater ocean network located off the west coast of Vancouver Island. NEPTUNE

Canada allows people from around the world to study the ocean in real time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Dr. Kate Moran joined NEPTUNE Canada this month as the pro-gram’s new director. Dr. Moran is a world-renowned ocean engineer who has just completed a two-year term as assistant director in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in Washington, D.C.

“Earth observation networks are critical for understanding the Earth system, particularly in the oceans, as they become further impacted by climate change and in seismically active areas, such as Canada’s west coast,” said Moran in a press release.

NEPTUNE faces many challengesThere are many challenges to installing and making everything work in a hostile marine environment of high pressure, low temperature and salinity.

“We’re starting to switch to the maintenance mode for some of our in-struments,” explains Dr. Kim Juniper, new associate director science at NEPTUNE Canada. “Seawater doesn’t mix well with electricity,” he says with a smile. “Some instruments work right out of the box; others take more development time. And you can’t just dash out and fix something when it breaks. Repairs and maintenance require expensive seagoing missions with a robotic submersible that are planned a year in advance. Winter weather in the North Pacific is too nasty for maintenance work, so repairs have to wait until summer. We’re getting really good at squeezing the last bit of data out of a crippled sensor.”

The Victoria Experimental Network Under the Sea (VENUS), the coastal network of the ONC observatory, is located in Saanich Inlet and the Strait of Georgia. Dr. Richard Dewey, associate director re-search for VENUS, is still amazed after five years of data streaming.

“We have continuous eyes on the ocean and a continuous view of what’s happening down there, and we still have surprises,” he says. “There’s way more structure than we thought; the environment is that crazy.”

Neptune & Wally

FEATURE September 22, 2011 MARTLET 11

Dealing with constant streaming data from the ocean is a real change for ocean scientists. Dr. Dewey uses the meteorologist anal-ogy: “Think of a meteorologist that is only able to study weather by looking out the window once a month.” Suddenly, the window is constantly open, causing a flow of information. This is the situation marine scientists experience with the sea floor observatory. New tools are needed to deal with so much data. It’s a slow process.

Crowdsourcing and scienceBenoit Pirenne is the associate director of information technology and manages data for VENUS and NEPTUNE Canada.

“We’ve got this exponentially increasing amount of data on the sea-floor coming from all the sensors that we have underwater,” explains Pirenne. “Hundreds of hours of videos are sitting there in the archive, under-exploited, because we don’t have enough pairs of eyes or scien-tific minds to perform the analysis of the content of these videos.”

The solution? According to Pirenne, it’s crowdsourcing. “I’m asking a lot of people out there, who are potentially interested

in what I’m doing, to spend a bit of time reviewing some data and tell us what they’ve seen in it,” he says.

Discovering a new species could be around the corner for anyone. According to Pirenne, the crowdsourcing exercise will take the form of a “game with a purpose” where volunteers are performing what’s called “citizen science.” Projects like these exist in the astronomy field. For example, the game “Planet Hunters” allows the public to help NASA find new planets by logging onto a web portal called Zooni-verse. Cathy Ruedinger, program co-ordinator at Texas A&M Univer-sity, is one of the 397 000 participants on the portal.

“It’s all about learning,” says Ruedinger. “I love to continue to learn things and the Zooniverse provides endless opportunities to do that. It also means being a part of something huge.”

It is this type of energy and public involvement that Benoit Pirenne hopes to attract for NEPTUNE Canada and VENUS.

Pirenne is working arduously on a crowdsourcing project called

“Digital Fishers” for NEPTUNE Canada and VENUS, which could potentially be the first crowdsourcing project in ocean sciences. This game is a joint project with the Centre for Global Studies at UVic and is supported by Canada’s Advanced Research and Innovation Net-work. Pirenne says the new version should be available by the end of spring and will have different levels, like a game, so people can learn and become a pro.

“People will be able to flag when there is a fish or a sea star for ex-ample. Once you have that, you help scientists pinpoint directly where things of potential interest to them are located,” Pirenne explains. “There is an incredible richness and potential in engaging the public in projects like VENUS and NEPTUNE Canada.”

One of the main challenges of the game is streaming high-resolution videos to a lot of people at the same time. Pirenne’s development team has been testing the game by feeding high-resolution videos to UVic students, and, so far, it’s worked well. Last year, a senior-level biology course at UVic studied marine taxonomy with this prototype, but even high school and older elementary students would have fun exploring the ocean with the submarine-like interface. Pirenne hopes to bring the game to the general public later this year. The public will be able to view 15-second clips of undersea video and give a description of what they saw using a game-like application that has levels and rewards.

As a result, researchers like Dr. Thomsen in Germany or future ma-rine biology graduate students at UVic will be able one day to benefit from citizen science. The public will be collaborators, part of the sci-entific community, and part of the new discoveries and understanding of the ocean. This will not only help the public to understand science projects, but also understand the scientific process.

Besides documenting species, the seafloor observatory can also track or predict earthquakes and tsunami with pressure sensors. Research-ers were able to use this feature on March 12, 2011, when sensors measured the tsunami waves approaching the west coast of Vancou-ver Island after a massive earthquake hit Japan. This new window into our oceans is going beyond providing raw data for scientists and will have many benefits for the public in the years to come.

Neptune canada and their robot friend Story Maeva Gauthier Layout Sol Kauffman

Graphic Ryan HaakExplore the ocean -

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CULTURE> Clare Walton

Roots, folk, rock, country and alternative are just some of the words used to explain Hawk and Steel’s sound. The band, which describes itself as having its fingers in a lot of pies, does not have a clear classification of its sound or genre. The newly formed band consists of Victoria locals Peter Gardner (guitar, lead vocals), Ian Johnson (lead guitar, vocals), Matt Schmitz (bass), Drew Ferris (drums) and Matt Charbonneau (keyboard).

Hawk and Steel was formed in April 2011 and seemed to fall into place quite naturally. Gardner had left well-known local band Forestry and was looking for a new band to play his music with. He met Johnson and Ferris through a mutual acquaintance, while he met Schmitz through work. Charbonneau joined the band through his connection with Johnson and Ferris.

“We all came together through other peo-ple,” says Gardner. “It is kind of a fluke thing.”

On Sept. 24 the band will play Wood Hall as part of the Rifflandia music festival. The show will be the group’s second performance as Hawk and Steel.

“The reputation of Forestry gave us the

opportunity to play Rifflandia,” says Gardner. Forestry played Rifflandia last year.

Hawk and Steel has an impressive set list for a new band. Thirteen new songs are ready for performance, a result of using the summer to focus on perfecting their music. “I wanted to make sure the songs were ready before we started playing shows,” said Gardner, who drew from his experience playing in bands that focused their energy on performance and not material.

Aside from writing the music for Hawk and Steel, Gardner also practices photography. He finds the contrast in the two creative outlets helps with a common creative problem, writer’s block.

“It helps to have more than one creative outlet,” says Gardner. “If you get jammed up, you can focus your attention on something else for awhile.”

Another source of inspiration for Gardner is Victoria’s various music stores. He says he’s a frequent customer of Ditch Records, Talk’s Cheap, Black Raven Records, Lyle’s Place and The Turntable.

Both Ditch Records and The Turntable have inspired him, providing introductions to new genres and artists. The Turntable is located in

Fan Tan Alley where it buys and sells music, specializing in jazz, rock, folk and blues.

“It’s one of those places that’s really crazy,” says Gardner. “It seems like a gigantic mess, but if you ask the people who work there they know exactly where everything is.”

Information about Hawk and Steel can be found on their Facebook page or the CBC Radio 3 website.

The band has two songs available to listen to that are on the CBC Radio 3 website:

“Carol” and “Telephone Calls.” They hope to have a split seven-inch record available for purchase by late fall or early winter, which will also feature local alternative rock band The Wicks. The single “Carol” will be avail-able on the record, while “Telephone Calls” will be available as a special download. Hawk and Steel are currently recording four songs for an EP, which will be available for pur-chase at Rifflandia.

Seeing is believing, and your faith will grow if you check out slideshows of Rifflandia, the Victoria

Steam Expo and more at martlet.ca.

September 22, 2011 Martlet 13

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ARE YOU READY?LET’S GO.

YOU’LL BE MEETING MY FAMILY FOR THE FIRST TIME...

...ALL AT ONCE!

I CAN SEE GRANDMA’S

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THAT’S MY OLD SCHOOL RIGHT

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MEET MY BOYFRIEND STEVE.

I LOVEGRANDMA’S

PUMPKIN PIE!

> Blake Morneau

A couple of weeks ago, I got to thinking about the songs that would be best to introduce my classic rock-loving father to the world of Hip-Hop. Here is the result in the form of a mixtape.

lupe Fiasco, “He Said, She Said”Taken from Fiasco’s debut album, Food & Liquor, this track is the perfect opener for this mix-tape. Fiasco raps an incredibly poignant story of a young boy who’s been abandoned by his deadbeat father. His flow is fantastic and easy to understand, and because the two verses are basically the same (only the pronouns change), older ears get more of a chance to absorb the flava.

edo G. featuring Masta ace, “Wishing”This track is featured in the wonderful Boondocks episode “Return of the King.” It accompanies a montage of Huey and a very much alive Martin Luther King Jr. as they try to build support for King’s dream. It’s a guitar-based beat that is very easy on the

ears, and the lyrics are political without ever giving way to anger.

Blackalicious, “Shallow Days”Gift of Gab talks of problems with the hollow-ness of modern hip-hop and the state of the uneducated inhabitants of the lower class. The quiet saxophone in the chorus and live drums throughout the song should help give a feeling of familiarity to older listeners.

Wu-tang Clan, “the Heart Gently Weeps”This track is an obvious choice for this col-lection as it builds on George Harrison’s masterpiece, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” The sample is instantly recogniz-able and has been treated with the utmost respect. It’s never over-the-top and in-your-face like most of the Wu’s catalogue. Warn-ing: Ghostface’s verse is overflowing with expletives. Censor accordingly.

Michael Franti & Spearhead, “Stay Human”This track is oozing with positivity and enough funk to keep every head in the vicin-

ity bobbing. The sunny guitar and bouncing rhythm track should make even the staunch-est anti-Heads forget they’re even listening to hip-hop track.

Public enemy, “He Got Game”One of Public Enemy’s more palatable tracks and another song built around a famous classic rock sample: Buffalo Springfield’s legendary “For What It’s Worth.” Chuck D raps with introspection and intelligence while Flava Flav manages to lend the borrowed lyrics enough weight to do the original song justice. A great way to get non-fans into one of hip-hop’s legends.

Jurassic 5, “Quality Control”J5 mastered old-school party music in their day, and this is probably the best example. “Quality Control” is overflowing with fun and intellect that most of hip-hop can’t touch. There’s even a verse about a deep love of linguistics. This should also give our parents a chance to listen to a real hip-hop crew play off each other.

Wyclef Jean, “Gone ‘til november” (Pop Version)Jean’s masterpiece of sorrow and loneliness is built around a simple, pretty guitar riff and is lifted up by a full string section. It has all the hallmarks of the greatest rock ballads but there is never a doubt that this is hip-hop.

Mos Def, “rock n’ roll”An oral history of black music as told by the mighty Mos Def (to be known simply as Ya-siin as of 2012). The music is minimal, with just simple drums, bass and some reverber-ating guitar notes building to a furious punk-rock finish. It’s the perfect frame for Def’s praise of music legends, like Bo Diddley and Nina Simone, while pointing out the obvious theft of black music by famous acts like Elvis Presley and The Rolling Stones. A perfect, educational way to round out a short hip-hop lesson.

To read more bonus tracks for the mixtape, visit martlet.ca.

a short introduction to modern hip-hop

Hawk and Steel perfect their craft

ProViDeD

MUSIC RAGS

Hawk and Steel is playing Rifflandia Festival 2011.

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JANUARY 11-15, 2012 · HARBOUR TOWERS HOTEL & SUITES VICTORIA, BC

CULTURE

> Tyler laing

More than 100 musicals in nine venues across Victoria. Four days of ceaseless aural ecstasy. Several thousand gleeful wristband-wearers running amok. Put your earplugs in, Victoria; it’s time for Rifflandia Festival 2011.

Something that Victoria music fans may not be used to seeing is a slew of hip-hop acts all under one roof. But this year’s Rifflandia lineup is chalk full of them — experienced ones, too. De La Soul, Blackalicious, Lyrics Born, Sage Francis and The Coup are a few.

“We tried to book enough hip-hop bands that someone who is a really rigid music fan and only listens to hip-hop would have enough on the bill to justify the price of the ticket,” says Rifflandia Festival Director, Nick Blasko. “I think we’ve definitely booked enough great stuff that people want to see.”

Blasko admits that, in terms of the quantity of shows, hip-hop might not match up with other genres like indie rock or dance music. But that’s not to say we don’t have a healthy hip-hop community here.

“I would argue that hip-hop has always done well in Victoria,” he says. “Sure, it’s a smaller audience, but that audience is just as engaged and I would think sometimes even more supportive.”

One way to foster and build a music fol-lowing is to offer more access to the genre in question. Festivals can create this opportu-nity by providing, as Sage Francis puts it, “a musical buffet.”

“Festivals are a great way of finding a new audience because maybe all the Cold War Kids fans would have never given my style of hip-hop a chance had they not sampled it at the buffet table,” says Francis.

Lyrics Born (LB) agrees. “I love playing festi-vals because you just play to so many different kinds of people,” he says. “I get the same thing out of it, as a fan, that the ticket buyer does

because I get to see all these great, great bands and meet everybody, so it’s really cool.”

Hip-hop is a genre that often gets a bad rap for producing poor live shows, but that might be a bit of a false preconception — especially with the range of acts here. Most of these guys cut their lyrical teeth on the live stage.

“Hip-hop acts always travel non-stop,” says Blasko. “They’re constantly on the road,

travelling internationally.”The sheer amount of practice that touring pro-

vides allows these guys to try new things when they perform and keep their shows fresh.

“I tend to mix newer material with older material and shuffle it up a bit,” says Francis. “To keep things fresh and interesting to me, I always leave room for improv moments and crowd interaction.”

LB’s plans for his set holds promise as well. “I’ve revamped my set for this so that you can get a good cross-section of new music and older stuff too. I really wanted it to be special for Rifflandia. So we definitely put some thought into how we were going to put it together just for the people.”

“I know this goes against a lot of artists’ ethos,” says Francis, “but I like to play songs that the crowd is hungry to see live. When the crowd goes crazy, my energy level skyrockets, and a lot of interesting things happen as a result of that.”

As Basko notes, the music scene in Victoria is shifting. Getting younger, perhaps. “We try to model the festival as music that is speaking to a younger and sort of new generation.”

He stresses the importance of respecting the audience — a priority shared by the artists.

“The crowd must be engaged in what you’re doing,” says LB. “They must be a part of the performance. To me, I almost look at the crowd as another member of the band.”

“There’s no other reason to be on a stage in front of people unless you’re making a con-nection in one way or another,” Francis says.

September 22, 2011 MarTleT 15

> Will Johnson

When UVic alumnus D.W. Wilson first de-cided he wanted to be a writer, he didn’t plan to write about his hometown. He started out with science fiction and fantasy inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien. But partway through univer-sity, he decided to take the adage “write what you know” seriously.

“I remember joking with my professor that I was going to write about the Kootenays because nobody else had, that it was unex-plored territory,” said Wilson, who was born and raised in small towns throughout the Interior. “Incidentally, that line has served me well on grant applications.”

Wilson recently released his first collection of short stories, Once You Break a Knuckle. All

of the action takes place in Invermere, a town largely untouched by Canadian literature. Ac-cording to Wilson, his target audience is the people he grew up with.

“My goal before I ever started university was to create a piece of work that ‘regular Joe,’ for lack of anything else to call him, would read and enjoy. Which isn’t to say that trades-types don’t read — more that I wanted the stories themselves to be the kind of stories those guys would like to read,” said Wilson.

Wilson’s stories are occasionally violent and often deal with the darker side of humanity. In one story, two adolescents sabotage a rope swing with tragic results. In another, a heart-broken youth refuses to warn his friend about an oncoming car.

But Wilson’s stories also reveal a dignity in

his characters’ day-to-day lives.Wilson admires B.C. writer Bill Gaston’s

work. He says both Richard Ford and Ray-mond Carver have had a large influence on his writing. But his favorite author is Tim Winton, an Australian novelist and short story writer.

“If I subconsciously am emulating anyone — since I don’t think a writer should actively strive to emulate another writer — it’s him, for his use of setting and the musicality of his sentences,” said Wilson.

Wilson has been on a roll in recent years, receiving nods in literary contests and getting nominated for numerous National Magazine awards. His second book, a novel titled Ballistics, is due out in 2012. And he partially credits his success to the Canadian

literary scene.“I’d never have been able to launch myself

with a short story collection in either the U.S. or the U.K.,” he said. “Canada punches above its weight, basically. Even after all the arts cuts and people death-knelling culture and literature, if you look at what’s going on south of the border or across the Atlantic you’d be hard-pressed to find a better place to be a writer,” he said.

And though he has spent much of the last few years studying in the U.K., where he is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of East Anglia, Wilson still considers himself a proud Canadian.

When asked about his plans for the future, Wilson’s answer was simple.

“Write another book.”

UVic grad publishes book of short stories

JoURnaLs fRom Japan

> Joseph Clark

Joseph Clark is an undergraduate student at UVic majoring in English and taking the Teaching Eng-lish as a Foreign Language (TEFL) program. He often goes to Japan to visit his family, which was affected by the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011. Joseph spent the month of May 2011 volunteering in Sendai, Japan.

May 8, 2011

Today we pile into a bus which takes us to a smaller volunteer centre called Satellite. Satellite is closer to the ocean, and the co-ordinators live on location. I go inside one of their houses to use the bathroom, which is a hole in the ground, and this is enough for me to see that the co-ordinators are living in little more than shacks. Most of the gear required to volunteer is available here, including boots, gloves and bicycles.

I am put into a group of six and we are given bicycles to get to an elderly man’s home for our work. One of the group members is a young university student, while the other members are in their 30s. We pedal through

a wasteland that looks indistinguishable from what I saw from the bus the last time I volunteered. Since I am on a bicycle, I have a chance to get a closer look at the land that has been stripped of all structures by the tsunami. The crumpled guardrail, wrecked cars and broken telephone poles all make me aware of a larger, almost unimaginable pow-er. It is similar to the feeling one gets when looking up at the stars or out at the ocean, in that I suddenly feel very small in comparison. What separates this from those other times when one feels small, however, is that it is not the presence of a larger power but the absence of it that inspires the feeling. There is destruc-tion everywhere I look, but the power itself has withdrawn to some unknown place.

When we get to the man’s house, we are greeted by a dog that growls and snaps at anyone who approaches it. We learn later that its companion died in the tsunami.

We are put to work cleaning all the debris that washed into the man’s backyard. Around noon we are hit by a heavy rain, and amid warnings of an approaching storm and pos-sible tornadoes, we are forced to move our work inside the man’s house. The living room

has been stripped of the floor but a few struc-tural floorboards remain underneath. Under these floorboards lies the earth, covered with smaller pieces of debris and a few rats, alive and dead. We spend an hour cleaning this area until the weather clears up and we are able to continue working outside. As I shovel what pretty much amounts to compost, I find it difficult to get used to this matter being de-void of insects. I know from experience that moist compost in Japan is usually crawling with bugs such as huge centipedes. What I am shovelling seems to be true dead matter.

During our breaks we get our usual op-portunities to speak to the homeowner about his experiences during the tsunami. The water that reached his house was about six feet high, and his house was battered by cars and other debris. The man says several times that this is nothing compared to the 30 metres of water that hit sections of the nearby shoreline. As the tsunami came in, he unhooked his two dogs in order to give them a chance to survive. He says that the dog that greeted us is alive because he unhooked its chain from the collar. He unhooked the other dog’s chain where it connected to a wall, and

because of this chain the dog did not survive the tsunami. The roof of the doghouse was ripped off. The man floated on top of it to survive the tsunami. He grabbed ahold of a telephone wire that was floating near him and waited for five or six hours until help came. He says that there were four dead bod-ies washed up right outside his front door. Full cans of beer were washed up along with the dead bodies because of a local beer fac-tory. The man does not mention whether he drank these beers or not.

As we get ready to leave, the man cannot stop talking to me about how violently the wave battered his house. He is an example of somebody who has suffered emotional trauma from the tsunami. He desperately needs somebody to talk to about the damage that has been done to his spirit. My uncle, who is a doctor here in Sendai, often talks about this. Although his job is to take care of peoples’ physical well-being, since the tsu-nami, he has become as much a psychiatrist as a regular doctor. He often says that just to listen to what the victims have to say helps them a great deal. I keep this mind each day I volunteer.

one man’s home, one country’s horror

rifflandia: feeding the hip-hop hunger

proVidedLyrics Born is looking forward to performing at Rifflandia.

SPORTS Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A

modern school where football is taught.

16 MARTLET September 22, 2011

DOWNTOWN VANCOUVER

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> DALLAn PouLin

After a 17-season absence, the Western Hockey League (WHL) is set to return to Vic-toria as the Victoria Royals get ready to face the Vancouver Giants in their home opener on Sept. 24 at the Save-On Foods Memorial Centre (SOFA).

After opening their season the previous night in Vancouver, the Royals will look to make a favourable impression on their new hometown fans by defeating their rivals from across the pond.

The WHL is one of three Major Junior hockey leagues in Canada that form the Ca-nadian Hockey League (CHL), along with the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) and the Que-bec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL). The WHL is one of the premier development leagues for future NHL stars.

Victoria’s last WHL team left town in 1994 to become the Prince George Cougars. Now that the Chilliwack Bruins have relocated to Victoria, the Island will once again have the chance to host the stars of tomorrow.

The Edmonton Oilers’ first overall selection of Red Deer Rebels centre Ryan Nugent-Hop-kins in the 2011 draft shows the high level of talent in the WHL; it’s a testament to the calibre of hockey expected at every Royals’ home game this season. Three young players to watch for who are NHL draft-eligible in 2012 include: Ryan Murray (Everett), Griffin

Reinhart (Edmonton), and Matthew Dumba (Red Deer).

Last season, the squad made the WHL play-offs with a 33-31-4-4 record and proceeded to drop their opening playoff series in five games to the Spokane Chiefs. This year, they hope to build on that success despite losing their top scorer from last season, Ryan Howse, to the Calgary Flames.

The Royals will lean on such veterans as 19-year old Kevin Sunder, drafted to the Buffalo Sabres in the third round (75th overall) in the 2010 NHL Entry Draft, for offensive sup-port. General manager and head coach Marc Habscheid, who coached the 2003 Canadian World Junior team and served as an assistant coach of Canada’s Olympic Hockey team in Turin in 2006, will also look to young players such as Brandon Magee and Steven Hodges to increase their offensive production

The anticipation is high for Victoria hockey fans. It has been 17 seasons since Victoria last had the opportunity to see potential future NHL stars playing in a local rink.

The list of past WHL stars that have pro-gressed to the NHL during the WHL’s absence from Victoria can only leave hockey fans wondering: who will we see this year?

For more information on the Royals and to purchase tickets (starting at $12), visit victoriaroyals.com.

Victoria hockey fans look forward to WHL

> TyLER LAing

The Vikes men’s field hockey team managed to convert what was a challenging preseason into a successful start to the regular season. Prospects looked bleak for the Vikes after going winless in the first three games of their preseason tournament. The squad managed to rally for the fourth and final game, how-ever, and earn a win against the Vancouver Hawks — a team Vikes head coach Mike Lee says will be one of the top two sides in the league.

“Being a university team we’re relatively young,” says Lee. “But we play in a men’s league against players that are on the na-tional team and that have a lot of experience and a little more age.”

Lee looks at the early part of the season as a time to get new players familiar with the system and to establish team chemistry. And yet, after travelling to Vancouver for their first game of the season, the men came home the victors of a gritty 3-2 dogfight with the Surrey Lions. Something must have clicked into place over the course of training camp or else the team carried the confidence from that final exhibition win forward. Either way, for a squad that lost key players from last year and brought in a number of new faces, a road win is the ideal way to start the 2011-12 campaign.

Leo Smyth, one of the assistant coaches this year, completed his UVic playing career in April.

“We have six rookies this year that are all showing that they’re going to have great

potential,” he says. “They should hopefully fit very nicely into the Premier League.”

Add some strong returning players, and what Smyth refers to as “a presence on the junior national team,” and the Vikes could have a winning formula. Junior national team players James Kirkpatrick, Matthew Sarmen-to, Samuel Jones and Brenden Bissett all have the skills necessary to succeed at this level.

The Vikes finished fifth out of eight teams last year and missed the playoffs by one spot. Lee thinks this season could be different. “Our younger players are that much more experienced that we can definitely get into playoffs.”

But as useful as youth is, a lot can be said for maturity. That’s where team captain Graeme Nawn comes in.

“He’s older than a lot of the guys and he’s got a lot of international experience and a very solid presence on our back line,” says Smyth.

“We’re very fortunate to have him,” says Lee. “He’s got the experience that some of our younger players lack.”

It’s going to take time for this team to consistently play as a tight, cohesive unit. Smyth says tactics are something they’ll have to work on throughout the season — an area that, as a former player, Smyth can help with.

“When you sit at the sidelines you actually see all of the things that you wouldn’t notice otherwise,” he says. “I’m perhaps going into a new era of hockey for me, being a bit more of a mentor. I think there’s potential for me in that.”

Vikes field hockey seeks winning formula

RAM MEyyAPPAn

The Vikes men’s field hockey team hopes to turn a challenging preseason to a suc-cesful start of regular season play.

SCIENCE & TECH Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for

going backwards. – Aldous Huxley

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pixelated previews

EA Sports NHL ’12: worth the money?> BRAd MicHELSoN

EA Sports has just released its 21st release under the NHL moniker. While some criti-cize the company for making minor changes from year to year and shipping it out as a new game, this year’s edition has enough tweaks and additions to make it a more worthwhile purchase.

The developers have played around with the physics engine, changing the hitting, falling and sliding elements. Body checks are most satisfying. You can, with the right speed, make players go flying. And now, for the first time, you can run into, or hit goalies (resulting in an obvious penalty). In some ways, it can be harder to take a skater out of the play, depending on the size and strength of the two people involved in the collision. The hit can be anything from a minor bump to a bulldozer knockout. Additionally, with the right timing, you can hit an opposing

player so hard that they fall into a team’s bench. It adds a big element of satisfaction to the game’s physicality.

EA decided to make an ad-dition to their Be A Pro mode. You now have the option to carry out a career with a num-ber of NHL hockey legends, ranging from Gordie Howe to Wayne Gretzky to Patrick Roy. On top of that, the legends are playable in any game mode, and there is even a legends team. Since there are only so many old players chosen to be in the game, current stars are added in to help fill the roster. This is a cool feature in the newly added NHL Winter Classic mode, a sin-gle game played in an open-bowled stadium, exactly like the American-audience-catered expose we’ve all come to love (or not).

The Vancouver game developers also kept last year’s mode edition of Hockey Ultimate Team (HUT). In this mode, the player earns

pucks by playing games, which you can exchange for either play-er cards (which you assign into your team’s lineup) or towards purchasing individual player cards from other people online.

This year, EA has made the pro-cess a little more seamless and a little easier to use for the average gamer. Some of the more detailed features of HUT had to be shown to me by a friend, but once you figure those things out, it’s actu-ally a lot of fun. As your team gets better, your own rank on the EA

online server climbs with it. You can compete with your team against others online. It’s worth trying out.

Aesthetically, the game looks pretty much

the same, but again, with some minor tweaks. The players on the bench actually move when there is a hit near them, the crowd isn’t always in a robotic unison motion, and most impor-tantly, EA has added over 100 new faces to the game, so Sidney Crosby will actually look like Sidney Crosby. Still, this can be hit or miss for some non-poster-boy players.

As is the opinion for most of EA’s annual re-leases, not a ton has changed in NHL ’12. But as someone who buys the game every year, this EA sports release is worth the purchase if you’re into hockey and video games.

If anything, NHL ’12 is an improvement on last year’s game.

Do know about a tech product that we should write about? Send us your sug-gestions! Email [email protected].

EA has added over 100 new faces to the

game, so Sidney Crosby will

actually look like Sidney Crosby.

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DIVERSIONS What is in seasons, seconds, centuries and minutes but not in decades, years or days?

The letter ‘n.’

September 22, 2011 MARTLET 19

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Capricorn (Dec. 22 - Jan. 19):  As much as you’d like to, you can’t change the past, Capricorn. Instead of dwelling on what could have been done, focus on what realistically can be done now and go from there.

Aquarius (Jan. 20 - Feb. 18):  It’s not always easy to admit that you’re wrong, but if there was ever a week to suck it up and apologize for recent wrongdoings, this is it, Aquarius. What are you waiting for?

Pisces (Feb. 19 - Mar. 20):  If you’re hoping to get noticed this week Pisces, then at some point or another, you’re going to have to come out of the shadows. The real question is why are you hiding?

Aries (Mar. 21 - Apr. 19):  If you’ve been putting off a big decision, now is the time to make it, Aries. Don’t let the fear of stepping out of your comfort zone inhibit you from making the decision you really want to this week!

Taurus (Apr. 20 - May 20): You have been so busy the past few weeks that certain things have begun to fall by the way-side. Take the time to sit down and prioritize that to-do list of yours before it gets the better of you.

Gemini (May 21 - June 20): Don’t be surprised if people seem to be flocking to you for advice this week. Your calm demeanor and sense of even-headedness will be attracting people from all areas of your life.

Cancer (June 21 - July 22): If you’ve been putting off or ignoring a big project recently, it will come back to haunt you this week. You’ve got no other choice than to tackle it once and for all, Cancer, so just get it done!

Leo (July 23 - Aug. 22): Be wary of stepping on somebody’s toes or even possibly overstepping boundaries with friends and family this week, Leo. Your intentions may be pure, but you’re better off steering clear.

Virgo (Aug. 23 - Sept. 22): Sometimes you just have to know when to walk away. If you’ve invested all that you pos-sibly can and still aren’t seeing the results that you had hoped, it might be time to leave it be, Virgo.

Libra (Sept. 23 - Oct. 22): You seem to be running in circles these days, Libra. You don’t always need a plan, but sometimes it’s a good idea to pull out the map of life to gain a little sense of direction.  

Scorpio (Oct. 23 - Nov. 21): Don’t be afraid to take the first step, Scorpio. If you’re waiting for someone else to make it, you could potentially be standing still forever. Gather up some courage and just go for it.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 - Dec. 21): You’ve hit a bit of a brick wall in your life, Sagittarius. Don’t let it stop you dead in your tracks. Instead, focus on how you can get over the wall, or how you can get around it.

Seeing StarS HOROSCOPES FOR THE wEEk OF SEPTEMBER 22 – By CANDACE O’NEiLL

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COMICS Let me tell you something my father told me. Look at the stars. The great kings of the past are up there,

watching over us, sending comics to the Martlet

20 MARTLET September 22, 2011

“the party starts here”a story in every bottle.

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