Wednesday, November 19, 2014

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thegazetteWEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2014 WESTERN UNIVERSITY • CANADA’S ONLY DAILY STUDENT NEWSPAPER • FOUNDED 1906 VOLUME 108, ISSUE 42

Dying for attention since 1906

TODAYhigh0low-10

TOMORROWhigh-4low-6

A boy’s best friend is Mother MotherRyan Guldemond talks new album and playing London>> Pg. 4

Rule-breaking posters damage walls, cost UCC vendors

Kelly Samuel • GAZETTE

WHO YA GONNA CALL? POSTER PATROL! This Wave and Spoke promotional poster was captured on Monday morning. Although approved by Poster Patrol, it is in contravention of Western’s poster policies because it is not on a designated notice board.

•••InsideProtest at Canadian Forces booth in UCC • P3

Essentials: Annoying things about winter • P5

Instagram taking over social comparisons • P5

USC policy tests patience • P6

Women’s hockey wins two on the road • P7

Megan DevlinONLINE EDITOR@MegAtGazette

Rogue posters are circumventing the poster patrol and causing grief for UCC vendors.

Mohanad Abadilah, manager of the Campus Computer store, said posters have been appearing on the pillar outside his business.

He wouldn’t mind, except he pays close to $1,000 to have a vinyl covering on the pillar promoting his store.

“Twice, it happened,” Abadilah said. “We spend a lot of money on that pole. That’s expensive material there, and when you take [the poster] off it rips it off.”

He said he didn’t remember what the posters were advertising.

“I just took it off,” Abidalah said.Al-taf Jiwaji, the head pharmacist

at the campus pharmacy, has poster issues too. He’s had to have the pharmacy pillar re-covered three times in the past two years. The tape used to affix posters overtop of his vinyl rips the material right off.

“We don’t mind people putting up posters just for information, to get information out,” Jiwaji said. “I think people don’t know what the material is, they think it’s just paint.”

According to the USC’s Creative Services poster regulations, notices may only be placed on designated boards and within glass-covered cabinets on campus.

The policy comes from the board of governors, but is enforced by the USC.

“Notices affixed onto pillars, concrete walls, windows, hallway walls and other areas not desig-nated to accommodate postings will be removed,” the policy reads.

The computer store and phar-macy pillars, however, were not the only pillars to bear the forbidden posters.

This week, Wave and Spoke promotional posters were posted on several walls and pillars around the UCC.

“It’s just an oversight and we want to make the improvements,” Emerson Tithecott, USC vice-presi-dent communications, said.

The poster patrol regulations are in place so that campus buildings aren’t overrun with promotional material. They also ensure that facilities aren’t damaged — that paint, or more expensive vinyl, doesn’t peel off with poster tape.

“The regulations are in place for fairness’ sake,” Tithecott said.

There is limited space to post notices on campus and notices are posted on a first-come first-served

basis.The Wave & Spoke posters gain

more promotional space by being posted in spaces other than the designated boards.

“There are clear advantages to avoiding the poster regulations, but there’s no malicious intent,” Tithecott said.

By being affixed to a pillar, the Wave and Spoke posters are not in compliance with the regulations.

“It’s not right for our posters to be up there,” Tithecott said, refer-ring to the ads for events at the USC-run restaurants.

“We do think these policies were created with the intent of creating an environment that is not only accessible but also a safe space.”

He said those with poster com-plaints or concerns should email [email protected].

President presents report card on Western

Iain BoekhoffEDITOR-IN-CHIEF

@IainAtGazette

Western is doing pretty well but faces some challenges on its road to becoming a top ranked university in Canada, according to President Amit Chakma.

At last Friday’s senate meeting, Chakma presented a “report card” based on MacLean’s raw data that they use in their annual national university rankings.

In the good news department, Western’s entrance average jumped from seventh overall, with an aver-age of 87.6, to second overall and an 89.3 average.

“We have done well. I think we should rejoice,” Chakma said. “Actually, we gave Janice [Deakin, provost] the satisfaction she was looking for by beating Queen’s.”

While Western’s ranking across the various categories has remained relatively stable, in some cases, this isn’t good news for the university.

Chakma, referring to the rank-ings, said, “so far I haven’t seen any movement. It’s a puzzle to me that all these top students come to Western and yet when you look at our ranking … we rank 11th.”

>> see QUALITY pg.3

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Solution to puzzle on page 7

2 • thegazette • Wednesday, November 19, 2014

CROSSWORD By Eugene Sheffer

The Cryptoquip is a substitution cipher in which one letter stands for another. If you think that X equals O, it will equal O throughout the puzzle. Single letters, short words and words using an apostrophe give you clues to locating vowels. Solution is by trial and error.© 2002 by Kings Features Syndicate, Inc.

Caught on Camera

Kelly Samuel GAZETTEWHAT’S CHARITY BALL COOKING UP? The charity of choice for Charity Ball 2015 is Growing Chefs Ontario — a registered charity that provides cooking lessons for five-year-olds and apparently university students alike. A delicious cooking demonstration left students wanting more – samples were available for students to taste afterwards.

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Textbooks for ChangeSuhaib Al-AzemGAZETTE STAFF

@uwogazette

The same textbooks that caused so many students to rip their hair out in frustration are giving new knowledge to students around the world. The socially conscious busi-ness Textbooks For Change began its campaign to spread knowledge by collecting textbooks from past and current students, to (in part) sell for profits and to ship across the world for universities and educa-tional facilities in third world and developing countries.

The process is quite simple: drop-boxes are placed through-out campuses/Goodwill locations in Ontario and the books are col-lected with half going overseas to struggling schools and the other half are either used to keep the business running or are recycled if they cannot be properly used.

The founder, Chris Janssen, initiated the idea. The original use of the idea had been for Shinerama that Western holds annually at the beginning of first semester. Trying

to find ways to raise funds for the charity, Jonssen came up with the model to sell the donated text-books, and use the profits for the charity.

As Janssen put it, “The idea sparked there [at Western]. I saw some old textbooks lying around collecting dust and realized stu-dents were still using them. I wanted to create a sustainable business model that you know, really creates that impact.”

T4C is now the only Certified B Corporation in London. This is a certificate given out by the non-profit organization called B-Lab in the United States. To obtain one of these certificates, a business must pass a test on the business’ social and environmental performance.

And T4C has had a tremendous social and environmental impact. As many as 24,000 textbooks have been donated to African uni-versities and over $27,000 of the profits have been donated to mul-tiple non-profit organizations. Environmentally, T4C has been doing all it can to recycle and reuse as many old textbooks as they can. The business was founded on an environmentally friendly model.

Of course, T4C is still a busi-ness and the business helps stu-dents looking for cheap deals on textbooks. Only 25 per cent of the books are sold online but T4C looks to undercut any high costs and give back to the students where the books originated.

Although T4C has seen success in their business, they aren’t looking to expand outside of Ontario.

“We’re already at eight post-sec-ondary institutions. So we’re begin-ning to move across southwestern Ontario this semester, if we follow the school year calendar. After that we’ll be focusing on the GTA region,” said Janssen. “After that really trying to increase our mar-keting and presence at those uni-versities. The goal is to stay within Ontario and grow our presence. But then it’s back to the drawing board to see where we should go.”

Which is why as the exam sea-son comes around, T4C is hoping to increase awareness around Western’s campus and increase the number of students who are willing to ship their chemistry and physics textbooks across the world.

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thegazette • Wednesday, November 19, 2014 • 3

Kelly Samuel • GAZETTEIS IT A MIME FIELD? Protestors donned white face paint to lie in the UCC in protest against the militarization of Canada in front of the Canadian Armed Forces’ recruitment desk Tuesday afternoon.

WSN holds “die-in” protest in UCC

London gets first snowfall of the year

Bradley MetlinSPORTS EDITOR@BradAtGazette

Foot traffic was impeded yesterday in the University Community Centre atrium as members of the Western Solidarity Network staged a “die in,” blocking access to the Canadian Armed Forces recruitment table.

At approximately 12:05 p.m., five members of WSN lied down in front of the table, which had been rented for the day by the Canadian Armed Forces. Scattered on their bodies were various pamphlets question-ing Canadian military practices and the treatment of soldiers. In addi-tion, there were a few members of WSN sprinkled around the protest explaining their message and also hanging out literature.

Mike Roy, a member of WSN, articulated the position of many of the organization’s members in a phone interview after the protest.

“Everybody in the group feels that the university isn’t a place for the army recruiting people. It’s supposed to be a place of educating, learning and debate. So we’re just trying to basically say, ‘you’re not welcome on this campus,’ ” Roy said.

Literature from the organiza-tion was labeled with messaging that asked, “considering joining the military?” It then detailed that those thinking of joining the military should consider that “civilians and ‘good guys’ are killed in war” before enlisting. It also cited the mental health issues that some soldiers face.

Campus Community Police Services Sergeant Jean-Claude Aubin explained that each protest is viewed on a case-by-case basis.

“If there was a safety hazard or risk of injury, we would [eject pro-testors.] Generally, we won’t be ask-ing protestors to leave,” Aubin said.

Not infringing on student’s free speech was a sentiment echoed by

University Students’ Council presi-dent Matt Helfand.

“Protests certainly have a place on a university campus,” Helfand stated. “From the USC’s perspective, we have to make sure we’re balan-cing the right to free speech and the right to express opinions with the fact that it’s still everyone’s space.”

Members of the WSN described an encounter with a female member of the USC who asked them to leave and if they did not comply, security would be called. However, security didn’t show up and WSN confirmed that they left the UCC atrium by their own volition at around 1:30 p.m.

The situation was relatively calm throughout the protest but Mike Roy detailed an encounter with USC president Matt Helfand that he described as “aggressive.”

“I had recognized one of my class-mates walking by — she’s an activ-ist herself. I just tapped her with a flyer,” Roy explained, and then noted Helfand approached him. “[He] told me that I’m ‘not allowed to do that. I can’t bother students like that.’

Helfand later confirmed the interaction.

“There was an individual who was aggressively approaching stu-dents with literature and when there are students who are being aggres-sively solicited, that is a violation of our policy, so I asked him politely to refrain from doing it,” Helfand said.

Students evidently noticed the

protest with many pausing and engaging with those around them about the merits of the display.

Fourth-year philosophy student Aaron Rendy offered his opinion on the protest, contrasting the military situation in Canada compared to other countries.

“In some countries you have to actually commit for two years where here no one forces. So I think it’s somebody’s free will and auton-omy if they decide that they want to inquire about doing service. And I don’t know why they would want to interrupt someone from making a choice,” Rendy explained.

By 4 p.m., the chalk outlines from the protestors had been washed away by snowy footprints and steam cleaners but the WSN can hope their message sparked conversation for the 90 minutes of their “die in.”

Mohammad Abrar Abdul Hanan

GAZETTE [email protected]

Winter is no longer coming — it’s here. On Sunday night, London experienced snowfall for the first time this season. Blankets of snow covered large parts of Ontario on Sunday and Monday and weather data from the government of Canada’s website shows that the temperature in London at the moment is below normal for this time of the year.

“Some of the early season snow-fall we get comes from the lake effect snowfall,” said James Voogt, associate professor in the depart-ment of geography at Western. “All it requires is cold air coming across the warm lake and it varies from year-to-year as to when they occur.”

Voogt added that despite heavy snowfalls, Environment Canada predicts the weather to get sub-stantially warmer by the end of the week. “Right now, climate models predict the daily air temperatures are around -5°C for the next two days, but by the weekend, they have it going up to 5°C,” he said.

Warmer air is expected move in to this area over the weekend, which

will lead to an increase in temper-ature. These temperatures are above normal for the season but the cli-mate models show that it will go back to normal next week.

According to Voogt, long term-predictions show that temper-atures across southwestern Ontario will be close to normal and above normal for other parts of Canada, but there are problems with these predictions.

“The issue with longer term fore-cast is that they do not give specific temperatures — they just look at the overall pattern and compare it to the average from the last 30 years. They look to then to say, are we going to be close to, above or below normal.”

Furthermore, Voogt said that it is difficult to determine if Canada will experience another cold wave this year.

“These are hard to forecast because they are very sensitive to wind direction and technically they are not even a storm so they are not something that is associated with a major weather system.”

Moreover, Environment Canada’s climate model states that snowfall in London is expected to be within the normal levels this year and forecast temperatures are not significantly above or below average.

EVERYBODY IN THE GROUP FEELS THAT THE UNIVERSITY

ISN’T A PLACE FOR THE ARMY RECRUITING PEOPLE.

MIKE ROYMEMBER OF WSN

In addition, like other institu-tions in Ontario, Western is under-funded compared to schools in the rest of Canada, particularly Western Canada. This has impacted the stu-dent-faculty ratio at universities, like University of Toronto. University of Alberta, for example, has 25 per cent more resources on a per student basis than Western does.

Chakma said this is why Western is trying to “become masters of our destiny” including through building the university’s endowment.

“If we simply just rely on gov-ernment funding, we’ll always find ourselves at the bottom of the barrel and then our quality will suffer as a result.”

Western particularly lags behind in total research grants and the number of faculty awards has been declining for several years.

With regards to Western’s inter-national presence, Chakma cited the example of Cornell, where a large percentage of students travel abroad to study, mainly due to stu-dents being given credit for every-thing they do, even if it’s not strictly academic. Chakma said it’s some-thing Western should move towards in order to encourage students to study abroad.

Western underfunded; quality affected>> QUALITY continued from pg.1


arts&life songmeaningsCry Forum from Mother Mother’s 2012 album The Sticks ends with the opening stanza from Rudyard Kipling’s poem If— translated into Dutch.

Jenny JayARTS AND LIFE EDITOR

@JennyAtGazette

Canadian band Mother Mother will be coming to London this Friday at the London Music Hall.

While the band has been com-monly known as an indie-rock band, the release of their newest album, Very Good Bad Thing, shows differ-ing branches of music style. Ryan Guldemond, lead vocalist and lyri-cist of Mother Mother, explains that their music style changes, in order to keep it fresh.

“[The EDM focus] comes from a general interest in those textures currently, and it also came from getting sick of writing on organic instruments, such as the guitar or piano — which was all too familiar at this point — coming from speed writing or synth writing felt fresher,” Guldemond says.

For their latest album, Guldemond sought to find a new sound for Mother Mother and break out of their established patterns of writing.

“The acoustic is a very familiar place,” Guldemond comments. “It’s beautiful but it’ lures you into patterns, old patterns — for me anyways. Good things still happen there, but on this record and in this chapter of the band, and my writing, it just feels like there’s more possibil-ities — especially … starting from a more synthetic place.”

Even with the new electronic shift in their music style, Guldemond still classifies their genre as “kind of a bastard child of Rock and Roll.”

The new sound isn’t the only thing different for the band this time around. They recently changed rec-ord labels from Last Gang Records to Universal Music Canada. Guldemond notes that the change has not resulted in tampering with Mother Mother’s creative process but has helped to “ramp things up a bit.”

“There are more people cov-ering the bases, which is nice. In terms of how the band operates, creatively, and how we approach record making, nothing’s really changed,” Guldemond comments. “It was a pretty smooth transition, one without a lot of that stigmatic ideas regarding loss of integrity.”

Friday’s concertgoers should look out for songs such as I Go Hungry and Kept Down that tackle larger societal issues.

“I like talking about the dark and dirty of the human condition — I Go

Hungry isn’t specifically about male eating disorders, it’s more about just the foolhardy nature of people,” Guldemond says.

The song Kept Down, although inspired by the events of Amanda Todd, focuses on the issue of bully-ing. Guldemond says this focus came from the fact that bullying is a very real issue that many children are in some way a part of, or that people at least think about at some point in their lives.

“After her story came to light it re-ignited a lot of sugaring sur-rounding the topic of bullying and the injustice of bullying, because anyone who goes to public school, they’re bullied or they bully or witness it,” Guldemon remarks. “So it was her story that instigated something in me that wanted to write a song

about this issue.”“It took me a long time and deter-

mination because writing about bullying is touchy … I wanted it to be a conversation between me and the lost children and just telling them that they’re okay.”

While these songs look to create an understanding of the human condition, Guldemond says that his favourite song on the album is Have it Out.

“It’s just very real and raw and true, and I wrote it from that place — almost like a purging and that doesn’t happen quite often.”

While their fan base has been growing, it has been a gradual ascent, Guldemond says, with more people covering the bases being the only real change. The band has played in London two times before, but coming back to the city with a bigger label only makes them more grateful.

Guldemond himself speaks enjoys the contrasts within the city of London.

“I like the juxtaposition of des-titution and opulence in that city. I like walking about and seeing the contrast of society in London, Ontario, me personally. As a band, it’s always a good time, there’s defin-itely a fever to the fanship with the Londoners, that we appreciate and look forward to.”

Mother Mother will be playing at the London Music Hall on Friday Nov. 21 at 7 p.m. General admis-sion tickets are $40, available on Ticketmaster.

I LIKE THE JUXTAPOSITION OF DESTITUTION AND

OPULENCE IN THAT CITY. I LIKE WALKING ABOUT AND SEEING THE CONTRAST OF SOCIETY IN LONDON, ONTARIO, ME PERSONALLY. AS A BAND, IT’S ALWAYS A GOOD TIME, THERE’S DEFINITELY A FEVER TO THE FANSHIP WITH THE LONDONERS, THAT WE APPRECIATE AND LOOK FORWARD TO.

— RYAN GULDEMONDMOTHER MOTHER FRONTMAN

>> ON DISC > VERY GOOD BAD THING

Mother MotherVery Good Bad ThingUniversal Music CanadaGGGHFHighlight Tracks: I Go Hungry, Shout if You Know, Kept Down

You can describe Mother Mother in many ways but never as bor-ing. With each new album Mother Mother puts out, listeners get a completely new sound. 2011’s Eureka was a high-energy pop-in-fluenced album. 2012’s The Sticks was a darker concept album brood-ing on isolation and escapism. But Very Good Bad Thing takes the band’s sound in an even odder dir-ection with a big-name label and electronic dance music inspired tracks — underneath it all, however, is the same classic Mother Mother.

Very Good Bad Thing seems an appropriate title for the album since an electric pop-rock band like Mother Mother drawing on a genre of music as artistically dead as EDM would be a very bad thing but somehow the band seems to make it work.

This time around, however, the songs sound more calculated and heavily produced — they aren’t as raw. The album features less quirky

and out there songs such as Hayloft or The Stand. Despite the clashing, grating sound of Get Out the Way, it doesn’t grab attention the same way songs like Baby Don’t Dance or Infinitesimal do.

Despite the new label and the EDM-influences, Mother Mother is still very good at being Mother Mother. Singer/songwriter Ryan Guldemond continues to write lyrically engaging tracks that explore deviancy, the darkness of humanity and sexuality.

The highlight of the album is I Go Hungry, a track that provides a three-dimensional portrait of man who starves himself before a date, rehearses his greetings and tips 60 per cent. Also notable, Reaper Man, which recalls their earlier song, Verbatim, with Guldemond belting out, “Fuck yeah, I’m a devi-ant / When I go to the store I go undressed.”

The band provides some other softer touches. Kept Down is a beautiful track inspired partially by Amanda Todd. The closing track, Alone and Sublime, is a softer, atmospheric track and a rewarding listen for those patient enough to pay attention to it — difficult given its immediate predecessor, the energy-filled, hard-rock anthemn Shout if You Know.

Very Good Bad Thing is nei-ther very good nor very bad, but it’s another solid entry in Mother Mother’s eclectic discography. The band deserves praise for not stick-ing to formula and for providing a fresh take on their sound that makes each album unique.

• Brent Holmes

Jamie Yeung • GAZETTE

Mother Mother returns with EDM-inspired sound

Doing a new good bad thing

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The Essentials > The most annoying things about the start of winter

IT GETS DARKER

For all of us with nyctophobia, or as other people might say, a fear of the dark, winter is the worst season of them all. Want to go down the street to have an evening coffee with a friend? Nope, there’s probably a lion around the corner. Want to go out for dinner? Can’t, there were Yeti sightings last week. Need to walk your dog? The boogeyman will definitely find you. Of course, the only sane thing to do is to curl up in bed at 3 p.m. with Netflix as dusk begins to fall — just make sure to keep the lights on and have your roommate check for the monsters under the bed — actually never mind. It’s dark down there and they may be dragged to hell.

• Jenny Jay

LONG SKI LIFT LINES

It’s annoying that in the snowless summer you can go to any ski resort and ride the chairlift all day without having to wait in line for a second. Come ski season when those empty queues could really come in handy, they promptly congest with hordes of coots in snowsuits. DAMN IT! An adult day pass to Boler Mountain costs $38. That’s $38 to loaf around in line-ups while icicles sprout from your nostrils. There should be a V.I.P. section — nothing complements glistening snow better than red velvet rope. Until that day skiers just have to buckle down and be patient — it’s going to be a long winter, and the chairlift lineups will be even longer.

• Conrad Floryan

INSTAGRAM PHOTOS OF SNOW

Instagram photos of snow have to be one of the most annoying seasonal photos that appear on social media. These photos are even worse than the standard Instagram photos of what you ate for lunch. Although I probably don’t care what you ate, at least you’re showing me something that I couldn’t gather myself by simply looking out the window. Everyone knows what snow looks like; we see it every year, for six months. Despite this, photos depicting the first snowfall are uploaded every time winter comes around by the same people who are guilty of adding pumpkin-patch pictures in October.

• Jennafer Freeman

GAME OF THRONES FANS

The first snowfall brings with it frigid temperatures, unbearable freezing wind, but worst of all, Game of Thrones nerds making incessant references. Be prepared to hear your nerdy friend say “winter is here” in the told-you-so kind of manner that will make you want to dump a pot of molten gold on his smug head. The night is dark and full of terrors — most of which being that you know when you wake up you going to have to shovel your way through 500 feet of snow and ice to get to your exam, only for it to go worse than the Red Wedding. Yes, winter is here. Now stop reminding us about it!

• Brent Holmes

CANADA OLYMPIC MITTENS

What is it that has allowed man to rise to such unparalleled greatness? To break free of our earthly manacles and take to the skies, to reach the very stars? The instrument of our ascension to such Olympian greatness is neither reason, nor imagination — it is the hand. An incredibly complex organ, with a remarkable capacity for dexterity and precision; thus the microscope, the computer, the rocket. And then, suddenly, mittens — our fingers trapped in a woolly prison, man’s greatest gift spurned in favour of earthly warmth. What separates us now from the beast? Plus the Olympics were, like, five years ago. Let it go, Canada.

• Richard Joseph

Samah Ali CONTRIBUTOR

@uwogazette

Instagram may be the new Facebook for students to dress up profiles to present an image more glamorous then their actual lives.

“What I like about Instagram is that it stripped down all of the stuff that bloated Facebook,” faculty of information and media studies professor John Reed commented.

A prominent social media user, Reed used to conduct class experi-ments on Facebook but moved to Instagram due to the user-friendly and simplistic layout.

“It’s like, ‘what are you doing and what do people think about it?’ and that’s what Facebook started as,” he

added.Considering Facebook has

become crowded with political opinions, trending topics and Buzzfeed posts, Instagram sticks to the fundamental design of posting a photo of what the user is doing or where they are.

“If you’re not doing some-thing special then you think it’s not worthy of posting,” Reed commented.

Most Instagram photos revolve around partying, travelling, food, clothes or themed days and if the selfie doesn’t receive a certain amount of likes, the poster’s self esteem may be damaged and they may delete the picture.

“It becomes more rigid … It amazes me that there are around six

ways to use Instagram and I believe it creates pressure,” explained Reed.

Despite the internal debates on if a moment is spectacular enough to capture or if the photo is cute enough to post, users con-tinue to upload photos to appear more attractive and fun to their peers. With the increasing usage of Tinder, the photo-based dating app, Instagram profiles are now arguably more socially influential.

Since Instagram is growing in popularity, the user is increasingly self-conscious about their ratio of likes to followers and followers to other profiles the user follows.

“It probably adds some great joy in your life, but it also may add stress,” Reed commented.

Taylor Lasota • GAZETTE

Filtering social comparison


opinions

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Dear Life

thegazetteVolume 108, Issue 42www.westerngazette.ca

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• Siegfried Sassoon

Your anonymous letters to life

Dear Life,When will The Gazette stop belittling and mocking serious issues in the name of sarcasm? Please make it stop.

Dear Life,It seems like The Gazette is always apologizing for something.

Dear Life,People being offended doesn’t mean The Gazette has to constantly apologize.

Dear Life,Come at me papers. Come at me exams. My motivation is at an all-time low, so now’s the time to strike.

Dear Life,The Wave logo should be a seahorse, ’cause you know, we’re Mustangs…

Dear Life,

You gotta act cool, calm and collected around liquid eyeliner. It can sense your fear.

Dear Life,As much as I love Christmas trees and pretty lights everywhere, it’s already been like three days of snowfall and I’m done. Why did people ever even come to these lands to live in the first place?

Dear Life,Why are boots either poorly insulated or fucking ugly?

Dear Life,I don’t know why there was some cooking class at UCC yesterday but that thing they made tasted delicious.

wgaz.ca/dearlife

Nusaiba Al-AzemOPINIONS EDITOR

@NusAtGazette

Not many people actively think about and re-evaluate their values the way I do — that’s a reality I learned on Tuesday in class when my professor asked us, “What do you value most in life?” Before stu-dents could take their 10 or so minutes to deliberate their answers, I automatically had mine: justice and freedom. I value equity and the ability to express myself. For me, one of the best parts about attending a post-secondary education, theoretically, is the increased opportun-ity for a diversity of perspectives. It’s the reason I enjoy being opinions editor so much.

That’s why when the Western Solidarity Network staged a protest yesterday in front of the Canadian Armed Forces’ booth in the University Community Centre, I was simultan-eously pleased and disappointed with the trajectory of events. Despite being asked to leave, the protest occurred as smoothly as you could hope a protest would occur.

Members of the group gathered in front of the military table with some pamphlets, staged a die-in and laid down in a peaceful demonstration against the Armed Forces. Though the University Students’ Council asked the members to leave and told them security would be coming, security never came. USC stood by and watched, but didn’t do anything. In fact, it only ended when the members themselves left of their own volition.

On one hand, I was very pleased with that progression. I consider the reluctance to forcibly remove people an honourable move by the part of the USC. Honourable, but not in accordance with Western’s building usage policy which states that “counter-programming and protesting are not allowed on the same day as the programmed event” and goes on to stipulate that distribution of flyers, pamphlets or other such materials are strictly prohibited.

It’s much more tricky to decide how best to handle WSN and their protests because they are not a USC-recognized group. They’re technically not governed by the same laws other clubs are. They can’t be de-ratified or sanctioned.

This protest took me back to the only other similar protest experience I could recall outside of WSN — in 2012, a group of students (not under the leadership or organization of any club), protested Israel On Campus’ Israel Day in the atrium. Because the protesters included some members of a USC-recognized club, Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights, club policies were revisited by administrators. The entirety of the next year featured meetings with USC and SPHR executives during which USC executives emphasized that the club was responsible for the behaviour of all its members. I remember because I was present for some of those meetings; they gave the distinct impression of a decreased tolerance for counter-pro-gramming events.

But even that protest in 2012 was allotted the chance to finish quietly, much like WSN’s. USC president at the time Andrew Forgione said if the protest had been conducted by a ratified club, “they would have had to have been disbanded.”

And that’s the most problematic aspect of these scenarios to me — you actually get less perks as a USC-recognized club if you try to be cooperative about your intentions to express political views. How does that encourage honest communica-tion between USC and clubs? How does it encourage cooperation? It’s like having a parent try to coax a child into asking for permission to go out when the answer is always no, versus never reprimanding a child when they go out anyway. As a kid, what would you choose?

It’s a shame that trying to be consider-ate of campus regulations leads to less freedom for clubs. Maybe the USC would have less of these impromptu and unof-ficial protests on its hands if it allowed for expression in more official channels.

All in all, it’s a sad day when you have to admit that you have more freedom with USC to express your political views when you’re a band of any individuals then you do when you’re paying mem-bers of the system.

USC (pro)testing my patience for policy

AbracadabraAl-Azem

HAVE YOUR SAY

The Gazette asked students what they thought about the “die-in” protest on Tuesday in the UCC.

Katie McKennaSocial Science I

As long as they’re not physically harming anyone or trying to coerce people into believing whatever

they’re doing, then they have a right to do a counter-protest as long as they’re peaceful about it.

Lauren KimSocial Science I

I guess they’re trying to raise awareness about the Armed Forces and they’re not really providing any valuable information to the students. They’re kind of just showing students a common misconception about joining the Armed Forces and I don’t think it

will provide them any benefit necessarily.

Stephen MartoneMIT IV

I don’t think it’s disrespectful because it’s not like they’re obstructing the entire view of it, it’s not like

they’re doing something negative. It’s more of a silent protest — they have a right because we do just all have a right to say something, just within

grounds.

Steven HongBMOS and Psychology V

[The protesters] obviously have a strong opinion and it is true that obviously armies do kind of create this byproduct which is violence. So I

support them in that sense. But I kind of feel bad for [the army personnel] too. They’re just doing

their job. I can see how it would be really awkward for them, and at the same time from a political

point of view, [the army is] kind of a necessary evil.

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sportsRundown >> The Mustangs women’s wrestling team grabbed the gold this weekend at the Harry Geris Memorial Dual Meet > The men also performed well, coming in third overall for the bronze spot.

saywhat?“I understand that, on a soft news day, it makes for interesting fodder and a good story… but the fact of the matter is, it’s not pressing on us the way it seems to be pressing on some of you.”

• NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman on possible expansion of the league.

Back-to-back victories keep ‘Stangs on topRobert Nanni

SPORTS EDITOR@SportsAtGazette

The Mustang women’s hockey team saw a back-to-back win this week-end against the Toronto Varsity Blues and Ryerson Rams, improv-ing to a 9–0–1 record overall this season and maintaining their first-place spot in the Ontario University Athletics standings.

Although they defeated Toronto 2–1 Saturday afternoon on the road, the opening period did not give off a winning vibe for the Mustangs as Blues forward Kristi Riseley scored on a powerplay in the 13th minute.

While the game opened on a nervous note, the Mustangs fought back in the second and third per-iods, seeing one goal each by Katelyn Gosling and Kendra Broad. Broad’s goal came through in the final two minutes of the game, saving the teams from the need for overtime.

Having only scored first twice this whole season, head coach Chris Higgins had no worries about this situation.

“We pride ourselves on our third periods,” he said. “We’ve only lost one third period all year, and that was a game we were winning 3–1 and we gave up a goal.”

The team dominated the third period, as they most always do, using a remarkable offensive line to pressure Toronto into their end of the ice. Although the Mustangs out-shot the Blues in every period, with a grand total of 25 shots compared to Toronto’s 18, they were combatted by goalkeeper Nicole Kestrels who held the line for the majority of the game.

Marking their eighth consecutive win, the Mustangs walked away with a sense of accomplishment, remain-ing in Toronto to face the Ryerson Rams the following afternoon.

Sunday’s game saw an even

stronger defensive game, sending the Rams away with a 2–0 shutout.

Starting up the first period with a goal from defensive player Katelyn Gosling, who made it known within the first 10 minutes of the game that Western came to win.

“We came into the game against Ryerson who have traditionally been bottom-feeders,” coach Higgins said. “The week before, for the first time in their history, they beat Laurier, and the night before they beat Windsor who’s an incredibly good hockey team.”

Although the Rams tried burst-ing through the Mustangs defence to maintain their win streak, they came at a loss when goalkeeper Ally Sarna allowed another goal enter the net, from Western forward Stacey Scott.

This game marked Gosling’s third goal and sixth assist this sea-son, making her a definite player to watch out for. Despite her role on defence, her offence is high in the ranks as well. However, Higgins believes that the team is made of equals, not star players.

“We have twenty players every game that all contribute in big ways,” he stated. “Just because they’re not on the scoresheet doesn’t mean they’re not killing penalties – everybody chips in.”

Indeed every player has chipped in, collectively gaining an eight-game win streak and losing solely one game against the Laurier Golden Hawks. Regardless, the team knows to remain humble and treat each game as a new challenge.

Up next for the Mustangs are Brock on Friday and Guelph on Saturday at Thompson Arena. While the chances are looking good, Higgins reminds his team that they “have never beat Guelph in [his] history here,” with a plan to “be up to that game while not taking Brock lightly.”

Iain Boekhoff • GAZETTE

Jennifer Feldman • GAZETTE


Western Mustangs swim upstream gloriouslyBradley MetlinSPORTS EDITOR@BradAtGazette

This past Sunday, Western held a Tri Meet with the University of Alberta and the University of Guelph, which saw the Mustangs swim to victory.

Still, the victory was not entirely decisive. Western managed 574 combined points, just edging out Alberta’s 506. Guelph finished at the meet in last with only 256 points.

“It’s still early in the season so the performance is not where we need it to be,” head coach Paul Midgley said, “I still thought it was a pretty good start for out first serious

competition.”Midgley also noticed that the

team was progressing well from where they were at the beginning of the season.

“They were showing pretty good skill development. We’ve been work-ing a lot on some of their technical skills — starts in particular —we saw some pretty good improvement on that,” he said.

The women’s team performed quite strongly blowing by the Alberta Pandas by over 100 points. While the women finished first, the men’s team lagged slightly behind Alberta. It was the women’s solid performance then that propelled

the Mustangs to an overall first place finish.

Swimmer Paulina Bonde was highlighted by Midgley for her outstanding performance after she hauled in four gold medals at the meet.

“This early in the season, to be relatively close to lifetime best per-formances, indicates that she has the potential for a great season,” he remarked.

Looking to the future, the Mustangs are looking to build upon the success they’ve had so far this season. They hope to continue at the Stratten Divisional Championship this upcoming weekend at the

Western Recreation Centre.Midgley said the pressure is

definitely on for this Saturday and Sunday where they will swim against some accomplished schools.

“This is a much higher level competition than what we’re at,” Midgley said plainly. “We have the University of Toronto there, the reigning men’s champions, and a very strong women’s team as well. So it’s going to be a reality check for us to see where we are — these are the top schools in the country.”

After this past weekend, how-ever, nine swimmers now qualify for the Canada Interuniversity Sport Championships, which will be

hosted at the University of Victoria. Those qualifying are Jennifer McNaughton, Sarah Asselin, Sophie Cieplucha, Paulina Bond, Emma Sproule, Victoria Munroe, Piper Ferguson, Aaron Rode and Louis Wong.

The main goal for the season is to finally place in the top three said Midgley.

“We’re still — and the ultimate objective — is to be in the medal level. It’s a big job. We’re on the out-side of that right now. Definitely top five and if we can do everything right, be in the top three for the first time in our history.”

Courtesy of Western Mustangs

This week we’re taking a trip to McMaster University in honour of their victory in the Yates Cup, against a school that shall not be named. Located in Hamilton — a city of interesting temperament — McMaster really does nail it with their logo.

It displays a seriousness that many other sports logos do not exhibit. Many will note that it’s entirely plausible to see this logo embroidered on varsity jackets everywhere. Keeping potentially douchey guys warm is incredibly important and doing it in style is always a major plus.

A confusing element, however, is the name “Marauders.” A word that is commonly associated with thievery and burglarizing others has been symbolized in bird form. Maybe they should have put a mask on the bird? Actually, no, that would have made it kitsch and

silly. Looking like the Hamburglar is surely not McMaster’s goal.

The font choice is pretty inspired. Coming across as both sleek and strong, the font really sets a solid note for a sports team in terms of graphic design.

Moreover, McMaster keeps it simple, not falling into the pitfall of other logos we’ve viewed. They use maroon, white, and black. By eschewing a palette of colours, the cohesiveness of the logo is exceptional.

The Marauders completely ran away with the Yates Cup. One might speculate that the indiscriminate bird had so much aggression in its eyes that their opponents were intimidated. Regardless, McMaster nails their logo design by crafting a sturdy creation that is both classy and strong.

• Bradley Metlin

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Wednesday, November 19, 2014