Black History Month: What, if anything, does it mean for you?
It’s the month of February and apart from hosting Valentine’s Day, Groundhog Day, and several days of independence for countries all over the world, it is known by us in the western world as Black History Month. This year is particularly significant as noted by the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, the honorable Jason Kenney. He acknowledged February 2012 as the 200 anniversary of the War of 1812 in which “a 68-year-old former slave named Richard Pierpoint, serving with an all-black company of soldiers…served with distinction at Queenston Heights and in other decisive battles”.
Arthur sought out the Trent African Caribbean Student Union to see what they had planned for the month to reflect on their history and to promote the achievements of black individuals both in the past and present.
Read more: Black History Month: What, if anything, does it mean for you?
Cooking with the Spoon
Thanks to a generous grant from the TCSA and Trent Active Minds, the Seasoned Spoon is able to host a weekly cooking class on Mondays at 6:30pm until March 5. Arthur was able to eat with one the Spoon’s bakers, Kristen LaRocque, during the first of the 3 hour cooking classes geared towards first year students leaving residence, as well as “new to the kitchen students.” Kristen emphasized that nutritional needs can be met while still getting a chance to be highly creative. During the class there was lots of great conversation (food and otherwise), lots of great tips, and “lots of eating!” Each class is only $5 or PWYC.
Danni Dickson showed the participants how to make a quiche with a golden delicious crust that was jam packed full of spinach but still tasted like egg. Then Kris showed everybody how to make moist and delicious morning glory muffins and gluten-free chocolate quinoa cake.
spending money: and other ways Trent could be better
Have you ever heard the saying “you’ve got to spend money to make money?” This is the situation Trent University is continuously finding itself in.
Ever since Trent made the move to sell the downtown colleges this has been an ongoing issue. Transactions such as that one have become “fast money” scenarios whereby a company is willing to pay money for something Trent University owns, and Trent gets an immediate profit instead of a long term investment.
Trent University seems to not care about the long term investments that they do hold. Local news channels reported on poor maintenance in on-campus housing last year. They were guided by students who lived on campus and were tired of paying so much money for a landlord who was too cheap to fix their faucets.
Trent University outsources their food services. For a small amount of profit, Aramark replaced the cafeterias of yesteryear. The company brings in their own (poorly made) product – mass produced, bland, overpriced – Trent sells them the space to do so and gives them an monopoly of food services on campus.
Read more: spending money: and other ways Trent could be better
Fuck Ups need to recycle
Dear Fuck Ups,
Yet again I get to call you out on your deplorable actions.
Please note AND PRINT the attached pictures as they demonstrate even further your lack of regard for interest in the environment. An issue I’m sure you trumpet on a regular basis.
In the pictures you see that on two occasions Arthur Magazine or someone representing the magazine has proceeded to put recyclable newspapers in a dumpster behind housing that is currently being used as housing for Trent Students.
Savage Arms needlessly offensive
I just returned from the career fair today, and I am absolutely appalled that Trent University would provide space for a gun company called Savage Arms. It is bad enough that our university would provide the space for a weapons company to promote itself in an educational environment, but it is absolutely unacceptable that a company clearly using racist imagery would be permitted to advertise on our campus.
Though the company is named after a man named Arthur Savage, who is incidentally heralded for helping to conquer the Aborigine wilderness‚of Australia, the Indian head logo‚ (complete with a full feather headdress) very distinctly implies a connection between Indigenous Peoples and savagery, perpetuating one of the oldest racist stereotypes about the First Nations of this land.
As Indigenous persons within Canada, especially women, continue to face violence at a disproportionate rate, Trent should not be hosting an arms dealer at our school. I sincerely hope that the next career fair does not include companies proud of their colonizing history, especially those using racist imagery to sell guns.
Matthew Davidson
The Anti-Hipster Manifesto
Society used to call hipsters “posers.” I don’t know why they stopped. That is what they are. Hipsters do what they do and act the way they do because they don’t know how else to express themselves. Maybe they are like Charles Dickens’ holiday hating character Scrooge; if they actually ever felt anything they would blame it on indigestion.
It would helpful if I first explain the evolution of the modern hipster. Just in case there is any doubt in this piece so far. First there were hippies. Hippies really have nothing to do with the new hipsters because they actually believed in something. Like one of their mentors Martin Luther King Jr. they had a dream. Of course like most dreams you have to wake up. They dealt with war and human rights. And they were good for the most part. They didn’t care about image. It was about the issues. Yes there were drugs. But unfortunately, there are always drugs. But somehow their clothing ended up becoming a uniform.
Correction
In Volume 18 the article entitled Gzowski College Keeps Have You Seen dream alive Melanie Buddle is the Principal of Peter Gzowski College (and is not Melanie Bundle), Jordann Pool was spelt incorrectly, Charles Foran is President of PEN Canada, not Pen and Ink Canada and while Jordann set a goal of $1000, the project raised close to (an amazing!) $10,000. Congratulations, all!
Shoppers Drug Mart Expansion Could Hurt Downtown Core
I’m writing about a proposed development in downtown Peterborough. Shoppers Drug Mart is seeking to abandon their existing store at Charlotte & Aylmer and move to a new larger site kitty corner from where they are now. The new site, if approved, will demolish all of the buildings on the north side of Charlotte, between Bethune and Aylmer (from the paint store to Jim’s Pizzeria/Have you Seen). The corner of Charlotte and Aylmer will be a 37 car parking lot, with the new Shoppers building occupying the rest of the block (& loading docks fronting on Bethune). In urban design terms, it’s an unmitigated disaster to create a building for no other purpose than to fit the brand image of Shoppers Drug Mart.
For those with more time on their hands, I’ve written up more on the backstory and posted it to this blog site: SaveCharlotteStreet.blogspot.com. I’d welcome comments or additional information if you have any.
Read more: Shoppers Drug Mart Expansion Could Hurt Downtown Core
Education is a Right
Education is a central issue in Canada today. With many highly respectable colleges and universities spread across the country one might assume our population had awesome access to the post-secondary education that should make the difference between getting by and living well. The problem though, is that with tuition going up at a faster rate than wages, equal access isn’t actually the case.
Not to mention, once post-secondary education is completed, the debt mounted up paying for it means that a lot of students spend more time just getting by than they intended. This fact is only made more poignant by the increasing difficulty for college and university graduates to find jobs.
So how are Canadian students reacting to this combination of bleak facts? They’re telling the Government that “Education is a Right” and they’re sick of being buried in absurd amounts of debt just to get their undergraduate degree.
West of what University?: UWO unofficially changes name to Western University
The University of Western Ontario is not truly Western University.
The decision to change “the brand” of the university came from a seven month long consulting project from the school’s Communications and Public Affairs Department as well as Toronto based design firm Hahn Smith Design.
The process went on from June to December 2011 and involved faculty, staff, students and alumni in a discussion about Western’s visual identity. According to Western they conducted online and in-person surveys, workshops and individual interviews with close to 5,000 alumni, donors and friends, more than 3,700 students, and approximately 2,000 faculty and staff members.
Read more: West of what University?: UWO unofficially changes name to Western University
Open question to the staff and students of Trent University
To whom it may concern,
As a part of a new initiative which is being run by Arthur Newspaper's staff collective we ask your consideration in responding to the following question. Please reply with a maximum of 400 words by Monday, February 6 at 5:00 P.M. to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. :
“In your personal view, what are the positive and negative implications of the academic plan for your department, and if you received the academic plan as an assignment from one of your students how would you grade it? (Please provide grade with comments).”
Conversely, if you prefer, we can set up a time to hold an interview over the phone at your earliest convenience, or you may feel free to forward this email to another member of your department who may be better suited to answer this question by the given deadline.
Thank you for your time and consideration,
Miranda Rigby
Editor-in-Chief
Arthur Newspaper
Read more: Open question to the staff and students of Trent University
O.P.P. Seeks Supreme Court Appeal over Violation of Police Services Act in the Cases of Levi Schaeffer and Douglas Minty
Toronto lawyers Julian Falconer and Sunil Mathai are representing two families of men shot in separate incidents by police. On June 24, 2009, Levi Schaeffer was fatally shot during an attempted arrest by Pickle Lake O.P.P. Constable Kris Wood while investigating a stolen boat. Douglas Minty was shot five times outside his mother’s home in Elmvale Ontario by OPP Constable Graham Seguin. The same police lawyer involved in both cases, Andrew MacKay counseled all the officers involved in each incident.
Falconer and Mathai sought a declaratory judgment that police officers involved in the shooting deaths violated the Police Services Act which states, “a police officer involved in the incident shall not communicate with any other police officer involved in the incident concerning their involvement in the incident until after the SIU has completed its interviews”.
The Johnstones
*Trigger Warning – What follows is a hazy overview of a beloved genre of music. Music nerds beware.
Ska music was originally conceived of in Jamaica, which is an island in the Caribbean (duh.). In first deciding to write this article, I had dreams of my wit and wisdom being able to transmit some of that tropical climate through words and music whilst we endure our frozen wasteland in the coldest part of the season. However, it seems that the scientists were right after all and all our pollution has done us the good service of removing any semblance of Peterborough winter from the table. I have mixed feelings about that, but nonetheless it ruins my plans for this piece. And maybe it’s for the best, for as we shall discover, the particular Ska in question is far removed from its stylistic grandpappy.
Around the time Jamaica was attaining its independence (early 60’s) its musical culture was also undergoing rapid change. This was influenced by many factors, not the least being American occupation providing constant access to military radio broadcasts of American music and a subsequent influx of American records.
The Practice
I was one too many in and fading fast. It had been a long night; it was the fourth party we had crashed that night. I leaned myself on the wall by the keg and closed my eyes as I listened to two guys argue about who had the harder classes that semester. Ally was mingling with some girls downstairs whom she had taken a shining to; she left me by the watering hole and told me to come find her when I felt like leaving.
I glanced down the hall toward the stairs anxiously, not sure of what I wanted to happen exactly, anything to break up this inane debate I was listening to. Some other boys were bounding up the stairs; they looked like they were in search of more booze.
“Yo, tap me up man!” the boy with the fitted polo and tilted baseball cap demanded, shoving his cup in my face.
“Yo, do it yourself”, I replied as I unenthusiastically, shoving the cup back towards him.
Folky Reggae Party at the Spill
The full moon guided me to the Spill last night. I was greeted by the sound of a Sustainability Studies grad student wailing sweet soulful 90’s pop covers on her guitar in her stocking covered feet. Next I found myself signing a petition not to stop the Northern Gateway Pipeline but to urge Canada to simply take a non-positive, neutral stance. I knew I had arrived at the folky reggae party and when the real ska sound began to play from the crackly PA, I knew that Elk the Moose would be on soon.
Gnarly shredders, folkies, hippy chicks, skankin’ scenesters, and antlers lined the long, bouncing acoustics of the skinny room. With a flick of his wrist, a skiff of the riff, front man Kyle Chivers grounded the scene by playing the more eerie than irie dub jam “Into the Wallows.” “Here’s hopin’ that Babylon will fall right down to the ground,” he cries out, the call ringing down the hall like a loon on a lake.
The Artist Rediscovers the Silent Era
You know, I don’t think I would have been able to watch this movie – this silent, black and white movie – if not for the fact that the theatre I was watching it in was showing it in digital. Nothing authenticates the black and white experience quite like crystal clear digital projection. Now if only they could have shot it in 3D...
Yes, it’s another Oscar pick this week and, despite my sarcastic opener, I did like it. The Artist is something of a feel good story even before you enter the theatre. The sheer will it must have taken to get a silent film made in this day and age could probably make a good movie onto itself. And yet somehow it doesn’t surprise me that The Artist’s whirlwind ride has ended with it being nominated for Best Picture.If you’re going to shell out the cash for a movie that 90% of the viewing public will dismiss without even thinking, you’ve got to have some belief that it’s a story worth telling. And let’s be honest, the concept screams Oscar bait.
Trent hockey team upset in shootout loss
When I set out to report on this game, I was under the impression I was going to watch a game of field hockey. I thought this would be a nice courteous sport played by a bunch of spiffing chaps. However, I soon realised that this game had exchanged a nice patch of shrubbery for a large icy puddle and a bunch of impulsive and hot-blooded Canadians. This wasn’t any kind of hockey, this was “Ice Hockey.”
The first match was played against Boreal. In the first period Trent University’s Men’s Intramural team skated about like a pack of wild dogs. Each player was alternating on and off the field of play and then quickly snapped back on their leads by ice hockey coaches/dog handlers Patrick Shearer and Terry Kirkham.
I missed the first goal because my eyes were taking some time adjusting to the speed of the game and the intense arctic conditions had frozen my eyeballs stiff. I managed to defrost just in time to see one captain fantastic, Ryan Minicola, storm down the right wing, give a quick give-and-go and then precede to pummel the puck into the back of the goal;
Trent Film Society Presents
We’ve been absent from Arthur for a few weeks, but a lot has been happening. Here are the details on our upcoming screenings, this week and next.
Made In U.S.A.: Crime’s Reflection
We’ll conclude our series of crime films with a film that takes an entirely detached and self-reflexive position in relation to the conventions of the genre that it employs. Godard’s rarely-seen 1964 film Made in U.S.A. is, expressly, a political film, a labyrinthine mystery about the death of a leftist radical – the lover of Paula Nelson (Anna Karina), who takes on the persona of a private detective in her search for the truth of his death.
Godard constantly plays with cinematic conventions, diverting our attention away from the plot by treating it as a medium for reflection rather than as something to immerse oneself in. Narrative tension and drama are eschewed in favour of active reflection on the part of the viewer
“There are kids and dogs and interesting people!”: A Programmer Profile of Jenna Cameron
Caileigh Morrison: Okay. What is your programme called and when is it?
Jenna Cameron: My programme’s called “Songs You Don’t Hear on the Radio” and it’s from 10-11 on Thursday mornings.
CM: Nice, and what is it about?
JC: Our programme is...well, the title’s pretty self-explanatory. It’s songs that – like most music on Trent Radio – don’t get played on mainstream radio. Each week we pick a different theme and organize the songs around that. For example we’ve had whistle week – songs with whistling in them – and we’ve done a couple of cross-Canada tours with songs from each province. Today was entirely Indigenous music.
CM: Cool. Have you just been doing this programme this year?
Read more: “There are kids and dogs and interesting people!”: A Programmer Profile of Jenna Cameron
Self Love Week Schedule
Monday February 13:
1:30-3:30pm Lip Service: Communication as Lubrication Sadleir House SCR
4-5pm Fabulous and Fierce Dance Workshop Trent A/C Multipurpose Room 1
8-9:30pm Alternative Femininities - Open Discussion Sadleir House Rm. 202
Tuesday February 14:
2:30pm TQC Hosts Happy Hour at The Ceilie
7-9pm Coming Out Workshop Sadleir House hosted by RSO, PARN & FAQS2
7pm Self Love Circus Jam Sadleir House Dining Hall
