the media's media

http://blogginbloggerz.blogspot.com/

Now we're being blogged too.

Absurd? Absolutely. So much bias against already inherently biased media (yes, including Fed For Thought) that there's little real, valuable material left? You bet your hat. Worth reading anyway? It seems like it will be.

I <3 the internets.

don't be hating

<--- LOVE this.

Im tellen on yuuu

Our little BlogoSFUO is really a-twitter with news this week! This Dave certainly didn't expect to be writing so much over the summer, but such is life. When there be things to be told, I be tellin' them to you.

Tabaret recently signed us up for ClearView Connects™, a tattle-tale service that can send all the infos of all the bad stuffs that happen on campus to the big tough administrators who will deal with the bullies for us. The idea is that employees can anonymously tell the administrators all about

"any incidents of theft, misappropriation of funds, falsification of documents, vandalism, unethical behaviour, etc."

that is occurring behind the scenes by other employees, simply by going to the ClearView website. Wait a tic... whose website? Not ours! ClearView's website!

Here are the troubles with that my friends, assembled for you in an unordered list<ul>:

• ClearView Connects™ gets all this potentially confidential info that they really shouldn't have, PIPEDA compliant or not
• As some profs have pointed out, anonymous whistleblowing is contrary to the Canadian legal system
• We're not running this on an internal server, so verification doesn't exist
  • This means that every complaint needs to be investigated, even if it's posted with no factual basis, just malice
  • ClearView doesn't (and shouldn't) have a list of employee IDs for people to post with. That'd kill the anonymity, right?
  • That also means anyone, any employee or any student or any member of the community or any Tamil Tiger or any A&W Root Bear can file a complaint about a staff member
  • The University will pay for ClearView to receive this complaint to forward it to them, and then waste their time and money investigating this farce that may have originated anywhere from Rio de Janeiro to Nairobi to Kathmandu
  • The University of Ottawa is located in none of Rio, Nairobi, or Kathmandu
• Adding any sort of login ID to this service to keep it within the University removes the anonymity, which removes the point of paying the $20000/year for it at all.
• The Administration LOVES this idea!

This fun is already in place. If you're a troublemaker, go to ClearView Connects™, type in University of Ottawa as your company, and lodge a complaint of unethical behaviour about, say, acting VP Governance Nathalie Des Rosiers. Her because she's the one pimping the system to the media. I was unable to find who brought it to the BOG in the first place.

While I don't encourage the abuse of a channel to keep things clean and friendly at our wonderful school, they're just asking for it to happen with this system, and if you're going to do it you may as well make your point and do it right.

Oh, for the curious, they talked about it at this BOG meeting in 2007.

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This.

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runnenn away

All of the cool executives are doing it. Runnenn away, that is.

Leaderaction/Arts Retreat is good for inter-executive bondage, and for general learnins, but not for making any plans nor any progress. Student governments need to make a plan for the year, to figure out where the individuals and the unit as a whole are going and how they will get there. Without a plan, you won't really get anywhere. Some execs don't plan. Others try and do it in an exec meeting. But that's not a friendly situation inviting discussion and a desire to keep listening as your meeting drags into the late afternoon. There's a reason people complain about attending snake meetings.

Whether you go to the cottage or home of one of your executives, spend an afternoon in a city park, or pitch a tent in the woods of Navan, I'd like to ask all you execs to get out of your offices, get to know each other, relax, and then make a real plan. Do it for your students, yo. Or at the very least, do it for the good press you'll get from the bloggers. Kudos to the ESS and to the CSSA who had such planning sessions last weekend.

Executive planning retreats. It starts here.

big snaek

I made it to the asp python cobra boa on Sunday. Sorry about that confusion - I've about had it with these mother fucking snakes in these mother fucking names.

Anyway, as you might expect, shenanigans were abound. Though not nearly as many as you may have grown to expect from the BOA. My personal favourite would have to be the motion to order pizza - debated for 8 minutes, then voted down - with a roll call. Which made Seamus call Peter Flynn a communist. I didn't realize we still had cold war bigotry going on.

Nearly as good was Arpie Gee, who - imagine his audacity - brought a bottle of water to the BOA. And he's not even on the board, just proxying. Needless to say, Seamus wanted to eat him. Keep your eyes open next full moon - it still might actually happen.

Speaking of eating, during his executive update, Ted Horton informed us that he is eating well and sleeping regularly. That's certainly a load off my mind. Another relief came in these updates: VP Comm Julie Seguin and her team have finally figured out how to use the online calendar. Now we might actually see a mild amount of usefulness to the SFUO website. Maybe. There's also talk of a sweet new SFUO website on its way - I will believes it when I sees it.

Not so relieving was Seamus's idea of a good roundtable. He said in his update that the first PRT went well - there were six presidents who showed up, the meeting lasted all of a half hour, and nothing was accomplished. Seamus just told everyone what they should think about before the next meeting. Maybe that went "smoothly," but I certainly wouldn't say "well." Unless they held the meeting while chilling in an aquifer. Then you could say it went well.

Chartwells is getting rid of all styrofoam on campus. They're planning to store to-go food in sheepskin bags instead. Lots of extra animal deaths, unless they intend to start serving lots of lamb chops. But on the upside, you can grab dinner at the caf, wash the container, and eliminate the need to buy condoms. Safe for the environment and for your sexual health. Thanks, Chartwells!

Arpie had lots to say this meeting, as usual.  Before quoting Aristotle to nominate Scott Bedard for an appointment to the Policy and By-law Committee, he offended the room with angry talks of SFUO accountability and a need for better translation. How dare he. Sure, they're good, necessary things, but you don't need to bring them up at the board, douche bag! Or, less sarcastically, you could at least be a little more respectful when you do.

Nearly all of the meeting beyond exec updates was committee appointments and motions being tabled until next time. If sitting on committees was a contest, which it obviously is, the winners would be:
Most committees appointments held by a Director: Roxanne Dubois / Seamus Wolfe (5)
Most committees appointments held by a non-exec Director: Brandon Bay (4)
Most appointments to regularly meeting committees: Khadijah Kanji (3)
Most times nominated for a committee: Richard "me again" Mah (9)
Most failed attempts to get onto a committee: Dick Mah (7)
Number of Directors who sit on no committee: 7
Most cleavage: Amy Kishek (surprised?)
Sad, bored, and a sucker for punishment: Dick Mah, who actually explained that to the Board in one of his many self-nominations
Best blog: Fed For Thought

By the way, if you're looking for boring actual details of the event, check out the linked blogs to the right (and get out of mine! what do you think I am, a journalist?!).