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McGill students bike across Canada in protest of Kinder Morgan pipeline

by Arvaa Balsara on

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Starting June 24, McGill students Alison Gu, U3 Kinesiology, and Sarah Mitchell,U3 Bioresource Engineering, embarked on a 47-day bike trip across Canada stretching from Ottawa to Burnaby in protest of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion (TMX). The pair plans to use the trip to raise funds for the Pull Together campaign, which supports Indigenous Peoples’ legal cases to challenge TMX.

Gu and Mitchell have been involved in environmental advocacy work for many years, and are now taking their activism one step further as they bike across Canada.

“Upon getting to university, I learned more about what it means to be doing sustainability work in the realm of activism as well as indigenous solidarity,” Gu said.

Gu also hopes to spark discourse among students and peers on climate change, colonialism, and the harm that pipelines cause to Indigenous communities.

The Liberal federal government approved TMX in November 2016. The pipeline will stretch approximately 980 kilometres between Edmonton, AB and the marine port in Burnaby, B.C, and will triple the capacity of the Trans Mountain Pipeline (TMP) by transporting an additional 890,000 barrels of oil per day. While the pipeline is forecasted to create over 50,000 jobs, it is also expected to have harmful impacts on the environment and health of those in the surrounding areas. Spills from the pipeline could result in acute to long- term health risks—ranging from asthma to cancer—for members of nearby communities. Spillage and leaks are also detrimental to the wildlife in the region. The TMP has already reported 69 oil spills to the NEB since 1961.

Gu and Mitchell  hope to raise one dollar for the Pull Together campaign for every kilometer travelled:Exactly $4,461. The funds from the campaign will be held in trust for the Indigenous nations by Respecting Aboriginal Values and Environmental Needs (RAVEN), a Victoria-based legal defense fund with a focus on First Nations legal efforts. The campaign itself was created by RAVEN and Sierra Club B.C. in order to launch legal challenges against the TMP. The organizations have previously challenged the Enbridge Northern Gateway on behalf of First Nations communities.

“RAVEN is still the only place Indigenous Peoples in Canada can go to for financial help if they choose the courts to take legal action to protect their rights,” RAVEN’s executive director Susan Smitten said. “The pipeline represents a significant risk to their water supply and their way of life and Aboriginal interests.”

In order to prove the unconstitutionality of the projects and to prevent the construction of the pipeline, Indigenous communities and climate activists are taking Kinder Morgan to court.

“It would not be justice if the legal challenges failed simply because of a lack of funds to see them through to trial,” Smitten said. “While these Nations could go it alone, standing together and pooling resources ensure equitable access to justice with a much more likely chance of success.”  

Gu and Mitchell have been training since March in preparation for their 47-day journey. They intend to bike from Ottawa to Sudbury, take a train from Sudbury to Winnipeg in order to avoid unsafe bike routes, and then continue their route on bike from Winnipeg to Burnaby.

“We’re going to be biking 80 to 100 kilometres every day,” Mitchell said. “I think this trip will challenge me physically and mentally, but I know I will gain so much afterwards knowing that I can push my body like that.”

 

 

To follow their journey or to donate, visit cyclistsinsolidarity.com.

Arts & Entertainment, Pop Rhetoric

Pop Rhetoric: OKNOTOK is not what rock and roll needs right now

by Sophie Brzozowski on

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For all their talk about being so vehemently anti-capitalist, and–by proxy–true to their art, Radiohead loves a good gimmick. It was around this time last year, for example, just days before the release of their first album in seven years, that the British rock band effectively erased themselves from the internet. One by one, the band members deleted all of their social media pages. It was an obvious maneuver, but a clever one: An anti-PR-PR-stunt. It wasn’t the first time the band has attempted an exploit of that nature either.

In October 2007, Radiohead made the startling decision to self-release their album In Rainbows online as a pay-what-you-want download. While the album itself—in all its electronic majesty—was well-received, something about its release seemed to rub people the wrong way. Maybe it was the sense of gallantry that the gesture implied, or the glaring attempt to stay current. Regardless, it was a huge “fuck you” to the music industry, when it began to dawn on everyone that self-releasing an album meant that the band kept all the money that it earned, instead of paying a cut to the record company. Not that money was the issue, per say, but rather, as it so often is with Radiohead, it was more about the principle of the thing.

The band’s latest ballyhoo comes in the form of an extravagant reissue of their 1997 record OK Computer. In honour of the 20th anniversary of what many fans hail as their best album, Radiohead will release a box set entitled OKNOTOK-1997-2017. It will contain the original 12 track album as well as eight B-side tracks from past EPs—the kicker being the three unreleased songs that have been circulating since ’96. For a mere $130, fans will also receive a copy of frontman Thom Yorke’s 100-some page journal of handwritten notes—sure to contain some kind of historic marginalia—, a booklet of previously unreleased artwork, and a C90 cassette tape of demos and archival works. Discography junkies everywhere are losing their minds.

Album reissues are notorious for creating an undue amount of media attention for artists. They are a crafty way to manipulate obsessive fans into buying a record they already own with the promise of some elusive, long-lost demo and/or slightly “remastered audio.”

As Jessica Hopper wrote in 2011, regarding the 20th anniversary reissue of Nirvana’s Nevermind, “Does anyone imagine that kids deafened by two decades of increasingly shitty mastering and compression […] will be able to hear the difference?”

The unreleased tracks seem to be the only part of the reissue worth any fuss. One of them, Lift, has been a fan favorite ever since it was first performed in 1996, but has yet to appear on an album until now. It is a gorgeous song; full, soaring, and uncharacteristically uplifting. It deserves its own album—not to be tacked onto the end of the last one like an afterthought.

In this day and age, the act of challenging an artist’s moral integrity seems almost childish—there is a certain piousness to declaring someone a sellout. Still, Radiohead has a long history of being annoyingly self-righteous. They kept their music off of iTunes until 2008. For nine years they refused to play “Creep” live, and in 2013, Yorke called Spotify “the last desperate fart of a dying corpse.” He also loves Naomi Klein and thinks the Spice Girls are the anti-Christ. And yet, the irony of reissuing the album that was once a symbol of anti-establishment and rebellion seems to have escaped the band.

If there was ever a time for another album like OK Computer to be released, it’s now. It was a strange and wonderful torch that Radiohead carried for the disenfranchised and the disobedient. It was bizarre and it was beautiful—and OKNOTOK will not do it justice.

Arts & Entertainment, Comedy

From the viewpoint: Montreal Sketchfest

by Rochelle Guillou on

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Being funny is not easy. Being funny when people expect you to make them laugh is even harder. Fortunately for us, Montreal attracts humble masters of the art of comedy: Performers who know how to perfectly create humor through the juxtaposition of injury and cheer, but who do not pretend to be superior in their ability to make people laugh. The jokes at this year’s Sketchfest were never used to divide or rank, but instead worked as a unifying force by focusing on emotions and universal experiences.

The festival–which ran from May 4 to 13–perfectly captured everything that makes Montreal so unique: Everything from its bilingualism to its charismatic bars and cafes and its friendly, easy-going, and good-humoured people. The show’s venue, Theatre Sainte-Catherine, doubles as a coffee shop and bar, giving it the perfect laid-back vibe for an evening of comedy. The sketches were diverse in style and yet universal in the experiences they evoked.

Montreal comedy has a reputation for being too centered on local issues, in part due to the distinctiveness of this North American city. When comparing the comedy scene in Toronto to that of Montreal on the podcast, Laughmatic, host Mo Arora argued that Montrealers love to talk about Montreal much more than Torontonians like to talk about Toronto. On the contrary, however, no one at Sketchfest, not even local artists, dabbled in controversial topics like language laws or student protests.

Instead, the sketches dealt with a wide variety of subject matter. The first troupe of the evening, Ape Island, performed a sketch about a couple on a date night, when the girlfriend decides to spice things up with a sexy board game from Costco. The game turns out to be very awkward and not at all sexy. While the storyline in itself was pretty funny, the real laughter stemmed from the acting. These comedians were very convincing and great at conveying absurd confusion as they rolled the “sexy dice” which landed on “touch your partner’s face for three minutes”.

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Another standout troupe, Flo & Joan, turned to music to create humor. The two British sisters from Toronto perform comedy songs which seemed to give them freedom to talk about anything–from boyfriends, to bees, to British folk music. They started three years ago when both were out of a job and realized that they had nothing to lose.

“If we are not any good, we don’t know anyone in Toronto so we can always go back to England and no one has to know we tried this,” joked older sister Nicola Dempsey.

Nicola played the piano and both sisters sang. The Dempseys kept perfect composure and a smile while blurting out complex lyrics at the speed of light. Their biggest inspiration is Victoria Wood—an English comedian who wrote and starred in sketches and composed many songs that she performed on piano. Much of her humor was grounded in everyday life and included references to quintessentially “British” activities. Flo & Joan’s songs were not about British life, but more about the universal experience of being a woman, with all its burdens and inexplicable complications.

While some of the artists, like Nicola Dempsey, studied theatre and music in college, this is not necessarily the case for all comedians. Another performer, Kevin Shustack–member of the sketch troupe Cousins–studied math and statistics at McGill before dedicating himself to comedy full-time. He then studied sketch comedy writing at The Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York. For Kevin, performing in comedy shows is a contagious thrill.

“With a lot of people who end up pursuing comedy, they kind of catch the bug and just love being on stage and that feeling of when a joke lands…there’s nothing better,” Shustack explained.

Shustack performed that night with Cousins, and also does stand up and writes for the Teletoon show Toonmart Marty.

Laugher is a powerful tool to unite people, but it is not used enough to unite strangers. Today, with the internet and social media, we often laugh in isolation. The Montreal Sketchfest, while only a small show in a small venue, was refreshing in the way it created a space for unmediated and intimate performances to connect people together.

 

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Banks speaks to all the senses at Le Metropolis

by Audrey Carleton on

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It didn’t take long for listeners to latch onto Jillian Banks, better known simply by her last name: Banks. Her sound is an amalgamation of pop and R&B with a spooky techno-alternative twist; her visuals are dark and laden with metaphors; her style is sleek, seductive, and minimalist. After releasing her first album, Goddess, in 2014, touring with The Weeknd, and collaborating on singles with a diverse range of artists including Chet Faker, Banks released her second album, The Altar, in October 2016. While Goddess read like a diary of hate poems to an abusive ex, The Altar beamed with the confidence of a grown woman newly in love with herself.

On the most recent stretch of The Altar tour, Banks made her way up the East Coast of North America, reaching Montreal on June 5. She was greeted by a buzzing crowd at Le Metropolis. Her opener, Toulouse, a techno-R&B singer-songwriter best known for his song, "No Running From Me", featured in the film Fifty Shades Darker, set the stage for her performance with a short, but soulful set of songs. His seductive dance moves and smooth voice was a fitting prelude to the hour of Banks that followed.  

The show was scattered with theatrics from beginning to end. When the lights dimmed to signal the start of her act, Banks waited to play a short recording of her stoically reciting a poem before emerging through grey smoke onto the stage. As the instrumental introduction to "Poltergeist" played, she stepped slowly and deliberately toward center stage, her body veiled by a black gauze sheath, followed by two dancers on either side of her stepping to the same beat. Her entrance was a reference to the name of her album and tour as it bore resemblance to a bride walking towards the altar—yet much darker in tone.

Her energy did not remain calm for long, however. When she began to sing, it was clear that the audience was in for a high-energy performance. Banks’ vocals were powerful and passionate, assisted by two microphones: One for amplification alone, and another for distorting her voice to sound low-pitched and ghoulish. The emotional range of her setlist was inspiring. Switching from self-love anthems like "Trainwreck" to rawer, more vulnerable hymns like "Waiting Game" reminded audience members of the journey Banks has taken throughout her musical career and her ability to recover after hardship.

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Though powerful, her setlist was noticeably missing some of her biggest hits over the years, including "Brain and”Goddess"—tunes off her first album that were ranked number one on Spotify for periods of time in 2014 and 2015. Also—and arguably more surprisingly—neglected from the show was her newest single, "Crowded Places," which currently ranks number one on Spotify, and was featured in the penultimate episode of HBO’s hit show Girls.

Despite the omission of some of her most popular songs, the audience remained engaged. Every number was met by a chorus of fans loyally reciting the lyrics. Perhaps the impassioned nature of the songs she chose, like "Drowning" and "Judas"—two of her angriest post-break-up songs—required their full energy. Or perhaps the silence Banks commanded while reciting a poem in sign language before taking the stage solo for "Mother Earth"  kept fans’ eyes glued to her every move. Whatever it was, Banks maintained a visibly engrossed audience—seldom breaking from dancing and singing along—throughout the entire show.

The dancers at Banks’ sides appeared on stage every other song for the duration of the show, each time wearing grey gauze in a different way. Jerking and contorting their bodies left and right, they mirrored Banks’ own movements, in a performance style that toed the line between creepy and seductive. This line is one that Banks—who often refers to herself fondly as "creepy"—treads often. Yet, there is something empowering about Banks’ ownership over her body. Her moves, at times provocative—squatting low at the edge of the stage, or holding the mic stand between her legs—were signs of her sexual bravado.

Though the ex-lovers she writes about may not have recognized her beauty and wit, the audience at Le Metropolis did. Complemented by dark, seductive visuals and dance, Banks’ performance was a stunning roller-coaster of emotions.

Arts & Entertainment, Film and TV

The Lost City of Z – Review

by Ryan Canon on

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True historical epics have been lacking in recent years, as many of the latest film attempts have fallen flat (Ben Hur, King Arthur). Director James Gray’s breathtaking new film The Lost City of Z, however, proves that the genre still has much potential.  

The story, which spans more than 20 years, begins at the turn of the 19th century as we first meet Percival Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam), an ambitious young officer in the British military.  Despite his best efforts, Fawcett continues to be held back from achieving his potential due to a familial line that is viewed as unfavorable, causing his impressive achievements as a military officer to often go ignored. He then jumps at a chance to go on an expedition to the Amazon, hoping to increase his family’s standing, which proves far more consequential than he could have imagined. The story spans from the imposing jungles of the unexplored Amazon, to the English countryside, to the war torn battlefields of World War I and proves to both be epic and personal in its portrayal of its characters.

The film touts a stellar cast, from its main characters down to the minor roles. Hunnam, who rose to fame through the FX show Sons of Anarchy, gives the best performance of his career in a very nuanced yet dynamic role. Even more shocking is the performance by Robert Pattinson, who plays Fawcett’s right hand man—a drunk who is soft-spoken yet experienced and driven.  Sienna Miller, who plays Fawcett’s wife, is also fantastic in portraying how his spouse changes during the large swaths of time that he is absent, raising their children alone. Tom Holland, now famous for being the new Spiderman, gives a layered performance as Fawcett’s eldest son who both resents and respects his father for his absences, and has been forced to mature without him. Also noteworthy are some of the character actors who make appearances, particularly Ian McDiarmid, who in many ways is the closest thing that the film has to a true antagonist, playing the president of the Royal Geographical Society Sir George Goldie.

The cinematography stands out from the first shot of the movie. Director of Photography Darius Khondji, whose credits include Seven and Midnight in Paris, has pulled off an incredible feat with this film. Shooting in 35mm, gives a mixture of lush colors and film grain. He fills the screen with spectacular visuals. There is less of an emphasis on flashy camerawork and more reliance on stellar shot composition, highlighted by the opening shot of the film which also acts as the title sequence. The shots range from mysterious and enchanting, to haunting and disturbing. From images of lush jungle, to the dimly lit title sequence, to wide sweeping shots of battle, the camerawork is impressive. Much of the cinematography is evocative of Apocalypse Now.

The Lost City of Z is one of the best films of the year thus far. It manages to have moments that are breathtakingly epic, yet remain very personal and character driven. James Gray’s film does justice to its material in portraying the wonder of exploration, as well as the sacrifices made in the undertakings. The combination of great technical filmmaking, with its fantastic cinematography, and impressive performances from its cast comes together to make a special experience that should be seen on the big screen.

Off the Board, Opinion

Why it pays to slow down this summer

by Jackie Houston on

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Remember your elementary school summers? When school was out and the living was easy? Goodbye, long division–hello ice cream sandwiches, sleepover camp, and Saturday morning swimming lessons.

As an undergraduate student, summers are sort of like those swimming lessons. Except instead of learning to float on your back, someone just throws you into the deep end. Instead of water wings, you’re equipped with half a degree and a CV that’s more spin than substance.

It kind of makes you miss long division.

Make no mistake: On campus, the once innocuous, “What are your summer plans?” becomes code for, “What are your career and life prospects for the next three years or so?” Each May through August, students get their annual, bracing taste of post-graduation life and–if they play their cards right–a new LinkedIn profile update. It’s not nearly as fun as camp. But then, students don’t apply to 13 unpaid summer internships because it’s fun.

However, even if you have eight sparkling, degree-relevant references to show for it, something’s lost when students treat summers only as stepping stones to life after McGill. The urgent, ever-forward-looking way that undergraduates cram summers with extra credits, internships, and part-time jobs certainly amounts to an impressive resume, but it can also eclipse those experiences themselves.

I say this as an Arts student who, thus far, has viewed her summers as periods designated for ticking off Generically Successful Young Adult milestones. I’ve waitressed, I’ve taken summer courses and studied for my LSAT, I’ve worked for pay in a field not remotely pertaining to my career interests, and, this summer, I’m interning for free in a field that might be related to my career interests–check, check, check, check.

For better or for worse, summers are the spaces between working on a degree, wherein the resourceful student tries to figure out what exactly they’re going to do with said degree. That’s not a bad thing per se–to some extent it’s a necessity, if you want to be employed at some point down the line.

The problem is when students start seeing those spaces only as means to the end of post-graduation success–whatever that looks like. Four months may seem dispensable in the span of a year at McGill, but across four or five years, those Julys and Augusts add up. If you spend them only thinking about what comes next, you can miss a lot.

Last summer, while waitressing at a Mexican restaurant, I knew the difference between a tequila and a mezcal. My dad asked me about it the other night. I drew a blank. My knowledge of tequila has, understandably, been filed away with the likes of long division and whatever I learned in Intro to Deductive Logic in first year.

Like the staleness of realizing you’ve retained next to nothing from a course post-final exam, it was sad to think that the only thing I’d gained from those months waitressing was another reference on my CV. Because it wasn’t–I’d also met some wonderful people, learned how to properly wield a corkscrew, and eaten more burritos than ever before in my life. Yet, at the time, that all seemed secondary to the seemingly depressing fact that I was working at a Mexican restaurant the summer before my penultimate year at McGill. Who cared about the finer points of tequila, when real life was coming up?

It’s June now, around the time when I find myself most susceptible to fantasies of Montreal reunions and OAP afternoons–and the dread of applying to graduate shortly after. Meanwhile, my current internship becomes more time-killing and less self-starting.

This year, however, I propose a different approach: A reclaiming of summer, if you will. It doesn’t have to be just an exercise in goal-setting and chronic stress management. I accept that the days of blue raspberry-popsicle innocence are behind adults-in-training. The future matters–but so does the present. So, whether you’re making bagels every morning at 5 a.m., or trying on a nine-to-five workday, or just having a really, really good time, let’s go back to treating summers as worthwhile experiences in themselves.

As lackluster as serving margaritas may seem in the larger blueprint of What I’m Doing With My Life, it’s in the spaces between “what I’ve done” and “what’s next” where real life occurs. Those formative spaces are lost when students–or functioning adults, for that matter–only pay attention to the checkpoints.

Basketball, Point-Counterpoint, Sports

Point-Counterpoint: Is LaVar Ball helping or hurting his sons’ careers?

by Alec Regino & Wasif Husain on

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LaVar Ball’s behaviour has compromised his sons’ basketball careers

Alec Regino

Lonzo Ball will probably be the Los Angeles Lakers’ first round pick in the 2017 NBA Draft, but his father, LaVar Ball, is the one dominating headlines. So far, LaVar has broken new ground in the game of sports parenting—single-handedly orchestrating the rise of sons Lonzo, LaMelo, and LiAngelo to basketball notoriety before any of them even go pro. The results of his dedication to creating a basketball family are unmistakable, with Lonzo projected to be an NBA superstar and his brothers set to follow the same path. However, LaVar’s unique rearing methods will only hinder his children’s careers as they progress.  

Want to hear a joke? Two men walk into a bar. One is the self-proclaimed Greatest of All Time in the sport of basketball, and the other is Michael Jordan. Here’s another one: What’s the difference between a two-time MVP and a 19year-old who has never played professional basketball? The two-time MVP only “made some shots at the right time.” LaVar Ball made both of these preposterous comparisons.

LaVar touts Lonzo as the “best player in the world.” Not LeBron James. Not Kawhi Leonard. Not Kevin Durant. Despite leading the UCLA Bruins to a disappointing early exit in the NCAA tournament in March and exactly zero NBA minutes to his name, Lonzo Ball has already risen to the top of the basketball world, according to his father. Naturally, such ridiculous claims will draw attention across the league.

Thanks to his father’s infamy across the basketball scene, many NBA players and their associates already want to see Lonzo collapse. James is reportedly not a fan. Durant openly mocked one of LaVar’s many zany comments. Shaquille O’Neal called out the Ball family for their absurdly expensive shoes.

All of this leads to the ever-growing target on Lonzo’s back—any player who faces him has a multitude of reasons to hate him. In the hyper-competitive NBA, Lonzo should gain respect from his superiors through his game and learn from what the actual best in the world have to offer. LaVar disagrees, however, and believes that his beloved child doesn’t need guidance or advice—even if it’s from Lakers legend Kobe Bryant.

This is the problem throughout the Ball saga: Lonzo’s voice—and more importantly, his play—is drowned out when LaVar opens his outrageous mouth. His constant presence in popular culture is an unnecessary distraction from Lonzo’s play. Shortly after the UCLA basketball season ended with a loss to the Kentucky Wildcats, LaVar threw Lonzo’s teammates under the bus.

“Realistically, you can’t win no championship with three white guys,” LaVar pronounced. “Because the foot speed is too slow.”

LaVar’s actions display a questionable pattern of placing blame on anyone besides himself and his family. If this behaviour follows into his children’s professional careers, there will be trouble: Considering how NBA veterans feel about LaVar from afar, Lonzo will have to overcome myriad team chemistry issues that his father creates. Like any rookie, Lonzo will also need time to develop and adjust to professional basketball, but that transition will prove much more difficult surrounded by negativity over LaVar’s antics.

Furthermore, the Ball family is risking a lot of money to pursue their dream of owning a shoe brand. None of the top shoe companies in Nike, Adidas, and Under Armour have any interest in signing Lonzo to any sort of endorsement deal. LaVar wants co-branding for his sons, an unprecedented request that could turn endorsers off from the Ball brothers. Only time will tell if these risks are worth it, but with only 263 pairs of Lonzo’s ZO2 Prime sold in the shoe’s first 24 hours on the market, LaVar’s strategy seems to have fallen flat.

LaVar Ball, with all of his controversial statements, unsavoury behavior, and $500 shoes, is hurting his sons’ careers. His loud mouth has created unnecessary disdain for his children. His business acumen—or lack thereof—is making his family miss out on millions of dollars. Ultimately, his unwillingness to take a backseat and let his sons’ gameplay do the talking will lead to their collective downfall. He is just too self-absorbed to see it.

 

LaVar Ball’s actions have benefitted his sons’ basketball careers

Wasif Husain

LaVar Ball is, undeniably, an outlandish and controversial figure. He once bragged that, in his prime, he could have beaten Michael Jordan one-on-one. He has asserted that his son Lonzo—who will only workout for the Lakers—is better than Steph Curry. Still, despite his ridiculous statements, all three of his sons are actually fantastic basketball players and he has played an essential part in laying the groundwork for their basketball careers.

He has been criticized for exploiting his children by using their fame in order to promote a brand. These criticisms are overblown; he can’t be faulted for using their exposure to make money and secure a stable financial future for his children. He has used this era of social media to establish a brand that benefits the entire family. Lonzo recently released his own shoe. Regardless of its price, that is an impressive feat in an industry dominated by Nike, Under Armour, and Adidas. The only group truly exploiting Lonzo is the NCAA, which makes billions from performances by unpaid players like him.

LaVar has caught flak for comments about his son’s teammates and coaching, but those statements have merely provided headlines. Lonzo’s coach at UCLA asserted that LaVar never entered the locker room or attended practices. He is not creating bad blood with coaches or teammates. In fact, both of LaVar’s younger sons have verbal commitments to play at UCLA, clearly indicating that the program is interested in a continued relationship with the family. For all of his statements to the media, it is ridiculous to believe that he would ever try to follow his sons into the locker room and live their lives for them.

LaVar completely backs each of his sons’ efforts to be great. He is invested in their lives because they are a reflection and recognition of his sacrifices—he’s spent considerable amounts of time and money coaching his sons and sending them through premier basketball tournaments. Although LiAngelo and LaMelo are several years away from signing professional contracts, LaVar’s efforts have clearly paid off with Lonzo soon to be a top NBA draft pick. Perhaps LaVar can be knocked for his brash behaviour in the public eye, but it’s clear that his inexhaustible dedication has allowed his sons to recognize their potential.

Despite LaVar’s great investment in his children, he exerts no pressure on them. He has said that sports are just entertainment and that at the end of the day, the only burden on his kids comes from their own expectations. He has been remarkably supportive of each of the Ball brothers’ basketball careers and should be respected for standing behind his children’s dreams.

He may be brash, unconventional, and  exasperating, but LaVar hasn’t negatively affected any of his sons’ playing styles or abilities. Lonzo is regularly praised for selfless play and will likely be the second pick in the 2017 NBA Draft by the Los Angeles Lakers. LiAngelo is committed to UCLA, and LaMelo will join him once he’s done dominating the California high school league. All three of his children are poised to become successful pro basketball players and it’s due—in part—to LaVar’s parenting.  

Much can be said about LaVar Ball, but it would be wrong to say that he has hurt his sons’ careers. He may be outlandish—and a fantastic source of entertaining sound bites—but ultimately, he is just one dad in a long line of outspoken sporting fathers. His sons can clearly tolerate his antics enough to follow through with his master plan. They will certainly have an abundance of pundits and fans to tear apart their game, but LaVar will always continue to advocate for them. Like any adoring dad, he’s simply supporting and believing in his children unconditionally.

 

Editor’s pick: LaVar Ball’s actions have benefitted his sons’ basketball careers

LaVar’s antics have certainly enticed the ravenous basketball community, but he has not seriously harmed Lonzo, LaMelo, or LiAngelo’s career prospects. Ultimately, he played a big role in raising three talented athletes, and the positive impact of his presence far outweighs the negative attention he draws to his family.

Hockey, Sports

NHL Expansion Draft Preview

by Tanveer Ahmed on

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The 2017 NHL Expansion Draft, taking place June 18-20, will mark the addition of a 31st team to the National Hockey League: The newly-minted Las Vegas Golden Knights. The NHL has drafted a set of rules that aim to create a competitive, brand-new team by selecting from existing NHL teams. The McGill Tribune previews the rules of the expansion draft and the best- and worst-placed teams:

 

Rules

The Golden Knights must pick at least 14 forwards, nine defencemen, and three goaltenders as part of their 30 selections. They must select one player from each of the other 30 franchises. To prevent them from being selected by the Golden Knights, teams may protect one goalie, as well as either seven forwards and three defencemen or eight total skaters. Players who have less than two years of professional experience are exempt from being selected and will not need to be protected, while players with no movement clauses must be protected by their teams.

 

Best Placed Teams

The Toronto Maple Leafs were carried by their incredible young talent to a breakout season in 2016-17, qualifying for the postseason for the first time since 2013. The rules of the expansion draft automatically exempt rookie and sophomore players from Las Vegas’ selection pool, allowing the Leafs to comfortably protect the rest of their roster’s core. The only forwards who will be exposed are fourth liners and minor league players, while their best defencemen are either exempt (Nikita Zaitsev) or can be protected with the three protection spots. Toronto will only expose older players, fringe defencemen, or backup goalies—none of whom are key to the Leafs’ promising future anyway.

 

The Carolina Hurricanes have one of the more impressive blue lines in the league with most of these defenders exempt from the draft because of their youth. Three protected spots will be more than enough to keep their defensive core intact. Meanwhile, they lack standout offensive talent, which gives them flexibility in selecting their seven protected forwards. They also have some security with their goaltenders: After signing Scott Darling, they can carry on with either Cam Ward or Eddie Lack as the backup next season without the draft hurting them.

 

The New Jersey Devils are in a rebuilding phase, so they don’t have to worry about losing any valuable players. While that may not be ideal for the team’s results next season, it gives them plenty of spots to protect future stars like Taylor Hall and Adam Henrique. Any Devil that Las Vegas snags in the draft will not be of great consequence to New Jersey. Compared to the possible availability of talented players from other teams, the Devils don’t have much to offer and will benefit from the league-wide talent dilution.

 

Worst Placed Teams

With blue-liners like Cam Fowler, Sami Vatanen, and Hampus Lindholm, the Anaheim Ducks arguably boast the NHL’s second-best collection of defencemen after Nashville. Unlike the Hurricanes, however, most of these defenders must be protected if the Ducks intend to keep them. On top of that, Kevin Bieksa and three forwards have no-movement clauses. With a defence-heavy talent pool, Anaheim will be one of the teams leaning towards protecting eight skaters—rather than the standard seven forwards and three defencemen. This means they will have to expose playoff hero Jakob Silfverberg or 33-goal scorer Rickard Rakell. Either would be a big loss to a team with aging forwards.

The New York Rangers face a serious predicament between the pipes. Goaltender Henrik Lundqvist, 35, has a no-movement clause that forces the exposure of up-and-comer Antti Raanta. The Rangers could move Lundqvist before the draft or make a deal with the Knights, but both options still result in the exposure of other assets, such as 27-goal scorer Michael Grabner or young forward Mika Zibanejad.

The Nashville Predators, as previously mentioned, have the best defensive corps in the league. Like Anaheim, Nashville will likely choose the eight skater option and protect P.K. Subban, Ryan Ellis, Mattias Ekholm, and Roman Josi. However, with only four possible protected spots for their forwards, they will have to expose their limited selection of centremen. Nashville’s offensive talent pool is already stretched thin; losing a player like Colin Wilson, Craig Smith, or playoff standout Calle Jarnkrok could critically damage their forward combinations.

Roger Waldinger
News

CSDC hosts acclaimed sociologist Roger Waldinger

by Ryan Canon on

More in News:

Both in the United States and in Europe, the rise of populist political movements and candidates has brought the issue of immigration to the forefront of politics. Seeing as the topic is one of importance to students, the Centre for the Study of Democratic Citizenship (CSDC) hosted, on May 26, UCLA sociology professor Roger Waldinger at McGill to give a talk on the politics of immigration in the United States. His talk consisted of an overview of immigration politics, starting in the Ronald Reagan era of the 1980s, up through the present. Before the talk, Waldinger spoke to The McGill Tribune and explained what compelled him to share his perspective on the politics of immigration.

“It seems to me that this was an occasion when my own area of expertise is actually at the center of the news,” Waldinger said. “In a way I wanted to challenge myself. Do I have something important to say about this political issue? And I think I do.”

During the talk, Waldinger explained that after the 2012 presidential election, the Republican National Committee released a report to address why they believed they had lost, and concluded they needed more support from immigrant voters.

“[The need for more support from immigrant voters] was the assumption going into [the election],” Waldinger said. “And of course, right from the beginning, Trump breaks with it, and shortly thereafter he goes into how he will implement his plan with his notorious claim that he would build a wall.”

Waldinger outlined the sociology of migration along with the cyclical nature of immigration policy, and categorized voters and politicians into two broad groups: Restrictionists and immigrationists. While the former group would rather see strict limitation of immigration, the latter group support an increase in immigration. Both of these groups, Waldinger explained, have left-wing and right-wing elements with different sets of interests.

“[Immigrationists and restrictionists] are coalitions that bring together the right and the left […] and what we see here are two very different types of mobilized interest groups,” Waldinger said. “On the one hand, business […] is not particularly concerned with the conditions or the rights that those workers from elsewhere might enjoy […while] the left wing of the coalition is concerned about family reunification and admissions for refugees.”

According to Waldinger, the National Academy of Sciences overlooked how the attitudes of the native population in the US changes in response to immigration. This conflict between immigrationists and restrictionists is now in the spotlight in American politics.

“Immigration produced international integration, but international integration is exactly what a large portion of the native-born population did not want,” Waldinger said. “That conflict between international integration on one hand, and a preference for migration control policies that would disintegrate the US from the broader global economy made immigration, in effect, a source of national disintegration, and put it at the center of American politics.”

After the talk concluded, Dietlind Stolle, director of CSDC and professor of Political Science at McGill, emphasized that immigration is not the only reason President Trump was elected.

“The rise of populism also […] is related to the state of the economy and how generations do compared to previous generations,” Stolle said. “[….] It is related to a general dissatisfaction when you are not doing well and you see people with certain privileges in society.”

The talk was met with satisfaction by attendees, including Matvey Lamonosov, a PhD candidate in the department of Sociology.

“Roger Waldinger is a recognized and very well known authority on immigration, on the theory and especially the political aspects,” Lomonosov said. “[It] would be very interesting to have more of these events […] so I definitely we need to talk about these issues. They are important not only theoretically and politically but in our everyday lives.”

 

Arts & Entertainment, Film and TV, Private

A roundtable discussion on the Girls finale

by Audrey Carleton, Selin Altuntur, Sophie Brzozowski, Sara Cullen, Daniel Lutes, Ariana Kaye, Mingye Chen on

More in Arts & Entertainment:

HBO’s Girls aired for the last time on April 16. The series finale, titled “Latching” which garnered a wide array of reactions from film and TV critics, featured main character Hannah Horvath (Lena Dunham) in the early stages of motherhood, assisted by her best friend Marnie Michaels (Allison Williams). In what many have considered to be an epilogue to the true series finale one episode prior, viewers catch a glimpse of the harsh reality of Horvath’s new life in upstate New York. A month after the show’s ending, The McGill Tribune writers, editors, and contributors sat down to reflect upon the final episode and season as a whole.

 

(Note: This conversation has been edited for duration and clarity, and contains spoilers.)

 

Audrey Carleton (AC): What did everybody think of the finale? And this season in general? Was it what you expected, was it what you wanted to see?

 

Selin Altuntur (SA): I liked it. I thought it was just as filled with weird absurd non-sequiturs as the rest of the show, which made sense. And it wasn’t like, ‘Bam, this is a finale! Everything is going nuts!’ It was very subdued and slow, which I thought was appropriate. I guess it’s not expected of a finale for any show, but for this show it probably made a bit more sense.

Sophie Brzozowski (SB): I wasn’t sure if we’d get to see her have the baby, I thought maybe it would be like, she’d deliver, and it would end, and it’s like, ‘This is a new chapter,’ but I’m glad, you know, we had to see her be a new mom, and thus, a kind of bad, incompetent mom.

AC: Yeah, because Season 6 was so unrealistic in the whole, just her maturing, and viewing herself as a mature person was very un-self aware, and then her getting that job too, which I completely agree with that article [Hannah on ‘Girls Could Not Have Gotten That Job…], but it was just very,  ‘Wow, maybe Hannah’s like a grown adult now!’ but then we see in this episode that, no she’s really not.

Daniel Lutes (DL): But isn’t that better though? Wouldn’t it be kind of weird if she just randomly, out of nowhere, just becomes a grown-up? I think the point is that she’s always going to be a little bit of a fuck up. Just because that’s who she is as a character.

Ariana Kaye (AK): I so didn’t expect the move to upstate and her having the baby, because it’s just so not her as a person, like even the way she is as a public figure.

AC: It was unexpected the baby thing, but then, it makes sense for her to think that she’s mature enough to do this, I feel like she just lacks this self-awareness.

SA: It’s true, because I think that so much of watching the show I just get frustrated because of how not self-aware she was–and, all of [the characters] And then there was just, moments of, ‘Oh wait! They may actually kind of understand themselves, but only like, 25 per cent.’ So yeah, that’s a good point.

AK: But also the whole relationship between Hannah and Adam, like the one episode in Season 6, I didn’t really get what happened, it was kind of confusing because it seemed like they were going to get together and then raise the baby and then, he was just like, ‘Ok I gotta go now! Bye.’

Sara Cullen (SC): That’s how I felt about it too and at first I was annoyed, but at the same time I kind of appreciated it in a way too, because I was like, that’s almost, it’s not what’s important, you know? She keeps the focus on the growth of just the four women, as opposed to branching off and seeing what every other dude is like doing after they fuck their shit up.

SB: I like that he just fell off the face of the earth and you didn’t hear from Adam or see him for the last two [episodes….] That’s what happens to your ex boyfriend right? He just falls off the face of the earth.

AC: What do you think of the way that Shoshana ended that whole friend group?

SC: On the one hand I see Shoshana as the most level-headed, but then on the other hand I don’t see her motivations for actually making those decisions being honest, in a way, or genuine […] Shoshana is kind of  going along with what “successful people” do, and then met this cookie cutter husband.

AK: When I saw that scene I was very confused, just because the show is about these four women and, just to suddenly be like, ‘Ok no, like it’s over,’ was kind of shocking.

SA: That’s a thing that the show does a lot. You’ll be expecting something, and then it’ll do something much [more uncomfortable] to watch, but it’ll make sense in the context of like, these are all people that have serious flaws, and haven’t worked out their issues. I feel like that’s part of why some people who write reviews about it maybe don’t like it. It’s hard to wrap your head around the idea that you’re not supposed to like the people that you’re watching, or that you’re supposed to question what they’re doing.

SC: Each character, they each have a very specific vibe, that you recognize as flawed, but then you’re also like, ‘I’m kind of like that sometimes too,’ not to the extent that they are, because they’re all extremes, but it’s weird because you would recognize qualities that you see in yourself or other people that they’re very human, but it’s so exaggerated.

AK: There are some people that are really offended by the lack of representation, are you guys offended?

AC: I mean, I think she depicts her life, I think she was only friends with white people.

Mingye Chen (MC): You know it’s interesting because as [a person] of colour who lives in Canada, I still work with predominantly white people […], so I don’t necessarily think it’s totally misrepresentative.

SB: And if she were to write a character of colour who had the struggles or dealt with the situations that people of colour in the real world do deal with then we would’ve just said, ‘You’re not qualified to write about this.’

MC: Exactly, our backgrounds are so different, so I don’t think she’s necessarily qualified to write characters like that, in that sense. I’ve watched a little bit of the show, and like, I can’t necessarily relate that much to the girls, but I think that if she tried to write someone of colour into her show, I would be like, ‘That’s not [accurate],’ or you know at least that’s just not the surface. She’s not really got a good grasp of like, what people of colour deal with. I almost prefer that she doesn’t, because then she’s not trying to speak for us, or she’s not trying to misrepresent us in that sense.

AC: Are there any other things that people noticed about the episode? Did you like the ending on just focusing on those two characters, or did you want to see more characters in the finale?

DL: I’m glad it was just those two characters, because they could’ve done like, a really really dumb thing in the end where they like, shot like, 15 years in the future, and it’s like, Adam’s now the CEO of a company, and like, Lena’s like, a successful professor, and I don’t know, it’s just like–

SB: That’s a funny thing! Like, what does happen to them all? Like where does Adam end up? I’m glad we didn’t find out, I’d like him to be immortalized as this weird 26 year old guy.

AC: I guess after episode nine happened, it sort of felt like a finale. I guess I fell into the trap of [thinking], ‘Episode 9 was so good, like, they wrapped everybody, wonder what’s gonna happen next, like, they’ll just wrap everybody again, even more, and have it be like, even grander of a finale,’ and then it was the exact opposite, and I was just very frustrated. Like, I was angry when I watched it. It was very unsatisfying.

SB: I feel like she’s unsatisfied with her life and motherhood and that’s the point right? And her life is now boring and she doesn’t get to be crazy and eccentric and in New York City.

AC: Because it was sort of a beautiful moment when they’re playing that Banks song and she’s  driving and moving into her house and everything is beautiful and nice and you’re like, ‘Aw oh my god, that could be so great,’ but like no, her life is really bad.

To listen to the full Girls roundtable discussion, click here.

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