The Devil's Advocate

If for some reason you're still reading this . . .

2009-05-06T22:42:00.000-07:00

Mike Kushnir is spearheading a project to travel from Vancouver to Albany, Oregon using only public transit. Mike left with Mathieu Goupil-Lemay earlier this week and I will be joining them in Seattle on Friday. You can follow our progress at www.i5chronicles.com.

I don't know what is going to happen to the DA next year.

-Aaron Palm

Douchebag Threat Level Orange

2009-04-11T15:11:00.000-07:00

Today's Douchebag Threat Level is ORANGE

Stay safe.

Another open letter to Blake Frederick

2009-02-10T00:38:00.000-08:00

Dear lover,

A lot has passed in the time since I first wrote you regarding my appreciation and my vote. I want you to know that since that fateful night I accepted the invitation to your house, I have never missed one of your debates, and my vote has always been for you. (Well, I make exceptions for Andrew Carne, but he's just such a hunk of an engineer.) You've always shown personality and spunk, darling, and despite having to share you with Emily "let's embarrass Alex Monegro" Griffiths - who I'm still jealous of - I felt very special for having the future 100th AMS President in my life.

So Blake, how did you think I would feel when I heard the news? Really, did you think of my feelings at all? I mean, I always knew you had... tendencies, but to run off with a whole slate, Blake? And worse, to have the evidence captured on video and camera? To me, that's worse than Paris Hilton's sex video - and likely a whole lot worse for your career. I hear you did it up against the walls of UBC, you did it in classrooms - hell, you probably did it in the AMS offices!

I wish we were married, Blake, only so that I'd have my day in court like you'll have yours. As it is, I have to suffer lonely and without any recompense, watching my one-time bedrock of virtue and goodness get slagged in the media and by uncompromising and bleak email statements from she-who-does-rule-from-on-high, Sarina.

Actually, I should have known better, Blake. I always seem to fall for the bad boys. Just think, before I met you I was falling hard for Mr. Flyerfuck himself, the dreamy Alex Lougheed... though that had to end after he put his 'ballot' in twelve other boxes. I thought I'd moved on to a better man, but my bad luck streak continues. Hopefully my next choice of man-love, a certain romantic young VFM coordinator, will do better to uphold the standards of democratic monogamy I look for.

Somewhere deep in my heart, dear, I believe that you are innocent, and if that day comes, I will likely run back to you with open arms, saying "I voted for him! I believed in him all along!". But until then, I just can't bring myself to show my face with yours in public. I felt especially ashamed when you pulled the Durganesque move of accusing a facebook group of comprising a slate, just by giving an endorsement to your rival. A little more of me wanted Paul Korczyk as my President right then. What can I say, Blake, I'm as fickle as the blogosphere and much less optimistic. You've broken my democratic heart on your cold slate tablet, and I want it back in one piece.

Seriously yours,
Steve

New Feature!

2009-02-09T23:29:00.001-08:00

Here begins the Inquisition

2009-02-09T21:12:00.000-08:00

Statement of the Inquisitor:

It has been brought before the Inquisition that the following have committed offenses of great Hearsay against the faith:

Edward Lee Durgan charged with six counts general silliness (not knowing when to quit) and one count assault of the honour of the Devil's Advocate

Blake Frederick charged with one count general silliness (not knowing when to quit)

UBC Student Media blog charged with six hundred and sixty-six counts of lacking sense of humour.

Read the verdict of the Inquisition behind the jump.

Statement of the Inquisitor:

Regarding the case of Edward Lee Durgan

"Papa Durgan" submitted six complaints to the Elections Committee. You may read of them at the Radical Beer's blog (the Inquisitor does not suffer Itself to lern HTML - click the sidebar link yourself)

All of his complaints were dismissed by the EA as lacking in substance. At best, they were mildly funny. At worst, they demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of Elections Code. Research: something a PhD student at UBC should understand.

While the Inquisition wants to side with Durgan because we share his rage with the AMS, which will soon face Judgment in the eyes of the Lord, Durgan's lack of tact became apparent when he dared to accuse the Devil's Advocate of being a slate along with the Radical Beer Tribune. VFMs are not candidates. Slate rules do not apply.

For six counts of silliness and one count assault on the honour of the DA, the Inquisition finds Edward Lee Durgan GUILTY.

Blake Frederick submitted a complaint regarding an endorsement message sent out by a Facebook group. For one count Not Understanding Freedom of Speech and one count Not Knowing When To Quit the Inquisition finds Blake GUILTY.

The Inquisition does not know where to start with the UBC Student Media Blog. From their general lack of humour, to their biased coverage, to their shameless attacks on others, to hiding behind their claims of impartiality, to their lack of analysis, to their shameful web design,to their whoring of CookieGate, the Inquisition finds UBC Student Media GUILTY.

teehee!

2009-02-06T23:54:00.000-08:00

A shit storm started in the Blogosphere tonight with an email allegedly from the Election's Admin stating that Blake Frederick has been disqualified.

The email was sent from a personal Gmail account on a Friday night that has no link to Sarina other than name (and the same one that sent out the oh so silly CookieGate email) All other contact the DA has received from Sarina has been through the official elections email - (Elections@ams.ubc.ca)

Sure, it could be real, but is likely misinformation planted by pro-Keg activists in a last ditch attempt to seize the reigns of power. Everyone else can go to sleep.

2009-02-06T22:21:00.000-08:00

I owe Gerald Deo another beer.

Your 2009 AMS Executive

2009-02-04T22:45:00.000-08:00

Don't blame me. You voted for them (though likely for second place). In case you can't identify the five heads of the hydra, you elected:

VP Finance - Tom "this is what I study" Dvorak
VP External - Tim "I'm small don't hurt me" Chu
VP Administration - Crystal "not Tristan" Hon
VP Academic - Johannes "oral vetting" Rebane
President - Blake "slim margin of error" Frederick

And for Board of Governors, you elected Michael "elect me baby, one more time" Duncan, and Bijan "oops, I got elected again" Ahmadian.

Don't blame us - we disendorsed most of them.

Oh - and congrats. Thanks to you candidates, democracy at UBC was saved from the grasps of Kommander Keg. Thanks to the RBT for our results.

Eat Cookie

2009-02-03T15:09:00.001-08:00

A tribute to Eat Cake. Check this out if you have no idea what this is about.

Stop whining, nothing happened this weekend

2009-02-03T13:44:00.000-08:00

Some anonymous types have been making noise in the comments about the lack of updates. I hear you. Thing is, nothing that interesting has happened recently. There are a few random developments in the ScandalWatch and War On Fun departments - read about them behind the jump.

War on Fun - the Devil's Advocate, along with the RBF, planned on throwing our VFM winnings together to have a massive Knoll Garden (beer garden on the Knoll . . . free beer for all!) but I've ran into a massive amount of red tape. Everyone from the RCMP to the Fire Marshal to the AMS to the UBC Admin (in particular someone who's title is "Facilities Manager Zone 1" . . .) have raised various types of concerns which led Classroom Services (the people who you would book the Knoll from) to deny liquor service. I asked Classroom services if I could meet with them to get help planning the event,; they said no. Bureaucratic labyrinths drive parties underground. It would be much easier for me to just buy a dozen kegs, a couple hookers, and have a massive party at some South Campus parking garage.

ScandalWatch - Candidates are doing their usual BS. The stakes are low enough in campus politics that people will do all sorts of dirty stuff. Nothing particularly exciting here. In other news, Bruce Krayenhoff, aka STV Dude, contributes to the Fair Vote UBC blog. The Fair Vote UBC blog competes in the Voter Funded Media contest. Bruce is on the VFM committee. Since entering the VFM contest, Fair Vote UBC has come into a fair bit of money. I emailed Bruce for comment and he said that no one on the VFM committee had issues with it. I called the AMS and they didn't know who was on the committee. Meeting times aren't sent out to VFM contestants and I couldn't find anything online. For someone so in love with electoral reform, I would expect a bit more transparency.

Edit - While not quite scandalous, the following makes me sad: A Facebook note by Blake Frederick on CookieGate appears to be lifted verbatim from the UBC Insider's (no credit given). I know you used to write for the Insiders, Blake, but still . . . [edit - Blake's Facebook automatically imports Insider's posts - so this isn't a big deal]

Revelations from ACF

2009-01-29T12:26:00.000-08:00

This is the closest thing to a liveblog you're going to get from the D.A. Here are some quotes and thoughts on the {All Candidates} - {Bijan} forum.

And no, ACF isn't back. I'm talking about the second most exciting thing with that title... the All Candidates Forum!

VP Administrate This!

"It's a transgendered water fountain." - Water Fountain spokesperson

Crystal, on why to replace Tristan: "a new pair of eyes looking at this, a new perspective on the SUB renew project, allowing different people to take part would be a really good idea, because this is a student initiative. I'm going to be taking other routes with consultations, so... just a different method of doing things would be useful." - Not good enough, Crystal, sorry.

"People are stupid and cannot govern themselves" - Jeremy, spokesperson for Kommander Keg, on how he'd reform clubs.

"I would like all the students here to make him your number two choice on your Condorcet vote." - Kommander Keg. Filed under L for 'Likely to get him elected'.

"In light of the Kommander's platform, if you want to vote again, perhaps don't vote for Kommander Keg" - Water Fountain

On joke candidates: "the reason I'm running a Water Fountain is that my voice wasn't getting heard." - WF spokesperson

VP Academic & something we can't quite remember

Johannes - the flyerfuck candidate this year. Born in Kentucky. Is fried chicken?

David can help transit w/o spending money. How? Moving more buses to peak times... ummmmmmmmmmm.... Not that easy, bucko.

"Last night I went to a council meeting, which Johannes came for a small part of. Not all of, but I applaud him for trying." - Jeremy Wood

"I have none, and I'm sure it will be very negative on anything I do." - David Nogas on his AMS [non]experience

A touching moment...

Asked to say nice things about other candidates: Sonia, almost breaking down: "I hope that if you vote for anyone other than me, you vote for Jeremy." All candidates talk about passion of others. Johannes and Jeremy hug. Hot.

Then Jeremy on Johannes: "I was going to just say you have a nice website and leave it at that... but at the end of the day, I admire your ambition, I admire your persistence, and I'm confident that, whatever happens at the end of this election, you'll continue to work for students"

VP Fine Aunts

What is your added value as VPF? blah blah blah. The only upside is that I'd trust both these people with my money more than either Chris Diplock or Andrew Forshner (in case you don't remember, he was the loser last year).

Tom "this isn't a pet project, a hobby for me... I have run a business on my own; this is what I'm studying."

Board of Guv'nors

Free metaphor: this debate is a sandwich with no Bijan mustard.

Interesting facts: Mike was shy once! Andrew almost went to film school! Tristan worked with death row prisoners. Blake was ...?

Rodrigo: comment on performence of current board reps. What would you do differently? Tristan: "maintain ties with community. One of our Board reps has done a relatively good job with that. Tim..." (Oh Bijan, why aren't you here! You'd make the debate twice as fun.)

Mitch Wright hands out starburst candies to attendees, care of the Elections Budget. Thanks AMS, using my money properly! (Where's my beer care of the elections budget?)

Paraphrasing AJ, debate moderator."Hello, my name is Student Atlarge. Why should I vote for you? Did I mention I'm a student at large?"

VP for Real World Relations

Kings Head makes a splash with no representative, but a sign: "Eet Moar Chikin'." Is he from Kentucky? No sign of fire, which is probably good for our us continuing to stay in the building.

Iggy: "The thing I get asked about is my size. I'm six foot five... I think I could bench press Tim." I challenge him to, but AJ shuts it down. We may still see this happen after the debate.

Tim: "I think that I would like to emphasize the sheer size of UBC." We'd like to emphasize the sheer size of Iggy.

Tim talks about Equity again!! I though we told him not to do that...

Alex Lougheed points out that they're signing officer to the External Lobbying fund. OMG, we're giving them $70,000. Where is fire when you need it?

Student Atlarge returns. "I've never cared, I've never voted, and every year it turns out well." Student Atlarge clearly doesn't remember the time the Exec tried to fire the GM, Bernie, and got censured. Or the other student unions that have been in hot water recently - like Carleton, which nixed Shinerama and made MacLeans.

Iggy "The AMS... it has become quite incestuous." iRod. Against incest. There's a campaign slogan we can get behind. Iggy "we need fresh blood." D.A. concludes that Iggy is a vampire.

President, finally!

My editor, Aaron, is rooting for the proletariat. I think he's implying not voting.

Candidates make opening statements in their native language. Yay diversity! Too bad none of them speak Woman.

Candidates talk about ... something.

AJ and candidates agree to extend this thing beyond two pm.

Jeremy speaks of "certain drinks of a student variety". Finish the sentence: "when I'm drinking my beer, I'm drinking a ..."
Paul: Granville Winter Ale
Blake: alongside a bottle of Havana Club
Alex: God's gift to Humanity

Blake, on Condorcet. "I think we need to explain it to people so they understand that strategic voting cannot happen." Umm, Blake, that's the only thing we understand about Condorcet.

Aaron Palm: "One of your Exec lights the knoll on fire while voting for themselves a dozen times. How do you interact with this person?"
Blake: "I would bring them to student court."
Paul: "You stole my answer."

We learn that Blake doesn't have much of a life outside student politics and student issues. Paul needs "me-time" sometimes - difficult if he's both AMS Prez and an RC.

Aww another tender moment... Blake wishes everyone good luck. And we're done. And I'm late for class.

Overall comments

Overall, I wish I were at the other ACF. But there were good moments.

Also - Mike Duncan, you've been AMS Prez for a year and you can't spell "hectare" on your posters? Shame.

.

VOTE!

2009-01-29T11:07:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Warren Springer for letting us use his video.

Dis-Endorsements Round II

2009-01-28T15:48:00.000-08:00

While campus media was masturbating our egos and ejaculating all over Bijan and his farm speech, some sketchy sketchy shit has been going down. First up is the race for the Student Legal Fund Society. The SLFS was created after APEC got spicy to provide a way for poor students to afford pricey lawyers after our rights are violated by the Man. To prevent these funds (each UBC student pitches in a dollar) from being depleted every time some concerned student lights a bonfire on the Knoll, the SLFS has the descretion to approve or deny funding requests.

Last year many concerned students lit bonfires on the Knoll and were denied legal funding from the SLFS. This year, there are 11 candidates running. We don't know how many of them will be elected because the SLFS's website was last updated in July '07 (and it says student reps terms expire in 2000) the AMS website just lists a temporary email and a link to the website.

Despite what the Man would have you believe, this election is actually happening. Read the dis-endorsements behind the jump.

Arash Amouzgar - No statement on the AMS website. His Facebook is private. Google didn't reveal anything relevant. DIS-ENDORSED pending additional information.

EDIT: Arash found this article one late night as he sat alone googling himself. He emailed me with many bulleted points as to why I should de-dis-endorse him. The two salient points:
1) Kno to the Knoll endorses him. Therefore not a member of the Knoll Slate
2) Wrestled in high school. Perhaps he can take Durgan? If he can, he will be DE-DIS-ENDORSED

Ed Durgan - no election would be complete without Durgan's shiny face. He graduated high school the year I was born (according to facebook) yet his youthful vigor enables him to stay active in student politics at an age when my father was starting to contemplate retirement. He's . . . festive? Ah fuck it. Seriously. What. The. Fuck. His disrespect for the rule of law and common fucking courtesy were made apparent during last years campaign. I offer you a snippet: "First class slime balls like [Matthew] Naylor, [Colin] Simkus, and that lawyer guy for Lougheed ran the show while others without the abliity to think autonomously went along with it." and when asked to prove libelous assertions, he responded with "snakes like these guys [refering to Simkus] don't leave 'evidence'"

Yep. This is the guy we want on our legal aid society.DIS-ENDORSED x 1000.

Emma Ellison - No statement on the AMS website. Known equity lover. We fear her wrath. We like her enough that we don't want to dis-endorse her personally But she is an admin on the "Vote the Knoll for VFM" Facebook group and we think she is part of the [apparent] Knoll Slate. In the name of democracy she is DIS-ENDORSED.

Graeme Fisher - No information on the AMS website or the internet in general. DIS-ENDORSED pending additional information.

Emily Griffiths - according to AMS website wants to "start fucking with the status quo". Although the Devil's Advocate tends to enjoy fucking the status quo, (we'll fuck anything, really) bailing arsonists out of jail with my money is not cool. DIS-ENDORSED.

CJ Liu - No information on the AMS website. Private Facebook. DIS-ENDORSED pending additional information.

Gordon McCullough - No statement on the AMS site and no public Facebook. DIS-ENDORSED pending additional information.

EDIT: It has come to the DA's attention that Godron is actually Gord whom Eoin O'Dwyer likens to Jesus. I trust Eoin's opinion, especially on matters of faith. Gordon McCullougn is DE-DIS-ENDORSED

Aaron Sihota - Incumbent president. While he has a creepy smile, he is also the only candidate who provides contact information. He may actually be competent!

Colin Simkus - The DA knows Colin personally. While he is probably the most competent and qualified candidate, he makes boring dinner conversation. DIS-ENDORSED.

Sarah Stevenson - Provides not only a write up but also a public Facebook page. While normally these two things are expected to be a given in a political race, they stand out as exceptions in this one. This allows us to thoroughly check her out. She belongs to the Facebook group UBC Student Media, created by Rodrigo Nunes and apparently a front for the Knoll. Thank you transparency! DIS-ENDORSED!

Wladimiro Woyno - No information provided, private Facebook. Google says he did set construction for a UBC theater play called "The Learned Ladies" - to be fair construction workers have a long tradition in the AMS (see Yian) they tend to fuck with democracy. We don't like that. DIS-ENDORSED.

Condorcet explained.

2009-01-28T02:03:00.000-08:00

Everyone votes, then no-one gets their first choice, but instead a candidate that no-one really wanted but is inoffensive is elected (see picture).

It's also worth noting that the Board of Governors election, not being an AMS spot but a University position, will be using the old (First Past the Post) electoral system, which means that instead of the above, we will again be electing the candidates with the most friends.

Graphifying the election

2009-01-27T14:32:00.000-08:00

The axes are fairly explanatory: Outsider vs. Hack, and Knollie (ideological, though potentially not pragmatic; knows what they stand for) vs. Confused (practical, stands for something but not quite sure what, will negotiate and compromise).

Candidates are coloured by race (not in the usual sense that candidates are coloured by race, but by their electoral race).

2009-01-25T22:37:00.000-08:00

It's DIS-ENDORSEMENT season kids! The wait is finally over. See who didn't make the cut behind the jump.

VP Academic:

Johannes Rebane - says he wants to orally vet teaching assistants. We think that sounds dirty. Plus he totally tanked his first debate. Although he did better in his second, that doesn't matter because we at the Devils Advocate do not believe in second chances. He's sort of like Lougheed minus the charm. They even look like each other. That is creepy enough for us. DIS-ENDORSED

Jeremy "John Kerry" Wood - He likes equity to the point where he thinks that requiring TAs to speak English is offensive. He has the annoying tendency to replace every third noun with "farm". Dropped out of the race, before dropping back in half an hour later. Flips like an acrobat, flops like Ron Jeremy, waffles like a pancake. Has probably never even been to Vietnam.DIS-ENDORSED

We decided not to dis-endorse Sonia Purewal or David Nogas. Sonia's safe because, although boring, she may actually be qualified for this job. David's safe because he believes that "people should be able to do whatever they want" which is something we at the DA totally endorse. See you at the drug fueled snuff orgy, David.

Next, the gong show that is the VP External Race:

Fire and King's Head - Not Funny. Also, rumour has it they were originally going to run as VP sEXternal and VP eXXXternal, which would have been much better in our humble opinions. DIS-ENDORSED

Tiny Tim Chu - While Rory Green (Tim's Campaign Manager) may use our comment threads to debate whether her hand is physically capable of fitting up Tim's tiny ass, it cannot be denied that the campaign would go a lot smoother for everyone if Rory just cut to the chase, skinned Tim, and wore him like a suit. Also, he comes off as a one issue candidate for equity. We at the DA will not abide equity. Not on our Campus! DIS-ENDORSED

Although iRod is a huge dickhead with the campaign intelligence of a chinchilla with Down's syndrome, he hates equity, drinks tequila like a man, and kills small animals with big guns. It would not be a stretch to say that the entirety of the DA staff has a throbbing man crush for him.

VP Admin:

Tristan Markle - SOOOOOOO dis-endorsed! SERIOUSLY. WHAT THE FUCK. Tristan Markle fucked with Man. We approve. Unfortunately, the Man fucked back. Now we're all fucked. Shit. Fuck you Tristan. You've fucked us all with Admin dick. DIS-ENDORSED

None of the other candidates in this election are dis-endorsed yet. Water Fountain is safe because she's the only candidate who's ever proposed a radical reform that all students can benefit from. Her stream of thought is both cool and refreshing, making her opponents look like Coke-Heads. Having made quite the splash in the pool of politics, we find ourselves having pipe dreams about her victory. Her uncompromising idealism makes us wet. Kommander Keg is safe, but only because we find ourselves fearing that Condorcet will lead to his election. We don't want to be on his bad side once the Media Gulags are built. Crystal Hon is safe because AD Holm, one of our totally unbiased columnists, is dating her campaign manager. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

VP FINANCE:

Ale Coates - "Many student problems involve money. I plan to fix this." Obvious Pinko Commie. Ale Coates is like Diet Yian: Same Yian Taste, only half the intelligence. DIS-ENDORSED

Board of Governors:

Bijan Ahmadian - When we at the Devil's Advocate asked candidates whether they would collaborate with a foreign military occupier or lead the resistance, Bijan was the only one who hypothetically betrayed us. This is fitting, because he's already collaborating with the Man and the Fuzz. Traitors are DIS-ENDORSED

Bijan Ahmadian - Oh, and also, he tried to blackmail the Friends of the Farm into endorsing him. Not only does he hate students, he also hates democracy. DIS-ENDORSEDx2

Bijan Ahmadian - Oh yeah, did I mention? Bijan also sold out to the Man and went to work for professor Stephen Toope. He claims his "relationship" with Prof Toope helps him help students. I don't know about you, but last time I checked a relationship between a student and a professor counted as statutory. DIS-ENDORSEDx3

Mike Duncan - Mike, we love you. But it's time to go. Your campaign is based on you being Mike Duncan, Lord of Facebook, Stripper of Poles, and Cowboy of the Seas. What once was cute is now tiresome. Forgive us Mike. It's not you. It's us. And our new president. DIS-ENDORSED

Escaping out wrath for the moment:

Blake Fredrick. Having to rename the exec offices the tool shed is a small price to pay for Blake's charming socialism. You're so cute, with your dreams and idealism. Yes We Can!

Tristan Markle. Although we dis-endorsed him for VP Admin, we think he'd make the perfect BoG monster. The BoG could really use some one to light a fire under their asses.

Andrew Carne doesn't exist. He is thus, un-dis-endorsable. Tricky Bugger.

And finally:

THINGS WE'D LIKE TO DIS-ENDORSE BUT CAN'T BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT RUNNING FOR ANYTHING

The Fair Vote Guy - You know him. He's the douchebag who shows up to every student debate to ask questions about provincial issues. I love STV as much as the next anarchist, but let's be honest: NO ONE GIVES A SHIT!

The Knoll- Who the fuck gave you hippy shits permission to disendorse people? That's our shtick! Get your own jokes! Possibly after buying a copy of "Intellectual Property Rights for TOTAL FUCKING RETARDS!"
ps - "The Internet" is not an acceptable photo credit.

The UBC Insiders
I'm going to be a clear as I can be:
We make jokes
You make indepth analysis
Why are we doing both jobs?

Radical Beer Failures:

When the Radical Beer Faction first appeared, they promised change. They promised to fight for my right to party. Unfortunately somewhere along the way that got interpreted to mean hosting their own parties that shut down before midnight. After the proles are kicked out, the RBF bourgeois retreat to their inner sanctuary and continue their decent into alcoholism. Shame RBF. Maybe you should run serious candidates and actually get something done.

That's all for now folks. Those candidates that escaped dis-endorsement: don't take this as a sign to take it easy. One Wrong Move AND BLAMMO -DIS-ENDORSED!!!

Breaking news: there's politics in campus politics!

2009-01-24T20:15:00.000-08:00

Bijan Ahmadian, Board of Governors incumbent and candidate, doesn't plan to prioritize saving the UBC Farm - but would make it a priority if he got the endorsement of the Friends of the Farm, which reveals that (surprise!) politics is a part of student politics!

I have been kind of clear that, if you endorse me, and if we have that contract between each other, then I will have a very solid commitment. I know that I'm emailing everyone saying that I have made this solid commitment, but if you're not endorsing me, then I won't be emailing people saying 'this is my project this year.' - Bijan Ahmadian

The quote comes from audio of the candidate speaking at a Friends of the Farm Meeting, which was posted by WordPress user "wethunderbirds" and anonymously linked to in Devil's Advocate and UBC Insiders comment threads. Bijan also goes on to claim that "based on my calculations I am very likely to win this election", which at least one member of the meeting interpreted as a political threat to get the group's endorsement.

I have three things to say, and I'm going to actually be Serious Steve for a moment.

1. It is concerning to me that a candidate would sell his loyalty. From watching The West Wing I'm aware that this happens all the time in the real world, but I guess I hoped that student politicians, well, stood for something. Or were just there to be poked fun of.

It's not that Bijan was making a public show of supporting the farm, as his platform wording is quite vague, but yet the idea that his priorities depend on what endorsements he receives unsettles me. I feel that candidates should stand on their values and causes, then be endorsed or disendorsed based on these. And speaking of disendorsement... watch out, Bijan.

2. This tells us something about how Bijan feels about the election. If he's sailing to an easy win, then approaching the Friends of the Farm for their votes just doesn't make sense - why commit yourself to a "contract" instead of choosing your own priorities?

So I think Bijan is scared. I think he's scared of Mike, who has a truckload of friends, Blake, who has his name on the President ballot, Tristan or Andrew, or a combination of the above. I think he's reaching out to snatch votes from Blake and Tristan, and chose a bad way to do it.

3. To whomever posted the audio and commentary: Thanks for the heads up - but remaining anonymous? That just hurts the credibility of your evidence.

Update (January 26th): Bijan has responded to the news. You can see the full response at this pandering news source. I'll give you the Coles notes:

The quote apparently refers not to Bijan's support for saving the farm, but for his support of a side-project related.
Bijan claims that his presentation resulted in him getting half the vote for the Friends of the Farm's second endorsement (#1 was Tristan Markle), arguing that most of the people there received his message positively.
His reason for the "endorsement for priority" message: he didn't want to get behind this fully if the University wouldn't see him as speaking for Farm advocates.

Now, if the University didn't see me as speaking for Farm advocates (I'm pretty sure they don't), I don't think I'd get very far in trying to lobby them on a Farm-related project. But if I were really intent on helping the farm, I'd probably declare that outright and hope to get an endorsement, rather than suggesting that my prioritizing the project was conditional on the endorsement.

The Ubyssey also has a good take on the whole thing.

Ode to Jeremy Wood

2009-01-24T00:56:00.000-08:00

Our Jeremy Wood, to do some good
For VP Academic stood
He had a plan to fight the man
Whose market housing blights the land
To save the farm, to save the day
To save the overworked RA
But that's not all, he'd heed the call
To fight Johannes Rebane.

Our Jeremy Wood, misunderstood
By all the VFM who would
But mock his statements in debates
About how it discriminates
Against the foreign TA guy
To make him take the LPI
(At least he's not Johannes who
Would orally vet the TA crew).

Our Jeremy Wood did what he could
But still too blurred the issues stood
And recognizing this sad fact
He shut down his campaign, sacked
His candidate, and left the race
Pausing only to give a taste
Of venom to dear Rebane
And leaving him but two to face.

But Jeremy Wood's fan base withstood
All his flip-flops that it could
And inspired by this new support
He squinted in the distance short
And lo! priorities clear became
And Wood again put down his name
On VP Academic ballot
To fight Johannes and win fame.

Of Jeremy Wood, what really should
We expect when he's already good
At making our posts fun and easy
And Johannes' election breezy?
Perhaps he'll pull a Yian and stand
And ask for votes, laptop in hand
Perhaps he'll win, but I would bet
He'll count among the also-rans.

(Thanks to Gerald Deo for the picture!)

Breaking - Equity GULAG Being Constructed

2009-01-23T11:19:00.000-08:00

Word has reached the DA that the concentration camp that was build overnight around Buchanan Tower is to be used as an "Equity GULAG" to hold student dissidents.

A tank was airlifted in this morning. This reporter is scared.

Debate Round Three: Rumble in the Gallery

2009-01-23T04:50:00.000-08:00

Idiotic statements. Incendiary rhetoric. Tequila shots. People pretending to be Obama.

Personally, I found the Wednesday debates to be much better than Monday’s. I know that some other viewers ( UBC Insiders ) found the debates to be “painfully dull”, but I suspect this disappointment was due to their expectation of things like argumentation and policy. We at the DA have much simpler tastes: we wanted to see a gong show.

We were not disappointed.

VP FINANCE

Ale Coates VS Tom Dvorak

I went into this debate expecting a repeat of Monday’s events: Ale would say obviously ridiculous things while Tom droned on about things like fiscal responsibility. Instead, Ale said subtly ridiculous things, while Tom droned on about sensible business practices. Thank god we had two VP Finance debates back to back, otherwise I would have totally forgotten how one sided this race is.

Debate Highlights

Ale Coates calls SAC on its bullshit. “There is a current lack of promotion for clubs through SAC,” she said. Wow Ale, you really hit the nail on the head. I wonder who’s to blame for this? Maybe the Vice Chair of SAC? What’s her name again? Ail Kodes? Alley Cates? Beer Jackets? Something like that. Anyways, I hope Ale really nails that slacker once she’s elected.

Ale Coates tells students that their student fees aren’t really too high. “At the end of the day, AMS student fees are among the lowest in Canada.” Although this is technically true, I feel like this is a ridiculous comparison to make. A Calgary winter isn’t as cold as an Edmonton Winter, but I’m not about to go streaking in either. Likewise, the fact that UBC’s student fees don’t suck as hard as other schools seems like a poor excuse for not making them bearable.

Ale Coates proposes to build a new used book store on campus. Tom Dvorak asks why anyone would do this when there are already used book stores on campus that are struggling to turn a profit. Ale Coates responds by saying “They haven’t made a loss. They just haven’t made much profit.” Increase supply in an industry with a demand shortage? Genius. I think more people should follow this logic. We could double print order sizes for the AUS Underground. We could start giving the War Gamers club free Viagra. We could hold five AMS elections a year! If you build it, they will come!

One point of actual debate was Art’s County Fair debt relief. Tom argued that the AMS should probably forgive the AUS debt, saying (I’m paraphrasing here) that since all faculties contributed to and benefited from the ACF, the whole student body should shoulder the costs. He did, however, note that he would “need to see everything before [he] make[s] promises.”

Ale Coates argued that since “they’re capable of repaying the debt,” they alone should shoulder the costs. Sucking a crippling amount of money from the coffers of a key constituency? If I didn’t know Ale was an international student, I’d swear she was Canadian.

VP EXTERNAL

iRod VS Tim Chu VS Fire VS King’s Head

Before we get into the issues, allow me to say, thank God for iRod. Finally, a bonafide asshole to shake things up in this election. There’s been some complaining (notably from the Insider’s and (allegedly) from Tim Chu himself) about iRod’s abrasive campaign style. Since he spent most of his time attacking both the current administration and Tim Chu, I suppose that’s not entirely surprising. What is surprising is how upset everyone got. I mean, honestly, who complains about mud slinging in politics? That’s like complaining about fights in hockey: it’s the best damn part of the game!

Sitting next to iRod was the other ‘serious’ candidate, Tim Chu. Tim spent the entire debate whining about equity issues. Next to iRod’s macho jackassery, he came off like a Care-Bear. I half expected Tiny Tim to use “God bless us, every one!” as his closing statement. Exacerbating his wimpy image were Tim’s numerous and obvious audience plants who kept hitting him softball questions. Tim, darling, you really just need to be firm with iRod. Next time that mean ol’ bully tries to take your lunch money, you just tell him “Bullies are only mean because they’re upset their fathers don’t love them” and then go and find an adult. Find the adult as quickly as possible though, because iRod apparently knows Judo and Facebook contains pictures of him with a hunting rifle.

Unfortunately, the supposed joke candidates were no where near as funny as the serious candidates. They did, however, each have their moment of genius. Fire made the obligatory “save me” crack and the Kingshead gave voice to the inner monologue of everyone in the crowd. “I have no idea what I’m doing here,” she said, “What’s Democracy?”

The issue of equity kept reoccurring in this debate, mostly thanks to Tim, who is apparently running as a single issue candidate. When iRod pointed out that equity is something of a running joke among political insiders at UBC, Tim grew indignant. “I don’t know why people take it as a joke,” he said, “it’s not a joke”. Tim, the reason people take equity as a joke is, specifically, because people take equity as a joke. It’s a matter of public opinion purely and, despite the wishes of hacks everywhere, government (especially student government) has no right to tell the masses how they should think.

Debate Highlights

Tim Chu: “Women and Minorities are grossly under-represented [in council] and this needs to change… there are only two Chinese councillers.”
Crowd: “Two and a half!”

Devil’s Advocate editor Aaron Palm daring all candidates to take a shot of tequila without making a face. As far as I saw, they all managed it, though none of them were tough enough to do it without a salt lick and a lime.

iRod being mean to hippies. “The AMS is broken and protest politics has broken it.” Later in the debate, Steph Ratjen points out that protest politics have been really helpful in creating change. iRod’s comeback: “If the point is to be loud, then they have succeeded… They’ve embarrassed students.” I’ll be honest, I don’t think I’m brave enough to say that to Steph Ratjen’s face. I’d be afraid she’d light my house on fire and then block the fire crews as they came to save me.

Tim Chu pretending that this election is in some way meaningful to the student body. “People care about student issues”. This is absolutely true, if by people you mean the five to ten percent of students who vote and if by student issues, you mean beer.

iRod being mean to some hack. I’m afraid I didn’t get a good look at the person asking the question, but it was something along the lines of “who am I and what do I do?” Now, I didn’t actually get to write down iRod’s response, (mostly because I was to busy snapping my fingers and yelling “DAAAYYYY-UUMMM”) but I seem to recall it being something along the lines of ‘you’re a member of the established order and you’re part of the problem.’ Tim’s response was, of course, much nicer: “you’re a student who cares about AMS politics and you shouldn’t be treated like that.” Raging Dickhead versus Ineffective Wimp. It’s like the American election of 2000 all over again.

After the debate, Rory Green, Tim Chu’s campaign manager, tried to hand out Tim Chu supporter buttons to the DA staff. Our fearless leader declined saying “why would I want one of these”. Rory’s response: “If you put it under your pillow while you sleep, it’ll turn into a Tim Chu in the morning.”

Frightening, yet erotic…

BOARD OF GOVERNERS

MIKE DUNCAN VS BLAKE FREDRICK VS TRISTAN MARKLE VS BIJAN AHMADIAN

The opening statements can be characterized thusly:

Blake is has a heart of gold, but unrealistically expects tuition fees to be lowered to… zero. It’s good to have dreams Blake. Hey! Maybe that’s what we can use to pay professors and other staff if this policy is enacted. Every pay check will get you a pat on the back and a pocket full of dreams.
Mike Duncan offers us more of the same and expects us to like it.
Tristan Markle is basically the same candidate as Duncan, going as far as to complain that Mike has ‘stolen’ his issues. He goes on to differentiate himself by claiming to be “the one student who can’t be lied to or blown off”
Bijan reminds us all that he is incumbent and points to his previous record in the BOG: he’s successfully managed to bend over for the administration every time they asked him to. Yay! He’s got my vote!

This debate was somewhat exciting (I use the term loosely) in that the candidates actually picked opposing view points to represent. Now, of course, they all want nearly the same things, but the order of priority differed between them. Oooo! Drama! Tristan Duncan and Mike Markle both pledged to put SUB Renewal at the top of their lists. Bijan mentioned student housing (which was odd, because his main priority seems to be sucking up to The Man) and Blake continued to try and convince the audience that free post-secondary education was a feasible plan.

Debate Highlights

The Devil’s Advocate posed a hypothetical question to the candidates: if a foreign military were to occupy UBC, would you collaborate or lead the resistance? Both Blake and Mike took the predicable approach and claimed they would lead the resistance. Tristan however, outlined a surprisingly detailed plan about how he would set up a communications network to over throw the oppressors. He’s obviously spent some time thinking about this. Bijan spent his allotted time talking about how he thinks that collaboration is the more moral route before ending by saying “I don’t know what I’d pick”. Great. Not only is he a Judas, he’s also an indecisive flip-flopper.

Someone asks a question which takes a pointed shot at Bijan’s personal relationship with Professor Toope, namely his position as Toope’s research assistant. The other candidates claim that they would not have taken the job, while Bijan Arnold defended his betrayal of students by claiming that he has “a relationship with [professor Toope] that helps me exert pressure”. Whatever, Benedict Ahmadian. Networking is for traitors. Bijan “Et Tu, Brute?” Ahmadian went on to cite his role in creating the Police Advisory Committee, stating that the committee is a way for “the police and the community to work together against the problem.” Which is true, if you define having fun as a problem.

Tristan Markle rambling on for ages during his closing statement as the debate moderator tried to cut him off. “I just want to keep the momentum going… that would be amazing.”

Blake railing against the War on Fun. “I’m really tired of seeing this university bully students,” he said. “It shows a disrespect and a misunderstanding of [us]” Truer words were never spoken Blake. Rock on.

Which Presidential Candidate is most like Obama?

2009-01-22T13:14:00.000-08:00

The Devil's Advocate is pleased to bring you the second in the series of articles on the AMS Presidential candidates. With respect to the recent assumption of B-Rock Obama to the Presidency, and in view that his campaign inspired millions of fed up Americans and world citizens to have a new hope, we ask the question: Which AMS Presidential Candidate is most like Barack Obama?

Blake Frederick

Blake, like Obama, is trying to signal a radical break from the old administration. He claims his Presidency, unlike Mikey Duncan's, will "not let student's interests go unheard any longer." In true left wing style he will singlehandedly lower tuition fees, bring more affordable housing to campus, save the UBC Farm, and increase transit service! Uh-huh...

Blake has also followed a similar path to Obama - indeed, he was a Senator before running for president; however, unlike Barack, in this election Blake is actually not the outside candidate coming in to reform politics, but the person with the most AMS experience rising to the job. He has certainly worked toward his stated goals as AVP Academic and University Affairs and AVP External, however I do not share the confidence of many of his supporters that President Blake is the silver bullet for the woes of the AMS. (From the elections issue of the Knoll Index: "Estimated average student tuition fees a year after Blake Frederick is President: $0").

Despite coming from the inside, Blake has worked to style his campaign after Obama. He speaks with conviction despite mostly speaking in debate sound-bytes, and his poster (pictured above) reminds me of one I've seen somewhere...

Obama Score: 6.5/10

Alex Monegro

Obama is coloured, Alex is coloured. Obama is from Hawaii, Alex is from the Dominican Republic. This alone should be enough for Alex to claim the Obama-mantle in this election. (See Obama-inspired campaign photo below.)

Despite the suggestions made to me that Alex's campaign slogan be "Yes We Can", Alex has so fair avoided making the appeal to Obama. Rather than arguing strongly for change, Alex in the debates has generally focussed on his leadership experience and ... well, his leadership experience.

The language in Alex's platform is also not-so-Obama - let's compare it to Blake's assured verbiage. Where Blake would "pressure", Alex would "work with"; where Blake would "ensure", Alex would "pursue" or "explore". I feel this is a more realistic view of what can be done in a year of campus politics, but perhaps we do need stronger stances on issues.

Obama score: 4/10

Paul Korczyk

Paul is the John McCain of this race. As he frequently points out, he an outsider - a maverick, so to speak, with the intent of reforming the AMS to eliminate pork-barrel spending and provide... greater communication to students. His top-listed platform points are "Communication" and "Student Engagement" - which I must point out are good ideas, though often-repeated in student politics. I wonder if Paul's grasp of the AMS - like John McCain's grasp of the fundamentals of the American economy - is thorough enough to make him president.

Paul is also a Polish but not polished speaker (unlike Obama, who is polished but not Polish). Part of the job of President is to be the media face of the AMS, and if Paul wants to fulfil that role, he needs to get rid of his habit of smiling awkwardly, repeating himself and trailing off at the end of every deabte response. My challenge to Paul - show us at the next debate that you have a good grasp of the things your opponents are talking about (tuition rates, childcare, student services and advocacy, etc.) and that you can talk about them confidently. You're risking disendorsement around here...

Obama Score: 1/10

In other news...

I have to give a shout out to Gossip Guy for this post about the Presidential candidates' websites. The line I wish I'd thought of, about Blake's website: "If the Faculties of Science and Arts were brother and sister, and had a child, I believe it would look something like this abomination." Update like this more often, GG, and you'll have a following of more than just me.

Also, rumour has it that the D.A. editorial team is cooking up our first round of disendorsements of the election. Which unlucky candidates will feel the burn?

Breaking Scandal: Kommander Keg and Water Fountain have Lovechild!

2009-01-21T20:30:00.001-08:00

VP External Election: PC vs Mac

2009-01-21T16:39:00.000-08:00

If you're savvy (in the technology way, not the Jack Sparrow way), you'll have noticed the reference made by candidate Iggy Rodruiguez in his campaign:

We at the Devil's Advocate are not so easily tricked. This is our take on the race:

A close follow-up to this image was a two-headed Rory Green/Tim Chu monster fighting a giant portable music player labelled iRod...

Debates: ROUND TWO! FIGHT!

2009-01-20T01:14:00.000-08:00

Politics, at its core, is simply the art of competitive ego-masturbation turned into a spectator sport. Naturally, it’s one of my favourite things to watch. And here we are at the start of a fresh new season with the games already in progress!

I arrived at the debates slightly before they started. Already, the hacks were jockeying for position. Naylor sat relatively center forward, laptop atop his… lap… joyously live-blogging away. Lougheed circled the spectators pit warily, handing out buzzword bingo to all those with a free hand. Michael Duncan stood at the periphery, tired, yet proud, like an elephant that knows it is time to die, but is not yet ready to leave the herd. The candidates, of course, were there in force. With their assorted entourages, they swarmed over the area like Sarcophagidae flies on the corpse of democracy. Truly, it was a glorious day for student politics.

But enough of that crap. Let’s get down to the actual debates:

VP Academic

I’ll be honest with you: at best, I have a tenuous grasp of what the VP Academic does. If Johannes Rebane is to be believed, the chief goal of the office should be to “create a positive academic environment” but that sounds like pansy talk to me. Regardless of what the actual limitations upon the office are, each candidate took time to pimp their respective ideas about what could be done.

Sonia Purewal championed a policy which would allow students that failed prerequisite course to retake them, so as to increase the amount of students who would have a chance at getting into law or med school. This of course raises the question “who wants a failure for a doctor?” but none the less, her policy is sure to be popular with both try-hards and slackers, thus cornering a nice slice of voter pie. Also, she’s apparently the only VP Academic candidate who’s been to more than three AMS meetings so… you know… that’s nice.

Jeremy Wood stood out in the debates quite nicely, waving his knoll flag proudly. He argued with a passion that impressed even my jaded heart, yelling and waving his fist like some kind of Equity Mussolini. “We need more support structures for Queers! More support for Women! AND THE TRAINS MUST RUN ON TIME!” Okay, so I made that last one up, but still: somebody might want to tell this guy that this is student politics. Some at the DA have compared watching Jeremy Wood’s speech to watching a proud father trying to argue with the ref at a little league game: embarrassing for all involved. I for one was simply happy to see someone impassioned. Faceless, apathetic hacks may appeal to faceless, apathetic masses, but (personally) I’ll take a radical wing-nut just about any day of the week. Especially if that radical wing nut can make the buses run on time.

David Nogas made a distinctive mark in the debate having reoccurring audio problems and mumbling. At one point I heard that his policy would be “revenue neutral”. Rock On, David. Rock On.

Johannes Rebane tried to advance a policy against commercial development on campus. Unfortunately for him, he was neatly shut down by Jeremy Wood, who simply asked “Where’ve you been in this fight?” I’m sure Johannes would have had a witty come-back, but he failed to think of it before Mitch Wright, the debate moderator, cut the brief excitement of real argumentation off, thus making him look very silly. Although it could be argued that everyone who watched, heard, or spoke in this debate lost in someway, I’d like to make a pitch for Johannes losing extra hard.

VP Admin

I think this race will be my favourite this year because it so neatly emphasizes the divide between the radical and the mainstream votes at UBC. There were four candidates, two serious and two joke. Crystal Hon and a Water Fountain spoke (or at least claimed to speak) on behalf of the silent, non-political majorities. Tristan Markle and the RBF Keg were both in representation of the proletariat. Normally, this would mean that all four candidates would be populist, but this is UBC. Political rules don’t apply here.

Tristan came out swinging, throwing around fancy, high-falutin’ phrases like “I’ve been trying to turn around the direction on campus” and “All things are possible”. All things are possible? Seriously? Who the hell do you think you are? Barack Obama? Crystal Hon, on the other hand, came out… quietly. Although her ideas were sensible, they somehow seemed lost against Tristan’s ridiculous rhetoric. And so, in this way, we have embodied the fundamental divide in student politics. On one side, the left, so gripped in the fever of revolution that they forget to do things like, oh I don’t know, talk about their policies in debates. On the other side, we have the center (this is UBC. There is no right wing) which is full of pragmatic and intelligent individuals who are authentically trying to make life better for the students. Unfortunately, because the center is almost completely unable to excite their voter base, student life basically just carries on.

I grant you these are generalizations. The left occasionally pulls their heads out of their asses long enough to get something done, and the center occasionally gets students to pay attention for more that three seconds. Or so I hear. I’ve never actually seen it myself, but we must have gotten the UPass somehow…

So, in this battle where there can be no winner, we are left wondering who will win?!? I think the issue was dealt with most clearly when I asked the joke candidates what they thought about the divide which separates the candidates. The Water Fountain responded clearly saying “Water is fundamental to life. Student Services are important, I agree, but water must come first.” Contained within this seemingly innocuous statement is the key to the center’s position. Crystal Hon’s ideas about student services, while intelligent, will not win her this race. As water is fundamental to life, so are voters fundamental to democracy. Without the fluid attention of the masses, the Hon campaign will die of dehydration before it ever leaves the starting gates.

Kommander Keg, on the other hand, characterized the radical position as follows: “Beer is 95% water, so not only is Kommander Keg mostly water, he is also 5% other stuff”. Semi-unfortunately (or really fortunately if you like to follow student politics) that extra 5% other stuff is alcohol. Alcohol, that perfect liquid that makes everything stupider and more flammable. 95% of what the Knollies want gels perfectly with the rest of campus's needs. Unfortunately, the additional five percent is prone to doing stupid flammable things like lighting fires on the knoll. Tristan Markle has a big sure vote coming out of the Knoll, but it is also a limited vote. Crystal Hon can win any vote on this campus. All the Knoll has is . . . well, hippies. Everyone drinks water, but beer drinkers are much more eager to come out en mass to vote for what they love.

Fundamentally, what this race comes down to is whether or not Crystal can engage enough apathetic students. It won’t be easy to break the Knoll vote, but underdog stories make for interesting politics. As Crystal's opponent says “all things are possible”

VP Finance

And now, for the comic interlude. Allow me to summarize the debate for you:
Ale Coates: “Several student problems involve money. I hope to fix that.”

Tom Dvorak: blah blah blah “Ethical hiring policy” blah blah

Ale Coates: “Sponsorship is a good way to make money”

Tom Dvorak: blah blah *vague indication of fiscal sense* blah blah

FIN

I’m really not sure what my commentary on this is supposed to be. Tom Dvorak is clearly the qualified candidate, while Ale Coates seems destined to become this year’s Yian. “Several student problems involve money”? Really? No way! Why didn’t any one tell the electorate this before? If I’d only know this sooner! Hey, I know! Maybe we can get some sponsors. I hear that’s a good way to make money. Maybe we can rename the SUB the Lululemon Student Space.

I’m sorry Ale, I don’t mean to mock you too hard. I’m just really happy that there’s a joke candidate in this election other than Kommander Keg who can give me belly laughs.

I’m afraid I’m going to have to cut this section short. I’m sure Ale said many other things worth chuckling over and Tom probably did something stupid as well, but I was distracted by Maria Cirstea. Throughout this debate, she continually turned around to face me and muttered “I’ve stolen your woman”. I found this somewhat confusing, as I no longer own any women since immigrating to Canada. You can blame her for the lack of coverage.

PRESIDENT

That’s right. It’s time for the main event. Before I jump into presidential coverage I’d like to note that I feel very silly for tacking this onto the bottom of an article that’s already way too long. I suppose you can consider this section your reward for slogging through that other crap. That’s the way the debates worked. Instead of having a presidential debate, we all sat through about an hours worth of bullshit to get to see ~15 minutes of presidential debate. Yay? At least with this article you could skip to the end.

Anyways, we’ve got three candidates for president: Alex Monegro, Paul Korczyk, and Blake Frederick. Or as I like to call them B1, B2, and B52.*

*See what I did there? I implied that both Paul and Alex were similar to the nearly identical (and somewhat feckless) protagonists of the hit tv-show “Bananas in Pajamas” while simultaneously implying that Blake, although similar enough to his opponents to merit a B-# name, blew his competition out of the water, not unlike a B52 bomber plane. God, I’m clever. Okay, maybe I’m an idiot. I can’t really tell anymore.

Anyways, getting back to the point, the debate started with opening statements. “It is not the role of the President to tell people what to do,” said Blake, “but to guide them with leadership.” Nicely put. Paul Korczyk went on to say that student voices are important in student government. “I believe I will bring them,” he cried, “I –will- bring them.” Bold words from a Bold Pole. Alex Monegro spoke next, saying, “You need to know how to turn ideas into actions.” Nicely put Alex. So often I find myself having ideas like Tuition Prices should be lower but being unable to make the cognitive leap to solutions like Cutting Spending or Finding New Sources of Revenue. Thank God you’re here, Alex.

Although the debate started in vague, meaningless rhetoric, it quickly progressed into vaguer, less meaningful rhetoric. Paul indicated that he “believe[s] in taking baby steps” and that “it’s important to use word of mouth as a tool”. Paul, sweetheart, I know it’s hard to understand at your age, but taking baby steps tends to move people baby distances. Grow up and stride into the future boldly, as befits a leader. Also, word of mouth is not a tool. A hammer is a tool. A cordless drill is a tool. Seventy percent of the people running in this election are tools. Word of mouth is a sociological phenomenon. If you really want people to hear what you’re saying, you should probably tell them, instead of trying to get them to tell each other. Alex Monegro, not to be outdone, mentioned that “If we empower students, they will make it [undefined positive change] happen.” Alex, buddy, if you empower students, they will throw a kegger. That’s what being a student is all about. Student government, on the other hand, is all about making positive change. If elected president, do not expect the students to do your job for you. The students don’t give a shit. You will be on your own, fighting to save a world that hates you.

The AMS actually has a lot in common with the X-Men, when you think about it.

Questions from the floor elicited some interesting information from the candidates. Since none of the candidates had yet bothered to take a stand on a concrete issue, several were suggested. For example, should the AMS support provincial adaptation of STV?

Paul said yes.

Alex said yes.

Blake said yes.

Alright! Finally, some differing opinions and debate! Whoo! Next issue: Should UBC join the NCAA?

Paul said no.

Alex said no.

Blake said no.

At this point, I grew impatient with the debate and decided to ask what was on my mind point blank: “You all seem like a good candidate for president. Unfortunately, you all seem like the same candidate for president. Are there any real issues in this campaign and, if so, what are your stances on them?”

Paul responded by blustering about how offended he was to be compared to the other candidates. Then, realizing that he’d said something mildly intriguing, he immediately back pedaled, calling his opponents “great guys”. Although he totally failed to indicate what his positions were, he did mention that his “different perspective will be significant”. Sweet! If only you’d told me how your perspective is at all different and explained the ways in which it will be significant. Does your different perspective stem from being a werewolf? Are you secretly a baby-eating cannibal? Will this be significant because UBC will no longer have a daycare shortage? If only Mitch had given you longer than 20 seconds to respond, the world could know.

Alex responded much better. He indicated that he had connections and support networks all over campus. This will allow his to “take strong stances on issues”. Thanks. That’s good to know. If only I had any idea what kind of strong stances you’ll be taking. Oh well.

Blake, of course, provided the only semi-rational answer. No, he didn’t take a stance on anything (this is still the AMS we’re talking about) but he at least made a reasonable attempt to excuse himself from doing so. “It’s difficult to articulate positions on issues in this time frame.” Right you are champ. Right you are.

So, in conclusion, it doesn’t really matter who you vote for because no one has any positions on any issues. Yay democracy. Since none of the candidates really displayed any sort of identity, I’ve decided to arbitrarily assign them traits based on which of the three stooges they most remind me of. Blake will be the intelligent yet cruel one, constantly threatening to murder his underlings, the Moe. Paul will be Curly Joe, seemingly inept, but possibly the most talented of the trio, always making excuses and whooping sounds. Alex can be Larry, the one no cared about.

Listen, let me give you all some advice. People, especially people in our generation, have the attention spans of apathetic college students with ADD. They have neither the time nor the inclination to understand your platforms. This is what you need to do win their votes. Stand up and say “I stand for (insert cool issue). My opponent stands for (insert lame issue). Vote for me if you want (insert cool issue).” Use Soundbyte tactics to create unreasonable dichotomies in the minds of voters. Look, here’s an example:

George Bush: “I stand for America!. My opponent loves Terrorism. If you like ¡America! and hate Terrorism, vote for me.”

And that’s how a chimp in a suit wins two US elections in a row.

What you didn't see at today's "debate"

2009-01-19T13:26:00.000-08:00

Here's the D.A.'s take on today's "debate." If you want to find out what happened at said event, please find yourself a more responsible news media outlet. Perhaps one that features AMS hacks posting every two minutes about minutae that will have little influence on anyone's mind.

Things not seen today:

(1) Cleavage. We're all dissapointed. Well, except myself really, but that's a personal issue involving rainbows and leather.

(2) An independent moderator. Noted AMS hack Mitch Wright moderating AMS hackbate*. Way to go guys! What happened to pandering to your favourite VFM (that's us folks) by getting UBC debate moderators. Apparently reaching out to clubs is again a buzzword, not a reality.

* hackbate = "hack + debate". Or masturbating with an axe. Which, as APalm points out, would hurt.

(3) Debate. I'm not sure who to blame on this one, so let's spread the love around.

A. The candidates? Though they seemed to know their platforms decently and were excellent in repeating them, for the most part they didn't have the guts to call out other candidates on how the platforms were insufficient or bad. Case in point: Paul Korczyk, after our correspondent Austin implied the three presidential candidates were very similar: "I'm offended to hear that implication... wait, I mean... these guys are great!"

This despite the fact that some of the platforms are legitimately different! From what I can gather, some candidates strongly oppose market housing (ideological), some want to work with the university to bring students benefit from any development (pragmatic). Wait, this did inspire some heat, between Sonia, Johannes and Jeremy in the VP Academic and University Affairs! Which brings me to...

B. The elections committee/the "debate" format? Though he'd probably prefer the suffix "lady-", I'm going to go ahead and call him Mitch Wright, debatekiller. The only time things started to get interesting (Johannes was making an anti-market housing rebuttal to Sonia's more equivocal stance, and Jeremy pointedly asked "Where have you been in the fight against this?"), Mitch - on the direction of the elections administrator - shut off the microphones and moved us back to another, much more boring, round of questions.

For Gods' sakes! Heaven forbid the candidates actually debate about something, and the audience actually get excited! When asked afterward why he stopped that, Mitch claimed that the format was designed to get all the debate fit into an hour - an admirable goal, but one that justifies keeping the event blasé and fairly useless?

(4) Joke candidates. Thanks to Kommander Keg and Water Fountain for keeping us awake during the VP Admin debate. We are saddened by the Japanization of Fyre Hydrant and wish that, if we can't have reasonable debate, we could at least have funny and insighful "serious" candidates.

AMS Elections: Let the circlejerk begin!

2009-01-18T14:38:00.000-08:00

Last Friday I awoke from my bourbon induced hibernation and headed on to campus. As I was walking though the SUB, my furry ears noticed a ruckus in the Conversation Pit. What was this madness? It was nothing other than an AMS debate! Well colour me surprised! I had a hot date with my favorite furry friends so I could not stay and watch, but not wanting to miss the next debate I looked around for a poster advertising the debates. I couldn't find one. [read more of Commodore Cuddle's Epic Adventure behind the jump]

Then I went to the UBC website to look for election information. The UBC site had a nice picture of a man being mind raped, but nothing about the AMS. Next, I checked the AMS site. Nothing there, either. I scratched my furry head, went to the Google, and finally found the actual AMS elections site. Still no mention of debate times or locations. By now, I am doubting that I actually witnessed a debate. Perhaps I just stumbled into some perverted circle jerk and the tequila made me think it was a debate to spare my mind the horror of what it actually saw.

Presidential Candidates: an analysis

2009-01-16T11:27:00.000-08:00

We're back with totally superficial, scandalous, and potentially slanderous coverage of the 2009 AMS elections! We here at the Devil's Advocate are crossing our fingers that this election will be just as fun as the last one... and we're doing all we can to make it so.

With that in mind, allow us to present an analysis of the Presidential candidates. This is no common analysis, however. Instead, we have done a scientific survey of the candidates using the data from the "related groups" of their facebook election group. Results behind the jump.

Paul Korczyk:

It is a well known fact that Polish Paul is, in fact, Polish (have you read his last name!), so we'll assume from the last group that Paul has the Polish swing vote on campus. Paul also has the vote of:

people who think they're connected to the Vancouver Canucks... wait, apparently hockey fans in general. We at the Devil's Advocate know that he'll need to throw more than a hip-czyk* to get elected.
students who read Wikipedia at 4am (knowing students, this could turn into a landslide election!)
most intriguingly, that large group of voters affected by solar winds! I quote from this group description: "If solar wind were a person, (s)he would be really angry, and ready to fuck you up." While I credit the gender balance here, I really have to call into question Paul's supporter's links to this pseudo-science.

*last I czyked, this was Polish for hip-check

Let's move on, with Alex Monegro:

Alex again has an ethnic vote - anyone other than me want to see the stats on Polish vs. Dominican Republic voters on campus? - reflected in his groups. And come to think of it, "inexpensive and unforgettable" could be a decent slogan. (The D.A. calls shotty.) Alex also has the vote of:

Anyone who thinks the line "Be my queen and mate me with your knight moves" might actually work. That is ... oh, wait, nobody. Also... imagine President Alex calling up President Toope with lines like "If my right leg was Christmas and my left was Easter, would you like to spend some time between the holidays?" Doesn't work for me.
The drunk vote. Now this is something we at the Devil's Advocate can really get behind.

Finally, Blake Frederick:

As far as I can tell, Blake doesn't have a facebook group yet... which means he gets one line at the bottom of this pseudo-story, rather than a bunch somewhere in the middle. Better luck next time, BF! On a somewhat related note, shouldn't his campaign slogan be "Put your BFF in office?" And any suggestions what the second F should stand for?

***

Well, there's a candidates debate in 10 minutes, so perhaps I'll go watch that and contribute something real to this discussion. (Who am I kidding - perhaps I'll go watch it to better mock and berate the candidates!) Until next time, my three readers.
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Mon dieu.

2008-12-14T18:21:00.000-08:00

UBC Second Life

2008-12-07T14:18:00.001-08:00

Howdy! With exams and all no one has time to read, let alone write articles, but this might amuse some of you. Seems UBC has built an island in Second Life called Buchanan Island. Now I don't know about you, but I'd much rather they spend my tuition dollars on something a little more, ya know, tangible. Pictures are behind the jump.

Pictures are from the Faculty of Art's instructional Support & Information Technology blog.

Rose Garden

Clock Tower

Racism, equity cops and the tale of another campus

2008-11-19T19:35:00.000-08:00

As university students, well schooled in the knowledge of the wrongs our white, male, imperialist, colonialist, capitalist, racist, anti-Semitic, and otherwise generally terrible forefathers, we know to be on the constant lookout for racism and bigotry, those twin evils that keep those who weren't like our forefathers down.

Oops I mean forefathers. Gosh darn my rhetoric that perpetuates those evil normative positions.

Anyway, this is all well and good. Racism sucks. The only problem is that on relatively enlightened campuses, it's hard to find bigots to confront and convert. (Agh! Did it again!) We're often left confronting the less obvious prejudices and stereotypes that create those glass ceilings and the odd off colour remark that the user may barely think about till he makes his Jew joke in Hillel House. In short, they're the sort of minor grating issues that, while we all would love them to go away, even the most tolerant of us may tell that overzealous equity officer or anti-racism activist to go and shove their politically correct stick up their ass, should they make the mistake of getting in our face.

At UBC, where our racist accusations are, largely, limited to accusations that are a little hard to verify, this is thankfully the case. I was hoping to find an article where one potential Rhodes scholar on the AMS accused the others of treating her harshly for not filing some report because she was black, but the online records of the Ubyssey aren't what they could be. (Or I'm retarded. One or the other) Wait... fuck! Did it again. Darn my abilism.

Queen's is quite another story.

(Yeah, that's right. We're covering TWO universities now.)

First of all, it's very, very white. WASPy is the way I'd describe it. I'd almost forgotten that was possible for there to be large numbers of attractive white girls to be in one place. There are also a lot of bros. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zvTRQr7ns8 Bro rape. A topic for another day)
The large number of privileged white brats, some of whom probably have family inks to the university going back to the day Queen Viki got someone to toss a rock on the foundation for her, reminds me of my boarding school days, which I'd largely like to forget, but that's beside the point. When they say there's a racism problem at Queen they're not kidding.

For just a few examples:
http://www.queensjournal.ca/story/2008-11-14/news/another-racist-incident-reported/
http://www.queensjournal.ca/story/2007-11-23/news/racism-campus/
http://www.queensjournal.ca/story/2008-09-26/news/muslim-students-targeted-racist-incidents/

Christ! Lets see: Jews, Blacks, Muslims, looks like we got the spectrum. Missing gays so far, but maybe they're just racists, not general bigots. In Queen's favour there's been an immense outcry among people against this bullshit. There's been rallies against racism and investigations into the hiring practises of the university and so on and so forth. Go team anti-racism! Woot!

However, in their zeal to stamp out the poison festering within in the campus, those people who care have gone a little over board. The President of the Arts and Science Undergraduate Society was asked to resign after he made a stupid comment on facebook about a photo of two girls with turbans on - 'I like your Taliban picture.' Sure, it would have been better for him and the Queen's AMS if he'd resigned, but the rigmarole that this place has gone through to try and get him to step down has just been a witch hunt.

However, the final straw that made me write this was a decision that wound its way onto the front cover of one of our national news papers. You can read it right here:
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=970266

(Yes, I read the National Post. I told you I was a right wing hack.)

In short, Queen's has gone one step further than the standard university. Equity offices aren't enough, campaigns to promote tolerance and understanding won't cut the mustard. What the administration, in their wisdom, have decided what Queen's needs is:

Equity Cops.

Or Equity super heroes, as I like to think of them. They only lack in the department of tight pants and flashy costumes. Perhaps that will come with a budget expansion. In short, the idea of passive education campaigns is...passé? If you should be so foolish as to have a conversation involving racism on my campus, and you happen to be within the hearing range of one of these grad students lucky enough to wrangle another stipend out of the university – along with room and board – someone looking like that slouchy guy in the leather jacket from the article photo will shuffle on over to you and say something like:

'Hey, guys. I heard you talking about x, y, z. You know racism is bad. Perhaps you shouldn't tell those Jew jokes because it might make your dumb-ass friends draw swastikas on peoples' cars.'

Or something like that. At which point, the annoyed WASP will flip the caring grad student the finger and then the conversation will end awkwardly, or degrade into accusations of racism and privacy infringement should the Grad student have a) a spine or b) a social justice chip on his/her shoulder.

Clearly this idea is utter bullshit and a waste of money. Ramming your issue into peoples' private conversation is a great way to make people stop paying attention to anything you say, especially if they're trying to do something else at the same time, like eat their meal. If they're the same sort of self absorbed, spoiled brat, male WASPs/bros that I'm certain commit all the moronic and hateful acts I've outlined, then invading their personal space will probably lead to them committing more racist acts just to spite you. (Yes, I have a low opinion of the male undergraduate here, even before I endured the febreze incident)

Changing a culture of intolerance is difficult. It requires education and the reaching out and co-operation of many diverse groups on campus. Queen's needs to man up (dammit!) and face the issue before it and not just throw a quick, brainstorming session idea out instead. It's a problem that I don't think has an easy solution and even if it did, that solution definitely doesn't involve equity cops.

Not even if they have costumes.

the death of democracy.

2008-11-16T11:09:00.000-08:00

Poor Matthew Naylor. He's had a bit of a losing streak. First, the AMS presidency. Then, Stéphane Dion's disastrous showing as the leader of the Liberal Party. Now, in his first go at a "real" election - meaning one where the grown-ups are expected to vote - he has gone down to defeat. Not only did he lose, however, but he ended up in dreaded last place, with only 66 votes (compared to his self-declared main opponent, Ben West of the civic Greens, who lost himself with 209 votes to UEL resident Maria Harris with 219 votes).

Much like a surgeon when he chucks a dead baby in the medical waste dumpster, I'm sad.

Clearly, there is much to be said about Naylor's political future. Does he come off as a partisan hack? Does his hubris get in the way of his aspirations? Do people - plain and simple - find him off-putting? Or, more importantly, do Liberals flounder when they don't have the party machine behind them?

Perhaps all of those things contributed to his loss. The ultimate fault, however, is not Naylor's. Not one bit, in fact. That fault, sadly, rests with you.

It's not Naylor's fault that just 743 out of over 11,000 people voted, the majority of them students. That's a paltry 6.7%, people. It's shameful, plain and simple. The really shocking thing is that this is, somehow, standard practice: Vancouver only posted a voter return rate of about 30%.

Democracy only works when people actually want it. Thus, perhaps the Devil's Advocate should stop pretending that this sham of equality and justice for all through elected officials is actually worth the trouble.

My proposal: kidnap Matthew Naylor and pump him full of steroids to give him a king-like hyper-masculine demeanor and persona, as well as to foster a large harem of Gage residents who will vote for him unquestionably (since power is goddamn sexy).

Then, the harem will go and seduce the fratboys, subverting their ideas of democracy (i.e. Dude! Let's vote off the fat chick! Survivor, Greek-style rocks!). They will be used to create a paramilitary wing of Matthew Naylorism. They will likely be called Red Shirts, so as to satisfy Naylor's devotion to both Liberal Partyism and Star Trek.

Next, the gates of campus are barricaded. Nobody gets in or out. The trolley wires are cut. The stairways down to Wreck Beach are torn out of the cliffside. It's gonna be autarky, bitches, and it's gonna rock!

Stephen Toope will continue his administration, but only as a puppet. Naylor will wield true power. Koerner Plaza will be renamed "Revolution Square". A guillotine will be installed. It won't be often used, but will be there as a reminder that, sometimes, some people need some killing.

Democracy will continue, it will just be that there will be only one candidate. Anyone who suggests that things should be otherwise will be sent to the guillotine! Anyone who runs against Naylor will be sent to the guillotine! Anyone who cancels the election single-handedly will be sent to the guillotine! Anyone who has people vote for them in the SUB on their laptop...well...you get the idea.

Democracy is not for the weak. That's what Matthew Naylor should be saying.

On behalf of the citizens of UBC - and the rest of Metro Vancouver by proxy - I hereby declare democracy:

Where was the AGM Coverage?

2008-11-09T15:59:00.000-08:00

by Commodore Cuddle's Alter Ego

UBC’s Annual General Meeting happened earlier this week. In a true display of efficiency, UBC
managed to hold an AGM for the entire university in one hour and, much
like their annual report, managed to say very little of substance.

Before the event, they had asked people to email questions in advance, and
that “questions unanswered for reasons of time will receive responses
after the AGM.” Naturally, this appeared to be a way of screening
questions so that they could cherry-pick the easy ones. (Example:
President Toope, where did you get your glasses? They make you look so
handsome!) But once at the meeting, this writer was shocked to find out
that they had a microphone set up for an honest-to-god, unscreened Q&A
session with Toope.

And nobody came.

Sure, there were a few questions from students. The first was about the
farm, an issue which has only been raised oh, a million times now. Then
one about tuition fees; we certainly couldn’t let a year go by without
questioning those. Things started looking up with an email questions about
the possibility of evictions during the Olympics. It was completely based
on rumours and was posed in a semi-hostile way. Alas, that excitement was
short-lived. Things settled down with a question about athletics fees, the
flavour of the month as far as student causes go. That was it.

Where the fuck did all the pissed off students go?

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but liquor policies on campus are quite
reasonable, as is the conduct of the RCMP. Affordable student housing is
now a solved problem. Now that the rain has come, the idea of an
underground bus loop sounds pretty peachy. Condominiums are absolutely an
appropriate use of land on a university campus.

This writer laments: where was Commodore Cuddles and his bottle of
bourbon? A piss drunk student asking a rambling, slurred question to Toope
would have brought a whole new level of awesomeness to the AGM. Sigh,
maybe next year...

Seen tonight

2008-11-09T00:57:00.000-08:00

Between 12:30 and 12:40 am surrounding the outdoor pool: 2 campus security vehicles and no less than 3 RCMP cruisers, complete with flashing lights. A few police officers were admonishing some students next to the police cars, presumably for jumping in the pool while drunk.

It makes me wonder...

We is Whiny Bitches

2008-11-05T18:00:00.000-08:00

by Eoin

CASA. A name that strikes....confusion into the heart of the average student. 'CASA?' they'll ask when you ask them about the AMS membership change, 'what's that? Canadian Autism Safety Association?'

No my children. No.

In the doldrums of the AMS, where all happy ideas, hopes, dreams, and campaign promises are lured to die in excrutiating pain – much like Obama's health plan will soon be strangled in Washington – is where this story takes place. A story of meetings, letters, and other riveting, riveting stuff. And social excursions to breweries.

Okay, that's kind of cool, but we're only talking about it in the context of people who don't want to go. So it's sad.

If you've been paying attention to the UBC Insiders, amid their (equally riveting) discussions about nap spaces and the fate of farmland, is the issue of the AMS voting to downgrade its membership in CASA to an associate membership to protest various flaws in what it sees as CASA's failure to live up to its commitment to being a member driven society.

Sure, you say, Eoin we're read it. Comments have been made on posts, upwards of 10. That's like...a tenth of the attention paid to a certain bonfire. Or something of that order of magnitude. (I'm a physicist, I round numbers to some 10^n value when I'm too lazy to punch out calculations)

And yes student, reader, troller of the interwebs, you'd be correct. But it hasn't gotten to demagogic treatment from the Advocate the nasty, smearing, truth be damned as long as it's amusing and irreverent , take that is so preferable to dusty old news filled with facts. There's a Democrat as president elect and the tricky socialists control all three wings of government in the states. Someone has got to stand up for gut thinking and truthiness. That person is me.

Oh yeah, I was there, in the trenches of the comment boards as it were, from the beginning, slinging mud from the sidelines. But it was ordinary, rational mud, and I'm tired of the rationality. Time for time honoured partisanship, on this, Guy Fawke's Day. (I missed celebrating St. Crispin's)

When I first learned that the AMS was putting this issue to the vote, trying to reduce its membership in the Canadian Association of Student Societies, that bastion of non-crazy student advocacy that we actually help found, I had only one thought in the back of my mind:

Communists.

It was such an easy solution. Steph and Tristan don't like CASA. They like CFS. Okay, some of that's for good reasons like CFS actually does provincial lobbying and CASA doesn't, but fuck that. It's those communists trying to put us within the clutches of the referendum manipulating, hippy protesting CFS. Yeah, that's right Stef. I saw you next to those CFS signs at that protest. I saw!

[My editor tells me that what you do on your free time in something that doesn't really directly infringe on student issues is your business. Fuck! Damit! Oh well.]

Anyway, communism was an easy answer. It fit everything. A nice simple way of viewing AMS politics through the optics of Knollies and Hacks and possibly Naylorites, but then I looked at the numbers in the vote and saw it was unanimous. Even the infamous letter to CASA that was delivered back in August or something was relatively commie doctrine free. Sure there was this one toss-out to revolutionary goodness:

Referring to student representatives as owners of their respective corporations, or rhetoric that perpetuates normative positions on male, heterosexual, or colonial-nation deals, negatively affects the climate for productive and progressive dialog.

Sure it's knolly, but it's no communist manifesto. Clearly other forces were at work here.

Could I blame the ever present Matthew Naylor? He is fun to blame, for pretty much everything. He's like the Hillary Clinton of the AMS, the one you love to hate. Who knows what dark plots Naylor has clutched within his massive, jewel encrusted fingers? His hatred for CASA is legendary – by which I mean I've heard it off hand from a few people. But it's still legendary! And he's so manipulating the scenes from the power seat of the presid.....AUS rep.

Drat.

While searching for the answers to the dilemma of who neutered the AMS CASA membership, I sat down and analyzed the complaints that your all knowing student society has made, I came to a horrific conclusion.

The AMS is a whiny bitch.

Yes, I sound like Austin when I say that, but I have to be doubly crazy/offensive because Austin is off snorting crack in a bush somewhere, pretending to be a mime, or licking LSD off the bellies of Thai hookers, and is totally not writing articles anymore. (Austin, you're also fired from the DA staff. No more free drugs for you.) It's also the truth. The society has decided, on very short notice, to send 'a message' to CASA after getting a very nice letter back explaining why the CASA didn't think their complaints were earth shatteringly important. Let me sum up the situation as follows in a metaphorical exchange between a mother and child at a picnic:

AMS: Mommy CASA? I don't think some of these things we do on our picnics are nice. Some of the other kids speak out of turn and all the labels on the food are bilingual. I also can't go on the brewery trip afterwards.

CASA: I'm doing my best. I agree that some of those things are problems. Why don't we talk about it some more?

AMS: AGGGGHH!!!! You never listen to me or what I say! I should do my own student advocacy! I'm going to become an associate member!

[rips off clothing and runs naked through the park. CASA turns red as all the other moms/Student Associations stare.]

CFS: Nice streaker. That's what you get for not having a social justice emphasis for your society.

CASA: [Slaps CFS] Bitch, at least none of my kids have run away from home.

End scene.

What could possibly make your student union act so? Is it a bunch of new reps being led like sheep by communists or power hungry giants? Or is there something else afoot? Is this just like season two of Heroes, where we have to endure terrible plot lines till we find the villain in season three who laid all those weird DNA logos everywhere in season one? Do we have our own version of Mr. Petrelli on a ventilator somewhere in the bowels of the SUB, controlling things from a distance?

[Do I live vicariously through Heroes? Yes]

I believe so. Next year, all this will become clear. The knoll fire, Lougheedgate, they were just appetizers to the horror of student politics that will erupt next year, when the dark plan of the enemy will become evident. Then this move by the AMS will make perfect sense within that foul stratagem. Will student government survive? Will the day be saved by Darren Peets returning from Japan in a gigantic physics robot?

Only time will tell.

joys of voting

2008-11-03T22:24:00.000-08:00

by Aaron Palm

I've been having . . . troubles getting my vote in. The email I sent to my congressman is behind the jump. I'll write a proper post on this when I find the time. Below is a summary of a conversation I had today with a polling clerk over the phone (.60 cents per minute baby!)
Elections Official: You didn't get your ballot?
Me: No.
EO: You'll have to come to the office or just go to your polling place tomorrow.
Me: I live in Canada. That's why I asked for an absentee ballot.
EO: Where?
Me: Canada.
EO: Can you come to our office?
Me: Will you buy me a plane ticket?
EO: Hold please. [5 min] You can't vote.
Me: Yes I can. What if I fax you a Federal write in ballot?
EO: Hold please. [2 min]
EO2: We'd rather you didn't fax in a Federal ballot. How about we fax you a ballot and you fax it back?
Me: I don't have a fax machine.
EO2: Can you find one?
Me: I could try? Why didn't you send me a ballot in the first place?
EO2: We did. It was returned undelivered.
Me: Did you think about contacting me? You have my phone and email.
EO2: That would have been too much work. Hold please.
[phone disconnects]

I imagine you all are very busy now, so I don't expect a rapid response. I'm living abroad and am registered as an absentee voter in Santa Clara County. I have been having an incredibly hard time getting my ballot. I think I have resolved my issue, but I have serious problems with the conduct of the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters. I'll explain my situation and then ask if there is any action you think I should take (follow up complaints, etc) or if I'm over reacting and my sort of situation is par for the course.

I'm a student in Vancouver, BC. This is the first presidential election I have been able to vote in. I voted absentee in the mid term election (and was happy with the results) and registered to vote absentee for this election. I received my voter information package about three weeks ago, but never got my ballot. I called the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters today (Nov 3) and was told my ballot had been mailed to the wrong address and returned to the registrar; no attempt was made to contact me or resend the ballot. I'm not sure how this happened seeing as the info package was mailed to the correct address. I was initially told I would have to vote in person or come to the Registrar's office to pick up a ballot. I asked about the federal write in ballot and the woman on the phone did not know what that was. After some time (being placed on hold, disconnected, waiting on hold for another half hour) I was told that they could fax a ballot to me.

I'm a student - I don't own a fax machine. I went to the local copy store and called back (another 10 minutes on hold) and was told by the woman I talked to that they would fax me a ballot "sometime today" or email me one. I opted for the email option because I had to go to work and would not be able to babysit a public fax machine waiting for my ballot. Two hours later no email, I called back and was told they were very busy but would send my ballot as soon as they could. Unfortunately I never received an email. I called the Registrar's office at 6:45pm when I got off work and was told the absentee voter department had gone home and no on else in the office could help me - I would have to call back morning. I called McNerney's office in Dublin at around 7pm to ask for advice and was told that e-mail ballots are not accepted anyway - I would need a faxed one. I should be able to take care of this tomorrow, and am confidant I will be able to vote. Worst case I will use the Federal ballot (though I want to vote on the ballot initiatives, my understanding is the Fed ballot does not allow that)

There are several things about this situation that concern me. First off is that the elections staff failed to send me a ballot. They knew that my ballot was returned to them undelivered but did not bother to contact me (even though I included my email and phone number with my ballot request) and the woman I talked with today seemed surprised that I was angry about this. Also the fact that they failed to email me my ballot today is frustrating. Second, no one in their office seemed to understand election code. I was told contradictory things on several occasions. My father tried calling on my behalf and had a hard time explaining what an absentee ballot was to the person he talked to. Whether or not it is legal to e-mail ballots is an understandable issue to be confused on but having someone tell me I was not allowed to send in the Federal write-in ballot if I didn't have my state ballot confused me.

What concerns me even more though is that the email address I gave to have my ballot emailed to is my personal address. I do not receive unsolicited email to this address because I only give it out to friends and family. However, as of writing this I have two emails from political groups in my inbox. The only explanation for these emails that I can find is that someone from the Registrar's office imputed my email into their system. If they did that, why didn't they send me a ballot?

Also, trying to get my ballot has taken a lot of time and energy. I missed a class today because I had been on hold for 20 minutes and didn't want to loose my place in the line. I've spent at least $30 on long distance charges and probably at least 4 hours dealing with phone calls, tracking down fax machines, and coping with stress related to my worry of not being able to vote. The final casualty was a bottle of good bourbon I bought last time I went home. I had been planning on saving it for tomorrow night to celebrate, but alas I've already dipped into it. Hopefully the friends I was saving it for will understand.

And finally, I had hoped that my situation was an anomaly. But just looking through my friend's facebook status, I found someone else from Santa Clara County complaining about never received their ballot. Hopefully my friend and I are just a few unlucky individuals, but I would greatly appreciate knowing what I can do to make issues like this known so action can be taken to make the voting process more accountable.

voting sucks

2008-10-15T10:39:00.001-07:00

The problem we have with democracy today is not that not enough people vote, but that too many do. All of this "get out and vote" crap makes my furry stomach turn. People are stupid. Stupid people vote for stupid candidates. I do not idiots running my government. Solution: get rid of the voter. Yet the whole political system in the Western world is developed to harness the Power of Stupid. Political parties simplify complex issues to one sentence talking points. The media plays along and makes simple issues into complex ones. Canadians don't know if they should vote for a party, vote against another party, or [le gasp!] vote for whomever their favourite local MP is. And yet if a party manages to fuck up royally (lookin' at you GOP!) they are not even held accountable because voters are too stupid to understand cause/effect.

I don't know if we should limit voting rights to military service, college grads, white men, or just get rid of voting all together. We're stuck in the middle right now between a libertarian utopia and a fascist one. We get the crap of both worlds without the benefits either would bring us. I'm tired of it. We live in a society that has strong protections for free speech, yet if you show up to protest you get stuck in a free speech zone. Try to leave that and you get tear gassed. China could never get away with that so why can the US or Canada? I'm tired of the hypocrisy in our system.

And what annoys me the most is that everyone is content enough there will be no revolution.

Bottled Rage!

2008-10-02T18:17:00.000-07:00

UBC has been very public about its attempts to curb the use of bottled water, bringing it line with the trend of Vancouverites and growing cultural trends of sustainable and environmentally friendly. It's hip to be green these days. While I applaud the enthusiasm, I can only think that this effort is not only too little too late but is being done in a very bad manner.

While meeting with the UBC Admins in their fancy offices last week, your furry Commodore Cuddles encountered what can only be described as utter incompetence. While my round bushy tail was following my larger, but oh so fluffy behind into the lobby, I asked for some water. I wanted to whet my whistle before the meeting (they had no bourbon) and then to my excitement I was brought water in a cup and told "we want to curb our bottled water use." Then I died a little inside. The cup they brought me was neither recyclable nor compostable! anger raging! How dumb are our UBC Administrators that in trying to be environmentally friendly they do the complete opposite? I can only imagine the meeting where someone "important" mentioned replacing recyclable bottles with non-recyclable cups. Could they have used paper cups? Yes, but they didn't. Instead, they made the idea of continuing the use of bottled water a good idea and someone decided to buy cups instead. Unfortunately, the cups they replaced the bottles with are just as wasteful.

Hell, what's wrong with water fountains? I don't know, but for the last five years UBC has been removing water fountains from buildings and then actively not installing water fountains in any of the new buildings. Search Buchanan and Swing and you'll find nothing that replaces bottled water, unless you go to the washrooms to fill up your Nalgenes. Except the sinks in Swing (where all the Arts kids are forced to live now that Buch B looks like a suicide bomber hit it) seem to be designed to make that impossible. Try it sometime. Me, I prefer to drink at a watering hole, so when I don't want to get my furry nose red, how else am I supposed to drink? At UBC I can do three things: 1) Spend money on bottled water and hate myself; 2) Drink out of the washrooms, or 3) Go meet with some UBC Big Wigs and try not to mention how retarded they are.

Charlie

2008-09-28T17:16:00.000-07:00

This is a story about a girl. We're going to call her Charlie for the sake of privacy. Most people in my social circle know who Charlie is, but we're going to try and avoid being assholes and throwing around actual names.

I wanted to make this story funny, but unfortunately it's not. No matter how often I laughed about this situation while it was going on, no matter how many jokes we made, in the end I think most of us just have an unpleasant feeling in the pits of our stomachs about the whole thing.

Because mental health is no joking matter.

It's actually ironic that this incident occurred while there seemed to be a great interest in the media about it. The Globe and Mail ran a very long series about mental health and several other publications ran editorials on the subject. It might have been an idea to go over those articles before I wrote this, but it's too late now. The DA is much for the whole 'research' thing. Too much like class.

Charlie is a girl, third year arts somethingorother. IR I think. We, and when I say we I mean my main group of friends, ran into Charlie through a club of which we all were members that shall remain nameless. Charlie joins our club in September. She's a very quiet Asian girl, lost in the sea of new members. She comes out to a number of our events and we notice nothing odd about her. She flitted into our social scene and we didn't pay her too much attention.

After the Christmas Break, she appears to have undergone a change. Some people disagree with me on this point, but she was not really on anyone's radar, so our actual assessment of what she was like before Christmas break is sketchy. There are changes after Christmas though, this is undeniable. She's wearing more expensive clothes and has started using large amounts of makeup, especially eyeliner. At our first meeting of the new year, she makes a beeline for one of the DA's editorial staff and attaches herself to him for the duration of the meeting. He's like 'okay she seems to be acting a little odd, but this isn't so bad.' (He's single at this point)

She comes out to the bar with us afterwards and then to an abode of one of our members. I think she's trying to give me the eyes. I, while single, am not interested at all. I think 'Commodore Cuddles can have her,' and try to arrange seating arrangements accordingly. I go home early. Commodore Cuddles arrives home later with Charlie along side. My thoughts are 'good for Commodore Cuddles. I hope she isn't following him home to try and sleep with me, because her eyes were kinda crazy. I'm going to lock my door tonight.' [I'm not sure if I'm a narcissist, paranoid, or partly psychic as my sole assessment of the girl at this point was that she looked at people funny and was kinda quiet.]

The next morning, after Charlie has left, Commodore Cuddles revealed how she had followed him home sans invitation. She just got on his bus and got off at his stop, never saying a word.

The evidence that something was wrong mounted up the more we saw of her: stolen clothing, lack of understanding space boundaries (she crashed at a friend's house and in the middle of the night climbed into bed with her), Inability to make eye contact in a conversation, stopping in the middle of sentences, interrupting conversations to ask nonsensical questions, camping outside another club member's res room for three hours and stealing an RA's phone in the process till campus security escorted her away, writing in a journal in the midst of social events, further stalking like behaviour towards Commodore Cuddles, etc. I could go on for ages. Every person who met her for more than a few minutes realized that something was wrong, that something wasn't quite functioning for her. There are a lot of socially awkward people on campus, but Charlie was so lacking in the social norms most of us take for granted it was as if she was so unaware of most of them that she didn't even know to be embarrassed by her awkwardness.

Here's the thing about Charlie though:

Her actions, for the most part, were non-violent
When we tried to confront her about her behavior she would run away

So nobody did anything. The club tried to talk to counseling, tried to talk to Charlie about matters. The university mental health services told us that we had to convince her to seek help by herself, but whenever we even tried to bring the topic up, as mentioned before, she would run away and start writing in her journal. (Which apparently contained such lines as 'Must hurt the mean boys' written over and over, but I heard this second hand and much later)

We've no idea what her family situation was like and we presumed that they were out of the picture. The only impression we got of her home situation was that she was in an apartment somewhere in Vancouver and the theory was floated that perhaps her parents had sent her here from China and rented an apartment for her, so now she was living all by herself in Vancouver. In short, there seemed to be no one there capable or willing to take responsibility for her and her condition.

As to what she had, a number of people tried to explain it away as some variant of autism. Having noticed a definite change in her behavior, I couldn't help but think it was schizophrenia. Late adolescence to early adulthood is the usual period where that condition manifests itself, while autism becomes apparent in childhood. Whatever she had, once school had ended and there were no more club events for her to come out to so we assumed we wouldn't have to worry about her for a few months.

Then she fucking stabbed a random girl in broad daylight at a bus stop.

She'd never seen this girl before. She simply said something to her, stabbed her, got on the bus, and put the knife back in her purse. The police caught her a few blocks down. She didn't seem to really think about running away. All said and done, it was about the worst case scenario you could have gotten out of this situation. (Okay, it actually could have been worse, because she didn't get her hands on a gun, but still)

Thankfully, the girl involved made a full recovery and Charlie is now in a mental hospital. We got a letter from her actually. There's nothing really we can do for her at this point, other than perhaps pay a visit, because perhaps no one else will. Hopefully she'll get the treatment she needs, hopefully she'll be able to get her life back on track.

However this sad story brings an important question to the fore, which is how the hell we get people like Charlie to seek treatment before they hurt themselves or other people. Let's face it. We should have been able to see this coming. Whatever Charlie had – clearly not autism – it was obvious to everyone she had issues and her condition was hampering her ability to function in society.

We've entered the 21st century. I think that, as a society, we should start thinking of serious new ways to deal with the issues that have plagued us for years, problems we've typically swept under the rug, or given half hearted solutions to. I think that we need to devise new mechanisms with which to handle the mentally ill, not merely in terms of treatment, but in how we bring bring those people to treatment.

Because the underlying problem with our dealings with Charlie was that, in addition to not taking the problem as seriously and maturely as we ought to have - and the majority of us definitely could have handled it better – we could not get her to seek treatment because she either didn't want to talk to us about it and, like many mentally unwell people, probably wouldn't have wanted to seek help even if we had been able to sit her down and talk to her about it. While members of your family can check you into a mental hospital, if you don't have family, or they're not around, that option of having someone else make a decision for you is simply not there.

Now, there's already a whole rigmarole about forced institutionalization, which I'm not going to go into now, because that would involve me actually reading the wiki on the subject and then some law students would poke gigantic holes in my argument and then no one would suggest anything better.

So I'm not going to do that.

Instead, I'm going to suggest that the University Administration get off its lazy collection of asses and maybe have a little more interventionist policy when it comes to mental health.

After all, if Charile had stolen a rifle from the shooting range she apparently went to, this might have been a little more like Dawson's College or Virgina Tech, and nobody wants that. The BioSci scare was quite enough.

The University isn't there to hold our hand in everything. When we've got our 'regular' illnesses or other issues it's up to us to go to the doctor, or we find the appropriate help ourselves. If we've got mental illness however, and friends and acquaintances can't just call an ambulance for us or make us go to the doctor. Often the afflicted person in these cases doesn't recognize their own need for help and in the situation of a big university, especially one with such a large commuter population, it's easy to get lost in the crowd.

I believe that the University has a responsibility to its students, both to ensure they are able to get the care they need and to provide a safe environment in which to study (and occasionally party) The status quo, in which students who do not have the support of family or friends to help them - a big problem for international students or students whose parents are abroad - in the case of mental illness and in which no meaningful action can be taken to prevent a possibly unstable person from hurting themselves or others is simply unacceptable.

Given the fact that a mentally unwell or depressed person can pose a threat to both their own safety and that of others, I think a reasonable compromise can be reached in terms of the rights of the individual to accept or refuse treatment and the duty of the university to ensure both the health and safety of its students. To this end, I think it should be possible for students or faculty who recognize a potential sufferer of mental illness, to alert the UBC (AMS?) health services to the issue, at which point, these programs would be authorized to contact that student and attempt to assess if there is a problem. If they believe that there is one, and attempts to convince the student to seek help are not successful, then the family can be alerted.

It's also been suggested that the University make such an identified student's enrollment dependent upon them seeking treatment, especially if it believed that they pose a risk to other people. This would be reasonable within the context of providing a self learning environment and I think that guidelines could be put in such a program to prevent it being abused and that most people would only use it in drastic cases, like Charlie's.

Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe this is a terrible idea and horribly infringes on privacy or something or people will use it to torment people they don't like, but it's a thought and a starting place and maybe someone can come up with something better.

And if you can't, well you can shut up. I'm tired of people wringing their hands and saying 'but we can't do anything'. Because we can and we should.

Slander 101

2008-09-24T16:47:00.000-07:00

The esteemed University of British Columbia, like many other establishments of higher learning in this fair country, has an active student body who likes to organise themselves into awesome (!) clubs. Students, being an industrious bunch (at times) enjoy getting together with fellow people of their ilk, coagulating into student groups that think they can change the world...particularly during Clubs Days, organised by the AMS, where student associations jostle with one another to compete for membership.

Of course, combine this enthusiasm with an ongoing federal election, and you've got some fertile soil for political activism in every colour.

Thus, the Devil's Advocate is pleased to present to you the finest in political commentary, the Coultie Awards: the most prestigious prize in Canadian political slander, mudslinging and general brown-nosery. These awards are named after esteemed political columnist (and occasional crazy wench) Ann Coulter, who has - on occasion - suggested that America goes into Muslim countries, kill off all their leaders and convert their peoples to Christianity. She's also an author: one of her most famous books is Slander: Liberal Lies about the American Right, where she portrays all progressive Americans as wealthy, white Democrats with a penchant for taxing you for the sake of taxing you. An accurate vision, perhaps, if you consider all liberals to be Michael Moore, Jane Fonda and Stephen Spielberg.

In any case...

First off, we have the New Democrats' booth, oh-so-firmly staffed by Mitch Wright and Vancouver-Centre candidate and UBC professor Michael Byers. Despite the fact that I constantly make inappropriate passes at young Mitch here - it's hard to resist such a charming, baby-faced young lad - he showed us what Canadian socialism is made of.

The NDP has been promoting itself as a defender of the working- and middle-classes, what with a strong slant towards social justice and a re-distributive economy, where the wealthy give to the poor. Of course, this is in the guise of taxes and regulation, so it's giving to the poor by force. That being said, their goals are pretty feel-good, so I have nothing too bad to say on that front.

Their propaganda is pretty straightforward: calling for a $10 minimum wage in BC and more women and visible minorities in Canadian legislatures. I didn't see any kind of obvious slander or attack, beyond saying that the BC Liberals - with no obvious mention of Gordon Campbell - had to go. Gosh darn it, those NDPers are pretty nice! They're like having a nice, warm (but not too hot) cup of herbal, non-caffeinated, fair-trade, carbon-neutral Balinese tea after a night of hot, consensual, safe-worded vanilla cuddling with your girlfriend.

In the end, I left with a small stack of flyers, including one from Mr. Byers asking me to come to a rally with Jack Layton and to volunteer on his campaign. (Between classes, work and the occasional Craigslist NSA hookup, I barely have time to sleep.)

Slander Grade: D

Next up, we have the Green Party. I was lucky enough to have a chat with Dan Grice, an old colleague of mine, who's now carrying the Green banner for the Vancouver-Quadra riding. In the entire time we chatted, we spoke about a democratic deficit (curable through electoral reform), a weakening environment, the need to invest in overwhelmed public transit and a revival of rail across this country.

One piece of propaganda that caught my eye was the "Shift Happens" pamphlets that I've seen all over campus over the past few months. Now, this was well before the Liberal Party published its "Green Shift" policy. Could it be that the Liberal Party is stealing material from the UBC Greens? The plot thickens so much I could eat it with chopsticks.

Dan made sure to remind me that Elizabeth May was coming to Vancouver to start her cross-country whistle-stop tour by train. He said I should come, even though political rallies are quickly becoming displeasing to me. As much as I'm for the environment, public transit and pretty much everything else this party stands for - I figure that "rape the planet" is not a prudent policy statement - I was slightly relieved that an attractive young woman had managed to captivate Dan with her presence more than I could do with my shaggy Jewish locks.

Slander Grade: D

Around the corner, to the Federal Liberals. I have never voted Liberal myself, nor do I plan to do in the near future (in no small part thanks to Bob Rae's recent musings on how a vote for the NDP is a vote for the Tories - bold words for the turncoat hack of a party that effectively props up Stephen Harper's government by refusing to vote against it!), but I have to say, the political swag started to improve.

The Grits started by gluing a bunch of partisan slogans to condoms. Using cute lines such as "private members bill" (with "bill" referring to the latex prophylactic in question and "private member" referring to a man's Pride and Joy) and "Stand Up for Canada" (which, in fact, was the Conservative Party's campaign slogan in 2006), they attempted to use humour to get people to join! Humour! Something to make you laugh! Like how far down the Liberal Party has slid in recent times!

(On another note, the Liberals have taken to stealing campaign slogans from other countries, too - apparently, their theme in French is "Ensemble, tout est possible" - together, everything is possible. This is pretty similar to the 2007 slogan for the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire - the party of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Whoever's manning the helms on board the HMCS Liberal, they should really be fired. I can't stand much more of Stephen Harper.)

Their provincial counterparts were not much better. We have Colin Simkus, politico-ladies' man extraordinaire, who's handing out some pretty neat swag, such as pins of the BC flag and latex bracelets with the provincial government's logo and slogan "The Best Place On Earth" - these were created to inspire pride and joy in this province's accomplishments over the past 150 years of existence. Of course, BC as a province has only existed for 137 years, and the thought of having a provincial identity analogous to that of, say, Newfoundland and Labrador, or Saskatchewan, or - dare I say it - Québec is a pretty far fetch. I've said this before and I'll say it again: there are two types of people in this province: hicks and hippies. Deal with it.

The point that I wanted to really drive home, however, is the honest-to-God philanthropy of the BC Liberal Party, as they paid money out of their own pockets to print up these Government-designed wristbands - with the BC logo on them - so that they could single-handedly promote a love of This Great Land! At least, I guess they did! Not a single penny of public money went into this booth. Why do I say that? 'Cause I trust Gordon Campbell. That's why.

Sadly, Colin's booth was next to the Conservative Party's booth, which was staffed by a pretty hot chick, so he really couldn't help himself in chatting her up. This is not a good thing if you're trying to promote party solidarity.

In any case, the thought of having Stéphane Dion or Gordon Campbell as my leader makes me pretty limp in the 'nads, so I'm gonna pass on this one. Props to the Liberals, though, for having a good swag idea with the condoms, and for being the first party I saw to actually criticise another.

Finally, the BC Young Liberals don't have a logo. This makes Colin sad. Apparently, if you design a logo for them by next Friday, you might be able to win a trip to their provincial convention! Nothing makes me more hot and/or bothered by that! I might need to run back to the Federal booth for a few condoms, just in case.

Combined Slander Grade: C+

Next door, to the Conservative booth. The hot chick that Colin was chatting up must have sniffed some socialist blood in the air - admittedly, there's a tiny, tiny Marxist buried deep down inside - so she soon turned stone cold. You would not believe how hard it was to get her to point to her bloody party sign and smile. Her friend was even less thrilled at the prospect. Seriously, if you guys are the Conservatives of the future, you might want to get a bit more enthusiastic about fucking over the poor! Come on, guys, just say it...just say that two-tiered health care is a good thing...and that two separate water fountains just means shorter lines for everyone...

And that's just their booth. Take a look at their propaganda:

Apparently, if you're a Green, New Democrat or Liberal, you don't like to keep promises, you like to slack off and you enjoy paying more for everything. Seriously, guys. Did you really have to insult people's intelligence? Since when did honesty become a big-C value?

And what about this one? It's Conservatives that question authority? I didn't see too many of you people down at Knoll Aid helping pry the cops from the arrested protesters.

I have a question: who hired the Republican Party to coach the Tories on how to campaign negatively? And don't they understand that by pushing this kind of line on a campus, they're effectively alienating, oh, I don't know, say 95% of the campus population? When American conservatives say that there's a left-wing bias on campuses across their country, they're damn straight. Conservatives are supposed to protect the social status quo, last time I checked, which is not the job of the academic world. Questioning authority was not their job. So I figure that they are probably a bit misguided in their mission.

I also love how they insinuate that Liberal Party hacks control the academic establishment. Y'know, like how Deborah Meredith, their candidate for MP, is a prof here at UBC. But that's just me.

As much as I'd like to tell the GOP to go take a shit in their own pool, having them here makes it so much easier to lambast Stephen Harper. So kudos, Tories! When I say "ABORTION!", you say "BAN!" Keep it up and I'm sure the Christian Taliban will be running the show pretty soon.

Slander Grade: A-

And finally, the winners of this year's Coultie Awards are none other than the Trotskyist League!

Their table was staffed by two people, one of whom refused to allow their picture to be taken. That's so great, for someone so certain of the fact that capitalism needs to be abolished, he sure is a little camera-shy. I'm sure he'll have my back when we're on the front lines of the worker's revolution!

Apparently, they were not giving away any swag. Some folks at the Yanks Anonymous table told me that they were selling their crap newspapers for $2 a copy. These guys can't even get their shit together to give away their swag for free? So much for spreading Marxism to the great unwashed!

Apparently, us white males are still repressing the québécois with our anglo-chauvinism, and the NDP is the tool of the bourgeoisie, whereas our friend down south, Barack Obama, is leading American Imperialism. Blacks are repressed by capitalism, Mumia Abu-Jamal never killed a cop, I'm screwed for thinking Jews deserve a homeland, anti-war protesters in the USA are responsible themselves for the failure of their movement to stop the War in Iraq and peacekeepers hardly keep the peace as much as they keep the gears of imperialism running smoothly. Astounding: they've managed to alienate every single sector of society, of course. Well, except themselves. I wonder if they actually think that they'll win one day.

It's really a miracle what a bucket of wheat paste and a bit of piss-and-vinegar can do!

Slander Grade: A++

---

This election, make sure you go out and vote. Whether you vote for higher taxes, institutional corruption, bigotry, a ban on soap or Québec separatism - or even for an independent candidate - make your voice heard, 'cause the people in countries where democracy is not so observed get really confused and angry when we don't do what they're dying - literally - to do.

Democracy Dome Haiku Contest

2008-09-19T13:33:00.000-07:00

Democracy Dome appears to be missing. Perhaps murdered, perhaps recalled to greener pastures by its creators. Whatever its fate, I miss it. I propose a Memorial Haiku Contest. The best haiku will win some sort of prize (to be determined - it will be nifty)

My entry:

Democracy Dome
Broken dreams and bonfires
Missing from my life

Good luck!

RCMP and Accountability

2008-09-17T15:00:00.000-07:00

In a recent Ubyssey article (volume 90, number 5), photographer Jorge Amigo describes being assaulted and threatened with arrest by RCMP outside of a fraternity party. Hopefully Jorge got a badge number and the settlement will pay for his grad school (criminal charges against the officer would be nice, but will never happen in this country) but my experiences today in trying to contact the RCMP in order to write this article raise some troubling concerns.

I figured the best way to approach an article on the RCMP would be to first look at the issue from their perspective. In the 'States, it is fairly standard practice for law enforcement to take journalists (and curious citizens) on a ride along. You spend several hours riding shotgun in a squad car, talking to the officer and seeing how he or she goes about the daily routines. In my experience, police enjoy doing this sort of thing. When my high school newspaper approached our local police department following a series of controversial incidents, they happily accommodated us. From their perspective, the chance to positively interact with members of the community and get their side of the story heard was well worth the while. From our perspective, we got a good story as well as increased the accountability of the local police department - they're less likely to shoot minorities in the back when there's a 17 year old watching.

With this in mind, I figured it would be a win-win situation if I scheduled a ride along with the University RCMP detachment. I gave them a call and was told, "oh sorry, we don't do that anymore." I then asked if I could schedule an interview with someone to discuss current issues facing the RCMP and was told I would have to talk to the RCMP's national media centre. After a bit of searching, I found that number, called it, and ended up with voice mail.

What concerns me about this incident is that the RCMP (not just the Campus Detachment but the organization as a whole) seems completely unconcerned with maintaining good relations with the community. By ensuring that the only possible contact a citizen can have with the RCMP is a negative one, they only help to polarize the "us vs. them" dichotomy that has become so prevalent at UBC these days. In order for this to change, the RCMP needs to adopt a more open policy towards community based policing.

Oh CVC

2008-09-17T14:44:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm not really 'in touch' with the UBC campus anymore, but I got linked to this video:

http://www.vimeo.com/1656522

which I think is just hilarious. No, it's not simply because it makes a mockery of people who haven't been able to acquire a high fluency in English yet. (Though I laugh at those jokes because I'm a terrible, terrible person) It's because I think, more than anything, this video mocks its makers.

Because the best way to show you're a multicultural club is to have an Asian girl be your representative in your ad.

We so believe you now.

I mean, I went and looked at their website and found the group picture on this page:

http://www.ubccvc.com/about.php

And sure, I think there's a white guy and maybe a hispanic guy on the right. But it's about as ethnically
diverse a jar of raspberry jam with a blueberry thrown in.

I also fail to see the attraction in a ski trip with eight hundred people. That's about as helpful as joining more first year classes to make friends. You really just have more people to ignore you.

On the other hand, I'm not going to yell at CVC for trying. They want to be inclusive. I respect that.
They failed utterly and had to apologize for the video, but their hearts were in the right places. Still, I can't help but feel they're fighting an uphill battle when they have 'Chinese' in their name. Even if they only refer to themselves by their acronym. Trying to be multicultural is probably a lost cause for them, or any other Asian club on campus.

Heck, I'm not even going to yell at Asian clubs in general. I mean, I don't really like the idea of racial or ethnic clubs on principle, but if you're coming over here from China or Taiwan and you barely know the language, a group of people in the same boat is what you want. (yes, I'm pretty sure there's some people like the poor sap in the video in your club. Especially if it's got 800 people in it) Not to mention the fact that people with similar cultural backgrounds tend to congregate together, no matter who they are. It's just the way shit happens.

However, I can't help but see the beautiful symmetry inherent in the existence of Asian clubs. After all,
they are the equivalent of a couple of western institutions where one pays for friends, only without dividing people up by sex. It's like some bright Asian sat up one day and thought

'What if we could combine a frat and the sorority into one entity?

And for that, I salute them.

Bloody Georgians

2008-08-26T11:30:00.000-07:00

by Eoin O'Dwyer

I used to like Vladimir Putin.

Not as much as these girls:

but hey, I can’t really appreciate his beautiful, blue eyes as much as they do.

I mean, as far as a high schooler's understanding of politics goes, it’s hard to beat a guy who’s ex-KGB, and is slowly turning Russia into a power house via oil and arms sales to Iran. Then I learned a little more and realized that if Garry Kasparov was against Putin than so was I. After all, he used to be the world chess champion. Got to know what he’s talking about.

Which brings me to the whole Georgian/South Ossetia debacle. If there’s one thing that’s started to piss me off/scare the shit out of me these days, it’s this new resurgent nationalism. I thought that perhaps after a couple of world wars and the whole warming of East/West relations after the cold war, the stable countries that matter had moved beyond the worst parts of the nationalism thing. I mean, sure all those tiny little countries were going around and killing thousands of people over who owned a particular field with cultural significance, and there’s all those people who are going ‘USA! USA! USA!’ all the time and my Irish cousins still think that we should get our hands on the northern counties one of these days, but like whatever.

With this double invasion of South Ossetia and all the lies and disinformation brought out by both sides, I smell the stench of rabid nationalism coming to bite us in the ass again. The Georgians want all the bits of land they see as part of Georgia. Russia doesn’t like little Georgia going off and trying to join clubs like NATO. It finds such actions very hurtful and so feels a little compelled to stand up for those plucky South Ossetians.

So let’s review the facts that I think most reasonable people can agree on at this point:

1) Both Georgia and Russia are giant dicks in this conflict

Nice move Georgia. Go try and bring a quasi-autonomous region back into the fold by force. That has great optics, especially when you do it during the Olympics. Go bombard their capital city in the process. That creates lots of good will.

Sakashvilli, you’re a dick.

Russia. You had something of a point going into South Ossetia. I mean, they did have a vote to be independent, even if no one recognized it, and there are a lot of Russian peace keepers and citizens there. Sure, most of the latter group only got their passports recently and you’ve kinda being pushing Georgia’s buttons by amassing tanks on the border, but that doesn’t mean you were wrong to go in.

Where you are wrong is also invading Abkahzia. Yeah, the Georgians are going to go in there when the might of the Russian bear is aimed straight at them. Right. Going into Georgia proper and bombing civilians just like the Georgians and NATO in Kosovo and not really abiding by any real ceasefires and not leaving once the Georgians essentially give up.

Vlad, you’re a dick. (Yeah, we all know you’re in charge. Quit the shit)

2) Abkahzia and South Ossetia possibly have a right to secede properly from Georgia.

Georgia might be right (or might have been right) that this shit could have been resolved by allowing some quasi-autonomy status instead. (so might Chechnya)

Balancing the right to self-determination with a nation’s right to govern its own territory is a tricky business. I don’t think accepting one or the other as a blanket statement is a good idea. Comparisons to Kosovo or the Sudetenland are fun, but not very helpful as we’re either comparing the Russians to Nazis or

3) Maybe NATO shouldn’t try to include so many ex-communist Bloc countries in its club. Russia feels a little alone, a little surrounded by countries that aren’t exactly friendly to it. Maybe they should have tried some delicate diplomacy work with Russia when they decided they were going to let Ukraine and Georgia into NATO. Maybe.However, these are all relatively reasoned points. This is the Advocate and so it’s bombastic, inflammatory, demagogic argumentation I require. I’ve realized that if it weren’t for Russia, this would be a piddly little ethnic conflict we could all safely ignore and so:

This is all the fault of Russian Nationalism. Yes, we get it Russia. You got fucked over hard by the fall of the Soviet Union. You overhauled your political and economic systems and decided that the Cold War was silly and thought ‘hey, everyone wins this way.’ Then Ronald Reagan did his happy dance and was like ‘dudes, we defeated the Commies!’ and then went and got Alzheimer’s and privatization put all the wealth into the hands of old party hacks and the mob and the economy dive bombed, and you found out that Boris Yeltsin wasn’t quite so cool when he was tanked and not jumping onto a tank. Then you didn’t really get to join all the cool Western clubs and NATO still was hanging around, except it was growing and all these little places attached to Russia decided they didn’t want to hang around anymore, the party was over. (ha ha)

We’re very sorry about that. Really.

That doesn’t get you off the hook for treating anyone who disagrees with you in the former bloc like some sort of terrorist and then trying to rig, distort, or steal elections in those countries so that people you like there get elected. I know. Losing the Soviet Empire was hard, but you can still have a zone of influence. You just have to be friends with the countries on your border. Friends don’t try to poison each other’s Presidential Candidates with dioxin. Friends don’t engage in cyberwar and stop all Estonians from checking their hotmail accounts. Sometimes you have to give governments their space and then they’ll come around and you can be one big happy family again.

Oh, and complaining about the missile shield? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of. Yeah, that’s going to allow the West first strike capacity. Right. And putting nukes in Kalingrad?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4547883.ece
Way to up the ante. One day you’ll run low on oil and then where the hell will you be?

I just want to say for the record, I love Russians. I just want to hug all of them and tell them, ‘It’s okay. One day you’ll have a government that doesn’t suck ass and your lives will be so much fun you won’t have to drink so much vodka to forget it that you drown in the River Volga.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/813193.stm
I’m tearing up right now as I write this. I’m not even joking. Russia gets me all emotional.

Just stop liking Putin! The Russians I know are driving me insane with this. He’s NOT A NICE GUY. When I look in his eyes, just like John McCain, I see only three letters. K-G – fucking – B! Seriously! This man is enough to make me want to go toe-to-toe with the Ruskies and vote Republican. Republican!

My rant is done. Next on the line is Chinese Nationalism, but I’ve got to go practise my Mandarin and Russian.

Burn baby burn!

2008-08-26T00:58:00.000-07:00

Alright motherfuckers, there is a half empty bottle of bourbon next to me. And it is starting to talk. His name is Jim, and he is sad about Trek Park. Trek Park, if you haven't been by it recently, has been burned. The grass is fried to a crisp. Democracy Dome has been kicked in. It is a shadow of its former glory. I know the DA has been critical of Trek Park in the past, but that is because it never went far enough. This year needs to start off with a bang. I say occupy some fucking buildings.

Everyone complains about a lack of student housing, and how building million dollar condos is lame. But nothing is really done about it. But there are ways you can get your point across to The Man that you're mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore. Theres a nice shiny condo being built on South Campus. Once it nears completion, occupy it. Demand that it be turned into student housing. Even offer to pay $500 per room. But demand it be turned over to students. Last year demonstrated that there are UBC students willing to be arrested for a cause, but they were mocked. The reason the Fire was ridiculed was because the cause those students were willing to be arrested for did not resonate with the majority of the student body. On the other hand, everyone cares about housing. We all have to deal with it and it sucks. UBC ain't helping much. UC Berkeley has about 25,000 undergrads with 5,800 beds first years can sleep in. UBC has 35,000 undergrads with only 2,500 beds between Vanier and Totem. UCLA, with 24,000 undergrads, has 9,500 total beds. Now while these numbers just give a general ballpark, it is clear that UBC offers less housing than universities it likes to compare itself to. And UBC doesn't seem to be doing much about it. Oh sure they can complain about lack of money and what not, but if they wanted to build more hosing, they could find money instead of wasting it on things like trying to join NCAA.

So one morning we walk into a newly built (yet not yet inhabited) condominium. Dig some trenches, barricade some doors, launch some Molotov cocktails at the neighbors. Instant international media attention. And we have a very real plight. We just want somewhere to live.

The DA Needs You!

2008-08-20T22:59:00.000-07:00

So I admit it. We've done jack shit this summer. I had epic plans, they failed. But there is still a faint glimmer of hope for next year. Maybe someone is still reading this. Maybe you want to write something. Maybe you want to challenge me to single combat and let God decide who shall be editor.

I don't know what's going to happen next year. Is there something you want the DA to do? Then do it! I can probably even find a way to fund it.

-ap

Meat Tale Part I

2008-07-18T12:15:00.000-07:00

I gasp, opening my eyes. Darkness envelopes me like a bad metaphor. It is cold. So cold. My entire body is numb. I do not know where I am or how I got here. I feel like part of me is missing. Hacked away. Oh God! I don't belong here! Need to get out! I black out.

An eternity passes. Or perhaps only a moment. I come to. Calmer. Relaxed. I hear voices! Has civilization found me? I shout out, calling to them with what little of my voice remains. They speak a tongue I have not heard before. When they hear me, shouts of joy at first and then panicked screams. A commanding voice begins to bark orders. I catch one word, “protein” and my gut fills with fear. Vegetables. Vegetables are everywhere!

When I was young my parents read me fairy tales about meatless things. Full of fiber, Vegetables lacked moral principles. They were sinners, cast out of heaven. They bred like crazy, spreading their filth across the country side. But my ancestors had driven the heathen from our homeland. I had never seen a 'veg before in my life, and now I was surrounded by them.

I reach for my weapon (standard issue tenderizer) only to realize that I had no arms! Instead of experiencing terror like one would expect, I begin to remember things. The civil war between Beef and Chicken. The top secret mission I was sent on (infiltrate camp “Freezer” to rescue a group of POWs) and my capture. I must have been doped up pretty heavily for the mission because the only memory I have of my capture is being lifted up by the hand of God Himself and placed into a holding basket. Then I blacked out. Going to make one hell of an after action report. If I make it. Time to retire. I'm getting too old for this shit.

I look around again and notice the shouting has stopped. The one shouting orders is a Carrot (like everyone else I was shown Veggie Tales as a youngling – I know my 'Vegs) and they are now bringing forward what looks like a malnourished Oscar Meyer. Poor hot dog. He is ordered to read a statement to me. When he speaks it is with a voice that offers no hope: “You are now a prisoner of the Vegan Alliance. Your kind is wanted for crimes against Vegetables. You will be transported to the Crisper where you will stand trial. Your kind are charged with the crime of murdering three times your weight in Brother Grain each time you spawn. You will be found guilty and banished to the Far Reaches where you will slowly die of Consumption by Mold. God have mercy on your soul.”

I try to speak in my defense, but feel something sharp stab my stomach. The broccoli begin to drag me away. Not like this!, I pray. Not like this! Thunderous roar! Blinding light! Out of heaven manifests a monstrous being who (I can only say that this must have been God himself) reaches in with an enormous hand and picks up Carrot. The being bites his head off, casting the body into the abyss like some rag doll. The other vegetables pass out in terror I run.. I am safe. For the moment.

Translink Consultation, WWPTD (What Would Penn & Teller Do?)

2008-07-10T16:48:00.000-07:00

by Andrew Forshner

The notion of Translink consultation is good and essential for the establishment of a transit network that services the needs of all citizens in the GVRD. The problem is that in practice, consultation is utter bullshit…though entertaining at times. Here at the Devil’s Advocate we hope to libel our way to a better world, and if I could remember people’s names that could be a reality, but seeing as I have attention span of a special-ed goldfish I can only insult general descriptions of people.

Last night (July 9th) Metro Vancouver Translink held a consultation session in the Plaza 500 (across from City Hall) to an audience of a distinguished journalist (me), the Honourable Scary Rabbi Kushnir, four CFS student politicians, about six no-talkers, and one bat-shit crazy old dude. All-in-all attendance was quite good for a municipal consultation session. This was one of many mandated consultation sessions for Translink to discuss their 10-year and 40-year transit plans that are to be finalized in August. That’s right; consultation for large scale Metro Vancouver transit plans begin about a month before plans are due. Wow, and I thought UBC was bad at consultation. The night struck me like more of an information session where you could ask questions, not so much suggest anything. Personally, I’d like to recommend they build a Skytrain line that has drops like a roller coaster, which I contend will increase ridership for stoners, tourists looking for a cheap alternative to Playland, and high school kids (young stoners). Sadly, this was not the venue to suggest amazing changes to Translink service, unless, say you’re nuts!

Overall, I think positively about the expansion plans of Translink for the next few decades. Vancouver has one of the best transit systems in North America, and expanding the lines to better incorporate business parks, establishing a frequent transit network across the Lower Mainland to connect all municipalities and reduce wait times, and reduce the carbon emissions of their buses. All with minimal raises in transit fares ($0.25 increase every five years). Sounds great, huh!?! Well, it does, if you neglect the fact that Translink is planning to operate at a $175million deficit every year after 2011. The VPs at Translink seem optimistic about the BC Provincial Government covering the expected shortfall. This must mean that the viability of Translink’s plans rests on the hope that the NDP will win the next election, given the choice of Liberals to make the new gas tax revenue neutral rather than funnel it to transit, which is what the MUCH LARGER existing gas tax already does. Without gov’t money, Translink promises to reduce services in 2011. Hey, planning for a recession is good too.

Now onto the crazies: question period. First up are the CFSers. They want the U-Pass. We’ve got the U-Pass, and they (Emily Carr and VCC) want it too. I want them to have it too, but not really. I like the concept of “U-Passes for all”, or “U-Passes for the Poor”, but I’m not really a fan of “U-Passes for all…University Students”. Translink’s position is that it is not their responsibility to increase the costs to all of its users to benefit any specific group, whether they are university students or hobos (for some reason seniors don’t count, even though they pay less than everybody else). They like the idea of a flat tax, a fare, for everyone (except seniors), and it’s the government’s responsibility to subsidize the transit passes for students, poor people, and seniors – no, wait, not seniors, they’re special!

UBC and SFU get away with cheaper bus passes because we’re socialist pig-dogs who force student drivers to subsidize the transit users because every student has to buy a U-Pass. U-Passes can thus be cheaper because not everyone is using the increased service to UBC, although many now are, and therefore to Translink it is as though students were paying almost the price of a normal transit fare (though if you do the math, not really, but whatever, we’re special too!!). Emily Carr and VCC have less students, and even fewer who drive, so they’re stuck having to pay more because they of their lack of rich-kid students. Does that suck? Hell, yes!! But, don’t complain to Translink, go argue to the Provincial government to either subsidize your bus passes or force/lobby Translink to provide them with affordable U-Passes.

And there was the asshole: crazy old fart who hasn’t shaved, or showered in a week, and has his bus pass around his neck on a piece of string. His complaints (he admitted he had no constructive points, only bitching points) were as follows: 1) We need more corporate taxes to pay for transit. They get off scot-free in society, and they control our transit system. Urgghhh, I hate corporations, they’re like my asshole, really, really dirty! 2) You men, and old ladies, running Translink are undemocratic. None of you are elderly, poor, or even disabled. Shame on you all for being unrepresentative of transit users, and therefore a horrible group of people. (Now is where I would rant about the delusional necessity that only people within minority groups can represent those group’s interests, but this article is becoming a bit too long.) 3) Oh yeah, and Translink it’s your responsibility to fight urban sprawl. Bow-wow!!!

SO, what can you expect from Transit. 1) Probable economic crisis and lower service in 2012; 2) More rapid transit; 3) Possibly an #N17 that runs all night long, now all students can get plastered in Stanley park and still make it back to campus for a late night skinny sip off the 10-meter.

Update

2008-07-02T23:35:00.000-07:00

The Devil's Advocate hasn't been very active lately. It's summer. I'm lazy. But that will change. Starting next week, there will be weekly updates featuring real content (now with 50% less libel) and a new, sexier page design (hopefully - I'm still figuring out Wordpress)

If there is anything in particular you would like to see the Advocate do, comment away.

-Aaron

Why I Hate Utah: Youth Theater Review

2008-06-20T04:30:00.000-07:00

It was a Tuesday afternoon and I was in dire straits. I had no job to go to, no class, no interviews, no dates, no social engagements, and no more alcohol. Naturally, I did what any enterprising young man of my generation would do: I turned to Facebook. Lo and behold, my friend Keegan had invited me to see a play being previewed that very night. A chance to watch something funny while simultaneously pretending to be cultured? How could I refuse? Why I Hate Utah is the story of a man named Liam, played by Rueben Tillman, who travels the roadways of America, trying to escape a curse: his heart will not beat and everything he cares for (including his beloved Constance) has a tendency to mysteriously blink out of existence. On his travels he comes across a roadside diner, which is inhabited by the powerful and mysterious Lucy, played by Chelsea Cameron, and her eccentric and lovable band of misfit underlings. Hilarity ensues.

I must confess, I went into the performance expecting to be about as disappointed a Baptist girl on her honeymoon. And who could blame me? As our parents are all too keenly aware, youth performances are… well, they’re youth performances. As much as it hurts me (as a blue-moon youth performer myself) to admit, there isn’t really much genre distinction between a play put on by eighteen year olds and a third-grade Christmas pageant.

So when I say I was pleasantly surprised… well, let’s just say it was a big goddamn surprise. Yes, the play has problems: the writing varies wildly between pure genius and rambling incoherency, characters occasionally pull emotional one eighties, the most pivotal moments take place off stage, there is a confusing and non-sequiter (though amusing) interlude with a demonic puppet, one of the plot twists is predictable by the fifth line, and the ending is deeply unsatisfying.

Despite this, I’d buy another ticket in a heartbeat.

I think the reason I found the ending so unsatisfying was because I cared so much about the characters. In some ways, Why I Hate Utah feels more like the pilot episode of a TV Show: nothing is resolved by the end of the two-part premier, perhaps because all of our favourite characters need to be free to traipse off into the sunset and have more adventures. By the time the final bows were taken, I was already wondering where those characters were going to be. And because of this, because I found myself so interested, so desperate to find out what happens next, I found myself totally immersed in the story. A pleasant surprise considering I was expecting stammering teenagers fumbling their way through awkwardly written lines, pausing every few seconds as their co-stars whisper their lines to them from off stage. Speaking of which, perhaps the biggest goddamn surprise of all of them was the quality of the acting. I’m no stranger to the ear-rending, soul-destroying world of teen acting. I’ve literally fled Shakespearean performances in a desperate (and ultimately futile attempt) to delay my inevitable descent into misanthropic alcoholism. Thankfully, the cast of Why I Hate Utah is composed of some of the best student actors I’ve ever seen. Hell, why beat around the bush: some of these guys were so damn good they make some of the professional theater groups I’ve seen look like a bunch of chimps doing William Shatner impersonations. Chelsea Cameron, playing the aforementioned Lucy, is a particular treat, lending a sensibility to the role which is at once world-weary and playful, like a 1930’s Hollywood starlet. Emily Snee, who plays Chloe, brings an organic and multifaceted approach to her character’s relationships, a style which allows her to evoke emotions as disparate as sorrow and comedy in the same line. Reuben Tillman, who plays our hero, Liam, manages to make the transition from stammering fish-out-of-water to a Bad-Ass who rebukes the Devil without ever seeming forced, so that the arc of his character development seems as natural as any I’ve ever seen. Even if the writing wasn’t compelling and the

But let’s be honest: you won’t see a play just because I tell you it’s good. You’re a university student, slothful by nature and infinitely more inclined spend your nights torrenting the Lost season finale and drinking Jello-shots than you are to go to a play. Those are just the facts. So I’ll offer another reason you should go see this play: it’s a youth performance. Andrew Ferguson, writer and director of the piece in question, told the DA that he believes that youth bring a perspective to theater that can’t be found in plays written, performed, or directed by adults. He’s absolutely right, of course, but consider this as well: none of came to university because we get excited at the prospect of writing essays or kissing our TA’s asses (well, metaphorically anyways. Depends how hot your TA is). We came because we wanted to have fun, meet interesting people, and broaden our horizons. Good youth art is rare, as are good youth artists. Vancouver’s youth culture scene is amazing, and failing to take advantage of it not only ignores one of the best reasons to go to school in this city, it also damages the culture scene itself. Artists need an audience as much as frat boys need keggers: to remove the latter totally invalidates the existence of the former. By patronizing youth artists, you’re not only entertaining yourself, you’re also supporting Vancover’s rich cultural future. After all, someday these youth actors will be mature actors, just as you and I will someday be mature audiences. Well, for a given value of mature, in any case.

Why I Hate Utah is playing until Sunday night. Shows are at 7:30 every night, with a 2pm matinee on the weekend dates. Five dollars at the door will get you a ticket. The venue is Carousel Theater on Granville Island, 1411 Cartwright Street. Don’t miss it. Who knows when you’ll have another chance to support the arts, enjoy yourself, and pretend to be cultured all at the same time again?

game, set, match.

2008-04-25T00:01:00.000-07:00

I should be writing my paper. . .

Eden hits below the belt

2008-04-22T19:36:00.000-07:00

My bastard boyfriend Eden Hart decided to send this video to me. It hurts Eden, thanks a lot. I'm going off to cry in a SUB bathroom now.

I guess that's what I get for having an open relationship.

UBC SDS are a bunch of fakes!

2008-04-22T13:22:00.000-07:00

Those of you with too much time on your hands may have noticed the cute article on UBC Insiders explaining the historical origins of Students for a Democratic Society (aka the SDS)

What I find interesting about this is that, despite all the quaint black and white pictures, the SDS of the 1960s is a completely different organization than the SDS of today, which is just two years old.

If you really don't want to study for that astrophysics exam tomorrow, check out the wiki here for the complete SDS history, but basically the movement that culminated with stand on top of cop-car mounting awesomeness in Berkeley was hijacked by radicals and fell apart by the end of the decade. Step into my time machine and let us fast forward 40 years. Wave when you pass Reagan.

2006. A group of students decide to create a movement based on participatory democracy. An interesting concept, and the definition varies depending on who you ask. As far as I can tell, to the SDS this means a non-hierarchical structure so everyone can have their voice heard equally (this also allows for infinite buck passing) I've also heard definitions that go from randomly choosing 20 UBC students to sit on a committee to projects like VFM to displays of asshatery like this. Now that last one is just silly.

Recent events seem to have shown that UBC SDS prefers the "being annoying" form of action. Take small issues and beat the crap out of them. Way to go guys. But I got to wondering - are all SDS chapters like this? Just by looking at their website they don't seem that batshit (though my agents at Berkeley tell me otherwise)

Regardless, I must give them credit. They did a good job organizing protest to the Iraq war, and now at least they are vocal, which is important in the US especially given how much our media sucks. But when they finally get attention they don't know what to do with it. Or at least that's how it works at UBC.

But here is the amazing thing:

There is no UBC chapter of SDS. Wha? I'm gonna say that again: according to the wiki attached to the official SDS website, there is no SDS chapter at UBC. So, while it is entirely possible they just suck at keeping their site up to date (which is lame if their big thing is participatory democracy, but entirely possible especially since they use fucking listservs) or it is possible the organization at UBC calling itself SDS never bothered to join. Which one is is kids?

Looks like the latter. The UBC SDS site even says they are only "inspired by" the SDS of the US. As in not actually part of. This wouldn't be a problem if they didn't write articles justifying their legitimacy as a continuation of the original SDS movement. To me this sort of seems like shitting in a Starbucks cup, calling it a Frapachino, and selling it out of your van. Sure it looks the same on the outside but whoa!

I don't know. Part of me wants to cry "shame!" for co-opting the name of another organization and the other part of me doesn't care. Or I could be completely wrong. Or maybe just beautiful. Damn beautiful. Tell me I'm beautiful. That's what the comment thing is for.

<3

VFM!

2008-04-18T00:35:00.001-07:00

Make sure you register to vote in VFM - voting ends on the 30th. So far only 15 people have registered. . . go here to vote.

Also check out this blog: http://knolltruth.blogspot.com/

Oh wait. It is by invite only. Guess you can't handle the truth. Maybe when they discover the truth they'll let us know. Sorry Knoll folk, I like a lot of your ideas it is just your execution. . . leaves something to be desired.

Jasmine Rezaee supports freedom of speech!

2008-04-12T20:24:00.000-07:00

As some of you may know, yesterday (last day of class aka the one day alcoholism is socially acceptable) a little group calling itself Kno to the Knoll held a protest. Almost immediately, the famous campus activist and ardent free speech advocate Jasmine Rezaee arrived to show her support. Thanks to Gerald, as always, for having his camera present.[sorry about the formatting - I'd sort it out if I had the time - just click "see full post" at the bottom]

Here we see Jasmine arriving. Note how both parties use body language. Jasmine, a seasoned activist, has much to teach Kno to the Knoll about the nuances of a proper demonstration.

Here Jasmine shares her sign making skills. As any environmentalist can tell you, conservation of scarce resources is important. Jasmine makes sure nothing goes to waste.

Another lesson in non-verbal communication. Sometimes fringe elements can take over an otherwise peaceful event and turn it ugly. Jasmine shows the proper way to respond to vile chants of "peaceful protest" in a way sure to earn her the respect and admiration of her followers.

Jasmine shared much of her knowledge of activism with Kno to the Knoll on Friday, all of which helped contribute a successful rally. I think this will be a beautiful partnership. See you at P.F. Changs! I'll be having my sauce extra spicy.

Once Upon A Grassy Knoll or Never Cry 'Shame'

2008-04-09T22:17:00.000-07:00

Erin Rennie

I am amazed at how hurt the knolligarchy is at the antagonistic response to their, in all seriousness, harrowing experience last Friday. Although I feel really sorry for the kids who went through this, I also feel like there is some kind of lesson to be learned, but none of the asop's fables that I can recall quite fit. So wrote my own.

Once Upon A Grassy Knoll or Never Cry 'Shame'

Once upon a time, in a land far far away, there was a large forest ruled by a mighty king. Many different creatures lived in this forest all with different personalities and interests. There were ducks and pigeons, raccoons and squirrels, lumbering bears and mindless seagulls, lady bugs, lizards, chipmunks, rabbits, moose and many many more. They were happy there in the forest where they all lived and learned and played together. One group, the little lambs lived together on top of a lovely grassy hill. The lambs were very smart and very good. They were worried about the forest they lived in. They worked hard to make the forest a better place and did many good works.

But the little lambs were sad because many of the other little woodland creatures did not share their concerns or their ambition to improve the forest. The seagulls would strut by, plugged into their ipods and ignorant of everyone else. The lumbering bears cared for nothing but drinking lots and lots of honey and having a nice time. The rabbits spent all their time at the Pit, looking for other scantily-clad rabbits to hump and make more baby rabbits with. Even the squirrels ignored the pleas of the little lambs and drove around in gas guzzling SUV's. Yes many of the other creatures were very naughty and the little lambs began to say to themselves: "how naughty they all are, how evil, how stupid." The little lambs would then look at themselves and say "how nice we are, how peaceful and conscientious. How good we are! How righteous we are! Everyone should be like us."

But even though the little lambs were very very good, they could not convince the other creatures to become like them. And they began to get very cross with the lazy, wasteful creatures, and even the creatures which were just different. The lambs thought they were doing good by pointing out the flaws and misdeeds of the different animals. The lambs would say "you slimy Liberal Lizards! Shame on you!" And "you miserly, cruel Conservative Crows! Shame on you!" They even began to say "you lazy New Democratic Party Donkeys! Shame on you, for you are poisoning the class struggle!"

They shamed everyone who had something to be ashamed of, for their mistakes, their accidents, their differences of opinion, or even just their differences of method. They shamed each creature in turn except themselves of course because they had nothing to be ashamed of. They even published their censures for all to see, writing brilliant articles like "AUS Aardvarks: if they aren't with us, they are racist, imperialistic capitalists!" or "Ubyssey Newspaper Newts: biased, right-wing, hypocrisy!" or "IRSA Iguanas: somehow funded by the military therefore violent oppressive war-mongers!" They were especially rigorous to shame the leaders of the forest for any misdeeds, they even managed to discover moral ramifications for the misdeeds that the perpetrator was not even aware of. Works of this amazing undercover journalistic magnitude included "Alex the Alligator an anti-democratic cheater votes up to 12 times!" and "Tyrannical Student Council impedes on hypothetical judicial independence! Colin the Coyote suspected as right-wing political ring-leader." They shamed the idea of anyone even trying to oppose their right to shame because, "to disagree with good little lambs is akin to hate speech!"

By the bye, it came to light that the mighty king intended to bulldoze the entire forest to build a new 548-car garage to house is collection of BMW's and SUV's and yachts. The garage would be so large as to include a food court, Laundromat, spa, and gift shoppe! The forest creatures were horrified and grew anxious. The lambs especially endeavored to prevent this terrible thing from happening to their beloved forest, especially their beloved grassy hill of a home. They also increased their public shaming for logic clearly dictates that those ignorant and apathetic animals who did nothing, or did something in the wrong way were enemies to the creatures and friends of the mighty king.

But one night the little lambs made a mistake themselves. They built a great big dangerous bonfire to skip and dance and celebrate with. But they built their fire bigger and bigger, it grew to the same dangerous, uncontrollable proportions as their smear campaigns and public shaming had. But even when it was time to put the fire out, the little lambs refused. They fought and resisted. The fire a symbol of their solidarity! Of their righteousness! For this they got into deep deep trouble with the King. The next day they felt very silly for their folly. Surely going to jail had not been worth the fun of a great big fire. Jail sure wasn't "an experience they'd want to repeat!" They laughed it off as a simple mistake. They did not understand why they were being so unfairly punished by the forest authorities. They appealed to their fellow forest creatures for support – the king was being a great big unfair meany right?

But the forest creatures were not interested in coming to their rescue. The forest creatures even said mean angry things like "they got what was coming to them." How could their fellow creatures, their friends say they deserved such harsh punishment? What ever happened to forest-friendliness? Forest-solidarity? Forest unity against the King? Why were their friends not coming to their aide in their time of need?

The other creatures did feel sorry for the little lambs. Jail was icky and not fair - it was true. But the other little creatures were angry and resentful with the lambs. The lambs with their self-righteous attitude, their snarky comments at student council, their harsh criticism of every mistake, every difference of opinion. The creatures were tired of being constantly shamed for every little mistake or failure to care. They were happy to see that the lambs could make mistakes too. They were happy that they could have a turn at shaming the lambs after being so cruelly treated in every news article.

The moral of the story? Those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones? Don't burn your bridges with those who could be your greatest allies in times of need? Don't alienate your friends? Play nice with other woodland creatures? Or maybe just to treat others as you would have them treat you? Political criticism is important, but being a self-righteous, judgmental, holier-than-thou jerkface to your fellow students won't get you anywhere with your battles with the man.

The Soldier and the Student

2008-04-09T05:24:00.000-07:00

In the interests of talking about something not directly related to the recent Knoll-Shenanigans or the Lougheed-Crompton-Hissy-Fit, here's an article only tangentially related to hippies. Enjoy.

The first things I noticed were her shoulder pads.

“The woman wearing us is no ordinary pair of X chromosomes,” said the shoulder pads and, quite frankly, I believed them. Her eyes were piercing, her hands strong, her starched uniform stiffer than a pedophile at Disneyland. I wanted to ask her name, I wanted to ask her sign, I wanted to ask her if she was tired from running through my mind all night. I wanted ask her if she would hold me close and protect me, if only for a moment, from this cruel, cruel world I call home.

Instead, I asked “What the fuck is the military doing on Campus?”

Admittedly, the next few minutes are a blur. It may have been my narcolepsy or my alcoholism or even the roofies my stalker had slipped me earlier that day. It may have been the head trauma from a rifle butt to the face dealt to me by this strange, starched Valkyrie. It may even be that I was suddenly abducted by aliens, probed, and then brainwashed into forgetting the whole horridly erotic ordeal. More likely I simple glossed over once she handed me a pamphlet. I really have to stop signing up for things just because pretty women are handing out fliers. Every time I enter the SUB, I risk losing myself in a sea of helpful women and soothing introductory spiels. Even as I write these words I wonder: did I sign any damning documents that day and, if so, how long do I have before the fascists knock down my door and drag me off to boot camp or, worse, an International Peer Program meeting?

By the time my memory rejoined me, I was out back from the SUB. I’d just had the pamphlet in my hand; where it was now, no man could say. One thing was clear: the army was here. But why? And how? Did they invade us? Did we even put up a fight? Weren’t universities places of peace and learning? “You rat-fink, peacenik idiots!” I cried, “I told you we needed a military of own! If we only we’d had guns, and students to fire them, these swine would never have sent their goons to seduce our youth and steal our research.” But it was too late. UBC hadn’t built its own armed forces and now, it had paid the price. We’d been occupied. We’d been conquered.

The resistance contacted me that night. Apparently they were looking for converts, freedom fighters in the war against these fascist bastards. I noted the time and location of the anti-military gathering. Perhaps, if I followed this Facebook invitation, it would lead me down a rabbit hole of truth. Perhaps, they could explain the military’s presence.

“…Because, of course, the purpose, the sole purpose of the army, is to kill people. That’s the point,” he said, speaking with that thick, cream-cheese smugness that typifies his people, the burn-outs of academia. I’d describe him, but memory plays tricks. I know he didn’t have dreadlocks, he wasn’t wearing tie-dye, not that I could see. A Castro-beard, maybe, but even that may be an illusion. He looked normal enough, aging, but not aged. I can only assume that he was hiding the signs of his condition. The longer I looked at him the more certain I was: this man was wearing tie-dye underwear and I’d bet my second ex-girlfriend’s kneecaps that he’d twisted his pubic hair into dreadlocks. Yes… Our man was a stealth-hippy: the worst kind.

The crowd was entranced, nodding along placidly, as if a goddamn thing this man was saying made a mouse turd of sense. “Research Universities didn’t exist before the birth of the military-industrial complex,” the stealth hippy rambled, “they just didn’t exist.”

The room was small, but the crowd was smaller. One of the organizers tried to shepherd me into a seat nearer the front, one of the conspicuously empty ones. I refused. No way was I getting away from the door. One wrong move, one wrong sentence, and these granola-munching, tree-molesting hipsters would tear me limb from limb.

“The military funded my friend’s research,” continued Stealth-Hippy, “he was a marine biologist. He was researching bacteria clinging to rock. Do you know what that means?!” I made eye contact with one of the girls across the room and, for a moment, I thought she was flirting with me. Her eyes caressed my figure, scanning every inch of me. I felt bold. I felt invigorated. I felt like I could fuck a bull elephant to death. And then it hit me. YOU FOOL! My subconscious screamed, She’s probing you! And she was. She had noticed my leather jacket, my leather shoes, my lack of a Che Guevara t-shirt. I didn’t belong there and she knew it.

“It means,” proclaimed the Stealth-Hippy, “that somewhere, some Vice-Admiral or something, made a pitch, made a sales pitch. He convinced the army that bacteria cling to rocks could be used to kill people. I know this because WHY ELSE WOULD THE ARMY FUND HIM?”

I made excuses to the hippy-bouncer and escaped. Thankfully, I made it out before they could stop me. Any one who can listen to (or worse, actually give) a lecture like that and not vomit blood in disgust is capable of anything. I’m damn lucky I got out of there before they tied me to the floor and gang sodomized me with hemp dildos or gave me a boiling fair-trade enema. Or worse, they could have kept talking.

As I ran from the hippies, I reached a conclusion. Was I happy that the armed forces had occupied my campus? Not really, no. But on the other hand, it wasn’t all bad. The army has been giving young people direction, discipline, and education since this country began. Historically, nations that have maintained a large and well trained military have been prosperous. Positive social change has often arisen out of the unity that a well staffed military provides. From women’s rights, to racial equality, to Canadian nationalism: on the whole, being a soldier seems solid. It’s a noble career path and it makes sense to promote it on campus. In order to rise above being a simple mob of thugs, every armed force needs educated, intelligent young members, people willing to make a difference from the inside. If corporations, motivated by love of money, can recruit on campus, why can’t an organization motivated by love of your country?

I figure joining the military is like having an abortion: if you don’t want an abortion, shut the fuck up and don’t have one. If you do want one, that’s your choice, and you have the right to do what’s best for you. Don’t like the military recruiting on campus? Then don’t join the military. Don’t like military funding for campus research projects? Then refuse their donations to your projects. It’s that simple.

An open letter to the AMS

2008-04-07T12:50:00.000-07:00

Dear Alma Mater Society,

There have been a number of recent controversies involving AMS elections, executives, and members. In the interest of students, can I ask you to please blatantly ignore these in order to go back to the important job of getting shit done?

Please heed the calls on internet message boards to move on, to forget these "childish acts of silliness," as one commentator calls them. Please ignore the students who (perhaps justly) have grievances against the Royal Canadian Mounted and Vancouver Police forces. Please ignore the significant number of students who (perhaps justly) feel their elected student representatives are no longer able to represent their interests. And pretty please, in the name of executive cohesion, can we just put our differences away and agree on some things. I'm past caring what we agree to - just make it something unified.

Because we all know, the little demon we call accountability haunts the angel of getting shit done like a hound on its back. (Apologies, AMS, for the mixed metaphors, I felt I needed them to get the point across.) We all know that you are responsible for representing the student body on a wider scale, and to be honest, it looks really really bad when there are scandals. And of course since people will assume the entire student society is behind the recent events, a lack of transparency can't hurt either. So please let's agree to just put these meaningless buzzwords of democracy behind us in an effort to please get shit done.

What about the internal divisions between students? Don't worry, once pushed under the rug those will heal up pretty quickly - much sooner than if we had a frank, open discussion about the events in question. You know, since Council doesn't seem to be even able to hold politically unmotivated, frank open discussions, let's just give the decision-making power to the President and be done with our democratic pretenses altogether.

Anyways, this focus on holding the Exec and members accountable for their actions is starting to tire me out. Back to my large computer science group project.

Love,
Stephen McCarthy

2008-04-05T18:40:00.000-07:00

In case you spent last night in the basement of Koerner and missed the excitement, here's some video. Check out UBC Insiders (http://ubcinsiders.blogspot.com/) for the full story. Apologies for the compression job; I didn't have time to look for good software & the full file is 60 mb - google doesn't like uploading something that size. I hate papers almost as I hate attention whores. But enough of that - real commentary will be up soon.

-aaron

Police 19, Knollies 0

2008-04-05T15:19:00.000-07:00

Images for comic from CBC, the Ubyssey, Blake Frederick and Geoff Dunbrack. I believe it is fair dealing to use them.
Check out UBC-I for a poorly organized but well updated story.

A serious take on the elections debacle

2008-04-01T01:48:00.001-07:00

So I've been thinking for a while and decided I need to add a serious voice to the debate concerning the Student Court's decision and Council overturning it. Here goes.

First, I'm really concerned with what I've heard - and no, I wasn't there - about why council disregarded Student Court's decision. In my eyes, it would have been fine if, in the opinion of council, the court had significant procedural problems to the point that a fair hearing did not happen. From what I can see, this did happen - and the Court even made sure Mr. Lougheed had his day in court, being an important "witness" to this case. I'd also tenuously agree with the Ubyssey editorial that if the court's decision was just downright unreasonable - which it wasn't - Council could have thrown it out.

But from what I've heard, most of the debate - and thus probably most of the decision - was based on what councillors thought of the case itself, and not the procedure or reasonableness of the decision. And council: Student Court doesn't have the final say on interpretation of bylaws so that each of you can decide afterwards your own stance on the issue and vote that way.

...

I really hope you didn't fall for that serious crap. Happy April Fool's Day everyone. No seriousness will be had at the D.A., not even from Serious Steve. I will leave you with a comic, however, to cap off the whole affair.

Thanks to A Softer World.

year round VFM!

2008-03-30T17:40:00.000-07:00

In case you didn't know, VFM is now year round (you may have given up on UBC but Mark Latham hasn't! Seriously though - VFM is a great idea if it gets popular enough)

So far Blake Frederick, uVote, The Knoll, and the DA are competing. Go vote!

Voting information here

Choose your own SUBventure!

2008-03-30T01:13:00.000-07:00

Gotta hand it to them - the Alma Mater Society sure is doing a good job flyerfucking the campus in green-and-white. I've seen huge banners up on several buildings, flyers and posters everywhere. I guess that's what happens when you have a several-thousand dollar advertising budget. Puts the election candidates' ad campaigns (except for Mr. Flyerfuck himself and my own styling posters) to shame. This is all, of course, to advertise for the shiny new Student Union Building students are supposed to vote for (until tomorrow!).

But they've dropped the ball on giving students concrete information on what the SUB would look like, renewed-style. So -- before the results are out and the issue drops way below the radar, the Advocate is stepping up to the plate. Yes, that's right. We're going to tell students exactly what the new SUB will contain and look like. And to appeal to as many as possible, we're going to let you the reader choose which SUB you're going to vote for. Just don't vote no.

Let's start with the known facts. Straight from the AMS Referendum website, the SUB will have

140% more Student Social Space
11-fold increase in Student Amenities
30% increase in Club Space
21% increase in Services and Administration
a commitment to sustainability
a $120 m price tag, of which the student body is expected to pay up to $80 m.

SUB 1: The "knollyard" SUB.

The Trek Park-ers hypothetically having joyfully reclaimed the knoll from the evil underground bus bunker, the knoll will be celebrated as the rightful centre of student life on campus and the SUB will be planned to accomodate this. A majestic building stretching from where the SUB is right now to the Aquatic Centre will be build, completely replacing the old building and containing many windows facing - you guessed it, the knoll.

SUB 2: The "graduated" SUB.

There's been a lot of questions asked about whether there would be any student space while the re/new/ed SUB is being pulled out of the ground like the saviour of student life it will be. The answer is yes, students. The SUB will actually be two buildings. The current one will stay while the new one (a five-story, rectangular thing near U Square) is built. It will then take all the functionality while our dear bunker is completely remodelled, and revert back to normal operating mode--club and AMS offices which fit better in the building, perhaps, or just part of that 140% more social space we've been promised. The current building will rise from its ashes like a concrete pheonix. The first floor's structure will be similar, but the steel frame of the top floor (which is bolted onto the concrete first floor) will be entirely razed, to make room for a large mass of student social space which magically transforms into a ballroom (or a theatre!) at night - perfect adaptable space which would be useful for at least 40 years.

SUB 3: The "Greenskin" SUB.

Yian Messoloras hypothetically winning next year's VP Admin election, anything and everything about the new SUB will be contracted out to UBC students and faculty. The design will be by the UBC architecture faculty, etc. Due to the good work from UBC's Greenskins lab, the entire SUB will be covered with living plants, giving the impression of having a much larger grassy knoll in the middle of campus. (Strangely enough, the AMS Compassion Club will not renew their request for a solo club office, take up residence on the roof, and SUB electricity bills will go way down.) The building will be the current first-floor shell plus several brilliant and expensive architectural features "punched through" the building to let natural light inside and make it look cooler, as well as an extension reaching out like a tentacle towards the University Square, and having an entrance to the underground bus loop.

Which of these is the SUB going to take? Who knows! And if you vote no, you'll never know. So step up, do your part in democracy, and vote YES to Renew the SUB and Save the UPass. Oh yeah - did you know, they're one vote now. Officially, since students were silly enough to let the AMS pull the wool over their eyes on the whole "separate but advertised together" thing.

Thanks to Cannon Design for the images. They're on Facebook, so they must be OK to use!

Further Destruction of Peoples' Reputations

2008-03-29T14:56:00.000-07:00

We've taken some flack for our previous delving into the underbelly of AMS politics and the sordid affairs that lie there. Still, we think in the case that someone puts their dirty laundry into the public sphere they're fair game. So currently we'd like to point out that Jeff Friedrichs is in the Georgia Straight Singles page. In fact, he's single of the week. You can check it out here:

http://www.straight.com/article-137280/singles-week-kari-jeff?#

Endless questions abound. Will Jeff find love? Will whoever he ends up with be able to replace the gaping void in his life that the AMS politics will leave? Will he be forced to recall a date? Only time will tell.

2008-03-28T12:21:00.000-07:00

Format problem fixed. I blame Microsoft. What a shame filled company! Do you know what else is shameful? A newly elected member of the AMS Exec being spotted in the SUB asking people to sign a petition to recall a fellow exec member.

Nate Crompton, I can understand why you created the petition. I think you should move on. But I understand. Stephanie Ratjen: You don't need to like the exec but you need to work with them. I am this close to retroactively dis-endorsing you. I asked the two random dudes sitting next to me in the library what they thought of the Lougheed situation. One gave me a blank look and the other asked if I was talking about the skytrain station. All the energy you have spent on going after Lougheed could have been spent on something that actually matters to students.

Commodore Cuddles is sad.

It is over

2008-03-27T11:22:00.000-07:00

Next person I hear bitching about the election gets fucking shanked.

No. That is not the right response at all. Next person to complain gets a hug. You get a hug because it is time to move on and I know how hard that can be. This is not the end of the world. Maybe you don’t agree with what happened. Fine. But by turning this molehill into a mountain you have polarized campus politics to an unnecessary extreme. You are all involved in campus politics because you have ideas about how to make this place better. Do that, but do it in a constructive manner. Seeking out confrontation helps no one.

Everyone involved in this mess made mistakes. That is human. Get over it.

The sun is out. Get away from the internet for a while. Fly a kite, walk along the beach, and enjoy life.

-ap

Harper government overturns disqualification

2008-03-27T10:06:00.000-07:00

Hot off the press from "Canada Insiders":

"The Supreme Court released its decision today in the Vancouver-Quadra matter. They allowed the appeal, ordering that Debra Meredith, the MP-elect who voted for herself four times at different polling stations, be disqualified. The Court left the matter of how to fill the vacancy up to the House of Commons.

"The Harper-dominated House refused to accept the Court's judgment--two straight Court decisions that have been politically overturned by MPs. This may just be my lawyerly pre-disposition talking, but that begs the question: why have a justice system at all? More to come."

In an unrelated news story, AMS Council refused to accept AMS Student Court's decision to disqualify Alex Lougheed from the VP Academic and University Affairs Position (Mr. Lougheed, like Ms. Meridith, also conveniently voted four times at different polling stations.) Apparently (like I go to council meetings anymore!) they didn't debate whether Court had made a procedural error, but the arguments behind the case itself.

See how ridiculous this whole thing is? I mean, applied to a National level when an elected body doesn't accept a court's decision, things would be MAJOR SCANDAL. Here at UBC, it's set precedent!

I say shame on the AMS for pretending to be a two-tier system where justice is separated from elected bodies. Make up your mind - either have a Student Court and actually accept that their interpretations of your bylaws should be binding on Council, or just toss the idea away and come clean to students that AMS Council is actually calling all the shots. I suggest renaming the Student Court to the "Student Suggestive-decision-making-body", as this would clear things up for students right away and let Council play ball.

Referendum

2008-03-26T15:00:00.000-07:00

So I’m going to go out and say it. We’ve sunk to new depths. See the article below if you don’t believe me, if it hasn’t been deleted yet. Why do you ask? Well, first we were tired and bored, and secondly we can under the evil influence of our source, who is the inventor of such diabolical ideas as the Passion of the Christ drinking game. (You drink every time Jesus screams in pain) I had to sit in the background on Good Friday and read the bible to balance out the evil in order to prevent our house being smote.

Actually, it’s probably more than that. It’s that we’re all tired, people have girlfriends (or at least some people have girlfriends), deadlines are approaching, and we don’t really have much to talk about other than the Loughheed debacle, which has been talked about way too long. Which I actually made a cartoon about, with XKCD style stick figures and everything and it seemed totally awesome to my tired brain. However, it didn’t seem to entertain my roommates, so now you’ll never see it. Ever.
Also, no one read any of the articles after the elections were over. Except for Mr. Evil’s (our source) drunken disendorsement post concerning the AUS elections. So, we fall into the dilemma of having readership, or providing quasi-competent coverage. Still, I figure I’ll give it another try.

There’s only one bit of political hamjiggery that hasn’t been talked to death just yet – the referendum. Well, the referenda. It’s plural.

First of all, if you’d don’t vote for the U-Pass part, you’re a horrible, horrible person. The devil has created a circle in hell, just above the one reserved for the Advocate staff.

Second, isn’t this really an exercise in rubberstamping? I mean, everyone is so concerned about getting enough people to vote, they barely stop to add ‘and vote yes!’ There aren’t even any ‘no’ campaigns being run, at least to my knowledge. I mean, there was the one proposal that my name somehow got on, but I don’t think enough signatures to make it official and it was more of a way for ‘Mr. Evil’ to embezzle money from the AMS. It’s not winning the vote that’s the issue, it’s getting enough voters out to make it legitimate. Which begs the question, shouldn’t we do that for electing execs? I see two possible outcomes:
1) we’d have no exec
2) we might actually get people to vote when the SUB burns down from the lack of management.

I’m just going to go out and admit to voting no for the SUB renewal, mainly because I was under the impression that it involved the old SUB being totally unusable during the process of construction, if not just bulldozed. Which isn’t quite correct. Of course the information I was going off came from… Mr. Evil. Again.
I naturally have dirt on the EA, of a variety of flavours, but since I’m sworn to secrecy on a number of counts and am trying to maintain something approaching the high ground, though you all find the low group more interesting, judging by our polls, you once again will have to wonder at the horrors of which I know.

Pfff, I don’t have anything much else to say on this issue, other than to complain. It seems like half my friend list of facebook has turned into a string of profile pictures advocating for SUB renew. I find it tiresome. I go on facebook to profile stalk people, not to look at ads. Yesh. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go back to my creeping.

Same and more Shame

2008-03-25T23:16:00.000-07:00

What is more shameful:

a) President of a student undergrad society spotted doing the Walk of Shame away from Vanier
tonight, "her hair was wetted down and frazzled. Her silence to our questions only confirmed our
suspicions. . ."

or

b) the asshat who called this tip in told me to use his computer to post this (my laptop died this morning) had a folder open containing massive amounts of lesbian porno.

Seriously. What the fuck.

I sat in your fucking chair!

-cc

What hacks care about

2008-03-12T22:06:00.001-07:00

AUS Elections

2008-03-11T12:04:00.000-07:00

by Commodore Cuddles
[Editors note: the good Commodore had a bit too much of the sunshine dust when writing this article. I think I caught all the errors, but I am also drunk. So maybe missed a few. Enjoy the article! -ap]

AUS Elections are on, continuing the long, unending election cycle at UBC. Constituency elections tend to be very bland and lackluster, and this year is no exception; eighty year old grandmothers climax faster than these elections. The candidates seem to be only passionate to “fight the power”, whether that be the AMS, the University, so simply the trolls under the knoll. We cover these elections not because students care (we know you won’t vote), but to continue to ridicule those asshats because our journalistic credibility demands it.

President:

There is very little difference between these two candidates. Except AJ's not white. Maybe they are the same, twins from different mothers separated at birth only to reconnect through the boredom of AUS government.

Tyler Allison: Wants to focus on changes directed at the AUS, so that it functions better.

Avneet Johal: Wants to focus on advocating for students’ needs at the AMS and University Administration level.

**Our advice: DISENDORSE AJ and TA and write-in “Aaron Palm” for PRESIDENT!!! We endorse only the best candidates, even if they are not running. (And unlike certain other publications when we whore out our own we have the decency to let you know.)

Vice President Internal:

Caitlin Davey: Do you know much about the AUS? Well neither does she. Her claim is to increase AUS efficiency, but has no platform by which to do it. Her campaign may actually be more misinformed than if a mime with down syndrome were running for this position. DISENDORSED!!

John Manson: His claim to fame is that he was a sweet General Officier. He’s so cute, if he were female, I may think about gangbanging him with some of my other furry friends. Sadly, cute and cuddly doesn’t make you qualified enough to be VP-I. DISENDORSED!! Good luck next year.

Crystal Hon: She’s the best candidate. I don’t know whether I’m saying this from a neutral position or to try and get my editor laid (I think she has a sweet spot for him). I don’t think it really matters, so for now she’s NOT DISENDORSED!!!

AMS Representative:

Allison Mander-Wionzek, Paul Curran, Bahram Norouzi, Calen Nixon: None of these candidates bothered to show them, so fuck 'em. DISENDORSED!!!

Beata Chami: Beata is nice, but running for the wrong position. She’s running based on the platform that she wants to get involved; the problem is that the position of AMS Rep is for people who have goals in mind for student government policy. Beata next time think about running for General Officer, but for AMS Rep you are DISENDORSED!!

Timothy Chu: Tim’s CRAZY!!! He doesn’t understand the purpose or the setup of the AMS, and if elected it appears that he would attempt to dismantle the entire AMS. While we would love to see this happen, if Tim were the one doing it the replacement for student government would be void of anything that matters to ordinary students, like the Pit and Gallery Nachos. Thankfully Tim is not running unopposed, so he can be DISENDORSED, DISENDORSED, DISENDORSED, and DISENDORSED!!

Matthew Naylor: Matt’s still angry about losing the race for AMS President, so as AMS Rep he will continue in his fight against the “evil” Aqua Cowboy. Their last battle left Matt crying like an abandoned sorority girl after a round of bukkake, but the war is not yet over. Any conflict is good conflict, so Matt is NOT DISENDORSED!!!

Nathan Lapper: Nathan wants to fight for our right to party. . . affordably. This is kind of an overdone platform, and Nathan lacks the charisma to sell it. NOT DISENDORSED, but boring!!!

Rory Green: Rory’s too enthusiastic about a position where, if she wins, she’ll be bored out of her skull in Council and Committee meetings. We think that there may be something mentally wrong with Rory; therefore she’s perfect for the position. From what she mentioned at the debates, her experience stems from being a Safeway check-out girl, so she’s better qualified than most of the other candidates. NOT DISENDORSED!!!

Freeman Poritz: He knows what the AMS stands for, and is therefore more qualified than most of the other candidates in this race. He gets my vote, if they let big fluffy Commodores vote, simply for the controversial photos he took of Tristan Markle a couple of weeks ago. NOT DISENDORSED!!!

Emily Griffiths: Her claim to fame is that she’s sexing up Blake Fredrick, current AVP Academic; other than that her platform is as lame and void of substantive content as this election. DISENDORSED!!

Will Davis: My editor is afraid of his chiseled jaw, so I have no choice other than DISENDORSED!!!! I like that he’s the only candidate who wants to take a proactive approach towards student consultation, but I am as unable to change my position on Will as Christopher Reeve was able to pleasure his wife.

Mitch Wright: I wasn’t really paying attention to him as I got lost in his sultry eyes. No comment.

Academic Coordinator

Jack Smith: Has Mesophemia. We don’t know what that is. Jack refuses to tell us. Can you trust Jack?...we think so. NOT DISENDORSED!!!!!

Promotions Coordinator:

Alina Kwan: Showed up to the Debates, didn’t sound incompetent; good enough for us.

James Zhou: Did not show up for the Debates. Too busy? Bogged down having to dispose of dead Thai prostitutes? If your preference is for self-gratification than the AUS we strongly support that, but not for an election. DISENDORSED!!!!

Social Coordinator:

Yiannis "DISENDORSED" Messoloras: Yian is once again our least favourite candidate. This election is between Yian and nobody, we say vote for nobody...they’ll probably do a better job. This time around Yian refused to allow a fringe group to run a serious “Vote No” campaign against him, only going to show how much he’s afraid of the “No” vote. We say vote “NO”. DISENDORSED for the eighth time!!

General Officer:

Who cares! Apparently not Arts students seeing as only 4 Arts students, out of several thousand, are running for 5 spots. Seeing as the GO position requires the least amount of effort for the ability to resume pad, it shows how little Arts students care about the AUS. Shame on Arts students for not running, or Shame on the AUS for continually failing to be relevant to Arts Students? We chose to DISENDORSE both.

Senator:

Hillson Tse: The absentee candidate. Didn’t show up to the debate; SHAME. Being Senator requires most of all personal drive to act. If he/she couldn’t even bother to tell me why to vote for him then he is unlikely to be a decent, let alone good, Senator. DISENDORSED!!!!

Helaine Boyd & John Manson: Both showed up, which shows that they could be good Senators, given the history of Arts Senators never being heard from again following their election. Besides the assumption that one has balls and the other doesn’t, they are equal under the eyes of the Lord. We suggest you vote based on gender. If you like women, vote for Helaine; if men are your preference then elect John. Since Arts has more female students than male, Helaine may be at a disadvantage, although there are quite a lot of lesbians and male-hating feminists on campus to balance out this election. Helaine go hit on some carpet-munchers and win the election!
-cc

The Return of the GAP, Lazy Journalism, and Olympic fever

2008-03-08T16:39:00.000-08:00

GAP:

With the weight of my schoolwork pressing down on me heavily and with many important things to do, I naturally looked at my priorities and decided to work on the one that was least pressing – writing for the Advocate. Since, if our helpful little poll is to be believed, almost no one reads us anymore, I feel I should put something approaching news out. Aaron wants a paper edition for next week, but personally I’m not holding my breath, though Commodore Cuddles’ article concerning the recent rainbow crisis promises to be a groundbreaking policy paper.

Speaking of the rainbow crisis, it’s that time of the year. The time when the sun is bright in the sky, the time when squirrels are copulating beside the trees as you head to class, the time when the snowdrops are in blossom, and the time when the Genocide Awareness Project returns to UBC.

The GAP, as it’s affectionately called, is a pro-life group that likens governmental sanctioned abortion to genocide. It propagates its ideas by displaying vivid pictures of both in public places, in the hope you’ll talk to your MP about it. Or something like that.
I can’t remember when this whacked out seasonal event got started, when they first started coming to our fair campus. Sometime in my second year I think. (Many moons ago for you youngsters out there). The scene was the same as always, reassuring as a Christmas nativity scene: the off color photos of genocide victims and dead fetuses, the small handful of pro-lifers shuffling around their display, the wall of pro-choicers making their wall of giant banners to shield the eyes of passers-by.

In all seriousness, I find the whole thing hilarious. I mean genocide? Even if you buy the whole ‘a fetus is a human being from the moment the sperm enters the egg thing, I think at best you can identify abortion doctors as serial killers. So in my book:

shooting abortion doctors = rational(ish)
trying the Prime Minister for crimes against humanity = not so much

I mean if we really wanted to genocide all the fetuses and prevent them from growing up and becoming annoying little children that you just want to smack with a baseball bat, but the government won’t let you do that because that would be abuse or something ridiculous like that, we could do a much better job. The Canadian medical system is really dropping the ball on this one. If we’re going to commit genocide we might as well do it right and get rid of all those fetuses forever. Mass sterilize everyone, and then we could use all that money we waste on education and obstetricians on anti-aging solutions until such time as we can reach the Singularity in 2045. I probably should have gotten off the knoll from where I was watching them and maybe asked them questions about their ideas and perhaps even recorded some of their answers to my deep thoughts, but I prefer my armchair variant of journalism.

Of course, I find the pro-choicers equally hilarious. First of all, they went from chanting slogan – good old fashioned protest time killer – to singing pro-choice and GAP inspired songs. My favourite was to the tune of ‘I can show you the world.’ It went a little like this:
I can show you the world
Something, something, pro-choice
Something, Princess, the Gap sucks!
A whole new world!

The guy in the white-ish hoodie the man when it came to these musical hits. I have half a mind to ask for the proper lyrics, as he seemed to be reading off a sheet. That’s preparation. All they need now is for someone who can sing a little more in tune.

Also, why is the BC Latin American Congress wrapped up in all this? (I read the small print on banners) I mean, I understand everyone else, but this doesn’t sound like it’s in their mandate, especially as Latin America is spelled C-A-T-H-O-L-I-C most of the time. I was briefly confused by the Pride UBC sponsored sign till I remembered that lesbians can be raped too.
The second thing that gets me is that I have no idea what they aim to accomplish. If they wanted to protect people’s eyes from offensive material, perhaps they should take a look at popular culture these days. I think we’re all fairly jaded by this point. Genocide mshemocide.

On the other hand, if they think that people might actually be convinced by this group, they have a lower assessment of the average intelligence of UBC students than I do. And I think there are some very dumb people around here. Seriously guys. I mean the average pro-life group might have a little leverage, but I think most people tune out when you put the words genocide and abortion together. Relax. Chill out. Drink a beer. Point and laugh. It works so much better and your arms don’t get sore holding up banners.

The Olympics:
Soooo, this is kinda late, but what was with the whole press release thing they had on the North end of the SUB a few weeks ago? You know, the one where they had the cute mascots all dressed up and where they totally blocked that entire entrance so that people had to worm their way through the press scrum to get into the building?
Apparently they were supposed to use the plaza at the South End, but that wasn’t cool enough for them. Or so my sources tell me. They didn’t seem too happy about it. Naturally someone started yelling anti-Olympic catchphrases in the middle of the conference, which brings me to my next question: Who in their right mind would have a press conference in the area with the most number of hippies and activists per square foot? I think their PR group has more mentally handicapped people than the homeless population of downtown Vancouver. I confess to personally like the individualist, capitalist tone of the Olympics, but the inability of whoever the hell is organizing it to handle a press conference doesn’t fill me with too much confidence that Vancouver can pull this one off.

The Wreath Underground: The Last Gasp

2008-03-01T12:23:00.000-08:00

For those of you foolish enough not to attend the Radical Beer Faction's Propaganda Party last night, you missed the ultimate showdown between justice and terrorism, between beer and green tea, pizza and granola. For the Wreath Underground, true to their word, returned the Radical Keg and revealed themselves to the Public for the first time.

Two masked men, burst into MASS sometime after seven, shooting two individuals at the door with NERF darts. There is no word as to whether these injuries proved fatal. Clearing a space in the center of the area, they proceeded to break out their cheerleading skills by doing a proletarian dance sequence involving 'W's and 'U's. Their spokesman then read a 'statement' by the Radical Keg. Given that the keg has no voice, we find this to be a laughable attempt to put words in the keg's mouth...err, hole in the top. Anyway, they couldn't even read their statement correctly. The spokesman of the group kept losing his place and having to repeat himself. Perhaps he should get glasses.

The Radical Beer Faction, enraged by the molestation of their keg, then charged the WU's position despite their lack of NERF weaponry and succeeded in carrying off the Phantom of the Opera terrorist. He is currently languishing in the RBF's gulag, the location of which is classified. The other managed to buy some time by appealing for a dance-off and then was sedated by the music. He disappeared into the crowd and was not seen again. We therefore conclude that this cell of the WU has been neutralized, but others may yet remain. We only hope that they will be as easily defeated as this one.

Sadly, the WU struck while the Editor of the Advocate and this writer were indisposed, but our graphic designer managed to get the whole event on camera. In addition this intrepid reporter managed to find where the scoundrel had tossed his balaclava and weapon in his hurry to get away. This led to unfounded accusations that he might be affiliated with the WU and so he would like to dispel such rumors as quickly as possible. This writer likes meat and enjoys the taste of the tears of third world workers in his coffee.

In conclusion, democracy and beer triumphed last night, but we must remain vigilant. We may never know when the enemy may strike again.

Rumblings from the WU

2008-02-21T18:16:00.000-08:00

Stockholm Syndrome?

With the end of the VP Admin elections and none of their demands met - except for the election of the right honorable TM - we at the Advocate feared for the life of the Radical Keg, held hostage in some roach infested hippy commune. At any point, we expected to receive word of some black, cylindrical object plunging from the top of Butto and killing the entire UBC Young Conservatives club. The thought of such a noble keg dying in such an ignoble manner made our hearts heavy. Then, we received a shocking revelation.

A phone call from an individual with a synthesized voice informed us that the Radical Keg had 'seen the light' so to speak, and had come around to the viewpoint of its captors. The mysterious caller claimed that the Keg would make a return to see its former masters at the Radical Beer Garden on February 29th and to push forward the material dialectic.

Naturally, a whole host of possibilities flooded through our minds: torture, Stockholm Syndrome, .....granola! God knows what the terrorists have done to it. We only hope that the Keg will persevere so that one day it may make a run for President when it is old and rusty and that it may feel the comforting sensation of beer inside it before too long.

Victory!

2008-02-15T11:10:00.000-08:00

The Devil's Advocate is orgasmic to announce we have achieved peace for our time! Aaron Palm, VP Admin candidate is announcing victory! When asked to comment on his victory, Aaron said, "I am slightly surprised at the results, but am proud all 87 of you voted for me. This is the dawn of a new era. There is much work ahead."

We will publish full election results once they are made available to the public. Right now they are super secret. We just happen to have eyes everywhere.

Wreath Underground strikes again!

2008-02-13T14:13:00.000-08:00

The rumours are true folks. J ‘The Keg’ Mac, or at least the keg part of him has been kidnapped by a group claiming to be the Wreath Underground. Details of the kidnapping are sketchy. Jeremy reported two shadowy figures carrying a keg between them and moving at high speed towards the SUB on Monday. After this, there was a lack of news, despite Jeremy’s demands at Monday’s VP Admin debate for the kidnappers to come forward. Last night, they did. Manifestos were thrown into MASS, de facto home of the Radical Beer Faction, outlining their demands. We assume the Ubyssey has also received these and will be commenting on the situation on Friday. We hope to obtain a scanned version of the scrawled bit of political toilet paper soon, but unfortunately, we lack the appropriate hardware.
It also came to our attention, that members of the Radical Beer Faction, a close ally of the Advocate, have received phone calls, during which an electronically distorted voice outlined the group’s demands again. Finally, the Advocate has received a video version of the manifesto. We provide it, in its entirety below. Observe Tuesdays Ubyssey being used as ‘proof of life’. As far as we know, the Keg remains untapped. No comment yet from the Radical Beer Faction.
More information as the story develops.

Where did Steve go?

2008-02-11T08:04:00.000-08:00

Mad props to Alex Lougheed for noticing this - Steve McCarthy ain't on the ballot! This brings the election to a whole new level of special. Last week I watched Democracy die. This week I'm watching the raping of its corpse.

I don't want to immediately jump on the blame Jar-Jar (aka Brendan the Election Admin) train, but unless Steve was magically disqualified last night some asshat messed up big time. Could have been the webmaster (who is possibly more incompetent than Jar-Jar. Why hasn't he been fired yet?)

Maybe this will be fixed soon, and only a few votes will be thrown out. Because if we have to do yet another election I am going to retreat to my sad corner and spend the rest of the month in a tequila induced stupor.

Enjoy your Monday.

-ap

The VP Admin Debate: Insanity, Dis-endorsements, etc

2008-02-10T21:32:00.000-08:00

Aaron ‘Awesome’ Palm doesn’t want me to publish on this blog anymore, mainly because he wants to make a paper edition, but since no one else seems to be covering this election, I guess I have to, especially as voting starts tomorrow. So, here’s your single serving of punditry.

I saw something that broke my heart on Thursday. I saw student democracy derailed; I saw the abomination of desolation standing within the temple. Yea, truly I tell you, it was a black day for POGG, or whatever the AMS equivalent is. (RSF –reducing student fuckage?)

Why was Thursday so terrible you ask? After all, the sun shone and the birds chirped in the tree, or at least I assume there were some birds chirping in some trees, somewhere. Most people should have been happy. What made me sad today – other than a lack of sleep and a new distain for Canadian Citizenship exams - was the VP Admin debate

What’s that you say? You didn’t hear that there was a debate? You didn’t even know that there was an election? For shame! Wait - it’s probably more due to the fact that no one was told about it. After all, I knew that there was a debate sometime around noon today, and went online to try and find the time and failed. There was no evidence of it anywhere. Brendan, you win again. Never underestimate the power of the Jar-Jar! (Yes, that is Brendan’s new title)

After finding the debate moderator and discovering the time and place, I sat myself down in one of the airplane lounge seats and pulling out my trusting journalist notebook. I noticed that the AMS Execs (past and present) and Media outnumbered the normal democratic observers. People going by gave us disdainful looks. Here are my thoughts.

Aaron ‘Awesome Palm’

Aaron opened up his speech with a fiery condemnation of the state of affairs in the AMS. Waving his bible aloft, dressed in the slender of his 1930s Volstead Act Enforcer-esque suit and tie, he proclaimed that God had sent a prophet to UBC, a prophet the people had not heeded. For the AMS exec’s sins of drinking and fornication the Almighty had decreed that his people were undeserving of democracy and so sent his servant, Brendan, to foil this process by cancelling the VP Admin election. Yet the AMS Exec did not pay heed to his deeds, and insisted on attempting to have another election, like the Israelites continuing to build golden calves in the desert, even after Brendan had slain the first. Thus, in the eyes of the Lord, this election is an abomination.
That’s right baby. The religious right is back in town.

Aaron proceeded to find an appropriate biblical passage for every question that arose in the debate, outlining his platform as he did so in true Advocate fashion. He even managed to provide an answer to the neo-liberalization of the university by suggesting the use of the UBC flotilla for friendly piracy along the Vancouver Coast.

Yea, those who plunder, ye will be plundered.

In short, he was bold, he was charismatic, he was innovative, he was crazy, and he was Huckabee.

Thank God we’ve already dis-endorsed him.

Stephen McCarthy:

So, I totally forgot that another one of the Advocate writers was running for this position. Of course this naturally means he’s DIS-ENDORSED.
Naturally I also have good reasons for this. Steve has Photoshoped more fancy posters of himself than I’ve done lines of cocaine off the bellies of Thai hookers. [I have fun vacations] From a man who made ‘flyerfuck’ a byword among hacks, I find this mildly hypocritical. For shame!

Also, as a member of the UBC Debate Society Exec, I have insider knowledge of Steve’s leadership and administration skills. Oh yeah, the real dirt. Naturally, I can’t tell you, because if he loses I still have to deal with him for a few months. You are thus denied an exclusive.

Steve also wants to promote non-alcoholic events on campus for which we must shame him. Clearly he’s a pawn in the University’s war on fun and has sold out for the promise of power and fame as an AMS exec. Or whatever the benefits of the job actually are. All we have to say, is that we support drinker’s rights and that if minors want to have some fun, they should join a jam space.

Stephanie Ryan:
We learned from Stephanie how she’d been ‘surprise’ nominated into the VP Admin Race thanks to the efforts of Alex ‘Flyerfucker’ Lougheed. Which is a little better than surprise sex, but not by much. Stephanie used her position to say pretty much whatever she wanted, like suggesting slates should come back and making fun of AMS link after I foolishly asked what it was. I can hear Spencer Keys crying already.

Shawn Stewart:

Shaw needed a laptop for his opening speech. Apparently he was too good for pen and paper. The Luddite behind this keyboard does not appreciate. He laid out his list of amazing accomplishments, including the Clubs Blizzard AMS event. Strangely I actually recall that. It was an unmanned booth in the SUB surrounded by a cubicle with posters on it. Now that’s leadership!

Shawn was also one of the few people who tried to defend AMS link. Apparently we were beta-testing for the company involved. Going on this Stephanie's description of it being like Facebook, only sucky and without the ability to go back to the last page, it sounds more like gamma testing. Maybe delta.

He also liked repeating clever things that Scary Mike said. And then repeating those things again.

Tristan Markle:

Tristan illustrated an amazing understanding of the evils of U-boulevard and the corporatization of UBC. Too bad that’s the VP Academics portfolio. He also doesn’t like endowments. I’m sure the Insiders will have a real discussion on this, so I’m just not going to touch that bit of policy. He also suggested that having a real alternative to AMS link was vital and that’d he get that done quickly. Part of this plan involved a big screen for announcements in the SUB (Or I think that’s what he said. He speaks quietly and I was sleep deprived.) I like big screens. They’re pretty.

Tristan, you’re a communist in my twisted neo-con view, but you care about stuff. Therefore you’re not dis-endorsed. Yet. Watch your ass.

Yian Messoloras:

This whole gongshow is your fault. I would be working on my thesis right now if it weren’t for the fact I feel obligated to report this stuff. Or at least poke fun at it. You clearly had little idea about what stuff like, what AMS link was. I didn’t either, but you don’t have an excuse. You should know this shit. You were lucky that the moderator didn’t care enough to enforce the order and let candidates do their own thing.

Oh, and you’re still DIS-ENDORSED.

Michael Kushnir:

What happened Scary Mike? Where did the Rabbi go? Where are the laughs? The Jew jokes? All this seriousness makes me sad. When I get a moment to actually go over your platform, I’ll satirized your policies, but I have to do work soon.

To conclude, I have to note something funny. Perhaps it is only the sketchy internet in my house, but I seem unable to access the AMS website, and thus any official news about the elections. This can be explained by one of two possibilities

a) The AMS website is down or

b) Brendan, blessed by the Almighty, has used his supernatural powers to identify our IP addresses and BLOCKED the Advocate editorial board from the AMS website. Curses! The path of journalism never did run smooth.

Also, I think I’m currently providing more analysis of the election that the Insiders are right now. Weird!

Aaron Palm – The Candidate for AWESOME! Platform and DISENDORSEMENTS for the VP Admin Election

2008-02-04T19:27:00.000-08:00

You all knew this day would come, the day on which the Advocate editorial board looked out over the wasteland of AMS politics and said, ‘We would do a much better job than these losers.’ We have tired of reporting on these clusterfucks, and desire to be the ones making them. And they’ll be bigger and clusterfuckinger than ever.

Thus it is with great happiness that I announce the candidacy of Aaron ‘Awesome’ Palm for VP Admin.

Aaron has no platform. He does not need one. His only claim is that this election should not exist in the first place; they were the result of a cock-up of Jar-Jar Binks proportions by Brendan Piovesan (Giving Palpatine emergency powers? Nice one Jar-Jar.) In fact, if you vote for him, he will hunt you down and smack you for being silly. And probably shank you to boot. If that doesn’t make logical sense after what I said earlier, well then screw you! Western logic is a social construct used to keep the people down. Just ask the Knoll.

Aaron has only one policy suggestion, and that is that we create a flotilla to solve the UBC housing crisis. (See Commodore Cuddles’ article on the subject) If that sounds more like a VP Academic lobbying job, you’re correct. We don’t believe in annoying things like mandates or job descriptions holding true leaders back.

Debates will go as follows: If ‘Awesome’ Palm doesn’t feel like answering the question, he doesn’t have to. He’ll use the tag team option and send in another member of the DA’s editorial board to lay waste to the opposition with humour and bile.

We can only hope that this will not result in the cancellation of the election. On the other hand, the more fuel for our satire the better. Honestly, what’s the Daily Show going to do when George W is out of office? We feel the same about Brendan.

In conclusion, this publication has no choice but to DISENDORSE ‘Awesome’ Palm right away. I know, it seems like madness, but we haven’t endorsed anyone yet (okay, maybe Serious Steve did, but whatever) and we’re not about to start now. Even for one of our own. We may not have morals, but we do have standards.

Stay tuned, AMS fans. This is going to be a wild ride.

VFM Results and Selling Out

2008-02-02T11:49:00.000-08:00

Hey there Advocate fans. Yes, you thought we were done, you thought we had better things to do, like schoolwork. And guess what – we do. But the Advocate is like crack; once you’ve tried it, you can’t go back.
First of all, let us tell of the glorious news. Through the magic of interpolated voting (or whatever the fuck it’s called) the powers that be have awarded us $1400! Okay, so we were beaten out by the Insiders and the Knoll, but they had ‘facts’ and ‘progressiveness’ on their side. Blatant cheating IMO. Still, that’s a lot of hookers and blow we can buy with that money.

Just kidding Mark Latham. We’d only get some low quality hookers with that kind of money and who needs those? Not these handsome devils.

I’d like to take a moment to thank Brendan and the VFM administrator for keeping the riff-raff out of the electoral process for the VFM by arranging the clusterfuck that was this contest. By starting the VFM vote just as the AMS vote was finishing, you guys ensured that uninformed and/or stupid people couldn’t muck up the results by voting for publications based on name recognition. In your face, Macleans on Campus! That’s what you get for producing no content! “Laughs maniacally”
Really, this whole election underscores the Napoleon III version of democracy that is AMS politics; only the educated elite vote, or even care. Or in this case, we orchestrate it so that people don’t know about the vote going on, unless they read such illustrious media sources such as this one. This leads me to a terrible, terrible conclusion.

It was on the back on the hack vote that we got our money.

That’s right boys and girls. We sold out to the man. We looked into the abyss of AMS hackery and the abyss looked back. These people know our names, they know our weaknesses. Like the Borg, they took our souls and absorbed us into their mainframe. There’s no hope for us now, but perhaps you, dear reader, may escape our fate. Read our posts, but travel not into the land of the Insiders. Pray for us, for we have lost all hope.

The gates of hell are open night and day;
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:
But to return, and view the cheerful skies,
In this the task and mighty labour lies.
Virgil’s Aeneid

VFM Voting

2008-01-28T11:56:00.000-08:00

Like everything else in this election, the VFM ball was dropped hard. But don't let that stop you from voting. Log on to your friendly SSC and vote for your favorite VFMs.

Elections party gossip column!

2008-01-26T11:36:00.000-08:00

Maayan "way more serious than Steve" Kreitzman here. This is part two of a post exchange between VFM partners-in-awesome UBC Insiders and this here Advocate. It's almost like having a bloggified pen-pal. Note the smoothly worked in elections buzzword. Watch and learn.

Now then, not everyone is cool enough to attend one of the funnest parties of the year - the elections results party held yearly at the Gallery Lounge. Our intrepid reporting is there for you, of course, with an account of the evening's notable fashion moments.

AMS council speaker Dave Tompkins horrified/fascinated in a faux double-denim look. This corner couldn't tear our eyes away from the travesty of tint-matched blue jeans and blue shirt. This didn't seem to prevent him from scoring with the ladies at the infamously sleazy Gallery bar, however. Double the denim, double the fun?

Incumbent AMS president Jeff Friedrich continues to build his brand with his permanent hippy intellectual look. Jeff was scruffy in his moccasins and grizzly-adams beard, which he has vowed not to shave off until the executive switchover. Jeff wants to assure you, his dear constituents, that the razor-sharp edges of his facial hair are 100% au naturel, though. "Look, there's some stray hairs up here!" he eagerly demonstrated. "I'm worried that people will think I sculpt it," he confided over beers. Is Jeff really free of such unseemly vanities? YOU decide.

"He that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity: and the rod of his anger shall fail"
- Proverbs 22:8, King James Bible.

Meanwhile, BoG rep Darren Peets flaunted his taste in heinous ties with a boardroom-boring pattern of squares in dour shades of tow. Rubbing shoulders with UBC's sinister power-brokers for a year has had a bad effect on poor Darren's physics grad student-caj fashion sensibility. Personal shopper needed.

On the flip-side, UBC's VP Students Brian Sullivan was dapper in a beautiful camel-coloured sport jacket and his signature impeccably styled bow-tie. B-Sull, you're an inspiration to fashionable men everywhere. Both Russel Smith and I approve wholly.

Representing the citizen-journalist community at the party, UBC Devil scribblers Aaron Palm and Serious Steve were both rather fetching. The former was classy in a matched black felt private-eye hat and peacoat. Nice touch with the green scarf. Steve was in a category of collegiate charm all his own with a geek-power Shad Valley polo shirt - and hell can that boy fill out a pair of jeans!

Irresistible Serious Steve. Hawt.

Well, that's the roundup. Democracy has never been so goddam couture. As Tim Gunn would say, "that's alotta look". In a tragic turn, however, the night ended with the loss of my much-envied green duct-tape wallet. Here's a picture of it, three years ago. If you see a beat-up version of this, containing ten bucks and a Black Dog card with 8 stamps on it, drop me a line, please?

Results: Duncan, Pornstar, and Lipdock win!

2008-01-25T01:10:00.001-08:00

AMS election results (pending the potential Student Court challenges that are anticipated by at least half of the hacks around) are in. Well, except for VP Admin as noted before. In more exciting news, Brendan Piovesan was disendorsed today by the Devil's Advocate at the Elections Results party. Here are the results:

President: Mike Duncan (by a landslide - almost 1000 votes)
Finance: Chris Diplock
Academic: Pornstar a.k.a. Alex Lougheed
External: Stef Ratjen
Board Reps: Bijan Ahmadian, Tim Blair
Senate: Blake Frederick, Azim Wazeer, Alfie Lee, Rob Mclean, Alex Lougheed

The results came as no suprise to your correspondent, though it was a bit troubling that candidates expressly disendorsed by the Devil's Advocate still managed to capture crucial positions on the AMS executive. The war against hackery will continue, dear readers.

A further note on the "voting irregularities" observed during the election. We have this admission, from a "Cel" who posted on our comments:

"I was manning the Kaiser polling booth in the afternoon. ... I openly admit that I was asking people who they voted for, as well as endorsing my own favourite candidates..."

WTF? Can the elections committee not hire semi-competent students to man the polls? This at the very least (according to my "reading of code", to be a hack for a second) should result in this poll-manner not receiving their stipend; however, it really just compliments questions about the whole election that the VFM have been asking all along.

Of course, the VP Admin campaign is another matter. According to "Scary Movie" Mike "The Rabbinical Atheist" Kushnir, he will appeal the results to the AMS Student Court (a triad of law students who read the AMS code more than Brendan "Elections Adminifuckup" Piovesan, apparently). My guess as to what will happen? Yian will be (very justly) disqualified, Sarah "Vote for Experience" Naiman will drop out, and Kushnir will decline the position because he's a joke candidate. He confirmed that he would do this tonight.

To continue my prediction: there will be another VP Admin Race, as Piovesan has claimed, starting in February. Several semi-qualified candidates will run against each other (some familiar from the previous elections or VFM sites) and one will win without fanfare, and most importantly, without a smidgen of student interest. Your humble reporter for the Devil's Advocate (along with his sworn competition from the "UBC Hacksiders" and the "Cavalierly Stealing Other People's News") will continue to cover the race with witty and sarcastic commentary. No one will care.

Best quote of the night? Admittedly this is second-hand, but it comes from Matthew Naylor, candidate for President:

"I'm just concerned. We're fucked."

I present the AMS elections in a nutshell.

Clusterfuck of Democracy

2008-01-24T14:47:00.000-08:00

Okay folks. I can no longer take this shit seriously, and neither can any of the candidates. The next asshat who makes fun of U.S. primary elections can suck my absentee ballot. A short list of recent lameness:

1. Chris Marincat - the campaign period closed last night at midnight. You've got lots of shiny campaign balloons up today. Riddle me this Batman, how long can Helium stay in balloons—not 14 hrs? Smooth. But that's not your fault Marincat. No one is following campaign rules. Someone should be providing oversight. Where are they?

2. Paper balloting. Apparently the elections folks don't know the meaning of secret ballots. They are requiring voters to put student numbers on the back of ballots. And watching you as you vote. Transparency my ass.
Additional paper ballot issues: no yes/no options. Several of the races are single candidate races ( Student Legal Fund and Ubyssey Editors), so voters require the option of voting yes or no.
Furthermore: the folks running the elections are not putting up campaign posters at the polling stations, instead requiring candidates put their own posters up. Except there are election rules not allowing candidates within 10 feet of a polling station. Smooth move guys.

3. VFM: When I asked elections booth people where I could vote for VFM, I was met with blank stares and "what is a VFM?" Fortunately, VFM voting is now online. A week late, but up nonetheless. Yay...?

4. Shortened campaign period, which is why the last debate didn't matter.
Speaking of debates, cancelling the only debate that was supposed to be held in a UBC Rez, then holding the next one at the Gallery, where minors aren't (officially?) allowed—what does mean for the inclusion of all UBC students in AMS Elections?

5. There was supposed to be an information meeting for candidates last November. That didn't happen because there was no elections administrator at that time. No prep time for these elections may be a huge cause of CLUSTERFUCK that are the 2008 AMS Elections.

6. VP Admin race was canceled. What the hell?

VFM Voting open

2008-01-24T13:45:00.001-08:00

Voting for the Voter Funded Media is now open — finally. If you've enjoyed the posts of the Devil's Advocate, please vote to reward us!

Voting is done at the Student Service Centre. The procedure is very simple:
1. Click on the link above.
2. Log in with your CWL.
3. Find "Webvote" way down at the bottom of the left-hand menu.
4. Click "Cast Vote"
5. Vote!

Don't worry — we'll have more to come on the election results tonight, as well as the Devil's Advocate "Best of" 2008 awards. Stay tuned.

VP Admin Delays: Who will pay for my broken heart?

2008-01-23T23:08:00.000-08:00

By Austin Holm

I was traipsing towards my education this morning when a small bird alighted upon my shoulder. “What is it my gentle Avian friend?” I asked, my charm radiating outwards in doses strong enough to give onlookers leukaemia.
“Chirp Chirp,” he said, “VP Admin election has been postponed chirp chirp.”
And then my heart broke. I was really looking forward to the VP Admin election results.

I say this, not in the snarky, macho, sarcastic tones for which I am known, but in the earnest falsetto of a prepubescent boy, too young to know the disappointment of being lied to. To have my hopes for the future so cruelly stolen from me, and without even knowing the thief or his motives, was so cruel it rocked me to my core. VP Admin was the first debate I’d ever covered as a member of the press, back when I was still green, a certifiable press n00b, and I’d deeply looked forward to the results. It was a lonely time, a time of mists. Thunder Lizards still roamed the earth and the early civilizations of man hid as best they could, in bars and conversation pits, transcribing the debates for VP Admin as best they could, so that future generations would know what had come before.

It brings a single manly tear to my eye, remembering those bygone days. I invested so much of myself into the VP Admin race, and I’ve waited so long to find out the results. Would people take heed of my words and treat Yian like the platformless, chromosomally-superfluous primate I proclaimed him to be? Or would he be born into office by UBC’s legions of construction worker fetishists? Alas, it seems I shall never find out, not until this cold and bitter January has left me, to be replaced by February. And the reason I must endure this eternity of waiting, this purgatory of political bus stop anxiousness, is because one candidate, one foul, oozing herpetic sore on the testes of democracy, has violated the sanctity of our ballots by pressuring helpless students into voting for him. Now, I must wait until February to watch Yian’s hopes and dreams fall out from under him.
“You poor bastard,” I hear you cry, “whatever will you do in the mean time!?”
“Well,” I reply, my voice marinated in the smoky juices of reluctant acceptance, “I reckon I’m a gonna find the sumbitch gone and done this to me. And then, I reckon me and him’ll… ‘have a chat’.”

Thus steeped in Eastwood-esque machismo, I donned my Sam Spade overcoat, tilted my felt fedora, drew on a pencil thin mustache, and set down to do some serious detective work. Yes sir, I went straight to the Devil’s Advocate, home to all serious Journalism relating to the dark machinations of the AMS electoral process, where I promptly learned that this travesty had been perpetrated by Yian Messoloras. I should have known! I should have foreseen! I should have… I should have…
Disendorsed him?

Dear AMS Ass Clowns,
Once the Devil’s Advocate disendorses someone no amount of pressuring, no amount of douchebaggedly anti-democratic dickery, no amount of construction work can possibly push them into office. When the Devil’s Advocate disendorses a candidate, that candidate may as well sleep with a dead tranny hooker while doing lines of cocaine off of decapitated gnomes. Orphan Gnomes. Because no matter what, nothing you can possibly do can possibly save your chances in this election. A DA disendorsement is a death sentence to your AMS political career. I’d say that disqualifying him would have been more appropriate then delaying the whole race, but let’s be honest: our hard hated friend was already disqualified. And what was the crime Yian perpetrated that so disrupted the cahones of liberal democracy?

He approached voters with his laptop asking them to vote for him.

Take a moment to think about that. I’ll wait. Hell, I could use a break to go get some more food. Take all the time you need.

Asking voters to vote for you.

What a bastard.

I mean, for seriously, I’ve known my fair share of assholes in my time. I’ve been my fair share of assholes in my time. But never, ever have I heard of a crime that surpasses approaching voters and asking them to vote for you. Especially voters on a campus with 85% apathy. Yian, the Nazis were assholes. Stalin was a jerkwad. Osama bin Laden, Robert Pickton, Charles Manson, George Lucas and Saddam Hussein: all evil, cat-abusing shitwits. But you Yian! You are the razorblades in the urethra of mankind! You are worse than the cancerous societal smegma that keeps pissing on the seats of public toilets! You are worse than the venereal smear who invented child abuse! You are worse than the idiots who cancelled Firefly! Election delay? Disqualification?!?! HANGING IS TOO GOOD FOR YOU! YOU… MONSTER! I HOPE YOUR LIVER IS EATEN BY RABID DICKROACHES!

Ahem…
The point is Yian has not just tainted the race for VP Admin. Nay, gentle reader, those few voters he wickedly pulled out of apathy and into political participation did not vote for one race solely. They may have voted in any number of different races, including president! What if this skews the results? He could have convinced as many as fifty people to vote. What if every person Yian got to vote knew nothing of the election and chose at random? Rodrigo could… well, perhaps not win, but he could lose by a very small margin. At what would happen then?
Anarchy, gentle reader. Pure Anarchy.

The Straight Shit

Dear AMS,
I entreat you, do not be lenient with Yian Messoloras, nor with the democracy he so callously raped. Gentleness is overrated. You are no blushing, prom night virgin; he is no fumbling, inexperienced high-schooler. Justice cannot be timid! Have Yian burned at the stake for his anti-apathy heresy and delay, not only the VP Admin elections, but all democracy at UBC. Declare Martial Law. Tell me who will and will not be allowed to serve me in public office. Decision making is over-rated. Be strong. Be rough. Be proud.
UBC shall prevail!

Fuck Democracy

2008-01-23T17:02:00.000-08:00

Fuck Democracy

By Austin Holm

I hate Democracy. All these choices, all this pressure to make the right decision. You cast the wrong vote, you doom your entire society to be ruled by some chimp in a suit for god knows how long. Whose idea was it? Ben Franklin? Robespierre? It was a bunch of ancient Greek pricks, wasn’t it? Listen to me you Athenian Necrotwats, I hope your corpses get dick cancer. Founding Fraternities, starting Democracy: it seems like everything pissing me off right now is the fault of some dead Greek assholes.

Honestly, I’m barely competent enough to decide whether I should have Coke or Liquor for breakfast. How am I supposed to choose who to represent me at government?

I have this friend, let’s call him Boston Golm, who goes to school at MEBC, a prestigious university located in a nearby parallel dimension. Boston shares my loathing for Democracy, as the two faced whore has recently saddled him with quite the trilemma.

The SMA, Secretive Mutant Association, is holding elections for the Vice Chieftain of Money, and poor Boston just doesn’t know how to vote. All three candidates are known to him personally and he can see convincing reasons to vote for each one. This situation has led him down a twisted, deep rabbit hole of introspection. Why does he vote the way he does? What’s more important: loyalty, belief system, or professionalism?

Samoan Courage

The first of these candidates is running under the alias ‘Samoan Courage’. Samoan Courage is a brave man, a just man, a man with no real platform. Samoan Courage stands for traditional Samoan values (such as becoming a professional wrestler, like the Rock, and sexing with your schoolteachers, such as Vili Fualaau) but also for modern Canadian values, like alcoholism and anti-police sentiments. Samoan Courage represents a section of campus that believes in the MEBC dream: that each and every student has the right to have sex with their professors, while body slamming the Hot Fuzz and chugging Morgan’s.

Samoan Courage stands proudly for a belief system that Boston firmly supports, and, as you all know, Democracy is sham if you don’t vote for what you believe in. However, Samoan Courage is probably not the best qualified person for the job and, even if he is, he’s certainly the least dedicated to upholding the duties of the position. Also, it’s generally agreed that he will probably not follow up on his campaign promises to patent Oxygen and resurrect the monsters of Samoan Myth. Is it worth throwing down a vote for the sake of a laugh? Samoan Courage’s campaign may taste good but, like a Twinkie, it’s ultimately just a bunch of empty promises.

His detractors have even accused him of being a joke.

Andrea “Nosey” Shnerfor

Boston and Andrea go way back to when Boston first started attending MEBC. “She and I have saved each other’s lives countless times,” Boston told me, his deep, manly voice shaking me to my core, letting me know the words were unequivocally true. Together, they raided the underwater death ranch of Dyke Muncan and fought his legion of Scientific Android ‘Friends’. Side by side, they trespassed through the grey wastes of Lord Mayler, the dark god of boredom and hackery. Back to back they were on the cold morning of Boston’s first Science County Fair, fighting off the Po-Po with one hand and drinking beers with the other. With so much history between the two, you’d think it’d be a natural choice for Boston.

The only problem is that dear old Nosey might not be the best candidate for the job. And as much as Boston likes Nosey and her boy friend, Aaron, he also feels that having heuvos the size of Ron Jeremy’s wang is not the sole prerequisite for becoming Vice Chieftain of Money. You also need to show your qualifications on the campaign trail and Nosey’s has a pretty turbulent journey to the ballot box. Although Boston feels like he should vote for Nosey out of loyalty, he also feels like he should probably vote for someone with penis and a more consistent performance in the debates and a stronger platform.

Lipdock

Lipdock has a reasonable platform, decent debate skills, and eyes so soulful they could make Charles Manson volunteer at an orphanage. A brief bout of Facebook stalking has revealed Lipdock to be sensitive to preserving MEBC greenspace, an issue that matters deeply to Boston. Unfortunately, Lipdock is otherwise largely a ‘stay-the-course’ type candidate. It’s a philosophy which is not always inappropriate, but might warrant some reconsideration when you’re aimed at an iceberg.

Although he’s probably the most professional candidate, Boston still has reservations about voting for him. Boston writes for one of the campus papers, The Jesus Judge, a paper that Lipdock has repeatedly snubbed in annoyingly polite ways. If you’re going to blow someone off, you might as well go with the trumpets and elephant parades approach. A hearty ‘Fuck You, media swine!’ and a punch in the ovaries leaves a much more pleasant taste in a man’s mouth than a polite ‘I’m sorry, your paper has too many close ties with my opponents’. On top of his antics vis a vis the media, Boston feels he can’t turn his back on his friendship with Nosey, nor can he ignore Samoan Courage’s idealistic platform.

The Straight Shit

So who does Boston vote for? Friendship? Idealism? Professionalism? It’s not an easy choice. Sometimes democracy means a choice between an idiot, an asshole, and an idealist, but it’s not always that simple. In the same way that I’ve occasionally lain in my bed, wondering if I should wake up and face the day or use my alarm clock as a projectile weapon, Boston stands at a crossroads. No matter which road he walks, he has to turn his back on two other equally enticing opportunities. So what’s he going to do?

Well, it’s none of your business. That’s what the secret ballot is for, you fascist pig porkers. But I will tell you one thing: whomever he votes for, he’ll regret it.

Fuck Democracy. Why doesn’t someone just make these choices for us?

Breaking: VP Admin Election Postponed

2008-01-23T12:35:00.001-08:00

The VP Administration race, between Sarah Naiman, Yian Messoloras and "Scary Mike" Kushnir, has been postponed. Details on when the voting will happen are not known; however, nominations will reopen and all three candidates currently nominated will be allowed to re-enter. According to Elections Administrator Brendan Piovesan, the postponement was caused by the actions of one candidate, which may have effectively invalidated the results of the election. Piovesan declined to give more details (who and what, for example) at this time, but did say that the actions were not enough to disqualify the candidate.

UPDATE: 2:30 PM:
The candidate with an "irregularity" in campaigning has been identified as Yian Messoloras, who violated elections rules by approaching voters with his laptop and asking them to vote for him on the spot. Yian will be allowed to run again, though his earlier campaign slip-ups and the revelation that he cheated may make it difficult for him to win. He has already been disendorsed once by the Devil's Advocate; we won't hesitate to disendorse him again if he chooses to run.

Nominations are tentatively scheduled to end by February 1st, 2008. Piovesan says that he will announce when voting will resume when he gets in touch with the WebVote administrators. We expect to recieve an email with official details soon.

Coming soon...

2008-01-21T18:27:00.000-08:00

An open letter to Blake Frederick

2008-01-21T15:02:00.001-08:00

Dear Blake,

I came to watch you in the senate debate today! In case you don't remember me, I'm the one who asked all the candidates to show some personality. I want you to know that I'll accept your invitation to your house tonight. Courting a VFM during the debate: now that's spunky. I expect candles and lots of personality.

I'll probably share with you tonight that most of the candidate's answers really disappointed me, though. I mean, appealing to your friend in the audience "they're asking me to show personality" (I'm looking at you, Ms. Harder) is kind of pathetic - lowers the standards for sorority girls everywhere. And please, telling me that you have personality really doesn't convince me.

That said, Blake, you didn't have the best answer. That honour belongs to Philip Edgecumbe (aka Senator of Rock 'n Roll!), with an honourary mention for Colin Simkus for admitting that he had no personality. Being a debater who is really all about blanket liberal hackery -- right up my alley. (Colin, it was an answer worthy of Matthew Naylor.)

But you've got my vote, Blake [one out of five, at least]. This is because for Senate, I'm really going to vote on looks, brevity, and personality. You've just shown you have the last one, you've always had the first (you can guess my response to the orgy poll question) and no-one in senate really has shown any brevity.

Yours,
Serious Steve

More dis-endorsements

2008-01-20T18:41:00.000-08:00

We at the Advocate won't tell you how we are voting. We won't publish lists of endorsements. But if a candidate crosses us they will find themselves disendorsed. Fast. Even Mr. T does not pity those fools.

On Jan 15 I sent the following email to all candidates:

As you know, elections are soon. What you also know is less than 10% of students actually vote. This means you do not matter to 90 percent of campus. In 150 words or less, justify the existence of your campaign. cheers,
The Devil's Advocate, VFM of the radical centre www.ubcdevil.com

Most candidates responded. Some did not. 150 words. Not hard. Most the putzes in the race just sent a generic platform (though props to Nunes for writing something that didn't make my eyeballs bleed) I don't find it unreasonable to expect a response from (if not everyone) at least candidates in the more contested races. If you're running for, say, president, you should be on top of your game. It hurts my feelings when people ignore me. Therefore:

Matthew Naylor,

We at the Advocate are not hacks. We don't do the whole "wordy analysis" bs. We assess candidates by staring deep into their souls and writing what we see. Inside Naylor's soul I found a man who does not answer email. Sure, I could also dis-endorse him for drunkenly accosting people at Mardi Gras, and then trying to get Erin to drop out so she could endorse . . . Naylor. Smooth one, cowboy. But yeah, either way:

Game over.

Oh, and don't think Naylor was the only candidate who doesn't respond to email. There are others and they are on my list. Way to go slackers:

VP External:
Stefanie Ratjen
You have a website so you must understand the concept of email. Too bad we already disendorsed your opponent and someone has to be VP external. So I guess you are safe.

VP Academic:
Alex Lougheed
Not disendorsed because you make a point of following us around and pretending to be our friends. And somehow one of your posters made its way into my kitchen (damn sure I didn't put it up) If a candidate is hardcore enough flyerfuck my house I can forgive his lack of email.
Status: not disendorsed. Yet.

Rob Mclean
You have groupies, that's nice. And your facebook page says you have a campaign rabbi. Sweet! Now get him to answer your fucking emails!
Status: not disendorsed. Yet.

Nathan Crompton
You didn't answer my email. But your platform is long, and I feel slightly obligated to read it before I disendorse you.
Status: safe. For now.

Adendum:

Okay asshats. I just realized that out of all the VP Academic candidates, the only one who actually responded to me was the hydrant. Seriously! The thing has no thumbs! That makes me sad. I think it would actually do a better job then all off you. Y'all are off.
Lougheed: disendorsed!
Mclean: disendorsed !
Crompton: disendorsed!

VP Admin:

Yian Messoloras
Already dis-endorsed, irrelevant.

Senate:

Colin Simkus
Here is a special case. First, Eoin disendorsed him already.
Second, he Facebook messages me asking if he can help out with the Advocate (he has written for us in the past, a fact which he made sure to remind me of) Also he asked me to forward him any questions I wanted answered because his blackberry is on the fritz so he may have missed my email. I send him a copy of the email.
No response. Disendorsed 2x!

Then as I'm trying this post I get a whiny email from him complaining about being disendorsed the first time. Because he has written for the Advocate in the past he expects us to back his campaign. Bitch. We have no loyalties!
Disendorsed 3x

Board of Governors

Bijan Ahmadian
Check your email!
Disendorsed!

Andrew Carne
From your blurb on the AMS election site: “My primary goals if elected to Board are as follows: To improve communication between the board and students”
Start by answering your email.
Disendorsed!

Genevieve “Malt Likkah” Sweigard
You don't even have a blurb on the AMS election site. You don't answer your email. Do you even exist? I don't like fictional people.
Disendorsed!

and that's all for now!

ps - speaking of fictional people, Gary Brecher: I'm on to you. Not only is your ass disendorsed but next time I see you I'm challenging you to a duel. Bring your swords.

Duncan Disendorsed

2008-01-20T15:17:00.000-08:00

By Austin Holm

Michael Duncan has been picked as a favorite in this race by quite a few people. He’s a rugged, gregarious Scientific Aqua Cowboy party slut with more Facebook friends than Jesus. I’ve been told that, in no uncertain words, if I personally knew this lady-slaying bad boy I would be forced, nay compelled, to literally orgasm my endorsement of him right onto the interwebs. Fortunately for you, the thirty something people who read the Devil’s Advocate, I’ve never met the man, never watched him party, never gently grazed his neck with my lips, so I can be completely objective. Which leads me to the heart of this matter:

It seems to me, a lowly super-genius cursed with the inability to be wrong, that Duncan’s giant friends list has distracted us all from his platform. Having read it, re-read it, and then read it again, I’m here to tell you: I journeyed into the heart of the beast and came back confused and unsatisfied. His platform consists of seven points:

UBC Athletics
Campus Involvement
SUB Renewal
Branding and Engagement
UBC Roundtable
Transit
Student Housing

One by one now:

UBC Athletics
If elected (it’s nice to have dreams) Mikey promises to “create leverage with athletics to negotiate a reduced cost gym”. Create Leverage? Negotiate? A platform is basically a job application, Duncan. When I apply for a retail job I don’t promise to “attempt to negotiate a working relationship with the cash register and leverage my fluent English to sell toasters to costumers.” I say “I’ll talk people in buying shit they don’t need and then I’ll take their money.”
“I will also work hard to get UBC Athletics to reduce the intramural costs even further”
Awww, that’s sweet of you Cowboy, but it does me little good that you’re going to ‘work hard’. How about promising to actually do something? These vague platitudes amount to “golly gee, sure would be swell if we could have a cheap gym. Maybe if I’m elected I’ll leverage my ass out of apathy and seriously consider doing something… or whatever.” Jerk.

Campus Involvement
An excerpt from Mike’s Platform:
• Why do we only have one Clubs Days?
• Can people only join clubs during this short 3 day span?
• That answer should be a most certain NO; however, many students find it increasingly difficult to join a club outside of clubs days
• I will work with the VP Admin to increase club exposure through the AMS and to ensure that we are an aid, not a burden on our clubs
• I want to create a second clubs days in the new year, improve how clubs are represented on the AMS website, and work with volunteer connections to help direct people to clubs and groups they would be interested in
Let me turn translate this out of Ramblese: “My AMS will work to expose clubs”. Seven words against one hundred and fourteen. I like my version better. At least you had some semblance of a plan this time. Unfortunately for you, the other candidates have similar plans. Guess you’ll have to move onto something more unique. Jerk.

SUB Renewal
Aww, you and Sarah Naiman have something in common. How cute. Maybe after you both lose to Radical Beer Factionaries, you guys could run away together and start a family of cute children who obsess about things no one cares about. Also, why are you both so keen on putting showers in the SUB? I saw Cruel Intentions 3 too guys, but I don’t think that a student union building is an acceptable place for threesomes with twins.
…
On second thought, why isn’t the SUB nothing but showers? It’d get rid of the pigeons and, as a Scientific Aqua Cowboy, you’d fit right in. It’d make a better platform than your current plan of passing out surveys and then… handing out more surveys. And then talking to students about their surveys. And then hyping up the surveys and establishing clear lines of communication with people who care about surveys. IE people, not me. Jerk.

Branding and Engagement
“When you walk into the SUB, you should know you are entering a student run space”
Should I, Duncan? Should I really? Because I can think of things I’d rather know. Like all the answers to my exams, whether or not the cute girl in my tutorial wants to sleep with me, or where in this building I can buy a tight R&C and a loose hooker. I don’t think a big banner saying “STUDENT RUN SPACE” is really going to improve my life by solving any of these problems.
You also complain about how not enough people are involved in the AMS. Now, I know you think the AMS is a big deal Duncan. Hell, you wouldn’t be running for President if you didn’t think that. But I’ve got to level with you:
85% of this campus doesn’t give a shit.
And I’m one of them. Don’t get me wrong cowpoke, I’m well aware that the AMS does many useful things. It gives me my uPass, it organizes the clubs, and it saves the kittens (but not the SFU kittens). But a smooth running machine doesn’t make noise. The simple fact the 85% of the campus doesn’t give a shit is proof that, on some level, AMS gets the job done. You keep the Wi-Fi running and you don’t bother me when I’m drinking, whoring, or writing. That’s all I really need from you. Any attempt on your part to motivate me into participating in the circle jerk that is student government will be met with force. Force in this case being a euphemism for thrown, rotting fruit. Jerk.

UBC Roundtable
Duncan knows he doesn’t have all the answers, so he wants to invite other campus presidents to talk things over twice a term.
Not a bad idea Duncan, but let’s think this over. Do the clubs really need to talk to you? Do the War Gamers? The NDP kids? Afternoon Tea Society? Do we really want to let the Spartacists have a say? I say sure, but what do you say? Who gets a seat and who doesn’t? What about non-club groups, like Aletha and Stash’s little Poetry Slam group? Or the Wreath Underground? Remember, it’s not Terrorism once you open an embassy.
Then it’s War! Jerk.

Transit
Duncan’s Transit platform consists of noting that stuff’s being done, said stuff’s not going to be done for a while, and that the stuff we have is pretty sweet, and we should support that. Sorry Dunk, but when it comes to the UPass, UFail. Jerk.

Housing
More Statements of the Obvious followed by vague platitudes. Suggestion: stop cruising the high seas on your jet skis, lassoing sea cows and seducing ladies. Instead, sprout some huevos and make some decisions. You’re running for AMS president, not Chairman of the National Association of Indecisive University Students.
You didn’t even suggest floating, transient housing. What kind of Aqua Science Cowpoke are you? Jerk.

And thus ends the platform of Mike Duncan, leaving me as satisfied as an Asian co-ed after a night with [name removed, -ed]. Now, it is insulting that his platform manages to be so long, while saying so little. But here’s the real insult:

Arts County Fair
Remember when I said the AMS’s job was to keep the Wi-Fi running? Wi-Fi and Beer. The other Candidates have all addressed this issue. Naylor’s going to forgive the debt, Rodrigo’s got his space program, and Rennie is going to start an AMS county fair. What are you going to do? Painting yourself blue and attending a party isn’t going to fix this issue. People are legitimately pissed off about this. I know. I’m one of them. Want to address an actual issue? Find a way to bring the jam back into our space. Find a way to bring back the County Fair. I don’t care if you have to descend into the depths of hell and drag it back kicking and screaming, all while using your Scientific Aqua Cowboy Six Shooter to blast the Devil in the nuts. I know it’s bad for an Advocate to advocate blowing away his client’s testes, but I mention it to help you realize just how badly I want the Fair back.

The Straight Shit
Sorry Duncan. I’m sure you’re a nice guy, but quite frankly, I’m not. It takes more than social skills and cowboy hats to make a president. Maybe if you had a platform to stand on, things could be different. Unfortunately, every plank of your platform is either imaginary or rotten. Consider yourself dis-endorsed. Jerk.

Rennie goes serious

2008-01-20T03:53:00.000-08:00

Time for some serious news. Presidential "joke" candidate Erin Rennie, of "fight the war on fun" fame, has recently decided to declare her intention as a serious candidate in light of several requests from friends and VFM (we started it right here, folks!). Read more to see Erin's comments, and be sure to check out her facebook group to read her qualifications and platform.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: RENNIE "GOES SERIOUS"!

Dear friends, over the past week I have received overwhelming encouragement to run as a "serious candidate" from everyone from my closest friends to a number of the VFMs. This encouragement has been both flattering and extremely confusing, but after much consideration I am willing to step up to the challenge. I recognize that it being half-way through the voting period I haven't got much of a chance, but what the heck.

If you've been able to read between the lines of my obnoxious platform, you will probably see that my message, while hopefully hilarious, is serious and that I am sincere about it. I want to reignite campus life, to take the campus back for students, to develop a fair relationship with the RCMP, the Administration and the UNA, to unify the student voice, to demand more value and better education for hard-working students - I want to continue to be proud to be a UBC student. So in fact, I have always been a serious candidate, a serious candidate running a silly campaign. I got into this wanting to revive an old joke candidate tradition, crack a few one-liners, and most importantly raise important issues, but I see now that if I really care about those issues I should be willing to do something about it.

People say I haven't got much of a chance, and I'm ok with that. I want to be an alternative to the two front-runners. So if you like my message, and you can see that I am just as qualified as the other candidates, go ahead and vote for me and if you manage to elect me I will serve as President to the best of my ability. If you are worried that I will be a "spoiler" and split the vote, then go ahead and vote for your second-best choice, but if you want your vote to mean anything, vote for the candidate you feel will do the AMS and UBC students justice.

Erin Rennie

How the President is voting - Che Allison's ballot

2008-01-20T03:35:00.000-08:00

Che Allison is next year's AMS president. Who is he endorsing for on the presidential ballot? In his own words.

Photo courtesy Peter Rizov

As Rennie noted, the cocks are out and up against the rulers as different AMS candidates start counting their endorsements from semi-important people and others who really don't fucking matter. But why do we care? Sorry Jeff, I like Aggies as much as the next guy (mechanical bulls kick ass) but why are you endorsing someone to replace you? If you'd done it right in the first place, there wouldn't have been an election at all and you'd be ruler for life. But you snooze, you loose and I'm here now. So this is my official endorsement for the next president of the AMS; me.

I have clearly stated why I am better than the other candidates and why I am going to win. My platform is clearly and concisely laid out and is easy to follow. My Facebook group has a large membership and is only being a little bit censored. I have yet to kill anyone for disagreeing with me. Today. While we're on the subject, Knoll Weekly, you made fun of me. I thought you would have my back, but instead you left me hanging. Now you're on the list next to the Cavalier, Pat Meehan and the state of Wyoming (it knows what it did).

Some people may have been offended by my campaign. To those people I say, "eat me." I'm redistributing the GPA, throwing state-madated parties full of badass-ery and beer. Yeah, I said beer and not bzzr, RCMP. OHNOES!1eleventy3!
Yeah, I just went there. And I will continue to go there whnever I damn well please. My roomates know where I keep my bail money. But once elected, I won't need it anymore, being above the law and all.

Oh yeah, and Devil's Advocate, you guys will be the only media outlet permitted to operate once I rise to power. Despite your subtle mockery of me, your humour and wit in the elections coverage makes me laugh. And I'm an iron-fisted dictator who likes to laugh.

SLOFUC!

Love, Che

Hack points awarded

2008-01-19T19:06:00.001-08:00

As promised, the Devil's Advocate is awarding "hack points" to each candidate. After much deliberation from our entire editors and writers board today, we have a conclusions.

And the hack points go to...
Most hack points: Matthew Naylor (9)
Least hack points: Irish Courage (-2)
Special "jam points" award: Rodrigo Ferrari-Nunes (666)

Special award for most hack points in one action: (tie!)
Alex Lougheed, for handing out flyers while dancing at Mardi Gras.
Mike Duncan, for name dropping Stephen Lewis in response to our question.
Rob McLean, for having groupies.

How do we reccomend you use these hack points? Well, we suggest finding the range you're comfortable voting in - AMS insiders could be comfortable in the 6-9 range, but we'd suggest the 0 - 4 range for the rest of us. Then find the candidates on our list, and vote!

The Full List

President
Matt Naylor: 9
Michael Duncan: 7
Erin Rennie: 2
Che Allison: -1
Rodrigo Ferrari-Nunes: 666 jam points

VP Academic
Alex Lougheed: 6
Rob McLean: 3
Fire Hydrant: 0
Nathan Crompton: -1

VP Finance:
Andrew Forshner: 6
Chris Diplock: 1
Irish Courage: -2

VP Admin:
Sarah Naiman: 4
*Yian Messoloras: 4
Scary Mike the Rabbi: -1

External:
*Freeman Poritz: 3
Stefanie Ratjen: -1

Board of Governors:
Cris Marincat: 2
Bijan Ahmadian: 2
Tim Blair: 2
Andrew Carne: 0
Fiddler Crab: -1
Malt Likkah: -1
Rodrigo Again: 666 jam points

Senate:
Alex Lougheed: 6
Colin Simkus: 4
Blake Frederick: 3
Rob McLean: 3
Alfie Lee: 2
Philip Edgecumbe: 2
Aidha Shaikh: 1
Eileen Harder: 1
Azim Wazeer: 1

* has been disendorsed already. Kept on list for archival reasons.

What the hack do these mean?

How did we award hack points? The following offences were worthy of a hack point, with exceptionally outstanding displays of hackery.

name dropping
shameless campaigning (including "flyerfucking" ... as in "Hey I just flyerfucked Buchanan!")
endorsement wars
making stuff (esp. endorsements) up
a year in student government
a pet issue
being too close to the VFM
being "shamed" by an audience
avoiding questions or giving excuses as answers
being boring
involvement (prior to or during campaign) with Liberal Party
looking too much like a politicial (esp. displaying Canada flag behind you in candidate picture, and pictures with Children) or a tool
general douchebaggery

And some things were worth negative hack points

communist tendencies
being disliked by members of student government
running for the Radical Beer Faction
being generally awesome (needed unanimous vote)

Pretty graphs

2008-01-18T19:36:00.000-08:00

Some of you may have been deluded into believing that polls and statistics mean something prior to the end of voting. So I present my mathematical proof that they do not.

Take Graph 1. It may seem that Mike Duncan, due to the large facebook support, has the lead. But then we compare against their whole number of facebook friends, which shows that he has a large group just because he has lots of friends. Will other people support him? On the other hand, Erin Rennie has almost as many group members as friends... obviously doing a better job of outreaching to campus.The next couple I will admit I just made up, with no justification as to the numbers. You could note the correlation of the "hack index" to the Cavalier's straw poll of council... but I'd be careful, since of course I made these numbers up.
And of course how can you measure readiness to be President other than contribution to the intellectual debate? I measure by contribution to the VFM message boards [the Insider, Devil's Advocate and the Cavalier]. (Of course, one could also take this to be a factor of most-maligned...)

To sum up, these polls show us very clearly what will happen in the Presidential race. My prediction? Duncan, Naylor and Rennie will split the serious vote, leaving Rodrigo the surprise victory.

Serious Steve out.