October 17, 2012

TRU law argues legal case by tweet 2

THEΩMEGA

VOLUME 22ISSUE 7

OCTOBER 17, 2012

TRU’s Independent Student Newspaper

This is mid-October?

Golf season wraps up 10

Old Main gets more provincial funding 2

October 17, 20122

ON THE COVER:Many TRU students have yet to pull out their winter wear, despite it being the middle of October. Record-high temperatures have been

reported this fall, so get out and enjoy it while you can. —PHOTO BY MARVIN BEATTY

The provincial government has committed $7.4 million to complete renovations on Old Main for the law school, but the status of funding for the school’s day-to-day costs is unclear.

Around 150 people, which in-cluded law students, provincial and student politicians, construction workers and university administra-tors, gathered in the construction site Oct. 9 for the announcement.

“This is part of our skills training plan to ensure that we have the edu-cated workforce that will drive our economy into the future,” John Yap, B.C.’s advanced education minister, told the audience. “I’m delighted to come here on behalf of Premier Christy Clark to announce this funding to complete the renovation and completion of this building.”

The university estimates the total cost of the renovation project will be $20 million.

The first phase of the project, the shell on top of Old Main, will cost $10 million. The announced funding will go to the second phase, which focused on the building’s interior. TRU expects to obtain the final $2.6

million needed through fundraising. The project will turn Old Main

from a bit of an ugly duckling to a piece of art modeled after the two mountains that tower over the city, said Alan Shaver, TRU’s president.

“Today, with the announcement from the minister, TRU and the province has formed a partnership to make this dream come true,” he said. “It’s going to, in the process, transform the Old Main building into the new Old Main building and generate a state of the art education-al facility.”

The president of TRU’s Society of Law Students, Robert Fischer, expressed gratitude for the funding.

“It’ll go a long way to complete the inside of this building,” Fischer said. “I know it’s been a challenging year in terms of study space, lockers and general things for students, so it’s much appreciated.”

Law students currently study at the Brown Family House of Learn-ing, which can make it hard to study because the building was designed to be a common area for the general student population.

The law school’s dean also told the audience he and the rest of the law faculty were excited to have

their own space under construction.“We are really pleased to be in

this building, we are really pleased to be teaching and studying law here in Thompson Rivers University,” Chris Axworthy said. “We have ev-ery expectation of providing really, really top-notch law student gradu-ates that’ll go on to article, go on to practice law, wherever their aspira-tions, wherever their dreams take them.”

This funding announcement is positive for students, the university and the community, said Michelle Mungall, the B.C. NDP’s advanced education critic.

“This is a good news announce-ment and I’m glad that the Liberals have decided to invest in TRU,” she said, adding the problem is the gov-ernment has kept funding stagnant for day-to-day expenses since 2005, with a planned $50 million reduc-tion over the next two budgets.

“It will be great to see the facilities there, but we also have to make sure there’s funding there for operations so we can actually make sure that there’s students in those buildings.”

Neither political party got specific as to provincial day-to-day funding TRU law students aren’t receiving.

The two older law schools at the University of Victoria (UVic) and University of B.C. (UBC) receive funding while TRU does not.

“Each and every year, we provide TRU with operating grants up to $65 million,” Yap told The Omega. “It is in the purview of the univer-sity to fund the programs from all the sources available to the univer-sity. We are supporting, through generous grants, Thompson Rivers

University.” As for the B.C. NDP, Mungall

said they would be unable to make any specific commitments until they were in government and able to ex-amine the issue in greater detail.

TRU’s law school has the high-est tuition in the province at $17,136 per year, while UVic’s costs $8,678.08 and UBC’s costs $11,003.52 for the first year and $10,315.80 for the last two.

Ω News EditorDevan C. Tasa

‘New’ Old Main project gets $7.4 million Provincial government to pay healthy percentage of the estimated $20 million project

—PHOTO BY DEVAN C. TASA

VANCOUVER (CUP) — UBC wants to update its policy about who owns pat-ents, papers and books that come out of university research. But professors think that the university is being greedy, and it might wind up losing faculty as a result.

The UBC Faculty Association argues that under the new policy, any work they do with UBC resources would automati-cally belong to the university.

The university plans to replace its current policy about who gets to own re-search-related patents with a new, broader document.

“The current policy … is almost 20 years old,” said Randy Schmidt, director of UBC Public Affairs. “I think it was drafted in 1992. This was prior to the emergence of the Internet, so a lot has changed since then. And a change to the policy is overdue.”

According to Schmidt, the current pol-icy is too focused on patents and was ex-panded so that UBC can be clear on who owns other works put out by academics, like journal papers and textbooks. “[The old policy] was focused primarily on com-mercial means, patenting,” Schmidt said. “So the new policy is meant to better re-flect a broader range of knowledge that’s created.”

The Faculty Association sent a letter to the university criticizing the new policy, saying that it could mean UBC will auto-matically own all papers, books and class work put out by UBC faculty.

“Many [faculty members] do research projects, we write textbooks, we prepare class notes — a variety of materials,” said Nancy Langton, head of the Faculty Asso-ciation. “The university position seems to be that they own all of these materials un-

der this newly revised, proposed policy.”The association argues that the new

policy is more restrictive than those at oth-er universities, and may dissuade new fac-ulty from coming to UBC if it is passed.

“Typically at universities, the faculty members own their intellectual property, not the university,” said Langton. “I’m a textbook writer. I write a major textbook that is published widely across Canada. The way this new policy reads, all of my work that goes into the textbook would be-long to the university.”

Schmidt wasn’t able to discuss the specifics of the Faculty Association’s criticisms, but he said that UBC would consider them. “I’m not a technical expert on the ownership of intellectual property,” said Schmidt. “We’ll be looking at the questions that the Faculty Association has raised, and we take them seriously as part of the process of feedback.”

UBC math professor Izabella Laba is worried that if the new policy passes, it will make teaching classes more difficult. Laba said that, as far as she can interpret the policy, it might mean that she can’t post lecture notes or sample problems on a class webpage without obtaining UBC’s written permission. “If this kind of a pol-icy applied to teaching materials, none of that would be available to us,” said Laba.

The proposed new policy also states that if a faculty member and UBC have a dispute over who owns something, UBC will act as a mediator. The Faculty Asso-ciation doesn’t like this proposition either. “We feel there’s a conflict of interest in having the university being the sole arbiter in that,” Langton said.

The new policy was set to go before the UBC Board of Governors in Decem-ber, but according to the Board’s planning and liaison manager Reny Kahlon, it now won’t be debated until 2013.

The Ubyssey (UBC)Laura Rodgers

UBC faculty speak out against new intellectual property policy

News

TRU will be represented by two stu-dents from the country’s newest law school in a national competition on an international stage.

For the second year, West Coast En-vironmental Law will host the Twitter Moot competition, taking the legal de-bate online and to 140 characters at a time.

“The strength of your moot comes from how concise [you can be],” said Chris Albinati, one of the competitors. “The challenge is to be very concise.”

Albinati and Jay Michi, both second-year law students, will soon receive their case and which side they will represent against four other Canadian law schools, TRU being the only B.C. school.

“Moots always reflect the calibre of students,” Albinati said, adding that a good showing from them would reflect positively on the school.

“TRU [law] is off people’s radars,” Michi said. “[This] is one more step to make us impossible to ignore.”

The venue is online, which makes this moot more light-hearted than a for-mal one. Michi said he plans to compete while in his pajamas.

To prepare for a moot is months of work, which usually grants course cred-it. In this case, it will be extracurricular participation.

“We’re going for feathers in our caps,” Michi said.

First, they will submit a factum, a written legal argument citing all the cases that will be used. After that the sentence length becomes much smaller.

“If you really want to geek out, you can go read each factum,” Michi said.

To prepare, they will need to find a

coach. They said they are disadvantaged because as the competition is held by West Coast Environmental Law it will be an environmental case, likely against students planning to practice environ-mental law after graduation. TRU’s environmental law professor doesn’t ar-rive until next semester.

“We are the Jamaican bobsled team,” Michi said. “We are still looking for our John Candy.”

Both are long-time Twitter users and recognize it as an essential educational tool.

“It’s all about who you follow on Twitter,” Michi said.

He added that hosting the moot com-petition on Twitter creates unpredict-ability because you can’t control other users.

“Last year I was a heckler,” he said. When the first ever Twitter Moot

took place in February 2012, it gener-ated a lot of attention and become a top trending topic on the social net-working site.

Other than winning the competition outright, Albinati and Michi have the opportunity to win the people’s choice prize, which depends on the other Twit-ter users that join in.

When they receive their case, the real preparation begins, but for now the pair is tweeting daily, researching the judges and trying to rally support from the stu-dent body.

There are very few people at TRU that use Twitter, Michi said, which will serve as a disadvantage in that part of the competition as well.

Despite the challenges facing them, Michi said he is confident about their results.

“We’re going to dominate either way.”

Ω Roving EditorSamantha Garvey

TRU law students to participate in Twitter moot

Jay Michi (left) and Chris Albinati get their thumbs ready for the second annual West Coast Law Twitter Moot.

—PHOTO BY SAMANTHA GARVEY

publishingboardEDITOR-IN-CHIEF * Mike DaviesBUSINESS MGR * VACANTINDUSTRY REP * Mike YoudsFACULTY REP * Charles HaysSTUDENT REP* Sadie Cox

letterspolicyLiterary and visual submissions are welcomed. All submissions are subject to editing for brevity, taste and legality. The Omega will attempt to publish each letter received, barring time and space constraints. The editor will take care not to change the intention or tone of submissions, but will not publish material deemed to exhibit sexism, racism or homophobia. Letters for publication must include the writer’s name (for publication) and contact details (not for publication). The Omega reserves the right not to publish any letter or submitted material. Opinions expressed in the Letters & Opinion section do not represent those of The Omega, the Cariboo Student Newspaper Society, its Board of Directors or its staff. Opinions belong only to those who have signed them.

copyrightAll material in this publication is copyright The Omega and may not be reproduced without the expressed consent of the publisher. All unsolicited submissions become copyright Omega 2012.

3

THE MEGA

October 17, 2012 Volume 22, Issue 7

Published since November 27, 1991

Cariboo Student Newspaper Society(Publisher of The Omega)TRU Campus House #4

Box 3010, Kamloops, B.C. V2C 0C8Phone: 250-372-1272

E-mail: [email protected] Enquiries:

[email protected]

(Correspondence not intended for publication should be labelled as such.)

editorialstaffEDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Mike [email protected]

250-828-5069@PaperguyDavies

BUSINESS MANAGERVACANT

NEWS EDITORDevan C. Tasa

[email protected]@DCTasa

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT EDITORBrendan [email protected]

@roguetowel

SPORTS EDITORAdam Williams

[email protected]@AdamWilliams87

ROVING EDITORSamantha [email protected]

@Sam_Eliza

COPY/WEB EDITORTaylor Rocca

[email protected]@manovrboard

www.theomega.ca

omegacontributors Travis Persaud, Courtney Dickson, Alison Declercq, Cameron Staff, Mason Buettner

The Omega · Volume 22, Issue 7

Editorial/Opinions

The Omega hosted a confer-ence this past weekend.

“Good for you,” you say, “lots of people hosted conferences this past weekend.”

While that may be true, I only experienced one f irst hand — WPNCUP 2012: KamiCon.

WPNCUP stands for Western, Prairies and Northern Canadian University Press, and KamiCon is just what we called it as an homage to a little gathering held in San Diego every year.

I’m not going to go through everything that happened at the event, or tell you about all the

great speakers we had — you should have attended if you wanted to know these things — but I will comment on the feed-back I received.

I’m not talking about the “Well done. You must have put a lot of work into planning this,” type comments I received for my team’s efforts, I’m talking about the one prevailing idea ex-pressed to me by the delegates who came from all over a region that stretches from Victoria to Winnipeg.

“Wow,” they said en masse.“This place is beautiful,” they

told me as they peered out over the valley at the hills above and rivers below.

“Yes it is,” said I, acknowl-edging that they saw what I see every day and appreciated it as I have not done in a few years now.

I think maybe we get so ac-customed to beauty when we’re around it all the time that we need reminding of just how lucky we are.

As Marvin Beatty has been doing for the past few weeks (based on his tweeting), know-ing that winter is soon to be upon us, I encourage you to get out in the environment you f ind your-

self in and truly engage with it. Check out one of Marvin’s f ind-ings on this week’s cover, by the way.

Take a walk in the hills while there are still paths you can see, f ind a little piece of paradise somewhere to ref lect on how lucky you are to be here.

Head down to Peterson Creek Park—just across from Denny’s on Columbia St. for those who don’t know—and head up the ra-vine before it gets treacherous.

Heck, if you have a car, there’s a real attractive drive starting here and heading in any direc-tion — for any length of time — so take off even for an hour and look around.

After all, as Sam Brooks, president of Canadian Universi-ty Press headquartered in Toron-to, said in his closing remarks, he found himself not wanting to leave, because “Kamloops is all pretty, and Toronto is all con-cretey.”

When people come here they are truly amazed, so maybe we should look at it how they saw it this past weekend — with a fresh set of eyes before it gets covered in snow.

It’ll be here any day [email protected]

Mike Davies Ω Editor-in-Chief

Editor’s Note

Eyes of the beholder, as they say

Leaders walk amongst each and every one of us in all aspects of our lives.

Whether it’s Dustin McIntyre leading the way as TRUSU pres-ident or Alan Shaver heading up the administration at TRU, lead-ers are present on campus here at TRU.

The Oxford Canadian Diction-ary defines leader as “a person followed by others.”

While leaders will have their followers, I’m not so sure that I agree with this stripped-down definition of the word.

Some leaders end up in power and don’t necessarily have fol-lowers, but rather strut around with a slice of lemmings.

So what makes a good leader? How do you define a leader, or leadership itself, within your ex-istence?

As a former hockey and foot-ball player, I would tell you that a good leader motivates his teammates.

He exemplif ies the type of be-haviour and play that coaching and management expects from the rest of the squad.

He demands that his team-mates perform to the best of their abilities and holds them ac-countable when they do not meet those expectations.

This isn’t just my opinion on leadership within sport. I truly believe that leaders on cam-pus, in the workplace and in the classroom are responsible for those same things: motivation, exemplary behaviour and ac-countability.

So what happens when a leader falls short of their responsibil-ity? What happens when a leader is not worthy of being followed?

We live in a democracy for a reason. In my humble opinion, when an elected official does not meet the expectations of the electoral population, the leader-ship responsibilities fall to the majority.

While it is the leader’s job to hold their people accountable, it is equally important for the peo-ple to hold their leader account-able. Just look at the political uprisings in Egypt, as examined by Samantha Garvey earlier this semester.

We see political uprisings on the international stage every single year. Yet, within the world of student politics, we rarely see any f ight-back against lazy or unethical student politicians.

Kwantlen Polytechnic Univer-sity in the Lower Mainland is the only example that I can readily name from my quarter century on this planet where a student body revolted against a corrupt

or irresponsible leadership. So why the apathy elsewhere?

When a student body is unhappy with its leadership, whether that be the students union, a student club, the editor-in-chief at the student newspaper or someone else, why do students so rarely stand up for their rights?

Fortunately, I think we here at TRU are lucky to have a hard-working students union presi-dent.

We have a hard-working col-lection of student clubs.

We have a hard-working edi-tor-in-chief at our student news-paper.

Unfortunately, that isn’t the case across the board for other students or student organiza-tions in the country.

I’m not trying to incite a riot. I’m not trying to incite violence. All I want to know is what

happened to leadership? What happened to people holding their leadership to account?

Has our generation truly be-come so apathetic that we do nothing but shrug and say, “meh,” when our leaders shirk their responsibilities, speak ill of teammates or use their power to gain an unfair advantage or inf luence over constituents who don’t know better?

Personally, I’m sick of seeing power-hungry, egotistical and irresponsible leaders take the reins of once-respected student organizations.

I think it’s time those affected take back their leadership and demand nothing but the best from those claiming to be our leaders.

[email protected]

Leadership, leadership, where have you gone?

Taylor Rocca Ω Copy/Web Editor

TRUe Thoughts

ST. JOHNS (CUP) — Surrounded by the sounds of rattling Crossley car mufflers, the mystery of speakeasies, the enchantment of downtown and the delight of exotic coffee, I escape to what I’ve created as the ultimate golden age in my mind –– the 1920s.

I imagine Louis Armstrong playing over the radio in every shop, Annette Hanshaw, Ella Fitzgerald, and Josephine Baker performing at every lounge; high-waisted pants hugging every man’s body, and a general atmosphere of dap-per, grace, and excitement. The truth is we all have a golden age.

But history is deceptive.Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “his-

tory is but a set of lies agreed upon.” When we inevitably find something we dislike in our modern lives –– for me it’s having to settle with “grinding” versus the Charleston –– we escape through the illusion of the past. We focus on the glamour of yesteryear and leave out the hardships, quarrels, and uncertainties that lie beneath.

What’s more, most of us weren’t even alive during our preferred eras, so we re-ally don’t know what it would have been like to live then –– it’s all an illusion.

Every reality has its issues, but it is our job as inhabitants of this age to make the most out of every second of our ex-istence.

No matter how you slice it, every mo-ment takes us one step closer to death. So instead of whining about how the music industry just isn’t what it was in the 1960s –– because you’re thirteen and just learned who the Beatles are –– take the time to venture past the radio waves and find someone who is pas-sionate about music and is actually alive today. Instead of fretting about how poorly everybody dresses nowadays, go put on your high tops and legwarm-ers and let everyone else live their own lives. Rather than complaining about how we are destroying the earth with our fancy cars and air conditioning, re-cycle that Starbucks cup in your hand and walk to work tomorrow.

Progress does not always mean suc-cess. There are many things from de-cades past that would be useful to our now perhaps over-advanced society, such as widespread farming and bicy-cling. But there are still things that we can and should improve upon, such as school systems and city planning, which have remained essentially stagnant since the industrial revolution.

Why do we choose to focus our inno-vations on specific advancements such as various categories of computer tech-nologies? Is it simply easier to build and create new ideas rather than improving old ones?

Perhaps this picking and choosing of modernization is what leads us to crave times past. When we’re impatiently waiting for our phone signals to come back from outer space, we look around us at the beautiful heritage buildings and think “what if….”

There is absolutely nothing wrong with dreaming and idolizing the de-cades before us. By all means, fill your home with Shakespeare posters, Beatles records, shag rugs, and vintage Camp-bell’s soup cans.

But always remember that there is a beautiful, real world just outside your stained glass door.

You may say I’m a dreamer: Why “the good ol’ days” seem so appealing

The Muse (Memorial University)Melanie Shields

How fortunate we are to be in a place that’s not “concretey”

October 17, 20124

News

Students reap benefits as smartphone culture evolves

Saskatoon (CUP) — Waiting outside the campus bookstore, Martin Miller stands with his head down, thumb-tapping his iPhone.

He’s gearing up for his second year at the University of Saskatch-ewan (U of S) and says he carries his smartphone everywhere. In the classroom, Miller uses the de-vice to email, track assignments, fact-check and take notes.

And he’s not alone.A survey released Aug. 9 by

communications startup Mobilic-ity indicates more than half of Ca-nadians agree that mobile phones are an “invaluable” tool for stu-dents. The “Mobile Student 2.0 Survey” found that 66 per cent of Canadians would use a smart-phone to conduct on-the-spot research if they were a student. While 46 per cent would download mobile apps to stay organized, 41 per cent would record lectures and tutorial sessions and 42 per cent use a smartphone to coordinate school and social activities if they were a student.

The findings point to what for-mer chief culture and technology strategist at the University of To-ronto Mark Federman calls “the emergence of contemporary edu-cation and social learning.”

“Not only are we seeing stu-dents using smartphones to re-cord lectures, photograph instruc-tor notes and collaborate through cloud-based applications but some instructors are starting to allow [students] to research items of interest during a lecture or use Twitter to open a back channel of conversation and enhance student

participation and engagement,” Federman tells Mobilicity.

Director of the University of Saskatchewan learning centre Jim Greer says smartphones and tab-lets are beginning to be used more skillfully to support learning.

Greer said students will soon be able to complete course evalu-ations on mobile devices and that smartphones will soon replace clickers in courses that employ a personal response system.

But as smartphones become increasingly widespread in the classroom, both students and in-structors will have to adapt, Greer says.

Students need to learn to stay focused on course material dur-ing lectures and tutorials while instructors should begin integrat-ing online tools into their course design.

“If you’re text messaging or Facebooking in class, it’s almost as distracting as when there are people sitting and visiting in the back of the classroom and ignor-ing what is going on. So I can un-derstand when professors some-times get annoyed,” Greer said.

But banning the devices would be foolish, he adds.

“More and more apps are being developed all the time. There are some very useful apps to help keep students organized, keep them on a study schedule, and to give them reminders. I think students should be using smartphones more [in-telligently] to support their own learning and education.”

iUsask and app development at the U of S

Three years ago, after working as a software developer at Ap-ple’s Silicon Valley headquarters,

Chad Jones returned to the Uni-versity of Saskatchewan to teach a computer science course on pro-gramming smartphone apps. The course was the first of its kind in Canada, and only the third in North America.

“During the process of creating the class, we created the iUsask application, which was also the first of it’s kind in Canada,” Jones said.

When launched in 2009, the iUsask app gave U of S students access to grades, campus news, class locations and maps on their smartphones.

The most recent update, avail-able for free from Apple’s App Store and Google Play, includes additional features such as “the ability to find out available seats at various computer labs on cam-pus” and personalized informa-tion such as “recommended text-books for courses that you are enrolled in, ... announcements and

access to your electronic Bulletin Board postings.”

Now, Jones heads College Mo-bile, a 20-person, Saskatoon-based app development firm. College Mobile has recently de-veloped apps for Carleton Univer-sity, Western Oregon University, the Saskatchewan Party and the Saskatoon Regional Health Au-thority.

Most of the upstart’s employees came from the app programming course at the U of S. The com-puter science department at the U of S, Jones said, is one of the best in the country, despite being out-funded by other programs.

“If you take some of the best graduates from computer science at the U of S and take them down to Silicon Valley — like myself — and plomp them into high-level jobs, they’ll be fine,” Jones said. “The best here can compete with the best from pretty much any-where.”

Still in development, College Mobile is working on a second smartphone app for the U of S — set to be released early 2013 — that will “help students find classrooms and bathrooms,” Jones said.

In ways that even Jones did not foresee, smartphones have risen from obscurity to the mainstream. Now, he says, universities have dozens of app developers helping to drive the industry.

“At the start, a lot of people even at the university thought smartphones were just a fad,” Jones said. “Nowadays everybody has a smartphone, knows what an app is and knows why you would want one.”

The Mobilicity survey, conduct-ed online July 9 and 10 by Angus Reid, is weighted to be nationally representative. It is considered accurate within 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The Sheaf (U of S)Daryl Hofmann

VICTORIA (CUP) — With HIV testing on the rise, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) wants to ensure that patients know their rights before getting tested. In two guidebooks released Sept. 27, the organization spells out these rights for the public.

Some B.C. hospitals and emer-gency rooms are beginning to offer HIV testing to all admitted patients as part of a pilot project — a result of new treatment options that can treat infections earlier. But this does not mean mandatory and uninformed testing, says the BCCLA.

“We absolutely support the goal of increased access to testing. That said, we don’t want people to feel like they were tested against their consent — which is against the law — because they didn’t understand their rights,” said BCCLA policy di-rector Micheal Vonn.

In 2010, the provincial Health Ministry announced a pilot project to expand HIV testing, treatment and support services, which in-cludes routine HIV testing in hospi-tals for all patients. In the project’s current phase, this is happening in Vancouver and Prince George.

According to the BCCLA, the availability of patients’ rights in-

formation hasn’t caught up with the push for testing.

“You have changes in rights and a big push to get people tested. Well, then we have more and more people who aren’t going to know the lay of the land unless somebody tells them,” Vonn said.

The new guidebooks, both of which can be accessed at bccla.org, explain your right to informed consent, how to protect your medi-cal privacy and how to limit who can view your medical information. The guides also include information about criminal law and non-disclo-sure to sexual partners.

On Oct. 5, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled HIV-positive people do not have to disclose their status to sexual partners if they use a condom and have low viral loads. Otherwise, they could be charged with aggra-vated sexual assault if they do not disclose their status to a sexual part-ner. The BCCLA believes this ruling does not go far enough in protecting HIV-positive people. The organiza-tion says the ruling ignores the ad-vances in HIV treatment that make transmission less likely, and adds that the ruling could affect people’s willingness to get tested.

According to Pam Kibsey, a medi-cal microbiologist with the Vancou-ver Island Health Authority (VIHA), the B.C. College of Physicians and

Surgeons requires all patients to provide informed consent before HIV testing can be performed. This means the conversation has to occur between the physician ordering the test and the patient. Kibsey said that, while it is wise to document this consent, it is not required.

Vonn said it is not uncommon for women who are pregnant to report they were tested for HIV without their knowledge and consent.

“It’s important info you need to know when you’re pregnant because there is effective medication to pre-vent transmission from mother to child ... that said, just because it’s a good idea doesn’t mean [the patient wants it done]. Many times health providers are just ordering the test and forgetting to inform the pa-tient,” she said.

The civil liberties group also points out that electronic health re-cords are threatening patient con-fidentiality because medical infor-mation is held in large databases that are accessed by many people, including health-care providers and support staff.

Vonn said a quarter of people sur-veyed don’t want to access sexual health services if their information is going to be shared in a database.

“That doesn’t give you good pro-tection against your vindictive ex-boyfriend who just happens to be a

paramedic,” said Vonn.Vonn said governments are fo-

cused on centralizing our personal information and that they claim it is for better efficiency and service in the long run.

“We need to be skeptical when the government says this. We need to ask ourselves, ‘Is it important for my medical services that my info be centralized so that it’s accessible through tens and thousands of por-tals throughout the province?’ ”

Eric Berndt, communications and public relations officer at AIDS Vancouver Island, said it is impor-tant that people know how much HIV treatment and testing have changed. As an example, he men-

tions the new “point-of-care” HIV test, which provides results within minutes. It is currently offered at several Streetlink clinics and some jails on Vancouver Island as part of an HIV-testing program.

“The more people know, the more they can do to protect themselves. The BCCLA guidelines are one part of that, to make sure people are in-formed about their rights and pri-vacy,” Berndt said.

At this time, no VIHA hospi-tals offer routine HIV testing. On Vancouver Island, in-hospital HIV testing can only occur with a phy-sician’s order. Free HIV testing and treatment are offered through public health clinics.

New patient rights guides published as response to increased HIV testing in B.C.The Martlet (University of Victoria)Tia Low

Banning the technology becomes less attractive option when developers create useful applications

—PHOTO BY KAI JACOBSON (THE UBYSSEY)

—PHOTO COURTESY PAULMLESTER/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

The Omega · Volume 22, Issue 7 5

News

Supersonic space jump cre-ates new record

An Austrian daredevil plunged from the edge of space into the record books.

Felix Baumgartner broke two world records on Sun-day, Oct. 14; one for the highest ever recorded freef-all and one by being the f irst skydiver to fall faster than the speed of sound.

Baumgartner ascended 38 kilometers above the earth on a balloon capsule before entering into just over a four-minute freefall. His speed reached 1,342.8 km/h ac-cording to Brian Utley, an air sports official for the jump. That’s considerably faster than the speed of sound, which stands at 1,236 km/h.

Baumgartner’s record breaking freefall was part of the Red Bull Stratos mission, a campaign by the energy drink company that aims to advance scientif ic discover-ies in aerospace for the benefit of mankind, according to their website.

Perhaps the most signif icant implications of this jump are for future astronauts. This jump is a “step toward creating near-space bailout procedures that cur-rently don’t exist,” Baumgartner said in a statement before his freefall.

Where you can f ind out more: www.latimes.com

Doctors prescribing pills to help struggling students

There is an increasing trend in the United States where doctors are diagnosing ADHD in children who do not have it in order to give access to education-enhancing drugs.

For a lot of low-income families that can’t afford to put their chil-dren in better schools education is a real problem. A growing number of doctors have started diagnosing children with ADHD as a cheap way of improving a child’s grades.

“We’ve decided as a society that it’s too expensive to modi-fy the kid’s environment. So we have to modify the kid,” Dr. An-derson, a pediatrician and vocal advocate of this practice, told the New York Times.

In 2007, 9.5 per cent of all chil-dren aged four to 17 in the United States were diagnosed with ADHD, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

“It’s scary to think that this is what we’ve come to; how not funding public education to meet the needs of all kids has led to this,” a Californian superinten-

dent told the New York Times on the condition of anonymity.

Where you can find out more: www.nytimes.com

Fighting Alzheimer through caffeine

A recent discovery has linked caffeine consumption with a reduced risk of Al-zheimer’s disease.

Scientists from the Univer-sity of Illinois recently dis-covered the exorbitant amount of caffeine that we students consume on a regular basis not only help us make it through the day, but also helps to fend off Alzheimer’s disease.

Caffeine does this by pre-venting inflammation in the brain. The experiment was con-

ducted on mice that were split into two groups. One was administered caffeine, while the other was left as a control. The mice then under-went oxygen deprivation to simu-late cognitive impairment.

The mice that were adminis-tered caffeine recovered their ability to form new memories 33 per cent faster.

The study can be found at the Journal of Neuroscience.

Where you can find out more: www.jneurosci.org

Ω ContributorMark Hendricks

International Intonations

TRU Students Only - Free to Play Weekly Winners announced every Monday night will enjoy

20% o� Entrées, Burgers, Pastas and 50% o� Wings for themselves andtheir guests the following Monday. Reservation Required.

Must be 19 years of age to participate.

Join our Exclusive Student NFL Football Membership for FREE!

Du�y’s Neighbourhood PubNFL Football Student Membership

Dude falls from space and caffiene helping people with Alzheimer’s

—PHOTO COURTESY TOM VARCO/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

We’re still

looking for a

distribution/

adsales

manager.

Want a part-

time job with

incentives?

Got a car and

a license to

operate it?

Contact

editor@

truomega.ca for

details.

WATERLOO (CUP) — Dealing with a landlord is a process that is new to most students — and it’s not always easy.

“I think from time-to-time over the years you could say there has been is-sues associated with more absentee landlords,” explained David McMurray, the vice-president of student affairs at Wilfrid Laurier University, who has been heavily involved in the new develop-ments in the student-dominated North-dale neighbourhood.

“[There are the] landlords who may not respond — as a good landlord should — to issues associated with your accom-modations.”

While it may not be the worst form of accommodations, student living has been a topic of discussion for many de-velopers, the surrounding universities, the city and the students themselves. Some students, however, many feel is-sues arise from their relationship with their landlord.

For fourth-year Laurier business stu-dent, Mike Megraw, that was exactly the case. While only subletting an apartment for the semester, Megraw rarely sees an active presence of his landlord — espe-cially when help is needed.

“I don’t know the landlord as much but I do know he is very delayed in doing activities that should be done frequently,” explained Megraw.

“Like, we have a big issue with gar-bage in the apartments, it took him like a month to take out the garbage that accu-mulated over a long period of time.”

He added that at one point it had gotten so bad that the garbage room in his build-ing was overflowing and that the stench of unbearable. As well, a semi-glass door in his apartment was broken, but wasn’t fixed for an extended period.

“It’s a safety concern because you’re getting glass everywhere and if you’re touching the wrong part you can acci-dently cut your hand,” he said.

This difficult experience with his land-lord wasn’t particularly new to Megraw. When he was in second year, he and his roommates — where they had an agree-ment with their previous landlord that their rent would be monthly payments af-ter the yearlong lease was done — were essentially forced out of his apartment and left to find a new place.

His new landlord wanted to bump up the rent $100 more. Once Megraw and his roommates refused, the landlord told them that his immediate family was moving in instead.

“But his immediate family didn’t move in because I ended up knowing the people who moved in after. Obviously, they weren’t his immediate family,” Me-graw explained.

“It makes you feel like you’re taken advantage of, basically. We’re students, we’re on our own for the first time, we don’t know all the legalities.”

In a more extreme case, a recent Lauri-er graduate, who asked to remain anony-mous, rented an apartment last year. She believes that her landlord, who lived in the side unit of the building, was a drug dealer.

“He was a drug dealer. I know this for sure, because when I moved in there were sketchy things going on,” the gradu-ate explained. “I was only living there be-cause it was cheap rent and I can’t afford to live in those expensive apartments.”

According to the graduate, the land-lord was unresponsive, reluctant to do repairs, had people come to the building at inconvenient times of the day and even told the tenants to not call the cops to the property.

“When we first started off we did have a few issues with the landlords where they wouldn’t do things that we would recommend and they wouldn’t spend the money where it needed to be spent. We have gotten rid of many landlords because of this,” said Ho Tek, part-owner at Domus Student Housing Inc, which manages properties for landlords that do not live in the city.

“We’ve had our own fair share of prob-lems. We just let go of our property man-ager because we didn’t feel like he was getting to repairs in a timely fashion,” Tek added.

Many issues do arise with landlords if they are “absentee,” meaning that they do not live in the area where they rent a house or building. As a result, it makes it more difficult for them to do repairs or to aid their tenants unless they have the infrastructure to do so.

“I don’t think it’s a big a deal, but the landlords come all the way from Van-couver to all the way from Australia,” Tek continued, noting that Domus has their own maintenance person to ad-dress those specific repair issues. “In that case, it is very important to have someone here. If there’s an issue it can be dealt with right away.”

But McMurray — who feels the situ-ation is getting slightly better — urges students to do their research and go over the lease with their parents to en-sure they are more proactive if an issue arises.

“Spend a little bit of time to under-stand what your obligations are and what your alternatives and options are,” McMurray said.

Megraw, however, wished there was a bit more resources in the community and at the universities to prepare him.

“It would be nice if there were a lot more readily available resources to help out with certain issues. What can we do in the instance where the landlord is threatening to kick us out?” he said.

The Cord (Wilfred Laurier)Justin Smirlies

Landlords and tenants make for a turbulent relationship

—PHOTO BY CHRISTINA RUCCHETTA

October 17, 20126

Thurs. Oct. 25th 6pm - 10pm

Costumes,Music, Dancing , Prizes, Pumpkin CarvingFree Food, Mocktails, Canday, a Haunted House and More!

Held in the Grand Hall of the CAC at TRU


Arts & Entertainment

— IMAGE COURTESY LITTLE, BROWN AND

COMPANY

FREDERICTON (CUP) — During an interview with Jay-Z for the New York Times’ Magazine, writer Zadie Smith didn’t have to pick her meal.

“He likes to order for people. Ap-parently I look like the fish-sandwich type,” Smith wrote in her profile of the acclaimed rapper and producer.

Smith’s comment sparked an inter-est on the Internet from a few writers, questioning whether or not Jay-Z’s choice to order for his interviewer was acceptable. Pop culture aficionados are asking if there is a place for chivalry in today’s world, now long past medieval days and knighthood? And, if there is a place for it, can a gentleman take it too far?

The dictionary.com definition for chivalry reads “the sum of the ideal qualifications of a knight,including courtesy, generosity, valor and dexter-ity in arms.”

From that definition alone, chivalry sounds outdated, especially consider-ing the lack of knights and dueling on the streets.

Andrew Titus, an English professor at St. Thomas University (STU), offers a more modern definition.

“If you take the essence of chivalry out, then chivalry and common cour-tesy are the same thing. But I’d like to leave that part of romanticism on top of it. I’d like to leave that part in without it being insulting.”

Titus says he practices his own ver-sion of chivalry with his wife of 16 years. He says they share chores as a way to show respect toward one an-other.

However, the courtesy doesn’t end outside his marriage.

“If you’ve ever seen me open a door on campus, the first thing I do is look over my shoulder to see if anyone is be-hind me. It doesn’t make a difference if that person is a man or a woman.”

His opinion of the concept depends on the context in which it’s used. He uses examples of placing a handker-chief over a mud puddle or making a point of opening a door for a woman as outdated.

“When you take all that stuff out and replace it with the central idea behind chivalry, which is that men should re-spect women in a loving and caring kind of way that supports our physi-cality or whatever, then I think it does have a place.”

Titus suggests an upgrade to the con-cept could be for it to go both ways.

“I think there’s something to be said about women being chivalrous. Like I said, I like flowers. I certainly never turn it down when a woman opens the door for me. I think a lot can be said for that kind of thing if relationships become more equal and awesome as a result.”

Leah St John, a fourth year female STU student, has a similar view.

“I feel like you show it back as well, just be polite.”

St John has been dating since she was about 15 years old. In this time, she’s established what kind of behav-iour she expects from a partner.

“I know in respect to myself, I like to be dated. If they show up, they open the car door, at least in the be-ginning. If I don’t see that, then I’m not sure if I’m wasting my time or not. It’s just a respect thing.”

St John says her values come from her family, her father in particular.

“I’m definitely a daddy’s girl. He just did so much for my mom, and so much for us.”

For St John, chivalry has a lot to do with how a date treats her family.

“If you can’t respect my dad, you’re gone.”

She says it’s too far once it be-comes controlling, but believes it depends on the woman’s preferences. She says communication is necessary to establish this.

St John says chivalry reveals as-pects of a man’s personality.

“I like that it shows they have man-ners and they’re courteous. It also shows that they were brought up well because they know to do such things. And I like that they put in the extra effort because it makes you feel cared for.”

St. John says some aspects of chiv-alry, such as giving flowers, don’t always need to be there, but when a man takes that extra step, she appre-ciates it — just like her male coun-terparts do.

The Aquinian (St. Thomas)Amanda Jess

A decade as a solo artist with five albums to his name, Matt Mays is heading across Canada again, playing his blend of mod-ern indie-country. The Cole Har-bour resident will be stopping by the Blue Grotto Oct. 22 for a show with openers the Meds from P.E.I.

On this trip Mays has a new band, from his home province, and another Maritime group called the Meds to keep him company on the long trek across Canada. Appar-ently they’ll be sharing a sort of van/bus vehicle.

“We’ve got kinda both, it’s this hybrid thingy, we got it from the States. It’s actually pretty cool, we just got it today,” Mays said in an interview with The Omega Oct .11.

The tour will bring Mays out to B.C. for the first time since he played in Vancouver during the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

“I’m really looking forward to getting back, I really have some fond memories of B.C., from Kam-loops all the way out to Victoria. I love it out there,” he said. “A lot of the guys in the band, and the open-ing band, the Meds, haven’t been past Toronto before, so I’m excited to look vicariously through them. They’re still pretty bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”’

Despite a career starting in the ‘90s, Mays still has a bit of a bushy tail himself, with his new album Coyote, which hit shelves in Sep-tember. His first album in four years, the time he spent between recordings wasn’t slow.

“I don’t like being in one place for too long. I saw myself get-ting cabin fever ‘cause I don’t get enough input,” he said. “I’m sorta

almost half way through my life and I don’t want to not see the world because we’re only here for a short time, so I just found myself wanting to explore while I’m still here.”

Mays described the album as representing the different places and situations he saw and was a part of.

“I feel there’s continuity in the album but at the same time it kinda jumps around,” he said. “That’s kinda how my life is so that’s kin-da how the album ended up.”

During the tour Mays has been playing a variety of his solo mate-rial, so fans can look forward to songs going back to his first single “City of Lakes.” For those less fa-miliar with his work, 2005’s “Co-caine Cowgirl” will probably ring some bells.

For Mays, the career up to this point is ten years, but some points seem closer than others.

“Some of it feels like yesterday and some of it feels like a long time ago. Ultimately it does feel like ten years though.”

Ω Arts & Entertainment EditorBrendan Kergin

Matt Mays excited to get back out west

Montreal (CUP) — Being J.K. Rowling is a trap. The hype that has surrounded her most recent publica-tion, an adult fiction novel entitled The Casual Vacancy, is proof of how much weight lies on this author’s shoulders.

Clearly, should Rowling want to write about anything other than Hogwarts, broomsticks and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the literary world will undoubtedly go wild, with critics bracing themselves in anticipation.

So, understand-ably, it’s with a bit of reserve and much trepidation that I, like millions of others across the world, picked up a copy of The Casual Vacancy at my local bookstore on Sept. 27.

Three days lat-er, my previously pristine copy of Rowling’s book was torn, crumpled and decorated by coffee stains, hav-ing been lugged around virtually everywhere with me for 72 hours; coffee shops, metro rides and dinners included.

The book was extremely good, in a dark, sarcastic and incredibly real-istic way.

Rowling had me engrossed in a story that I would never have be-lieved to be that captivating. Let’s be honest – the idea of a book revolving around the sudden death of a council member in a tiny, unknown village in England isn’t exactly everyone’s dream premise. But the citizens of Pagford, the tiny village in ques-tion, are fascinating as we glimpse their everyday lives unraveling in the throes of tragedy.

The novel starts out with council-man Barry Fairbrother passing away suddenly on the eve of his wedding anniversary. Initially shocked with

grief, the citizens of Pagford quick-ly move to replace him on council and a controversial election ensues. Meanwhile, the previous ally of the deceased finds herself more alien-ated than ever. And so, as we flip the pages, tensions and secrets arise, in a way that readers will find covertly echoes a combination of Desperate Housewives and Shameless.

Rowling does a marvelous job of showing us, yet again, that she has a profound understanding of human

existence. Humor is

doused with crudeness, and the combination is a satire of our time that leaves the reader want-ing more. I found myself blitzing through chapters, anticipating the slew of revelations to come, the same way I had dashed through the last Harry Potter book, wanting to know if Voldemort had prevailed.

It’s suspense, but not in the clas-sic sense; there’s simply a more re-fined sense of ex-citement to be had.

H a v i n g skimmed the media on the topic, it goes without saying that I’ve read my share of reviews on The Casual Va-cancy. Needless to say, not many of them are flattering. Negative reviews mainly criticize the book’s overall grittiness and the fact it reveals a relatively ugly side of social reality.

For anyone that has read the Harry Potter series, this is an unexpected (and maybe even unpleasant) wake-up call.

The charm that surrounded Hog-warts and its inhabitants, easy-going, comical characters that we would have loved to meet, was addictively pleasant.

You’ve been warned: there will be drugs, depression and all-out despair. Does that make the book any less of a page-turner?

Not a bit.

The Casual Vacancy

—PHOTO COURTESY

Book review:

The Concordian (Concordia)Ariana Trigueros-Corb

It’s not Harry Potter, but it’s still pretty good

When does chivarly cross the line?

Contact [email protected] for

ways to get involved with writing or photography.

Contact [email protected] for your advertising

needs.

October 17, 20128

Hannah Georgas has bounced around Canada a bit and through those trips created a sound unto herself, combining the sunny pop sounds often heard on the West Coast with some of the electronic inf luences more com-mon to Toronto.

With a rock base and shouty voice, Georgas’s music is me-lodic, using punchy percus-sive vocals and guitar with big electronic-based melodic sound-scapes for danceable indie-pop.

While not a huge success on charts, she has had a Long List Polaris Nomination and a couple Juno nods as well, though she’s

been just shy of the wins. However, touring with Kath-

leen Edwards recently has prob-ably not hurt her songwriting ability.

Not all of her work is upbeat and dancey though, with some work more mellow and exploring more creative styles with banjos and other less generic sounds.

With a self-titled release this month, she’ll probably be hitting some airwaves over the winter, but her older work is still very worthy of a listen.

While many people may know her song “You’ve Got a Place Called Home,” recorded for a Wal-Mart campaign, a more rep-resentative track to check out would be the upbeat “Dancef loor” from 2010’s This is Good.

Tickling listeners’ ears via Vic-toria on illustrious Vancouver Is-land, Maurice is an alternative singer-songwriter with a bit of pop f lare.

Since his first studio release in 2010, Maurice has dropped an EP and two subsequent albums.

Jean-Paul Maurice has under-gone a number of transitions and phases throughout his recording and performing career.

Young People With Faces, Mau-rice’s 2010 debut studio release carried a notable rock sound. Par-ticular tracks that hit this sound home include “Kerosene,” “Scor-pions” and “Rockstar.”

November 2010 saw the Big

Country EP hit shelves, showcas-ing a much more folk-inspired, country side to Maurice’s rep-ertoire. The title track to the EP helps bridge Maurice’s previous pop-rock efforts with the country and folk influences.

September 2011 brought the re-lease of a seven-song album en-titled Noverdubs, a precursor to Maurice’s October 2011 release of Songs in Sea, yet another full-length effort.

After three albums and one EP in the span of less than two years, common sense would suggest that Maurice was due for a breather.

Common sense would suggest wrong. While there is no set re-lease date just yet, Maurice is pre-paring to drop his latest album, The Arborist, in early 2013.

Ω Copy/Web EditorTaylor Rocca

Ω Arts & Entertainment EditorBrendan Kergin


After dropping some teaser art on Sept. 28, Dan Mangan announced a new EP entitled Radicals on Oct. 1.

A year ago Mangan released Oh Fortune, his heavily anticipated third LP. Between then and now Mangan has sold out shows, trekking his way across North America, Europe and even Aus-tralia. Along the way he picked up two Juno Awards, one for New Artist of the Year, another for Alternative Album of the Year and a Long List nomination for the 2012 Polaris Music Prize. He also picked up three Western Canadian Music Awards for Independent Album of the Year, Rock Recording of the Year, and Songwriter of the Year.

The new EP’s title, Mangan ex-plained in an email to fans, comes from his frustrations with the superfluous use of the word “radical” in contempo-rary politics. Mangan continued, say-ing people of extreme political policies often call “moderately opposite people ‘radical’ to justify their own opin-ions or make themselves appear more ‘moderate.’”

The two-track EP starts with “We Want to be Pleasantly Surprised, Not Expectedly Let Down.” This track was recorded during the creation of Oh Fortune, but didn’t make the final cut as it “would have stuck out like a sore thumb,” Mangan mentioned in the email. The track starts with a hard-hitting, almost grungy, introduction delivering forceful percussion laced

sporadically throughout Oh Fortune. The political nature of the song picks up where “Post-War Blues,” on Oh Fortune, left off. From the quiet, intro-spective verses to its powerful, slow building, belting of the track’s title, Mangan captures the spirit of a discon-tent public.

The next track, a cover of Yukon Blonde’s single “Stairway,” reveals an oddly experimental sound with lay-ers of ambient soundscapes projecting throughout the track. Although Yukon Blonde’s original version relies on in-fectious indie-rock hooks and upbeat vocals, Mangan’s interpretation is de-

livered in a much more low-key fash-ion. In the email, Mangan attributes his inspiration to cover the track to a “late night insomnia-inspired notion.” After one listen this is clearly evident. While the cover isn’t likely to win over any Yukon Blonde fans on the fence about Mangan’s music, it does add a new di-mension of diversity to Mangan’s cata-logue.

The EP will be available on seven-inch vinyl and digital download on Oct. 16. However, “We Want to be Pleasantly Surprised, Not Expectedly Let Down,” is available for online streaming and the “Stairway” cover is on YouTube.

Ω ContributorTravis Persaud

Dan Mangan to release new EP

—IMAGE COURTESY ARTS AND CRAFTS

Canadian Music Corner

Fans had been waiting almost three years to hear the latest al-bum, Cabin Fever, from Corb Lund and the Hurtin’ Albertans. The Canadian al-ternative country music star and his band released their seventh studio al-bum in August.

The 12-track al-bum relies heavily on the musical styl-ings of the Hurtin’ Albertans (Kurt Ciesla, Grant Sie-mens and Brady Valgardson). They focus largely on the use of guitar and other string instruments to create their old-time Western feel. The sound of the Hurtin’ Albertans mixed with Corb Lund’s diverse vocals creates the perfect alterna-tive country album.

“September,” the first single off Cabin Fever, tells the story of a lover leaving the quiet prairies for a fast-paced life in New York City. His sarcasm towards the situation in the chorus is actually quite hu-morous, intentional or not. The guitar is reminiscent of something

heard in an old Western film and Lund’s reference to the Rocky Mountains creates a sense of con-nection for Canadian fans.

“Mein Deutches Motorrad” translates to “My German Motor-cycle,” which is exactly what the song is about. With a swing-like

sound, this song is more upbeat than the featured sin-gle. The introduc-tion sounds simi-lar to the classic 1980’s rock song, “I Love a Rainy Night” by Eddie Rabbitt.

Lund and the Hurtin’ Albertans effectively use the lyrics and instru-

ments to tell the sto-ry of life on prairie

ranchland, though at times stereo-typical of a group of Albertans. The sixth song is actually titled “Cows Around.”

The style of the album is a mixed bag. From yodeling to elec-tric guitar, there is something for every listener. Fans of a tradition-al country sound will not be dis-appointed.

Lund will be going on tour pro-moting Cabin Fever starting Nov. 16. He will hit Vancouver on Dec. 12 and 13.

Album review: Cabin Fever

Ω ContributorCourtney Dickson

—IMAGE COURTESY NEW WEST RECORDS

The recent global financial crisis was the theme for the International Students’ Collective movie night and discussion Wednesday, Oct. 10, at the TRUSU Common Grounds.

Featuring the 2010 film Inside Job and the short Europe on the Brink, the mood was somber as students learned more about the 2000s financial crises in the United States and shaking the foundations of the European Union.

Inside Job, directed and produced by Charles H. Ferguson, explored the series of policy changes and banking practices that led to the financial crisis of 2008 through a series of interviews of politicians, reporters, critics and academics.

The film compared the small, high-ly regulated banks of the financial industry between 1940 to 1980 and the large, unregulated global firms of today.

It also criticized the addition of de-rivatives in the ‘90s, describing efforts to regulate them being crushed by the Commodities Future Modernization Act of 2000.

The film went on to describe how people were being misinformed about risk and receiving loans they couldn’t pay back.

It exposes the fact that financial firms were making millions betting against poor investments.

From there the tone of the film went downhill as the market for collateral debt obligation (CDOs) collapsed and the financial giants began to fall.

The government absorbed some companies, bailed others and allowed some to go bankrupt. The world began to feel the American financial crisis.

The film ends leaving viewers with the feeling of witnessing the largest financial crime in history.

Top executives of the collapsed com-panies left with fortunes.

Major banks grew larger, along with anti-reform efforts. The promise of re-form and regulation from the Obama administration has not been fulfilled.

Europe on the Brink, by Wall Street Journal editors and reporters, dis-cussed the current financial crisis ravaging the indebted countries of the European Union: Greece, Spain, Por-tugal, Ireland and Italy.

It described the EU as an effort to en-sure no future conflict between invest-ed European countries – an assurance against a possible Third World War. Criticism of the EU sparked, as the slow reaction to Greece’s overspend-ing and growing debt was equated to the inability of the different countries to reach a consensus.

Another point the film raised was the distant stance better-off countries like Germany and France took to

Greece’s plight, raising issues of loy-alty to fellow members.

Once the crisis began to overcome Italy, the third largest economy in the EU, panic began to spread.

Parth Mokesh Patel, the TRUSU International Students Representa-tive and organizer of the event, said he chose the films because their topics af-fect everyone around the world and re-lated to students of many nationalities.

He said a country’s ability to avoid crisis like the ones experienced in the United States and EU are up to culture.

“Chinese and Japanese tend to save for a rainy day,” Patel said. “Americans use credit, use money they don’t have.”

Despite the hope that the film view-ings were going to lead to talk and the promising crowd of 20 students – which rose to around 40 when the pizza arrived – by the end of the film only five students remained, resulting in very little discussion.

Ω ContributorAllison Declercq

Financial documentaries bring small crowd to explore big issues

—IMAGE COURTESY SONY PICTURES CLASSICS


Welcome to my world is the name of Dale Redfern’s art ex-hibit, showing at the Kamloops Courthouse Gallery until Oct. 27.

Speaking to Redfern about what inspires him, his answer was simple — “it’s about emo-tion.”

At f irst glance, Redfern’s black and white works seem very simple, but when looked at closer one can see the detail that goes into his sketches of the old buildings in and around the Ka-mloops region.

He speaks very highly of the people who created the build-ings and how they built them by hand and under the most brutal of conditions.

“Without that work ethic and integrity we wouldn’t be here to-day,” Redfern said.

“I get very emotional about this and try to put myself in their place.”

His exhibit includes several sketches all done in graphite pencil, a technique that he ex-plained as “very clean, sharp, crisp and intense.”

Redfern’s art is very unique in its simplicity, but after explain-ing his reasoning for using the sketching technique this sim-plicity is understandable.

“[Sketching] goes all the way back to the cave-age,” Redfern said. “It crosses all cultures and all boundaries.”

He has an enthusiasm that at-tracts people to him and his art. One can really see his personal-ity within the art itself and even in things like the signs outside

the exhibit. One quote written by Redfern

on a poster just outside the ex-hibit doors sums up his inspira-tion:

“The more we get away from nature, our past, and history the more lonely our future will be-come.”

Redfern began drawing at the age of 14. It was around this time when he was told lawyers make money and artists starve.

This clearly didn’t stick with him, as Redfern is now a mem-ber of the Kamloops Art Council and the Federation of Canadian Artists.

Being a University College of the Cariboo (UCC) alumnus (the former name of TRU), Redfern knows all about campus life. He attended UCC from 1992 to 1995 and graduated with a business degree.

“I had an absolute hoot in col-lege,” he said. “At the end of my program I had a lot of my fellow students tell me they were glad they went to school with me.”

His personality is still a no-table attribute, in addition to his artistic ability.

“An artist told me in 1991 that ‘a famous artist is 50 per cent talent and 50 per cent personal-ity,’” he said.

Being an artist can sometimes be discouraging, though, espe-cially for young people. Red-fern is glad to give some advice to students who dream of being artists.

“Play with it, get in with art-ists,” Redfern said. “Be willing to pay your dues and take criti-cism. If you’re not willing to take criticism you aren’t going anywhere.”


If the cool Kamloops nights haven’t been enough to get winter enthusiasts stoked for the upcom-ing ski season, then the showing of Level 1 Production’s newest effort, Sunny, on Oct. 11 at the TRU Alumni Theatre, was sure to get excitement levels high.

According to event organizer Luc Levert, 65 people attended the premiere. When asked for his impression of the movie, Levert, a longtime fan of Level 1 Produc-tions, admitted a bias but none-theless “loved it.”

“We make a movie about how much we like to slam into walls, and then put it out every year, and kids buy it,” said film athlete Tom Wallisch sarcastically in the movie trailer, ultimately fore-shadowing the urban adventures the Level 1 crew took on through-out the winter of 2011-2012.

In step with the current trend of tranny-finding in urban free skiing, Sunny showcased many urban feats inspired by skate-boarding roots of sending it to tight landings. Adding a new spin on urban skiing, Logan Im-lach’s segment saw the conver-sion of an abandoned building in Alaska into a narrow, windy “pump” track ending with bomb-drop takeoffs through literal window frames. Sunny certainly affirmed the Level 1 crew’s cre-ativity in taking skiing to an ur-ban environment.

Innovation and style ruled over a spin-to-win agenda among the Level 1 crew this year, provid-ing viewers with a much needed break from double and triple

f lip craze that has taken over the competition scene. Producer Josh Berman managed to effec-tively contrast the f lawless tech-nical wizardry of Tom Wallisch with the simple f luidity of Eric Pollard and similar skiers.

Sunny cleaned house at the In-ternational Freeski Film Festival this year, picking up Best North American Film and Best Editing, while Best North American Male went to Level 1 athlete Parker White for his destruction of ev-erything placed in front of him. At one point in the film White kick-f lipped a skateboard while in his ski boots, as if viewers needed an additional testament to his skills.

As standard, the spring park

shoots saw the creation of bestial features at Sun Valley Ski Resort in Idaho and Breckenridge Ski Resort in Colorado. Nonetheless, the making of Sunny was an in-ternational crusade that landed the crew in non-typical ski loca-tions like Turkey and Japan. Run-ins with police officers abroad while shooting urban scenes added comic relief as the athletes and film crew attempted to nego-tiate language barriers.

While Sunny definitely isn’t the movie for someone who thrives solely off back-country charging, Berman achieved a balance of urban, park and back-country skiing that aptly show-cased the talent of the athletes he worked with.

Ω ContributorTravis Persaud

Film review: SunnySnow riders get excited, because the season is almost upon you

—IMAGE COURTESY LEVEL 1 PRODUCTIONS

Gallery show: Welcome to my worldΩ ContributorCameron Staff

Puzzle of the Week #6 – Play Ball!

In one inning, the home team had all nine players at bat. The team gottwo singles, two doubles, one triple, one home run, and three outs at bat.

Assume that for each hit, all players already on base advance the samenumber of bases as the hit was for (until they reach home plate). Whatis the maximum number of runs that the team could have scored? Why?Give an arrangement of the batting above that shows the maximum.

Now, do the same assuming that for each hit, all players already on baseadvance the minimum amount they can (while still advancing).

Is there a difference in the maximums? Why or why not?

This contest is sponsored by the Mathematics and Statistics department. The

full-time student with the best score at the end of the year will win a prize.

Please submit your solution (not just the answer but also why) by noon next

Wednesday to Gene Wirchenko <[email protected]>. Submissions by others are

also welcome. The solution will be posted the Wednesday after that in the Math

Centre (HL210A). Come visit: we are friendly.

Contact [email protected] review films, albums,

books or theatre productions for us!

theo

meg

a.ca

October 17, 201210

Last weekend marked the end of the PACWEST golf season for the WolfPack as the team mustered a seventh place finish at the Chilliwack Golf and Country Club.

The team placed seventh in the three previous tournaments as well, finishing its fifth season sitting in seventh place in the overall stand-ings. The University of Fraser Valley beat out Camosun College in a tie-breaker to become the league cham-pions of 2012.

Chase Broad-foot was the only returning member of the WolfPack team for the 2012 sea-son.

“It was fun being the only returning player this year, I got to share some wisdom and had some leadership [on the team],” said Broadfoot, who placed 21st overall in individual scoring, the highest of all WolfPack players.

Even though nine out of the 10 players on the roster were rookies, the WolfPack still had a great team dynamic.

“It was a lot of fun playing to-gether,” said rookie Nic Corno who placed 24th in the overall individual standings.

Corno had a great start in the Chilliwack tournament, shooting a one-under score of 70 in the first round. He did not score as well on the second day, recording a 10-over score of 81.

“[The tournament] went well on the first day and horrible on the second… I wanted to put in some good scores before next season,” Corno said.

“We had three practices a week and spent every weekend together,” Broadfoot said. “We were a really close-knit group.”

Despite the success the team had in developing camaraderie and a strong team dynamic over the season, it did not translate into success on the course.

“We didn’t perform at the level we wanted to all year. We didn’t get together and achieve the scores we wanted to. There wasn’t much consistency.”

Now that the season is over, the members of the Wolf-Pack golf team can only look ahead to next S e p t e m b e r when they will come together again.

“ L o o k i n g forward to next season, we would like a bit more rep-

etition and spend some time on the mental side of the game,” Broadfoot said. “I have higher expectations for next year.”

As for training in the offsea-son, there are not many options for the golfers.

The Wolf Pack members can choose to train at an indoor sim-ulator, travel to warmer destina-tions for an expensive round of golf, or simply stick to a workout routine.

The Wolf Pack golf team holds qualif iers at the end of the sum-mer each year to pick who will be representing TRU in the com-ing season. That being said, it is possible that we could see an en-tirely different golf team in the 2013.

According to Broadfoot, it will be a diff icult team to make.

SportsBlazers take Western Conference lead

The Kamloops Blazers defeated the Victoria Royals 5-2 on Oct. 10, taking over first place in both the B.C. Division and the Western Conference of the West-ern Hockey League.

The Blazers led the game from start to finish and surrendered only nine shots on goal after two periods - a stat made all the more glaring by the fact that the Blazers outshot the Royals 17-0 in the second frame. Victoria directed 18 shots on goal in the third in an effort to even the game but Blazers goaltender Cole Cheveldave kept the Royals at bay.

“Obviously he didn’t have any saves to make in the second period so I guess he was well rested to make those saves in the third period,” said Blazers head coach Guy Charron.

“The best goaltender’s going to have to make those saves and he did when he had to. But the second period, like you said he came in and said ‘Jeez I like those kind of periods, I didn’t have to work.’”

The Blazers took a 1-0 lead as the first period wound down, on JC Lipon’s fourth goal of the year. Colin Smith and Brendan Ranford notched second period markers to put Kamloops up 3-0 headed into the third.

The Royals pushed to make a game of it in the third, with goals from Jamie Crooks and Taylor Crunk. Cole Ully and the Blazers’s leading goal-scorer Tim

Bozon matched the Royals goal-for-goal. Though the Blazers sit atop the West-

ern Conference, Charron emphasized there are still areas where the team needs to improve.

When playing for the hometown crowd the Blazers focus too much on scoring goals and while it hasn’t cost the team yet, the season is still young.

“The games I thought we played real-ly outstanding are the ones on the road,” Charron said. “It seems like maybe at home we want to put on a show. We get a lot of support from our fans and want to score as many goals as we can, but for me as I coach I will continue to be de-manding as far as defense has to come first.”

The Blazers remained home, defeat-ing the Spokane Chiefs by a score of 5-1 on Oct. 12 before heading to Calgary to face the Hitmen on Sunday. Sam Grist, who was acquired in a trade with the Tri-City Americans on Oct. 11, made his first appearance in a Blazer uniform against Spokane, posting one assist and a plus-2 rating.

“To complement our young players, who have a lot of skill,” Charron said about his expectations for Grist.

“Getting size and a stay-at-home type of defencemen are rare in our business, there’s not too many of them. The game has changed where it’s all offensive hockey. We feel that he can bring a di-mension that will be very important for the success of our team.”

Ω Sports EditorAdam Williams

WolfPack Scoreboard

Golf team finishes season in disappointmentΩ ContributorMason Buettner

Women’s Soccer

1-0 Loss to Quest4-1 Win over Langara

Men’s Soccer

3-0 Win over Quest2-1 Win over Quest

Hockey 5-2 Win over University of Victoria

Basketball

Men’s exhibition:

86-82 loss to the Seattle Mountain-eers (Semi-Pro)

Volleyball

Men’s exhibition:

3-0 Win over Lethbridge Commu-nity College Kodiacs

—PHOTO BY KAI JACOBSON (THE UBYSSEY)

“I have higher expectations for

next year.”

—Chase Broadfoot

Canadian Olympians return to student lifeThe Ubyssey (UBC)Zafira Rajan

VANCOUVER (CUP) — For three UBC swimmers, the best part about the 2012 Summer Olympics in London was being able to live out their dreams on the international stage. But what do they do now that it’s over?

Reflect, swim and maybe feel just a little deflated.

Current UBC student-athletes Sa-vannah King, Heather McLean and Tera Van Beilen all qualified for the Olympics, and they unanimously agree that their experience cannot be put into words. Now, they seem to be suffering from an Olympics hangover.

King admitted that it’s a bit of a fall from the pedestal they were perched on during the summer. “It’s a little bit weird. It’s gone from being treated like a god — everything in the Olym-pic Village was free, everything was at your fingertips — and then getting back into real life is kind of a slap in the face. But we love being at school and we are all enjoying our classes.

“It’s funny, though, because Heather and Tera have been on the slides for our sports class! We have to think about the fact that we are the ones people are talking about now.”

Their success hasn’t come easy. They have all been swimming for as long as they can remember, and train-ing for the Olympics required gruelling mental and physical preparation. Each swimmer has their own methods for coping with the pressure.

Van Beilen said that her closeness with her family during the Olympics helped her performance. “I think it’s good to talk it out with them,” she said.

“It was my first international meet at the highest level, so I went in blind-folded. There are so many emotions that are going through your head, so much to overcome … but I think time off from swimming is really what you need for your mental state. “There is so much pressure … you can’t get away from it and you can’t get around it.”

According to McLean, mental pre-paredness is important. “The biggest pressure is the pressure we put on our-selves,” she said.

“I personally spend a lot of time working with a sports psychologist on how to make sure that the pressure doesn’t get too much to handle and that you’ll be able to swim with the pres-sure on.”

King, who had already competed in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, kept the stress levels down by thinking of

the London Olympics as just another place.

“Going into an international event, it’s easy to think about how important it is, how big it is to be at the Olympics, and how very few people get to do it,” she said.

“But at the same time, I just think to myself that it’s just another swim meet and I’ve done hundreds and hundreds of them in the past … it’s just some-thing much bigger. You just have to get into your routines and know that you have done this before.

“It’s funny, the difference between the beginning of this year and the be-ginning of last year. This time last year, we were in heavy training, we worked so hard — and now we’re kind of just getting back to being used to a regular schedule of regular intensity.”

“It’ll come soon,” McLean added. “There are things that need to be done.”

“And there are places we need to go, and times we need to swim!” Van Beilen said, laughing.

The coaches may have worked them hard, but the girls sung high praises of the people who have molded their en-durance and fitness levels.

“Our coaches are rocks in some ways,” said McLean. “We all live away from our families, so my coach has be-come my surrogate dad. He’s someone that I can talk to and he pushes me hard — but he also knows when I’m being pushed too hard and just need some time to just relax for a minute, or it’s going to be ugly. You need to have a good relationship with your coach, or you’re not going to get very far.”

“Our coaches are world-class,” Van Beilen agreed. “They have had so much success as athletes, and so we really just have to put a lot of trust in them and know that they know what they’re doing.”

“Mine and Heather’s coach have to been to nine Olympics,” King added. “So you need to trust that they know what you need.”

Aside from practices and events, the three loved being able to experience the Olympics as a whole. After the first week of races, they were able to spend the rest of their time watching other events, many of which they didn’t even know existed.

“I mean, who knew what the mod-ern pentathlon was about? Not I!” said McLean.

The three athletes all named spe-cial moments of the Games that

stood out for them.“I got to do a swim-off, which was

pretty special, because not a lot of peo-ple get to do a swim-off at the Olym-pics,” said Van Beilen.

“It really tested me and how I could handle three tough swimming situa-tions in one day, and actually doing a relatively good time, three times … I didn’t break under the pressure. Even though I didn’t get to the final, it was a fun time. And now, I’m the ‘swim-off girl!’”

King said she felt overwhelming re-lief when she achieved one of her long-time goals. “It was just looking at the clock after my second race and realiz-ing that I had done a best time … I’ve been on the national team since I was 14, and it’s taken me since then to really perform well at the international level.”

For McLean, it was seeing her sister Brittany succeed. “She had a pretty fantastic swim for the final for the 400-metre freestyle. Just being able to be there and watch that.

“The photographer managed to cap-ture me at that moment too, so now we both have photos of our highlights, which is pretty special.”

So what’s next for the Olympic trio? “We have to take it one day at a time,” McLean said. “It’s overwhelming to think that we’ll have to do it all over again.”

King is focused on the International Swimming Federation (FINA) World Swimming Championships in Barce-lona. “There’s always something every year,” she said. “The Olympics are the light at the end of the tunnel, but we can’t be too focused on it right now,” King said. “I’m just going to focus on the varsity season, to build back into it and focus on [the CIS championships]. I think focusing on that is helping me stay grounded, and it’s easier for me to focus on that than another international event.”

It’s back to the grind of classes and training, but the lingering excitement of the Olympics will take some time to wear off. “I think that still I don’t fully understand what happened,” McLean said. “It hasn’t really sunk in that, wow, I went to the Olympics and this is what I did. It might take years and months that I’ll be able to reflect on what hap-pened and being there.

“But we had a lot of fun. It was amazing to be there with each other and see it — and it is always an honour to represent Canada.”


Across

1. Twosome5. P.D.Q.9. Finance magazine14. Kashmir clan15. Chronicle16. Madison Square Garden, e.g.17. Fill to excess18. Property conveyor20. Is a loving person22. Days ___23. Orinoco, e.g.24. Ridiculously incongruous28. French game33. Capital city34. Central points35. In the preceding month: abbr.36. Ready for battle40. Whisper sweet nothings41. Wild about42. “___ So Vain”43. Indirect implication46. ___ algebra47. Degree in math?48. Mont Blanc, e.g.49. Cooperate closely58. Issuances59. Department60. Industrial city in France61. Quote62. Silver Needle, et al.63. Condition

64. Sorority letters65. “___ Toledo!”

Down

1. Narrow margin2. West Samoan monetary unit3. Freudian topics4. Aboriginal tribe5. Don’t cut6. See-through wrap7. Banned apple spray8. Confined9. Secret society: var.10. “She flies with her own

wings” is its motto11. Student of Seneca12. Hydroxyl compound13. .9144 meter19. Incursion21. Engaged24. Old adders25. Trace mineral26. Cowell27. World govt. in TV’s

“Futurama”28. African primate29. Lingering trace30. Braid31. The “U” of UHF32. Early anesthetic34. Like some memories37. Soldier’s helmet, slangily

38. Drawing39. Age44. Disentangle45. C2H646. Climbing herbs48. Noted caravel49. Joins50. Bypass51. Important Indian52. “Good shot!”53. “Go ahead!”54. Homebuilder’s strip55. It was introduced in 191256. Butcher’s offering57. Like pie

Coffee Break

cros

swor

d7 5 13 8 1 2

1 3 5 86 7 1 28 3

9 2 6 41 8 7 9

8 9 4 64 9 6su

doku

easy

SUDOWEB.COM

last week’s answers

W1

A2

L3

L4

L5

O6

K7

I8

B9

I10

O11

T12

A13

A14

B L E Y15

A N G A16

N G E R

F17

E A T H18

E R O N E19

S N E S T

T20

A N G O B21

O N E S E T S

S22

M O O T H23

S24

R25

I D

A26

I D27

E D G28

U29

F30

F31

S32

T33

R34

O35

B36

I L I A37

I S L E

T38

H E B I R D S A39

N40

D B E E S

E41

A S E D C42

L O S E S E T

P43

I T Y S44

P45

O U T

F46

O E M47

E S48

S49

I50

N51

A52

U53

N54

S55

O56

I L E D57

P58

E S O S

S59

I N G L I K E A60

C61

A N A R Y

A62

N O L E E63

M I R S64

A T E

F65

E W E R D66

O R Y E67

C H T

“Body Parts”

hardeasy

7 3 65 9

7 4 29 3 1

9 86 7 3

2 8 36 9 5 1 8su

doku

hard

SUDOWEB.COM

MYL

ES M

ELLO

R A

ND

SA

LLY

YORK

5 7 9 8 2 3 4 1 6

3 2 4 5 1 6 7 9 8

6 1 8 9 4 7 5 3 2

9 6 3 2 7 4 8 5 1

1 5 7 3 9 8 2 6 4

4 8 2 6 5 1 9 7 3

8 4 5 1 6 9 3 2 7

2 3 1 7 8 5 6 4 9

7 9 6 4 3 2 1 8 5

Notice anything wrong with The Omega? Bring it to our attention and win a prize. We may have done it on purpose just to keep you on your toes...or you might just be helping us get better. Either way...you win!

2 8 1 3 7 6 4 9 5

7 6 9 5 4 2 8 3 1

5 4 3 8 1 9 2 6 7

8 9 5 1 6 3 7 2 4

1 2 6 4 8 7 3 5 9

3 7 4 2 9 5 1 8 6

9 1 2 6 3 4 5 7 8

6 5 8 7 2 1 9 4 3

4 3 7 9 5 8 6 1 2 LAST

WEE

K’S

AN

SWER

S

October 17, 201212

TRUSU Membership Advisory

Advocacy | Services | Entertainment

This Week:

Check out the Events Calendar at trusu.ca

for details!

Post-Secondary Education Fact:

Log on to trusu.ca and

get connected!• Subscribe

totheNewsletter

• Joinusonfacebook

• FollowusonTwitter

•LiveatTRU-JWJones

•TRUSUMusicClub-PasswordParty

•VolunteerRegistry-HomelessCount

Youthunemployment

isdoublethestandardunemployment

rate.

email [email protected] to make an appointment

Get assistance with academic issues,

employment issues, housing issues,

and more

GET INVOLVED IN YOUR COMMUNITY!Sign-up at trusu.ca

Need to jumpstart that all-nighter?

Common Grounds is open: 8AM-9PM Mon-Thurs

& 8AM-3PM Fri

Bring a reusable mug & get 50¢ off your drink!

Documents

October 17, 2012