Best films of 2007

No Country for Old Men 89.22%

Rated: R
Runtime: 2:02
Director(s): Joel and Ethan Cohen
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson, Kelly MacDonald

“No Country for Old Men” is a movie that’s a western, but not a western; it’s a movie that’s a crime thriller, but not a crime thriller; and it’s an action movie, but not an action movie. With “No Country”, the Cohen Brothers have done a tremendous job of adapting Cormac MacCarthy’s novel to the big screen; however, they have done so without dictating too much to the viewer and without being slaves to the original work.
The movie is minimal in its dialogue and its images communicate more to the viewer than thousands of words in your typical Hollywood movie. The scenes are a combination of wide panoramic shots, which do the beauty of the Western country side justice, and tight shots of killers side stepping puddles of blood or the faces of Western heroes whose chiseled faces remind us of traditional codes of honour and concepts of Western justice.
The scenes and words come together into an amazingly well crafted cat and mouse chase featuring three main characters: Chigur (Javier Bardem), Moss (Josh Brolin) and a Texas Ranger (Tommy Lee Jones). Moss, while on a hunting trip, finds a scattering of corpses, animals shot to death, some “Mexican brown”, and a satchel containing two million dollars. Moss takes the money and hits the road running. Chigur, a psychopathic bounty hunter, is put on Moss’s train. With that, the two chase each other down across the country (and even across the border into Mexico). In the pair’s train, Chigur leaves a path of death; the only person to cross paths with Chigur and live was a gas station attendant who won a coin toss for his life.
Bardem’s performance is truly terrifying. Not since Anthony Hopkins played Hannibal Lecter in “Silence of the Lambs” has there been a performance as chilling. Not only is Chigur terrifying, he is also inventive. His weapon of choice is a slaughterhouse air gun that shoots a metal bolt into the head of his victim before it retracts back to its original position.
Bardem’s chilling interaction with a gas station attendant sums up his character, logic, and mindset. Bardem forces the attendant to flip a coin for his life.
“What’s the most you ever lost in a coin toss,” asked Chigur.
He flips the coin. “Call it.”
“But, I didn’t put nothin’ up,” replied the gas station attendant.
“Yes, you did. You’ve been puttin’ it up your whole life,” said Chigur, “you just didn’t know it.”
“Look, I need to know what I stand to win,” said the attendant.
“Everything, you stand to win everything. Call it,” said Chigur.
Not only does this scene provide a chilling window into the character played by Bardem, but it also sheds light on the meta-narrative that runs the entire length of the movie. Some have attempted to explain it in terms of good and evil, punishment or fate; however, I think these miss the mark. One reviewer said that Chigur is a metaphor for all of the violence in the world, Moss’s character is a metaphor for our measly efforts to escape and subdue violence, and the character played by Jones is a metaphor for civilization’s super-ego that tries to (and false to) make sense of it all.
Personally, I see Chigur not simply as evil, but as death itself. Moss, Moss’s wife, and the bounty hunter played by Harrelson are all characters who must come to terms with their fate, their destiny as decided by their choices. Their end at the hands of Chigur is a consequence of their decisions and the entire movie follows these characters as they come to terms with their eventually (and inevitable end). Jones’s character, coming to terms with the end of his career and his age ends the movie and, with the movie’s close, shows he has come to terms with his finitude. He describes a dream he had about his dead father:

In the dream I knew he was goin’ on a head and he was fixin’ to make a fire in all that dark and all that cold. I knew that whenever I got there that he’d be there. And then I woke up.

There Will Be Blood 87.50%

Rated: R
Runtime: 2:38
Director(s): Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Kevin J. O’Connor, Ciaran Hinds, Dillon Freasier

The Bourne Ultimatum 85.25%

Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 1:56
Director(s): Paul Greengrass
Starring: Matt Damon, Julia Stiles

Before the Devil Knows you’re Dead 82.68%

Rated: R
Runtime: 2:03
Director(s): Sindey Lumet
Starring: Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Marisa Tomei, Albert Finney, Rosemary Harris, Michael Shannon

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street 82.39%

Rated: R
Runtime: 1:35
Director(s): Tim Burton
Starring: Johnny Depp, Helen Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman

Eastern Promises 81.87%

Rated: R
Runtime: 1:41
Director(s): David Cronenberg
Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts

Michael Clayton 81.78%

Rated: R
Runtime: 2:00
Director(s): Tony Gilroy
Starring: George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton, Sydney Pollack

Atonement 81.41%

Rated: R
Runtime: 2:03
Director(s): Joe Wright
Starring: Keira Knightly, James McAvoy

Zodiac 81.31%

Rated: R
Runtime: 2:42
Director(s): David Fincher
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey, Anthony Edwards, Gary Oldman, Mark Ruffalo, Chloe Sevigny

The Simpsons Movie 81.01%

Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 1:27
Director(s): David Silverman
Starring: Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, Albert Brooks

Honourable Mentions: “The Devil Came on Horseback,” “Rescue Dawn,” “3:10 to Yuma,” “Gone Baby Gone,” “American Gangster,” “Breach,” and “Charlie Wilson’s War”

Best Actors:

Daniel Day-Lewis 90% (“There Will Be Blood”), Viggo Mortensen 88% (“Eastern Promises”), Philip Seymour Hoffman 87%(“Charlie Wilson’s War,” “The Savages,” and “Before the Devil Knows you’re Dead”), Christian Bale 86.33% (“Rescue Dawn,” “3:10 to Yuma,” and “I’m Not There”) and Russell Crowe 83.50% (“American Gangster” and “3:10 to Yuma”)

Honourable Mentions: George Clooney, Denzel Washington, Johnny Depp, Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Jake Gyllenhaal, Chris Cooper, and Javier Bardem

Best Actresses:

Naomi Watts 88% (“Eastern Promises”), Tilda Swinton 87.20%(“Stephanie Daley,” “Michael Clayton,” “Deep Water,” “Strange Culture” and “The Man from London”), Julia Roberts 82.00% (“Charlie Wilson’s War”), Helen Bonham Carter 81.50% (“Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”), Ciaran Hinds 75.25% (“Amazing Grace,” “There Will Be Blood,” “Margot at the Wedding” and “Hallam Foe”).

Honourable Mentions: Rosemary Harris, Rachel Nichols, Emily Blunt, Michelle Monaghan, Amy Adams and Keira Knightly

The essence of a union

The recent controversy in the students’ union raises many questions, questions that go much deeper that the questionable actions of Ryan Dubois or past union scandals involving Scott Thomas and Austin Smith. To dismiss three scandals in three consecutive years as coincidence is a shallow explanation of the recent wave of union corruption. To have a trend of such infidelity, it must be more than merely personalities and individuals that make the union. Instead, it is my belief, that the recent wave of betrayal and contempt for students displayed by our elected and hired representatives is part of something much larger than three people; it is a systematic problem our union faces and is one that must be solved.
Under Scott Thomas’s administration in 2004-05, the students’ union took a new approach. They decided that the union’s main purpose was to generate activities in which students could take part. They moved away from lobbying and moved towards increased activities and campus activities. Following Thomas, the Smith administration in 2005-06 followed the same path. They stated their goal was increased activities for residence students, at the pit, and on campus in general. After the Smiths, this year’s union has continued the trend. They lost $11,000 on Frosh Week, spent oodles of money on The Pit – added a point of sale system and a new sound system – and took money away from many of the union’s services that they offer. Oh, and they got a pay raise (for what I am not sure).
Our union has undergone a slow metamorphosis from a powerful political force operating on behalf of students in 2000 to a glorified high school student council in 2007-08. Somewhere in this process, our student leaders lost sight of the union’s purpose and, as a result, the union failed to live up to its full potential and its members began to suffer. Somehow, this new direction of the students’ union attracted people less interested in the goals of the organization and more interested in self-advancement, self-aggrandizement and more willing to exploit loopholes and violate the spirit of the students’ union.
The Administrative Procedure and Policy Manual of the students’ union states that the spirit of the union:

The Students’ Union is a unique organization in that it is student driven and its leaders change year to year. These elections for new leaders are at the heart of our organization, that is to say, students serving students. We believe in the process that allows all students to participate in choosing who leads. If students form the central reason for the University College’s existence, it follows then, that students are the foundation of the Students’ Union.

The phrase “students serving students” penetrates to the heart of what our union is supposed to be. However, this passage also means students representing students, a group of elected and appointed representatives who provide a voice to the student body and bring their concerns to politicians and administrators or anyone else that can help. This passage also indicates that students, not the selfish interests of many of our more recent representatives, are the reason behind the union’s existence. This statement is clear; however, this year our union has set a precedent that violates the very spirit of the organization for which they work.
After spending a year dedicated to activities, pay raises, and cutting services, our SRC proved to be ineffective at ensuring the spirit of our union was upheld and that the students the represent were not betrayed. The SRC was put in place to operate as the union’s board of directors, the ultimate check and balance. However, they are effective as a check and balance only insofar as they are knowledgeable about the union’s by-laws and competent in their enforcement. The emergency meeting of the student representative council displayed their incompetence; one representative did not even know that students were allowed to watch the meetings.
The meeting focused on by-law 1.01, a by-law that has proved troublesome for some time. It reads:

Any student who is registered at the of Cape Breton University as a full-time, part-time, distance education, or correspondence student in any given academic year, including spring and summer sessions, is automatically a member of the Students' Union.

This by-law means that if someone registers for a second term course in September and none in the first term, they will be considered a member of the students’ union even for the term in which they will not be taking classes. This rubs people the wrong way since it ends up allowing people, like Mr. Dubois, to exploit the loophole created by by-law 1.01.
A lot of people have said the union should define membership based on the university’s definition of a student. This suggestion has proved to be unpalatable since it would mean that the university administration could de-register the union’s executive and effectively decapitate the leadership of the student body.
Some people have argued that membership should be contingent upon payment of union dues. However, union dues are combined with tuition fees and many people do not pay tuition fees until the end of September and some, for financial reasons, take longer to pay. This definition would result in two things: students who did not pay their union dues until the end of September would be without representation for a month and those that are having trouble paying their tuition fees, those who need the union’s help the most, would go without representation indefinitely. Such injustice is revolting in my eyes.
Alas, by-law 1.01 may be the best definition of a member of the union we have. The problem with such a by-law is that it requires thoughtfulness and an ability to weigh subtleties for it to be administered properly, things this SRC and union has proven they lack.
If the SRC showed the least bit of interest in serving their students and properly representing their constituents they would have asked Mr. Dubois questions at that emergency meeting. Instead, they turned it into a disgusting farce of an affair. If they had asked Mr. Dubois questions, they would have found out that even by his own definition of a union member, he was not a member of the union from September to December of 2007. If the SRC does not take immediate steps to rectify their mistake, they need to ask themselves why they are even bothering to call themselves representatives. In their current capacity, rubber stamp seems to be a more effective and accurate description of their role.
This complete failure by the union’s executive and the SRC to enforce their by-laws shows what happens when a union strays too far from its purpose and loses sight of the spirit of the union. Mr. Dubois must do the right thing: resign and pay back the wages he had no right to collect. If he refused, the SRC must show Mr. Dubois the door and demand that he return his wages.
This might begin to fix the problems created by the colossal failure of this impotent SRC.

Originally published in the Caper Times on January 24, 2008.

Impotent SRC lets CBU students down

The Silence

“Are students even allowed at these meetings,” asked Mandie Fitzner, SRC Representative for the School of Health, Education and Wellness at an emergency meeting of the council.
“Yes, we are,” responded myself and two other students sitting in the gallery.
Shortly after Ms. Fitzner asked her question, I began to worry.
I thought to myself, “Is her question representative of the level of knowledge each member holds?”
The repercussions of the members of the Student Representative Council not knowing such a basic by-law would be horrific. It would mean that they lacked a general understanding of the rights of their constituents, the people they are supposed to represent. In relation to this important meeting, it would mean the Student Representative Council would be incapable of taking part in any serious discussion about the matter at hand: the impeachment of Ryan Dubois, the CBUSU’s Chief Financial Officer.
He was facing the charge of impeachment because he had not been registered for any courses during the fall 2007 term. To make matters worse, he did not inform the students’ union that he failed to register for courses and the union did not find out about his actions (or lack thereof) until late in the month of December 2007.
“The union checked in December and this is how we caught this,” said Ian Lindsay, CBUSU President.
Once Lindsay knew of Mr. Dubois’ status, he notified Mr. Dubois, the executive held a meeting, and then the union called an emergency meeting of the Student Representative Council.
After Mandie Fitzner asked the gallery her question, the meeting was called to order. Ian Lindsay gave a brief presentation and said that he did not feel the union could move forward with the impeachment of Mr. Dubois because of the poorly constructed by-laws the student’s union was following. The by-law that the conflict revolved around was the first by-law in the students’ union’s manual, by-law 1.01. It reads:

Any student who is registered at the of Cape Breton University [sic] as a full-time, part-time, distance education, or correspondence student in any given academic year, including spring and summer sessions, is automatically a member of the Students' Union (CBUSU By-law 1.01).

Lindsay said that since Mr. Dubois was registered for courses in the winter 2007 term, he could not be impeached.
After Lindsay’s presentation, Mr. Dubois was given the floor. He contended that he spoke to lawyers and the council members were asked if they had any questions. After the chair of council asked if there were any questions, there was an awkward silence in the room. Some council members looked shamed and some looked stunned. One thing is for certain, the shame in the air was as thick as some of the skulls of the council members present.
The members of SRC sat so quietly the silence was deafening. Did they ask for some background information? No. Did they ask about other possible interpretations of the by-law? No. Did they ask for Mr. Dubois’s resignation? No. Did they ask why he consulted lawyers if he thought things were on the level? No. Did they ask why he did not inform the union of his actions? No. The SRC failed to ask the infinite number of possible questions floating around in the air. On January 11, the SRC, the voice of the students, went mute.
Did they care? Did they feel as though they let their students down? I do not know. What I do know is that many of the same SRC members who failed to ask Mr. Dubois questions went to drink with him in The Pit after the meeting was over.

The Aftermath

Once Ryan Dubois, Chief Financial Officer, Jill MacPherson, Vice President, and Josh Wrobleski, SRC Chair, finished their celebratory round of drinks, I found Ryan Dubois in his office in the Students’ Union Building and I had the opportunity to ask him a few questions.
Jill MacPherson, vice president of the CBUSU, said she would only answer questions if her answers would no be recorded. In other words, she would only talk to the press if there was no real record of what she said.
Mr. Dubois said he knew, all along, that he was going to be taking courses in the second term. However, when asked when he registered for the courses in the second term, he said that he registered for them late in December of 2007.
Mr. Dubois stated that he believed that this course arrangement still allowed him to be a member of the students’ union.
Dubois stated that, “Myself as well as two separate attorneys believe that as long as you are a fee paying member of the students union, meaning as long as you register for at least one course, then you are eligible to work here.”
It seems, by Mr. Dubois’s own admission, that he was not registered for any courses until late December. The CBUSU by-law required Mr. Dubois to be registered; however, he was not registered until late December. This would mean that he was not a member of the CBUSU until December and was, therefore, in violation of the CBUSU by-laws from September up to when he registered in December.
Mr. Dubois did not agree with this line of reasoning. He argued that because he had “intent to register” he was classified as a member of the students’ union. This is an interesting line of logic. This means that anyone, so long as they have the intent to register in a course at some point in the academic year counts as a member of the union and can use their services.
Based on the CBUSU by-law 1.01, if Mr. Dubois was registered for a course in the winter term and not in the fall term, he could work for the union and would, therefore, be a member of the union so long as he was registered in September. However, he was not.
Later in the interview, he changed his definition of a member of the union. Dubois added that, “It is the act of paying [that makes you a member of the students’ union].” Mr. Dubois’s statement contradicted his earlier statement that it was the “intent to register” that makes you a member of the students’ union.
This means that in the span of five minutes, he changed his definition of a union member from someone who intends to register to someone who actually pays union dues. By both definitions, Mr. Dubois was not a member of the students’ union from September to December and, accordingly, should not have been allowed to serve as an executive member, collecting a pay cheque.
When asked what he would say to students that were upset by his actions, Mr. Dubois replied, “I don’t believe that I did violate the spirit of the students’ union and clearly the law is on my side. I have made no violation of any of our policies or procedures.”
However, as Mr. Dubois’s own words showed above, he was in violation of the by-laws for some time and the law was not clearly on his side.
Why didn’t the SRC find any of this out? The SRC did not ask any questions. Why didn’t the SRC ask any questions? I do not know, they were; however, in an awful hurry to make it to The Pit.

Originally published in the Caper Times on January 24, 2008.

Education review deals serious blow to CBU

“The Review of Teacher Education in Nova Scotia” dealt a serious blow to Cape Breton University. The unfortunate set back comes just after the university received permission to launch their own Bachelor of Nursing program.

The report not only recommends that the government deny Cape Breton University’s bid to have their own Bachelor of Education degree, it also recommends that the government ask Cape Breton University to discontinue its agreement with Memorial University, an agreement that allows them to offer a 16-month Bachelor of Education program.

The review stated that there are 1,029 people graduating with a Bachelor of Education each year and less than 400 new teachers required to fill the expected vacant positions. The report also stated that substitute teachers have a very hard time getting work each year and that approximately 700 substitute teachers are leaving the province or their profession each year because they cannot find work. While there is an oversupply of teachers in our province, there are shortages in certain specialized areas.

The review also recommended that the current programs, run by Nova Scotia’s universities, maintain their current admission levels with one exception. The only Bachelor of Education program that will benefit from the report’s recommendations is Saint Francis Xavier; the report recommended allowing 14 more people per year to enroll in their program.

The report’s recommendations have been criticized by the opposition parties and CBU’s president, John Harker.

In a press release, Harker said that, ““CBU is very disappointed, both for itself and for Nova Scotia, by the Report of the Review Panel on Teacher Education in Nova Scotia.”

He added that, “Minister Casey has shown, in meetings with CBU and elsewhere that, like Premier MacDonald, and before him Premier Hamm, Access to quality educational opportunities is important to the government. It is certainly important to us, and we are shocked that it does not appear to have shaped the thinking of the Review Panel.”

The report’s co-author fired back and said that, “Universities exist to advance their own interests and their own institutional goals, and they sometimes will embrace programs and initiatives which are substantially proven to be out of sync with government policy."

The report has generated a lot of debate around the education system in our province. Unfortunately, the debate has circulated around defensive posturing and each side protecting their position. In such an environment, debate about the real issues facing our education system will never happen.

The report says that in our current context, we have too many teachers. However, the report does not ask: How many teachers should we have? The report does not ask: How many teachers do we need to ensure a quality education for Nova Scotia’s students? The report passes a merely normative claim whose aim is to maintain the status quo when more is needed from our government.

Also, the report believes that our Bachelor of Education programs should only produce teachers for our province; it believes it is close to criminal to send our educated professionals elsewhere. In other words, in a global society, our province plans to, somehow, go against the grain. Even though the report states that teachers leaving our province is a negative, the report does not contain real recommendations to address that problem.

I agree with President John Harker when he said that the report does not align with the provinces’ stated priority of creating a strong education system. The report does not touch on how we can make our education system better; it states how to continue at the status quo. If the government does not begin facilitating some serious and critical debate, their stated commitment will prove false and students and teachers will suffer.

Originally published in the Cape Breton Post on Monday, January 21, 2008.

Much to watch in 2008

The new year is officially under way and students are back to class. There are some things that never change with the beginning of each new term. There will be long lineups at the bookstore, book prices that are through the roof, long lineups in the student service centre where students are looking to drop some courses and add others, and of course there is the disappearance of the Christmas graduates, the students who go for the first term and figure out university is not for them.

Even though there are some things that remain constant, there are, however, others that will be unique to our coming term.

The Government of Nova Scotia will be releasing their findings on the student loan system in our province, there will be a new memorandum of understanding between the province and Nova Scotia’s universities, and CBU students will vote on whether to continue their membership with the Canadian Federation of Students.

Late in 2007, the provincial government started a review of its ailing and archaic student loan system. They toured the province and talked to people about their experiences, asked them what they wanted to change, and took feedback. The report will become available this year and it will certainly be interesting to see what recommendations are made and even more interesting to see what recommendations will be implemented.

The new MOU between the province and universities will also be finalized in 2008. The last MOU, which will expire at the end of March, did nothing to reduce the cost of education in the province. If the Premier MacDonald is sincere about his election promise to reduce the cost of tuition, his government will need to show it and it will need to manifest itself in the new MOU.

In March of 2008, the CBU Students’ Union will be holding a referendum that will decide whether they will continue as members of the Canadian Federation of Students. The SU has been a member of the CFS for close to seven years and pays tens of thousands of dollars in membership fees each year to the organization. While CFS has attempted to tie up the de-federation process, the CBU Students’ Union has followed their rules to the letter of the law and plan to continue with the referendum, even if the CFS does not cooperate.

The referendum will be an important moment in the history of the CBU Students’ Union; however, CBU students have a habit of not turning out to vote. Last November, a referendum was held and not enough people voted to reach quorum. It is not only for referendums, but each General Election for president and vice-president has extremely low voter turnout. This pattern is not limited to student politics; it carries through to politics at all levels.

Apathy oozes from our pores and seals our lips, it has to change.

If the provincial government does not act on the student loan recommendations, if they go back on their tuition promise, and if the referendum does not reach quorum it will be tempting to blame everyone else. It is easy to blame the system and those that compose the system; it is much harder and less comforting to turn that highly critical eye at ourselves.

If things do not go our way it is because the decision makers do not believe that they will be held accountable by those affected. Students have let their rage silence their voice instead of strengthening it. So long as we remain silent we will not be represented and this lack of representation will continue past our university years, it will haunt us for our entire life.