HOW TO WALK A PUMA (P. 13)

SHOES: A RETAILER'S BEST FRIEND(P. 7)

NUDITY FOR THE REST OF US (P. 18)

QUEBEC CANCELS TUITION HIKES (P. 5)

THE UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA’S INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPERSEPTEMBER 27, 2012 • VOLUME 65 • ISSUE 8 • MARTLET.CA

UVicturns

50

U Vic has chosen the half-century marker to reflect on its many changes and discoveries over the years.

For UVic’s 50th Anniversary Festival, the university will be rolling out events and projects from this

month until June 2013, kicking off the celebration with a campus festival on Sept. 28 and 29. Events

include family activities, open houses, tours, music, food and a special homecoming event for alumni.

UVic’s 50th anniversary celebrations set for lift-off

The university invited eight alumni to lecture on a variety of topics on Sept. 29 at the Social Sciences and Mathematics Building. Their speeches touch on poetry, business start-ups, sustainability and the life of an Olympian, among other subjects. All four morning talks begin at 10:30 a.m., and the four afternoon talks begin at 1:30 p.m.

UVic writing instructor Carla Funk, one of the speakers, is interested in the ways poetry can sharpen our eyes to the magic in our everyday lives.

“A clear image, a fresh metaphor, a string of words that imitates in sound the very thing it describes — all of these aspects of [a] poem sharpen the reader’s gaze and wake him or her up to the surrounding world,” says Funk, who obtained both an undergraduate degree in Writing and English (1997) and master’s in English Literature (1999) at UVic.

Funk says that, through her education at UVic, poetry taught her the ability to pay at-tention, especially to things that at first glance seem common and insignificant. She credits her mentors and teachers at the time as her greatest influences.

“When I consider UVic’s influence on my life and work, it comes back to people — to [those] who encouraged me to keep writing, keep thinking,” she says, mentioning re-nowned writers and UVic faculty members like Patrick Lane, Lorna Crozier, Jack Hodgins and Stephen Hume.

For Lara Lauzon, a speaker who is an as-sistant professor in the School of Exercise Sci-ence, Physical and Health Education, mentor-ship was also her best memory as a student. She expresses particular gratitude for former faculty member Martin Collis, an expert on wellness and healthy living.

“Dr. Martin Collis, who was my mentor and supervisor for both my master’s and PhD, changed my life. We are still in touch, and he has become my colleague,” she says.

Lauzon completed her bachelor’s and mas-ter’s degrees, as well as her PhD at UVic, and took over the teaching position for Collis when he retired in 1998, a smooth course of events she calls a “fairytale.”

In her talk, Lauzon shares her research and personal experiences in health and wellness in the context of a work-life balance. Her interest used to be only fitness, until she realized that fitness alone didn’t equate to health.

“I will tell my story about being a workaholic. I wasn’t living a balanced life or living by my values,” she says. “I had to learn to say no and that opportunities will come at other times.”

As a professor, Lauzon’s teaching areas also include human potential. CONT. ON P. 4 >>

uvic turns 50continued on page 4

PLEASE NOTE: Colour lasers do not accurately represent the colours in the finished product. This proof is strictly for layout purposes only.

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Do you have a passion for green technology? Why not write about it for our Business and Technology section?

Email businesstech.martlet@gmail.com.

September 27, 2012 MARTLET • NEWS 3

NEWS: local

Visiting friends and family is now easier than ever.Save Now

> ALAN PIFFER

On Sept. 11, the Capital Regional District (CRD) held its EcoStar awards ceremony celebrating businesses, organizations and individuals who have led the way in environmentally conscious initiatives. Eight awards, including categories such as Climate Action, Water Stewardship and Waste Reduction, were given out to various lo-cal recipients.

The 2012 winner for Climate Action (busi-ness) was local coffee producer Oughtred Coffee and Tea.

Owner J.P. Oughtred explains that he and his employees have adopted numerous green initiatives, but what helped them clinch the award was their strategy to reduce excess heat produced at their roasting facility in Delta.

“There’s no smoke that comes out of our roasting facility, but it’s almost a catch-22, because it generates a massive amount of heat, and it takes an awful lot of natural gas to

heat that afterburner to burn off the smoke so it’s a smokeless exhaust,” explains Oughtred. “So we were looking at ways to do something with that wasted heat, and what we ended up doing was piping off of the afterburner system and heating the roasting facility with the excess heat.”

Oughtred says the company’s eco-conscious attitude has not only reduced operating costs, but has also had a positive effect on employees as well as companies they interact with.

“Our staff and clients have really noticed, and it really made positive changes in their lives, just through the experience that they’ve had with us,” says Oughtred. “Some of our customers [have] really started to notice what we’re doing and then started to think about their business and started to make some wholesale changes to the way they operate as well.”

Another winner this year was Superior Restau-rant Services in Victoria, which took home the Water Stewardship award. The company won

the award for its invention called the Exhaust Fan Interceptor (EFI), which reduces excess grease and water from kitchen exhaust vents.

Company president James MacDougall says the EFI, which uses a unique method of separat-ing precipitation and kitchen grease, came about thanks to an urgent need in his years of working in the restaurant steam-cleaning busi-ness. Kitchen grease normally accumulates in an exhaust vent, mixes with excess rainwater and leaks out, causing damage to the roof. Periodic cleaning of the water/grease build-up also has a nasty effect on the environment, as it produces a large volume of wastewater. The EFI prevents that process from happening.

“Each device that we install deflects hundreds and hundreds of litres of waste water away from the storm [sewer] system,” says MacDougall.

The company has been educating key players in the restaurant business across the country, including the larger vent-cleaning companies, about the benefits of the product.

“We think that we’ve created a new standard, and we believe that it is not going to take long for everybody to adopt it,” explains MacDou-gall. “It’s in the interest of the vent-cleaning companies to install it, because it streamlines the process. It makes it more professional. It eliminates some hazards.”

While MacDougall wants to make the EFI as big a success as possible, he’s equally concerned with using the invention to lessen the environ-mental impact of restaurant steam-cleaning.

He conservatively estimates that prior to the 2007 implementation of the CRD’s Kitchen Equipment Cleaning Regulation as part of the Sewer Use Bylaw, approximately 6 000 litres of high-pH, grease-laden water were entering the storm sewer system in Greater Victoria per day.

“Capturing the waste from these exhaust fans was time-consuming and tedious before the EFI. If we’re able to implement this, we can ensure close to 100 per cent wastewater recovery,” says MacDougall.

Local businesses rewarded for eco-friendly efforts

PROVIDEDLocal business Superior Restaurant Services recently won an EcoStar award for an invention that reduces excess grease and water from kitchen vents.

NEWS: campus Did you have an encounter with the bookstore picket line? Email letters@martlet.ca to tell us about it.

4 NEWS • MARTLET September 27, 2012

“One of my students used to be a top-ranked triathlete in Canada, but she felt something was missing. She decided to use her athletic skills to help others.  She and two friends ended up running across Africa to raise funds for education there,” explains Lauzon. “When students begin to understand the concept of self-responsibility for self-care, they also begin to understand that when they are healthy they can reach their personal potential. At UVic, we have some of the best students [from] across the country. My job really is to encourage students to take care of themselves so that they are better able to take care of others.” 

Funk got married and became a mother as an undergrad. These became the seeds of her best and worst memories at UVic.

Sharing her worst memory at UVic, she says, “I was due to give birth at the end of my second year and had a class full of small desks. By the end of the term, I was so pregnant that I couldn’t fit in the desk anymore. Every morn-ing the professor had to ask for volunteers to haul in a table and chair for me.”

Her best memory? She got married at the chapel on campus one year after meeting her husband in a first-year theatre class.

Lauzon says she wants current students to recognize their privilege.

“Even if you’re scraping along the student loan line, embrace that privilege. Use that education time wisely. Be involved; join a club. Take classes seriously, but have that balance. Take a look around and enjoy that education process,” she says. “And make healthy choices so you can enjoy it better.”

> TIA LOW

uvic turns 50continued from cover

> TIA LOW

After almost two years of negotiations and two weeks of job action, UVic union employees intensi-fied their job action before returning to the bargain-ing table on Sept. 18.

Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) locals 917, 951 and 4163 have been negotiat-ing their collective agreements since October 2010. In June of this year, UVic offered them wage hikes of two per cent for 2012 and 1.5 per cent for 2013. Instead of responding to the offer, CUPE 917 and 951 served strike notice on Aug. 31 and went on strike Sept. 5.

CUPE 4163, UVic’s educational employees’ union, has opted not to strike, “mainly because over one-third of the members will be new this fall and will need time to get oriented and informed” according to the union’s website.

One CUPE 4163 member, a Chemistry master’s student and teaching assistant, spoke to the Martlet on condition of anonymity, saying he feared he would compromise his future employment opportu-nities by speaking out against any union job action.

“Grad students were told that if they crossed [the picket line], they would get their wage, but only if they were teaching,” said the source, who owes student loans. He pointed out that classes would likely be cancelled, making it impossible to get his regular wage even if he wanted to. “If it goes on for more than a couple days, I have to go somewhere else in order to find work.” Although teaching as-sitants are eligible for strike pay, the pay would not kick in until the 10th day of job action if CUPE 4163 voted to strike or its members acted in solidarity with other unions on strike.

Both the unions and UVic hope it will not come to this. UVic Communications manager Bruce Kilpatrick said CUPE locals 917, 951 and 4163 informed UVic on Sept. 6 that they were ready to return to negotiations. The parties formally agreed that bargaining would resume on Sept. 18. While negotiations have resumed, job action has been suspended. But until the negotiations began, job action escalated.

“It’s unusual that they kept up job action. Labour

relations conventions are, unless you are in a full-blown strike, when you are returning to the bargaining table, you suspend job action or greatly reduce it,” said Kilpatrick.

The negotiations, which are still underway, were planned so that each local would have a day to sit down with the university. Discussions this time around will involve non-monetary issues, which includes fine-tuning contract language.

“The ball is in the employer’s court,” said Rob Park, president of CUPE 951, the union that represents office, technical and childcare workers on campus. “If they can fix some of those non-monetary things, it allows us to focus our fight on somebody who can actually deal with it.

“It’s a positive sign that we’re getting back togeth-er to discuss the issues. That’s the only way we’ll get to an agreement. We’re hoping . . . we’ll make some progress at least on those items,” he said.

With respect to wages, the unions are waiting to see what happens with the ongoing labour dispute between the provincial government and the B.C. Government and Service Employees’ Union (BCGEU).

Since the strike began, the locals have picketed the Facilities Management Building and the Cam-pus Security Building, reducing services in each. On Sept. 17, 50 members moved their pickets to the campus bookstore. Housekeeping services in resi-dences, which are provided by CUPE 917 members, were also reduced.

Park said the decision to move to the bookstore was informed by the new Bell cell phone kiosk inside the store. The unions see this as the first move towards privatizing UVic, which has been hinted at via government documents that surfaced last month.

“This new [kiosk] is actually contracting out work, so that sort of put the bookstore out front as far as where we’d like to place the pres-sure,” said Park.

When CUPE locals 917 and 951 first announced job action, they said they aimed for minimal impact on students. But their move to the front of the Bookstore caused some confrontation with students trying to enter the building. As a result, UVic closed

the bookstore around 1:30 p.m., after the store had been open for only an hour.

Finnerty Express, the coffee shop in the same building, was closed the entire day.

“Right now, we’re trying to separate things that would be inconvenient from things that would actually have a detrimental effect on students, like shutting classes down for instance,” said Park. “But when . . . you have to wait a day to get your books, it really is an inconvenience.”

Kilpatrick said picketers began physically ob-structing students from entering the bookstore and offered what could be called “remarks of passion” to those who did enter.

“It became what campus security described as an ‘extremely intimidating environment,’ ” he said. “Those that did cross the picket line were subject to being yelled at.”

Park said he had hoped those kinds of situations wouldn’t happen.

“Members were a lot more passionate than we an-ticipated. We don’t want there to be confrontation . . . that’s not what we’re hoping for,” said Park.

Thomas Ostig was one of the students who ap-proached the bookstore only to have a picketer tell him it was closed due to the strike.

“I’m slightly annoyed, but it doesn’t affect me. I just really wanted to get a calendar today, but I can’t,” explained Ostig, who said he hasn’t been following the details behind the strike.

According to CUPE national servicing repre-sentative Loree Wilcox, some students joined the picket line.

Park said, “There is a saying in the labour move-ment that ‘a strong picket means a short strike.’ When people honour the picket line, they are helping us get the deal done, and there will be no disruptions for anybody.”

Kilpatrick said that, of the 25 colleges and universities in B.C., each associated with one or more CUPE unions, locals 917 and 951 are the only ones that have recently been involved in job action, even though all college and university unions are involved with negotiations with their institutions.

“What’s happening here is unusual in that respect as well,” he said.

CUPE, UVic return to bargaining table

TIA LOWIt’s business as usual again at the UVic Bookstore — a far different scene from the picket line that formed on Sept. 17.

NEWS: national Should B.C. students take note of Quebec students' victory and make similar demands here? Does an effective culture of protest exist in

B.C.? Email letters@martlet.ca to have your say.

September 27, 2012 MARTLET • NEWS 5

> ERIN HUDSON — CUP QUEBEC BUREAU CHIEF

MONTREAL (CUP) — In one of her first moves as Premier of Quebec, Pauline Marois has abolished the controversial tuition hikes that brought students to the streets. She has also repealed much of Bill 78, which aimed at putting students back in the classroom, save for a few provisions largely connected to the scheduling of the disrupted winter term.

Marois’s announcements mark the fulfill-ment of some of her campaign promises lead-ing up to Quebec's Sept. 4 election.

DIVISION AT THE BASE

Despite claiming the seven-month-long student strike a victory, the abolition of the tuition hike signals the parting of ways for Quebec student federations and associa-tions. The Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec (FECQ), the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ) and the Co-alition Large de l’ASSE (CLASSE) collaborated throughout the strike despite a historically tense relationship.

All three student organizations publicly claimed a tuition freeze as the goal fueling the strike; however, for CLASSE, the goal represented a compromise — a compromise its members are no longer willing to make.

“We had adopted a negotiating stance during the strike for a freeze on the 2007 basis — it was seen as a compromise to mobilize more easily and to perhaps win more easily,” explained Jérémie Bédard-Wien, an executive of CLASSE, addressing students at McGill University days before Marois abolished tuition increases.

He said that the end of the strike permits CLASSE to focus on some of its own major po-litical projects, like its campaign for free edu-cation, one of the core objectives for CLASSE and its larger supporting organization, the Association pour une Solidarité Syndicale Étudiante (ASSE).

The FEUQ supports the objective of a tuition freeze, not free education.

“There’s a time to have a demonstration. There’s a time to have a discussion, and we’re now focusing more on discussing and debating with the minister of education,” said FEUQ president Martine Desjardins.

“There’s no tuition fee hike, there’s no [Bill 78],

and so we think now we have a minister who’s more open to discussion — we need to take this path,” she continued. “We won yesterday.”

Though CLASSE, like the student fed-erations FECQ and FEUQ, has also publicly deemed the student strike a victory, that choice was made in order to emphasize the seven months of mobilization on the part of students, Bédard-Wien explained.

“We want to make clear that now if the PQ cancels the tuition fee hike and cancels [Bill 78], it’s because we have risen and we have put intense political pressure on these politi-cal parties and they are afraid of us,” he said.

According to him, CLASSE takes a different approach to relations with the newly elected PQ government compared to the student fed-erations’ collaborative approach.

“The PQ has a long history of making promises that they don’t keep and are certainly no friends of any progressive social struggle,” he explained.

He noted that Pauline Marois was the PQ’s Minister of Education, Leisure and Sport in 1996 when the PQ, the party in power, at-tempted to raise tuition. He said that CLASSE is on alert for the tuition hike to come back in the coming weeks and months.

IMPACTS ON STUDENTS

Though now abolished, the tuition increase was already billed to students attending Que-bec universities.

Circumstances vary depending on the insti-tution: at the Université de Montréal, tuition billing was delayed so no students will need reimbursement. At the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), the period to pay tuition ranges from mid-July to Nov. 2, so the number of students affected is undetermined. At Mc-Gill University, the deadline for fall 2012 tu-ition payments was set for the end of August. At Concordia, too, students were instructed to pay tuition including the hike weeks ago.

Spokespeople from Concordia, McGill and UQAM confirmed that the universities have yet to receive any official direction from the government as to how and when reimburse-ments to students are to be provided.

Possible options could include a direct refund or future credit for the next term, a spokesperson from UQAM explained, though she added no decisions had been made yet.

Quebec premier abolishes tuition hikesBENOIT ROCHON

VANESSA ANNAND

Images of Quebec student protests have populated media for months. Many of the protests will cease now that Premier Pauline Marois has eliminated tuition increases.

UVic and Camosun students held an event on June 9 to show solidarity with Quebec students who were protesting tuition hikes .

Next week, you'll find the Sports and Lifestyle section here. That's all, sports fans. business & tech

6 BUSINESS & TECH • MARTLET September 27, 2012

250.595.6044

> JOHN FOSTER — THE SHEAF (UNIVERSITY OF SASKATCHEWAN)

SASKATOON (CUP) — From grabbing those notes for that class you missed to citing an essay to organizing your drinking schedule, being a new university student isn’t easy. Luckily, there are three amazing web sites — Google, Work-flowy and CiteMe — that will help you keep up with your studies. Learning to use these sites will make your life as a student much easier.

1. GOOGLE

This may seem like an obvious choice, but it’s one of the most robust, useful applications on the web and most people use it just to search. Google is your best friend and it has grown into one of the most fully featured web applications around. With resources such as Google Docs, Books, Maps, Calendar, Gmail and the newly launched Google Play store where you can buy ebooks, apps and more, Google is a student’s best friend. Clicking the top menu bar on Google.com and diving into any of these useful applications will guide you in the right direction for an organized school year.

2. WORKFLOWY

There are a lot of note-taking applications on the web, but Workflowy.com, with its minimal design interface and extreme ease of use, has become my favourite. You are introduced to a very friendly video tutorial immediately after signing up and, once you master a couple of

easy-to-learn hot keys, adding notes and sub-notes is a breeze. Another useful feature of Workflowy is sharing notes — just select a note to share and choose whether or not your friends can edit it. Workflowy will then send you a link that you can share with your study group or project mate, making this a very effective col-laborative tool.

3. CITEME

CiteMe is a Facebook app from the Online Com-puter Library Center that helps you format your citations (apps.facebook.com/citemeapp/). Type in a book, author, subject or ISBN, and the app will fetch the results from its massive online database. With the results, you can select the proper citation that you’re looking for, be it Chicago style or MLA. The style will be there for you to jot down to ensure you have the proper citation formatting no matter which standard the professor wants. Another amazing feature of CiteMe is the ability to search locally which libraries have the title you’ve searched for. Want to see if a certain book is available in Victoria? Just type it in, click Find a Library, enter a postal code or city and you’ll have your information.

A plethora of other sites exist to make student life easier. Search around early in the semester and find which ones work for you — you’ll be glad you did.

Check out cup.ca for more articles from student papers across Canada, including some of the best Martlet content from over the years.

Three websites a new student can’t be without

GLEN O'NEILL

September 27, 2012 MARTLET • BUSINESS & TECH 7

·We fix cell phones ·We unlock cell phones ·We fix all computers (all parts)

·We fix tablets (all parts)

10% OFF FOR ALL STUDENTS

Give us a call:

www.siguyscomputers.com250-590-64671400 quadra street

Blackberry, apple, samsung, htc, LG, and more

250-381-5033

VICTORIAFLEAMARKET.COM

SUNDAYS 9am-2pm195 bay st.

> MICHAEL HEMMINGS

This article concerns a set of related concepts behind three swear words. “F—.” No, no, not that one. They are naughty financial words, unspoken in polite conversation and consid-ered gauche in principle, if not strongly coun-ter-cultural. They are “thriftiness,” “frugality” and “savings.”

We have socially evolved (perhaps devolved) from an economy of need to an economy of desire. Our so-called “needs” have become as manufactured as the objects we buy, separated from a natural necessity. Those manufactured, manipulated needs drive us by herd instinct to buy more and more stuff, regardless of what we need now or in the long run. In turn, this manu-factured need promotes debt as a good thing until the debtor overextends by one more dollar. It’s the economy of desire that brings the three swear words to our attention.

To be thrifty is by definition to act with “wise economy in the management of money or other

assets.” It comes from an Old Norse word mean-ing “to thrive.” To save means to “avoid spend-ing money in the present to keep or accumulate it for the future.” It also means to “rescue from harm.” To be frugal means “to avoid living with waste.” It comes from a Latin word which means “useful” or “temperate.”

You can instantly see why these terms are swear words in our world right now, and why they are often unheard, unused and ignored. They make us question our values, spending habits and personal future. They may be ugly, but if you do not want to be part of the herd, then make the words part of your life planning, financial or otherwise.

Here is one further definition. The word “econ-omy” comes from Greek. “Oikonomia” means “household management.” Since 2008, we have seen how the world’s self-appointed masters of the household have managed our global home. You and I can do better and prosper sooner if we prepare ourselves by adopting frugality and thriftiness, as well as saving.

> TIA LOW

Shoes are in this year; for those who don’t speak the language of fashion, this means they are this year’s moneymakers in Canada’s fash-ion retail industry.

According to market research company NPD Canada, footwear sales rose one per cent to $4.9 billion last year, compared to apparel sales, which fell two per cent to $22.9 billion. Sales for women’s footwear in particular went up five per cent last year to $2.8 billion after only two per cent increases in the few years prior. Women’s apparel sales dropped four per cent to $13 bil-lion after little increase in the previous years.

Local businesses in Victoria have seen evi-dence of the booming market this year.

“Shoe sales have definitely grown,” says Ker-stin Greiner, owner of downtown Victoria shoe store Footloose. “There are dips and rises, but 2012 is a good year.”

Greiner couldn’t offer a percentage on the spot, but says sales have increased since 2011.

While Footloose carries “stylish but comfort-able” shoes, She She Shoes, another Victoria footwear store, is more about being fashion-for-ward than comfort-driven. The two stores differ in style, but both have similar wide price ranges, from approximately $100–$400. Shelagh Macartney, owner of She She Shoes, has also

noticed an improvement in sales. She attributes the rising sales to new styles and colours.

“There are so many great styles out there now. I think there’s more options out there for colours,” says Macartney. “Manufacturers and designers don’t have to play it quite as safe anymore because people are embracing the colours.”

For retailers who deal in multiple fashion products, profit margins for footwear are higher than those for apparel, especially if they are quickly sold at full price. Footwear prices, unlike apparel, have a lesser chance of being marked down because shoes often cross over into different seasons.

Greiner acknowledges that women even wear boots during the summer now.

“In the evening, women can pair ankle boots with a skirt,” says Greiner.

As Canadians wait for the economy to strengthen, women are looking for ways to be fashionable without overspending, and the in-creased demand for shoes shows they’ve found one way. Macartney says women are discovering it’s cheaper to buy a pair of shoes than a new dress or pair of jeans.

“A good pair of shoes can completely change your outfit,” says Macartney.

The Bay department store in downtown Vic-toria appears to be responding to the shoe de-

mand as well. This year, the company expanded its women’s footwear department, adding more space and offering more shoes. A Bay represen-tative was not available for comment.

Footwear is also popular for online shoppers. Although American consumers report that they shop more for clothes online than for shoes, shoes are better performers in terms of actual sale percentages. According to NPD, people’s comfort level with shopping for footwear online is low, ranked behind online grocery and furni-ture shopping. Nevertheless, shoes are one of the top 10 categories of items shopped for and purchased online.

Greiner says she’s considering the idea of starting an online business because it can reach more people.

“There was a woman from Spain who con-tacted us wanting a pair of shoes that were made in Spain,” says Greiner, admitting the irony. “She saw that we carry the shoe because we have a blog.”

Whether or not shoes will continue to reign over clothes in the retail business, it has always been clear to those in the industry that the shop-ping woman loves her shoes.

“People have huge crushes on shoes,” says Macartney. “They come to the store and visit [the shoes they want to buy]. It’s like their lost love.”

Financial swear words worth saying

Shoes: this year’s sound investment for retailers

THOUGHTS TO THINK, ACTIONS TO TAKE

1 For one month, write down what you spend your money on, with costs

associated with each expense/purchase. Take one sheet of paper and divide it into three columns.

2 Title the columns as follows: what is necessary; what I choose to

want or define as necessary; what I can save. Be honest about what you put in each category.

3 At the end of the month, review and add up the monies.

4 Ask yourself questions. If you have a significant amount of money going

out in the want category and take out just one quarter of it, how much could you save each month? Extrapolate that into a year, then into 20 years, then into 40 years. Multiply it by 5 per cent. How much would you have?

Let’s say you spend $25 per week on coffee, alcohol and/or cigarettes. That is $100 per month. Let’s say you are 20 years old, which means you have 45 years until retirement. At $100 per month for 45 years multiplied by five per cent, you would have approximately $202 000 by retirement (you must calculate this using a financial calculator).

TIA LOW

HEY, WANNA MAKE SOME VIDEOS?NO, NOT THAT KIND.

EMAIL VIDEO@MARTLET.CA

YOU COULD BE A VIDEO JOURNALIST!

Local business Footloose is riding the wave of robust shoe sales across Canada.

fb.com/martletuvic

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youtube.com/martletuvic

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connect with us online!

EDITORIAL

/³fty

VOLUME 65 • ISSUE 8

Got something to say that your friends and family are sick of hearing? Get a fresh audience.

Email opinions@martlet.ca to write an op-ed.

Clark should hold fall sitting in 'Sicktoria'Many citizens of this province might agree with Premier Christy Clark’s comments about the Victoria leg-islature being a “sick culture” with no real connection to the outside. But by using that as an excuse for not holding a fall sitting of the legislature, she is simply shirking her responsibility to the people of B.C.

It’s easy to see why Clark is choosing to do this. The B.C. Liberal Party is laden with the inevitable political baggage that comes with being in power for over a decade, and it is suffering accordingly in the polls. To bear the wrath of her critics in Question Period at this point in the B.C. Liberal Party’s fortunes is apparently too much for Clark. Instead, she has opted to avoid the legislature in favour of an extended campaign to take the pulse of more “real” B.C. citizens (and hopefully avoid dragging her party down any further into the quagmire).

But no matter how much sympathy Clark’s opinions about the legislature may elicit, she is the leader of the governing party — the premier of the province. If she wants to make any attempt at salvaging her party’s fortunes in the next election, she has to set an example by trying to clean up the “sick culture” from within, rather than taking refuge from it. If she is unable to demonstrate that she can change things, what does she think that says to us about her abilities as a leader?

Not only was the content of the premier’s comment disturbing; her choice of words was similarly disconcerting. You would think she has spent enough time in politics to know that political state-ments are often picked apart. Her phrasing (“there are no real people in Victoria”) can be construed in many ways, and is hardly innocuous even in the context she intended. Any way you read it, this little controversy shows us that Clark may not have what we look for in a premier — someone who is willing to face adversity, whether it is on the grounds of the legislature or in the face of a major issue that British Columbians are facing.

Brian Hutchinson, the National Post columnist who heard Premier Clark’s comments firsthand, dismissed a good deal of the brouhaha. “Some media in Victoria grabbed the story Wednesday and turned it into a premier-loathes-Victoria-and-everyone-who lives-there piece,” wrote Hutchinson on Sept. 20. “Local residents were canvassed; expressions of personal affront and hurt were sought.” And while it’s true that Clark probably did not mean that every student at UVic is a phony, or that every retail worker on Government Street is insufferable, what’s undeniable is that she simply doesn’t care enough about any of us to fulfill her duty and hold a fall sitting. Her actions speak louder than her mis-construed words. She doesn’t loathe us; she just doesn’t want to serve us. And that’s actually worse.

What is Clark’s response to the aftermath of her remarks? No, she is not rescinding her decision to leave the legislature barren. Instead, she is peevishly fixating on Hutchinson, despite his attempt to downplay the controversy.

“I think I certainly will be much more careful, with that reporter in particular, in the future about stuff like that,” Clark told the CBC.

Surely Clark must realize that it’s not Hutchinson she needs to worry about. “Stuff like that” is sure to make British Columbians sick of her.

REBECCA COMEAU

Opinions

8 OPINIONS • MARTLET September 27, 2012

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> ALAN PIFFER

Libel: written or broadcasted statements, pre-sented as fact, that can damage the reputation of a person, business or organization. Libel is a term budding journalists have to become very familiar with. Get your facts wrong and you could be in big trouble.

In the days of yore before the internet, libel-lous statements were easier to control. In the publishing, radio and television industries, there was at least the assurance that an editor could act as a gatekeeper to keep libel at bay and preserve the public order.

But since the advent of the internet, those rules have changed. Social media, online com-munities, forums and blogs make it effortless to post something libellous for the world to see.

Moderators of these forums either take a while to remove the offending comment or don’t bother to remove the comment at all. And once it’s been posted, the damage is done.

There was a recent hint of controversy, noted in the Victoria subsection of a popular social news aggregator website, about a local store allegedly shutting down another nearby small business. It was fairly noted in posts by the site’s commenters that the thread was one-sided, and without any statements from the business in question, the story could very well affect the reputation of that business.

Another site that enjoys its fair share of controversy is the “Rants and Raves” sec-tion of Craigslist. This popular form of online

venting attracts no shortage of vitriolic rants, sometimes directed at people, and frequently unjustified. I’ve seen traditional TV broadcast-ers withhold sensitive information about the identities of alleged criminals as per broadcast and journalistic codes of conduct. But this same information — addresses, phone numbers, de-tails about family members — is revealed online without much thought by individuals who pos-sess less foresight, along with an accompanying call to “go out and get ‘em.”

And it definitely doesn’t end there. One place you’ll never want to see yourself is on your city’s section of gossip website thedirty.com. There, unflattering pictures of local, unfortunate youths — along with accusations of drug use, promiscuity and infidelity — abound. It will be interesting to see how long this website will remain online. Until then, its subjects have to deal with the humiliation of being featured on their city’s section.

So what can we, as citizens, do about this? Well, since anyone can easily set up a blog for free and have their voice heard just as easily as that of a journalist from a major paper, it is up to all of us to also adopt the critical mindset of a good journalist. What do we need to keep in mind whenever we look at some of these sites? Innocent until proven guilty. Beware of one-sided stories. Get to know the full story. We need to approach all information — especially nasty online gossip — with a healthy amount of skepticism. In some cases, we should just avoid certain sites entirely.

Where the wild accusations areRants, raves, insensitivity: the internet houses them all

ALAN PIFFER

September 27, 2012 MARTLET • OPINIONS 9

> SOL KAUFFMAN

The Day of Atonement is coming again … look busy.

It’s nearing the end of September, a.k.a. the month of Tishrei on the lunar Jewish calen-dar, which means Yom Kippur is right around the corner. For those who don’t know, it’s an annual holiday where Jews around the world take a day to fast, review our behaviour over the year, and try to apologize and atone.

I don’t know if there’s been a generation in recent memory more apathetic about religion than this one. Besides Richard Dawkins and the perniciously self-righteous trolls on Red-dit’s /r/atheism, churches, synagogues and mosques are having a tough time convinc-ing us to get engaged with the traditions of our ancestors. There’s certainly a lot of contention over all the historical crimes perpetrated in the name of religion as well. But whether you believe in a higher power or not, I’d argue that human institutions don’t last thousands of years without having some redeeming value.

Though my parents experimented with Buddhism for a while, I was raised Jewish, the faith of my great-grandparents, who emi-grated from Ukraine almost a century ago. I went to Jewish elementary school as a kid and sporadically attended synagogue with my parents; I was never full-bore into it, but when high school rolled around, continuing with Jewish education was the path of least resistance. I always kind of bounced around with it, being bored or frustrated with some aspects and appreciating the wisdom and value in others. I have few close friends still involved with the Jewish community in Victoria, so I hardly think about it — in fact, I only really end up explaining and think-

ing about my religion when my friends or girlfriends are curious.

But every year there’s a stretch called the High Holidays, which are kind of the big-ticket religious events for the year, and it means a lot to my dad for me to head back to Vancouver and spend some time sitting with him in synagogue. At first, I’d just let my mind wander away, but in recent years I’ve seen Yom Kippur in particular as an opportu-nity to do a meaningful self-assessment.

I like to do the fast no matter where I am because it puts me into the right headspace. Every time I look at a water fountain or walk past Second Slice that day, it reminds me what I’m doing, especially when my holiday is still full of errands and shifts at work. I don’t have the social pressure of my family and older community anymore, but that just makes it all the more poignant to be doing it on my own.

Without the warmth of a room full of community, without my parents’ comforting presence and familiar voices, all I have is sit-ting alone in my room, watching the weather outside. I think about everyone I’ve hurt this year, promises to myself and others that I didn’t keep, and whether I’m any wiser than I was the year before. I think about the times when I was jealous of someone instead of cel-ebrating them. When I held grudges. When I talked about someone behind his or her back. When I lied, or made apologies I didn’t mean, or treated someone unfairly.

Part of being an adult is taking responsibil-ity for everything you do. Owning it. It’s often easy for us to do something and not consider how others feel, to do something we know is wrong and just move forward without reflect-ing on it. I know it does a lot for my soul to spend at least this one day making sure I try

to feel every dark emotion I put someone else through. And every year, I work on being better at catching myself and thinking those things through before doing them. I’m grate-ful to the holiday for giving me a reminder to think about these things, because I know they’re important whether they are engaged

with religion or not—considering the impact of our actions is a universally relatable virtue.

I know I’ll probably never be free of regrets on Yom Kippur, but that’s just part of being human. All we can do is try our best.

GROWING PAINS

An opportunity to self-reflect

> STUART ARMSTRONG Now that Canada has finished its combat mis-sion in Afghanistan and moved to a training role for the Afghan military and police forces, Canada, along with the rest of NATO, is set to withdraw all military personnel from Afghani-stan by 2014. But what will happen to Afghani-stan, and what will Canada’s responsibilities be to Afghanistan?

The NATO withdrawal could launch a war between the Taliban and the anti-Taliban United Front, made up of the political National Coali-tion of Afghanistan and the military National Front of Afghanistan. Both the Coalition and the Front came out of the old Northern Alliance, the NATO-backed Afghan organization that toppled the Taliban in 2001 and founded the current government. The United Front has been shut out of recent appeasement talks between the Taliban and Afghan President Karzai, and they have been preparing to fight the Taliban independently of the Afghan national government.

Who will win will depend on what support each side can get from outside sources. Whoever receives the most foreign help will have a strate-gic advantage, as the Pakistan-supported Taliban resurgence that peaked in 2006 showed. If the West completely abandons both Karzai and the remnants the Northern Alliance, and if elements of the Pakistani military and intelligence services support the Taliban, then a Taliban government in Kabul is possible. This would most likely lead to a return to Sharia law mixed with Pushtun customs, and a return to open persecution of women, men and religious minorities. 

Karzai might not be alone, as China is moving to increase its influence in the region and fill the vacuum NATO leaves. If China decides to back Karzai, then his problem of a Pakistan-supported Taliban goes away because of Islamabad’s rela-tionship with Beijing. Or, at worst, Karzai has the

support he needs to fight it out with the Taliban.What would Canada’s responsibility be in this

new Afghan civil war? In practical terms, noth-ing. Canada has no interests in Afghanistan be-yond supporting NATO and U.S. anti-terrorism actions. The Canadian government originally was not even considering a deployment to Af-ghanistan in 2001; however, the September 11 attacks and NATO involvement made Afghani-stan a Canadian issue.

What Canada can do is another matter. Former Chief of Land Staff (the Army General Staff) Lieutenant General Leslie testified in 2009 to the Senate Standing Committee on National Secu-rity and Defence that after Afghanistan, the Ca-nadian Forces will have to take a year-long break from major combat operations due to personnel and equipment shortages. This seems true today with defence budget cuts (the Canadian army will no longer have a ground-to-air defence capability to shoot down enemy aircraft) and no clear mission for the military after Afghanistan.

There is also little public support for a future large-scale combat mission like Afghanistan. According to a 2010 Nanos poll, 52 per cent of Canadians would prefer that the military return to traditional duties such as peacekeeping and humanitarian missions, and 66 per cent of Canadians would oppose or “somewhat oppose” another mission like the one to Afghanistan.

If the Taliban attempt to retake Afghanistan by attacking the national government and United Front forces, Karzai may preserve his govern-ment with outside help. And that help may not come from Washington, but from Beijing. With Pakistan and Afghanistan as Chinese strategic allies, China will have more leverage with India and Russia and will gain more regional power as Canada’s foothold diminishes. Reduced military involvement in the Middle East may be what the majority of Canadians want — but is it what Canadians need?

> BEN PARFITT

During the Roman Empire, masters knew pre-cisely how many calories their slaves needed to keep running.

Today, “virtual slaves” in the form of com-bustion engines and other labour-saving tools have largely replaced the human slaves of old. But like their human predecessors, they must still be fed — even if that means bloodshed.

As debate in B.C. intensifies over the pro-posed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline, which would carry bitumen from Alberta across countless rivers and streams to Kitimat on B.C.’s coast for shipment to China, our reli-ance on virtual slaves and their steady diet of oil has emerged as the make-or-break issue for life on the planet.

Today, writes Andrew Nikiforuk, one of Canada’s leading investigative journalists and Governor General Literary Award-winning author, each North American consumes, on average, 23.6 barrels of oil per year. This is the same as everyone employing the services of 89 virtual slaves that run on a non-renew-able resource that’s being rapidly depleted around the world.

That most of us have no idea of our true indebtedness to today’s energy slaves is a big problem, Nikiforuk warns in his latest book, The Energy of Slaves: Oil and the New Servitude. It’s about to get much worse as the caloric intake of virtual slaves intensifies in rapidly urbanizing China, where many of the goods we consume come from.

“Nowhere,” writes Nikiforuk, “has the growth of cities advanced in a more war-like fashion than in China.” Over the next 25 years, he writes, China will build “50 000 sky-scrapers — the equivalent of ten New Yorks.”

Such growth has sparked an unprecedented rise in acquisitions of Canadian energy assets by China’s state-owned petro companies,

writes another esteemed Canadian investiga-tive journalist and author, Victoria’s Terry Glavin. And when one connects the dots, as Glavin has, troubling questions arise. Glavin, last year’s UVic Harvey Stevenson Southam Lecturer in Journalism and Nonfic-tion, has almost single-handedly unearthed the breadth of China’s attempts to wrest control of Canada’s energy assets away from Canadians. He has illuminated the troubling links some of those acquisitions have to vio-lence elsewhere in the world.

In a January National Post column, Glavin noted that Sinopec, whose president is a direct appointee of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, “is the main money” behind the proposed Enbridge Northern Gate-way pipeline.

Sinopec is also the same company that spent $2 billion to acquire a little-known Vancouver company — Tanganyika Oil. That acquisition, Glavin writes, gained China ac-cess to Syria’s Oudeh oilfields. In return, the murderous regime of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad got access to “sanctions-busting revenues” from Sinopec.

The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights estimates that more than 29,000 people have now been killed in Syria. The killings have prompted condemnation from much of the global community, with the notable exception of petro-states Russia and China.

In the era of oil and the new servitude, people die to feed our virtual slaves.

Ben Parfitt is a resource policy analyst with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Andrew Nikiforuk and Terry Glavin will speak in room 159 in UVic’s Fraser Building at 7 p.m. on Oct. 1. This event is hosted by UVic’s Environmental Law Club.

Our virtual energy slavesCanada’s Afghan dilemmaNATO withdrawal could see Chinese advance

REBECCA COMEAU

10 FEATURE • MARTLET September 27, 2012

It was a breakthrough event for disabled people, as a people. Media coverage in the U.K. was wall-to-wall. Events were sold out. The opening and closing ceremonies showcased people with disabilities as full participants in life and in the world. The Paralympic athletes were as exciting and inspiring as the non-disabled Olympians a few weeks before.

In addition to the sheer joy and excitement of sport, the primary aim of the Olympics has always been to provide a way for nations to compete peacefully through sport instead of war. The goal is to develop a spirit of international co-operation. Host countries compete for honour and vie for praise as they showcase the identity, strengths, history and founding myths of their nations.

Since the first Paralympic Games in 1948, the goals of the Paralympics have been different. Of course the Games are intended to generate opportunities for people with disabilities to partici-pate in sports, but they are also intended to transform perceptions of people with disabilities, challenge the way society deals with disability and envision what kinds of communities we could create if we tried.

Everything about the 2012 Paralympic Games was different from previous Paralympics and from “business as usual” for people with disabilities. In the U.K., live television coverage of the Paralym-pics was non-stop. Channel 4, the U.K. network with the contract for the games, selected people with disabilities as announcers. The nightly wrap-up of each day’s Games featured disability hu-mour. As is often the way, children were the quickest to pick up the message. When questioned by a TV reporter, one British child summed it up: “What have I learned from the Paralympics? That being disabled isn’t the baddest thing in the world.” Bingo. Hallelujah.

People with disabilities sometimes get tired of the adjective “inspiring” being applied to every-thing we do. However, Paralympians are elite athletes in a class far beyond most of us, and they are legitimately inspiring. The physical prowess, the determination, the courage is powerful to see. Yes, we may be locked into our daily routines — studying, working and squeezing in some fitness where we can — but there are people who show us what the bodies of the most highly conditioned, trained and motivated athletes in the world can do. These bodies are flat-out inspiring. Dazzling. Wondrous. The 2012 Paralympics were inspiring as sport, but also in numerous other ways.

THE GREATEST SHOW WE EVER MISSED

The opening of the Olympics was a hard act to follow. Yet the Paralympics equaled or surpassed it in splendour, in energy and in creativity. From centre stage, Stephen Hawking pointed to the stars and invited us to wonder. At the end of the ceremony, a larger-than-life white marble nude statue of a beautiful, pregnant, disabled woman presided over the stadium like an awesome goddess. The controversial statue, “Alison Lapper Pregnant,” is the work of sculptor Marc Quinn and has been famously exhibited in London’s Trafalgar Square. Graeae Theatre Company, composed entirely of performing artists who are disabled, rocked out the late Ian Dury’s punk anthem, “Spasticus Autisti-cus,” once banned on the BBC. It was electrifying.

Before his death in 2000, the singer-songwriter had produced a groundbreaking body of work. The song featured in the Paralympics opening ceremony has a refrain that echoes a scene in the film Spartacus. To protect their leader, enslaved Roman gladiators all shout out, “I am Spartacus!” when ordered to identify him. Dury wrote the song to protest the treatment of people with disabilities in what he calls “Normal Land.” Dury had polio as a child and was disabled himself.

Vancouver-based disability activist Paul Caune recalls that “Spasticus Autisticus” was deemed too offensive for daytime radio. “It’s hard to know who the ban was supposed to be protecting,” says Caune, who is the executive director of Civil Rights Now. “But it’s not really surprising that they banned it. I’ve encountered in my own experience the mindset that people with disabilities should be grateful — and I’ve seen this with healthcare professionals, for example. Some people get hysteri-cal when they encounter what they consider defiance.” Caune was surprised and impressed that “Spasticus Autisticus” was performed at the Paralympics. “It’s refreshing to see it performed at such a huge public event. I’m really glad they honoured that song.”

Co-designed by Deaf artistic director Jenny Sealey, and featuring thousands of athletes and per-formers, all disabled, the Paralympic opening ceremony dramatically reframed disability as a

normal and constant aspect of humanity — worthy of respect and admiration rather than pity or fear. Unfortunately, Canadian television networks CTV and CBC didn’t broadcast any live cover-age at all from the Paralympics, even the opening ceremonies. Neither did the American networks. North Americans, therefore, missed nearly every part of these game-changing Games.

THE PARALYMPICS AND PROTEST

An unmistakable note of political awareness was also unique to this year’s Paralympics. London’s Games highlighted the fact that people with disabilities are faced with discrimination and exclusion. Even in Britain, the birthplace of the Paralympics, people with disabilities are under pressure and facing unprecedented cuts to the supports and services that allow their independence. The difficult truth is that the disability movement is on the ropes around the world.

A comprehensive 2011 study of British media, “Bad News for Disabled People: how newspa-pers are reporting disability,” revealed that people with disabilities in the U.K. were receiving increasingly negative media coverage in U.K. media. Seeing themselves portrayed as “cheats” and “scroungers,” highly organized disability groups accused the government of using the media to heighten negative perceptions of the disabled in an attempt to soften up the public in preparation for planned cuts to disability supports.

In response, well-organized public protests by disability groups ran concurrent with the Games. Great Britain’s Paralympic athletes spoke out against the government. The Guardian published many of these remarks. Aaron Phipps, who competed as part of the U.K. Paralympic rugby team, had this to say about the government’s proposed cuts to the Disability Living Allowance (DLA): “It pays for the essential things I need . . . I would be completely lost without it.” Footballer David Clarke said, “It does seem as though disabled people’s independence is being jeopardized by the govern-ment’s proposals.” So intertwined with Paralympic coverage was the news of the British funding cuts and the protests against them that much of the massive U.K. coverage of the Paralympics also included the disability protests from around the country.

The London Games brought into broader public view the difficult truth about increasing dismissal and outright cruelty towards disabled people.

PARALYMPICS ON THE FAST TRACK

The first precursor to the Paralympics, organized by British physician Sir Ludwig Guttmann, were held outside the Stoke Mandeville Hospital in England in the late summer of 1948. Guttmann be-lieved that no medical effort should be spared to save the lives of wounded and paralyzed veterans of the Second World War. He also championed the importance of sports rehabilitation for their recovery and reintegration into community life.

Victoria-based physiotherapist and author Graeme McCreath marvels at how far and how fast the Paralympic Games have come. “The attention and respect is so much more,” he says. In Rome, at the first official Paralympic Games in 1960, there were 400 athletes from 23 countries. London 2012 brought together more than 4 000 athletes from 164 countries, and the Paralympic Summer Games are now the second-largest sporting event in the world.

McCreath, who is blind, competed in the Paralympic Games in 1974 on the site of the original Stoke Mandeville Games. It was the first international sport event to combine various disabilities, and it included blind athletes for the first time. He says sport is critical in rehabilitation and adds, “Sport has shown such incredible potential to change attitudes, that’s the thing. The more open we can be, the more people see us participating out there, the more familiar sight we are going about our daily lives and engaged in things like sports, the more attitudes will change.”

McCreath remains a great believer in the transformative power of the Games and looks forward to increased coverage from Rio de Janeiro in 2016. “It is wonderful to know that millions of people in the U.K. and around the world saw thousands of athletes, including blind athletes, thriving and competing and doing just what all people do, given the chance.”

Brave— N E W —

Paralympic GamesParalympics wow audiences even as North Americans are left in the dark

BY ROSE MARIANA ROBB

September 27, 2012 MARTLET • FEATURE 11

WHAT ABOUT CANADA?

Canada has much to be proud of. We sent 145 Paralympic athletes to London 2012. They were fabulous, and UVic was well represented. UVic alumnus Jessica Vliegenthart and former Vike Janet McLachlan were there with the Canadian women’s wheelchair basketball team. Tim Rees, a postdoctoral research fellow at UVic’s School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, competed in judo. And Brianna Nelson, a UVic psychology major, won silver medals for her swimming in the 50-metre butterfly and the 200-metre S7 individual medley, even setting a new Canadian record in the latter. Beyond the UVic contingent, swimmers Benoit Huot and Ashley Mortimer won gold for Canada, as did the Canadian men’s wheelchair basketball team and wheelchair racer Michelle Stilwell.

While Canada won 31 medals, seven of them gold, the 2012 total is an undeniable nose-dive from Beijing in 2008, where we won 50 med-als, 19 of them gold. Most explanations point to increased interest from other countries as the reason for Canada’s relative slide. Another problem is that only four per cent of Canadians with disabilities play a sport, compared to 33 per cent of non-disabled Canadians, according to CEO of the Canadian Paralympic Committee Henry Storgaard. Athletes acknowledge that more investment and attention is needed but also emphasize the importance of removing barriers and creating more opportunities for all Canadians with disabilities to participate in sports.

Judging by the enthusiasm of our athletes, and building on the momentum of the London Games, we can hope to see more Canadians on the podium in Rio de Janeiro. Let’s hope that more Canadians can be in the 2016 global TV audience, too.

THE SUPERHUMANS

For a world that loves high-tech gadgetry, the eye popping bionic extensions to the human body were an amazing part of the 2012 Para-lympics. “Meet the Superhumans,” the hugely successful British advertising campaign for the Paralympics, intentionally incorporated a re-freshingly positive tone and attitude about dis-ability and cutting-edge technology. New pros-

thetics used by runners and other Paralympians maximize efficiency and no longer mimic flesh and bone. Some of the pioneering technology is sophisticated enough to replace key functions of the human body. Sleek new wheelchair designs are marvels of engineering. Seemingly integrat-ed with the athletes’ bodies, the designs vary according to the demands of specific sports. Goalball, a hybrid between soccer, lawn bowl-ing and dodgeball, is a delightful example of a resourceful adaptation to sports equipment. The ball in play is weighted with bells that chime so that blind players can track its location. Many athletes demonstrated inventive methods for holding, throwing, signaling and communicat-ing. According to Caune, “People with complex disabilities have to think very hard on how to make the most of every day — Paralympians just take that that to the nth degree.”

In world media, including Canadian media, the most celebrated athlete was Oscar Pistorius, The Blade Runner. He had competed in the reg-ular Olympics and caught the attention of the public, not least because of controversy about whether his blades surpassed the capability of normal legs. It was suggested that if the bionic prosthetics were superior, he might have an unfair advantage. Of course, at the Paralympics, Pistorius was one of hundreds of blade runners. That was a great thing about these games: the spread of new visuals, photographs and videos of human bodies that are not as frequently seen, and a revelation that there are many people with disabilities in the world well enough, focused enough and ambitious enough to make it to the Olympic level. Photographs from the sporting events were extraordinary, the athletes radiant with strength and power. McCreath couldn’t be more pleased. “The more we are out there, participating and including ourselves, the more we’ll be included in the minds of the general public,” he says.

These beautiful lines from Shakespeare’s The Tempest were used in the opening ceremony and capture the parting impression of the 2012 Paralympic Games: “O wonder! How many goodly creatures there are here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world that has such people in’t.”

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Only valid at Moxie’s Yates. One voucher per person. One time use. Maximum value $13. No cash value. Connot be combined with a any other offer. Dine in only. Expires December 31st 2012.

Tune in next week for more adorable photos of large cats. YouTube's got nothin' on us. CULTURE

September 27, 2012 MARTLET • CULTURE 13

taste the difference

2000 cadboro bay road (corner of fort & foul bay)

victoria bc

250.595.7774www.villagewinery.com

does 5 dozen beer for $33 sound enticing?how about 30 bottles of Wine for $105?We sell Brew House Beer kits for home brewing. Plus over 100 types of wine you brew on site with us.

Wine Making is easy 1. Select your wine. 2. Pour in the yeast. 3. We call you when ready for bottling. We provide custom caps and labels with your choice of imprinted text. First time on site customers receive a 10% discount.

KELLIE RALPH AND TRAVIS MUIR

Clockwise from top right:

Travis Muir takes a break from walking Carlos, a rescued puma, in Bolivia's Am-bue Ari Park.

Carlos gives Muir a friendly face-wash.

Weighing in at only 150 pounds or so, Carlos is rougly the same size as a large dog — and often better behaved.

> TRAVIS MUIR

In 2012, UVic Biology/Geography student Travis Muir went to Bolivia for five weeks to volunteer at an ecological reserve and reha-bilitation centre that houses jaguars, pumas, ocelots and a variety of birds and monkeys. Muir is documenting his experience for the Martlet in three installments.

After a 20- or 25-minute walk away from my dorm and down a road in Bolivia’s Ambue Ari Park, there’s an entrance to a jungle path. Along the path, I am first greeted by a bog, which takes about five minutes to walk through.

Ambue Ari is both an animal rehabilitation centre and a sanctuary for the animals that are unable to be released. The park encompasses 800 hectares and also functions as a protected area for wild animals. The park is operated by Comunidad Inti Wara Yassi (CIWY), a non-governmental organization dedicated to environmental education and the care of sick, mistreated and abandoned wildlife. I have come to Bolivia to volunteer with CIWY.

After I leave the bog, I am faced with another 15-minute walk through Bolivian rain forest laden with palms, patuju and many other exotic plant species. Once past a specific log, my two partners, Kellie Ralph and Olivia Allen, begin calling out, “Hola, chico,” and, “Hola, Carlos.” We are answered by a chirp from Carlos. We then mimic his cry.

Carlos is a medium-sized cat known as a puma. He and his brother Juan were confiscated in 2008 from a family who kept them as pets in the city of Santa Cruz. The brothers were roughly four months old when they were seized and brought to the park.

Juan died during his first year at the park. Several days of violent seizures led volunteers to two possible causes: ingestion of a poisonous toad or epilepsy.

Gill Maxwell, the park administrator and volunteer co-ordinator, has raised Carlos since he was young. She has “Carlitos” tattooed on the inside of her bottom lip. Maxwell has done an amazing job in developing a very well-behaved

cat, who not only allows but loves affection in the form of hugs and kisses.

I am surprised at Carlos’s size when I first meet him. I expected him to be larger; he is the size of a large dog, approximately 120–150 pounds. I am both jealous and understanding of the rela-tionship Ralph and Allen have with this beauti-ful puma as he brushes past their legs, purrs and looks up at them, waiting for the girls to receive his licks while they reciprocate love to him.

I am still smiling, not only from trekking through a jungle where it’s common to witness a variety of monkeys (capuchin, howler and squirrel) crash through the trees above in search of food, but because I am finally working and improving the life of an animal, hands-on — and a predatory cat at that.

After a few days of walking behind the girls, who take turns walking Carlos through looping trails on a leash made of rope, it is my turn to hold the rope while he wanders. I call out the voice commands: “no mas” (no more) when he has gone the length of his rope off the path; “sigue tu cuerda” (follow your rope) when he has tangled himself around a tree or obstacle and needs to retrace his steps; and “muy bien chico” (very good boy) when he correctly follows my instructions or gives up on the oc-casional lie-down protest when not allowed down certain trails. Carlos surprises me. In many ways, he is more responsive and easier to walk than Beau, my family’s Great Pyrenees dog back home.

I am able to observe, up close, behaviour rang-ing from the highly determined, perfectly in-tune stalking (body low to the ground, each step slow and soundless) to the less elegant (and very comical) sight of Carlos stumbling around vines and trees.

Not only do I form an unforgettable bond with this fascinating creature, but I also gain the ability to better read a puma’s body language by working with Carlos. This knowledge becomes very important once I begin working with two larger pumas, Roy and Tupac.

Check out the next issue of the Martlet for more on Muir’s menagerie in Bolivia.

Taking a puma for a promenade

14 CULTURE • MARTLET September 27, 2012

> ALAN PIFFER

These days, there’s a lot of hype around online crowd-funding websites such as Indiegogo and Kickstarter, where creative types can solicit donations for various projects from people all over the world. If an idea really sparks public interest, it can be far more financially success-ful than originally anticipated. However, a crowd-funding campaign’s level of success can vary greatly.

Local independent filmmakers Daniel Hogg and Jeremy Lutter were able to secure some funding on their own to produce their film Floodplain. But they still needed to raise an extra $3 600 to build a raft, which serves as a main plot point of the movie. The raft was expensive because it not only had to look right, but also float well and be durable enough for use by camera crews.

So Hogg and Lutter started their fundraising campaign in May with Indiegogo, which gave them a maximum fundraising time of 120 days.

“The idea [was] that we would shoot in the summer and be able to post media and photos from set when we were shooting and continue

to raise funds, sort of retroactively, and cover the cost of the raft ourselves until we hit our goal,” explains Hogg.

Luckily, their crowd-funding campaign met its target only days before the shoot.

“That was a lovely, serendipitous moment,” says Hogg. “It was great, because it meant we could really get momentum going into the shoot, and get people aware of the shoot, and that worked out really nicely.”

The campaign was able to attract 49 funders, mainly friends and family involved in the arts community, who donated anywhere from $5–$600.

According to Hogg, crowd-funding campaigns for the average person can require a massive amount of effort.

“Crowd funding requires as much time as you can put into it,” says Hogg. “When people are trying to do crowd-funding for a larger-scale project, say $20 000 or $50 000, the popular perception is you actually need to treat it like a full-time job. That’s how much time it actually takes to raise that kind of money.”

Hogg says there seems to be a typical progres-sion for crowd-funding campaigns.

“You’ll tend to get a fair bit of your goal very early on. And then in the middle of your proj-ect, you’ll get very little,” says Hogg, whose raft project sat at a $1 000 donation level for quite a while. “And then in the last few days, you’ll tend to get up to 60 per cent of what-ever it is you get, whether or not you make or exceed your goal.”

Local folk music duo Auto Jansz and Andrea June have also used crowd-funding as a strategy to help fund production costs of their upcom-ing album (to be recorded in mid-November). They chose the site gofundme.com because it wouldn’t refund the money if the target was not reached by its November end date.

“We’ve committed to making the album and we’ve booked time in the studio,” explains June. “It’ll cost what it’s going to cost. If some of it’s going to go on the Visa, that’s what’s go-ing to happen.”

While their crowd-funding campaign started last year, $1 000 has been raised so far, falling short of their $3 000 goal. Recently, the pair raised the total to $1 900 by contributing an additional $900 of their own money to help stimulate the campaign.

“I thought maybe it would be helpful to see that Auto and I are heading towards this goal too, and remind people,” says June. “That’s the news on the website: ‘Hey, we’re up to this amount, but we still need this much more.’ ”

Initially a lot of donations came in, mostly from family and friends.

“It was like nice surprises to see who wants to send you this $30 of encouragement,” says June. “Once you go through that network, then it really tapers off.”

June says online promotion is important, but wonders about what would be the most effective strategy.

“It has to be something that can have a buzz about it, I think. I think an album isn’t really like something that creates a lot of buzz, unless it’s controversial or much-anticipated, or you’re the underdog.”

To support Andrea June and Auto Jansz, visit gofundme.com/9w29s

For more information on Daniel Hogg and Jeremy Lutter’s project, visit indiegogo.com/floodplain

Online crowd-funding no easy taskAndrea June and Auto Jansz are crowd funding their upcoming album, which they will record in November.

PROVIDED

September 27, 2012 MARTLET • CULTURE 15

VINTAGE FAIR

Sat Sept 29th 10am-4pm Fairfield United Church

the 4th annual

The best place to find a huge selection of vintage and retro clothing, jewelry, accesso-

ries, decor & so much more!! Brought to you by 35 local vendors with a wide assort-

ment of 1920’s-1980’s one-of-a-kinds! Roaming fashion shows and prizes all day long!

vintagefairvictoria.com

1303 Fairfield Rd (at Moss st) Admission $3 at door, kids FREE!

Early entry (for the serious shopper!) 9am-10am is $10

Find us on facebook: vintage fair victoria!

> KAITLYN ROSENBURG

Go eat at Pizzeria Prima Strada. The subse-quent paragraphs will describe in detail why you should visit one of their two locations, but if you only have time to read my introduction, here’s a quick point: they don’t use pineapple as a topping.

I visited their Cook Street location on a Satur-day night, which meant waiting for a table. My friends and I passed the 20-minute wait outside, as the indoor area reserved for yet-to-be-fed patrons was full. Not a big deal on a warm Sep-tember night, but since when has Victoria been warm all year long?

Our group of three ended up seated at the bar. This arrangement isn’t ideal for conversa-tion, but offers the best view of the oven (it’s where all the action is). The pizzas are shaped, stretched thin, and then draped in toppings before being slid into the open, wood-burning oven for a short bake. Temperatures reach up to 875˚F, allowing orders to go from a pile of raw dough and tomato sauce to a crispy hand-held meal in under 10 minutes.

The pizzas are conducive to sharing, but you may develop strong feelings for one pizza over the others. This certainly happened with my friends and me. I fell for the Panna e Pancetta pizza ($15.50), a white pizza strewn with pan-cetta, ricotta, scallions, Parmigiano-Reggiano and mozzarella. The creamy cheeses are bal-anced by the saltiness of the pancetta and the pungent scallions. Caution: it’s highly addictive and filling. I didn’t clear my plate.

One friend met, then ate, her pizza soulmate, the Margherita ($15). It’s the classic tomato, ba-sil and mozzarella combination. If ordering the right pizza daunts you at all, get this one. The tomato sauce is slightly sweet, the basil fresh,

and cheese oh-so-melty. I kept sneaking glances (and bites) all night.

Another friend got serious with the Salsiccia Piccante ($15). Topped with house-made fennel sausage, tomato sauce, mozzarella and roasted red peppers, she was head-over-heels. I appreci-ated the flavour profile, but found the sausage too spicy for my palate.

A note about eating your pizza — I went all-in with both hands, folding my slices in half to ensure maximum pizza-to-mouth exposure. My friends experimented with forks and knives, but eventually succumbed to my method with much resistance.

“You know you can just fold the pizza in half,” I pointed out.

“But then it disappears twice as fast,” com-plained my friend, who sensed her love affair was slowly vanishing.

The menu also includes antipasti plates, salads and gelato, but none of our stomachs or hearts could take it. Pizzeria Prima Strada is a keeper.

EATS, CHEWS AND LEAVES

Make a vow to visit Pizzeria Prima Strada

> BLAKE MORNEAU

As much as I’ve genuinely tried and wanted to, I’ve never understood Current Swell’s appeal. Figuring out my animosity towards this entirely inoffensive band is my musical Rubik’s Cube, confusing and frustrating at every turn.

This Victoria-based roots rock band is clearly composed of a talented bunch of guys who enjoy what they do. They’re fans of music, like myself, come from the same place as me and play music that has obviously been influenced by much of the stuff I’ve grown up on (Ben Harper, Jack Johnson, and hell, even The Band). So not embracing them has felt like shunning a group of like-minded people at a party because I didn’t like one of their hats. There really is no reason for me not to like them.

But every time I see them on stage, I become overwhelmed with apathy and boredom. They just don’t light any kind of passion in me. I sleepwalk through their sets, counting the mo-ments until the next band comes on to take me to some kind of concert nirvana.

On Thursday, Sept. 20, at the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver, where Current Swell opened for the mighty Dispatch, I was forced to look inside myself and face my old-man prejudice. I was forced to get over my until-then unconscious thought that no one my age could produce enjoyable music in a genre that I was sure had already been perfected.

Maybe, by accepting that I had built an illogi-cal impasse in my mind, I was finally getting Current Swell.

It started as I walked up the stairs into the legendary Vancouver venue, expecting to see a band I’d never heard opening the night. The first thing that caught my eye was a white Current Swell shirt hanging at the merch table — a shirt I’ve seen at many other venues this summer. I was less than thrilled.

As Current Swell started their set, I noticed the dance floor filling up. I decided to get in the midst of the crowd — something I hadn’t done for one of their sets in a long, long time.

Intoxicated and surrounded by adoring audience members, I felt a smile spread across my face as I grooved to the heavy rhythms of “Cursed” and swayed aimlessly to the mellow reflection of “Young and Able.” For the first time since I’d heard their music and seen them on a stage, I wasn’t bored and unhappy with being at a Current Swell show.

The band is thoroughly engaging and en-tertaining, I realized. More importantly, they have the musical chops to thrive in a mainly word-of-mouth music scene. They have matured incredibly as songwriters and performers since the first time I saw them.

Yet, I’m probably not going to buy any of their albums. I’m not going to search “Current Swell” in live music archives or YouTube. But after see-ing them up close at the Commodore Ballroom, I’m also not going to groan every time I hear the band’s name. In fact, while they may not rank near my top acts, the next time I see Current Swell playing with a band I love, I may just look forward to the opportunity to relax to some lo-cal boys playing solid, happy grooves.

MUSIC RAGS

Revelations on Current SwellPROVIDED

KAITLYN ROSENBURG

PIZZERIA PRIMA STRADA

230 COOK STREETSUNDAY – WEDNESDAY: 11:30 A.M. – 9 P.M. THURSDAY – SATURDAY: 11:30 A.M. – 10 P.M.

NO RESERVATIONS

2960 BRIDGE STREETTUESDAY – SATURDAY: 11 A.M. – 9 P.M.RESERVATIONS FOR GROUPS OF SIX OR MOREP: 250-590-4380

t @PRIMASTRADA

R R R R

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HEY, Grammar nerds!ARE YOU HUNGRY FOR ERRORS (AND FREE PIZZA)? COME TO OUR OFFICE ON TUESDAY NIGHTS (3–6 P.M.) FOR SOME COPY EDITING!EMAIL EDIT@MARTLET.CA FOR MORE INFO.

16 CULTURE • MARTLET September 27, 2012

9 0STUDENT UNION BUILDING, UVIC CINECENTA.COM

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MANSEPT 28 & 29 (3:00 matinee, 7:00 & 9:30)

SEPT 28 & 29 (Midnight)

THE ROOM

$3.75(9 pm showings or later for uvic undergrads)

SEPT 30 (3:00 matinee, 7:00 & 9:15)

OCT 1 (7:00 & 9:15)

TO ROME WITH LOVE

1 0 1 . 9 F Mc fuv.uv ic . ca

CFUV

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1. OPEN RELATIONSHIP + Born Weird (7-inch; Self-Released)2. GRIZZLY BEAR Shields (Warp)3. CHILLY GONZALES * Solo Piano II (Arts & Crafts)4. CAROLYN MARK + The Queen Of Vancouver Island (Mint)5. MOUNT EERIE Ocean Roar (PW Elverum & Sun)6. KENDRA MORRIS Banshee (Waxpoetics)7. THE RAVEONETTES Observator (Vice)8. RUN CHICO RUN + Beastly Paws Control The Levers (Self-Released)9. CAT POWER Sun (Matador)10. PUFFY AREOLAS 1982: Dishonorable Discharge (Hozac)

CFUV is an award winning campus/community radio station based at the University of Victoria. For more information about CFUV (including volunteering info, our program schedule, complete charts and much more) please visit us at: www.cfuv.uvic.catwitter.com/cfuv

Hear the weekly top ten on Charts and Graphs Tues-days at 3:00PM on CFUV 101.9FM or online! * Canadian artist + local artist

On Campus

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 5FRIDAYMUSICUVic’s School of Music presents this perfor-mance by its guitar students, who will perform a 20-guitar rendition of the Led Zeppelin clas-sic “Stairway to Heaven.” No, just kidding (I think). I’m going to guess they’re perform-ing classical pieces. I could be wrong though. Do they teach electric guitar here? Drop by just in case someone decides to bring along their Gibson Les Paul and Marshall Stack.Phillip T. Young Recital Hall (UVic’s MacLaurin Building). 12:30 p.m. Admission by donation.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13UVIC 50TH ANNIVERSARY SIGNATURE EVENTFEATURING EVE EGOYAN, PIANOEve Egoyan plays a computerized piano that projects crazy digital images into the air as she plays. The images get more complex the more she plays. She improvises based on the images she sees. It’s hard to explain, but go check it out on Vimeo — it’s awe-some. This is a really, really cool concept; it’s trippier than Laser Floyd. Phillip T. Young Recital Hall. 8 p.m. $25

MUSIC

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4RISE AGAINSTI was watching a YouTube video of these guys and noticed that a big, nasty flame war broke out in the comments section because someone said they thought Justin Bieber was a better singer. Is he? You decide. For more information, visit sofmc.com/events. Save-On Foods Memorial Centre (1925 Blanshard St.). Doors at 6 p.m. $29.50/$43

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6SCIMITAR, ROBOT METROPOLIS, (WITH GUESTS) PLEDGE OF ARROGANCEI’m not familiar with the second two bands on the list, but I’m assuming this concert is a mix of metal, metal and metal. I once interviewed the band Scimitar. They played some tunes for me, and I dug it. I told them it reminded me of the thrash metal I loved so much in 1991. Then they told me they were born in 1991. Crap, I’m old. Logan’s Pub (1821 Cook St.). Doors just before 9 p.m. $8 at the door.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 7RADIO CONTACT PRESENTS: THE THIRD ANNUAL THANKSGIVING DAY SOCIAL Not spending Thanksgiving with family? That’s okay. Go spend it with Max Power, founder of Radio Contact, at Club 9One9 instead. Max Power, he’s the man who’s name you’d love to touch! But you mustn’t touch! His name sounds good in your ear, but when you say it, you mustn’t fear! ‘Cause his name can be said by anyone! Featured acts include Sunday Buckets, Dope Soda, DJ Nigel and MC Dylan Wilks. For more information, visit radiocon-tact.ca. Club 9One9 (919 Douglas St.). Doors at 9:00 p.m. $13 Advance, $15 at the door, available only at Coastline Surf and Sport (1417 Broad St.).

ART/PHOTOGRAPHY/VIDEO

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4GRAFFITI ART PARTYLive graffiti, live bands. Sounds like a good way to spend a Thursday night, but don’t get too carried away — you’ve still got Friday separating you from the weekend. Appar-ently you’re supposed to show up in a white t-shirt. There will be glow paint, markers and black lights. I have a feeling this might get messy. And it’ll be set to the musical back-drop of Teaganbear, DJ Redeye, Rory Hayz and Armando Said. For more information, visit clubvibes.com. Upstairs Cabaret (15 Bastion Square). 10 p.m. $5/$10.

UNTIL OCTOBER 15, 2012F-L-A-M-M-A-R-I-O-NWho ya gonna call? Camille Flammarion, ap-parently. This French psychic researcher’s last name appeared as a “teleplasm” on a cabinet wall during a séance in Winnipeg back in 1931 (note: he was dead at the time). You know what I’d do if I saw something like that spon-taneously appear on a wall? Poop. But at the same time, I’m still very curious about ghosts. If you are, too, you ought to check this out. This video installation speaks to artist Susan MacWilliam’s extensive research into the paranormal. For more info visit openspace.ca. Open Space (510 Fort St.). 12 p.m.–5 p.m Tuesday–Saturday. By donation.

> ALAN PIFFER

Rise Against, fronted by Tim McIlrath, comes to town on Oct. 4. DERZSI ELEKES ANDOR (VIA FLICKR COMMONS)

OCTOBER 4 - 15EVENTS CALENDAR

visit martlet.ca

September 27, 2012 MARTLET • CULTURE 17

IN THE SUB

UVSS.CA

New Minus the Bear album adds up to awesome > SEAN KEOUGH

Three Facts: 1. MNDR is Amanda Warner (Vocals) and

Peter Wade (Production)2. Album Feed Me Diamonds contains zero

weak tracks3. Amanda Warner is incredibly loyal to her

chosen style of glassesWarner and Wade met in the land where

electronic music duos come together: New York City. Warner was hoping to pursue a career in songwriting, and Wade was already a respected producer. Fronting a group instead of writing was something Warner didn’t plan on before her introduction to Wade. The result of the creative meeting was MNDR, whose first full-length album, Feed Me Diamonds, consistently pleases with ease.

You learn quickly how MNDR intend to make you feel on Feed Me Diamonds. Album opener “#1 in Heaven” bares the skin of the coming 12 cuts on the record. Repeatable love-was-worth-doing-again lines mingle across on-point percussion and joyous synth tones. Sing along and dance you may, but make sure you feel the message just for a second.

Though nothing from the album is ground-breaking, it’s ground-grooming at its finest. Ex-cellent female acts such as La Roux, Robyn and Santigold are instantly resonant in the textures of the lovelorn, dance-floor-ready duo. Rhythms venture from four-on-the-floor to Top 40 to Southern 808 funk, all anchored to consistent yet diverse synth keys. The instrumentals are so well crafted that they often threaten to overtake Warner’s vocal presence, a flaw in pop music to-day that’s accepted more often than one would hope. Still, Warner manages to swim beauti-fully atop the music. Emotions displayed in the titles “Stay,” “Fall in Love With the Enemy” and “Burning Hearts” burn brightly through Wade’s arsenal of body-moving tactics. The open-ing drums of “Stay” could easily be a late-’90s Timbaland drum track that never earned a spot on a Petey Pablo record. “Burning Hearts” opens with earth-swallowing analog keys that never cease to snarl. Title track “Feed Me Diamonds” finds Warner at her most comfortable. A bass line rumble plays the lead in the song, and she has no issue overpowering it for her most memorable chorus of the record.

In today’s fast-paced music culture, genres are dismembered and discarded. Landing in the moody, R&B-crazed landscape of 2012 doesn’t do MNDR any favors. Their answer to love gone wrong in the form of pure fun isn’t what it was a year or two ago. With Lana Del Rey reigning as queen of the female musical formula, the carefree sensibility of Warner and Wade faces a more difficult challenge than it would have had it debuted alongside La Roux in 2009. And in a time when a hit single gets much more notoriety than a strong album, MNDR have done some-thing fairly rare: they have crafted 12 very good songs into a cohesive piece. There are no weak verses from crossover hip-hop acts, no sell-out singles and no antics. Just a girl who loves to write words about love, and a guy who knows how to turn it into danceable pop music.

INFINITY OVERHEAD (DANGERBIRD)MINUS THE BEAR

FEED ME DIAMONDS (ULTRA) MNDR

> JASON SCHREURS

If you are Seattle’s Minus the Bear, how do you follow up a phenomenal record like 2010’s Omni? The easy answer is, you don’t. The actual answer is Infinity Overhead, an album that really doesn’t try to follow up on anything. Instead, the latest by the always ambitious Seattle ambient rock band quickly creates its own vibe, ebbing and flowing through 10 songs that each have their own lusciousness.

Really, there’s a lot here for the band’s longtime fans: an expansion in the band’s melodies, a side-ways shift to a much more understated danciness (there’s no “My Time” here) and a back-step to guitarist Dave Knudson’s fascination with harmon-ics and finger-tapping (Botch reunion, anyone?).

“Toska,” with its bouncy programming and flirty little guitar licks, might be the sole track that immediately sounds like Minus the Bear. It’s welcome, but so are the departures, like the acoustic-based “Listing” and the near-dubstep backing of “Lonely Gun.” It’s clear that Jake Snid-er and company spend lots of time on the dance floors, but instead of soaking up the beats and re-gurgitating them into some dreaded dance-punk concoction, they seem to be able to pinpoint the organic matter within these sounds, the ground-ing elements that create real, live, breathing songs. Once Minus the Bear reignite this organic matter into songs of their own, the results are often of the head-shaking variety. How did they think of that? And why hasn’t anyone else latched onto this vibe?

Minus the Bear are one of the only rock bands who truly are able to harness and recreate the dance sounds that continue to shape the future of all music, and this is never more evident than on Infinity Overhead. Or, you know, dude, just check out the riff in “Steel and Blood.”

Feast on MNDR’s latest

ALBUM REVIEWS

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A NEW WEBSITE IS COMING SOON...

HUMOuR Did you put "great sense of humour" on your online dating profile? Prove it.

Email edit@martlet.ca to write for humour.

18 HUMOUR • MARTLET September 27, 2012

> GEOFFREY LINE

I’m writing this to let you know that next Saturday, I will be naked on the balcony of the Delta Hotel. I’d like to be an indelible memory for tourists visiting Victoria. I’d like to welcome them to the city, and since we haven’t slapped billboards up all over the Inner Harbour, I’ll stand in the place of signage. All of me. Arms akimbo, facing the float plane terminals. If there were a pay-by-coin set of binoculars at Songhees Point, I could be spotted no problem. I’ve even spoken to the captains of the Victoria Harbour Ferries and asked them to give a little tour guide wave my way, too: “There he is, folks — Victoria’s Signature Naked White Guy!” Any photographer can take a break from snapping shots of Government’s Street’s cobblestones and look my way. I recommend cyclists bike

across the Johnson Street Bridge — while it still exists — to see me from a multitude of angles. If you have a decent zoom lens, you should be able to get a shot of me and my everything, even from The Empress. Again, I will be naked on the balcony of the Delta Hotel next Saturday. Will you take a picture?

Why not? What do you want from me? Do I need a crown? Do you want me to marry a prin-cess or be third in line for the British throne or something? All I’m asking is to be photographed naked. I could go to one of those places with the artists and the canvases and everyone with their beards and their glasses looking intently upon me for, like, an hour. I’ve seen such posts on Craigslist. But I’m not interested in that. I don’t want to be drawn. I want to be photographed.

I mean, do you realize the lengths I’m going to? Have I mentioned what’s involved? The

balcony of the Delta Hotel is really more of a patio. A patio reserved for hotel guests to eat their continental breakfasts. And I will be naked on it. A scandalous sensory buffet for the eyes. If you think you’re going to be shocked by what’s in your camera lens, just think of some poor old lady who sees me while looking for her Raisin Bran. A little kid on vacation from Seattle will be scarred by the sight. And let’s not rule out the possibility of a dutiful concierge approaching me without notice — frightening me so that I teeter over a railing, but hopefully with time to have . . . just . . . one . . . more. . . Froot . . . Loop.

Confession: not only do I want to be photo-graphed nude, I want my whole family shot naked. Relatives and all. And wouldn’t you like that? Picture us in the back of a Sears photolab without our ironed slacks, button-down shirts

and family sweaters (my mom’s hair, of course, still done up with spray). Envision the shock on your mother’s face as she opens our family Christmas card. Delightful.

You don’t want to see it?I’m offended. I understand you’ve never heard of us on the

news. I know that you’ve never seen our faces on magazines at the checkout of the grocery store. We’re not notable. To be honest, no one in my family has ever shaken a diplomat’s hand. At sports games, our faces don’t appear on the Jumbotron. Though we televised our weddings on C-SPAN, you never watched them. But now we’re looking for an audience. Hey — you should do it too, you and Uncle Roger and your sister Sarah. Royal or plebian, skin’s skin. You want to see normal people naked, too, right?

Shoot me, please: I’m nakedWell-documented nudity not just for young British royalty anymore

REBECCA COMEAU

September 27, 2012 MARTLET • HUMOUR 19

THURSDAY

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BY ALAIN WILLIAMS

Aries (March 21–April 19) The stars are showing positive movements for your sign. What’s that? You wanna see the stars better? Then go check ‘em out on Google. The hell we gotta go camping for? Stay your ass home.

Taurus (April 20–May 20)Negotiation skills will come in handy with any confrontations you have this week. It’s up to you to decide if you want that confrontation to be man vs. man or man vs. nature. You can’t negotiate with nature. Bears don’t give a damn what you have to say. Stay your ass home. Gemini (May 21–June 20)A time of respite is approaching. Give yourself some well-deserved rest. Tents don’t count. It’s literally some tarp over dirt and rocks. You got a queen-size at home, which is where you should stay your ass.

Cancer (June 21–July 22)Use this week to meditate and reflect on recent changes. What? No, not at the national park! They got all those yoga places downtown and you wanna go where? I told you to stay your ass home.

Leo (July 23–Aug. 22)You will learn a very important lesson from lo-cal events. Here, look. On the news it says that they shot a cougar that wandered into the city, right? If we kill wild animals out of fear, why the hell you wanna go to where they stay at? Lesson learned. Stay your ass home.

Virgo (Aug. 23–Sept. 22)The allure of your desires may blind you to the blessing right in front of you. Hey, I like trees too! Trees are dope. You know what’s better than trees? Bathroom facilities. Go hug the trees in the yard and get over it. Stay your ass home.

Libra (Sept. 23–Oct. 22)Don’t waste your energies on lost causes or futile efforts this week. All right? Just stop. You’re not gonna convince me to go camping. Oh, what? I should go for the fresh air? I’m stayin’ my punk ass right where it’s at.

Scorpio (Oct. 23–Nov. 21)Years of planning and preparation will come to fruition this week. All right, I’ll let this one slide. The camping and wandering in the wilderness part is gonna be long and sucky, but once you make it to the Shaolin temple? That’s when shit gets real. Wu-Tang forever.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22–Dec. 21)You will rediscover an old hobby that will re-juvenate your mind this week. And that’s fine. All I’m saying is you don’t have to leave the city to go birdwatching! Look! We got pigeons, seagulls — crows can’t stop murdering! See? Fun, exciting and all at home.

Capricorn (Dec. 22–Jan.19)Sharp senses and keen awareness will come in handy for you this week. If you live in a city, you’re all good though, because they don’t tend to leave too many unmarked cliffs or bottom-less pits of death laying around here. Guess where your ass should stay. Go on, guess.

Aquarius (Jan. 20–Feb. 18)This week, you will begin a journey full of wonder and discovery. You know, my homeboy Bilbo did that once. All he got out of it when he got back was a bad complexion and a gold ring addiction. He should have stayed his ass home like a proper Took.

Pisces (Feb. 19–March 20Have a good trip! Yes, you’ll be fine. Yes, I remembered to pack food rations in your bag. No, a sleeping bag made of raw meat is not a bad idea! Trust me, camping will be great!

ASTROLOGY FOR PEOPLE WHO ENJOY CAMPING AND THE OUTDOORS (I DON'T)

> NICHOLAS BURTON-VULOVIC

A lot of you probably don’t know this because you’re on Facebook all day instead of contribut-ing to society, but some people have jobs. And of those people with jobs, some of them are engineers. And I’m not talking about the kind of engineers who give engines more power and beam people up. No, I’m talking about real-life, salt-of-the-earth, flesh-and-blood, God-fearing engineers, who build our cities, our roads and our terrorist-killing sky robots.

But the problem is this: most of those engineers went to university. Not all of them, of course — my gardener never made it past third grade, but I let him build the guest bedroom I make my mother-in-law sleep in — but a good solid majority. “What?” you’re probably saying. “That’s great! They spent time in school!”

No! Wrong.University is for elitists. It separates good,

honest Canadians from their brothers and sis-ters, from their mothers and fathers. It drives families apart. Once, on a trip to Duncan, I met a man who killed 17 rabbits in a fit of rage. When I asked him why he did it, he told me it was because his brother went to univer-sity. That’s what you call hard evidence.

Why are so many of our precious Canadian bunnies murdered via euthanasia on school

grounds year after year? Is it because right-to-death laws are a joke? Is it because our culture engenders a kind of megalomaniacal and violent individualist approach to problem solving? No! It’s because of university.

Think about it. You’re taking a bunch of people who could be corn farmers or soldiers. They could be wearing baseball caps. They could be mudding the back 40 in a Canadian-made Chevy pickup. But instead, they’re trapped in some classroom, reading books and writing things with pencils. It’s disgraceful.

Those ivy-leagued big-wiggers down in Ot-tawa just don’t get it. With their fancy schools and expensive lunches, they just don’t under-stand what it’s like to be an ordinary Cana-dian. They know things. But they don’t know us, because they can’t relate to us. Knowing things makes sure of that.

Once a man gets an education, he starts to think he’s better than us. Just because he can read and write and pay his taxes doesn’t make him one iota better than us regular folks, and don’t let him tell you differently. In fact, you shouldn’t even talk to people like that. You probably wouldn’t understand them anyway.

And that’s what education does. It lifts and separates. It defines. It sculpts and beautifies. No, wait, that’s what a padded bra does. Okay, I’m lost. Where’s my pick-up?

Education HurtsHow pompous book learning engenders a superiority complex

HOROSCOPES FOR VERY SPECIFIC GROUPS OF PEOPLE

REBECCA COMEAU

20 HUMOUR • MARTLET SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

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