Fulcrum October 30 08

Deidre Butters, Advertising Representativephone: (613) 880-6494fax: (613) 562-5259e-mail: ads@thefulcrum.caCheck out our rate card online.Go to www.thefulcrum.ca andfollow the link for “Advertisers”.Multi-market advertisers:Campus Plus: (800)265-5372Campus Plus offers one-stop shopping for over90 Canadian studentnewspapers.The

Fulcrum

is a proud member of Canadian University Press:www.cup.ca

Students face-offwith administrationArts spooktacularGetting ready forthe Final Four

Who won the skeletonbeauty contest? No body!

News

Arts

Sports

Feature

p. 4

p. 9

p. 16

p. 12

SFUO supports students’ struggles.

p. 4

Allan Rock answers students face-to-face.

p. 5Jaclyn Lytle

checks out the Inside Out

ﬁ

lmfestival.

p. 9Tina Hassannia

reviews

Zadie’s Shoes

and

Look Back In Anger

.

p. 12

Women’s soccer wins their quarter

ﬁ

nal matchand will host the OUA Final Four.

p. 16

The

Fulcrum

pays a visit to the Ottawa CurlingClub, and manages to avoid serious injury.

p. 18

Rebecca Rich

unearths Halloween’s hauntedpast.

p. 12–13Di

is desperate and needs your help.

p. 22

In defence of activism

Re: “Grading student lobbying” (Letters, Oct. 23)

LAS WEEK’S LEER concerningstudent activism represents a trou-bling vein o thought: that student ac-tivism is pointless because the peoplein charge won’t listen. Te letter-writ-er’s argument is that since “we don’t vote” our interests will not be lookedafer, and governments will choose tosupport issues important to seniors,who do vote. First o all, let’s exam-ine that “we”. I the writer means thatyoung people don’t vote, there’s noarguing with that. But not all youngpeople are students; in act, right be-low his letter, there was a poll show-ing that 79 per cent o respondentshad voted in the ederal election. Asstudents, we are a separate voting blocrom “young people” at large, and themore vocal we are, the more eectiveour message.Te timing o the Nov. 5 demon-strations is important as well. Tepetition-drop last week and the pro-posed rallies next week should hope-ully make clear to the Liberal Party o Ontario that dropping student eesand relieving student debt is a ma- jor concern o a signicant votingbloc. Te more attention we draw toourselves and our concerns now, themore eective our voices will be. Tisrally is not conned to Ottawa either;this is a chance or every University o Ottawa student to join with other voices across the globe in avour o our collective well-being and that o our society. Te province needs to re-member that we students are the mid-dle class o tomorrow, which is thebackbone o the Canadian tax system.I they wish to provide security to ag-ing boomers, they need to give us thechance to acquire the skills that willallow us to make the money to unda social support network. I more andmore young people can’t aord tobecome well-educated, their utureincomes will be less and less, and thesociety we’ve built on the strength o the middle class will be in danger. Soadd your voice to the crowd on Nov.5: you’ll be supporting yoursel andyour society, your present, and the u-ture o yourselves and your parents.

Jim RaeSecond-year biomedical science student

A medical response

Re: “For a smoke-free-campaign-freecampus” (Letters, Oct. 23)

IN RESPONSE O second-year med-ical student Lise Legault I would liketo say that as a U o O student and anon-smoker I believe that the notiono a campus-wide smoking ban is anexcellent idea. Allowing smoke tocontinually blow in my ace while Iwalk through university is an arontto my rights to a clean and healthy environment. Te Canadian CancerSociety has these interesting state-ments on its website: “No amount o second-hand smoke is sae”, “second-hand smoke causes sore eyes andthroat, nasal irritation, headaches,coughing and wheezing, nausea anddizziness. Second-hand smoke canalso trigger asthma attacks and in-crease your chances o getting bron-chitis and pneumonia”, and “i youhave been exposed to second-handsmoke or a long time, you are morelikely to develop and die rom heartproblems, breathing problems, andlung cancer”.A person’s right to blow this poi-son into the air stops where my nosebegins. Maybe the aspiring doctorshould read up on the dangers o second-hand smoke beore urtherconsidering a medical career andpromoting such ludicrous positionsoutlined in her letter.

Shawn SmithFourth-year English student

On the invisibility of a revolution

AS AN EX-SAFFER o the StudentFederation o the University o Ot-tawa’s (SFUO) Centre or Studentswith Disabilities (CSD), I recall be-ing asked every September by studentmedia about the status o accessibility on campus. I’ve been asked to iden-tiy which disability has it the hard-est, what can be improved, and howwe plan to do it. Te resulting articlesamounted to a ew hundred wordsand glossed over the nuances aboutthe insidious ways in which ableismdiscriminates.I suppose that this is the politics o word allocation. While the

Fulcrum

’sarts and culture section re-hashesreviews o Hollywood’s blockbusters(as i we can’t nd this in an issue o the

Metro

), it has neglected disability culture and the politics o disability representation (think o the protestsagainst

ropic Tunder

or its depic-tion o people with learning disabili-ties; a lm reviewed by the

Fulcrum

).Same thing with sports. When the

Fulcrum

’s sports section declared theend o the Olympics, it downplayedthe status o the Beijing Paralympics.Te Paralympics are interesting be-cause they can indicate the status o disabilities internationally as ar asunding and support goes or Para-lympic athletes.How about kicking o a debateabout the levy that students with dis-abilities pay into the Gee-Gees und?When most o the sports teams andresources are inaccessible, shouldthey pay into a und they cannot en- joy the same benets o? Doesn’t thislogic extend to the SFUO i they arenot making their activities and eventsaccessible? Why are people takingthe money o students with disabili-ties and not trying to include them?When someone raises accessibility as an issue, why is it treated as a nui-sance?Disability, in a nutshell, is an angleon any story. Te ailure to acknowl-edge this leads to the perpetuation o the idea that only able-bodied peopleand able-bodied issues are newswor-thy. Let’s take the recent women-only gym times debate. Students withdisabilities pay into the gym and a-cilities just the same as non-disabledstudents. Te designs o the gyms arehardly accessible. So when it comes tothe politics o allocation, the debatetalked over the act that this was anable-bodied debate about access.I understand that the

Fulcrum

haslooked into making their space ac-cessible, but has reduced their ownaccessibility problems to a zero sumgame; either the

Fulcrum

publishesin an inaccessible space, or it doesn’thave a home. It doesn’t have to bethis way. What’s wrong with meetingin an accessible space at least once amonth? Reducing it to all or nothingdoes nothing to include all. Studentswith disabilities pay into your operat-ing levy, too. Don’t take their money and shrug them o.Te greatest thing I imagined orthe CSD was that one day it would nothave to exist. Help them ght ableism.Write about disability. Agitate. Holdmoney-takers accountable.

Chelsea FlookU of O alumna

Discrimination in blood donation

I WAS PROUD to submit an articleor the

Fulcrum

’s Oct. 16 issue urgingstudents to donate blood to CanadianBlood Services (CBS). Unortunately,I did not adequately convey a crucialelement that I elt and eel is impor-tant: CBS continues its ban on blooddonations rom men who have hadsex with other men. Tough at rstglance the reasoning seems sound, itspeaks rom a position o unjustiedear. And though this policy was re- visited last year, CBS has yet to speak to reasonable saeguards and optionslike waiting periods as adopted inAustralia and Japan. CBS needs to ad-dress the issue with a view to logic andinclusivity. Until then I urge studentsto give blood to help save lives—andto speak out against discrimination inall its orms.

ed HortonTird-year political science student

An open letter to Allan Rock

DEAR MR. ROCK,Te Student Federation o the Uni- versity o Ottawa (SFUO), the collec-tive voice or all University o Ottawaundergraduate students, is writing toinorm the University o Ottawa o two cases denoting serious injusticesagainst students. Te SFUO demandsthat you intervene immediately toremedy these troubling situations.Te SFUO stands strongly behindall o its students and their appeals, inparticular the most recent deliberateabuses shown in the inging Wangand Marc Kelly cases. Further, theSFUO condemns the actions takenby the U o O to undermine SFUOnomination rights...[Ed: Please visit theulcrum.ca/let-ters to read this letter in its entirety.]

Dean HaldenbySFUO president

Due to space constraints, we wereunable to print all letters received.Please visit thefulcrum.ca/lettersto read more about the smoke-freecampus campaign, issues in the Fac-ulty of Science, and whether or noteducation is truly a right.

Got something to say?

Send your letters toeditor@thefulcrum.caLetters deadline: Sunday, 1 p.m.

Letters must be under 400 words unlessdiscussed with the editor-in-chief.

Drop off letters at 631 King Edward Ave. ore-maileditor@thefulcrum.ca.Letters must include your name, telephonenumber, year, and program of study. Pseud-onyms may be used after consultation with theeditor-in-chief. We correct spelling and gram-mar to some extent. The

Fulcrum

will exercisediscretion in printing letters that are deemedracist, homophobic, or sexist.We will not even consider hate literature orlibellous material. The editor-in-chief reservesthe authority on everything printed herein.

Oct. 30–Nov. 5, 2008

Letters

Frank AppleyardEditor-in-Chief editor@thefulcrum.ca

3

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Fulcrum

, the University of Ottawa’s inde-pendent English-language student newpaper,is published by the Fulcrum Publishing Society(FPS) Inc., a not-for-pro

ﬁ

t corporation whosemembers consist of all Univeristy of Ottawastudents. The Board of Directors (BOD) of theFPS governs all administrative and businessactions of the

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and consists of the fol-lowing individuals: Ross Prusakowski (Presi-dent), Andrea Khanjin (Vice-President), TylerMeredith (Chair), Peter Raaymakers, NickTaylor-Vaisey, Toby Climie, Scott Bedard and Andrew Wing.To contact the

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