Hot patios in the city

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July 8, 2013

The United States Supreme Court has ruled Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act — which prohibited same-sex couples from legal recognition as ‘spouses’ — as “unconstitutional.”

In their ruling, which narrowly passed by a 5–4 vote, the Court verdict was that the Act is “a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment,” according to a released document. Same-sex marriage has been legal in Canada since 2005, and 12 states in the United States (as well as the District of Columbia) currently recognize same-sex marriages, including New York, Washington and California.

The majority opinion was introduced by Justice Anthony Kennedy, and was supported by four other Justices.

Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the four Justices who dissented to the ruling, described Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion as “wrong,” saying, “even setting aside traditional moral disapproval of same-sex marriages, there are many perfectly valid . . . justifying rationales for this legislation. Their existence ought to be the end of this case.”

Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act — a bill signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996 — defines marriage as “a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife,” and, until recently, gave states the right to deny same-sex spouses federal benefits such as insurance benefits and Social Security survivor’s benefits.

The case that inspired the repeal was brought to the Supreme Court by Edith Windsor, a New York resident. Her wife, Thea Spyer, left Windsor her estate when she died in 2009. Windsor’s request for estate tax exemption from a bill which totalled $363,000 was denied under Section 3 of DOMA. Windsor filed suit in 2010.

United States President Barack Obama responded to the decision positively, describing it as “a victory for couples who have long fought for equal treatment under the law,” according to a public statement. “[DOMA] treated loving, committed gay and lesbian couples as a separate and lesser class of people. The Supreme Court has righted that wrong, and our country is better off for it.”

The ruling also effectively defeated Proposition 8 in California, a controversial ballot proposition put forth by opponents of same-sex marriage which attempted to redefine California’s marriage laws as being solely between a man and a woman.

The DOMA repeal will also have a profound effect on United States immigration laws: same-sex couples in the United States can now sponsor their spouses for green cards, and unmarried couples living in separate countries can use a fiance visa to immigrate to the United States and begin the citizenship process.

Nevertheless, same-sex marriage still faces legal difficulties in the United States; Section 2 of the Defense of Marriage Act — which allows individual states to deny recognition of same-sex marriages — still stands.

Since the DOMA repeal, Senator Dianne Feinstein and Representative Jerry Nadler have reintroduced their Respect for Marriage Act, a proposed bill that “would fully repeal every last corrosive bit of DOMA”, according to a piece Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York junior Senator and co-sponsor of the act, wrote for The Guardian.

The bill is supported by the Obama administration, as well as former President Bill Clinton. “As the President who signed the act into law,” Clinton remarked in an article for the Washington Post in March 2013, “I have come to believe that DOMA is . . . incompatible with our Constitution.”

Though the Defense of Marriage Act remains, the repeal of Section 3 has been characterized as a victory for the broader LGBT rights movement in the United States and around the world. In the United States, support for same-sex marriage has seen a steady increase since DOMA was enacted, with supporters for same-sex marriage outnumbering detractors for the first time in 2010, according to a poll conducted by CNN.

“Children born today will grow up in a world without DOMA. And those same children who happen to be gay will be free to love and get married . . . but with the same federal protections, benefits and dignity as everyone else,” Edith Windsor told reporters. “We won everything we asked and hoped for.”

Research Roundup

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July 8, 2013

Quantifying the social competence of those with autism

Those with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) show a huge range of challenges and abilities. To address these issues, recent SFU alumna Jodi Yager focused on the social aspect of ASD for her PhD work in SFU’s Clinical Psychology Program, creating a new tool that may allow parents and caregivers to better understand the complex sociality of those with ASD.

“There is a huge range in terms of level of functioning,” explained Yager. “There are still a lot of people who are on the lower end, who have difficulty with language, and kind of basic everyday adaptive skills, but then we also have this higher functioning end of the spectrum where the individuals are actually very bright, very verbal, and it’s really just the social area that’s very challenging for them.”

Yager saw a lack of tools to capture the variability that can be seen across individuals with ASD. Working with Dr. Grace Iarocci, Yager developed the Multidimensional Social Competence Scale, with the hope of capturing the wide range of social abilities she had witnessed.

“What we did is develop a questionnaire, sort of a parent scale that looks at the variability in terms of profiles of social strengths and weaknesses,” said Yager. “It looked at functioning across seven specific areas of social competence, and the hope is that we can use this sort of measure to quantify more of a social profile for individuals.”

The seven areas identified by Yager are social motivation, social inferencing, demonstrating empathic concern, social knowledge, verbal conversation skills, nonverbal sending skills, and emotion regulation. When the scale was administered to 181 parents across Canada, Yager found that the seven distinct areas identified came through, and informed the overall score.

Yager said, “We’re basically finding that kids who had higher scores on our measures had more strengths in term of social competence, and that also seemed to translate into them being a little bit more successful in the day-to-day social world. They had a few more friends, they had more regular social contact, and a little bit more accepted by peers. So that just sort of tells us that the scale has some real life validity as well.

“It was a long journey, but in the end, I was happy with how it all ended up.”

Bear watch

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July 8, 2013

SFU has been recognized for its effort in working with Conservation Officers over the past two years, in order to maintain a “bear-proof” campus. Conservation Officer Jack Trudgian told Burnaby NewsLeader that SFU has done an “awesome job” to ensure that garbage bins are secure, as to avoid attracting bears onto campus.

Given that the SFU Burnaby Campus shares Burnaby Mountain with many wildlife creatures, it is important to remind SFU staff and students of circumstantial hazards, such as bear encounters. “Bears will move on if there’s no food,” Trudgian said. As long as garbage is properly disposed of, bears should not be tempted to enter campus.

Last month, three bears in particular raised concerns after being spotted around Burnaby Mountain Secondary School. The two cubs and their mother were monitored closely by Conservation Officers, and are believed to have returned back to the mountain, away from the public.

Another incident in Surrey saw a bear attack a llama and a goat over the course of a single weekend. According to Conservation Officer Jack Trudigan, the bout of warm weather we got earlier in the spring could have brought bears out of hibernation all at once, as reported by News 1130.

“We’re getting more calls in the Surrey, Burnaby, [and] Langley areas than we do on the North Shore and the North Shore usually generates most of our bear calls or bear sightings. It’s really [difficult] to predict why this is,” Trudigan said.

According to the BC Ministry of Environment website, “Conservation Officers are usually forced to kill ‘problem’ bears,” in order to ensure public safety. However, the website states that officers would “rather prevent ‘problem’ bears from being created in the first place.”

If a bear has not grown accustomed to eating garbage or human food, it is easier for Conservation Officers to manage the bears, as they have no other interest interacting with humans unless there is food at stake.

Other methods used by Conservation Officers to deter bears include firing flare guns to scare the bears away, rubber bullets, and anti-riot batons. These techniques are known as “Aversive Conditioning” and are used to teach the bears to associate humans (and their food / garbage) in a negative way.

As stated by the BC Ministry of Environment, problem bears cost BC taxpayers more than $1 million each year, “responding to bear complaints and relocating or destroying bears.”

Pierce Ficzycz, supervisor of the SFU Student Campus Safety Program, said, “Due to the geographical location of the university bears will always be present; however, all we can do is reduce potentially dangerous interactions with these wild animals by educating the university community.”

Rock n’ roll track stars

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July 8, 2013

Since its resurgence in Texas in the early 2000s, roller derby has become one of the fastest growing sports, sprouting up in grassroots-like leagues and gaining a lot of momentum in popularity.

Its premise is simple, and quite unique: there is no ball or net, only ten women on wheels blocking each other with bruise-worthy hard contact. To score points, each team has one jammer who is marked with a star on her helmet. Once the jammer passes the blockers and their fierce contact, the team is awarded points each time she continues to successfully pass a player of the opposing team.

However, roller derby isn’t an entirely “normal” sport, and part of its appeal is in the culture surrounding it. While each team wears a similar uniform, these women also tend to dress a little wacky, but wacky in the greatest sense of the word: bright colours, tights, fishnets and face paint. All of this also comes with a badass attitude of course.

Meaghan Hackinen, also known as Schwarzemegger, is a player for the Faster Pussycats and a member of the All-Stars team for the Terminal City Roller Girls. As we sip coffee and munch on baked goods at Cafe Du Soleil, Meaghan discusses derby, and gives some insight into its culture and community.

“I think it [the outfits] came out of derby being a spectator sport, but I also think we just like dressing up . . . It’s stuff you don’t get to wear everyday. It’s just fun and different. I like to wear a lot of neon and bright colours — I don’t get to wear neon tights everyday!”

The ways of roller derby don’t simply stop at the costumes, though. You get to choose a different name than your own if you like, and even add a character for embellishment. “You get to recreate yourself a bit. I feel like people don’t really change who they are entirely, but you pick something and play it up,” Meaghan explains.

Meaghan’s derby name, Schwarzemegger, is, of course, a spinoff of the onetime bodybuilder and action-movie hero, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Meaghan smiles as she discusses her derby name: “I didn’t really do it on purpose, but I picked Schwarzemegger because it was one letter different and has my name in it . . . [but now] I really play up the last action hero [character].”

Stated in an Austrian accent while laughing, she adds: “I am coming to get you! I have really big muscles!” Aside from the bruises, costumes and derby names, the Terminal City Roller Girls also have a flourishing community where supporting each other is top priority.

No matter who you are, these women will make you feel welcomed, and do so by avidly supporting things like the LGBT community. Each year, the Terminal City Roller Girls are sure to lace-up their skates to take part in the Pride Parade, and also hold fun events such as a gay vs straight scrimmage.

“There is a lot of support to be whoever you are. I have even seen a lot of people come out in their experience with derby. I guess they just feel they are in a comfortable place, and can say: ‘I like girls, and it’s fine to say that now’. It’s really a beautiful thing to see,” Meaghan says.

But like most things, it’s also not all play, all the time: “It takes a lot to keep the league in operation. It’s a lot of work and no one gets paid to do it. We all volunteer. You have to love it… It’s cool to be part of something where everybody wants to be there, and everybody thinks its worth their time. We are all united in that front.”

So, in a flash of fishnets, neon tights, face paint and camaraderie, the Terminal City Roller Girls will be making their final laps into the end of this season. There is one final scheduled game on July 13 before the semi finals on August 10, and championships are on September 7.

Apply to be The Peak’s Web Producer!

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July 5, 2013

The Peak, SFU’s student newspaper, is looking for someone who can harness their web design, visual design, and WordPress skills to make changes and improvements to the-peak.ca on a weekly basis. We want to have the best web site of any Canadian student newspaper; this is an excellent opportunity to gain valuable experience in a well-paid position that is flexible around your classes.

The Web Producer will adjust the look, feel, and functionality of The Peak’s WordPress-based site on a week-to-week basis. Specific tasks may include creating a front-page “cover image” every week, making changes to the WordPress theme using CSS, HTML, and PHP, and designing the appearance of featured articles. This job is very open-ended, with a lot of room for the successful candidate to come up with and implement new ideas. The Web Producer will also be expected to work with The Peak’s other editors at the SFU Burnaby campus on Friday afternoons.

The job is paid $225 per issue (that is, every week for 13 weeks). Any SFU student can nominate themselves for the Fall 2013 election by filling out and submitting a questionnaire by 1:00 p.m. on Wednesday, July 10. For those who can attend, all candidates are invited to make a one-minute presentation about their qualifications and goals for the position, followed by a brief question period, at the Peak collective meeting at 1:00 p.m. on Wednesday, July 10 at the Peak offices. Voting will then continue until Wednesday, July 17.

Questions? For more information, contact [email protected], or you can proceed to fill out a questionnaire below.

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Album Reviews: Fuck Buttons, These New Puritans, and a throwback to Madvillain

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July 1, 2013

Fuck Buttons — Slow Focus

Fuck Buttons’ newest record, Slow Focus, is about as aptly named as any album you’re likely to listen to this year. Made up of seven tracks — the longest of which clocks in at over 10 minutes — the duo’s third effort finds seven ways to build momentum through spacey synths, robotic drum machines and electronics that remind of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ soundtrack for The Social Network.

Finding an aggressive and somewhat cacophonous groove for all of their seven songs, Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power proceed to engrave each one into their listeners’ skulls, insistently repeating the same riffs while slowly building momentum by adding reverb, tape hiss, and other electronica staples.

Despite each track reaching a respectably heavy and militant end, Slow Focus quickly becomes a demanding and ultimately tiring listen. Its tracks are only sporadically inventive, and each one seems to rely on the same cut-and-paste format in an effort to create atmosphere.

Of course, this is a common trope in trance music, which seems to inform Slow Focus more directly than any of Fuck Buttons’ previous records. However, like so much trance music released today, the duo substitute genuine creativity for iron-fisted insistence, asking listeners to find intricacies in their music rather than creating music that genuinely incites closer inspection.

Slow Focus does have its strong moments: Power and Hung are capable producers, and their mix on this record is arguably their harshest and most interesting yet, especially on tracks like “Sentients” and album closer “Hidden XS.” But the album’s highlights are so recycled and regurgitated that their original potency inevitably dims over each track’s lifespan.

Though Slow Focus is an admirable experiment in songwriting and production, its repetitiveness and meandering pace result in an dull and underwhelming listening experience.

These New Puritans — Field of Reeds

Field of Reeds is an album that demands attention, although it seems uninterested in attracting it in any conventional way. The nine tracks on These New Puritans’ remarkable third record would probably be best described as neo-classical, although they often incorporate post-rock, art rock and ambient elements.

The band, who have yet to repeat themselves with any of their formal releases, have crafted one of the most challenging — and, ultimately, most rewarding — albums of the year.

None of the album’s pieces can be comfortably described as songs, although “Fragment Two” has the most in common with conventional song structure. Bandleader Jack Barnett seems content to let his imagination guide his songwriting.

This results in a particularly unique brand of avant-pop, which incorporates breathtakingly beautiful horns and strings, as well as guest vocals from Brazilian songstress Elisa Rodrigues, a pitch-shifted children’s choir and Adrian Peacock, whose baritone is the lowest in England.

Though Field of Reeds is about as far from easy listening as you’re likely to venture this year — tracks like “Dream” and “Spiral” seem uninterested in any structure, let alone a typical verse-chorus-verse — it’s grounded by an emotional core and Barnett’s slippery, understated vocal.

His wordless drone on “V (Island Song)” and pensive croon on album closer “Field of Reeds” ache along with the album’s fluctuating instrumentation. Elsewhere, the album’s expansive instrumental passages seem to benefit from Barnett’s absence, building an anxious yet ethereal atmosphere by mixing electronics with melancholic horn arrangements — all of which are bathed in impeccable studio production.

Listening to Field of Reeds in a single sitting might prove an arduous experience, but its intricacies and uncommon elegance are well worth the effort. These New Puritans have released their best LP yet, an ambitious effort that ultimately succeeds in every way.

Throwback: Madvillain — Madvillainy

Any attempt to fit elusive emcee MF Doom and DJ-turned-producer Madlib into hip-hop’s history books will inevitably fail. The two exist on the fringes of the genre’s sprawling web of interconnectivity, eschewing the glamour and fame of chart-topping success for the quiet dignity of independent hip-hop mythopoeia.

In the years prior to Madvillainy, both men had been quietly building their reputation on the lower frequencies of the hip-hop community, and their one — and, still, their only album — is the result of both artists hitting their creative peaks simultaneously.

The album’s 22 tracks rarely range beyond the three-minute mark, and only a handful have anything that could be described as choruses. MF Doom’s uniform flow and abstract lyrics are more interested in imagery than narrative, and Madlib’s gloomy production seems to place the album in the realm of film noir and 1930s-era radio plays.

But despite its eccentricities, Madvillainy is as compulsively listenable as it is creative. The unusual hook on “Accordion” and the sung / spoken half-chorus of “Rainbows” are far from hip-hop staples, but are infectious all the same.

In contrast, the sinister bass-line of “Meat Grinder” and the stoned odyssey of “America’s Most Blunted” re-contextualize some of hip-hop’s most well-worn cliches. The album’s reliance on retro film and TV snippets seem to enhance its timelessness, and its relatively small lineup of guest stars helps the duo retain their anonymous personas.

Madvillainy capitalizes on its duo’s biggest talents — MF Doom’s evocative lyrics and disciplined delivery, Madlib’s clever and idiosyncratic production — and ends up even greater than the sum of its parts. Though it’s doubtlessly one of the genre’s oddballs, Madvillainy is also one of its biggest successes: this is as intelligent, esoteric and goddamn as enjoyable as hip-hop gets.

We need to preserve the Rotunda community when building the SUB

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July 1, 2013

By Michael McDonnell

On paper, the transportation centre at SFU Burnaby would be a good location for the Student Union Building. Located directly by the bus loop, it would be a regular stop on the way to class, and would put the SFSS at the centre of student engagement. However, unlike the other two locations, it could also potentially disrupt an already existing campus community, making it more difficult for the Rotunda groups to provide much needed services and safe spaces.

The Rotunda, just above the transportation centre, is SFU’s social justice hub — currently the home of the Women’s Centre, Out on Campus, the Simon Fraser Public Interest Research Group (SFPIRG), the First Nations Student Association (FNSA), and the African and Caribbean Heritage Students Association (ACHSA). Both the Women’s Centre and SFPIRG have occupied the Rotunda for more than three decades, providing a level of public engagement that balances SFU’s status as a commuter campus.

For example, in 2011-12, SFPIRG held events and workshops which were attended by 600 students, approving 14 grant proposals for social and environmental justice initiatives, eight Action Research projects for community organizations, 173 prison responses toward Letters from the Inside, and arranged 65 lounge and meeting room bookings for students, among other accomplishments.

Both groups are funded directly by students, who also serve as volunteer directors, an experience I have personally benefitted from at SFPIRG last year. As a thriving community, the Rotunda groups have become an institution at SFU, and several are now recognized as Constituency Groups in the SFSS.

While students generally consent to the very minimal fees collected by the Rotunda groups, they have been silently stymied by administrative pressures. From 2010-12, the SFSS Board of Directors has refused to renew SFPIRG’s lease, despite repeated requests and meetings with staff. Meanwhile, Board members were active in planning the SUB proposal and referendum for Spring 2012.

At SFU, both the university administration and SFSS Board members have at different times considered SFPIRG’s space as prime real estate. The most telling example of this is last year’s “smart template” for a Men’s Centre, which proposed taking half of SFPIRG’s or the Women’s Centre’s space. As publicized before, the Women’s Centre still has a mouldy room, two years after they requested renovations.

The SUB consultation process can only be complete if it is sensitive to this side of the SFU community. From the perspective of the Rotunda groups, who still have not been guaranteed space in the new SUB, the other two locations (between MBC and the AQ, and near Shell House) are much less disruptive than the transportation centre.

While the building committee for the SUB does need to consider the interests of the average student, my guess is that the average student does not know who Marc Fontaine is (the Project General Manager for Build SFU). From 2010-11, Fontaine served as University Relations Officer for the SFSS, chairing the Space Committee that drafted the SUB referendum question. This is an association too close to miss.

For those worried about their graduation prospects, university is not just about credentials or nice views: It is also about networking, personal development, finding community, and pursuing volunteer experiences.

A perspective that is just about optimization will fail to see why these deeply-rooted connections matter to people’s quality of life. It is ultimately the same logic underlying gentrification and condo development in Vancouver, and it is worrisome to see given how much the Rotunda area has meant to me and other students at SFU.

Printed books far better than e-book counterparts

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July 1, 2013

By Max Hill
Photos by Vaikunthe Banerjee

I’m not against technology. I’m a self-described Apple nerd, and the internet has long served as my third — and easily most irresponsible — parent. But the rising popularity of e-books, and the resulting downward spiral of the print and audiobook market, is not a welcome change to yours truly. The fact is, e-books will never hold a candle to the printed word, no matter how much information you can ﬁt on their hard drives.

The bound book has been around since long before Gutenberg’s printing press. In fact, no one quite knows how old books are, most scholars seem to agree on India as the starting point, but not on a speciﬁc date. Religious sutras were the subject of these early bound editions.

Buddhist monks, who would painstakingly copy each and every word by hand, spread religious texts throughout modern-day Asia, and soon, bound books began showing up in Mesoamerica and Ancient Egypt.

Though most books aren’t handwritten anymore, they still retain an air of delicacy and acredness that seems passed on from this humble origin. Their smell is unmistakable; a quick visit to any used bookstore in the Greater Vancouver area will conﬁrm that. The musky, nostalgic aroma of a much-loved book is often as unique as its contents.

Books also have a certain weight that becomes familiar over the course of a reading session. My copy of War and Peace has a weight that seems as impressive as its epic wartime fable, whereas Of Mice and Men’s 110 pages ﬁt perfectly inside coat pockets and on top of nightstands.

Bound books also have numerous logical advantages. They are easy to resell, they don’t have batteries to recharge or warranties to keep track of, and they are relatively inexpensive and portable. They also don’t have backlights, which have a tendency to irritate eyes and stave off sleepiness.

Above all, though, print books are tangible. My own collection takes up the entire Northeastern corner of my room, with each one connected to a time and place — a speciﬁc memory of when and where I read them. They’re collectible, beautiful, and real. The elegance of a bookshelf can never be replicated by a collection of ﬁles on a tiny, book-shaped computer.

Make no mistake, e-books are here to stay: their growth in popularity and prevalence is not only a sign of the perseverance of literature, but also a clear afﬁrmation that the new generation will surely be doing as much, if not more, reading on computers as they do on paper. Recently, a small town in Texas announced plans to open North America’s ﬁrst electronic-only library — the times, they are a-changin.’

With all of this said, I’m conﬁdent that the rising tide of e-books and electronic readers, like Kindles and iPads, don’t mean the end of print books. There’s no reason the two can’t live in harmony. After all, books go out of print, and many with vision problems or learning disabilities might ﬁnd electronic readers less intimidating than the usual micro-print fare.

Fortunately, books still have a place in as many hearts as they do in living rooms, and that isn’t about to change anytime soon.

Opening up the political bedroom

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July 1, 2013