Day Fourteen — The final push

Even from a distance, you can never miss David Basu Roy's boots

As I re-read it at 4:17 this morning, I’ve realized that this particular edition of Blog the Vote is rather ranty. Fair warning — thin-skinned individuals should tread carefully.

But you can excuse me — we’re all getting to the ends of our respective leashes, aren’t we?

Maybe it would be different if there were more candidates or a more uncertain race, but this whole thing has just gotten so tedious the last few days. Even when talking to the candidates, they’ve all told me in one way or another that they’d like to pull off one last campaign stunt before the voting period but that they just can’t find the motivation.

Assuming they’re being truthful, I just can’t blame them. Anyone who is going to care about this thing has already gotten involved in some fashion. The rest are tuning it out and getting on with their lives. So why bother doing anything dramatic when you can simply do a traditional push on Monday and rally the troops you have.

And that’s not to say the candidates are getting lazy. No, quite the contrary.

Props to Andrew Forgione — or one of his 17 campaign managers — for keeping his blog updated. Respect to Omid Salari for frequently commenting on this blog and engaging voters through nontraditional forums. Big ups to David Basu Roy for not only making regular appearances at Rick McGhie’s but staying late as well, engaging voters until the bitter end.

No, this is just to say that the campaign has taken on a different form in the last few days. A less flashy, showy, gimmicky form. Instead it’s a more grounded, realistic, laid back form. And it’s that trend that truly endears me to these three. They’re not egomaniacs. They’re good people and they know how to read the campus climate.

So on this the final day before voting begins — the final push as they call it — don’t look for anything too surprising.

Wouldn’t be a Blog the Vote entry without hatin’ on debatin’

The debates are over. Done. Finito.

Personally, I appreciate that because I don’t have to go to them anymore. But I think the candidates also appreciate it because they were getting rather redundant by the end of the week. In the span of 24 hours on Thursday and Friday there were three presidential debates, two of which were held in the same building and three of which were all attended by the same people. I get that Politically Incorrect and the media forum are traditions and it’s been done this way for years. But I love nothing more than to dispose of traditions that are silly, cumbersome and a nuisance. Traditions needn’t still be enacted because ‘it’s been that way forever, why would you ever change it?’

So maybe next year we can ditch one or two of the debates and let the candidates actually, you know, campaign. I’m sure all three of them would have appreciated more time to get around campus and actually speak to constituents instead of spending much of their time dancing through a mine field of ornery USC questions asked by voters who already have their minds made up.

That said, the two best debates were by far Thursday night’s Real USC Presidential Debate and Friday’s media forum. That’s likely because they both afforded the candidates opportunities to go after each other which is where we saw some of the most interesting moments of the campaign period.

Just take Friday, for instance. Forgione was visibly frustrated with Salari’s constant interruptions. Salari called an audience member drunk. And Basu Roy landed one of the better quips of the campaign, responding to Salari’s assertion that all you need to do to earn a good grade is attend class and do homework by saying: “And so the ethics student meets the engineering student.”

That was pretty good.

But that also reflected a certain unruliness that was present in Friday’s debate which was likely because the candidates were given free rein to jump on each other with no semblance of order. Moderator Dan Moulton had it right Thursday night, asking the candidates to raise a hand when they wished to rebut. This is still a political debate — not a professional wrestling podcast.

The best forum for a USC presidential debate is somewhere in between the uptight, over-controlled question and answer sessions we saw earlier in the campaign period and the lawlessness of Friday’s media forum. Thursday night’s Real USC Presidential Debate was the closest and Adam Fearnall, Dan Moulton and the rest of the affiliates team that helped organize it deserve some serious kudos.

Those pompous knobs at the Gazette

I think my man StuartAtGazette put it best Friday when David Basu Roy answered a question about why campus media wasn’t involved in his platform:

Win.

To whoever the loons are that keep asking why the candidates didn’t put anything about campus media in their platforms — please stop. You’re not helping.

In fact, the candidates not including campus media in their platforms is a tremendous endorsement of the quality of the Gazette, CHRW and Big Purple Couch.

This has been a great year for us media types at Western. There isn’t one entity within campus media which is of poor quality, irrelevant or widely ignored by students. That’s something we couldn’t say that at this time last year.

And here’s the thing — this crop of presidential candidates is actually exceedingly bright. Know why? Because they were smart enough to leave us out of their platforms.

Every year some wisenheimer candidate has a great idea about writing a ‘from the desk of the president’ column in the Gazette or e-mailing the Gazette to students every day or some other such nonsense. None of it ever happens. Unless we take the candidate’s e-mail subscription idea and achieve it in five minutes while having our morning coffee to prove a point like we did last year.

I won’t speak for the other media outlets because I don’t know enough about them — of course, they both do a fantastic job and have their own forums to pump their tires — but I can speak for the Gazette which is the nation’s largest and only daily campus newspaper. Literally the only student-run newspaper in the country that does what we do. Why is the USC not more proud of that?

We are circulated 11,000 times daily and we get countless thousands more hits online. That’s not to mention the fact our videos are the most viewed campus media videos at Western by a mile and three of our editors were recently listed among the best emerging journalists in Canada.

We are not just a good student newspaper ­— we are exemplary. We love our friends at The Ubyssey and The Eyeopener and especially the Ryerson Review of Journalism which puts out some of the best student-penned features you will ever read. But the experience of working at a daily newspaper like the Gazette is unmatched on any other campus in the country.

So punk, what exactly would you like the USC presidential candidates to tell us to do?

Odds and ends

• My man Pat Searle proves Arden Zwelling isn’t the only guy who can go on for an obscenely long amount of time about an election no one cares about, with this colossal edition of Fuss on the Bus. There are 48 action-packed minutes of USC elections coverage in there so make sure you have a comfortable seat. As someone who watched the whole thing, I can tell ya it’s worth every minute.
• Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood — who is refreshingly un-MIT in person — has been checking in over at the MIT Zine blog with this report from when the presidential candidates spoke to the MITSC and these impressions from the Real USC Presidential Debate Thursday evening.
• Speaking of an MITer who serves as the editor in chief of a campus publication, if you haven’t read Gazette fearless leader Stuart A. Thompson’s response to comments from last week’s blog, you need to do so immediately.
• We’re all about honestly here at Blog the Vote, so I won’t lie to you and tell you that Big Purple Couch is not simply the mouthpiece of the USC. Criticism and analysis are simply not in their wheelhouse. But one thing they do impressively well is elections night coverage. And they made a wise move bringing in our man Matt Ryan as part of their crack team which plugs their election night special here.

Speaking of objectivity…

It’s funny — last week I was told by two different people that this blog is biased towards Andrew Forgione and Saturday another individual told me it was biased towards Omid Salari.

So what do you take from that?

Here’s the thing. I write about what’s newsworthy. Period. I don’t have any responsibility to give the candidates equal coverage or any biases toward one of these three men who I have gotten to know over the past two weeks.

If they aren’t doing something interesting, they probably won’t end up in the blog. Which is why if anyone has gotten the short end of the stick in this space, it’s David Basu Roy. But, frankly, Basu Roy hasn’t done anything particularly newsworthy since the first few days of the campaign period. I can’t make him do interesting things. And I can only dissect his website and videos so much.

So when you’re gearing up to get all 20th century journalism and scorn me for being biased, just remember what this blog is all about.

Leddy hurt in easy Mustangs victory

Nyssa Kuwahara/Gazette

The only thing worse than losing a top player to injury is having it happen in a meaningless game.

That’s why you could hear the collective breaths held at Alumni Hall Saturday when Western Mustangs forward Katelyn Leddy fell hard on her ankle after getting tangled up with Waterloo Warriors point guard Erin Tilley under the basket.

Tilley appeared to take the worst of it —having her shoulder treated by medical staff for around ten minutes while she lay on the floor — but Leddy had to be helped off by her teammates, heavily favouring her ankle.

The fact Western had scored enough points early in the second quarter to win the game didn’t make Leddy’s injury any easier to watch. And when she didn’t return as the Mustangs cruised to a lopsided 83-37 victory, it was easy to assume the worst.

Fortunately for the Mustangs, Leddy will have her badly sprained ankle re-evaluated this week and could be ready to return by the playoffs.

“She’ll take a few days off. We’ll have to decide where it’s at next weekend,” Mustangs head coach Stephan Barrie said.  “If she needs some extra rest next weekend we’ll give it to her.”

Getting Leddy back sooner rather than later is a priority as more injuries are the last thing this Mustangs team needs as it rolls into the playoffs.

Jacklyn Selfe — the team’s second-leading scorer — has already missed the past four games due to injury, while Kelly Moulden has been out since the middle of January and recently had knee surgery.

Barrie — who was provided some reprieve Saturday with the return of Laura Dally after missing three games — hopes to have Moulden and Selfe back in the lineup by playoff time in late February.

But any more injuries would seriously impede the Mustangs chances of taking a run at the two-time defending Ontario University Athletics champion Windsor Lancers.

“We’ve adjusted and started getting used to [Selfe] not being on the floor. We knew that would take a couple games but I think people are feeling a lot more comfortable in new roles and with increased expectations in terms of playing time,” Barrie said.

Not that playing time against Waterloo counts for much as the league-worst Warriors did most of the damage in this game to themselves, turning the ball over 18 times and shooting just 23 per cent from the field, including just 2 of 24 from three-point territory.

Fielding a roster that features 12 of 14 players in first or second year, the young Warriors have yet to win a game this season, being outscored by more than 500 points along the way.

“We’ve come a long way this year. Today we didn’t show it — we were horrible,” Warriors head coach Tyler Slipp admitted. “But we like playing tough teams and Western is a very tough team to play. We want to face the best competition.”

Second-year guard Jenny Vaughn led the way for the Mustangs with 22 points and six assists in a team-high 30 minutes of play.

She hit seven of the nine shots she took but also spent much of her night spreading the ball around as the Mustangs continued to find open looks.

That led to four Mustangs finishing in double digits in scoring, including Leddy’s 15 points and Laura Dally and Beckie Williams who both had 12 points apiece.

“Coach Barrie has been working with me a lot, not only on making plays for myself but making plays for other people,” Vaughn said. “I’ve been trying to get other people wide open shots so we can have balanced scoring.”

With Saturday’s game over before it even began, the Mustangs were looking forward to next weekend’s double header against the Lakehead Thunderwolves, a pair of games that could have a drastic effect on playoff seeding.

The Mustangs are currently a game behind Windsor for first place in the OUA west division with the top seed earning home court advantage throughout the playoffs.

There’s also the matter of playing the Thunderwolves twice to finish the regular season before possibly meeting them again in the playoffs just a week later. Head coach Stephan Barrie said he would be keeping a couple cards up his sleeve and not showing the Thunderwolves everything the Mustangs can offer.

“I’m assuming they’ll keep a few things from us until the playoffs as well. That’s just the way it goes,” Barrie said. “The most important part is, if you don’t play hard it doesn’t matter. […] It doesn’t matter what the X and O strategy is — we still have to play hard.”

Mustangs near playoff berth with win over Warriors

Nyssa Kuwahara/Gazette

There are a thousand theories and philosophies on how to win a basketball game.

But of all of them, by far the easiest method is to simply score, score and score some more like the Western Mustangs did Saturday afternoon when they topped the Waterloo Warriors 94-80 in London.

“We have had to earn every victory that we can get. It’s just been one of those seasons,” Mustangs head coach Brad Campbell said. “But this is probably the first game all year that we just outscored somebody. It’s nice to know we at least got one like that.”

The Mustangs rode the hot hand of Ryan Barbeau to victory as the point guard put up 27 points on 7 of 19 shooting. Meanwhile, Mustang leading scorer Andrew Wedemire, playing limited minutes after getting into foul trouble early on, contributed 18 and a team-high seven rebounds.

With Wedemire on the bench, the team turned to Barbeau to do the majority of the heavy lifting.

“I felt like I had to carry the weight a little bit today,” Barbeau, who played38 minutes, said after the game. “There are days where you have to do that and there are other days where I don’t even have to score. You just do what you have to do.”

Barbeau was coming off of a forgettable performance in the Mustangs loss Wednesday night against McMaster, a game that saw the fourth-year guard miss every shot in 31 minutes of game time.

“I was pretty embarrassed with the way I played Wednesday night so I felt like today I had to come out and be aggressive and knock down some shots,” Barbeau said. “Thankfully they went in today.”

The game was almost a mirror image of the last time these two teams met in January when Waterloo got out to a 23-7 lead in the first quarter and rode that to a 93-72 victory.

This time around, Waterloo again took the reins early, jumping out to an 18-4 lead before the game was even five minutes old.

But an early time out by head coach Brad Campbell helped the Mustangs turn the tide as they rallied to end the quarter on a 12-2 run, pulling themselves back into the game.

After starting the second half down six, the Mustangs began shooting the lights out, scoring 31 points in the third on 9 of 15 shooting, including 13 points from Barbeau who also fought his way to the free throw line eight times in the quarter.

The Warriors tried to rally with 23 points in the fourth quarter but the Mustangs never stopped shooting and drawing fouls, putting the game on ice by hitting 14 of their 15 free throws in the fourth.

“We had a terrible start but we started to settle down as the game went on. We didn’t get rattled,” Campbell said. “We’ve had situations like that this year where things haven’t gone well to start games. It’s important to stay with the game plan and keep the work level up.”

The Mustangs victory has a massive effect on the team’s playoff destiny as now one more Mustangs win will seal a berth in the postseason.

Of course, the Mustangs may not even have to win again to qualify for the playoffs, as single losses by the Warriors and Guelph Gryphons between now and the end of the season would also put the Mustangs into the playoffs.

It’s a comfortable feeling, considering the team has a double-header against the division-leading Lakehead Thunderwolves next weekend to round out their season.

“We’ve put ourselves in a very good position. We’re in really good shape right now,” Campbell said. “But I still don’t think we’ve played our best basketball. […] If we can put some of our better stretches together, we can be very dangerous in the playoffs.”

Sex Issue Photo Gallery

Photography by Sophia Lemon and Corey Stanford

Day Eleven — What happened? I blacked out

Nyssa Kuwahara/Gazette

There’s only 100 or so hours left until we can vote on this thing and stop thinking about it forever.

Just focus on that when you look at all this USC madness and wonder if mutually assured destruction ain’t so bad.

We’re turning the corner towards the final stretch. Let’s just power through.

What a difference a couple hours makes, eh?

The Politically Incorrect session at The Spoke on Thursday was mostly shrugged off by the amassed students just trying to eat their CLTs in peace. It did see a whopping three audience questions — one of which was boxers or briefs. Meanwhile two hours later, the “Real USC Presidential Debate,” organized by the affiliate colleges, was buzzing. The turnout was so good that it was standing room only in The Great Hall at something called Huron — I believe it’s an old, wooden ship…

We knew it would be solid going in. But now, after the fact, I have no issue saying it was the best debate of this election period.

Dan Moulton was an able moderator, the audience behaved themselves for the most part, and we finally got a chance to see the candidates challenge each other.

You can usually tell who the front runner is by who is most frequently targeted at a debate. So it was no surprise that both David Basu Roy and Omid Salari went after Andrew Forgione early and often.

I thought Forgione stood his ground fairly well, even taking some surprisingly direct shots at the other candidates, like Salari for his tact during the campaign and Basu Roy for his greenhouse project which Forgione called “incredibly infeasible in general.”

In earlier “debates” — I guess debate is just catchier than ‘publicly elaborate on your platform’ — Forgione was a lot more timid and soft spoken, shying away from taking too strong of a stand. But as the campaign wears on he’s showing more of an edge and carrying a bit more of a chip on his shoulder.

Maybe it’s a response to the recent veiled — and not so veiled — attacks from his competitors. Maybe he feels like he has something to prove since he has been labeled by many as the establishment candidate. Maybe he’s just getting a bit short as the campaign wears on.

Regardless, Forgione has really imposed his will lately. It’s a welcome change.

If you can’t Tweet ‘em, join ‘em

One of the more innovative features of the debate was that it exclusively — except for one lone paper submission — accepted audience questions via Twitter.

I wasn’t as against the Twitter questions as some. 94 per cent of the people in that room had Twitter and if you didn’t you could write your question down and hand it in.

Allowing Dan Moulton to field the questions first and decide which were reasonable was a good way of stopping question askers from stealing the show or asking mindless, redundant questions. I mean, it’s nice to know what kind of animal the candidates would compare themselves too. If you’re four years old.

The Mackie-vellian Candidate

Easily the most vicious question of the night asked the candidates to identify the current USC executive board member they felt was doing the best and worst job. Yikes.

Here’s how they answered, in order of who spoke first to last:

Man, where to start with this one.

You could argue it’s an endorsement for this year’s board, considering three different board members were nominated as doing the best job. The board can be pleased that it wasn’t tough for the candidates to find a choice and that there wasn’t just one board member who stood out above the rest.

It couldn’t have been easy for Justin Mackie to hear his name twice on the wrong side of this question but he was definitely an easy target considering the constant outrage over clubs. He’s unlucky in the sense that the clubs issue has been a big one this year and one that all the candidates want to reform. Naming him simply led them nicely into restating one of their platform points.

And yeah — Salari refused to name a worst candidate. He really should have answered the question and he was probably the best suited to answer it considering his role as speaker of the USC where he works very closely with the board.

Of course, this could also mean that he had friendships on the board he didn’t want to scorn. But that’s never really been Salari’s style. He hasn’t once hesitated to criticize the USC until now. Which makes the move interesting and difficult to explain.

In the end, it hurts him that he didn’t answer the question. Especially since the easiest answer, as Pat Searle pointed out after the debate, would have been the man he’s aiming to replace, Mike Tithecott. Not because Tithecott has done a particularly poor job, but because every candidate would surely say they aim to do a better job than the person they’re replacing.

Always ask questions

Friday will see the media forum at noon in the UCC Atrium.

Representatives from the Gazette, CHRW and Big Purple Couch will be lobbing questions at the candidates in the final (mercifully) debate before the election. There will be questions from the audience as well so come out and get your super important problems addressed. Or don’t, it really doesn’t matter in the long run.

What would be nice, however, would be for some clubs or organizations or miscellaneous groups from campus to come out and ask some of the questions that don’t normally get asked. Candidates can prepare their answers for questions about mental health services, faculty strikes, catastrophic monster attacks and the like well in advance, but it’s the questions from left field that really show us what kind of candidates we’re dealing with here.

For instance, last year current CHRW news and spoken word director and former USC presidential candidate Ashley Bushfield targeted Mike Tithecott with a question about the availability of tampons in the UCC. She asked him why he was campaigning for two-play toilet paper in The Spoke and ignoring the fact tampons aren’t made available in the same washrooms. Tithecott’s reaction was priceless and it gave a rare glimpse of a candidate actually thinking on their feet when pressed with a challenging question.

We need more of that.

We so rarely get to see these candidates actually put on the spot. They’ve spent hours preparing for all topics and know the strengths and weaknesses of their platforms inside and out. But the job of USC President is anything but predictable and the ability to think quickly on your feet and come up with solutions to problems on the spot is incredibly undervalued.

Mustangs escape with narrow victory

The Mustangs women’s volleyball team made quick work of the Laurier Golden Hawks, defeating them in three straight sets. As dominant as the Mustangs were in the first set, winning it handily 25-14, inconsistent play arose in the final two sets.

The difficulty began in the second set when the Mustangs squandered a 14-8 cushion and allowed Laurier to come storming back to take the lead.  But the Mustangs managed to scramble together in time to take the set 25-22.

“I was pleased to get some new faces into the line up tonight, but overall I wasn’t horribly excited with our play at times,” head coach Dave Edwards said.

The third set was a similar story and Laurier was able to snag an early set lead. Not wanting to extend the game to a fourth set, the Mustangs pulled their game together and closed out the match, taking the third set 25-21.

Mustang player of the game Claire Morrow was effective on the defensive end, earning 16 digs for her team. After their less–than–perfect win, Morrow knew the team has to be better in upcoming games.

“It was good to get the victory tonight and for the girls to battle through some of our inconsistencies and learn to come out ahead,” the left side hitter said following the win.

Even though it might not have been a pretty win, Mustangs setter Jenna Thomson felt the adversity the team faced in the second and third sets will help come playoff time.

“I think the girls learned tonight that we have to keep our composure and focus throughout the match,” she commented. “The first set was an easy win and resulted in the team taking things for granted.”

Second-year, Rebecca Oxland had a strong individual performance, finishing the game with seven kills and 10 points.

“Everyone was passing and setting up really well tonight, it was a complete team effort that led to my offensive outbreak,” she said.

The women finished the weekend by defeating the Waterloo Warriors 3-1 on Saturday evening.  After the back-to-back wins, the Mustangs move into a tie with Guelph for second place in the Ontario University Athletics West conference, trailing only McMaster by two points for the top spot.

Next weekend the Mustangs will finish their regular season on the road when they take on the Brock Badgers and the Toronto Varsity Blues.

Valentine’s Day: To love or to loathe

Pro Valentine’s Day

For those in the throes of love – or lust – Valentine’s Day can be the perfect time to express your feelings by spending some quality time with your significant other. Here are a few romantic date ideas for the Hallmark holiday:

Ice skating

What’s more romantic than holding hands with your sweetie and skating in Victoria Park? The rink is open until 10 p.m., leaving you with time to grab a hot chocolate from the nearby Starbucks or William’s before heading home to cuddle. If outdoor skating isn’t your style, there’s free indoor public skating from 12 to 12:50 p.m. at Thompson Arena on Mondays.

Wine and dine

If you can’t indulge on Valentine’s Day, when can you?

Head over to the LCBO website for cocktail recipes and create delicious cocktails for your special night. Valentine’s Day is also the perfect day to splurge on a decadent dessert. Or, another option is to buy strawberries — an aphrodisiac — and dip them in chocolate fondue.

To make your own fondue, lightly boil eight ounces of heavy cream in a saucepan and mix in 12 ounces of dark or semi-sweet chocolate until smooth.

Get physical

Work up a sweat with your partner by doing a fun physical activity — other than rolling in the sheets. Exercising can release endorphins which make you feel great, so you’ll be in an even better mood. Try a few games of bowling or couples yoga, offered at The Mindful Body yoga studio on Adelaide Street for $90 a couple.

Anti Valentine’s Day

Screw Hallmark holidays — just kidding. Although Valentine’s Day is an awkward time for single people, it doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it. So don’t fret, we have a night planned that will kick Valentine’s Day’s ass.

Anti-Love Movies

Nothing is better than curling up with your favourite flick — but make your choices wise on Valentine’s Day. We recommend horror movies. In most cases, they aren’t full of couples in love and happy endings.

But for girls who want to feel empowered, watch a couple episodes of Sex and the City, and it will make being single in your 20s seem like fun.

Plan a date with your fellow singletons

However desperate you may be, avoid the bar at all costs. The last thing you need is to be hit on by creepers who are moping and just looking for some action. Have your single friends over for the ultimate anti-Valentine’s Day party instead. Order food, watch movies, and trash talk all the people who are happily in love.

Indulge in food

Many of your friends in relationships will be treated to a nice dinner on Valentine’s Day, but you deserve one too. Order in a delicious, greasy meal or eat with friends who don’t have plans.

Another idea is to have a potluck dinner — that way you can enjoy delicious food without doing all the cooking. Why not throw in some cocktails or beers to top off the delicious meal? Also, make sure you stock up on your treat of choice. Haagen Dazs is on sale at Loblaws this week.

Glengarry Glen Ross

Jessica Hodgson

CONTRIBUTOR

London’s own Richmond and Towers Productions delivered a controversial yet compelling performance of the cutthroat business play Glengarry Glen Ross earlier this week.

Director Andrew Pel took on the task of reproducing the difficult script. The production has known to be offensive to some audience members because of the use of vulgar language and the ignorant viewpoints of the characters during the 1982 recession.

The story’s premise follows an all-male cast of four hard-pressed salesmen, The men fight each other in competition where the winner keeps their job, and the losers lose everything. The plot involves violent encounters and devious conflicts.

Although the dialogue between the salesmen is a bit uncomfortable, the actors’ ability to represent their characters throughout the unpleasant conversations is commendable. It truly represents the mentality of businessman during the struggling economy.

Glengarry Glen Ross’ deceitful and covetous salesmen are similar to those in Mad Men, with added cursing and aggression. The dynamics and contrast between the actors are so intense and riveting that it’s easy to forget the play is set in only two different locations — an office and a restaurant.

Kudos to the quick, clean transitions and young cast and crew involved. The passionate Huron and Western student collaboration provokes a range of emotions for the audience to experience making it a play worth seeing.

Glengarry Glen Ross is playing at Conron Hall tonight until Sunday. Showtimes are 7:30 p.m., with an additional matinee performance at 2 p.m. on Saturday. Tickets are $10 at InfoSource.

Pride shrinks after money trouble

London will be spending its summer with a little less pride than usual.

This July, the Pride London Festival will run for just three days, down from its original 10, after the event’s organizer misplaced $14,000.

According to the London Free Press, the festival, which celebrates its 29-year anniversary this year, has about $800 left in the bank, and $6,000 in expenses are still lingering from last year’s event.

Pride London is taking the matter very seriously, setting up fail-safes to prevent a similar accident from reoccurring, according to Deb Al-Hamza, president of Pride London.

“Believe me, there has been stuff put into place to make sure this never happens again,” Al-Hamza said.

The organization is also searching through their financial records to compile evidence for the police.

“I’m putting together [documents] to take to the police who will further investigate the matter,” Al-Hamza said.

Dennis Rivest, media officer for London Police Services, said the festival received input and advice from the police fraud unit.

The Police informed the organization about how to undertake an in-house investigation.

“We gave them some advice as to what to look through and what to look for,” Rivest explained.

According to Rivest, there is not currently a criminal investigation under way.

“There’s the lingering question: why can’t [Pride London] account for it?” Rivest said. “It’s easy to miscount money, and it’s easy to misplace money.”

However, the police are not ruling out criminal activity yet.

“It’s also easy for a person in a position of power to take money,” Rivest added.

Although the truncated event might leave pride-seekers disappointed, the main festivities, including the parade, will still be happening. Western students will still be able to participate as they have in the past.

“Our participation occurs on what’s normally the bulk of the festival,” Jonathan Sawicki, financial administrator for Pride Western, said.

According to Sawicki, Pride Western’s involvement is usually confined to the final weekend and the parade.

“Normally the other seven days are cultural and information events.”

V Day — ya gotta do what ya gotta do

Valentine’s Day is a nice, fun day of affection where couples can canoodle in restaurants, have a date night and celebrate how much they like each other. But expecting more than a frivolous date night can cause some trouble because imbuing Hallmark holidays with significant meaning is bound to leave you disappointed.

At this point it should be obvious that it’s not a love-filled day for everyone. Couples with floundering relationships have to face the sputtering embers of the flame that used to be roaring in their hearts while single people are reminded how painfully lonely they are during a cold, dark time of year.

What you get from Valentine’s Day depends on your expectations. Romantic movies and the like force unrealistic expectations on the day — just like with prom and wedding nights. An extra serving of reality helps keep expectations low for Valentine’s Day. This is the same principal we should have towards life: it’s not about a single day or a single act, but the small things in between.

This is partly why men should be excused for using the day as something of an emotional crutch. While couples can and should show affection year round, there’s no more obvious day to do so than Valentine’s Day. Imaginative and creative date ideas are nice, but dinner and a night out will do. Flower, chocolates and perfunctory gifts might be lame other nights of the year, but it’s appreciated on Feb. 14.

Like all holidays, Valentine’s Day is imbued with meaning simply because it’s repeated every year — but that’s not such a bad thing. Christmas, like Valentine’s Day, is based on history involving people and prestige. But nowadays, those roots are buried beneath a heavy layer of consumerism. And that’s OK too, because holidays change with the people who celebrate them. Using Valentine’s Day as an excuse to express love in more overt ways hurts nothing, except maybe your credit card bill.

Those with unrealistic expectations for the day should take stock of the other 364 days of the year. A Hallmark holiday is nice, but there are more ways to celebrate affection. Anniversaries are the most obvious and hold an even stronger meaning because it’s a day unique to two people based on their history.

While Valentine’s day holds different meanings for different people, it’s important to keep the holiday in perspective. It’s not the be all end all if you and your significant other can’t have a perfect, romantic celebration, or if you spend it with a friend instead. We should instead strive to have a bit of romance in our everyday lives as well.

—The Gazette Editorial Board

Letter: Former candidate says some stuff

To the Editor:

I am always glad to see when people make a mockery of an organization. You might not need to be a politician but you need to have respect for the institution.

Just because your voters are students doesn’t mean that they want vulgarity or depletion of the inherent value of having an individual represent them that can further the perception that Western has one of the most impressive student governments in Canada. I can admire many aspects of looking internally to see how the University Students Council can change to make students care, but it’s all semantics because at the end of the day those who have the initiative to care and get involved will do so regardless of the “fearless leader” at the top. Because remember at the end of the day, the winner came to Western, saw an opportunity to lead, conquered the vote and then was quickly dismissed into the obscurity of the “real world.”

—Jeff Rutledge
Unsuccessful USC Candidate 2010

Fanshawe proposes new campus downtown

Move over Richmond Row, Fanshawe College is growing and has hopes to expand downtown.

Yesterday, the college’s financial plan for their proposed downtown campus was released, and will be presented to city council tonight. The plan proposes a campus focused on their applied and performing arts programs, expanding their theatre arts program already located downtown.

“Citi Plaza, or Galleria, where we currently have the theatre arts program, is crammed full. There is not room for the students and faculty and staff there,” Darryl Bedford, president of Ontario Public Service Employees Union Local 110, which represents Fanshawe’s faculty, explained.

“When I saw it a couple of years ago, it was over-crowded. Part-time faculty share desks or don’t have desks and that kind of thing.”

The new campus would renovate existing buildings on and around Richmond Street to include studios and classrooms for various programs, including their culinary program, video game development, journalism, and hospitality program.

The plan claimed the new campus would attract other businesses and help to revitalize the downtown core. It also includes letters of support from other downtown businesses, such as the Grand Theatre and the London Chamber of Commerce.

“Uses such as dance, art, and music studios, restaurants and cafes are likely to emerge around the School of Applied and Performance Arts,” the plan said.

Harold Usher, city councillor for Ward 12, agreed there were many benefits this campus could bring to downtown.

“I think it’s a good thing for downtown. I think if we’re successful in having something like that it can only enhance downtown,” Usher expressed.

“It will bring people downtown, both adults and younger people, students, people of the arts. It can open up a whole new world of opportunities for downtown in terms of nice restaurants, places for artists to create and sell their wares and expose them. Those are all good things for downtown.”

The plan outlined specific benefits of the campus, from attracting other new businesses to providing job opportunities.

“The addition of 1,000 students and 75 staff [...] could add $80 million to the local economy annually,” the plan read.

However, Bedford warned some of the claims made might not be substantiated.

“We’ve seen this before, where buildings are renovated or built and you have a nice pretty building but no jobs were created,” Bedford explained.

“We want to ensure good, full-time jobs are created and that would benefit the city [...] that would benefit the economy locally for sure.”