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I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!
I haven't been sleeping much lately. Mostly I've been getting to bed around 2:30 and waking up around 8:30. 3 shots of fake espresso from the machine at breakfast, then one or two more of real coffee during the day. It's not healthy or sustainable. So last night, I managed to get to bed by 1:30, delighted for another hour of precious sleep. I was jolted awake at 7 am.
We had another fire drill to make up for the botched one we had a few weeks ago. However, perhaps due to desensitisation from the 30-something false alarms we've had this year (just sayin'), we failed to evacuate the building within three minutes, thus we will have to repeat this charade again some time in the near future.
Fire safety this year has been a joke. We're desensitised to alarms due to their sheer frequency las semester, and there have been several serious hazards, including non-working emergency phones and fire doors that malfunction and trap people inside the building. Yet they have been pushing several new measures on us in the name of 'fire safety'. Perhaps the most ridiculous of these is that bits of paper are no longer allowed to be affixed to uncovered notice boards (!), walls, or doors. Last semester I kept a belligerent note on my door, stating that I would remove it once the real fire hazards were addressed, but after moving this semester, I haven't yet bothered. However, I did have a couple of campaign fliers attached to my door, as did some of my neighbours. This morning I exited my room to find they'd been removed, leaving nothing but little blobs of white-tac (two bare, one stained with an inverted 'RRY'. I think I'll leave them up like that.)
Rounding the corner of the corridor, I found a tour group just entering. I was white-knuckled, suppressing the urge to make some comment about fascism as they passed. It's not that I didn't want to deter potential students -- frankly, the university probably deserves it -- but I didn't want to put the tour guide in an awkward position. It's not her fault the university is being so repressive with its "health and safety" policies.
Maybe it's not quite fair to compare 'health and safety' regulations to fascism--although I'm certainly not the first to do so. Tom Cahn, my esteemed opponent in the race for Assocation Chair, openly stated that "Health and Safety is the new fascism." I wouldn't go that far, but only because 'health and safety' is not a political ideology. It is, however, often used as a means of repression, including the sort of political repression reminiscent of Stalin, Mao, fascists, and other dictators.
For instance, the strongest candidate for Accommodation Officer -- who just happened to have had major disagreements with the current President and Director of Representation on the same day -- was disqualified from his nomination for leaning out of a window at the AGM. We're not even talking about really leaning here, just ducking head and shoulders out of a waist-or-chest-high window in order to affix a banner to the side of the building. There was no possible way for him to have accidentally fallen out of it at any point. Yet it was deemed a 'major violation of health and safety regulations'. Thus he received a disciplinary notice, and is banned from the union pending a decision on it, thus disallowing him to run for office. Meanwhile the other person who was helping him to hang the banner, who was also running for election, received no disciplinary notice and indeed heard nothing more about the incident.
Did it have anything to do with the content of the banner -- encouraging people to come to the AGM? I don't know, but I noticed that the Association had publicised the AGM as little as it could possibly get away with, and had also changed the date, time and location at the last minute, actively preventing some students from attenting, and placing the event in a venue too small to have quorum, even had there been a sufficient turnout. I don't mean to sound paranoid, but I've been feeling seriously disempowered recently, both by the University and by the Students' Association. That's why I'm voting for Harry Giles for Director of Representation. I'm sure James would be great and all, but Harry's the one who will actually put up a fight on the behalf of the students -- and empower students to fight for ourselves.
We had another fire drill to make up for the botched one we had a few weeks ago. However, perhaps due to desensitisation from the 30-something false alarms we've had this year (just sayin'), we failed to evacuate the building within three minutes, thus we will have to repeat this charade again some time in the near future.
Fire safety this year has been a joke. We're desensitised to alarms due to their sheer frequency las semester, and there have been several serious hazards, including non-working emergency phones and fire doors that malfunction and trap people inside the building. Yet they have been pushing several new measures on us in the name of 'fire safety'. Perhaps the most ridiculous of these is that bits of paper are no longer allowed to be affixed to uncovered notice boards (!), walls, or doors. Last semester I kept a belligerent note on my door, stating that I would remove it once the real fire hazards were addressed, but after moving this semester, I haven't yet bothered. However, I did have a couple of campaign fliers attached to my door, as did some of my neighbours. This morning I exited my room to find they'd been removed, leaving nothing but little blobs of white-tac (two bare, one stained with an inverted 'RRY'. I think I'll leave them up like that.)
Rounding the corner of the corridor, I found a tour group just entering. I was white-knuckled, suppressing the urge to make some comment about fascism as they passed. It's not that I didn't want to deter potential students -- frankly, the university probably deserves it -- but I didn't want to put the tour guide in an awkward position. It's not her fault the university is being so repressive with its "health and safety" policies.
Maybe it's not quite fair to compare 'health and safety' regulations to fascism--although I'm certainly not the first to do so. Tom Cahn, my esteemed opponent in the race for Assocation Chair, openly stated that "Health and Safety is the new fascism." I wouldn't go that far, but only because 'health and safety' is not a political ideology. It is, however, often used as a means of repression, including the sort of political repression reminiscent of Stalin, Mao, fascists, and other dictators.
For instance, the strongest candidate for Accommodation Officer -- who just happened to have had major disagreements with the current President and Director of Representation on the same day -- was disqualified from his nomination for leaning out of a window at the AGM. We're not even talking about really leaning here, just ducking head and shoulders out of a waist-or-chest-high window in order to affix a banner to the side of the building. There was no possible way for him to have accidentally fallen out of it at any point. Yet it was deemed a 'major violation of health and safety regulations'. Thus he received a disciplinary notice, and is banned from the union pending a decision on it, thus disallowing him to run for office. Meanwhile the other person who was helping him to hang the banner, who was also running for election, received no disciplinary notice and indeed heard nothing more about the incident.
Did it have anything to do with the content of the banner -- encouraging people to come to the AGM? I don't know, but I noticed that the Association had publicised the AGM as little as it could possibly get away with, and had also changed the date, time and location at the last minute, actively preventing some students from attenting, and placing the event in a venue too small to have quorum, even had there been a sufficient turnout. I don't mean to sound paranoid, but I've been feeling seriously disempowered recently, both by the University and by the Students' Association. That's why I'm voting for Harry Giles for Director of Representation. I'm sure James would be great and all, but Harry's the one who will actually put up a fight on the behalf of the students -- and empower students to fight for ourselves.
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