The Sheaf

#1: The Spamcast

2010-03-05T10:19:23Z

In order to get the ball rolling on the multimedia branch of the Sheaf, we present: the Spamcast. Join the Sheaf’s production manager Matthew Stefanson and news editor Rory Maclean as they discuss the worst food ever made.

The next one will be more serious. Though not much more.

The mp3 file is here. Otherwise, use the player below. You can also subscribe to the podcast, which would be awesome.

- -
photo: Luke Siemens

Asper steps down as Canwest CEO

2010-03-05T00:22:59Z

ISHMAEL N. DARO
News Writer

Leonard Asper has resigned as head of Canwest Global Communications Corp., the media empire that owns Global television stations, the National Post and 13 daily newspapers including the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.

In a memo to employees today, Asper said he “advised our Board of Directors that effective immediately I am resigning my position as President and Chief Executive Officer of Canwest Global Communications Corp. and Canwest Media Inc., as well as all of my other directorships and officer positions with the Company and its subsidiaries.”

Asper’s resignation comes at a turbulent time for Winnipeg based Canwest. After a decade of rapid expansion — not all of it wise — the company ended up with $4 billion in debt it could not pay off. Canwest’s broadcast and print divisions are currently under bankruptcy protection.

Asper’s resignation was also presented as a way to avoid a conflict of interest since he is currently bidding to retain a large share of the bankrupt company. However, there are competing bids from other groups, such as Calgary based Shaw Communications.

Asper became CEO of the company in 1999. His late father, Israel “Izzy” Asper, founded the company in 1974.

Out of the red by 2015?

2010-03-05T00:39:45Z

EMMA GODMERE
CUP Ottawa Bureau Chief

OTTAWA (CUP) — Employment growth — including more support for youth seeking jobs — was one of the top priorities in the Conservative government’s 2010 budget released on March 4.

Titled “Leading the Way on Jobs and Growth,” the more-than-400 page document offered $19 billion in stimulus funding to complete the Tories’ economic action plan, which is set to end in March 2011. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty explained the winding down of stimulus spending will help cut the current fiscal year’s $53.8 billion deficit nearly in half by 2012.

“We will have savings of about $17.6 billion over five years,” the minister told reporters prior to his speech in the House of Commons. “That aids us to be very close to balance in 2014-15.”

In order to incur smaller deficits without raising taxes, however, cuts in government spending had to be made.

“This is a tough budget. . . . Some very difficult decisions have been made,” Flaherty said. “Most of the answers to requests for funding were ‘No.’ ”

Despite the announcement of limited spending, Canadian students will be able to benefit from some employment and education related funding. A one-year increase of $30 million for youth internships is set to take effect this year, along with another $30 million for programs aimed at helping young immigrants, aboriginal Canadians and single parents to gain work experience.

In terms of colleges and universities, $20 million has been earmarked for increasing accessibility to post-secondary education over the next several years and a total of $64 million will be funneled into Canada’s research-granting councils between now and 2012.

Further support was mentioned in a vague “new approach” the government plans to take in terms of post-secondary education funding for aboriginal students, which will apparently be “co-ordinated with other federal student support programs.”

Few changes to income tax breaks were announced, though students in research-only programs and receiving post-doctoral fellowships will no longer be eligible for the Scholarship Exemption and Education Tax Credit.

- -
image: Flickr

Predictions for the Oscars

2010-03-03T23:05:21Z

AREN BERGSTROM
Arts Writer

The 82nd Annual Academy Awards are coming around on March 7, so it’s due time to look at who will likely win. These are my picks for who will go home with a little golden statue at the Oscars.

Best picture

The choice to expand the field of five best picture nominees to 10 may have been an attempt to open up the competition, but this year’s contest for the big one comes down to two films: The Hurt Locker and Avatar. As for Up in the Air and Precious, both of these films peaked too early. The Blind Side, District 9, An Education, A Serious Man and Up are just glad to be nominated.

The possible upset is Inglourious Basterds. Already with the Screen Actors Guild best ensemble prize and backed by Harvey Weinstein, the film may be too pulpy and light-hearted to win.

Now, The Hurt Locker seems to be the film to beat. It has picked up awards from the Producers Guild of America, Directors Guild of America, British Academy of Film and Televison Arts and countless guild awards for best picture. The only big one it didn’t win was the Golden Globe, which was picked up by its chief competitor. Avatar has 2.5 billion in the bank and a legion of fans to back it. Both are excellent films. Both will definitely win multiple Oscars.

I’m going with the masses and against critical opinion and saying that Avatar will win. Still, don’t be surprised if The Hurt Locker continues its winning streak and picks up this top prize.

My pick: Avatar

Best actor

Can anyone who’s seen Crazy Heart actually say that Jeff Bridges isn’t fantastic? Colin Firth and Morgan Freeman have little to no chance. George Clooney is included just to add to the evening’s star power. And although Jeremy Renner could pull an Adrien Brody and win for The Hurt Locker, this is likely The Dude’s year.

My pick: Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart

Best actress

This is the most open-ended of the acting races, likely coming down to either Meryl Streep or Sandra Bullock. That’s unfortunate because both Carey Mulligan in An Education and Gabourey Sidibe in Precious are excellent. And no one has seen The Last Station, the film for which Helen Mirren is nominated. In the end, this year will probably come up Bullock.

My pick: Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side

Best supporting actor

Matt Damon? Woody Harrelson? Christopher Plummer? Stanley Tucci? Sorry boys, this is Christoph Waltz’s award for his brilliant turn as Hans Landa, “The Jew Hunter” in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds.

My pick: Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds

Best supporting actress

Another shoo-in, Mo’Nique is impossible to beat for her role as the monstrous, abusive mother in Precious.

My pick: Mo’Nique in Precious

Best director

This will likely turn out to be The Hurt Locker’s biggest award of the evening. History will be made, as Kathryn Bigelow becomes the first woman to ever win best director. That’s too bad for her ex-husband James Cameron, her only real competition. Lee Daniels, Jason Reitman and Quentin Tarantino are just glad they got recognized.

My pick: Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker

Best original screenplay

This will come down to a tough contest between Mark Boal for The Hurt Locker and Quentin Tarantino for Inglourious Basterds. If The Hurt Locker fails to win best picture, this may become a consolation prize for it, but I bet Tarantino will win his second trophy for his ballsy reimagining of the Second World War.

My pick: Quentin Tarantino for Inglourious Basterds

Best adapted screenplay

This will turn out to be Up in the Air’s only win of the evening, and a well-deserved win at that. Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner’s adaptation of Walter Kirn’s novel is as timely as they come.

My pick: Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner for Up in the Air

Best cinematography

Avatar will likely win for its stunning visuals and brilliant action sequences. The Hurt Locker is also a definite possibility, but don’t discount a surprise win by the Michael Haneke’s German entry, The White Ribbon.

My pick: Avatar

For the rest of the categories, I will just give my picks to win and omit any explanation that really amounts to mere guesswork. Also, the short film categories are excluded.

Best editing

The Hurt Locker

Best art direction

Avatar

Best costume design

Nine

Best makeup

Star Trek

Best score

Best song

“The Weary Kind” from Crazy Heart

Best sound mixing

Avatar

Best sound editing

Avatar

Best visual effects

Avatar

Best animated feature film

Best foreign language film

The White Ribbon

Best documentary

The Cove

We’ll see how correct these picks turn out to be on March 7. Let’s just hope they can fit in some performance capture technology into the show so that Sam Worthington’s Na’vi avatar can accept the Oscar for best visual effects. Regardless, it should prove to be an entertaining show with Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin as co-hosts. Official Oscar ballots are available at the Academy Awards’ website.

A memo from Dick Cheney

2010-03-03T22:50:33Z

JACOB PACEY
MacMedia Magazine (York University)

Republican Party Steering Committee: Memo No. 4763
RE: Alternate Obama Conspiracy Theories

Friends,
In light of the failure of the Birthers to convince America that President Obama was not born on American soil, I have devised a series of new conspiracy theories that we may use against the president.

While some are admittedly farfetched, by their sheer numbers I anticipate they will nonetheless deliver a devastating blow to his popularity.

Appended below (in no particular order) is the tentative list for your consideration and approval. Mr. Hannity says he wants them by midweek at the latest, your punctuality on this matter is much appreciated.

God Bless,
Richard B. Cheney

(1) Obama was actually born in Canada when his mother and father were on vacation for the day on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. Every Canadian secretly knows this, which is why he’s so popular up there.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he’ll trade us his corroboration on this matter as well as his Wayne Gretzky rookie card for one of our old fighter jets for the Canadian military.

(2) Obama beats his children. How else are they so well behaved?

(3) The reason Obama doesn’t visit Hawaii as much anymore is because Dog the Bounty Hunter is looking for him.

(4) The Obama family secretly accepted a bribe when the president went on Oprah. Shortly afterwards Michelle received a new mini-van for being in the audience.

(5) Obama is secretly an atheist — he does not go to church on a weekly basis. Bush found time for church and golf and visiting his ranch and kept an early bedtime throughout his eight years in office and was still able to successfully conduct a two-front war and maintain a healthy economy.

(6) Obama is also secretly a Muslim.

(7) Obama had an affair with the Jonas Brothers when they visited the White House on inauguration day. Am I the only one who has noticed they’ve stopped wearing their promise rings — coincidence? I think not.

(8) Obama has been reported to starve his dog, Bo, giving him only four-fifths of a cup of kibble instead of the veterinarian-recommended full cup — all as part of some twisted anorexic dog diet. This is animal cruelty and America will not stand for it. We are considering bringing Pamela Anderson and PETA in on this one. Actually, on second thought, maybe not.

(9) Obama had a beer at his high-school prom after-party — when he was under 21!

(10) Obama had sex with David Letterman to get on his show during the primaries. Why else do you think the D.A.’s office came down so hard on the blackmailer a while back? It’s not like he’s Leno or something, so who cares if Letterman will go down with Obama? It’s an ideal two-birds-with-one-stone situation for any Republican.

- -

Diverse BFA shows in the Snelgrove Gallery

2010-03-05T21:48:16Z

ALISON COOLEY
Arts Writer

From now to mid-April, the Gordon Snelgrove Gallery in the Murray Building is set to become a hub for the arts on campus. This week, graduating Bachelor of Fine Arts show season kicks off with exhibitions by Paul-Daniel Siemens, Jason Kwok and Nicole Charlebois.

This week’s shows feature works with diverse approaches and themes: from traditional woodblock carving to textile installation works, and from building a loving home to the apocalypse.

Eschaton

Siemens’s show consists of a number of vivid and colourful traditional etchings. Siemens uses a technique he calls “jigsaw drypoint.” It’s a process that combines the jigsaw technique for woodcuts with a traditional drypoint etching technique. Siemens cuts up thin aluminum etching plates, which then make up the coloured segments of the image.

“You can run a print in one pass without having to run it through (the printing press) for different colours,” Siemens explained. “For me that’s one of the fun parts of the project…. I feel like I kind of innovated this particular style.”

Siemens’ show is entitled Eschaton, a word rooted in theology that refers to the end of time.

Siemens uses iconic and symbolic images from Western mythology to explore the idea of the Apocalypse and examine how its manifestations have changed over time.

“Especially after the world wars, the apocalypse shifted (from) God descending on us to something that we would cause ourselves,” said Siemens.

Alongside his vibrant colour prints, however, Siemens pairs small black-and-white portraits, providing a moment of peace in the gallery.

“As far as theme goes, the Apocalypse is kind of… overdone. But it’s also intimately part of our consciousness. At any given time in Western history, we always think it’s the end of the world — immediately.”

Key Frames

Jason Kwok’s graduating show, Key Frames, is more inspired by current events. Kwok was struck by a story that has been in the news recently: Saskatoon’s title as the 9th most dangerous city in the world. Motivated by a desire to “show both sides of the story,” Kwok began to create large-scale woodcuts during the summer of 2009.

Kwok wants to examine cultural differences as a media framework. In doing so, like Siemens, Kwok pulls a number of cultural and mythological referents into his work. These elements are often subtle, but serve to highlight the biases inherent in mass media depictions of “the other.” By way of example, Kowk notes, “a cow is sacred in India, but in the West we eat it.”

In the case of a “violent” Saskatoon, Kwok argues that people don’t necessarily understand the cultural complexities of the situation.

For his large woodcut panels, Kwok uses a dremmel and an angle grinder to carve out sections of the block. While most woodcuts are printed, like stamps on paper, Kwok chose to expose his materials for his exhibition. Although Kowk admits to being influenced by the “clean crisp lines” of comic book illustration, he does not shy away from exposing the raw aspects of his work.

“I wanted to break away,” he said, “keep it really expressive.”

Merge

Nicole Charlebois works with a similarly laborious, yet expressive process. In her large-scale textile pieces, she works by selectively pulling fibres from the fabric to form an image. She begins by masking off an area, like a stencil, with bookbinder’s glue and then uses fine tweezers to extract the threads. What remains are intricate designs in the negative space of the material, often woven with thread and found objects.

“I’ve been working with fabric for the past 15 years,” Charlebois said, “but it’s definitely matured into more subtle work.”

The metaphor of weaving runs throughout Charlebois’s show, called Merge. While the organic forms in her work might refer to biology, as Charlebois explained “it’s more about people coming together.”

Charlebois, recently married, is interested in the process of negotiating the roles of everyday relationships: “It’s like merging lives, coming together… the complications of trying to fulfill many different roles in your life: student, daughter, mother, husband, wife. How do you compromise that and how does it weave a life for you?”

- -
photo of Jason Kwok’s exhibit: Robby Davis

Freddie Mercury revived

2010-03-03T22:22:42Z

GREG REESE
Arts Editor

“It was always the more theatrical groups I was drawn to,” said Craig Pesco, Freddie Mercury impersonator and lead-singer of Queen cover band, Queen – It’s a Kinda Magic, set to slay TCU Place March 8.

“It wasn’t until ’91 when Freddie passed away that I (thought of the cover band). I had a little regret that I didn’t pay a little more attention. Then I got a hold of whatever I could: records, books and DVDs… I have the biggest Queen video collection of anyone I have ever met.”

Pesco has toured the world over with It’s a Kinda Magic, but his rock career initially took off opening for KISS.

Pesco’s band Wicked Lester (named after the band Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley played in before KISS) was first noticed for its name — and then its sound. The band was invited to open for KISS in Australia.

“I was a KISS fan since I was kid. I ended up playing with them twice, later with a band called King’s of the Sun… Gene Simmons personally chose that band to tour in ’98. KISS were friends of mine from Australia.”

Pesco’s drive and the band’s authentic Queen sound have brought them many opportunities and much good fortune, including the endorsement of Freddie Mercury’s personal assistant, Peter Freestone.

“The show had been touring for about two years when I met Peter Freestone at a show in Singapore in 2003,” said Pesco. “I remember him in the backstage halls before the show; I recognized him from the Queen DVDs. He had his arms out and he was a big gentleman. We sat down and talked about Freddie Mercury and he decided to endorse the show.”

Pesco recognizes that there are other Queen cover bands out there, but he insisted that It’s a Kinda Magic is pushing the envelope in terms of grandiosity and spectacle just like Queen always did.

“There’s one in Japan and one or two in the UK, but we have always tried to be the biggest. I mean, Queen revolutionized big stage productions; I don’t want to be in anything that’s smaller than a 2,000-seat theatre. This way you can use a light show and video technology and keep it over the top like Queen always was live.”

Canadian tours have always been great for It’s a Kinda Magic, and Pesco is excited to return to Saskatchewan with a redesigned show.

“ ‘Home of the Roughriders’ — that’s how we always remember it. Canada was one of the first countries to get behind us. It was a big risk to begin with.”

The band prides itself on playing both hits and “undiscovered gems,” and thus should appeal to both casual and die-hard fans. This tour will comprise highlights of Queen’s live career.

“The stage show is like the Hot Space tour,” said Pesco. “It’s the longest show we have ever done, and we will be playing some of my favourites.”

- -

Twitter hoax claims the life of Gordon Lightfoot

2010-03-05T00:39:25Z

CORRIGAN HAMMOND
The Silhouette

HAMILTON (CUP) — On Feb. 18, someone on Twitter reported that Gordon Lightfoot was dead — which meant, as these things often do, that suddenly dozens of media outlets around the world, worried about being caught off guard, quickly picked up the story and ran with it.

It turns out, though, that despite the Canadian folk legend’s striking physical resemblance to the Crypt Keeper, the story was a little premature. And it was Lightfoot himself who broke that story. Lightfoot (or an undead spirit purporting to be him) in the ultimate example of citizen journalism, fired off a quick phone call to Toronto’s CP24 news network and announced that, contrary to popular consensus, he was in fact alive.

Ever since the website TMZ practically beat doctors to pronouncing Michael Jackson dead last summer, such reporting has become standard fare for mainstream news outlets. Now that’s not to say that death hoaxes haven’t been around for years — Paul McCartney, after all, has spent the majority of his professional career cracking jokes to interviewers about a pesky little rumour that he died in 1967. But mainstream media always veered away from that sort of story. If Walter Cronkite was going to announce that Paul McCartney died, someone at CBS damn well had better have checked his pulse!

Even at sensationalist outlets like CP24 News, misreporting something like that used to be considered career-ending grounds for dismissal. It’s a shame that’s no longer the case.

In the week following Michael Jackson’s death, various news outlets reported that Miley Cyrus, Ellen DeGeneres, Jeff Goldblum, Harrison Ford and Britney Spears had died. All that it takes for a celebrity to be considered dead these days is a 14-year-old kid with a laptop, a Twitter account and enough time to say that someone croaked. And there’s something very scary about that.

We live in an age where we have the greatest access to the greatest amount of information in the fastest amount of time in all of human history, and our most trusted news outlets can’t even be bothered to fact check a story before going to press.

A generation ago, we expected that our news outlets wouldn’t report a story until they had verified that it was, in fact, a story. Maybe we wouldn’t know that some B-list actor was dead until the evening news came on or the paper boy threw a copy of the newspaper onto our front porch — but damn it, when someone said that Gordon Lightfoot was dead, Gordon Lightfoot was dead.

Now, in a world of 24-hour news networks, where everyone is a “citizen journalist,” this old business model is too slow for our go, go, go lifestyles. We expect our news to be instant and we don’t give a flying fuck if that instant news turns out not to be news at all.

Remember the Balloon Boy last summer? Now, we can probably all agree that that particular story was, in fact, non-news. Imagine what would have happened if CNN hadn’t gone live, though. It would have been a ratings nightmare for the “most trusted name in news.”

I would love to have seen Walter Cronkite’s response if someone in the CBS newsroom had pitched that to him in his hey-day: “So here’s the story, boss. Some weirdo in Colorado made up a story about his kid being stuck on a weather balloon.” That guy would be dropping a resume off with The Dick Cavett Show the very next day. Fast forward 30 years or so, and make that same pitch to Wolf Blitzer, however, and things go differently.

One of the most memorable scenes of the Emmy-winning series Mad Men is when the entire office gathers around a tiny TV set to watch news coverage of a plane crash. That was set in 1962, and not many passenger jets had crashed at the time. Back then, people expected their news to be newsworthy. Nowadays, not so much.

That scene plays out on a daily basis in our world every time anything trivial happens anywhere. And every single time a major news outlet carries trivial news, we, as a society, grow collectively dumber. The next time Gordon Lightfoot doesn’t die, I don’t want to hear about it.

Oh, and this just in — according to Twitter, Robert Zimmerman is dead.

- -
photo: Wikimedia Commons

Shutter Island: a dark puzzle of a film

2010-03-03T21:58:51Z

BLAIR WOYNARSKI
Arts Writer

The latest offering from the dynamic duo of Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio has everyone talking about what it means, how good it is and what two movies it’s a combination of. If Shutter Island could be summed up in a concise way, then it is dark, mysterious and exhilarating.

Scorsese is, and will always be, most famous for his crime movies, filled with gangsters, blood and psychopaths. He diverged from this style in 2004, when he and Leonardo DiCaprio teamed up for the second time to produce the Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator. Now he has diverged again. And while this experiment in form is less successful than his previous films, it still stands up as a strong piece of filmmaking.

Shutter Island has been (as these things often are) improperly advertised. It is not a horror movie; rather, it walks a line somewhere between psychological thriller and old-fashioned mystery. The movie is based on a novel by the same name (written by Dennis Lehane, who is also responsible for the bleak and stirring drama Mystic River) and follows the book fairly closely.

The movie opens in 1954 with U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio) and his new partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) on a boat to an island (three guesses what it’s called) off the coast of Massachusetts. On this island is Ashecliffe psychiatric hospital, home to the most dangerous mental patients in the country along with a private military to keep them locked down.

The marshals arrive to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a patient named Rachel Solando, but the investigation goes nowhere and Teddy encounters resistance from everyone on the island, particularly from the head psychiatrist Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley).

Teddy confesses to Chuck that he has actually been investigating this hospital from the outside for some time, and suspects that they are performing experiments on patients. But as he digs deeper, it becomes less likely that he will ever leave the island.

Flashbacks and dreams are a continuous motif in this film. The audience begins to doubt Teddy’s mental togetherness early on when he has repeated visions of his wife (Michelle Williams), who was killed in an apartment fire several years earlier. His journey around Ashecliffe also sparks memories of his time as a soldier in the second World War as part of a team that invaded and liberated Dachau.

Scorsese explores expressionist filmmaking in these scenes, juxtaposing calm, classical music with scenes of extreme violence and speeding through images at a disorienting rate. He layers scenes so that an idyllic apartment comes crashing down. His work here is a long stretch from the stark drama of, say, The Departed. But this movie allows Scorsese to branch out into a different realm of the industry he has helped develop — and he seems to enjoy it. He brings vibrancy and imagination to these scenes, making them riveting and engrossing.

The progression of Shutter Island is built on mistrust. The audience isn’t sure whether to be suspicious of the protagonist or everything around him — or both.

One thing that is certain right from the beginning is that there is a mystery to be solved and the viewer must solve it. Every twist that Teddy’s adventure takes opens up new questions, new speculations and new revelations. The plot for the most part is one you’ve heard before, but Scorsese builds it with such a tremendous atmosphere of suspense and mystery that the audience is always on its toes.

DiCaprio delivers his trademark intensity as Teddy Daniels, searching for truth but plagued by pain in his past. His strongest moment is probably his moment of frenzy and emotional torment while locked in conversation with an inmate (played by Jackie Earle Haley). He calls out for answers while desperately trying to illuminate the dark cell with a single match. Other than that, he turns out a good performance, but not the most outstanding work he’s done in a while.

Ben Kingsley, similarly, is a good foil for DiCaprio’s truth-seeker, always remaining detached and esoteric and maintaining the unsettling vibe that he is one step ahead of the game. There are good performances all around, but no great ones.

Most surprising, perhaps, is Mark Ruffalo. His subtle shifts in demeanour never quite label him friend or foe. He is genuine and likeable, but turns toward mysterious.

Martin Scorsese is one of the most celebrated directors of the past half-century, so it goes without saying that Shutter Island is worth seeing. This is Hollywood at its simplest and finest: engaging, thought-provoking and subtle.

It’s a gem of quality entertainment in a year that has already given us Legion and will yet give us Step Up 3D, Piranha 3D and Resident Evil: the Afterlife 3D. Very likely, it is neither the best movie of the year nor the best Scorsese will come up with this decade, but it is a new twist on a good tradition and it will definitely give you something to think about.

- -

67%

score on Rotten Tomatoes

8.2/10

user rating on imdb

Figure skating changing for the better

2010-03-03T21:40:24Z

HOLLY CULP
Sports Writer

After losing out on the gold medal to American figure skater Evan Lysacek, Russia’s Evgeni Plushenko upgraded his silver medal to “platinum” on his official website.

This is more than just being a sore loser; this comes down to a single element in the world of figure skating: the quadruple jump. Plushenko was quoted after the men’s short program that “if it is not quad, it is not men’s figure skating.”

The quadruple jump was first landed in competition in 1988 by Canada’s very own Kurt Browning. After that, if you were not landing your quad jumps in men’s figure skating, you simply were not winning medals. The fact that the quadruple jump is extremely dangerous for skaters was ignored in favour of proving oneself to the sport.

Under the old scoring system, skaters were awarded points for overall technical merit. Since 2002 and the Sale-Pelletier clusterfuck, the system has changed and so has everything else about the sport.

Before, in the 6.0 system, a skater would be awarded scores for overall technical merit in the freeskate, required elements in the short program, and presentation in both. In this system, your score would likely be pretty high if you happened to land a quadruple jump. More attention was given to technical perfection, especially in jumps.

Since 2002, the idea that the quadruple jump is the equivalent to ultimate dominance in this extremely technical sport is a tired remnant of a fast-declining school of thought.

In the new system, points are awarded individually for each element (an element being a specific jump or spin), so if you include a quadruple jump followed by a triple jump in your program and fuck it up, you’re going to be out about 16 points. On top of that, the program component mark — which includes choreography, interpretation, transitions and footwork — is more precisely marked and important than in the previous system.

If you’re wondering why Plushenko didn’t make the cut, it may have been because Lysacek’s was better artistically and his jumps were better executed. Also, this part of the scoring system saved Canadian Patrick Chan because he had possibly the best choreography in the entire competition but a weaker technical performance.

Another beef I have with Plushenko is that he has been retired for three years, already has his Olympic gold medal and didn’t even practice his routine the morning of the freeskate competition. In the end, Evan Lysacek was more practiced and better suited to win the gold medal. He worked harder than anyone for that medal. He didn’t just show up after a three year hiatus and say, “You know what? I think I’ll compete in the Olympics today!”

There used to be a time when the quad was essential for dominance in male figure skating. There also used to be a time when Russian figure skaters would strike fear in the hearts of skaters all over the world. Both of these things are coming to an end.

The fact is a lot of skaters are not willing to use the quad in competition even if they can land it. It is too dangerous, exhausting and, in the end, probably not worth it. Patrick Chan put it best in his Tiger Woods analogy: “Tiger Woods has a driver in his golf bag, but he doesn’t always use it.” Chan’s belief that the quad gets too much attention and distracts from the artistry of the sport is dead on.

- -

photo: Flickr / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

YACHT: band and belief system

2010-03-03T08:17:04Z

HOLLY CULP
Arts Writer

“Oh no, a penis! Don’t look!” said Claire L. Evans of YACHT as she moved to cover my eyes.

When she’s not busy protecting the eyes of the innocent from the menacing perverts on Chatroulette, Evans serves as one half of the electronic “2000s style grunge” duo YACHT along with Jona Bechtolt.

Hailing from Portland, Ore., the duo recently kicked off their North American tour with Bobby Birdman and played one wicked show at Scratch on Feb. 24.

“We’ve sort of spread ourselves thin in the past couple of years playing shows all over the place,” said Evans. “We’ve been surprised by how big shows are all around the world. When we go to a place where we’ve never been or expected we go to like, Seoul, South Korea, and have people know the songs and sing along it is such a trip and so overwhelming.”

They kicked off their latest tour in Vancouver on Feb. 19 after a busy 2009, touring around China, South Korea, South America, Australia, New Zealand and Europe.

“This is our first time in the middle of Canada, so it is new territory for us,” added Bechtolt. “The tour has been great so far.”

The show itself was unique and energetic. At one point they had the crowd sitting on the floor with their eyes closed repeating after them: “The world may end in my lifetime. But my energy will continue. I will love. I will not waste my money. And I sure as hell won’t waste my motherfucking time.”

This was all a part of a “group meditation” exercise orchestrated by Bechtolt. He also had the audience imagine something they hated more than anything and have them yell one giant “Fuck you!” at it.

If you were lucky enough to randomly catch them on Chatroulette.com you could end up with them yelling “Show us your dick!” at you, or with your name on a guest list.

“We met a girl who was awesome and knew the band and she’s going to come to our show in Pontiac (in Michigan). We put her on the guest list,” said Bechtolt. “She thought we were kidding. She was like ‘You’re not YACHT. Seriously? Come on!’”

“That’s the power of the Internet,” added Evans.

YACHT advertise themselves as a band, a business and a belief system. The belief system is centred on evolution and an avoidance of overspecialization. An actual clear cut explanation of the system itself is hard to come by, which could be intentional as a way of encouraging the reader to interpret the belief system in whichever way they like.

“Everything we do is intentional and all part of the larger project that is YACHT, so us playing Chatroulette right now is part of YACHT. Us playing music, making documents or films or videos is a part of YACHT…. For us it is really important to be as general as possible and to not be overspecialized,” said Evans.

“We actually have a document on our belief system,” said Bechtolt. “We internally refer to it as our Bible but it is less dogmatic than that, obviously.”

In their “Bible,” titled The Secret Teachings of the Mystery Lights, it reads under their “Addendum on Piracy” that “it should be clearly stated that this book can and must be disseminated as freely as possible. We place no constraints on its life. We encourage you to copy, reproduce, alter, amend and distribute this book. Please pirate this material.”

It could be said that YACHT are heroes of the Internet. They believe in free access to all media and the right to alter, reproduce and share that material. YACHT also promotes spirituality and explores ideas on the universe, overcoming humanity and becoming your own god in their Secret Teachings pamphlet and has chosen the triangle as their primary identifying symbol.

“We wanted to have a symbol for our band,” said Evans. “And when people wear symbols it’s more than just saying ‘I like the Dead Kennedys.’ They become part of a culture, a community, a part of something that is more than just music. It’s a way for people to communicate with each other.

“We wanted something that would be universal so we ended up picking the triangle because it has significance in basically every religion and also has relevance in mathematics, architecture and so on. People can wear it without feeling that they’re part of one specific, dogmatic school of thought.”

- -

We need educational assistants

2010-03-03T08:16:18Z

LANE KRAINYK
Opinions Writer

The Sask Party is proposing a cut of educational assistants by 75 per cent over the course of the next seven years.

For anyone unfamiliar with the position, an educational assistant is a person employed to work one-on-one with a child with special needs in the classroom setting.

This position was created in an attempt to integrate children with special needs into the classroom setting while ensuring that both the special needs student and others in the class could be educated in an optimal learning environment. The Sask Party suggests that the needs of the children who lose their educational assistants will be met by increased hiring of psychologists, occupational therapists, speech-language pathologist and nurses.

Really?

I have worked with enough special needs children to know that their educational assistants serve a vital role.

Is a psychologist going to help a child with Down Syndrome heat up their lunch and get books out of their locker? Is an occupational therapist going to spend an entire day at the side of a child with autism, helping express the deep intelligence of a child who has trouble communicating? Are nurses going to go to special needs track and field days and hold the hands of special needs children as they run around the track or do the long jump? Is a speech-language pathologist going to help a high needs child go to the bathroom?

I am not minimizing the importance of psychologists, speech-language pathologists, nurses and occupational therapists. I am arguing that educational assistants play a critical role that cannot be filled by people who hold professional degrees. Not only are educational assistants easier to recruit and cheaper to employ, but they work directly with special needs children, allowing them to function and thrive in the classroom setting.

School districts around the province have been instructed to drastically cut positions over the next number of years. For rural districts, where they may be only one or two special needs children in the school, this is impossible. Will the government send a psychologist to Oungre or Aberdeen or Radville? I don’t think so. I have never found the government to be so out of touch with reality.

I am shocked at the lack of insight in this policy proposal. By spending each and every day with the child they are paired with, educational assistants cultivate relationships built on compassion and trust with both the child and the child’s family. Educational assistants are irreplaceable.

Fortunately, the same can’t be said for provincial governments.

UPDATE: The Sask Party has since backed off its proposal to cut up to 75 per cent of educational assistant positions.
- -

photo: Flickr / CC BY 2.0

Winnipeg prepares for LebowskiPalooza

2010-03-03T07:53:09Z

MATT CHEETHAM
Arts Writer

Since the release of The Big Lebowski on home video, it has achieved cult status through a fan movement that has spawned several events celebrating the legacy of the film. The newest one of these events has been dubbed LebowskiPalooza, taking place in Winnipeg March 6.

Greg Skazyk and Trent Whidden are the co-founders of this event, which originated with an idea the pair had two years ago. The pair were lamenting the fact they never got to see the movie originally in the theatre and how much fun they would have if they rented a theatre and played it for themselves and a few friends. The friends’ joke soon turned serious as Whidden made a few phone calls and started getting their idea into motion.

“ ‘What the hell, let’s do it. Book the theatre,’ ” Skazyk remembered saying. “We almost immediately decided to donate the money to charity. And so Lebowski Night 2009 was born. We had the event and it went really well.”

The success of the first endeavour encouraged them to make this a yearly tradition that will hopefully grow. Skazyk and Widden are the first to their knowledge to organize a Lebowski event in Canada, which is something they’re excited about.

“They have the Lebowski Fest that happens in the States. Our event is more of a ‘palooza.’ We can confidently say ours is the biggest Big Lebowski event in all of Canada,” Skazyk said.

From the beginning, the pair decided that all proceeds from their event would go to the Alzheimer Society of Manitoba. When plans were first discussed, the pair had decided they would only do this if it was for a good cause. Last year they ended up donating $1,200. It was Skazyk who had decided it would go toward Alzheimer’s.

“I had a grandmother and a great grandparent that each suffered from this brutal disease,” said Whidden. “Once we had our initial conversation with the wonderful folks at the Alzheimer Society and where the donation money was going, we knew we wanted to do our best to donate as much as possible to this great organization.”

Skazyk and Whidden have lots planned for the night that will immerse people in everything Lebowski related. The pair have a ringer toss planned, a trivia contest, a costume contest and a Shakespeare-Lebowski quote game done on stage. Aside from the film itself and the planned games, the pair promise drinks and food from the movie including White Russians and “oat sodas.”

Skazyk and Whidden hope to have 600 people show up and a night that will be memorable.

- -

photo: Flickr / CC BY-NC 2.0

Keep your pubes to yourself

2010-03-03T08:15:30Z

KEVIN MENZ / CHRIS LOOPKEY
Opinions Writers

Before the dawn of man, pubic hairs were all up on the crotches of Neanderthals, chimpanzees and dinosaurs.

Unlike today, they were never held back after leaving their man-fields — they were free to roam wherever they chose, as drifters in the wind, tumbling, searching for the Great Valley. Today, however, with the development of the urinal, pubic hairs have been stuck in a land of white porcelain and splash-back.

Though there have been many pubic hairs subjected to this fate of urinal-dormancy, their stories remain heartbreaking and disturbing. Observe as we go down into the darkness, exploring the life of man’s best friend and worst enemy — the most peculiar pubic hair.

Aside from the founders of the pubic region, who claim the scarce and fuzzy land during puberty, the pube begins its journey as a tiny hair molecule of coarse curl and, eventually, becomes one amongst the many; it becomes a major part of a well-developed and shiny bush. Its hormonal journey — which occasionally causes itching — is centered upon a web of brotherhood. For days and nights it sits without sun, kept alive only through the natural warmth of its creator, the camaraderie of its kin and its optimistic hope for a brighter, more light-filled tomorrow.

The time then comes when the pube must leave home.

Although sometimes intentional, this phenomenon — the loss of a pube — is often caused by an unwarranted scratch or grab from “The Almighty.” With the window of light opening like an upside-down curtain, the pube optimistically embraces its future and detaches itself from its Holy Land.

While in the past it would slowly fall like a feather to the ground and run along the blades of grass in the field, today it stops short of that fate and tragically sits up on the lips of Mr. Urinal.

“Fuck. You again?” says Mr. Urinal, dissappointedly.

The pube has no knowledge of its impending doom — a life left waiting for Mr. or Mrs. Janitor to wipe him off the slums of male bathrooms everywhere.

It is time that we as humans started to do something about those little pubic hairs that sit on the edges of urinals and toilet seats everywhere.

With the prospect of ’70s bush making a fashionable comeback, the reality of the issue is that urinal-pubes might be here to stay. However, the pubes are not to blame: they are the victims of a pandemic stemming from their own mishandled and misguided treatment.

Pube-droppers, you deserve a non-sexual, old-school-discipline spanking. You are a curse on society, constantly dropping your little buddies upon the lips of Mr. Urinal. He hates you, and so do we — we hate having to stare down in fear at you when we select a urinal.

Also, since we’re on the topic, what is up with friends who drop pubes — going to your house and leaving a curly one (sometimes the infamous ass-hair) sitting right on the seat. This might be even grosser than a stranger dropping one on a strange toilet. Show some respect! Friends don’t drop pubes on friends’ toilets.

Anyway, please, if you are a hipster, a traditionalist or just lazy with your shaving techniques, be more conscious of your pullout (no, not that pullout) and sit-down techniques when it comes to urinal and toilet etiquette.

- -
photo: Robby Davis

Russia’s underachievement in men’s Olympic Hockey

2010-03-04T23:50:53Z

KEVIN MENZ
Sports Writer

The dissolution of the Soviet Union marked an ideological revolution for many people living in Russia — specifically, the shift from government and militaristic control to individual rights and freedoms marked a new age of individuality for the Russian people.

In the world of Soviet hockey, however, the effect of individuality has been less positive — at least in terms of winning at ice hockey. And to be blunt, Russia has lacked the same dominance the Soviets once had before the collapse of the USSR.

The Soviet hockey team was first allowed to enter the Winter Olympics in 1956 — the first Winter Olympics in the post-Stalinist period — and competed until the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991. Between those years, the Soviets won gold in seven of the nine tournaments and, in 1992, the Unified Team, consisting of members from most former Soviet countries, won gold.

Essentially, teams consisting of players from the Soviet Union won gold in eight of the 10 tournaments and the Soviet Union planted itself as arguably the most dominant team in Olympic Men’s hockey history — the only team that might compete for this title is the Canadians, who won gold six of seven times from 1920 to 1952.

Since countries of the former Soviet Union started competing as separate countries in Olympic hockey, there have been five Winter Olympics. Russia has only medalled twice — silver in 1998 in Nagano and bronze in 2002 in Salt Lake City. Compared to the Soviet Union’s success, this should be considered a failure on the Russians’ part and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has already scorned the Russian team’s 2010 performance.

The fact that Russia is a smaller region than the Soviet Union and that international hockey competitions aren’t always consistent in terms of the quality of players (some years have lacked NHL-quality players), it is possible that there is a correlation between Russia’s lack of success in Olympic hockey and these factors.

However, in spite of these issues, Russia has always been regarded as boasting some of the most talented players in the world and it is a wonder as to why the Russians cannot succeed.

With individualism being a relatively new political concept for Russians the country has been breeding talented superstars, but has ignored the aspect of team that the Soviets once had.

Before the Soviet Union dissolved, the country was, of course, communist.

This meant that the region of Russia was devoted to its state and not its individuals. For the Soviet hockey team, this meant that international competitions were a stage to display their country’s dominance and not a stage to display individual talent.

Nationalistic pride and government pressure existed behind every game and the nation — much like in Canada, today — would feel a sense of rise or fall, depending on the team’s success. Thus, the team was placed above the individual.

In fact, in his biography, the Soviet coach from 1946-1975, Anatoli Tarasov, is said to have adopted a coaching style that was “non-individualistic,” “patriotic,” and team-oriented.

Prior to the break-up of the Soviet Union, in order for Soviet-born players to play in the NHL they had to sneak away from their home teams without warning. One of the most famous examples of this is Sergei Fedorov, who, while his team from Moscow was in Seattle for an international competition, snuck out of his hotel room and boarded a plane to Detroit to play for the Red Wings who had taken the risk and drafted the Soviet player.

However, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union the NHL became a realistic and attainable goal for many Russian players — Russia’s hockey mentality switched from a nationalistic mentality to one of individual success and freedom.

In terms of this individual freedom and the development of talented individuals, Russia has been extremely successful. They have developed such great players as Igor Larionov, Pavel Bure, Sergei Gonchar, Ilya Kovalchuk, Pavel Datsyuk, Evgeni Malkin and Alexander Ovechkin.

The interesting thing about talented Russian players, however, is that a majority of them are forwards. It is this offensively minded mentality that perfectly exemplifies the state of Russian hockey today — the concept of individuality in Russia emphasizes individual success over team success and leads to the production of a lot of amazing forwards; unfortunately, it leaves Russia lacking in terms of defense and defensive play.

Not to say that Russians do not take pride in their hockey, but there is a clear distinction between the playing-styles of Russians and Canadians — who are very nationalistic when it comes to hockey.

When Canada played Russia in the 2010 Games’ quarter-final, the distinctions between Canada’s team-style game and Russia’s individual-style game was most apparent. Canadian players passed quickly, shot when they had their chances, cycled the puck around the outside boards and worked together to knock the Russians off the puck.

Needless to say, the Canadians played solid defensive hockey; the Russians, on the other hand, held on to the puck too long, cherry-picked at the opposing teams’ blue-line in order to get breakaways and had defencemen who were too slow to stop Canada’s speed. It was this dissociation between defence and offence that was Russia’s greatest downfall — the offensive players refused to adequately help out their struggling defense and, consequentially, the lack of defensive skill prevented Russia from getting the puck onto their offensive players’ sticks. Along with this, each player held onto the puck too long and it led to turnovers in both their offensive and defensive zones.

Russia’s attempt to develop individual scorers and the greatest hockey players in the world has been a relative success, but, unfortunately, they have ignored the aspects of team play.

However, this appears to be changing.

Players such as Alexander Ovechkin are re-establishing a sense of national pride in Russian hockey — Ovechkin intends to play for Russia in the 2014 Olympics even if it means illegally breaking from his NHL contract — and with the next Olympics being in Russia, it is likely that Russian nationalism will be stronger than ever.

If the Ice Hockey Federation of Russia takes this year’s surprising underachievement in the Olympics as a sign, they will rethink their development strategy. If they can focus on developing stronger defencemen and a more team-style game, the Russian team, fuelled by a sense of revamped nationalism, will be a difficult team to play in the 2014 Olympics.

- -
photo: Flickr

HPV vaccine approved for men

2010-03-03T07:15:29Z

ASHLEY GABOURY
CUP Central Bureau Chief

WINNIPEG (CUP) — Health Canada has approved the use of the HPV vaccine Gardasil for men.

Pharmaceutical company Merck Frosst was granted authorization by the federal government on Feb. 22 to market Gardasil for boys and men from ages 9 to 26.

Dr. Bob Lotocki, program director of the Manitoba Cervical Cancer Screening Program, said that vaccinated males could decrease the overall prevalence of the human papillomavirus in the community.

“If they are having sex with more than one individual, theoretically, it will decrease the prevalence of HPV spread in the population as well, so it will help women indirectly,” said Lotocki.

Dr. Andrew Potter, director of the University of Saskatchewan’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, said the use of Gardasil in men isn’t new.

“Canada essentially is following what other countries are doing around the world. It’s not something (for which) we’ve jumped out on a limb and said, ‘Let’s give it a shot.’ It’s something that’s happening all over the world.”

HPV encompasses a number of different viruses under one family that can cause a variety of inflictions from warts to cancer, including cervical and vulva cancers in women.

Lotocki said the fact that women have the ability to vaccinate themselves against HPV is “fantastic.” Health Canada approved the use of Gardasil in women ages nine to 26 in 2006.

“(The) long answer is that I think there are still some unanswered questions. I think that one of marketing directions that Gardasil has taken, at least (that) Merck has taken with their vaccine… is to prevent cervical cancer, but in reality it has the (ability) not only to prevent cervical cancer but a lot of precancerous lesions.”

Lotocki said that the vaccine protects women against the two genotypes of HPV that are associated with seven per cent of cervical cancers, and potentially up to 50 per cent or more of precancerous lesions.

He also said the vaccine would provide personal protection for men, with the potential to prevent not only warts but also certain types of cancers.

“What you’re looking at is preventing anal carcinomas. Theoretically, men who have sex with men are at risk of developing anal cancers that theoretically (this vaccine) prevents, (as well as) head and neck cancer.”

Potter said that men should be vaccinated not just to protect themselves, but to stop the spread of the virus.

“What happens is that if you only vaccinate women, you still have the virus out there. If you vaccinate men and women, you are not going to get transmission from infected men back into women. Essentially, the risk goes down accordingly,” he said.

Lotocki said the prevalence of HPV among youths is quite high.

“Theoretically, if you look at some population studies… it may be up to 25 per cent,” for the 20 to 30 age group, he said.

Lotocki said that all age groups are at risk for contracting HPV, with 75 per cent of the population being exposed to it at some point during their life.

He said that due to its prevalence, he would reclassify HPV not as a sexually transmitted infection but as a “very common viral infection with a low consequence of developing disease, such as precancerous changes or cancers.”

“The problem is we looked at it as a very uncommon infection, but we know that that’s not true now. It’s a very common infection. That’s why I think we should not use that stigma. We have to try and normalize it. Not normalize it in terms of saying it’s a normal thing, but normalize it in saying that it’s a very common thing.”

Lotocki recommended that women should still have regular Pap tests, as the vaccine is not fully protective.

“You need to be diligent in terms of your own health. The thing is when we’re busy, especially when you’re in university, you tend to think about your academics rather than think about your personal health, but you’ve got to take both hand in hand,” said Lotocki.

“If you look at it, you buy yourself something nice to make you comfortable today, so you may go and… buy yourself a pair of jeans, being male or female. The vaccine is expensive enough that potentially you could spoil yourself long term by protecting yourself clinically.”

- -

photo: Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0

Largest donation in U of S history

2010-03-03T07:04:01Z

ASHLEIGH MATTERN
Editor-in-Chief

The University of Saskatchewan announced a $12 million donation from the Nasser family on Feb 26. Professor Emeritus Karim Nasser was on hand with his wife, Dora, five children and grandchildren to make the announcement.

The university was keeping the name of the donor and the amount donated under wraps until the announcement, only saying that it was the largest donation the U of S had ever received. At Friday’s announcement, Convocation Hall filled almost to the rafters with faculty, staff and students dying to hear how much would be donated to the U of S and who the mysterious donor was.

Also the largest donation in provincial history, the gift comes in the form of two pieces of real estate: the Vienna Building downtown, which houses the Edwards School of Business K. W. Nasser Centre, and the Idylwyld Apartments, which are three buildings on Idylwyld Drive. Together, the real estate is worth $18 million, but the U of S paid the family $6 million for the properties, resulting in the $12 million net worth of the gift.

The money will go toward several projects, including undergraduate needs-based student awards, the College of Engineering, and the Edwards School of Business downtown campus. They have also asked that the money be used toward the construction of a student amenities building as a part of the College Quarter student residence development and toward the construction of the Gordon Oakes-Red Bear Student Centre.

The student amenities building would be a place for students to gather and socialize in the College Quarter residences, potentially with space for computer, exercise and music rooms, classrooms or office space. The Gordon Oakes-Red Bear Student Centre is a planned Aboriginal student space and cultural centre, designed to support, attract and retain First Nations students at the U of S.

Christy Miller, associate director of development communications and donor relations, said that while she didn’t want to speculate on
the university’s behalf, she thinks the U of S will be more likely to keep the Vienna Building downtown.

“Because we’re in the downtown campus building, if we were going to look at selling one of the properties it would be the Idylwyld apartments,” she said. “The university did look at them as being potential residences but they are a bit farther away from the university.”

The university will either keep the buildings and continue to operate them, or sell the buildings at some point in the future. Either way, the university will respect the donor’s wishes for the programs they want the money to fund.

The Nasser family has donated to the university each year since 1967, granting over 300 student awards at a value of over $600,000.

Karim Nasser showed a great sense of humour during his speech, eliciting chuckles from the crowd on more than one occasion. He continuously took the attention away from himself, encouraging applause for the many other people involved in making the gift a possibility.

“We love to give to deserving and needy students and to students at large,” said Nasser. “We also love to give to students with leadership and innovative abilities. We hope all these students will uphold and continue the great traditions of our university, the traditions of helping and giving generously to our community and to the world at large.”

Born in Lebanon, Nasser earned his PhD at the U of S and worked in the department of physics and engineering as a professor of civil engineering for 33 years. But Karim isn’t the only person in his family with a connection to the U of S: his wife and all of his five children — John, Mona, Selma, Roseann and May — are U of S alumni.

In a speech about his dad and the donation, John pointed out the importance of the university in their lives stretches far beyond their immediate family: he also met his wife while studying here.

- -
photo: Robby Davis

Afghan mission shifts to development

2010-03-03T06:57:24Z

RORY MACLEAN
News Editor

Jean McCardle wants you to believe in the Afghanistan mission.

The senior development advisor for the Canadian International Development Agency has worked for several years in Kandahar, Afghanistan — which Canada is responsible for — coordinating the government’s efforts to rebuild and improve the province, which has been plagued by decades of armed conflict.

Canada entered the war in Afghanistan at the request of the United States in order to assist in finding Osama Bin Laden. Since then, however, the focus of the mission has largely turned to one of peace building and development.

This has brought about a unique situation, says McCardle — civilian groups like CIDA are now co-operating with military groups at an unprecedented level.

“We’ve had such a large number of civilians working in collaboration with military on development,” she said.

“We have been through a civilianization process, where the highest ranking civilian now has equal rank to the Canadian commander.”

This means the senior development advisor now has access to all the high level meetings, she said.

McCardle is currently touring Canada as part of the government’s Afghanistan 360 project, which was created to promote the government’s development projects in the country. The Afghanistan 360 display can be viewed at the University of Saskatchewan in the Diefenbaker Centre until March 14.

The Canadian government has three flagship projects in Kandahar: the Dahla Dam and irrigation system, polio eradication and education in Kandahar.

“They were deemed to be the most important things for us to do at the time, the three things that would have the most positive impact on the population,” she said.

The projects are necessary to “get the economy going again, to get the children healthy and to get the schools open,” she said.

Canada has committed to investing up to $50 million in the Dahla Dam project. The dam has been in disrepair for years. This will provide farmers with irrigated land and should generate up to 10,000 seasonal jobs, according to a Government of Canada press release.

On the education front, Canada has committed $12 million to build, expand or repair 50 schools in Kandahar. Currently, only 16 per cent of Kandaharis are literate — 26 per cent of men and 5 per cent of women.

“Over the last two years there are 10,000 more kids in school,” she said.

Another major project is to eliminate polio in Afghanistan. Southern Afghanistan, where Kandahar is located, has the highest national incidence of the virus.

According to McCardle, Canada has had to push back the expected finishing date of the polio and the Dahla Dam efforts.

“Because it’s been so insecure,” she said.

McCardle bristles at the notion that it’s a contradiction to have a war that essentially revolves around development.

This sentiment echoes state officials, who now place less emphasis on the justification of the conflict as a war on terrorism in favour of emphasizing the development projects. The Afghanistan 360 project is just one facet of this campaign.

On a December visit to Saskatoon, Defence Minister Peter McKay emphasized Canada’s development role in Afghanistan, saying the Canadian military is there because the democratically elected government of Afghanistan has asked them to be there.

On the ubiquitous poppy crops, the government has been trying to get farmers to switch to wheat.

Although poppy is one of the most profitable crops in the country, the price of wheat on the global market has been increasing, said McCardle.

“We have provided (about) 2,000 farmers in each of the six key districts (of Kandahar) with wheat seed. It’s really hard to know exactly what impact that has, but obviously the hope and intent is that it will be planted. You just don’t know what the impact directly is.”

- -
photo: ISAF Public Affairs / Flickr

Chatroulette: full of wieners

2010-03-03T06:45:39Z

ISHMAEL N. DARO
News Writer

For about two months, talking to strangers has been all the rage.

The reason for this is the meteoric rise of Chatroulette, the Internet’s latest chat site. It matches you up with random strangers around the world. Users can communicate via webcam and microphone or simply through text, although without a camera you’re likely to get “nexted.”

Indeed, that is one of the defining features of Chatroulette: if you don’t like what you see, you simply click “Next” and get matched up with someone else.

In an age of ever-increasing interconnectedness with sites like Facebook and Twitter, Chatroulette is a refreshing splash of anonymity. It even resembles early Internet chat services in which strangers simply spoke to other strangers across the world, often looking for a sexual connection.

A brief spin through Chatroulette will have its mix of nudity, some of it mild, most of it downright scandalous. However, unlike traditional chat rooms, typing “asl” to ask for someone’s age, sex and location will get you suspended for 10 minutes.

The service is relatively young and has only gained in popularity in the last several weeks. Started by Andrey Ternovskiy, a Russian teenager who wanted a new way to chat with his friends, the site soon gained a following and its user base exploded. Ternovskiy, 17, built and maintains the site by himself but he has already attracted the attentions of people in the tech industry with deep pockets.

Ternovskiy told the New York Times that he never advertised his site, “but somehow, people started to talk to each other about the site. And the word started to spread. That’s how the simultaneous user count grew from 10 to 50, then from 50 to 100 and so on.”

Chatroulette’s website shows there are “more than 20,000” users online at any given time, but the real figure is likely much higher, perhaps in the millions. That means that Chatroulette offers users the chance to come face to face with over a million strangers (or their genitals) all around the world.

I tried my luck at Chatroulette and got a mixed bag. My first stranger was a young man in his 20s looking disinterestedly at the camera, a cigarette tucked behind his ear. After saying hello and not getting a response, I clicked next.

A blank screen. I clicked next.

Another blank screen. This time I waited and repeatedly asked if anyone was on the other side. Suddenly the blank screen changed and revealed a man’s erection. I clicked next.

On my next try, a friendly wave hello merited me an immediate disconnection. As did the next five tries. At this point, I almost wished for the erection to come back on screen. At least it didn’t skip me so cruelly.

One last try, and I got matched up with a blonde 19-year-old woman with hoop earrings taking long drags from her cigarette between one-word responses. She was from Turkey.

I asked her why she used Chatroulette, but she just stared back at me in boredom before disconnecting. It seems no one really knows why they go on Chatroulette. They just do.

- -

photo: Flickr / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Campus group to build solar greenhouse

2010-03-03T06:28:01Z

MATT CHEETHAM
News Writer

This spring, engineering student group Footprint Design plans to begin construction on a solar powered greenhouse.

One of the focuses of this greenhouse is food production.

“Right now, more than 90 per cent of the food that we eat in Saskatchewan is imported from other places and probably all of that is imported using fossil fuel transportation. We need ways to eat food locally,” said Footprint Design co-chair Steffen Bertelsen, who has studied solar greenhouse design.

“Solar greenhouse design utilizes solar storage of heat and uses environmentally friendly materials. It’s very possible to grow fruits and vegetables year-round without fossil fuels. These greenhouses require less than 10 per cent of the heating costs of normal greenhouses.”

In January, Bertelsen went on a trip to China where he viewed a number of solar powered greenhouses that have been used for decades to great success.

While in China, Bertelsen, Glen Sweetman, the Government of Saskatchewan’s greenhouse specialist, and some local greenhouse growers toured some of the country’s greenhouses with the goal of bringing back what they learned to adapt to Saskatchewan greenhouse growing.

Bertelsen wants to learn to better adapt and implement that technology in Saskatchewan.

“We learned lots of things,” he said. “But the challenge is because the climate is different as well as the economic influences
are different — labour is cheap, building materials are different — the challenge is finding out how we can take the same basic ideas and the same designs and adapt it to our materials, our labour costs and materials costs and our climate.”

One thing Bertelsen learned is that Saskatchewan needs to catch up.

“I learned that we are in the stone age in terms of greenhouse growing in Saskatchewan,” he said. “We saw acres and acres of solar greenhouses in China and compared to the industry in Saskatchewan, it’s just huge.”

Bertelsen acknowledged the hypocritical nature of flying to China when this contributes to the greenhouse gas emissions he is trying to mitigate.

“I struggled very much with this. This is contrary to what I believe but this is probably the only time I will go to China. And I (went) there to learn how to reduce carbon emissions and learn how to do that in the most effective or efficient way possible. So, sometimes you do have to make a deal with the devil.”

Bertelsen feels passionately about these issues because they have such important larger consequences.

“We are warming the climate and we are doing that by carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels. There are large deposits of organic material that are decaying, which releases methane.

“As the polar icecaps melt, this methane is released and creates a runaway climate change effect. This occurs when we are at two degrees above pre-industrial levels and the correlates to 450 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere. Right now we are about at 380. If we continue to this we are going to hit a tipping point in 2015.”

Bertelsen said in order to change this we need to get government policy to get big industries to cut emissions, as well as getting people to start using electric cars and eating locally to start reducing carbon emissions. He also suggests walking and bicycling more to help with this approach.

Bertelsen’s main goals throughout this are to better educate and help people understand what is happening within the environment.

“We don’t need to necessarily scare people but we do need to tell people what the situation is. There are tons of misinformation campaigns from both sides and we really need truth to come out. People need to know the truth because once you actually know what’s going on instead of what the media tells you, you are going to act accordingly.”

Extra credit

Home is a 2009 documentary that focuses on the environment, climate and global warming issues. The film was directed by Yann Arthus Bertrand and is narrated by Glenn Close. Bertrand intended the movie to be seen by as many people as possible and has no official copyright.

Home can be viewed for free on the Internet on websites such as YouTube. Home was also created as an educational tool and is free for use in schools.

Footprint Design has held screenings of this movie twice. They chose it in the hope that it would be more meaningful than just presenting scientific data would be.

“The purpose of this is to gather like minds and have a discussion and come up with some plans,” said Bertelsen.

“This movie is a really good way of getting people familiar with the subject without having to throw lots of scientific data at them.”

- -
photo: Colin McDonald / Flickr