Editors David Dyck, Will Ross, Rachel Braeuer, and Gary Lim discuss humorous issues and more!
Quvenzhane Wallis won’t stop asking everyone she knows what a “c***” is.
By Gary Lim and Alison Roach
HOUMA, Louisiana — Uncomfortable silence and dry-mouthed stammering permeated the sleepy neighborhood of West Hollow, Houma yesterday night. When nine-year-old Oscar nominee Quvenzhane Wallis asked her entire family over dinner what a “cunt” was.
The Beasts of the Southern Wild actress explained that she had heard the word on a news report about herself and was curious as to what it meant.
The entire situation stems from live coverage of the Academy awards last Sunday online by satirical news source The Onion, who tweeted: “Everyone else seems afraid to say it, but that Quvenzhane Wallis is kind of a cunt, right? #Oscars2013”
The comment was met with ferocious backlash on Twitter, with many users condemning the satirical website’s use of the word “cunt” to describe a child. Since then, the The Onion has issued a public apology to the young actress for the 102-character character defamation.
Currently attitudes in the Wallis household are divided on how to handle the situation. Father Venjie Wallis Sr. and siblings Vejon and Venjie Jr. think it best to tell her the truth, while mother and sister Qulyndreia and Qunyquekya opt for vehemently denying any knowledge of the word until she forgets about it or gets tired of asking.
Qulyndreia, her mother, spoke to The Peak regarding her daughter’s inquisitiveness.
“Quvenzhane’s a nine-year-old girl. How, I ask you, could it be appropriate to teach her that word? To a child?! She has so much promise; my child, a Best Actress nominee. Did you know she’s been even been cast to play little orphan Annie in the movie Annie (2014)? Quvenzhane has a bright future ahead of her, and exposing her to this kind of language at such this age, it’s a bad influence. Lindsay Lohan learned the word [REDACTED. WE CAN PRINT CUNT. BUT NOT THAT. – Ed.] on the set of Parent Trap. Look at her now. ”
As of Tuesday morning, Quvenzhane Wallis’s investigation of the word’s definition is still ongoing with the family remaining tight-lipped. After a near miss involving a Google search, the young actress has been grounded from the family computer for the foreseeable future.
Sources have also reported a sighting of Wallis focus-grouping with other neighborhood children to see if any of them know the meaning of the word “cunt.” Currently the group speculates it be some kind of toy, animal or power ranger.
As of press-time, Wallis and several neighborhood friends have created a new jump-rope rhyme consisting of the word “cunt” repeated over and over to the tune of “Twinkle, twinkle little star.”
Getting agro over Argo et al
By Will Ross
The Oscars were almost over when their insidiousness reached its peak. First lady Michelle Obama was brought in to present best picture, delivered some platitudes about how these films prove “love can endure against all odds” etc., and handed the best picture Oscar to Argo.
There has been much criticism given to the moment: Argo, a tale of ingenuity and the triumph of US diplomacy, was considered a surefire winner. Selecting FLOTUS as the presenter seemed indiscreet. And the faux-apologetics of host Seth MacFarlane’s endless misogynist tirades have rightly taken a shellacking.
But to blast the Oscars for a sensational political kumbaya or sexist sluggery is to miss the forest for the trees. The real outrage was in Obama’s parade of platitudes, all the more so because it didn’t stick out like a sore thumb.
The speech was a capstone in the grand delusion of the Academy Awards, an event that purports to “recogniz[e] the year’s best films” (oscar.com’s words), ones that “broaden our minds” (Obama’s). But it operates as little more than Hollywood self-promotion. The movies with the biggest advertising budgets for award campaigns (in Argo’s case, around $10 million) are the ones that get nominated.
It’s not that Oscar choices are, as critics often hold, “political.” The individual votes of Academy voters are not made public, sparing them from political repercussions. The problem is precisely the opposite: the Oscars are a willfully apolitical event, voters do not have a comprehensive, international knowledge of cinema in their given fields, and they are by and large quite happy to vote for the most-promoted movies instead of seeking out the best and most groundbreaking ones.
In light of the winners and nominees, to suggest that Academy voters’ thought processes are political is to give them too much credit. The ceremony aims to indulge as low a common denominator as possible while still wearing a veil of sophistication and respectability.
After all, why would a ceremony purporting to showcase the worthiest cinema dedicate roughly 15 minutes of airtime to James Bond montages and songs? Does James Bond need the exposure more than, say, Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who has been jailed and banned from filmmaking by the government, and yet still makes films that are smuggled out of the country in protest of censorship and totalitarian oppression? Or is that a little too political — and too foreign — for the Academy’s tastes?
The one non-English language film that escaped the “best foreign film” ghetto, Amour, pulled down a few nominations, including Best Picture. Impressive for a film whose point runs opposite to Michelle Obama’s description: love does not, and can not, and should not “endure all.” But on Oscar night Amour was neutered and rebranded, from a ruthless and stark depiction of love and death to a Hallmark drama with all the nuance of a Nicholas Sparks movie.
The nomination of Amour probably had more to do with the incumbent respectability it earned at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2012. There it won the Palm d’Or, often viewed as the real top prize of cinema. Cannes is a hotly anticipated festival and subject to immense industry pressure, yet its juries preserve its integrity time and time again, rewarding ambitious, difficult films that leave a lasting mark on the entire art form.
Regardless, the Oscars aren’t likely to change their ways anytime soon. So next time, I urge you to look at the prizewinners of other ceremonies — like the Berlin Film Festival, or Cannes, or even a film critics circle. They don’t have the same hype or spectacle, and there may not be many movies you’ve heard of, but the best awards rarely have the most dollars behind them.
TED comes to Vancouver
The celebrated talk conference to be held here in 2014
By Kelli Gustafson
Photos courtesy of Kris Krug
An announcement earlier this month revealed that the TED conference (Technology, Entertainment, Design) will be hosting their 30th anniversary in Vancouver in 2014, running from March 17-21. TED is an annual West Coast conference that invites some of the world’s top “thinkers” to give 50 or more talks on “ideas worth spreading,” spanning the four day conference. Topics range from groundbreaking scientific discovery to analyses of current events to child-rearing philosophy. Past presenters have included Bill Gates, Colin Powell, Al Gore, and Sir Richard Branson.
The TED conference has been traditionally held in Long Beach, California; however, organizers have decided to move the location to the Vancouver Convention Centre for 2014 to celebrate their anniversary. Organizers suggest on the TED website that Vancouver acts as an ideal location for this conference: “Vancouver, a city that’s itself an inspiration — cosmopolitan, energetic, innovative, yet with unrivaled natural beauty.”
In a statement given by Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson, he spoke highly of TED, stating, “Having the TED organizers choose Vancouver as their new home is a big vote of confidence in the creative entrepreneurs, social
innovators, and community leaders who make Vancouver a leading-edge city.”
The conference is expected to attract an audience of approximately 1,200. Those interested in attending must undergo a competitive application process, and once selected by the TED panel, a single ticket will run attendees approximately $7,500 USD, according to the TED website.
While the main TED2014 conference takes place in the city, TEDActive2014 will run concurrently in Whistler. Both events will share the simple theme of “The Next Chapter,” with the idea of looking back at the significant developments of the past 30 years to give some insight into what’s ahead. Tickets to the Whistler event are estimated at $3,750 USD.
Talks will also be available to view for free on the official TED website, and many past talks can be found on YouTube. For those who seek a less expensive in-person TED conference experience, SFU has its own incarnation of the TED conference, TEDxSFU.
TEDxSFU is an independent TED event, however it is still licensed by TED. TEDxSFU was founded by SFU student Michael Cheng and was first held in the fall of 2011. Cheng said in an interview with The Peak, “The event is open to the public, but we always make an effort to ensure a portion of SFU-related speakers and attendees [are given priority].”
TEDxSFU provides a similar experience and environment as any other TED conference, as attendees must still undergo an application process to be a part of the audience. TEDxSFU will host its third conference at an unconfirmed date this year.
Green phones could assist Canada's aging population
An SFU computer science team is working to redesign smartphones to support more advanced applications
By Amara Janssens
Photos by Mark Burham
Alexandra Fedorova, an associate professor in Computing science, along with her team have been awarded $442,000 over the next three years from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) to help lead the way in smartphone development. According to Fedorova’s proposal, smart phones are becoming increasingly available to the world, “with over one billion users projected by 2013.” She has observed that mobile technology is becoming very powerful and could have larger societal benefits.
Fedorova’s team has recognized that the use of smartphones in the health care sector could reduce costs, as the phones could be used to automate certain tasks that employees would otherwise conduct.
“The advantage of this device is it can do a lot of things, like measure your heart rate, or detect if you’re falling, if you’re unstable, if you’re off balance, it can help you navigate,” Fedorova stated, “and it’s with you all the time.” Having smartphones with highly sensitive applications for health care providers could help navigate patient’s homes, and automatically take records.
In order for these applications to work in this capacity, smartphones need to be operational for 24 hours a day, not the nine hours at best they last today. To combat this challenge, her team will study where smartphones are expending their power and energy. “The main culprits right now are radio, wifi, or cellular radio, and cpu and screen,” Fedorova described. “We want to understand how to manage these components better so they don’t use as much energy as they are using now.”
Fedorova further explained that the algorithms that decide when an application can “go in a low power state” are not very well tuned. It proves challenging for her team to finely tune these algorithms, as certain applications need to stay on longer than others. According to Fedorova, the algorithms would need to be “very dynamic,” and must allow for the “cooperation between the system and the application.”
Another area of development her team will research with the grant is how to allow for “fall detection algorithms” into smartphones. This would help Canada’s aging population who are most likely to fall. These fall detection algorithms would use the phone’s accelerometer to perceive if the user has or is falling. The phone could then automatically call for emergency or medical services to assist. However, this would require reworking the current systems used in smartphones, to detect slight accelorometer variations.
Through the redesigning of the system, a myriad of potential health care applications could be developed. “We are not designing the applications, we are more interested in redesigning the system to work well for those applications,” Fedorova explained.
University Briefs – Feb. 25, 2013
University of Regina to designate 10 gender-neutral washrooms
After two years, UR Pride has successfully campaigned to have gender-neutral washrooms assigned across the campus. “The premise of the washrooms would be that anyone, regardless of their gender identity or sexual orientation … has access to this space,” Leah Kesier, executive director of UR Pride told The Carillon. UR Pride noted that harassment often occurs in washrooms for those who aren’t filling society’s “gender expectations.” The official launch day has not yet been announced, but UR pride has been working closely with the University of Regina.
With files from The Carillon
Education program applicants drops at UWindsor
In Jan. 2013, the University of Windsor reported a drop of 13 per cent in the number of applicants to the education program compared to 2012. The university noted this as part of a current downward trend in the number of students pursuing education as a career in Ontario. Geri Salinitri, the acting dean of UWindsor’s Faculty of Education, stated that there are more people graduating from teaching programs than teaching positions available in the province of Ontario. Many graduates who are hired often work part-time for six years or more before receiving a permanent position. This has led to many pursuing teaching jobs in other provinces where wages are much higher. UWindsor has extended the fall 2013 education program admission deadline to Mar. 11, 2013.
With files from The Lance
McMaster University and librarian being sued for $3.5 million
The publishing company Edwin Mellen Press is suing McMaster University, along with a librarian, for libel damages. In 2010, the librarian, Dale Askey, wrote a series of blog posts criticizing Edwin Mellen Press as being unprofessional, and questioned the quality of their publications. In June 2012, the publishing company filed legal action against Askey as well as McMaster University as a co-defendant and demanded the posts be taken down. McMaster, however, fully supports their librarian and his posts.
With files from The Silhouette
SFU discusses BC Budget Day
A new SFU Public Square series looks at propserity in BC
By Alison Roach
Photos by Alison Roach
Last Tuesday was BC Budget Day, the day of the budget lockup in Victoria where Finance Minister Michael de Jong delivered and explained the provincial government’s planned balanced budget for the next three years. In attendance at the lockup was Jock Finlayson, the executive vice president and chief policy officer at the Business Council of BC, an organization that represents 250 large- and medium-sized BC companies. However, after leaving Victoria, Finlayson made his way to SFU Harbour Centre, where he served as the keynote speaker at the first event in a series of three entitled the BC Population ProsperityInitiative (BCPPI) Spring Dialogue Series, presented by SFU Public Square.
The theme of the Tuesday night event was right in line with the events of the day: “From Good to Great, Nurturing Small Business Growth in BC.” Both Finlayson and Nancy Olewiler, the director of the School of Public Policy at SFU, spoke about the current climate for business in BC, and the difficulty facing small business owners in turning their small companies into large ones. Finlayson pointed out that the amount of small businesses in BC is far above the national average, with a disproportionately large number of British Columbians counting themselves as self-employed, one-person businesses. Fiftyfive per cent of BC businesses have fewer than five employees. However, this translates into a larger amount of low income people, a problem in an area like Vancouver where affordability is an issue.
“The public has great affection for small businesses,” said Finlayson in his presentation. “Sometime it seems that our governments would prefer to keep them small.”
Finlayson’s remarks centred around the importance of creating a climate that allows these small businesses to grow into medium-sized, or even large companies, and changes in policy that could stimulate innovation, creativity, and business growth. “Adopting a tax structure that rewards success and encourages companies to grow is also critical,” he stated.
Olewiler acted as the discussant for the evening, alternately agreeing and disagreeing with Finlayson’s claims. She emphasized the importance of making BC a more attractive place to start a business by lowering the tax rates, arguing that the influx of people moving to BC would widen the tax base, and result in higher tax revenues.
She also called attention to what she considers the worst tax decision recently made, the deharmonization of the HST. The return of the PST, according to Olewiler, will actually put more tax on product components for businesses, rendering production costs much higher than can be found elsewhere in the country. Olewiler concluded, “Incentives to be in BC go down.”
After the speakers finished their comments there was a brief Q&A period, followed by half an hour of public dialogue, where attendees worked in small groups to discuss the ideas laid out in the presentations. With a facilitator and note-taker at each table, the results of this dialogue will be posted on the BCPPI and SFU Public Square websites for those interested.
Two more BCPPI Dialogue events are scheduled. One held on March 26 will discuss Aboriginal education needs, and the final one on April 23 will focus on community engagement. All the dialogues are held at SFU Harbour Centre, and require registration.
Shauna Sylvester, the executive director of SFU Public Square, said of the dialogue driven event, “The SFU Public Square is a signature initiative of our community engagement . . . and we always say that it’s only as good as the people who get involved.”
Campaign calls on SFU to become first living wage university
The Living Wage campaign celebrated its launch last Wednesday
By Suyesha Sthapit
Photos by Vaikunthe Banerjee
Last Wednesday, the Living Wage SFU Campaign formally launched with an open event in the West Mall Complex Atrium. The event was attended by approximately 45 faculty members, students, and community members. The Graduate Student Society, SFPIRG, and local unions CUPE 3338, the BCGEU, and the TSSU support the campaign.
SFU’s Living Wage Campaign is a project that aims to ensure that every individual employed directly or indirectly by SFU is guaranteed a living wage. This is the amount of money two people working full time (35 hours per week) need to earn per hour to support a family of four. Presenters at the launch of the campaign included distinguished alumnus Mae Burrows, SFU professor Dr. Marjorie Griffin-Cohen, Living Wage for Families campaign organizer Michael McCarthy-Flynn, and CUPE 3338 business agent John Bannister. The launch event highlighted the findings of a study the campaign had undertaken which focused on the working conditions for the lowest paid workers at SFU.
For Metro Vancouver, the living wage has been calculated to be $19.14 per hour for 2012. This does not include things like home ownership, saving for retirement, a savings cushion, the cost of a holiday, or the cost of caring for someone disabled or severely ill.
A living wage at SFU would increase wages for research assistants, child care workers, food service workers, and janitorial staff. McCarthy-Flynn reminded the audience that “These people are all around us but they are invisible. We are working to make them visible.”
According to the campaign, low wages are one of the key reasons for child poverty in BC; 48 per cent of children living in poverty in BC live in families with at least one adult working full-time. According to political science professor Dr. Marjorie Griffin-Cohen, “No parents working full-time, full-year jobs should have to choose between rent or childcare, food or healthcare.” SFU’s Living Wage Campaign is calling on SFU to implement a Living Wage clause in all its new contracts for employment as well as in its tenders to external subcontractors, in order to lift its low-wage workers out of poverty.
The research conducted among SFU’s low-wage workers found that 73 per cent earned less than a living wage, 57 per cent did not get paid for their overtime hours, and only half had benefits included in their employment. According to one of the workers surveyed, “I feel like I can’t provide for my family. I have to struggle to pay for food, housing, electricity and food bills. Sometimes I have to go to the food bank for food.” Another said, “I literally live paycheck to paycheck and budget my finances to only meet bare necessities.”
Cohen stated, “BC has one of the highest poverty rates and child poverty rates compared to other provinces in Canada,” and that the women were particularly affected, earning $2,700 per year less than the Canadian average. Bannister highlighted that one of the major concerns of
the campaign is SFU’s current practice of subcontracting to external companies to provide cheap labour. McCarthy-Flynn explained the reasons why has the campaign chose SFU to become the first living wage university: namely the audience of SFU’s status as one of the best employers in BC and in Canada; its vision to become an engaged, progressive university, its commitment to fair trade products, and its role as a leader in education, innovation and social change.
According to McCarthy-Flynn, “We have taken the university at its word that it wants to achieve these things and the Living Wage sits at the heart of all these concerns.” Many of the top American universities, including all of the Ivy League institutions, have become living wage employers.
Among the several questions that were brought up during the event, one was how much becoming a living wage university would cost. Flynn admitted that the campaign isn’t sure of an exact amount, but he extending an invitation to the university to explore this question as a community.
He stated that several other institutions found that the actual amount was surprisingly low. For example, it cost the City of New Westminster only 0.25 per cent of their annual budget to become a Living Wage employer. The university administration has received the SFU Living Wage Campaign’s research report, which representatives stated they are looking into and will comment on soon.
COLUMN: Godwin's law, meet Onderwater's law
Disagreeing with public opinion doesn’t make someone racist
In the public debate of today, most people have come to a common understanding of certain things. Left or right, intelligent or stupid, many people choose to abide by certain conventions when they debate and discuss opinions and ideas.
For example, it is a common convention to define the terms (words, expressions) of a debate. It is also a common convention while debating to argue about the ideas that are in play, instead of attacking the people who agree with certain ideas. Just because someone is wrong does not imply that they’re a complete idiot, or vice versa.
Another, less-known convention is found in disciplines such as political science and history. This convention refers to the so-called “Hitler Argument” based on Godwin’s Law. It goes as follows: whoever refers to Hitler and the Nazis first in a debate automatically loses the debate.
Why? Well, because comparing a set of ideas (or a person) to the Nazis is almost always intellectually cheap. It so quickly becomes an ad hominem attack, directed at people instead of ideas. Too often it is simply an emotional deflection, or an appeal to paranoia, rather than a careful argument of logic and facts.
Today I propose another rule of debate or common social convention in response to multiple articles published in The Peak over the last month. One article, published Feb. 3, alleged that all opponents of the “Idle No More” protests were “racists.” Another article, published Feb. 17, alleged that all those who oppose the continued status quo of government handouts to Aboriginals in Canada were “best friends with a concept [called] racism.”
It is unfortunate that both of these authors feel the need to resort to accusations like racism to push their particular views. It should be universally acknowledged that the status of Aboriginals in Canada is one of the most important debates in Canada today. Both writers have valuable things to say, and important opinions to contribute.
But neither author is correct in smearing opponents of their views as “racists.” While it is certainly possible that a number of their opponents may actually be racist, it is highly unlikely that the vast
majority of their opponents are. Opposing government handouts to native Canadians does not make you racist. Neither does opposing “Idle no more.”
So, let me propose a new social convention, in order to regulate debate. It goes like this: the person who first calls his/her opponent racist instantly loses the debate. Why? This is due to the same reason cited for the “Nazi” rule. “Racist,” at least in Canada, is too often used as an insult or epithet, instead of as an argument. Stop calling people names and please start debating their arguments. It is insulting when someone decides to smear your name instead of properly interacting with your ideas. Too many people think that they have license to smear their opponents as “racists.”
If you want to call someone a racist, how about doing your homework before you do, just to make sure? Otherwise it’s just cheap rhetoric, and I’m getting a little tired of it.
Getting hit in the nuts fucking hurts
Just saying what everyone should already know, but doesn’t
I take it you’ve noticed the headline. But before I start, I have to share an anecdote to give the appropriate context. Last Friday, I was riding the skytrain with a friend when she slapped me for making an inappropriate joke about certain races and their proclivities. While the slap was not particularly hard, she asked if it had hurt. When I said no, she berated
another male colleague of ours for losing his shit when she had previously punched him in the balls with the same measure of force.
At which point I lost my shit. I mean up until that point, I’d thought everyone knew that getting struck in the testicular region fucking hurts. But apparently to a certain penisless population percentage (about 50 per cent) that fact might not be as clear as I’d like it to be.
I’ll start by saying getting hit in the nuts probably isn’t the worst pain; it might not even be the worst thing out there. I’ve never been sucked into an airplane turbine, but my guess is it’s probably worse than a swift kick to the old boys. This way we don’t have reopen the “which hurts more” debate: childbirth, or a knee in the family jewel. The reason for that is because pain lacks quantifiability. Without empirical pain units (which I’ve termed Godfuckingdammitwatts) we can’t compare pain
between two different events or people. Not to mention that emotional pain is a whole different can of worms. So that argument will remain closed.
Anyway, when you get hit below the belt, you don’t feel it at first. When you flick someone in the nose, they feel it immediately. You get flicked in the beanbag, you might have 10 to 15 seconds before the pain hits. This time is reserved for you to comprehend all the poor life choices that have lead up to this moment. Maybe you shouldn’t have been standing over that teeter-totter. Perhaps there were safer things to grind down than a hand rail. Hanging that pinata at waist level, not your best idea.
But in this trepidation, there’s also hope. The faint hope that you didn’t in fact get hit in the twigs and berries. Maybe it was just a graze, or maybe your thigh got mos — OH GOD, NOPE. FULL-ON HIT. YEP. THE EGGS ARE SCRAMBLED. GOING DOWN.
As for the pain, it’s what scientists call “referred pain,” similar to the pain in your left arm resulting from a cardiac episode. It hurts, but not where the injury actually occurred. In this case the pain permeates your whole torso, making it feel like someone is swapping around your organs. It’s seven or eight body blows, it’s thunder, it’s an elephant sitting on your chest. Nausea and loss of breath and vision are possible symptoms, depending on the amount of force.
Immediately after contact is made, you might have noticed in every YouTube video of someone injuring their wedding tackle, the owner of said tackle hunches over and Quasimodos it. This is an evolutionary reflex. Your body is trying to protect your nethers from whatever the hell just happened.
This evolved because back in the time of dinosaur vacuum cleaners, selective pressures were such that protecting your junk is more important than your ability to defend yourself from, say, velociraptors. Women reading this article, now you know: getting hit in the nuts really does hurt that much. Men reading this article, you may now return to your full upright positions.
