KEETON WILCOCK
The Fulcrum (University of Ottawa)

OTTAWA (CUP) — Dear Mr. Harper, I’ve always been a big fan of your policies, and I can’t tell you how excited I was on May 2 when I watched the final numbers roll in and you gained a majority government. But it was on Dec. 11, 2011, that you won a very special place in my heart. It was on this day that your minister of the environment, Peter Kent, officially announced Canada would be the first country in the world to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol. A decision like that is just pure Stephen Harper gold.

“The Kyoto Protocol has been holding back Canada’s economic growth for far too long,” I thought. “It’s about time the Conservative government dropped that ancient piece of emissions legislation like an arts student with a chemistry elective.”

Now, to educated folks like you and me, dropping the restrictive Kyoto Protocol is only logical. You can imagine my surprise, then, when a few of my friends didn’t view Kent’s announcement favourably. Fortunately, I took a civics class in grade 10, so I have a thorough understanding of international environmental legislation and was able to explain your decision to my confused friends.

First, I explained that the federal government has saved $14 billion by dropping out of the Kyoto Protocol, and in these times of economic austerity, breaking our country’s promise to the rest of the world is totally legit. If our federal government paid this ridiculous fine, that would mean an increase of almost 2.5 per cent to our country’s $563-billion national debt!

“I know that I’m certainly not willing to give up 2.5 per cent of my hard-earned cash to make good on a longstanding promise to the rest of the planet, and neither should Harper and our federal government,” I said.

Next, I argued that this whole Kyoto business always smelled a little too much of communism for my taste, and if there’s one thing Canadians ain’t, it’s a country of tree-hugging commies. Wealthy first-world countries cutting their emissions while poor, third-world countries are allowed to increase theirs? Sounds like some class warfare Marxist junk to me, and I’m certainly not having any of it. Capitalism for the win, am I right?

Oh yeah, I’m right.

I also noted the world’s largest emitters — China and the United States — never ratified the Kyoto Protocol. Everyone knows that until those countries ratify a climate change agreement, taking action in any way to limit Canada’s annual 540 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions is basically useless.

Lastly, I was able to recall that the federal government’s Kyoto decision came just two days after the end of an international summit on climate change in Durban, South Africa — a summit Kent attended. This obviously allowed Kent to gain all the relevant facts about climate change necessary to make his educated decision to ignore it.

After I finished my tirade, one of my friends told me that Canada has been mocked internationally for the decision to drop Kyoto, and that Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, stated on Dec. 14 that we are at a turning point in history due to worldwide political protests and climate change.

I mostly didn’t know how to reply to that, so I just yelled, “Yeah, tar sands!” and said the discussion was henceforth prorogued for three months or so while I focused on more important things. That worked pretty well, I think.

Anyway, I want to personally thank you for the federal government’s decision to drop the Kyoto Protocol, and I encourage you to never let facts get in the way of your opinion — and never let a promise get in the way of your wallet.

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Graphic: Devin Beauregard/The Fulcrum

I wouldn’t normally say local police waste our money on grossly incompetent staff or services. It’s not like they ever had sex on duty or threw people outside the city in lethally cold weather.

But this plane they’ve been joyriding since 2005 is a ridiculous money pit.

The local police website proudly boasts that their Cessna 182 plane was “directly responsible” for 53 arrests during its initial three-month evaluation. As of 2008, the plane’s operating costs were about $500,000 annually. Now I’m no math-whiz but spending a half-million dollars every year for something that makes a couple arrests a week is obviously a waste of tax dollars.

Responding to critics like me, the police sporadically post an “activity log” of the plane on their website. It’s a feeble attempt to prove this machine offers Saskatoon more than just noise and air pollution.

The latest entry shows that, between Jan. 1 and 6 this year, the plane spent a whopping 32 minutes handling incidents of a supposedly criminal nature. The log labels these incidents under cryptic names like “suspicious person,” “unknown problem” and “assist major crimes.”

A more detailed perusal of these logs reveals the Air Support Unit mainly does two things: It witnesses bad driving and reports any unusual behavior as “suspicious” — things police on the ground already do. The difference is that cops on the ground confront real danger, whereas the ASU floats hundreds of feet above, sheltered from Saskatoon’s notoriously violent streets.

During a ride-along, StarPhoenix reporter Lori Coolican said the only action the plane saw was “a possible drunk driver in a residential neighbourhood, kids goofing around on the roof of a school and a speeding motorcycle.”

Clearly, the ASU is uncovering some serious shit. And I’m so glad our city has a plane to hunt and prosecute such heinous crimes as kids playing on a roof. Maybe the police service’s next purchase should be a bazooka to kill flies with.

Financially speaking, this plane is a total waste. But as we all know, when a show of force proves ineffective, the most prudent solution is to throw more money at it. The police seem to agree.

In 2009 a thermal imaging camera was purchased for the plane for the meagre price of $300,000. Police say SGI footed the bill, meaning that we drivers footed the bill. According to 600 Action News, police use the camera “to track criminals, find missing persons and locate drug grow-operations in the city.” It all sounds impressive on paper but the plane’s activity log, and a thorough look back at local news, reveals no cases where the camera located missing persons or grow-ops.

The camera is useful however at peeking inside the privacy of our homes. So beware: if you and a friend are making hot, sweaty thermal energy tonight, the police could be watching. And if the plane’s binoculars are as good as they say, you should probably reconsider skinny-dipping in your backyard pool.

Taxpayers have already dumped millions into this monstrosity of a plane. In return we get a more invasive and costly police force. But this money could do so much more for a humanitarian project like Station 20 West. These millions of dollars could even start curbing Saskatoon’s AIDS epidemic, by building a safe injection clinic for example.

Either way, putting this money toward the needy — instead of plane maintenance — would lead to greater crime reduction and higher standards of living than we’ll achieve flying a piece of metal in circles every day.

And if we must give this money to police, they could at least reallocate it to more police units on the ground.

I’m led to believe this plane does not fly for the protection and service of Saskatoon. It seems to function more as a way of making our police feel important. But they need to realize that Saskatoon is not a big city. We are not a terrorist threat, nor are we in a state of emergency.

Police, your play time is over. If you really want to fly you should either: join the air force and face real danger, or buy toy planes — they cost less and are about as useful for fighting crime.

And we citizens must remember it’s our civic duty to police the police. When they do something as criminally stupid as buying this plane, we really ought to protest their actions. At the very least, next time you see the plane, feel free to flip it the bird.

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Graphic: Brianna Whitmore/Graphics Editor

EMMANUEL OJUKWU, BRAYDEN FOX & ANDREW ROWAN

Prestige, philantrophy and the ocassional party. What more could you want?

For those not familiar with the Greek system, it consists of fraternities and sororities, which mean brotherhood and sisterhood, respectively. These organizations have been a part of campus life in North America since 1776, when a group of men in Virginia gathered at a tavern and decided to create a different culture on campus — a culture of community and philanthropy. This attitude spread to Canada in 1879 at the University of Toronto.

Saskatchewan is one of only two provinces in Canada that does not have a Greek system on a university campus and every major university in Canada has some form of the Greek sSystem being practiced on their campus. So why does our university continue to lag behind on enhancing the social and developmental experiences of its students?

The Greek system encompasses all that university is really about. It is a model for creating better men and women to go out and become leaders in society. Students are involved in self-government, philanthropy, higher academic standards and social opportunities that would otherwise be unavailable. In North America, at universities where a Greek system is in place, “Greeks” statistically give back more financially to their alma maters than non-Greeks. Their marks are higher than average students and, perhaps most importantly, their rate of graduation is higher than students not involved in Greek life.

Of North America’s 50 largest corporations, 43 are headed by Greek men and women. Also, 30 per cent of all Fortune 500 companies are run by former Greeks. Prime Ministers Mackenzie King, Lester B. Pearson and Paul Martin were all fraternity men. Those who participate in Greek societies are very clearly more successful than those who do not. They build within themselves a network of leaders intent on making a difference in our world today.

With all the good that comes from Greek life, there is still lingering criticism. Too many people still assume fraternities and sororities are about pretentious young adults drinking to excess and slacking through school. This is simply untrue.

First, a student who is a part of a large family wherein success isn’t a goal but rather an expectation is likely to be confident. This confidence may be misinterpreted as pretentiousness. Greek students are part of a culture of success. It is not about thinking oneself better than any other person; it is about holding oneself to a higher standard and demanding more of oneself.

Second, the stigma that fraternity gentlemen are party animals is a misconception. Partying occurs all over the world with young people, and once of age it is more than permissible that students be allowed to drink socially. But the Greek system’s emphasis on high academic and philantrophic commitment make fraternity men stand for much more than simply having a good time.

Hazing is another stigma associated with Greek societies, but it is hardly limited to them. The recent hazing incident involving the Neepawa Natives hockey club in Manitoba shows that hazing exists in many other social organizations. It is quite ignorant to assume that a Greek system would involve more hazing than already exists in society. Indeed, in most fraternities hazing is discouraged and in many cases punishable. Movies like American Pie, Animal House and Old School spread these misconceptions even further by turning Greek life into a caricature.

Why the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Regina do not open themselves up to this potential community is a perplexing question. The potential for this Greek community — among the diverse communities already existing on campus — is huge. Even if you are not a member of these Greek systems, many put on events that all students may attend and be a part of. At a university that is trying to establish itself as one of the best in Canada — socially, culturally and academically — the U of S is leaving out one huge piece of the puzzle, a piece that could potentially bring more students to our campus and entice existing students to prolong their studies.

We spoke to many undergraduate students in September, students between their first and fourth years of undergraduate studies. It was quite clear that the U of S lacks a sense of community. Many students were not pleased with the “Welcome Week” experience. It did nothing to make students feel like they were a part of the something bigger than themselves. A free day planner and a hamburger does not say welcome.

Where were all the active student clubs? Where were all of the opportunities available to students to get involved or meet their peers and create new bonds? Where were all the people walking around excited to meet you, sit down and genuinely get to know you as a person and include you in their lives? The answer is obvious for those who know life outside Saskatchewan.

All of these people and opportunities were present at other universities across Canada — universities that have adopted a Greek system such as the universities of British Columbia, Alberta, Waterloo or Toronto. These schools had fraternities and sororities taking it upon themselves during Welcome Week and the whole year to foster an atmosphere of community.

When asked why the U of S does not have any of these Greek systems on campus back in September, the USSU answer was that they have never been a part of our history and no one has ever attempted to start one.

History has passed. It is time for present and future. It is time to enhance the experiences of university students here in Saskatchewan. The benefits of such a system far outweigh the disadvantages, at least enough to give the idea some consideration and exploration.

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Photo: Otzberg/Flickr

While we have a linear view of time, many cultures view time as a circle.

This comment, more than any other, enrages me when people discuss issues affecting First Nations in Canada.

I have heard it more times than I ever wanted to. Unfortunately, it usually has nothing to do with the speaker hoping that aboriginal people can move beyond the oppression, but is another way of admitting that they would rather not deal with centuries-old injustices.

We can’t move forward if we are stuck in the past, but can we move forward if we don’t acknowledge the past? Many of us who have grown up in Canada and are not First Nations have a linear view of time, going from the past to the present and continuing on to the future. Many First Nations and other cultures see time as a circle. Life starts in the middle and continues around and around in an ever-growing outward spiral, the past and future always connecting. The past is an indispensable part of where we are, for better or worse, and must be faced if we are to avoid repeating mistakes.

Of course, when talking about First Nations issues we are not just talking about the past, but also about people that are still here. Yes, the sad story of colonialism may have started 400 years ago, but it did not end 400 years ago. It’s ongoing, just like that circle.

Take for example the Indian Act, and the question of self-governance for First Nations. This was one of the key points of discussion at the Crown-First Nations meetings that took place on Jan. 24.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper had “creative” words about the Indian Act —  about working within and around it —  but definitely did not suggest getting rid of it. First Nations leaders, however, see the abolition of the Indian Act as the direction that things need to be moving toward to ensure progress. The act was described as “a boulder that blocks the path of collaboration,” by Shawn Atleo, the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations.

AFN B.C. Regional Chief Jody Wilson-Raybould called recent approaches “tinker[ing] around the edges of the Indian Act in a piecemeal way,” and the “attempt to legislate aspects of self-governance for us… an exercise in neo-colonialism.” As former AFN national chief Ovide Mercredi put it, “The Indian Act is in the way. It stands in the way of economic progress; it stands in the way of our own self-determination as a people. It stands in the way of even defining who we are as a people and who can belong to our nations.”

The Indian Act is not an archaic document from 1876; it is a living reality in the lives of First Nations people.

There were many other pressing concerns that First Nations chiefs brought to the table, some that require more immediate attention like housing, child welfare and education. But if there were hopes for commitment from the government on any of these issues, they were not met. They did agree to release a progress report on Jan 24. 2013.

A progress report is not going to do a lot for the communities that need help now. For those people in Attawapiskat who don’t have a house tonight, we are not talking about the past, no matter what your worldview is. For the people of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation, who have been in a state of emergency since 2009, because of prescription drug abuse among 70 per cent of their population, these are not issues of the past. For the people in Kasabonika Lake who have had sewage leaking into their lake for the last decade, and have been going round and round with the government and doing what they can, it is not the past — especially when it means using an outhouse at -45 C temperatures.

The meetings were supposed to be “historic,” but the general consensus seems to be that they were more like a very small step. Hopefully they are the beginning of progress, but only time will tell how committed the government is to working with First Nations. I mean, the Prime Minister did change his plans to leave early and actually stayed for the whole day.

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Photo: Smulan77/flickr

DAVE SWANSON
The Link (B.C. Institute of Technology)

BURNABY, B.C. (CUP) — When you ask what defines Canada, what iconic symbols come to mind? You may picture Granville Street during the Vancouver 2010 Olympics — a sea of polite folks dressed as red-maple-leaf-caped crusaders. Maybe you see a bearded hockey player raising Lord Stanley’s Cup (unfortunately not Roberto Luongo). You might even conjure up the image of a resourceful beaver perched on his dam. Yes, these are all prevalent Canadian images; however, there is one marquee symbol that is as Canadian as it gets: the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s logo.

The CBC is Canada’s national public radio and television broadcaster and a major player in producing Canadian culture. It uses the majority of its funding, received in the form of government subsidies, to produce original Canadian programming like David Suzuki’s The Nature of Things, Q with Jian Ghomeshi and Hockey Night in Canada.

Currently, the CBC has an annual budget of $1.1 billion. This may seem like a substantial sum, but when compared to 18 other major western countries, Canada only places 16th in support for public broadcasters, with $34 per capita — 60 per cent less than the $87 average. This figure is expected to decrease in the near future due to impending Conservative government budget cuts. This is a serious problem.

The Harper Tories seem to be hiding behind the classic guise of right-wing politics — a “these are tough times and we need to reduce our national debt” mentality. But on Oct. 19, 2011, the government announced Irving Shipbuilding Inc. in Halifax would receive $25 billion to build 21 large combat naval vessels. Could a portion of this money not be used to reduce the debt?

It’s far more likely that the suggested five to 10 per cent cut in CBC funding has little to do with reducing debt and is only being framed in such a way to gain public support. I believe that the real reason for the proposed cuts is ideological.

Historically, the CBC has been viewed as left-leaning media. The socially conscious programming they produce and the liberal scope with which they present local and international politics is inherently dangerous to Conservative dogma. Harper knows the media can shape public opinion, and in order to remain in power, he needs voters to share his ideals.

When speaking to the Canadian Association of Broadcasters in 2004, Harper said the Conservatives would “seek to reduce the CBC’s dependence on advertising revenue and its competition with the private sector.” However, in 2008, when the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage released a major study on the future of the CBC that suggested annual funding be increased to $40 per capita over the next seven years, the Conservative committee members voted against it.

If the Conservatives take this anti-CBC stance one step further and cut the CBC’s funding, lower quality programming will be produced. The Canadian public will recognize this decline and lose interest in public programming, devaluing the CBC. If this occurs, it will justify further funding cuts.

This could then force the CBC to seek funding from the private sector in the form of advertising revenues, hindering its creative autonomy. The airing of commercial and mainstream content will become inevitable and give proponents of funding reductions a reason to eliminate all CBC government subsidies, effectively privatizing the CBC.

As of right now, the CBC receives a third of its total revenue from advertisers. If the CBC is forced to obtain the majority or all of its funding from advertisers, Canadian cultural identity will suffer.

The CBC is a wounded soldier wheeling a single pistol. It is up against the heavily armed cavalry that is the American media. If we do not provide it with adequate defence, it will be killed. Canada will then be in danger of succumbing to a Conservative agenda that seems more concerned with protecting its own ideology than the Canadian public.

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Graphic: Ion Oprea/BCIT Link

Having trouble putting down your cell phone?

I know you’re probably raising your eyebrows at me right now. I’m sure I would be too if I hadn’t given this subject some thought. But this isn’t a lecture to all you texters about how phone use is bad for you or how you have lost all ability to directly communicate with real people.

I can remember getting a gold watch for my sweet 16. It had its fair share of praise from all of the adults around me and I tried sporting it for maybe all of two days. Now that gold watch sits in its box, ticking furiously because it is being ignored.

Watches and watch wearers are a dying breed. A recent study showed that the average phone user checks their phone 34 times per day. That’s once every 18 minutes. So, if all you phone users are checking your phones every 18 minutes, you don’t need to wear a watch because you always have the time.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It just means that our society has advanced, once again, to another way of telling time. After all, we are always improving our technologies. We have a consistent need to make everything better, greater and bigger. But as more and more parts of our lives get shrunk and loaded onto our phones, we become ever more reliant on them.

Picking up your smartphone is an addiction because of the rush you get. Think back to the last time you checked your phone and there wasn’t a message on it. If you’re anything like me, you felt a small twinge of disappointment that a fellow phone user didn’t take the time to send you a quick “howdy-do.”

Now, what about that time that you checked your phone and saw that magical number on top of your message box stating that someone had texted you? Did you maybe do a small happy-dance inside your head? Well, I can almost guarantee you at least rushed to read that message.

Or how about that time when you absentmindedly set your phone down on the table, went to reach for it in your pocket and realized it wasn’t there? Your heart started beating faster, you started furiously patting your body and basically did a tiny freak-out because you just lost your entire world.

My phone, for example contains everything: all my contacts (whose numbers I don’t have memorized because they are only a click away), my way to secretly stalk people without them knowing (Facebook and Twitter make it easy), my calendar of my life’s events and all those other little doodads that make my already easy university life even easier.

When my phone recently went in for servicing, I felt like I lost a part of myself. Yes, I had a loner phone — a CrackBerry, of all things. Oh the horror! It wasn’t the same. I genuinely missed my phone. Yes, I told people that. And yes, I did get “WTF?” looks.

Looking at myself and the people around me, it’s clear that “addiction” is the only appropriate word for how we use our phones.

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Photo: LexnGer/flickr

Brendan Kergin 
The Omega (Thompson Rivers University)

Chad Kroeger still celebrating his appointment as No. 5 on Spike TV’s ugliest Rock frontmen.

But now — now you’ve done it. You have, once again, ended up nearly at the top of U.S. record sales. Sure, other Canadians have joined you in the Top 10 album sales spotlight — Bublé, Drake and Bieber to be specific.

Buble: Great guy, sap music; he’s a wash to me.

Drake: Don’t know him, and that’s enough.

Bieber? Inauthentic bubble-gum crap, but at least we know it.

But you, sirs, of the “our name is the grammatically incorrect way to give change to a customer” tribe, I take issue with. It’s not just that I dislike the music. It’s that the music is essentially wholesale copyright infringement. It’s all so similar, the only reason it’s not plagiarism is that you’re not willing to sue yourselves. It has all the sonic creativity of a muffler.

Okay, so you don’t intend to revolutionize the way music is played. No one is comparing you to, well, any worthwhile musician.

Your lyrics I find more offensive. They’re the WWE of poetry. Half are sappiness repackaged for testosterone-based life forms. The other half seem to be based on a half-dozen KISS songs. Playing Scrabble against you would be a joy, but would likely lack the mental stimulation of washing dishes.

But the thing that bothers me the most is that you exist. You are proof that marketing is more powerful than culture or taste. You project an idea of masculinity that is not only unhealthy for the individual, but also for society. You’re practically creating an army of unthinking clones who look at your lifestyle and agree that, “Sure, getting drunk off cheap corporate beer and watching guys fight on TV is probably what I want to achieve in my life.” You are seemingly run by marketing executives so morally bankrupt I bet tobacco lobbyists meet up with them to hear tales of the dark side.

And that’s where my anger lies. Not with the man-children up on stage, reliving fantasies of junior high. It’s the Nickelback that exists in the boardroom.

Adding insult to injury, you just booked a massive, 39-city North American tour for this spring and summer. You are still apparently relevant, what, 10 years after your only real hit? Since then it’s been a constant Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V on album after album.

So where does that leave us? I’m not sure about you, but I’m going to go listen to a three-year-old bang on a pot. Sure, it may not be produced to someone’s idea of sonic perfection, but at least it’s authentic.

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Photo: Rock and Racehorses/flickr

Feminists are fabulous, assuming they know they're feminists.

Am I a feminist? What is a feminist anyway? There seem to be a lot of opinions about them, and there is always that braless, hairy, man-hating stereotypical image which I don’t think I fit. Although shaving is a real pain and some days hating men would not be that hard, I don’t want to have to try and be a man so I can make it in the world, and I don’t want to be put into some prescribed role because I admit that I am a woman.

The major downfall of the feminist movement is that, in some cases, the battle became against men instead of for women. Respect and honor is not gained by disrespect and dishonour. Trampling underfoot those who once walked over you will not improve anything.

Another major issue creeps in when equality becomes associated with homogeneity, instead of unity amidst diversity. Men and women are obviously not the same. Neither are all men the same or all women the same.

So I’m troubled by phrases like, “that’s a real man” or “that’s a real woman,” as though you don’t make the cut unless you meet a certain criteria. But none of your actions or tendencies makes you any more of less of a woman or man. I am no more of a woman than any other woman.

But there’s this image in many cultures that men feel the need to uphold, which makes it hard feeling okay with just being yourself. It also makes it hard for men to have a woman “above” them in any way, leading to a pattern of power and control — abuse, in other words — just to keep male privilege intact. I am in no way saying this image is pursued by every man, but it’s clearly pervasive in many cultures of the world.

This image leads to half the world’s population being marginalized simply because they were born female. It’s all too easy to spot this marginalization. All you have to do is compare the literacy rates of men and women around the world, or the numbers of those living in poverty. Or consider the millions of women who are trafficked and sold for sex around the world, or the fact that a woman in North America will earn around 30 per cent less than a man with the same qualifications —  even less if they’re a racial minority. And in the U.S. alone, a women is battered by her husband, boyfriend or live-in partner every 15 seconds, and on average three of those women are killed every day by these intimate partners.

Then there are religious views that can stifle the equal rights of women. Take the Genesis description of a woman being a “helpmeet.” I don’t even know what that is supposed to mean, but it is probably a word that a bunch of men translating the Bible came up with to keep women in a position of servitude. And the Bible often uses the word “submission” to describe a virtuous woman.

I have personally sat in church where a man behind the pulpit taught that a woman should never be allowed to speak in church, although I did preach in that same church a couple weeks later. But the idea of women being, in some way, less than men remains prominent in many religions and cultures.

I used to feel there was an image of a woman that I wanted nothing to do with. I didn’t realize it but, growing up, I lived to prove that I was not a weak woman, but was as strong as a man. I played football, I didn’t hold babies, I didn’t cook — I still don’t really cook, but for different reasons — and I would definitely never admit that I needed a man. Somewhere along the way I picked up the message that to be a woman meant weakness, so the last thing I wanted to be was a woman.

Fortunately, a little further down the road I realized that I could be a woman and be strong. I could just be myself and it didn’t matter if I wanted to hold a baby or not — or if I could tackle a guy twice my size. This is a good thing, because I am a woman and I do need men. A very practical example would be changing my own oil. I know how to do it, but I can never get the plug off the oil pan, and I usually have to get a man to do it for me. A few years ago that would have bothered me a lot, but now I’m okay with it.

Surely the feminist movement has brought a lot of progress. I am going to be applying for medical school next year and about half of those who get in will be women — the way it should be. There is almost more stigma placed on being “just” a stay-at-home mom these days, which is not good. What is the point of replacing one archetype of what a woman should be for a different one? What women need is the freedom to be ourselves. Men need this too. There are men out there who will be better nurses and “moms” than I will ever be.

The key should be respect. We all deserve respect whether we ask for it or not. Take a woman’s body for example. I can choose to respect myself whether other people — especially men — choose to or not. In fact, I can even respect the men who disrespect me. Maybe instead of demanding respect I should just give it. Imagine if men respected all women, even the ones that didn’t ask for it; or if everyone respected each other.

So yes, I will say I am a feminist, even though I would not walk down the street saying I’m a slut, as people in the SlutWalk movement have done. Every human being is of great value, yet all over the world women are being oppressed, discriminated against, bought, sold and abused.

And that “helpmeet” word in the Bible, as it turns out, actually meant something more along the lines of a powerful equal, so hopefully one of these days we can work together as equals, each contributing our strengths and helping another where they are weak.

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Photo: Sizemore/flickr

Every now and then, several events coincide to renew interest in public affairs. For a fleeting moment, politics can appear sexy, invigorating, even meaningful. This is one such time.

The Republican primaries are firmly underway, and once again, four cretinous white men with varying degrees of dementia and fervour are creakily jostling to secure the Presidential nomination.

Meanwhile, the ruling Democrats recently rejected the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline, much to the chagrin of anyone with stocks in cowboy hats, and much to the delight of anyone whose IQ hovers at or above 70, or understands the concept of “risk.”

And just last week, the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act were similarly prevented from any further legislative deliberation, after Wikipedia and every impassioned Facebook user with the meagrest appreciation for torrents banded together to call attention to the absurdity of the proposed laws.

Closer to home, the delightfully vapid and ideologically misguided omnibus crime bill is set to slither its way through Parliament, promising more prisons, higher incarceration rates and a $717 million tab over the next five years.

Each of these examples has garnered a considerable amount of controversy in its own right. Be it on CNN, CBC or the front page of CNET, most will have heard and maybe even formed an opinion about at least one of these recent, salient political affairs.

Could it be that this surge in public interest marks a genuine societal shift toward an altogether more politically active and engaged form of citizenship? Unfortunately, no.

A modern North American democracy is not about contributing toward impactful societal change through the use of public forums, nor about celebrating the agency each of us is granted over our respective futures. Ours is a democracy that functions to provide the right to exclude oneself from political participation. It is less a platform for civil deliberation than it is a tool for the guilt-free diffusion of responsibility, where a disinterested public is given permission to limit its political contribution to an hour or two’s inconvenience of standing in line at a gymnasium polling station and circling a name on a piece of paper, once every four years or so.

Having flexed their sagging muscles of accountability, the less than two in three eligible Canadian voters who bother to turn up are then free to return to the more pressing matters in their life, like microwaving a burrito and updating their Twitter feed.

In the current state of affairs, the onus for providing a government attuned to the needs of Canadians falls squarely and exclusively on the shoulders of elected officials. This is the hallmark of our representative democracy: individual decision making is off-loaded to someone else who we hope gives a touch more of a shit than we do. It’s a convenient arrangement, because it saves the public from having to stay informed, while providing legitimate ammunition for complaint when — inevitably — the odd piece of violently misinformed legislation floats to the surface of the porcelain.

But ours is also a dangerous and precarious arrangement, and one that causes more harm than it does good. In the last federal election, 39.6 per cent of Canadians voted for the Conservative Party. Put differently, 60.4 per cent of Canadians did not vote for the Conservative Party. Evidently, we’ve got things a bit back-to-front when it comes to the matter of “public input.”

What would happen if the paradigm were reversed — if the electing public was held accountable for the actions of its leaders? If this were the case, we the people would be forced to answer for our own political misgivings and miscalculations.

Consider that the aforementioned omnibus crime bill will, according to one estimate, cost $717 million over the next five years; now consider that casting a ballot is meant to represent an endorsement beyond charisma and hairstyle, to a declaration in the most official of capacities of confidence in a party’s ability to make informed and broadly-benefiting decisions.

All facetiousness aside (only briefly, I promise), imagine if an index had been kept of each ballot cast by each citizen. Having expressed their full confidence in the social and economic stances of the Conservative Party, those 5,832,401 Canadians who cast ballots in the party’s favour could be contacted and fairly asked to cover their share of the cost of a bill which, as per their collective wishes, has begun the long and wintry trek toward legal institution. Split evenly, that would work out to a piddly $122.90 per supporter over five years. By golly, that’s less than half the cost of a new hunting crossbow!

But alas, this will never happen. To frame political participation in anything but a hierarchical model would imply the abandonment of our right to let someone else deal with it. And for that, for once, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

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Graphic: Brianna Whitmore/The Sheaf

Giggidy: a statue in Jeju Loveland, a park in South Korea devoted to sexuality.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if your sexual partner could get inside of your head? If they knew exactly how to touch you, exactly how it made you feel? Well folks, you don’t need to look very far to find this Casanova because that sexy person is you!

Masturbation is not just an activity I indulge in, but it is as much a part of my routine as brushing my teeth or going to the gym.

The weird looks shot my way when I talk about masturbation with my fellow ladies, or interject my own opinions on touching myself with a group of guys, leads me to believe that, maybe, not all women masturbate.

Female anatomy and sexuality are anything but simple, and learning them can be time-consuming and frustrating. Don’t get discouraged ladies: we have plenty of tools to get the sex juices flowing. Diamonds were a girl’s best friend, until sex toys were electrified to produce good vibrations. Female-friendly porn, while elusive, can inspire you in many ways. So explore what sights turn you on. Maybe it’s an orgy or maybe it’s girls caressing each other. Whatever you like, learning what gets you off and stimulating yourself in different ways is a thrilling and fulfilling ride.

Everyone knows guys touch themselves. If they say that they don’t, then they are lying. People rarely talk about girls masturbating though. If ladies do pleasure themselves they are discreet about it — and that is perfectly fine. Masturbation is an act of self-gratification, so you don’t need to share it with everyone if you don’t wish to. It is about sexual discovery and exploration without the pressure or judgements of others.

There are benefits, however, to sharing your intimate pleasure with others. Female bodies are difficult to manoeuvre, so discussing what feels good with your lady friends could help you learn how to better please yourself. It is also worth sharing with your sexual partner so that they can know how to better pleasure you. Playing with yourself is not only intimate and arousing, but can also lead to more self-awareness.

Openly admitting that we masturbate is also sexually empowering. Sexual empowerment is about acknowledging yourself as a sexual being deserving of sexual respect and pleasure. Realize that there is no reason to feel guilty or abnormal about a little self-indulgence. If embarrassment or shame is keeping you from sexually satisfying yourself, or from sharing your leisure activity with others, you should consider this: stimulating yourself has many health benefits. So do it for your health.

Getting hot and bothered with yourself is a cardio workout. It can, among other benefits, make you sweat, lower blood pressure and burn calories! For males, ejaculating flushes out the prostate gland, reducing the risk of prostate cancer and infections. Orgasm in females reduces yeast infections and alleviates menstrual cramp pain. Your immune system could also use the boost.

Not only is self-love good for you physically, it is great for your mental health. Being intimate with yourself decreases depression and anxiety. It is relaxing and euphoric, which makes it a great way to get drowsy before bed. I fall asleep almost instantly and sleep better following a session with myself.

Masturbation is also a safe form of sexual pleasure (but you should wash your hands, with soap). By getting personal with your genitals you can notice any potentially harmful changes, such as a sore caused by an STI, or a lump in the testicles. It will also make you less shy discussing your sexual health with a medical professional. After all, everyone needs to look out for their sexual health, not just those having sex.

Nobody is capable of knowing you like you do. So don’t be shy — get to know yourself! It will be a very pleasurable encounter.

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Photo: Shanda Stefanson

Pro tip: if you look where you're shovelling, you'll probably have less to shovel at the end of the day.

Every day, I walk to university. I see many of my kind, heads down against the wind, squinting into the sun checking for traffic and shifting anxiously, waiting for the College Drive crosswalk light to turn.

Lately, however, we have faced a new enemy on our daily jaunts. I see my comrades’ eyes glued to the sidewalk, their feet placed carefully, walking in fear of the slippery ice that causes gymnastic feats more appropriate for some twisted Cirque du Soleil performance.

This ice is caused, of course, by a combination of people not cleaning their sidewalks and warm temperatures. One is far more welcome than the other.

In our fair city, owners and occupants of property are required by a bylaw to clear sidewalks of snow and ice to prevent injury or inconvenience to pedestrians. Such debris must be cleared within 48 hours.

Numerous citizens of Saskatoon, however, seem not to know or care about this rule. On my walks to school, about half the sidewalks are regularly cleared of snow and ice. Unfortunately, many of the residences closest to the University— that get the most foot traffic — are also the worst at clearing snow, preferring instead to let dozens of students slowly pack down a path. A few sidewalks along Bottomley Ave. over these last weeks had at least two inches of ice. Many students opted to walk on the patchy grass or even the road, taking advantage of what paltry traction they could find.

The recent cold snap and large snowfall inspired people to get out and shovel instead of letting pedestrians make their own way. However, with the weather warming up to over zero again, ice is quite likely to return.

Of course, not everyone can easily clean off the snow; some are elderly, or have health concerns or mobility restrictions. Non-profit community organizations, money-hungry kids and good neighbours fill the gaps here. The city has wisely instigated a “snow angels” program recognizing those admirable individuals who help their neighbours clear snow.

The remainder of those who consistently refuse or forget to shovel their sidewalks, I must conclude, suffer from laziness and indifference. Uncleared sidewalks can be reported to the city, who will check the site and request that it be cleared. No fines will be placed. However, if the city has to clear the sidewalk, the cost, from $100 to $150, will be added to the property taxes.

Perhaps if more pedestrians call in and raise awareness about the often deplorable state of the sidewalks, we’ll be able to walk to school, to a friend’s or just as a break from studying without having to focus all our energy on staying upright.

I live in a house. I know it’s a tad annoying to go shovel snow for a few minutes, especially when it’s cold. But bundle up, take a break from Jersey Shore and Skyrim, and for the love of your fellow students and pedestrians, clean the snow off your sidewalk!

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Photo: Peter Guthrie/flickr

On Jan. 23, Tim Hortons hot cup sizes were shuffled down in scale to accommodate the new and improved extra large size.

Your small double-double is now an extra-small, your medium is now a small and so forth. The newest addition to the homegrown franchise’s cup family is a rather large 24 ounces. This new size sits neatly between the McDonald’s medium (21 ounces) and large (32 ounces) soft drink sizes, and stands a couple ounces shy of that two-six one must have consumed the previous night to warrant a coffee so large.

I consider myself to be a relatively small-bladdered human, so you will not see me lugging one of these new extra larges around (although even I can appreciate the fitting name change from the thimble-sized small to extra small).

One wonders whether anyone really needs this much coffee on a regular basis. Health Canada recommends no more than 400 milligrams of caffeine per day for the average, healthy adult. One 24-ounce cup of Tim Hortons coffee contains about 240 milligrams of caffeine. So as long as you keep these mammoth-sized beverages out of children’s reach and stick to only one extra large a day, all should be well.

The problem, of course, is that it’s not just Tim Hortons.

In January of 2011, Seattle-based Starbucks introduced their own new extra large into U.S. markets, the 31-ounce “trenta.” Mind you, the trenta size is for their iced beverages only, which usually contain more ice than beverage.

Why the current trend of upsizing? I am going to rule out the assumption that North Americans are just getting that much thirstier. The trenta is bigger than the average human stomach, and there’s no way anyone really needs that much iced coffee. However, the trenta and the new Tim Hortons extra large are the best deals financially.

This desire to get the best marginal deal is what sells the get-18-beers-for-the-price-of-15 Budweiser pack, and compels people to buy 25 pounds of hummus from Costco. Don’t get me wrong: I’ve been there with the tub of hummus that expires long before I can eat it all. It has almost become second nature to want more for less, regardless of the quality. Some people wonder why they should buy a 12-ounce cup of quality brewed coffee, when they could get 24 ounces of mediocre coffee for half the price.

Some people are concerned this new adjustment to the sizes will only add to the mountains of Tim Hortons litter we’ve grown accustomed to. And they may be right. However, as far as I can see, the blame falls solely on the shoulders of consumers. Tim Hortons does offer a 10-cent discount if you use a travel mug and, unlike Starbucks, if your order is to stay they serve your warm bevvy in a classy, branded china mug. The 10 cents may not be much incentive for some, but for those who genuinely care about the environmental effects of the three-million-and-something cups of coffee sold daily by Tim Hortons, it isn’t really about the discount.

As is apparent, consumers will consume non-essentials as long as franchise giants, such as Tim Hortons, realize the elasticity of demand present in their market. There is a reason the new extra large costs exactly $1.90; if it were priced at $2.10 the target market may just stick with the large. Somewhat sly pricing such as this is what fuels consumerism.

The old woman in me cannot help but dread the day when this 24-ounce extra large is the new small. I can just imagine the special handles they will need to invent so that people’s small hands can hold cups bigger than their torsos.

Although regular people largely drive this overconsumption and waste, it’s also the responsibility of Mr. Horton himself.

Tim Horton, the company founder, was not some kind of devil, and I don’t like to compare Tim Hortons to franchises such as McDonald’s or Starbucks, because Tim Hortons does aim to serve healthy and fresh food and beverages. Tim Hortons also makes an effort within the Canadian community with initiatives such as their Children’s Foundation and countless local programs. As well, Tim Hortons contributes to our economy in a big way, in large part by supplying over 100,000 jobs nationwide. It could very well be their successful marketing strategy that convinces me that Tim Hortons is truly Canadian and all good, but I’d like to believe I’m not so naive as to associate Tim Hortons with some part of the Canadian in me.

I realize their comparative advantage on cheap ingredients is taking business from local bakeries and coffee shops, which is kind of depressing. But I guess at some point I will have to come to terms with the fact that not everyone cares this much about ethical coffee consumption. Not everyone wants to sit down and have a small cup of fair trade coffee that is the price of half an hour’s work at minimum wage. I totally get that. I do not value a cup of coffee at $4.50, hence my home-brewed cup of joe in an aluminum Contigo travel mug — that I got from Costco.

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Graphic: Brianna Whitmore/The Sheaf

SARAH VANNIER
The Brunswickan (University of New Brunswick)

These figs do look pretty sexy, actually.

George probably took things a step too far, but he’s not the first person to combine food and sex. Open up an issue of Cosmo or Men’s Health and you will be sure to find a list of foods that will feed your libido. But do these so-called aphrodisiacs actually work?

Some of these foods, like bananas and figs, are considered aphrodisiacs because they kind of look like sexual organs. This is supposed to get us turned on, although I’m skeptical about how well this really works. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never heard anyone say, “That banana was delicious, but you know what I could really go for now? A penis.”

Other aphrodisiacs supposedly work by changing our body chemistry. Chocolate, for example, is thought to increase the levels of certain chemicals in our brains that make us feel happy and excited. Unfortunately, chocolate may not hold the key to getting your sexual motor going.

Andrea Salonia, an Italian researcher, compared the sexual satisfaction and sexual arousal of women who ate chocolate daily and women who did not. Salonia found the difference between the two groups was negligible once you factored in age and other variables within his sample of 163 women; thus, the aphrodisiac effects of chocolate may be more myth than reality.

So if feeding your partner piles of bananas and chocolate won’t get you any action, what will?

Have you tried cooking? Cooking is sexy. Being able to cook implies that you can take care of yourself and can, at least on occasion, take care of your partner.

There is a recipe floating around online for something called “Engagement Chicken.” Apparently women should make this roast chicken for a partner when they want them to propose. The idea is that the recipe is delicious comfort food — something that a good wife would make.

Although a world in which I need to roast a chicken in hopes of someone marrying me sounds like my personal hell (holy gender roles, Batman!) food does play an important role in sex and relationships. Taking the time to cook suggests that you enjoy the little things in life and you are willing to put time and effort into something pleasurable. Those are definitely the qualities I appreciate in the bedroom.

Want to brush up on your cooking skills? Maybe you could try taking cooking classes in your spare time. And bring your partner along.

So enjoy cooking your way to a better love life! Just remember to go easy on the pastrami.

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Photo: In Praise of Sardines/Flickr

I've got to stop trading all my cash for random foreign currency!

Am I taking a student loan? Oh, hell no! Was I smart enough to win a scholarship for my tuition? Not as long as I’m an arts and science student.

So my only option is to pay tuition in cash. Currently I have enough money for the 2012 winter term, and a bit for the start of my second year, but either way, I am royally fucked right about now.

And tuition isn’t the only way the university sneaks its greedy little hands into my — and your — personal chequing and savings accounts. Besides almost having a heart attack when I handed over a $2,600 cheque to the school last September, I think I speak for all 18,000 or more University of Saskatchewan students when I say that not only is our tuition ridiculously expensive — I feel as if I’m learning the exact same crap I did last year in high school, except add on another $400 to the bill per class — but the price of our textbooks also seem to kick us in the ass.

When I hear of people taking education or engineering, I know that their annual tuition is much more than that of an arts and science student. Really, we’re all being gouged left, right and centre by ridiculous university costs, and by certain courses that we only take because we need them to graduate. We don’t even want to take them; we’re forced to!

Now, I’m a first year. What the hell do I know? I ask myself that all the time, but I know that three first-year anthropology and classical mythology books should not run $220 on my Visa. Later, when I sell them back to the university, I will only get a fraction of what I originally paid for the book. If a prof decides not to use those books next term, you once again get kicked in the ass. That’s why I am in drama — a $5 fee for photocopying and no textbooks.

And then there’s food. A $2.36 Tim Horton’s iced cap here, a $2.25 bottle of ginger ale there, a burger and fries from A&W, and the cash quickly gets yanked out of our wallets. I certainly don’t want to pay five dollars for a small tray of sushi but I have little choice. The university just expects that if I am hungry on campus and want a quick bite I must succumb to their overpriced crap.

When thousands of students are doing this day after day, for years on end, the profits for “campus confectionery” eventually add up, but not for the students.

Sure, paying for things like university infrastructure, public transit and even the Sheaf are understandable. After all, I don’t want my psychology lecture hall collapsing on me at 8:30 a.m. when I’m barely awake yet. But the rest of it sucks.

U of S, we’re not asking you to give us everything for free — although that would be unbelievably amazing — we’re just asking you to lower the day-to-day costs of campus life.

I’m going for a third job just so I can afford next year’s tuition.

That last thing I want to do is go into the world with a degree in my hand and tens of thousands of dollars in debt.

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Photo: epSos.de/flickr

SHAIMAA EL-GHAZALY
The Concordian (Concordia University)

MONTREAL (CUP) — If you’re as careful with your money as I am, you will choose to walk some distance to find your own bank’s ATM in order to avoid being charged fees just to access your own funds.

However, there are days when the weather is horrible, or you don’t have time, or there are just no ATMs from your bank within walking distance. That’s when you’ll find yourself staring at the ATM, annoyed with the fees. These fees are unfair because they disproportionately hurt low-income individuals like students.

ATM fees come in different forms. When you use an ATM of a bank that is not yours, you are charged convenience fees. The amount can go up to $2 per transaction. When you use an ATM that belongs to a private operator, the convenience fees can go up to $5 per transaction. Then, your bank charges you service fees that can go up to $1.50.

Some people say it is not much, and that might be true for transactions of $100 or more. But for the average student, charges up to $6.50 on a $20 withdrawal just to get some food are a pain.

The fact that banks make as much profit off of small transactions as large transactions hardly seems reasonable. Service fees, including those charged at ATMs, made up six per cent of Canadian banks’ profits in 2010. It is a large sum considering that the net income of the six largest Canadian banks was $14.3 billion in 2009. Sure, eliminating ATM fees might reduce their profits, but it is a tiny amount compared to how much money big banks make. Bank profits increased at all of Canada’s major banks by an average of 29 per cent in 2010 (compared to 2009); surely they can afford to give people a break at the ATM.

“If people want to avoid paying those fees, they should use their own bank’s ATM machines,” said Adrian Rotaru, a CIBC customer service representative.

The issue with that type of thinking is that it doesn’t take the elderly and the disabled into consideration. That type of reasoning puts them at a disadvantage due to possible limitations of how far they could travel in order to get money. It does not take into account the fact that sometimes your bank’s ATMs are not available.

Most banks have student and senior plans without monthly banking charges. Therefore, banks should do the same concerning ATM fees.

As for private operators, whose main goal is to make profit, there should be some government intervention to limit the amount of money they can charge. It is understandable that private operators install these machines in order to make money, but to make a 30 per cent profit on a $20 transaction is exploitation.

If more people were to voice their discontent, perhaps something could be done. It might not make a huge difference for banks to eliminate those fees, but every dollar would definitely matter to students.

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Graphic: Sean Kershaw/The Concordian

Fresh snow falls on Nutana pioneer cemetery in Saskatoon. Looks fucking cold.

When it comes down to Saskatchewan winters, there really is no pleasing us prairie folk.

According to the annual Weather Outlook released in November by The Weather Network, we were expected to experience “below normal” temperatures in Saskatoon this winter — although up until the heavy snowfall we received last weekend, we have felt nothing but wondrously warm temperatures.

Typically, you’ll hear complaints about the brutality of our winters — particularly in the months of January and February — and the inability to move our fingers and toes. Rarely will you hear something positive aside from the gorgeous snowfall that might take place once every three to four weeks.

However, with the record high temperatures that we’ve seen this winter, our complaints have shifted drastically.

For those who genuinely love winter, many complained about the lack of snow we received. Others often raised the frightening topic of global warming, and how this winter has been a result of it.

Although this may be the case, not everyone saw reason to complain. Some people, like myself, embraced the warm weather we experienced. Being a skateboarder, this is the very first January I’ve seen where it was dry enough to skate a parking lot — and warm enough to forego the coat and just wear a sweater.

On the downside, the warm weather made things we might enjoy, such as ice fishing or snowboarding, essentially impossible to do. At the same time, it has been a bit too cold on the hands and feet to do much more than go for walks or runs without outfitting in heavy winter gear.

And while I had improbable hopes of cruising through winter without getting stuck in snow, I think most of us knew from the beginning that it was too good to be true; and it was. Now that Old Man Winter has brought the snow and cold temperatures, those who were complaining finally got the numb feet and rosy cheeks they were wishing for. The question to ask now is how long will it last?

The immediate forecast shows a strong increase in temperatures which would result in some serious snow melting, and I like to keep my pride in believing that it’s true, but we all know that the long range forecast has a tendency to be as unpredictable as our Friday nights.

Either way, it has been a beautiful winter, so I have no need to complain. Those who wanted the snow for whatever reasons, now have it. As much as we love, hate, compliment or complain about Old Man Winter, his qualities will remain uncertain. Although it’s apparent that I’m not exactly a fan of him, I don’t dislike everything about the guy — I just won’t accept his friend request.

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Photo: Kristin Marie Enns-Kavanagh/flickr

Creative genius or bridge-screaming lunatic?

Perusing my bookshelf and music collection, I do see overwhelming evidence that artists are more susceptible to mood disorders. But are their illnesses making them creative, or are mood and creativity not causally linked; or could mood disorders actually stifle creativity?

According to psychiatrist Arnold Ludwig, “There is no question that people in the creative arts have higher incidences of depression, mania, alcoholism, drug use, schizophrenic breaks and so forth.” In his book The Price of Greatness, Ludwig argues that creative professions focused on rational thinking and social interaction — like architecture — see very low incidence of mental illness. Meanwhile the creative fields focused on more abstract expression — like visual art — see very high incidence of illness.

Ludwig breaks his continuum down even further, saying that among writers the highest prevalence of mental illness is found in poets, then fiction writers, while non-fiction writers — such as editors and columnists — show the lowest rates of mental illness.

Psychologist James C. Kaufman, director of the Research Learning Center at San Bernardino, echoes Ludwig’s view in what Kaufman calls the “Sylvia Plath Effect,” which claims that female poets are more likely to suffer from mental illness than any other group of distinguished women, such as politicians, actresses or other kinds of artists.

But while psychologists can circlejerk and align their sketchy findings all day, a better way to figure out the role of mood is to consider what the creative world would be like without mental illness.

I question if an artist like John Lennon could have written such beautiful songs had he not struggled with depression. I think he might have been more prolific, and certainly led a happier social life. But I don’t see how his writing could possibly carry the same emotional weight if he hadn’t been burdened by heavy emotions.

Dr. Nancy Andreasen of the University of Iowa also acknowledges the creative insights of mental illness. She says, “Psychotic individuals often display a capacity to see the world in a novel and original way, literally, to see things that others cannot. Might not the cognitive traits possessed by people with psychosis have something in common with those possessed by creative people, who also can sometimes see things that others cannot?”

For example, when a person with bipolar disorder is in a hypomanic state, they can experience accelerated thought processes, a flight of ideas and increased self-esteem, all of which seem capable of opening the mind to new creative possibilities. It’s tempting then to cite this disorder as fueling creativity, but many artists with bipolar disorder — and there are many — often say otherwise.

On an episode of CBC Radio’s The Current, children’s author Robert Munsch said he thinks there is a link between him being bipolar and highly creative but clarified, “When [mental illness] is really active you don’t do anything. It kills you.”

Perhaps mood swings can only be utilized creatively when they come in small doses. Research shows that people are most creative when they are in a positive mood, and therefore, the negative states of mental illness only lower creative productivity.

Strange as it sounds, I believe both views are correct: that mood disorders lead to creative insights, but that they also drain the energy needed for creativity.

I believe it’s precisely this ability to turn negative emotions into something positive that draws me to emotionally troubled musicians like Townes Van Zandt, because in addition to his fine musicianship, I’m touched by the genuine hardship his art is borne out of. I believe depressed artists express truths that happy-go-lucky artists never can; their minds simply cannot tune into these heavier realities.

Perhaps it’s this need to express hardship that leads so many mentally ill people to become highly creative. And as far as I can tell, the art world is the only place that can make use of their problems. Art, unlike anything else, takes eccentric, often antisocial behavior and turns it into something beautiful and inspiring.

Furthermore, mood disorders can prepare someone for the artistic process. Art is largely about confronting uncomfortable emotions — which people with mood disorders are constantly doing. And if art is about removing oneself from the fixedness of reality, then a person who experiences two polar realities might also be more acclimatized to this process.

But if mental illness does encourage creative insight, then afflicted artists may face a dilemma: should they take mood stabilizing medication if it lowers their creativity?

In a recent British Journal of Psychiatry study, Dr. Simon Kyaga admitted, “We often encounter the suggestion that lithium [treatment] reduces creativity in patients with bipolar disorder and that adherence therefore is difficult.” He adds that his research is looking for treatments that “minimize the adverse effects that medication can have on positive aspects of psychiatric disorders.”

So far psychologists can’t prove mental illness has a causal effect on creativity. And I’m not convinced either. In researching this topic, I came across a comment on a blog post about mental illness and creativity that perfectly encapsulates my own views:

“I’ve seen very few songwriters in my life who composed a great song because they were perfectly balanced. Mediocre songs yes, great songs no. It’s problem solving most of the time. I don’t think it is possible to be creative if one has no problem to solve.”

LAUREN STRAPAGIEL
The Eyeopener (Ryerson University)

TORONTO (CUP) — Sometimes I envy all the Lisa Smiths and Mark Williamses of the world. Your dull and generic names protect you from the all-seeing eye of Google.

To an employer, a search of your name may just prove an exercise in tedium as millions of your generically-named brethren are displayed. Your cookie cutter names shelter your awkward drunk Twitter updates and DeviantArt page of “artistic” macro photography.

I’m not that lucky.

I am the only Lauren Strapagiel in the world. There aren’t many Strapagiels out there, and most of them have Polish first names with more consonants than I’m capable of pronouncing. Having a unique name and associated history is great and all, but it also leaves me with the burden of keeping my online presence squeaky clean.

Google my name and you only get me. And speaking as someone who learned to build websites at an early age and possibly once had a thing for fan fiction — don’t judge me — that’s a damn dangerous thing.

I’ve learned some tricks for keeping my online entity clean; for my fellow uniquely-named users, these may prove invaluable.

First, if you are going to engage in unprofessional internet activities, do not attach your name to anything. Ever. As a tween, I once built a website that included a collection of pixel dolls (remember those?) and a special section professing my love for my favourite band, AFI. That mess of angst and sparkling gifs still exists, but you’ll never find it. My real name isn’t on it anywhere.

This applies to your email too. Don’t use your fancy, “professional” Gmail account to sign up for those Harry Potter/Twilight crossover forums. You will be found.

Second, make Google work for you by giving the search monster what it craves. Buy your name as a domain. Aside from being a great self-promotion tactic, URLs are high up on Google’s search algorithm, meaning your personal website is going to show up at the top of the results. Load that domain up with professional information — the more pages, the better.

Google also loves links, so help it out. Fill your website with links to your LinkedIn, your Twitter, your program’s homepage, your projects and clippings, your sanitized, work-version Facebook profile. Anything.

Then link those back to your website. Google will pick up your linkcest and push those pages higher up on your results, putting you back in control.

My search results still aren’t perfect, despite these tactics. A little digging finds the high school newspaper that I ran. Not exactly my finest journalistic work.

Which brings me to my final tip: keep your passwords. My eleventh-grade musings will live forever because I’ve forgotten my login info.

Although I suppose it could be worse. No one’s found my teenage MySpace pictures, right?

As I venture into another semi-productive academic term, I am once again forced into the post-holiday banter with “insert name here” acquaintances. Now I can handle the occasional “Did you go back home for the break?” or “Did you get any good presents?” But it’s the question “So what’s your new year’s resolution?” that I find most irritating. This is when our mouths go dry and we meticulously pick our minds to come up with a perfect answer to such a question.

Getting better grades? No, that’s just boring, Maybe to lose weight? Oh no, I don’t want them to think I’m superficial. To become a better person? Shouldn’t I be doing that anyway?

The original idea of a “resolution” is to pick something in our lives we want to begin or improve or even possibly eradicate. The problem is that everyone knows by the time Valentine’s Day rolls around, everyone will forget their resolutions and go back to being content with their bad habits.

But if this question comes up when you bump into that cute someone down in the Arts Tunnel, you suddenly become Mahatma Gandhi and your resolutions tend to be along the lines of working at the soup kitchen, volunteering at the hospital or donating all your Christmas presents to the less fortunate. So if our genuine resolutions never come through, and our elaborate ones are just to gain approval from people we’re trying to impress, then why do we have resolutions to begin with? Why don’t we just drop the charade?

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the prospects of a new year and all but do we really need the added pressure of people asking us what we’ll be doing differently in 2012? Imagine if someone were to come to you during any other time of the year and simply asked you “What are you going to change about yourself today?” Would you not think that questions like that are kind of absurd, unnecessary and personal? Shouldn’t we believe that if we notice something about ourselves we’d like to change, that we would just do it regardless of the date? Perhaps broadcasting our resolutions to our hundreds of Facebook friends is an attempt to keep them — since no one wants their failures to be made so public.

The beauty of being human is that we can change whenever we like. If you want to lose a couple of pounds, the gym is always there. If you want better grades, sleeping through your classes might not be that great of an idea. If you want to be a better person, why do you think you have to wait? I don’t believe in resolutions because I don’t believe one’s betterment should have a due date. We’re in university; we’ve already got enough incomplete assignments.

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Graphic: Brianna Whitmore/The Sheaf

“I’m only here for the girls.”

I’ll never forget reading this graffiti on my desk years ago. It was like some great poem; phrased with elegant simplicity and delivering a telling message about the human condition.

Our classes are filled with attractive, intelligent and — most importantly — available students. It’s one of the major perks of attending university. But from my personal experience, it’s actually quite difficult asking out classmates.

Think unsexy thoughts, think unsexy thoughts...

Trying to score a classmate is like entering one of those speed-dating nights. You have no more than five minutes before class — and two minutes after — when you can chat with your prospective lover. But unlike a speed-dating event, it wouldn’t be very acceptable to dive right into personal questions. Leaning over and asking your classmate “What are your hobbies?” or “What kind of music do you like?” might seem a little creepy and desperate.

Or maybe your classmate would love it if you showed such deep, spontaneous interest in them. Especially if you talked with that laid-back confidence I’m told is attractive. Of course, I wouldn’t know, having never been casual or confident around girls I’m attracted to.

But even if you are a pick-up artist, you’re not at some Keys to the VIP style party. You’re in an eerily-quiet classroom surrounded by (hopefully) sober intellectuals.

And it’s this academic setting that really kills my game. Actually, I had no game to begin with, but after hundreds of lectures, dreaming about many-a-schoolgirl, I’ve decided I’m not to blame for clamming up. Oh sure, I could grow a pair and experience five minutes of nervousness with the possible payoff of finding true love. But those five minutes would be pretty, pretty awkward.

Now unless you have a hyper-vigilant or neurotic personality, the following predicament may be lost on you.

We’ve all been in those tiny classrooms where everyone sits in silence. I know if I started hitting on a girl there, not only would the whole class eavesdrop, but they pretty much have to. They could busy themselves with cellphones and textbooks, but wouldn’t hearing the strained, awkward flirting of a 22-year-old man be far more amusing?

So let’s say I did flirt with a classmate and she flirted back. I still find it too uncomfortable knowing the whole class can spectate our little mating ritual. The class observed at the beginning of the term that we were strangers. So if I make a move to start reelin’ my classmate, the class then gets to watch the unfolding drama; they get to see if we get together or if she loses interest. Thus, flirting in class becomes like a soap opera performed for the viewing pleasure of your fellow classmates.

Yet another obstacle to getting with a classmate is deciphering their relationship status. Unlike someone you work with or know through a mutual friend, the classmate-crush retains a most mysterious relationship status. I suppose not having Facebook deprives me of yet another lead in this investigation.

So I’m left grasping at straws, sitting in class trying to spot clues that point to a girl’s availability. What does it mean if a girl comes to every single class with fancy hair and sexy outfits?

The politically-correct answer is to say these things simply reflect her fashion sense. But isn’t it also popular wisdom that people in relationships let their appearance go more than single folk? If you have two people, one getting steadily laid and the other left sexually-ungratified, who would be more eager to advertise their assets?

Now, before you brand me a Misogynist Pig, tell me one thing: would it be better if guys like me starting walking up to women we didn’t know and asking them, “Are you single?”

Because unless that’s cool, personal appearance is all we have to go on. That and body-language, but that’s no less cryptic than personal appearance when trying to figure out if someone is single.

But perhaps the biggest issue holding me back from asking out a classmate is what I call the Relativity-of-Attractiveness problem. The problem is as follows: the more boring an environment I’m in, the more desirable women appear to be. Have you ever dated someone from work, only to realize they’re quite vapid when not surrounded by the bland world of retail?

I sure have.

Similarly, when my brain is jumping between glancing at girls in class, and contemplating the words of some long-dead white guy, the girls are bound to seem extraordinarily fascinating. But it’s just the juxtaposition with long-dead white guys that makes a classmate appear so ravishing.

I’m told there is a similar concept discussed in How I Met Your Mother. The Mermaid Theory refers to the fact that coworkers start out undesirable, but appear steadily more attractive as you’re stuck working with them, until finally you can’t resist them.

The moral to both theories: places like classrooms are not balanced scales to weigh your romantic feelings on.

But for you tenacious students, all these obstacles can be overcome. You can break the ice with your classmate by saying something stupid like “Whew, that midterm was brutal, eh?” And as long as you have that slightly cocky, self-assured personality, you just might score the classmate.

Meanwhile, we awkward students will dream up petty reasons why we can’t ask out our classmates, hoping this pardons our own cowardice and insatiable standards. But maybe one day I’ll lose this defeatist philosophy and try that whole confidence shtick.

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Photo: Florida International University/Flickr

U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney has described Iran as “the greatest threat that the world faces over the next decade.” Surprisingly this is the first time that I have agreed with something a Republican candidate has said in as presidential campaign.

For numerous years, Iran’s continuing development of a nuclear program has been cause for concern to the international community, with condemnations coming from the EU, U.S. and Canada, among others.

On Jan. 2, an Iranian state-run news agency reported that the country had produced its first nuclear fuel rod. Prior to this, Iran’s ties to the West were strained when, on Nov. 29, protesters in the capital of Tehran stormed the British embassy. As a result of that incident, Britain withdrew all diplomatic staff from their Tehran embassy and expelled all Iranian diplomats in Britain.

In response to both the U.K. embassy incident and the development of the first Iranian fuel rod, numerous Western countries including the U.S. and U.K. have all imposed tough sanctions against Iran, mostly targeting the country’s economy. Some of the newest U.S. sanctions includes a measure that will force companies and financial institutions throughout the world to choose between the United States and Iran as their business partner.

Concurrent to both of the events above, Iran also conducted war games in the Strait of Hormuz. The war games were dubbed Great Prophet and saw the launch of fourteen surface-to-surface missiles over the course of ten days. This is a show of strength that the Revolutionary Guards General Amir Ali Hajizadeh has said would show that Iran is prepared to strike at Israel and U.S. targets in the event of any attack. This seems to hint at Iran’s possible retaliation to more sanctions. With the military that they currently posses, Iran would be able to close off the Strait of Hormuz, effectively severing twenty per cent of the world’s oil flow.

Before this happens, we must first look at the real world consequences to the ongoing sanctions. The Iranian currency, the rial, has fallen to a record low. Where about a month earlier the exchange rate had been 10,500 rials to one American dollar, it is now 17,200 to a dollar. The Iranian economy is in a problematic state and it may only get worse.

But now back to Mitt Romney’s comment of Iran being a great threat. Right now the Iranian government is acting irrationally. Although those in control of Iran may view their actions as the correct ones, they seem to forget that they are in a pissing contest with a multitude of nations, the most powerful being the United States. Although Iran is no small threat, it is no comparison to the juggernaut that is the American military.

American leadership has shown time and time again that their goals are based around oil appropriation. Due to Iran’s grip on a fifth of the world’s oil supply, any threat by Iran to cease flow of their liquid gold will be viewed with utmost attention by the United States. Make no mistake: the Americans will act according to their needs, and unfortunately they need oil.

With Iran’s economy tanking in the worst way possible and more sanctions seemingly on their way, they have been backed into a corner. Either Iran must make the decision to concede to international pressure or the international community must back off from their demands. There are numerous cliche ways to describe the events unfolding in Iran, but this one will suffice: the situation developing in Iran is a tinderbox and all it needs to go up in flames is a simple spark.

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Graphic: osipovva/Flickr

Think of the web as a functionally organic, lifelike network. It’s made of more than just some bits of plastic and fiber optics. There are communities of real people, engaging in open discourse and sharing ideas. Also, cats. So many cats.

Adorable feline infestation aside, the Internet’s “organic” nature can be attributed to the way in which information online is organized and joined together by hyperlinks.

The web’s hyperlink structure works kind of like the synapses in your brain, or the blood vessels in your circulatory system. Everything is interconnected, designed to pass information back and forth, sometimes in multiple directions simultaneously. It can be mind-bogglingly complex but it works because there are relatively few blockages. People can traverse the web how they see fit.

But imagine what would happen if massive swaths of these connections suddenly blinked offline.

This is pretty terrible, but the reality of online censorship is even worse.

The first to be severed would be links between sites that foster uncensored communication and the free flow of information — search engines, social networking and media sites, etc. This is akin to an obstruction of the cerebral blood vessels that pump oxygen to your brain. Soon, entire subsections of the network would stop responding altogether.

If something like this happened to a living creature it would suffer a massive stroke.

The consequences are no less dire on the Internet, except they’re not localized to one unlucky person’s brain. They’re arguably far worse. The collective digital consciousness of the entire world could be crippled. We’re talking about something a lot more serious than Cute Cat Withdrawal (a real disease).

This is the risk posed by the Stop Online Piracy Act, a bill introduced in the U.S. Congress in October of last year that is scheduled to be voted on by Jan. 24 this year. If previous tablings of the bill are any indication, there is a strong likelihood that it may be passed unless drastic action is taken.

To put it simply, the bill would allow the U.S. government to block its citizens from visiting websites that have been tagged as potentially infringing on copyright — a designation that is nebulous at best, arbitrary at worst.

Click on a bad link and you’ll be confronted with a “site blocked” alert no different than similar blocks you might encounter in Iran, Syria or China. This screening would extend as far as requiring email providers to scan messages for infringing links, removing them when necessary.

What constitutes a bad link? Most of YouTube falls under the potentially “infringing” category, as do any other sites that simply link to an image, clip or excerpt (no matter how brief) of copyrighted content. This also includes discussion forums, news aggregators and even online libraries. The site itself doesn’t need to host the infringing content — if there are links on the site, it could be flagged as infringing.

If you’re still thinking that my deadly stroke analogy is melodramatic, or that censorship of the Internet in the United States isn’t a global issue, you’re mistaken. I’m hard-pressed to think of many greater threats to free speech and the forward progress of society altogether. Sure, people’s lives aren’t necessarily in danger, but that doesn’t mean SOPA is not a humanitarian crisis waiting to happen. Unrestricted access to the Internet should be treated as a fundamental human right. How else can we possibly keep tabs on those who may try to oppress us?

If SOPA is enacted, it would open a floodgate for a cascade of increasingly egregious online censorship. This trend will eventually leave us with a tattered remnant of the web we once knew. This is no exaggeration: online censorship in U.S. would surely impact the world beyond their borders. After all, for the last two decades the U.S. has routinely set the precedent for Internet law in the West, especially with respect to intellectual property law.

This routine is visible quite clearly in Canada. On four separate occasions since 2005, shortly after the U.S. government implemented the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Canadian government has followed suit with its own similar measures (see Bills C-60, C-61, C-32, and most recently, C-11). While none have yet been passed, each subsequent attempt has been inching closer to fruition.

The real threat here is not the lawful protection of intellectual property — a good practice, in theory — but how easily supposed copyright laws can be used as a guise or precursor to much harsher restriction of freedoms and violations of privacy, all through the all-too-arbitrary blocking of “infringing sites.”

They say that in politics, a year is a lifetime. This certainly seems true every four years when the United States goes through a presidential election.

Although the year has just begun, and the election isn’t until Nov. 6, Democrats and Republicans have been eyeing the 2012 election almost since Barack Obama took the last one. As a result of this perpetual campaigning, politicians in both major parties shirk actually making hard choices and governing their country, focusing instead on short-term rhetorical victories and getting the best talking points on TV.

But as tiresome as the U.S. presidential campaigns can get, there is a silver lining. Starting with the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3, Americans will have an ongoing discussion about where their country is headed and what to do about it for the better part of a year. During that time, the state-by-state primary system lets many regular voters hear candidates’ ideas and more directly affect the process.

This is a far cry from how party nominations used to be won — the proverbial smoke-filled room of elites choosing a candidate behind closed doors. The modern primary system arose in the 1970s largely as a response to the influence of insiders.

The primaries and caucuses allow for some surprises too. Think back to the little-known senator from Illinois whose long, gruelling campaign ultimately led him to the White House against much better-known opponents. Indeed, had it been up to the two parties’ elites, the 2008 contest would have been between Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani.

Other successful candidates who came from behind through successful primary campaigns include Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.

This year’s Republican contest has been particularly interesting, given that all the GOP candidates had varying levels of support throughout the last year.

Mitt Romney, the so-called establishment candidate and former governor of Massachusetts, seems best placed to defeat Obama in November, but the GOP voters remain unconvinced of his conservative chops. Many evangelicals, meanwhile, simply can’t trust a Mormon.

Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker, is disliked by too many voters who remember his crusade against Bill Clinton’s blowjob in the ’90s — all while he was cheating on his wife with a Congressional staffer.

Texas congressman Ron Paul has provoked a rare discussion about American foreign policy and his libertarian views have inspired many Tea Party activists, but they are also too far on the fringe for many mainstream voters.

Other candidates have no name-recognition or are just completely unelectable: Almost no one has heard of the excellent Jon Huntsman, former Utah governor; Michele Bachmann claimed once that HPV vaccines could cause “mental retardation” and her husband promotes gay conversion therapy; former senator Rick Santorum’s name has forever been associated with “the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex” thanks to Google search results.

But the uncertainty of the nomination fight isn’t necessarily a bad thing. There is always pressure for parties to settle on nominees quickly so as to focus on the general election, but a prolonged nomination fight also means more voices and more choices for primary voters.

Most Canadian voters, by comparison, only experience such an exchange of ideas at election time every few years. Now that the Conservatives have a majority and no longer have to worry about the fractious politics of minority parliaments, there is likely less focus than ever on what the parties are saying or doing. Leadership contests in Canada are rare and largely closed affairs, for party faithful only. This system looks set to change, however. The Liberal Party, in a bid to re-engage voters and rebuild the shattered party, may hold open American-style primaries to choose its next leader.

There are, of course, drawbacks to the primary system, not least of which is the shoddy coverage it gets from the press. Media often engage in horse-race coverage and make each opinion poll the leading news item rather than explaining and examining the proposals of candidates. The primary system is still a more transparent approach, and even though we will all be howling in frustration after several more months of the American election, our Southern neighbours are still taking part in an exciting exercise of democracy this year.

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Graphic: Brianna Whitmore/The Sheaf

To continue the anal-centric mall theme: that fountain would make one hell of a bidet.

I went to the mall twice over the Christmas break. The first day I bought a receiver for my record-player. The second day I returned it. It seems the sales clerk, professing expertise he didn’t actually have, sold me the wrong one.

As is my custom, I left the mall in a pissy mood. I don’t believe a fun trip to the mall exists. When I find the product I came for, I leave with buyer’s regret; when I leave empty-handed, I feel I wasted the day — brainwashing myself by staring at consumer goods for hours on end. I always leave thinking I would have been better off spending my time reading, walking or, yes, even inserting a pill up my bum.

The mall experience seems dehumanizing. Whenever I set foot in that place it feels like I boarded some scary amusement park ride. The whole time I am bombarded with glowing neon lights and noisy crowds. And all around me people are prodded along this ride — through underground parking, down aisles and up escalators, upon which I feel like livestock ascending to the killing floor.

But we always emerge from this fantasy ride, equipped with souvenirs showing “I survived Consumerism: The Ride!” And these souvenirs, just like our Disneyland ’92 ball caps, usually wind up collecting dust in our basements.

Driving home from the mall, I told my sister how the mall depresses me. I added that I figured some humans live only to work, shop and eventually die. My sister clarified that it was me and my worldviews that were depressing. She also pointed out how even a hermetic hippie like me needed to buy some things. I couldn’t argue that.

But I take my business to the mom-and-pop shops whenever possible — to places with warmer ambiance and smarter staff than you find at the mall. Still I understand, while many of us prefer shopping at these hipster-certified stores on Broadway and downtown, sometimes we don’t have the cash. Chain stores are more affordable, which is a damn shame because I’ll rue the day when we only shop at malls.

When I’m in an independently owned store I feel like myself, but when I’m in the mall I feel like a nameless consumer. Entering the mall, one is immediately brought down to the lowest common denominator of our culture. We are there to buy cheap goods, period. There is hardly a beautiful or inspiring reason we go to the mall. Buying gifts is probably the closest thing.

If our society decided to only shop at malls — like many in the suburbs are obliged to — what will that say about our consumer preferences?

It will say we only want to eat greasy, deep-fried food. And everything we buy — like music, books and clothes — must be purchased brand-new. It will say we refuse to spend good money on the few consumer goods that may actually improve us as people, because if you try buying something like a bike or guitar at the mall, you probably won’t find any models worth more than $150. And you definitely won’t find anything made with quality craftsmanship.

The popularity of mall junk is ultimately consumers’ fault. After all, we keep driving to the mall instead of places with well-manufactured goods — like bike shops and music stores. There’s a saying that consumers “vote with their dollars.” So I guess we’re voting overwhelmingly in favour of the lowest quality goods, so long as we get those goods at similarly low prices.

I feel a little guilty damning this form of consumerism. Buying the cheaper thing shows frugality. And forgive me for being schmaltzy, but the less material wealth you have, the richer you are in spirit. Still, I don’t think mall shopping, even with the sinfully low prices, actually saves people money.

I’ve adopted a philosophy in recent years that keeps me not only out of malls but also out of debt. Well, it hasn’t put me any further in debt than I already was.

I decided to start buying fewer things, but also to pay good money for the things I want. After years of buying countless cheap jeans at the mall, which I never liked, I decided to shop at a preppy clothing store. I now have just two pairs of jeans, but they’re exactly what I want. And I assure you, owning just a few choice possessions is more satisfying and cost-effective than owning piles of crap.

To the mall-goers of this world, though, I’m missing the point. To these people, shopping is less the business trip I see it as, and more of a hobby or an amusement park ride, if you will.

But for anyone like me, who doesn’t get their kicks at the mall, who also might prefer that anal suppository, I beseech you: adopt my philosophy and avoid the mall. Avoid it like the plague.

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Photo: deymosD/Flickr

JOSEPH McNINCH-PAZZANO
The Cord (Wilfrid Laurier University)

WATERLOO (CUP) — Over the last few months, some of the best YouTube moments have come from the cast of characters that are competing for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. From washed-up former congressmen and senators to ambitious governors, the sometimes cringe-worthy and sometimes praise-worthy performances have arrested Americans’ attention.

It is this type of theatrical political production that Canada’s interim Liberal leader is proposing the party implement for its upcoming leadership contest: a grassroots approach to electing the next leader. A U.S.-style primary would allow Canadians to have a direct say in selecting their preferred candidate. I don’t think there is any greater strategy to secure a transformational comeback for the Liberals.

The crushing Liberal defeat last May was due in no small part to the perception that the party was commanded by a set of arrogant operatives who believed that Canadians would naturally find their way back to the “big red tent” in the political middle.

How mistaken these operatives were. The Liberal party now stands on the precipice of death — or, at least that’s what political author Peter C. Newman claims in his new book, When the Gods Changed: The Death of Liberal Canada. While Newman is likely writing a premature obituary for a party committed to capturing the hearts and minds of Canadians once again, the point is that the party needs to do something game-changing if it hopes to be a credible alternative to the New Democrats and Conservatives in the next election.

A primary system will reinvigorate the tired party membership. No longer will the leader be selected by a bunch of die-hard party members who were willing to fork over the hefty delegate fee to buy their place among the lucky few convention delegates, as was the case in 2006. Anyone willing to pledge support for the Liberal party will be able to cast a vote for leader in a series of regional primary elections held during several months.

Instead of letting the opposition define the leader before they even hit the general election, the Liberal party will be parading their potential prime ministers for voters to see first-hand. If the party does this correctly, the leader will be defined and well-known to Canadians before the other parties have a chance to disparage his or her image.

According to Newman, the Liberals have retained a measly 15,000 memberships since the election. No party can have a serious chance of attaining power when so few are truly committed to the cause. In a regional primary system, voters will have a chance to play a role in the leadership process, feel greater affinity for their leader and attach greater legitimacy to a democratically selected candidate.

Perhaps most importantly, the Liberals need something to define their existence. In a political environment where the left and right hold power, the Liberals need something more than a claim to the “mushy centre” to keep them in contention.

A populist approach to selecting a leader can serve as a starting point for rebuilding. With a commitment to grassroots democracy, the party can use the Canadian people to figure out where it wants to go instead of making policy decisions at party headquarters with endless political calculation. The Liberals can inspire young people to take part in the process from the beginning; to build the Liberal party they want to see, starting with the person at the helm.

Critics claim that the process will be open to manipulation — that other parties will try to infiltrate the primaries and skew the vote. While there are risks, I think critics are just scared of the attention the process will garner. Attention is good, especially for a party wallowing in third place. Worrying that you’re going to make a spectacle of yourself when you’re sitting in the last row of the bleachers is irrelevant. Liberals need to make some noise.

A primary process where potential leadership candidates make their case to different parts of the country will bring the kind of attention this party needs. A grassroots discussion of ideas, complete with debates and town halls, is exactly the thing Liberals need to regain their momentum.

Rae has a winning plan in this primary system. He shouldn’t let it go for fear of backlash from party elders. They’re not the party anymore. They’re the old party, and it’s time for some new blood.

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Photo: Liberal Party of Canada

Whoville is full of nothing but Pagan devil worshippers!

I respect all these views. The only perspective I don’t like is the person who Bah-humbugs any display of Christmas spirit.

“I’m sick of all this religious propaganda!” some say when you affiliate Dec. 25 with the Nativity story. And some of these complaints are just idiotic.

“You know that ending to A Charlie Brown Christmas? It’s just indoctrinating kids into Christianity.” Or, “What’s with all the songs about Jesus and Mary? Can’t we stick with the more secular ones — you know, ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ and ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’?”

Because that’s the true meaning of Christmas: rockin’ around a plastic tree in a drunken conga line at your staff party.

Whatever Christmas does or doesn’t mean to you, it’s hardly your place to sweep its religious message under the rug. Now, if someone held a gun to your head and said, “Start carolling or I’ll blow your brains out!” it might be reasonable to feel bullied by others’ Christmas spirit.

As it actually stands today, Christmas is like every other holiday: it appears in the media and in stores, but no one is forcing you to celebrate it.

So complaining about Christian imagery in December is as stupid as grumbling about Halloween decorations in October. It’s like telling people at Halloween that they can’t put ghosts and witches on their lawns because you don’t believe in them.

Another Scrooge-like attitude I won’t stand for is the “closing stores on Christmas hurts the economy” bit. Doesn’t the month of binge spending preceding Christmas more than compensate for this one measly day of rest? No, Bah-humbug!

People argue we don’t need Christmas to perform all the good deeds associated with it. In the real world though, people act altruistically simply “because it’s Christmas.” People never think to write their relatives out of the blue, but being Christmas and all, they sit down and write cards to estranged friends and family. Charities also rely on the extra generosity people show during the Christmas season. The Saskatoon food bank for example holds it’s main fundraiser, the Tree of Plenty Campaign, in the weeks leading up to Christmas with hopes that people will moved by the Christmas spirit to donate.

And in my own experience, Christmas Day brings a togetherness matched by no other day of the year. Because everything is closed and no one works on Christmas, you practically have to sit down with the family, talk with them, maybe even swap a gift or two.

It would be nice if people did this stuff spontaneously — without needing to be nagged into it by everyone around them — but they don’t. My family would never just say, “Why don’t we spend the day together and hang around the house?”

Some opponents propose a simple solution: keep Christmas traditions, just drop the “Christmas” label and replace it with “holiday.” Retailers in North America have debated this for decades. Can cashiers say “Merry Christmas” and wear Santa hats or will that offend customers? Some retailers will even re-brand their Christmas trees as “family trees.” Go to Starbucks and you can buy the same coffee under two labels. There’s “Chrismas blend” and the sacreligious “holiday blend”.

And even though things like Christmas trees aren’t really about Christ, they are Christmas traditions and have been for centuries. To appropriate Christmas for use in some new secular holiday — which has no name and basically just steals elements of Christmas — is a disgrace.

Too many people forget that Christmas is a very sacred and important day to many of us. Contrarians need to realize this and grow more tolerant of Christmas cheer. I’m not asking these people to erect Nativity scenes on their lawns. I’m not even asking them to say “Merry Christmas.” I’m simply asking that, when we practice these cherished Christmas traditions, they won’t be such Grinches about it.

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Image: Random House

It’s time for Saskatonians to address the many social problems on our streets.

Go to the City of Saskatoon’s “Quick Facts” page online and what do you see? Pictures of the city skyline, though not in winter. You also see people walking by our beautiful riverfront, once again, not during winter. To an outside observer, Saskatoon would seem pretty awesome. And yes, we have a total of 2,381 hours of sunshine a year, the Saskatoon Exhibition, Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan and our famed uranium and potash industries.

But Saskatoon also has some of the highest HIV and STI rates in Canada, not to mention the devastatingly high number of people who get murdered in this city. I wonder why none of these stats are listed on the “Quick Facts” page of Saskatoon’s website? Maybe because they’re not things to be proud of.

In 2009, Saskatoon was named the most dangerous city in Canada, with our overall crime rate being 163 per cent above the national average. In 2010, we slipped quite a bit but still remained in the top five most dangerous cities.

Saskatoon was also in the top 10 for robbery and auto thefts. And as of 2004, one in four children in Saskatoon live in poverty.

Take a walk by Midtown Plaza and you’ll see many of our homeless citizens panhandling — oh wait a minute, no you won’t. That’s because Midtown Plaza put up a sign saying you’re not allowed to beg for money near the main entrance doors. So, let’s just move the problem. Out of sight, out of mind, right?

The incidence of STIs in Saskatoon has also reached epidemic proportions. A quarter of Canada’s HIV-infected babies come from Saskatchewan and in 2008, there were 94 new HIV cases inside the city —  up from 16 cases five years prior. This spike in new HIV cases over the years may be linked partly to drug users injecting themselves with contaminated needles.

It’s deeply troubling that many of our citizens deal with a combination of these serious social problems —  making it even harder for them to become productive, self sufficient members of this town. In a 2009 study that followed 1,000 troubled residents (600 needle drug users and 400 sex trade workers), 33 per cent considered themselves to be homeless, 90.3 per cent were unemployed and 75 per cent of them had less than a high school education.

It’s evident that many of Saskatoon’s major social problems are causally linked to one another. Not finishing high school leads to unemployment. Once unemployed, many people will end up on the streets, where they have nothing better to do but shoot themselves up with drugs, or try earning some spare cash by prostituting their bodies.

When I first moved here two years ago, I thought this city was the cutest little town on the prairies. The lush greenery, the river that cuts the city in half, the exhibitions, festivals and the Roughriders. The city has an odd personality, but a personality nonetheless. I don’t hate Saskatoon; I just know it can do a hell of a lot better and actually earn recognition for something other than its high rates of crime and sexually transmitted infections.

Saskatoon is trying to become a big city. Thousands of people flock to our city every year, enticed by our booming economy. We are making changes to become a large center, but who will want to live in a large centre plagued with such horrible issues? It’s high time Saskatoon develop better education and social programming to reverse these terrible trends. The fact is, if we want to make Saskatoon “shine” we must first began by cleaning up the darker side of this town.

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Photo: Deadly Sirius/Flickr

ANDREW TEREFENKO
The Silhouette (McMaster University)

HAMILTON (CUP) — Did you feel it? On Nov. 8, an asteroid brushed right by our little blue sphere in space, giving some of us a genuine scare. I’m not talking some dinky, burns-up-in-our-atmosphere asteroid we scoff at several times a day. We almost got hit by a 400-metre-wide clump of coal and space evil.

To put this into perspective, the asteroid, named 2005 YU55 (rolls right off the tongue), came closer to us than the moon does at any given time of the year. That’s a frightening thought.

There was never any actual threat from the astral rock, as observatories around the world had long predicted its arrival and trajectory, and were given enough data to back up the claim that it would not directly impact us. What the asteroid did do, though, is remind us just how fragile our planet is, and how Earth has little to no defence plans in the event that an asteroid decides not to take the scenic route.

Prompted by the event, groups like the Secure World Foundation have banded together to plan an international strategy that would deal with these space invaders. The SWF has approached the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs, which is a completely legitimate organization, apparently, to inquire into their contingency plan for such an unthinkable catastrophe.

The verdict? If a foreign space object comes at us with no warning — for instance, from behind the sun, which would give us less time to predict its movement — we are helpless. There wouldn’t be nearly enough time to deal with it adequately.

Awesome. Not that it is super urgent, as the chances of it happening are slim, but slimmer odds have prevailed — and all it takes is one to really ruin our day.

Our planet is, as SWF executive director Ray Williamson told the CBC, a “sitting duck in a cosmic shooting gallery,” and the sooner we take steps to protect it, the sooner we can get back to poking each other with nuclear sticks and comparing the size of our GDPs in the bathroom.

The next time we expect to have such a frightening fly-by is in the far-flung year of 2028, when we are finally going to have those flying cars that we were supposed to get back in 1995. Then we can just fly above the ruins of a charred, broken planet, kind of like the Jetsons.

Or, we’ll repeat the mistakes of small-brained, gigantic lizards that lived 65 million years ago. They lived their lives in squalor and ecstasy and paid the price when they failed to respond to the asteroid threat. Do we want to be mocked by alien civilizations when they learn we met the same fate as the dinosaurs — creatures that we dig up, display and make cult classic films about?

So before those Hanna-Barbera prophecies come to fruition, let’s pour some of that money we don’t have back into the space programs we have forgotten about. Let’s do it before they get to have the ultimate “I told you so” moment. Don’t forget: there is an entire belt of roughly 1.7 million asteroids just waiting between Mars and Jupiter, and all it takes is a slight gravitational disturbance to get them to look in our direction.

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Graphic: Joy San/The Silhouette

In the age of the cellphone camera, it’s nearly impossible to stumble across a random, noteworthy event in public without catching the flash of a lens out of the corner of your eye. There’s a good chance you may be one of the slew of amateur videographers in the crowd.

It hardly matters what happened, as long as it was even remotely tantalizing, controversial or god forbid, thought-provoking. Be it a gruesome car accident, an oh-so-brief nipple slip, or another unfortunate scene of police brutality — rest assured, within minutes the video will be uploaded to the Internet for all to see. Wait a few minutes more and this digital record of what transpired will have launched itself far out of the reach of those few people who were actually involved, crisscrossing the web into virality with virtually no signs of slowing down.

The combination of cellphone cameras and social networking is the driving force behind an experience-sharing engine that churns out thousands of potentially-viral videos daily. These videos typically wind up on YouTube, or some other less mainstream media streaming site. This process has become a commonplace phenomenon, thanks to the countless, unblinking eyes of Little Brother.

Like Orwell’s Big Brother, Little Brother is essentially an omnipresent entity, made up of a wide-ranging network of cameras and “telescreens.” Except instead of being mounted on billboards or living room walls, these all-seeing eyes are carried in the pockets of practically every person on the street. And rather than flowing one way, the information captured and passed on by Little Brother travels freely in all directions through cyberspace.

Yet as government surveillance on the streets and online ratchets up to new heights, there’s no denying that Big Brother himself is getting stronger by the day. Aided physically by militarized and short-tempered branches of law enforcement, constant government surveillance becomes a much more tangible threat to civil society every day.

Fortunately, unlike Orwell’s sinister elder sibling, Little Brother is not an avatar of the state that wields its observational power against the people. Instead, it’s the people who have collectively empowered themselves, using modern technology in the increasingly hostile struggle against oppressive governments worldwide.

The struggle between an oppressive surveillance state and a people empowered by social media and a million cellphone cameras was on stark display during Egypt’s revolution earlier this year. Indeed, in an effort to keep a lid on a simmering revolt, then-president Hosni Mubarak even resorted to shutting down the Internet in Egypt.

The clash between Big Brother and Little Brother has also spread to the West — as evidenced by the Occupy movement for the past several months. As police forces in the United States crack down on Occupy protesters, the Internet has been flooded by videos capturing the violence as it unfolds in high-definition.

The good news is that there has been a substantial backlash following the spread of some of the more heinous of these videos, especially those that broke through into the mainstream media. For instance, the Nov. 18 pepper-spraying of non-violent students at the University of California, Davis (see above). Following this attack, social news networks were ablaze with outcries denouncing the actions of these riot police, among others, with words like “barbaric” and “senseless” dominating headlines.

If governments and their law enforcement agencies lean on Big Brother to facilitate intelligence gathering on the public, then the public now relies on Little Brother to keep tabs on the government. Of course, Big Brother doesn’t take kindly to this new relationship dynamic. And he’s doing something about it.

The Internet is at risk of becoming mired in censorship, locked down by governments that fear the power of collective idea sharing. The Stop Online Piracy Act, a bill recently tabled in the U.S. Congress, is the first step toward the crippling of our ability to share content and ideas. By putting restrictions on networked free speech, the U.S. government would be laying the groundwork for future, more abject stifling of Little Brother’s effectiveness.

For the time being, however, the public’s perspective on cilvil injustice and government crackdowns is almost always seen through Little Brother’s eyes. And while this is a primarily positive force at the moment, considering journalistically filtered content is hardly an alternative, we should be wary of getting too comfortable. Little Brother could grow up into something we can no longer control.

Clips of non-violent student protesters being doused with pepper spray while they sit on the ground are shocking — but less shocking now than they would have been in the past. Oddly enough, it’s getting a lot harder to be disgusted by videos like this due to the sheer number of violent scenes we’re bombarded with on a daily basis. We should be alarmed by this numbing effect, and attempt to resist it if at all possible.

It could also be argued that Little Brother’s indiscriminate “peeping” into all our lives, regardless of whether or not it is relevant to anyone in particular, constitutes more of an invasion of privacy than even Big Brother’s constant surveillance. It’s true that instances of gross invasions of privacy perpetrated by webcam wielding marauders crop up more than occasionally. And sometimes the line between the public and private realm blurs unrecognizably, now more often than ever before.

These are legitimate concerns.

“The positives outweigh the negatives; Little Brother is keeping necessary tabs on out-of-control government!” is just a mutated version of the rationale behind Big Brother itself: that public surveillance is only in place to monitor the “bad apples,” lawbreaking criminals and thugs. Of course, this isn’t how it actually works. Great power must be accompanied by great responsibility, something that the collective masses and the government both lack, at times.

That said, as the influx of citizens resisting oppressive regimes around the world continues to grow, Little Brother’s watchful eyes are a welcome presence. The public needs a way to capture, preserve, share and discuss current events — especially those events surrounding the corruption of law enforcement and the violent crushing of peaceful protests. For now, cellphone cameras, YouTube and social networks fulfill this need. In the future, though, discretion and critical thinking will be crucial in preserving the small shred of privacy we have left.

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Graphic: Brianna Whitmore/The Sheaf