As a student attending UW, I often have the chance to see firsthand the way in which university students and permanent residents of Waterloo interact and react to one another. Recently, there has been an increase in media attention from both local and regional media outlets (Imprint, The Record, Waterloo Chronicle) concerning the student-dominated residential district known as Northdale, located near the core of Uptown Waterloo. This neighbourhood houses both students from the University of Waterloo and Wilfred Laurier University, as well as permanent residents. The primary focus of the media attention has been on the disregard demonstrated by various individuals—collectively labelled as “students”—towards properties and permanent residents in the area. Incidents ranging from public urination and excessively loud parties to acts of property destruction by the student body residing there have led to the repeated use of the term “student ghetto” to describe this residential area bordered by Columbia and University and bound by King and Lester.

Naturally, the use of the particular phrase “student ghetto” by media outlets and neighbourhood coalitions is worth examining, as this terminology negatively affects public opinion and popular perceptions of student tenants in a significant way. To start from the beginning, major problems arose when the phrase “student ghetto” was originally used by residents of the Northdale neighbourhood at a Waterloo city council meeting, only to be picked up by local media outlets in April 2008, leading to the phrase being used in an article published on the subject soon afterward. The phrase was used in the newspaper’s headlines* to describe the events of the city council meeting the previous evening: “Student Ghetto’ Pleas Rejected by Council.” Consequently, because the word “ghetto” is weighed down with derogatory historical, social and ideological significance, the term quickly awakened negative stereotypes regarding the Northdale community in the KW region.

Undoubtedly, the connotative meanings associated with the word ‘ghetto’ that prompted this issue stem from the miserable conditions of 16th century ghettos in European cities and the ghettos in Europe prior to and during the Second World War as well as contemporary ghettos in concentrated urban centres around the world. The word conjures up images of poverty, marginalization, and substandard living conditions in people’s minds, along with the idea that residents living in ghettos are usually constrained by their socioeconomic status and lack the financial resources necessary to leave the ghetto for a more affluent neighbourhood.

However, because university students are typically associated with weekend debauchery, lower income housing, and unpredictability—as the transitory nature of student life is marked by temporary leases and frequent changes in residence (especially for those students enrolled in Co-op programs)—attributing the word ‘ghetto’ to their lifestyle and living quarters does not seem overtly misleading, connotative baggage and all.  But, as a result of this stereotypical labelling of their habits, students often feel isolated from permanent residents of the neighbourhood, who in turn react with hostility to the lack of concern demonstrated by seemingly unaffected student tenants.

With this cycle of hostility in mind, it becomes clear that the term “student ghetto” is being used in a divisive manner, as it has created this very situation in Northdale itself. The term perpetuates negative perceptions of the targeted group (in this case, the student body) and encourages the development of an Us/Them mentality in the neighbourhood, with students pitted against their local residents and neighbourhood coalitions. A more accommodating term would recognize the inherent complexities of the issue, along with the challenges involved in tackling these problems for everyone in the Northdale community. These problems include substandard student housing, absentee landlords, the potential for re-zoning sections of the neighbourhood for further development, and most importantly, the need for better communication and improved interpersonal relations between permanent residents and student tenants living in the Northdale neighbourhood.

* The Record, April 08.08.

Last week, I watched David Letterman feast. Coming back from a commercial break, which followed a monologue jam-packed with digs at his now fledgling, former rival Jay Leno, he beamed like a kid who just got a new puppy. “You know folks,” he said, through a mischievous grin, “there’s nothing more satisfying than watching someone else screw up.” Letterman followed that quip with a quote from his friend Martin Mull, perfectly capturing an attitude he’s veiled, however thinly, for the past 25 years: “Show business is just high school with money.”

As a Letterman fan since Grade 10, I couldn’t help but beam myself. This was late night redemption. After his confession, months ago, of extra-marital affairs with co-workers, Letterman simply hadn’t been the same. Where he used to stand idly by while air-headed celebrities hung themselves with their own stupidity, he was now forced to accommodate them. Where his absurdist sketches used to branch off his acerbic sense of humour, he now seemed like he was simply going through the motions. I’ve never been one to let my favourite artists’ personal lives get in the way of what I think of their work, but I have to say, it felt like something was missing, knowing Letterman wasn’t being himself.

But now, I’m proud to say, he’s got his comedic swagger back and, in some odd twist of fate, it’s Jay Leno that I have to thank. After Leno’s abysmal new talk show clearly tanked at 10:00pm, NBC execs planned to reschedule it and return Leno to his former 11:35pm slot, forcing their flagship, the Tonight Show, into a 12:05am time slot (in spite of being called The Tonight Show, and not The Early Tomorrow Show), but host Conan O’Brien refused to move with the show. With NBC in a stalemate and hemorrhaging ratings, Letterman’s the only game in town.

Is anyone else basking in the profound poetic justice right now? NBC, after all, is the network that first gave Letterman his Late Night show following his friend and mentor Johnny Carson. But when Carson left the Tonight Show, the hosting duties were handed over to Leno instead of the rightful heir, Letterman. Knowing Carson would have chosen Letterman to follow in his tracks (something Carson would publicly admit later in his life), Letterman jumped ship to rival network CBS to start the Late Show.

The rest is history. The early nineties’ late night talk show wars between Leno’s Tonight Show and Letterman’s Late Show were fought nobly for several years, but the end result was inevitable. American audiences raised on loyalty sided with the Tonight Show and the comedically inferior Leno, rather than the still edgy turncoat David Letterman. For the next decade and a half the Late Show produced infinitely funnier, more provocative television, while Leno stayed at number one.

And now here we are: the backstabbers at NBC are stuck in a financial catastrophe brought on because they no longer know what to do with Leno, the wrong man to back from the beginning. And who reaps the benefits? Letterman. In spades. Regardless of what you think of him, it’s nearly undeniable that he deserves the upper hand. How many classic moments in television has he provided since manning the Late Show?  Off the top of my head: his fearless interview with a belligerent Madonna; his somber, dignified return to the show days after 9/11; and, most recently, his shockingly personal on-air confession. And those are just the consensus picks. Leno, on the other hand, mustered out the Dancing Itos and headline typos. Justice is served.

I have been a member of Sound FM, and its predecessor CKMS, for four years.

During my first year very few people had heard of the station. It had a few fans, but most students seemed to feel that it had no relevance to their lives. Most people, other than musicians, were indifferent to the station and couldn’t understand why I would bother contributing my time and energy to it.

A few people were downright hostile about having a station.  Looking back now, I see that these people really benefited the station. Those of us that believed the University of Waterloo deserved to have its own radio station began speaking with students and opponents to see how we could improve to better meet the needs of our community. Some change occurred as a result, but we also learned that we were doing things that interested people.

We just hadn’t marketed ourselves. I began inviting naysayers onto my show, or suggesting that they download my podcast. We started to get clubs and university organizations to use the station to promote events and causes.  The energy at the station changed; the dark clouds began to lift.

More and more people began to tell me that they listened, that they wanted to volunteer, that they’d heard my podcast, or seen me at a show. Soon I was being thanked for my efforts to create a new station that reflected student views and played music that was different than the top 40 heard on other stations. More students signed up, more students listened, and the station began to be seen as the positive entity I always knew it could be.

Even more excitingly I began to have people ask me questions, airing legitimate concerns. “Why can’t you play all top 40?”: our license says we can only have a 10% hit factor on our airways, meaning that my show and any other show can only have a maximum of 10% Billboard hits, including oldies hits. “Why do we need to have community broadcasters?”: it’s part of our license; without them, we’d lose it. If we lost our license, we couldn’t get it back. KW is a highly competitive radio market and the frequency would be put on the market, and it would be incredibly unlikely that we’d get it again. Plus, we like them. “I don’t have a radio, can I still listen?”: yes, at www.soundfm.ca, and also on Rogers Cable 946.

We still have people who don’t want the University of Waterloo to be heard over the airwaves, but more students want to participate and shape Sound FM to meet students’ ever-changing needs.  Sound FM uses new technology, it promotes art, and it provides an outlet for students to discuss issues, connecting the university and the community and unifying the student voice.

Waterloo, this letter is intended as a thank you. I appreciate that people are willing to give us a chance to change their minds, to get them to tune in and listen to the radio, to embrace the station as a positive and unique part of the University of Waterloo.

I love the studio; I love getting song requests and hoping deep down that the song I just put on made you dance. I am proud of Sound FM and the part I’ve played in it. I believe that my actions unite the campus rather than divide it. I hope that my music can make you dance and make you realize that Canadians make great art. I want the conversations that make you think.

As I graduate this year, I will always hold my radio experience dear in my heart and know that its existence enriched my life and that of many others. Thank you for opening your ears.

Please remember to vote in the referendum, at http://vote.feds.ca/.

You can hear Cole Atlin on Sound FM at 9:30am every Thursday morning immediately after the Boar Coffeeshop Podcast. You can also hear her on demand by downloading her podcast, “Double Punch,” on iTunes, or through your favourite podcast directory.

The free-market economy is a wonderful idea. Free of any outside interference, the truly free market serves to deliver the best quality goods to the most consumers at the lowest price. As demand for something increases, price does as well, and as supply increases the cost is lowered. Competition between different businesses keeps prices low as no-one wants to charge more than a competitor. The invisible hand (a term coined by Adam Smith in relation to foreign vs. domestic investment, but which has since expanded to mean, at least colloquially, the ensemble of the forces responsible for market behaviour) deals with bubbles and busts, correcting the market when it gets too far away from the expected norm.

In a market system, workers are paid what their labour is worth (based on how much employers feel their employees deserve and what they are willing to pay), everyone has access to education, health care, and housing – everyone needs these things therefore they couldn’t possibly be priced beyond the reach of the general population. The government is virtually non-existent, as welfare is no longer necessary (keep in mind that if there is demand for private charities to help the poor, they will necessarily appear). What possible reason would we have to not adopt this system and dismantle all government regulation allowing the market to operate without interference?

The cost of an item represents its monetary value and costs, but nothing of its human, ecological, or social costs.

The free-market economy makes several assumptions which are clearly untrue. First of all, it assumes that all consumers everywhere have access to full and accurate information about the companies they conduct business with and about the products they buy. If you know that company “A” practises slave-labour in the creation of their products, or that company “B” funds violent insurrections in Central American countries, you would hopefully avoid those products. However, while information about such corporate scandals is unearthed periodically, it doesn’t stop people from buying from these companies. Why?

The cost of an item represents its monetary value and costs, but nothing of its human, ecological, or social costs. If something is cheap, people will buy it – a low number with a dollar sign helps us ignore many of the other costs. It’s absurd to ask how much you would pay to make a new friend, hear a story of a faraway place, or watch a sunset. Is it not also absurd to ask how much you would pay to make sure you, your children, and your grandchildren have a clean environment to grow up in, well-funded schools, clean water, comfortable shelter, and nourishing food? Does not every person deserve these things regardless of money? Should not human dignity come first? If you agree it should, and agree that human dignity is cannot be purchased or sold for any price, then you are opposed to a free-market system.

The second assumption made by the free market is that people are ‘rational actors’, i.e. that they will behave in predictable ways in their own self-interest. This, frankly, is insane. Let me use the illustration of smoking: written on every packet of cigarettes in enormous letters is a series of warnings, all variations on the theme of ‘smoking will probably kill you.’ The science behind these warnings are beyond question. One in two long-term smokers will die from a smoking-related illness and that once you start smoking it becomes increasingly difficult to stop. If people were rational actors, would anyone take that risk? Surely not. It’s Russian roulette with a half-filled chamber. If people were rational actors, would visible minorities and women make lower wages on average than white men? Surely not, they would never stand for it. If people were rational actors behaving in their own self-interest, would anyone dedicate their lives to theatre, dance, visual arts, music, literature, history, or any of the other domains which have contributed so much to the rich and diverse tapestry of human experience, knowing it paid poorly? Certainly not, because money, as we all know, makes the world go ‘round, so why waste time with the arts?

Not only is the idea of the rational actor absurd, it’s undesirable. What is in one person’s monetary interest is often not in the interest of the third world farmers and labourers who provide cheap food and consumer goods to first world countries. It is in the rational interest of the first world to keep the third world from improving labour conditions or wages, to prevent them from consuming the same about of resources per person as the first world (because there aren’t enough) and many other things which would improve the quality of life of literally billions of people worldwide. It is too easy to ignore the struggles of these people when making economic choices, because it is easy to forget that we are making a moral choice everytime we choose to “Save Big” or “Roll Back Prices.” Making moral choices requires you to behave morally, not rationally, following the great golden rule of virtually every religious and ideological system proposed – do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

The third great assumption of the free-market is that everyone starts in a position of equal opportunity. This assumption is so false it is ludicrous, but let’s deal with it briefly. Different people make different salaries; therefore, different people’s children will have different amounts of money growing up. You know how people talk about the rising gap between rich and poor? That the rich get richer and the poor get poorer? Well as that gap increases for the parents, so does it for the children. Children with wealthy parents can spend less time working and more time networking and they can be exposed to a richer diversity of cultural and educational activities. This leg up allows them to go out into the working world more prepared than their peers, helping them to succeed. Their children will be richer and theirs richer still. Keep this going for ten generations, let each preceding generation use their gifts to help the following one, and you end up with a system in which some children are born into families in which they virtually cannot fail socioeconomically (especially if the family is wealthy enough that the child has no real financial need to work), and some are born into families in which they will have to break their backs every day of their lives simply to support themselves and their children.

Equality of opportunity needs to be central to a moral economy. Education, housing, medicine, food, water, electricity; these are basic things that no one should go without. No parent should ever have to decide whether to have a prescription filled or have heating in January. No parent should have to wonder where their child’s next meal is coming from. No parent should fear that their child is getting a sub-standard education because of the neighbourhood they live in, the people they know, or the size of their paycheque. This isn’t just a problem for thousands of Canadians. These dilemas can be seen across advanced nations and would be considered lavish by the billions living destitute in the third world. What can be done?

We need to reconsider our economic behaviour. I mentioned above that we don’t have enough resources for everyone to enjoy a first world standard of living. Thus, there are only two solutions to this problem. The first, which I reject entirely, is the market’s notion that those who can afford the high life can, rationally, enjoy it. The second, which I support, is the balancing of our moral and rational concerns so that everyone on this planet can exist with dignity and with all of their basic needs fulfilled. We need to close the gap, and because not everyone can consume like we do, we need to consume far, far less. We need to get our groceries seasonally and locally, like we did for thousands of years until the advent of global transportation and refrigeration. We need to get our electricity from renewable sources that don’t degrade the environment until it reaches the breaking point and can no longer support us. We need to pollute less and recycle everything – if it can’t be reused it shouldn’t be made. We need new ways of living together whereby we share environmental and social costs equally (we are, after all, equally part of the same social and environmental system) among ourselves.

Most importantly, we need to do this quickly. Never before has the world seen so many international and global crises overlap so heavily. Simultaneously, the global environment and economy are collapsing, resources are being depleted, and the people in charge of our countries and businesses are working out the best way to turn these crises into political and financial gains.

Can anyone guess the real advantage of a world in which we defend our environment, in which we behave morally and justly in our economic actions, and in which we make sure that all people have access to everything they need to live a dignified life filled with opportunity and free from economic despair? Well, I’d argue that the question answers itself.

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What do you think? Do economic practices of first world nations need a moral check-up or is the exploitation of global resources (human and otherwise) a cornerstone of the capitalist system that is central to the function of these nations? Fill in your comments below.

One of the most tragic blights of contemporary urban architecture upon our fair university was the manifestation of Brutalism. Like a medieval cathedral devoid of every last detail of magnificence, Brutalist architecture stands like a sentinel of early post-modern thought scoured of nearly all traces of humanity. After WWII, Brutalism was conceived in response to Britain and Europe’s desperately strapped economies. Its extensive use of concrete was both cheap and believed to be aesthetically pleasing as simple, sculptural, and even anti-bourgeois. You need not look far around Waterloo campus to experience first-hand the progeny of Brutalism. In fact, our campus is full of examples ranging from the ultra-brutale Math and Computer Science building to the ever-perplexing PAS fortress.

You need not look far around Waterloo campus to experience first-hand the progeny of Brutalism

Unfortunately for Waterloo patrons, many of the campus’s buildings were constructed if not during the hey-day of Brutalism, then in the wake of its after-shocks during the 1960s and 70s. Taking a stroll through Math and CS’s home, it is easy to feel the effects of such architecture even if you’re not particularly mindful of the surroundings. Through its small, uninviting doors and up one flight of narrow, dimly lit stairs, even the spatially inept feel more like a byte traveling through its pre-ordained algorithm than the free thinking, semi-autonomous individual our educators strive to create. Once inside the fortress, the sense of guided direction fails and an experience which recalls lurking through the dungeon’s of Wolfenstein.

Stepping foot into the PAS (Psychology, Anthropology, and Sociology) building will situate yourself inside the mentality of Brutalist architecture. The interior seems purposely designed to feel less human, forcing you walk down dimly-lit, narrow passages in a maze of hallways. The lack of windows to the outside world further disorients your perception. Then, in the middle of it all, you come to a mish-mash of stair cases, concrete slabs, and unidirectional pathways that seem to ask “which one will you take?”  Of course, your decision would be much simpler if you had an idea where you were.

The final structure I’d like to touch on is the recently re-vamped monolith known as the Dana Porter library. First off the cuff, DP reminds me of the Borg cube from Star Trek, not a space for the creation of independent thought. Perhaps there is a striking metaphor to be found here – but just forget it. From any floor above Main, you can enjoy a view through one of the undeniably narrow slits that pass as windows. Again, I’m not sure what the architects were trying to convey here if not an irony through limited perspective within a building which, presumably, is intended to expand our perspectives. Although the upper floors could still benefit from a do-over, if you have been even minutely involved in your studies you will have noticed that the first floor of DP has been recently renovated.  With marked improvement to the use of space, the architects got something right. The wider, open-concept of the new lobby is inviting and, because nearly all amenities are in plain sight lines, it provides a sense of personal autonomy, allowing you to make the decision as to where you want to go instead of feeling like you’re being herded somewhere.

For all of its depressing, bland, and seeming ubiquity on Waterloo’s campus, Brutalism is hopefully behind us. With the construction of a new Accounting building (next to Hagey Hall) and the new Quantum Nano Centre, perhaps the University of Waterloo has shown promise by hiring architects who are concerned with the people inside their buildings and not just architectural trends.

Here’s a few potential topics for anyone looking for something to write about:

1. How are the protests in Iran important to the rest of the world? What led to them from a historical context? Should the rest of the world do more? Why has Russia accepted the disputed results? Has Obama reacted properly to the situation?
2. Is it right for a Manitoban couple to lose custody of their children for raising them to hate minorities or does it create too dangerous a precedent?
3. Is the Conservative bill that gives police easier access to internet information, like subscriber details, intercepting and tracking messages, and freezing service providers’ hard drives to prevent subscribers from deleting potential evidence, a breach of privacy or something only offenders have to worry about?
4. Should Goodyear be forced to resign for asking a grant committee to look into an Israel/Palestine conference at the request of several people who have expressed concern?
5. Do you feel the Canadian/US border should be patrolled by drones?
6. With the recent attempt by the Conservatives to hide war costs, do you feel government transparency is becoming endangered?
7. Should city workers be striking in a recession?
8. Do Jim Balsillie’s dreams of bringing a hockey team to Ontario come at too great a cost to taxpayers?
9. Is it a good idea for the government to write off isotope production in Canada?
10. Why has the Swiss government ordered the destruction of evidence in the case of three Swiss engineers connected to nuclear arms smuggling and what should be done about it?

Despite years of multiculturalism, freedom of thought and expression, and enough satire floating around to desensitize us to a whole slue of issues, we are still offended by other people’s opinions. When I first heard that there were buses in London with the phrase “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life,” my first thought was that they wanted to create some controversy. After all, it’s been a while since we’ve had a real religious fiasco. Then I read a little bit more; I’m still right, but I did learn there’s a bit more to the story.

 

Turns out the whole thing started when Ariane Sherine wrote an article in the Guardian, a British newspaper, about bus ads displaying “When the son of man comes, will he find faith on the earth,” a passage from Luke 18:8. It also included a link to jesussaid.org, which she sums up as a “warning for anyone who doesn’t ‘accept the word of Jesus on the cross’”. Sherine then laid out an argument against public ads that do not provide evidence. Carlson, in her example, is required to say “probably the best lager in the world” in order to avoid litigation. Religious organizations, on the other hand, are allowed to threaten you with eternal damnation with only their personal beliefs to back up a much more controversial claim. To Sherine, this is an unfair double standard. So she came to the conclusion that if 4,680 atheists donated five pounds each, they could put the aforementioned phrase on buses in order to get the atheist point of view some exposure as well. And since it had the qualifier ‘probably’, it would meet advertising standards.

 

To her surprise, and the folks who created the religious ads, people did just that. According to the BBC, the British Humanist association (BHA) raised nearly 140, 000 pounds in one week. So the BHA decided to expand to other cities in the UK as well as extend the project. Soon, the ads spread to other cities like Barcelona, Ottawa, and Washington D.C.  Naturally, this led to some public unrest, preventing the ad campaign from running in Australia for example.

 

Unlike most people, I have no idea where to stand on this issue (which includes the don’t-care side). In my opinion, if one religion gets to make no pressure conversion attempts on wheels, then all peaceful religions and philosophies should be given the same right. However, the whole thing started from one person’s skewed perspective of a website. Jesussaid.org explains the basic belief in Jesus and yes, it does say that if you don’t believe you will be damned. But what ultra-conservative religious denomination doesn’t? Come to think of it, some of the moderate denominations say the same.

 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not defending the guys at Jesussaid, but this does seem a bit of an excessive response for what one denomination did. Plus, it is kind of a one sided attack since it focuses on the Christian conception of God. I know, you’d think people would be able to make the leap from God to who they worship, but they don’t. So, if you’re going to state your beliefs, make it clear where you stand and let them know there’s probably no Allah, Buddha, Brahma, Vahiguru, Odin, or what have you either. And if you’re worried about the backlash from other religions, why are you running these ads in the first place?   

 

Now that I’m done with the atheists, why is religion on the side of a bus anyway? If the atheists should have realized their message would offend, then the Christians (Jesussaid doesn’t say which denomination sponsored the original ads) should have as well. I can understand their desire to shore up their numbers, but bus ads? Seriously? What about actually showing compassion to others like Jesus preached or recognizing Christianity is one of many paths to God to exemplify tolerance? Maybe get involved with youth who no longer have the attention span to sit through mass. You know, something proactive instead of ineffective and possibly offensive advertisements.

 

And why were either of these ads even allowed if they can be seen as offensive by the public? You can’t get mad at a group for something they were allowed to do. If you don’t want to run the risk of being converted on the streets, maybe you should get such ads banned instead of protesting their message (you know, because we believe in freedom of thought). That way, no one can get their knickers in a knot over “offensive” beliefs made public but still allows everyone to advertise events. It might be a flick to freedom of speech, but I believe letting people know about things like Christmas pageants or discussions entitled “Pork: Unclean or Delicious?” are more likely to appeal to pedestrians more than telling them they’ll either be going to hell or cease to exist.

 

Well, looks like I found my stance. Thank you atheists, you made your point. Now lets put away our buses for good and leave conversion to awareness programs and Wikipedia.

“And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces to those who are huddled around radios in forgotten corners of the world, our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand. To those — to those who would tear the world down: we will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security: we support you. And to all those who have wondered if America’s beacon still burns as bright: tonight we have proved more than once that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals – democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope.”
— Barack Obama, November 4, 2008

History has yet to decide which of Barack Obama’s words from his landmark acceptance speech as the first African American president of the United States will become as deeply ingrained in the American psyche as John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s line from his 1961 inauguration address: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” For me, however, the above excerpt best epitomizes what Obama’s election on November 4, 2008 truly embodies: American democracy at its finest, as beacon of hope to the furthest corners of the world.
Obama’s election was surely historic, and it captured the attention of the world as tightly as it held the American populace to their television screens over the past 2 years. The Canadian public, and much of the world, was equally as captivating — with American election coverage often trumping our own on the evening news, much to the chagrin of many Canadian media pundits. However, this doesn’t seem so odd when one takes into account that Obama’s election was not only momentous for the United States of America but for the whole world. After eight years of the worst kind of American hegemony, America declared a need for change, and the world heaved a sigh of relief.
The question remains, however, as to why the world was so captivated by this election, by this candidate, and by this moment in history. Obama drew crowds in the hundreds of thousands in Berlin before he was even the Democratic party’s official nominee. He captured the attention of the world from the outset, and we were captivated by his words, his message of hope, and the possibility he embodied. But why do we care? Why was it the world and not just America glued to radios, televisions, and computer screens on that fateful night?
The answer lies in the American role in the evolution and spread of democracy throughout much of the Western World. Democracy in its crudest forms found life in the Greek acropolis, but the Declaration of Independence formed the basis of Western democratic rhetoric for most of modern history. After the Americans declared a government “For the people, by the people, and of the people” in 1774, much of the west soon followed suit. The French “Equality, liberty, and fraternity” was modelled after the American ideal, and Benjamin Franklin was involved in the drafting of their first Republic. After democratic revolutions on the continent and in their own colonies, Britain too soon followed with democratic reforms. And while it took time, Napolean, and two World Wars for the majority of Western nations to fully embrace democracy, the American ideal was always there, shining like a lighthouse and guiding nations into the safety, security, and equality of its harbour.
American has long stood for hope, opportunity, and change, all qualities Obama at least purported to embody. From Sir Walter Rayleigh to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s pipe dream of a “pantocracy” on the continent, the Old World has often looked to the New for the chance to evolve, grow, and attain the utopian ideal set forth centuries ago. We care about America because he’s like our big brother: he’s always done it first, and we are left to follow in his footsteps. And while we may not always choose to follow his path, we are just as equally tied to his fate. When he stumbles, its just too big not to shake even the smallest of nations. As Canadians, we are especially susceptible to the American Dream, in all its positivity and perversity. While that dream has been lost, and its utopia buried under an industrialized war machine, a corrupt government, and a deeply inequitable capitalist system, the hope that American democracy embodies still permeates the collective unconscious.
On election night, I found myself dissolved to tears, and all I could ask myself was why? Why does this man, who is not even my president, move me so deeply? The answer lies in the fact that though it’s not our country, not our president, not even our national ideals, America does, always has, and always will, represent the most enduring form of democracy. It may not have always been so in practice, but in writ, and in the hearts and minds of its people and the people who strive to be like it, America stands as that beacon of hope. For centuries, people have flocked to this continent to seek change from the Old World and search out something new, and it’s for this reason that American principles can ring so true in the ear of anyone who truly believes in democracy. The Greeks might have invented it, but the American struggle has embodied it. From emancipation to women’s suffrage to the civil rights movement, the path to the American utopia has not been easy, but maybe the time is at hand. Maybe America will reach its promised land and take the rest of us with it, trailing in his footsteps like a good little brother should. Because we can strive to be our own paradise as long as we want, but as long as there’s an elephant sleeping beneath us, there will be no rest for the weary while it’s still in tumult. Obama represents this long-awaited respite and the re-ignition of a long-dead guiding light, and the world is waiting to see if America will once again welcome the world into the safety of its harbour.

On November 4, 2008,  Barack Obama marked the occasion of his election to the Presidency by delivering, curiously, perhaps the most sober speech of his political career. In it, he explicitly reached out to those Americans who hadn’t voted for him: “I need your help,” he said, “and I will be your president too.”  Obama’s conciliatory tone may have been surprising given his decisive victory, but it shouldn’t have been unfamiliar. In fact, you may have heard it first from the mouth of one Senator John McCain. Not recently, sadly, but long ago, during the 2000 Republican primaries—before he sold his political soul.

That 2000 Republican Presidential Primary season has, in the years since, evolved into political legend—owing in part, doubtlessly, to essayist David Foster Wallace, whose “Up, Simba”  followed John McCain in the wake of an early primary season surprise. McCain had defeated George W. Bush in the New Hampshire primary, and he did it by riding the wave of the then-highest youth voter turnout in US history — “nearly,” Wallace writes, “wip[ing] the smirk off Bush2’s face.”

McCain entered those primaries the underdog, the odds stacked in favour of Bush, pick of the GOP Establishment,  against whom he’d had neither the money nor the pedigree to really compete. What McCain did have, though, was an appeal that went beyond ideology: a commitment to honour and service, dedication to raising the discourse of politics. He spoke out adamantly against special interests and condemned both parties. He promised in each speech that he would “[A]lways. Tell. The truth.”

John McCain appealed to the disenfranchised, to Democrats and Independents, and young voters; to those beat down by the system—“his sympathy,” commentator David Brooks says, “with the striving immigrant and his disgust with the colluding corporatist.”

He was, Wallace theorized, “an anticandidate.”

And he was ultimately crushed. The story, in truncated form:  in the run-up to the next primary, Bush violates a handshake agreement  and goes negative. He distorts McCain’s policy positions. “Anonymous”  push polls suggest he has fathered an illegitimate black child.  So McCain returns fire with his own negative ads, at which point Bush turns around and accuses McCain of being the one who’s violated their gentlemens’ agreement. And in responding, in being dragged down into a senseless back-and-forth, McCain—who, until New Hampshire had had nothing to lose, and so could tell the truth and maybe actually inspire something greater than indifference and apathy—becomes another product of the dysfunctional Washington he speaks out against.

This is all Bush needs. Disaffected voters stay home. The GOP faithful crown Bush2. You know how it ends.

This is the story that endeared McCain to moderate and liberal audiences. Of the man that wanted to run a campaign his daughter could be proud of.  Who told voters in 2000 that he wouldn’t spend the surplus on tax cuts that “mostly benefit the wealthy.”  Who even, in an extraordinary bit of political seppuku, labelled evangelists like Jerry Falwell, “agents of intolerance.”

John McCain became everyone’s favourite Republican.

So what happened in 2008? How did the most respectable figure of the American Right become so unrecognizable? And why, moreover, does the story of McCain’s abortive 2000 run sound so familiar?

Wallace, for his part, saw all this coming, even nine years ago. He envisioned McCain, in the days after the 2000 New Hampshire Primary, made aware quite suddenly that there was now something to win, or to lose—becoming “increasingly opaque and paradoxical… [I]ndistinguishable as an entity from the Shrub and the GOP Establishment against which he’d defined himself.”

In 2008, the GOP selected ‘John McCain the anticandidate’ as their nominee for president, even though John McCain had by then ceased to be the anticandidate. He had become—or was trying to represent himself as—the ideological equivalent of his competitors. Opaque. Indistinguishable. Asked in a 2007 debate, for example, whether he believed in evolution, McCain seemed dumbstruck by the silliness of the question and responded in the affirmative. When many of the other candidates reported they didn’t, the senator back-pedalled to exalt “the hand of God” in shaping the Grand Canyon . It was all part of an ‘if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em’ philosophy that undermined his very reputation.

But it worked—sort of. John McCain became the party’s nominee, but not because primary voters bought his shtick; it was because they remembered the myth of the ‘maverick’ Arizona senator. Indeed, exit polling indicated his victory in the 2008 New Hampshire primary came on the strength of those “dissatisfied” or “angry” with George W. Bush.

Still, I suspect it wasn’t even that primary voters really liked the rebel McCain—it was simply that, in the political climate of 2008, Republicans understood he was the only chance they had. John McCain would—paradoxically—restore the Republican brand that his ‘maverick’ reputation was implicitly campaigning against.

Campaign manager Rick Davis said in September that “the worst scenario for Obama is if he winds up running against the McCain of 2000.”  Yet even in a campaign as poorly run as McCain’s was, someone must have realized that—after his sharp rightward list throughout the primaries—any such scenario was impossible. Simultaneously identifying and contrasting one’s self with a brand as badly tarnished as Republicanism requires a degree of cognitive dissonance which not even America’s values voters can navigate. Doing so while running a prototypically Rovian negative campaign borders on incomprehensibility.

What makes this doubly interesting is the answer to the other question raised earlier: if the story of McCain 2000 sounds familiar, it should. Because the whole scenario repeated itself in 2008, almost note-for-note with Obama. An upstart, like McCain before him, who recognized chronic Washington dysfunction, Senator Obama was candid, thoughtful, and honourable. A candidate that spoke eloquently of post-partisanship, who reached out to moderates and non-voters.

Obama denounced the influence of lobbyists, just as McCain had denounced soft money and bundled donations . He advocated reconciliation in a time of political divisiveness. He was the dark horse against Hillary Clinton—acknowledged establishment candidate and prohibitive favourite.

Never forget that in 2006 pundit Bill Kristol predicted Obama wouldn’t win a single primary.

Except he did win, in a way McCain couldn’t. Obama spent money wisely  even as he out-raised his primary opponents;  he built a grassroots organization that took in hundreds of millions of dollars, even with an average donation of just $86.  He remained relentlessly positive in the face of Clinton’s negative turn, and his rallying cry—“Yes We Can”—was emblematic of the same American exceptionalism celebrated by John McCain in 2000.

In fact, Wallace’s essay reads today—party affiliation inverted—eerily like a primer on the Obama campaign, describing a politician who “actually seemed to talk to you like you were a person, an intelligent adult worthy of respect,”   who wanted to excite and inspire people, “pulling more voters in, especially those who’d stopped voting because they’d gotten so disgusted and bored with all the negativity and bullshit of politics.”  A candidate trying “to inspire young Americans to devote themselves to causes greater than their own self-interest.”

Obama limped to the finish against Clinton, maybe, but he demonstrated a viable path to nomination even for conciliators and outsiders and reformers. McCain might have followed a similar route. Instead, he tried to jump the queue.

If John McCain looks angry, it’s because he is angry, and in a sense he should be: he made the classic Faustian bargain, selling his soul for a shot at the Oval Office. He got that shot, but it came with the kind of cruel contractual fine-print for which the Devil is known—a showdown against himself, between John McCain-2008 and the Ghost of John McCain Past.

-with files from Barack Obama’s victory speech on Nov. 4, 2008; David Foster Wallace’s “Up, Simba” in Consider the Lobster :and other Essays; David Brooks’ “Ceding the Center” in The New York Times; Ann Banks’ “Dirty Tricks, South Carloina and John McCain” in The Nation; Richard A. Davis’ “The Anatomy of the Smear Campaign” in The Boston Globe; Richard A. Davis’ “The Making (and Remaking) of McCain” in The New York Times; Walter Shapiro’s “How John McCain Fought Against Himself” on Salon.com; Katharine Q. Seelye’s “A Scrappy Fighter, McCain Honed His Debating Style In and Out of Politics” in The New York Times; Jonathan D. Salant’s “Obama Leveraged Record Fundraising, Spending to Defeat Rivals” in Bloomberg; and msnbc news services’ “Obama Raises $150 Million in September” on msnbc.msn.com.

Graphic By Peter Trinh

In our last issue, we wanted to combine a participatory art project with our vision of re-creating famous artworks for each cover of The Boar. The result was the paint splattered Pollock re-make that — hopefully — bedecked coffee tables across the faculty.

This issue, we wanted to continue along the same lines and create an homage to a different artist with our cover. After tossing around ideas ranging from Monet to Modrian, we realized that this time we needed to get an actual artist involved. Digital Arts Communications and Fine Arts major Kirsten Marincic graciously took up the challenge, and the result was the reinterpretation of Matisse’s “The Joy of Life” on this issue’s cover. To complement our cover story on gender norms and sex, this piece not only captures the vivacity of “The Joy of Life,” but it demonstrates how digital art projects that manipulate traditional mediums can create something innovative, inspired, and meaningful.