punditry.ca — uncovering DSU elections

Welcome, once again, to the Election Candidate Video Awards!

Sunday being the usual night for award shows (hopefully we won’t be drawing too much attention away from tonight’s Grammys and BAFTAs), I am pleased to bring you the fourth annual ECVAs wherein I distribute “awards” to the candidates for their campaign videos. There are no fixed categories. Consideration has been given to the videos posted on the official election bio pages, as well as supplementary videos available on candidates’ websites, if applicable.

Have ideas for other honours? Share them in the comments.

Find out the “winners” after the jump… Read more…

Punditry may offer a sustainable solution to the transit strike plaguing HRM:

Source: Hollywood Elsewhere

I’m sure that in Part I I came off as a real stickler for rules and order, and I am, but I do recognize that there are times when rules should be bent to accommodate certain situations. If I didn’t believe that, I would have given up on DSU Council long ago.

As I mentioned previously, I hesitate to speculate on the how and why of this particular situation because it would be just that — speculation — but regardless, I do feel comfortable saying that a rush job of reviewing these questions was not the ideal course of action.

I began this two-part post by explaining why last week’s Council meeting troubled me procedurally. I would like to expand on that by explaining what is meant to be considered by those reviewing the wording of a referendum question. My hope is that this will clarify why more time is needed than was allowed.

How to Review a Referendum Question

There are a lot of things to consider when reviewing a referendum question. For the sake of your attention span, and in the interest of getting to my point, I won’t get into all of them. Key questions to ask include: Read more…

News of Wednesday’s marathon Council meeting didn’t take long in making its way to me in Saskatoon, thanks to Twitter. For obvious reasons, I was not at the meeting, so my remarks on the course of events that took place will be necessarily brief. What follows will be presented in two posts. Part I is a DSU history lesson. Part II is a “how to” guide.

This Week in Council Chambers

In short, the procedures set out in the DSU Constitution for commencing a referendum were not followed. Specifically, the notice period required for these motions is two weeks (not days or hours – weeks, as in a fortnight) and a BONUS POINT* goes to the reader who can name the other flaw in the timing of these motions! By calling emergency meetings of both the Board of Operations and the Elections Committee, Council managed to cram a two-week process into an evening, albeit a rather long one. I will leave it to those who were in the room to elaborate on why this might have happened and move on to why what happened is troubling.

A DSU History Lesson

Cast your minds back to the year 2007, a year many, including myself, joined Facebook and none of us knew who Lady Gaga was. Read more…

I couldn’t agree more with Eric’s comment in yesterday’s post that unsuccessful candidates are often amazing people who go on to do incredible things. It’s absolutely true that the DSU’s “unsuccessful” candidates are anything but.

For Thursday’s winners, your path for the year ahead is at least somewhat clear. The rest of you may not know what you’re going to do now that the results are in, but know that you are in good company.

I’ve heard a common sentiment from these former candidates over the years: “I was sad when I lost, but in the end, I’m glad I did because I was able to [insert cool thing].” I suspect this experience has sparked something inside you that just needs to find the right fuel, be that in the DSU or elsewhere. I wish you all well as you follow in the footsteps of this pack of so-called losers.

Craig Jennex (VPI Candidate 2009)
Jennex received the University Medal for Gender & Women’s Studies when he graduated in 2010. He is currently working toward an MA in Cultural Studies at McMaster. Even more exciting than that school stuff is that Jennex plays drums for a Halifax-based band called Dance Movie whose song “Carjack My Heart” was featured on an episode of Degrassi: The Next Generation (“Purple Pills, Pt. 2″) and has since spawned a number of fan videos on YouTube.

Michael “Fendi” Kovendi (VPI Candidate 2006)
It took a while, but “Fendi” found his way to a DSU Executive office. He has been serving as the Vice President (Finance & Operations) this year.

Ann Elizabeth Beringer (VPEd Candidate 2006)
Now living and working in Edmonton, AEB is now AES, having married punditry.ca founder Mike Smit in August 2010. That’s a pretty good reason to get involved at the DSU: you might just meet your future spouse!

Tara Gault (Presidential Candidate 2008)
After a tight race with fellow 2007-08 exec Courtney Larkin, Gault now works as a researcher for the Nova Scotia Liberal Caucus and devotes countless unpaid hours to both the provincial and federal wings of the party.

John Hillman (Presidential Candidate 2008, 2011)
The year following Hillman’s first bid for DSU President, Hillman was a regular contributor to The Gazette and when the 2009 DSU Elections rolled around, he joined the ranks here at punditry.ca. He was slated to start classes at Dal Law that September, but after a lot of self-reflection, decided to follow his true passion and pursue creative writing (I’m sure this comes as no surprise to our readership). Hillman is now finishing the honours class in creative writing, applying to MFA programmes, and hopes to teach in the future.

Will Horne (BoG Candidate 2009)
Following the election, Horne remained a driving force behind sustainability initiatives at Dalhousie and elsewhere, serving as Executive Director of the DSU Sustainability Office and as a workshop coordinator for the East Coast Environmental Law Association. He is about to complete an internship at the http://www.solheimar.is/template4.asp?Sid_NR=696&E_NR=668&VS=1VS1.asp&VT=696 Solheimar Eco-village in Iceland, but we haven’t seen the last of him – he will be returning to Dalhousie in September.

Victoria Jones (VPI Candidate 2008)
After losing her bid for the VPI office to Dan Boyle, Jones remained on DSU Council as the Graduate Member at Large. She is now in her second year of law at the University of Kent in Canterbury, UK. Victoria will also be returning to Dalhousie in September to complete her MA. Let’s see if she can resist the pull of student politics.

Gregory Debogorski (BoG Candidate 2007, Presidential Candidate 2008, 2009)
Regardless of what you might think of his philosophy, Debogorski’s tenacity is nothing short of admirable. He promised to run in an election every year he was at Dalhousie, and following his first loss, he remained true to his word. I only wish we’d seen more of him between elections.

Eric Snow (Presidential Candidate 2009)
Since a hard-fought campaign, Snow has remained one of the most stalwart members of the DSU I have ever encountered. For many years now I’ve operated on the assumption that he simply does not sleep.

If you know what anyone else is up to, feel free to let us know in the comments.

Thanks to Messrs. Smit, Snow, and Hillman for their assistance.

Welcome to the third annual Election Candidate Video Awards!

If you’re wondering what you can do to win a coveted ECVA, the best advice I can give you is to make a candidate video that contains something impressive or something annoying (though I will say the latter tends to get more attention ’round these parts).

As always, additional awards can be given out by you, our faithful readers, in the comments.

Most Estrogen in an Ensemble Cast: Jamie Arron
Last year, Neil Bailey, who incidentally is one of the only men in Arron’s video, received the award for Most Testosterone in an Ensemble Cast. Arron appears to have taken the opposite approach. Let’s see if he fares any better than Bailey.

Weirdest Cameo: Mark Hobbs for his role in Jamie Arron’s video
Despite his better qualities, does it not strike anyone else as odd that a candidate would feature a testimonial from the only executive that faced recall in recent memory?
Runner-Up: Evan Price for a photo of himself with former Presidential candidate Jason Pelley (though I know there is a connection with Price’s hop farm).

Best Cameo: Eric Snow for his performance in John Hillman’s video
Man, for a guy who is not running as a candidate, Snow is everywhere. Thus, I propose that from now on he wear a punditry.ca t-shirt at all public appearances.

Sidenote: That makes for appearances by not one, not two, but three failed presidential candidates and one former president (not counting Saulnier in his own video). This is unprecedented.

Best Shout-Out: John Hillman for reference to erstwhile candidate Gregory Debogorski whose antics will be very much missed this election season.

Additional Sidenote: If this counts as a Debogorski cameo, that makes appearances by four failed Presidential candidates.

Best Jen Bond-inspired Hand-Talking: Chris Saulnier
If you’re going to hand-talk, at least have a graphic designer put the Halifax cityscape between your hands.

Most Humorous: Kayla Kurin
I’ve enjoyed Kayla’s performance in The DSU Office this year, so I’m glad to see she brought some of that humour to her candidate video.

Best Location: Andrew Mecke
The Shirreff Hall Library, where I spent a good deal of time editing my undergraduate Honours thesis, is one of the best rooms on campus. I will not get into how unsettling it is for me to see a male President of Shirreff Hall, where I was on both the last all-female and first co-ed Residence Councils.

Worst Sound: Andrew Mecke
PROTIP: The microphone was invented in 1876. You can now get microphones in a variety of sizes, including ones that clip to the user’s lapel. There are also microphones that connect to your video camera. Some computers even have built-in microphones. *Sigh*
Runner-Up: Chris Connors for his failed attempt at dubbing over his voice in spots where I assume he was inaudible. E for effort.

Most Glaring Omission: Karl Dempsey whose Nova Scotia apparently does not include Cape Breton where there is, in fact, a university whose students are as affected by Premier Dexter’s policies as you Mainlanders.

Weirdest Music Supervision: Sebastian Fiszman
You’ve undoubtedly heard the piece of music in Fiszman’s video (“O Fortuna” from Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana) before. It’s often featured in movie trailers, television commercials, and the like. Generally, it used to terrify listeners. For example, back in 2009, Republicans used “O Fortuna” in an ad about convicted terrorists potentially being released from Guantanamo straight into American suburbs.
Runner-Up: Margaret Scrimgeour
I like going to Reflections as much as (if not more than) the next person, but there’s a time and place for techno. P.S. I didn’t read any of the text in your video because none of the other videos required me to hit ‘pause’ and it would have made for an uneven playing field if I’d done it for you.

My friend and fellow pundit, Jen Bond, and I met in 2002 when we both arrived at Dalhousie as undergraduate students. That year, we had three of our five classes together, as well as a seminar. Though we travelled in different social circles, we both found our way to Council Chambers at the Dalhousie Student Union. Jen would go on to become Vice President (Education) of the DSU while I became a permanent fixture on Council. After completing Pre-Schulich Law School together, Jen and I have, for the most part, retired from student politics, but maintain a keen observer status.

Until now, this has been the truth.

In fact, Ms. Bond and I met much earlier on that world wide network known as “the Internet”. We got to chatting about the usual things that interested high school students at the dawn of the millenium. One night, after a spirited discussion of race relations as portrayed in Bring It On and fuelled by far too many cans of Jolt Cola (this was in the days before Red Bull; we got by on what we had), we devised our plan, and in the summer of 2002, we met covertly in the great state of Maine.

That is when we built Mike Tipping.

It was a summer that tested both our friendship and our commitment to the project, but by the end of August, our dream became a reality.

To ensure no connection among the three of us was suspected upon our arrival at Dalhousie, we applied to live in different residences. I moved into Shirreff Hall, while Jen lived in Eliza Richie, and the Tipping-bot in Howe Hall where he learned the social graces of the average undergrad and developed a tolerance for alcohol. To further our ruse, Tipping was presented as an American while Jen and I made sure to have audible “getting to know each other” conversations at parties and around the Council table (i.e. “Oh, you went to Sydney Academy? Do you know fellow SA graduate X?”)

We enrolled the Tipping-bot in our Political Science class where Dr. Robert Boardman unknowingly aided us in developing the bot’s knowledge of Canadian government. Jen oversaw the development of Tipping’s skills as an orator by involving him in debating. During our time in Maine, I performed a comprehensive survey of what the typical American teenager was wearing those days. Hence, I looked after the bot’s wardrobe, which was to consist of inoffensive, occasionaly namebrand t-shirts, just slightly oversized denim jeans (in order to appear comfortable and approachable, but not unkempt nor like a hipster), and your standard running shoe.

As for Tipping’s political aspirations, as well as our own, we started small with each of us taking a position on our respective residence councils. In order to get the bot some “hippie street cred”, he founded a grassroots organization called Halifax Action. These activist roots were necessary to counterbalance his conservative haircut, especially when faced with a shaggier opponent like Pelley.

After my colleague was made the benefactor of alphabetical election ballots, Jen and I became aware of a fundamental flaw in our plan. Our would-be candidate’s surname was far too close to the bottom of the alphabet. That year, under the name “Elections Review Task Force”, we spearheaded a major re-write of the election rules of the DSU Constitution. With the assistance of our confidant, Ezra Edelstein, and our unwitting fellow committee member and future campaign opponent, the alphabetically-advantaged Ms. Beringer, we ensured that candidate names would from that point forward appear in random order when presented to voters. This proved effective, as our bot successfully won two elections against opponents whose surnames would have otherwise given them an advantage.

Finding himself unchallenged by his human competition, Tipping, with the assistance of Ezra, took it upon himself to build a political adversary. What we neglected to do as guardians of the bot was show him that episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where Data’s Moriarty figures out how to leave the Holodeck. Had we done that, perhaps he might have reeled it in a bit when programing Deb-bot’s antiestablishment protocols.

Throughout his time in Halifax, the Tipping-bot spoke often of Maine and his fondness for the place where he was born. So, when the time felt right, we let our creation return home. We miss him dearly.