The panel was held amidst nationwide condemnation of Maclean’s November 2010 “Too Asian?” article, which addressed the increased enrolment of Asian students in Canadian universities.

McGill students and Montreal communities are circulating a petition to pull Maclean’s $1.5 million in federal funding.

Ed Lee, a coordinator and panelist of the “Too Asian? And Beyond” discussion, said the panel “was a good way to start a conversation and a dialogue around the issues,” and to raise awareness.

Following the publication of the “Too Asian?” article in November, groups from across the country formed the Community Coalition for the Elimination of Anti-Asian Racism, and drafted an open letter to the magazine asking for a public apology.

In response, Maclean’s sent the Coalition a letter, demanding an apology and a retraction of their open letter. The magazine wrote that the Coalition’s letter was a “deliberate and obscene misrepresentation of Maclean’s journalism” and that it was “clearly objectionable and…defamatory.”

The magazine’s legal counsel, who authored the letter, could not be reached for comment.

In December, the Coalition organized a petition to pull federal funding from Maclean’s. Karen Sun, Executive Director of the Chinese Canadian National Council (CCNC) – a member of the Coalition – expressed why they felt the need to start the petition.

“We’ve tried to have conversations with Maclean’s; we invited Maclean’s to attend a community forum so that they could actually speak to the community directly, [but] they don’t seem to be interested in talking to us. So we’re talking to the government,” said Sun.

“It would be great to have a national magazine that actually represents the views of the Canadian public in the broadest sense, [but] I’m part of the Canadian public and I’m not happy that my taxpayer dollars are going to a magazine that’s offending me,” she continued.

As stated in the petition, the Ministry of Canadian Heritage can revoke funding from periodicals for publishing offensive content that denigrates identifiable groups. The Coalition feels that Maclean’s has a history of publishing offensive materials. Among its complaints are an article about corruption in Quebec, and articles that the Coalition deemed “Islamophobic.”

Janet Lumb, a panelist at the discussion and director of Accès Asie – a Montreal Asian heritage festival spoke to The Daily. “They don’t say that about Harper, they don’t say that about Michael Ignatieff, they don’t make these proclamations with the more established,” she said. “Maclean’s is supposed to be more representative of the Canadian population, but it’s picking on minority organizations and minorities…to provoke and sell.”

According to Sun, the federal government has set up a grant with funding guidelines that state that if a publication prints offensive materials, it will become ineligible for funding.

“We want to ensure that…the rules are being followed,” said Sun.

A spokesperson from Maclean’s declined to comment, saying Maclean’s sees the incident as “all in the past.”

Lee estimates that he has close to 150 signatures; 25 signatures are required for submission to an MP.

“We’re going to try to do it before the election,” said Lee. “If we are able to get at least 150 or more signatures, then we can send it before May 2 and perhaps write a little note attached to it that says that we’re also paying attention to the elections that are coming up. I think that it’s good timing.”

The post Student equity panel condemns “Too Asian?” article appeared first on The McGill Daily.

This crisis highlights some of the problems faced by the global recycling industry that usually go unnoticed by the general public. Recycling is a common practice in Montreal, and most of North America, and is not the subject of controversial political debate. People generally know better than to throw their empty plastic bottles in the garbage, and the City of Montreal has curbside pickup for recycling. However, what happens after the trucks crisscross through our neighbourhoods collecting our recyclable waste remains a mystery to many, and we may not realize that our current recycling infrastructure is not as environmentally sound as we think.

The industry is fairly opaque, and operates without much meaningful government regulation. Right now Montreal’s recycling is handled entirely by the private sector – from collection, to sorting, to processing. Meanwhile, our recycled materials are often shipped to Asia or worse, thrown away in landfills. With roughly half of Montreal’s recycled materials being shipped overseas (emitting thousands of kilograms of carbon emissions in the process), and with much non-biodegradable yet recyclable products filling up landfills, our waste management system is significantly flawed. While the common belief is that recycling is part of a solution to the problem of our alarming rates of consumption, in fact it only tempers the damage.

Montreal’s sorting facility is located on the other side of Autoroute 40 in St. Michel, where RSC sorts all of the city’s residential recycling. Five private contractors are hired to collect recyclable waste around the city and bring them to the RSC’s sorting facility. On any given day, this totals 125 to 150 truckloads from the metropolitan Montreal area. These trucks dump all of the city’s collected materials into the reception zone of a massive warehouse where mountains of paper, plastic, aluminum, and glass are piled high around the room.

“This is finished material,” said Patrice Hamel, the Plant Manager, pointing at bales of paper stacked in tall columns as we walked across the catwalk. “The other material and categories,” he said, pointing to the heaps of unsorted plastic, “are dropped on this bin, and then they feed it onto the conveyor.”

We then walked through a series of rooms, squeezing between large machines and conveyor belts and speaking loudly over the constant industrial drone. “The workers sort the plastic with the rest of the fibres,” said Hamel as he led me through the facility’s confusing labyrinth. “In here, I have a magnet to pick up the steel cans. Here, I have two optical sorters. This machine sorts the different types of plastic. The other sorter sorts the rest of the plastic, aluminum, and trash.”

Toward the end of the line, an Eddy Current separator divides the metal that mistakenly got on the plastic line with a large magnet. We stood and watched as plastic slowly dropped down a pipe until the separator transferred a gigantic ball of aluminum into a different pipe.

Hamel then led us back out into the warehouse. “After they drop to the first floor, it goes to the baler compactor to build a bale of finished product. Afterward, the forklift puts it in the container. They load it into a dry box trailer, or in an overseas shipping container.”

Sorting is only the first step of the recycling process. The next step happens in a different processing facility, sometimes here in Quebec but often somewhere in China or India.

Recycled plastic is shipped to a processing company where the plastic is washed, shredded, melted, and extruded to create small pellets that are sold to customers who use the recycled plastic to make their products. Recycled paper needs to be de-inked – which is done either at a paper mill or at separate de-inking facilities. Recycled paper is de-baled, again sorted through a series of conveyor belts, and shredded into tiny pulp fibres. Then chemicals are added to remove any ink from the fibre. When post-consumer paper has been turned into the de-inked pulp, it can be used at paper mills to produce a new product.

Aluminum is cut into smaller pieces, chemically or mechanically cleaned, and then melted into molten aluminum in a furnace. After metal impurities are chemically removed, other metals may be added for alloy specifications and then the molten aluminum is poured out of the furnace. Glass goes through a similar process: it has to be cleaned, melted, and re-blown.

All recycled material goes through a heavy industrial sorting process. It gets shipped to another facility – sometimes on the other side of the globe – and then goes through another heavy industrial process to produce new material. In one year, the RSC receives approximately 200,000 tonnes of recycled waste from the metropolitan Montreal area. The sorting plant can process 35 tonnes per hour and operates six days per week at 19 hours per day. Forty five trucks carrying dry storage trailers or shipping containers full of recycled material leave each day to be sold to local vendors or overseas markets in Asia.

A 2009 report from the World Shipping Council estimates that the carbon emissions for a ship to carry one tonne of cargo one kilometre is 10 grams; a tractor-trailer emits 59 grams of carbon to carry one tonne of cargo one kilometre, and airfreight emits 470 grams of carbon to carry one tonne of cargo one kilometre. The distance from Montreal to Hong Kong, where much of our refuse gets shipped, is over 12,000 kilometres.

In January 2009, the City of Montreal signed a ten-year contract with RSC for zero dollars for the treatment of recycled material. The only cost to taxpayers is the inevitable garbage that is placed in recycling bins, which costs the city roughly $7 per tonne – far less than the garbage disposal contract, which costs the city $70 per tonne.

Alain Leduc is an Environmental Advisor for the City of Montreal. Despite his claim that recycling is “without a doubt” a major aspect of the city’s green initiatives, he also recognizes the adverse environmental impact of the recycling process.

The contract’s environmental stipulations have less strength than one would hope, and as it stands they act more like a suggestion than a mandate. RSC has to sell its material to local companies if it can’t get a better price abroad – but if it can, it’s not bound to keeping the product in Canada.

“We can’t oblige [RSC] to lose money to stay in Montreal,” said Leduc

Hamel estimates that roughly 50 per cent of Montreal’s recycled waste is shipped to Asia. Asian markets are more favourable to recyclers because they have better technology to accept lower-grade materials, and can process them in greater volumes. “In Asia, it is not difficult to receive [lower quality material] because they re-sort the materials at their plant,” said Hamel. “In Quebec, when [processing plants] receive the fibres, they like to have quality… You don’t have enough industry for picking up all the materials that this plant recycles. For this reason I export material to Asia or India.”

“I like having a local market, but they don’t have the same technology as they do overseas,” admitted Hamel.

When it comes to selling recycled materials to Asia, it is sometimes an inevitable necessity for companies like RSC when the choice is between trans-Pacific shipping and a landfill. If there are no local customers that have the capacity or technology to accept lower-grade recycled materials, the options are few.

Cascades is a Quebec-based company, and one of the largest producers of paper products in North America. It markets itself as being committed to sustainably producing paper entirely from recycled materials. Of the 2.2 million tonnes of paper produced per year, 1.4 million tonnes are collected by Cascades independently, and another 800,000 tonnes are purchased from municipalities and other companies like RSC.

“Cascades is probably one of the companies best known for its carbon footprint,” said Hubert Bolduc, VP Communications and Public Affairs. Cascades consumes less water for paper production than most Canadian companies, using only 9.7 cubic metres per tonne of paper produced compared to the Canadian average of sixty cubic metres per tonne. “It makes us a leader in sustainability because of the way we produce our material,” said Bolduc.

Yet while Cascades is committed to green initiatives, inevitably there is waste that goes into the process. Some of the recycled paper they receive is not of high enough quality to be used in producing new materials. This lower-quality paper is used for low-grade products or thrown in landfills. Bolduc estimates that 15 per cent of the paper they receive goes to waste.

The problem of throwing recyclables in landfills is not exclusive to companies that have to throw out their low-quality materials. When there is no buyer or storage space, sorting facilities and transfer stations have no other choice. Meanwhile, Leduc estimated that the City of Montreal only collected 50 per cent of the recyclable materials consumed in 2009. That means half of the recyclable products consumed by Montreal residents were thrown away.

Products made from recycled material are marketed to have a certain cachet, and are often sold at a premium. At your average office supply store like Staples, recycled paper could cost up to 35 per cent more than standard paper. Still, the paper industry is rampant with green washing. Some “recycled” paper is made from as little as 30 per cent recycled material, while other paper is marketed as “eco-responsible” despite containing no recycled material at all: “eco responsible” simply means it is recyclable.

Bolduc estimated that tissue products in North America is a $10.5-billion industry, but only half of that is made from recycled materials. A report from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that in 2007, only 37 per cent of paper products produced in the United States came from recycled fibre.

Right now, the problems that our recycling infrastructure faces are not being adequately addressed by the markets. Companies are not producing from recycled materials at a high enough rate and when they do, they charge customers more money for it. Asian markets process more recycled materials than North America currently does, but with that comes the problem of the carbon emissions of shipping to and from Asia.

In spite of the wasteful practices of the industry, Bolduc is not optimistic for an immediate and radical change in its operations. “Carbon footprint is the next challenge for the whole industry,” said Bolduc. “It is the biggest threat to competitiveness because companies will have to make decisions based on its carbon footprint. The minute Obama announces carbon emissions restrictions, it will be a very difficult turnaround for all industries.”

The U.S. and Canadian governments have been dragging their feet on climate change policies. In both countries, plans for a cap and trade system have floated around, but have never gotten off the ground. The Harper government wants its climate change policy to coincide with the U.S. government’s and is waiting for the U.S. to take the lead. Until then, Bolduc thinks the industry will continue on with its current practices. “There are no incentives for organizations that encourage them to try to make efforts,” said Bolduc. “The minute Canada and the U.S. announce carbon ceilings, people will start making efforts. But aside from a few early adapters and companies trying to look trendy, there isn’t much incentive for industries to do better. When we have a carbon exchange, then it’s going to change the whole dynamics of the market.”

Recycling, while flawed, is still a markedly better option than doing nothing. The EPA estimates that recycled paper creates 35 per cent less water pollution and 74 per cent less air pollution than virgin paper production. Recycling aluminum emits only 5 per cent of the emissions of new aluminum production, according to the International Aluminum Institute. The problem right now is that much of the recyclable products we consume are not actually recycled, be it because of people throwing things in the garbage instead of the recycling bin, or because of sorting facilities throwing away the materials they are unable to sell or process.

The City of Montreal does recognize these problems and is making some efforts to combat them: they have invested money in distributing larger recycling bins around the city to allow for a higher collection rate of recycled materials in order to hopefully bring the sad mark of 50 per cent up to their goal of 60 per cent, or even up to the 70 per cent rate recently proposed by the Quebec provincial government.

Most people acknowledge that consuming at such an alarming rate is not good for the long-term health of the environment. The deforestation and carbon emissions that come from producing new products are damaging and the problem is exacerbated when products that can be recycled are thrown in the garbage. The word recycle implies that there is a loop of consumption, collection, and then re-consumption, but right now too much of that is just garbage.

The post Waste mismanagement appeared first on The McGill Daily.

But while that notion of “playing a man’s sport” has stuck in my mind for a while, baseball being a man’s sport is probably, to some, a dubious concept in our age of full-contact sports and UFC. Maybe my coach didn’t even believe it was a “man’s sport;” he just knew what is typically the most effective course of action to get me to participate: challenge my manhood.

Here I am now: 21 years old and the Sports editor of a newspaper. I often wonder why I got into sports when I was younger and the key moments that I remember are that brief encounter with my baseball coach and similar childhood interactions. As a self-conscious child, I wanted kids to think I was cool and constantly talking about the Millennium Falcon instead of the Atlanta Falcons wasn’t cutting it. When you are a young boy, playing sports or having some interest in them is expected out of you; otherwise you’re not “cool” – a euphemism for “normal” in adolescent-speak. The cooler kids would talk about Mo Vaughn and Drew Bledsoe, so I started to read the Boston Globe’s sports page to join the club. Sports were the tools to gain acceptance into the club and they are one of the first institutions that create the gender divisions we have in society.

Children from a young age are divided up between boys’ and girls’ leagues, as well as boys’ and girls’ sports and the societal expectation for men to be tough is especially emphasized in sports. “I don’t think that that toughness is really innate,” said Katie Esmonde, U4 Sociology and Daily contributor, who is doing her research project on gender in sports. “I think it’s something that you learn and you learn that it’s expected of you. … I kind of think that sports are a microcosm of male culture. Everything about masculinity is really exaggerated within sports. Sports are explicit about what it means to be a man and what it means to not be a man.”

Being interested in sports as a child was part of performing my gender. An interest in sports wasn’t expected from girls. “From childhood, differences between boys and girls are really emphasized,” said Esmonde, “and in emphasizing those differences, they’re created.” At a young age, whether we know it or not, sports were used as a way to define our gendered identities. In Canada, when you step out on the ice as a child, you wear either hockey skates or figure skates depending on whether you’re a boy or a girl. And then sports become a tool for men to prove themselves. “Sports is a great way to prove your masculinity,” said Esmonde. “Patriarchy as an institution is weakening. People aren’t going out and working these really physical jobs – you’re not often going to war in the same way [as they did in the past]. … Masculinity is about power and what does power mean when everyone has access to it?”

The way that sports is such a major part of male culture makes it an exclusive boys’ club in a somewhat literal sense. “A study asked boys and girls what television they watched and the number one was sports for boys,” said Esmonde. “That just isn’t an expectation for girls. I wasn’t encouraged to be a fan as a girl. … They do not expect that for women and whenever I offer my opinion on sports, people just don’t take it seriously or they’re surprised that I’m a fan. … When I watch sports, with the commercials that are involved, I always get the feeling like I’m not supposed to be here because it’s often beer commercials that are explicitly making fun of women or [women] are simply there to be sex objects.”

The only professional women’s league in North America is the WNBA and they still have trouble getting the public’s attention. Only 548,000 viewers tuned in to the WNBA finals whereas nearly ten million people watched LeBron James choose which team he was joining. Women don’t have significant roles in our sports culture. “Their contributions [in sports] aren’t really respected,” said Esmonde. “We don’t watch them on television. They’re barely even on the ticker at the bottom of SportsCenter.” Their accomplishments are ignored because from a young age, sports are such a part of male culture that we view women’s sports as inferior. A common insult thrown around on the field is claiming that somebody is “playing like a girl.” Moments like that help create society’s perception of women’s sports being less legitimate than men’s and reinforce the idea that sports are a male-dominated boys’ club.

Sports are deeply embedded in masculine culture and are used as a way to socialize kids into gender binaries. Boys and girls sports are segregated at a young age and sports are often what defines you and separates you as a male. I care about sports now because I was socially pressured into following and caring about sports when I was younger. It was all about trying to be a man – whatever that means.

The post Mandatory masculinity appeared first on The McGill Daily.

This year, Film Pop boasts 43 features, shorts, and music videos from different countries around the world to be shown around the city. The venues range from a former synagogue to a rooftop, and perhaps even your own living room.

Film Pop’s curators selected films from over 300 submissions with a mandate to showcase independent filmmakers and find movies with “a strong correlation to music,” according to Negrelli. Though that is not to say that the curators are favouring any one style of film. Negrelli highlighted Toumast, a film about the Tuareg nomadic tribe in North Africa developing contemporary culture playing on October 1 at 8:00 p.m. at Éspace Urbain (3660 St. Laurent). “We don’t just want cookie cutter indie films,” said Negrelli. “[With the Tuareg] there is a culture of making music and electric guitar music. It’s not a cute indie movie – it’s a different style, but it’s still in line with our mandate – it’s a music film. I guess [the Film Pop organizers] look for uniqueness.”

Indie music videographer Vincent Moon is going around during Pop giving private screenings of his work in people’s homes, providing one of the festival’s more unique film-watching experiences. On Pop’s website, Moon explained that, “my film-making is much better suited to being watched by a single viewer. I take viewers one by one unlike Hollywood cinema which aims to amalgamate the audience.”

On a larger scale, the world premiere of Look at What the Light Did Now – a documentary by Anthony Seck on the creation and promotion of Feist’s 2007 hit album, The Reminder – is playing on September 29 at 9:00 p.m. at the Ukrainian Federation (5213 Hutchison). Pop Montreal will also premiere less publicized films such as Before Night, a short film by director Yung Chang with music by Ensemble, which will be performed live with the film on October 2 at 5:30 p.m. at the Ubisoft rooftop on 5480 St. Dominique.

While separated by less than a month from larger film festivals like Montreal’s Festival des Films du Monde and the Toronto International Film Festival, Film Pop sees itself as capable of providing a unique experience. “I think the fact that we’re surrounded by all these big film festivals kind of gives us more freedom,” said Negrelli. “There aren’t many other spaces just for music films. The fact that we’re a small, specific niche already sets us apart.… We’re not a competitive festival – our festival is purely about enjoying something together.”

The post Film Pop appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The McGill Daily: As someone who looks at the politics in sports critically, what do you think is the role of sports media in covering these issues?

Dave Zirin: Unfortunately, far too much sports media has been reduced to basically either cheerleading for teams or exposing the various scandals of athletes. It’s stuff that could read better in Home and Garden or in Us Weekly, so it sort of flows back and forth from the banal to the salacious and this underserves sports in two ways. First of all, I am a big believer that sports is like art and it’s beautiful and that it can stand for some really lyrical writing and I think writing itself has become in some ways debased in sports writing. But, the bigger issue is that sports isn’t just sports anymore. We need to have sports writers who can understand the incredible impact that sports plays on our economy, on our culture, how we relate to one another – these are big issues that require real analysis and real debate and real discussion and my experience is that there is an audience of people that actually wants to have that discussion, and I think sports media underserves that audience pretty dramatically.


MD: Why do you think ESPN chooses not to cover important political issues?

DZ: Well, I mean, there are some shows on ESPN that do good work. Outside the Lines is a terrific show that airs everyday that attempts to look at this, HBO’s Real Sports does this, but I’m talking about more like the kind of print journalism that is really at the root of how the stories get dug out and developed over the course of weeks or the course of months like real examination of things and not stuff that’s pegged so sharply to the time constraints of television or the sound bites of television. There’s something that inherently constrains television’s ability to be an effective medium for the kind of investigative journalism that we need in sports right now. Like Outside the Lines, for example, is a terrific show; it’s also 25 minutes each day. It covers usually 2-3 topics for each show. I’m a guest on it a regular amount and I think they do good work. But we’re talking about trying to understand the way public funding of stadiums is reshaping our cities. We’re trying to understand the way sports effects how men and women relate to one another, how people gay and straight relate to one another, how people of different backgrounds, all the rest of it. It’s a dramatic microscope into understanding our world. I think that we need to figure out a way to develop independent journalists who are willing to do this work.


MD: You spoke on this a little bit the other night at the panel discussion, but why do you think there is a schism between leftist thought and sports?
DZ: I think that there is a thought among a lot of people on the left that sports is a distraction from things that are really important. It’s a view most associated with Noam Chomsky and often times sports is seen, because there is so much in sports that has nationalism, racism, sexism, homophobia, I mean, I’m from a town where people root for a team called the Redskins for goodness sake; people on the left who are understandably repulsed by all of that and say, “This is not for me.” They swear it off the way a vegetarian swears off a McRib. They say, “This is bad. This is not good. And it should be something that’s wholeheartedly rejected,” and I think that’s problematic for a couple of reasons. One is that that’s not all sports is – it’s not all reactionary refuse. There’s a lot of beauty in sports, there’s a lot of fun in sports, there’s a lot of joy in sports, which I don’t think the people on the left should reject. I also think there are a lot of political issues in sports that are very, very, shades of grey – that are very combative, very interesting, that people on the left should engage with. One of the examples is the possible funding of the Nordiques stadium. $145 million dollars. Do we really want the sports teams to control that debate? Do we really want the terms of the debate to be the people on the right say, “We want the Nordiques,” and the mainstream says, “We want the Nordiques,” and people on the left say, “No we don’t”? No, there are different ways to have this debate, like calling for partial public ownership of the Nordiques or not just socializing the debt, but also socializing and not privatizing the profits. These are the debates that people who see themselves as progressives should want to strive to engage with.


MD: You seem to hold Muhammad Ali in high esteem. Why are there no more Muhammad Ali’s – outspoken political sports figures – today?

DZ: Well, there are a couple of ways to answer that. The first is that you can’t understand Muhammad Ali without understanding that he came of age athletically and came of age politically in the 1960s. He was remarkably shaped by his time, so we can’t segment Ali out of [his] era…. It’s historically irresponsible and it puts an undue burden on athletes today to ask them to be anti-war and anti-racist leaders at a time without mass anti-war or anti-racist movements. We need those movements today, but Ali had the benefit of being influenced by those movements and then he then in turn influenced those movements as well. That being said, I would argue that while there may not be Ali’s today, there are far more athletes that speak out against politics that are very under-discussed. The fact that an entire team of the Phoenix Suns came out against Arizona and the anti-immigrant legislation and wore Los Suns jerseys on Cinco de Mayo during the playoffs – that is a historic moment. That’s never happened in the history of sports. So there may not be Ali, but there are a lot of things percolating right now, which draw our interest.


MD: Why do you think publicly-funded stadiums continue to be built across North America when it has been proven to be a bad idea over and over again in the past?

DZ: Yeah, it has proven to be a bad idea, but they are getting less subsidies now than they were getting ten years ago because of the preponderance of data that has come in. That’s the reason being given by NFL owners why they want to see a massive wage cut, like as much as 20 per cent wage cut of NFL players in the next CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement). The number one public reason that owners are giving is “we are getting less stadium subsidies and the cost of upkeep on these stadiums that we’re paying for privately are coming out of our profits and should come out of your profits, too.” So there is a little bit less of that. The second thing is that you’re right – they are still getting built in some areas and that’s because I think first of all, owners lie. We know that for a fact, owners lie. Look down at the recent leaked documents from Major League Baseball and that’s proof positive. It’s right there – people can see it. They lie about how much profit they make, they threaten to move their teams, and then they extort our towns and municipalities. That’s why they keep getting publicly-funded stadiums even if it’s less than it was because the logic of the data makes it far more difficult for them to get whatever they want.


MD: The other night at the panel discussion, you spoke of the current business model of a lot of sports teams that inflate ticket and concessions prices. Do you think this business practice is alienating major portions of their fan base and do you think this is sustainable for the long-term health of professional sports teams?

DZ: We’re in a period where the fan is being alienated, but it’s not reflecting itself in the bottom line – the dollars – because fans aren’t as crucial [to] whether or not a team makes profit as they used to be. This used to be a kind of intrinsic mechanism or failsafe for sports where, if an owner didn’t put forward a good product or look like they were attempting to do so, their team would lose money and it would be a disaster. But now what we’re dealing with is that owning a sports team is like having a license to print money because of stadium construction, but also because of sweetheart cable deals and because of luxury boxes, and personal seat licenses. My concern is owners are maxing out short-term profit at the expense of long-term health of their sport. That’s the key kind of point there that we’ve got to make when we talk about this. This isn’t just about criticizing owners; it’s about making sure there’s an attractive sports venue that I can pass on to my kids. Right now it’s becoming a little bit noxious.


MD: You are one of the few journalists that cover sports politically and you bring to light a lot of important issues. Do you think that these opinions will ever become mainstream or do you think it will always be kind of a minority fringe opinion in the media’s coverage of sports?
DZ: I don’t consider it a minority fringe opinion. There have been protests in seventeen different ballparks protesting against Arizona’s laws. That’s not a fringe opinion. The majority of the United States now opposes public funding for stadiums. That’s not a fringe opinion. Sure, it is certainly a minority in media coverage, but at the same time when I was in town, I was on the CBC, on the rotation on ESPN, my latest book that came out was with a bigger publisher. That’s not to be braggadocious at all. It’s not me – I don’t care about that part of it. What I care is that they wouldn’t be coming for these ideas unless they thought that I had an audience and that’s what I feel like is there. I think the audience is underserved, but at a point it’s going to take the fans themselves to be active and demanding this stuff. There’s an organization called the Sports Fan Coalition, I think everybody should join it. I think the more active we are, and the more visible we are – and we are big, but we are not visible – the more visible we are, the more likely it is that editors will respond to the kind of writing that we do.

The post Political games appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The sports media have the power to instantly change the public’s perception of professional sports. LeBron James and NFL player Brett Favre, not so long ago, were the darlings of their respective leagues until recently. Now they are targets of scorn for fans and the media. If not for the intrusive coverage of professional athletes’ personal lives, Tiger Woods would still be known as the world’s most famous golfer who happened to get in a car accident last November, rather than the world’s most infamous philanderer. ESPN created the buzz necessary to get people to tune into The Decision, James’s hour-long team selection show, by spending the days before with non-stop coverage and even a page on their website called “LeBron Tracker.” The event attracted more viewers than this year’s Stanley Cup finals. James is now a villain amongst NBA fans because the network he sold the one-hour special to would later demonize him for having the show.

In the aftermath of the LeBron Decision, the same opinion was repeated across all sports news outlets: “Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird never would have done that.” I then found myself criticizing him not only for being egotistic enough to announce his free agency decision the way he did, but also because he chose to join the best players in the league rather than try to beat the best players in the league. It was like ESPN had performed Inception on my brain. Ultimately, the situation boiled down to a star athlete who was unsatisfied with his current team and had the ability to pick any team he wanted, and chose to play with good teammates that would help him win a championship (in Miami instead of Cleveland, no less). On his blog, comedian Michael Showalter satirically commented about the outrage over James: “If given the choice between working with the best people or mediocre people I will always choose to work with mediocre people because then I will be way less successful at doing the thing I love the most and have worked my whole life to succeed at! It’s such a no-brainer!”

There’s no rule book for professional athletes that says you have to win on your own. Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird all had Hall of Famer teammates on their side. The outrage over James’s supposed lack of competitiveness is an artificial belief that became popular opinion partly because of the talking heads that said so.

As local newspapers and their sports sections go under, the major sports media networks have more hegemonic power over the public opinion of sports fans than ever before. Do people really care if Brett Favre reports to training camp, or if LeBron James switches teams?
ESPN can turn a relatively insignificant story into one that gets covered like the BP oil spill by choosing to make it important. With a society of voracious sports consumers and such globally recognized and prominent media outlets, 24-hour sports media are creating the narratives for their networks and the sports world.

The post Making the news appeared first on The McGill Daily.

McCoy operates Retro Vintage out of his basement in St. Henri , and specializes in vintage bikes. “I try to look for anything that’s kind of out of the usual,” said McCoy. “I won’t go looking for standard mountain bikes. Anything from the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, or older when I can find them.”  Originally just a hobby, Retro Vintage now offers a wide array of vintage bicycles and other vintage craftworks on its web site. 
Vélo Dervish, run by Watt, is situated in the basement of a North African café in Mile End. The alley entrance down a flight of stairs into a claustrophobic workshop full of bicycle frames emphasizes the underground nature of Watt’s shop. Watt began three years ago when a friend gave him an old bike that he fixed and sold for $60. He used the money to buy more old bikes, which he subsequently fixed and sold until it snowballed into his current overflowing operation. 
Recent trends have made vintage goods more popular and chic, but the demand for vintage bikes is as much about utility as it is their aesthetic appeal. “I think it’s a question of durability and a question of style,” explains McCoy. “Vintage bikes have been around forever and I find that all bikes now look exactly the same, and the old ones have so much style and so much personality…. There is a lot of demand for the retro kind of stuff and I think it’s going to last a while for the bikes because they’re so indestructible.” Watt agreed. “Parts have gotten better…but old steel frames are so beautiful and so well made and they don’t make them like that anymore,” he said. A typical Vélo Dervish bike may be a hybrid of modern parts on a vintage frame, to make a high quality bike at an affordable price. 
While they are able to sell more affordable bikes by purchasing and fixing older ones, both Watt and McCoy hold to a high standard of ethics when it comes to the widespread problem of bike theft in Montreal. “I make sure that I get them from trustworthy sources,” said McCoy, who always checks the serial numbers with the police before accepting a bike. “A couple of times I’ve gone to get bikes and it just didn’t feel right…. It wouldn’t do well for my reputation and for my business and for anything to be in possession of a stolen bike, or worse, selling one.”

“Someone’s bike is very personal for them,” acknowledges Watt, who once witnessed a bike theft in front of his house and chased the thief down the street with a wooden Kendo stick. “I make sure, as much as I can, that they’re not stolen. There’s such a thing called karma, or ‘bike-ma.’ Even if someone gave [stolen bikes] to me for 5 bucks, I wouldn’t take them.” 
Both McCoy and Watt have a strong desire to serve the Montreal cycling community. Operating mostly through word of mouth and web sites – with the occasional Craigslist advertisement – Retro Vintage and Vélo Dervish offer a more affordable alternative to new bikes found at a retail store, often at a higher quality, and with the ability to provide more personalized service. “It’s really small. I’m the only person there so basically when I have a customer and they buy something they’ll always be dealing directly with me,” explains McCoy. Echoing McCoy’s sentiment about personal service, Watt values a more ethical business model than larger stores. 
“I don’t care so much about money, I care that the person is happy,” claims Watt. “The current business model is the anti-model. If you want to look at [a big corporation], look at what their business plan is and mine is the opposite. It’s really people first and to go person by person and not to treat someone like a client because that is the biggest bullshit.” Neither McCoy’s and Watts’ motivation is monetary. It arose instead out of a passion for cycling and their craft. “For me cycling is and was a major passion, and I started the bike business just to help people to get good bikes, and to be able to do something that I love,” said Watt. 
With bikes packed to the low roof in Watt’s dimly lit warehouse, he plans to move to the larger basement space next door, and has just received a license to make his business more legitimate. He recently quit his job to focus primarily on his bike business, though he wants to maintain the underground ethic. “People are sick of being considered consumers, so when they come to something that’s underground, they have so much love for you because it’s laid back,” said Watt. “I will close Vélo Dervish’s door as soon as it becomes not laid back and it becomes something for money.” 
The decision for Watt to start the underground bike shop was a natural choice in line with his personal ideology. “It’s free market capitalism, but not capitalism in the predatory sense, which they have now,” said Watt. “It means they don’t want to crush people and they don’t want to get things for greed. They have a product they want to sell and they want to help people.” 
For McCoy and Watt, the spirit of their underground bike shops reflects the broader culture of Montreal cycling. “[In Montreal] there’s this spontaneous feeling and I think that’s part of the bike scene,” said Watt. “Cyclists want to be free. If anything, they love the bike because it gives them freedom.”

To get in contact with the shops in this article, visit velodervish.blogspot.com or retrovintage.ca.

The post Backstreet bike shops appeared first on The McGill Daily.

I don’t pretend to be a hockey expert – my remote interest in the sport was lost with the 2004 lockout – but I do have a problem with how the NHL carries out its business. No other professional sport allows fighting. Though fighting garners a penalty in hockey, one could see this as a slap on the wrist compared to the punishments doled out by other leagues. In the NFL, an errant punch is grounds for throwing a player out of the game, and in the MLB the suspicion that a pitcher might be throwing at a batter may send the pitcher to the clubhouse. The ejection for fighting in most other sports is often accompanied by a suspension. Meanwhile, NHL players only get five minutes in the penalty box.

In February, an article written by The Daily’s Sports editor Michael Lee-Murphy cited a recent retaliatory fight between David Booth and Mike Richards, who came to blows in a March game over an October incident in which Richards hit Booth and gave him a serious concussion. “Any skeptics looking for the justification of fighting in the NHL need only look to the Booth-Richards fight for a demonstration of hockey’s complex psychodrama of which fighting plays an indispensable role,” Lee-Murphy wrote. Despite his efforts, I am not convinced.

A friend who is a far more enthusiastic hockey fan than I am once disparaged a team for “not having anyone willing to fight.” The fact that general managers often sign enforcers – colloquially known as “goons” – mainly for the purpose of fighting, rather than their athletic ability, makes me less willing to engage with the sport. My friend also said that fighting is informally institutionalized in part because referees do not do enough to protect players. Despite this rationale, players should not have to police their own game in order to protect themselves and their teammates. If this is the case, there is a fundamental flaw in the way the league works. Fighting is embedded in the culture of North American hockey, and the league’s lack of action only enables this violence. In the NFL, penalties and fines for dirty hits are issued during and after the game, respectively, in an effort to curb the risk of injury. Booth’s desire to retaliate against Richards is an unfortunate product of this violent culture.

Recently, the NHL implemented a new rule prohibiting blindside hits in order to protect players. But even if the NHL is finally getting serious about its players’ health, the practice of fighting in the NHL is unlikely to go, as it is a popular aspect of the game and a means for players to police their own game and to defend their honour.

Nothing makes a statement better than the crisp remarks of a clenched fist. But ultimately, fighting contributes little to the game besides a way for players to vent their pent-up aggression and for fans to watch people duke it out without going to a boxing match. While fighting has become entrenched in North America, the European leagues and amateur North American ones are still functional and viable without it.

That is not to say fighting is a phenomenon strictly present in the NHL. In most professional sports, fights break out when tension and testosterone run high. However, hockey is the only sport that encourages this kind of behaviour, and in doing so, puts the safety of its players on the line and allows a culture of violence to persist that turns away prospective fans.

The post A history of Violence appeared first on The McGill Daily.

As their sense of humour seems to be unwelcome on McGill grounds, the Bachelors of Fine Arts are taking to other venues – notably La Sala Rossa, where they will be performing on March 23. Formed by friends and fellow performers, the Bachelors are putting on their second show as a collective, entitled Live Miseducation II. Current McGill student and founding member Toby Houle described their clever and self-deprecating comedy as “reaching for the stars and falling in the shit.”

The “loose collective,” as Houle describes it, currently comprises Houle, a comedian/poet/storyteller; McGill student Asaf “Safi” Gerchak – whom Houle describes as a “comedian-raconteur;” Chris During and his power-pop band the Bawdy Electric; comedians Chason Gordon and David Heti; and writer/photographer Ariel Fournier. The group’s style is evident from the material available on their web site. In one short story by Houle, Peter O’Toole appears at a suburban housewife’s door, and proceeds to pursue and seduce her with a vigour akin to Jason in Friday the 13th. Another post, by Gerchak, appears to be an essay on existentialism but ends up rambling on about the backspace key on a keyboard, referring to it as “a horrible pit of doom.”

Though this will only be their second show as the Bachelors of Fine Arts, they have perfomed together numerous times, and each is established on the Montreal scene. “It happened that we were all working at a Second Cup and then we all sort of clicked as a group and it sort of snowballed from there,” said Houle. “Chris and Safi have played shows together and I have done shows with Chris. It has always been these inter-pairings of headliners with other people too, but I guess after our first show last year…we just decided that we wanted to make it more formal and just get name recognition for the collective.”

The three Bachelors on the bill for Tuesday evening – Houle, Gerchak, and the Bawdy Electric – will be joined by Montreal comedians George Hamilton Braithwaite, who will act as MC between sets, and multi-occasion Just for Laughs performer Mike Paterson, who will play a musical comedy set under the moniker The Dan D. Lyons. Describing how they got acquainted with the other two, Houle explains, “Safi had been performing with [Paterson] previously…. It basically just comes down to wanting to perform with your friends. You meet people you like, you really get along, and you respect what they do and love what they do and it sort of just flows both ways.”

Houle hopes, however, that the Bachelors of Fine Arts will be more than a comedy troupe and expand to become an art collective. “We’re sort of looking to diversify as much as possible,” says Houle. “In a perfect world, for example, one week there’d be a photo exposition that the Bawdy Electric might play at and the next week there’d be a comedy show with someone’s paintings in the front foyer. That kind of intermarriage would be ideal…. That’s what we’re shooting for as we keep cherry picking people from around.”

In the meantime, each member will stick to his forte for the upcoming show – Gershak will perform stand-up comedy, Houle will recite original comedic folk tales, and During’s band, the Bawdy Electric, will play a set. However, each will try to come up with something unique and different from his previous performances. “It’s just not possible to do the same thing over and over again. I think we’re all just really restless souls in that regard…. We’re always just trying to shake it up and set ourselves different challenges and every time beat those,” said Houle.

At a Bachelors show, the comedy arises from the clash of the Bachelors’ serious art collective intentions and sensibilities with their self-deprecating and campy shtick. Tomorrow night, they’ll reach for the pinnacles of the Attic Greeks while falling into the shit and getting their underwear and bed sheets dirty.

The Bachelors of Fine Arts will be performing tomorrow night at 8 p.m. at Sala Rossa (4848 St. Laurent). Visit bachelorsoffinearts.wordpress.com for the group’s work and information about the show.

The post Educated humour appeared first on The McGill Daily.

To explore society’s propensity to demean those with interests in Japanese culture, I spoke to members of Concordia’s otaku club. Otaku is a Japanese word that, in Western culture, has been used to designate fans of anime and manga, though in Japan its usage is closer to fans of all kinds. The Concordia club is the oldest anime and manga organization in Montreal, and boasts one of the city’s biggest anime libraries. Thinking that my avid appreciation and encyclopedic knowledge of Star Wars (original trilogy) and its minutiae would help me connect with the group members, I realized that my knowledge of anime was sorely lacking – to the point of asking President Andrew Nelson-Mendez to explain what manga is. Nelson-Mendez explained the foreignness of Japanese culture and its role in the popular perception of it. “North American geek is more acceptable or understandable than Japanese geek,” says Nelson-Mendez. “Japanese culture is more foreign; it’s a different mentality and culture. I think it’s partially because it’s a foreign thing that it’s marginalized.”

Works of anime are often belittled as mere cartoons – as opposed to an art form or even a basic genre of pop culture – and its fans are debased as childish adults. Nelson-Mendez agrees, saying, “There’s a stigma about watching cartoons once you’re past a certain age. I usually wouldn’t tell an adult that I watch anime because there’s a belief that cartoons are for kids, though our generation is generally more accepting.” Indeed, the stigmatization of anime as childish is something of a special case. In North America, watching cartoons is no longer the mark of arrested development, now that so many are targeted toward adults and not strictly to children. McGill East Asian studies professor Thomas Lamarre weighed in, stating, “Every generation tries to redeem aspects of its childhood culture to make them more acceptable.” Comparing it to film studies, Lamarre related, “Film in the past 15 years has become a monumental art, but it’s because a generation of cine-philes grew up and want to teach it and study it in universities.” Nelson-Mendez concurs, saying, “I don’t think it’s ever going to become mainstream, but the subculture has nowhere to go but up. As people who watch it grow up, it’ll be less marginalized by the general public.”

To illustrate Lamarre’s point, things that were once considered geeky in North America have now become objects of nostalgia and endearment, and one could attribute that to the unabashed love bestowed on Star Wars and pop culture artifacts by popular mainstream tastemakers like Seth MacFarlane, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, creators respectively of Family Guy and South Park. As people like Tina Fey proudly flaunt their geekiness, mainstream perceptions have changed, especially in the younger generations. The stigma of being a Star Wars nerd is rapidly fading because the current generation grew up watching those films. However, as people’s impressions of North American nerds change, we continue having a hard time understanding and accepting anime culture because it is foreign to us.

“Mass media in North America tend to be very willfully ignorant about cultural production in other parts of the world, even major industries like those of Bollywood film, or Japanese anime and manga,” says Lamarre.  “If people are interested in something from abroad, those interests tend to be simplified, because people in North America don’t seem willing to see other kinds of cultural production as complex.”

In spite of his recognition that foreign cultures tend to be undervalued in Western society, Lamarre was less willing to characterize their devotees as marginalized. “What does it mean for otaku in North America to say that they are marginalized?  Is theirs a desire for mainstream approval of their hobbies or interests?  But then it is hard to know what constitutes the mainstream today, so I wonder from whom or what otaku feel marginalized, and from whom or what they really want recognition.” Beforehand, I had used the term “otaku” to encompass the subculture of people who are fans of Japanese anime and manga. Lamarre pointed out, “When it comes to talking about otaku, the two key questions are ‘Are we talking about a specific kind of relation to media?’ or ‘Are we talking about certain kinds of objects?’” Were we to use the proper meaning of the word “otaku” – a designation for hobbyists of every kind – then just about anyone could be termed as such. The generalization of anime fans as people who dress up in costumes and go to conventions is unfair. One, after all, could just as easily point to sports fans as doing the exact same thing; yet ardent emotional investment in the achievements of adult strangers and the memorization of trivial statistics seems normal.

Though anime and manga may seem foreign to someone born in North America, the development of obsessive interests is not exclusive to Japanese culture enthusiasts. It reaches across borders. And while people may possess the notion that anime fans are nerds – and not in the chic North America-2010s way – there is little that separates them from those with more socially accepted hobbies, like reading books and magazines, or watcheing TV. Regardless of what our interests are, we have a little otaku in all of us.

The post Are you an otaku too? appeared first on The McGill Daily.

I just wanted to address a flaw that I saw in your logic. Basically, what you’re trying to say is that these new laws are denying your organization, the Catholic Church, the right to discriminate, and are therefore discriminatory. The request I ask of you is to mind your own business. I know that you’re the Pope and all – arguably the most prestigious and respected title in the world – and that you may think it’s your prerogative to spread the word of God (and have no reason to listen to the advice of a 20-year-old university student), but when you decry laws that prevent bigotry and claim discrimination against your own religious group, that’s hypocritical. Granted, it’s a little hypocritical of me to tell you to mind your own business when I am neither British, Catholic, homosexual, nor a prospective adopter, but as a humanitarian, I have a problem with what you are saying.

In addition, you went on to say, “Fidelity to the Gospel in no way restricts the freedom of others – on the contrary, it serves their freedom by offering them the truth,” suggesting that people who believe in real equality are wayward souls who haven’t seen the light. You demand that people follow your views. After all, this anti-discrimination law – which would be forced upon your religion – is a violation of “natural law.”

The problem isn’t religion or the Catholic Church. I’ve never been one to condemn religious groups – my atheist friends can attest to that. However, the problem is that you’re using your platform as the Pope to attack legislation that denies you the right to discriminate. That is, you’re fighting for your right to be intolerant by upholding an antiquated belief that is inherently prejudiced. Though you say that “fidelity to the Gospel” doesn’t “restrict the freedom of others,” you do restrict the freedom of others. What I found a little funny was that when these adoption agencies closed because of the new law, it was as if they were saying, “The law won’t let us discriminate anymore. I guess we should close up shop rather than adjust our policies.” The new law doesn’t stop you from practicing your religion and spreading your teachings; it only stops you from discriminating in secular society.

In the light of contemporary social issues, it seems that many people have trouble minding their own business. What does it matter to opponents of equal marriage in Maine and New Jersey if people of the same sex get married? The hypocrisy is especially obvious in the United States where right-wingers – ever-wary of the government infringing on individual rights – fervently petition the government to limit other people’s rights. Why are these people so vehemently opposed to something that ultimately has no impact on their lives? I don’t mean to imply that only those who subscribe to a certain religious morality, or all religious people, oppose equal rights. I also don’t believe that people should ignore the plight of others. But there are humanitarian efforts, and then there are intolerant acts of bigotry. Complaining about the laws that deny you the right to discriminate is closer to the latter. It’s time you realized that.

Sincerely,
Eric

Eric Wen is a U2 English Literature student. Write him a closed letter at eric.wen@mail.mcgill.ca. Open ones go to letters@mcgilldaily.com.

The post The Pope’s offensive appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The short but varied menu ranges from spinach and mushroom quesadillas to sweet potato burritos, Burritoville’s signature dish. In fact, the restaurant was opened by a school teacher couple who originally cooked up sweet potato burritos for their children. It is now run by Jono Aitchison, the original chef and creator of the current menu, along with his cousin Steve Aitchison and their friend Dave Tamas.

In September 2008, the restaurant moved from its original NDG location to Bishop, just north of Maisonneuve. Steve Aitchison explained that they had “always wanted to be near Concordia because we felt like there was a large portion of the student body that shared our ethics and morals.” In keeping with the student clientele, the food is affordable; tacos are $3.50 and the most expensive item is two quesadillas for 8$.

Stepping inside their brownstone building, through the foyer, and into a back room is like being invited into a friend’s home, especially if you can ignore the sign on the wall. Each time I’ve visited, Aitchison’s brother James has greeted me and taken my order – he seems to recognize and know everybody who comes in. The main dining room is laid-back, with music like Neil Young or the Flaming Lips playing softly as the friendly staff chats with customers.

Burritoville is currently the only fully organic vegetarian restaurant in the downtown area and offers an alternative to the many greasy fast food options near Concordia. Don’t be fooled by the “vegetarian” part. Though the conception is that vegetarian food is bland, these meals are delicious and satisfying, even for committed carnivores. When I asked if everyone who worked at Burritoville is a vegetarian, Steve Aitchison informed me, “None of us are vegetarians, actually.”

“We don’t actively advertise the fact that our food is vegetarian,” says Aitchison. “Some people have biases about what vegetarian food is. Sometimes people come in, find out that it’s vegetarian, then turn around and leave. Though a lot of the time, people come in, try it once, and then come back every week after that.” Despite my initial prejudice, I’ve tried most of the menu and have never been disappointed. All the food is filling, but not greasy. The sweet potato burrito in particular achieves a good balance of sweet and savoury.

A sign above the cash register says that “our mission is to nourish, through providing a space open to all who love food, music, and art” and Burritoville is as much an art space as much as a restaurant. Its architectural layout certainly suggests as much: the dining area occupies only one of its three levels. Aitchison explained that “the idea was always to be both a restaurant for people who choose to eat and live well and a space to support local artists.”

The second floor is an entertainment area equipped with a stage, PA system, piano, and Hammond organ, in order to provide a space for various performing artists, ranging from musicians to drama groups to comedy acts and more. Though modest in size, the space is roomy enough for shows – or for someone to just to bang out a few tunes on the piano. In the hallway, a different Montreal visual artist is featured every month. The third floor, currently under construction, is soon to be a free lending library, a new and improved transplant from their old NDG basement.

Burritoville is committed to serving both appetites and the local community – when the cost of pay phones went up in Montreal, the owners installed an old fashioned rotary phone booth to make free local calls. An important aspect of this community involvement is their emphasis on following an environmentally friendly business model. They even have a sustainability charge of $.25 for take out orders to offset the additional waste.

So if you’re looking for delicious meals for under $10, performances, visual art, and soon a lending library, don’t make the same mistake I did and disregard Burritoville. You would be missing out not only on one of the tastiest socially conscious restaurants, but also on one of the staunchest supporters of local arts in Montreal.

Burritoville is located at 2055 Bishop.

The post The best burrito in town appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Spearheading these accusations, Annalee Newitz’s article on the sci-fi web site Io9, entitled “When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like Avatar?” has charged the film with being an expression of director James Cameron’s white guilt.

Crucially, Cameron portrays the main character, Jake Sully, as a messiah for the oppressed alien Na’vi – a plot point problematized by the character’s white heritage. Indeed, the white Sully accomplishes something that the Na’vi tribe has failed to do for generations, eventually displacing the previously selected tribesman as their leader. Essentially, the broader implication – common to these plot types – is that films like Avatar show white protagonists as leading their adopted cultures against oppressors (of which they were formerly a part).

It’s called the “white guilt fantasy” for a reason: some critics understand these films as an attempt to rectify past wrongs committed by white people, while at the same time lionizing the white protagonist as the savior of the native people. The native peoples – the Na’vi, in the case of Avatar – cannot successfully combat their enemies without the aid of a white person. This critique in particular is voiced on the blog Lawyers, Guns and Money, in a post entitled “Intentions be damned, Avatar is racist,” when the parallel is drawn to the notion of the ideal of the “black quarterback.” The blogger, “SEK,” argues that NFL general managers and scouts for years have been looking for a quarterback with a white player’s brain in a black player’s body, and sees Jake Sully’s Na’vi avatar in the film as an embodiment of that racist ideal. The claim requires little elaboration: Jake Sully is, after all, a white man mentally piloting a genetically engineered Na’vi body.

However, as critics argue against the racist undercurrents in Avatar, perhaps they too have fallen victim to their own critiques. In both of these Internet articles, user comments have often pointed at the hypocrisy involved in calling out Cameron’s film as being an expression of white guilt, when the critical viewpoint itself could be seen as guilty of a similar act. As one commenter called it, “‘white guilt oneupsmanship’ in academic criticism.” But as this particular stream of criticism has reached mainstream prominence and the attention of minority critics – having been featured in the New York Times earlier this week – the legitimacy of the critique has stood up to this ironic scrutiny.

Nevertheless, continuously charging Cameron with racism seems to miss a broader point about our culture and its movies. It seems unlikely that Cameron consciously intended to suggest that only a white man can save the Na’vi people from the clutches of a space-faring Earth (a thinly-disguised metaphor for capitalist America). Avatar is not the first film to portray a former oppressor as a dying culture’s last hope, nor does it mark the first time that criticism of that plot archetype has arisen, implying that the notion is embedded within our cultural subconscious. Memorably, on a Chappelle’s Show sketch called “Mooney at the Movies,” comedian Paul Mooney lambasted the similar white guilt-trip The Last Samurai as offensive, suggesting that Hollywood carry its prejudice to its logical end: “The Last Nigger on Earth…starring Tom Hanks.” If filmmakers are interested in exposing oppression, perhaps the first thing to go should be filmmakers’ own predilection for indulging their passive guilt through their art.

The post The modern minstrel show appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Even David Yow, the band’s lead singer, got in on the time-bending act, as if the band hadn’t missed a beat in their 10-year absence. When they took the stage last Friday, he cordially said into the microphone “Good afternoon” before ripping his button-down shirt open, unleashing his wild front man persona and the band’s fury, eliminating any concerns that they would put on a subdued show. Yow prowled the stage snarling into the microphone, crowd surfing every chance he got while the crowd roared with recognition at the opening bars of each song. The Jesus Lizard was back in full force, and for the 75-minute long set, so were the nineties.

As it turns out, The Jesus Lizard show was but the symptom of a larger trend. The nineties are back, or at the very least beginning to make their comeback, and the proof is visible. Plaid is back. Other bands from the nineties – My Bloody Valentine, Pavement, Portishead, the Pixies, stand out among countless others – are reuniting and headlining major festivals and tours around the world. In a bid to conserve their DIY cachet, The Jesus Lizard and Pavement claim that their reunions are a one-off thing. But both seem to be following their reunited contemporaries in capitalizing on the rising interest in the nineties. Record companies are tirelessly attempting to turn a profit in a climate of declining record sales, taking advantage of their signees by reissuing their back catalogues. Whether that’s the case with Touch and Go Records – The Jesus Lizard’s label, and an indie juggernaut in the nineties – is uncertain. All the same, the band’s tour coincides with Touch and Go Records’ re-release of their nineties albums.

In all fairness, the tendency for indie culture to recycle itself is as old as the gramophone. For instance, this past decade saw a return of the eighties, in the rebirth of retro fashion and the pervasive influence of Joy Division/New Order. It’s only logical that the nineties would eventually rear their sloppy, long-haired head. Indie culture is stuck in a cycle, rehashing fashions, trends, and musical styles 20 years its senior. At their fall Montreal concert, Indie buzz band Cymbals Eat Guitars were giving away slap bracelets with the purchase of their CD – one that sounded exactly like Pavement, in fact. Meanwhile, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – who topped the bill at the Cymbals Eat Guitars – are often compared to late eighties bands that marked the transition to the nineties.

Music tends to be a good indicator of the decade du jour. The naughts witnessed the supremacy of The Smiths, The Cure, and the Talking Heads – as well as the aforementioned New Order – whose impact extended to most of the decade’s “it” bands. Today, the dynamics are the same, but the bands are different: Cymbals Eat Guitars sound like Pavement; Pissed Jeans sound like The Jesus Lizard (without the bite). Real Estate sound like Yo La Tengo. The list goes on.

The original nineites movement was in part a response to the cleanliness of the eighties New-Wave sound. The sloppy DIY attitudes of the grunge and slacker sounds of the nineties came as a reaction to overproduction and a perceived lack of creativity. This past decade has seen a similar cleanliness and meticulous sound, with bands often comprised of highly educated and trained artists. Expectedly, the response to that sound is the rise of rawer sounding acts – like No Age and Wavves – and the increasing ease with which people can produce music on their own. In short, this new movement mirrors the DIY sensibilities of 20 years ago.

So the Jesus Lizard may only be touring until the end of the year, but the return of the nineties is here to stay. Indeed, the tastemakers and prominent artists that emerge in the next decade will likely have grown up in the 90s, and will inherently be influenced by it.

One could hope, however, that the accessibility the Internet offers could allow people to defy the 20-year cycle, by giving people the opportunity to find different influences. Many musicians in the naughts cited a diverse and eclectic mix of styles and genres, after all, from Brazilian Tropicalia to Bulgarian folk music. Can we expect the Internet to open up possibilities, and give us a chance to break free of the cycle? Or will the 2010s be full of bands that sound like Pavement, Yo La Tengo, Built to Spill, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Neutral Milk Hotel? More importantly, will the next decade see a return of long dirty-haired kids with ripped baggy jeans and ugly sweaters? I guess we’ll see soon enough.

The post Breaking the cycle appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Then, with a few pats on the back and quick departing words, the meeting was over. There was no secret society. In fact, there were only seven people present at the meeting. It was more reminiscent of a group of friends determining the order of their fantasy football draft than of the Knights Templar. But this was the grassroots beginning of le Regroupement des musiciens du métro de Montreal. As of 3:17 p.m. on October 14th, 2009, the Regroupement became an official non-profit organization. Its aim? To represent and fight for the rights of Montreal’s metro buskers.

The new group had held its first meeting on September 12, 2009, with the simple goal of supporting and promoting metro musicians’ needs. “We want to be recognized by the public,” said Dino. “We want to be recognized as musicians and not just beggars.”

“We want to be organized to continue,” added Gerry, “and for that we have to be together.”

A busker is a performer whose stage is public space. According to Dino, there are nearly 300 metro performers in Montreal. Around Christmas time, that number doubles. Buskers perform all over the city – on the street, in parks, and in the metro. But contrary to perception, busking is more complicated than just finding a spot and setting up shop. Buskers have to deal with permits if they’re performing on the streets, STM regulations if they’re working in the metro, and arguments over turf.

The Regroupement isn’t the first organization that was founded to represent the interests of metro buskers in Montreal – l’Association des musiciens indépendants du métro was established in 1983. I tried to find out if they’re still around, but their contact number isn’t active anymore. According to Dino, however, its cavalier attitude of people looking out for themselves was a big shortcoming.

While at some metro stations the buskers who show up first are the ones who get to play, every night the Berri-UQAM performers gather together at 11:00 p.m. to determine who will play the following day, and to assign timeslots. The little group has big plans. They hope to bring new standards of ethics and fairness to metro musicians. But most of all, the Regroupement is built on respect. As Dino said, members of the group want to be seen as artists and not beggars, but they also recognize that they must have respect for people in the metro. As they gathered together to decide when each would perform the next day, they all took two-hour blocks out of respect for other musicians and the general public. “So the STM employees don’t get sick of us,” Dino notes.

Additionally, they hope to begin holding auditions this upcoming February and establishing membership in March, as part of an effort to ensure the quality of the musicians who play in the metro.

“If someone only plays the same three songs, the people who work in the metro will go crazy and that will give us a bad reputation,” says Dino. The hope is to have the best musicians possible in the metro, so that in general, buskers will be seen in a more positive light and be given more respect.

After spending over an hour talking to Gerry and Dino, though, I was beginning to be a little skeptical. Montreal has a reputation for very liberal and lenient laws regarding metro performers. Though a busker has to pay for a permit to play on the street, anyone can play in the metro. The only restrictions are that the busker must play in a designated area, marked by a blue sign with a lyre on it, between 5:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m. Given all this, would establishing a membership system where performers are required to audition undermine the spirit of Montreal busking? Would it create an elitist hierarchy?
With my misgivings in mind, I went back to Berri-UQAM the following night to ask some follow-up questions. I arrived at 10:40 and walked around a little bit. I saw a young, long-haired guitarist with a beard and round John Lennon spectacles playing – appropriately – “Glass Onion” by the Beatles. As he switched to the first few notes of Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android,” I apologized for interrupting and began to ask him a few questions. Nick, an aspiring musician who recently moved to Montreal from Moncton, New Brunswick, helped me see the efforts of the Regroupement through a less cynical lens.

“If you busk in Moncton, people look at you like you’re a bum,” Nick told me. “[In Montreal], there are people who look at [buskers] as musicians who are just trying to get a start, but there are still people who look at you like you’re a bum.”

“Having an organization will bring respect to musicians that play in the metro,” Nick continued. “[With auditions implemented] there would be a certain standard that would weed out the few people that think by picking up a guitar, it would be another way to squeeze money out of people.”

Though I never questioned the motives or intentions behind the Regroupement, I began to see that implementing auditions was not a method of exclusion that defied the freedom and liberal reputation of Montreal’s metro performing. Nick didn’t know about the organization until I told him about it, but he understood the Regroupement’s goals immediately. It’s a way of ensuring the reputation of and establishing a level of respect for the artists.

As my conversation with Nick wound down, I looked over and saw Gerry, Dino, and others gathering at the same spot as before, writing their names on 8×8 centimetre slips of paper, folding them, and sticking them into a hat. I walked toward them and also noticed the opera singer/guitarist I’d seen at Place des Arts the day before, who first advised me to come to Berri-UQAM. The group was already starting to grow.

After spending some time with them, I realized that the Regroupement is not a secret society or an exclusive club of elitist metro performers. It’s a group that has the interests of artists in mind. Since it is a brand new organization, members are still working out the details of what they’re going to do, but they know that they want to present a unified front to represent and support these talented metro musicians. Dino mentioned plans to distinguish Regroupement members from independent performers, but when asked to elaborate on them, he said with a wry smile, “It’s a secret. You’ll see.”

“There was an organization since 1983 and they weren’t able to do much,” he continued. “How will I be able to do more? I don’t even know!” With that and a grin, Dino walked through the turnstiles and left. Maybe the Regroupement’s got a little bit of that underground mystique after all.

The post Sing out appeared first on The McGill Daily.