The University of Guelph’s Independent Student Newspaper

167.6 ◆ thursday, february 16th, 2012 www.theontarion.com

Index6 Arts & Culture

10 Sports & Health

19 Life

23 Opinion

25 Editorial

26 Crossword

27 Classified

28 Community Listings

the Issues

3 studentSpACE

6 dInosaurbOnES

10 swImmIngOuAS

more students, more cowbellThe Gryphon football team and intramural program showcase how large student numbers can still experience the small-scale community feel that makes Guelph unique.

chris muller

Next September will boast one of the largest incoming supplies of first-year students in the history of this university. This new sup-ply of students chose Guelph for the same reason everyone else did: they chose it for the community atmosphere they felt the moment they stepped on campus.

Yet with the ever-expanding number of students, this atmo-sphere has come under duress.

How does this get fixed? Sports, of course.

Football head coach Stu Lang lauds Guelph to prospective re-cruits as a unique university that maintains the small-school men-tality, just on a bigger scale. With

the recent introduction of nearly two-dozen recruits, it would seem that his description holds true.

“The more opportunity there is for us to have fans and supporters, the better it is for us,” said Lang in re-sponse to the increasing size of the student body. “It’s very important

for us to capture [new students’ at-tention] as they come in.”

Last September’s O-Week game was free to all students and was well attended with near-ly the entirety of the bleachers and most of the grass sitting area filled with students.

“It’s the first major sports event of the year and the first-year stu-dents get a chance to connect with their university’s spirit right away,” said Lang. In this way, taking in a football game

recruits are up across the boards as guelph looks to expand its athletic roster

marIanne PoIntner

tedxgueLPhu ... Page 14

droP the LIme ... Page 6

SEE recruiting PAGE 11

Ottawa fearing eco-terrorismAfter vowing to take on radical environmentalists determined to stop the Northern Gateway pipe-line, the Harper government has released a new anti-terrorism strategy that targets eco-extrem-ists as threats. More and more, the Harper government is coming to view environmentalists as threats, instead of well mean-ing advocates to be consulted. Included in the Harper govern-ment’s list of adversaries are several aboriginal groups who oppose the pipeline that would carry oil-sands bitumen to the B.C. coast for export to Asian markets. Disturbingly enough, this list also puts these groups on the same level as white suprema-cists and anarchists – showing the government’s position on what the majority of Canadians now consider a pressing concern.(Globe and Mail)

Riots in Greece once againGreek lawmakers on Feb. 13 approved harsh new austerity measures demanded by bailout creditors to save the debt-crip-pled nation from bankruptcy. The vote would allow for Greece’s European partners and the Inter-national Monetary Fund to release $170 billion in new rescue loans, without which Greece would default on its debt, ensuring the markets are not put off balance once again. The austerity cuts would remove one in five civil service jobs and drop the coun-try’s minimum wage by more than a fifth. Rioting followed the vote, setting over ten buildings ablaze, in addition to massive amounts of property damage and hospitalizing of many in the chaos.(Toronto Star)

10-year old discovers a new moleculeA new molecule has been dis-covered recently by scientist Clara Lazen. If you haven’t heard of her before, it’s because she happens to be a 10-year old girl who discovered it in science class. The new molecule, tetra-nitratoxycarbon, composed of oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon was designed using the ball and stick models found in elemen-tary school by Clara in a random and complex way. When she put the pieces together and asked her teacher if what she made was a molecule, her science teacher actually wasn’t sure. What Clara discovered in her curiosity was a viable molecule that didn’t exist in nature, had energy storage capabilities, and most import-antly, also explosive. (The Escapist)

Compiled by Stephen Fournier

Student study space: A university issueBeth Purdon-McLeLLan

With midterms looming and read-ing week just ahead, the need for student study space is only be-coming more apparent at the University of Guelph. The stu-dent sit-in last December made it clear that the study needs of the students have not been met, and that students are demanding for change. The CSA is taking steps to make sure that this change will happen.

Recently, students received an email from the CSA announcing the newly formed Student Study Space Task Force. The Task Force is a combination of students and representatives of the university, and consists of over 50 members. Over half of the committee mem-bers are students to ensure that the diverse needs of the student body are represented. However, the CSA is having difficulty find-ing off-campus representatives.

“The focus is on better utilizing the space that we already have, working with what we have in the short term to create quick, easy solutions,” said Derek Alton, Local Affairs Commissioner. “Obviously there needs to be long term solu-tions too.”

The Task Force also includes all university staff members that would be required to approve

student space proposals, includ-ing Don O’Leary, vice-president of finance, Brenda Whitesite, from Student Life, Robin Begin from Campus Police, and Cathy Tutton from Scheduling services. One of the top priorities of the com-mittee is to ensure that student study needs are addressed within an appropriate time frame, and to hold the university accountable for meeting those needs.

“One thing that we’re pushing, with the narrow focus of study space, is that it puts empha-sis on university,” said Joshua

Ofori-Darko, CSA human resourc-es & operations commissioner.

“They need to provide, and they are required to provide, an ade-quate study space.”

Some of the solutions include increasing access to campus build-ings. Many lectures halls that could provide student study space are closed when they are not in use. These are often the times when student need them the most.

“Some buildings have different access requirements,” said Ofori-Darko. “Some buildings lock, and we loose out on awesome space.

Like MacKinnon for example, that closes around ten o’clock.”

However, while making build-ings more accessible might seem simple, it does pose another set of complications, such as supervision, room booking and maintenance. Other solutions include renovate existing spaces, like the airport lounge, the study space beside the dentist office, and using furniture that maximizes space. Students should expect to see changes fully implemented by the Winter of 2013.

The Student Space Task Force joins the CSA and university administrators to ensure that student needs are addressed.

MARiAnne POinTneR

Apiculture club holds biannual honey saleBeth Purdon-McLeLLan

Students at the University of Guelph had a sweet opportunity to try something a little different this Valentine’s Day. The Apicul-ture club held its honey sale in the UC on Feb. 10, where students could sample honey and browse a selection of honey and bee’s wax products.

“Well the bees make the honey,” said Courtney Irvine, third year Arts and Science major. “But the wax products we make.”

Apiculture is the study of bees, and Guelph is lucky enough to have the Townsend House Honey Bee Research Centre on campus. Locat-ed in the arboretum, the club leads apiary tours in the spring and dur-ing O Week. Many students became involved in the club after taking the Introduction to Apiculture course that is offered on campus.

The club meets throughout the year to discuss different topics in the bee world. This ranges from bee anatomy to environmental issues.

“We’ve had a recent interest in how to bee keep,” said Irvine. “The past president actually go her own hive. So we were thinking of invit-ing her to talk about being a new beekeeper.”

Although bees are used for re-search, the bees also provide the university with their own brand of honey. The research centre sepa-rates the honey from the wax, and the club puts honey into jars for the honey sale. The club holds two sales during the year, one before Christmas and one before Valentines Day. These days were picked because the club has more

success with its sales, rather than the honey productions process.

Irvine noted that, besides putting it on your toast, there are countless ways that you can use bee products.

The club also makes poured can-dles, dipped candles, rolled candles, as well as bee balm with different fragrances. There is also a growing knowledge of honey’s medicinal properties.

“I think that the biology of bees is really interesting,” said Irvine. “I think honey bees specifically have a lot of interesting attributes.”

Honey is anti- bacterial, anti-vi-ral and anti-fungal. Irvine says that the OVC even uses honey on animal wounds to prevent infection. It’s many properties and potential only fuel the enthusiasm of the students involved in the apiculture club.

The Apiculture Club held their biannual honey sale in UC, on Feb. 10.

LAURA BeAUChAMP

news 167.6 ◆ feBruary 16th – 22nd, 2012 3

inspire 2012: Professionals for the futureStephen Fournier

For the second year in a row, in-Spire has worked to help young people realize their potential and achieve the success they deserve. By bringing together some of Canada’s most successful profes-sionals, inSpire aims to provide young people with the skills need-ed to succeed through a number of speaker events designed to show the power of leadership and posi-tive thinking.

On Feb. 9, Alex Rechichi, pres-ident & co-founder of Extreme Brands, as well as Rita DeMontis, award-winning Lifestyle & Food writer and editor for the Toronto Sun, appeared in Guelph to discuss their rise to success.

Rita DeMontis was first on stage, opening the event with her rath-er quirky sense of humor as she highlighted her 35 years of expe-rience in the media business. Her life in media was spent moving from one interesting experience to the next, interviewing the big names of the food industry such as Anthony Bourdain, Jamie Oliver, and Michel Roux. She also traveled

around the world, and even met a Siberian tiger. Rita went through her life with her natural curios-ity driving her, never backing down from where it took her and in doing so, enjoyed her life every step of the way. As her story came to a close, Rita left the crowd with one last statement that the room took to heart.

“Have your natural curiosity front and centre,” said DeMon-tis. “Be polite to people, it really doesn’t cost a lot. Look people in the eye when you talk to them. And ask them– because I learned one thing, you ask, and you ask, and you ask, and when you’re fin-ished, you ask one more question. And you will walk away with what you wanted, whatever that is. It could be something very humble, it could be something very power-ful, but it will be what you want.”

Rechichi took the stage to a round of applause and high ex-pectations following DeMontis’ opening to the night. The entre-preneur, who later became the president of the Extreme Brands food chain, started his first foray into the business world at the age

of 16 with his drive way sealing “company,” student pro interlock-ing, cleaning, and sealing. While the job was shared between him and five of his friends, it paid his way through university and set him up with the skills required to run his own business.

Rechichi knew from the very start he wasn’t willing to just work for someone else. He wanted to make something of his own. When he saw what could be done in the food business, he jumped in. The road for him had its ups and downs, but the moment Rechichi cut loose everything he had to lose, despite his naivety in the field, Extreme Pita gave it all back.

“If you have no experience, that’s an asset,” said Rechichi. “I think that being intelligent and also being somewhat naïve doesn’t give you preconceived notions, it doesn’t hold you back.”

The inSpire event came to a close with a round of applause for both speakers, their stories and advice gave a room full of students the tools to succeed and thrive. Now, it is up to students to put those lessons to use.

Alex Rechichi and Rita DeMontis talk about their exciting careers at Inspire Guelph.

MARIAnne PoIntneR

Shining a Light on aboriginal issues Free the Children and MAEI’s Local Spotlight Campaign

AndreA LAmArre

From Feb. 13-24, Free the Chil-dren, in collaboration with Martin Aboriginal Education Initiative (MAEI), are shining a light on Aboriginal youth education. As a charitable organization supporting education for Aboriginal students in Canada, MAEI aims to empow-er Aboriginal youth to complete their secondary school education and to continue onto post-sec-ondary studies. This goal aligns with that of Free the Children, a network comprised of “children helping children through educa-tion.” Together, the organizations are working to introduce students to the issues surrounding Aborigi-nal education though their Local Spotlight: Aboriginal Education campaign.

“This campaign seeks to educate non-Aboriginal students about Aboriginal culture, traditions and history, as well as engage them in meaningful dialogue on the topic of Aboriginal education in Canada, in support of their First Nations, Métis Nation and Inuit peers,” said

Devora Winston, Director of Youth Programming and Partnerships for Free The Children.

Over 650 schools and youth groups from across Canada are par-ticipating in the campaign. Among them, several Guelph schools are shining a light.

“Now more than ever, Canada needs to be aware and take action to support its Aboriginal People,” said Winston. “Not only are there challenges faced by the First Nations community of Attawapiskat, but there are issues that need to be ad-dressed throughout all First Nation regions, when it comes to education and other basic rights.”

The issues faced by Canada’s Ab-original population include a 60 percent school dropout rate among First Nations People living on re-serves. Students taking part in the

campaign learn about these issues, as well as Aboriginal culture, his-tory and traditions.

The Local Spotlight campaign, Free the Children and MAEI recent-ly launched a year-long campaign that includes providing schools and groups with resources, tools and support to raise awareness of Canada’s Aboriginal community. Winston spoke to the ways in which university students can get involved in raising awareness about Aborigi-nal issues with Free the Children and MAEI.

“University students and pro-fessors can sign up to receive the curriculum, daily facts, and re-sources as a means of educating themselves on the topic and sharing their knowledge with their peers on campus, through their social networking channels, or in their community,” said Winston. “This can be done through the two-week Local Spotlight campaign, as well as year round, as a means of taking ac-tion and helping to raise awareness of a very important issue in Canada.”

For more information on the Local Spotlight campaign, or to get involved with Free the Children and MAEI, students can visit www.freethechildren.com/aboriginal-education or www.maei-ieam.ca.

“Now more than ever, Canada

needs to be aware and take action

to support its Aboriginal People.”

– Devora Winston

www.theontArion.com NEWS4

Migrant workers need recognitionAlicjA GrzAdkowskA

On Feb. 11, a vigil was held on campus and downtown Guelph to commemorate the 11 workers– 10 of whom were migrant workers form Peru– who passed away in a vehi-cle collision in Hampstead, Ontario.

Kerry Preibisch, an associate professor in the Department of So-ciology and Anthropology, spoke to those attending the vigil.

“We need to bring this issue to the top of the agenda now,” said Preibisch.

Preibisch has been focusing on

temporary labour migration in Can-ada since 1995. She was one of four individuals who spoke at the vigil, and one of many who expressed concern over the context of the accident.

“In 2007, three women farm workers were killed on the highway linking Fraser Valley to Vancouver,” Preibisch.

Although the enforcement of vehicle safety, specifically concern-ing 15-seater passenger vans, was a prominent issue after the accident, it was short lived.

“It seems like just yesterday, and again, we are facing 11 deaths in a 15-seater van,” said Preibisch.

Pablo Godoy, another speaker at the vigil, coordinates a nation-al program called Students Against Migrant Exploitation, which sheds light on issues that migrant work-ers face.

“We encounter story after story on a daily basis about exploitative bosses, horrendous working con-ditions, and poor treatment in the workplace, and in the communities where workers confront racist cir-cumstances,” said Godoy.

According to Godoy, the accident has brought these migrant work-er issues to the forefront of public interest.

“Until Monday, there weren’t really any media outlets or people in general asking questions about mi-grant workers,” said Godoy. “After

Monday, people want to hear about migrant workers’ situations and experiences.”

The University has not been im-mune to the effects of the accident.

“This issue definitely has a foun-dation in the community,” said Eduardo Huesca, one of the organiz-ers of the vigil. “Increasingly, a lot of students have worked as volunteers, translators or have done commun-ity work with migrant farm worker communities in surrounding areas.”

28 students attended the on-campus vigil, where candles were distributed among the attendees and lit in honour of the workers. A moment of silence was held. After-ward the four speakers addressed the importance of holding the vigil.

Recognizing the accident and others like it is crucial in bringing awareness to the hardships felt by migrant workers.

“Death will only continue to hap-pen until we help migrant workers,”

Scientifically Inclined: Sharkskin still outperforming your swimsuitScientists disprove claims that Olympians’ swimsuits reduce drag in a shark-like fashion

Arielle duhAime-ross

A lot of fanfare was made at the Bei-jing Olympics back in 2008, when Micheal Phelps swam his way into the record books by winning eight gold medals for the United States. The swimsuit company Speedo was especially vocal about the part they had played in his victories. They were responsible for Phelp’s

“state-of-the-art” swimsuit which, they claimed, mimicked the drag-reducing roughness of sharkskin, thus giving him a competitive edge. However, Speedo might not be able to make such claims any-more. A new study published in the Journal of Experimental Biology demonstrates that the performance enhancing abilities of these swim-suits are nowhere near comparable to that of shark skin.

Dr. Johannes Oeffner and Dr. George V. Lauder from Harvard Uni-versity used a flapping foil robotic device to determine the self-pro-pelled swimming speed (SPS) of real

shark skin from two shark species, a silicone riblet material mimick-ing shark denticles, and the Speedo

“shark skin-like” swimsuit fabric named Speedo® Fastkin FSII. They also used sanded down sharkskin, devoid of denticles, the tooth-like scales found in the skin’s surface, to serve as the control treatment.

First, the researchers used an environmental scanning electron microscope to take high-resolution images of the materials. The pictures revealed that the “sharkskin-like” Speedo material followed the usual template for swimsuit fabric, with parallel seams going along it, albe-it with slightly more pronounced seams.

They then filmed high-speed video sequences to analyze the materials’ performance in water and to observe how particles of water flowed around the materi-als’ surfaces. They also recorded the swimming behavior of a one and half-year-old spiny dogfish (Squa-lus acanthias).

The researchers found that despite claims to the contrary, the Speedo swimsuit fabric did not increase the swimming speed of the robot. The sharkskin, on the other hand, in-creased its swimming speed by 12.3

per cent, and the silicone improved its swimming speed by 7.2 per cent.

Lauder is quick to point out that these results do not necessarily indi-cate that Speedo has been scamming its wearers. He believes that they do increase swimming performance, but not for the reasons we think.

“Swimmers who wear these suits are squeezed into them ex-tremely tightly, so that they are very streamlined,” said Lauder.

“They’re so tight that this could ac-tually change your circulation, and increase the venous return to the body, and they are tailored to make it easier to maintain proper posture even when tired.”

Previous studies had looked at sharkskin performance on a rigid model but not on a flexible one, missing the importance of skin deformation in drag reduc-tion. In those cases, the denticles were thought to slow down sharks. When the researchers in this study used a flexible robot and compared sharkskin to sanded down shark skin, they found that the denticle-free skin was considerably slower. The scientists concluded that shark denticles not only reduce drag, but also increase thrust, a completely novel idea.

Biomimicry, a design philoso-phy that attempts to apply nature’s principles to everyday products, is an incredibly exciting field that has brought us many interesting and innovative ideas, like mimicking wing scales in butterflies in order to scatter light. A problem does arise, however, when companies

use biomimetics to justify charg-ing enormous amounts of money for products that don’t perform the way they should, a practice to which Mother Nature would undoubted-ly object.

Arielle blogs about science at www.salamanderhours.com

CourteSy

A vigil was held on Feb. 13 at the cannon and downtown Guelph to mourn the loss of the Peruvian migrant workers who died in a vehicle accident in Hampstead, oN.

MArIANNe PoINtNer

newS 167.6 ◆ februAry 16th – 22nd, 2012 5

The Loft celebrated the first anniversary of Dub Fire Fridays with a set from Drop the Lime DJ Luca Venezia.

Jo Boucher

Dropping bass and stereotypesDub Fire Fridays celebrates one-year anniversary with performance from Drop the Lime

Tom Beedham

Dubstep. It started in London in the late ’90s, and since the late 2000s its tentacles have been invading North America’s club scene one bass drop at a time. While the genre has penetrated the mainstream, and recent years have seen club venues across the continent dedicating their spaces to weekly dubstep nights, music listeners across genres have been heard reserving a certain disdain for the category, and artists cre-ating work in the electronic house music scene have been especially critical of the genre’s popularity.

One of the central complaints reserved for the genre is that the music artists identifying with the category whip up is so homoge-neous, which is probably why the people behind The Loft’s Dub Fire Fridays had Drop the Lime DJ Luca Venezia perform at the club series’ one-year anniversary

on Feb. 10.While so many of the dub-

step deejays occupying tables at nightclubs will typically sample electronic tracks that are either atmospheric or already heavy and rife with opportunities for drops, making exceptions also for popu-lar songs from other genres, Drop the Lime has shed some of those stereotypes.

After serving up a dubstep mix of Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “Ni--as in Paris” at The Loft on Feb. 10

– a nice segue between a set by Dub Fire Fridays’ resident DJ Kage and his own – Venezia gripped a vin-tage microphone and addressed the crowd.

“The first dance music was rock and roll,” said Venezia. Finding

inspiration in genres like doo-wop and rockabilly, sampling hits from rock music’s emergence is more typical of his performances.

The night saw Venezia reaching back to source material mainly from the 1950s and ’60s. ’50s tracks like Chuck Berry’s “John-ny B. Goode,” Jerry Lee Lewis’s

“Great Balls of Fire,” and Elvis Pre-sley’s “Jailhouse Rock,” as well as ’60s tracks like The Surfaris’s

“Wipeout,” The Trashmen’s “Sur-fin’ Bird,” and The Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back” were all sampled throughout the set. Venezia even dabbled in some soul when he dug as far back as Etta James’s 1941 hit

“At Last” before returning control to Kage.

All things considered, Venezia’s set at The Loft was like a breath of fresh air for the dubstep commu-nity, the electronic dance music community, and the music listen-ing community at large. And with Venezia at the head of dance label Trouble & Bass, perhaps his vision for electronic dance music and dubstep itself will manifest itself with an expedient creep into clubs around the world. Here’s hoping.

excavating indie-rockDigging through technical difficulties for Dinosaur Bones at eBar

Tom Beedham

Having spent over four years treating listeners to their blend of indie stoner rock and stripped down pop, Dinosaur Bones have established themselves as some-what of a household name in Canada’s indie-pop scene. Hav-ing shared stages with the likes of Sloan, Plants and Animals, Arkells, and Said the Whale, they’ve spent most of their time as a band play-ing tracks solely from their debut studio album, My Divider.

Armed with some new mate-rial, the band recently embarked on a winter tour that brought it to eBar on Feb. 9. However, fans that managed to catch the group per-form on the ninth will only have a rough idea of what their new songs sound like, as much of their set at the Guelph bar was next to buried by technical difficulties.

The band was only partway through opening song “Highwire Act” when a crackling noise inter-rupted its performance. Enough of a distraction to make any band stop in its tracks, Dinosaur Bones continued through the remain-der of the track while the issue

worsened. At the end of the song, bassist Branko Scekic consulted a stack of amps.

Soon, John Smith (bassist for opening band Young Rival) – joined him at the back of the stage to help with the task. Having recognized an issue with Scekic’s bass head, Smith offered up his own for the remainder of Dinosaur Bones’ set.

It wasn’t enough to end the technical difficulties, though. As the group launched into “Point of Pride,” the crackling returned and grew worse than it had been with Scekic’s own equipment. Still trudging on, after rough sounding performances of “Sharks in the Sand” and “Making Light,” singer and lead guitarist Ben Fox even an-nounced that Smith’s equipment was “dead.”

The set was turning out to be something any performer would consider to be a nightmare, but where many would have given up, Dinosaur Bones continued.

Switching back to Scekic’s bass head, the boys delivered some equally affected versions of new tracks “Capo 7” and “Career Crime,” and then returned to ma-terial from its debut.

Conditions only got worse when Fox broke a string during “Ice Ho-tels,” the strum-heavy single that many of the band’s fans recognize them for.

Ever the optimist, Fox just smiled and joked with the band over the mic after grabbing an-other guitar.

“Hey Josh (Byrne, Dinosaur Bones guitarist), do you have anything you wanna break?” he quipped.

Had the group lacked the ex-perience it has had performing in front of large festival crowds, it is possible their patience could have snapped long before Fox’s string, but they opted to stick out the circumstances for the rest of the show, thanking and apologizing to the audience multiple times. It was a good decision, too. As their set approached a close, the bass head seemed to crepitate signifi-cantly less, allowing fans to hear a radically more listenable perfor-mance with “N.Y.E.”

Mentioning at the end of the track that usually, they would leave the stage at that point to break before an encore, Dinosaur Bones remained on stage and gave fans one last song. After enlist-ing a member of the audience to play a spare tambourine, the group churned out “My Divider” and it seemed as if some divine powers must have intended for the best to come last as the group’s stu-dio album title track suffered least from the shoddy equipment. Dinosaur Bones stuck it through a set wrought with technical

difficulties at the eBar on Feb. 9.

Marianne Pointner

“The first dance music

was rock and roll”

– Luca Venezia

www.TheonTarion.com arts & cuLture6

Zavitz Hall hosts Happenstanceby Karim boucher

On Feb. 9, Zavitz Hall was host to Happenstance, an abstract art exhibit put on by U of G fine arts students Kimberley Vanderwey-den and Nadine Maher.

For Kimberley and Nadine, who had never staged an art exhibit until Happenstance, this was a welcomed opportunity to show-case some of their more notable pieces. The Ontarion was granted the opportunity to attend Vamder-weyden and Maher’s show and sit down with them to discuss what in particular led them to put it on.

Karim Boucher: How did you come up with the name Happenstance?

Kim Vanderweyden: We were brainstorming, bouncing names off each other, but Nadine came up with it after a lot of crossing out names. We knew the works that we wanted to include, and we wanted to see the theme across all of them… [‘Happenstance’] was catchy and it was simple – it was easy to remember and it was different.

KB: Do you feel art is important?KV: I feel it is very important

to me. I feel like it’s around you at all times. For me, art is impor-tant to build. I like building stuff, so sculptures are one of my fa-vourites. Painting is kind of my secondary, so I feel that they are very important.

KB: What is the significance of this exhibit for you?

KV: This is my first gallery show, so this is very exciting for me… It’s nice to have my first show in my fourth year to see what over the years I’ve accomplished.

KB: Does your art follow a particular trend?

KV: Modularity is something that I continue through… there’s multiples of everything. I guess you could say that’s a recurring theme.

KB: Is there anything you would like to prime your audience with to help them understand the essence of what you’re trying to convey?

KV: “With my “POTSCULP-TURE” I’m trying to involve the viewer in the work. I think that’s a very important aspect of sculp-ture – getting the viewer engaged. That is something that I’m trying to do with the paintings as well, using these common themes – the cube, the colour, the net, the for-mation – relate that to the viewer and try to, with those paintings, create memories.”

KB: How would you describe your art?

KV: Installation art maybe? It’s very much visual art as well as in-teractive art

The show ran from Feb. 6-10 and included a stunning range of art pieces. For those who weren’t able to attend, Zavitz Hall hosts a different art show every week, so keep an eye out for postings around campus.

Happenstance featured work by Kimberley Vanderweydon and Nadine Maher in Zavitz Hall from Feb. 6-10.

MarIaNNe PoINtNer

Cabaret boosts Curtain Call’s Rent coffer michael bohdanowicz

On Feb. 10 the Brass Taps sport-ed tropical décor in celebration of ‘beach week’ on campus. The background of the pub’s stage was comprised of a landscape painting of an ocean, an inter-esting setting for an evening featuring a cabaret event relat-ed to the campus production of Rent, a musical set in the non-tropical locale of New York City.

Cabaret generally refers to live entertainment held in a restau-rant. This particular cabaret contained entertainment in mu-sical form, featuring various cast members signing songs of their choice as well as two songs sung by a choir including most of the cast.

The associate producer of Cur-tain Call’s Rent, Jaclyn Fauteux, noted that the cabaret is “kind of a nice time to showcase everyone in the cast that maybe isn’t as showcased in the show.”

“And sometimes it’s like a vari-ety thing too because with Rent it’s very rock opera. Some people would rather sing some musical theatre songs too. So it’s a chance to showcase different abilities and their…” Fauteux paused be-fore director Erika Thompson and production manager Kera John-son completed the sentence along with her by saying “vocal range and style.”

All three executive members stated in unison that in regards

to cast members and the caba-ret “all of it’s their choice” when it comes to what songs are per-formed at the cabaret.

Preparations for the cabaret involved cast members attend-ing auditions in which they presented their planned songs. Afterwards, modifications were made to the presentations of the songs by executive producer Kyra Kaplan.

Thompson pointed out that someone attending the cabaret could be impressed by a perform-er and then “find out that they’re in on the ensemble – they’re not even one of the leads. Just imagine how powerful the show’s going to be.”

“We have a super-talented cast. Every single person is important in the show. This is a nice way to show that – which isn’t always the case with all productions,” said Thompson.

“Seasons of Love,” arguably the most memorable song from Rent, was one of the two group numbers performed, with a second song from American Idiot: The Musical.

“We kind of say ‘oh we think this number from the show would be a good group number.’ But aside from that they choose the num-bers they’re performing and the additional group number as well,” said Fauteux. Instruments ac-companying the performances, especially the piano, played to complement the singing.

“The people that are playing

with them are members that will be part of our act coming up in the show which is kind of cool too,” Thompson said. “They get to play with the cast members before the actual show which is neat.”

The executive members deco-rated the bar with posters which directly advertised Rent. Posters of the more viral variety included one advertising the Cat Scratch Club, a fictional business in New York featured in Rent, and another inviting people to protest against the removal of homes, a signifi-cant part of the plot in Rent. These posters helped provide a balance to beach-related decorations such as faux straw roofs placed around the restaurant.

The performers themselves presented themed décor in the grunge-themed clothing that most of them wore. Regard-less of the location, the cabaret provided a stellar evening of en-tertainment. As Fauteux hinted, the cabaret provided a mix of what could be considered rock opera songs such as Aerosmith’s

“Living on a Prayer” and musical theatre songs such as Dean Fried-man’s “The Deli Song.”

This cabaret was the third held by Curtain Call Productions, who raised funds for the student club’s production of Rent that will take place from Mar. 7-10, with tickets going on sale later in February. A second fundraiser will be held on Feb. 29 where the movie Rent will be shown.

167.6 ◆ february 16th – 22nd, 2012 7arts & Culture

List Service: five modern hijackings of historical figuresTom Beedham

Midnight in ParisIn Woody Allen’s 2011 pro-

duction, successful screenwriter Gil Pender visits Paris with his wife. While walking the streets at midnight, Pender (who is in the process of writing his first novel and is fascinated by the 1920s) travels through time to the Roaring ‘20s and meets Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, and more. It is suggested that Pender’s encounters eventually influence the lives and works of the famous figures he meets.

Forrest GumpSee Forrest run. See Forrest

meet John F. Kennedy because of it. See Forrest teach Elvis how to move his hips. See Forrest inspire John Lennon to write “Imagine.” See Forrest unwittingly expose the Watergate Scandal.

Almost FamousOn his first assignment, as-

piring journalist William Miller meets fictional rock group Stillwater before they play the opening slot at a Black Sab-bath concert in 1973. (SPOILER ALERT:) Eventually, Miller pitch-es a story about Stillwater to then editor of Rolling Stone magazine, Ben Fong-Torres, and eventually it lands the group on the cover of the magazine.

Back to the Future In a memorable but necessarily

paradoxical scene, time traveler Marty McFly performs “Johnny B. Goode” with the Starlighters

while filling in for an injured Marvin Berry. Backstage, Marvin calls cousin Chuck Berry, saying,

“Chuck. Chuck. It’s Marvin - your cousin, Marvin Berry. You know that new sound you’re looking for? Well, listen to this,” and then holds the receiver out, enacting a very confusing “but if Berry learned it from McFly then who did McFly learn it from?” thought spiral.

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter

Originally a novel written by Seth Grahame-Smith, a film adaptation of Vampire Hunter is currently set to march onto screens in June. In the novel, an eleven-year-old Honest Abe’s father tells him vampires were responsible for the deaths of both his grandfather and mother. Lin-coln vows to become a vampire hunter, and when he learns that the humanoid parasites are be-hind slavery, abolitionism takes up a garlic clove and a wooden stake.

Theatre Review: Picasso at the Lapin Agile ★★★★☆NaTasha Visosky

It is the year 1904. Computers and cell phones don’t exist, so artists, intellectuals and eccen-trics gather in cafes and bars to share ideas. Au Lapin Agile is a real place in Paris and Picasso re-ally did paint it in 1905. Albert Einstein, with whom Pablo dis-cusses art and beauty at Au Lapin Agile, probably never visited it, but this is an absurdist comedy from the mind of Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin), so any-thing goes.

It has a satisfying balance of ridiculousness and thought prov-ocation. The colourful array of characters coming and going dis-cuss science, art, and sex. They

tell jokes, they ponder life, and they argue. We meet an eccentric art collector, a wannabe genius, an admirer, a lover, a muse, a drunk…Elvis, and they all inter-act hilariously together as well as with the bartenders, Einstein, and Picasso.

We learn to see science as ele-gant through Einstein’s eyes and art as important and thoughtful through Picasso’s as they each try to convince each other of the significance and beauty in each medium of exploration. Eventu-ally they see eye to eye and we realize that art and science really aren’t that different. The two are united as the characters share a hug and recognize the value of the other.

At some points the play does tend to lag, but this is usually

remedied with the entrance of a new character, always excit-ing and unexpected. Right up

‘til the end where the lights go down, the set opens up and we see stars. A toast is proposed to the 20th century, where art and science shine brighter than the politicians.

Overall a very good play. The sets and costumes were excellent. The acting (with the exception of one or two forgettable but not awful characters) was great. You will laugh, you will think, and – let’s be honest – you want to see a play written by Steve Martin.

Dancers of David Earle’s Dance Theatre charmed attendants of the TEDx Conference post reception in the Science Atrium this past Sunday with a riveting performance custom choreographed to the conference’s annual theme, Perceiving Past the Paradigm.

MARiAnnE PoinTnER

List

Service

www.TheoNTarioN.com8 arts & Culture

The Pop Machine: faces we shouldn’t be seeing at the GrammysTom Beedham

A day before 2009’s Grammy Awards ceremony Chris Brown and then singer/girlfriend Rihanna attended president of Co-lumbia Records Clive Davis’s annual pre-Grammy bash. Both Brown and Rihanna were set to perform during the award ceremony the next day, but after the pre-party, they got in an argument that left Rihanna bruised and broken. Following the altercation, Rihanna went to a hos-pital and then reported the assault to the Los Angeles Police Depart-ment. The next day, Chris Brown turned himself in, but was released on a $50,000 bail. Neither he nor Rihanna performed that year.

This year, the music industry invited Brown back to the Gram-mys, not just as a nominee that won an award in a category, but also allowing him to appear in two performances throughout the night.

Of course, the invitation and the subsequent performances and acceptance speech have been met with ample response from peo-ple working in the media as well as performers.

While some arguing against Brown’s presence at the award cer-emony have claimed that he should never be forgiven for his actions, others arguing on Brown’s behalf have pointed to the fact that he plead guilty to the assault charges

as something that deserves him some forgiveness.

While you could argue for days about one’s ability to ultimately forgive an oppressor, it seems un-likely that we can forgive Brown at this juncture. In Mar. 2011, Brown appeared on Good Morning Amer-ica, and when asked about the incident with Rihanna he was apol-ogetic but also dismissive about the entire event. He even claimed that the assault wasn’t really “a big deal” to him anymore.

That said, forgiveness for Brown’s actions is nothing close to what the Grammys offered the performer. In inviting Brown to perform not once, but twice on the televised portion of the award ceremony, they approved of an entire system that legitimizes oppressive bodies as vehicles for achieving commer-cial success. The Grammys aligned themselves with oppression dou-bly by allowing Brown to perform on their program and using his performance for their own com-mercial gain.

What the people behind the Grammys have is an obligation to acknowledge achievements in musical endeavours and a duty to honour the votes of their 12,000 voting members.

With a case like Chris Brown’s,

such responsibility is honoured simply by acknowledging his nomination and announcing it to the public. His invitation to the ceremony was icing on the cake (and let’s face it, cake is already pretty good).

At the end of the day, the Gram-mys and other award shows need to be recognized as programming situations that necessarily entail the glamourization of their at-tendees. When those attendees

are given extended screen time, they are also necessarily placed above other nominees in their categories. The faces occupying such screen time should not be those of oppressors. At least until Chris Brown grows up and ac-tually seems to learn something from his actions three years ago, I won’t be ready to watch him per-form or give an acceptance speech on any award show (or forgive him, for that matter).

Courtesy Album reviewTouché Amoré – Parting the Sea Between Brightness and Me

3.8/5

Nick mcFarlaNd

Clocking in at just over 20 min-utes, Touché Amoré expends only 13 seconds of quietly strummed notes before diving headfirst into the deep end with Parting the Sea Between Brightness and Me’s opener, “~.” The LA band exploded onto the hardcore scene in 2009 with their chaotic debut ...To the Beat of a Dead Horse and a heavy DIY work ethic, rising to be one of today’s most promising bands. Their second album holds the same intensity and punk stature that made their debut so critically ap-praised, while exploring a more cohesive sound and taking on an altered subject matter.

Led by the raspy yell of vocal-ist Jeremy Bolm, the band tears through 13 songs with ferocious energy, rising and falling in unison, with almost seamless transitions between songs and a melodic flow throughout. As songs like “Crutch” come to an end and it seems like the relentless drive is letting up, the world suddenly crashes down around you as “Method Act” kicks in with Bolm screaming “don’t ask

me why!” over the roar. There is one moment of calm in “Condo-lences,” a piano/vocal interlude that only adds to the desolate at-mosphere in which it’s placed, before the last two songs explode from it to close out the album.

A bleak landscape is displayed throughout each song as Bolm tears out his soul for all to see amid lyrics of self-alienation and introspective torment. While its predecessor was laden with anger and ridicule, Parting the Sea Be-tween Brightness and Me is the giving up of hope and the subse-quent retreat inside. “Alone I’ll stand on this stage, no one to care, myself to blame,” cries Bolm on

“The Great Repetition.” Though there is only one song

that reaches beyond the two min-ute mark, Touché Amoré deliver an emotionally draining presentation of ruthless self-analysis and explo-sive hardcore without feeling like anything is left out. Their brevity is hardly a downside as they de-liver yet another classic for their catalogue that holds no comfort in the world. As the album closes with “Amends,” one last call of

“for what it’s worth, I’m sorry, and at the end I swear I’m trying,” is uttered amid the delicate plucking of guitars before one last assault from the rest of the band and a fade into silence.

Courtesy

spank performed at Van Gogh's ear on Feb. 14 as part of a disco-themed Valentine's Day dance party.etye sArner

167.6 ◆ FeBruary 16Th – 22Nd, 2012 9ArTs & CulTure

Swimmers have bigger carrots to think aboutGryphon swimmers are working harder than ever to qualify for the Olympic Trials

SaSha OdeSSe

It was a weekend of humble suc-cess for the Gryphon varsity swim team who returned from OUAs in Sudbury with a total of 14 medals, and many of the team’s athletes having qualified for CIS.

Though not perfect for the Gry-phon team, the weekend was a huge success for one athlete in particular. Second year swim-mer, Alisha Harricharan showed her depth of talent at the meet, scooping up three individual golds and breaking two OUA records in the process. On top of this, Har-richaran can perhaps be said to epitomize Gryphon modesty.

“If you talked to her you wouldn’t even know that she swam or that she broke two re-cords and won three gold [medals] over the weekend,” said swim-ming head coach, Don Burton.

“She’s a great team person and she puts a lot of pressure on her-self to make sure that the team does well.”

The men’s team however, suf-fered a stroke of bad luck, with Benjamin Roberts coming down with the flu just one day into the meet.

“It’s only a three day meet so [Roberts] was out of commission for two of them. He just had to tough it out and see what he could do,” said Burton. “Literally, he was behind the blocks, throw-ing his guts out and then he had to get into the race. That hurt us big time because on day two he couldn’t do any of his races.”

The flu also incapacitated the men’s relay team which had to adapt to a substitution for Roberts.

“Although we still medaled and got third, we should have won the event,” said Burton, commenting on the team’s first place finish in the event at last year’s OUAs. “But those things happen.”

For the swimmers, and for Burton as well, there is a fine bal-ancing point between preparing and resting up for big meets such as OUAs, especially with the Ca-nadian National Championships and the Olympic Trials just around the corner.

“It’s a fine balancing point. You can’t be 100 per cent ready for every single one of those meets

because at one point you’re going to run out of steam,” said Burton.

In order for swimmers to go the Olympic Trials, they must first qualify to attend based on their race times. From there, the times are ranked against other athletes in the country.

“Although these are university swimmers and they want to do as well as they can at the Ontario

and National championships for their team and their school, every four years there’s this really neat anomaly called the Olympics,” continued Burton. “For most of the athletes that’s always at the back of their brain. I would say that swimmers across the coun-try have worked harder this year than they have in other years be-cause they want to perform better

at the Olympic Trials. It’s a bigger carrot if you will.”

In the meantime, the team is preparing for CIS in Montreal on Feb. 23-25. Harricharan, Rob-erts and Wil Wright are expected to place at the meet, with the men’s medley relay on the hunt for a medal as well.

The Gryphons men’s swimming team secured nine medals at OUAs while the women’s team finished with five.

JOhn SAbOUrin

www.theOntariOn.cOm SpOrtS & heAlth10

Gryphons golf team en route to beautiful British Columbia The Gryphons varsity golf team begins fundraising for CIS out west

SaSha OdeSSe

The University of Guelph varsity golf team had a highly successful season this year with five men and four women (yet to be announced) heading to the Canadian National Championships in Victoria, B.C

The team, which recently an-nounced Dr. Bob Wanzel as their new head coach of the Gryphon program, has been undergoing some important transformations moving forward.

Thanks the Cutten Club, the team has been able to train year-round, even during the dreary winter months in preparation for CIS.

“We are striving for a very successful 2012 national champi-onship tournament,” said Wanzel in an interview with Gryphons.ca.

Also implanted is a program that will give each golfer one-on-one training to help them improve their skills and techniques.

With the season now over, the team must prepare for the pres-tigious Canadian University

Championships taking place from May 28 to June 1. On top of a tight training schedule, the team is also fundraising to help alleviate costs of the trip out west.

Stephen Wright, a fourth year Gryphon golf athlete stopped by The Ontarion to talk a bit about how Gryphon fans can support the team.

Wright provided the link to a Facebook fan page created by the team for the team, which will keep fans updated on the team’s accom-plishments and the fundraising

events they will be hosting. In particular, two separate pub

nights will be put on in collabora-tion with the Brass Taps not only to raise money for the team, but also to raise awareness about the team.

“Not a lot of people on campus know that [Guelph] has a varsity golf team” said Wright, a senti-ment echoed by Vanessa Dupuis of the golf team, who was in-terviewed last semester by The Ontarion.

The date of these events, along with others, will be posted on the Facebook page, as well as a Twit-ter page which is currently in the works.

The team is asking friends, and fellow Gyrphons to come out and support the team by attending the pub nights and also by following them on their social media pages.

For graduating athletes such as Wright, medaling at CIS is an im-portant goal, and in the case of the Gryphon golf team, a very prob-able possibility.

With talent such as that on the Gryphon golf team, they are certainly deserving of some recognition.

To support the team check out The University of Guelph Men’s and Women’s Varsity Golf page on face-book for all fundraising event dates.

(or any other game) on a Satur-day afternoon becomes a great way to experience a united Guelph community.

Lang also addressed the poten-tial divide between athletes and student-athletes, citing the 21-plus hours a week players spend practicing, weight-training, and preparing as a major factor.

“However, we’re trying to break down that divide – these are the people that support us, and we want to connect with them,” said Lang.

The Gryphon athletics depart-ment also recognizes this divide. Evidence of this may be found in the popular “60 Seconds with a Gryphon” video featured on gryphons.ca, where athletes are bombarded with questions about favourite music, movies, and pre-game rituals, to name a few.

Lang employs a method ‘bor-rowed’ from the University of North Carolina where large teams are divided up into smaller teams of less than a dozen people and then compete at various events throughout the year. Lang mixes defensive players with offensive players, lineman with receivers, and the occasional kicker to create teams that are composed of play-ers of many different positions that would not normally practice to-gether. Throughout the year, these

teams compete in a touch-foot-ball league and are even evaluated on their educational progress as a small group.

This is all done in the belief that small groups can facilitate the de-velopment of a larger one.

Evidence of this theory is found in the Intramural program here at the university.

“The shift we’re making, es-pecially in terms of first-year students, is trying to come up with ways of getting them involved and opening the doors to what we do,” said Dave Trudelle, intramural and camps supervisor.

The intramural program, which facilitates the recreation of ap-proximately 5500 students, places a firm belief in the role sports can play in the development of an in-clusive, accessible community.

“I think [intramurals] play a big role. I know, for myself, when I was a University of Guelph stu-dent … it was a great opportunity to meet people and a great stress-relief,” said Trudelle. “I’m still good friends with some of the peo-ple I met on that first-year free agent team.”

The “free agent” Trudelle refers to, is a player that does not sign up as a member of a team but as an individual, and is then placed on a team that needs a player. The Intramural Advisory Committee, which is made up of intramural participants, is looking to improve

upon “free agent” involvement – particularly when those indi-viduals are in their first year of university.

The intramurals department has experienced the difficulty of facili-tating ever-increasing numbers of students with the same number of facilities. Fortunately, the in-troduction of new facilities, and renovations of older ones will allow for a more flexible and ac-cessible intramurals program.

“We want to make it accessi-ble,” said Trudelle. Efforts such as the ‘Learn-to-Play’ program, in its first year of existence, found a good deal of success in introduc-ing students to a variety of games. The program teaches a new game every week to teams that are large-ly comprised of free agents, many of whom have never met prior to their first week.

If the examples of the football team and the intramural program are any indication, it appears that sports, at both the varsity and recreational levels, are succeed-ing in creating and maintaining the shared experience of Gry-phon pride. Be it as a spectator or a competitor, the opportunity to contribute to this shared univer-sity experience through sport will continue to keep Guelph the in-clusive, accessible community it aims to be.

Gryphons varsity golf warms up for CIS in Victoria

ontarIon arChIVeS

MarIanne PoIntner

With the season now over, the

team must prepare for

the prestigious Canadian

University Championships

taking place from May 28

to June 1.

RecRuiting CONTINUED

167.6 ◆ february 16th – 22nd, 2012 11SportS & HealtH

Lack of motivation costs Gryphons gameThough the Gryphons women’s hockey team lost to both Laurier and Waterloo this weekend, the team has secured their position in the playoffs set to begin on Feb. 16

SaSha OdeSSe

“Record wise, it was a rough go. We lost to Laurier by a substantial amount,” said Gryphons hockey captain Tamara Bell.

The team fell hard to the Gold-enhawks on Feb. 11, the third time the teams have come up against one another in regulation games, and the second time the Gryphons have lost to the feisty hawks.

“It was just kind of hard for us be-cause we knew we had clinched second [in the OUA west division] and so we didn’t have a motiva-tion to win or lose in this final weekend,” said Bell. “A lot of us have already looked forward to playoffs and are already planning for that, so it was hard to get into the game.”

The lack of motivation also cost the team a tough loss in overtime to the Waterloo Warriors, who were desperate for a win.

“A lot of teams really stepped up in this last stretch because the bottom five teams were so close

to making playoffs and started winning big games,” said Bell.

“Western this past weekend beat out two top three and four teams just to secure their spot, and by big wins too. Some of the top teams have been in the slumps, so I think it’s up for anyone re-ally. “

Although the Gryphons likely won’t see the Goldenhawks again until the finals, Bell feels that the next time they meet the outcome will be different.

Between now and then the Gryphons will look to improve the mental part of their game.

“It’s definitely a huge part and that’s the aspect that we need to get stronger at. When we come into the Laurier game a lot of the girls are intimidated just because it is Laurier and we have such a rivaled past with them, but we just have to come in and focus on our own game,” continued Bell.

“This year we’ve struggled against some of the weaker teams so I think our team is more focused on the quarter final game then we are even against Laurier, because we always put up a good game with the higher ranked teams. It’s with the lower ranked teams

that we sometimes sink down to their level. So hopefully in play-offs we’ll leave that all behind and play our own game.”

In the three years that Bell has been playing for the Gryphons the team has made it to finals and walked away just shorthand-ed, always finishing with silver. This year, Bell thinks the team has what it takes to claim gold.

“We’ve come so close. I think we have a very strong team this year and we’re definitely capable of winning an OUA title,” said Bell.

The Gryphons fell to the Laurier Goldenhawks 0-5 over the weekend, but remain in contestation for OUA gold.

ThOmAs KOLOdziej

Fan of the GameSaSha OdeSSe

Finally some pots and pans! The Gryphons men’s and wom-

en’s basketball team were treated to some good old pot-banging at their game against McMaster on Feb. 11. Hannah Smith, a second year history major and a German minor, said that a pot and wood-en spoon were the obvious choice for the game.

“It’s a classic,” said Smith. “I bring [my pot and pan] to all the games to show my support.”

Smith, also a Gryphon athlete, was impressed by the turnout at the game.

“There’s actually more fans here than I thought there would be,” said Smith, also commenting on the lack of fan support at varsi-ty events. “[Attendance at games is low], especially for the men’s hockey games– there’s never any-one out there.”

Despite the lack of support, Smith and other lacrosse athletes spoke highly of fellow Gryphon teams. They also spoke and humor-ously of one York hockey athlete who had provided entertainment at a past men’s hockey game.

“There was a guy on the York team named Clancy, and we liter-ally watched him cut all his nails. We called him Fancy Clancy.”

With spoon on pot, Smith’s cheering continued well into the men’s game.

Stand up, stand out and cheer for the Guelph Gryphons and you could be Fan of the Game. Winner receives two free tick-ets to a Gryphons varsity home game.

Follow @TheOntarion on Twitter to find out when we’re looking for the next Fan of the Game.

sAshA Odesse

Vol leybal l (m)

LAsT GAme ResULTs: FeB 4Guelph Vs. York 2 – 3

GRYPhON seAsON sTANdiNGs:

W L T9 9

NeXT GAme: FeB 18 Vs. QUeeNs@ QUeeNs

Vol leybal l (W)

LAsT GAme ResULTs: FeB 12Guelph Vs. Brock 3 – 0

GRYPhON seAsON sTANdiNGs:

W L T9 9

NeXT GAme: FeB 18 Vs. QUeeNs@ QUeeNs

SCOREBOARD

Basketbal l (m)

LAsT GAme ResULTs: FeB 11Guelph Vs. mcmaster 79 – 87

GRYPhON seAsON sTANdiNGs:

W L T10 16

NeXT GAme: FeB 17 Vs. LAKeheAd@ LAKeheAd

Basketbal l (W)

LAsT GAme ResULTs: FeB 11Guelph Vs. mcmaster 76 – 68

GRYPhON seAsON sTANdiNGs:

W L T11 11

NeXT GAme: FeB 17 Vs. LAKeheAd@ LAKeheAd

ice hockey (m)

LAsT GAme ResULTs: FeB 9Guelph Vs. Windsor 3 – 5

GRYPhON seAsON sTANdiNGs:

W L T9 19

NeXT GAme: FeB 15 Vs. LAKeheAd@ GUeLPh

ice hockey (W)

LAsT GAme ResULTs: FeB 12Guelph Vs. Waterloo 1 – 2 OT

GRYPhON seAsON sTANdiNGs:

W L T18 8

NeXT GAme: FeB 16 Vs. GUeLPh@ GUeLPh

www.theOntariOn.cOm12 sports & HeaLtH

The Vagina Monologues

Beth Purdon-McLeLLan

Guelph students were more than successful “Perceiving Past the Paradigm” with TEDx Guelph U, Feb.12. The theme “Perceiving Past the Paradigm” brought speakers from the university of Guelph and as far away as Washington to share their vision for change and a better future. however, the real success of tedx actually took place behind the scenes.

event planning began in September, and the committee held meetings twice a week to make sure that there were no glitches in this year’s tedx Guelph u.

Lead organizer of tedx Guelph u, Jaclyn Quinn, has been involved with tedx since it was brought to campus two years ago. Initially, tedx Guelph u started as a small event put on by the Psychology Society, where the committee had planned for different speakers to talk about their research. however, once they started planning, the Psych Society real-ized that their event could be something more. They applied to tedx for a license that would allow them to host their event as an official tedx talk.

“Because we are the first Guelph team to put it together, it was pretty easy for us, since there weren’t too many in the area,” said Quinn. “But they separate them as a citywide event, or a regional event, or a school. universities specifically have special licenses for those.”

tedx had certainly been a huge success in Guelph, with enthusiasm from the university as well as the Guelph com-munity. Their biggest problem has been that there are too many people who want to attend the talks. The tedx license allows universities 100 people to see the talks live. This year, ted increased Guelph’s capacity to 150 because of its suc-cess.

“I’m sure you’ve seen ted talks,” said Quinn. “They catch you pretty quickly, and they spread. So entertaining and inter-esting. Simple, yet amazing.”

The demand is one of the reasons that tedx required attendees to fill out an application form, which asked them questions like what the theme meant to them, and what their favourite ted talk was. to make tedx Guelph u more accessible, Quinn hopes to have a bigger presence online. al-though the talks were streamed live, they are not yet part of the tedx site.

“They have to go onto the Youtube channel that ted has,” said Quinn. “Then ted has a selection process based on how many viewers they get, how original the talk is, and then from there they get a certain number online.”

Guelph isn’t new to using the social media for public change. one of the speakers at tedx Guelph u was Gracen Johnson, who was one of the lead organizers for the vote mobs last year. Quinn was inspired by Johnson’s talk, especially since she remembers her own experience with the vote mobs.

“It was great just seeing behind the scenes of everything that happened, because being at Guelph, everyone saw the vote mobs,” said Quinn. “They saw how that catapulted to such great lengths.”

Since ted talks is a non-student group, as well as a non profit organization, it was difficult to secure the funding that makes tedx possible. The university has been a strong sup-porter of tedx talks. It received funding from a variety of campus groups such as the colleges, different student clubs and Student Life. next year, tedx Guelph u hopes to secure funding from one major source, and establish themselves as a student club.

duncan daY-MYron

On Feb. 10 and 11, V-Day Guelph brought Eve Ensler’s 1994 play The Vagina Mono-logues to War Memorial Hall. The production has become an annual tra-dition, and is part of the larger V-day cam-paign, which involves different communities around the world performing ensler’s 1994 work as part of a fundraising campaign for both local and international charities.

The performance is organized as a series of monologues performed by a series of differ-ent women, all related to the topic of vaginas and based off of interviews ensler did with a variety of women. Vaginas are merely a start-ing point, however, and the topics go from orgasms and sexual arousal to tampons, ter-minology, to sexual assault and rape. It juxta-poses comedic monologues with emotionally charged ones and runs the gamut of experi-ences and stories throughout.

although many different groups from many different cultures perform and inter-pret ensler’s work, the productions all follow a similar model.

“We actually don’t have a lot of creative freedom, with good reason I think,” said emily Mcrobert, co-director of the Vagina Monologues with hilda nouri. “We have to apply for the rights every year to the script. essentially it’s not our play. This is eve en-sler’s creation, and we’re taking something that she’s made into this huge global creation and giving our spin on it. But it’s really im-portant to stick to the integrity of the play. You can’t go off script.”

although there may not be a great deal of creative freedom, that doesn’t mean Guelph’s production is the same as all other produc-tions, and the space they use contributes to that.

“Performing it in War Mem is different than the way it gets performed most of the time,” continued Mcrobert. “Which is inti-mately in cafés or in smaller venues. at War Mem you have to treat it more like a theatri-cal production because you can’t recreate that intimate atmosphere.”

“It attracts a bigger crowd if you do it as a theatrical production,” said Keren harvey, the producer. “We’re trying to raise the most amount of money we can for V-day, so I feel like the way we do it is nice.”

Fundraising is an important part of the production, but it isn’t just about the dollar values, but also about how much V-day will be able to affect other people, and how it will be able to contribute to the community.

“We’re about $5000 right now. I’m re-ally happy about that. [at $10 a ticket] that means at least 500 people were there, which means 500 came in and were affected by it. That is so moving,” said harvey, who pointed out that the final amount raised is not yet known.

The money raised will be split between three different organizations, but the majority of it will stay within the Guelph community.

“90 per cent is going be split between Guelph-Wellington Women in crisis and also the Wellness centre,” harvey explained. “I’m really excited about that. This year I met with [Wellness centre manager] Melanie Bowman. I invited her to do two workshops with us and we got to see who would be di-rectly affected by our play.”

The final 10 per cent goes towards a dif-ferent international charity, this year to haitian aid. every year there is a different spotlight charity to receive funding from the V-day campaign, to highlight communities of women internationally who deserve atten-tion and support.

“There are four legal aid clinics and three safe houses in Port-au-Prince that the money goes directly to support,” said Mcrobert on how the money going to haiti will be used. “I think it’s really important to specifically talk about where the money is going because it’s too easy to say ‘oh we’re going to send 10 per cent of the money to the women and girls of haiti’ and then stop the discussion there.”

over the past 18 years that the Vagina Monologues has been performed, it hasn’t remained static, and ensler has contributed new material on an annual basis, which made up the final two performances of the evening.

The final monologue, “over It”, was origi-nally written as a response in the huffington Post, but was so well received it ended up be-ing included in the list of monologues for this year’s production.

In addition to the list of required mono-logues, which can vary from year to year, there are also optional monologues which can be included at the group’s discretion. The optional monologue that was included in Guelph’s performance was titled “They Beat the Girl out of My Boy” and was performed by Shauna Thompson. It is the only mono-logue of the performance to acknowledge is-sues faced by transwomen.

“For us it’s extremely important to include that monologue,” said Mcrobert on its inclu-sion. “It wasn’t even an option in my mind.”

“It’s almost upsetting that it’s an optional monologue,” added harvey. “It needs to be there.”

V-day’s events are not finished for the year, and another of ensler’s plays, a Mem-ory, a Monologue, a rant, a Prayer, will be performed on Mar. 3 and 4 in the Bullring, and they are also involved in creating a zine– titled Saturday night Vol II– of personal sto-ries of sexual violence, or experiences with ha-rassment in the form of written work, images, poetry or any other printed material. They are currently accepting submissions. They’re also beginning the job of working on their execu-tive for next year’s Vagina Monologues.

TEDx Guelph UShifting the Paradigm

Victory, Valentine, Vagina

All photos this pAge by Abid virAni

All photos this pAgeby MAriAnne pointner

Rookie line backer, John Rush

GRyphon Athletics

Rush leads international team vs. UsAFirst year Gryphon football player, John Rush, Captained Team World as they defeated Team USA in the 2012 International Bowl in Austin, Texas.

Chris Muller

The International Bowl is a football game conducted yearly between a team from the United States and a team that is comprised of players from around the world, or sim-ply, Team World. All players in the game are under twenty years old.

However, first-year Gryphon John Rush didn’t know any of this prior to the few short months be-fore the game was played.

“I didn’t even know it existed until I got invited,” said Rush. Honoured by the opportunity to play with and against some of football’s future stars, Rush’s nat-ural leadership skills rose to the top and he served as a captain of Team World.

The unique opportunity allowed for some interesting moments for Rush and his teammates, most

notably the World Team’s victory over Team USA by a score of 35-29.

“The feeling we got from [beating Team USA] was so unexplainable,

it was great,” said Rush. “We got a chance to say, ‘you’re not the best, and other people can play too.’”

The placement of the game in Austin, Texas was another eye-opening experience for Rush. “It was insane,” he said in response

to the football culture of Texas. The stadium they practiced in was twice the size of Guelph’s, and the fan turnout was equally impres-sive – such is the status of football in the lone star state.

Rush relished in his captaincy role, but acknowledged the pecu-liarity of playing with teammates from other countries.

“You meet guys from Austria and Japan, and they’re good at football and fun to hang out with,” said Rush. He also identified some of the strategic difficulties involved in passing information to play-ers that may not have been taught football in English.

“It’s going to be a big year for us, we’re going to show the OUA that we’re here to stay,” said Rush.

Rush will look to employ the leadership skills he honed with the international players in the coming years as Guelph looks to cement itself as one of the OUA elite.

Gryphons in history – Finnish GymnasticsPublished in The Ontarion on Jan. 28, 1959.

“Finnish Troupe enters gym in impressive procession,” reads the photo caption of this image. On Jan. 18, 1959 the new O.A.C

Physical Education building was host to a “successful sport spectacle”–Finland’s National Gymnastic Team. Since the 30s Finland has become a sort of gymnastics super power, the display of athleticism something

close to sublime. Following the event, a reception was held for the Finnish athletes who com-mented on the warm atmosphere of the Guelph colleges.

ontARion ARchives

“The feeling we got from

[beating Team USA] was so

unexplainable, it was great. We got a chance to say, ‘you’re not

the best, and other people can

play too.”

John Rush

www.theontarion.CoM16 SpoRTS & HeAlTH

THIS SEMESTER, THE ONTARION IS HOSTING A PHOTO CONTEST! THE THEME IS PORTRAITURE

AND WE ARE NOW ACCEPTING SUBMISSIONS, SO SEND IN YO U R M O S T C R E AT I V E PORTRAIT SHOTS. PRIZES WILL BE ANNOUNCED!WILL BE ANNOUNCED!

S U B M I T W O R K T O

O N P H O T O @UOGUELPH

.CA

Gryphons gather around head coach Tom

O’Brien at a timeout during their game against

McMaster on Feb. 11. The game was largely

back-and-forth until Gryphon defensive

pressure forced McMaster into a scoring deficit

and giving the home team, to the delight of

supportive fans, a 76-68 win. The Gryphons

were led Ali Dzikowski and Marlee Freeman

whose increasingly consistent shooting

ultimately allowed the Gryphons to put away

the game.

SAShA ODeSSe

Nordic ski team overcomes poor conditionsSuSannah Ripley

A subpar winter is no obstacle to the Gryphons Nordic ski team. The skiers have overcome warm weather and bare trails to hold their own against some of the best teams in the province.

Several races have been can-celled due to the lack of snow. Still, the Gryphons have competed in a few races. Red and gold were well represented on the podium, with a re-spectable number of first-place finishes. In Midland, where the conditions were described as “terrible at best” on the Gryphons website, Erin Purdon and Matti Little came first and second in the open men’s category. Robyn Klink-man, Aryn Clark and Claire Menendez matched the feat by capturing first, sec-ond and third in the junior women’s category. Laura Hewitt placed second in the open women’s category. The Gryphons also dominated the field at a North Bay invitational.

“We’re doing pretty well with the conditions that we have,” said coach John Ahoka. “Overall

we’re pretty equal to most On-tario schools in terms of snow. We’ve had two big races and we did very well in comparison with other schools.”

Although skiing outside has been impossible for much of the season so far, the team has stayed fit with dry land training such as running and strength exercises. The team also uses rollerskis to practice ski techniques when the trails are impassible.

“We prefer to ski outside,” said Ahoka,.“But a lot of the training occurs when there is no snow. Our athletes train on their own dur-ing the summer, starting as early as May.”

The disappointing weather can be frustrating for the skiiers. The Nordic racing season is already short since the Guelph team com-petes only from early December to late February. This year’s warm trend has further limited the Gry-phons’ opportunities to ski and race.

“It can be challenging, keeping

them motivated when there’s no snow on the ground,” said Ahoka.

“But it probably helps that teams at

other universities are in the same situation. In southern Ontario winter can be very fickle. I think

any university, any club in south-ern Ontario has the same issues.”

No snow, doesn’t translate to “no-go” for Gryphons Nordic ski team.

ROByN KliNKMAN

167.6 ◆ febRuaRy 16th – 22nd, 2012 17sports & HealtH

The war on soda pop: Diet vs. regular?Jessica avolio

Introduction:The belief that soda-pop isn’t

good for us is a largely unanimous opinion, yet many of us may not have researched why. Maybe you avoid it all together. Maybe you only drink diet pop in an attempt to cut sugar intake or cut calories. Maybe you avoid diet soda be-cause you are unsure of the possible side-effects of artificial sweeten-ers. Which, if either, are better for your health in the long run? The following article will discuss the potential downsides of soda, both regular and diet, with some points that may surprise you.

Downfalls of soda:Though there are many differ-

ences between regular and diet soda, they do share some simi-lar negative health impacts. Both are very acidic, with an acidity on par with table vinegar, though it is largely masked by the sugary taste. The phosphoric acid in these soft drinks is said to leach calcium from your bones while reducing bone mineral density. Epidemio-logical studies have connected the phosphoric acid in many of these drinks to osteoporosis. Caffeinat-ed colas were associated with loss of bone mineral density as a result

of increased calcium excretion. Your body must buffer the acidity of these soft drinks with calcium from your bones.

A study of 465 people with chronic kidney disease and 467 healthy people found that drink-ing two or more colas a day was linked to a twofold increased risk of kidney disease. In addition, soda is known to dissolve tooth enamel and doubles or triples the inci-dence of tooth decay. The acidity of these beverages can dissolve enamel making the teeth weaker and more susceptible to decay.

It is no surprise that sweetened carbonated drinks are associated with an increased BMI, but what is more surprising is that diet soda also shares this link. One would assume that a sugar/calorie-free drink wouldn’t contribute to weight-gain, but several stud-ies show this isn’t the case. Both drinks are also shown to be a sig-nificant risk factor for developing metabolic syndrome; a combi-nation of symptoms such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and insulin resistance.

Regular Soda:A regular bottle of soda con-

tains a whopping 240 calories and 65g of sugar (equivalent to 16 tsp of sugar). There is no doubt that

this dose of sugar contributes to weight-gain, but it also stresses the body’s ability to process sugar. These rapidly absorbed sugars such as high fructose corn syrup, put strain on insulin-producing cells. When these sugars enter the blood-stream quickly, the body secretes large amounts of insulin to process the sugar. Some believe that this places too high of a demand on the bodies insulin production and will eventually make your body less ef-fective at processing sugar. This in itself is a contributing factor to the development of diabetes.

An eight year study of 51,000 healthy women showed that those who drank one or more sugary drinks a day gained more weight and were 83 per cent more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes. These empty calories not only count to-wards your daily caloric intake, but they neither satisfy your hunger nor provide any nutritional ben-efits. The excess sugar can also contribute to highs and lows of energy as well as a slew of other problems.

Diet Soda:The number one concern over

diet soda is the use of artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, su-cralose and acesulfame potassium. Aspartame is made from amino acids and is 200 times sweeter than sugar. Health Canada recommends you can safely consume 40mg of aspartame per/kg of weight. This means a 68 kg person would have to drink about 20 cans of diet soda a day in order for it to be deemed dangerous. While clinical evidence of the dangers of aspartame is lack-ing, the vast amount of anecdotal evidence is difficult to ignore. Many link aspartame intake to panic at-tacks, headaches/migraines and other maladies, giving us cause for

concern. If it appears to give you trouble, don’t let others tell you it’s harmless.

Another popular artificial sweet-ener is Splenda (sucralose), which is created through the chlorina-tion of table sugar, and is said to be 600 times sweeter than sucrose. Much like aspartame, the studies reporting negative effects use ex-tremely high doses, equivalent to thousands of packets of Splenda a day for months on end. It is thus difficult to draw conclusions. One study did find that normal doses of sucralose negatively effected gut flora in rats and led to weight gain, though this study was later brought into question. But Splenda is often paired with acesulfame potassi-um, which is yet another artificial sweetener that researches think requires more studies. Though these sweeteners sometimes pro-vide poor toxicity results, the findings are often overstated and misguided. Until more research is done on this topic, it is difficult to form a definitive conclusion on the possible health repercussions.

Interestingly, diet soda also seems to be correlated to weight gain. One might assume that no calories means no weight to be gained, but many studies show that this simply is not true. A recent study divided rats into two groups; group one drinking water sweet-ened with saccharin, aspartame, cyclamate and acesulfame-K, and the second group drinking plain water. Both were given ad-libitum access to standard rat food. While caloric intake did not change be-tween groups, the rats given the non-caloric sweeteners experi-enced greater increases in body weight. One other study found that the more diet soda people drank, the more likely they were to be overweight or obese. And yet

another study of 9,500 men and women found that drinking soda was associated with a 34per cent higher risk of developing meta-bolic syndrome.

Aside from the chemical struc-ture of these diet drinks, another element to consider is the psycho-logical effects. We drink them and taste the sweetness, but receive no calories/nutrients from them. There is mixed evidence that cer-tain artificial sweeteners can elicit a hormonal response from the taste alone. This may lead to hunger that isn’t actually there and perhaps an insulin response to glucose that was never consumed. It can be hy-pothesized that these sweet foods without the corresponding calories is throwing off our satiety signals and interfering with our response to food. Many also theorize that our bodies tend to compensate for these calorie-free drinks by de-manding more food, resulting in overeating. Maybe constantly eat-ing things that mimic real sugar makes it more difficult to stop eat-ing real sugar.

Conclusion:Can diet or regular soda– pop

be part of a healthy diet, or is one the lesser or two evils? Consider the negative health implications of both such as reduction in bone mineral density, contributions to kidney disease and tooth decay. Consider that both are correlat-ed to obesity and weight gain as well as metabolic syndrome. Nei-ther offer any nutrients and you are giving your body the taste of nour-ishment without providing any at all, maybe to the point where your body seeks it from other foods and causes us to overeat. Even if you are fooling your tongue, you can’t food your brain. Ideally, I say to ditch them both!

MaRIanne PoIntneR

www.theontarion.com18 sports & HealtH

A soup of some uncommon ingredientsDuncan Day-Myron

This column may not be for every-one to begin with– dealing with the weirdest foods I can find and all– but it was kind of inadver-tent that I have alienated an entire group of eaters: those who don’t eat meat. Everything I’ve written about so far has come from an ani-mal. Well this week I’m going to change things up a little bit. While this recipe does traditionally call for meat, it isn’t necessary, and can be replaced with tofu or more vegetables quite easily, and the weird ingredient is all plant.

Tom yum soup is a perennial-ly popular dish at Thai and Thai fusion restaurants all over the place. It’s a spicy, sweet and full of shrimp, chicken and vegetables. It is one of the hallmark dishes of Thai cooking. It is also often found on magazine and blog lists of the best foods in the world, so it also has some pedigree. It’s also remarkably simple to make (al-though not always as good as you might find in a restaurant) as long as you can get hold of all of the ingredients.

What makes tom yum soup so distinct is the broth, which is flavoured with a combination of galangal, lemongrass, Thai red chilis, tamarind and Keffir lime leaves. You may not know what all of those are, and that’s just fine. They can all be found at Asian im-port stores right here in Guelph. Galangal is usually sold frozen,

and tamarind is usually dried, but all of the others are gener-ally sold fresh.

If you’re using dried tamarind, follow the package directions, usually involving soaking it in hot water then pressing the paste through a sieve. It is easier to buy bricks of wet tamarind or, better still, bottled of tamarind water or paste.

Tamarind is both incredibly sweet and incredible sour, and is used in everything from soups and other savoury dishes, to candies and desserts. You may be familiar with tamarind sauce, which often accompanies samosas. Keeping a bottle on hand can help you make a variety of different dishes, and you can even add it to meals you normally make, such as stews and stir fries, to make it a bit more interesting.

Galangal is a rhisome similar in appearance to ginger, but with a much lighter taste and texture. It tastes more like lemon than it does ginger, and contributes a great deal to the soups charac-teristic sweet and sour taste.

Chop it up, as well as the chilis and the core of the lemongrass (the outer layers peel off easily, sim-ilar to a scallion). Add, with the tamarind water, lime leaves, lime juice and 2 to 3 cups of diced toma-toes (4-6 tomatoes total) to a pot of about a litre and a half of boil-ing water or stock– chicken, fish or vegetable all work– and let sim-mer for 20 minutes to half an hour.

Fry the chicken, shrimp or tofu with vegetables in a separate pan. Common vegetable options in-clude mushrooms, baby corn, water chestnuts and hearts of palm, the latter three all being available in cans from most gro-cery stores. Add to a bowl and

then cover with the cooked stock, avoiding adding any of the ingre-dients used to flavour the stock. (While they all add great flavour, they don’t taste so good on their own.) Serve with a wedge of lime, chopped cilantro and plenty of your favourite hot sauce.

MAriAnne Pointner

Decadent hot chocolateabigel leMak

Lots of left-over chocolate from Valentine’s Day, Christmas or as far back as Halloween? I won’t judge. Terribly depressed by the recent snowfall and harsh winds? I think it’s time you curled up and enjoy some hot cocoa.

This recipe is really not hard to make. Although it may seem like a lot of work for just one cup of cocoa when you you could simply throw in a spoonful of hot choco-late mix, this particular kind of hot chocolate serves as a nice, luxuri-ous treat in the midst of midterms and snow.

ingredients:

1/2 cup of chopped chocolate2 cups of heavy milkwhipped creambrown sugarcinnamoncocoa powder

In a microwavable bowl add your chopped chocolate and place it

over a pot of almost boiling water. The steam from the hot water will gently melt the chocolate in the bowl. Note: throwing it in the mi-crowave will burn your chocolate.

Mix the chocolate as it starts to melt until it turns completely fluid. A great alternative is to heat up some hazelnut chocolate spread and add it to the mix, or simply use it on its own.

While the chocolate is melting, in another pot add your heavy milk (or you can just add cream to whatever sad skimmed milk you have) until it’s hot but not boiling. Once the chocolate is melted pour it into the hot milk slowly while stirring. Depending on whether you used dark chocolate or milk, add brown sugar for sweetness as you prefer.

Once the chocolate has evenly dissolved in the hot milk, take it off the element and set aside to cool a little. Once it’s safe to drink, pour into a large mug and top with whipped cream, cinnamon and cocoa. Dive right in.

Courtesy

life 167.6 ◆ february 16th – 22nD, 2012 19

www.theontarion.ca

The case for analog clocksTom Beedham

TDigital, or hands on a face? Unless you’ve found a manufac-turer for a wearable hourglass with sand grains that aren’t affected by regular physics, this is the first question you will ask yourself when selecting a wrist-watch. While both have their advantages, teaching the practice of reading analog clocks is being phased out across school boards, and I think that is a bad idea.I embrace technological advance. I do. The internet is great, video games are reaching heights they never used to, and man, music wouldn’t be half as interesting without electric guitars, synthe-sizers, Theremins, and what have you.So I’m no Luddite. Understand that.However, I recognize some “boons” of the digital age as com-plicating things that are already pretty simple. 3-D movies, for example, require us to wear

glasses in order to assure us that what we are watching is in fact supposed to be in the foreground; at the same time, our minds already perceive everything thing in three dimensions.But I am here to talk about clocks.When we look at digital clocks, we are alerted immediately of a specific time. But what is inter-esting about the world we live in is that while it is one in which information is hurled at us every second on social media sites like Twitter, we remain in a world where scheduled and anticipated events occur on hour and half-hour marks. When people read digital clocks, they take that into consideration. After identifying what specific time it is by con-sulting a digital watch, people then have to perform an addi-tional task and figure out how that specific time relates to those hour and half-hour marks.I suggest that the informa-tion processing that occurs in our brains when we read analog

clocks is less complicated. We look at analog clocks like pie charts. We locate the position of the minute hand instantly pro-cess its relation to an hour or

half-hour mark.I’ll concede that in the case of timing the durations of events (i.e. races), digital watches have the advantage over analog ones. Most digital watches have a timer function that allows one to aban-don surveillance over their ugly, electronic faces; timing with analog watches involves either (1) noting the original position of the hour, minute, and second hands, and doing some math later, or (2) counting how many rounds the second hand passes the minute mark. So digital watches are more convenient in that capacity. While this is an advantage that can’t be ignored, I argue that when it comes down to it, when

we are trying to keep track of time, it is for budgeting purposes. Time is currency, and nobody wants to waste it. Why spend more time figuring out what time it is when we could be doing other things? Timing things, on the other hand, is often practiced to gain statisti-cal information. Specificity and accuracy is demanded. Speed is not. Digital watches exhibit their mettle in this area because they are easy and fast to read, but that shouldn’t place them above their analog adversaries in the grande scheme of things. Clocks are pri-marily accessed for their ability to tell time, and analog clocks are better at doing that job.

Courtesy

www.TheonTarion.com20 life

Beth’s Craft Corner: Make your own cleaning productsbeth purdon-mclellan

TWhenever I have midterms, I have a particularly productive way of procrastinating. I clean. Surprisingly, I don’t seem to be the only one. For some reason, the only logical thing to do when you have to study is launch into a full spring-cleaning. Midterms are probably the only time that student housing is spotless. Here are a few tips for environmen-tally friendly cleaning supplies to make your procrastination com-pletely guilt free.

Cleaning solution recipe: ½ C vinegar¼ baking soda2 L of water

If you plan on doing some heavy duty cleaning, you can change the amount of baking soda in the mix. Water and vinegar is the best solution for glass and mirrors,

while toilets and bathtubs require baking soda. Many people are hesitant to use natural cleaners because of the smell of vinegar. However, this

smell is only temporary, and since you are diluting the vinegar with water the smell will not be that strong. It will smell while the vinegar evaporates, but it will air

A Pekingese won the Westminster Dog Show? Are you kidding me? That thing looks like a wig. The only thing it's the Best at is Best at Being Worse than Rufus. They should invite him next year. He'll win Best High Five, Best Grilled Cheese and Best Damn Dog.

PieRS 'NiCHolAS' CooPeR

MARiANNe PoiNtNeR

Sex Geek: When bad sex happens to good couplesShireen noble

You know how on TV sex always looks like it involves fig-urative fireworks? That there’s always passion and spark and connection? Well, as much as we might know logically that this isn’t always the case, it’s pretty hard to get rid of that ideal. Which is why it can be particu-larly distressing when one day you’re with your partner and it’s just not working.

Granted, on TV they some-times show depictions of bad sex too. Usually it has something to do with total ineptitude, seri-ously unsexy situations (phone call from grandma mid-coitus, anyone?), and couples that are having sex for the first time. What they never talk about is that dirty little secret that cou-ples– whether they’re having sex with each other for the first, fifth, or hundredth time– also run in to bad sex.

So here’s the thing: bad sex happens. And it doesn’t always have to do with an ill-fated experiment with hot sauce or deciding to try a tip from Cosmo. Sometimes it can look and follow the exact same moves that you and your partner have enjoyed before. It doesn’t always have a rhyme or reason. And you can breathe a sigh of relief because this doesn’t mean that your relationship is doomed or that there’s something wrong with you.

But what do you if you find yourself in this situation? How are you supposed to move past the bad experience?

Do name the problem. If you can (and it’s not something that’s going to hurt your part-ner), be willing to laugh about it. Wouldn’t it be awful if you’re lying there thinking “wow, that was. . . not good” and

your partner doesn’t say any-thing? This is something that couples need to be able to talk through- after all, it’s a fact of relationships that sex is going to be bad sometimes, and it’s defi-nitely something that you can learn from.

Don’t let it colour all your future sexual experiences. It’s probably a one-off experience, but if you spend too much time worrying that the sex is going to be bad again, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. So focus on enjoying what you’re doing with your partner.

Do learn from it. Maybe that position just didn’t work for you two. Maybe having sex during the week of four midterms, three papers, and a presentation isn’t a great idea (even if it is Valentine’s Day). Think of it as a way to learn how to have better sex in the future.

Don’t think that your rela-tionship is doomed. Sometimes people in horrible relation-ships can have amazing sex. Or people who’ve just met in a bar, or who have no communication skills, or who might not even be that attracted to each other. This doesn’t mean that their relationship is any better; it just means that they had amaz-ing sex. Similarly, you can have awesome communication and connection and rapport and sometimes it just doesn’t work. That doesn’t mean that your relationship is failing or that there’s something wrong with your partner. It just means that sex that given time wasn’t that good.

Bottom line: bad sex happens to good couples. The best thing you can do is learn from the experience and move on so you can go back to having the kind of sex that works for you and your partner.

167.6 ◆ february 16th – 22nd, 2012 21life

Free software is a tough sellbakz awan

I personally believe there is a huge gap between the open-source coding communities and regular computer users that must be mediated. The systems to clearly explain what open source is to friends, do not exist and I feel like members of open source communities overall have done very little to outline the benefits of the open source ideology to the general public.

Let’s face it: if you’re a nerd, you probably think open source software is great. While open source licensing for a product can vary, open source software is free, generally more secure, and support is usually available through community forums. The great thing about some open source projects is that they are disassociated from commercial interests and the decisions being made for a product are considered best for the application, instead of the shareholders. To top it off, if you’re an even bigger fan of open source, you can contribute your own code to a project, write manuals, learn from the code, fix bugs, construct a modification to extend functionality, or assist

struggling members within the community.

The sad part is, a lot of non tech-savvy users take advan-tage of the open source mindset everyday without even knowing it. They experience the benefits of open source indirectly through coding aids for developers such as frameworks, IDE’s, languages, and web server platforms which run and influence a variety of apps and popular websites on a daily basis.

They also experience the ben-efits of open source principles directly through common open source projects such as VLC media player, Firefox, Thunderbird, the Android operating system, or even Open Office. These applications are used by millions of users every-day, with several of these users not even knowing about the open source ideas which made these products possible to begin with.

I usually have no difficulty in finding an open source alternative to the software I want and often find better alternatives com-pared to closed source solutions. I’m very pleased with the diver-sity and quality of open source applications available, but trouble

arises when I explain what open source is to my non-computer savvy friends.

Whenever I explain the dif-ference between an open source application and a closed source application, my non-tech savvy friends say things like, “oh, its free? It must really suck” or “open-source

soft-ware? Sounds too nerdy for me” or even, “it’s free? It must be so hard to use. Other common responses include, “will it give me, like, a virus? Is it glitchy? So, who writes all these open source applications? Adobe? Apple?”. More often than not, I find myself bombarded with these questions and I don’t know where to start, or what to say. By

the time I have fully fielded all of their questions, the idea of it seems too skeptical for ordinary users and my explanations get too advanced for them to understand.

I think the root of the issue is that, as a coder, I find myself more personally attached to the idea of open source, to the point that it’s almost too internalized and intu-itive to explain; and frankly, a

cut-and-paste definition from Wikipedia or Dictionary.com of open source doesn’t cut it.

It isn’t just a word; it’s an ideology. It really is hard to explain what open source is to individuals of varying and especially lower levels

of computer experience. The root of the issue also

lies in the fact that open source really is too good to be true, so I don’t blame my friends for being skeptical. When you list the advantages of open source (free, more secure, community-driven), it’s almost overbearing; but that doesn’t make it a bad thing. At the heart of its benefits, open source is generally free. As a marketing student, one aspect of psychological pricing includes the idea that a cheap product is automatically considered to be

of poor quality; thus, when high quality software is given, espe-cially for free, one assumes it must be terribly written code.

I think the open source com-munities need to collaborate on publicly addressing such levels of skepticism. I’m not, in any way, saying we should discontinue closed-source applications but I think innovation overall could benefit from greater awareness of the open-source mindset.

Put quite simply, if coders and open source community members spent more time col-laborating on how to spread the mindset of open source in a meaningful, simple, and power-ful way we’d have more members contributing to open source proj-ects. Open source documentation, tutorials, funding, and coding would experience the benefits of multiple perspectives, more volunteers, and greater acces-sibility. We’d have more thriving project communities and the gen-eral public would appreciate the value/impact of open source and realize that there is something within the ideology itself worth talking about. I, for one, truly believe there is.

www.theontarion.com22 opinion

Fire Away: Live music can soothe your midterm bluesStephanie Rennie

Just two weekends ago, I, along with many fellow Guelphites, spent two days in musical bliss at the fifth annual Hillside Inside. This event triggered my thinking of the experience of live music and how it is so much more than just a song, but also a story and a foster for community.

To explore the residual excite-ment from the festival further I spoke with Preetam Sengupta, a local singer-songwriter and founder of Letting Artists Make Art (LAMA). The premise of LAMA is to give all artists a chance to follow their ambitions, despite the many obstacles that get in the way. Sengupta assists art-ists in making their dreams come true. Through his help with tour management, grant writing, and many other tasks he helps musi-cians to prosper.

The roots of LAMA couldn’t be

in a better location than Guelph as it is a hub of local musical tal-

ent. The Guelph community is renowned for its amazing music scene with events like Hillside, Guelph Jazz Festival, and music bellowing from any bar, church, or community centre on any given night. Preetam expressed that Guelph has “a big scene for

being such a small place.” Some folks that live or study in

Guelph don’t always take advan-tage of the music community just down the street. When asking Preetam about his feelings to-wards live music, he stated that the root of folk is the stories of the artist and that a record isn’t capable of expressing such an-ecdotes. After releasing his first album, Sengupta admitted that he has only heard his own record once and prefers to think of the songs from the live performances he has done.

Going out to enjoy live music also enables you to feel the ener-gy in the room as an entire group of people experience the music together. The relationships be-tween yourself and the musicians, as well as the crowd around you are built. One of my favourite feelings in the world is the over-whelming sensation of being in a large group of strangers at an

expansive outdoor festival, yet being connected through a sim-ilar love of music.

While thinking of the differ-ence between live and recorded music, it is also evident that so-cial networking allows people to share their music without ever stepping foot in a recording stu-dio or on stage.

Since the rise of Youtube sensa-tion Justin Bieber a few years ago, my scepticism about the trans-formation of the music industry began to grow. From a cynical perspective, I felt angered that Rebecca Black was able to become so famous (or infamous) from her butchery of what was once my favourite day of the week. After speaking with a local music en-thusiast, my perspective of the current state of music has altered. Sengupta expressed his respect for Youtube because it provides an online community for peo-ple to share their music. With

the decline in outlets like Much Music, this site allows anyone in the world to show their talent.

Sengupta noted another shift in the music industry that began many years ago with the decline of record sales and the increase in downloading music. He stated that it doesn’t make sense to try to profit from people that are also struggling and that there isn’t a lot of money to make from re-cord sales. Instead, the industry has shifted by making licensing the key to success.

Despite the busy days that fill the year with midterms and pa-pers, it is important to find a moment to fill with beautiful live music in Guelph. We are fortu-nate to live in such a prosperous community, so we should take advantage of the concerts and shows happening throughout the year. Live music is a great way to relieve stress, make new friends, and escape from the daily grind.

The curse of a technology obsessed worldCaRleigh CathCaRt

If you’re reading this in print (in an actual newspaper) con-gratulations. You’ve just made it on to my good list. (Please note: those reading this article online, through a blackberry (or blueberry, or apple, or any other fruity product), Kobo, or through ultra-magnified Google Earth functions need not apply).

Well, those are admittedly the words of an ingrate. In all sin-cerity, I value any reader who is willing to put up with me for the extent of an article. That being said, I’m sure you’ve deduced that I may or may not have an lack of affinity towards the end-less array of modern devices (if you don’t know what ‘affin-ity’ means, you can Google it).

Though I realize my techno-hat-ing type is a dying breed (until scientists can clone us, that is), I refuse to back down from my rebellious deviceless-ness. In fact, I believe that our tech-nological priorities seem to be quite “out of whack” (actually, this is true for many aspects of life, unfortunately).

I hope I am not the only one who considers it ironic that we can store hundreds of songs in handheld devices, have conver-sations with full video and audio functions with people essentially anywhere in the world, and put man on the moon (and so long ago too!). Yet we have no cure for prominent diseases/disorders such as cancer, cystic fibrosis, or Alzeimer’s. There are no practi-cal automotive devices that are

non-fuel reliant, and we have factories/industrial buildings that continue to spew unlimit-ed amounts of toxic substances into our atmosphere, causing irreversible damage. I suppose the leaders and inventors of today don’t much care, consid-ering that it is OUR generation that will have to respond to the consequences. After all, if en-tire countries, or even continents, are submerged by the waters of melting glacial bodies, is it re-ally going to matter how many gigabytes your ipod has? Just a thought.

My issues with technology also delve into the less solemn aspects of over-use. It seems the more connected we are online, the more distant our relation-ships with others become. Case in

point: people texting each other while in the same room. As my physics professor would say,

“What’s up with that?!”Example two: Facebook

friends: 792. On a talking basis: 69. Actual friends: 23. But don’t worry. She’s got 11 more likes on her profile picture! All is well with the world.

Example three: We`re at the hockey game. Paid $100 for good seats. I elbow you. “Did you just see that goal?! Phenomenal!” You:

“Huh?” I then realize you were playing Bejeweled on your iPad. Note to self: never invite tech ad-dicts to expensive sports events.

Example four: You get hit by a train. Maybe you should have turned your iPod volume down a little bit. Or hit by a car. I’m sure the person you were texting

would be more upset if you died than if you delay a response by 2.75 seconds.

Example five: He drove into a lake. Why? His GPS didn’t take into account of the oncoming large body of water, and he was too busy following its directions to notice the shoreline up ahead.

I realize these circumstances may seem ridiculous, but that’s exactly what I’m going for. These are situations that actually hap-pen. I appreciate that the benefits of technology are many, but I also think we ignore the consequenc-es far too often. Please, people, just disconnect for a little while, and revisit the inner human that lurks beneath your surface (far, far below). And if you can’t find it, try Google maps.

One of my favourite feelings in the world is the

overwhelming sensation

of being in a large group of

strangers at an expansive

outdoor festival.

opinion 167.6 ◆ febRuaRy 16th – 22nd, 2012 23

U.S vs. Iran: Has the war of words reached its breaking point?DaviD LocheaD

Don’t look now, but it seems that the back and forth threats between the United States and Iran is heating up. With political uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Syria and Yemen over the last year capturing the media’s attention and preoccupying the public eye towards foreign politics, little have paid attention to the ten-sion growing between the United States and Iran. That is all chang-ing with what has been at best a cold relationship between the two countries over the past decade, taking a turn for the even worse.

Tensions have escalated between Iran and the United States ever since the United Nations identified that Iran was enriching a significant amount of uranium in an underground nuclear bunker. Even more recently, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have practised military exercises in retaliation to the United States’ convoy of war-ships led by the carrier Abraham Lincoln through the Persian Gulf.

Iran’s response from their Army’s Major General Ataollah Salehi was not sugar coated.

“I recommend and emphasize to the American carrier not to return to the Persian Gulf. We are not in the habit of warning more than once,” said Major Salehi. This warning appeared to be the definitive moment in triggering a war between Iran against the U.S and their Middle East ally, Israel. That is until Iran backed off that claim when Iran’s Revolution-ary deputy commander Hossein Salami spoke to the Islamic Republic News Agency days later.

“U.S. warships and military forces have been in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East region for many years, and their deci-sion in relation to the dispatch of a new warship is not a new issue, and it should be interpreted as part of their permanent pres-ence,” said Salami. Salami also mentioned the U.S.A.’s recent embargo, interpreted as perma-nent presence can understand the frustrations of Iran. Having a world superpower constantly monitoring you for years on end

without your consent can feel intrusive, no matter the country or their relations with the super-power, also known as the U.S.

Of course that is not to say that Iran’s consistent interest in nuclear technology, allegedly fuelled by corrupt President Mah-moud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei do not warrant monitoring, but the previous aggravation certainly does not help the situation.

If many authority figures, such as US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, claim war is inevitable and the United States invades Iran, investigating Iran’s nuclear activity under the suspicion that they may be plotting to attain or build a nuclear weapon will be a major factor. The U.S would go into Iran in part to search for weapons of mass destruction. Sound familiar? In fairness, searching and disposing of nuclear weapons is not the only reason suggested for the United States’ purpose to invade Iran.

M.J Rosenburg, writing for Aljazeera, mentions in his opin-ion piece on the Iranian conflict that Thomas Donnelly of the neo-conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute believes that we are misunderstanding “the nature of the conflict”. In Weekly Standard Donnelly wrote, “We're fixated on the Iranian nuclear programme while the Tehran

regime has its eyes on the real prize: the balance of power in the Persian Gulf and the greater Middle East.” Donnelly’s direct reason for an Iranian invasion argues the classic reason that starts any war: power struggle.

This ties in with Iran threat-ening the American’s powerful ally in the Middle East, Israel, on a more consistent basis than Lindsay Lohan stumbles out of nightclubs. One should men-tion that Israel is no innocent and are prone to having a similar empirical, foreign agenda that the United States hold: acting on similar intentions of the Ameri-cans in many situations which result in a grasp of power, such as the oppression and quarantine of the Palestinian land by the Israeli military. Yet the United States invasion of Iran would cause set-backs in Iran in terms of political independence.

Davidson also mentions pre-dictions from Barbara Slavin of the Atlantic Council, who stated at the Israel Policy Forum, that a war against Iran would make all those who are uprising against their government for possibly rigging the most recent Presi-dential election, notoriously won by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, side with their government due to national loyalty in the face of war. Slavin also mentions that an invasion could possibly trigger

involvement with Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Afghanistan because of political relations and, as you must have heard before, oil.

As outsiders in the political world, it is difficult to make an educated opinion of the conflict. But hey, that shouldn’t stop one from trying. What we do know is that history tells us similar wars have been waged for simi-lar reasons (such as Iraq) and the results of those wars only end in an expensive and unwelcome lin-gering military presence doing little to help the West’s reputa-tion or foreign relations. To add, the Iranian army threatening the U.S military is like a couple of dogs trying to fight a pack of wolves, with U.S troops nearly outnum-bering Iranian troops 10-1. An American invasion of Iran does well to serve the States’ dubious military-industrial complex, but is power in a foreign region really worth it when they are over an unprecedented $14 trillion in debt while the global economy is crumbling? The Second World War helped the West transition out of a depression, but 1939 and 2012 are different times and dif-ferent circumstances.

Women’s rights vs. women’s rightshanna BarLow

In Canada, it is legal to get an abortion through all nine months of pregnancy – no ques-tions asked. Women might seek abortions because they don’t feel ready to have a child, because they can’t support one finan-cially, or because they did not intend to get pregnant. Or they might seek an abortion because they’ve found out that their un-born child is a girl.

In India and China, sex-se-lective abortion is extremely common. In most countries around the world, the ratio of girls to boys is approximately 1:1, but in some areas of India it has dropped to around 700 girls for every 1000 boys born (accord-ing to the organization ‘Save Girl Child’ in India). This may come from a cultural preference for sons, the effects of which are more dramatic in countries with a restriction on the number of children a couple can have. Be-cause of this discrimination in the womb, ten million girls have

‘gone missing’ in India alone over the last twenty years, according

to Save Girl Child. This trend is not limited to India and China, though; it happens in our own backyard as well, as reported in a recent editorial in the Candian Medical Association Journal.

It seems inevitable that in a country with no restrictions on abortion, we would eventual-ly run into these sorts of moral quandaries. If the idea of aborting girls en masse to satisfy misogy-nystic cultural leanings gives our collective consciences a twinge, what about fetuses with disabil-ities? Studies in the UK show that up to 90% of fetuses diag-nosed with Down Syndrome are aborted (“Termination rates after prenatal diagnosis of Down syn-drome, spina bifida, anencephaly, and Turner and Klinefelter syn-dromes: a systematic literature review” Mansfield, C.C., Hopfer, S. S., Marteau, T.M. 1999).

In 2009 alone, “2,085 abor-tions were [due to the] risk that the child would be born handi-capped” in Britain, according to the Department of Health. This includes children with cor-rectible disorders such as cleft palate and club foot. When our

culture accepts as normal the act of aborting a child who has phys-ical imperfections, then anyone who is less than perfect should start to feel lucky that they made it out of the womb.

Where do we draw the line? Where does the free exercise of one’s ‘right’ to abortion be-come outright discrimination against women and the disabled? The idea of freedom of choice is being used to prevent women’s lives from starting; your right to choose is in direct conflict with another girl’s right to life. If sex-selective abortion, and the idea of ending someone’s life just because they have a disability, strikes you as an inexcusable brutality, incongruous with our culture of equality, then we have to ask ourselves how we can pro-tect unborn children from this type of discrimination. Then we’re faced with an even bigger question: if unborn children have a right to a discrimination-free chance at life, what other rights might they also have?

www.theontarion.com24 opinion

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Examining sex-selective abortionOver the past few months, the issue of sex-selective abortion has been a topic of debate in the opinion sections of Cana-dian newspapers, triggered by allegations that the practice of selectively aborting female fetuses due to a preference for male children was taking place here in Canada.

One of the most commonly discussed proposals to combat sex-selective abortion is not to disclose to the mother the sex of the fetus until she has reached 30 weeks of pregnancy, as once a mother has entered the third trimester it is difficult to obtain an abortion in Canada for non-medical reasons. Based on information provided by Statis-tics Canada for the year 2003, the latest available, only 320 abor-tions took place among women over 20 weeks pregnant, and of those beyond 24 weeks, all were performed in cases of lethal fetal abnormality.

Sex-selective pregnancy or abortion is sexism at its height. It is the innate preference of one sex over another, and in all regards is abhorrent. It is not something which should be practiced nor condoned, but regulating abor-tion is not how to address nor solve the issue.

The issue of sex-selective preg-nancy is not restricted only to abortion, and creating legisla-tion relative to abortion does not address other issues of sex-selective pregnancy, often is just referred to as “family balancing.”

In vitro fertilization (IVF)– fer-tilizing an egg outside the body then returning it to the uterus

for gestation– treatments are able to determine with great accu-racy what the sex of a child will be before it is implanted into the mother. Although this practice for non-medical reasons– pref-erence for one sex over another, opposed to medical reasons, where certain diseases or condi-tions can be passed on only to one sex– has been illegal in Canada since 2004, it is still available to Canadians who travel to the United States, where it is legal.

The worst issue related to this is that it is, in effect, legislating abortion. Canada’s laws govern-ing abortion should be a point of pride, and it is essential in giving women the right to choose. It is their body and their decision, however having such limitations surrounding abortion could potentially be very damaging to that.

It is possible to know the sex of a fetus as soon as 10 weeks of gestation. If this kind of legisla-tion takes place, then it would open the door for other similar forms of legislation relating to that, such that if a woman knows what the sex of her child is, she can’t terminate it, due to a fear that it could be considered sex-selective abortion.

If women are not permitted to a legal, clinical abortion, then it may simply encourage those who desire an abortion to look elsewhere. Abortions performed illegally carry with them risks that they will be performed by someone who is not totally capa-ble or qualified to perform them, or will be performed in sur-roundings which don’t meet the

sanitary standards required to prevent infection or other health risks to the mother.

According to the World Health Organization, in areas where safe sanctioned abortion is not avail-able, unsafe abortions account for 13 per cent of pregnancy related deaths.

While an extreme example, allowing legislation for abortion to be possible will simply set a dangerous precedent.

Instead, discussion of how to prevent sex-selective abortion should be focused in directions which, instead of altering our own laws to prevent them, look to the circumstances which have allowed it to become an issue.

The areas of the world in which it is has been reported to occur include China, India (where sex-selective abortion has been illegal for 18 years, with debatable effectiveness), the Caucusus and South America, among others, all areas which suffer widespread poverty. In many of these areas, women do not have the same opportuni-ties as men do and cannot always expect to earn the same amount of money as a man. To parents who are expecting to raise a child in poverty, that could be perceived as a burden. A male child will be more likely to be financially stable and could, in the future, be able to support the parents. Female children can also carry with them cultural requirements, such as a dowry, which parents living in poverty may seek to avoid.

In order for sex-selective abor-tion to be dealt with worldwide,

those are the issues which need to be addressed. Educating females, employing females, and extending the same quality of life to all females would, in the long run, do more to end the kind of attitudes which devalue female children compared to male.

Although it is not nearly as prevalent in Canada as it is in these other regions of the world, there have been anecdotal reports in other publications such as the Globe & Mail and National Post that it has taken place in Canada, although there is no statistical evidence to corroborate this. If it is happening here, it is among a small percentage.

That there is so little evidence that it is an issue in Canada, and nothing from the Canadian government has testified to it, legislating on these grounds could simply be responding to, and by extent encouraging, prejudice. Should legislation be made based on the supposed behaviours of a minority-within-a-minority? That itself is problematic. It not only prescribes the issue to spe-cific cultural groups, it does so at the expense of acknowledging why so many people emigrate to Canada in the first place: to have a better quality and standard of living, and the promise of suc-cess for their children which may not exist in other parts of the world.

Regardless of how prevalent of an issue it is in Canada, it is something which may continue to exist if it is unexamined and unaddressed. But introducing legislation in this way simply isn’t the way to do that.

25167.6 ◆ february 16th – 22nd, 2012EDItOrIal

Submit your completed crossword by no later than Monday, October

31st at 4pm for a chance to win two free Bob's Dogs!

Congratulations to this week's crossword winner: Jennifer Soong. Stop by the Ontarion office to pick up your prize!

Last Week's Solution

Michael SlotwinkSki

Frank SpuM

www.theontarion.com croSSworD

SuDoku

Diffi culty level: 10

7 9 8 1 4 6 3 5 2

6 1 2 5 8 3 7 9 4

5 3 4 9 2 7 1 6 8

8 4 1 2 9 5 6 7 3

9 5 7 3 6 8 4 2 1

2 6 3 4 7 1 5 8 9

1 2 5 6 3 9 8 4 7

3 8 9 7 5 4 2 1 6

4 7 6 8 1 2 9 3 5

26

across1- ___ facto5- Consume10- No-win situation14- Invalid15- Fur scarf16- Bang-up (2)17- “The Time Machine” race18- Exactly19- Hew20- Sumerian temple tower22- Writing’s original form

24- Black cuckoos25- Kill26- Vital essence29- Unconsciousness caused by brain hemorrhage33- Tinged34- Bikini blast (2)35- Meadow36- 20th letter of the Hebrew alphabet37- Bring out38- German Mister

39- Bolted down40- Dens41- Bombastic42- Disease-producing agent44- Takes fright45- American Civil Rights Union46- Move suddenly47- Doctrine maker50- Impervious to sunlight54- Et ___55- Continuously (2)57- As a result58- Makes brown59- Flinch60- Clairvoyant61- Baby blues62- “See ya!”63- Hook’s helper

Down1- Don Juan’s mother2- Hungarian sheepdog3- Trudge4- One of the few in charge5- Lively intelligence6- Book of maps7- Advertise boastfully8- “Slippery” tree9- Cloudlike10- Finger11- Architect Mies van der ___12- Strong as ___ (2)13- Cried21- Single entity23- All ears25- Glasses, briefly

26- Leash27- Michelangelo work28- Atlas feature29- Take ___ for the worse (2)30- Fragrant resin31- Adapted to a dry environment32- Fenced areas34- Farewell37- Large owl (2)38- Woman who hunts40- Bananas41- Diamond cover43- Pester44- Procure46- Dolt47- Spouse48- Oil of ___49- Baseball team50- Dispatched51- City near Provo52- Arch type53- Golfer’s “watch out!”56- Actress Peeples

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Thursday February 16Guelph Civic Museum Military History Lecture Series. Cait-lin Williams speaks on Flying Billboards: How Canadian Nose Cone Art Brought Colour to the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War. 7:30 pm at the new Guelph Civic Museum. Doors open 6:30pm. Free admis-sion. 52 Norfolk St. Contact: 519-836-1221 x2775.

Macdonald Stewart Art Centre --Join us for a glass of wine to celebrate the opening: The Art of Thomas Nisbet, Master Cabinet-maker. 7pm. Exhibit runs until April 22. 358 Gordon Street (at College Avenue) Info: 519-837-0010 ext. 2, aware@msac.ca.

The Art of Storytelling Workshop by the Guelph Guild of Story-tellers. Come and cultivate your own your skill sets as we take a

guided walk through the process of choosing, preparing and pre-senting tales. 7:30pm at the Main Branch, Guelph Public Library, 100 Norfolk Street at Paisley. Admission: Free. Info: syavg@sympatico.ca

The Thursday At Noon Concert on February 16th features improvi-sational music by Convergence Ensemble. Join us in MacKin-non room 107 at 12 noon for this free one hour concert. www.uoguelph.ca/sofam/events

Saturday February 18Guelph Poetry Slam Featuring Erika Gault from Buffalo NY. 7pm at the eBar (41 Quebec St.). $100 poetry slam prize & Open mic! $10, 2 students $10 (w/card).

Sunday February 19Guelph Symphony Orches-tra –Tour the World Concert

Series “New Worlds” with new conductor Judith Yan. Dvorak, Symphony No 9 “From the New World”. 3pm at the River Run Centre. Tickets: $32/adult, $16/student, $10/children. 519-763-3000, riverrun.ca, guelphsymphony.com.

Monday February 20Macdonald Stewart Art Centre – Join the Community Bear Hug at 2pm. More Family Day Events as WE BEAR ALL in 2012. 519-837-0010 ext. 2, aware@msac.ca.

Friday February 24Sound Off: Guelph Youth Slam. Featuring Keisha Monique. 5:30pm, Guelph Public Library (100 Norfolk St.). Slam/Work-shop for youth 12-22, all ages open mic. FREE/ PWYC.

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Victoria East Golf Club. Funds to send a work team to Bolivia to build a school. Project Bethesda. Tickets $45: complimentary wine & cheese, buffet dinner, dancing. Contact Jaye Graham: jgraham02@sympatico.ca

Tuesday February 28The Women’s Drum Circle meets at the Aboriginal Resource Centre monthly on the last Tuesday from 6-7:30pm. No experience neces-sary and all women and children are welcome. Some drums and shakers are available and women may wish to wear a long skirt. Facilitated by Jan Sherman. stu-dentlife.uoguelph.ca/arc

Monday March 5STOP WORRYING workshop, 7- 9pm. by the Stress Management Clinic. Identify the pitfalls that perpetuate worrying, and strat-gies to address them. Student fee

$5. Details at www.uoguelph.ca/~ksomers.

Ongoing: Milk bags for Mat-making! Meal Exchange is making bed mats out of Milk bags! The bed mats are used in third world countries. email meal@uoguelph.ca to par-ticipate in the event or arrange a pickup time,or bring bags to UC room 241. Deadline- March 9th

Trillium Gift of Life Net-work (TGLN) is encouraging all Ontarians to register their consent to become organ and tissue donors. By registering as a donor, you could one day save up to eight lives and enhance as many as 75 more. Online donor registration is now available at BeADonor.ca. It’s easy and it only takes 3 minutes to register. www.beadonor.ca

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