Leslie Young

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At approximately 12:30 PM Friday, the UBC bus loop was closed due to a “police incident”. Police and UBC security have closed off the area to buses and students and sealed the area with yellow police tape.

A suspicious item was found on a bus, said Randy Schmidt, UBC Associate Director of Public Affairs. He could not give further information on the nature of the incident.

Officers at the scene would not say what kind of incident occurred, only identifying it as a “police incident.”

“Can’t say anything about it now, but you’ll hear about it,” said a UBC Security officer.

Transit officials warned that they did not know exactly how long the bus loop would be closed, hinting that it could be for up to several hours. Most buses are still running and have been rerouted to Wesbrook Mall and University Boulevard, where students can catch the 99.

The smaller trolley bus loop nearby is unaffected.

“Occasionally these kinds of things happen at exam time, so I don’t know if there’s a link,” said Schmidt.

UPDATE at 2:30 PM: The Vancouver Sun reports that things are back to normal.

Vancouver Sun story

Today I heard that 24 Hours Vancouver is laying off six of its employees. I’m told by a friend of mine that this is pretty well their entire newsroom staff in the city.

This is really too bad. Funny, here I thought free commuter papers were the enemy. Didn’t they spell the end of quality journalism a few years ago? Of course, that was before a few of them that were even more thinly-disguised as advertising vehicles than usual went under.

24 Hours’ Vancouver edition was the rare exception. Unlike the Ottawa edition, which since I’m from Ottawa I was familiar with, the Vancouver paper sent real reporters to real local news events and had actual original reporting. The Ottawa paper relies largely on wire stories. I guess that’s the fate of the Vancouver edition too. Sure, they had wire stories for their national and international coverage, but they were definitely on top of things locally.

I’ve always wondered about the business models of such endeavours. Since they’re free newspapers, they are crammed with ads. Did people suddenly stop buying ad space? As a frequent bus rider, as far as I can tell, there is no shortage of readers. Paper boxes at bus stops are often empty and papers are regularly left sitting on an empty seat, waiting for the next commuter.

My guess (and it doesn’t take a genius to guess this) is that their parent corporations have judged these newspapers to be expendable. They are not prestigious titles and they are not the flagship publications of any media corporation that I know of. Therefore, as companies circle the wagons, they cut the humble commuter daily.

266 words

4 freebies remaining. (Yes, it’s past midnight, but I’m still up so it’s still Friday to me.)

Today I embark upon the Kirk LaPointe blogging challenge.* For once, this blog will be regularly updated, even if it kills me.

The rules:

1. One post per day, every day, from now until March 31, 2009.
2. Posts must be a minimum of 250 words long.
3. To ensure survival in thesis season, I get five “freebies”. This means that five times out of the 31-day challenge, I can skip my daily post. These will be used only in cases of extreme duress, such as illness or my master’s thesis being due the next day. I’m sorry, but blogging is less important than graduating.
4. I was going to say three freebies, but I’m too chicken.
5. Post topics are yet to be determined, but will hopefully be interesting.

Why would I choose to subject myself to a daily blog post while I’m trying to write a thesis? I believe that it will force me to practice my writing skills, particularly my deadline-writing skills. I am told that regular blogging looks good to a prospective employer as it showcases writing style, shows a familiarity with new media, demonstrates an ability to write every day and exposes me to ideas shown elsewhere on the web - assuming I read and link to them. Ideally, a blog will attract some positive attention as well.

Look for better research on why journalism students should blog in an upcoming post. Look for an evaluation on how it went in a much later post. And if you somehow read this and feel like joining me in the challenge, I’d love some company.

And so it begins.

Summary:

• 296 words
• Approximately 40 minutes spent on post
• 5 freebies remaining

*The Kirk LaPointe blogging challenge is not actually endorsed by Kirk in any way, merely inspired by some of his lectures at the UBC School of Journalism.

The Globe and Mail has named Vancouver Quadra one of the 45 battleground ridings that can change the country.

So get out and vote, UBC! Students need to make themselves heard this election.

UBC area voting stations will be at:
*    Place Vanier
*    Walter Gage Residences
*    Acadia Park Commons Block
*    Old Barn Community Centre
*    UBC Golf Club

“The Ottawa NDP, they’re not listening to BC.”

That is the tagline of the first attack ad I have ever seen targeting the NDP. I saw it a few minutes ago on Global BC, in the middle of Oprah. The ad features a greying, bald head from behind, with its fingers stuck in its ears as the narrator talked about crime and road construction. I think the Conservatives could have picked a better Layton double, myself.

If I were Jack, I would take this as a good sign. The NDP is finally being seen as a credible threat in BC. I wonder, are the Conservatives running similar ads elsewhere?

I’m trying to find the ad at the moment. When I do, I will post it here.

So my old professor Michael Byers plans to run for the NDP in Vancouver-Centre.

I can’t say I’m surprised. It was no secret at UBC that he was planning to run for something… although the rumour at the time was that he was going Liberal. And, at that time six months ago, I wondered why not NDP. I guess I was proven right in the end.

It seems everybody on the Maclean’s blogs has something to say about this event. So does the Vancouver Sun, unflattering as that article is. The part that interests me is that he decided Stephane Dion’s “Green Shift” wasn’t any good and he preferred the NDP’s environmental plan. Dion must have better marketing, because I don’t remember what the NDP’s environmental strategy is, other than that it’s not (NOT!) the same as the Liberals’.

Still, I’m not sure why Byers doesn’t like Dion’s plan. It seems fairly consistent with his lectures on environmental issues in class. It’s also fairly consistent with the problem he posed to the class: how to ethically dispose of an SUV his family won in a grocery store contest. He didn’t want to drive such an environmentally-damaging car, but nor did he want to sell it, because that would mean somebody else would drive the gas-guzzler all over Vancouver. I don’t know what they finally ended up doing.

His lectures on environmental problems or on many international issues were quite good though, and the support he gave to his students was admirable. Like any good politician, he knew everybody, and would frequently enlist his contacts to help out on student projects.

Anyhow, Prof. Byers, should you ever read this, feel free to comment or drop me an email. I’d love to know why you think Layton’s strategy is better than Dion’s. And what you did with that car.

Several UBC students were arrested last night, April 4th, at a protest on campus.

I walked by the protest earlier in the evening, when it consisted basically of a couple of bands and an enthusiastic crowd of maybe 20-30 students. This was not unusual in any way for that area.

Later last night, apparently, the protesters lit a bonfire. This is more unusual. When police arrived to put it out, it seems one student stood in front of the hose. That person was arrested, as were more students who then objected to the arrest. According to CP, at least 25 students were arrested. This seems more than a little ridiculous to me.

CBC has some actual footage of the arrests, and a little story too. I really recommend you watch the movie clip. It’s pretty harsh.

For some background:

Since September at least, there has been an ongoing protest in the parking lot next to the Student Union Building, where students set up an impromptu park, complete with grass, a sandbox, chalk drawings on the concrete, and more recently, a couple of free-standing tentlike structures made out of plastic and cloth. The area, called “Trek Park” by the various students who set it up, occasionally falls into disrepair but is generally well-maintained and has at least a couple of students at it during the day. Sometimes they have little concerts and rallies there. I thought that was all last night’s protest was.

Students have been protesting the planned conversion of the area into an underground bus loop, and the apparent lack of student consultation when the decision was made. At least one group also wants there to be more space available for free public use on campus.

This all happened about a block from my home, and also about two blocks from the campus RCMP station. Just so you know.

Exactly one week ago, the Biological Sciences building at UBC was in lockdown. No one was hurt, and the explanation received from the university and RCMP is that there was an “unspecified threat.”

By piecing together various quotes from the RCMP, we can speculate that there was at least a suspect, that the threat was specific to the building, and that the police thought that the suspect might have been in the building. Clearly something was wrong if they had SWAT teams sweeping the building and were giving people secret words and such.

Today we’ve had another unspecified threat, even less specific than the last - this time it didn’t mention a building. They still closed down the bioscience building, because of last week’s incident, but classes were still being held elsewhere and students were urged to be vigilant.

An email forwarded from UBC president Stephen Toope yesterday afternoon says,

What can we all do when faced with such a threat? We are taking the advice of the RCMP to treat the non-specific nature of the threat with a higher level of community vigilance but to otherwise continue our normal activities.

He’s right, I think, but I hope this sort of event doesn’t start happening every week.

My latest story is on the front page of today’s Ubyssey. You can also find it in their online edition.

City looks to extend Millennium line to UBC - The Ubyssey, December 4, 2007

“Vancouver mayor Sam Sullivan is pushing a plan to extend the Millennium Line to the University of British Columbia. (…)”

For this story, I interviewed Mayor Sam Sullivan, City Councillor Suzanne Anton and various other people. I had a pretty good time with this overall.

As promised, here is the little radio piece I put together about the convention. It contains a bit of Jim Sinclair’s speech and part of an interview with MLA Gregor Robertson. If it’s a little rough, it’s because it’s my first.

NDP convention radio piece