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Vote to be Rocked-page 7

Bored of Board Games?-page 8

Paranormal PodcastPrimer-page 9

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Environment Canada 5-Day Earth Weather Forecast:For Prince George, BC. 2-7 October 2012

Tuesday, October 2: 10°C, -4°C, Cloudy.Wednesday, October 3: 10°C, -4°C, Sunny.Thusday, October 4: 12°C, -4°C, Sunny.Friday, October 5: 15°C, 0°C, Partly Cloudy.Saturday, October 6: 17°C, 1°C, Partly Cloudy.

Andy Johnson,Editor-in-Chief

Garett Svensen,Production Editor

CNC Kicks off College Farmer's Market

For the first time, the local farmer’s market is coming to CNC. From 10am until 2pm, there will be fresh local produce, locally produced meat, and other local foods. Expect great bread and preserves.

Garett Svensen, Production Editor

The Confluence is produced biweekly at the CNCSU office on CNC’s Prince George campus by Garett Svensen and Andy Johnson.

Submissions, inqueries and requests can be made to news.cncsu.ca, in person at the CNCSU office room 1-303, or mailed to “The Confluence c/o CNCSU 3330-22nd Ave. Prince George, BC. V2N 1P8”

All submissions are welcome, the authors of edited works used in the confluence receive a $20 cheque upon publication. Advertisement rates are availiable upon request.

These people stepped up to the call, and got their $20 last issue.

Stuart Jamieson

Paul Strickland

Leila MaheiddiniBonab

Jessica Bagnall

This could be you next time. Got an idea? Email us at news@cncsu.ca.

Contributors

Local artisans will also have goods for purchase.

The Fall Harvest Market takes place on Thursday, October 4th in the CNC atrium.

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October 2012October 2012

EI Day of Action

Confluence Out

Confluence Out

Confluence Out

Submissions Due

Submissions Due

HarvestMarketSisters in Spirit

HalloweenAllantideSamhainHop-tu-Naa

Trick or Eat

Zombie Walk

Multicultural Club Dance

Cecil GiscomePoetry Reading

Thanksgiving

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MLA Roundtable Highlights, Part 2Garett Svensen,Production Editor

On September 12th, two NDP MLAs visited CNC as part of the Advanced Education and Skills Training Tour. Michelle Mungal, advanced education critic and MLA for Creston-Nelson, and Gwen O’Mahony, skills training critic and MLA for Chilliwack-Hope, joined NDP candidate for Prince George-Mackenzie and local labour lawyer Bobby Deepak, for meetings with students, faculty and CNCSU members.

In MLA Roundtable part 1 issues were raised about affordability in the lives of students today. Funding, for both the school and students were top items on the agenda. In part 2, the challenges facing international students and trade students are addressed.

“People without jobs, jobs without people.” The old contradiction is as true now as ever. BC is still facing a huge skilled labour deficit in the coming future, but even with record numbers of students in trades training, the jobs just aren’t getting filled. Rather than directly pointing fingers, the NDP representatives outlined some of the issues facing the BC labour market.

The yawning gulf between skilled trades professions and the training authority was cited as an area that needs improvement. As it stands, ITA is obligated to provide the schooling for apprentices, while employers are obligated to provide the requisite work experience. A disconnect between the two is in the labour element. There are huge retention problems with the trades programs, as only about 1/3 of the students that pass through the

program gain their full journeyman status. Apprentices are not able to find the mythical jobs promised by employers, and employers are unable to retain useful, fully trained workers. It would seem that employers want to spare the expense of training, while ITA is unable to certify a journeyman without job experience. The young workers of today, and the foundation of our livelihood tomorrow, are stuck in a limbo of hearing the cries of industry for workers, but being turned down because they only have the first segment of schooling done.

Deepak claimed that without an effort to better organize the in-training labour force, the problem is not likely to be solved any time soon. Just throwing money at the problem, such as in Premier Clark’s recent donation, is bound to be ineffective. Industry training will be bottlenecked, and the necessary workers will never receive their training until ITA, industry, and labour can meet on mutual ground to sort out the logistics.

A different challenging student demographic is that of the international students. The NDP representatives seemed quite surprised when Leila Soila Abubakar illustrated many of the problems and hardships unique to international education. For one, it’s expensive. This may not be entirely surprising, most post-secondary schools worldwide have a higher tuition rate for non-resident students. Abubakar claimed that international students, and their families, made great sacrifices to attend college and university here, and yet they are treated like a commodity. She claims that international tuition faces none of the oversight and protections that domestic tuition does

(for instance being locked at 2% a year increase) and that it is, in fact, unregulated. Both the MLAs said that there was no talk of international students, and expressed some degree of surprise at Abubakar’s claims (Mungal is the Advanced Education critic and O’Mahony is the critic of skills and trades development).

As the hour drew to a close, Both Michelle and Gwen responded briefly to an inquiry about Aboriginal youth in post-secondary. As young Aboriginal people are the fastest growing demographic in Canada, I asked if there were any culture barriers that needed to be overcome. This was the only time when the NDP representatives spoke of the Liberal party in anything but critical tones. They said that the Liberal government had made great strides in promoting the various First Nations cultures across post-secondary institutes in BC, as well as promoting the value of post-secondary education in First Nations communities. A trend, they said, that needed to continue no matter the results in May. This is one area where institutions, such as CNC, and government have worked together without partisan politics interfering. In the future expect much of the same.

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HoroscopesYou may be asked to take on a leadership role, or to teach others today. One of your personal skills, talents, or a craft or hobby could come in handy when dealing with unexpected.

HIJKL

ABCDEFG

Secrets and their consequences are the theme of the day. Now is the time to buy yourself some space, some rest or some free time for a hobby.

Talking with friends and family and network-ing with close coworkers and associates could lead you to money-making opportunities. Avoid political or investment arguments.

Your head may be spinning because there is simply too much input. Take frequent rest breaks today, especially if you are spending a lot of time at home.

Something has you into the mood for travel. If you are traveling with romance in mind, pick some place strange and exotic.

You may have a sudden and unexpected op-portunity to make some money in the stock market, or through an investment in your career future today.

Finding balance can be difficult this week. Seek out the advice of friends, or listen to your heart. Opinions on paper will only confuse you.

The workplace will be full of abundant energy and excitement today. Your employer may decide to add some kind of physical activity in order to boost morale and wellness.

Dramatic and unusual events will put you into highly unusual places today, particularly if you are a patron of the arts, or are an artist yourself.

If you were thinking of making a new invest-ment in your home, it will be a great day to check out home improvement supplies. Find the right contractor, though.

You will be spending a lot of time on the phone today as you field questions from excited and hyperactive friends, siblings and companions.

Money matters are more a source of joy today. While you are not likely going to be hearing from your boss today, you could soon hear of a raise.

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Anyone born and raised in Prince George are usually of the mindset that, “Prince George is a shithole.” While this may be the case, I have my reservations of this particular mind-set. I have witnessed numerous high school friends who have taken the ‘risk’ of moving away to metropolises such as Victoria, Vancouver, or Ed-monton. In most cases, they return six months later to complain about how much more expensive and unforgiving these supposed promised lands are.

One of the reasons I have never moved for more than a month has been due to the strange and connected histories Prince George seems have with the world. For instance, the local history of Kathryn B. Gannon—who I am quite sure is well versed in “prairie style” (whatever it is)—was born in Prince George on 12 April 1969. Gan-non’s break from Prince George came in 1995 when she starred in “Star At-traction” under the name Marylin Star (anyone wishing to seek this film out must be 18 or older).

While Star never made it onto the A-list of the adult entertainment world, she did make headlines in 1999 when she was charged with insider trading. The allegations were dropped in 2005, but only after Star served 3 months at the Women’s Correction Center in Danbury, Connecticut and paying roughly $500,000 in legal defense. I would consider this to be risk.

Another local history that I feel I should address concerns John Robert Giscome. Giscome was born in Saint Mary, Jamaica in 1832. In 1854, Gis-come and his brother Peter migrated to California to work on the Panama Railway, but by 1855, the railway was completed and Giscome’s brother

returned to Jamaica, while Giscome stayed in California to make a profit. Due to the oppressive legislation towards African Americans in Cali-fornia, Giscome migrated in 1856 to Victoria, British Columbia, and then to Quesnel, British Columbia.

It was in Quesnel that Giscome met his Bahamian partner Henry McDame and they decided to join the Cariboo Gold Rush. Giscome and McDame canoed up the Fraser River, hop-ing that they would reach Fort Saint James, but they were forced to winter in Fort George. The following April, Giscome and McDame were forced to travel by land through what is now Hubble Homestead to Summit Lake, which has become known as Giscome Portage.

Giscome and McDame were among the first to successfully prospect Germansen Creek in 1870. Four years later, McDame found a gold vein around Dease River tributary (now known as McDame Creek). Giscome, McDame and a few other prospectors formed the Discovery Company and successfully prospected this vein for quite a few years.

John Robert Giscome returned back to Victoria, British Columbia by 1891. Unlike most of his prospecting con-temporaries, Giscome died a wealthy

Histories of the NorthAndy Johnson,Editor in Chief

Cecil Giscombe

Kathtyn B. Gannon

man at the age of 75, leaving his land-lady $21,000.

While Giscome’s legacy survives through his name, his personal his-tory was explored by Cecil Giscombe in his 1998 book “Giscome Road,” which Giscombe explores what Publisher’s Weekly calls a “powerful, understated meditation on place.”

C.S. Giscombe was born in Day-ton, Ohio in 1950. He graduated with a Bachelor’s degree from SUNY, Albany in 1973 and then obtained his M.A. from Cornell University in 1975. In 2000, Giscombe released “Into and Out of Dislocation,” which is part travelogue, part memoir aimed at researching “the ‘facts’ about John R. Giscome, the Jamaican miner, explorer and possible relation whose name graces several geographical fea-tures near Prince George, B.C.” (Paula Koneazny, www.amazon.ca).

Eight years later, Giscombe read at the College of New Caledonia (C.N.C.) from his 2008 release “Prai-rie Style”—which won the American Book Prize—with local and nation-ally renowned poet Barry McKinnon. “Prairie Style” focuses around “the breakdown of location and voice” (www.amazon.ca). While “Prairie Style” is Giscombe’s last release, he will be returning to C.N.C. on 15 October 2012 for a reading in room 1-306 at 7 p.m.

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ADVOCACY

CAMPAIGNS

SERVICES

EVENTS

The provincial government is responsible for many policies that impact students, including tuition fee levels, public transit funding, and key environmental regulation. As a student you all have a say on who gets to make this decisions on your behalf, it is important to cast your vote and have your voice heard.

Across the Province the Canadian Federation of Students BC, of which we are a part of as Local 13, is lending a helping hand by bring-ing voter registration to you and making it fun throughout the year by hosting wonderful events that will promote voter registration which will be critical to increasing young voter turnout.

Voting is a right best exercised by people who have taken time to learn about the issues. So take a little time from your busy schedules to learn the platforms of the different political parties and how best they serve you.

Happy registration, it’s the first step to casting our vote and making our voices heard!

In solidarity

Leila-Soila Abubakar

Chairperson

CNC Students’ Union

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Rock the Vote PartyGarett Svensen,Production Editor

Democracy is important. Important enough that registering to vote warrants a super-cool retro party.

To increase voter turnout, CNC students hosted a party to launch the Rock the Vote BC campaign. After a long day of voter registration, students had a kickin’ rad party with a sweet 80’s cover band.

The Canadian Federation of Students is co-ordinating the campaign with its members, such as CNCSU local 13.

Said Leila Soila Abubakar, chairperson of CNCSU, “Politicians can be sure students will be at the ballot box in May 2013.”

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NPCCON

Saturday and Sunday,October 20th and 21st,Knox United Church

1448 5th AvenuePrince George BC

A gaming convention for the north!

NPC-Con.ca

$15 a day $20 for the weekend

(No Debit or Credit)Student Discount Availiable

(With Valid Student ID)

Board Games!

Table Top RolePlaying Games!

LARP!

Putting the ‘Play’ in Role-Play.Cosmic Encounter

Garett Svensen,Production Editor

Let’s say, hypothetically, that Risk has paled for you. That Trivial Pursuit has outstayed its welcome. Checkers is dull and Monopoly sucks. What you’re feeling is game fatigue. While staples of childhood for many people, many of the popular board games simply lack challenge after a while.

A huge problem with games is the so-called ‘mastery effect’ where the game ceases to be fun once a player ‘solves’ it. In the case of Risk or Monopoly, the winning strategy can become fairly obvious early on, and the game becomes a slog as the player who gained the advantage grinds his or her way to victory.

So how do you solve this problem? Where a player or players have figured out the optimum strategy and the game ceases to be fun? In the case of Cosmic Encounter, you constantly change the rules. Every single game of Cosmic Encounter uses slightly different rules, and every game forces the players to re-adjust. This alone keeps the game fresh from play to play, without even going into the game mechanics that keep mastery from turning the game into a bore.

For one, the basic play of the game, the titular encounter, is more about diplomacy, politics and knowing your opponent than pure game mechanics. At first glance it looks simple: choose a card from your hand, lay it face down in front of you while your opponent does the same, then reveal the cards and see who won. In practice, the fairly simple event requires conniving, negotiation and bluffing to succeed.

See, the encountering players can recruit allies to their side, who typically stand to gain more in an encounter than the actual players engaged in the encounter. A turn proceeds as follows:

A player regroups, getting a lost ship back. Then the player draws a card that indicates with whom the encounter is going to take place. The player on offence then chooses the amount of resources to use against the defender in the encounter. Then both

the attacker and defender can pick allies.

The alliance is where the game gets interesting. Offensive allies can make all the difference to the offensive player, but can also gain the territory needed to win the game. Defensive allies get a reward commesurate with the amount of defense contributed, if the defense is successful. Since the advantages to an alliance favour the allies more than the encounter participants, the game becomes a chaos of diplomacy as players try to make their case for being invited to the encounter.

The next phase of play involves revealing the hand, poker-style. There are a wide range of cards that a player can be dealt, but he or she must use them over the course of the game, even if they’re terrible. There are definite advantages to playing a terrible card to remove an opponent’s great card from play and cause other players to spread their forces thinly.

And the final cherry on the diplomatic cupcake is the mentioned rule shift. Every player gains at least one ability to break a rule in the game, and can gain more as the game progresses. They gain abilities, or can deny the abilities of others. So the game becomes even more political as other powers are taken into account. The game gets complicated, but I’ll give it one thing:

It’s never boring.Check me out at NPC-CON, I’ll be running

a beginner’s CE game Saturday and an intermediate one Sunday

Costume Contest!

(No weapons or weapon props please)

Doors open at 9amFirst Games at 10am

Cosmic Encounter,2008 Edition.

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Imagine this: you wake up in the middle of the night and can’t move. You feel a dead weight on your chest, as if someone is sitting on you, but no one is there. Next, you notice a shadowy, humanoid figure pass across your wall. Your eyes follow the shadowy entity to the foot of your bed and perched there is an old hag in tattered black rags staring at you. Suddenly, the encounter stops, the world is normal again, and you find yourself screaming. Who are you going to call?

In the early days of popular podcasting, one subject that seemed to have a strong presence on iTunes was the paranormal. Yet most of the podcasts that focused on the more esoteric topics either had poor production quality, or lacked content. More often than not, the two were blended into a morass of unintelligible bull, but two podcasts stuck out from the sludge: The Paracast and Mysterious Universe.

The Paracast is set up in a more traditional radio show format, similar to that of Coast-To-Coast AM. The production for this show is good, but the hosts, Gene Steinberg and David Biedny (Biedny left the show in 2010) seem to take a hard skeptic, and at times mean-spirited approach to the supernatural topics they cover.

On the flipside, Mysterious Universe is set up in a “forum style” that features music from the website www.iodapromonet.com. In season one, the host, Benjamin Grundy, approaches the strange and fantastic topics he covers with a much more open-mind than The Paracast, but also with a healthy dose

of skepticism. The show’s format along with Grundy’s charismatic voice and open-minded skepticism helped grow Mysterious Universe’s popularity until early 2008 when the show was put into ’hibernation’ by Grundy.

The show was resurrected in 2009 by Grundy and co-host Aaron Wright for season two. Mysterious Universe’s format changed slightly to accommodate two hosts, though the familiar tone of open-minded skepticism has remained intact.

Coming from a scientific background, Wright is a welcome addition to the show. He adds a more scientific view to most of the unusual topics on the show, but at times provides personal anecdotes about his paranormal experiences. While Wright does not have the same ‘smooth operator’ voice of Grundy, he is charming none the less and both Grundy and Wright play well off of each other.

While Mysterious Universe’s focus is on supernatural topics, Grundy and Wright enforce the point that, “Mysterious Universe is about entertainment, first and foremost.” The entertainment aspect really comes across in the news and post-interview sections of the show. Some of the topics covered by the show are ‘way left-of-field’—Colleen ‘Lightwarrior’ Thomas’ rants, the claims by a one Aaron McCollum about being a half dolphin super solider, or the supposed nuclear Olympic false flag operation that never came to fruition to name a few— but they are treated in a fun, editorialized fashion that lets listeners have a laugh.

By presenting more taboo or senseless topics in a more lighthearted way, Grundy and Wright manage to debunk the less-than-credible

Mysterious UniverseAndy Johnson,Editor in Chief

stories, while still speculating on the possibilities that the stories raise. On the flipside, the stories that seem genuine —generally listeners’ call-ins or emails— both Grundy and Wright treat with a critical, yet respectful sense of skepticism.

Even though paranormal phenomenon, like Sasquatch, Mothman and UFOs are Grundy and Wright’s “bread and butter,” they also cover non-paranormal topics that, while fascinating, seem to be of a more mundane nature. In particular, the two have a fascination with ancient civilizations and technologies, specifically the ones that contradict the established order of history.

For instance, a few years ago archeologists discovered an unusual clay jar in Bagdad. When opened it was found to contain a rolled-up copper sheet that housed an iron nail and a trace amount of a slightly acidic organic residue. The artifact strongly resembles an electric cell, but it predates Volta’s ‘invention’ of the electrochemical battery by over a millennium.

These stories provide a pleasant break from the show’s typical fare. Mysterious, eh?

Mysterious Universe has one free weekly show every week, but Grundy and Wright offer MU Plus for $9 a month. This service provides an extension of the free weekly show and an additional show every week. The plus content is often referenced in the free show, giving the free listeners a tantalizing sample of what is offered in the plus section.

For those out there that have a fascination with all things esoteric, visit www.mysteriousuniverse.org, or share an experience by messaging feedback@mysteriousuniverse.org, or call 1 (530) 918-4070.

Paranormal, from the Greek prefix Para, meaning ‘beyond’ or ‘contrary to’ and the Latin Normalis, meaning ‘in conformity with common standards, usual.’

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Technology

A memo went out from the general manager of The Frack City Fair Trader, on his return from a meeting at corporate headquarters in Regina, that reporters must carry the electronic cameras they had been issued with them at all times outside the office, whatever the nature of their assignment, or there would be discipline.

Terry, however, as court reporter, had a problem. It was illegal to have cameras inside a courtroom. He didn't want to take a chance on a contempt-of-court charge. Ten years earlier he had been charged with contempt by a judge for having written an advance about a pornography trial that appeared in print the day of jury selection. Possibly facing jail or a fine in the thousands of dollars, Terry had sweated for thirty hours and reviewed in his mind what statement of apology he would make to the court if convicted. Then the judge dropped the charge, and Terry could relax.

Terry began negotiating with sheriffs about a way he could check the company camera with them while he attended court to cover trials. That way he could comply with the general manager's demand that he have his camera with him whenever he went outside from the newsroom, but not break the law by carrying a camera into a courtroom.

On a Friday late in the fall, Fair Trader reporters went to the Asquith Hotel in downtown Frack City for a few beers and an opportunity to talk shop. Inevitably discussion turned to the effects of technology on the news-gathering process and on their personal lives. Terry mentioned how, when he worked at Palliser Springs Chronicle, he was expected to be always on call. However, in the 1980s, it was still possible to escape to Oligopolis for the weekend to visit friends and be out of reach of the managing editor's calls to his home telephone. Or he could hide out even in Maple Creek or Litauenbruecken if he needed a little

time away.

“Now, with cell phones and e-mail, you can never be out of reach,” he said. “Isn't the new technology wonderful?”

Some colleagues agreed with him, while others commented he didn't know what the real world of work was about.

One winter Wednesday Terry met with a radio station reporter, Alton Beck, for lunch at the Green Wagon Wheel restaurant. Alton had moved the roughly seventy-five kilometres from Burstall to Frack City to find work in his preferred field of broadcast journalism. After the server took their order, uninterrupted conversation lasted about fifteen minutes before Alton began checking e-mails through his iPhone 4s for what he said were updates on the stories he was following. Then he began conducting conversations of three to five minutes each on his phone, and Terry could get only a word or two in edgewise between these calls. Some of them likely related to assignments. Others seemed to be purely personal.

Finally, about thirty-five minutes into the lunch hour, Alton said he had to leave. “I don't have the seniority you have, and so I can't take two- to three-hour lunches,” he remarked. He paid for the lunch at the cashier because it was his turn to cover the cost of lunch and hurried out the door.

Terry, who stayed to finish his lunch, was a little annoyed by the comment.

He never took two- or three-hour lunches no matter how much seniority he'd earned. The only time he had spent two or three hours at lunch was on assignment to cover a Chamber of Commerce business-meeting luncheon followed by a municipal election candidates' forum for directors. The longest he'd spent at a lunch break was more than ten years ago with a group of fellow Fair Trader reporters who met at a suburban restaurant where service was slow. He'd sheepishly returned to the newsroom at 1:25, the city editor looked up frowning at the wall clock, and Terry promised to make up the time at the end of his shift. Terry was angry at himself for not having a comeback comment in response to Alton's remark about the supposed privileges of seniority.

That evening Terry went back to the newsroom. The wire editor said all the computers were down, and the technician was doing his best to try to solve the problem.

“Isn't technology wonderful?” Terry said.

“Well, even an old-fashioned wooden plow is technology,” the editor responded.

“I guess you're right,” he conceded. “I meant the latest electronic technology.”

The computers came back up around 4:00, just before deadline. The following hour and a half was a frantic effort to get four hours of work done in ninety minutes.

Back at home that evening, Terry lay on his bed and listened to foreign broadcasts on his 1964 Hallicrafter's short-wave radio.

What Would We Do Without The Latest Technology?Paul Strickland, Contributor