…Homelessness
McMaster students are once again embarking on the pointless exercise of sleeping outside the McMaster University Student Centre for a week. In an effort to “draw their fellow students’ attention to the fact that true homelessness is a serious problem in Hamilton and across Canada,” (read: add to their resumes that they camped out, the poor dears) four commerce (but of course) students will be spending the week outside of the student centre.
“[T]hey are to live only on donated food and without the benefit of showers.” NO SHOWERS? How will they EVER survive without pampering their spoiled asses with baby powder every morning. There ARE other ways to keep clean, they’re called sinks. You know, those things you stand in front of in the morning when you spend half an hour fixing your hair JUST right or you don’t go to school because of a bad hair day.
This kind of stuff really pisses me off. It’s all for show, and nothing for the cause. Sure the team “is collecting donations of cash, clothes, non-perishable food and bus tickets for donation” to various charities but they could do it without mocking the hardships those who really have to live on the street every day go through.
If you REALLY want to experience what homelessness is like, go to another school’s campus, somewhere where your friends and family won’t be giving you food and where people don’t know what you’re doing, who you are and why you’re there. Face their looks of disapproval and disgust like many homeless have to every day and only then you will come close to not feeling “privileged, even “spoiled,” to use [Nicole's] own word.”
…Elections and the democratic process
In what is (I hope) an attempt to prove that the US isn’t the only place where the people vote for a president and a month later still not know who actually won the election, students still don’t know who the future president of the McMaster Students’ Union will be. During the course of three (that’s right three) recounts, the number of votes cast and counted has changed three times.
February 9th: 4217 votes cast; Jerimi Jones president
February 27: 4139 votes cast; Azim Kasmani president
March 5: 4238 votes cast; Jerimi Jones president
Now it seems that there will be another recount because a candidate who had been disqualified previously has won his appeal this past Friday, March 7th. The Election’s Committee, in all their wisdom, decided there was no reason to see how many votes he had since he was disqualified. Guilty until proven innocent, eh guys?
At this point, as a student, I don’t know what to think any more. Whoever is finally chosen as the president will have his term tainted by this ugly business. What a mockery!
I’ve created a Facebook Group to facilitate discussion since the previous one was closed for some odd reason. The discussion also continues in a MacInsiders.com thread.
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