Author Archives: taylorloren

About taylorloren

exposing the down & dirty of UBC politics.

Binders Full of Disendorsements

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Alright, kids. Tay Tay here. I’m writing this, it’s late, and apparently these JUSTIN MCELROY MOMENTS are contagious. I’m one beer in and forgive me, Konfidentialites, because I apparently suck at blogging now.

The latest buzzword to hit HackVille is “Disendorsement” and it’s being thrown around like a Kanye remix today (that Kimye reference was accidental, I swear). In this edition of Dishing on Disendorsements [Ed note: It’s just Dis-… ah, forget it.], we bring you The Ubyssey and Harsev Oshan.

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Slates! SLFS! Senate! So many ‘endorsements’

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Two races that start with ‘S’, and no one gives a shit about either of them!

SPAN is back, banking on the short institutional memory of the AMS to forget about all the wonderful things it accomplished years ago.. like firing the General Manager of the AMS and expecting no one to notice.

We commend SPAN for getting enough people out of Sprouts and onto nomination forms to challenge SRL’s stronghold on the Student Legal Fund Society.
BUT we disendorse SPAN for flagrant abuse of the phrase ‘family law’ without context or explication. What the AMS has to do with divorce or adoption we don’t know*—but SPAN didn’t feel the need to make this clear in their campaign materials. Vote SRL for a continued focus on students’ rights workshops and not blowing our $40K a year on disputing that C you got in BIOL101.
* Actually, we /can/ think of a few examples, but that would be giving it away. SPAN, if you win, contact us for things you can actually do with this platform!
—–
SENATE!
In a race with five spots and six candidates, it’s really about who /doesn’t/ get selected. While we’d like to just disendorse one person, we’re not that catty. If you want to vote based on how cute their names are, you can do that. And hey, take solace in the fact that anyone who loses in the AMS can just run in their constituency election.
If you really really want to make at least one good choice, though, vote Justin Yang. He’s being doing it forever and he’s awesome.

Endorsements, Round TL;DR: BoG

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It’s a long ‘un. TL;DR? Tagg, Sean, and those other guys. But you really should read on for more details and lulz, you lazy chump. Oh, and hopefully this doesn’t cause as much Twitter drama as this endorsement did. WE ALSO MADE A POLL! It’s totally scientific, you guys. 

Board of Governors

Let’s get one thing straight here: UBC’s Board of Governors (also known as BoG) is a big fucking deal. If you’re elected, you get to shmooze with the best of UBC administration, go on fancy trips to the Okanagan, and meet important people that are good for networking opportunities post-graduation. PLUS! You even get $5000 and an iPad.

In theory, this is also where students can do the most bestest awesome work. If it’s a Big Issue you may or may not have heard of, it’s been up before the board in the last year. BoG sets policy for the university at the highest levels of administration, i.e. they decide what direction the university is going in and how to get there. Students can have a huge impact on these decisions—or they can have a huge impact on their resume. Ideally, both.

Here are some buzzwords you may have heard: land use. Governance. Summer semester. Just trust us—they’re important, and the BoG reps are the people who represent what “students” think about these things to the super important people.

Lots of the candidates this year have similar platforms and some people think you may just be voting based on personality/popularity or whatever. But look, this one issue has people with different opinions! We called them all up and made them answer on the spot – if housing was to be buildt in Gage South (the area near McInnes Field, which is where the bus loop is now), what percentage should be student housing? Here’s what they had to say, in the world’s ugliest graph thing ever.

BUT ALSO YOU guuuuyyyyyyyyyysssssss. You should probably care a little bit more about this. You should probably read, in full, the interviews Issues That Matter and The Ubyssey did with these candidates. [Ed. note: Really, just pick up the latest issue. It’s so pretttyyyyyy] You should probably carefully review their platforms. Or you could skip to the pictures, after the jump.

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Whistler Ben

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While we remembered to post yesterday’s Ben on our Facebook page (which is like, totally awesome and you should totally like, go like it) we forgot to post it on our blog. We apologize, dear readers.

So here is yesterday’s Ben AND today’s Ben…for your viewing pleasure.

Where does Ben stand on the Whistler Lodge issue? What do you even think of it – should we sell it because it “bleeds money” (according to VP Finance candidate Tristan) or is it a service worth keeping (according to Ski & Board President)?

Return of the Jedi

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Allow me to re-introduce myself, says Spencer Keys as he snuggles up to the limited female hacks who still read UBC Insiders. 

gerald deo photo

Spencer Keys was the 96th President of the Alma Mater Society and the first insufferable prat to start saying which number he was. He spent his time afterwards working for provincial and national student associations and working as a consulting lobbyist in Ottawa.

What Spencer fails to mention, is that he is in fact a minute celebrity of the reality star fame. He starred in a documentary entitled College Days, College Nights that threw some UBC students in a house together and chronicled their lives. Yes, this really happened.

In the documentary, Spencer loses an election for VP External, goes on to ban slates (HE IS THE MAN SORT OF RESPONSIBLE* FOR LAST YEAR! DO YOU GET THE CONNECTION NOW???), and then becomes President of the AMS. All under the glory of cameras. [Editor’s Note: This is honestly my dream. If any film producers are reading this, my life is very entertaining]

So, Spencer was kind of a big deal. And after doing real world things, he’s come back to UBC under “unfortunate circumstances.” You should read his article, because the lack of campaigning is seriously so embarrassing.

And because you’re probably wondering when we’re going to go all alliterative on you, yes, Spencer is Sexy. But not just because he’s a tall ginger who dubs himself a gentlemen and wears dashing, waspy attire. No, Spencer is sexy because he tweets about both football and politics. He wants to be a lawyer [Editor’s Note: KAI GOT INTO UBC LAW SCHOOL BY THE WAY] and he actually somewhat cares about student engagement without being a hack who gets off by masturbating to their own accomplishments, which is rare. He can definitely lobby his way into our loins hearts any day.

*actually not responsible for people making fake websites or slate conundrums, at all.

 

Poster Fun! Redefining a Hot Mess

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We know y’all just lovvvvvvve our poster critiques analyses. This year, if you haven’t noticed yet, we’re giving you short, snappy posts multiple times a day. Or at least, we’re trying to. So Carven Li, come on dowwwwwn!

How did THIS hot dish of amazing…

…make THIS hot mess of a poster?

seriously, we did not photoshop this.

The good: there’s Chinese or something on poster! Diversity!!! [Editor’s note: I am not the editor who studied Asian Studies, I apologize]. And nothing says school spirit like the Blue & Gold colours. Plus his face is just so totally adorable!

The bad: How many types of fonts and sizes can you throw on one poster? And alignments?!

The ugly: I’m fairly certain that we all stopped doing the WordArt thing where you outline your letters with another colour when we were 7 and magenta started blinding all of our class projects. Just saying.

BONUS: Someone on Twitter wanted us to be less like a tabloid. Since we heart feedback, here’s a quick analysis of some text:

Lower athletics fees ~ So this was an issue in 2008, when two guys managed to save us hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees. [Editor’s note: I should know, I’ve slept with them both]

The mandatory fee for each student dropped by about $3-4. The user fee freeze was for 3 years, thus I am assuming it will come up for negotiation again this year? Not too sure.

The exact amount of fees saved per student depends on how much you actually participate in athletics. Yes, dodgeball counts. So if you’re in a league, you would have saved $5-10 each.

BUT ~ the Birdcoop used to be, like, hella expensive, and the AMS ended up saving students $225 a year EACH in Birdcoop fees. That is massive.

So basically, I personally don’t think this platform point deserves a spot on this poster when there are more important things for a VP Academic to worry about ~ like Gage South and governance, for example.

TayLo, out.*

*people also wanted us to have bylines, but our god damn site won’t let us, so there. See, we do listen.

UBC’s Very Own Ryan Gosling

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Let’s just state the obvious here:

Ryan Gosling is hot.

He had his day with The Notebook, when every girl just wanted to cuddle and fall asleep in Noah’s arms every night. And then, well, Ryan Gosling kind of disappeared. He went on to do artsy things, like indie Canadian flicks, and then took  a hiatus.

And then, BAM! Out of nowhere, after we all kind of forget about him, Ryan Gosling was back. And this time he’s not only hot…

He’s experienced.

He’s a fucking good actor, he’s everywhere, and everyone wants him. HE EVEN BECAME A MEME. 

The same could be said for Ben Cappellacci. Just like Ryan Gosling was part of the Mickey Mouse Club and Breaker High [Editor’s Note: Are you kids too young to remember Breaker High on YTV?! Are you!?], Ben was part of the frat scene, the Senate, and SafeWalk coordinator. And then he had his breakout role as VP Academic. After enjoying such fine things like land use policy, Ben went on to do artsy things, like an exchange to Paris, and took a hiatus from the AMS.

And then BAM! Out of nowhere, Ben is running for President. His name is the headline in every story, his branding is sexy as hell, and he’s here to take UBC by storm just like Ryan Gosling is going to take ALL THE AWARDS.

So, welcome to the race Ben. In honour of everyone’s favourite actor and meme, we’ll be bringing you A Ben A Day, Ryan Gosling style. Like us on Facebook to get your daily dose!