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Mariya Chekanovych: National Champ

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WEB-Mariya Chekanovych-Mark Burnham

Mariya Chekanovych not only won SFU’s first NCAA championship, she won a second

By Clay J. Gray
Photos by Mark Burnham

Meet SFU’s first NCAA Division II national champion, Mariya Chekanovych. This freshman phenom recently swam her way into the history books by winning the 100and 200-meter breaststroke to become the first NCAA champion attending a school outside of Canada. As a first-year, Mariya has an opportunity to repeat every year she is in school, a dream she doesn’t shy away from, saying, “I feel excited after winning a title, now it doesn’t seem so unrealistic to have the goal of winning a title all four years.”

Mariya arrived in Birmingham on Monday evening; she was ranked first in her events, predicted to win. With that kind of an expectation, Mariya was obviously under pressure to perform to which she said, “Coming into the race I knew I didn’t want to let people down, I knew this was my chance to represent SFU and Canada and I knew it would be difficult because I wasn’t at 100 per cent.”

Fortunately, the team had arrived early enough that the athletes were afforded a day to explore the city before began the competition on Wednesday. The clan swimmers used this day to check out a motorcycle exhibit and later in the evening attend the opening ceremonies for the tournament, which included dinner and fireworks synced with music.

Of course, once the pomp and ceremony was completed, it was time to get down to the nitty-gritty and see who would be standing on top of the podium when the wake settled. Throughout the course of the tournament, Mariya swam in 12 different races, all with an injured knee.
As the tournament wore on and the pain in Mariya knee got worse, the reality of a national championship became evident.

When Mariya stepped onto the block for the 100-yard finals, she focused her mind, determined to give this race everything she had. Normally, Mariya employs a come-frombehind racing tactic, but she hit the water fast, and by the time she was turning at the other end of the pool, she was already in the lead.

Even though her knee is still sore almost a week later, Mariya said, “My adrenaline was pumping and I knew I was going to win when there were only a few meters left so I ignored the pain and I poured it on.” When Mariya hit the wall not only had she won as predicted but she had also broken the NCAA record in the 100yard breaststroke.

The next day Mariya competed in her second finals of the tournament in the 200-yard breaststroke. Once again, the Ukrainian-Canadian torpedo hit the wall first and captured her second NCAA title.

Of course, Mariya’s stor y started well before she dove into the pool two weeks ago in Birmingham, Alabama. Mariya’s family immigrated directly to Burnaby from Ukraine when she was eight years old.

She recalls being very shy and somewhat isolated when she first moved to Canada, her inability to speak English at the time made it impossible to communicate with most children her age. “I remember sitting in class, hiding behind a book pretending to read so no one would talk to me because I didn’t know how to speak English,” she said.

By the time Mariya was nine years old she had begun to swim competitively. While she developed as a swimmer she was also developing her abilities in English, and by the time she reached her current age of 18 she had become fluent in both.

Since it is only her second semester in university her choice of favourite courses is limited to just the eight she has had so far. However, her clear standout pick was Health Science 140 “Contemporary & Alternative Medicine” saying, “It was interesting because I got to see a different side of medicine, I never expected placebos to be so powerful.”

Yet Chekanovych understands that she has ample time left at school before she has to determine which educational path she will follow. However, she looks to her education as her ultimate purpose for attending university. “I don’t plan on swimming being my career, its very risky, at any time an injury could cut swimming out of my life. I don’t have a particular idea in mind but I know an education is the best route for me.”

University Briefs – March 18, 2013

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UVIC student society expelled from CFS-BC

On March 9, the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) BC chapter voted to expel the University of Victoria Students’ Society (UVSS) from the federation, on the grounds of the UVSS not paying their fees, and having left the national CFS. The CFS-BC claims that fees totalling approximately $160,000 are in arrears, and date from an alleged underpayment over 10 years ago. The UVSS board denies that any membership fees are outstanding. This comes after a Supreme Court of BC ruling that UVSS’s decision to leave the national CFS did not automatically constitute leaving the BC chapter.

With files from The Martlet

Scholarship created for students with ADD/ADHD

A new scholarship funded by Shire Canada, a biopharmaceutical company, will target Canadian students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), to be introduced this fall semester. The scholarship will include financial support and a full year of ADHD coaching, and will be made available to students in Ontario, Alberta, and Quebec. The scholarship will go to five students, with a minimum of one student per province selected. In order to apply, students must be diagnosed by a physician and actively seeking treatment for the disorder.

With files from The Fulcrum

Laurier class preps students for precarious job market

A class at Wilfred Laurier University is prepping students for a rapidly changing job market. The course, entitled “Work and Cultural Industries,” teaches students about the increased reliance on freelance work in journalism and other creative industries.
Professor Greig de Peuter explained, “There’s a rapid level of growth of non-standard type jobs. They don’t come with the kind of benefits and security that many people enjoyed in the past.” Though many students are aware of the vastly fluid job market facing them once they leave post-secondary, not many are supplied the tools to deal with it.

With files from The Cord

Grape Expectations

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Your guide to wine tasting

By Ljudmila Petrovic
Photos by Mark Burnham
Illustration By Eleanor Qu

“Life is too short to drink bad wine,” Cesar Perrin tells me as he pours me a wine from his family’s Chateau de Beaucastel. The winery has been around for centuries, and has been in Perrin’s family for over 100 years. If anybody is an authority on good wine, it’s Cesar.

We are standing in the midst of the 35th Vancouver International Wine Festival, a weeklong celebration of the holy fermented grape. This year’s festival held 54 events — including tastings and meal pairings — at which 175 wineries from 15 countries featured 1,850 of their wines.

Wine events get a bad rep for snobbery that intimidates most of us away from attendance; the truth is, wine tastings are a great time, and not that hard to navigate once you get the basics down. So, without further ado, here is The Peak’s guide to tasting wine like an aficionado.

You can spit or swallow: Every table has a big bucket for excess wine. The general etiquette is to swirl your glass, then taste the wine (by swishing it in your mouth). The next step is up to personal taste: you can either spit the wine out into the bucket, or you can swallow the sip and pour the excess wine from your glass into the bucket.

You could also down the whole thing, but if you’re planning on trying a lot of wines, this can’t possibly end with class. It’s a wine-tasting, not a bachelor(ette) party. The point is to taste the wines, not get so drunk you can’t taste anything, so take it slow.

Carbo-load: A tasting is like the marathon of the wine world, so take it from elite long-distance runners and eat a lot of carbs. Wine tastings account for this: just like marathons have water and Gatorade stations throughout the race, so too should all wine tastings have stations with crackers, bread, and cheese — at the very least. So, hit up the cracker platter; you’re guaranteed to have an easier time maneuvering the event.

Pair it up: Wine and cheese is the most common pairing, hence why wine fests tend to also serve the delicious dairy treat. There is an extensive list of specific wines and the specific cheese they best match with: for example, provolone pairs with chardonnay, but a Danish blue pairs with a Cabernet. Ultimately, however, it’s about what tastes good for you — especially when you’re eating cheeses that are less intrusive on your taste buds (for example, blue cheeses are harder to pair for).

A lesser-known and more delicate area of pairing is wine and chocolate (I know, how can two things that are so right possibly go wrong?) As a very general rule, red wines complement chocolate, so if you’re going with dark chocolate (my personal favorite, so I’ll just assume everyone’s on board), your best bets are Cabs and Zinfandels.

Figure out what you like: Pick one type of white and one type of red that do it for you. That way, when you’re at a tasting station, you’ll be more likely to find the specific wine that hits that sweet spot. If they don’t have your specific favorite (some, like Pinot Blancs and Gewurztraminers are less common), they’ll at least have a better idea of what your taste is and can recommend something. Knowing what you like means that you’re more likely to get it.

But be willing to experiment: Don’t get stuck in a rut just because you have a specific taste. You may decide that you like Pinot Gris and aren’t a fan of Sauvignon Blanc, but every vineyard is different, so it’s very likely that you’ll love a wine that you don’t normally drink.

Don’t be scared to break the rules: This pairs with that; don’t drink that after that — there are so many rules surrounding wine, it’s hard to keep track of them all. So, don’t get hung up on details and enjoy yourself. If you know what you like and you’re confident about it, nobody’s going to heckle you for trying a Merlot between your whites.

Be safe: Seriously, don’t be an idiot. Don’t drink and drive.

Vino Vocab

It gets a little more difficult to BS to wine aficionados when the conversation actually steers towards the wines. When somebody asks you how a wine is, one word answers like “good” are rarely what people are looking for. Knowing some of the key terms in describing wines will help you save face, but will also help you find the kind of wine that hits your sweet spot.

Think of it as being in a country whose language you’re not familiar with: you can usually communicate in a broken combination of English and wild hand movements, but learning a few useful phrases from the language handbook will go a long way.

Fear not, for your friendly student paper comes to the rescue once again. The Peak has compiled a vocabulary cheat sheet to help you out in wine country, complete with example sentences. Keep in mind that nobody actually speaks like that, so take these with a grain of salt.

Balanced : Usually any flaw that can be found in wine is due to the fact that one of the aspects that it is judged on (tannins, acid, sweetness, and alcohol) overwhelms or is overshadowed by the rest. A balanced wine is the wine that integrates all of those components. It’s like that one friend that has all their shit together, but because it’s a wine that you’re drinking, you’ll never resent it.
“I think this might be my new favorite wine. It’s so balanced!”

Body: How does the wine’s alcohol taste? Does it leave your mouth overwhelmed? It’s probably full-bodied.

Bouquet : Like those of a flower variety, but with alcohol. Bouquet refers to the various aromatic nuances you smell in a wine.

Crisp: Usually describes a refreshing white wine that has a nice balance of acidity. It’s like biting into a crisp apple.
“Ah, this white is so crisp. Just perfect for a warm summer evening lounging on private property that doesn’t fall under the jurisdiction of BC Liquor Laws ”

Dry: A wine that has little to no sweetness is described as dry. Wines such as basic Chardonnays and Sauvignon Blancs generally lean towards dryness. When looking at sparkling wines and champagnes, the dryest are labelled “brut.”
“This Chardonnay is too dry for my taste. Do you have anything slightly sweeter?”

Earthy: Your wine tastes like dirt, basically. It tastes like an uprooted shrub that was dipped in alcohol. Sure, it can be a positive quality if you’re into this kind of thing, but mostly it’s a tool for dodging the question, much like when someone tells their five-year-old that their art is “interesting” or that someone’s nose has “character.”
“Okay, that’s very . . . earthy.”

Feminine: This is meant to describe a wine whose aromas and tastes are more subtle and less intense. It’s not one of the more common wine adjectives, but it opens the floor up for friendly banter about gender roles and female empowerment, which is guaranteed to make you the hit of any wine tasting.
“Mmm, this wine is feminine. I don’t feel like it overpowered my palette. But it can still be empowered, and doesn’t need to be defined by the patriarchal standards for a Pinot.”

Fruity: Pretty self-explanatory, I would say. If the wine has an aroma or taste that is sweet and reminiscent of fruits such as apples or berries, then it would be described as fruity.
“Oh yes, I do taste the pear undertones (see below) that you were mentioning. Very fruity. It’s fabulous!”

Heavy: This is more or less descriptive of how the taste weighs in your mouth. It’s heavy, so it’s full-bodied, usually too much so, and usually heavy in tannins (see below). It’s the smooth (also see below. You’re going to learn so much!) wine’s ugly friend.
“Oh, this Malbec is quite heavy. It could really benefit from more time in the cellar.”

Mature : Simply refers to the quality of the wine in terms of the amount of time that a wine has been sitting.

Oaky: This is a big one. Major. If you remember one descriptive word to remember, it’s this one. Usually the oakiness of a wine is associated with time spent in oak barrels. To describe the wine as such, just think of what characteristics are brought to mind by “oak”: toasty or smoky, with a creamy body, and an aroma reminiscent of sweet Christmas spices. Okay, I’m using equally arbitrary adjectives, but bear with me. If there’s no fruitiness to counterbalance this, you’re allowed to say that a wine is “too oaky.” I’ve said it and I wasn’t slapped with a Merlot-shade letter, so it must be an acceptable opinion.
“Mmm, it’s excellent. Maybe a little too oaky for my taste, but a good choice.”

Palate: This pretty much refers to how the wine affects the feeling of your mouth, more than a taste specific to the wine itself.
“Be a dear and pour me some water. I must cleanse my palate before I move on to the reds.”

Robust: As seems to be the pattern with wine descriptors, they are pretty much the same as when describing a person. A robust wine is usually one that has aged well and now has a very distinct and strong flavor. If my Serbian grandmother were a wine, she would be described with this. These wines don’t give a shit anymore because they don’t have to.
“My, that Malbec is robust! I’m not sure if I’m ready to handle the punch it packs.”

Sassy: Think of how you would describe a sassy person: bold and in-your-face. Now apply that to the wine flavor. It’s not one of the usual suspects in wine vocab, but c’mon. It’s a fun description! One might even say it’s sassy.
“Woweee, what a sassy Syrah. Sure packs a punch to my tastebuds”

Smooth: This term is an indicator of how easy a wine is to drink. “But what’s easier than having a spout for your boxed wine?” you may ask. Philistines, all of you. It refers to the flavour; for example, a white wine with low acidity or reds with little tannins (see below).
“Oh yes, I quite enjoyed that one. It was very smooth, went down quite well. ”

Tannins: Not really a good thing. If you’ve ever had a cheap red wine that was made in the year you’re drinking it and left you with cotton mouth that no amount of water could quench for 24 hours, that’s probably a wine with a lotta tannins. This is a bit of a strong example, but there’s a reason that good wines, especially reds, are aged: the wine softens as it ages and after long enough, you might be calling that bad boy “smooth.”
“I can’t possibly drink this $9 bottle of red. There are simply too many tannins for my delicate palate.”

Undertone: The more subtle nuances, aromas and flavors of wine.
“Hmm, this Chardonnay has an earthy undertone”

Khan conquers and U-Pass passes

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By Alison Roach
Photo by Mark Burnham
Video by Julian Giordano

Last Thursday night, SFSS election nominees and a few friends gathered at the Highland Pub to count (and drink) down the hours to midnight, when the results of the SFSS 2013 elections and referendum was released.

The polls, which opened on March 12, closed at 11:59 p.m. that night, and the entire assembly of candidates rowdily made its way down to one of the MBC conference rooms to listen to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) read the results of the voting. All the results are unofficial still, pending ratification.

Chief electoral officer Avery Kwong read out the results one by one, interrupted by occasional cheers, gasps, and applause, starting with the U-Pass referendum. The referendum determined whether the U-Pass program would continue for the next three years for SFU undergraduate students. The referendum passed by a predictably large margin, with 4,895 yes votes, and only 179 no votes. With 5,109 student votes counted, the voter turnout was approximately 23 per cent according to a rough estimate by the IEC.

Kwong went on to read the results of each individual race to the excited crowd. Interesting results included the yes or no vote for single education representative candidate Gloria Mellesmoen, who was voted into the position with 19 yes votes and eight no votes, and Alia Ali winning the university relations officer position by a narrow margin of 29 votes, with 939 against Brock Balfour’s 910.

The race for member at-large was also highly contested, with six relatively unknown candidates vying for the two open spots. In the end, candidates Clay J. Gray and Muhammad Ali came out on top, with 898 and 755 votes respectively.

However, the most dramatic race of the year turned out to be for external relations officer (ERO), with Stephanie Boulding, Chardaye Bueckert, Kayode Fatoba, Tracy Luong, and Brian Misera fighting for the position. The ERO debates at the all-candidate debates held by the IEC leading up to the election proved to be the most heated, with candidates openly questioning their opponents’ knowledge and suitability for the position.

Candidate Kayode Fatoba also found himself in hot water with the IEC after it was discovered that he had violated the rules in the campaign handbook regarding permissible locations for campaign materials, and for defaming the IEC. The problem arose with a banner that proved to be higher than eight feet, a rule-violating height. Fatoba was immediately disqualified for this, and proceeded to send out a candidate-wide email regarding the IEC’s decision.

After a first trial for these violations, Fatoba’s disqualification was retracted, provided that he agree to take down all campaign materials. However, after this hearing, Fatoba was caught campaigning again by several candidates, and was subsequently given an official notice of disqualification by the IEC.

Fatoba did not respond to a request for comment after the election results came out, but did say in an email to The Peak earlier in the week: “I do not understand why in my case I was told to take down all of my posters and campaign material before a hearing could be made.

“While I went along and took my campaign material down and such, I believe that it is wrong to pass judgement on a person and then schedule the meeting of telling them why afterwards.”

The official notice stated, “The IEC has determined that Kayode has failed to comply with the directions enforced by the IEC. Based upon information divulged by the candidate himself during the hearing, Kayode admitted to shouting out in public hallways on the SFU Burnaby Campus to ‘Vote for Kayode for ERO,’ the IEC has determined that Kayode has failed to comply with the directions enforced by the IEC.”

Despite this last-minute disqualification, Fatoba received 657 votes, second only to winner
Charday Bueckert, who had 780 votes.

“I am so stoked,” said Bueckert, the current president of the Society of Arts and Social Sciences (SASS). “I really didn’t think I was going to win, so I’m very excited . . . I’m just really excited for next year.”

When asked about her foremost plans in the position, she mentioned pushing current voter registration initiatives to encourage students to vote in the upcoming provincial election, and investigating the mandatory access fees for online learning materials, citing that the University of Windsor recently refunded students these fees because this setup violated the tuition framework in the province. “Just saving students money, that’s the most important thing,” she said.

The big result of the night was for the presidential race, with frontrunners Humza Khan and Sarah Veness running, as well as unknown Nickolas Haley. Haley received 352 votes, Veness 901, and Khan won by a wide margin with 1549 votes. Upon this announcement, cheers and chants of “Humza! Humza!” erupted from the crowd.

The Peak waded among scads of well wishers to get a comment from the happy winner, who said, “I feel overwhelmed. It’s an honour and I look forward to serving the student society for the next year.”

He continued to say of his opponent, “Sarah, well she’s one of my bestest friend on the board, I love her to death. We kept it clean, and she’s been a worthy adversary. I still love her, and I’m sure she still loves me.” Veness is the current SFSS Communication, Art and Technology faculty representative.

Kwong said afterwards, “I think it went really well, really smoothly this year. All the candidates played really well. They were very fair and they tried their best to win the election fairly and democratically. I think it was a great result.”

The room quickly emptied with shouts of “Drinks on you, Humza!”

PeakCast #6

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Editors David Dyck, Alison Roach, and Amara Janssens chat with documentarian Matthew Cimone about space.

Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day the Irish way

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By Adam Dewji

Are you ready to get drunk off your ass on St. Patrick’s Day? Good, so am I. Maybe not as drunk as I was on Student Media Night, but I’m planning to down a few brews and deck myself out in green! Shamrocks, drinking glasses, decorations, and beer — welcome to the way college kids celebrate an Irish-American holiday.

I’m not going to write a piece on paying homage to some saint who we could be thankful for. Instead, I want to let you know how to make the most out of this (what should be a) holiday. In Canada, St. Patrick’s Day could also be called “I’m-going-to-be-hungover-tomorrow Day.”

First off, St. Patrick wasn’t even born in Ireland; he was British. There’s a terrible story where he was captured as a slave and brought to Ireland. He escaped back to Britain, but returned to Ireland to Catholicize the pagans that had kidnapped him and spread the good word.

In the USA, Catholic Irish-Americans had a minor holiday where they would eat a bigger meal on St. Patrick’s Day in honour of this. That’s it. But they also brought Guinness to the Americas, so why not drink to that?

Guinness is delicious, but there are so many other brews worth sampling from Ireland. Think Guinness is the only Irish brew you can snag from the liquor store? You’re wrong. See if you can grab a four-pack of Kilkenny Cream Ale, or Murphy’s Irish Stout. Depending on your store, you could have even more of a selection.

Wherever you go, it’s probably going to be crowded. What do I recommend? Well, if you have class near the SFU Surrey Campus, you’re goddamn lucky. You have the Central City Brew Pub — do you know what I mean? They won fucking brewery of the year in 2012! They serve green beer in beer towers! Need I say more? And hell, it’s in Surrey. It’s not like you need to dress to impress or worry about being the drunkest one there.

If you have class at Burnaby Campus, then you’ve got our very own Highland Pub. They probably have some sort of green party going on. I hope to hell they have some beer on special, and maybe some green food dye as well.

They’ll also have some pretty sweet brews on tap. They may not be as good as an entire selection of fresh Red Racers you’ll find at Central City, but after a couple, it won’t really matter anymore. As long as you’re stumbling distance from home, right?

Lastly, if you’re at either the Harbour Centre or Woodward’s campus, you’re pretty much downtown. I don’t need to recommend you anything. Look out the window and point. Ta-da! You found a decent pub!. You’ve got everything from Steamworks to Rogue to Malone’s (among a shit-tonne of other bars) to go to.

Just remember to get home safely.

Pizza Hands: Kama Space-tra

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WEB-Astronaughty

By Ljudmila Petrovic and Eleanor Qu

Applying for jobs in cyberspace is futile

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WEB-jobs online-Mark Burnham

By Tara Nykyforiak
Photos by Mark Burnham

Digitized processes deal students and new graduates a losing hand

If you’ve ever possessed a job within the contemporary work in dustry, you can relate to the frus trations involved with the online application process. It is these stressing and impersonal virtual forms that make me pine for a return to a more open and human time of job application.

As a teenager in high school (2005–2009), I can remember a great desire to obtain a part time job and the financial ind pendence it would award me. At that time, Craigslist job postings were becoming a normal mode for young people to respond to open job positions, but the tra ditional printed resume was still very much a part of obtaining a job as a young person. My Career and Personal Planning class even taught students how to craft and physically hand someone the ideal resume.

Throughout high school and the couple years following, I had come to really respect the process of personally establishing a rapport with the manager or supervisor everywhere I applied. I could project a positive image of myself to potential employers via a hand shake and a professional exchange of how I was motivated to work for them in the future despite having little to no work experience.

Applying in-person allows the prospective employee to feel more secure about themselves, and imbues applicants with a positive wellbeing. Be cause of the face-to-face con nection with the employer, any future followup calls can be done with the assurance that their resume did indeed reach the hands of a manager, and that he or she would be able to connect the name on the re sume with their face.

It has become the norm now for young people to apply for jobs online. This is typically done using the company’s online application database, whereby applicants fill in all required fields and have the op tion of uploading a file copy of their resume.

My own experiences with these applications are ones of anxiety, confusion, and bitter ness. For starters, there is the worry that something could go wrong, and that your applica tion does not successfully get uploaded to their database. After all, the webpage could freeze and all your application infor mation could be lost in a mat ter seconds. Another concern is the lack of knowing; did the existence of my job application even pass by the eyes of a hiring manager? Multiple times I have submitted my resume online and later spoke with the store’s man ager inperson only to have them tell me: “I’m sorry, but I have not yet reviewed your application.”

Granted, this could happen with printed resumes as well. There is no guarantee a man ager will read the resume you hand them. However, I can not accept that those hiring at minimum wage retail or fast food jobs can hide behind on line application databases. The point of these jobs is that one need have no previous experi ence. Applicants have little to no opportunity to exchange handshakes and establish real life impressions, which, besides nepotism, is the only possible prerequisite one can have.

Job hunting, especially as an adolescent or twenty something,is both daunting and discouraging. Having a job market that looks only at the experience demonstrated through online applications is unfair, because the mantra being preached is “you can’t land a job without experience.” When reaching out to employers through a medium un conducive to projecting dedica tion and drive, the job market adopts the further disparaging reality of “you can’t get experience without a job,” which is made that much more difficult via online applications.

COLUMN: Smut Shaming

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By Eric Onderwater

Over the last few decades, pornography has essentially gone from almost nothing to an enormous industry. Pornography is now available to any human being with access to the internet. It also enjoys a near 100 per cent saturation rate among young men, and only slightly lower rate of saturation among older men.

Most men find pornography irresistible, and impossible to ignore. The level of stimulation that pornography provides men is beyond most other sources of stimulation, except for perhaps real sex, ironically. Most young men I meet seem to think that it would be stupid not to look at porn. “It doesn’t hurt anybody,” they say. Or more disturbingly, many men say that it’s impossible to stop looking at porn, and who cares anyway?

So let me ask you: is porn really so harmless? Should we just “normalize” porn and let it become a regular part of life? Recently, a TEDtalk on the effects of pornography surfaced. It was conducted by a scientist named Gary Wilson. He essentially argued that addiction to pornography is no different than many other addictions. He also argued that long-term use of pornography can have negative consequences on male psychology, and male libido.

Now, there’s substantial criticism of this argument. Notably, an article was published in The Peak two weeks ago essentially arguing that Wilson was wrong, and that porn should be brought into the mainstream.
Wilson may not be completely right, but too much of what he says is all too true. His argument ties into a much-cited argument of Naomi Wolf, published in NY Magazine in 2003.

Wolf argued that the real problem with porn is the damage it does to the relationship between men and women. When men regularly view internet porn, they begin to view women differently. More accurately, ordinary women aren’t good enough anymore. Ordinary women don’t look like porn-stars, nor do they do the things that porn-stars do. Ordinary women can’t compete with the thrill and novelty of online pornography. Further, Wolf argued that pornography is increasing the distance between men and women.

Now add the fact that using pornography promotes the destructive, big-corporate porn industry. Supporting the porn industry is a morally questionable act, no matter what your point of view on ethics. On top of all that, according to a study cited by CNN, there is proof to show that 56 per cent of divorces in America involve one partner that compulsively uses pornography.

If we assume that sex is simply a human need — much like food — then pornography should absolutely be normalized. But if we see it as something more, as something that is special and beautiful between two loving people, then pornography must be a destructive force.
It is very difficult to say that pornography will lead to better relationships between men and women, in general. Some men may think otherwise, but I would imagine that the vast majority of women would agree.

So here’s my challenge to men. Stop looking at porn. Life is more than just satisfying your primal needs. Go out, meet real women, and take the time to build real relationships with them, by loving, cherishing and caring for them. They’re worth it.

And don’t kid yourself. Porn isn’t harmless.

SFSS candidates battled it out in three debates

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WEB-candidate debate Mark Burnham

By Alison Roach and Amara Janssens
Photos by Mark Burnham

ERO debate gets catty, candidate no-shows, and a temporary disqualification

Rounding out the SFSS election campaigning period, a series of all-candidate debates took place last week, at both the Burnaby and Surrey campuses. Three rounds of debate were held, two taking place in the Maggie Benston Centre food court in Burnaby and the third in the Mezzanine at SFU Surrey.

Candidates were brought to the table in groups of which position they were running for and were allowed 30 seconds each to deliver an opening statement. This was then followed with questions by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), questions from the audience, and to each other.

The debates also featured current SFSS president Lorenz Yeung speaking as an advocate for voting “yes” to the U-Pass referendum. Yeung explained the proposed tiered payment structure — $35 from May 2013, $36.75 from May 2014, and $38 from May 2015 — and that failure to pass the referendum will mean the discontinuation of the U-Pass. “You do need to go vote yes if you want to keep the U-Pass program,” Lorenz said. “Prices going up sucks, but we have to live with it, and it’s still a significant cost savings compared to a regular adult monthly pass.”

The external relations officer (ERO) debate was the most eventful. At the Thursday debate at Burnaby things got heated between candidates Kayode Fatoba, Stephanie Boulding, and Chardaye Bueckert. Bueckert questioned Fatoba’s proposal to bring musician Shad to SFU, citing Fatoba’s role in the infamous K’naan concert failure of 2010.
Chardaye charged, “ Why should students take a gamble on you, particularly when you’re planning to organize another concert, when you already lost the society thousands of dollars?” Fatoba countered that the event was more than simply the K’naan concert, but was cut off mid-reply due to time constraints.

The ERO debate remained intense on Friday at Surrey. The platform of Stephanie Boulding dominated much of the debate with her focus on revamping the gondola project, with questions regarding funding and how to improve current transportation conditions.

Boulding said she would work with Translink to address the issues of overcrowded busses, such as the 145, which frequently leaves students behind. Additionally, she said the gondola could help students at all three SFU campuses, as buses could be taken off the Burnaby Mountain run and used for Harbour Centre, or City Central.
At one point, ERO candidate Brian Misera’s platform was called into question by Boulding. Misera described his intent to introduce more food on campus as an incentive for students to stay on campus after class. Boulding told Misera that the ERO is an external position and asked him to clarify how food incentives were external.

“I understood the ERO was to improve campus life for students? No?” asked Misera, looking for affirmation from the crowd. Instead he was met by a room of silence. During the candidate’s closing statement, Misera said, “Apparently I don’t know the definition of ERO . . . this is going excellent.”

He later defended his position, saying that he represents the majority of students at SFU who do not follow campus politics, “Most people on campus don’t know about the election process,” he said. “The point is I’m trying to get people more involved, that’s it.”

His claim seemed to be borne out by the debate attendance. At the Surrey debate, less than 20 people were in the audience, with more than half of those being candidates themselves. At both of the Burnaby debates, the large number of people in the food court were not engaged in the debate, but were instead engaged with eating their lunch.

Attendance by candidates themselves was also an issue, with many candidates not participating in the debates and instead electing to send in write-ups for the IEC to read off in their absence. Several debate groups had only one candidate physically present, while a few had zero.

Humza Khan was the only presidential candidate to attend the Surrey debate, and spared no time pointing this out. “You should vote for me because I’m the only candidate with executive experience, and I’m the only candidate that likes to show up for debates,” Khan stated.

Current SFSS FCAT representative and presidential candidate Sarah Veness attended the two Burnaby debates and candidate Nickolas Haley attended the first of the Burnaby debates only. When the question of who the current SFSS president is was directed at Haley, he pleaded ignorance.

Mid-reply cut-offs was a common occurrence at the debates, with each response only given 30 seconds by the IEC. After the first round of debates, The Peak spoke with Yeung, who mentioned concerns over the current debate model. “It needs some change, I think, especially for some of the executive positions, the president in particular,” Yeung said.

“I would ideally like to see a more mediated discussion as opposed to a structured 30-second statement, to actually suit the word debate, essentially.” Yeung did recognize that this format may not be possible with time restraints, but said he would like to see that for the president position at least. Voting takes place online this week from Mar. 12–14.

Fatoba disqualified, later re-instated
External relations officer candidate Kayode Fatoba found himself in hot water with the IEC last week after it was found that he had put up a campaign poster over eight feet tall, a violation of the SFSS candidate
handbook. The IEC made the decision to prohibit Fatoba from posting campaign materials because of this, either in print or online.

Fatoba then responded by emailing a message out to all other SFSS candidates regarding the IEC and their decision, which got him disqualified from the election.

“The IEC felt that he defamed [them] by sending out emails to other candidates, talking to other candidates about the IEC not being partisan, or not being just or fair,” said Chief electoral officer Avery Kwong. “Basically what we told him was that we’re going to disqualify you for that reason; not the poster but for sending that out.”

A hearing was then held on Thursday morning prior to the second debate, where Fatoba was given the opportunity to defend his actions. During this hearing, the majority of IEC commissioners made the decision to allow
Fatoba to remain in the election, pending an apology for the mass message. As of press time, The Peak has not received a comment from Fatoba.

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Simon Fraser University’s independent student newspaper since 1965.

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© The Peak Publications Society

Simon Fraser University’s independent student newspaper since 1965.

For advertising inquiries: [email protected]
For promotional inquiries: [email protected]

© The Peak Publications Society