February 27, 2014

THE UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA’S INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER • FEbRUARY 27, 2014 • VOLUME 66 • ISSUE 24 • MARTLET.CA

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February 27, 2014 MARTLET • NEWS 3

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MARY ROBERTSON

A coalition between the UVic Students’ Society (UVSS), Camosun College Student Society (CCSS), and Unifor 333 has launched a series of videos for its Make Transit Work campaign. The cam-paign aims to bring awareness of the problems affecting the current regional transit system—issues which led to an estimated 16000 pass-ups in the month of September 2012, according to the UVSS.

The short videos feature statements by transit riders, bus drivers, and politi-cal players. The problems, according

to the campaign, stem from several sources, the least of which is the num-ber of transit vehicles.

“We welcome any increase in ser-vice, but there needs to be more that’s done to try and alleviate these prob-lems,” says Ben Williams, president of Unifor 333, the union to which B.C. Transit workers belong.

The videos identify inefficient plan-ning as the main issue. Currently ,transit is funded by the provincial government’s transit board, but organ-ized by the Victoria Regional Transit Commission, made up largely of local politicians who are reluctant to suggest

the increases in tax that are necessary for receiving all of the provincial fund-ing, as the funding is conditional on being matched at the municipal level.

But the money is not the main problem. Make Transit Work says the allocation of resources is inefficient, largely because the people running the system are not on the front lines.

“Bus drivers should have a seat at the table, so that their insights can be incorporated into planning and gov-ernance,” says the campaign’s website.

An issue faced by drivers is that tran-sit vehicles are given no priority on the road. “One of the biggest challenges

we have is [that] our buses are treated just like other vehicles on the road, so when there’s congestion, we’re caught in [it],” says B.C. Transit driver Jim Pullan, in one of the campaign videos.

The solution of dedicated bus lanes is complicated in that it would require the co-operation of the Transit Commission, the B.C. Transit board, the Ministry of Transportation, and any municipality through which the roads pass. Make Transit Work says that there needs to be a central governing body in charge of transportation infrastruc-ture as well as transit.

The campaign videos wrap up by

listing contact information of the local political figures that are part of the Commission. Make Transit Work con-siders that body to be the one that has the ability to implement the necessary reforms, saying that the Commission “has access to the levels of power that students, community riders, and bus drivers don’t.”

The videos can be found at the campaign’s website, maketransitwork.com, along with more information and the contact information for the local Commission members.

UVSS joins coalition to end bus pass-upsBRANDON EVERELL (PHOTO)

4 NEWS • MARTLET February 27, 2014

JACK CROUCH

Most people have seen them. They stand at every corner, on each floor, out front of each building. Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but over the past few years there have been many sorting bins situated on campus. The three bins (which are usually grouped together) that most students are familiar with are for bottles and cans, paper, and gar-bage, respectively. They are more than convenient for disposing of waste and an easy way to help with the goal pro-posed by the waste reduction facility of reaching a 75 per cent landfill diversion rate.

On the Office of Campus Planning and Sustainability website, it says, “We envision a zero-waste institution.”

In addition to this, according to their sustainability action plan, the Office of Campus Planning and Sustainability states that they want to ensure that 100 per cent of electronic waste is recycled domestically. They plan to measure the amount of hazardous waste UVic

produces annually.The goal of a 75 per cent landfill diver-

sion rate was set for completion by 2012. The last audit—conducted in February 2011—revealed a 58 per cent diversion rate. There aren’t any previous audits available to compare this number with, but it seems as if UVic is on the right track.

In just a few weeks, students will be able to confirm this hopeful hunch: dur-ing the week of March 24, the Facilities Management Waste Reduction crew, along with Waste Management’s “Green Squad,” will conduct another audit on the waste reduction program. They will go through bins and see how much waste is currently being diverted, as opposed to incorrectly binned.

In the meantime, students attend-ing UVic’s eco-friendly campus have a chance to do their part. UVic’s Office of Campus Planning and Sustainability encourages everyone to place each item in its proper bin. The waste reduc-tion website states, “‘If in doubt, throw it out’—do not contaminate recycling

bins with food waste or non-recyclable items!”

Aside from the three bins previously mentioned, there is also one expanded

recycling station (electronics, Styrofoam, tetrapaks, soft plastics); three battery and cellphone recycling bins; and mul-tiple compost drop-off locations across

the campus. For further information on how to use these facilities and where they are located, check out the “opera-tions” tab at uvic.ca/sustainability.

Is UVic wasting too much?Office of Campus Planning and Sustainability to conduct audit on waste at UVic

JANINE CROCKETT

A new website has been created by students with the aim to make school-work less stressful. The website, called Cooplearn, connects students in online study groups that allow them to work together toward a better under-standing of material.

The focus of university programs on grades and testing, rather than learning the information to obtain knowledge, frustrated Cooplearn co-creator Bassil Eid, a graduate student at the University of Ottawa. However, when he studied with a group, he felt that getting an assignment done or doing well on an exam was inevitable, and it allowed him to better focus on acquiring knowledge for the sake of knowledge.

“Going through my master’s degree, my first semester I did pretty much by myself and the second semester the students really started to band together. We started doing the assignments together,” says Eid. “It relieved the stress, took the pressure off. I was able to sit down and learn the actual material that was being taught, and I thought to myself, ‘Why was that not there all the time?’ I had gone through five years of university prior to that, focusing on the actual assessments.”

The website allows students to create personal profiles and then par-ticipate in study rooms. Each study room represents a course—although a course may have multiple study rooms, depending on student pref-erence. Study rooms may either be

public or private, but they all allow students to upload assignments, share notes, collaborate on exams, or par-ticipate in general discussions.

Eid says, “I think the main benefit is just the mentality of it, that feeling of, ‘We’re going to get this done. With everyone we’re going to do it. Now we can just focus on learning the actual stuff.’ It kind of lets you take control of your education—to just do what you’re there to do, which is to learn, not to achieve high marks. At the end of the day, a guy sitting in his room by himself can only learn so much. It’s only through bouncing ideas off oth-ers where you really get the full scope of a topic. Social learning is the key.”

A student uploading assignments, however, does leave room for the possibility of other students passing

those assignments off as their own work. While the website is not able to stop students from passing off work as their own in their courses, it has ways to prevent students submitting plagia-rized work to the site.

Eid says, “We have two things to really combat plagiarism. Students can study in private groups. Second, before you upload notes, assign-ments, exams, you need to cite them. We don’t let you upload it if you don’t cite it. We thought long and hard about this; we are not oblivious to this. We’re not for plagiarism, we are for discussion and collaboration.”

A rating system is also in place, which is used largely to identify key discussions and encourage participa-tion, although users have the option to hide their own ratings.

Eid says, “If you’re in a study room and someone posts a question and you know the answer and you know if you post it you’re probably going to get a good rating, you’re more likely going to write your thoughts or answers. If you don’t know the answer, and if you’re a keen student, you’re going to go out and find that answer and you’re going to write it down and you’re going to up your ratings. So it’s like a little playful game to encourage participation. But it also does high-light the more rich discussions.”

The website is still in its beta stage and is open to suggestions from users to improve the site. Eid says, “Moving forward, students really requested a chat function, and we’re actually work-ing on a chat function right now.”

Students create website to make schoolwork less stressful

BRENNA WAUGH (PHOTO)


MARCH 3 – 82014

115 IDEAS THAT CAN CHANGE EVERYTHING.

Jamie Cassels Undergraduate Research Awards Fair | March 5, 2014

11:30 – 3:00 P.M. | Student Union Building (Upper Lounge and Michele Pujol Room).

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Discover more ideas that can change everything at uvic.ca/ideafest

TARYN BROWNELL

The UVSS Board of Directors recently voted unanimously in favour of fossil fuel divestment at UVic. Along with the group Divest UVic, the UVSS is asking the university to immediately freeze all current investments in fos-sil fuels and remove their investments from all existing fossil fuel holdings within the next three years. They are attempting to collect 2 000 signatures from students while also request-ing support from faculty, staff, and alumni.

“We believe that if it’s wrong to wreck the climate, then it’s wrong to profi t off that wreckage. Investments in fossil fuels condone the environ-mental and human rights abuses associated with resource extraction based industries,” said Kelsey Mech, UVSS chairperson, in an email.

According to Assistant Treasurer of the University of Victoria Foundation Andrew Coward, UVic had $37.6 million of the University of Victoria’s Foundation portfolio invested in energy sector stocks as of Dec. 31, 2013. With that much money invested in fossil fuels, it begs the question of what will happen to UVic’s funding if it were to take that investment away. According to a study done by the Aperio Group (an investment man-agement fi rm), the effect divestment would have would be small, citing only a 0.0036 per cent drop in returns.

Mech added that, due to

changing climate, the value of fos-sil fuels will go down in the years to come. “Scientists, industry, and government leaders have all come out saying that catastrophic climate disruption will take place if warming exceeds 2º Celsius. In order to pre-vent warming beyond that threshold, two-thirds of the oil, coal, and gas in proven fossil fuel reserves must stay underground,” said Mech. “Not too far down the road, investments in fossil fuels will begin to lose their value as we come to terms with the fact that there is more carbon in the ground than we can safely burn.” She went on to say that reports from the International Energy Agency, United Nations, and fi nancial groups like Standard and Poor’s have stated that investment in fossil fuels is just not worth it. “One HSBC report showed that some companies could lose up to 60 per cent of their market value,” she said.

Coward, however, says that divesting would limit the invest-ment options for UVic in the future. “Companies that are involved in fos-sil fuels make up a signifi cant portion of all companies—at Dec. 31, 2013, the energy sector represented 25 per cent of the S&P/TSX Index (based on the Canadian stock market) and 10 per cent of the MSCI World Index,” said Coward in an email. “The foun-dation hires investment managers to consider how different countries, sectors, and companies will perform

now and in the future. Diversifi cation is an important component of pru-dent investment principles and removing this sector entirely would signifi cantly reduce the ability to diversify investments.”

According to Coward, the UVic Foundation requires its investment managers to report on how they consider environmental, social, and governance factors when making investment decisions. The founda-tion has received a letter from the UVSS regarding divestment, and the letter will be presented to the UVic Foundation’s board as well as the uni-versity Board of Governors.

“The foundation does support responsible investing,” said Coward. “UVic does share students’ and oth-ers’ concern about climate change, and is a leader in the fi elds of global change and sustainability. Over the past few decades, the university has received international attention for its commitment to green campus opera-tions, interdisciplinary research, real life learning opportunities, and inno-vative community partnerships.”

With UVSS elections coming up, students will have to wait and see whether the new UVSS Board of Directors will continue to support this campaign or not. With student groups at other universities, such as UBC, pushing for divestment as well, it does appear that it is an issue many universities will have to deal with in the future.

Group pushes for UVic to stop investing in fossil fuels

UVSS allies with Divest UVic

From left: Emily Thiessen, Nathan Grills, Kelsey Mech, Ida Jorgenson, Christina Price, Peter Gibbs

BRANDON EVERELL (PHOTO)


The time of year has come again for UVic students to select who they wish to represent them on the UVic Students’ Society (UVSS) board of directors. The UVSS draft budget for 2013-14 estimated $2 486 534 in revenue from membership fees and the 2012-13 audit reported $2 502 512 collected from students, according to UVSS financial docu-ments. In an organization collecting this much money per year in student fees, it is critical that students consider how they want these funds applied.

Since 2010, students have been able to vote online instead of requiring paper ballots. Also note that if a candidate is running unopposed but their platform is unsatisfactory, students do have the

option of a protest vote, in which case another elec-tion for that position may be held.

In addition, don’t forget about this year’s sen-ate and board of governors votes! Voting opens in all categories at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, March 5 at webvote.uvic.ca. For the UVSS board of directors election, polling closes at 9 a.m. on Thursday, March 6; for the university senate and board of governors, polling closes at 4:30 p.m. on Friday, March 7.

Elections 2014candidate interview highlights

Candidates for Chairperson

What makes you the best candidate for this position?

“I feel that I am the best candidate for this position for a few reasons. One, I do have experience. I was a director at large for the last year. I served on eight of their committees. I served on an advisory board with the university as well as senate for the learning and teaching committee, and I’ve also been a CL [residence community leader]

for the last year as well, which means that I’ve had an opportunity to speak with students in years one to four, to work with them to see what has and hasn’t worked in terms of events, and campaigns, and marketing strategies. And so I feel that I am the best person to be able to implement the changes that they want to see.”

KAYLEIGHERICKSON


“I’ve spent the last year as director of finance and operations. I have a really good understanding of how the society works and how the university works. I’ve got really well-developed relationships with all members of the university administration, which I think will be really beneficial in this position—one of the main roles of which is liaising with the

university. I have a strong background in sustainability. I’ve worked on residence energy-use projects, on campaigning for a more sustainable campus, renewable energy on campus, and all those kinds of issues, and I have a strong background in grassroots organizing and outreaching consultation. And I think I’ve also got the bright ideas and the right team for the job.”

MATTHAMMER

Candidates for Director of Student Affairs

ALISON ROOT

What do you want to accomplish if you win the position?

“There are a lot of things that I’d like to accomplish in terms of getting more student input. I think that we need to open up spaces to make the processes more democratic. I think advocating for students is really important in terms

of academic advocacy, and I think that there are a lot of ways to promote engagement by partnering with the director of events to have events that appeal to more students and are cheaper or free.”

What do you want to accomplish if you win the position?“If elected, I really want to work at making sure everybody feels a sense of belonging to a club, course union, or the advocacy group that they feel represents them best. I want to make sure that everybody feels that they are heard, and that their voices matter, and

that their opinions matter, like I said, in the club, course union, or advocacy group that appeals to them. I want to make sure there are events for people to attend, and hopefully clubs can have spotlights at those events in the future.”

KAYLEE SZAKACS

Go to Martlet.ca to find full interview transcripts, director-at-large candidate Q&As, and video introductions with executive candidates.


ANASCHEEMA

What would you have done differently this past year, compared to the existing director of finance and operations?

“As far as spending goes, we could have had more efficient allocation of resources. We could have gotten a better dollar value of those funds than was currently being achieved, and we could have had a lot more cuts that we could have done on a lot of different areas. For example, like legal

issues that arose from different student clubs or course unions filing cases against the UVSS. A lot of those could have been avoided if we had a different policy. At the same time, I do understand that the current board has been working hard, and I do respect them for that, but it’s just a matter of coming and working together.”

Candidate for Director of Finance and Operations

IANKOPP

CASEYLAZAR

IANLACKIE

What kinds of events are the most important to students?

“I think events that are most important to students get them to socialize, especially with first years coming in—2 000 of them. They need to be out

there and welcomed, so they feel like a family.”

Sum up Ian Lackie in one sentence.

“I’m a driven guy, driven and focused.”


“I don’t want to answer for all students. I don’t want to say that I have that answer, but what events are important to me and the people I communicate with and talk to are events that are culturally invigorating, culturally accepting, and include as many students as possible.”

Sum up Ian Kopp in one sentence.

“I’m heavily involved in school; I’m heavily involved in music; I’m heavily involved in my school, geography, and environmental studies, and that’s my sentence.”


“Ones involving free food, that’s pretty important. In the past we’ve had pancake breakfasts, imagine this, chocolate chip pancake breakfasts.”

Sum up Casey Lazar in one sentence.

“Future director of events?”

Candidates for Director of Events

What makes you the best candidate

for this position?

“I believe I can be the best candidate for this position because I have years of experience with the UVSS. I’ve been a club president, so I know how the UVSS works and how other

clubs and other course unions work with the UVSS as well. Also I’m knowledgeable of the campaign that’s going on at the UVSS, and I feel those are great initiatives that can be improved, and I feel I’m qualified to run the campaigns much better.”

ROY NAM


“That’s a good question. Nobody’s asked me that yet. I think I bring a lot of experience and a lot of passion. First of all, I have the experience of being a student. I’ve been a student for a while now and taken some time off for work—trying to afford school—and came back to it. I have experience with the loan system. I’m one of those students in B.C. that has the unreasonable student debt load

and have experience paying back interest. I spent a bit of time working in political parties and making sure that they adopt policies and resolutions in order to support post-secondary students. Working to lobby for needs-based grants, lower interest rates, that sort of idea. So I definitely bring my experience, and my passion, and my very personal lived experience of dealing with these issues.”

GREG ATKINSON

Candidates for Director of External Relations


GRAYDON LEIGH

As the Sochi games come to a close, a controversy that continues to engulf the region has escalated. Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych, has elected to tie his nation’s economy with that of its Russian neighbour—a move that critics argue positions Ukraine under Vladimir Putin’s ever expanding influence. Protests con-tinue to surge throughout the country, as the $15-billion bailout from Russia awoke a national consciousness that’s grown tired of suffering at the hands of an oppressive leadership.

A blogger for the New Yorker has posited some analysis of the Ukraine’s predicament. Such sources propose that Ukraine has, additionally, long been victimized by its location, one marked by a cultural divide separating the mostly liberal, European-minded on the west and their federalist coun-terparts on the east. While ridding itself of the former Soviet Union’s presence has long been on the nation’s political agenda, being land-locked by a growing European Union on one side, with a massive former Empire on the other, has produced tumultuous circumstances.

This ideological divide, along with its undesirable geographical

position, has made Ukraine a politi-cally unstable region. Supplementing this instability, the legitimacy of Yanukovych’s democratically elected government has annually come into question, culminating in his imprison-ment and subsequent controversial release.

The call for independence, say analysts, has catalyzed the organi-zation of anti-government protests, a collective maneuver that has fre-quently been met with violence from law enforcement services. Hundreds have died and many more have been injured, sparking international atten-tion and an ensuing call for foreign aid. What’s more, activists support-ing Vitali Klitschko’s opposition party were imprisoned, as governmental executives attempt to put an abrupt end to the three-month standoff. In order to maintain its reputation as a nation known for advocating inter-national peace, Canada has granted activists non-lethal provisions to aid their cause.

Canada has elected to support Ukraine’s aspirations to achieve the democratic freedoms it’s been stripped of. Canada will provide medical care and equipment through a contribution to the International Renaissance Foundation, as

diplomatic attempts at reaching a solution have failed.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird released a statement Feb. 14, say-ing, “Canada strongly supports the Ukrainian people in their fight for a free and independent Ukraine.”

However, Ukrainian govern-ment authorities released a number of imprisoned activists last week, granting them full amnesty. Baird commended this action, asserting the Canadian government’s deter-mination to welcome a conclusion to the ongoing crisis; “We call on the Ukrainian government to work with the opposition and protestors to respond to the legitimate calls of the Ukrainian people for true democ-racy, including full amnesty for the protestors.”

These statements reaffirm Canada’s commitment to international peace-keeping, an institution that has arguably become emblematic of this nation’s progressive identity. While the amount of support from Canada has yet to be determined, the provi-sions will strive toward mobilizing an activist group that holds the power to change the future of Ukraine for the better.

Canada funds medical supplies for UkraineForeign affairs minister commends Ukrainian government for releasing prisoners

Protest on Hrushevskyi Street, Kiev, Jan. 22, 2014 AMAKUHA VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

“You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to an informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.” — Harlan Ellison

EDITORIAL

Editorial topics are decided on by staff at our editorial meetings, held weekly in the Martlet office (SUB B011). Editorials are written by one or more staff members and are not necessarily the opinion of all staff members.

Happy? Sad? Enraged? Tell us: [email protected]

The Martlet has an open letter policy and will endeavour to publish letters received from the university and local community. Letters must be submitted by email, include your real name and affiliation to UVic and have “Letter to the editor” in the subject line. Letters must be under 200 words and may be edited.

February 27, 2014 MARTLET • OPINIONS 9

Opinions

REFOCUS ON FERRIES

On Feb. 5, the B.C. government released its report on a round of public consultations on ferry service. The report states that a majority of respondents opposed the government’s plans to cut service, introduce gambling, and eliminate the seniors’ dis-count. Nevertheless, the government announced that it would proceed with its plans anyway and ignore the report. Following a damning court ruling on labour relations, this is just more evi-dence that the current government is out of touch with reality.

The reorganization of B.C. Ferries in 2003 has brought ris-ing fares, debt, declining ridership and service, and severely reduced accountability through a legal shell game. B.C. Ferries now treats itself as a tourist attraction, not a critical piece of infrastructure. Because Islanders vote NDP fairly consistently, there is nothing for the Liberal government to gain by provid-ing better ferry service. Communities here get hosed, while Vancouver gets lavished with new bridges and highways.

This situation directly affects UVic students, many of whom travel to the Lower Mainland to see their families during breaks. As such, I think it would be a good idea for the UVSS to start advocating for ferry fairness.

David BlairUVic Student

DOG NOT IMPOSTER, DRIVER NOT ENFORCERI would like to share the details of an incident that I witnessed on Victoria public transit Feb. 25, 2014. I believe that it is impor-tant to inform readers of such occurrences, and to hold the driver accountable for his appalling actions.

A woman and her service dog boarded the #14 bus. As the woman went to pay her fare, the driver put his hand over

the coin slot and demanded to see proof that the dog was, in fact, a service dog. She co-operated and showed him the card, however, the driver continued to harass her and refused to give the card back until he had thoroughly scrutinized it. Eventually, the woman was allowed to board the bus, but before she even reached her seat, she was in tears. When the bus approached her stop and she went to exit, she con-fronted the driver and told him, through tears, how rude and triggering his behaviour was. All he said in response was “don’t hit the post on your way out.”

I’ve encountered many rude bus drivers in this city, but I’ve never witnessed this level of harassment and discrimina-tion on public transit. Needless to say, this driver has been reported...

Sacha RockliffeCommunity member

CHALLENGE YOUR ASSUMPTIONSRe: “Soldiers need Canada to take responsibility with PTSD education and support,” Feb. 20, 2014

This article raises questions. What does the author consider a returning soldier’s appropriate emotional response? Is being devastated by war properly characterized as a disease? If so, is a soldier who’s not affected by killing then to be considered healthy? And, whether we’re talking about disease or trauma, is saying “people don’t work without brains” really helpful in a time when we’re supposed to be trying to de-stigmatize mental illness?

Francesca AllanUVic Student

Letters

JENNIFER MCLEAN

While I have been supremely lucky in my experiences at the University of Victoria, it isn’t a school that favours its Humanities or Fine Arts programs. It’s a school very much possessed of a corporate mentality that shows favouritism toward programs that draw in greater revenue and contrib-ute to the school’s desired public image.

As a student of both Humanities and Fine Arts, I have witnessed the very real fight for their continued survival, partially manifest in the restrictions placed on professors to prevent them from teaching outside of their home depart-ment, due to a perceived financial loss. These are vibrant interdisciplinary programs that thrive on the mutual dis-semination and sharing of ideas. By imposing these kinds of autocratic restrictions, you’re effectively crippling the essence of these programs at a loss to students, research-ers, and professors.

Pitting faculties and their departments against one another over financial minutiae, when those fiscal concerns are small parts of the same greater whole, is counterpro-ductive to the entire university. Community starts at home,

and if the University of Victoria is to be truly great, it needs to reconsider why it’s disowning some of its most stalwart champions.

Humanities and Fine Arts are valuable resources that are blessed with some phenomenally gifted professors, not to mention researchers, support staff, and students. Fostering an environment that encourages openness, fellowship, camaraderie and respect between these faculties and their departments is as important as showing visible support for students and the community at large.

The consequence of UVic failing to recognize and sup-port the inherent value of what they already have is a toxic environment, wherein everyone’s frightened, censored, or restricted from doing their jobs to their fullest poten-tial because of the looming repercussions to their home department. As a student, I’m ashamed to see what my university deems acceptable behaviour. This devaluation of liberal arts education in favour of financial gain is an abso-lute perversion of the ethical duty of trust that should be implicit in academia, if not the spirit of academia entirely, and it must be addressed immediately in a meaningful way.

What UVic stands to lose by ignoring Humanities and Fine Arts

EMILY THIESSEN (GRAPHIC)

KLARA WOLDENGA (GRAPHIC)

Pooh-poohing the prospects of journalism is fashionable these days. Newspapers are collapsing by the dozens. Those that don’t simply disappear are snapped up by self-described philanthropists such as the Washington Post’s purchase by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. In Canada, our top papers face troubling times, unable to gain significant traction, or profit, from online presence. Doom and gloom, it seems, is de rigueur.

Examination, however, reveals reasons to be positive about the future of journalism. In fact, the disruption of newsprint exposes many journalistic myths about news media. First, journalism isn’t limited to newspapers—as of the 2006 census, more than a third of journalists worked in broadcast news. While broadcast news faces its own challenges, it doesn’t face the same existential threat as print news publications. Viewership is high, advertising remains lucrative, and infrastructure is owned and paid for by govern-ment. In Canada and the U.K., at least, state-sponsored broadcast networks endure. Consequently, proper context is important when discussing dimming prospects for aspiring journalists. Newspapers have traditionally wielded superior credibility among journalists. However, this doesn’t seem to greatly influence how or where most people get their news, which, in the Global North at least, is mostly from television. In 2010, the Pew Institute reported 78 per cent of Americans received their news from local TV; only 17 per cent read a print version of a national paper. Second, the right question isn’t “How can newspapers survive?”—most can’t, given their current structure. Monumental efforts by some of the most moneyed institutions and respected experts in media have, at best, forestalled the demise of dead-tree news media—Schumpeter’s ‘creative destruction’ has had its way. The Washington Post’s decline and ultimate sale is illustrative. Some critics, such as Robert McChesney or Michael Wolf, might argue good riddance, given the state of mainstream journalism.

The question is, “How does good journalism thrive without a dominant print media?”

“Good journalism” usually means something approaching the Lippman ideal of objectively reporting on events. This ideal—if it ever existed as a norm in newsprint—has been on the wane since Rupert Murdoch got his steely hands on a printing press. Audiences, in response, turned to a vested, politicized activist media and became uninterested in a truth-focused, although status-quo biased, traditional system. For “Big Important News,” the sort of stuff on the front of the New York Times, the future looks diminished although still active. Demand for non-newsprint services (the Associated Press and Reuters, wire-service backbones of contemporary news) persists.

The future of investigative journalism, however, seems interesting. The single-sponsor, dynastic media sponsorship of the American ’50s and ’60s is making a comeback; whether this model is sustainable or beneficial is uncertain. Pierre Omidyar (founder of eBay) recently endowed Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald (both highly decorated investigative journalists) to form The Intercept. These non-profit experiments are seeding ground for a renaissance in patronage media. Most troubling is the clash of cultures between the Web and institutional media. Print media, it’s assumed, is by fastidious professionals for a paying and attentive audience; web is by biased amateurs for free-riding distracted children—or so the stereotype goes. This belief is changing, as anyone with a smartphone can attest: the app market amply demonstrates the success of microtransactions (the online exchange of a very small sum of money for a product or service). Moreover, the capacity for long-term attention spans from online audiences is far and above the wildest dreams of most journalists. The rules of the Web game, however, are totally different. That, ultimately, is the rub. The future of journalism is bright, if one accepts and expects that it will be utterly different from how journalism is currently exercised.

The future of news

10 FEATURE • MARTLET February 27, 2014

Leaving TownIn

my mid-20s, I found myself stuck in my hometown putting my university degree to excellent use as a cashier. So I took a job in Thailand as an English teacher. Weeks before I left, I didn’t know many details about the job. What I did know was that I’d be leaving everything I knew behind, as well as the

one person who’d been there through it all. On my way to board the ferry to Vancouver, the elevator doors closed

on my last glimpse of my boyfriend's face for the next six months. I was immediately alone with an intercontinental fl ight in front of me—I was about to endure 30 hours of travelling time to a completely unknown destination. I stood on the deck of the ferry, feeling the still-cold spring air, and looked at the full moon.

Airports always feel like the liminal, transitory, dreamlike places they are: the huge carpeted passageways, everyone far away from wherever they came from, jetlagged, disoriented, and wandering to their gate. Airports are literally passageways to other worlds, while foreign lan-guages echo all around. I arrived in Suvarnabhumi Airport sweating in jeans and sneakers. Arriving in Bangkok was a rush; the air was hot and thick, and I suddenly realized that everyone had black hair and spoke Thai. I felt immediately drawn toward my only link here, the small-boned Thai woman in a pink fl oral shirt holding a sign saying, amazingly, my name. My contact met me with a bottle of water, and I drank it grate-fully. Sometimes called Suvannaphum, the airport is one of the many places that remind you that Thai-English translation is not exact. Words are spelled as they sound, which leaves room for interpretation. The changing names of islands like Ko Samet (or, Ko Samed) makes getting a bearing on things all the more interesting.

îMy host drives me past green countryside where banana and palm for-ests soak up the hot sun. We arrive in a town where shops have full walls open to the outside and the sidewalks are studded with food carts. Families on motorcycles race by; truck busses or tsong taews carry pas-sengers along one of the main arteries of Thailand, Sukhumvit Road.

The house where I am to stay in the town of Klaeng has a concrete fl oor and wooden walls with a gap near the roof. The bathroom is a fair-sized room with pink tiles and a toilet, showerhead, and garbage bin. The shower has only cold water and the garbage bin functions as my washing machine, Thai style. On one of my fi rst mornings there, I fi nd a quarter-sized frog under the showerhead. I put it in the dustpan and put it outside, then go to work. The next morning I look under the shower head and it is there again. I put it in the dustpan and bring it outside. The next morning, it’s there again. I leave it.

When I take my fi rst bike ride around Klaeng, I’m amazed at my

surroundings. My senses are assaulted so much that I feel timid upon leaving the house. I realize I am a rarity in the small town that most peo-ple pass through on their way to the party city of Pattaya, the northern centre of Chiang Mai, or nearby Bangkok. I take some pictures of cats and try to avoid the dogs wandering around in groups or lounging in the heat at the edges of roads. I get lost. I discover a river with a bridge over it. I ask directions at a Tesco Lotus using hand gestures and the name of the school, “Wi-ta-ya-sa-tha-worn,” I stammer to the girl behind the counter in broken Thai, saying the name of my school, so that I may fi nd it again.

I discover that the food is miraculous in Thailand. Thai people believe that food itself will make a person happy and healthy, optimistic even. I know this because there are certain moments when I depend on food as a reminder of the amazing reality of where I am. I often feel homesick—except for when I eat coconut jello or ride an elephant.

îThe school itself is very large: comprised of 10 or so buildings, a square for assemblies, a track, basketball court, boxing ring, gardens, a giant reservoir, sitting areas for students shaded by tall trees, eight ping pong tables, the canteen, and a front gate. Behind the school are the teacher’s quarters.

Before I came to Thailand, I had somehow gotten the impression that I would be teaching one class of 50 students per day. After arrival, I realize that number has grown to 15 classes of 50 students per week, bringing my total jurisdiction to a whopping 750 students. Since this is a public school, it isn’t too different from your average group of stu-dents around the world; they are boisterous, unruly, and adorable. Most barely speak English, but yell out, “Good morning, teacher!” with such regularity that I am beginning to understand that, in Klaeng, “Teacher” is somehow what I have become.

In Thailand, teachers use a microphone to be heard above the din. To be fair, some groups are better than others. In one class, the 12-year-olds can’t seem to stay in their chairs and sometimes spend their time lying on the fl oor. I fi nd more and more, however, that if I keep them occupied by singing “Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes,” they remain pretty attentive. These classes wear a newbie like myself down. I’m just grateful I don’t understand the jokes they almost certainly make as I walk through the halls.

Female teachers are not allowed to have tattoos and also have to wear skirts or dresses instead of pants. I am only one of two white teach-ers at the school. A vindicating example of my otherness is the nickname a teacher whose nickname is Apple bestows on me. I am known as “Pai Keow,” meaning rice leaf, because of my white skin. I like it.

I’ve been given textbooks for two out of the three grades I have to

teach. Teaching materials are a godsend when you have 750 pairs of eyes looking at you every week. I walk out early during a few classes in which the din of the children overpowers my stubborn will to teach a few words of English or die in the process. As Will Smith said, “. . . if we get on the treadmill together, there's two things. You are getting off fi rst. Or I am going to die. It's that simple.”

Whenever I do gather my books and exit dramatically, I leave a room-ful of surprised kids who momentarily become, wonder of wonders, silent. Once, a girl follows me out and exclaims, “I’m sorry teacher!” Her voice is breaking. We stand in the stairwell together. Rushing to collect my thoughts, I say, “It’s okay, mai pen rai,” and smile to show my appreciation for the gesture of humanity that teachers everywhere know the value of.

îSunthorn Phu is a three-day festival celebrated in Klaeng that puts any summer fl ing in my hometown to shame—based on culinary options alone. There is an extravaganza of food sellers and live entertain-ment that takes place in a park surrounding a large lake and the huge Sunthorn Phu statues painted different colors that stand twice my stat-ure. The scene is full of people eating and hanging out, while onstage, a band plays Thai music and a lady from Burma recites a poem. On the steps, people sit cross-legged on mats and eat papaya salad or som tum (barbecue chicken and quail eggs) and drink bubble tea, beer or coconut juice.

I am still getting used to the abundance of people selling food eve-rywhere. Outside of the grocery store, on every street, and on most stretches of highway, there are portable food carts selling fruit, grilled meat on a stick, noodle soup, toast with sweet milk, bags of papaya, jackfruit, or pineapple, coconuts—you name it. At the festival, I try an omelet that is cooked in front of me on a three-foot-wide pan by a woman who throws the mussels, eggs and batter together so quickly and carelessly it’s as if she’s making mud pies; soon I’m holding a steam-ing hot omelet on a paper tray, only 40 baht the poorer.

I also love going to temples in Thailand. Most temples are open to the outdoors and the surrounding courtyards. Inside, there are often Buddhas, like the solid gold Buddha in Bangkok that is six feet high, a foot wide, and maybe three feet from each sacred knee to the other.

I love the town of Klaeng so much. I love the market. I love being shoulder to shoulder with Thai people. I love looking the sellers in the eye and showing off my few words of Thai.

Ja ow neung malacaw ka, kow rai ka?Sam sib ha baht, ka.Kahb khun ka.Ka.

story and photos by Emma Hillian

February 27, 2014 MARTLET • FEATURE 11

Adventures in Klaeng, Thailand

îMy boyfriend Mark comes to visit for two weeks at the end of my stay in Thailand. We have been apart for nearly six months and plan to fl y home together. Mark is a guitar teacher. The trip is a signifi cant altera-tion of his regular routine: practicing jazz standards every evening with an apt feline audience. I missed him like crazy, and the moment I see his sweaty face in the airport is magical.

We say goodbye to everyone at school and head for the island of Ko Samet on a truck bus or tsong taew. We walk across the white sands in the pouring rain and see a hut tucked into a corner. Sitting under the thatch, a Thai woman with penciled eyebrows is sitting chewing betel, contributing to a growing red stain on the sand beneath her. The next day, we sit on two deck chairs drinking beer and reading our books from the hotel’s lending shelf. We settle in to doing nothing and serenely take in the scene of turquoise water, white sand and colourful bathers.

Suddenly, I hear a shout, a deep, strong, short shout. Now that I think back on it, I don’t know if I saw it or not. I imagine I

saw someone raise an arm out of the water then sink down and disap-pear. I remember thinking, someone is calling to his friends, they’ll hear him. It didn’t seem to concern me.

I return to my drink and the man trying to sell me a henna tattoo in the shape of an elephant. A girl with dyed red hair down to her waist comes up to us quickly, “There’s someone who has fallen in the water,” she says, “Can you swim? He’s fallen in the water.”

Mark and I take a few seconds to respond. “I can,” says Mark and passes me the fi stful of bahts he has in his swimming trunks, and runs into the water. I fi nd myself holding onto his money, which prevents me from running in too.

I should have realized precious moments were going by. A group of men help tow the man in. Ashore, they hoist his body over

one man’s shoulders, so that his torso is upside down, and shake it to try to get water out. People gather around on the beach, and in the fi rst 30 minutes, the Chinese man is surrounded by other travelers rubbing his limbs, giving mouth to mouth, pressing on his chest and yelling at him to show some life. The man’s wife, maybe in her early 30s, kneels beside him in her yellow bathing suit, repeating his name, crying out for her husband. I notice there is no one that seems to know her, and I put my hand on her shoulder. She turns around and holds onto me for a little, while I pat her head and hold her tight.

Another Chinese man comes along, and he seems to know the cou-ple. I remember them yelling “Da Fa.” I’m not sure if I remember it right, but I think that was his name. A man approaches the body, and I remember his wife saying something to him in Thai. She doesn’t want him to touch the dead man. Mark keeps doing CPR long after others have given up, mostly because the man’s wife will not give up hope.

Finally a speedboat arrives and two men check the victim’s pulse. I’m still standing on the beach, and I see the speedboat zooming off to the hospital. Mark is dripping wet in his t-shirt, looking like David Hasselhoff. We hug and sit on our chairs. He asks someone for a cigarette. The man who had wanted to sell me the henna tattoo comes back for a last ditch effort, but we tell him to leave. We drink and smoke quietly. The water is so calm and the scene so idyllic. Just as the serenity had returned after I had fi rst heard the man scream, the disappearance of the speed-boat erases the occurrence of this event so completely that we sit in our shock and try to grapple with the coexistence of so much beauty and the terrifying closeness of death.

The experience on the beach showed us that travelling to a place like Thailand is an exercise in reconciling two confl icting opposites, between the beauty of an orchid and the daily tragic outcomes of life. It showed us how fragile the breath of a living person is, no matter where you go.

îThe school semester came to an end, which meant so many different things. Going back to Canada, saying goodbye to everyone I had met and grown to know, and saying goodbye to my students and everything that had become so familiar during my time living as English teacher at Wittayasathaworn, Rongrian Klaeng.

Every word I learned in Thailand was a key to greater exposure and deeper comprehension of the language and culture. I remem-ber a moment, standing on the sidewalk outside of the main gate of the school, when my perception shifted. Immediately I felt like this was usual to me. Before, everything had a quality of being exotic and strange, and suddenly, it all settled into itself. I recognized everything as being mundane or ordinary: the trees were trees, and even though they had different trees, palm and banana, essentially, their earth was my earth. The only perceivable difference I became aware of was that this neighborhood was located further around the world.

When I went to Thailand, I went without knowing what it would be like. In my mind, I had a wonderfully large blank canvas that was to be fi lled with images and pictures of elephants, waterfalls with pools to swim in, sun-wrinkled old men and women in shorts and fl ip fl ops, butterfl ies, motorcycles, old men selling live turtles in the market, cats eating bowls of rice, thousands of faces, and thousands of moments when I had to catch my breath and pinch myself.

Culture Aphorisms? Where we’re going, we don’t need aphorisms.

12 CULTURE • MARTLET February 27, 2014

ADAM HAYMAN

Jojo’s Jajangmyeon is a new restau-rant located at 1630 Cedar Hill Cross Rd., beside the Fairway on Shelbourne Street. While it features traditional Chinese-Korean comfort foods, its atmosphere and new way of ordering is anything but old school.

As I walked into Jojo’s, the bub-bly hostess led me to my table as expected, but when she produced an iPad in lieu of a menu, my expression turned quizzical. She instructed me on how to order and left me a small cup of tea and the iPad with a standing case.

Navigating the menu was sim-ple enough. Even my grandmother owns an iPad; the technology barrier is slim, but I wasn’t convinced of its purpose. All for flash? The modern decor with Asian influences was nice, but it didn’t strike me as overly lavish. Why shell out the money for a fleet of techno-menus? Then I pressed the order button. “Thank you, your order has been accepted” pops up on the screen. Of course! They’ve taken out the middleman. My thumbs were saved from twiddling; I didn’t need to wait for a waitress to take my order.

Jojo’s doors opened mid January, though originally scheduled for September. Those of us in the Shelbourne Plaza area have been eagerly awaiting its arrival. The hype has caused huge lineups to form on

peak nights. Direct iPad ordering would be a key feature of making a din-ner rush run smoothly, but Jojo’s is not the first of its kind.

Lift, a relaxed fine dining restaurant in Vancouver, also offers its menu on an iPad. It even goes so far as to offer wine pairings on its iPad menu. Then, of course, there is the trend of delivery places putting all their orders online. There are various websites now that offer a conglomerate of delivery res-taurants on one site, like just-eat.ca. You may have seen their stickers in res-taurant windows around town: “Don’t Cook Just Eat” in red and white letters with a crossed knife and whisk. The site shows you the menus of every delivery restaurant (signed up with Just Eat) in your area.

I won’t be the one to step in the way of progressing technology, as long as it doesn’t affect the flavour. Jojo’s, thankfully, is not all flash. It has many reasonable dishes with good comfort flavours. The fried chicken is delight-fully crunchy and comes in a variety of sauces. I tried the Yangneum chicken and was very satisfied with the tangy-sweet ginger flavour. All the dishes that I’ve tried have been quite good, but my main critique is the price. A main dish costs roughly $17, and although the portions are good, I’d feel more com-fortable paying $14. A minor critique, I know, but I can’t let them get off scot-free. The Samsun seafood fried rice was

simple and highly addictive; it’s one of the cheaper dishes. Jojo’s served it with a hot broth and a thick brown sauce on the side, both of which really added to the dish. The thick brown sauce seems to be featured in many of the dishes. I can only assume it is the sauce from which Jojo’s gets its name.

Jajangmyeon, from what I’ve found online, is a dish originating from China and Korea. A noodle dish topped with a thick, brown soybean sauce. On

its own, the texture might throw the more “vanilla” of its patrons for a bit of a loop (myself included). It’s thick to the point of being gelatinous, some-where between pudding and hot tar on a summer day. Thankfully, it is served with other things, and so, you wouldn’t ever notice.

There are a few enclosed tables off to one side of the restaurant perfect for larger groups. The establishment also has a larger room that, should you

bring enough friends, may be rented out for a karaoke party. I only hope the choice of karaoke songs is better than the awful mix of last year’s Top 40 and K-Pop songs that plays over the restau-rant’s main speakers.

On the whole, technology only served to make Jojo’s better (music notwithstanding). For a moderately priced night out, it’s a great time. Just order the chicken and don’t question the brown sauce.

iPads replace menus at new Korean restaurantThankfully, the tech does not trump the taste

JANINE CROCKETT

The Phoenix’s Roger Bishop Theatre hosted Picnic Feb. 13–22, the third play of the Phoenix’s season, which was written in 1953 by William Inge.

Picnic revolves around Flo and her daughters Millie and Madge and the events leading up to and following a neighbourhood picnic. The first act of the play presents as an introduction to the characters of the play and sets up the second and final act. The first act feels like slipping into a lukewarm bath, the story flows along, but there is little conflict beyond the stereotypi-cal bickering of siblings in Millie and Madge.

It’s not until the second act that the play starts to heat up with the tension that Hal, the new character to town, brings. Actor Jensen Kerr emotes equal parts goofy screw-up and reck-less James Dean in his portrayal of Hal. Hal is the object of desire for many of the ladies in the play, and it is a ‘will they, won’t they’ between him

and Madge that creates much of the driving force behind the second act.

The set of Flo’s house with front porch was impressive and detailed; however, like the overall emotion of the play, it was hollow. The societal norms of the time in which the play was written and based may make it harder for audiences to place them-selves in the characters’ shoes; however, the actors should have been able to draw an emotional investment from the audience. Instead, I was left trying to relate to Madge’s struggles as well as the other characters, rather than feeling like I was drawn into their lives emotionally.

Although the play left me feeling more like a voyeur than an invested viewer, the cast is a good one and many have shown themselves capa-ble in previous Phoenix productions. The material of this play may perhaps be a little too intricate, as the right notes were not hit to make it feel fully realized.

Picnic’s dated script not relatable to modern audiences

ADAM HAYMAN (PHOTO)

PROVIDED (PHOTO)

February 27, 2014 MARTLET • CULTURE 13

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Gluten-free Chicken Nuggets(INSPIRED BY A RECIPE FROM ALIVE MAGAZINE)

(Serves about four)

1 large egg

10–15 ml (½–1 tbsp) melted butter

125 ml (½ cup) ground flaxseed

80 ml (⅓ cup) grated Parmesan cheese

2–5 ml (½–1 tsp) lemon zest (optional)

5 ml (1 tsp) onion powder

5 ml (1 tsp) garlic powder

5 ml (1 tsp) yellow mustard powder

Dash each salt and pepper

450 g (1 lb) boneless, skinless chicken breast or thighs, cut into 2.5 cm (1 inch) cubes

Preheat oven to 375º F. In medium bowl, lightly beat egg and stir in butter. In another bowl, combine

flaxseed, Parmesan, lemon zest, onion powder, garlic powder, mustard powder, salt, and pepper.

Dip each piece of chicken in the egg mixture, let excess drip off, and coat in flax mixture.

Place chicken on parchment-lined baking sheet and cook, flipping once half-way, for 20 minutes or until cooked through.

To make yam fries, slice one or two yams (or purple sweet potatoes) length-wise into fry shapes. Place the fries in a bowl and drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper, and a sprinkle of cornstarch. Mix until evenly coated (there should be no white patches of cornstarch). Spread evenly on a baking sheet and bake at 425º F for about 30 minutes or until crispy, flipping halfway.

Dip in whatever sauce your heart desires, such as honey mustard (combine honey and mustard to your taste).

Fuel for school

A gluten-free solution to your McD’s cravings

JENN TAKAOKA

Now that midterms are in full swing and the rain is making a comeback, everyone is stuck inside. What bet-ter time to snack on some comfort food than on a rainy night with your textbooks?

My go-to comfort food is not the greatest. I get these nasty crav-ings for Chicken McNuggets, which are probably the only thing from McDonald’s I enjoy way too much. Trying to eat healthy doesn’t always discourage me from the danger-ously convenient two-minute walk

to McD’s, but the rain just kills any motivation for me to leave my apart-ment (my umbrella happens to be beyond broken). I was told to pick up an Alive Magazine one time to check out an article, but as I leafed through for the article, I hit the jackpot for McNug cravers: gluten-free chicken nuggets. “Breaded” with ground flax seeds, herbs and Parmesan. Why this never occurred to me before, I don’t know. But I knew it had to happen.

The first time I made this recipe, I found there was too much of cer-tain ingredients. The melted butter added to the egg ended up making

the nuggets a bit too greasy and soggy, so I halved it. The lemon zest was also a bit strong, although I dipped the nuggets in strong honey mustard, which didn’t compli-ment the tartness very well. Overall though, it’s a great twist on Shake ‘n Bake and a tasty alternative to McD’s. Serve with some homemade yam fries (I used purple sweet pota-toes—purple skin, white inside), a (hopefully) good book that may or may not be required reading, and curl up in your snuggie to wind down after a long day of class.

JENN TAKAOKA (PHOTO)

14 CULTURE • MARTLET February 27, 2014

FEBRUARY 28 – MARCH 6

ARTS

Monday, March 3

MOVIE MONDAY PRESENTS: MARION BRIDGE

Stop by Movie Monday at Jubilee Hospital’s Eric Martin Pavillion for a free screening of Canadian feature film Marion Bridgeat 6:30 p.m., starring a young Ellen Page. The screening is in collaboration with UVic’s Ideafest and the Centre for Addictions Research of B.C. Guest presenters include sociology professor Cecilia Benoit, and nursing assistant professor Lenora Marcellus.

Tuesday, March 4

ART GALLERY OF GREATER VICTORIA’S ADMISSION-BY-DONATION DAYTake advantage of the monthly admission-by-donation day at Victoria’s largest art gallery, with over 18000 works in its collec-tion for you to explore. Current exhibitions include a Rembrandt Van Rijn etching collection, works by Emily Carr, and recent acquisitions and donations of Asian art. The Gallery is located at 1040 Moss St. and is open from 10 a.m.–5 p.m.

COMMUNITY

Saturday, March 1

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2014

Join Amnesty International for “Women In Film: Bringing Light to Dark Places” with films showing at 1:30 and 6:30 p.m. at the Victoria Event Centre, located at 1415 Broad St. Support the human rights organization by bringing a $10 suggested donation for each session.

Sunday, March 2

TAKE A YOGA BREAK AT LULULEMONTake your muscles for an end-of-weekend stretch at Victoria’s Lululemon, at 584 Johnson St. for an evening of free yoga. Mats, water, and tea will be provided. The session runs from 8–9 p.m.

Thursday, March 6

DROP IN FOR SOME WEST COAST SWINGPut your textbooks down for an evening of free West Coast Swing classes at Dance Your Freedom Studio, 1011 Meares St. The best part about it: no partner necessary. The class takes place from 8:15–9:45 p.m.

FOOD & DRINK

Saturday, March 1

TEA LEAF READING IN JAMES BAYIf you are feeling spiritual, visit Ellenna for a 30-minute tea-leaf reading at James Bay Coffee and Books, 143 Menzies St. Your future awaits you, from 2–4 p.m., at a flat rate of $30.

Saturday, March 1

VICTORIA BEER WEEK 2014Join Victoria Beer Week for a kick-off night at the Victoria Public Market from 7:30–11 p.m. For $50 you will have access to a selection from over 30 breweries in B.C. Beer Week runs until Sunday, March 9, and tickets may be purchased via victoriabeerweek.com. Cheers!

LECTURES

Thursday, Feb. 27

LEARN ABOUT THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD FOR BLACK HISTORY MONTHAs part of B.C. Black History Month, attend Ron Nicholson’s “Adam’s Journey to the Promised Land” at Oak Bay Library, 1442 Monterey Ave. The presentation chronicles the journey of a traveler during the Underground Railroad, told from a fourth-generation descendant’s perspective. Register through the Greater Victoria Public Library website, gvpl.ca. The hour-long presentation begins at 7 p.m.

Wednesday, March 5

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY: REAL WOMEN, REAL SUCCESSGet inspired from 5–7 p.m. by a panel of four successful women from varying career backgrounds, at Alix Goolden

Performance Hall. Tickets are $35 and can be purchased online at realwomenrealsuccess.ca.

MUSIC

Friday, Feb. 28 and Saturday, March 1

LIVE JAZZ NIGHTS AT HOTEL GRAND PACIFICRelax after a week of classes with an evening of drinks and live jazz in the Pacific Lounge of the Hotel Grand Pacific, at 463 Belleville St., near the harbour. Jazz guitar and vocal duo Eryn Sharpe and Leon Nagasaki will perform from 8–11 p.m.

Thursday, March 6

PLAY A ROUND OF MUSIC BINGODrop by My Bar and Grill for a night of free music bingo from 7–10 p.m. and cheap wings starting at 4 p.m. This event will take place at 310 Gorge Rd. E.

MICHEL GHANEM

CHORONG KIM (GRAPHIC)

Sports | Lifestyle Explicit photos: awesome or odd? Have your say, in the comments at Martlet.ca.

February 27, 2014 MARTLET • Sports | Lifestyle 15

ALEX KURIAL

The UVic Vikes men’s basketball team is on to the Canada West final four, winning the berth by battling back in a hotly contested three-game playoff series against the Winnipeg Wesmen.

The Vikes stellar 19-3 regular season record earned them the Pacific division title, and set up a home playoff series with the Wesmen, the fourth-ranked team out of the Prairie division. UVic entered last weekend as heavy favour-ites, and on a hot streak, winning their last three regular season games.

The Vikes, nationally ranked as num-ber four, were in for a rude awakening in Friday night’s game however, as the Wesmen came out firing to down a stunned home side at McKinnon Gym. Winnipeg held the Vikes to a mea-ger five points in the first quarter, and cruised to an upset 79-51 win.

The Vikes were run over in almost every category en route to the blowout loss. The most damage came through Winnipeg’s 26-5 advantage in points off turnovers and massive domination in the paint, outscoring UVic 44-16 down low.

Forward Jelane Pryce led the way for Winnipeg, with 19 points and seven rebounds, while Vikes forward Ryan Erikson contributed a game-high 20 points in the losing effort.

Now facing a pair of elimination games, UVic would have to wipe their memories to get ready for game two. With the support of a series-high crowd of 750, the Vikes stormed to a 75-61 win on Saturday night to even the series.

The Vikes more than tripled their first quarter production from game one, and held a narrow 16-15 lead after the first frame. The home side was able to capitalize off turnovers in the second quarter to open up a commanding lead, which rose to as many as 21 dur-ing the final quarter.

Centre Chris McLaughlin was a driv-ing force behind the win, registering a double-double with 17 points and 11 rebounds. He commended the team’s paint presence, which saw UVic more than double its output from the previ-ous night.

“It was the intangibles, and things that we didn’t bring last night that we tried to bring tonight, the effort and grit,” McLaughlin said.

Vikes head coach Craig Beaucamp credited the team’s compete level for an almost complete reversal from game one. “We competed harder,” said Beaucamp after the game. “Offensively, defensively, rebounding, we were more determined.”

Not lost on Beaucamp either was the importance of playing well out of the gate. “After last night’s start, when you’re looking at the barrel of the gun, coming into tonight’s game it was important that we got off to a good start and got a little bit of confidence,” he said. “I thought we did that and it carried over to the rest of the game.”

The win set up an all-deciding game three on Sunday afternoon. In front of another strong home crowd of 600, UVic put on a first quarter clinic to open up a 28-12 lead. While the Wesmen got within striking distance in the second half, the Vikes were able to hold off their prairie opponents to claim a 76-63 victory, and with it a 2-1 series win.

McLaughlin again came through with a big game, his 19 points and 10 rebounds earning him back-to-back double-doubles. Fifth-year forward Terrell Evans scored a game high 23 for UVic, while point guard Marcus Tibbs pitched in with a game high four assists.

The Wesmen did not help their cause by taking 15 fouls during the game, which the Vikes turned into 12 points off of free throws. The lack of compo-sure was most notably highlighted in the second quarter.

After Pryce was called for his third foul, the game-one star went on an expletive-filled rant, earning him a technical foul from the referee. Pryce was unable to calm down during half-time, forcing Winnipeg head coach Mike Raimbault to glue one of his more promising offensive options to the bench for the remainder of the game.

As Evans would remark after the win, keeping your cool is an important part of the game. “We did frustrate them, but that’s basketball. You’re going to beak, you’re going to foul, everyone’s going to talk, but at the end of the day, you gotta get the job done.”

Playing in his final season at UVic, the outgoing Evans had nothing but praise for the fight his team showed to come back from a disastrous game one. “Very tenacious,” said Evans of the team’s character. “We put ourselves in a hole, it was a big loss for us, but

we had to come back and prove our-selves. Everyone stepped up and did their part, and that’s what this team is all about.”

Despite Winnipeg going on a 15-2 run late in the third quarter to cut the lead to six, Beaucamp was confident that his players would stop the bleed-ing before it was too late. “We said in the locker room that at one point or another they’re going to make a run,” said the head coach. “Mentally you have to be prepared for that, and we said when they do we have to be prepared to punch back and bounce back.”

The Vikes did just that, getting the lead back to 10 by the end of the quar-ter before riding a comfortable final frame to the win.

UVic will now hit the road for the Canada West final four tournament, hosted this weekend by the Alberta Golden Bears in Edmonton. Provincial rivals the Fraser Valley Cascades will be UVic’s first round opponents, with tipoff set for Friday. The Saskatchewan Huskies round out the tournament’s participants, which sees the two finalists earn a spot in the CIS Championships.

The Vikes women’s squad was also in playoff action this past weekend, but struggled on the road against the top-ranked Regina Cougars. It was a cruel fate for UVic, who missed out on the second seed and its hosting rights, in a regular season finale loss to the UBC Thunderbirds.

Third seed in the Pacific meant the Vikes had to travel east to face the red-hot Cougars, who rode a dominating 18-game win streak to a second-place finish in the Prairie division. Regina made easy work of UVic on consecutive nights, winning 82-67 and 82-68 for a 2-0 series sweep.

Forward Sarah Semeniuk came up big in her final games with UVic, scor-ing team highs in points both games, with 19 and 14. Forward Allison Mulock also played out the final chapter of her collegiate career, putting up six points and four rebounds in the opening game.

The result was made even more pain-ful as the Regina squad has now swept UVic out of the playoffs in back-to-back seasons. Snapping the Cougars’ recent series domination will no doubt be on the Vikes’ mind when they tipoff the 2014-15 season.

Vikes advance to Canada West final fourUVic stands tall in a pair of elimination games to avoid home upset

EVAN READ ARMSTRONG

The game has changed, people. Nobody else is saying anything, so I’m taking it upon myself to break the silence and up the ante on dating in 2014, because the rules are different. I myself have never been very good at dating. The forced intimacy, the pre-tending to love to hike or feng-shui or other shit that makes me look more attractive—it’s not my bag and it never has been.

My ideal first date would be Netflix, pizza, and a laid-back activity. I’m the type of person who wants to start at the unsatisfying-but-comfortable date number 40, in which you kind of hate the person, rather than date number one. Date one is awkward. It involves shaving pretty much every part of your body. You can’t fart on a first date. What you choose for food matters because we both know that the other person is noticing, so you’re not allowed to eat like the savage baby gorilla you really are.

Now, I know you’re reading this and thinking, “Well, the first date is always awkward. Just because the game ain’t comfortable doesn’t mean it’s changed,” and for what it’s worth you’re right. What has changed is the introduction of technology into this whole mess. Tinder. Grindr. Snapchat. Facebook. Sexting. Make no mistake; the social network is slowly but surely fucking up the dating world. I’d argue that this change is particularly hard on those of us who weren’t born in this millennium.

If you’re like me and can remember what it’s like to have a home phone line, you can bet there’s at least one part of dating today that throws you for a loop. The conventional, heteronorma-tive (and yes, more than a little sexist) rules of dating that our parents grew up with no longer apply. Either person can call or text first after the first date—the onus is on you to make contact if that’s

what you want to do. Similarly, you can now text a picture

of your junk, in efforts to woo your part-ner. Snapchatting the contents of your underpants is not only socially accept-able, it’s sometimes considered sexy. I always get uncomfortable when I get photogenetalia—how am I supposed to respond? “Oh thanks! It’s 8 a.m., and a picture of your erection is exactly what my coffee needed!”

My point is that my coffee no longer measures up and you have ruined my morning. There are no boundaries and there are no codes of conduct. If you’re going to reject someone, it can be as easy as not responding to their text. Of all the ingenious innovations that tech-nology provides, it is also slowly but surely turning us all into cowards. It can be especially painful when you wantsomeone to text you and they don’t.

Silence from any device becomes the ominous, “Yeah, you’re nice but—.” We live in a world where anyone can contact anyone else at any time. There is no excuse that the person you’re dating isn’t calling you back, unless of course, they don’t want to call you back. We live in the dating equivalent of the Hunger Games—nobody really wants to be there, and it’s pretty much guaranteed you’ll be praying for death at one point or another.

My solution is pretty simple: keep it kind. Remember that there is a per-son on the other end of whatever line of communication you’re using. Be nice. Rejection is rejection, and if you’re going to do it, at least pony up and be straight about it. The technol-ogy has changed, but being a good person hasn’t, and just because it’s easy doesn’t mean there are no con-sequences of being an asshole. It’s still a jungle out there, but now the jungle is filled with douchebags on smart phones. So be nice—both to yourself and to others. Until next time, may the odds be ever in your favour . . .

‘Snatch Cap,’ and other ways in which technology is ruining the dating world

PROVIDED BY APSHUTTER.COM (PHOTO)

KLARA WOLDENGA (GRAPHIC)

Chris McLaughlin goes for a lay up against the Winnipeg Wesmen on Feb. 21, 2014.

ALEX KURIAL

Despite less than ideal weather condi-tions, the annual Vikes vs. Vancouver Whitecaps showdown still managed to entertain a crowd of 2500 at Centennial Stadium on Feb. 16, 2014.

The Whitecaps brought a full roster to the island, including former English Premier League star Nigel Reo-Coker, and Canadian national team member Russell Teibert.

The Vikes meanwhile showcased a pair of outgoing seniors in Bobby Eng and Andrew Ravenhill. Both play-ers were part of the Vikes 2011 CIS Championship team and went the dis-tance in one of their final games in front of the home crowd.

Unfortunately for those wishing for precision gameplay, wind gusts of over 50 kilometres per hour constantly dis-rupted the teams’ attempts to execute their game plans, with normally rou-tine passes and touches going well off course or out of bounds.

As expected, the Major League Soccer (MLS) side controlled the major-ity of the play, dominating shots and possession throughout the game. The Vikes managed to stick around solely through the play of goalie Noah Pawlowski, who turned aside eight of nine shots.

The highlight of Pawlowski’s first half came at the 15-minute mark, when he robbed Jamaican national forward Darren Mattocks on a breakaway. The second-year Victoria native later made an impressive save on Nicolas Mezquida

from close range to keep the game scoreless.

The Vikes did get a solid chance of their own before the half, with a long-range shot from midfielder Craig Taylor forcing a full dive from goalie David Ousted. The shot skimmed just wide however, sending the two sides to the locker rooms with zeroes on the board.

With the second half underway, and his starting squad still unable to break through a resolute Vikes defense, Whitecaps head coach Carl Robinson determined a change was in order. The resulting scene was reminiscent of a substitution usually seen in an American football game, with nine new players coming on to try and give Vancouver a spark.

One of the fresh faces, prospect Omar Salgado, had a good chance from inside the box as the second half drew on, only to see another shot turned aside by Pawlowski, this time with his foot.

Just when it appeared UVic would weather both the literal and figurative storm however, the Whitecaps struck a goal in the dying moments. Once again on the attack, Salgado crossed a ball from the left side to a streaking Andre Lewis. The seventh overall pick in this year’s MLS Super Draft made no mis-take, slamming a one-timer shot from six yards past a helpless Pawlowski.

The Whitecaps erupted in celebration at the last-minute goal, while the Vikes were left stunned to see what would have been a remarkable result slip away. Despite the finish however, Vikes play-ers still felt proud of their efforts.

“It shows a lot of character,” said Vikes midfielder Cam Hundal on push-ing Vancouver for a full 90 minutes.

Andrew Ravenhill, playing for one of the final times in Centennial Stadium, also praised his teammates’ efforts. “I think it says a lot about the pride of our team,” said the defender. “To show up here after being up for 24 straight hours traveling from Miami, and then come out here and hold a pro team to 1-0, it’s quality.”

The Vikes effort is even more impres-sive in light of the fact they had just returned from their Florida tour the night before kickoff. UVic went an impressive 2-0-1 against the southern American opposition, including a 6-0 thumping of

St. Thomas University.Hundal believes the travel, while gru-

eling, helped the Vikes put together the solid defensive effort that was on dis-play for the first 89 minutes. “We kind of practiced that while we were there in preparation for this game,” he said. “It’s something you got to do when you’re playing against strong opposition like this.”

At the helm of the Whitecaps this season is Carl Robinson, a former Welsh national player who served as assistant coach on the team last year. The 37-year-old rookie head coach was pleased with the outcome of the day.

“On another day, we might have scored eight or 10 goals, so I’m very

v`pleased with the way we played and built up,” said Robinson.

Robinson went on to laud the mean-ing that the annual showdown with UVic carries. “It’s massive,” said the coach on making the trip to Vancouver Island. “It’s an important part for us as a club coming out to a community and doing things like this.”

The Whitecaps have a final presea-son game on March 1, after which their fourth MLS season will begin March 8, with a visit from Thierry Henry and the New York Red Bulls. The Vikes meanwhile will close out their 2013-14 campaign by hosting the annual Keg Cup, scheduled to run the weekend of March 22–23.

16 Sports | Lifestyle • MARTLET February 27, 2014

Vikes suffer a loss at home, but come away from game with plenty of positivesWhitecaps beat Vikes on home turf

BRANDON EVERELL (PHOTO)Craig Taylor (left) of the Vikes battles for the ball against Nicolás Mezquida of the Vancouver Whitecaps Football Club.

Coins used to get bit to test their minerals’ purity. Whole other thing.

February 27, 2014 MARTLET • BUSINESS | TECH 17

Business | Tech

ALEXANDER BURTON-VULOVIC

Anyone who’s ever tried to send money electronically knows that it can be a huge hassle. Wire transfer fees are outrageous; currency brokers like Western Union might charge as much as 20 per cent of the total value of the transaction. PayPal horror stories abound on the Internet—reversed charges, poor customer service, and frozen accounts. Buying things over the Internet is better with credit cards, but that’s no help if you want to send some money to a friend. Our currency and our money transfer systems weren’t designed for peer-to-peer electronic distribution, at least not in the same way that cash can be transferred physically.

The rise of cryptocurrencies may have the potential to change all that.

You’ve probably heard of Bitcoin, the mother of all cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin’s foundation is the idea that if most of the people using it keep track of where most of the currency units are at any time, anyone can trans-fer money easily by simply sending an updated location for the amount of money. It works something like this. Say that I have 100 Bitcoins in a “wallet” on my computer. That wal-let doesn’t use my real name (and I

can create as many as I like); it’s sim-ply a vehicle for storing Bitcoins. If I decide to send 10 Bitcoins to a friend, I can create a transaction (A sends 10 Bitcoins to B), sign the transac-tion with my private wallet key, and distribute it to the network. When a sufficient number of people in the network have received that transac-tion and marked in their ledgers that my friend now has those 10 Bitcoins, the transaction is “verified” and he can then go ahead and send those Bitcoins to someone else, by doing the same thing.

The distributed nature of the network cuts banks, credit card companies, and payment proces-sors out of the loop and means that transaction costs are extremely low. Transactions can’t be reversed and aren’t easily identifiable to specific real names. All you need to send some cryptocurrency to someone is a receiving address, and they can generate one in about 30 seconds, for free. In fact, these currency trans-actions are so convenient that on the popular website Reddit, an entire cul-ture of “tipping” has arisen using the cryptocurrency Dogecoin. People will send perfect strangers on the internet 50 or a hundred Dogecoins just for posting an interesting comment. (As

of Feb. 25, a Dogecoin is worth about 0.10 U.S. cents, so the total transac-tion value is usually very small.)

If you think all this sounds too good to be true, you may be onto some-thing. Entirely aside from potential technical weaknesses that could still lie undiscovered in the actual cryp-tography, governments are very leery of cryptocurrencies’ potential for money laundering and fraud. On Dec. 24, 2013, the Reserve Bank of India circulated a warning potential cryptocurrency users that they were exposing themselves to “financial, operational, legal, customer protec-tion, and security related risks,” and that the use of such currencies could subject the users to unintentional breaches of anti-money launder-ing laws. That came about a week after Chinese currency regulators ordered payment processors in China to cease exchanging cryptocur-rency for the Yuan. Then on Jan. 27, 2014, U.S. prosecutors in New York arrested Charles Shrem on charges of operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business and conspiracy to launder funds. Shrem, the U.S. Attorney alleges, had been operating BitInstant, a USD/Bitcoin exchange selling Bitcoins for USD, serving users hoping to buy drugs and other illegal

goods on the website Silk Road.Thus far, most regulators (except

authorities in Russia) seem leery about actually declaring the use of cryptocurrencies illegal. On the other hand, they seem just as lost as anyone else when it comes to the application of traditional currency laws to this new form of decentralized currency.

From a user’s perspective, it may ultimately come down to volatility and access. According to the website cryptmarketcap.com, which estimates the USD value of various cryptocur-rencies, Bitcoin has fluctuated in value from as little as about $500 USD per coin to as much as about $900 USD per coin and Dogecoin has gone from 0.03 U.S. cents per Dogecoin to as many as 0.18 cents per Dogecoin in the past month. Without a relatively stable valuation of the currency, espe-cially over the short term, it seems unlikely that cryptocurrencies will become the transaction method of choice for electronic money transfer.

Moreover, using cryptocurrency can be a tricky affair. First, a user has to set up their wallet. The process is simple, but instructions on how to do so are often obscure. Then, the user needs to acquire some currency, either by “mining” it or by purchasing it on an exchange. The former, how Bitcoins

enter circulation in the first place, allows a user to obtain some coins from nowhere by using their comput-er’s processing power. It is essentially free money, but setting it up can be very complicated and may require an investment in specific hardware to be worthwhile. On the other hand, purchasing cryptocurrency for “real” money, using an exchange service, has all the downsides of any other currency exchange, combined with the real or perceived downsides of the Internet’s inherent risks. All of this combines to repel less sophisticated users, limiting the use of cryptocur-rencies to the enthusiasts.

Yet, cryptocurrencies aren’t going away, probably because of the lack of meaningful alternatives in the same niche. The Canadian Mint’s MintChip, announced in 2012, appears to have gained no traction whatso-ever. Despite the disdain of some economists, like Paul Krugman (who famously called Bitcoin “evil” on his New York Times blog at the end of December 2013), transaction volume on cryptocurrency networks is very strong. As Dogecoin’s proponents say, it seems to be going to the moon.

Delving into the cryptocurrency phenomenonThe history and future of Bitcoin and its fellow digital currencies

WILLIAM WORKMAN (GRAPHIC)

18 BUSINESS | TECH • MARTLET February 27, 2014

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MICHEL GHANEM

Entrepreneurial projects in Victoria are building awareness through the crowdfunding community provided by Indiegogo. In partnership with the Victoria Advanced Technology Council (VIATeC), they hosted their fi rst meet-up in the city on Jan. 20, sharing success stories in order to inspire the community to get involved.

Launched in 2008, Indiegogo was one of the fi rst open-concept crowdfunding platforms. It promotes its hosted cam-paigns to a global audience of nearly 190 countries. There are approximately 7 000 of these campaigns running at any given time, including a mix of busi-nesses and community-based projects, such as fi lms, music, and games.

Ayah Norris, Indiegogo’s Canadian marketing and community manager, has been well placed to witness crowd-funding’s success in the community over the last six months. “I always tell people to look at crowdfunding as it being more than just the money.”

“It can be tough to knock on doors and have people tell you ‘oh no, we don’t want to help you, you aren’t ready,’” she refl ects. “Crowdfunding is an amazing opportunity to fi nd a group that cares, create something, and vali-date what you’re doing.”

Indiegogo offers users two funding options for their projects. With “fi xed” funding, if users reach their self-desig-nated goals, they receive the funding for their project. Falling short from the goal results in money being returned

to the contributors, and the addition of a four per cent fee. On the other hand, “fl exible” funding offers users the opportunity to cash in the funding they raise, regardless of reaching their goal. The catch: a nine per cent fee, “as incentive to set a reasonable goal and work hard to achieve it,” according to Norris. In either case, contributors to a project are often rewarded with vari-ous perks at the end of the campaign, depending on how much they donate.

With this merit-based system, it is up to the user to gain the initial propelling burst of publicity and support for their independent projects. As a campaign gains traction, Indiegogo’s “gogofac-tor” algorithm provides an easy way of gauging its progress, and rewards users who have built themselves a strong start with additional exposure on the site.

The Victoria business Burnt Sunglasses is one campaign that

has earned a spot on the homepage through a high “gogofactor” score. Inspired by the surfi ng beaches in Tofi no, three UVic friends in the Royal Roads MBA program created sustain-able bamboo sunglasses. Their start-up more than tripled its funding goal on Indiegogo, with 20 days left in their campaign.

The projects from Victoria receiving the most funding also include fi lms, which showcase our immense potential

for cultural exports on the cutting edge of art and social commentary. Hattie’s Heist and Us and Them both surpassed $20 000 USD, as did Two 4 One , a romantic comedy, notable for its transgender protagonist, by acclaimed local writer/director Maureen Bradley.

“There is such an incredible commu-nity spirit here, and everyone has been so supportive,” says Norris. “It’s the right environment for crowdfunding.”

Victoria crowdfunds movies and moreIndiegogo services local creators

WILLIAM WORKMAN

Demos are always a welcome, crucial step in researching a purchase. They can also be fun games in themselves, whether you’re a fan hungry for a taste of an upcoming title, or a starving student who just wants to nibble at some gameplay before you dig out your wallet. Properly made, demos are excellent for grabbing players’ atten-tion, then getting them hooked. The fl ipside is that badly put together demos can expose fl aws in a game’s mechan-ics, give away too much of its substance, or misrepresent its actual quality.

A good demo should be all about giving players a feel for the mechanics, perhaps while playing the role of a pre-quel to the coming adventure.

BRAVELY DEFAULTWhen you have fans as voracious as those of the Final Fantasy franchise, you want to give them something that they can really delve into. It’s not about hooking them—their loyalty to the series, its worlds, and its creators is already more than enough to bring them to the table. Instead, it’s nicer to reward them for that anticipation.

Bravely Default is a smart reinvention of a classic RPG system; it gives standard genre battles a modern twist by implementing an open job system that offers players free-dom to build their team of adventurers and battle with

them in their own way. Bravely Default is a great game with a demo that gives players a very good sense of the real product, while remaining distinct in a few ways. Those looking to play around with the game’s mechanics early on won’t be disappointed, as the demo lets you sample char-acters’ jobs and abilities. You can also earn rewards within the demo to bring into the full game, always a great incen-tive for those who have already set their sights on a title.

THE STANLEY PARABLEFew games as narrative-driven as The Stanley Parable ever receive the demo treatment, and those that do usually offer only a short introductory section or a single unimpor-tant scene from midway through. A good demo should act as a prologue, getting players interested and ready, and in this respect, The Stanley Parable shines. It is a fi rst-person game in which the player simply acts as they wish while their actions are dynamically narrated. It may seem unam-bitious compared to its big-budget grandfather, Half-Life 2 (from which the game was originally modded). However, it is an incredibly successful player-driven story in its own right, both insightful and fun. By billing itself as a demo, when it is actually distinct from the game it represents, it showcases the larger work in a refreshingly overt and hon-est way. Nothing is spoiled or made redundant; only the true greatness of the experience shines through.

Will to game

Demos that make you want to play

Check yourself, before you wreck your game shelf

MARY ROBERTSON (GRAPHIC)

Humour

February 27, 2014 MARTLET • HUMOUR 19

What word becomes shorter when you add two letters to it?

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The UVSS collects well over $2 million per year in student fees. But how many students have patience to read up on policy and platforms and make an informed decision on who should direct the society? At the Martlet, we say it’s your money, your vote. You can pick a candidate any way you deem appropriate. That’s why we’ve provided this time-sav-ing measure for choosing which slates and candidates deserve your support this election. Fold up our Martlet Origami Ballot Allocator, share it with your friends, and remember to vote.Polls are open at webvote.uvic.ca, 9 a.m. March 5.

Choose your candidateThe Martlet origami ballot allocator

1. Cut along the dotted line(use safety scissors or seek adult assistance).

2. Turn the paper face down and fold the square of paper in half both directions and again in half diagonally in both directions.

3. Fold each corner toward the middle, so the four coloured corners meet in the centre.

4. Flip over, so the printed results face up. Fold corners of this resulting square to centre, same as before.

5. Fold the square in half, horizontally, so the numbers are inside the fold and the colours outside. Unfold and fold the same along the other axis, again numbers in, colours out.

6. Slip your thumbs under each of the coloured fl aps that face you. Slip your forefi ngers under the coloured fl aps on the other side, and gently bloom the pyramid.

1. With your thumbs and forefi ngers under the coloured fl aps, hold the closed Ballot Allocator out to a friend/voter. Ask them to choose a colour.

2. Alternate opening the pyramid along one axis and then the other as many times as there are letters in the colour name. For green, G-R-E-E-N, for example, G might open so that numbers 1, 4, 5, and 8 are visible inside, while R would reveal only 2, 3, 6, and 7. Do this until you pause

to show the numbers revealed by the fi nal letter.

3. Ask them to choose a number. Alternate opening and closing in the same way again, this time counting up to the chosen number. It’s sort of an “eenie-meenie” scenario.

4. Counting out numbers one more time is optional. Once they’ve made their fi nal number selection, fold up the fl ap with the number on it, and read the corresponding result.

5. Vote at webvote.uvic.ca on March 5.

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Newsroom 250.721.8360 | Business 250.721.8359 | martlet.ca | @TheMartlet | Facebook.com/martletuvic | YouTube.com/martletuvic

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Sports|Lifestyle EditorKevin [email protected]

Graphics and Humour EditorKlara [email protected]

Photo EditorBrandon [email protected]

Staff PhotographerBrenna Waugh

Video Co-ordinatorHugo [email protected]

Promotions Co-ordinatorChorong [email protected]

Web Media SpecialistJeremy Vernon

Staff WritersJanine Crockett, Adam Hayman

Junior ReporterGabe Lunn

Volunteer StaffChris Anhorn, Alex Kurial

ContributorsAlexander Burton-Vulovic, Rebecca Comeau, Jack Crouch, Michel Ghanem, Jennifer McLean, Emma Hillian, Graydon Leigh, Pat Murry, Evan Read Armstrong, Mary Robertson, Jenn Takaoka, Emily Thiessen, Jeremy Vernon, Joey Wenig, Hugo Wong, JP Zacharias

Cover byWilliam Workman

VOLUME 66 ISSUE 24

Restaurant & Lounge

768 Yates

Exibiting local artwork / live DJs / menu available all night / gluten free & vegan dining options / comedy & open mic nights / free wi-fi / original house cocktails / unique urban underground in downtown Victoria

cenoteloungevictoria.ca facebook.com/cenoterestaurantandlounge facebook.com/cenoterestaurantandlounge

We’re holding talks all month

Come hear from great local journalists about their careers and the business.

John Threlfall — Feb. 28 at 2 p.m.

The Martlet Speaker Series offers free events open to all students and the public. Talks take place in the Martlet Offi ce, Student Union Building (SUB) B011.

REBECCA COMEAU

February 27, 2014

Documents

Transcript of February 27, 2014