October 23 to October 29, 2013www.ufvcascade.caVol. 21 Issue 27

BC’s Search and Rescue teams showcase skills p. 11How UFV’s marks don’t match up p. 7

Saying “I think we’re good!” at the worst possible time since 1993

Abbotsfordconnects

for one dayp. 10

2NEWS WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2013

www.ufvcascade.ca

Volume 21 · Issue 27Room C1027

33844 King RoadAbbotsford, BC

V2S 7M8604.854.4529

Editor-in-chiefdessa@ufvcascade.ca

Dessa Bayrock

Managing editormichael@ufvcascade.ca

Michael Scoular

Business managerjoe@ufvcascade.ca

Joe Johnson

Online editorashley@ufvcascade.ca

Ashley Mussbacher

Production managerstewart@ufvcascade.ca

Stewart Seymour

Art directoranthony@ufvcascade.ca

Anthony Biondi

Copy editorkatie@ufvcascade.ca

Katie Stobbart

News editorjess@ufvcascade.ca

Jess Wind

Opinion editornadine@ufvcascade.ca

Nadine Moedt

Arts & life editorsasha@ufvcascade.ca

Sasha Moedt

Sports editoresau@ufvcascade.ca

Paul Esau

Photojournalistblake@ufvcascade.ca

Blake McGuire

News writerkatherine@ufvcascade.ca

Katherine Gibson

Staff writerchristopher@ufvcascade.ca

Christopher DeMarcus

Production assistantproduction@ufvcascade.ca

Kaitlyn Gendemann

ContributorsTaylor Breckles, Martin Castro,

Valerie Franklin, Jeremy Hannaford, Nathan Hutton,

and Tim Ubels

UFV theatre depart-ment’s Heather Davis-Fisch presents this unique event at The Reach Art Gallery in Abbotsford. Theatre played a pivotal role during the Royal Na-vy’s search for the Frank-lin Expedition, which dis-appeared late in the 19th century. The talk will de-tail the significance that theatre had on board as they sailed into the Arc-tic.

Come out to AfterMath at 6 p.m. and reclaim a skill that has been lost to the iPhone.

Guess that tune! CIVL radio is hosting a night of musical game show antics and AfterMath has beer on special. It’s win-win.

Craft beer, local music, and art from up-and-coming lower mainland artists? Why weren’t you there? Christopher DeMar-cus will catch you up on what you missed at The Reach’s Young Contemporaries event.

First provincial champions, and now national champions, UFV’s golf teams seem to be in the business of creating legends. Contributor Nathan Hutton explains that when it comes to hardware, UFV is hitting way above par!

Think you “suck at math?” Then you’d probably jump on the math anxiety boat. But doesn’t that just put us into a vicious cy-cle? Math minor Ashley Muss-bacher talks about the “fear of math” phenomenon and how our country’s education system should be approaching math as a subject.

The Fraser Institute hosted a free public policy seminar in Vancouver. Hundreds of stu-dents from all over the province gathered to hear about the fu-ture of policy. Chris DeMarcus has full details on what was said and what we can expect going forward.

Policy seminar hits Vancouver

We are the champions!

Art on TapThe only thing to fear is ... math?

News Opinion Arts & Life Sports & Health

Harlequin in the Attic CIVL’s guess that tune

Until October 31October 24 October 24October 24 The Cascade is UFV’s autonomous student newspaper. It provides a forum for UFV students

to have their journalism published. It also acts as an alternative press for the Fraser Valley. The Cascade is funded with UFV student funds. The Cascade is published every Wednesday with a circulation of 1500 and is distributed at UFV campuses and throughout Abbotsford, Chilli-

wack, and Mission. The Cascade is a member of the Canadian University Press, a national coop-erative of 75 university and college newspapers from Victoria to St. John’s. The Cascade follows the CUP ethical policy concerning material of a

prejudicial or oppressive nature.Submissions are preferred in electronic format

through e-mail. Please send submissions in “.txt” or “.doc” format only.

Articles and letters to the editor must be typed. The Cascade reserves the right to edit submis-

sions for clarity and length. The Cascade will not print any articles that contain racist, sexist, ho-

mophobic or libellous content. The writer’s name and student number must be submitted with each submission. Letters to the editor must be under

250 words if intended for print. Only one letter to the editor per writer in any given edition.

Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect that of UFV, Cascade staff and collective, or

associated members.

pg. 14pg. 7pg. 5 pg. 19

In the midst of putting the final touches on this year’s winning costume, why not donate to the food bank? The SUS advo-cacy committee is accept-ing non-perishable dona-tions this spooky season. As well, get involved on October 31 by joining SUS as they collect donations around campus for their annual food drive.

UFV faculty member Michael Dayan is shar-ing his experiences as an award-winning film-maker: what inspires him, how does style fac-tor in? There will also be a screening of his most recent film High Plains Doctor and a Q&A session to follow. Event begins at 2 p.m. in B121 on the Ab-botsford campus.

Halloween trick-or-eat

Michael Dayan dis-cusses filmmaking

EDITORIAL

UPCOMING EVENTS

Cover Image by Anthony Biondi Printed by International Web exPress

Reading with a grain of saltDESSA BAYROCKTHE CASCADE

Occasionally when I tell someone I work for a newspa-per, I get an interesting (if not exactly surprising) reaction: a furrowed forehead, a wrinkled nose, squinted eyes. It’s the ex-pression that says, people still care about newspapers? or, I get everything I need from blogs.

It ’s the expression that says, I thought print was dead.

You’re thinking it. I’m think-ing it. National and local pa-pers have slowly thinned out, transforming into less weighty versions of themselves.

But for now, we’re muddling through the transition period from one state to another. Some are dealing with it better than others. It’s the riddle of the decade: how can print media evolve, and evolve effectively?

The most common—and suc-cessful—response is to spread out into new mediums, allow-ing the internet to infect the way print media runs, chang-ing the pace from day-to-day into minute-by-minute.

Ironically, this means cover-age is both better and worse than ever.

The Cascade is pretty lucky in this regard: as a primarily stu-dent-subsidized publication, we’re guaranteed the funding we need to print an issue every week. We face the same rising

costs (and lowered self-esteem) as the rest of the industry, but our life as a publication doesn’t depend on advertising.

As a result, we have the op-portunity to be idealistic in what we publish and how. If we can’t get a quote or a key piece of information, we don’t have to run it. If an article topic is fluffy or trivial or discussed to death, we don’t have to run it. Perhaps most importantly, if we can’t verify truth behind rumour, we don’t have to run it.

Other publications don’t have the time to make such de-cisions.

Take, for example, a story that made headlines last week. You might have seen it make the rounds on Facebook or Reddit in one form or another. The story? That Oreos may be as addictive as cocaine.

It ’s a catchy headline, no matter where it is. The Globe and Mail: “Oreos more addic-tive than cocaine, study finds.” The Huffington Post: “Oreos More Addictive Than Cocaine? Study Shows Cookies Might Produce More Pleasure Than Coke In Rats.” Time magazine: “Oreos May Be As Addictive As Cocaine.”

These are reputable publica-tions, but in the rush to get a hot story out into the world, they missed the facts: the research behind the study was done by

students at Connecticut Col-lege. It wasn’t published. It wasn’t peer-reviewed. The gist of it was that rats prefer Oreos over rice crackers—no surprise there—and they also prefer a shot of cocaine or morphine to a shot of saline – again, a no-brainer.

That’s it. That’s the entire correlation between an oreos/cocaine comparison.

The original story was first published on the Connecticut College website as a look-at-the-cool-research-we-do press release, something that’s com-mon in post-secondary mar-keting departments; UFV runs similar stories on research done here on a regular basis. They’re interesting. Sometimes they’re even informative. Their main purpose is to make the college look good to potential students and potential donors.

But they are not news ar-ticles.

This is the downside of the digital era: newspapers, maga-zines, and blogs alike are pres-sured to run stories as quickly as they hear about them.

While this keeps the content relevant and up-to-the-minute, it also results in error. Here, it made major publications eat their own words like so many Oreos; several that ran the ini-tial story have now run sec-ondary stories that imply they never misinterpreted the infor-

mation to begin with.The problem lies in placing

too much trust in first reports, or, in some case, rumours. “Oreos are addictive” isn’t a headline likely to harm any-one, and other misinterpreta-tions are downright funny – such as satirical stories from CBC’s This is That or The Onion taken as fact.

In other cases, however, overeager reports can be dam-aging or even dangerous: take the coverage of the Sandy Hook school shooting last year, in which media incorrectly re-ported Ryan Lanza as an initial suspect.

It’s an extreme example, but it’s also an important lesson.

The Cascade doesn’t suffer the same level of pressure to get the story out as soon as possible. At the end of the day, we can err on the side of cau-tion, and follow the simplest of guidelines: Is it true? Is it fair? Is it necessary?

But in the larger realm of journalism, information is power. If a competitor has it, the pressure is on to match or beat it before the audience mi-grates elsewhere.

In a transition where the fleeting eyes of readers are the most tangible way to keep pa-pers in the black, keep that in mind – and take in everything you read (and see, and watch) with a grain of salt.

3NEWSWEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2013

www.ufvcascade.ca

On a cool and crisp fall day at the Wallace Dry Dock in North Vancouver, a diverse group of curious activists and community members lined up to board Greenpeace’s flagship vessel, the Rainbow Warrior.

The queue was filled with artists, punk rockers, film-makers, families, tourists, and everyone in between.

The one thing everyone in the crowd had in common was a dream for a better, more just, world.

Eva, who led groups through the ship to meet some of the crew, is one of the head fund-raisers for Greenpeace’s office in Canada.

“Our Vancouver office put in a request for the ship. Green-peace was founded in Vancou-ver, and we wanted to bring our biggest symbol to its place of origin,” she explained.

Eva led a small group of cu-rious families onto the boat, where she introduced them to deck hand Nazareth Sanzini from Italy. Sanzini crossed the Pacific to get to Vancouver, sailing from Thailand.

“90 per cent of the time we get power from the sails. We use the power of wind. The rare moments when there is no wind, we use a back-up diesel engine,” he explained.

The masts of the ship tow-ered 55 metres high, massive for a vessel that is only 60 me-tres long. Fully opened, the sails are able to catch 1,200 square feet of wind.

“The journey from Taiwan took about a month,” Sanzi-ni explained. “We have been to five continents in the past two years. There are 60 people working on the ship at one time, and almost 60 different nationalities. There are both activists and science profes-sionals.”

This Rainbow Warrior is not the first or even the second to bear the name, but the third. Back in 1985 the first ship was sunk by the French govern-ment while it was protesting a nuclear test off the coast of New Zealand. After two de-cades of worldwide service, the second Rainbow Warrior was sold to Friendship, a Ban-gladesh non-governmental or-ganization (NGO) which now uses it as a hospital ship.

Austrian crewman Manuel Marinelli described what it’s like to travel on the open sea in the southern equator.

“As soon as you get south the night sky becomes much clearer. There is an amazing view of the stars that you can’t get any-where else than in the middle of the ocean,” he said. “We see things like glowing green humpback whales. It’s like the movie Life of Pi, but completely real.”

The stern of the ship features one of its most unique assets:

a helipad. Despite being a ship with large sails, the Rainbow Warrior has been designed to accept visitors via helicopter. Helicopter pilots are often sur-prised to see a sail-powered ship that is able to accommo-date chopper landings in the middle of a rolling sea, ex-plained Brook, a crew member from Halifax.

“The job we draw straws for is having to get under the heli-copter to secure it when it lands. As much as the helicopter pilot doesn’t like land-ing on the ship, it ’s not fun to get under the chop-per while the blades are still

spinning and the deck is rock-ing back and forth,” he said. “Despite that, the past two years serving on the Rainbow have been an experience of a lifetime. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

Eva went on to explain how the ship is funded, and how people might be able to get in-volved.

“It cost €35 million to build the ship – all of the funding crowd-sourced from individu-als and foundations,” she ex-plained. “If you want to work with us here on the boat, the only experience you need to volunteer with Greenpeace [is] having the ability to speak English. However, we get about 20,000 ap-plications a year, and only have two open posi-tions.”

Despite the im-pressive techni-cal and social as-pects of the boat, its presence drew in controver-sy. The same day the Rainbow Warrior was docked, a pro-test against GMOs was taking place in downtown Vancou-ver, just across the harbor. In a counter to the GMO protest,

there was also The Golden Rice Project, a group lead by former Greenpeace president Patrick Moore.

“Greenpeace is responsible for the deaths of thousands by denying them access to golden rice,” blasted Moore’s mega-phone at the crowd. “The only difference between golden rice and white rice is the added beta

carotene, which provides vitamin A to those that need it.”

Greenpeace has drawn a hard-line against GMO foods and sup-ported protests against it. This has caused a split among environ-mentalists.

However, it would appear that Moore’s message was poorly under-stood, as most in the crowd as-sumed that he was part of the anti-GMO protest.

Greenpeace docks in North Vancouver for an exhibition of the Rainbow Warrior IIICHRISTOPHER DEMARCUSTHE CASCADE

GreenSPEAK blogs

The UFV writing centre hosted its 23 annual writing centre awards. With a for-mal ceremony held in A225, students accepted awards for excellence in a variety of cat-egories. Check back for full coverage.

UFV can write

Have a news tip? Let us know!

Email

news@ufvcascade.ca

or tweet at

@CascadeNews

Keeping up on campus

The GreenSPEAK series oc-curs every Tuesday at 2:30 p.m. in U-House on the Ab-botsford campus.

Starting with the October 15 presentation, The Cascade will be recording and posting the talks online.

Visit ufvcascade.ca to stay up-to-date with this environ-mentally conscious speaker series happening at UFV.

“Greenpeace was founded in Vancouver, and we wanted to bring our big-gest symbol to its place of ori-gin.”

The SUS shuttle referen-dum is here. Head on over to myUFV.ca to cast your vote. Do you approve of an $11 in-crease to the transit fee per semester on an ongoing basis to accommodate an increase to the shuttle service?

Shuttle referendum

History degree, now what?

Join a panel of UFV his-tory grads as they share what they’re dong now, what they wish they had known and what they’re glad they did. Event starts at 5:30 p.m. in B121 on the Abbotsford cam-pus. They’re serving refresh-ments!

The Rainbow Warrior is the third of its kind in Greenpeace’s environmental sailing ships. Image: Christopher DeMarcus

The ship’s presence drew controversy to Vancouver, including a GMO protest. Image: Christopher DeMarcus

“There is an amazing view of the stars that you can’t get anywhere else than in the middle of the ocean.”

4NEWS WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2013

www.ufvcascade.ca

Internet – at the speed of light?SCIENCE ON PURPOSE

It’s practically a law of phys-ics that no matter how fast your internet connection is, you wish it were faster. But much faster internet might be on the horizon. How much faster, you may ask?

Well, how about the speed of light?

Wi-Fi technology currently relies on radio waves to get data from device to device, but the future might see streaming data in the form of light, using an ordinary LED light bulb and a programmable chip.

Dr. Harald Haas first in-troduced this idea (otherwise known as “Li-Fi”) in a 2011 TED talk titled “Wireless Data From Every Lightbulb.” He proposed that an LED light could be pro-grammed to flicker in a precise pattern, which could then be picked up by a sensor on an-other device. The flicker would be too fast to be seen by the hu-man eye, meaning that the LED would still function as a regu-lar light source.

The best current example of this kind of technology might surprise you: remote controls.

When not hopelessly lost or jammed between the couch cushions, remote controls oper-ate on an infrared wavelength to communicate information to a television or stereo. Theoreti-cally, Li-Fi would work on the same principle – but instead of a single stream of informa-tion connecting remote to TV, imagine dozens or hundreds of streams communicating at once.

Light has all sorts of benefits over radio waves. First of all, as Haas notes in his TED talk, ra-dio waves are limited.

“They are scarce, they are expensive, and we only have a certain range,” he says. “It is this limitation that doesn’t cope with demand … we are simply running out of spec-trum.”

By moving from the ra-dio spectrum over to the vis-ible light spectrum, the range available to stream data would multiply by 10,000. This would keep wireless signals from overlapping – such as in air-planes or certain areas in hos-pitals, where cell phones and laptops must be shut off to avoid confusing other radio wave-based equipment.

Light is also more secure

than radio waves: currently, Wi-Fi sends out a certain ra-dius regardless of walls or barriers. This means that the signal is more easily borrowed by neighbours (as any stu-dent in an apartment complex can gratefully attest) but even password-protected signals are subject to drive-by hack-ing. Light, on the other hand, stops when it hits a wall; any wireless signals would be eas-ily confined to a home.

Even if you wanted to turn the light off, Haas says the sig-nal could be rigged to continue working.

“You can dim down the light to a level that it appears to be off, and you are still able to transmit data,” he says.

Finally, light has the capac-ity to transfer data much faster than radio waves can: Haas demonstrated an LED device streaming data at 10 megabits per second (Mbps) during his

talk, and hypothesized that it had the capacity to reach up to 3 gigabits per second (Gbps).

Since his TED talk, Haas has dedicated himself to figuring out the details of Li-Fi, found-ing a company called PureVLC to look into it.

Meanwhile, researchers at a Chinese university announced last week that they’ve made progress on the project, pro-ducing a lightbulb and micro-chip combination capable of simultaneously streaming to four computers at a speed of 150 mbps – nearly three times the speed of an average wire-less connection. For context, UFV’s secure wireless connec-tion operates at 54 mbps.

Xinhua News states that “Chi-nese people are replacing the old-fashioned incandescent bulbs with LED lightbulbs at a fast pace,” to prepare for a mas-sive transition from Wi-Fi to Li-Fi, but Nikola Serafimovski, a PureVLC spokesperson, told BBC that they’re skeptical.

“We’re just as surprised as everyone else by this an-nouncement,” Serafimovski says, “How valid this is we don’t know without seeing more evidence.”

DESSA BAYROCKTHE CASCADE

Image: Kevin Dooley/ flickr

Eventually, turning your lights on could let you check Twitter.

The fishnets were finally broken out at Aftermath after The Rocky Horror Picture Show pub night had been postponed twice.

Held on October 17, the event successfully time warped through the evening. Regarding the delay, After-Math events and marketing manager Stephanie Martin did not comment at press time.

The evening featured a showing of the 1975 British musical/comedy/horror film on the student lounge’s projec-tor screen.

Accompanied by for-pur-chase gift bags and food, Af-terMath was well prepared to make this event, hosted by the Student Union Society (SUS), one worth waiting for.

SUS president Shane Potter explained the choice of film for their pub night turned movie night.

“Cult followings are always a fun choice [and] people know the film and can get in-volved.”

Thus the show was put on, and because of the gift bags the show was interactive, as is often tradition when The Rocky Horror Show is performed live.

Events timed with scenes from the film, such as throw-ing rice through a wedding scene, snapping gloves along with one of the main char-acters, Dr. Frank-N-Furter, during the unveiling of his creation, Rocky, and tossing pieces of toast across the room as “toast” was cried out at the

dinner table scene were high-lights of the evening’s festivi-ties.

Only one well-dressed fan stood up to participate in the Time Warp dance, but sing-ing was heard throughout the songs; much to the shock of both passersby and those new to The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

There was much murmur-ing during the film as ex-cited fans got ready for their favourite songs and whispers about what was transpiring were exchanged. Even after the film, AfterMath was abuzz with delighted students, for as Dr. Frank-N-Furter once said, “a mental mind-fuck can be nice.”

TAYLOR BRECKLESCONTRIBUTOR

Rocky Horror hits AfterMath

Image: Blake McGuire

Cult film fans rejoice.

This past July, the Student Union Society’s (SUS) advoca-cy committee began discuss-ing bringing a food bank ser-vice to UFV campuses. Now, two months later, it ’s becom-ing a reality.

It officially opens October 25 on the Abbotsford cam-pus, and the food bank will be ready for student use the fol-lowing Monday. SUS VP aca-demic Kristianne Hendricks explains that the food bank was initially supposed to co-incide with the opening of the new student union building (SUB).

“Originally, we had planned to only create a business plan. We hadn’t been intending to open it until the new [SUB] was opened,” she says. “But then we became aware of the fact that the Abbotsford food bank was quite happy to be in partnership with us, and that all we needed to do was pro-vide space.”

Unlike other food bank ini-tiatives, this resource will not involve handing out hampers but rather will allow partici-pants to shop within the stores of available food. The food bank will give students more choice in the food they receive by awarding students various levels of points, depending on their situation and family needs.

“This is not a ‘hamper’ sys-tem,” Hendricks notes. “So, if you have food allergies or

even dislikes, you’ll still be able to access [the food] and get things that you can use.”

Due to the program being relatively new, the food bank will only be located on the Ab-botsford campus. However, Hendricks does not rule out the possibility of this program expanding to the other cam-puses in the future.

“At this point in time, we don’t have the space to open another location in Chilli-wack,” she notes, “but it’s not something that we are not thinking about – it’s just not there yet.”

For Hendricks, this system also holds personal meaning and importance, having been a participant in university food bank programs in the past herself.

“I have used on-campus food banks in the past. The

very first time I went it was terrifying. It was a really scary experience,” she says. “But, as soon as I got there, I realized that it was okay, that it was there to help [me]. The [food bank] is meant to help you get through a situation. It’s not a stigma – everybody goes through points of need in their lives.”

Beyond her own personal connection, Hendricks be-lieves that having this service on campus will enhance the overall student body experi-ence.

“University is about syn-ergy, about working together, and about learning from each other,” she explains. “If you’re helping the people that you’re working with, you’re going to benefit ... It ’s a good thing for everybody to be taken care of.”

KATHERINE GIBSONTHE CASCADE

Campus food bank about to become reality

Image: F Delventhal

SUS brings students in need an on-campus food bank.

5NEWSWEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2013

www.ufvcascade.ca

How do students know if the grades they receive at UFV have the same weight as those given by larger universities like UBC? According to UFV’s website, there is no standard-ized percentage versus letter grade scale.

UFV grades are weighted based on a grade point aver-age (GPA) scale, with 4.33 be-ing the highest. Even though 4.00 equals a standard A grade, there is no percentage policy to

determine at what point a stu-dent deserves an A.

Instead percentages are gov-erned per department, or are at the instructor’s discretion. According to UFV’s commu-nications department’s grade scale, a student may receive an A- once he or she has achieved 88 per cent. For Business Ad-ministration students an A- is 85 per cent. Both A- grades, even though they are different percentages, are equal in GPA (3.67).

As to the discrepancies, VP academic and provost Eric Da-

vis did not offer comment at press time.

The University of British Co-lumbia’s (UBC) associate di-rector of public affairs, Randy Schmidt, explains why UBC does not use a GPA system and prefers to use percentages in-stead.

“UBC has never used a GPA system,” he says. “I understand that in 1986 we did formally consider adopting a GPA sys-tem but there were objections as it would provide less infor-mation than a percentage sys-tem, due to loss of granularity

(i.e., a 73 per cent and a 75 per cent result in the same GPA).”

UBC provides an online scale of percentages, letter grades, and GPA conversion that ap-plies to all courses and all de-partments. Meanwhile UFV admits that percentages given in one department “may differ from other courses and pro-grams,” according to its web-site.

If a student transfers from UFV to UBC, their grades will need to be converted to UBC’s scale. Grades will be convert-ed from GPA to a percentage

equivalent. On this scale, UFV’s 3.67

GPA, which was an A-, will land between 79 and 80 per cent. UBC’s A- is weighted at 80 per cent (3.70 GPA) – slightly higher than the mark received at UFV. This means that either the grades are inflated by 0.03 GPA to match, or UFV’s A- turns into UBC’s B+.

A small but significant change.

ASHLEY MUSSBACHERTHE CASCADE

Lack of standardized percentage scale means discrepancies in UFV transfer grades

The Fraser Institute explored neuroeconomics, income in-equality, and social philoso-phy at its recent public policy seminar in Vancouver. The audience, made up of at least 200 undergrad and post-grad students from as far away as Prince George, piled into the Renaissance Hotel on October 18 to discuss economics and public policy.

While the focus was on eco-nomic policy, the audience was filled with a dynamic range of disciplines: nursing, busi-ness administration, sociology, political science, and environ-mental planning.

“Your brain itself is an eco-nomic system. Drug use inter-feres and damages your ability to be empathic and care about others,” explained keynote speaker and neuroscientist Paul Zak, who is the author of the recently published book The Moral Molecule. “Evolu-tionary history has shown that we’re meant to connect with each other.”

Zak has identified a scien-tific factor that regulates com-passion in the brain: a hormone called oxytocin. He measures the amount of oxytocin in the blood stream of individuals after they have gone through a ritualistic or social event; a wedding, a religious ceremony, or community celebration. Af-ter the bonding event, Zak has participants play a computer game that tests their charita-bility. His studies have found a link between communal living and high levels of oxytocin.

“It’s Adam Smith’s moral ar-gument of self-regulation,” Zak said. “Oxytocin creates a feed-back loop that builds stronger bonds. Stronger trust in com-munities can release oxytocin. You can use the ‘L Word,’ it ’s just biology.”

Zak’s push for stronger trust in society has earned him the nickname “Dr. Love.”

But better communities and and higher levels of trust don’t guarantee a perfect world.

“Psychopaths make up two per cent of the population, yet they make up 40 per cent of the prison population,” Zak explained. “It’s not that psy-chopaths’ brains don’t manu-facture oxytocin; their brains don’t respond to it in the same way.”

On the classical economics front, the Fraser Institute’s vice president Jason Clemens had the daunting task of fitting his presentation on deficit spend-ing, income inequality, and healthcare reform into 30 short minutes.

“One thing that many people don’t understand is that there is good and bad debt. Good debt is spending on things that we can use for the long term: infrastructure, bridges, and K-12 education. Bad debt is short-term assets,” he said. “Deficit spending is a structur-al problem over all. Nine out of 10 provinces are in deficit spending.”

Clemens talked at length about how the public incor-rectly understands income in-equality.

“15 to 16 per cent of the econ-

omy is underground. 12 to 25 per cent of self-employed in-come goes unreported. Instead of looking at the income data, we should look at the con-sumption data,” he said.

There was not enough time to address how personal debt like credit cards plays a role in con-sumption, but Clemens made it clear that he wanted to focus on the issue of lower income over the issue of inequality.

“What the evidence tells us is that if you don’t have a high school education and you are a single parent, you’re going to have a really hard time getting out of the lower in-come category. These are the people we need to focus on,” he explained before adding some fi-nal points about health care poli-cy.

“Thinking about having only a U.S.-style or Canadian-style healthcare system is silly. We can look to adopt working com-ponents from other countries,” he said. “The character of fed-eralism allows the provincial

systems to test new ideas and see what works.”

Ravina Bains, also a Fraser Institute researcher, presented after Clemens on the need for dialogue between First Nations people and governments with regards to energy projects.

“There isn’t a single new oil and gas project that isn’t on First Nations’ land. One third of Canada’s First Nations pop-ulation lives in BC, mostly in rural parts of the North. This population is the fastest grow-ing in Canada, at a rate six

times faster than the national aver-age,” she said.

Bains expressed that creating a dialogue between First Nations peo-ple is essential to forming educa-tional standards that can be mutu-ally agreed upon between govern-ments.

“Chevron [and other energy companies] will provide skills training and education as a partnership in these projects,” she explained before respond-ing that the new energy devel-opment projects will provide

one third of the heat for the province.

As much as public policy is about economics and neuro-science, it is also about cul-ture and communications. Dr. Steven Globerman from the Center of International Busi-ness at Western Washington University was there to present research on the regulation of cultural industries in Canada.

“If Canadian content rules are there to support Canadian identity, shouldn’t Canadian identity be clearly defined?” asked Globerman. “51 per cent of broadcast content on Cana-dian TV is required to be Ca-nadian. It’s extremely difficult to get straightforward reports, but we do know that $1.8 bil-lion in tax credits is given to Canadian film makers. If you limit [programming choices for viewers], they are worse off.”

The conference was closed by professor Roberta Herzberg from Utah State University. Drawing from utilitarian phi-losophy, Herzberg pointed out the new problem of healthcare reform.

“Public policy has to deal with moral consequences, those problems become much more complex when they en-ter the social arena,” she said. “We are being hurt by our own success. The 95-year-old who is healthy and didn’t smoke is taking up 30 more years of healthcare than the 65-year-old smoker.”

Her point was not to keep people smoking, rather that public policy has moved deep-er into the realm of moral phi-losophy as it struggles with new issues in palliative care, organ transplants, and preven-tative health.

For students, the speakers provided a massive amount of access to groundbreaking research and ideas. While the Fraser Institute generally fo-cuses on economics inside of public policy, arguments from all spheres of knowledge were shared and respected.

CHRISTOPHER DEMARCUSTHE CASCADE

Fraser Institute explores public policy issues at student seminar

Image: Christopher DeMarcus

The Fraser Institute’s speaker series focused on economics, among other subjects.

“Your brain itself is an eco-nomic system... evolutionary history has shown that we’re meant to connect with each other.”

6

OPINION OPINION WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2013

www.ufvcascade.ca

In 2010, UFV’s visual arts de-partment banned the use of plastic bottles inside their studio class-rooms. It was a step in the right di-rection, but since then we haven’t seen any further progress.

Why have we not joined the likes of the University of Toronto, Concordia, and Vancouver Island University, and banned plastic wa-ter bottles on campus?

The U.S. Environmental Protec-tion Agency estimates that out of the 32 million tons of plastic pro-duced in the States per year, only eight per cent finds its way into a recycle bin. In a landfill, plastic takes a minimum of 450 years to break down.

While recycling and reusing is an important step to keeping plas-tic out of landfills, it’s not as green as one might assume. Sorting and melting down the material for re-use uses massive amounts of en-ergy in itself.

It’s interesting to look at the is-sue through a psychological lens. Most UFV students are aware to some extent that plastic bottles have a negative effect on our en-vironment. And we would love to think that the self-proclaimed environmentalists would not buy plastic water bottles, just as we would love to think that those same people would generally act

in an environmentally conscious way.

In other words, we would love to think our attitudes affect our be-haviour.

Yet this isn’t always the case. The relationship between our be-haviour and our attitudes is a little more complex than that. People think one way and act another. Attitudes are often not expressed

through behaviour because they conflict with social norms, or with each other.

Some of the same people who would describe themselves as en-vironmentally conscious buy plas-tic water bottles on a regular basis.

In many cases, behaviour itself initiates a change in attitudes, not the other way around.

If attitudes and behaviours

change when we are motivated to maintain consistent thought, why not just highlight the inconsisten-cies many students feel through a new policy at UFV? Ban water bottles and create that social norm.

Outside the visual arts depart-ment, UFV has done little to com-bat the use of plastics. Recycling bins are positioned around cam-pus, where empties are dutifully

disposed of; you can buy reusable bottles at the bookstore; and there are two filtered water stations for those who need them on campus.

Changing attitudes is a compli-cated business. Hoping for people to stop buying plastic water bottles by waiting for them to change or internalize their attitudes is a long process. As far as I’m concerned, we should no longer have the right to purchase a plastic water bottle, because doing so is infringing on other people’s right to a healthy environment.

So let’s skip the whole attitude-changing business and just create social norms around the behav-iour. UFV has to take initiative: di-rect action will yield direct results.

We can say with near certainty that Sodexo won’t suddenly stop selling bottled water. So here’s how UFV could do it: ban plastic water bottles in the classroom. Post signs on classroom doors or have game instructors write on their syl-labi that plastic water bottles will not be permitted in their classes. Put up posters. These would re-sult in a two-pronged approach: the posters raise awareness about the negative effects of plastic water bottles that might work to chang-ing attitudes, while attempting to enforce a social norm.

If UFV is serious about being en-vironmentally conscious, it would take the initiative and pull the plug on plastics.

NADINE MOEDTTHE CASCADE

SNAPSHOTS Curtailed commentary on current conditions

The other day, I talked to someone looking for a tutor. What did he want help with?

“An essay,” he said. Turns out he didn’t just want a tutor. He

wanted someone to help him come up with an essay topic, connect the ideas, proofread, polish it up – all but write the damn thing.

He insisted that there are no rules against having your paper edited, that it’s a form of tutoring.

I looked it up, and the university’s rules are pretty specific about getting someone else to do your work for you – but, as he pointed out, the administration doesn’t seem to mind the dozens of posters around campus that advertise writing and editing services for student papers.

Helping someone with their work isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but correcting or co-writing an assignment that someone else will be graded for is obviously not cool. With written assignments, where does ed-iting stop and academic dishonesty begin? And why doesn’t administration look more closely at the services that are being adver-tised all over their school?

Editing is academic dishonesty

VALERIE FRANKLINRitalin and Adderall are the new cocaine.

Vicodin and Percocet are the new heroin. We need a fix. The drug companies are happy to rationalize one for us. And if you can’t get your hands on the good stuff, you can always get your hands on the green stuff. Support your local grower! We treat drugs like a health supplement or economic duty.

We always need to fix something about ourselves. We take pills for symptoms of anxiety, paranoia, and loneliness. But we are not sick. We are canaries in a coal mine, huff-ing the fumes from pharmaceutical and tech companies that want to make us sick to sell us a cure.

I’m not against drugs, but I’m against us-ing drugs to fix people’s souls. Drug-taking is nothing more than a vacation from real-ity. Sure, sometimes you need a getaway, but let’s not kid ourselves. Long gone are the days of Aldous Huxley’s LSD exploration. We take drugs today to forget who we are: human beings. If we don’t move away from our zombie obsession for the next fix, we will never be free.

Don’t medicalize personality

Christopher DemarcusStrolling down the narrow aisles of a store

the other day in search of cereal, I noticed something interesting: the giant wall of ce-real was further separated into sections.

Sugary cereals with brightly coloured marshmallow shapes, catchy names, and fun mascots are shelved under the label, “Kids Cereal” and the same varieties in larger boxes are “Family Cereal.” Farther down the aisle, smaller boxes of cereal with higher fibre content and less sugar are filed under “Adult Cereal.”

Really? So even cereal can be 18+ now? Will I have to show two pieces of ID to buy it?

It’s no secret that sugar-filled cereal is designed to entice (and addict) children. That’s where the fun shapes and happy lep-rechauns come in. But I think what disturbs me is that this takes the next step: not only are these cereals marketed to children, they are categorized as what children are “sup-posed” to eat.

Healthy cereal, like spinach and broccoli, is just for grown-ups.

Cereal – adults only!

Katie StobbartWithin the past week, I’ve heard rumours

about some undesirable goings-on in After-Math; apparently people have been walking out of the restaurant before paying for their meal.

If you are going to order something—and eat it—you should have to pay for it. Yes, Af-terMath’s service can be slow; and yes, some of the staff can be forgetful, but those are not justifiable reasons for sticking your waiter or waitress with the bill.

I have experienced the frustration of hav-ing to leave and struggling to get my bill, and I know how exasperating it can be. But the servers are students just like the rest of us, so we should be able to understand, at least sympathize.

There is no justifiable reason to walk out of a restaurant without paying the bill, even if it is a student-run facility.

The next time you visit AfterMath, if you don’t enjoy yourself, you don’t have to tip, but at least settle up.

Skip the tip, not the bill

TAYLOR BRECKLES

UFV lags woefully behind in plastic bottle policy

Image: Nadine MoedtOutside the visual arts department, UFV has done little to combat the use of plastic water bottles.

7OPINIONWEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2013

www.ufvcascade.ca

Have an opinion about something? Share it with us. Comment on our website or email your thoughts to Editor@ufvcascade.ca

Math deficiency a cycle of neglect, not “math anxiety”

In elementary school, teachers used to make us write short math quizzes that were timed, forcing us to complete a page full of mul-tiplication, division, addition, and subtraction within the span of 60 sec-onds. It was hell. I spent most of the time starting down at my sparkly-blue running shoes and listening to the sound of 20 pencils scratching hastily at the paper. From that moment on, I hated math.

Back then if you couldn’t write a test, no matter the subject, it meant you hadn’t done the work, or prepared enough for it. That giant red “F” on top of the page used to mean your own failure, and your responsi-bility. It was an embarrassment. And it was absolutely terrifying to show it to your parents.

It was enough of a slap in the face when I failed that math quiz to make me try harder so I wouldn’t have to go through it all again.

Now it’s called math anxiety. This “fear” of math has been

studied since the 1970s, and la-belled a phenomenon. Several different websites offer tips for reducing the symptoms of math anxiety, which include asking questions of your teacher, relying on practice rather than memoriza-

tion, and develop-ing responsibility for your own suc-cesses and failures. These are all great suggestions when it comes to any sub-ject, but there’s one problem: these tips assume the symp-toms are the cause.

In 2009, Service Canada posted a report that studied secondary school teachers and em-ployment rates. It did not come as a surprise to find

that “school boards are complain-ing about the shortage of qualified staff in some subjects, a shortage due to lack of graduates in those subjects.” The subjects listed were French, mathematics, science, and English as a second language. So, is it possible the lack of math pro-fessionals in teaching might be af-

fecting student learning outcomes? Well, that’s a no-brainer.

York University’s dean of educa-tion Ron Owston, in the Globe and Mail said that “the arts are always a valuable foundation for teaching. However, we do need more appli-cants to our programs with math and science backgrounds.”

According to University Affairs, a school district in Ontario has about 161 positions to fill each year, many of them part-time. On any given year since 2005 the num-ber of applications received to that school board alone add up into thousands.

Math Academy states that Rus-sia and Germany treat mathemat-ics as an essential part of literacy, and “an educated person would be chagrined to confess ignorance of basic mathematics.” Both of these countries have ranked highest in mathematics for centuries. No sur-prise there.

We are in a vicious cycle. Stu-dents in their primary and sec-ondary education are likely being taught math by teachers who do not have math degrees, and in turn the students develop mediocre calculation and problem-solving skills. If they move onto post-sec-ondary education they apply to the arts, believing that they are inca-pable of math-related subjects, and

therefore the education system is bombarded with massive amounts of art faculty resumes.

This doesn’t mean that “F” I re-ceived on my math quiz in elemen-tary school was my teacher’s fault, nor does it mean I’m incompetent in mathematics.

Our country’s education system needs to take into consideration that people learn math at different levels, and by different methods, and throwing a teacher into an over-stuffed classroom of 35 stu-dents to regurgitate the textbook at them is not enough.

There needs to be more support in both elementary and secondary school for math courses; group work during class time that con-sists of solving practice problems, short unit-oriented lectures that do not take up the entire block, and discussions of different study methods. In short, communication needs to be improved.

We have to understand that slapping a label on a widespread problem such as “math anxiety” is not going to fix it, rather we will just bury it further and further un-der the rug.

ASHLEY MUSSBACHERTHE CASCADE

Harper wants you to believe in his economics, not realityAfter years of snubbing the me-

dia, the Harper government al-lowed cameras to come record the PM’s speech to his caucus – but no reporters were allowed. The Harp-er plan backfired, and the major news networks did not send cam-eras or reporters. That evening, Harper’s speech was absent form the evening news broadcast, with the exception, of course, of Sun News.

Despite this setback for Mr Harper, the recent throne speech has activated an extensive media campaign by blue tories. But don’t let their leftist language confuse you. Pundits for the party of big capital are using language from the left to make them sound more centrist.

As rhetoric hit the airwaves and internet on Wednesday, al-most every talking head from the Harper government was kicking out phrases like “against the status quo” and “reasonable and respon-sible.” They want you to think that they are not the cause of status quo problems, and they want you to forget about that thing called the Senate.

A quick lesson about the job of the Senate. The Senate is appoint-ed by the Prime Minister. They’re a bit of a glorified rubber stamp, but

they have a purpose: to examine and double-check the bills made over in the House of Commons, the guys and gals that we vote for.

When we have a majority gov-ernment, like we do today, most bills slip right on through. But the stamping process by the Senate does allow time for public reflec-tion. The Senate is a kind of check-point to ask, “Are we sure about

this?” before the bill can be put into law.

It’s been a long-time running joke that senators get their cushy appointments as a reward for serv-ing their party. They take little time analyzing bills and spend most of their days on beaches in Tahiti.

Well, that joke became real last year when four senators got bust-ed for claiming housing and trav-

elling costs for which they were not eligible. They were skimming. Stealing from you, the taxpayer. How much? Senator Mike Duffy paid back $90,000 to try and make amends. So at least that much.

The senate scandal made the Harper government, one which runs on the platform of a clean fis-cal policy, look like a pack of dirty Liberals. So, our PM prorogued

parliament. Harper says he did it to focus on economic growth – most think it was to get people’s minds off the Senate scandal.

Now here we all are, a demo-cratic government back in the sad-dle of law-making. And being a democracy, Harper’s new message is all about you, the consumer. He promises to make cable and cell-phone bills lower and concert tick-ets cheaper. Something that was already in the works from industry regulators.

What is going on here with the “consumer first” talk and the pre-tend rebellion against crony capi-talism is pure propaganda. What the Harper government wants is economic power. For them, all quality of life is tied to one thing: commodities.

The promise of cheaper stuff is like candy being thrown to chil-dren at a Canada Day parade. We’re excited. We feel like we’re getting something. But that sweet taste of cheaper trade with the EU will run out. The overspending on prisons and security will have dire consequences.

Don’t let the human face of the Harper government fool you. What they want is expansion of the status quo. They will work tirelessly, hand-in-hand with robo-calls and the oil industry to put all of our economic eggs in the same resource extraction basket.

CHRISTOPHER DEMARCUSTHE CASCADE

“When I look at a math prob-lem, my mind goes complete-ly blank. I feel stupid, and I can’t remember how to do even the simplest things.”

– quote from Math Academy

Image: Johnathan NightengaleDon’t let the human face of the Harper government fool you.

Image: Anthony BiondiSlapping a label on the “math anxiety” issue ignores the problem

8

OPINION OPINION WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2013

www.ufvcascade.ca

Feel like sharing your short-and-sweet opinion? Keep an eye out for our whiteboard-toting pollsters roaming the halls.

What is your favorite nail polish colour this season?

ARTS & LIFEWEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2013

www.ufvcascade.ca

9

CROSSWORD Hodgepodge

Aries: March 21 - April 19: If you can read this, you can see invisible writing! Too bad this is the only thing written in invisible writing…

Gemini: May 21 - June 21: It’s true love. Go for it. S/he’s your lobster.

Cancer: June 22 - July 22: Your future is whatever you want it to be. Haha! No. Your future is rotten.

Libra: Sept 23 - Oct 22: You’re either going to work at Krusty Krab or work as Krusty the Clown… I don’t know. But there’s definitely something crusty coming up.

Scorpio: Oct 23 - Nov 21: You’re one of the lucky ones. You don’t have to worry about working out, eating healthy, or not smoking. You’re going to die young!

Sagittarius: Nov 22 - Dec 21: Remember: Vulcans never bluff.

Capricorn: Dec 22 - Jan 19: I predict that you will find all the Monopoly pieces at Mc-Donalds this week… except for the one piece of each set you need to win, of course.

Aquarius: Jan 20 - Feb 18: Don’t go down the rabbit hole. Ew. That’s definitely il-legal.

Pisces: Feb 19 - March 20: Better check out what’s going down on the Street. Word is, Big Bird’s talking smack about you.

Leo: July 23 - Aug 22: Magic 8 ball is filling in this week. Magic 8 ball says your week will be “Hazy. Try again.”

Virgo: Aug 23 -Sept22: Set the world on fire? Who the hell told you to do that? Don’t, you bastard! We have to live here you know!

The Weekly Horoscope Star Signs from Sumas Sibyl

Taurus: April 20 - May 20: You are a bullfrog. Let them hear you roar! Screw the lions and the tigers.

3. Cozying up to your sweetie. (7)4. One of the basic tastes; not bitter, sour, or salty. (5)7. Most people have 46 of these. (11)8. Leaves in hot water. (3)10. An unfilled position or emptiness. (7)12. A pretty white bead that comes from a shell. (5)14. In ancient medicine, four of these were thought to govern the human body. Today, they just make us laugh. (7)

1. This spicy tree bark tastes great in apple cider. (8)2. A scientist who examines substances and how they interact. (7)5. You probably won’t panic if you see smoke coming from this part of the house. (7)6. A small house often used as a summer getaway. (7)9. You might have had one of these in which you forgot to wear pants to school. (5)11. A musical insect that always worsens awkward silences.13. A sudden silence, or how you might tell a child to be quiet. (4)

ACROSS

DOWN

LAST WEEK sudoku solution

Answer Keys

Across

2 WOOLSOCKS6 HUGS9 BLANKET10 THERMOSTAT

Down

1 HOT CHOCOLATE3 JUMPINGJACKS4 SPACEHEATER5 SHOWER7 SWEATER8 VACATION

by Valerie Franklin

SUDOKU PUZZLE

ARTS & LIFE10

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2013

www.ufvcascade.caFEATURE

Abbotsford Connect feeds and supports the vulnerable

Pancakes, sausages, and scrambled eggs may not seem like much – but for the people attending the Abbotsford Con-nect event, it meant everything.

The line of people waiting to receive free support services, including a hot, buffet-style breakfast, extended out the door of the Sevenoaks Alliance Church, where the sixth annual Abbotsford Connect was hosted on October 18.

As part of B.C.’s Homeless-ness Action Week, the one-day, community-driven event brings together government agencies, non-profit service organiza-tions, and church groups to of-fer support to Abbotsford’s vul-nerable residents.

Individuals are given free ac-cess to more than 30 different services under one roof, ranging from medical care and mental health services to haircuts and clothing. Eye care, foot care, housing assistance, flu shots, income assistance applications, and even income tax prepara-tion were all available on Sat-urday.

Alyson, a representative of the Elizabeth Fry Society, ex-plains this event is not affiliated with any particular organiza-tion, but rather is a collabora-tive community effort.

“These agencies partner up and provide an opportunity for people in need. There’s no one person or agency govern-ing [Abbotsford Connect]. It’s a team effort.”

Ward Draper, executive direc-tor of 5 and 2 Ministries and one of Abbotsford Connect’s origi-nal founders, agrees.

“I think what’s amazing is that we can bring so many dif-ferent organizations together from a wide spectrum of back-grounds and ideologies to ad-dress things,” he says. “We’ve got feminist agencies, we’ve got secular government agencies, we’ve got church agencies, and it’s hosted by a church.”

The event is called Abbots-ford Connect because it con-nects the community through the relationships formed be-tween clients, volunteers, busi-nesses, and service providers. Community members volunteer their time to guide clients one-on-one through the maze of services.

While many volunteers were drawn to this event through their churches, occupations, or schools, other individuals, like Cheryl Spence, came of their own accord because they saw a need in the community.

“I saw this event and thought, ‘What can I do? I’m not a big agency, I’m just one person. Well, I can sew a button,’” she says. “So I brought my own sewing machine.”

She spent the day repairing clothing and fixing zippers – an especially important service for homeless people as winter ap-proaches.

Arlene, a volunteer with 5 and 2 Ministries, notes that some-times simply informing people about the community services that are available to them can make a difference.

“I just told a woman that she can get bus passes for $45 a year because she’s on disability. She had no idea,” she says. “Lots of people don’t know what re-sources are available to them.”

Beyond offering information, Abbotsford Connect makes this wide variety of essential servic-es easily accessible to a popula-tion that often finds it difficult to get around the city.

“It is essential to have all these different services in one place,” notes Michelle Veeneman, a Salvation Army representative. “It’s hard for many of these people to travel to all these dif-ferent servic-es in dif-f e r e n t l o c a -tions.”

Brian Mills of the BC Schizo-phrenia Society agrees.

“More connections are needed so that mental health patients don’t have to run all over town. If a person is ill, they often give up very quickly and don’t get treated.”

Margaret Sigsworth, from the BC Responsible and Problem Gambling Program, believes that the importance of this event lies in its potential to start conversations and build com-mon understanding.

“We need to go where the people are. We need to meet them here,” she explains. “[The homeless] population is one that needs the most support and often gets the least.

“It’s not about solving the problem in a day – it’s about starting a conversation. We aren’t going to change the world in three seconds, but we can get people thinking.”

According to Draper, approx-imately a third of Abbotsford Connect’s attendees are home-less. The rest are low-income families, single parents, or oth-erwise marginalized.

For Ruth, a single mother of two living on the brink of home-lessness, this event is more than just about the services she re-ceives. It renews her sense of hope.

“I depend on the public to care for me. It’s their love and support that is keeping me alive,” she explains. “Without them I don’t know if I could go

on.”One client, Leslie, maintains

that it’s difficult to shake the stigma of homelessness.

“When you’re homeless, you are labelled, and stuck in that la-bel. It’s hard to get out of it,” she says. “I am not a ‘homeless person’; I am a person who is homeless.”

Many of the individuals who take part in this event are not homeless, but are supported by provincial income assistance. Dorothy, a woman depending on disability benefits, describes the difficulty of living on the edge.

“You can’t find anything for the 300 and something bucks welfare gives you [for rent]. They need to do something more,” she says. “I’ve never been homeless, but if I didn’t have my daughter living with me, I don’t know where I’d be.”

This is confirmed by the latest Abbotsford Vital Signs Report, released this month by the Ab-botsford Community Founda-tion. It indicated that the annual living wage for a family of four in the Fraser Valley is $59,569 – but at the current minimum wage, two parents working full time would only earn $37,310.

For low-income families, housing may not be the only concern. Many local people

don’t get enough to eat.3000 people per month

rely on the Abbotsford Food Bank. But last week, the Food Bank’s executive director Dave Murray told the Abbotsford Times that their stock of food is at a record low for this time of year. The Food Bank oper-ates entirely on donations

and receives no funding from the government.

James, a volunteer with the 5 and 2 Ministries who used

to be homeless himself, knows what this could mean for vul-nerable people who rely on that service to survive.

“I’ve seen people liter-

ally die or get sick because they don’t have enough to eat,” he says.

Many of Abbotsford Con-nect’s guests may not know where their next meal is com-ing from. The free breakfast and lunch prepares them for the day’s work of connecting to oth-er community services. It’s one step toward the stability they are seeking.

“Everything’s the best,” said Mary, a guest who had just en-joyed a hot breakfast in the Sevenoaks Alliance Church’s gymnasium. “It’s all here, ev-erything I needed. I’m so happy to be here.”

Many community volunteers spoke of the fulfillment they got from offering their time and en-ergy at this event.

“Seeing a smiling face is the best reward,” said Brian Mills. “Better than anything money can get you.”

Gord, a client who acquired granola bars, new bed sheets, and waterproof winter boots, expressed his gratitude for the event. He wants to see similar events held more frequently in the future.

“Everything [at Abbotsford Connect] is so useful to me -- every single thing,” he says. “I can’t describe how much it means to have it,” he says. “They should hold it once a month.”

VALERIE FRANKLINKATHERINE GIBSONCONTRIBUTOR / THE CASCADE

“When you’re homeless, you are labelled, and stuck in that label. It’s hard to get out of it...”

Abbotsford Connect brought out all kinds of volunteers and organizations, pooling efforts to give people the aid they need.Images: Blake McGuire

ARTS & LIFEWEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2013

www.ufvcascade.ca

11

Behind Chilliwack’s UFV campus was a sight that re-quired some context to be be-lieved. Several people were running around carrying dum-mies, others were making fires in the forest, and still others were walking around holding up compasses despite being in a field. In truth, these were mem-bers of BC’s Search and Rescue teams carrying out challenges for SARscene 2013!

This event is a congregation of Search and Rescue teams from across the province. Teams are presented with six different challenges to test their skills and their efficiency. Hosted by the British Columbia Search and Rescue Association and Nation-al Search and Rescue Secretari-at, the games haven’t been held in BC since the Coquitlam team placed first in Victoria in 2007.

Along with the competition, the Games feature a trade show with different equipment and technology companies showcas-ing state-of-the-art products for

Search and Rescue teams to ac-quire. Afterward there were con-ferences where delegates from around the world discussed new issues and ideas. Search and Rescue in BC is very prominent, with more calls in the prov-ince than in the rest of the country com-bined. With C h i l l i w a c k receiving 80 calls last year alone, these games show-case how BC’s crews provide the best possi-ble emergency response.

The games consisted of chal-lenges that included slope evacu-ation, ground search and rescue, medical procedure, and naviga-tion/orientation. Unlike most extreme challenges, the teams did not run or rush through a challenge. The whole point of the games is for the teams to perform correctly, safely, and with perfect coordination.

The judge of the low angle

slope challenge stated that the trial was about melding as a team, and having a strong lead-er form a solid plan. Setting up a stretcher basket properly and creating a strong rope pul-

ley system to transport the victim took the Central Fra-ser Valley team over 20 min-utes to com-plete, but after-ward, the judge complemented them on their stretcher bas-ket weaving and their time. He also point-

ed out to them things they could improve. The friendly environ-ment helps encourage team-building and healthy competi-tion.

The team-building challenge also requires coordination of trust and leadership. In this exercise, the team’s leader had to search a grid for teammates while blindfolded and mute, which proved to be quite a chal-lenge.

Later, the Coquitlam team performed very well in the ground search and rescue chal-lenges, hitting the target with the rope grip harness almost dead on and safely transporting a dummy victim through an ob-stacle course.

Shaking, loud cries, and pain-ful moans helped build the sce-nario for the Vernon team as they performed medical proce-dures and checked the ABCs: airwaves, breathing, and cir-culation. The team checked an alleged bear attack victim over for cuts and bleeding as well as injured limbs while provid-ing emotional care. The girl’s acting was so good, she almost had some of the spectators con-vinced.

Another interesting test was the condition challenge. The teams were tasked with creating a fire with flint and twigs while building a decent shelter from tarp and ropes. Once the fire

was lit, they had to boil a pot of water within five minutes!

“Despite where [teams] are from, they still train the same way, which is what helps us all communicate in the time of cri-sis,” BC Search and Rescue As-sociation vice president Colin Wiebe stated. Wiebe said the games are a means of critiquing and improving skills as well as displaying them.

After the challenges were complete and the scores tallied, it was a tight victory for Nel-son’s team, followed by Prince George and Coquitlam, all only separated by three points.

The Search and Rescue Games are a friendly competition that truly inspires camaraderie in these groups not only to perform well, but also learn from their regional partners in the field. With skiing and snowboarding season approaching, our SAR teams need all the training they can get.

A member of the Coquitlam team works through the navigation challenge. The Coquitlam team had to navigate several obstacles while trans-porting a dummy on a stretcher.

image: Jeremy Hannaford image: Jeremy Hannaford

image: Jeremy Hannaford

image: Jeremy Hannaford

The Central Fraser Valley team handles the low angle slope evac.

Search and Rescue techs conduct a parachute demonstration.

“Despite where

[teams] are from,

they still train the

same way, which is

what helps us all

communicate in the

time of crisis...”

FEATURE

JEREMY HANNAFORDCONTRIBUTOR

SARscene 2013: The best at saving lives

ARTS & LIFE12

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2013

www.ufvcascade.ca

Maybe you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but this works in Snapper’s favour: birds sur-round the title as though it’s a grub they would like nothing more than to dig out of a rotten stump and feed to their squawk-ing young.

The birds look like they’ve been cut from a wildlife guide and pasted on a clean sheet as part of an art project. Individu-ally, they’re nothing special: mostly brown, unassuming, and the sort of birds you might see on your patio in the spring. But put together, they draw out the best in each other – highlighting differences in markings, stripes, and patches, and drawing out the undertones of orange, chest-nut, and robin’s egg blue that lurk under the foundation of drab brown.

This is a fitting introduction to the book. Narrator Nathan Lochmueller observes Indi-ana birds for a living, carefully marking down who is nesting where and doing what. It’s a solitary gig, but also much hard-er than it sounds – the birds do their best to keep predators and threats (including Nathan) away from their homes. He has to use his wits—and his ears—to track his wily, flapping quarry.

This situation—Nathan plus birds plus Indiana wilderness—is quickly and thoroughly de-scribed at the beginning of the book, and just as quickly sinks into the background to serve as a locational foundation for all the events that unfold. The details of the Indiana forest are weirdly and surprisingly enrapturing – I can’t imagine any reason to go to Indiana, but when I put the book down I found myself with a bizarrely serious desire to vis-it. In a way, the location is more a main character than Nathan.

The format is the second sur-prisingly effective decision that Kimberling makes with Snapper:

despite the fact that the same locales and characters appear throughout the book, Snapper is constructed as a series of short tales rather than a novel.

It comes off as a series of auto-biographical stories, as though Nathan Lochmueller is a real person living in a small Ameri-can town somewhere, quietly putting together the interesting tales of his life, maybe publish-ing them as a monthly column in the local newspaper before gathering them up into the col-

lection that became Snapper. The believability of Nathan leads to an odd (although not unpleas-ant) split in the reader’s head: the narrator is at once complete-ly real, and completely fictional.

It’s weird, and good, and a testament to Kimberling’s skill as a writer: it’s structured and detailed in exactly the right way, a perfectly realistic Indiana mi-croworld. Each story links to-gether, ranging from heartbreak to weather events to petty argu-ments between roommates.

It can be read as a meandering whole, or it can be digested one story at a time. All in all, it’s the kind of soothing, stress-free nar-rative that fits perfectly into the middle of semester.

The Big Bad Wolf is now a sher-iff, trying to right previous wrongs in a world full of characters from old-time fables who loathe each other. Based on the critically ac-claimed Fables comic series by Bill Willingham, the first episode of Telltale Games’ The Wolf Among Us shows that they haven’t lost any steps from their success with their Walking Dead game. It also shows that they haven’t learned from some previous mistakes.

You play as Sheriff Bigby Wolf, the reclusive lawman of Fable Town, a small area of New York full of fabled creatures who hide among humans. The most capti-vating ideal of The Wolf Among Us is the world the game is based in. A prequel to the original comic se-ries, the world is full of twists on well-known fables. Beauty and the Beast are having marriage issues due to their lack of wealth, the Woodsman is now a violent drunk due to lost popularity, and Snow White is in charge of Fable organi-zation and sorting. With detailed descriptions of all the characters in the extras menu, I was engrossed in the world-building before I ac-tually focused on the game.

When I did, I found the charac-ters engaging and the gameplay smooth, for the most part. The

user interface has been touched up and offers more style than the bland menus of The Walking Dead. Bigby is a Fable trying to right all the wrongs he did back in the Homeland by making sure Fables don’t kill each other.

The discussions the player is given are meant to forward the investigation, rather than make friends to survive with. Choos-ing between being the concern-ing sheriff or the vengeful law-man was difficult for me at times. Sometimes I was kind and under-standing and other times I felt the need to rip characters’ arms off!

Bigby doesn’t receive much gratitude for his work, but he does it as a means of redeeming himself. Within the first five min-utes, you are defending an es-tranged girl from the Woodsman who is on a bloodthirsty drunken rampage. The interactivity in the fight scenes is much more diverse than Walking Dead’s, but a choppy frame rate and laggy cuts break scene momentum and I found my-self tapping the triggers furiously instead of actually trying to aim for a target.

The Wolf Among Us follows the murder of a Fable and the hunt for the killer. Turning away from the horror survival aspect of Walk-ing Dead, The Wolf Among Us is a mystery game, and the player must find clues in order to for-ward the case. One thing this first

episode offers, far better than in Walking Dead, is choices. While the concluding climax is the same no matter what, Bigby can take sev-eral different roads and begin to twist the story.

The deceptions of some char-acters are unique and interest-ing while others borrow from the original stories but slightly twist them a bit. Always pre-pare for surprises. After I saw a pig conversing with Bigby while smoking a cigarette, I knew that these weren’t our regular fables. The conversations are also well-written, and are filled with refer-ences. The pig still holds a grudge against Bigby for blowing down his house, while the Woodsman flaunts his victory over the Wolf in his face. This feeling of updat-ed nostalgia never wears off and only grows. Meeting the tight-ass Ichabod Crane and the narcissistic mirror was great fun.

Anyone who has read the com-ic will find it entertaining to see these characters brought to life in a video game, and newcomers will enjoy the world building and characters. While there still are some heavy frame rate issues and at least one scene that felt entirely pointless, the first entry of The Wolf Among Us is a solid start to another great episodic series from Telltale Games.

JEREMY HANNAFORDCONTRIBUTOR

The Wolf Among Us: Episode 1Cascade Arcade

Snapper by Brian Kimberling

Book Review

DESSA BAYROCKTHE CASCADE

ARTS & LIFEWEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2013

www.ufvcascade.ca

13

Next weekend, Surrey will hold its 21st annual Internation-al Writer ’s Conference (SiWC).

Held over three days at the Sheraton Hotel in Guildford, the conference will offer aspir-ing authors a chance to pitch their writing to literary agents, receive guidance and encourage-ment from professionals, net-work with other local writers, and maybe even find the inspi-ration to finally write that novel.

Guest writers will include bestselling writers such as thrill-er novelist Michael Slade, Out-lander author Diana Gabaldon, romance author Jane Porter, modern gothic novelist Susanna Kearsley, and suspense author Hallie Ephron, sister of the late Nora. The intimate nature of this conference allows attendees to mingle with published authors over meals, in hallways, and be-tween workshops.

Attendees can look forward to workshops such as “Writing Heroines,” “Creating Plots for Page-Turners,” “Self-Publishing: Great Idea or Waste of Time?” and “Putting Life into Your His-tory Writing.” And don’t miss the brutally educational “SiWC Idol,” a Saturday workshop where the audience’s anony-mous writing samples are read aloud by the eminent Jack Whyte and vetted by a panel of literary agents, who will explain what

mistakes they see in your writ-ing – or, if they like your style, may offer you an opportunity for your first book deal.

Other events include the “Silly Writing Contest,” in which at-tendees are given a number of words to feature a random sto-ry of their own creation; Friday will be “Young Writers’ Day” where writers 18 years or under will be able to attend workshops at a low rate; and “Night Owl” nights on Friday and Saturday will keep attendees awake with movies, masques, and Michael Slade’s famous “Shock Theatre.” In total there will be over 70 workshops and panels.

Whether you have a polished manuscript or a rough outline, there will be many like-minded people from all around the lower mainland and Fraser Valley ea-ger to talk about the process.

Tickets cost between $219 and $299 for a single day, or range from $429 to $589 for the full weekend. Writers under 18 may attend Friday’s workshops for only $55, including a bag-lunch. A variety of pre-conference mas-ter classes are also available on October 24 for a fee of $119 for conference-goers, or $139 for un-registered guests.

Every registration includes a blue-pencil appointment with a published author, and the op-portunity to pitch your work to acquiring editors and agents.

Haute Stuff

ASHLEY MUSSBACHERVALERIE FRANKLINTHE CASCADE / CONTRIBUTOR

International Writers’ Conference comes to Surrey

Ten little canvasses A tutorial in nail colour

First things first. Nail polish can make a big statement, or a subtle one. And that depends on what co-lours you choose. With fall comes deep, rich, and dusky hues – but you can still capture the brightness that comes with the season. Here’s a guide to a few colours to try.

The bloodsThis is my personal word for

the smooth and very dark colours – espresso, oxblood, rich greens, royal purple, or maroon. I like to think of them as the lifeblood of colours. These colours can bring life to a textured but colourless

winter outfit. Winter styles often have the interesting fabrics—knits, furs, and layers—but are generally grey, black, or a neutral tan. Apply an unforgettable shade of dark nail polish, and voilà! A wintry spark has been added to your look.

Dark polish is often intimidat-ing, because either it’s flawless or it’s flawed. There really is no middle ground because the colour stands out so much – every imper-fection is noticeable. Three things to keep in mind: the nail form, the coats, and the touch-ups. I’ll deal with the proper application of pol-ish in next week’s column.

For the nail form, the key is to keep it understated. No vampy Ri-hanna nails. The colour is the dra-matic eye-catcher; keep it clean-cut and regular length. If you have fairly short fingers, however, hav-ing the nail a bit longer and round-ed at the top will elongate your fin-gers. Nails cut too short can give the impression of stubby fingers.

The shinersMetallics! They are a beautiful

thing. They seem to match every-thing, and they have that extra festive shine. They are definitely replacing the glitter polish, which, in my opinion, is only really wear-able at a Christmas or New Year’s party. Metallics, though, are versa-tile. There are tons of different me-tallic sheens on traditional wintry colours that create a full, shade-

shifting colour. You can have a frost finish, a pearl, or a foil sheen.

Foil sheen is a more subdued form of glitter finish, which can be a bit much. I generally would lean towards keeping it classy rather than glitzy (unless you’re going to a club ... Go crazy for the club).

New holographic and duo chrome polishes—which change shades in the reflection of light—are coming into style and can be fun to play around with. Bright pinks and lighter hues under a me-tallic sheen can be a bit too much, and would likely clash with, well, any outfit. I’m not just talking about gold, silver, and copper.

Try a blood colour – oxblood, dark green, or midnight blue. Or try it with a subdued autumn neu-

tral such as pale yellow, burnt or-ange, or sea green.

The classicsThe classics don’t jump out at

you immediately. But when you see the soft, neutral nails of the girl sitting next to you, or the cashier, or your buddy, you immediately think, “they’ve got their shit to-gether!” Nails are noticeable, and I think people underestimate that. You deal with people using your hands daily—hourly—and we no-tice each other’s hands. Neutral and soft colours in autumn fashion reflect the colours of the season.

Take a look outside. The skies are a cold, pale blue or grey-white. The forests are a soft olive or mossy green. The leaves are a pale yellow,

or a musky orange. (No. Not neon. Don’t you even dare.)

Generally speaking, blood co-lours have a creme finish, which is the usual one we are all famil-iar with. The classics, however, go quite well with a matte finish, which has no shine at all.

I’d lean towards keeping it sub-dued, but you can also try suede, which is also matte but has shim-mer to it. Because the classics don’t stand out at all, they are versatile. Short nails, very long nails, rings and bracelets ... Even if you have an electric blue scarf, you can pull off pretty much any classic nail co-lour.

SASHA MOEDTTHE CASCADE

Image: Zitona/Wikimedia commons

Image: Blake Handley/Flickr

Image: shannonkringen/Flickr

The Sheraton will be filled with aspiring and published writers in a week. Use your writerly imagination to picture the scene!

Image: jronaldlee/Flickr

Nail polish completes the outfit.

Creamy and neutral work for fall. Metallic polish gives a flashy shine to your toes.

ARTS & LIFE14

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2013

www.ufvcascade.ca

Drunken Sailor – “Irish Rov-ers”

What will we do with the drunken sailor? Make him walk the twisty slide plank in the backyard! But not until you’ve constructed such an apparatus, one that provides an enchanted upbringing of fantasy and eu-phoria. It’s also impossible to go wrong with accordions and banjos. Or is it?!

Bloodhound Gang – “Bad Touch”

This could be considered to be in bad taste. It’s sexual, crude (though not quite as much as the band’s underground run-away hit “Chasey Lane”), it’s an international superhit, and why a good deal of fans fell out of love with the group who told us the roof was on fire.

The Beatles – “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”

Remember the TV show Life Goes On? Probably not. It wasn’t exactly a Family Ties-style suc-cess. But this song WAS used as the theme music, and ironically enough, the opening baseline to this piece from the White Al-bum Side B has been ripped off for yet another astronomical hit!

The Offspring – “Why Don’t You Get A Job”

Never been a fan of the how-ever satirical usage of the term “bitch” in this song’s opening line, but that’s the point of The Offspring post-Smash, right? Listen to the chorus of this one, and then go back to Ob-La-Di, and tell me it’s not a straight rip.

CIVL Station Manager Aaron Levy had a lovely visit with for-mer SUS VP internal Jennifer Nelson this past weekend. Here are some snapshots of the eve-ning, which included much ado about nothing.

1ShadFlying Colours

2Teen DazeGlacier

3DrakeNothing Was The Same

4Outlaws Of Ravenhurst

Book II

5AustraOlympia

6Amanda TosoffLive At The Cellar

7David GogoCome On Down

8War BabyJesus Horse

9Wooly Mammoth North Shore

10Moby Innocents

11The Albertans Dangerous Anything

12 Northcote Northcote

13The CreepshowLife After Death

14The Brains The Monster Within

15B.A. JohnstonMission

Accomplished

16Esther GreyCollected Works

17Lindi Ortega Tin Star

18The Skydiggers Northern No. 1

CHARTS ShuffleAARON LEVYCIVL STATION MANAGER

Image: Christopher DeMarcus/The Cascade

“There are 37,000 people from the age of 18 to 35 living in Ab-botsford. We have a great venue and a great opportunity to get young local artists together,” says Jenn Pride, coordinator for Abbotsford’s art gallery, The Reach.

Pride is a part of a group of artists, photographers, musi-cians, writers, and creative pro-fessionals called Young Con-temporaries. The group puts on monthly events at the The Reach.

Many in Abbotsford don’t know that The Reach is both a world class art gallery and a public venue for all sorts of events. The Art on Tap series, for example, brings rock-and-roll bands into the art gallery. Best of all there are $5 beers.

“Too cool” says political sci-ence student Dylan Thiessen, “It’s great that this is happen-ing.”

This latest event in the con-cert series transforms the quiet

museum space into a rock club. Road cases and guitar amps sit conformably among the latest art exhibits while local indie rockers Oh Village play a nice balance of artistic rock, con-trolled by a tight and bombastic rhythm section.

“The Reach brings [paintings] to town, but it also holds events like this,” says Oh Village’s lead singer Scott Currie, “It’s great we have a fun place like this to play in Abbotsford.”

The second band, Toronto’s Boys Who Say No, play a dark form of synth-laden indie rock with hints of rockabilly and pop. The tones of lead singer Luke Correia-Damude’s hol-low body Gretsch and drummer Frank Cox-O’Connell’s massive tom drums mix perfectly with the dark and haunting images from local painter Tara Spencer.

“Our inability to reach within the reality of others—to feel or see or understand as they do—leaves each individual inevi-tably nameless and unknown, even those closest to them,” reads Spender’s artist state-ment, next to her haunting im-

ages of anonymity on canvas. The combination of art and mu-sic are completely complimen-tary.

“This band is hooked up and going to blow up,” CIVL radio’s Aaron Levy says.

The gallery space provides the perfect interactive experi-ence between artistic expression and observation. Its different exhibits lie in unique rooms of space and time. In one area is a display of paintings that con-tain WWII bomber planes, in the other is a collection of regional artifacts. The combination of art, music, and beer gives Art on Tap a unique and fun vibe that is better than your typical Vancouver night club.

“There is such a good chill vibe,” art lover Vicki Diaz says, “I feel like I’m at home when I’m here.”

Be sure not to miss the next Art on Tap. It’s local and it’s a lot more fun than one expects an art gallery to be. You can get a membership to the Young Contemporaries project which gets you in free, otherwise the cover is only $5.

Local artist coalition puts art on tap at The Reach gallery in Abbotsford

CHRISTOPHER DEMARCUSTHE CASCADE

Art on Tap places Fraser Valley rock groups within the painting-hung walls of The Reach.

ARTS & LIFEWEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2013

www.ufvcascade.ca

15

Glacia, Western Jaguar’s (AKA Jeffrey Trainor’s) debut album, starts on a sombre note; the opening track, “Darby,” builds up from a simple guitar melody to incorporate horns, drums, electric guitar, and strings. An almost military snare sets the tone for the first half of the song, only to give way to crashing symbols and a synthesizer cho-rus of hopeful and triumphant tones. One gets the feeling that something has been achieved. “Darby” fades down to a single synthesizer note which gives way to the calmer “Karoo Mam-mals.”

Throughout the record, it seems that Trainor is speaking directly to the listener. Glacia seems like an auditory diary: personal, and full of the imper-fections and human emotions that make this record so easy to connect with. “Year of the Flood” features a storm of a cli-max after a tranquil and simplis-

tic first half. Trainor makes use of layering to achieve an engine of sound that takes the listener unawares. You can’t quite put your finger on when a track stops being a calm, three-in-the-morning-drive-through-the-city and becomes a roller-coaster, hurling down a severe incline at 90 miles per hour, only to slow back down to the relaxed, almost hesitant pace in which Trainor seems to be so at home.

“Mt. Baker” is as sombre a song as you’ll ever hear, but surprisingly, it isn’t depressing. Trainor uses reverb, creating an almost ethereal auditory atmo-sphere. It feels like being sur-rounded by a blanket of sound, playing like the soundtrack to a stroll through a moonless win-ter night, fresh snow at your feet. Trainor guides the listener through a cloud of sound that is seemingly made up of anxiety and indecision. Trainor reas-sures the listener that although there may be no discernible end in sight, one will get there, in time.

“Violet Sweatshirt,” however, seems somewhat shallow com-pared to the rest of the album. Sure, there’s an infectious guitar riff halfway through the track, and sure, it’s enough to make you tap your foot to the beat, but something is lacking. The type of depth so clearly demonstrated in songs like “Darby” and “Mt. Baker” is absent from “Violet Sweatshirt.”

The album’s crowning achievement, however, seems to be “Karoo Mammals.” This track boasts all of the spatial quali-ties that make “Mt Baker” such a strongly emotional track, cou-pled with the infectious guitar in “Violet Sweatshirt.” Here, how-ever, this type of melodic guitar is used much more effectively.

Overall, Glacia seems to be Trainor’s open letter to someone. Who is it addressed to? Perhaps it is meant for Trainor himself, perhaps it is meant for no one in particular. Regardless, we should rejoice that Trainor saw fit to share Glacia with us. We are better off for it.

Soun

dBite

s

10 years ago, Four Tet (Kieran Heb-den) released what is often called his first great album with Rounds, a master-sample-work of quiet, urgent emotive electronic art, a distinction he immediately tried to counter with his follow-up album Everything Ec-static. The same sequence has appar-ently repeated with Beautiful Rewind, Hebden’s follow-up to 2010’s There Is Love In You. Unlike that album’s as-sociation of dance repetitions and pa-tient variations, Rewind is a pitch for trance-punctures, a glitched-out sig-nal that Hebden can stray all over the place, not content to be just one thing to all listeners. Tracks like “Parallel Jalebi” and “Ba Teaches Yoga” work as the natural, expected album-to-album progression for Four Tet’s sound, jug-gling tracks that threaten to collapse into one another, making it sound easy. But once Rewind hits its centre (and there are hints before it), with “Kool FM,” Hebden takes his previously pleasant use of voice and world music samples and turns them into some-thing abrasive, a radio-call of “Hey” that goes nowhere, absorbed into Hebden’s toolset. Though something that settles into more typical rhythms on repeated listens, it’s purposefully antagonistic, and something that re-turns in subsequent tracks, alternating with more usual sounds like “Crush” and its flute trills. Caught between a flurry of work, Rewind is an album of second-guessing, a paceless dialogue to be continued on future collabora-tions, but a half-measure as an album.

Paul McCartney has always seen him-self as an entertainer who happened to be a part of an insanely popular act for a short period in his career. He never had the huge ego of John Lennon or the spiritual lifestyle of George Har-rison; McCartney just went about his business with the poise of a master craftsman. After those days were be-hind him, he just kept doing what he knew best: creating pop music that can innovate, inspire, and even surprise at times. On his appropriately titled new record, 71-year-old McCartney, who is now well past the average age of retirement, is still trying to find ways to improve his sound, demonstrating that his aspirations go beyond simply trying to replicate his glory days. Situ-ated between the record’s two singles, “Those Early Days” is arguably the record’s most defining tune. The track is a stark and poignant exploration of McCartney’s relationship with his musical partner and equal John Len-non, while reminding the listener that while you may think you know all of the Beatles lore, McCartney is the only person on the globe who knows for sure. While George Harrison and Ringo Starr commemorated their Beatles’ experience with schmaltzy and sentimental tracks like “When We Was Fab” and “Liverpool 8,” Mc-Cartney instead sings about both the heartache and the warm recollections of a dear friend.

Gary Numan is better known as the guy that did that ‘80s hit “Cars.” He’s been featured on countless “Where the !@#$ Are They Now” VH1 spe-cials. But Numan didn’t go anywhere. He’s been pumping out dark electric rock records since the ‘90s. Often re-ferred to as “Nine Inch Numan,” his second life as a hard rocker doesn’t de-serve the pejorative term. This British goth-rocker is the forerunner to most electro bands. The tracks on Splinter slam in the space between the down beat. Take funk in one hand, metal in the other, then make a sandwich with some electro bread. Good, now you have a new heavy and innovative Gary Numan record. But like all the artists that move beyond their original hits, Numan’s contemporary work is often ignored by the status quo. Young mu-sicians could learn some arrangement tricks from tracks like “I Am Dust,” which builds like a train of coal head-ed straight for the heart of this gritty, grinding, and grandiose record. Drum machine lovers should take note of the complex rhythms throughout. No 1-2-3-4, here. If you’re new to Nu-man’s rocker side, check out “Love Hurt Bleed” and “Here in the Black.” Put this record on for a fast fall drive on Highway 1, or use it to scare the crap out of trick-or-treaters. Splinter sounds like Nolan’s Batman meets Sin City. If those are your movies, this is your record.

Lanterns opens with what sounds like a mandolin and classical choir samples, and this unlikely marriage of electronic and traditional elements sets the theme for the rest of the al-bum. The songs slowly build from a simple melody or beat into a crowd of interlocking elements, but the overall effect is clean and modern. Every track brings together the same weirdly co-hesive chaos of elements, including a saxophone and the electronically ma-nipulated vocals of a classical soprano. It also uses steady and unique percus-sion, although the electronic elements that Son Lux (Ryan Lott) employs (just a hint of the dubstep we all se-cretly crave) bring the sound to the next level. Even with every song using the same anything-goes mix of musi-cal instruments, each one is unique and ear-catching in its own way: “Easy” edges on creepy with a distort-ed, breathy sound reminiscent of Inuit throat singing, with a background of what sounds suspiciously like a ther-emin, while “No Crimes” marries ‘40s vocal jazz harmonies with insistent percussion. “Son Vox,” if I can trust my French lessons, translates as “his voice” and while his voice is not the most ob-vious feature of the album, it acts as a keystone holding everything together. All in all, Lanterns is an album of un-likely but wonderful musical combina-tions nearly guaranteed to pick you up and swing you around.

Gary Numan Splinter (Songs from a Broken Mind)

CHRISTOPHER DEMARCUS DESSA BAYROCKTIM UBELS

Four Tet Beautiful Rewind

Paul McCartney New

Son LuxLanterns

Min

i Alb

um R

evie

ws

MARTIN CASTROCONTRIBUTOR

Western Jaguar — Glacia Album Review

MICHAEL SCOULAR

ARTS & LIFE16

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2013

www.ufvcascade.ca

In a house somewhere in Mis-sion, surrounded by a small sea of guitars, amplifiers, and various electrical equipment, a young man sits poised in front of a microphone, guitar in hand, looping pedals at the ready. This is 21-year-old Jeffrey Trainor, who performs as Western Jaguar.

What kind of music would you say you produce and cre-ate?

If I had to pinpoint [the genre], I would say it’s kind of indie rock. But, I would say it’s more than that, there’s an ambient el-ement, there’s experimental el-ements, there’s even post-rock elements.

It’s a bit, not to say electronic, but ...

Yeah, there’s the synthesized underbelly of it. I feel it has an acoustic air... I use a lot of delay, and a lot of reverb. I like to hear space in recordings.

And when did you start mak-ing music?

I guess I could say I started making music when I [attended] piano lessons, when I was like, eight, probably. But in terms of writing, it was five years ago. I was in a band, we were called Dry Rain. Awful name. But we had so much fun. That gave me the background on how to write songs, how to compose, how to play [and get] shows. Once that kind of disintegrated, I knew I wanted to keep writing, keep putting out music.

Do you have a technically strong musical background?

Just piano ... I took 10 years of [piano lessons]. Because I had that background I was able to teach myself guitar and learn drums, but I can’t read music very well.

What would you say is the in-spiration behind what you do, what makes you get up in the morning and decide to make music?

I think it is personal experi-ence, in a sense. I’ll go through something, or feel something, and... I’ll really want to com-memorate that in a way. So I’ll [experience] a feeling, or go through a rough situation, and if I come through it, I’ll [decide] I want to do something that rep-resents coming through that, in a sense. That’s why you’ll notice there is a darker tone to Glacia, but I think those dark moments shape you more. So Glacia is more like a diary, in that sense.

Would you say that your mu-sic is pretty personal, then?

Yeah, definitely, but at the same time, especially when I’m writing, I’ll try to distance my-self from personally attaching myself to the songs.

I know you record all of the vocals and instrumentals by yourself. When did you learn to do so?

Learning to record was a very long process. When I was play-ing with Dry Rain, my old band, we decided we wanted to record an EP, and we were just broke.

We were seventeen, or eighteen, and we realized that we couldn’t afford it. I thought maybe I could do it. So I went out and bought a microphone and I was going to record the band. I still have those recordings, they’re awful. But that’s how you start, right?

Yeah.We never released [those re-

cordings], because they were just so bad.

They’re sitting in a closet somewhere?

They’re just buried in my hard drive. But making those record-ings was kind of my launch point. After that I read books and watched videos, and kind of learned the technical aspects of recording. Slowly, over two or three years I got to the point where I decided I knew what I was doing well enough that I could actually present it.

You’re mostly self-taught, then?

Yeah. I never went to any classes, or tutorials of any kind.

What influences your music? It’s pretty diverse, some parts are quite ethereal, and some are very funky.

Yeah, it has a groove. That groove part, I don’t know if you’ve heard the band Foals? When I first listened to Foals, that changed my thoughts about music, they had a lot of groove, and a lot of almost tribal ele-ments, in a sense. So that kind of [influenced me]. I knew I wanted to make something that had that kind of rhythm, but at the same time that kind of chilled out, almost layer of sound. The s y n t h e s i z e r s and the brass and string, that came from bands like The Na-tional, and Bon Iver. I saw [Bon Iver] live, while I was recording the album, and I decided to [in-corporate some of that sound]. Other bands like The xx have a really nice atmosphere to their sound, which I thought would be interesting to incorporate into my music.

Can you take me through your songwriting process?

Usually it starts with one little riff, or chord progression. Like, four or five bars, something like that. Then, I usually play it and record it, then I loop it. Then I’ll

come up with melodies over top of that. Usually I’ll have four or five melodies. I’ll pick the ones I like, then I start building a song from there. After that I’ll record all the instrument parts accord-ingly, [and] once I have those on, I’ll add the beat track. I’ll add drums and then re-record every-thing, I’ll re-layer everything, make it come together. Then I’ll mix it.

Do you write music for a spe-cific set of vocals?

Vocals are weird for me. Usu-ally I’ll write a song, and once I have it recorded, I’ll just play it and listen to it. Then I’ll just sing whatever comes to my mind. I’ll write that down and shape ... a lyrical structure out of that. I wish I could put more focus on lyrics ... They are one of my weaker points, but I’m not afraid to acknowledge that I’m weak in that area.

Where did your name come from?

Well, after the “Dry Rain” debacle, I needed a really good name. Because people are go-ing to know me by this name, right? So when I was think-ing of names, my friend Jaimi Wainright was my screener. She wasn’t afraid to tell me if a name sucked. I had names like Limou-sines, The New Pacific, but then I got to Western Jaguar. One day I was watching a TV show, and it involved jaguars. I thought that was a really cool name. I added the ‘Western’ part, and texted it to Jaimi: “I got it: Western Jag-

uar” ... She sent back a wall of text, just “haha-haha.” She said it was the worst name she’d ever heard. For the next six months any time I’d bring her a name she would bring up Western Jag-

uar – she said it was hilarious. Eventually, friends started call-ing me Western Jaguar ... Any time I’d come up with a name they’d say “no, you’re just West-ern Jaguar now. It’s just what you are.” Now people think it’s a really cool name. My dad likes it, that’s important.

So, your new album, Glacia. You just recently released it.

Yes, September 19.

Did you always have the goal of creating a record, or did you at one point realize that it was a legitimate option?

I had always wanted to have an album. Once I started mak-ing music I thought it would be really cool to have an album. But with [Glacia], I never had any intention of releasing it at the beginning. I was just mak-ing music. [The songs] are re-ally personal songs for me. So I was [hesitant to] release it. At one point I thought about delet-ing the songs, I didn’t like them. They seemed like too much to me, I don’t know why. Eventu-ally … I started to connect to [the songs] more. [I realized] that this is a reflection of what I can do and what I can write … this is really me, and I should release them. I kind of want people to know what I’m about. I’m not really the most [intimate] per-son in the world, so music was a good way of sharing that with people.

Thank God you didn’t delete them!

There were some close calls.

Do you think you might play live at some point?

Well, for recording it’s very individual. Initially I had no intention of playing this live. I decided that I would release it but I [was] never going to play this live. Now [that] people have responded a lot to it, I feel that I owe it to people. People have been so nice. I’m working on some ideas; there might be something in the works.

How, if at all, has the expe-rience of making this album changed you?

Well, definitely. I have some-thing to show for all the time I’ve put in. My parents would call up to my room: “What are you doing?” I’d be upstairs for like, eight hours a day. My parents didn’t even know I was putting out an album until I released it.

Oh, really?Well, again, it was a really per-

sonal thing for me. The album was almost cathartic in a sense, now that it’s out it’s like a re-lease. I [feel] I don’t have to wor-ry about these things anymore.

That’s great.Yeah.

You’ve grown up in a really musically-oriented household; your brother plays in –

Casinos. That band. Don’t listen to them, they’re not very good. No, I’m joking.

Is there a musical sibling ri-valry between you and your

brother? That’s a good question.

[Laughs.] Yeah, I think there might be a little sibling rivalry. We grew up together, musi-cally – we both played in Dry Rain. We both learned piano at the same time. We both learned guitar. He [Mitchell Trainor] just decided to learn bass, and I nev-er did. We both bought a drum kit and learned how to play it, so I guess we both strive for the same things in music.

And do you both have the same kind of taste in music?

Yeah, we’re a little bit different at times. It’s good that we’re dif-ferent though, we can [discover new music through each other].

Now that Glacia has been re-leased, are you working on any-thing? What is your next goal?

Well, playing live. I have to figure it out, though. I don’t want to do it cheaply. I don’t want to butcher it ... I’m also working on a new record. [It’s in a] very early stage, though. I’m putting together some new loops and samples. I’m hoping by next May or June I’ll have something done.

With a band set-up, members can bounce ideas off each other. How do you internalize that process?

I just have that discussion with myself. I’ll be walking around and I’ll have a chord progres-sion in my head. I’ll try to find a quiet corner and whisper it into my phone. But I take that whole band mentality and bring it into myself. With a band it’s differ-ent, because you have four dif-ferent voices, each with different musical tastes. With me, I just have my musical taste. But in a band, you have [more] opinions [which help create] a more var-ied song. It’s a little bit of a chal-lenge to think outside the box of what I normally [write]. It can be a challenge [not to be repetitive].

When did you learn to sing, what is it like for you?

Well, I don’t think I ever re-ally learned to sing. I did some backup vocals for Casinos. But ... I felt like I never wanted to do any singing – I [thought they were going to be] instrumental all the way. [But] I felt as though they needed some sort of lyrical element. I didn’t want to bring someone in, because it would ruin that personal [aspect]. You know, [it would be as if] I wrote all these songs but here’s some-one else singing, that has no con-nection to them. So I felt I had to suck it up and do it.

Is there anything you would like to say to your growing fan base?

Well, it would just be thank you. Thank you for supporting my project. I never expected so many people to embrace it, as they have. A lot of [artists] say thank you, but sincerely, I’m blown away by the support so far. And I’m looking forward to bringing new [music] to them in the future. They’ve really lit my fire to keep writing music.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

MARTIN CASTROCONTRIBUTOR

Western JaguarQ & A

Jeffrey Trainor calls his new album Glacia cathartic.

“I knew I want-ed to make some-thing that had that kind of rhythm, but at the same time that kind of chilled out, almost layer of sound.”

ARTS & LIFEWEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2013

www.ufvcascade.ca

17

Long distance relationships can be tricky to maintain. One of the reasons for this is the lack of physical intimacy while the couple is separated. Cuddling, holding hands, and sexual ac-tivity are all great parts of a re-lationship, but hopefully it will be rooted in something more substantial and enduring. It will be this foundation that holds a relationship together or, if the foundation is weak, allows it to crumble while the pair is apart.

Couples are parted for a multi-tude of reasons. Work, extended travel, school, and the military are among the most common causes of departure. When re-searching this topic I spoke with Katerina, a UFV student who be-gan a long distance relationship with a logger this summer. She had a lot to say about the diffi-culties she faces staying connect-ed to her man while he’s away. During our conversation, Kat-erina was quick to point out the various considerations for main-taining a long distance fling.

How important is the reason for your separation?

At some point you will have

to decide what takes precedent. If the reason for the separation cannot be avoided, it may only be a matter of time before the re-lationship expires. Make sure it’s important enough to leave your lover behind. They may find it’s just not worth it for them.

Permanent or temporary?The difference between per-

manent and temporary reloca-tion is a huge consideration. If the job/course/trip has an end date then a different fu-ture is possible. However if the separation has no end in sight frequent visits may be neces-sary. The same question can be asked about the outlook of your relationship: Is it a potentially permanent or likely temporary tryst? If your relationship has no chance at a future, don’t sweat it and just enjoy. However if aim-ing for the white dress, consider trying some fun and frequent ways to connect while your part-ner is away.

How do you foster this con-nection?

There are several different ways to stay connected during this time. “Constant communi-cation is paramount,” Katerina says, “If you can talk, email, Facebook or text daily, do it.

When we don’t talk it makes me feel like we are not in a re-lationship. Who are we if we don’t talk. He doesn’t exist if we lose that connection.” Skype is a great way to facilitate this con-nection, allowing you to enjoy your partner’s voice and image at the same time. Try spicing it up with a striptease or perhaps something a little more X-rated.

The effect on your other rela-tionships

Because of the feast-or-famine nature of only seeing a partner sporadically, your other rela-tionships will likely be affected in the same way. You may no-tice tension from your friends and family when you suddenly drop them once your beloved re-turns. If you try to include them in some way when your partner is home, they may harbour fewer

hard feelings toward you when they leave again.

If you decide to make a go of long-distance dating, best of luck to you. But be aware of the green-eyed monster. Jealousy is a huge barrier to success. Try taking Katerina’s advice and stay connected. This may help ease you and/or your partner though any jealous moments.

Kimberly Peirce’s remake of Brian De Palma’s Carrie is, like many recent remakes, lied about as a re-adaptation of the book by Stephen King. It is a slight update of De Palma’s film, with a few concessions to digital mo-dernity, but curiously does little to lessen the underlying escala-tion of emotion and violence in the story, which is usually taken as a reason to critique De Pal-ma’s original as “camp.”

Watching De Palma’s film to-day, it’s actually easier to forgive some of its flaws, which can be chalked up to time, a benefit Peirce’s remake does not have. Slight anomalies carry over: we can accept how a religious fa-natic upbringing can result in ig-norance about sex, puberty, and public life, but not in a world where the internet exists, and we can accept how a teacher might attempt to take a student under their wing, coaching and moth-ering her to prom, but not as eas-ily in a modern age of lawsuits and regulations regarding teach-er-student contact. For Peirce, this is a return to studio direct-ing after 14 years. She’s been on the outside since Boys Don’t Cry, and where that movie had a knowledge, a perfect sense of its characters, Carrie feels slightly out of touch. Aside from a re-vised version of the original’s tuxedo-and-dresses shopping montage, amusingly direct in its

use of Vampire Weekend’s “Di-ane Young,” there isn’t much life to the film’s supporting cast, any humour or personality to make it seem like there’s much of a world to be frustrated with.

In De Palma’s world, high school is a tragic opera of mock-ery, blood, and tears. While the original Carrie can get catego-rized as a horror movie, it’s first a great teen movie, and has lost none of its stinging immediacy. Though today’s language of necessary hyperbole to get any point across online or in person would seem to translate well to

this story, it’s De Palma’s origi-nal that has the more cutting humiliation moment to moment that draws us into what Carrie does. In the remake, there’s no sense that the upload of a video has any more effect on Carrie than the usual traffic of gossip, it’s arguably more removed, and Peirce does the same visually. Rather than the grandiose, worst thing to ever happen to each of its characters, life is isolated, rote, were it not for the introduc-tion of supernatural powers.

Peirce’s version lunges for horror movie staples, rather than

the horror of high school. It’s an exhibit of a teen movie, antici-pating its violent revenge (from its title card, no less), cutting quickly through scenes de Palma dwelt on, removing the stronger subjective link to Carrie through an out-of-place prologue, and piling on irony by changing the dynamics of the movie’s one classroom scene. Carrie, instead of freezing up when called upon, now reads a personal fire-and-brimstone teaser in poetic form in front of the class, which, along with all the can’t-wait crashing special effects that follow Carrie

from room to school, makes the movie monotonous, rather than one that builds to tragedy. With De Palma, the undercurrent was never in doubt, but in Peirce’s re-make, it’s less a story of awaken-ing and the terror of growing up than one of the introvert getting to fuck up the popular crowd.

The point of this remake, if there is one, is that standards change with the times, and this movie revels in the damage Car-rie deals. While De Palma is usu-ally limited in discussions due to his status as a genre director, his splitscreen in the climactic scene not only brought panic and con-fusion, but literally divided be-tween the view of a detached possession of violence and the fear of young foolishness ex-posed and dragged towards judgment. Peirce’s version is sin-gle-minded, packing a compen-dium of ways to kill young peo-ple into one scene, and counting on its not-really-inventive ways to get a rise. Rather than a dis-turbing finale to a toxic environ-ment, the remake pitches the front end of the prom scene as a dull, sweet nothing, and the rest as business-like elimination.

As faces thrust through win-dows in slow motion, it becomes clear that the anti-heroization of Carrie both amplifies what De Palma intentionally left dormant for the most part in his film (that movie’s high-point, arguably, is the dancing and voting and ten-sion of the prom), and makes the movie’s uncomplicated end a blunder, both failing to ad-dress the real-world connections Peirce fleetingly wants to make, and leaving something poten-tially great in disarray.

Discussions below the belt

XTINASEXPERT

Long distance love: is it possible?

Carrie

Long distance relationships can be difficult, but computers can help with keeping up connections.Image: ahans/Flickr

Film Review

MICHAEL SCOULARTHE CASCADE

Chloë Grace Moretz plays the bloody title role.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2013

www.ufvcascade.caSPORTS & HEALTH

18

After the departure of Quintin Laing, Heat captain for the past three seasons, in the offseason, the team has yet to announce a replacement to fill the key role.

The process of naming a team captain is a measured one, and Heat management seems to un-derstand that the prestige that comes with wearing the “C” has to be earned, otherwise play-ers may end up resenting the decision. Jealousy is a very real thing among athletes, and that’s never a good way to get a team to work together and be success-ful at the AHL level.

Past seasons have seen the Heat players vote on who will be named captain, sometimes play-ing almost a month of hockey before deciding on one player. Last season the Heat went cap-tainless for three weeks before the players agreed to name La-ing captain for a third straight season. This process might seem tedious to some, but it allows the players to form bonds and gain familiarity with each other before selecting a leadership group for the season. With such a young team and only a hand-ful of players returning from the 2012-13 lineup, the delay seems appropriate.

In the meantime, the club

named forwards Paul Bryon, Carter Bancks, and Greg Nemisz alternate captains to start the season. They have all been sta-ples of the Heat lineup the past few seasons, and these veterans will be considered frontrunners for the captaincy if the team de-cides to hold a vote this season.

While most of the major team sports in North America use team captains as a form of lead-ership, the role of captain in professional ice hockey is dis-tinctive. In American football, teams will often have multiple team captains, but in ice hockey, there is a tradition of naming one player, and one player only, team captain.

The honour of having the “C” stitched on their sweater is also more significant in ice hockey because it doesn’t automatically go to the superstar or the team’s most marketable player. Very frequently in hockey, the team captain isn’t the fastest skater, the team’s point leader, or its toughest player. But what he lacks in pure skill, he makes up for in leadership.

By holding a vote on the va-cant captaincy a few weeks into the season each year, Heat management allows the players to make a heartfelt and careful decision on which player has displayed the right kind of lead-ership thus far.

Leading by example is un-

doubtedly the single most important characteristic of a great hockey captain. Whatever style of game is supposed to be played, it is the captain’s duty to set an example by following the system, and the team’s to follow his lead. Whether the team plays an up-tempo or physical style of game, it is the captain’s respon-sibility to implement the team’s game plan both on and off the ice.

The captain also acts as the voice of the team, speaks to play-ers who are struggling, defends their actions publicly, and is the only player officially recognized as being able to talk to game of-ficials about rulings on the ice. These responsibilities require a level of confidence that most players just don’t have.

Perhaps it’s best for the Heat to take its time selecting a new leader. The job is about trusting

your teammates and respecting each other’s opinion, and though this young team has shown mo-ments of teamwork and togeth-erness, it’s still a work in prog-ress, full of rookies and new acquisitions. The constant chal-lenge of building a team out of two dozen personalities makes the job of captaining a hockey team not only pressure-filled, but also highly rewarding.

TIM UBELSCONTRIBUTOR

O captain, my captain!Heat Report

2013 Honda Way Basketball Weekend

For more information, call 604-557-4041 or visit www.ufvcascades.ca

@ufvcascades UFV Cascades Athletics

Competition ScheduleFriday, October 26

5:00PM Game One UFV vs UBC-O (Women)

7:00PM Game Two UFV vs Capilano (Men)

Saturday, October 27

4:00PM Game One Brock vs UFV (Women)

6:00PM Game Two Langara vs UFV (Men)

$2   General  Admission  UFV  students  are  FREE with  valid  ID  card

October 25 – 26, 2013

at  the  Envision  Athletic  Centre

Photo: Clint Trahan/Abbotsford Heat

Veterans like Carter Bancks (34) will wear the alternate ‘A’ until the Heat decide on a new captain.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2013

www.ufvcascade.caSPORTS & HEALTH

19

UFV’s golf teams have made history.

For only the third time since the inception of Canadian Col-legiate Athletic Association (CCAA) golf, the same school has won both the men’s and women’s national champion-ships.

In doing so, the Cascades have solidified their spot atop the CCAA golf rankings, and coach Chris Bertram has been awarded the CCAA coach of the year award.

In addition to their incredible team play, the Cascades also secured four of six individual medals. In the men’s category, standouts Aaron Pauls and Darren Whitehouse captured silver and bronze medals re-spectively. In the women’s cate-gory, Jen Woods and Dani Shap took home silver and bronze medals as well.

Bertram commented on his team’s effort, saying “I am very proud of both teams; they were excellent all season long. Going undefeated is a great accom-plishment.”

This year’s men’s volleyball team has 12 returning players from last year’s talented squad, which played all the way into the PACWEST quarterfinals.

Joining this year’s squad are Braden Thain from Earl Mar-riot Secondary and Nick Bruce from Fleetwood Park Second-ary. Thain’s Earl Marriot team placed fifth last year in the AAA provincial championships and Thain received a third team all-star at the tournament. Bruce led Fleetwood’s squad last year from the middle position.

Assistant coach Carl Nien-huis said Thain and Bruce “both bring a tremendous work ethic and have transitioned into our mix very smoothly. I like that they are both able to push our returning players to be at their best night in and night out.”

Last year the men had a sea-son full of ups and downs that began with a lacklustre start, though the team improved as the season progressed. They finished sixth in the conference and matched up against a very talented Camosun College team in the first round. Nienhuis said of his team, “the boys had a strong finish last year, and were really starting to gel at the end of the season. I think they have picked up right where they left off – not only are they physically stronger and have more refined skills, but they’re also learning how to more consistently com-pete at a high level.”

The 2013-14 edition returns with a core of strong seniors

including fifth-year leader Devon Krahn, and three fourth-year players: brothers Josh and Anthony Togeretz and Chris Schmitke. All four players will need to show strong leader-ship on what is currently a very young team.

When asked what the team’s goals were for the upcoming season, Nienhuis talked about continual improvement.

“I like to think our goals for

this season revolve around team and personal development, where every day is an opportu-nity for growth and improve-ment. Long-term success is built upon daily training, so our em-phasis right now is in continu-ally showing up to practice and competitions with energy, the right attitude and the intent to work extremely hard. If we do that, we should end up winning some games.”

The squad’s pre-season was riddled with many ups and downs for the team but ended up being vital to the team’s preparation.

“Our team is deep, and we will be relying on that depth throughout the season. So our matches to date have been about giving guys the opportunity to play in different roles while working out different combina-tions,” Nienhuis said.

In their regular season games so far, the men have played well but have been unable to get the dominant upper hand, splitting both back-to-back games with CBC and Douglas College. At two weeks into the season, the men are in a four-way tie for second place with four overall points.

It’s a new season, and men’s v-ball is aiming high

October 16, 2013UNIVERSITY OF THE FRA-

SER VALLEYOFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT

I seek your help on a matter of fairness and sportsmanship. It involves a recent decision made by the delegates ap-pointed by us as presidents to represent us as members of the Canada West Universities Ath-letic Association (the western division of Canadian Interuni-versity Sport, CIS). It illustrates the problems that a decision made by CIS or one of its divi-sions can create for our univer-sities and for the students and communities we serve.

There has been significant growth in the number of Can-ada West member universities, clearly a good thing for sport in Canada and the communi-ties we serve. This growth has challenged the scheduling of competitions between universi-ties, however. Our concern is with the solution chosen for basketball in the western Cana-dian division.

The format chosen splits the 17 competing institutions into two unequal divisions – a “Pioneer Division” consisting of the 11 schools who were full Canada West members before

April 2010, and an “Explorer Division” consisting of the 6 newest members (Thompson Rivers University, University of the Fraser Valley, University of British Columbia Okanagan, University of Northern British Columbia, Mount Royal Univer-sity, and MacEwan University).

To the best of my knowledge, such tiering within a division is a first for CIS. While the term “tiering” has been avoided, this is the outcome in all respects. It is certainly the way our cur-rent students, recruits, parents, coaches, and our community see this. Membership in either the “senior’’ or “junior” league is to be based not on academic or athletic ability but on the date of membership in Canada West.

Without doubt, this decision will impact student choices and our ability to recruit and retain young athletes, our reputation, and our contributions to the athletic development of our region. To say that members of our community are angry about this is an understatement.

I hope you also share my con-cern about process. Only two of the six members of the “Explor-er Division” universities could vote on this matter directly affecting them (TRU and UFV); the others had no vote because

of their probationary status in Canada West. The process and decision certainly seem at odds with the commitment by CIS to equity and equality of experi-ence for member institutions and student athletes (Value 5 in CIS By-Laws, Policies and Procedures, 2009).

I note that a different solution to the same problem was cho-sen by Canada West for soccer competitions: two geographic divisions were created within the western provinces, with each subdivision representing similar numbers of schools. It is a solution that is far better in terms of scheduling efficiencies and travel cost management.

On behalf of UFV, our Board of Governors, and our commu-nity, my delegates are seeking reconsideration of this decision when Canada West meets later this month (shortly after our AUCC meeting). I would be grateful if you would discuss our concern with your del-egates. I would be pleased to discuss this further with you when we meet next week in Ottawa.

Mark D. Evered, Ph.D. Presi-

dent and Vice-Chancellor

Photo: Tree Frog Imaging

NATHAN HUTTONCONTRIBUTOR

If the average male in Canada is 5’9, this team is the reason some of you readers are so short.

NATHAN HUTTONCONTRIBUTOR

A few weeks ago we ran an article explaining why the 2014-2015 Canada West basketball schedule is deeply unfair to “newer” CIS schools like UFV. Apparently UFV administration agrees with us. This is a letter from UFV president Mark Evered that was sent to the president of every other university participating in the Canada West.

Victorious at last!

Photo: Tree Frog ImagingThe two first-place squads pose with the proof of their dominance.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2013

www.ufvcascade.caSPORTS & HEALTH

20

It was the twilight of the soc-cer gods on Friday, as the UFV men’s squad tried to end a win-less streak dating back to Sep-tember 27 and improve their chances of a playoff berth. The possibility lay before them, be-guiling, seductive. All they had to do was win.

The men’s team has suffered a stark inability to win big games over the past few sea-sons, dropping the ball time and time again in pivotal matches. Since joining the CIS, the team has never made it into the post-

season, coming close (one point shy last season), but not close enough.

The Cascades took the field on Friday against the University of Calgary Dinos, a team ranked third in the CIS Prairie division. The game began with a number of promising opportunities for a UFV tally, but shockingly, it was Calgary that scored first on one of only two first half shots.

Facing down possible elimi-nation, the Cascades played the last 45 minutes with an author-ity that has often been lacking this season. They pelted the Di-nos goalie with an impressive 22 shots and attempted 15 cor-ner kicks over 90 minutes, only rarely allowing Calgary to rally across the midfield line. Justin Sekhon and Connor MacMillan were especially impressive for the UFV side in its all-out at-tempt to avoid post-season ob-scurity.

The Dinos curled around their lead like they’d just found an Apatosaurus-sized shell to crawl into. Cascades strikers blasted shot after shot into the

densely packed knot of defend-ers in front of the Calgary net, bruising limbs with impunity. One particularly promising strike eluded the Dinos goalten-der only to slam into the butt of a retreating defender in a dis-play of shocking dumb luck.

By the 60 minute mark, it was easy to understand why the di-nosaurs had gone extinct; no species, no matter how tough, could withstand the punish-ment being served up by the UFV offense. 10 members of the Calgary squad spent significant portions of the second half deep within the 18-yard box, but de-spite their bodily sacrifice it was only a matter of time.

In the 70th minute, striker Ethan Clairbourne-Collins fi-nally managed to blast one past the milling flock of Ceratop-sians and into the Calgary net. 17 minutes later he banked an-other shot off the far post and in, putting the Cascades ahead with four minutes left in the game.

The second goal was a mas-terpiece of angled trigonom-etry and calculated trajectory, a

triumph in its own right. After the game Clairbourne-Collins admitted the secret behind his laser-like precision.

“I closed my eyes, to be hon-est,” he said with a grin.

“They’re closed a lot of the time,” added a lurking Alan Errington, whose head coach fa-çade looked significantly more relaxed then it had at halftime. “We’re still alive,” he added, “it was a must win. A tie would have killed us, it would have been the end of the season.”

Prior to Clairbourne-Collins’ first goal, the Cascades hadn’t scored in more than two-and-a-half games. To compensate the squad has been focusing on set

plays and corner kicks in prac-tice, but the relief after the 2-1 win was obvious. “The goals are there in training but you don’t see that, you don’t see all the hard work that happens in training,” Clairbourne-Collins said. “Once [goals] come, hope-fully they come in waves. It’s a good time to get hot.”

For his part, Errington was satisfied with the day’s perfor-mance. “I thought the attitude, and the work rate, and the de-sire was there,” he said, “and at the end of the day that’s all you can ask. The league doesn’t lie, we are where we are. If we don’t make the playoffs that’s because we’re not good enough, and if we do make the playoffs it’s be-cause we are.”

On Saturday, the Cascades defeated the University of Le-thbridge 4-1, opening up a five point lead on the fourth-place TWU Spartans. TWU will play its final two games next week-end, and must win both to pass the Cascades in the standings and deny UFV the final playoff spot.

Defender Colton O’Neill clears the ball out of harm’s way. Colton is one of the Cascades’ top players, and will be a significant component in any post-season run (Photos from Saturday game against Lethbridge).

Kree Bryne dribbles upfield. Centre fullback Ravi Singh is the anchor of UFV’s defense.

Photo: Blake McGuire/The Cascade

Photo: Blake McGuire/The Cascade Photo: Blake McGuire/The Cascade

Staying aliveMen’s soccer fights for first post-season appearance

PAUL ESAUTHE CASCADE

Record: 6-7-1 (currently third in the Pacific Division)

Goals (Overall): 19

Goals Against: 22

Yellow Cards (Overall): 11

Graduating players: None

“Once [goals]

come, hopeful-

ly they come in

waves . It ’s a good

t ime to get hot .”