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Genetically modified foods unquestionably dangerous

By
EIC
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Fatal exposure tests of rats to GMO foods don’t bode well for us

By Kai Yang Shiao
Photos by Ben Buckley

Time and time again, the ongoing debate regarding the application of genetic engineering of food supplies has largely failed to bring many key facts into the spotlight. Nov. 12’s point/counter-point was no different. The subsequent examination of these facts will provide strong support for the idea that that the current genetic engineering does not employ the precautionary principles it should.

GMOs are often touted as resistant to various pests and acts of god, such as droughts, and therefore must be the new norm in human societies across the world. Those in favour of GMOs often fail to consider the implications of their large-scale introduction into the mainstream agribusiness industry. It is commonly known that the wide application of pesticides has subsequently resulted in the development of future immunity by agricultural pests.

It’s Darwinism at its finest: initially, GMO plants may possess implanted genes that produce poisons to ward off potential predators and kill the vast majority of pests. Over time, however, the surviving pests reproduce and therefore pass on their resistant genes to their offspring. In accordance with the principle of natural selection, these favourable traits will eventually proliferate throughout other members of the entire species until they develop complete resistance to these plant-produced pesticides.[pullquote]Rats fed NK603 genetically modified, Roundup-resistant corn developed massive mammary tumours, with 70 per cent of females dying unusually early.[/pullquote]

To make matters worse, their massive introduction would promote genetic uniformity as opposed to genetic diversity, and therefore make them vulnerable to the new generation of pests that, unlike their ancestors, will now be resistant to the effects of pesticides and put strains on the global food supply. Therefore, the idea that GMOs can somehow solve the recurring problem in agriculture of plant destruction once and for all is fallacious. Pests are constantly adapting to their environment in order to ensure their future survival.

Another issue of crucial importance is lab work with respect to GMOs. In the scientific world, rats are often used as surrogates in place of humans for testing various pharmaceutical, agricultural, and household substances. Because humans and rats are descended from a common ancestor, it is no surprise that rats are widely known for certain genetic and therefore biological similarities to humans. Therefore, the effects of such experiments, positive and negative, will likely also be experienced by humans.

With this principle in mind, scientists conducted an independent study in which a group of laboratory rats were fed NK603 Roundup-resistant genetically modified corn developed by Monsanto. The other group of laboratory rats served as a control group, given conventionally cultivated corn by the researchers. Scientists were astonished by the wide variety of detrimental health impacts that immediately appeared in the former group of laboratory rats. They ranged from massive tumours to organ damage, and even premature death in 70 per cent of the females. While experiments such as the aforementioned one regarding genetically modified organisms (GMOs) continue to be relatively scant, the alarming results of the experiment casts doubt on the wisdom of large-scale efforts to introduce GMOs into our diets.

The findings dispute the claim that opposition to the use of such technology is simply based on scare-mongering and has no substantial basis. There is already substantial evidence suggest that a sober second look before incorporating GMOs into the mainstream food supply across the world.

Don’t shoot the mistress

By
EIC
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Changing attitudes and shifting social scenes requires us to reevaluate our love of monogamy

By Susan Currie

The Nov. 13 edition of The Peak’s “High infidelity” feature looked at The Mistress, a show that tries to de-vilify the “other” woman. Sarah J. Symonds, hostess of the program, believes that much of the problem lays in the lack of self-esteem held by mistresses, women who seem to fall upon married men and, oops, start engaging in sex with them. Symonds did this twice, so she would know right?

Symonds’s suspect sincerity aside, programs like The Mistress merely dance around the issue that should be under scrutiny when discussing the failing institutions of monogamy and marriage. This article also pointed out that the social and geographical climate of Vancouver makes it ideal for would-be adulterers. This may be true; Vancouver is a city teeming with people, most of whom just wanna get laid — been on OKCupid lately? Also noted is Vancouver’s oft-spoken of shell of a dating scene — I reiterate, been on OKCupid lately?

What I’ve observed is that the old method of dating, courting multiple people at a time and ceasing when a formal “dating” relationship has been formed (old-school monogamy), has seen its days. The more socially liberal we are about sex, the more willing people are to create hasty commitments with very recent dating partners. New monogamy has, in many ways, become synonymous with immediate co-dependency. Think of monogamy as wheat: originally we ate a lot of it, and it was generally wholesome and good, but now, after years of genetic modification, your local Safeway has over twenty different products labeled “Gluten Free,” because eventually it got out of hand.
I’ve been chastising monogamy, but it’s not really monogamy that irks me. Being emotionally and physically committed to one person is just groovy. The problem is the fear and ignorance with which people view the other options, options that work in a changing social-sexual climate. Swing, polyamoury, open-relationships — these are all viable options, rarely discussed because the closed-dyad is the hinge on which a great deal of our social assumptions swing.

Do women who become the mistresses of married men just have bad self-esteem? Are all men who cheat scoundrels? It’s hard to say, many of them probably do/are. Will open relationships and the revolution of the North American relationship structure abolish adultery and infidelity? Absolutely not; people make bad decisions and we don’t always know why. It will provide some people with non-co-dependent options, and perhaps that will cease this supposed “eruption” and growth in adulterous behavior in Vancouver. Perhaps the evolution of the sexual/romantic relationship in North America is required for a city like ours where overwhelming options, or overwhelming isolation, can be anybody’s ticket to dubious decision making.

The point of an open relationship is open communication about desires, needs, and interests. We no longer rely on marriage and monogamy for sex and safety, and thus our relationships and reliance on monogamy has changed. Fidelity and honesty with our partners should be an assumption we make, but fidelity and honesty is not monogamy’s domain alone. Being open doesn’t mean that cheating cannot happen. It very well can. What it does mean is that the option to discuss a non-traditional relationship is available and non-taboo. Bonus, when monogamy is not a default option, you can choose it instead of being assigned to it, if that’s how you swing.

We should go no fault

By
EIC
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0

It’s the reason other provinces’ insurance rates are substantially lower than ours

By Paul Hurst

In Saskatchewan and Manitoba, car insurance is completely “no fault.” This means you cannot sue Saskatchewan General Insurance or Manitoba Public Insurance for money for “pain and suffering” from a car accident.

The insurance rates in those two provinces are substantially lower than in BC. In BC, the “no fault benefits’ are fairly limited. This is because there is universal health care to cover you for medical treatment. ICBC and BC Medical overlap coverage if you are at fault. You cannot sue yourself, so you cannot claim for “pain and suffering” if you are responsible for the accident.

If you are not at fault, it’s a completely different story. In BC, you have the right to make a ‘tort’ claim against the other driver if they are at fault and responsible for your injuries. Since ICBC covers the at-fault driver under their third party coverage (you are the third party in this case), you make your claim against ICBC.

An injury adjuster may settle with you, or you may be unhappy with that process and end up in court. To my understanding, your plaintiff lawyer will claim upwards of 30 per cent of any settlement with ICBC.

Because of the costs of personal injury claims against ICBC every year, the cost for insurance in BC is higher than Saskatchewan. Somewhere in the range of 60 per cent of your third party insurance premiums go towards paying injury claims.

If ICBC converted to a total no fault system, several things would happen:

1: Quite a few lawyers would be out of work.

2: You would not get a large cash settlement if you were injured.

3: You would not go to court to get money, thus the courts would be less backlogged.

4: The amount of coverage under mandatory no fault coverage would expand, so that you would likely get better medical treatment, wage loss, and other automatic benefits.

5: Quite a few ICBC staff might be out of a job.

6: Any claim you make would be far simpler and more automated.

7: The amount you pay for car insurance would be substantially less than what you pay now.

8: The chances of ICBC going bankrupt would be reduced. Since this is a possibility, the cost of the government bailing out ICBC could be onerous.

9: There are procedures in place in Saskatchewan and Manitoba to handle severe injuries, so looking to those two provinces as templates would make sense.

10: In Manitoba, the public is given the choice to add a tort coverage package to their insurance. This was the first time since the 1970s that people in that province could claim for personal injury. Surprisingly, few choose the option, as they are quite happy with the no fault system they have now.

If BC switches to a no-fault system, there will be endless political debate prior to any changes being implemented. A change may be precipitated by an economic crisis that puts ICBC into bankruptcy. Since much larger insurers like AIG have gone bankrupt, it’s possible it could happen to ICBC. The cost of injury claims was in the billions of dollars per year, and it’s the ratepayers who own cars that foot the bill.

Ultimately, it’ll be you who decides, so you might want to educate yourself further on no-fault insurance.

Undergraduate issues are linked to current labour unrest

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EIC
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By Michael McDonell

Issues that undergrad students face are linked just as closely to current educational policies as what TSSU members have experienced over the 29 months leading up to their new contract. The length of time this took, and the fact that CUPE 3338 workers still don’t have a collective agreement, is not a good sign for having undergraduate issues addressed anytime soon. In the meantime, the list of issues continues to grow: rising tuition fees, cutbacks in provincial funding, ever-increasing student loan debt and high interest rates are only the most visible ones.

In a climate of austerity, students are forced to pay more tuition for their education, while having less time with university faculty, and funding is being cut to university budgets in a number of areas. Similar cuts have happened in secondary schools, where the BC government forced teachers to accept a contract (under the ‘essential services’ clause) which reduced funding, increased class sizes, and attacked teachers’ wages and working conditions. Ask the students who mobilized in Quebec earlier this year: these attacks are interconnected.

In Canada last year, the average student graduated with roughly $27,000 of debt, partly owing to the fact that tuition fees have doubled from their 2002 level and quadrupled what they were in 1992. Currently, close to 40 per cent of SFU’s operating budget comes from tuition fees (slightly above average for universities now — double the 1988 amount). Student loan interest rates in BC are the highest in Canada, at prime plus 2.5. This costs the average student nearly $8,000 extra on a 10-year repayment plan, while other provinces have already eliminated student loan interest. Moreover, in BC, there has been no coherent provincial grants system since 2005. As a result, less than 10 per cent of student loan debt is repaid by the government, unlike Manitoba (46 per cent), and Quebec (42 per cent). SFU should be at the forefront of defending student access to public education, but has instead acquiesced to these provincial cutbacks.

There are many outstanding issues at SFU. One striking example is building maintenance: according to the Graduate Student Society’s report on deferred maintenance, the university has allowed its Annual Capital Allowance to be cut 91 per cent between 2008–09 and 2010, even though the majority of buildings are in poor condition and a nearly 400 per cent increase is still needed from 2008 levels. This is why you saw buckets on the floor in the West Mall Complex as water was dripping from the ceiling.

But it is not that the university lacks money, far from it. To put this in perspective, SFU administrators’ pay has skyrocketed in the last decade. The average wages of the President and four Vice-Presidents of SFU (who oversee Research, Academic, Finance, and Legal Departments) is more than two-thirds higher than Members of Parliament in Ottawa. Admins in general have seen a 45 per cent salary increase in the last eight years, while Master’s TAs have gotten next to nothing without taking serious job action. This is bad both for the quality of our tutorials and for our future in graduate school, where most of us will be if nearly three-quarters of new jobs created in the next five years will require post-secondary degrees.

The current policies at SFU harm not only TAs, TMs, precarious sessional instructors, and campus workers, but the very undergraduates on whom SFU’s operating budget increasingly relies. And yet, channels for students to express their needs do exist: the SFSS Advocacy Committee (and several other committees), which is part of the Where’s the Funding?! Campaign; department student unions, which have members sitting on departmental committees and send paid representatives to the SFSS Forum at least once a month; and action groups at SFPIRG that can undertake projects and raise awareness. We need to continue to support groups on campus (like CUPE 3338) while they fight for their rights, to demonstrate that we know these issues are linked to issues in the educational system in general. Solidarity has to be broad in order to be effective.

NATO flag should be flown on Remembrance Day

By
EIC
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By Dan Peach

The piece “SFU should not hoist NATO flag” published by Cedric Chen in the Nov. 5, 2012 edition of The Peak displayed a great degree of insulation from reality. I do, however, commend the author for writing his opinions down and publishing them, no matter how misguided they are. The use of NATO to project the power of the West, including that of the much-maligned USA, has been of great benefit to us as a country, and is part of what allows genuinely dissenting pieces, such as Chen’s, to be published without the author having to worry about being executed, disappearing, or having to navigate censorship systems such as the Great Firewall of China.

I recognize that there are problems with the Western media, with NATO, Canada, and the West as a whole. I doubt any sane person would deny this. However, I challenge Chen to present and implement an alternative to NATO that would be of more benefit to Canadian society as a whole and be practical to introduce. The NATO flag should, without a doubt, be flown on Remembrance Day, as the men and women who have fought under it should be remembered for defending our Western way of life, helping other nations to maintain or achieve it, and keeping our enemies occupied far from our homes.

War isn’t clean. It isn’t a perfect solution to any problem and it certainly isn’t something we should desire or aspire to. It often results in the deaths of innocents and non-combatants. I’m saddened that journalists were killed when the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was hit during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. Depending on the source of information, this was done either by accident or because it was providing a signals facility for the enemy, specifically to a man wanted for war crimes. I assume that Chen is just as saddened by the Tarnak Farm friendly fire incident that resulted in the deaths of four Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan (the first Canadian deaths in a combat zone since the Korean War) who were fighting under the NATO flag. And I’m sure that amidst a busy schedule of flipping off NATO flags, Mr. Chen found a moment on Remembrance Day to honour these soldiers and the many other Canadians who have died fighting for us, no matter what flag they did so under.

For all its costs, sometimes war is the only effective method left to us to protect our way of life or that of our allies. Remembrance Day is about remembering the horrors of war and honouring those who have fought to maintain our way of life, with all the imperfections and unique freedoms it entails. In fact, I think I will take advantage of one of the freedoms that NATO soldiers (and many others for that matter) have protected for us and other countries to state the following: Cedric Chen, your “nation’s grudge” has no place in determining what is honoured on Canadian Remembrance Day. While I respect your right to publish it, the article was ignorant, crass, and disrespectful, and I hope someday you feel ashamed of your words and the gesture you made at the NATO flag.

Miriam Margolyes brings the women of Charles Dickens to life

By
EIC
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0

 

The worldwide tour of Dickens’ Women celebrates the bi centenary of Dickens’ birth

By Monica Miller
Photos by Prudence-Upton

Although she is best known to youth as Professor Sprout from the Harry Potter movies, Miriam Margolyes is much more than that. She is a British stage, screen, and voice actor with numerous awards, nominations, and even an Order of the British Empire for her work in drama.

In the Olivier Award-nominated production of Dickens’ Women, Margolyes explores the man through his work — with character sketches, short readings, monologues, comedy, and commentary on his life. Originally premiering the show at the 1989 Edinburgh Festival, Margolyes has been on tour with Dickens’ Women since January to celebrate Charles Dickens’s bicentenary.

The one-woman performance, which boasts depictions of more than 23 characters, traces Dickens’s life, from childhood to marriage and ultimately to death. That life is much different than the jovial artist persona he maintained for the public.

 

Write What You Know

“[Dickens] could write about the underbelly of society because he came from it,” Margolyes narrates, addressing the audience plainly. She explains that he was born into the lower middle-class, but was a social climber. In Dickens’s world, class and social standing were not necessarily the indicator of a good or bad character. Margolyes uses her incredible talents as a voice actor to convey region, class, attitudes, and the judgment of the characters portrayed. Most of his novels came out in serialized releases, but Dickens made more money from dramatic readings than publishing work; this is one of the reasons performing Dickens’s work, like Shakespeare before him, is so captivating.

“One of my particular pleasures is to isolate voice,” Margolyes explains on the phone from her hotel in downtown Vancouver. Working with Sonia Fraser to create the script, Margolyes uses a simple set, lighting, and pianist accompaniment to bring Dickens’ Women alive.

“One of the powerful things about Charles Dickens is his strong moral conviction. If he thinks someone is bad, you can tell immediately.” Margolyes selected a variety of characters both famous and obscure from the novelist’s large body of work, combining comedy, pathos, disgust, satire, and social commentary.

Dickens’ Women draws parallels between his real life and the lives crafted on the page, driving home the well-worn cliche “write what you know.” Aspects of his mother, sisters, wife, lovers, and the other women in his life can been glimpsed within the females on the page: Mrs. Pipchin from Dombey and Son, motivated by the woman he boarded with as a child; Flora Finching from Little Dorrit, based on the lady who spurned his love as a young man; Mrs. Mcawbir from David Copperfield, inspired by his mother and the keeping up of appearances; and a whole host of  “young, beautiful, and good” 17-year-olds in tribute to his deceased sister-in-law, Mary Hogarth.

True to her style, Margolyes speaks plainly to the audience with comedy and wit. She even addressed our hesitation to interrupt the performance with applause: “You can clap now” — and we did.

 

Relevence for Canadian students

Charles Dickens, like many great artists, has a worldwide allure and a sense of timelessness apparent in his work. He wrote about the realities and torments of life and relationships, and the constant struggle of good versus evil.

“Humanity is the same in different countries,” remarks Margolyes. “The same concerns of life, love, fear, and betrayal attack people wherever they are.

“Like any great artist, he had universal appeal,” says Margolyes, citing Leonard Cohen as a contemporary Canadian example. “The problem with students [today] is they flit around — everything they receive is from the screen, and very little is from the printed page or direct eye contact,” Margolyes laments. “Young people today are terribly deprived because they don’t even know they are.”

 

On The Town

Dickens’ Women finishes in Chicago, after which Margolyes will fly back to London in time for Christmas Eve. In early January, she will be returning to Australia, where she will have two months rest and finally become an Australian citizen. Then she will begin filming the second season of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, a television drama series based on detective novels by Australian author Kerry Greenwood.

You can clap now.

SFU Author Spotlight: Poetry Abound

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EIC
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By Monica Miller

Catherine Owen is a Vancouver poet who completed her BA and MA at SFU (1997–2001) in English Literature, writing her thesis on poet Robinson Jeffers. She is the author of nine collections of poetry and has been published in numerous journals and anthologies. Owen has been nominated for a variety of awards including the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, the ReLit Award, the Gerald Lampert Award, and in 2009 her poetry book Frenzy won the Alberta Literary Award.

Owen’s most recent book of poetry is Trobairitz, published by Anvil Press and released Oct. 27, 2012. Inspired by the metal scene and her extensive research of medieval culture, Trobairitz has both a 12th and 21st-century flair. Owen has in-depth experience with both subjects: she was in metal bands in Vancouver and Edmonton for eight years, and researched medieval culture for six years.

“It was compelled by my desire to write poems on the disparities between male and female creators in the [metal] scene, as well as by the music within medieval poetic forms,” She says about Trobairitz. A “trobairitz” is a female troubadour from the twelfth century.

Following the launch, Owen went on a 10-date tour across Canada, performing and selling copies of the book and other Trobairitz merchandise. She is excited about many things coming down the pipeline for the book, as well as other projects. A woman of many talents, Owen is not only an author and musician, she is also a photographer and model.

“[Currently] I am working on a collection of poems about the Fraser River, a blackened-doom [heavy metal] project called Medea, some essays on grief, and a photographic collaboration with Paul Saturley known as Pandemonium.”

 

 

Colin Browne is a professor at SFU’s School of Contemporary Arts, in addition to being a published author and a documentary filmmaker oft invited to national and international festivals. Browne is a pivotal individual in the local arts scene, co-founding organizations such as the Praxis Centre for Screenwriters, the Audio-Visual Heritage Association of BC, and the Kootenay School of Writing.

Browne completed his MA in English at SFU, and uses poetry to articulate how he perceives the world and the places around him. Early on in life, he was inspired by Dylan Thomas, Kenneth Patchen, and Robinson Jeffers. Browne’s work has been nominated for the Governor-General’s Award for Poetry, and his most recent book of poetry, The Properties, was published with Talonbooks this spring. In the book’s introduction, Browne writes, “Poetry begins when the properties of things — and the correspondences among them — reveal themselves through language. . . . All times and places exist simultaneously.”

“For me, history always has one foot in the personal, intimate history of a family.” Several poems continue the examination of the documentary form begun in The Shovel (Talonbooks, 2007).

Browne is already working on his next book of poetry, which will examine “the surrealiste fascination with Northwest coast and Alaskan art,” an area he’s been researching for several years.

“Last year [I] wrote a catalogue essay for the VAG’s surrealiste exhibition The Colour of My Dreams entitled ‘Scavengers of Paradise,’ ” says Browne. “I have a feeling the book will have the same title.”

Browne teaches the School of Contemporary Arts’ fourth-year film production courses, screenwriting, film studies and critical writing in the arts.

good kid, m.A.A.d city, great album

By
EIC
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1

 

 By Max Hill

good kid, m.A.A.d. city is punctuated by the voicemail messages its 17-year-old protagonist receives. His mother prays for him and tempers her disappointment with the hope that he’ll grow out of his adolescent flirtations with gang violence and drug use. His struggles with his faith and his faithful mother are the heartbeat of the album, and the hour-plus span might well be considered a confessional. Kendrick Lamar bears all throughout GKMC, which chronicles his experiences on the violent streets of Compton at 17, and his originality and flair in telling his deeply personal and, at times, heart-wrenching story make the album the most impressive work in the genre in years. Lamar is a talented MC, and his flow is intoxicating: on tracks like “Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe” and “Money Trees”, it’s easy to ignore the stories and appreciate the creative beats and engaging hooks.

[pullquote]His religion and the wise words of his parents are weaved through the album’s twelve tracks, on the fringe of Lamar’s consciousness as he struggles with rival gangs, the police, and the muted voice of his conscience.[/pullquote]

Even though many of the album’s songs stand well enough on their own, this is a work best consumed as a whole: tracks like “Backseat Freestyle”, featuring the boasts of a 17-year-old fueled by testosterone and peer pressure, lose some of their quality out of context. The album’s narrative begins with an innocent young man attracted to the gang violence of Compton, drunk with peer pressure and the promise of promiscuous sex, and ends with bloodshed and Lamar’s ultimate rejection of his reckless lifestyle. His religion and the wise words of his parents are weaved through the album’s twelve tracks, on the fringe of Lamar’s consciousness as he struggles with rival gangs, the police, and the muted voice of his conscience.

good kid, m.A.A.d. city might have been a messy, unfocused sprawl in the hands of another MC, but Lamar’s talent for concise storytelling keep the album tied together. Musically, it’s endlessly listenable and varied, as the tracks range in style to express the mood of their narrators. Where “Backseat Freestyle” might feel most at home on hip-hop radio, with its typical misogynistic hyperboles and heavy bass, tracks like “Good Kid” and “Swimming Pools (Drank)” are accessible even to the uninitiated hip-hop listener. Conversely, the 12-minute epic “Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst” is one of the most inventive hip-hop tracks to be released this year, and “Money Trees’” samples Beach House’s “Silver Soul” to great effect. Lamar’s wit and talent for affecting his voice to portray different characters (his pubescent squeak in “m.A.A.d. city” contrasts perfectly with its hyper-violent lyrics) have improved since last year’s Section.80, and only help solidify GKMC as one decof the most intelligent, well-realized and masterful hip-hop albums to come along this decade.

Lincoln boldly challenges a broken world

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EIC
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0

Spielberg’s latest feature succeeds as more than a biopic

By Will Ross

Even Steven Spielberg’s detractors agree on this much: his movies make people feel good. But those critics insist that he is too eager to please; an empty moralizer; a charlatan. To them, his histories are worst of all: he introduces mass audiences to issues like racism, the toll of war, or the Holocaust, and then he resolves them. Resolves the Holocaust, for Christ’s sakes!

They’re not wrong about that. But so it is for the best of Spielberg’s “grown-up” works: they resolve the irresolvable. And so it is with Lincoln.

The film follows the efforts of Abraham Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis) to pass the 13th amendment that forever abolished slavery in the US. The American civil war between the northern Union and southern Confederacy is drawing to a close, and Lincoln knows that if he does not pass the amendment now by purporting that it will help to end the war (by means of emancipated soldiers and a crippled southern economy), the war will end anyway, as will the support of a voting public that still has no use for racial equality unless it brings their sons and husbands home. To persuade his cabinet and earn the votes of Congress, Lincoln employs political trickery, pleading, and bribery. Day-Lewis plays the role astoundingly well, not as an icon, but as a pragmatist, still grieving for his tuberculosis-felled son. Externally, he is a charismatic and humble storyteller of folksy charms — a persona of political design.

[pullquote]Men are asked to sacrifice what they hold dear, and often to reward the unworthy, in order to pass the bill.[/pullquote]

Aiding and opposing him are a supporting cast of uniform excellence, though none more excellent than Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens, a radical whose insistence on not only abolition, but complete legal and political equality, threatens to scare the more timid congressmen from lending the bill their decisive votes.

The dilemma thus faced by Stevens lies at the heart of Tony Kushner’s stunningly literate screenplay. Men are asked to sacrifice what they hold dear, and often to reward the unworthy, in order to pass the bill. In a peace conference with Confederate vice-president Alexander Stephens, Lincoln admits that to end the war, Stephens must give up his culture and way of life. It is not revenge or blackmail; it is simply the price that must be paid.

All creative parties show masterful craftsmanship. Every choice — be it of Michael Kahn’s cutting, John Williams’s score, Janusz Kaminski’s cinematography and the direction of Spielberg himself — is one of utmost motivation and restraint. The result is a quiet film of immense suspense and emotional effect — you know how it turns out, but you will grip your seat as the house casts its votes.

It’s not the saintly vision of Abe you’d find on a five-dollar bill — this is, to be sure, a broken democracy — but nor is it an expose of what he was “really like.” Lincoln is uninterested in the oft-drawn biopic dichotomy of man vs. myth. It aims for neither hagiography nor documentary; history books can do that job better. Instead, it asks that we halt our dreams and renounce our egos if it is in the interest of peace and principle. We needn’t believe that we can resolve the irresolvable. But we must at least try, and Spielberg is right to ask that of us.

Discovering the world of Hayao Miyazaki

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Cinematheque and Vancity Theatre scheduled to screen films from the masters of Studio Ghibli

By Monica Miller

I watched my first Hayao Miyazaki movie around age seven — My Neighbour Totoro (Tonari no Totoro, 1988) — with my big sister on VHS. We were sitting in the basement on beanbags (mine was pink and hers was purple) and the shaggy orange and brown carpet beneath our feet, the rented tape spooling through the VCR. In the summer, we had picnics in the backyard and ate whole cucumbers like Mei in the movie. I don’t know how many times we rented that tape and other Miyazaki films like Kiki’s Delivery Service (Majo no takkyubin, 1989) from the local video store, but it probably would have been cheaper to just buy a copy.

Hayao Miyazaki is a world-renowned Japanese film director, animator, manga artist and screenwriter. He co-founded Studio Ghibli, a film and animation studio, in 1985. Since then he has directed more than 20 films and animated, designed, or wrote more than two-dozen more. In North America, he is best known for Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi, 2001), which won an Academy Award in 2003 for Best Animated Feature.

[pullquote]Many of his feature-length films have themes of ecological and political strife, and depict strong female characters, which is important to me.[/pullquote]

In high school, I began to watch more of Miyazaki’s films, such as Castle in the Sky (Tenku no shiro Rapyuta, 1986) and Princess Mononoke (Mononoke-hime, 1997), and also branched out to other Studio Ghibli filmmakers. For my 13th birthday, my parents gave me a little 13-inch screen with a built-in VCR for my bedroom, and I loved watching movies in bed. I remember seeing director Isao Takahata’s Grave of the Fireflies (Hotaru no haka, 1988) and crying my eyes out. That film takes place in WWII era Japan, where a young boy and his little sister flee the city after their mother is killed in an air raid. The story follows the two siblings’ struggle to survive and stay hopeful.

Miyazaki’s films are not so directly allegorical , but his social commentary is apparent to older viewers. Having lived through the Second World War and grown up in postwar Japan, he developed a fascination for aviation through his father’s career as well as distaste for senseless conflict. Many of his feature-length films have themes of ecological and political strife, and depict strong female characters, which is important to me.

[pullquote]Miyazaki’s films are not so directly allegorical , but his social commentary is apparent to older viewers.[/pullquote]

When I was 16, I got the opportunity for an all-expenses paid trip to Japan. Vancouver had partnered with our sister port city in Japan to offer a student exchange for eight Vancouver students and eight Yokohama students. In the spring of 2003, my family and I hosted my exchange partner for 16 days, and in the autumn, I visited them in Japan.

Our activities were mostly arranged by the student exchange administration, but my host family arranged a couple special outings based on my interests. They knew how much I loved Hayao Miyazaki, but the Studio Ghibli Museum, which had only recently been established with the success of Spirited Away, was in Tokyo, a three-hour drive from Yokohama. Instead, they took me to one of the Ghibli gift shops in Yokohama, where I must have spent nearly an hour and a half looking around and spending thousands of yen.

My Neighbour Totoro was recently redubbed and re-released by Disney in 2006 featuring the voices of Dakota Fanning and her little sister Elle Fanning. I ordered it online, and when it arrived I immediately popped it into the DVD player. I couldn’t even watch the first five minutes; it sounded so wrong to me.

I wondered: why haven’t I watched any versions subtitled instead of dubbed? I still feel remiss sometimes for always watching the English dubbed versions. Luckily, Pacific Cinematheque and Vancity Theatre are co-hosting a bunch of Studio Ghibli films in a program called Castles in the Sky: Miyazaki, Takahata, and the Masters of Studio Ghibli from Dec. 7, 2012 to Jan. 3, 2013. At the top of my list are Only Yesterday and The Ocean Waves, which were never released in North America. The films will all be in new 35mm prints and will screen at Cinematheque in Japanese with English subtitles and Vancity Theatre in English dubs.

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Simon Fraser University’s independent student newspaper since 1965.

Contact us: [email protected]

© The Peak Publications Society 1965-2024

Simon Fraser University’s independent student newspaper since 1965.

Contact us:
[email protected]

© The Peak Publications Society 1965-2024