Challenging Movember criticisms By Kyle Wallis . —h, the smell of Movember, A« celebrated month where facial hairs above the mouth accumulate in support of awareness for men’s cancers. Can you smell it? It smells like wet pavement, dying leaves, and the much welcome scent of Christmassy Starbucks beverages. It’s too bad that the guys sporting facial hair can’t smell it though, due to the overpowering scent of awesome that their mustaches produce all month. As a 19-year-old male, I believe that I can attribute some of my success to my boyish good looks and charm. Yes, even now I still get carded when renting movies from Rogers. I am forced to wait in anticipation for the day when I too get to shave some participation), but what about those who cannot afford to donate? At least by growing a mustache, you will still be able to support the campaign. I also want to address concerns voiced by the some of the so-called supporters of the selfless gentlemen who sport facial hair for Movember, or as the foundation calls them, “Mo Bros.” Ladies, I am talking primarily to you, although far be it from me to exclude any gender from this deliberation. There will always be people who express antipathy towards the ruggedness, bristliness, and occasionally poor growth patterns of the modern mustache. My advice is to put it to the side for one month. It’s the least one can do to support the Mo Bros who support men with the likes of prostate cancer. Once you “By growing the mustache in support of Movember, you are increasing exposure for the movement itself. Think of it this way: the more people that know about the efforts of the Movember foundation, the more likely that people will donate to its cause.” bristly black beard particles from my face. However, I still like to do what I can for the Movember movement, despite the absence of face fuzz from my adorably dimpled chin. And so, I would like to address some of the negative criticisms Movember has garnered so far. Hold on to your muttonchops, because it’s about to get hairy up in here! The first issue I want to discuss is the perceived requirement to donate in order to grow the mustache. Let me get this straight: growing a mustache in support of men’s cancers is a good thing. Donating is of course better. It shouldn’t be seen as a bad thing for people to grow mustaches during November and not donate. By growing the mustache in support of Movember, you are increasing exposure for the movement itself. Think of it this way: the more people that know about the efforts of the Movember foundation, the more likely that people will donate to its cause. That’s not to say that donating is not appreciated (of course, it’s the most desired form of achieve this, you will become what the Movember foundation dubs a “Mo Sista” (presumably if you are male, you just become another Mo Bro). And regardless of what time of year it is, you should love your guy for the face he has, not the face you want him to have. My final criticism is directed towards the people who see Movember only as an opportunity to exercise their fashion prowess, whether knowingly or otherwise. Movember is about fundraising for the support of men’s cancers. While the exploration of new trends in facial hair styling is encouraged, it should be done so in the spirit of Movember; the goal here is to raise money in support of men’s cancers. So get out those trimmers people, because Movember is here! If you want to register yourself with the Movember foundation, donate, or simply learn more about the phenomenon, just visit the website at www.movember.com. Hair follicles, assemble! Bini Conservatives need to watch The Wire Omnibus crime bill proves Tories haven’t learned from TV’s toughest detectives By John Cameron — The Carillon (University of Regina) REGINA (CUP) — I just can’t figure out the Tories’ omnibus crime bill. With crime rates dropping across Canada, the Conservatives are the only ones that believe we need to get tougher on crime. Their omnibus crime bill, by and large, is trying to fix something that isn’t broken by breaking it. What they really need to do is spend less time trumpeting a faulty bill and more time watching The Wire. Though nearly all of the bill’s provisions have made criminology experts and representatives from the Canadian Bar Association publicly recoil from it, Bill C-10’s attitude towards drug crime will have particularly serious consequences for Canada. The bill is designed to send drug dealers to prison by increasing mandatory sentences for growing and selling substances like marijuana and restricting house arrest. Not only will this fail to have any serious impact on the drug trade — it neither cuts off dealers’ supply nor clamps down on demand — it has the potential to clog our prisons and divert resources from serious crimes to a war on drugs. Compounding this are other elements of the bill, such as provisions that make it more difficult to obtain pardons and thus harder to get jobs, meaning offenders will be at greater risk to re-offend. We will likely need to build more prisons to house new offenders and re-offenders. Moncey that could be spent on crime prevention may go towards building more prisons and, if we aren’t careful, to private industry. In The Wire, maybe the best fictional exploration of America’s war on drugs in television history, Detective Lester Freamon’s mantra is that if you follow the money, you don’t know what shit you’ll stir up. And when it comes to the prison industry, money flows in two directions: towards those who build prisons, and towards those who run them. Bill C-10 is guaranteed to send more people to prison. That’s its point. A larger prison population means a larger prison industry. In America, where the prison industry employs nearly 800,000 people according to an MSNBC report from this month, the Department of Corrections simply isn’t large enough to manage the entire industry. According to that same report, the American government outsources the management of eight per cent of the nation’s 2.3 million prisoners to private companies. These companies make billions of dollars keeping people incarcerated — often people who were busted with only enough cocaine to get high. For those companies, more people in prison means a higher profit margin, and in America they do their damndest to ensure that they’re making money. Canadian taxpayers want safer streets, and they want the penal code to respect the rights of victims. Those are both commendable goals. But I don’t believe this bill will do either of those things. It will more likely expand our prison culture, turn rehabilitation into punishment, increase our crime rate (and thus the number of victims of crime), and push our system towards privatization. Who in their right mind wants that, and who in their right mind wants to pay somebody else for it?