“Sarah…Sarah…I can’t breathe…help!” She videotaped the whole event, believing in her preposterous wisdom that she was teaching him a lesson for what she perceived as his uppity mannerisms earlier in the evening.  No child in time-out had it so bad, although tales of cupboard barracks do abound only a generation hence.  All this to say, the “it could always be worse” mantra can make our real-world schoolwork struggles a bit more bearable.

Life itself can induce anxiety but at least, unlike the victim, we can still breathe.  What a horrific scene: Sarah’s victim, and in a small sense, the whole existence of life.  Trapped inside our flesh suits while our mind implies, by nature, that we are looking out and expressing our whims toward an audience—if we can escape first.  First there’s the inner treadmill upon which our mind’s eye circulates and self-critiques all in the general direction of producing some actual speech.  Indeed, a recent Scientific American article notes that we don’t actually need words to think.  Research reveals that “language and thought are, in fact, distinct entities that the brain processes separately.  The highest levels of cognition—from novel problem-solving to social reasoning—can proceed without an assist from words or linguistic structures.” So at least we’re not trapped in life by our ability to use words; we can rest assured that the essence of our being is special even if we lack the words to say so.  That’s one misery out of the bag, anyway.  Yet, to write effectively, we do have to be able to put our genius sentiments into some sort of order.  From malleable origins, our mind creates cogent sentences, paragraphs and, finally, a fully fleshed out thesis.

Sometimes we have to exit our mental box to overcome mental barriers and to be relatable to our target audience, because audience matters, be it a professor or a peer. In today’s world each of us knows that at a moment’s notice we can produce an internet video that curates our life’s essence down into a short media-friendly snippet.  Prior to Wi-Fi and smartphones this privilege was the realm of a chosen few, largely those who made their nightly appearance on the TV news.  Toward the tail end of the TV era, comic strip duo Calvin and Hobbes made some hay from the inchoate potential for us each, as pop artist Andy Warhol predicted, to have a fifteen-minute moment of fame– to be one’s own current events guide and news anchor, in other words.

In an exchange Calvin said “Look, Hobbes, I cut a cardboard box to make it look like a tv screen!  See I just hold it up (to frame my face) and it’s just like I’m on TV.”

Hobbes replied: “Wow, your own show!”

Then a bit of late 80s and early 90s reality kicks in; Calvin intones “Too bad I can’t really force my way into millions of homes each day.”

Then, he’s stricken by an epiphany: “On the other hand, no one in this home can turn me off!”

Now, for we who have shared a home with youth, we know that the ability to retain a reprieve from all the hue and cry that emanates from their cell phoneis a real struggle.  But the reality is that today’s society is replete with folks who have ever so much to say – and do so online more or less constantly and with reckless abandon.  The question in 2024 becomes, “how has the long and winding journey between mental sentiments and verbal emanations been altered?” given that we each are at once an almost constant audience and perpetual purveyor of news, views, and commentary.  Have we lost the ability to think independently of the social interactions endemic to social media? What about Rodan’s famous sculpture, The Thinker; where a lone individual citizen sits with his heart and mind presumably affixed on the deepest of thoughts?  Has isolation withered on the vine such that, irony of ironies, we’re now trapped in the manner of an actor—like the Jim Carey film The Truman Show—forced to forever be on the stage?.

Attendant to this dilemma is how any of us can unplug from the social media and Wi-Fi realm, whether for a day or a lifetime.  But that few of us do suggests that the substance itself, the reality of being in public, connected to the world, itself functions like an addictive substance.  And a straitjacket.  A suitcase whereupon our very personas become our prison.

Let’s consider the namesake of Hobbes’ human sidekick: Calvin.  A full four hundred years ago John Calvin, an earnest theologian, was pondering similar topics:  what if we were predestined to basically end up happy or end up sad (consigned to heaven or hell)? Like being tied to our reputation and our appearance in the eyes of others, which if we’re honest we have little control over when compared to our written or musical expression.  The visual realm of the internet implies a certain external and coercive control over our fate.  Perhaps it’s for this reason there’s so many makeup and workout videos.

Anyway, to Calvin, an all-powerful God who had created the universe and set in motion the lived reality we know of as time, where one thing happens and then another and then another, each in distinct succession in an expansive line over the horizon like an eternity scroll on social media, would, being God, by nature know in advance within his diorama of human drama the outcome of each life, each moment, and each word.  He’d know for sure who was going to go viral and whose video would induce groans from whose spouse.  Even our thoughts were not truly our own, in this way.  It’s a bit like how each side of a political divide assumes that the other has fallen victim to egregious cultural brainwash.

Calvin put it thus: “God is said to set apart those whom he adopts into salvation; it will be highly absurd to say that others acquire by chance or by their own effort what election alone confers on a few.  Therefore, whom God passes over, he condemns: and this he does for no other reason than that he wills to exclude them from the inheritance which he predestines for his own children.”

Talk about the ol’ “some of us are born on third base, privileged, and some of us are born on first base” and that whole trope – to Calvin we are literally predestined no matter what we do!

So at least we aren’t living in a Calvinist world, where our fates and therefore our motivation is problematic–we are surely, at least academically, masters of our destiny!  Sure, we can feel excessively contained by circumstances or the beliefs of those around us, or our own conflicted worldviews or personal issues, but in the end we are the ones who send in each essay or make each life choice.  And hey, our labours are all relative and not life and death: to express ourselves, like a would-be podcast host or another sort of soap-box specimen, is not to pronounce the truth so much as to convey our truth.  That’s why exam questions typically incite various possible answers, such as in compare and contrast questions.

No matter how much content we add to the digital morass, we also re-create many of the same limiting worldviews that we might like to imagine our education helps us overcome.  Maybe it helps to get back to our nature, our inquisitive essence as beings that wonder.  When we think outside the box, like a burrowing owl poking its head out from a knothole in a tree stump, we truly challenge ourselves.  Like Law School students diligently trained to acquire a deep understanding of alternate views, we might want to remember that, even when we feel ourselves exiting the tight confines of rigid certainties, within the bright light of day we might actually amount to little more than a distraught toddler who reaches ominously for his backside.  Plaintively, s/he wails “Help, the turtle is poking out it its shell!” Because just as every meal meets its fate at the business end of our digestive tract, each idea and belief can also appear as its opposite.  Everything gets out in the end, one way or the other.

References
Boone, S.  & Torres, J.  (2020).  Evidence in Court. Retrieved from https://www.courttv.com/title/graphic-video-sarah-boones-boyfriend-begs-to-be-released-from-suitcase/
Calvin, J.  (1559).  ‘Institutes (Quotes and Commentary)’.  Retrieved from https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/tensions-in-calvins-idea-of-predestination/
Carey, J.  (1998).  The Truman Show.  Retrieved from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120382/
Stix, G.  (2024).  ‘You Don’t Need Words to Think’.  Scientific American.  Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/you-dont-need-words-to-think/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us
Watterson, B.  (1987-1994).  Calvin and Hobbes.  Retrieved from https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/tensions-in-calvins-idea-of-predestination/

I’m back! This week’s Course Exam introduces readers to CMIS 311: Supporting End-User Computing.

Overview

CMIS 311 is a three-credit, senior-level course offered by the Faculty of Business.  It has no official prerequisites, though completion of CMIS 245 or previous experience with Microsoft Office is recommended. The course consists of three units and five assignments with no midterms or final exams.

Summary

CMIS 311 dives into the inner workings of information technology (IT) support. Who are the people behind the service desk, and how do they know what support a customer requires? This course answers those questions by identifying the crucial skills a helpdesk technician should possess. Moreover, it discusses the plethora of tools, technologies, and applications that analysts can access to solve problems. Lastly, it clarifies the larger organizational structure and functions of an IT career in the 21^st century.

Content

The course is broken down into three units comprised of two to four sections that directly correspond to chapters in the textbook. There are various forums for peer discussion, tutor updates, and assignment-related posts.

Evaluation

The final grade is determined by five assignments worth 20%. Three of these are scheduled after each unit, while the other two are larger projects designed to be compiled throughout the duration of the course.

Assignments are marked promptly and fairly by the course tutor. Feedback is provided for each component so students can understand what they did well and what needs improvement.

Materials and Costs

This course is based around A Guide to Customer Service Skills for the Service Desk Professional by Donna Knapp. As such, a Course Materials Fee is included within tuition. Students are encouraged to download the eText to VitalSource as soon as possible after the start date. Alternatively, a physical copy may be purchased.

Furthermore, students must have access to Microsoft Office 2013 or newer. Fortunately, AU provides the suite free of charge for current registrants who do not possess it already.

The Course Fee Calculator can be used to determine the cost of any undergraduate course. More information about tuition and fees can also be found on AU’s website under the Applications and admissions tab.

How Does the Course Fit Into AU at Large?

Unlike CMIS 245 and 351, 311 is not a required course for undergraduate programs in the Faculty of Business. Rather, it is a popular elective for students from any faculty. It is a great middle-ground option for people who are interested in computers and information systems but lack the highly technical proficiencies. It teaches many transferable skills, such as workplace communication, active listening, troubleshooting, and portfolio management.

Who Should Take This Course and Why?

I was drawn to CMIS 311 because of its positive reputation in online spaces (e.g., Reddit, AUSU Peer Course Reviews) and the pertinence of end-user support for any public-facing job with a digital component.

Of course, there are numerous other courses of a similar nature offered by AU—what makes CMIS 311 stand out amidst a sea of options? I got in contact with Terry Taylor, current tutor and course author, to gauge his thoughts. He emphasized that CMIS 311 is ideal for anybody who wants to expand their general knowledge of user support. The course does not delve into detailed support strategies but rather focuses on the service desk as a whole. It introduces learners to user support as a broad profession with many interpretations. Students will learn universal communication skills, customer service approaches, and stress management techniques, among other things. If you are naturally skilled in these areas and want to become a support worker in any capacity, CMIS 311 may be a good fit.

How Can Students be Successful in This Course?

Like with any AU course, CMIS 311 requires dedication, effort, and perseverance. In this course specifically, students should be comfortable with personal reflection, self-assessment, and collaboration through forums. They must inhabit the mind of a service desk technician in order to write out step-by-step procedures and interact with users politely and professionally.

Additionally, Terry Taylor stresses the need for prerequisite experience in digital literacy and basic computer science. There is a fair amount of writing involved, and it takes on many forms: journaling, interviewing, reporting, etc.

After completing the course myself, I have some wisdom to pass on to future students:

• For any assignments that require your peers to respond to your forum posts, I urge you to get ahead of these early on in the course. You never know how long it will take other students to reply to you.
• If you encounter ambiguity or dead ends in assignment instructions, check out the General Discussion and Course Updates forums—it is likely that other students experienced the same issues before you did.
• For the fifth and final assignment, the chapter summaries and key terms in the textbook will be your best friend. Trust me.

My Experience

While CMIS 311 is a popular course for students in the Faculty of Business, I enrolled as a curious mind from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. I have always been naturally skilled with computers and technical writing, so I decided to give it a try.

The course was laid out logically and easy to navigate. The chapters were heavy on common sense and a bit rudimentary, but I appreciated the format of them. The assignments had multiple moving parts, which deceived me at first, though the instructions were easy enough to follow. While I put in considerable effort, they did not take long, all things considered. The tutor was incredibly fast with marking while still managing to provide feedback. He was always easy to reach and seemed very knowledgeable about the field. I definitely got the sense that the course was a staple in the Faculty of Business—it seemed established and had a clear idea of what it wanted to teach students. Ultimately, this was the second course I completed at AU, and I believe it provided me with several skills that I will carry forward in my career.

Conclusion

The end!  If CMIS 311 is any indication, the Faculty of Business has lots to offer—even to non-Business students.

I want to thank Terrence Taylor for his input.

If you are looking for a straightforward course that can be completed in a reasonable timeframe, check out CMIS 311.

Courts Taking Police State-like Positions

A recent ruling by Ontario’s highest court determined that a racialized applicant who missed out on an employment opportunity because he failed a background check, despite having previously worked in policing and without any criminal history, was not entitled to know the details of his background check.  The racialized applicant left his job as special constable at the Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) to pursue an employment opportunity at Metrolinx.  At Metrolinx, however, he was told he was ineligible to work there because his background check received an unsatisfactory score.  An application to work as a police officer with the Toronto Police Service (TPS) resulted in another unsatisfactory score.  After exhausting those two potential opportunities, the TCHC also informed him that he was no longer fit to return to his old job and work as a special constable, solely on the basis of an unsatisfactory background score.

Here is the catch, Ontario’s courts ruled that he was not privy to the information that resulted in him failing a background check, nor should he be allowed to dispute the findings.  The court’s excuse was that allowing him would open a flood gate of individuals looking to dispute unsatisfactory scores that could burden the institution of policing.  However, Khorsand v. Toronto Police Service Board, pales in comparison to a lawsuit out of Ottawa that is before the courts.  That lawsuit involves five Somali-Canadian police officers who were secretly wiretapped for months, with no charges ever being laid against any of them, and the Ottawa Police Services (OPS) and Ottawa Police Services Board (OPSB) refuses to detail the reasons as to why they were placed under surveillance.

Somali-Canadian Police Officers Seeking Information

Five Somali-Canadian police officers are pursuing a lawsuit and want the courts to disclose all the information that the OPS used to obtain multiple wiretap warrants against them and for it to be made public The OPS and the OPSB have requested that the courts keep those reasons secret.  The five officers are arguing that the OPS has earned a reputation, internally and externally, as an institution rife with racism and discrimination, and race and ethnicity had a role to play in them being investigated.  The OPSB has responded to the lawsuit in a rather unusual response, “that such instances, even if true, are irrelevant and do not establish a systemic practice by the OPS of abusing state power to intercept individuals based on race or ethnic origin.”

Out of the four applications, the courts have only granted the application to unseal the fourth application, and the sole approved application was forwarded to be vetted by the Crown before it is released.  Although wiretap authorizations are supposed to require a high standard to be approved, and for police to demonstrate that they have exhausted all available investigative techniques.  The five officers, who were never involved in criminality, would either have had to have been the targets of the investigation and involved in criminality, or they would have had to be associated to the targets.  However, the five officers claim that the latter is also impossible because they have not associated with anyone involved in criminality.

The five officers, who have stated how they were hired in part because of their race, have faced retaliation for their anti-racism advocacy with the OPS.  Although the five officers had distant family members who got involved in gangs in their teenage years, the officers have no relationship with those individuals.  Yet, somehow, the Superior Court approved four wiretap warrants and allowed police to intercept their most private communications, and it has impacted their professional reputation and credibility.

The five officers have stated how their colleagues have told them that the manner in which they were treated was “fucked up” and that they knew that they were not involved in what was being alleged.  Other colleagues have stated that they were advised to stay away from these five officers.  One of the five officers had an exemplary record as an officer, with great performance reviews and never being the subject of any complaint.  Now those five officers echo the same message that racialized activist groups have been saying: they distrust the police (especially the OPS) as a result of having experience the weaponization of policing powers against them.

The Somali-Canadian and Black community organizations and their leaders ended up holding a press conference requesting that an independent investigation into the allegation be conducted and that there be accountability for any misconduct.  Additionally, community leaders requested that the OPS and OPSB admit they made a mistake and take the necessary steps to repair the damage they have done, but I expect that will never happen for two reasons.  The Police College teaches aspiring police officer that it is important to never admit any wrongdoing because the Police Services Act protects them from any liability if they claim they acted in good faith.  Whereas police service boards rely on the fact that criminal defence lawyers are not permitted to sit on these boards, and so their solicitors have been known to misinterpret the law because there is no repercussion for them doing so.

When the lawsuit gets in front of a judge, how are the five Somali-Canadian police officers supposed to present a holistic and accurate argument about the actions of the OPS if they are restricted from having access to all the information involving the wiretap applications? Such a power imbalance make it nearly impossible for any court to hear such a case’s facts in totality and to make rulings that are in the public interest of all Canadians.  So, it remains to be seen how the courts will rule on whether the five officers were “victims of discrimination, hostility and racist retaliation through state conduct”.

Power Imbalances and Centralized Control

Returning to Mr. Khorsand, the racialized Canadian denied and removed from employment for undisclosed background checks, after reaching out to the TCHC and Metrolinx to determine what involvement the two employers had when it came to those checks, neither was involved in that process, they did not track any hiring-related data, and stated as being bound to those findings.  So, there was no information on how many applicants who failed the background check also happened to be racialized applicants.  Nor was there any gathering of postal codes (socio-economic) data of applicants who failed the background check.  Neither organization seemed to be aware of the background check criterion or how someone could have no criminal history and still fail a background check.  Both organizations, as well as the Toronto Police Services Board (TPSB), advised to connect with the TPS for all relevant information regarding the background checks.

After connecting with the TPS media office and being advised that my request was in queue, three weeks passed and there was no response.  I only had a handful of questions for the TPS, and they were straightforward.  Did the TPS track application outcomes and the number of racialized Canadians that failed background checks despite not having any criminal history?   How acquainted were different stakeholders about the background check process and the different criterion?  And the last question inquired about whether the discovery of having unfavourable views of the TPS, policing at-large, or making unfavorable remarks over social media platforms, during open-source intelligence gathering, may cause someone to fail a background check.

The non-response was similar to previous interactions, when I submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request for the Toronto Police Services policies around general occurrence reports.  On that occasion, the FOI officer stated that I had to provide them with the public policies (Applicable Standards Ontario Policing Standard: AI-007) that another police service in the Greater Toronto Area had shared with me or I would not receive a response.  Almost seven months later, and not having provided the TPS with the other policing services policies, they have stopped responding altogether and I have not been provided with the public policies, by what should be a “democratic institution”.

Perhaps the key learning takeaway from participating in Harvard Business School’s “Power and Influence for Positive Impact”, was the introduction of a thinking framework by Dr.  Julie Battilana as it relates to power and organizational structures.  One way to look at power imbalances within institutional settings is that they exist for a reason.  Power imbalances allow for a centralized control over power-wielding outcomes, which becomes very desirable when dealing with institutions that are as tainted as the institution of policing and even the courts.  Although the complex legacy of the institution of our courts is one that has attempted to trend in the right direction and attempted to get outcomes right, it is still one that is rooted in oppression and systemic discrimination.  At the end of the day, knowledge is the sole enabler of justice, and it is why Canada’s courts are having to move the goal posts when it comes to antiquated practices that have no place in today’s society:  because you cannot argue the systemic nature of systemic practices when the knowledge of such practices is sealed and hidden away.

Personal Experiences of Police Weaponization

My familiarity on the general topic of the “weaponization of policing powers” is that I have had policing powers weaponized against me by a handful of Ottawa Police Service officers, including an officer who was working in the chief’s executive office.  Those officers attempted to file two frivolous police reports, one after the other, stemming from a request I made as board member of a community association.  These reports were so inaccurate, they caused me to do a public policy dive specific to policing reports and how the core issue of “carding” remained unresolved, but I was unable to dispute them despite having all the information to show how inaccurate they were.

Now the Ministry of the Solicitor General, after seven months, has yet to respond to my FOI and provide me with the provincial directives that they set out as well as what the Ontario Police College teaches aspiring police officers to do when they get police reports wrong.  Even after reaching out to my Member of Provincial Parliament and them attempting to assist me by reaching out to their contact at the Ministry, there is no response after multiple weeks.  The entirety of the situation is so ridiculous, but it perfectly illustrates the disaster of policing in Ontario.

The frivolous reports stem from me reporting an illegal online gambling ring in 2020 that exploited members of my ethnic community, where a member of that group offered to provide me with an online account in 2018.  They occurred immediately after the Ontario Civilian Policing Commission (OCPC) had revived a complaint I submitted about the illegal gambling ring and how the Ottawa Police Services Board had mishandled my complaint, on the advice of their lawyer.  But there is a twist.

This illegal online gambling saga is something I have previously written about, but without the part about how I hacked Italian organized crime, South Asian organized crime and the Hells Angels, in Ottawa and Ontario at-large, as a teenager (though federal policing and public safety stakeholders are aware) and finding out that this was an undercover investigation (discussed with my MPP’s office last summer).  So, the OPSB’s response to the OCPC, where they called my allegations as libelous, becomes much more interesting because of how they undermine the integrity of the oversight body, by submitting factual lies, either on the advice of their lawyer, or being made unaware.  Because the institution of policing is self-harming itself, the courts are enabling the self-destructive behavior, and both lack leadership to get back on track.

Maybe once I finish the public policy piece related to having two frivolous police reports filed against me, then readers might get an article that details how “the greatest hacks are seldom told”.

Nine questions were sent to the seventeen candidates, and thirteen of them responded.  Their answers are printed here, in the order they were received in email.  No editing has been done, and the candidates were informed of this,  so each response you see is a raw reflection of how they chose to respond.

So take a look, note the ones you think would best represent you on AUSU and when AUSU goes to talk to AU, the government, and other student organizations.  Then remember to vote when the polls open and we’ll see how it plays out!

What faculty are you in, if any, and how much longer do you expect to be studying at AU?

Josh Flis: I am student in the Department of Psychology, and I will be studying for a while yet!

Kari Thompson: I am in the Bachelor of Arts program, majoring in psychology, under the faculty of humanities and social sciences. On paper, I am in my third year of the program, yet as a student with multiple disabilities, I am on a reduced course load, which means I have at least a couple of years remaining to finish my degree.

Melanie Rousseau: I expect to be studying at Athabasca at least for the next two years, depending on what life has in store for the next couple years!

Chimaraoke Akuchie: I am currently pursuing a Bachelor of Professional Arts in Human Services at AU. I anticipate completing my studies within the next two years.

Neil Fraser: I am doing a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science with a minor in Global Studies, and I am just about to finish my first year of the degree!

Faustina Arsenault: My program is in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, and I plan to be studying until 2026.

Annette Karien: I am in the faculty of science and technology (FST) and will finish my course (Biological Sciences), in Dec 2026.

Tammy Monro: I am in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and intend to be studying for at least one more year with plans to extend that to a second year with a certificate program.

Dianna Ramirez: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. 2 year longer.

Jan Lehmann: Faculty of Science. Couple more years to go.

Aiza Nazamatova: My name is Aiza Nazarmatova. I am currently enrolled in the Bachelor of Nursing program at AU and anticipate completing my studies within the next two or three years. In addition to school, I am currently working as a nurse case manager in the Rheumatology clinic at the AHS facility.

Dabin Park: I am a Business student with an Accounting major. I expect to study at AU for 3 years.

Deidra Mahabal: Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences and I expect to study at AU until Spring 2025.

Aside from tuition, what do you think is the most important issue AUSU needs to address for students?

Josh Flis: Exam processes and Brightspace integration are real-time issues that require constant monitoring. Course content delivery can always improve, and exam invigilation agreements could use fresh eyes. I would want to see the current benchmarks and contract with ProctorU, schedule meetings with department heads about course delivery, and survey student cohorts to generate and implement data driven change.

Kari Thompson: I believe that ensuring the courses that students are paying a large amount of money for are kept up to date, with textbooks that are currently relevant. Course design should, at least, ensure pertinent Canadian information is provided if the text covers a different country’s information. Additionally, course formats should be accessible to all the different types of learners, as we have a great wealth of knowledge that every student learns differently, which should be accounted for in course designs and adjusted to add the new technological advances (i.e., video format with transcripts).

There should also be a more accessible and simplistic manner for students to address problems they encounter, as walking into the faculty office to speak with a professor or supervisors is not possible in a distance University. There is no physical location for students to go when they have questions, and there are still a large number of links on the AU website that are broken, leaving students stranded for answers.

Melanie Rousseau: COURSE CONTENT SUPPORT: it is my mission to improve the guidance we receive in each course in order to achieve success, whether this be methods of course delivery, multiple tutors per course for contact, video calls and lectures, access-friendly study groups, or alternate options for course credit.

It is important to advocate for breaking the stigma and practices of online individualized studies that lean toward making us walk this path alone.

Chimaraoke Akuchie: Aside from tuition, I believe the most important issue AUSU needs to address for students is accessibility to resources and support services, especially for students facing financial, academic, or personal challenges.

Neil Fraser:. Plain language reform. I personally struggled with understanding the vocabulary of post-secondary, how course credits work, class requirements for majors and minors, and website navigation. I feel like it would benefit everyone to simplify the language of this process and make it easier for those who may be new to post-secondary to feel more comfortable throughout their experience.

Faustina Arsenault: Making courses interactive, with video, audio, and AI formating. Studying solely through an online textbook and written lectures, is not worth the amount of money we pay for these courses.

Annette Karien: 1.    The quality of the course content and presentation needs to be improved. There can be more recorded video lectures in all the courses, like those used in Edx, and other Canadian universities. All the psychology courses should have this feature.

2.    Building a more connected community that gives students almost the same feeling as being on campus when attending an in-person university.

3.    For funded students, more 16-week schedule- friendly courses, and more support from administration and staff during the Christmas holidays.

4.    The schedule for the turnaround time for marking assignments, tests and exams needs to be re-emphasized to the marking staff.

5.    Allocating more transfer credits for students with a prior degree.

Tammy Monro: Accessibility is an important issue to be addressed by AUSU. While AU is a distance school and that certainly removes many of the barriers students may face, there are still some that exist within the courses themselves. For example, some courses require direct and consistent communication with the course professor which could be difficult for a full-time working student with additional extracurricular responsibilities.

Dianna Ramirez: The content formats for accessing course material, AUSU need to advocate for more options such as reading, videos, audio.

Jan Lehmann: Ranking second after tuition is course delivery. This is a 3 faceted issue comprising: 1- Lack of video demonstrations of the required material  2- Lack of access to one on one video/call tutoring 3- Lack of options in online exam invigilation.

Tuition, being the number one barrier to learning and seeing the many increases in recent years, could be frozen for at least 5 years so no more increases can take effect during this period.

Aiza Nazamatova: While tuition is a significant concern for many students, there are several other important issues that AUSU may need to address to enhance the overall student experience. One significant issue is the provision of robust tutoring support for each course that AU offers. In addition, there are a few other aspects that AUSU should be addressing:

1)                      Advocacy for Student Rights:

As an AUSU Council member, I would be crucial in representing students’ interests. Advocating for students’ rights, fair grading practices, and other academic concerns. This act ultimately will contribute to a positive and supportive learning environment.

2)                      Communication and Information Dissemination

Improving communication channels between the university administration and students is vital. As an AUSU council member, I could advocate for transparent and timely information dissemination regarding policy changes, academic updates, and admission requirements changes for the post-LPN BN program.

3)                      Financial assistance and Scholarships

Beyond tuition, addressing financial challenges is crucial. AUSU could work towards increasing the availability of scholarships, grants, and financial aid programs to support students may be facing economic difficulties.

Dabin Park: Aside from tuition, the most important issue AUSU needs to address for students is enhancing student engagement and maximizing non-academic offerings.

University should be more than just a certificate; it is an opportunity for students to unlock their potential and broaden their horizons. Therefore, it is crucial to prioritize initiatives that go beyond academics, such as boosting participation in student groups, volunteering, and events. These experiences contribute to a well­ rounded education and enrich the overall student experience.

Deidra Mahabal: The most important issue that AUSU needs to address is providing more information critical to student enrollment in terms of orientation, changes made to programs that may affect program duration and realistic career opportunities after program completion. I believe preparing students for what student life is truly like with AU is critical to student engagement which can increase enrollment rates and decrease dropout rates.

What’s the best part of an average day for you?

Josh Flis: A Timmies and whatever book I am reading. Currently, a medium double-double and Musicophillia, by Oliver Sacks. Otherwise, its when I am running – but running is not as comfortable as coffee and a book.

Kari Thompson: The best part for me is being able to babysit my grandpuppy, see my partner off to work, being here when my older children need me, and working beside my 11-year-old while we both get our academic work accomplished for the day. I love being able to be a good academic role model.

Melanie Rousseau: My morning personal time. Online studies with Athabasca require me to start my day with an strict, nourishing routine: hydration, journaling, body movement, and fruit! Prioritizing myself with these activities set me into gear for the rest of the day.

Chimaraoke Akuchie: The best part of an average day for me is connecting with family, friends and peers, whether it’s through meaningful conversations, shared experiences, or simply enjoying each other’s company.

Neil Fraser: Going for a walk with my wife and my dog! I find it helps to reduce the stress and anxiety from the day-to-day issues life throws your way and helps you to focus on the little things in life.

Faustina Arsenault: Learning!

Annette Karien: As a task focused person, completing assignments and meeting my own deadlines is the best part of the day for me.

Tammy Monro: I love to come home after work and be greeted by my excited dogs followed by cooking dinner for my family.

Dianna Ramirez: Being able to accomplish my to-do list, I have ADHD and I get easily distracted, so, I take it day by day. Completing a list is a massive accomplishment for me.

Jan Lehmann: Family time and cuddling with my children.

Aiza Nazamatova: The best part of an average day for me is engaging in meaningful discussions with fellow nursing students through virtual platforms, exchanging diverse perspectives, and creating a vibrant atmosphere with our academic journey.

Dabin Park: The best part of an average day for me is studying other cultures and languages. This passion for exploring the world and embracing diversity allows me to broaden my horizons and deepen my understanding of different perspectives.

Each day presents an opportunity for me to connect with people from diverse backgrounds, fostering mutual respect and appreciation for our shared humanity.

Deidra Mahabal: I am a foodie/food critic so the best part of an average day for me is finding time to fix myself up a nice plate of food that is of interest to me. It’s nice to reward myself with a meal that isn’t a frozen dinner, yesterday’s leftover, or a pot full of goulash.

If there was a new service, program, activity, or degree you could convince AU (not AUSU) to offer to students, what would it be?

Josh Flis: AU stands on the pillars of research, health sciences, business, and education, which serve in anchoring our academic identity. In my Voice article, “Minds We Meet,” I proposed an integration of MBA coursework with advanced psychology studies, envisioning a top-tier organizational psychology graduate program. I also suggested capitalizing on our reputation for excellence to launch a unique graduate program specializing in personality and learning development.

Importantly, I aspire to survey students and faculty, capturing the pulse of our educational dreams. Given AU’s decentralized structure, the student council can help shape the student experience, potentially outpacing other institutions in industry advancement.

Student services are in a constant state of evolution. Collaborating with AU staff on the continued development of Brightspace and advocating for more video/lecture course content are crucial to meeting the needs of contemporary students.

Therefore, I am committed to empowering our teams and students to achieve these goals. Not just for our present circumstances, but for our collective future as we transition into the workforce. I am the 2024 catalyst to drive this directive forward.

Kari Thompson: I would want AU to provide more master’s and doctoral programs. These programs through other institutions are not generally as accessible to individuals with disabilities, or those who must also maintain a family and work. Plus, when you have established a good routine with your higher education, making a big shift to another institution may not be as feasible, leading many to stop short of what they could achieve.

Melanie Rousseau: Group-study AU points system – a software tracked through the Athabasca homepage that pairs us with students of our own courses. Each study session, or course content discussion that takes place between different students can be logged and added to a points system that can be put towards perks such as a free exam. This will encourage students to collaborate and help each other!

Chimaraoke Akuchie: If I could convince AU to offer a new service, I would advocate for the establishment of a mentorship program that pairs students with alumni or professionals in their field of study to provide guidance, support, and networking opportunities.

Neil Fraser: I think a valuable service that AU could offer is “meet and greet” opportunities with your fellow students and tutors! A “Student Café” or “Online Pub” would be a cool aspect of online classes.

Faustina Arsenault: A better text-to-speech program for accessibility, more science degree programs – such as a neuroscience, pre-med programs, and virtual clubs for students to connect over shared interests.

Annette Karien: More PhD and Masters options and implementing the BSc in Psychology program. The world is a global village, and the university can gain more from offering online options in these fields, as since after covid, distance and online education has been in high demand. More people are choosing flexibility as a major factor in acquiring more education.

Tammy Monro: Either a diploma or degree in social work that is accredited and can be used to register with a social work governing body.

Dianna Ramirez: Community building: such as clubs, in person meetings, forums.

Jan Lehmann: Bachelor of Science in Psychology.

Aiza Nazamatova: I could advocate for a new offering at AU, I would propose the introduction of a mentorship program and virtual tutoring services that connect students with experienced professionals in their field of study, providing valuable insights and guidance for career development.

Dabin Park: If I could convince AU to offer a new program, I would propose expanding diversity events and club activities. These initiatives celebrate cultural diversity, promote cross-cultural understanding, and provide opportunities for students to engage with different communities on campus. By fostering inclusivity and appreciation for diverse perspectives, these events and activities would enrich the overall student experience at AU.

Deidra Mahabal: AU should provide alternative pathways for students to meet course prerequisites so they can enroll in these courses and complete them so they can finish their program.

What’s going to be the biggest challenge for you should you get elected?

Josh Flis: My greatest challenge will be the inevitable farewell at the end of my term. I thrive on purpose-driven leadership, a realm in which I truly belong. This is my calling, my forte, and there’s little else that resonates with me as profoundly.”

Kari Thompson: The biggest challenge for me would be the limitations placed on the role, that despite having better and/or more effective solutions for the University to implement, we are limited in the ability to force needed changes.

Melanie Rousseau: Being able to reach students with limited social media. So far, I have been using my Instagram and Facebook platforms to discover the current needs/ideas from students. I am concerned about missing a large fraction of student voices, unless I can find other means of communication.

Chimaraoke Akuchie: The biggest challenge for me, should I get elected, will be balancing my responsibilities as a student council member with my academic workload and other commitments i.e. family. Time management and prioritization will be key.

Neil Fraser: I think my biggest challenge will be something a lot of students at AU can relate with… not having enough time! Working full-time and doing full-time classes is already a busy schedule for myself, but I look forward to taking on this role if I am lucky enough to get elected!

Faustina Arsenault: Fighting to change every course’s format on AU, to be modernized, interactive, to create a better learning experience for everyone

Annette Karien: Getting students to participate in the contribution of knowledge which can make the student experience more personalized to help them timely complete their courses, frustration free.

Tammy Monro: I often have a habit of taking on more than I should because I am passionate about making a difference.

Dianna Ramirez: Being a single mother.

Jan Lehmann: The uncontrollable nature of change is often a challenge to any human and I can see it being my biggest challenge in this advocacy role. Sometimes change takes a long time to occur and sometimes it happens too quickly and some change we have no control over. Affecting change in the context of student council requires a holistic approach and true team work and adapting to the change that is beyond our control requires resilience.

Aiza Nazamatova: Should I get elected, my biggest challenge would be balancing the responsibilities of the positions with my academic commitments, ensuring both receive the attention they deserve.

Dabin Park: The biggest challenge for me, should I get elected, will be setting a positive example for my fellow students. As a representative of the student body, it is essential for me to lead by example and demonstrate integrity, dedication, and a strong work ethic. Striving to embody these qualities will not only earn the trust and respect of my peers but also inspire them to actively engage in campus life and contribute positively to our community.

Deidra Mahabal: The biggest challenge for me is being a perfectionist who sets high standards in all that I do and often overthinks.

Is there a program or activity AUSU does now that you think it should expand?

Josh Flis: Id love to see the online student engagement activities expanded. More video sessions with professors, government leaders, our partnered research programs. At AU, students experience separation by both time and space, so leveraging our digital community to enrich the learning experience not only connects the students more often, but even spreads inspiration more potently. Frome a stakeholder perspective, this can be so positive for us as students, alumni, and for the staff, and partnered allies. All stakeholders benefit!

I’d also love to see more legal studies courses, these would supplement our current streams so well, and could lead to a potential JD program, which would be impressive!

Kari Thompson: I think AUSU should expand on the bursaries and awards provided to students, as more should be supplied in areas with abundant applications. Plus, there should be a defined separation between the bursaries and awards for need and those based on a defined achievement.

Melanie Rousseau: Mental Health and Wellness program, as well as tutoring services

Chimaraoke Akuchie: I believe AUSU’s advocacy efforts could be expanded to include more support for student mental health and wellness initiatives, such as organizing workshops, support groups, or awareness campaigns.

Neil Fraser: I think that it would be a great idea for AUSU to offer more affordable health and dental benefits for the student body. I would also like to try and look into adding those fees into your tuition on an opt-in/opt-out basis, making it less money for you to worry about as you are working hard on your post-secondary education.

Faustina Arsenault: Having clubs for students to participate in with monthly/biweekly meetings, like physical universities do.

Annette Karien: Promoting the AUSU app and promoting the optional health insurance service available to students.

Cheaper AU Merch for students will also be a welcome development.

Tammy Monro: At this time, I am not sure if there is anything I would suggest expanding. This is because I feel that with the current political climate it will be important for AUSU to continue to be the voice of students who rely on AU as a way to achieve their educational and career goals and that may involve the majority of the union’s time.

Dianna Ramirez: Yes the podcast! Opening up the mic to more students (all though I’m not sure if this is an option already). This can help students have a sense of belonging by contributing to AU community.

Jan Lehmann: More online events to bring students together.

Aiza Nazamatova: AUSU could improve tutoring services for students who may struggle with academic achievement, and expanding the tutoring program to cover a wider range of subjects would benefit students seeking academic support.

Dabin Park: I believe AUSU should expand its support for student-led initiatives and events, and club activities by providing additional funding, resources, and promotion.

Encouraging more diverse and inclusive programming will cater to the interests and needs of all students.

Deidra Mahabal: AUSU should expand on their current career development online platform and offer workshops to help students develop professional writing skills to meet the criteria needed for scholarship applications, personal resumes/curriculum vitae, or volunteer applications. It’s unfortunate to see so many scholars walk away with outstanding degrees but are still stuck working their summer jobs at the local grocery store, café, or retail outlet.

Is there a program or activity AUSU does now that you think it could cut back?

Josh Flis: I’m not sure I would want to cut back on programs without data to review. And I’m not aware of any activities that are materially problematic for AU students now.

Kari Thompson: I cannot think of any programs or activities that could be cut back. Nevertheless, I am open to the opinions that others may have, especially if the funds already being used can be reallocated to areas that better address the needs of the students.

Melanie Rousseau: Unsure about this one! This will require me to soon dive deeper into all that Athabasca has to offer.

Chimaraoke Akuchie: While AUSU provides valuable services and programs, I think there could be potential for streamlining certain administrative processes to improve efficiency and resource allocation.

Neil Fraser: The needs of the student body vary so much and if we were to cut back on certain programs or activities, we should only do so after having a good discussion on it. I feel like if we needed to pick and choose which programs should be cut back on without having those discussions.

Faustina Arsenault:  I honestly don’t think there’s anything that needs to be cut back!

Annette Karien: I am not aware of any currently.

Tammy Monro: I feel that all services, programs, and activities are valuable to each student.

Dianna Ramirez: N/A

Jan Lehmann: I have not encountered such a program or activity. As a student I am very grateful for AUSU and each person that dedicated time and effort to support the students and enhance the student experience at AU.

Aiza Nazamatova: As far as I am aware, there were constant changes in the curriculum and admission requirements for the post-LPN BN program. One of the reasons I would like to step into the AUSU Council position is to bring nurses and other healthcare professionals’ voices to the table. As we are facing nursing shortages not only province-wise but across Canada, it is crucial for the government authorities and other universities, including AU, to make it accessible for licensed practical nurses to upgrade to Registered Nursing degrees to ensure efficiency in the healthcare system.

Dabin Park: At present, AUSU is doing well in providing various programs and activities for students. However, I believe there is still untapped potential for introducing new programs or activities to further enrich the student experience. Rather than focusing on cutting back existing initiatives, AUSU should prioritize exploring opportunities for expanding its offerings to cater to a wider range of student interests and needs. This proactive approach will ensure that AUSU continues to evolve and meet the ever-changing demands of the student body.

Deidra Mahabal: No, I don’t think there is a program or activity that AUSU should cut back on. I believe that the ones that are in place are purposeful, enhance student engagement, and help with student life.

What do you hope being elected will bring you personally?

Josh Flis: An elected position will bring me back into the mix of collaborative business operations, contract negotiations, and creating opportunity. The council role will position me to brainstorm with others, together forging the future for AU students, which is so exciting!

Kari Thompson: I hope that being elected will help me elevate my social capabilities. As this position would put me far outside of my social comfort zone, and prospectively learning from more naturalistic social experiences.

Melanie Rousseau: I hope that an elected position will allow my voice for change to be amplified. I have always pushed to be my own personal advocate in life, and desire to carry the voices of others during their education journeys with the volume that this position will bring.

Chimaraoke Akuchie: Personally, I hope being elected will bring me the opportunity to make a meaningful impact on the AU student community, as well as personal growth and development through leadership experience.

Neil Fraser: Getting involved in politics and running for elected office is where most of my aspirations lie once I finish my degree, so I look at this as a great way to prepare myself for my future career.

Faustina Arsenault: As I have over a dozen courses to finish before graduation, I would really like the future courses I take through AU to be more interactive, and less reading based, due to visual disabilities from my traumatic brain injury. I hope to use my experience to fight for a change to course materials and formats for all students.

Annette Karien: Leadership experience and satisfaction for having contributed to my community.

Tammy Monro: The ability to advocate for those with softer, quieter voices such as the single parents and newcomers who rely on AU as a way to progress their education and careers. AU is a valuable resource for individuals who can’t attend traditional brick and mortar schools due to working full time, distance, or child minding. Bringing together a variety of passions and voices is important to creating a robust council and I hope to have a chance to bring forward mine to use for those who are not in a place to run for or sit on council.

Dianna Ramirez: I hope to gain more experience advocating, as well using my platform to bring awareness of issues being faced by marginalized communities.

Jan Lehmann: As a student counselor I will get to drive the change I wish to see, undergoing growth by practicing leadership, organization, effective communication and collaboration, all while serving my AU family and advocating for fellow students.

Aiza Nazamatova: Being elected, I hope to gain valuable leadership experience, deepen my understanding of student advocacy, and continue meaningfully to improve AU’s student experience. I hope that this experience allows me to voice some of the struggles and challenges that nursing students face during their academic years with AU. I would like to minimize barriers for nursing students to enter the Bachelor of Nursing program with fewer course loads and practicum hours to advance their education.

Dabin Park: Being elected would personally bring me a sense of fulfillment and accomplishment, knowing that I have been entrusted with the responsibility to represent and advocate for the interests of my fellow students. It would also provide me with valuable leadership experience and the opportunity to make a positive impact on campus life.

Deidra Mahabal: I hope being elected will allow me to be a mentor for AU students who view me as approachable, considerate of other opinions, and can take student’s hardships find solutions, be persistent, and turn them into positive experiences.

Outside of AU, what’s your passion?

Josh Flis: I love playing music, and I wish I had a small bar band. Reading is important to me. Skiing and snowboarding are two sports without which I can’t live. I don’t play video games, but I am enthusiastic about Bungie games and the stories they tell. I am an ex-foodie, and I’ve ate at NOMA Copenhagen, Araxi, Le Saint Amour, and over a dozen Top Chef restaurants across Canada. My favourite 3 Canadian restaurants are Rodney’s Oyster House, BUCA, and Matty Mathesons old spot in Parkdale, Parts & Labor. My best friends are cool, down to earth, and supportive, so I am supportive of them, too. Finally, I think genuine human love or respect for one another is the highest form of social justice.

I’m running for council. It’s your vote and our future. Vote FLIS

Kari Thompson: My passion has always been children. I want to improve the lives of as many children as possible, leading me to seek systemic changes, which must begin with helping the adults in their lives to achieve their goals. As those adult behaviours and achievements being modelled and perpetually observed, will elevate their children’s perceptions of their potential. I know it did for me when I observed my mother achieve a degree in computer science, after starting her return to school just to gain her high school diploma when she was 40 with six children at home.

Melanie Rousseau: Long-distance running!

Chimaraoke Akuchie: Outside of AU, my passion lies in advocating for diversity, inclusion, social justice in the

Thank you again for the opportunity to participate in this Q&A.

Neil Fraser: My passion outside of political science and global studies is nature! Hiking in the mountains with my wife and dog, trail-running, birdwatching, walking… truly doing anything outside in nature is my passion! Although, I would have to say a very close second is playing music!

Faustina Arsenault: Traumatic brain injury awareness, all things health and neuroscience, neuro-rehabilitation, randomly learning about things, music, fashion, and cooking!

Annette Karien: Helping the people around me and connecting people to resources that help them be a better person.

I am also a science and technology enthusiast and spend my time learning about inventions.

I look forward to seeing more advanced technologies in health; yes, including robots, and personalized AI technology for disabled people. Imagine an advanced technology can use magnets and vibrations to help the blind see the faces and objects around them.

Tammy Monro: I have many passions including supporting individuals in families during some of their worst days. I enjoy giving back to the community through volunteer activities such as being a victim advocate with my local victim services and being a board member on our local animal shelter’s board of directors.

Outside of my volunteer activities, I like to dive into the world of being a giant nerd. I like to sew costumes, build props, and more specifically LARP and play tabletop roleplay games like D&D. This is what fills my bucket!

Dianna Ramirez: I dedicate my time to reduce systemic racism for migrants living in Canada. I hope I can continue to empower my community and share stories of harsh reality of many injustices happening here.

Jan Lehmann: Serving my community through advocacy and building resilience and driving growth in myself and others.

Aiza Nazamatova: Outside of AU, my passion lies in playing tennis and volunteering at the YMCA facility, where I burn some calories. These activities not only serve as personal outlets but also contribute to my overall well-being and the well-being of my community.

Dabin Park: Outside of AU, my passion lies in organizing and participating in diversity events. Drawing from my cultural background and experiences, I am enthusiastic about showcasing different cultures and helping newcomers integrate into our community. I believe in the power of cultural exchange and understanding to foster empathy and appreciation for diversity. I enjoy dedicating my time and efforts to causes that make a difference in people’s lives and contribute to building stronger, more connected communities.

Deidra Mahabal: My passion is children, I am intrigued by how they learn, their daily interactions, and their sense of being; whereas, I believe each child has a gift. I want to help children find their purpose and become the rocket scientists, lawyers, or veterinarians that they aspire to be when they grow up. The types of dreams that often seem so far-fetched. As a volunteer ambassador for the Stollery Children Hospital Foundation, I am intrigued by the way pet art therapy is therapeutic to children and adolescents.

In the four years that I have been writing for The Voice Magazine, during the investigative process I have had some individuals randomly tell me things like, “We can not name any potential bills after you.” and “You do not have a background in immigration, and you are not a lawyer, what makes you think you are qualified to write about immigration as it pertains to the law?” Then there was a fun two-week waiting period after I requested to connect with the FBI’s media department, and one of the questions asked during this screening process was whether I had ever worked with the FBI before.  Although I wanted to respond by somewhat mirroring their question and making reference to an award-winning TV series by asking, “Have I ever worked with the FBI? Do I give off Neal Caffery from White Collar (2009-2014) vibes?”, I used better judgement.  Eventually hearing back from them and getting to where I needed to go.

Perhaps the cherry on the cake of my academic investigative journalism is having two consecutive frivolous police reports being filed against me by small-time street level officers regarding questions I had wanted to ask police brass, and a request I made as a sitting board member of my local community association.  The police reports were void of any mention to these questions and factual information, and they somehow required six police officers to be mentioned in them.  More weird, the police reports make it clear that the two officers who filed them only did so after their supervisors told them to do so, essentially making it so that they would be absolved of any wrongdoing since they had “followed orders”.  One of the officers who filed the first report happened to be our community resource officer who attended our community association meetings every month.  Another one of those six officers also included an officer who was representing the Chief’s Office, but never identified himself as such and instead only stated that he was replacing the supervisor of one of the supervising officers.  On the other hand, to counter the actions of the small-time street level officers, other officers went out of their way to refer to me as “buddy”, which was kind of funny.

One byproduct of that series of events is that it allowed me to add this joke of an interaction to my arsenal of knee-slappers, “How many Ottawa Police Services officers does it take to file two consecutive frivolous police reports? I have gotten up to six, just do not ask me to elaborate on the kind of thinking that was involved on those two occasions.” On a more serious note, it helped me uncover other public policy deficiencies related to the institution of policing and systemic failings at the provincial level.  Overall, the positive and fun interactions have significantly outweighed the few isolated incidents of “What the f@ck?”, but the biggest takeaway from everything has been how there is so much scepticism about anything that has to do with journalism and questions that are aimed to get at the core of an issue.  Simply put, the journalism landscape is more toxic now than ever before, and it is worth looking into why that might be.

Yellow Journalism.  Tabloid Journalism.  Click Bait.

Hearing someone yell, “fake news”, is far more understandable than hearing someone say, “yellow journalism”.  The term “yellow journalism” is somewhat of a forgotten term that was used in the early 1900s to describe journalism that was an exaggeration of facts, sensationalized, and focused on grabbing a person’s attention in the hope that it would result in them buying a newspaper.  The way it worked was that the undesirable elements of a story that made it less exciting or provocative would get removed, and the focus on stirring up controversy or creating a scandal turned out to be a quite lucrative model.  Back then, a tabloid-like title on the front page of newspaper could sell a newspaper on its own, and since Google and Bing did not exist the readers would often believe the entirety of what they read – there was no fact checking back then.

Over the decades, however, more and more stories that had been published would end up getting exposed as complete fabrications, everything from the lives people lived to how businesses did business.  It resulted in some reporters being exposed for lying and some publications getting the reputation of being conspiracy peddling mediums.  However, everything seemed to change after the arrival of the internet, when discussion boards and chatrooms began to be leveraged to expose news stories from the past as being fake stories.  Then Google added the “news” extension to its search feature, archived news pieces became available, and with the arrival of Facebook and Twitter, the entire media and communications landscape changed over a few short years.

Communities that had historically struggled with disenfranchisement and who had to rely solely on media outlets to have their voices heard also became able to bypass the traditional gatekeepers of stories, as did the elements of fringe that only existed in chatrooms and discussion boards.  Facebook and Twitter put a picture to people’s voices, but more importantly it allowed for everyone to congregate on the platforms and to create somewhat of a global community where everyone had instant access to everyone.  Then when cell phones began to have 2- and 3-megapixel cameras and when they became able to record videos, that was the beginning of the end.  Few could have imagined how this combination would eventually end up challenging peoples’ belief systems of the world we lived in.  Soon enough, stories that might have been considered too unbelievable, too extreme, or too risky for media outlets to publish bypass media outlets all together and instead made their way on Facebook, Twitter, and eventually YouTube.

Individuals who understood how to leverage boosting services during the early era of social media and how to manipulate social media algorithms are the recipients of an unfair advantage over legacy media outlets who are late to the game.  Legacy media outlets are unlikely to spend the same amount of money in order to gain viewers.  Even if legacy media outlets did manage to breakthrough, the manner in which the public consumes news has changed so much, a lot of it is unmonetizable, like breaking news posted on X (formerly Twitter).  However, the same fight that was fought over people to buy newspapers back in the 1900s has returned in the form a fight that is fought for clicks, eyeballs and engagement over different social media platforms.  And the yellow fever that was once exclusive to yellow journalism has seeped into politics and throughout civil society.

The worst of yellow journalism, “Finally.  Someone who thinks like me.”

Perhaps the most dehumanizing piece of writing that I have ever come across dates back to 2016, an article titled, “Finally.  Someone who thinks like me.” After reading the article, it represents the very worst that journalism has to offer.  It is so bad that referring to the article as journalism feels wrong, because the purpose of the article seems to have been a desire to paint a broad picture of the kind of people that voted for Donald Trump.  The “perfect candidate” was a woman who lived in a small town in Pennsylvania and who was open about her mental health struggles, her struggles with employment, and who seemed to have experienced a significant amount of trauma in her life.

Almost immediately into the article, things start to go off the rails when the woman mentions conspiracy theories that had to do with a former President’s faith and orientation.  The woman also shares how she experienced sexism and harassment in her professional career, and how it ended up giving her PTSD, depression, and anxiety.  Then there is reference to the town she lives in being economically insecure, which was once full of work in coal mines and on railroads.  There is even mention how sometimes the woman even forgets to take her medication, how she was even hospitalized for radicalization and posting online threats directed at the President, and how she had once been a Democrat.  By the end of the article, it is impossible not to feel bad for the woman who seems to have lived a difficult life and been exposed to a lot of traumatic experiences, having fallen on hard financial times, and still struggling to find balance in her life.

The article seems to have been a hit piece from the get-go and as a way to get at Trump at the expense of an unwell woman in her 50s, but there are so many unanswered questions about how it came to be.  How did this writer find this woman, and what did they tell her for her to agree to share some of the most intimate parts of her life? Did this woman know that she would be portrayed in the manner that she was? More importantly, however, how did nobody think that this article may be a bad idea, that it dehumanized a 50-year-old woman in order to score cheap political points against a person who was also known for dehumanizing language? Whatever the story behind this article may have been, hopefully articles like this one can be relegated to a point in time where journalism’s trajectory took a slight dip.

From following our North Star to chasing dysfunction.

Pure journalism has never been about dehumanizing people as if they were a soulless combination of meat and bones and nothing more.  Pure journalism has always been about focusing on good governance and transparent institutions, the rule of law and the equal administration of justice, societal highs and lows, and celebrating the freedoms of democracy.  Because the world is full of countries that will jail journalists and dissidents when they make it known that they want to celebrate the freedoms of democracy and bring to light the issue of uncomfortable truths,

After Donald Trump entered the world of politics, however, it is hard not to feel that the institution of journalism dipped and continued to do so into the Covid-19 lockdowns.  It might be one of the hardest falls from grace for any institution; seeing journalism move away from chasing the North Star and reporting on the stories that mattered most to stories that chased dysfunction and othered people.  But that story that needs to be told from this period, including articles like “Finally.  Someone who thinks like me,” is that the institution of journalism had a close call with national disunity.  All because of an infatuation over someone who thought greatness was what showed up in the rearview mirror on the path forward despite history telling us that greatness has always been the result of people looking toward the future.  But now I think journalism is back on its trajectory and trending in the right direction, and that is what matters most.

What matters most is how a person’s mind works.

What started out as a way to improve my speed writing and get into the habit of looking over what I write has contributed to me continuing my lifelong learning, somehow becoming a member of the Canadian Association of Journalists, and even getting media accreditation status with the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions.  Yet being told that laws can not be named after you is something one would expect to hear if they were asking for recognition or reward.  Then being told that you are not a lawyer, nor do you have a background in immigration is something one would expect to hear if they were condescending towards another professional.  Although I did neither of those things when I had individuals say those things to me, I was not offended, nor discouraged, because easy thinking, shallow thinking, and bad thinking seems to plague our society at all levels.

Whether a person went to a fancy school to get an education or not has no bearing on that individual’s ability to think and to understand.  What matters most is how a person’s mind works.  Even not having a post-secondary education does not make a person less than, because our world’s history is full of people who were autodidacts, forced to learn on their own, and likely came out better for it.  The true measurement of a person is how their mind works and whether it is capable of deep thinking, hard thinking, and good thinking.  Best of all, everyone is capable of developing their mind to that level of thinking, and it starts by burning the midnight oil.

The Voice Magazine recently had a chance to chat with Josh Flis, a student from Barrie, Ontario, who acknowledged that Barrie is “the traditional territory of the Anishinaabeg people.”

Josh is “currently pursuing a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in Psychology,” with an “objective, depending on … academic performance, is to graduate in 2025 and then take the LSAT and/or MCAT examinations.”  The ambitious student continued, “This is part of my plan to embark on a career path in law or medicine.  However, I have a contingency plan in place: should my initial plan require adjustments, I intend to pursue a Master’s degree in education.”

Josh had some great study tips for fellow AU students.  “After three semesters, I’ve finally established an effective study routine.  This involves a combination of sketching, note-taking, self-testing, and reading.  Reading, despite being the most challenging part due to the concentration it requires, is crucial.  Sketching notes, such as theories, models, and concepts, helps me feel more engaged with the material.  Self-testing is a key component of my strategy, as its effectiveness is well-documented.  My note-taking approach has evolved; I used to jot down everything, but now I focus on summarizing and capturing specific details.  By reducing general notetaking and increasing reading and sketching, I’ve found the content to be more meaningful and less overwhelming.”

Josh continued, “My motivation stems from several sources.  First, my career aspirations – whether that’s becoming a doctor, lawyer, theorist, or educator – require academic excellence.  These career paths are driven by personal reasons.  Second, the sheer opportunity to learn motivates me.  Lastly, my innate curiosity and desire to understand things fuel my motivation.  My experiences with theory, theology, philosophy, leadership, crisis, success, and global exposure have fostered my love for people, health, justice, and learning.  One final piece of advice about studying: take breaks to walk or exercise.  Fresh air and increased blood circulation can rejuvenate your mind.”

As for advice for new students and/or prospective students?  “My advice to new students is to get comfortable with reading because good reading stamina and comprehension is going to translate into better writing, clearer thinking, and a greater experience.  Don’t resent the process of reading, but rather immerse yourself in it.  I’ve found myself laughing while I read textbooks, journals, and other material.  The authors of these texts are as funny sometimes as they are intelligent, and if you allow yourself to be intellectually humble and learn with integrity, you will not only read simple words, but you will hear the authors’ voice.”

When this busy student is not studying, Josh let us know about some favourite hobbies and pastimes.  “In my free time, when I’m not absorbed in my studies, I often find myself occupied with reading (at present, I’m juggling four books).  Besides that, I enjoy going for walks while listening to music, snowboarding, and cooking.  I also play some video games: Destiny 2, Halo, and Fortnite occasionally!  Having grown up in the era of SNES, VCRs, Myspace, and MSN Messenger, my hobbies align with those typical of an ‘elder’ millennial.”

Josh let us know about three memorable AU courses, namely PSYC 323: Developmental Psychology, SOCI 301: Social Statistics, and HUMN 313: Early Christians.

For PSYCH 323, Josh mentioned, “You know, my personal childhood experiences seemed to fuel my desire to dig deeper into this subject than I have in others.  I achieved my first perfect score (100%) on my final paper, a comparative analysis of Vygotsky and Piaget’s theories, which held profound significance for me.  I tend to take risks in my writing, and when these risks pay off, it not only boosts my confidence but also makes me feel like I’m thinking on the same wavelength as the theorists I study.”

As for SOCI 301?  “I took Social Stats out of necessity, not interest.  Surprisingly, I scored 88%, which was an unexpected and amusing outcome I will never forget.”

And HUMN 313?  “I chose early Christian history due to my existing strong understanding of the subject.  However, my grasp of theory and church history was often dismissed by my faith community, which was quite disheartening.  Nevertheless, HUMN 313 recognized and rewarded my insights, marking the first time my knowledge was acknowledged, which was truly uplifting.”

Josh’s communications with course tutors “varies,” explaining, “I can imagine that there is a lot on their plate.  As a student, I try not to bother my tutors unless something has been bothering me for a couple weeks or if something is obviously urgent.  From my understanding, no university experience offers as close of a tutor/student relationship as AU does.  I am thankful for the access I have to my tutors and for their input.  And look, if I don’t get the input that I am expecting, I just tell the tutor more directly that I need further help from them and try to schedule a 30–40-minute call.  Online learning isn’t always 100% digital, we can use the phone from time to time, eh!  Sometimes a good chat is all a student really needs.”

The Voice Magazine asked Josh about a possible first project if this student was hired as the new president of AU.  “As a student majoring in psychology and the hypothetical president of AU, my inaugural project would involve formulating strategies to enhance the AU experience by introducing new graduate programs in psychology.  For instance:  Can we integrate MBA coursework with advanced Psychology studies to establish a top-tier Organizational Psychology graduate program, akin to the Wharton School of Business?  Can we capitalize on our reputation for excellence in psychological research and education to launch a unique Psychology graduate program specializing in personality and learning development, thereby producing graduates who are coveted educators and sought-after researchers?”

Josh continued, “These proposals aim to ensure long-term sustainability and build on the progress AU has already made.  Naturally, such initiatives would require funding and resources.  After consulting with staff, reviewing other programs, and researching the most effective ways to implement these programs at AU, I, as President, would draft a letter of intent to the board and begin preparing an investment pitch to secure support.  The next steps would involve devising a strong, evidence-based plan, effectively communicating the opportunity.  And, of course being prepared to accept a certain degree of professional risk!”

Next, we asked which famous person, past or present, Josh would like to have lunch with, and why.  “I would love to sit with Carl Jung.  His deep understanding of the complex interplay between the mind, body, and spirit is so compelling.  Additionally, I’d enjoy the opportunity to spend time with CS Lewis, Freud, Robin Williams, and Hans Christenson, the renowned fairytale author.”

Josh also let us know about a valuable lesson learned in life.  “The most valuable lesson in my life is simple, ‘Life is a game, and there are levels to this.’  I don’t get caught up with measuring myself by others success.  Instead, I get inspired by other people’s successes and failures.  Live authentic, not arrogant.  Be humble but not humiliated.  Value truthfulness over deceit.  Be fair, because the spirit of good sportsmanship is the inherent expectation in this game of life.  No matter what kind of challenge comes along the way in life, meet those moments with dignity and integrity, but don’t forget to be clever when you can!”

And Josh’s proudest moment in life?  “In the business realm, one of my notable achievements was securing RX Drug Mart (now known as Neighborly Pharmacy) as an exclusive client when they initiated their retail pharmacy chain and acquired 23 Rexall stores across Canada.  I had the responsibility of establishing all 23 stores with new Pharmacy managers and staff pharmacists.  I take pride in having contributed to shaping the culture of an entire pharmacy chain.  I’ve collaborated with Loblaw, Walmart, McKesson, and numerous other retail pharmacy banners, but my experience with Neighborly Pharmacy was the most enjoyable and rewarding because it was a start-up experience that has blossomed into a great business, something I was intimately part of creating.”

As a final thought, Josh let students know, “Learning is the cornerstone of life, and the evolutionary result of risk/reward equilibration.  From cell divisions to our choices, we learn to keep learning.  I have an affinity for taking risks, a trait shaped by my upbringing where risk-taking was also a coping mechanism.  However, I’ve redirected my own risk-taking appetite from life choices and back into my writing style.  Personally, I’d prefer to be corrected for thinking too ambitiously than for not thinking ambitiously enough.  So, if I was to impart one final thought here for the other students, it would be this: know your limit and play within it.”  Best of luck Josh!

At times, in an online learning environment, it can feel like you are all alone, but across the nation and around the globe, students just like you are also pursuing their Athabasca University (AU) studies!  Each week, The Voice Magazine will be bringing you some of these stories.  If you would like to be featured next, do not hesitate to get in touch!

Therefore, with a flourish, we might recall that a sense of humour can be the single tie that binds together interlocutors of all strips.  Witness here Karl Marx denouncing, with a big ‘ol horsewink, the anarchist philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhun: “High-sounding speculative jargon, purporting to be German-philosophical, appears regularly on the scene when his Gallic astuteness fails him.  A noisy, self-glorifying, boastful tone and especially the twaddle about “science” and sham display of it, which are always so unedifying, are continually jarring on one’s ears.  Instead of the genuine warmth which permeates his first work, he here systematically works himself up into a sudden flush of rhetoric in certain passages.  There is in addition the clumsy repugnant show of erudition of the self-taught, whose natural pride in his original reasoning has already been broken and who now, as a parvenu of science, feels it necessary to give himself airs with what he neither is nor has.” (1865).

History shows how what can seem normal or acceptable in one era can seem very different in the next; nowadays Marx’s reference to Gallicness might seem a bit off-putting or even racist.  Yet, present day theorist Ulrich Beck (famous for asserting that we live in an age obsessed with risk such that all discourses tend to revolve around perceived, imagined, or possible calamities) notes that in our media climate there is an awful lot external, and thus ignored, to facts as they are presented.  “This is a fatal situation, when you realize that complete reality zones are excluded from the self-reflection of the media—and this is not even acknowledged as a problem, because one is referring to definitions and theories that allow for quite an arbitrary interpretation” (2007).  Just as Marx’s personal attacks were a product of his era’s discourse, being able to ignore that which doesn’t fit a narrative seems particularly part and parcel with our times.  It’s as though political rhetoric has become the nature of all reporting; on the other hand, this may have always been the nature of discourses and only now are we so attuned to differences between worldviews.

Universal truths may exist—many of us in our finer moments hope they do—but we have no way of being certain outside of recourse to discourses available to us in the present.  The scourge of residential schools, for instance, privileged certain Eurocentric values and lifestyles and forced them onto Indigenous people.  At the time people thought they were helping.  In a tiny parallel anyone who’s had their workspace organized by a well-intentioned visitor can relate to the tricky nature of helping others.  H.G. Hegel (2006) suggested that to find common ground between discourses we must not preclude dialogue.  “Since the man of common sense makes his appeal to feeling, to an oracle within his breast, he is finished and done with anyone who does not agree; he only has to explain that he has nothing more to say to anyone who does not find and feel the same in himself.  In other words, he tramples underfoot the roots of humanity.  For it is in the nature of humanity to press onward to agreement with others; human nature only really exists in an achieved community of minds” [59].  Hegel had high hopes for such an achievement which is why Marx began his philosophy where Hegel left off.  Yet, all too often we become set in our ways such that (for instance) we don’t even seek to understand the motivations of others whose help we find abhorrent.  While understandable in hindsight, moving forward we can see how if only society had sought dialogue horrible events might have been averted.

With history nipping at our heels, we might remind ourselves that our sense of accountability to our studies may be misunderstood by others.  If we’re willing to open ourselves to constructive dialogue our studious self might yield hitherto unknown benefits.  So, next time someone suggests we take a study break, maybe we should take them seriously! To begin with, we might remind ourselves that it strains credulity that people claiming to help are acting with bad intentions.  Therapist’s offices are bulging with people who believe they’ve been slighted by those who refused to adopt or respect their points of view (sometimes known as boundaries, a reminder that discursive terrain can be very personal).

Conspiring Against Certainty

Nevertheless, some people are so wedded to their beliefs that they can’t seem to help but propagate their certainties at each and every social occasion.  Day at the beach?  Vaccines cause heart attacks!  Cirrus clouds rolling in on a sunny day?  Those clouds were seeded to steal rural property under the auspices of climate change!  Feeling ill after too many discount hamburgers?  Big Pharma is secretly funding the fast-food industry!  No conspiracy theorist will part with her chosen facts, but we can certainly question her egoism.  Wanting to be right is a powerful intoxicant, up there with the desire to propitiate others from whom we seek to receive favours—not to mention those for whom we seek to cultivate a glowing reputation.

Beneath the righteous certainty within any discourse lies, all too often, the deepest of myths: that the truth, to recall The X Files, is truly out there waiting to be discovered.  In fact, discourse theory reveals a panoply of truths to fit countless people, places, and situations.  Some may have more facts, but, in the end, we believe what we want to believe.  Just consider how we can be certain that our senses tell us the truth; such certainty requires belief that our eyes don’t lie.  And to be sure that we’re making good life choices by studying so relentlessly we have only our intuition that a better future awaits us as AU graduates!  Being accountable to our sense of self worth is a privilege we receive not from authority, but from within our personal discourse—the one that matters most.

References
Beck.  U.  (2007) ‘Living in the Risk Society: An Interview With Ulrich Beck.’ Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616700600645461
Hegel, H.G.  in Rinard, S.  (2006/2011).  ‘Reasoning Our Way Out of Skepticism’.  Stanford University.  Retrieved from https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/68520/770758460-MIT.pdf?sequence=2
Marx, K.  (1865).  ‘On Proudhun’.  Retrieved from https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/letters/65_01_24.htm

Listening to all the noise, the only thing that never made sense to me was why the crypto community accepted the NFT acronym, somewhat lame, when all it meant was that it was a unique digital identifier for multimedia projects, and just how easy it became to carry out NFT “rug pull” scams.

Usually, these types of financial crimes never make it beyond one cycle, similar to the handling of Bernie Madoff, with new regulations getting introduced shortly after the conviction, but the world was quick to issue crypto’s death certificate in 2018 and that is what led to the unfettered crypto rug pulls of the early 2020s.

To be clear, NFTs are some sort of digital item, whether that be a digital piece of art, music, perhaps digital clothing for an in-game character or virtual world avatar, a digital emoji, even things connecting to the real world like electronic movie tickets.  Basically, anything you can make digital you could turn into an NFT backed piece.  What the NFT added was the ability to essentially certify that you had the original piece.  And you could then sell or give that original piece to someone else, at which point you wouldn’t have it anymore, because the token itself, the “T” part of the NFT can not be copied.  Of course, that did not stop internet wags from making copies of things that were NFT certified and showing that, for most things, nobody really cared if it had the token showing authenticity or not.

The second coming of all-things crypto took place around the time that COVID-19 reared its ugly face, and less than 5 years since the 2018 crash, after the implosions of crypto exchanges like Canada’s QuadrigaCX, and many other crypto exchanges worldwide. The icing on the ridiculousness cake had to be the social media personalities who made it seem as though they got lucky by getting rare NFT drops and who had countless other rare NFTS, where the odds indicate that these individuals were more likely to win a billion dollars from the PowerBall lottery than they were to “pull” all those rare NFTs.  However, when influencers started running away once crypto started to crash again in 2022, after they had taken part in duping people out of their money, and while crypto currency exchanges were also imploding, policing agencies were quick to swoop in and nab the culprits, and it made its mark on the world of “influencing”.

An NFT drop is when some creator, or company, decides to release a number of NFT items into the digital marketplace.  Many did this as promotional schemes, some made them available for sale immediately, etc, and because of the nature of NFTs, these were the only times you could get legitimate copies of these digital items.

One specific drop that I recall being quite excited about was the Miss Universe NFT drop that turned out to be a rug pull, and possibly the craziest NFT rug pull of crazy NFT rug pulls.  Simply put, there was nothing ladylike about what transpired with Miss Universe’s NFT drop in 2021 and here is more about that story.

The Miss Universe NFT Rug Pull

After Donald Trump bought the faltering brand of Miss Universe in 1996 and managed to turn it into a household staple, his later remarks essentially forced him to buy out the 50% ownership stake of his partner, NBC, after the brand had been damaged by his words.  Subsequently, Trump would go on to sell the franchise, a few days later, to Hollywood titan Ari Emmanuel’s WME-IMG, who would also end up selling the franchise, declaring it a money-losing business, and struggle to find a buyer.  However, it was during WME-IMG’s ownership that the Miss Universe NFT rug pull would occur, carried out by a team of unassuming developers that were contracted to help create the NFT project.

Imagine offering NFT prizes that included partying and hanging out with Miss Universe contestants of past and present, monetary rewards for tens of thousands of dollars, getting special access to future Miss Universe competitions, and much more.  Now, I think it might have been the greatest collection of rewards offered by any NFT project ever and it was one that I had intended to take part in, but thankfully I never got around to it because I would have maxed out my home equity line of credit just to have a chance at winning.

Like most large-scale heists, this crime was an inside job, carried out by unassuming developers that had worked on other prominent NFT projects, and who were contracted out to create the NFT project, since WME-IMG did not have in-house developers.

This team of developers would go on to write code that would help “shopping bots” know the exact moment to buy to win exclusive NFTs, thanks to algorithms that were able to detect “up next” moments.  All of this was made possible thanks to their knowledge of the code that they had written for the generating of the NFTs and because of how transparent things like cryptocurrency and NFTs really are.  What really made this NFT project special was that the drop was going to occur live, during the 2021 Miss Universe competition and before the winner was crowned, and there were prize implications depending on which NFTs you had.

And what should have been a “one-of-a-kind” drop, really turned out to be a ‘one-of-a-kind’ drop, because mouths started to drop once the scam became clear.  All it took was 72 hours for Miss Universe to delete the dedicated social accounts for this NFT project including the Discord group.

Although some online personalities have speculated that WME-IMG may have been in on the rug pull, that is flat-out wrong.  For starters, publicly traded multi-billion-dollar companies do not engage in single-digit million-dollar gains if it means cheating people out of their money and ruining their reputation, nor does it represent a significant sum of money in the grand scheme of things.  Instead, the team of developers who were contracted to do the NFT turned out to be serial hustlers, and they did similar stuff with other big brands and their NFT projects.  Simply put, the world of NFT was so new and so unfamiliar to so many people that this was bound to happen, and nobody realized that celebrities were rigging the odds in their favor by having specifically coded “shopping bots” helping them to get the rarest of NFTs.

These days, you can find people on Twitter offering their “rare” Miss Universe NFTs in exchange for gas money, while others are giving their NFTs away for free because of how much pain the NFT is causing them.  One gentleman on Twitter even exposed himself, saying how he spent 15 Etherum, back when 1 Etherum was about $3000, spending around $45,000 without winning a single rare NFT. Had I bought into that NFT drop, maxing out my home equity line of credit, if I found out that it was rigged by some developers then I would have hunted all of those nerds with a zest equivalent to MacGruber’s zest for the license plate “KFBR392”, and I suspect a phone conversation may have unfolded along the lines Liam Neeson’s phone conversation in the 2008 film Taken.

After revisiting some of the promos for Miss Universe’s NFT project, which included tweets, associations with Marc Cuban and Leverage, mainstream celebrities, and even former Miss Universe contestants, I came across a promo by the late Chelsie Kryst, the former contest turned TV personality and a lawyer by trade.  Although Kryst’s life came to a tragic end in 2022, her life is one that should be celebrated for the good that she managed to do while she was with us.  This included leveraging her business-law background to offer pro bono services to low-level drug offenders and working with the Buried Alive Project, where she helped free a client that was sentenced to life imprisonment.  To sum it up, Chelsie Kryst was special. Quite frankly, I could not help but think that this failed NFT project may have had a negative impact on her and resulted in her receiving threats, and if she had already been struggling with her wellbeing, as most people were during Covid-19, that it may have contributed to pushing her past her breaking point.

Why is everyone so quite about NFTs all the sudden?

For the purpose of this article, I reached out to Miss Universe to follow up on the status of the NFT scam, now under different ownership and with their head office in Thailand, but they did not respond back for comment.  Additionally, when I tried tweeting at their Miss Universe account, my replies to their tweets were hidden and sent to the bottom of their tweet. I tried tweeting at them a few more times before Twitter informed me that I “broke some rules” and had to chill out.

From a techie gamer’s perspective on all of the NFT “hustling-hacking”, I would go as far as to say that I could guarantee that every single NFT drop had the potential for rigging.  What I mean by that is that as long as one of the developers was familiar with the code behind the NFT drop, combined with the fact that there is nothing private about the generating of NFTs, it is entirely possible to create a “shopping bot” that new exact moment to buy to pull an ultra rare NFT.

Every single one of these crypto NFT scam projects could see the developers involved get identified with ease based on crypto wallets being publicly accessible, and once the money is withdrawn from a crypto exchange and transferred into a bank account, policing agencies can swoop in and demand access to those records.  If a crypto exchange’s executive team ever refused to cooperate with policing agencies, it would all but guarantee that the organizers would get charged with being accessories to the fact and complicit in the crime, but that almost never happens because nobody wants to go to jail if they can avoid it.  I would also bet on all those celebrities providing policing agencies with the names of all the “crypto advisors” who promised them that they would get rare NFTs, and that is all it would take to get to the main circle.

The 2013 film Runner Runner has a storyline that is similar to what we have seen occur with NFTs, but the film focuses on the early days of online poker.  The most important lesson from that movie is that when it comes to technology, there is always a back door to everything, and all founders have a “if shit hits the fan” exit strategy, which entails turning on each other if it means avoiding prison.  In Runner Runner, that exit strategy revolved around a USB, which ended up sending Ben Affleck’s character to prison. Now, should there be instances where “hustler-hackers” refuse to turn on one another, remember that what the colt revolver did to the bow and arrow is what policing agencies’ quantum computers will do to hackers, somewhat of a modern-day Robo Cop.

Meanwhile, we’ll be back on the 21^st of April, but until then, I hope everybody has a happy Easter break.  To kick that off, this week in The Voice Magazine, Minds We Meet returns, this time with an interview with Darlene Miller, a school principal and AU student of Geology. She’s got some great advice for how to take on a routine to get you through your AU courses, and an interesting take on her proudest moment.

Since we won’t be around next week, however, I’d like to take this opportunity to point out the upcoming AU Research Forum which is supposed to have presentations from a number of AU academics, as well as some outside presenters and a session as well for students from AUSU and AUGSA.  The reason I’m bringing it to attention is because I’ve been hearing a bit about some of the presenters and it sounds like it could be a really interesting presentation, and an event the likes of which I’d hoped AU would be having while I was a student myself.  I know that brick and mortar institutions often have a variety of presentations throughout the year, and it’s something that’s a bit harder for AU to accomplish, though they’ve been stepping up in this area over the past few years.

Still, this was always one of the ways I felt that AU had some work to go to be able to live up to the reputations of its physically based cousins.  (Another way was in AU’s lack of sports teams.  I keep hoping that as professional online gaming grows in popularity, they may decide to sponsor a team, but perhaps that’s too frivolous.  Besides, Minister Nicolaides would probably insist they all move to Athabasca and practice at the Multiplex.)  Often these types of conferences are part of what makes a university shine, although as recent news reports show with various lectures being cancelled for being toxic or intolerant, and the provincial government stepping in to demand ‘free speech’ report cards, they can also be problematic.

For this forum, however, with presenters including one who focuses on Mathematical Psychology (say what?), or a professor of sound studies, this could be a bit of a mind opening experience, so I hope it’s well attended to show that there’s a demand and an enjoyment of this type of thing.

Also this week, we’re taking a look at how you can get deeper into bird-watching, and the things you can pick up to make it a more enjoyable experience.  And [blue rare] this week talks about that one teacher who happened to provide what you needed when you needed it, even if that might not have been a stellar teaching experience.

We also take a look at everything from hobby-horses to spicy foods, lingerie sales to prayer, and more! It’s an eclectic issue, yet we still fit in our reviews, scholarships, two weeks worth of events, advice, and more!  Enjoy the read!

80 years ago, the “metropolis” (sic) of Winnipeg conducted an “If Day”.  What if the NAZIS took over Canada?  Recalling that no conqueror ever portrays itself as a pack of heathen savages brimming with lies and injustice, If Day told some factual truths about a muzzled media and loss of civil rights expected if a NAZI regime took hold in Ottawa.  Residents were warned that freedom of the press would be “abolished” and “all food will be commandeered by the invaders” (online).  Meanwhile, hardworking families and farmers would find “all property looted and, perhaps, paid for by worthless paper promises”.  The solution?  Viewers were implored to purchase war bonds to support the Allied cause.  The goal was to “scare them or shock them” into purchasing Victory Bonds (2).  Of course, if the unthinkable happened, these Victory Bonds would be worthless, too, but it was an investment worth making.  40 million dollars were raised, an astronomic number in a time when a nickel bought you a hamburger.

Starting at 6am with sirens (If Day was no cute charade or Santa Claus parade for Winnipegers) citizens were even warned that they might lose access to the utilities allowing them to heat their homes in winter.  (2).  The chill was on.  Lockdown curfews were imposed, reminiscent of what we’ve all lived through with the plague and what would happen if a present-day If Day mimicked a Chinese regime imposing martial law on its citizens.  Providing a sense of danger was key to the war, yet the more personal nature of life and conflict is something we all live with.  Thankfully, a pacific sense of life pervades our society but that can potentially be threatened.  The enemy, per se, may not be so far away and not in the form of some stereotyped crotchety curmudgeon.

In our True North strong and free (the song says so, it must be true?) we hear a core campaign slogan by the current Leader of The Loyal Opposition that he will make us the freest country in the world.  Shackles shattered by government bondage and handouts to scalawags, we’d all be more Canadian than ever before, right?

Unlike the bravery of so many who enlisted in the tragic Great War of 1914-1918, freedom nowadays is part rhetoric and part territorial pissing.  Cultural urine laced with tribal righteousness always has an odour of nastiness to it; there’s even a bumper sticker that reads, “My Karma ran over your Dogma” … as if eye for an eye isn’t the ultimate ideology of retribution.

At the best of times, valour and righteousness can be finicky bedfellows; soldiers may not always believe in their cause, for instance.  Ukraine is the example of today, yet the valour of any soldier in this face of impending death is unquestionable.  We place our poppies and leave our wreaths not for politicians and demagogues, but for real men and women who were living once and now are not.  In culture wars, meanwhile, hard historical facts are reducible to pissant arguments maybe started by one too many bong hits or one too few moments of silence.  It’s in these kneejerk disputes and intolerance of divergent views that we may actually see freedom under more threat than ever.  Guns and bombs are awful but when we can’t say what we think in a given moment that’s when the freedoms our brave predecessors fought for are really lost.  The mainstream British Channel 4 TV station released a poll of 1500 typical UK youngsters under the age of 25.  Generation Z they call them,  And guess what they found with Generation Z? Rebellious free love and righteous openness to anything from imbibing psychedelic substances to cohabitation with capuchin monkeys, as typified past counter culture chaos, tends to be far from their realm.  Libertarians these young TikTokkers are not, it seems.  These, shall we say, Zed-heads are:

“less tolerant of the views of others than their parents and grandparents – surely a novelty.  A quarter of Gen Z say they “have very little tolerance for people with beliefs that they disagree with”.  They don’t believe in unrestrained free speech, with nearly half agreeing that ‘some people deserve to be cancelled’.  There is an obvious paradox between this intolerance and their genuinely stated desires for everyone to have their rights and freedoms defended” (online).

Illiberal to the max, the youth might be alright but they sure don’t sound alright with those who disagree with them.  Maybe Remembrance Day can teach them something about right and wrong, valour and service.  Freedom is easy when you agree, but it matters most when you don’t; those who died in war did so so we could avoid being trampled by those who would enforce their will on us all and create uniformity of feeling, thought, and destiny.  To attend a Remembrance Day ceremony at the cenotaph is something to do every year and the moment of silence, largely unheard of in our livestreamed wifi world, that alone might change a few hearts.  Last year, many of us attended despite those who shrieked you’re not allowed.  Outdoors and socially distanced, our freedoms held the day, and the planes did their flyover.

I don’t pretend to understand war as an experience, but we can all, if we try, relate to death in combat.  In war people die because of animosity, the arguments become too real.  This isn’t, dude where’s my car or hun’ where’s my cell phone and a dispute ensues.  These warriors were real nurses, soldiers, chaplains, and children who all had their lives literally and metaphysically crushed to smithereens.  Today in Ukraine is another of those possible moments where escalation could bring the war crashing down on a cell phone tower near you.  Imagine, in fact, a moment of mandatory silence provided by a temporary shut off of cell service to a whole nation on November 11th? Pretty authoritarian, right?  And therein lies the crux.  Youngsters in the Channel 4 study seem to take their truths and certainties almost too seriously; so seriously, in fact, that they’d like to force them on others.  Like the rumor mill in the high school smoke pit (oops, dating myself!), the desire to first trash one another’s reputation and then ghost them completely (ah, back with the 21^st century linguistic times!), has always been there.  But cancel culture only has a few modern antecedents; the 1950s anti-communist witch hunt blacklist of Hollywood celebrities was one example, the 1960s Ontario fruit machine firing of gay government workers was another.  Never, surely, were the youth at the front of this reputation-burning march.  Thing is, akin to book burning, this mindset is the sort of inflammatory thinking that leads to wars.  And, if ever the phrase lest we forget means something, its on November 11^th.  If we aren’t careful, we can end up in a war simply by being too righteous, too certain, and there’s a reason why the first Remembrance Day began with the key slogan never again.

Those on the front lines, brave beyond compare saw the iniquity and suffering of war and saw, too, that it can never be worth it when peace is a possibility.  Even if we don’t enroll in an AU history elective, we can all recall high school history where the brief interlude between the two world wars taught a horrific lesson: that those who refuse to learn form the past, as George Santayana famously said, are condemned to repeat it.

References
Mahon, A.  (Nov 1, 2022).  ‘Beyond Z: The Real Truth Behind British Youth’.  Retrieved from https://www.channel4.com/press/news/beyond-z-real-truth-about-british-youth-speech-alex-mahon-chief-executive-channel-4