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Student Life

In Brooklyn, fresh Montreal bagels now for sale by the dozen

by Theo Meyer on

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Minutes after they finished watching the Canadian Olympic hockey team defeat the Slovakians last Friday, Joel Tietolman and Jon Leitner walked into St.-Viateur Bagel, paid for the 115 dozen bagels they had pre-ordered, and began loading them in Tietolman’s Volkswagen Passat.

The bagels – 90 dozen sesame, 15 dozen poppy seed, and a few dozen of assorted other varieties – were destined for Mile End Deli, a new restaurant serving Montreal-style Jewish deli food in the Boerum Hill neighbourhood of Brooklyn.

When Noah Bermanoff, an ex-Montrealer living in New York, opened Mile End two months ago, he had a bit of a problem getting Montreal bagels for the cream cheese-and-lox sandwiches he was serving at the deli. At first, he had bagels shipped overnight from Montreal by FedEx, but these didn’t arrive until 10 a.m. the next day. In addition, snowstorms further delayed delivery several times during the deli’s first weeks of business.

All of that changed when Tietolman, who had helped Bermanoff set up his deli in January, proposed importing the bagels from Montreal on the weekends. Around midnight on Friday nights, Tietolman and Leitner now leave Montreal in a car packed full of bagels, driving for six hours or so before crossing the Manhattan Bridge into Brooklyn at sunrise.

“They’re still soft when we get down to New York, which is the beauty of this operation,” said Tietolman, who attended Montreal’s Herzliah High School with Leitner and Bermanoff.

The duo made their second run to New York this weekend. When asked why they chose to export bagels from St.-Viateur over those of rival Fairmont Bagel, Tietolman and Leitner exchanged knowing glances.

“It’s our favourite bagel,” Leitner said with a laugh.

“There’s a St.-Viateur in Ville St.-Laurent, where we both grew up,” Tietolman added, “and that’s where our parents would run Sunday morning to get bagels.”

Though Bermanoff still ships bagels by FedEx during the week for cream cheese-and-lox, the deliveries have enabled him to sell fresh bagels by the dozen on the weekends. And because he is saving on shipping, Bermanoff is now actually making money.

Bermanoff serves other Montreal comfort food as well, including smoked meat sandwiches and his version of the Wilensky’s Special, the pressed bologna sandwich served at the famous Montreal deli. Mile End has also become the latest New York eatery to offer poutine, which Bermanoff makes with organic potatoes, homemade gravy, and what he calls “the most phenomenal cheese curds I’ve ever tasted” from a small farm in Maine.

Bermanoff estimated that about three-quarters of Mile End’s customers are New Yorkers, with the remainder made up of Canadian expatriates. A significant number are former McGill students, said Bermanoff – who is himself a McGill alumnus – looking for a smoked meat sandwich without making the trip to Montreal.

Business has been so good during Mile End’s first couple months that Bermanoff is looking to expand his operation, particularly his smoked meat production.

“I don’t have the space or refrigeration or smoking capacity to actually stay open for dinner, because the smoked meat sells out completely in the afternoon and I’m more or less forced to close down,” Bermanoff said.

For their part, Tietolman and Leitner don’t plan on spending their weekends running bagels forever. Tietolman is a law student at the University of Ottawa and Leitner works in the family import-export business – an experience that has come in handy when filling out forms at the border. The duo plans to hire drivers to make the runs in the coming months and is considering an eventual expansion: multiple runs per week, maybe, or deliveries to locations in Manhattan as well.

For Bermanoff, who dropped out of law school and took out loans to open Mile End, getting back to his Montreal roots is the best part of running his deli.

“It’s definitely a highlight of my day when someone comes in and we get to talk about Montreal and the good times we had at McGill,” Bermanoff said.

Opinion

FRESH HELL: The over-hyped Olympics

by Zoe Daniels on

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The Winter Olympics are pointless. They feature sports that are generally boring to watch or better showcased in other competitions (at the X Games, for example). They cost a lot of money, create headaches for people living in host cities, and don’t attract enough tourist dollars to offset the large taxpayer expense. I can understand how the Olympics would be awesome for athletes – coming to the apex of your life’s goal – but I can’t see what anyone else is getting out of the experience. It seems a little like a conversation about budget planning with a high-class hooker: boring, expensive, and irrelevant.

There are plenty of Vancouver-specific reasons why the Olympics are a waste of time and money, but no matter the host city, I think they’ve outlived their welcome. The short-lived patriotism that gets stirred up by the medal count doesn’t seem like a real measure of the athleticism of any particular country (or its value within the borders). Two of the ice dancers competing for Japan are from New Jersey, and their sister is competing for the Republic of Georgia. Whatever their heritage, the environment and resources that led them to compete were American. Who gets to claim superiority based on their merit? The Americans, the Japanese, or the Georgians?

The reasons for watching the Olympics, either on TV or in person, are even more elusive. As far as I can tell, people watch them on TV because they’re the only thing on. I’m not particularly interested in men’s mogul skiing or ice dancing, but if there’s nothing else to do at four o’clock on a Wednesday then sure, I’ll watch it. Going to see an event in person seems more like a way to generate envy than an act born out of sincere desire to see a spandex-clad national representative slide around on ice. Well, I’m not jealous that you or someone your dad works for paid ridiculous sums of money to watch that bullshit.

All the Winter Olympic sports are boring as hell to watch probably because they are largely individual – as opposed to team – sports. I am not impressed or entertained by an athlete who skis cross-country faster or better than anyone else. (I’m not impressed by anyone playing tennis, swimming, or running by themselves either, so this is not a winter-specific bias.) Hockey and figure skating are the only sports that are fun to watch and even they are goofy and better presented in their traditional formats: NHL regular season games and Disney on Ice. Olympics-induced patriotism aside, I’m generally prouder to be from Minnesota than from the States, so a Wild game is more interesting to me than a Team USA one. Also, what can I get that Miracle didn’t already give me?

The Olympic Games should really just be a big weekend away for all the Olympic athletes at a cottage. Forget building facilities in a mountain city and spending $90 million on TV rights. Pack everyone and their skis and skates onto a bus with a video camera, a handful of medals, and a few two-sixes, and I think everyone who was going to have fun, would.

Opinion

MY POINT … AND I DO HAVE ONE: supressing debate: Ontario’s language politics

by Max Silverman on

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The Ontario legislature – like most political bodies representing a diverse range of opinions – is a place where it’s hard to achieve consensus. One in five children in Toronto go to school hungry in the morning and asthma and cancer-causing coal power generate much of the province’s electricity, but no consensus can be found among the provincial political parties to address such dire issues.

Yet last week, the members of Ontario’s Provincial Parliament put aside their partisan rivalries to pass a private member’s bill condemning the sixth annual Israeli Apartheid Week – a series of lectures, workshops, and events about the nature of Israel as an Apartheid system, which begins on university campuses on Thursday.

Ontario New Democratic Party Member of Provincial Parliament Cheri DiNovi – normally one of the few legislators to use her brain instead of pandering to populist wisdom – explained that debate on the Middle East is encouraged, but using the term “Apartheid” was beyond the pale of acceptability.

Her explanation echoed opinion articles appearing across the country last week that voice a disingenuous and paternalistic prescription: that young people should feel free to talk about Israel and Palestine, but only if you use the language that we outline for you. DiNovi recommended speaking of “occupation of Palestinian territory,” though I can’t imagine the Conservative Member, Peter Shurman, who introduced the bill, would agree with that description. Shurman is the same white, Jewish Conservative man who said that using the word “Apartheid” is not only offensive to millions of black South Africans who suffered through South African Apartheid, but also “close to hate speech.”

I’m not an expert in international law. Nor did I live under South African Apartheid and I’m certainly not a Palestinian living under Israeli control. And neither were, or are, Shurman, DiNovi, or any of the MPPs who voted in favour of this bill.

But I personally first heard the term “Apartheid” applied to the occupied Palestinian territories when Archbishop Desmond Tutu returned from an exploratory trip to the region almost a decade ago, echoing sentiments he had made a decade prior when he declared that if one changed the names of the places, “a description of what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank could describe events in [1989, Apartheid] South Africa.”

Tutu first came to international prominence as a black South African leader calling for divestment from businesses profiting from South African Apartheid and for the imposition of sanctions on his own country. In 1984, his efforts were rewarded with the Nobel Peace Prize. Bishop Tutu later chaired the internationally praised Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which brought a rational and legalistic method of national closure to the irrational and barbaric period of Apartheid in South Africa. Certainly someone like Tutu is far better placed to make such a judgment than I am, than Shurman is, or than any of the readers of this column are.

This doesn’t mean the “Israeli Apartheid” debate is over. There are South Africans who disagree with the label, finding it an inappropriate use of their suffering. Similarly, there are Palestinians who remind us that F-16 fighter jets never bombarded black South Africans in their homes or laid siege to their cities, and that perhaps the term “Apartheid” is too weak. The debate over the use of the term “Apartheid” is far from over, and the ludicrous notion that the word “Apartheid” should be omitted from discussion needs to be rejected by all.

Rather, students and community members should check out this year’s lineup of speakers in Montreal – which include a member of the Israeli parliament, a former South African anti-Apartheid activist, aboriginal youth, journalists, and academics – and refuse to give in to the intellectual bullies’ demands to curtail a legitimate discussion simply because they don’t like its implications.

A full schedule of events for Israeli Apartheid Week in Montreal can be found at montreal.apartheidweek.org

News

Survey finds Montrealers driving less, using more public transit

by María Flores on

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Montrealers are driving less, according to a survey conducted by the Metropolitan Transport Agency (AMT).

For the first time in the survey’s 40-year history, the number of trips taken per car has decreased, despite an increase in the number of cars entering the city.

“The survey shows that the AMT’s work is paying off,” Martine Rouette, an AMT spokesperson, wrote in an email to the Tribune. “Despite the fast evolution of the automobile market, public transit is improving and citizens prefer to use it.”

Since 1970, the AMT has performed nine surveys on different modes of transportation. The latest results indicate that the use of cars has decreased by one per cent since 2003, while the use of public transport has risen by 15 per cent. Evidence suggests that 51 per cent of the daily trips into the city are work-related, and that the majority of these jobs are still located in the downtown area.

“What was found in the survey is very encouraging because it demonstrates that a large number of Montrealers are leaving their cars behind,” Rouette wrote. “The AMT and the [Montreal Transport Association] are working together to increase public transportation and decrease greenhouse gas emissions. So far, the results have been successful.”

According to Julie Boulet, the Quebec Minister of Transport, efforts to improve public transit by various provincial agencies have decreased car use.

The AMT is particularly responsible for the development of public transport in the Montreal Region and is directly linked to the Quebec Ministry of Transport. Although the ministry subsidizes the AMT, the agency administers this funding independently.

Though the ministry is the main organization responsible for transportation-related matters, it remains in close cooperation with its public and private partners to offer appropriate and functional transportation systems.

“[The result] is great because the efforts of the Ministry of Transport are not always evident. There are a lot of funds devoted annually by the minister to the AMT as well as to the STM to, for instance, expand the metro network or increase bus frequency, so this is a way to prove it,” said Mario St-Pierre, director of communications at Transport Quebec. “The minister finances a lot of organisms of this kind that are there to provide usable public transit.”

When asked about the results of the survey, Max Halparin, U3 Geography, speculated that improved public transit had made the difference.

“I suppose we are getting fed up with traffic and congestion and that public transit is actually a viable option in this city, especially for commuters,” he said.

But according to Halparin, the decrease in driving cannot be exclusively attributed to the work of the AMT.

“Transit can’t be successful on its own. What makes a place walkable, accessible, and livable without a car is planned surrounding, how we actually design spaces – I mean, the density and the mixture of land uses, and in addition to that there is a cultural factor.”

News

With referendum vote, Tribune is poised for independence

by Sean Wood on

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In what Opinion Editor Matt Chesser called a “do-or-die” situation, The McGill Tribune’s future will be determined by a SSMU referendum next week. Should the referendum question pass, the Tribune would become fully independent after 29 years as a publication under the auspices of the Students’ Society.

The referendum question asks SSMU members if they would pay a $3 fee each semester to replace the financial support the Tribune currently receives from SSMU. The fee would supply approximately $120,000 per year to the newspaper, covering the majority of the Tribune’s operating costs.

The referendum is the climax of a two-year process that began in 2008 when SSMU mandated that the Tribune become an independent organization, a response to both the newspaper’s and the Society’s mutual conflicts of interest.

“We think [the Tribune] is a very excellent paper,” said SSMU Vice-President Clubs and Services Sarah Olle. “However, we think that it is inappropriate for a student government to have a newspaper that reports upon that student government.”

SSMU also no longer wants to be legally liable for any content printed by the newspaper.

“If we print something that is libelous or slanderous, then SSMU as the organization is the one that would be sued for that,” said Chesser, who served as editor-in-chief last year.

While editors are optimistic that the question will pass, they said that a defeat would strike a serious blow to the newspaper’s future. The Tribune is currently dependent on SSMU for its office space, insurance, and advertising manager, all of which the newspaper would be responsible for as an independent organization. Without either the support of SSMU or a student fee, the Tribune would run yearly losses of approximately $100,000.

“Honestly, if the Tribune were to fail in this referendum, I don’t see how it can continue to exist in the form that it exists now,” Chesser said.

As a result, the newspaper plans to run an extensive campaign this week, involving handbills, canvassing, and posters featuring the slogan “29 Is Too Young to Die.”

Chesser calls vote “do-or-die”

Should the question pass, the Tribune’s editorial board and coverage would remain substantially the same, but a number of other things would change.

“We will become more directly accountable to the students,” Chesser said.

Like the McGill Daily, the Tribune would have a board of directors elected from the student body. The board would have yearly meetings at which students would be able to propose changes to the newspaper’s constitution and by-laws.

The newspaper has also had to engage in various negotiations to prepare itself for its new costs. To aid in the process, SSMU would exempt the Tribune from paying rent for its Shatner office next school year, loan it money to cover its initial insurance costs, and donate the office equipment that it currently lends from SSMU.

Olle was optimistic about future relations between the two organizations.

“I am sure that we will continue to have a positive relationship,” she said.

Administrative changes aside, editors have agreed that the Tribune’s independence would be a significant part of its development as a publication.

“We really do think it’s a great idea,” said Thomas Quail, the current editor-in-chief. “It really legitimizes us as a school newspaper. The strongest school newspapers across Canada are independent organizations, and at 29 years old, it really is a natural step.”

Student Life

First aid for computers, old or new

by Iain Macdonald on

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You’ve probably noticed that as your computer gets older, it seems to slow down. While it is true that newer computers are faster, this is no reason for your older computer to be any slower than the first day you got it. Here are a number of steps that can keep your computer functioning like it’s brand new.

Fragmentation

After a while, most files become fragmented – and split into parts – which can start to visibly affect performance. There are tools called disk defragmenters that will solve this problem. A disk defragmenter will analyze your hard drive and try to put the pieces of the puzzle back into one big picture. Defraggler is a disk defragmenter that provides a nice, simple-to-use interface. You should defragment your hard drive at least once a month to make your computer perform a bit quicker.

Your Internet browser is caching in

Web browsers are lazy. If you visit a website, it doesn’t want to have to re-download all of the components of the page, so instead, it saves the page contents on your computer. Then when you re-visit the page, it just shows you the old contents (don’t worry, it checks if the website has changed or not). This information is stored, along with saved passwords and history, in the cache. You can recover this space using a utility called Ccleaner. Ccleaner will clean up your internet cache and your trash can (only the one on your computer, unfortunately), and a few other space hoggers.

Memory ain’t what it used to be

Every program uses memory and needs to reserve its own memory space, even if it won’t necessarily use it. If your computer is strapped for memory, you don’t want programs to reserve memory that they aren’t going to use. A utility called cleanmem will automatically look at the program’s running and take back some memory from those processes.

Old computer, old programs

Unused and non-essential programs can slow down your machine, so remove them to free up hard disk space. But using the program’s uninstaller doesn’t always remove everything. Using a program such as Revo Uninstaller will remove every trace of the program, to get every bit of space back. If it takes more than a minute for your computer to turn on, you’re probably starting up non-essential programs with your computer. You can control which programs start up when you logon using an application called Autoruns.

In the lightweight division…

While utilities like Adobe PDF viewer and Photoshop are nice, they use a large amount of disk space, memory, and CPU resources. Installing less resource-intensive alternatives can make your computer more efficient. Consider using Foxit Reader for PDFs, or GIMP instead of Photoshop. If you’re wondering if a program is hogging resources, a Google search should reveal the answer, and can be used to find any “lightweight” alternatives.

Computers can get sick too

With such a large array of threats ready to wreak havoc – including viruses, spyware, trojans, worms, and keyloogers – you need to be ready for anything to attack your computer. Fortunately, there are programs that will take care of this. In the free anti-virus category, Avira, AVG, and Avast have emerged as favourites (although there are dozens of others). For removal of spyware, adware, and trojans, Ad–Aware free version does an excellent job. Alternatives include Super Antispyware, Spybot Search&Destroy, and MalwareBytes Anti-Malware.

New life

If all else fails, try reinstalling the operating system. This will return your computer to its brand-new state (but also remove all of your data and settings, so backup!). You can re-install the operating system that came with the computer, or consider switching to an alternative. Linux distributions are free and tend to run more efficiently than Windows and Mac operating systems. The most popular distribution, Ubuntu, features a pleasant graphical interface, and performs all of the same functions as Windows.

Recipes, Student Life

Cheese, herb and beer bread

by Francesca Ferenczi on

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Beer bread is a savoury quickbread, much like a salty, dense pound cake. This specific recipe is made with cheese, which seeps through the delicious bread. Rosemary and thyme impart a sophisticated flavour, but the real kicker is the beer, which acts as a levener and adds a yeasty undertone. And who doesn’t have an extra bottle of beer lying around? The dough comes together in three minutes and can be used as sandwich bread, a snack, or a savoury breakfast pastry.

Ingredients

•2 1/4 cups all purpose flour•1 tsp. baking soda•3/4 tsp. baking powder•1 1/2 tsp. salt•3/4 cups + 2 tbsp. shredded cheese•1 tbsp. dried thyme•1 tbsp. dried rosemary•1 12-oz. bottle of beer•1/4 cup olive oil•2 tbsp. water (if needed)

Directions

1.Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a standard-sized loaf pan.2.Whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Mix in 3/4 cup of cheese and herbs.3.Add the beer and mix until just combined. Mix in the olive oil. There should be no dry flour left in the bowl. If there is, add the water and mix gently.4.Pour batter into the pan and sprinkle the remaining cheese on top.5.Bake for 50-55 minutes, until a tester comes out clean. Let cool on a rack for at least 30 minutes before serving.

Sports

Pro-Crosby vs. Anti-Crosby

by Tori Crawford and Laura Tindal on

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Pros

On the ice: Crosby is sure to go down in history as one of the best playmakers in the NHL, making his teammates better with tons of assists. He is a great defensive player, but good on faceoffs, too.

Behaviour: Crosby is idolized by thousands of young hockey players across the country. It’s a big responsibility, and one that he has handled well. He’s stayed out of the tabloids, and is involved with lots of charities. Crosby relishes his role as an ambassador, and helps to promote the game in Canada and around the world.

Olympics: He might not be the top goal scorer, but he came through in the clutch to win it for Canada. The attention opponents’ top lines paid to Crosby opened up space for other players like Toews, Perry, and Getzlaf.

How he makes me feel: In love, but also proud to be Canadian. Whether we like it or not, the best hockey player will be the best known Canadian around the world, so he’s the perfect person to represent it.

Cons

On the ice: Crosby spends more time whining about hats on the ice than handling the puck. Combined with avoiding fights and not playing aggressively, he might as well go back to playing Timbits hockey.

Looks: Crosby was hot when he was a dreamy 16-year-old. Now he’s 22, but he looks like he’s 14. Plus, a man who can’t grow a beard isn’t much of a man.

Olympics: His only point in the last three games was the game-winning goal in the final. He’s like that slacker who does no work and brings down your group mark, but aces the final.

How he makes me feel: Inadequate. At 22, he’s the same age as me and has won a Stanley Cup, Olympic gold medal, and millions of dollars. I’m going into my fifth year of undergrad.

Advantage: Pro-Crosby

All of the cons are inarguable, but ultimately Crosby is the man who scored the golden goal. If Paul Henderson is still milking his game-winning goal 38 years after the Summit Series, Crosby’s got to get at least two days of gratitude, eh?

Editorial, Opinion

EDITORIAL: A double standard for Olympic women’s hockey

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One of the best things about the Olympic Games is its commitment to gender equality. Eschewing the common male-dominated athletic hierarchy, almost every event in both the Summer and Winter Games awards medals to both genders as equals. And after some of the great female athletic performances we’ve witnessed during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics – by Joannie Rochette, Petra Majdic, and Clara Hughes, to name just a few – it has been refreshing to see people who normally ignore women’s sports sit up and take notice.

That’s part of the reason why two recent controversies surrounding Olympic women’s hockey have been so disheartening – they reveal a disturbing double standard that still exists when it comes to female athletes.

Lopsided victories in round-robin play sparked the first of these controversies, as Canada and the U.S.A. steamrolled their competition. That led to International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge issuing an ominous warning for the future of the sport, saying that women’s hockey “cannot continue [to be an Olympic event] without improvement.”

Rogge is right to say that women’s hockey needs parity. The U.S. and Canada are vastly superior to every other country and, barring a massive upset, will almost always meet in the gold medal game. But, the fault doesn’t lie with the Americans or Canadians: it’s in the way other nations fund female athletics. Many countries that field weak female hockey teams, such as Russia, lavish funding upon men’s hockey teams while providing only a pittance for the women. They deserve to be embarrassed in blowouts for their lack of commitment to growing the women’s game.

Women’s hockey needs to be given time to develop, like men’s hockey – where, in 1924 for example, the Canadian men outscored their opposition 122-3. Rogge is right to shame nations that ignore women’s hockey at the expense of male sports. Hopefully his words will be enough.

The second controversy occurred after photos surfaced of the Canadian women’s hockey team celebrating after the gold medal game. The team’s post-game celebration spilled out of the dressing room and onto the ice of Canada Hockey Place, where several players were photographed drinking beer and champagne, and smoking cigars in the empty arena. The outcry was predictable from many corners. “It is not what we want to see,” said Gilbert Felli, executive director of the IOC. “I don’t think it’s a good promotion of sport values.”

What’s hypocritical, however, is the double standard. Canadian Olympic skeleton champion Jon Montgomery was celebrated for doing much the same thing while walking through Whistler village. On his way to a CTV interview, Montgomery walked down the street, on-camera, while drinking from a pitcher of beer he was handed by a fan. Montgomery was drinking in public, on national television – yet no one protested. In fact, The Globe and Mail’s Stephen Brunt called it one of the best moments of the Olympics.

Both celebrations were spontaneous and joyous – a well-deserved release for athletes who train and abstain for years in order to reach the pinnacle of their sport. It’s disappointing that only the female celebration was singled out for being “unsporting.”

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