Folks, shit just got real.

Follow the rabble-rousing Miranda Nelson on Twitter at @charenton_.

This Friday and Saturday (February 24 and 25), the White Rock Social Justice Film Festival comes to the First United Church (15385 Semiahmoo Ave., White Rock).

The local cinema festival features six films that examine key issues that do or will impact the lives of the community. Filmgoers can enjoy live music before the film and a 30-minute discussion with knowledgeable community-resource personnel after the film.

Films on deck include South of the Border (Feb. 24, 7 pm), Rainforest: The Limits of Splendour (Feb. 25, 10 am), Myths for Profit (Feb. 25, 11:30 am), Blood and Oil (Feb. 25, 2 pm), Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us? (Feb. 25, 3:40 pm), and Joan Baez: How Sweet the Sound (Feb. 25, 7 pm).

Watch the trailer for Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us?

Admission is by donation. For more info, check out the White Rock Social Justice Film Festival website.

Follow Jennie Ramstad on Twitter at twitter.com/jennieramstad.

Every weekday, the Straight highlights a great local shot as the Photo of the Day. Interested in submitting your photos for consideration? Check out our Flickr group.

First off, about that headline. Okay, so maybe Barack Obama isn't the world's greatest president. (Not yet, anyway.) That would be JFK, right? But there's no denying that Jeff Beck is the world's greatest rock guitarist, right? Well, maybe a little denying.

As you can see here, the East Room at the White House was rocking last night when a stellar lineup of musicians took the stage. After a little coaxing from blues legend Buddy Guy, Obama took the microphone from Mick Jagger and sang a few lines from Robert Johnson's blues classic, "Sweet Home Chicago". The prez didn't exactly tear the house down with his soulfulness, but he did alright--better than Dubya ever could, we figure. Or Santorum, for that matter.

The lineup of guitarists was amazing. Besides Beck and Guy you had B.B. King, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, and Susan Tedeschi. If Obama doesn't get reelected after pulling off that musical coup then the States is in worse trouble than we thought!

You can follow Steve Newton on Twitter at twitter.com/earofnewt.

Sunday Times journalist Marie Colvin was among at least four journalists who died in Homs this morning, 19 days into the Syrian government’s siege of the city. Over 7000 people who aren’t white journalists have died since anti-regime protests began in March.

Colvin was the Times’ Middle East correspondent for almost 20 years, although she’d covered various other conflicts, including the Sri Lankan civil war that cost her an eye in 2001. Remarkably, Colvin’s death actually dislodged Adele from this morning’s headlines, and dislodging Adele from anything takes some work, let’s face it.

Still, News for Youse would be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge that the golden-throated pudding-warbler threw the entire Brit Awards into disarray when she flipped the bird at “the suits” who cut her acceptance speech short during the ceremony in London last night. Adele was picking up just one of the thousands of awards she’s won in the last week or so.

Of course, if Adele would actually stop making long and turgid acceptance speeches it might give her throat the chance to heal, but that’s not important right now. What’s important is that she didn’t show her bum like Jarvis Cocker did at the Brits back in the ‘90s, and for this we should be grateful.

Also not showing his bum is Gordon Lightfoot, who has been named by chairman Jimmy Webb as one of the inductees in this year’s Songwriter’s Hall of Fame. Congratulations Mr. Lightfoot, regardless of the fact that you’re sharing the honour with Jim Steinman. Let’s commemorate with this fine performance of “Sundown” from 1979, shall we?

By the way, News for Youse would also be remiss in not mentioning our friend Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s most recent night in the clink. The former IMF head blah blah blah is being questioned by French police over his possible complicity in a prostitution ring that furnished girls to very important people at parties in Paris and Washington DC .

Arguing for his client’s innocence, Strauss-Kahn’s lawyer Henri Leclerc told reporters yesterday that Strauss-Kahn had no way of knowing that he and his extremely wealthy and powerful associates were surrounded by hookers as they snorted back gold-plated escargot and brainstormed new methods for screwing the developing world out of their resources.

“People are not always clothed at these parties,” said Henri Leclerc. “I challenge you to tell the difference between a nude prostitute and a classy lady in the nude.” In response, the entire sex workers industry asked how they’re supposed to tell the difference between a globe-trotting international politician and a piece of shit in an expensive suit.

News for Youse has carefully excised the nudity from this clip (below) of one of Strauss-Kahn’s parties, but it’ll give you a good idea of the terrible depths of depravity routinely practiced by our political elites.

Live Nation announced today that Canadian alt-rock band Arkells and Arizona indie-rock group the Maine will perform at the Vogue Theatre on Friday, June 1.

Arkells, who have won the Juno Award for New Band of the Year, will be touring in support of latest release Michigan Left, which has spawned hits like “Whistleblower” and “Michigan Left”. The Maine, who were a marquee artist on the Van’s Warped Tour, will be touring in support of recent album Pioneer. The opening act will be Arizona indie-rock band Lydia.

Tickets for the show are priced at $23.50 (plus service charges and fees) and go on sale this Friday (February 24) at 10 a.m. but Straight readers can take advantage of our exclusive presale on Thursday (February 23) from 10 a.m.–10 p.m. by going to the Vogue Theatre and submitting our exclusive presale password Michigan.

Tickets are also available for purchase at the Vogue Theatre Box Office and Rogers Wireless Box Office.

And don't forget to become a fan of the Georgia Straight on Facebook and sign up for THE LIST newsletter for more concert announcements, contests, and exclusive “beat the lines” presale passwords.

When U.K. singer-songwriter Georgey Payne heard about a young gay friend who was too afraid to go home due to being bullied at school, she decided to something about it.

Payne, member of the lesbian band Greymatter, created the L Project, wrote a song and organized a gathering of British lesbian artists: Horse, Georgey Payne and Emma Kavangagh of Greymatter, Sofia Antonia Milone (GeEkgiRL), Sandra MacBeth, Amber Taylor-Groves of HeadsHearts), Mel Sanson of Kenelis, Nina McCann, O'Hooley and Tidow, Lorna Thomas, Leanna Goring, Juey, Jess Gardham, Amy Sutton of Neon Choir, Nicky Mitchell, and Ella Chambers.

Together, they recorded and released the fundraising single "It Does Get Better" to send a message of hope, support, and encouragement to queer youth. All royalties benefit the U.K. charities Diversity Role Models, which addresses homophobia in British schools through education, and Stonewall, a lobbying organization.

The title of the song references the It Gets Better project, which The Georgia Straight 's sex advice columnist Dan Savage created to help troubled queer youth.

You can follow Craig Takeuchi on Twitter at twitter.com/cinecraig. You can also follow the Straight 's LGBT coverage on Twitter at twitter.com/StraightLGBT.

Live Nation announced today that English indie-pop group Florence + the Machine will perform at Deer Lake Park on Friday, July 20.

The band, led by vocalist Florence Welch, burst onto the music scene with the 2009 album Lungs and hits like “Dog Days Are Over”, “Cosmic Love”, and “Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)”. This time around, the Straight Series performers will be touring in support of their latest release Ceremonials. The opening act will be American indie-rock band the Walkmen.

Tickets for the show are priced at $49.50 (plus service charges and fees) and go on sale this Friday (February 24) at 10 a.m. but Straight readers can take advantage of our exclusive presale on Thursday (February 23) from 10 a.m.–10 p.m. by going to Live Nation and submitting our exclusive presale password ceremonials.

Tickets are also available for purchase at all Ticketmaster Outlets and Rogers Wireless Box Office.

And don't forget to become a fan of the Georgia Straight on Facebook and sign up for THE LIST newsletter for more concert announcements, contests, and exclusive “beat the lines” presale passwords.

Every weekday, the Straight highlights a great local shot as the Photo of the Day. Interested in submitting your photos for consideration? Check out our Flickr group.

Bear Witness, A Tribe Called Red, and Jackson 2Bears are just a few of the DJs that will be spinning at the Vancouver Art Gallery (750 Hornby Street) after hours on Friday (February 24). The gallery’s latest FUSE event—called Beat Nation: Art Hip Hop, and Aboriginal Culture—brings live music, dance, and art to the city center for one night only from 8:30 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Beat Nation performers include Jackson 2Bears, a Victoria-based Kanien’kehaka (Mohawk) artist and DJ who will supply both music and visuals; multimedia artist and filmmaker Bear Witness, who will show off his DJ’ing skills at FUSE; DJ collective A Tribe Called Red, which remixes Native American drum circles with dubstep; Juno Award-winning Dedos, who is recognized as one of Canada’s graffiti and b-boy pioneers; Tlingit/Aleut multimedia artist Nicholas Galanin, who performs on guitar as Silver Jackson; and multidisciplinary Tsimshian/Gitskan and Cree artist Skeena Reece, who will bring humor through clowning.

FUSE tickets are $17.50 or free for VAG members. Tickets can be purchased in advance online as a General Adult Admission ticket for February 24, or at the doors upon arrival at the event.

It’s getting harder to remember a time when the Internet didn’t exist. A time before Tweeting, and Skyping, and hot yoga, and television. Ignorance, by The Old Trout Puppet Workshop, is puppet theatre about the evolution of happiness—namely, when we lost it and how we might get back to it again.

Ignorance looks to our prehistoric ancestors—grunting, bone-gnawing cavemen—to explain where we went wrong.

The Old Trout Puppet Workshop started in Alberta in 1999 when a group of friends began carving puppets and using their creations to tell stories. Ignorance is the Old Trout’s first attempt at open creation: the entire show has been written on the web for readers to comment, criticize, and contribute to.

Ignorance runs at The Cultch’s Historic Theatre (1859 Venables Street) from February 28 to March 4, 6 to 10 at 8 p.m., with matinee shows at 2 p.m. on March 3 and 10. Tickets start at $16 and can be purchased online or by calling the Cultch box office at 604-251-1363.

Happy Budget Day, British Columbia! (And to all those individuals who will use any excuse to party, happy Mardi Gras! Or, we suppose, happy Budget Day.)

In a few short hours, we’ll have the details of B.C.’s next budget—the first tabled under the leadership of Captain Crunch, er, Christy Clark. While we don’t know all the deets yet, Her Supreme Eminence did provide some small spoilers about what to expect from the latest budget on her Twitter account: “No new taxes, y’all!”

Finance minster Kevin Falcon’s pre-budget rhetoric has been all about discipline and tight fists, which makes us wonder if he’s conflating the key to B.C.’s fiscal endurance and survival with the fortunes of S&M clubs around the province. Either way, we are extra excited about this budget dealio.

Falcor would also like you to know that he didn’t bother to buy a new pair of shoes for Budget Day. Sir, if you are unable to respect the time-honoured tradition of engaging in a little reckless spending prior to tabling a tightly wound well-oiled disciplined budget in front of your peers, the good citizens of British Columbia, and God, well, are you really fit to be a finance minister?

(News for Youse’s impromptu polling data suggests no, no he is not fit to be the finance minister. Of course, we have a sample size of approximately one snarky writer.)

And now for a little segment News for Youse has just now decided to call ToewsWatch 2012 (copyright pending): the public safety minister will be in Richmond tomorrow (February 22) for a $150/plate fundraiser at the River Rock Casino between 6 and 8 p.m. Citizens, I think you know what is required of you at this time.

Dear loyalists, just so you know, the Duchess of Cambridge has named her new cocker spaniel Lupo. We imagine he has a royal allowance that would put B.C.’s new budget to shame. We also imagine he’s as cute as the dickens!

If it’s a month in the year, it also must mean it’s time for earthquake fear mongering! Look, as everyone who’s lived on the West Coast knows, we’re all going to die when The Big One (copyright application rejected) hits. That’s just a fact of life, as sure as how Vancouver has eight months of rain masquerading as “seasons”. There’s nothing you can do in the face of an earth-swallowing quake or a tsunami except, oh, I don’t know, not live on the Pacific Rim. And despite having lived my entire life on the West Coast, I don’t know anyone who has enough rations to last them several weeks or hand-cranked radios or an enormous cache of bottled water. In fact, if you do start stockpiling supplies, there’s a very good chance that the police will come and investigate you under suspicion of being a terrorist. You cannot win. So, just chill out about the freakin’ earthquake, y’all.

Sigh. Here’s a story about how Russian scientists are regenerating plants that have been dead for 30,000 years. If you want something to really be scared about, let’s think about the potential impacts of reintroducing long-dead organisms into our modern ecosystem. We can’t think of a single one that doesn’t end in zombies.

Follow Miranda Nelson on Twitter, for whom February 21 only means one thing: her three-year Twitterversary. If that’s even a thing.

Half a century ago today, as humankind was still taking its first tentative steps into the cosmos, John Glenn rocketed off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and into orbit.

Although Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had made one orbit of the Earth 10 months earlier, Glenn was the first American (“the first free man”, to use the parlance of the times) to make orbit, revitalizing a lagging U.S. space program and clearing a path to the moon.

The two previous American manned flights had been simple ballistics: straight up-and-down, with a few minutes of weightlessness. Glenn’s five-hour mission, with its three complete orbits, quite literally took spaceflight to a new level.

Glenn also manually controlled his spacecraft, Friendship 7 (so tiny, he said, “You don't get in, you put it on”) and brought her back to Earth in a perfect splashdown (Gagarin, meanwhile, had bailed out of his craft, returning to Earth by parachute).

Of course, it all came at considerable risk—even more than usual for those early days of manned spaceflight. Falling behind the Russians, NASA knew they couldn’t just lob up another suborbital flight, they had to get Glenn up and keep him up. The problem was, their most reliable rocket, the Redstone, didn’t have the power to get into orbit.

Enter Atlas—a snorting, snarling beast of a booster, built to carry nuclear warheads to their targets, quickly converted for manned spaceflight. It didn’t have the best safety record, but it did have the power to get the job done. And Glenn, never one to turn down a challenge, leaped at the chance.

The Atlas, it turned out, worked flawlessly. However, during Glenn’s second orbit, mission control began picking up some troubling data. Telemetry indicated that Friendship 7’s landing bag (which cushioned impact during splashdown) had deployed, potentially causing the ship’s heat shield to come loose. If this were the case, the spacecraft, along with Glenn, would burn up upon reentry.

At first, no one told Glenn the situation, but he knew something was up due to all the odd questions coming over the radio. Finally, during Glenn’s third orbit, right before reentry, the capsule communicator finally came clean: “We are not sure whether or not your landing bag has deployed. We feel that it is possible to reenter with the retropackage on. We see no difficulty at this time in that type of reentry. Over.”

This was big. It would hold the heat shield in place, but it was not standard procedure to leave the retropackage—a three-engine braking system—attached to the spacecraft during reentry. Something was seriously wrong. But it didn’t faze Glenn.

“Roger,” he replied, “understand.”

And that’s all that was said about that. Glenn, after all, was one cool customer—his heartbeat never topped 110 during the entire flight—and if Cap Com was asking him to leave the retropackage on during reentry, well, there must be a darn good reason for it. First and foremost, he was a test pilot, used to following orders and pushing machinery to its breaking point.

As Glenn started reentry, mission control braced itself for the inevitable communications blackout that happens with every reentry. Caused by the ionization of superheated air around the spacecraft, it makes radio communication impossible until the vehicle reaches the lower atmosphere.

Agonizingly, the blackout came just when Glenn was at the most crucial point of his mission. All of mission control held its collective breath as they waited to reacquire Glenn’s radio signal—that is, if Friendship 7 had made it through reentry.

Finally, after five minutes, Glenn’s voice came over the radio: the heat shield had, indeed, held. “That was a real fireball, boy. I had great chunks of that retropackage breaking off half the way through.”

Even though it turned out the landing bag and heat shield had never been in any danger—it was just a faulty sensor—Glenn had proven himself to be a real hero with his grace under pressure.

Coming exactly when NASA needed it most, Glenn’s orbital success rebalanced the scale in the space race, and reinvigorated the U.S. space program.

After Glenn’s success, it was to be only seven years until an American flag was flying on the moon.

Like a lot of our readers, I spent several years at the hilltop prison known as Simon Fraser University. Actually, unlike some of my fellow alumni, I actually appreciated the imposing campus architecture there.

But something many of us could probably agree on was that a student union building was sorely missing on Burnaby Mountain. This was an issue that student politicians and activists bemoaned constantly, but it was always just talk back then.

Now, talk has turned into action. The Simon Fraser Student Society has just taken the wraps off a proposal to build a $65-million student space on campus. The Build SFU project would see the construction of a student union building and a stadium—yes, a stadium—funded by the student body.

The SFU SUB would have a gross area of 100,000 square feet and a net area (excluding spaces like hallways and walkways) of 70,000 square feet, with room for clubs and social space. As for the outdoor stadium, it would contain 2,500 seats, with about 500 of them covered, and be used for SFU sports, concerts, and other events.

From looking at the architectural renderings of the project, it appears that the SUB will be built on the site of the SFU swimming pool. Indeed, the Build SFU site states: "The building itself is starting off environmentally friendly as we are repurposing an old building’s frame instead of using new materials and constructing from the ground up."

From March 20 to 22, undergraduate students will vote in an online referendum on the proposal. If they vote yes, they'll be paying for the project for years to come. Students would be charged a new semesterly levy, starting at $10 in January 2014 for full-timers. The fee would increase by $10 every January, taking it up to $20 per semester in 2015, $30 per semester in 2016, and so on.

If the SUB and stadium get approved, it'll take four or five years to complete the project. It's up to SFU students to decide whether it's worth it.

You can follow Stephen Hui on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest.

The debate over how to counteract homophobic bullying in schools has been quite a contentious issue here in Metro Vancouver. But a new North American study will investigate how successful different strategies actually are, and why they work.

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research is funding a $2-million, five-year study entitled "Reducing Stigma, Promoting Resilience: Population Health Interventions for LGBTQ Youth". The study represents their largest investment devoted to health and school issues regarding sexual orientation.

The study will not be limited to queer youth but will encompass how straight students are impacted as well. Contrary to misconceptions that only one particular demographic, namely queer youth, is affected, homophobia can affect and be used against all youth, whether straight or queer. Take the example of former North Vancouver high school student Azmi Jubran, who identifies as straight, who won a landmark case against the North Vancouver School District in 2005. He took the school district to the B.C. Human Rights tribunal for failing to do anything about the homophobic bullying he was subjected to for five years .

"In any high school, there are far more heterosexual teens than lesbian, gay, bisexual, or questioning teens, and because of this, we have found half or more of those targeted for anti-gay harassment actually identify as straight," UBC School of Nursing professor and principal investigator Elizabeth Saewyc stated in a news release. "There isn't much research about them, but what there is suggests they have the same health consequences as LGBTQ youth who are bullied."

The study will take a multifaceted approach. Researchers will examine strategies that various North American schools have implemented to minimize bullying. They will also document trends in health and safety among youth in B.C., Atlantic provinces, Minnesota, and Massachusetts, based on existing school surveys.

Health issues will be explored by region, gender, sexual orientation (including straight), and ethnicity. In addition, the long-term effects of homophobic bullying on LGBT youth, and how families, schools, and communities can help, will be documented. Case studies of school districts and community programs will be cited to explain what helps to improve things and how it works.

Saewyc, professor nursing and adolescent medicine, will head the study, which will be conducted with 15 co-investigators. Canadian researchers from Halifax, Montreal, Waterloo, Winnipeg, Edmonton, and Vancouver will be joined by American researchers from Boston and Arizona. B.C. researchers include UBC associate professor Sheila Marshall, McCreary Centre Society executive director Annie Smith, and B.C. Ministry of Health executive director Warren O'Briain with his senior team.

Concern about homophobia and bullying in North American schools have been heightened over the past few years due to a series of widely covered cases of troubled youth who were bullied. The Georgia Straight 's sex advice columnist Dan Savage launched the It Gets Better campaign in 2010 to help send messages of hope to troubled queer youth.

In October of last year, openly gay 15-year-old Jamie Hubley, who suffered from depression, committed suicide, after being relentlessly teased and bullied throughout elementary and high school.

Here in British Columbia, numerous activists, organizations, and politicians are calling for the implementation of a provincial anti-homophobia and -transphobia policy in schools. Meanwhile, an ongoing debate over the Vancouver School Board's antihomophobia policy arose due to concerns by and controversies over the actions of VSB trustees Ken Denike and Sophia Woo.

You can follow Craig Takeuchi on Twitter at twitter.com/cinecraig. You can also follow the Straight 's LGBT coverage on Twitter at twitter.com/StraightLGBT.

Live Nation announced today that Berlin-based orchestral-rap artist Chilly Gonzales will perform at the Rio Theatre on Wednesday, April 11.

Gonzales, who left Canada for Berlin in 1998, remixed the music of artists like Daft Punk and Bjork before collaborating with Feist on her Let It Die and The Reminder albums. In 2009, he broke the Guinness World Record for longest solo concert with 27 hours of piano music.

Tickets for the show are priced at $20 (plus service charges and fees) and go on sale this Friday (February 24) at 10 a.m. but Straight readers can take advantage of our exclusive presale on Thursday (February 23) from 10 a.m.–10 p.m. by going to Live Nation and submitting our exclusive presale password chilly.

Tickets are also available for purchase at Zulu, Red Cat, and Highlife Records, and at all Ticketmaster Outlets and Rogers Wireless Box Office.

And don't forget to become a fan of the Georgia Straight on Facebook and sign up for THE LIST newsletter for more concert announcements, contests, and exclusive “beat the lines” presale passwords.

The six-city casting tour for the Canadian version of The Bachelor reality TV show kicked off right here in Vancouver on Sunday (February 19).

Dozens of women came out for the open auditions at the Loden Hotel, hoping to vie for the heart of an as-yet unnamed bachelor.

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Andrew Chin

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Canadian musician Claire Boucher, aka Grimes, performed at the Fortune Sound Club on Saturday (February 18).

You can see more photos from the Grimes concert on The Snipe.

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Tamara Lee

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Every Monday, the Straight highlights a great local shot as the Photo of the Week. Interested in submitting your photos for consideration? Check out our Flickr group.

Previous photo: Rise

The news only gets worse for that champion of warrantless Internet surveillance, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews.

This past weekend, the hacker group Anonymous threatened to expose more "skeletons in his closet" if the Conservative government doesn't scrap its copyright reform and "lawful access" bills.

In a video posted on YouTube, Anonymous states:

We warned you not to force your abhorrent spying legislation onto the Canadian people.

You did not heed our warnings.

Now you will be exposed for the hypocrite that you are: A man who believes registering a lethal weapon is an unfair invasion of privacy, but demands that the public's information be logged for use by the authorities. A man who declares marriage and the family to be sacred institutions, but commits adultery and impregnates his mistress, and then abandons his own child. A man who demands his country spy on the Canadian people's private activities, but demands a parliamentary investigation when fully accessible public records about his own personal life are exposed.

Mr. Toews, you are now literally a joke in the eyes of the internet, the Canadian public, and the world.

Anonymous goes on to declare: "Let this be a warning to any politician who attempts to censor, control, or hamper public use of the internet in Canada, or anywhere else on this planet."

Toews sent an open letter to his Manitoba constituents over the weekend, informing them that police have been asked to investigate the "extensive personal attack" on himself in the wake of Bill C-30's introduction.

You can follow Stephen Hui on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest.