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Baseball, Sports

Former Montreal Expos Bill ‘Spaceman’ Lee revives his political career

by Zikomo Smith on

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Bill “Spaceman” Lee knows a thing or two about extending his career in an unconventional way. The former Major League Baseball (MLB) pitcher for the Montreal Expos and Boston Red Sox—at 69 years old—pitches every weekend in Vermont and Florida senior baseball leagues. 

“I won the Vermont [Senior Baseball] state championship this year, and I am going to go to Florida to play this winter,” Lee said. “I love baseball. When you play, it puts your brain over the pain of slight arthritis and pulled muscles, and it allows you to breathe better, and makes you look forward to each day.” 

Now, the eccentric southpaw pitcher is running in the 2016 Vermont gubernatorial race—his latest foray into politics since campaigning in the 1988 U.S. election under the satirical Rhinoceros Party of Canada. While some of Lee’s more ‘out there’ policies from his political past—such as destroying the Rocky Mountains to increase sunlight in Alberta and banning chairs to help combat back pain and obesity—must be taken tongue in cheek, he does display genuine concern for social and environmental justice.

“[In 1988, I ran on a platform of] no guns, no butter. They will both kill you,” Lee explained. “Basically, small is better. I believed in limits to growth, I believed in harnessing the tidal force, I was always pro-fish, pro-water, pro-ecology [….] We have to go small, or we are going to basically pollute our country to death.”

Unsurprisingly, Spaceman has strong opinions on the charged 2016 U.S. election. 

“It is terrible,” Lee said. “It is a polarization. You know, Donald Trump’s music is right—we should throw out the incumbents—but his spirits are wrong and he is the wrong person for the presidency. [Trump] leads to fascism. As much as Hillary is the consummate politician, she is not the answer either.”

Lee still believes that the United States missed a trick by not voting for him in 1988, or Bernie Sanders in 2016.

“I believe that if I had been elected in ‘88 the world would be a kinder, gentler place, with Canadian-style politics,” Lee said. “We would have total health care, a civilized society with less guns, less violence, with less Black Lives Matter things—because Black Lives do matter because they are the ones getting lynched and the Trump people are against [Black Lives Matter]. It is a sad state of affairs.”

Despite his strong sense of justice, it is tough to know when to take Lee seriously. A University of Southern California graduate, he is intelligent and funny—he appeared on the cover of High Times after he was indicted by the MLB for marijuana consumption. He is also perceptive—at a recent film screening of his biopic Spaceman, Lee implored questioners not to be caught on the wrong side of history, like a “dinosaur with his stubby arms close to his chest.” It was a comically apt image and message.

Perhaps Lee provides his best wisdom when he is rhapsodizing about baseball: He graciously recalls losing game seven of the World Series as Red Sox’s starting pitcher against the Cincinnati Reds.

“[The game seven loss] just shows you that winning and losing is not what [baseball] is all about,” Lee said. “[Rather], it is the fact of the game. It is like the day I got to hear Vin Scully broadcast Dennis Martinez’s ‘el perfecto’ game. It was poetry. That is what baseball is all about. It is the constant playing and reliving summer and spring again.”

It’s unlikely Spaceman will become the governor of Vermont. But, in the year that the Cubs won their first World Series since 1908 and a reality TV show host is the Republican presidential nominee, anything seems possible.

Editorial, Opinion

Quebec must uphold freedom of the press

by McGill Tribune Editorial Board on

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Last week, the Service de Police de la Ville de Montreal (SPVM) revealed they had obtained a warrant to monitor the cell phone of La Presse journalist Patrick Lagacé in order to determine the identity of his sources for an investigation into police fabrication of evidence. Over the last several months, police obtained 24 warrants from provincial courts to monitor the numbers of Lagacé’s incoming and outgoing calls and the GPS location of his phone. Since then, both the SPVM and the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) have admitted to monitoring the phones of at least nine other journalists and confiscated the laptop of another.

This behaviour on the part of Quebec police, as well as the courts responsible for issuing the warrants, is deeply troubling. The scandal could have damaging consequences for provincial media outlets, as well as for Quebec citizens, who depend on the local press and are equal stakeholders in the right to freedom of the press.

For investigative journalists, the anonymity of sources is sacrosanct. It is through this guarantee of anonymity that whistleblowers and other vulnerable sources can feel safe to come forward and share their information with journalists. This process is often crucial when it comes to exposing instances of government or private corruption, abuses of authority, or corporate malpractice—indispensable stories that help keep governments and corporations accountable to the citizenry. Investigative pieces, such as The Boston Globe’s famous exposée on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, often depend on confidential testimony from victims. If sources no longer feel that they can talk to journalists without the risk of exposing identities to police and other figures of authority, they will be less likely to come forward. Fewer stories will be exposed, meaning both the press and the public will suffer.

A free and independent press has a vital role in democracies; this scandal risks jeopardizing that function. Because citizens can only hold their government accountable if they are informed, the press performs an essential democratic service through its reporting. In Canada, this role is enshrined in the Constitution: Section 2(b) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees “freedom of the press and of other media of communication.” By invading the privacy of Lagacé and other journalists by monitoring their phones and seizing laptops, the police are impeding the media’s ability to provide this service.

 

 

 

The Montreal police’s behaviour should be troubling not only to members of the media, but to anyone concerned with the state of democracy in Quebec.

The manner in which these warrants to monitor journalists were granted also has concerning implications. These journalists were not monitored because they were suspected of a crime: Their privacy was violated as a means to gather information on others. 

Surveillance in the digital age opens a significant number of new possibilities for police agencies, but they must continue to operate in a way that allows for the protection of privacy rights—especially when anonymous sources are involved—by maintaining the same standards of probable cause as other forms of police work.

If there is anything to be gained from this scandal, it may be the increased interest in protections for journalists in Canada. According to Tom Henheffer of the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, Canada “doesn’t have anywhere near the kinds of protections [for journalists] that most Western democracies do.” This includes the lack of “shield law,” which would prevent journalists from being compelled to reveal anonymous sources in court.This includes the lack of “shield law,” which would prevent journalists from being compelled to reveal anonymous sources in court.

The Montreal police’s behaviour should be troubling not only to members of the media, but to anyone concerned with the state of democracy in Quebec. The provincial government has announced the creation of a public inquiry to look into the affair. Needless to say, the police and the municipal and provincial governments must endeavour to regain the trust of the media and the people. This scandal should also serve as a sober reminder of the value of and need to protect freedom of the press in Quebec. 

 

Off the Board, Opinion

Don’t call me busy

by Julia Dick on

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McGill is a large school teeming with spaces to get involved. Finding your niche as a freshman is daunting, and, even then, being involved can come to feel like a burden. Students must often juggle their coursework with extracurricular activities, social commitments, volunteering, and athletics. Students who are incredibly engaged may feel lonely and disconnected. Those who are introverted, such as myself, often feel exhausted by the standards of involvement—these expectations are not written on paper, and are not part of the requirements for graduation. Instead, the expectation to be busy is gradually and imperceptibly ingrained in the behaviour and attitudes of McGill students.

Being busy is glorified at McGill. Resume builders abound. Being busy is seen as the height of accomplishment. It means that you are excelling at being an overachiever, and are somehow managing to do it all. But, doing it all, as author and COO of Facebook Sheryl Sandberg writes in her essay "The Myth of Doing It All", is a myth: It just isn’t possible. When friends and family describe me as being busy, I often shy away from the word. I’ve been described as “busy” so frequently that I have come to subconsciously dissociate from it. Time is limited; attempting to fill time just for the sake of it is an easy way to lose motivation and sleep.

Often, my anxieties come not from being overwhelmed by all that I have to do, but from feeling that I have not struck a perfect balance between work, school, and life. Such a balance is not elusive—it is fictional. The impossibility of perfect balance causes personal insecurities to rise. I procrastinate too much. I don’t spend enough time with my friends. I spend either too much or too little time in the library. When my peers ask me how I manage to do it all, it brings this sense of imbalance into sharp relief.

 

The concept of “busy” is a sticking point. It attempts to define my life as an engaged student while eliding the variety of learning opportunities that I have had during my time at McGill.

It’s impossible to fill every hour of consciousness to the highest potential. There aren’t enough hours in the day. Without quiet moments of solitude, the prospect of burnout increases. Lack of sleep, high workloads, missing a few meals, or not eating healthy all contribute to burning out. Often, I find myself wrapped up in blankets with a cup of tea watching mind-numbing videos online or re-reading a favourite novel. Taking moments like these shouldn’t feel illicit. But, the expectation to be in a constant state of doing causes many to put personal well-being on the backburner.

The concept of “busy” is a sticking point. It attempts to define my life as an engaged student while eliding the variety of learning opportunities that I have had during my time at McGill. When peers describe me as busy—or even, when I catch myself saying that I am “too busy” to do something—it reinforces the anxiety of trying to do it all. The intent might be sincere, but the effect is self-doubt, bringing my insecurities into focus.

I do what I can to keep my head above water while juggling multiple expectations and responsibilities. I don’t always succeed. When I would have criticized myself as being lazy—for having failed to exercise a few times a week, for having bought dinner out rather than organizing my meal plan for the week, for not getting away from campus enough—I have learned to ease up. The drive to be highly productive with one’s time is seemingly inescapable, but recognizing that no one manages their time perfectly helps to alleviate the stresses that come with being busy. The hope is that when we all look back on our time at McGill, we remember it as being fulfilling, rather than simply busy.

 

 

 

 

 

Julia Dick is the Editor-in-Chief of The McGill Tribune and is a double major in English Literature and Political Science.

 

@yooulia | [email protected]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
McGill, News, SSMU

QPIRG-McGill runs Existence Referendum

by Cherry Ng on

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From Nov. 3 to Nov. 8, the McGill branch of the Quebec Public Interest Research Group (QPIRG-McGill) is running an existence referendum to determine whether students will continue to fund QPIRG-McGill through an opt-outable student fee of $5.00 per semester.

QPIRG was established at McGill as a student club in 1980 and became an Independent Student Group (ISG) through a referendum in 1988. The organization is  non-profit and student-run group with a focus on environmental and social justice issues that connect McGill to Montreal communities. 

According to Julie Skarha, chair of the “Yes” committee and member of the QPIRG-McGill Board of Directors, existence referendums began for all ISGs in 2007. McGill mandated that all independent fee-levy groups must run a poll every five years asking the student body if the organization should continue to exist.  If the QPIRG-McGill referendum results in a majority “No” vote, the fee will be discontinued. 

“We have to have a majority ‘Yes’ vote, which is 51 per cent of all undergraduate and graduate students and the quorum has to be 10 per cent,” Skarha said. “The fee is necessary for all the programs and staff we fund and for us to continue all that we do.”

Coco Zhou, U4 Arts, and member of the “Yes” committee, said that QPIRG-McGill has played an important role in her political development. 

“I first interacted with QPIRG through their workshops, like Culture Shock,” Zhou said. “I found their workshops very useful and [they] spoke a lot to me as an immigrant. QPIRG has been key to a lot of student experiences at McGill, especially those who are marginalized. The group is the cornerstone for a lot of social justice work on campus.”

Some of the programming and projects QPIRG-McGill provides on campus include Rad Frosh–an alternative to faculty froshes that has a social justice and activism focus–and Social Justice Days, which is an annual week-long event of workshops and discussions about local and global issues held in the Winter semester. 

According Igor Sadikov, Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) Arts Representative and member of the QPIRG-McGill Board of Directors, the ISG connects McGill to the wider Montreal community.

“In addition to the events [QPIRG-McGill] hosts and provides, the group also [creates] bridges between students and the Montreal community,” Sadikov said. “SSMU services doesn’t really have the ability to do this because SSMU is focused on providing service directly to its members, whereas QPIRG allows students to branch out and be involved in the Montreal community all while remaining a student-led organization.”

QPIRG-McGill offers a variety of programming, including the University Exchange Program, where students conduct research with community groups. Another project that brings McGill and Montreal communities together includes Convergence, a research journal that combines undergraduate research with community-based research. 

David Aird, SSMU Vice-President External Affairs, said that QPIRG-McGill is important beyond the programs and projects the group offers.

“QPIRG delivers a service that is not typically delivered by [SSMU] and they offer space to students that, unfortunately, we don’t,” Aird said. “Their existence is important to a lot of people. In my opinion, the safest place on campus to be yourself is the QPIRG office. I can’t emphasize enough how important QPIRG is in a university setting.”

SSMU officially endorsed a “Yes” vote for the QPIRG existence referendum at its council meeting on Nov 3. A “No” committee was not formed. 
 

Fact or Fiction, Science & Technology

Fact or Fiction: What is the placebo effect?

by Erin Dwyer on

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When you hear the word “placebo,” what comes to mind? A flashback to the 100 flashcards of Psych 100? Medical studies and controls?

People tend to think of this phenomenon detached from their own lives. But, in reality, the placebo effect can have concrete physiological consequences and is frequently used in medical treatment, hitting closer to home than we think.

A placebo is a mimic treatment, commonly in the form of a sugar pill. Control group patients in medical studies or treatments are blind to the fact they actually aren’t consuming any medicine at all. The behaviour of this group serves as the standard used by conductors of experiments to judge the effectiveness non-placebo treatments. The ‘placebo effect’ occurs when patient control groups perceive relief of the symptoms the actual drug was intended to produce.

Professor Dr. Irving Kirsch of the Harvard Medical School and the associate director of the Program of Placebo Studies, says the placebo effect occurs thanks to a conditioned response to taking medicine: We take drugs and we anticipate the drug will have an effect.

“Just as Pavlov’s dogs had learned to associate the sound of a bell with food,” Kirsch told CNN.

The ‘placebo effect’ isn’t exclusive to individuals who consume a placebo pill.

“The placebo effect also contributes to the people that are in the drug group in that trial,” McGill Professor of Psychology Dr. Jeffrey Mogil said. “[For example,] how much of the effect is ibuprofen and how much of it is the placebo?”

Considering this question, testing new drugs in clinical trials can be complicated. Researchers, therefore, can’t take the results from non-placebo groups at face-value.

“If the drug does something, then the drug plus the placebo [effect] are responsible, which will be a bigger [response] than in the placebo group, who only have the placebo response,” Mogil said. “And that’s how you would know that a drug is actually doing something.”

The placebo effect manifests itself in a variety of ways within the body, particularly psychologically.

“Sure, it’s all in your head, but psychological changes will influence your brain chemistry,” Kirsch told Forbes last year. “The placebo has a physiological effect in that it causes the brain to release its own endogenous opioids.”

Opioid release, in the case of pain relief, suppresses the pain response. Whether pain relief comes as a result of the placebo or the drug of interest can be difficult to determine.

“If you give subjects a substance that block those natural opioids, the placebo effect stops working,” Kirsch told Forbes.

Despite the scientific dialogue of trials, studies, and controls, placebos are also used in the doctor’s office.

“Doctors have been using the placebo effect for thousands of years,” Mogil said.

Medical professionals have long known that no one wants to go home empty-handed. Providing patients with some type of pill satisfies their expectations.

“The main reason for administering placebos in late 18th century medical practice was to satisfy the patient’s demand and his expectations,” Professor Robert Jutte of the Institute for the History of Medicine in Germany, explained in his study published in the 2013 issue of Complementary Therapies in Medicine.

The phenomenon has continued to the present day. According to a WedMD survey including three Chicago-area medical institutions, just under half of the 230 doctors reported using placebos in medical practice.

While the mechanism is still not entirely understood, placebos work for the vast majority of people.

“People have been looking for some personality variable that explains placebo responding for a long time and in general have been unable to do so,” Mogil said. “Pain is entirely subjective.”

Science & Technology

How far away is the male contraceptive?

by Annabelle Schofield on

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A recent clinical trial published in the Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism produced promising results for a male contraceptive injection, but was halted early due to reports of side effects.

The study, which followed 320 men and their partners, found that administering testosterone and progestogen hormones effectively prevented pregnancy in 96 per cent of users. The few pregnancies reported occurred within the first weeks of the treatment—suggesting that greater success could be achieved with an extended “suppression” phase of treatment, in which the injected hormones reduce sperm count.

The trial stopped enrolling new participants sooner than planned after many reported a number of adverse side effects, including mood disorders and acne. Professor Bernard Robaire of the McGill Departments of Pharmacology & Therapeutics and Obstetrics & Gynecology, who has carried out extensive research into male fertility, however, warns against jumping to conclusions about a trial with no placebo.

“You have to have a control group,” Robaire said. “Those men, I can guarantee you, would report a whole series of side effects. Every study that has had placebo groups has had placebo effects, anywhere between 30 and 70 per cent. So, in this way, this study design is conceptually flawed.”

He highlighted that the side effects described are difficult to quantify objectively.

“The higher libido, for example, that is a really subjective point,” Robaire said. “How do you assess whether the treatment actually caused it? Unless you did this in a double-blind manner, where neither the patient nor the investigator knew whether they were getting the drug, then to me these data have very little meaning.”

Despite the reported side effects, at the end of the study, 75 per cent of participants reported being willing to use the contraceptive, which bodes well for the future of male birth control. Although the biological principle of the study has proved effective, Robaire points out that logistical improvements must be made before the contraceptive becomes available.

“I think the concept of testosterone enhanced with something else will work as a male contraceptive,” Robaire said. “What you need is a better method of administration. What we propose, and have used, actually, are subdermal implants. In fact, they were the basis for the development of Norplant as a female contraceptive.”

A subdermal implant, like Norplant, would side-step the inconvenience of the biweekly injection used in the study.

“It’s been shown that you can put a crystalline steroid in plastic tube and it melts out of the membrane, goes into the circulation, and can last for a long time,” Robaire said. “That works very well rabbits, mice, and monkeys—the size of the tube used is about three millimeters in diameter and four centimeters in length. [For males, the subdermal implant] would have to be the size of a pencil.”

It is clear, therefore, that the realistic viability for a contraceptive implant for men depends on much needed biosynthetic advances. Development of a more bioactive analog of testosterone, for example, could make a smaller implant viable—as could improving its release rate.

Research into non-hormonal methods of birth control is also promising. Sperm cells rely on calcium for fertilization. Reduced fertility has been seen in men taking calcium channel blocking medication—sparking research into its use as a contraceptive, with encouraging results.

Another current line of research investigates the role of retinoic acid (vitamin A) in sperm cell production. Multiple studies suggest that manipulation of the breakdown and synthesis of the compound in the testis could be engineered to prevent conception, an approach currently in the animal trials stage.

So, will we see a male birth control pill in pharmacies in the next few years? Most likely not. But, for the generation conceived in its absence, it looks promising.

Murals of Montreal, Student Life

Murals of Montreal: ‘Martine,’ by Philippe Mastrocola

by Marie Labrosse on

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Anyone who has spent enough time in Montreal—especially strolling through the peaceful tree-lined streets of the Plateau Mont-Royal, or past the busy storefronts on Blvd. St-Laurent—is bound to have seen their fair share of murals. Murals are so abundant in Montreal that after living in the city for some time, they may even fade into the background. But, there’s simply no way of missing Philippe Mastrocola’s mural on Rue St-Denis. Over 20 feet high and painted in vibrant shades of pink, red, and purple, the abstract mural on the corner of Rue St-Denis and Avenue Duluth immediately catches the eye.

For the past 13 years, Montreal-based artist Mastrocola has experimented with different forms and mediums of street art. Starting with graffiti, he has since gravitated towards mural painting, and more recently, pinhole photography. Mastrocola describes his artistic progression as an entirely organic process in which he is constantly attempting to find new mediums through which to experiment with the world of street art.

Mastrocola’s creative process in painting murals follows a path of spontaneity. In the case of the Avenue Duluth mural, titled Martine after his late cousin, the wall had been recently vacated and the bricks painted red before he contacted its owners asking for permission to create a work of art on its surface. It took him seven days to paint the mural on a ladder, using a striking palette inspired by his surroundings.

“The positivity that comes from putting colour on the wall is far too often overlooked and the simplicity of it is unbelievable,” Mastrocola said. “I’ve often seen it that people are in complete awe of the transformation of a place with the simple addition of colour.”

The vibrant colours of the mural, along with its size and traffic-heavy location, have garnered recognition for Mastrocola in the Montreal community.

“[The mural on Rue St-Denis] gets the most visibility out of any of the murals that I’ve painted,” Mastrocola explained. “And [it] has definitely helped me get my foot in the door [and get recognition as an] up-and-coming Montreal artist.”

The accessibility of his murals is not only key to the evolution of the Mastrocola’s career, but is also central to his vision of art as something that should not be regulated. Mastrocola is motivated to create murals by his desire to interact with a larger public and to contribute to the accessibility of art.

“There’s such a disconnect between the types of people who go to [museums] and those who don’t,” Mastrocola said. “Art doesn’t really belong in galleries and museums. It shouldn’t be contained, but rather, out in the real world.”

Street art’s inherent visibility does, however, have its pitfalls. In being completely accessible and visible to anyone, murals are often a target for vandalism. The wall on Avenue Duluth was made available to Mastrocola because three large chrome graffitis had been painted over the mural that was previously there. In the four years since Mastrocola painted Martine, it has been tagged with the initials of other artists 45 times, requiring him to touch up his work on each occasion that it is vandalized. Mastrocola sees a profound tension between muralists—or street artists—and graffiti artists. This tension is rooted in the issue of publicity and artistic recognition.

“Graffiti automatically involves writing your name and trying to spread that name across the city on any surface available to you,” Mastrocola explained. “Graffiti artists interact among themselves and often you can’t read those interactions. Street artists, however, try to touch everybody—all ages, all genders, all races. You’re speaking with colour on a wall. It’s a universal language.”

This rivalry between graffiti artists and street artists has shaped the evolution of Mastrocola’s career, especially in the four years since the creation of his mural on Avenue Duluth. The antagonism between the two groups influences the Montreal street art scene, especially in its relation to the public nature of mural art. Street art’s basis in visibility is therefore both its founding concept and perhaps also its largest obstacle.

Ultimately Mastrocola feels that street art and its highly visible nature have a duty to fulfill. Its place in the scenery of Montreal modifies the cityscape in a way he hopes is positive.

“Street art [revolves around] the fact that you’re painting art on a façade that would otherwise remain gray,” Mastrocola said. “We live in a city, where you’re forced to see obstructions and bland surfaces. Doing something creative on those surfaces offers a break from city life and its concrete jungle.”

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Philippe Mastrocola had been experimenting with different mediums of street art for the past seven years, and that his mural, 'Martine,' stands at over 10 feet high. Mastrocola has been experiementing with different mediums of street art for the past 13 years, and his mural, 'Martine,' stands at over 20 feet high.

Commentary, Opinion

Protesting in the digital age: Online activism is not enough

by Jordan Gowling on

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On Oct. 31, 1.4 million people checked in at the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, North Dakota on Facebook, in an attempt to thwart alleged local police surveillance. This mass check-in was, for all intents and purposes, an act of online solidarity. It was executed in the hopes of aiding protesters who were at the Standing Rock fighting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline by Energy Transfer Partners, a natural gas and propane company; however, the flood of check-ins represents the perfunctory nature of digital activism in the face of growing police suppression on the frontlines of grassroots movements. Although activism conducted through social media and online forums is well intentioned and easily accessible to many, it is not enough on its own: Its participants must be informed and engaged with the issue at hand, and it must be complemented by traditional activism on the ground.

In the case of Standing Rock, this is not to say that all those Facebook users should have grabbed a flight to North Dakota; however, digital activists need to supplement their online efforts by engaging their community or university about the importance of indigenous rights, or even organizing a local protest against Energy Transfer Partners’ involvement in the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline. This is because digital activism demands less engagement, potentially resulting in less informed participants: An online activist need only reach for their laptop and click a button to feel as though they are contributing to a cause.

Furthermore, there is an underlying problem pervading much online activism: Misinformation. Digitally-promoted grassroots movements can obscure the facts behind an issue because the person that is willing to click a button is often not on the ground nor invested enough to read more about it. Kony 2012 is a primary example of digital protest gone wrong, as many online users did not realize the source of the information was fraudulent. The Kony video, produced by the Invisible Children charity organization, took the internet by storm, calling for the capture of war criminal Joseph Kony in Uganda. The disturbing part of this online call to action was that no one questioned the charity—which was criticized for its lack of accountability—or the information on Kony, and blindly donated their money. Kony 2012 exposed the dangerous side of digital activism: It can suffer from a lack of knowledge among its followers and promote hysteria.

 

 

 

Although key for organizational purposes, it does not demand that which is most important in any collective protest—an engaged individual.

The number of physically engaged and present protesters is an important variable in a protest’s ability to achieve its goals. During the 2011 protests in Egypt calling for the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak, digital platforms were used for organizational purposes; however, the protests’ most prominent impact came out of the sheer size of crowds that convened in Tahrir Square. The physical confrontations between thousands of protesters and police in Cairo streets garnered worldwide media coverage and led to the dismantling of the corrupt Mubarak government. This is what can be achieved when a group of citizens physically demonstrate, interact, and even commit civil disobedience in the society at large. If organizers and participants during the Egyptian demonstrations had limited themselves to digital platforms, the impact of their activism would have been significantly less.

While digital platforms can help reach a larger audience than would have been possible without social media, the rapid spread of awareness does not require users to be informed on and engaged with an issue. Like most trending online content, what a person clicks on one day in solidarity may be forgotten the very next. There is no requirement to follow through with online support for a cause.

Events in which the protesters inform themselves, are physically present, and talk to people in person about the given issue are more likely to have a lasting impact and encourage participants to fight for lasting changes. Digital activism is not the most impactful or knowledgeable means of creating lasting change on an issue, government, or society at large. Although key for organizational purposes, it does not demand that which is most important in any collective protest—an engaged individual. This engagement means being physically present in a public space; it means interacting with people who represent a variety of ideas, and it means being informed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jordan is a U3 History major from Gatineau, Quebec. She enjoys reading, soccer, and drinking overpriced lattes.

 

@mcgilltribop | [email protected]

 

 

 

 
Science & Technology

Global Health Night showcases the growing presence of the field at McGill

by Kate Lord on

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“Global health at McGill is on a growth spurt,” Suzanne Fortier, McGill’s principal and vice-chancellor, said in her opening remarks at Tuesday’s Global Health Night.

The annual event honours McGill’s involvement in global health arenas by celebrating students and faculty members who have made award-worthy contributions to the field in the past year. The evening began with a poster fair in which students were given the opportunity to present their research, which ranged from projects on improved cook stoves in Tibet to evaluating health care in Rwanda.

Dr. Joanne Liu, international president of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and a McGill alumna, presented the keynote lecture. As someone who has worked tirelessly at the front lines of many epidemic-ridden conflict zones, Dr. Liu provided meaningful insight to all aspiring global health workers as to what it really means to work in the field.

“It is important to stand for our principles, for what we believe,” Dr. Liu said. “It is important that at one point you draw a line. And you will have to draw your own line as you go around in this kind of world and […] see things that don’t make sense.”

Dr. Liu spoke about her time in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the middle of its 1999 civil war. She explained that the ‘humanitarian corridor’ she was working in quickly became known as the ‘humanitarian corridor of abuses.’

“That meant that every woman [in the corridor] got sexually abused,” Dr. Liu said. “I remember back then, that something had to happen [.…When] I presented [my solution to the MSF] board, their answer was, ‘This is war, Joanne; we’re [responsible for] life-saving and people don’t die from rape.’ But I did not accept that [.…] I would not accept the unacceptable.”

Despite resistance, Dr. Liu was able to develop a comprehensive package for responding to sexual violence cases—including a full medical examination, emergency contraception, wound care, and STI vaccines or preventative measures—that today is used almost universally.

The 2014 Ebola epidemic was an unprecedented and hopeless challenge for MSF, Dr. Liu explained.

“It is important to remember how unprepared we were, even though we are in the 21st century,” she said. “We can send […] people into orbit, but we [could] not care for people with a disease that was diagnosed in 1976.”

Dr. Liu concluded her address with a simple request to McGill’s future global health practitioners.

“Fight for life,” Dr. Liu said. “That’s the only rule I ask you to not break when you are going to do something in global health.”

For students interested in the future of global health at McGill, Dr. Madhukar Pai, director of McGill Global Health Programs, outlined the three goals of his strategic plan.

“First is [for] education and students,” Dr. Pai said. “The second is to support innovative global health research, and the third is [to] our international and national partnerships to further McGill’s presence, and actually become partners with other people [in the field of Global Health].”

The future for global health at McGill, according to Dr. Pai, is bright.

“[There] is a whole slew of opportunities for students to get involved in global health,” Dr. Pai said. “We have a journal called ‘Prognosis’, [about] global health, [which is] edited by our students. We started a new blog, ‘Global Health Perspectives’ [….] Our students [have our support] for whatever conferences they want to organize or host. [We offered] the first ever credited Global Health course.”

McGill is also working towards creating a School of Population and Global Health, which the Senate approved in October.

“We genuinely see that the future of Global Health Programs is within this school,” Dr. Pai said.

 
Student Life, The Tribune Tries

The Tribune tries: Reflexology

by Paige Mysliviec on

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I spent the last week prodding and poking my hands for the sake of anxiety relief, mostly due to midterms and projects that had been thrown at me. Of course, the poking and prodding has a more eloquent name: Reflexology. Reflexology is the systematic application of pressure directly to the hands, feet, and ears, with the goal of reducing anxiety and stress. I tried reflexology in order to destress and calm my anxiety.

It wouldn’t have helped my stress to take my time to search for a professional and shell out a portion of my limited funds, so I decided to become my own reflexologist. Using a how-to article on healing.about.com titled, “Ten Step Hand Reflexology Treatment,” as my guide, I began my own do-it-yourself reflexology session. 

A 2011 study published in the Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing on the effects of reflexology explored various bodily processes, including stress, in female undergraduate students. After student subjects participated  in three one-hour reflexology treatment sessions per week,  author Young-Mee Lee found a decrease in their feelings of stress and  cortisol levels—also known as the “stress hormone”—levels. 

Another study published in 2007 in Complentary Pratices in Clinical Practices charted the correlation between reflexology and anxiety, cardiovascular parameters, cortisol, and melatonin levels. The authors’ findings showed that reflexology helped those who were in a temporarily anxious state, yet did little to help those who dealt with chronic anxiety disorders.  

I timed my reflexology session strategically as a study break in the middle of a long day at the library. As per the how-to guide, I first pinched the tips of my fingers and then tugged each finger gently. Next, I massaged the inside of my wrists and palms. I made sure to knead firmly into my palm, to relieve the tension in my hand. Finally, I pressed right into the centre of my palm to centre myself. After about ten minutes, I realized I had stopped thinking about school work and was instead focused on how I felt. 

My normally cold hands felt warm as blood rushed to them. I found it easy to ignore the sounds and sights around me, focused in a moment of relief. This only lasted for a second, though. Almost too quickly, I turned back to my task at hand. My mind slipped back into its normal progression of stressful thoughts.

I repeated this activity every day for a week thereafter. The hardest part was not the massage itself, but simply stopping at any point of the day and giving myself 10 minutes to do this simple exercise.  

It was hard to remember that the whole purpose of reflexology was to feel more relaxed. It’s almost counterintuitive how easy it is to ignore self-care, especially when stressed. 

After five days of daily self-reflexology sessions, I genuinely felt better. But, could I really say that the less than an hour of my time that I put into this was really the cause of my happier mind? 

Unfortunately, I found the 2007 study’s conclusion to be more relevant than the 2011 study. The stress and anxiety relief I felt from self-reflexology treatments were fleeting, and I knew that these negative feelings would return within the hour. 

Overall, I found that reflexology is ideal for situations where I’m overwhelmed by long lists of tasks and impending due dates. This technique forces one to stop and focus on something other than schoolwork for 10 minutes. Essentially, it gives my mind a break, as if all the energy that’s been constantly rushing to my frantic brain is redirecting itself through my arms, to my palms, and finally to my fingertips. It doesn’t cure chronic stress, but sometimes 10 minutes of relief is all one needs.  

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