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Ballin’: A Look into the Appeal of Sports

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EIC
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By Munatsi Mavhima

Avid sports fanatics – or anyone who just enjoys large crowds, food, booze, and nonsensical screams of joy and anguish—will have their plates full in June and July: this summer offers some of the finest sporting action known to man, with the European Football championship and the Olympic Games. I’m one of those people. My day is greatly affected when a loss is inflicted upon my favourite team. I’ll stubbornly defend their decisions both on and off the sports field, and even my closest friends and family can become my worst enemy for 90 minutes at a time. My parents give me updates from two continents away. Oh yes, it’s that serious. So why question it? Why think to myself that the hours spent at bars and homes and fan zones, in front of the widest, thinnest, smartest, most HD screens I can find, could be more usefully applied elsewhere?

It started with a discussion with my girlfriend. Not understanding why I watched sport so much, she aptly put it as, “Watching grown men run around”. Anybody in a relationship would know that this was not the time to point out female athletes, but she had a point. There is a certain absurdity to the spectacle, the show that sport is today. People are paid big money to run, jump, catch, hit, kick, swim, and drive for our entertainment. And they do it well. The grace, balance, the harmony between precision and power is a testament to natural selection. So we spend billions of dollars on merchandise and matches and bets; all for the glory of our teams, their championships, silverware and medals. This is money that the common man will never see again, and yet they accept the privilege to gloat about the past weekend or season. I don’t mean to undermine community projects and charity runs, but consider this: Manchester City football club spent hundreds of millions of dollars on new players last year, unaffected by the recession that ravaged the world and probably 90% of the people in the stands.

Which brings me to what I believe is the main reason that sports are so popular: teams are born out of communities; they represent the values held by a group of people. How much of that is still true today? Going back to Manchester City example: they were founded by members of a small church in Gorton as a way of positively influencing and uniting the city of Manchester; noble and humble beginnings that are echoed within the club and benefit the people of Manchester today. In contrast, the decade FC Barcelona team was founded by foreigners but came to embody the principles of the Catalan population. At the centre of this was politics, mainly the push in Catalonia for autonomy from the central government in Madrid. This passionate desire for independence from Spain is the reason behind “El Clásico” the thrilling rivalry between the soccer teams, FC Barcelona and Real Madrid.

A similar rivalry is reflected in the battles between the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs. Politics, socio-economic status, and religion have created clubs and teams, organisations whose history that has captured our interest and sparked great stories of determination, courage and hope.
However, for all the emotion evoked by a last minute “Hail Mary”, or by a great comeback win, it’s still ultimately all about cold, hard cash. Sports are a big business: between T.V. rights, publicity, merchandise, and ticket sales, winning is crucial in balancing the books. The more money you invest into your club, the bigger the revenues. The influence of big money investors cannot be ignored, and the disparities between teams has been largely criticised, with calls for salary caps similar to those measures in place in North America.

So, to all those that continue to question the meaning of sports, there is a simple answer: intangibles aside, it is money and business. Clubs are just another example of textbook capitalism. In order to build an infrastructure for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the South African government had to borrow huge sums of money, particularly in terms of the under-utilised Soccer City that cost $440 million to build. Despite all the debt, however, the upgrades were necessary, and tourism really did increase incredibly.
Even with all the borrowed money and accumulated debt, can intangibles really be ignored? If so, the Olympic Games become null and void. The symbolic, iconic flame; the world tour; the desire to unite the world peacefully through sport: all used to imbue a sense of national pride, and to show that we all deserve the same rights and opportunities. Equality and respect across gender, ethnicity, and political creed: that is the crux of this grand competition. The US-Soviet battles played out at the Games, but unlike in politics, a mutual respect and admiration was fostered.

South Korea’s development came to the world’s attention in 2002 when they hosted and reached the semi-finals of the FIFA World Cup. Cheering for the little guy, the appreciation of hard, honest determination, the win-some-lose-some blunt truth that sport exhibits; this purity resonates louder than dollar signs and reckless violence. Look past it, through it, to the soul behind the spectacle.

Album review: What We Saw From The Cheap Seats — Regina Spektor

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EIC
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By Navneet Nagra

Seasoned eccentric Regina Spektor sends down another round of intelligent chamber pop

It’s been three years since Regina Spektor’s last studio release Far, and the wait was worth it. What We Saw From The Cheap Seats is Spektor’s second collaboration with producer Mike Elizondo, and together they have created a vibrant mix of ballads and stylized rhythms.

The first single “All the Rowboats” stands out immediately. Regina’s voice sings a futuristic, melodic tune that stays in your head for days. It’s a dark, chaotic work with deep piano and heavy drumbeats that plug right into the senses.

Spektor — an activist spotted on Wall Street during the Occupy protests — makes a strong showing of her political inspirations with “Ballad of a Politican”. The track beautifully illustrates our lovely, screwed-up world through haunting lyrics and soft piano notes. Vocal tricks are used throughout Cheap Seats, most notably in “Open” and “The Party”, and the odd methodology used to create them is Spektor’s specialty. Not only does she imitate the sounds of a trumpet during “Open”, but during the bridge she creates a completely new instrument with a demonic sound that adds further punch to an already powerful song.

Spektor’s unwavering interest in vocally pushing the envelope is what sets her apart from other songstresses. In each track, we get a chance to hear something new she’s come up with. Unafraid to experiment, Spektor’s style streams over different genres such as folk, jazz, and hip hop, all while keeping her Russian flare.

The Cheap Seats is not entirely bold and new. A few familiarities are present in the opening bars of “Small Town Moon” that bring to mind “Samson” from her 2006 record Begin to Hope, and we are reintroduced to “Don’t Leave Me (Ne me quitte pas)”, which was first released on her second album. “Don’t Leave Me” highlights Regina’s tri-lingual talents with its mainly French lyrics; as heard in Begin to Hope’s “Apres moi,” Spektor flawlessly flows through French and English to create a timeless melody.

Spektor is a master of her craft, and What We Saw From The Cheap Seats shows that she’s still got a few tricks up her sleeve and is as brilliant as ever.

The Twin Flowers: Eco-terrorism and the extremist approach to environmentalism

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EIC
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By Ljudmila Petrovic

ECO-TERRORISM (from UrbanDictionary)
  1. Eco-terrorism is a crime committed to save nature. The crime must have the characteristics of terrorism as defined by the FBI
  2.  Terrorism that actually seems to have a reasonable backing. Done to make the idiotic governments realize that their asses aren’t the only ones in danger and that the earth matters, too. Like all terrorism it achieves no end except to make people afraid of you and the government pissed as hell.
  3. Eco-terrorist~ VERY extreme environmentalist who resorts to violence and the destruction of property to get his/her message across.

Eco-terrorism is one of America’s most active terrorist movements.

Those damn Eco-terrorists blew up my McDonalds… fucking tree huggers.

On April 9th, Weibo Ludwig—infamous for his part in an oil patch bombing and various other eco-terrorism missions—died from cancer at the age of 70. His death once again sparked the debate that had surrounded Ludwig in life: was he a martyr for the environment and his cause, or was he a terrorist, responsible for the damage and deaths associated to his bombings? “Even now, many in the environmental movement are trying to paint Mr. Ludwig as an eco-warrior who valiantly stood his ground against the forces of Big Oil”, wrote Jesse Kline in a National Post article the day after Ludwig’s death. “But we should make no mistake about it: Instead of working through the legal system, Mr. Ludwig waged a campaign that showed no respect for private property or the sanctity of human life.” This opinion is one of the many surrounding eco-terrorism, a movement with morals as contradictory and ambiguous as its definition.

 

One of the environmental groups renowned for its eco-terrorist missions is The Earth Liberation Front (ELF).  “ELF’s mission is to defend and protect the Earth for future generations by means of direct action”, reads their website. “Although there has never been an injury or death stemming from an ELF action, it can happen regardless how carefully things are planned in advance”.  They gained notoriety in the late 1990’s for their targeted arsons and pipe bomb installations on various industries that they deemed to be having adverse effects on the environment, one of note being the logging industry. In March 2001, the Earth Liberation Front was deemed a “domestic terror” threat in the United States by the FBI. Activists that are part of the Front seem to view themselves as martyrs for the cause, and only those that have been convicted for their activism (have served or are currently serving sentences) are allowed to be spokespeople for the cause. “Prison validates an ELF spokesperson’s credentials”, continues their site. “They’ve earned their stripes”.

 

A similar group, which focuses more on animal rights than on the environment, is the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). “The ALF carries out direct action against animal abuse in the form of rescuing animals and causing financial loss to animal exploiters, usually through the damage and destruction of property”, reads the Animal Liberation Front’s mission statement. “The ALF’s short-term aim is to save as many animals as possible and directly disrupt the practice of animal abuse. Their long-term aim is to end all animal suffering by forcing animal abuse companies out of business.” According to the ALF’s website, the animal liberation movement was an integral part of the anarcho-punk scene that was popular in the 1980’s. Apparently, most bands of that genre had songs about hunting or vivisection, and many in that sub-culture were vegans and animal activists. This coincided with the founding of the ALF in 1976, and with their increasing popularity as a movement in the early 1980’s; this period was one where activists avidly raided animal laboratories to save the subjects, and economically sabotaged  companies that they felt were responsible for animal cruelty through their products.

 

ALF started as the Band of Mercy in 1971, with Ronnie Lee and several others in the UK founding what would grow to be a much bigger movement. Among the first attacks they carried out were on hunting, where members of the Band would try and sabotage hunting trips by slashing their tires, among other things. The next several years escalated into various raids on animal-testing laboratories, and several high-scale cases of arson (causing significant financial loss for those affected).  In 1974, Lee and another of the Band’s founders were arrested for their part in a laboratory raid. Upon his release just under two years later, Lee was not only undeterred, but on the contrary: he was ready to start a bigger movement, which would become the Animal Liberation Front.

 

The Animal Liberation Front activists had only just begun. In 1999, Graham Hall—a freelance reporter—posed as an activist in order to film a documentary about the group. He got footage of ALF officers giving him advice on how to build explosives. Hall went public, alleging that members of ALF had abducted him and held him for 12 hours because of his part in the documentary.   In 2006, activist Donald Currie was jailed for twelve years and put on lifetime probation: he had built and planted bombs on the doorsteps of several people that were involved with Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS)—the largest animal-testing laboratory in Europe. These are only a couple of examples in the recent history of ALF’s missions: there were numbers of other similar events in that period of time, and they have continued to stage protests around the homes of researches.

 

Another animal rights group—the Animal Rights Militia (ARM)—started in England, also in the early 1980’s. While they agreed with what the Animal Liberation Front stood for, they didn’t support their approach. ARM became infamous for their poisoning hoax approach, which peaked in the 1980’s and the early 1990’s. The first of their more famous poisoning hoaxes occurred in England in 1984: in an attempt to put a stop to the Mars Company’s animal experiments on tooth decay, ARM went to the media with the alleged knowledge that a large shipment of Mars Bars had been poisoned. The company, of course, had to pull their products from the shelves, and lost vast amounts of money because of it. It was later announced to have been a hoax, but ARM was successful: the Mars Company made changes to their laboratory testing procedures, for fear of further ARM action. In 1990, ARM started their activities in Canada. An incident similar to the Mars Bar one occurred with Cold Busters bars: ARM announced that eighty-seven Cold Busters bars had been poisoned and returned to the shelves. The company had to recall their product, losing almost an estimated $1 million.  It was again revealed to have been a hoax but, despite the precedent ARM had set before, the company could not have taken that risk. The damage was done. Yet another poisoning hoax that ARM admitted to was in Vancouver in 1994. Activists claimed that they had gone to various Safeway and Save-on-Foods locations and had injected turkeys with rat poison. Even after police tested samples and found undeniably negative results, the companies were again forced to take the necessary precautions in recalling the turkeys in question, again losing millions. This form of activism certainly causes damage, but it is arguably a safer approach than the arson and bombings of groups such as the ALF and ELF.

 

In 2006, the FBI launched “Operation Backfire”, laying charges against nine Americans and two Canadians that called themselves the “family”, and were active members of ALF and ELF. Despite being met with opposition from animal and environmental rights activists, the FBI remained adamant and unwavering in their goal to indict as many of those involved as possible. “These individuals are terrorists. Regardless of their political or social message, their actions were criminal and violated federal laws,” said Michael B. Ward—Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division—at a 2008 press conference in Washington.  Rewards of up to $50, 000 each were offered for information leading to the arrests of several of the activists, whose charges included arson, conspiracy, and animal enterprise terrorism.

 

Though “Operation Backfire” was mainly focused in the United States, Canada has had its share of public concern around eco-terrorism, especially in the past year, in relation to the controversial pipeline. “Unfortunately, there are environmental and other radical groups that would seek to block this opportunity to diversify our trade,” Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver wrote in an open letter in January. “Their goal is to stop any major project no matter what the cost to Canadian families in lost jobs and economic growth. No forestry. No mining. No oil. No gas. No more hydro-electric dams.” In February, the Globe and Mail reported that Public Safety Minister Vic Toews had released an anti-terrorism strategy—and environmental extremists were high on the list. “Terrorist action occurs when an extremist ideological group plans to carry out a violent attack that reasonably can be expected to kill people or destroy property,” Toews’ director of communication, Michael Patton, said in an e-mail to the Globe and Mail. “We have seen individuals or groups of differing ideologies or points of view both internationally and domestically who have planned and carried out violent attacks to bring attention to their causes.”

 

“Many [Animal Rights] advocates…believe that morality is relative”, reads a quote on the Animal Liberation Front’s website. “We believe that [Animal Rights] is much more cogently argued when it is argued from the standpoint of your opponent’s morality, not some mythical, hard-to-define universal morality”. Most people would agree that animal and environmental rights are moral causes, whether they themselves are activists or not. Likewise, few would be willing to admit that they support terrorism. But when the fight for a good cause takes on an extreme form—and especially when it endangers people and property—this ethical line becomes blurred. In the eyes of the law, it is an unacceptable form of activism, but in the eyes of many activists, it is the only way.

 

Porn isn’t strictly for personal use

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EIC
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By Ms. X

“I have been dating my girlfriend for a few months now and I really want us to get out of our box a little in the bedroom. One of my biggest fantasies is to watch porn with her while having sex. I know she watches porn when we’re not together but I am not sure what she will think if I ask her to incorporate it into our bedroom one night. I really don’t want her to get self-conscious and compare herself to the porn star, and I am worried about freaking her out by choosing a video that involves positions or toys we don’t use . . . yet.”

Watching porn is typically very personal. What we type into the search bar is usually a private endeavour. This, however, does not mean that sharing isn’t an option. The two of you sleeping together implies there is a comfortable and trusting bond between you. Don’t be afraid to ask your girlfriend if watching porn together is something she may be interested in trying. It is important to make sure she doesn’t feel pressured to try it, so if her response is no, don’t go any further.  Now that the two of you are on the topic of your sex life, ask if there is anything she has been curious to try, as you never know what kind of fun that could lead to.

If she says yes, hooray! Try to keep your smile to a minimum and follow these pointers to minimize your other concerns. The easiest way to avoid friction is to let your girlfriend pick the video. This way there will be no worries as to why you’re choosing to watch a brunette if she’s a blonde. If she doesn’t seem too eager to make the selection, keep your choice mild for the first time. I would stay clear of anything that may give her the impression she’s not your ideal type. If you run into problems, remind her how sexy she is, that the girl on the screen is not a representation of what you find attractive, and that your relationship is built on something far more important than cup size.

Lastly, it is important to choose a video with content that matches your relationship’s sex style. Whips and chains may get you going when you’re riding solo, but if it’s something that you have never discussed with your woman, I wouldn’t suggest it for your first joint porno viewing. However, porn can be a good way to introduce new ideas into your sexual relationship. This may not be the best option the first time around, but if you two enjoyed the experience, experimenting with different videos together can be a good way to expand your bedroom boundaries.

Porn can be a fun way to elevate and enhance a sexual relationship with a partner. It is important that you both feel comfortable and that no personal boundaries are being crossed. Don’t be afraid to ask for a repeat event; you never know what other fantasies may also come true.

Chartwells contract renewed with changes

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EIC
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By David Dyck

SFU will hire a food service manager to oversee quality of food on campus

Last week’s board of governor’s meeting saw the approval of a five-year contract renewal with Chartwells, the primary food vendor on campus. The renewal will come with several new changes that aim to improve the quality of food on campus. The biggest changes announced last week were the upcoming addition of a Starbucks, an overhaul of the dining hall meal card program, and the addition of an SFU food service manager. Food vendors will also be open on weekends, and later on weekdays.

The previous Chartwells contract lasted 10 years, and, according to ancillary services executive director Mark McLaughlin, “ten years of anger” came out in the negotiations for the new contract. “Food over the past few years has slipped on this campus: the quantity, the value, the venues; that all came out in the negotiations. We had to make sure we had their commitment.”

“The first thing that’s got to be clear is that it’s a new Chartwells,” said McLaughlin. The new contract also comes with a clause that would allow the university to pull the plug at any time, giving Chartwells 120 days to pack up and leave. “We’re going to keep the finger on the trigger,” he said.

There will be a complete overhaul in Chartwells management, including a new general manager and new marketing staff. As well, SFU will hire a food service manager to monitor the quality of food on campus.

Outgoing board of governors student Marc Fontaine, who sat on the food service advisory committee, told The Peak that this new position would go a long way in improving all food on campus, such as those at Cornerstone and the Maggie Benson Centre, not just at venues run by Chartwells.

“The Chartwells contract was coming up for renewal or termination, but my focus — and I brought this to the committee several times, and they listened — was that food in general needs to improve. The idea of a food service manager who is paid by the university and who works in the university’s best interest is going to happen,” said Fontaine. He was part of the committee established last year after the Envision consultations, which revealed how unhappy many in the SFU community were with food options. The first food related survey went out last fall and received approximately 6,000 results. Multiple follow-up surveys and focus groups were performed leading up to contract negotiations with Chartwells, in order to narrow down what specifically needed to change about food on the Burnaby campus. “Chartwells was approached with a list of requirements from food services that we wanted them to meet, and through negotiations they finally agreed to all of our demands,” explained Fontaine.

Although numerous new food venues are expected to appear on campus in the next several years, the two announced last week were a full service Starbucks and a food vendor near Fraser International College, though details about what that will look like have yet to be released.

Regarding the Starbucks, which is projected to open in Spring of 2013 in the West Mall Centre, McLaughlin stated that it was “a difficult decision. The number one item that students and faculty wanted on this campus, when we did our surveys, was Starbucks. It was a loud message.” Yet he stated that national brands and large companies are something the university is cautious of, preferring business models that are more local, such as Parminder Parhar’s Renaissance Cafés. The university has been negotiating with Starbucks to make the one coming into SFU a Fair Trade coffee vendor. “We don’t know of any other Fair Trade Starbucks outlets,” said McLaughlin. SFU received a Fair Trade campus designation last month, the second in Canada. Currently, the only coffee vendor on campus that does not serve Fair Trade coffee is Tim Hortons.

Some of these changes will take place well into the future, but an “immediate priority” for McLaughlin is an overhaul to the declining meal card, which will affect students living in residence. Currently, students living in the towers are required to purchase a meal card for the semester, as there aren’t any cooking facilities in the tower apartments. The cost is $1,350 for a five-day plan or $1,650 for a seven-day plan. This will be changing for the fall semester, where students will get “anytime dining” cards. The dining hall will be open 24 hours, and for the same price, “students can go into the dining hall as many times as they want and eat as much or as little as they want,” said McLaughlin. “It doesn’t mean that pizza is going to be sitting there all night under a hot lamp, the concept is made-to-order food, where students are going to be making their own food. . . .  That’s purposely to avoid stale food.”

McLaughlin stated that other changes to food services on campus would be announced over the summer.

BoG splits student rep positions

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EIC
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By David Dyck

Grads and undergrads will now each have one designated seat on the board of governors

Last week’s board of governors meeting saw a motion passed that takes two student positions on the board and designates one for an undergraduate student, and one to a graduate student. Previously, the two student representatives were elected regardless of whether or not they were graduates or undergraduates.

Outgoing student representative Marc Fontaine spoke to the motion, raising concerns that there are approximately five times more undergraduate students than graduate students at SFU. Ultimately, however, Fontaine supported the motion, stating that “It’ll guarantee there is a graduate student on the board here, which historically — and I’ve looked at the election data — isn’t the case.” According to election data, only two graduate students have served on the board since 2007.

Fontaine saw a bigger problem in the lack of awareness about the board of governors in general and specifically the yearly elections. “Students have no idea. They don’t know what the board is and they don’t understand if they do. It’s not clear and it’s not advertised unless you know where to look, unless you know someone who has run.”

“It would be ironic to miss this opportunity for engagement,” said one board member.

“The history of the student representation on the board of governors has been really two undergraduate students filling those two spots,” said alumni order-in-council Bill Cunningham in response to Fontaine’s comments. “Effectively what we’d be doing is cutting their representation on the university’s governing board in half, and they represent quite a significantly larger constituency than the graduate students.” Cunningham cautioned that it may seem to undergraduates that their representation on the board is being diminished. “Having a background in student politics, this is something that I as an undergraduate activist would be very concerned about,” said Cunningham.

“We’re here not to represent our constituency, but to represent what we think is best for the university,” responded President Andrew Petter. “I would argue that the implications of this change are that we will ensure that there is a grad student perspective brought to bear on that collegial discussion, and that’s a positive. But to ensure that what Bill [Cunningham] fears or says others might fear doesn’t occur, it means we have that added responsibility to ensure that the student voice and perspective is listened to all the more carefully from the undergraduate perspective.”

“If you can properly promote the election and get a variety of students [to run, then] . . . hopefully the students will take the time to vote for the person who can best promote themselves, which reflects on how they will promote students,” concluded Fontaine.

Elections for the board of governors will occur online this week. There are three undergraduates and one graduate student in the running.

SFU researchers develop a treatment for malaria

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EIC
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1

By Alison Roach

SFU’s Brinkman Laboratory collaborates with international team

An international team of researchers including SFU scientists has developed a new therapy that treats the critically damaging effects of malaria. Though antimalarial drugs designed to prevent and treat the infectious disease do already exist, in reality they only solve part of the problem. Given on their own, antimalarial drugs fail in about one of every four cases of severe malaria, mainly because patients were already suffering from advanced stages of the sickness by the time they were brought to a hospital for treatment.  The research, led by Australia’s Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, is also partially attributed to The Brinkman Laboratory at SFU.

“With severe malaria, and many other types of infections, it is actually the body’s response to the infection going too overblown that can cause the severe disease and death; the body literally starts severely damaging itself as it tries to attack the disease-causing microbe,” said Dr. Fiona Brinkman, an SFU professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry and the head of The Brinkman Laboratory.

Specifically, the new therapy developed is a peptide that acts as an immune-modulator, lessening the damaging inflammation in the body. The treatment could mean significantly improving chances of survival for people struck with the most devastating cases of malaria. In these advanced cases, the disease causes inflammation in the patient which can damage organs. The new drug treatment has been through successful initial testing, but still needs to go through several phases of clinical trials before it’s ready to be made available publically.

One major innovation of the drug was how it was developed. The researchers at The Brinkman Laboratory concentrate on the emerging field of Pathogenomics in their work. The lab uses this new approach in the study pathogens, which involves combining genomics — the study of the genomes of an organism — and bioinformatics — the application of computer science and information technology to biology and medicine. Using this new approach of algorithms, databases, and information systems applied to biological and medicinal science, the research team developed a database and analysis platform, called InnateDB. As Brinkman explained, the program was “used to provide unique insights into the data not possible through more basic analysis approaches.”

Brinkman believes that the combination of an antibiotic and an immune-modulator “may reflect a fundamental shift toward different approaches to infectious disease control. Rather than just providing an antibiotic/anti-malarial that kills the microbe, this kind of approach allows treatment to more effectively target the real problem. . . . This kind of approach could be potentially developed in the future to much more effectively treat a whole range of infectious diseases.”

This discovery is an instance of targeting both the underlying problem as well as the serious symptoms caused by it. This new method of approaching infectious disease also comes at a critical point in time.

“Antibiotic resistance is increasingly alarming, leading to more treatment failures and higher costs for more expensive drug regimes. As described by the World Health Organization and others, we are in a ‘race against time to develop new antibiotics’. This kind of approach of using an immune modulator is really promising as it may be less subject to antimicrobial resistance since it isn’t actually killing the microbe, but rather it targets the real source of the problem—ourselves and our immune system,” stated Brinkman.

SFU commemorates deceased grad student

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EIC
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By Graham Cook

Plaque installed to remember Andrew Wade, a visual analytics student who was killed in a plane crash last year

A plaque commemorating the memory of Andrew T. Wade, an SFU graduate student who died last September, has been mounted outside of the interactive arts and technology labs on the surrey campus. The plaque, which depicts Wade in front of the Taj Mahal, is fixed on a wall just steps away from the lab that Wade himself worked in. He was the first person to graduate from the Master’s Degree Program in Visual Analytics.

Wade, who came to SFU from Denver, Colorado and is described on the plaque as “a pioneer in the field of Visual Analytics,” perished in a plane crash in Nepal that also claimed the lives of 18 others, including the pilot. The memorial states that Wade was working with SFU’s BC-India Mobility Initiative, using his skills in Visual Analytics to solve data set problems in software.

Despite being just 26 years old at the time of his death, Wade had already worked with Boeing to find ways to protect planes from bird strikes. His plaque states that his work led to “changes in five Boeing aircraft and their pilot safety manual,” as well as a full-time position with Boeing that would have begun in November 2011.

The family of Andrew Wade accepted his master’s degree on his behalf during convocation last October. In addition, The Andrew Wade Memorial Scholarship in Visual Analytics will be awarded every year to a student of the Master’s Degree in Visual Analytics at SFU.

Where is our Olympic cultural legacy?

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EIC
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By Esther Tung

SFU study finds few lasting benefits for the arts and culture sector two years after the Olympics

Before I can approach Duncan Low for our interview, a woman steps in to chat with him for several minutes about the research he had just presented on. I learn later that she is Edna dos Santos-Duisenberg, the chief of the Creative Economy Programme with the United Nation’s Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), who mentioned to him that she had never heard about the cultural component of Vancouver’s Winter Olympics.

“If she didn’t know about our Cultural Olympiad, then maybe it’s not such a crazy idea why the [international] press didn’t turn up for it either,” says Low, who had been invited to speak at the BCreative Conference May 12 on his study of the “cultural legacy” left behind by the Winter Olympics.

Putting in a bid to host the Olympics requires an outline of what will be done to prepare the city for the event, grouped into three main pillars: sports, culture, and environment. While Vancouver did well on the sports front, and at least appeared to fulfill its promises of sustainability, many arts organizations felt as though the $20 million set aside for arts and culture programming were poorly used in creating lasting benefits for the sector. Low’s study confirms some of those suspicions.

Much of his study’s conclusion came from comparing international press coverage of Cultural Olympiads. Vancouver’s coverage was small not only compared to previous hosts, but even upcoming Olympics. Between January 2008 and April 2010, 54 articles in American and international newspapers mentioned the Cultural Olympiad, and over half were categorized as “passing references.”

“For the amount of money we spent, we could have taken Canadian artists around the world and gotten more coverage,” says Low. The study was Low’s master’s thesis under SFU’s urban studies program, which he entered after leaving his role as executive director at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre. “Or we could have taken that $20 million, popped it into a bank account, and at a five per cent interest rate, generate $1 million a year that we could call our cultural legacy for the rest of our lives.”

A legacy, cultural or not, isn’t just about worldwide recognition, says Low, it can also be about creating visible and meaningful change within the boundaries of the city as well. Whistler accommodation, built for athletes during the Olympics, was converted into price-controlled housing for people who worked and lived in Whistler as an easy, permanent solution to a social problem. Quebec City celebrated their 400th anniversary by building the world’s largest architectural projection, The Image Mill. Four years later, Quebec Harbour continues to bustle with activity every summer as residents and tourists congregate to watch the nightly free shows.

In Vancouver, $10 million was spent on laying down the tracks for the beloved Olympic streetcars, borrowed from Brussels for the two weeks of celebrations, and security costs ballooned to five times the original $175 million estimate.

“Culture always starts out big, but as things progress, it ended up on the periphery of the Olympic boom,” says Low, alluding to the coincidental timing of large cuts to arts funding and changes in grant eligibilities in the months leading up to the celebrations.

But Low is careful to mention that the Olympics had positive effects. Some productions commissioned with Cultural Olympiad funding have gone on to stages elsewhere. Public art has a greater presence than before, three civic theatres have been renovated, and there is the Canada Line, which isperhaps the only benefit still visible in the city today. But Low is quick to remind that the debate over the construction of the Evergreen Line has been going on since the ‘90s.

Low’s study is not a comprehensive assessment of the Olympics’ effects on professional arts and culture in Vancouver, but it does provide a starting point for understanding them. Harnessing the critical mass that comes with mega-events to implement meaningful, lasting change can be done. “Mega-events have this rolling effect that knocks all sorts of barriers down,” he says.

SFU’s Pipe Band plays New York City

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By Graham Cook

Concert was recorded for upcoming CD release

SFU’s world-renowned pipe band played in New York City for the second time in its 30-year history in early May. The performance, held at the Lincoln Centre for the Performing Arts, commemorated the pipe band’s 30th anniversary. In addition to the concert, the organization held piping, drumming, and highland dancing classes for locals during their time in the city.

Under the direction of pipe major Terry Lee, the band consists of more than 20 pipers, as well as a bass section and snare drummers. They have been able to capture six world championships and have released 10 CDs to date, including a previous recording at New York City’s Carnegie Hall. The Lincoln Centre performance will be released as their 11th  CD.

A member of the band, piper Myles Stewart, spoke with The Peak about the recent concert. He stated that in the buildup to the performance, that they had to revamp nearly their entire repertoire, learning a multitude of new music. Before the trip, the pipe band held a practice concert at the Vogue Theatre in order to “get the nerves out” and ensure that everything ran smoothly on the night of the recording.

As far as the trip itself, Stewart spoke very highly of the experience. “It was awesome, I’ve never been to New York City before.” The group arrived on May 2 and spent the first two days as tourists. Then came the concert on the fourth. According to Stewart, it managed to fill up approximately 75 per cent of the Lincoln Centre, which he considered to be “pretty good for a pipe band in Manhattan.” The instructional classes were held over the following weekend, and the trip expedition concluded on Monday with one more day to take in the city that never sleeps.

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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