Photo by Kyle West

By: Bridgette Walker

There have been and will continue to be various types of service and working dogs in educational environments like McMaster University and out in the world at large. I’m Bridgette and I have a dog guide named Estelle.

Please don’t freak out! Properly trained dogs are more effective, efficient and reliable than technology for a lot of physical and mental health conditions. These dogs truly do save lives.

Estelle plays many important roles in my life including going to McMaster University with me. She does many things including listening for certain sounds — especially my snack alarms — and knows where all the really important places are. Aside from deafness, I have anxiety, autism and chronic migraines. Estelle keeps me in check mentally and emotionally.

When meeting service dogs, there are some ground rules: ask first, establish what’s helpful and what are the limits. There are some things Estelle really shouldn’t do for her own sake, and a few things that would actually cause problems for me. Meeting other service dogs is cool too, as long as they're all well-behaved and ready to get right back to work.

Anyway, I don’t appreciate people randomly trying to pet or play with Estelle while I’m walking between classes. In general, all dog guides need to pay attention to where they’re going, and to their person.  We're on the move, but she’s still listening for what sounds are in the area, how I am doing and so forth.  

Please respect my space. I don’t like being “crowded in” and neither does Estelle.  She may be a dog, but she’s also regarded as a medical device — same as a wheelchair or other medical apparatus.

And yes, you can take a picture of us as part of the scenery going by, but don’t stop us to pose for snaps; if we did this every time, I'd be late for everything.

Enough with distracting the dogs themselves! This can be dangerous for other people with more serious conditions when their service dogs are being distracted and hindered from alerting them to potentially harmful or even fatal issues that can crop up at any time. I’m blessed that this isn’t the case for me, so far.

Then there are people with phobias. I don’t know whatever trauma you have endured in the past but we really don’t mean you any harm! Please, stop screaming and whining. It’s not good for Estelle's ears, not good for my anxiety and certainly not good for your throat or mental health.

Don’t project your personal problem onto us like that. You are an adult in university and entering the working world. If you’re going to be like that every time you see Estelle or another kind of service dog on campus or out in the world, you’re not going to live as good a quality life as you deserve. Everyone should be able to enjoy or at least tolerate seeing these dogs on duty — they’re really good at heart!

The secret is that if she weren’t on duty, she'd like to try being your friend! Estelle also likes visiting babies, kittens and even pet chickens. Anyway, since she can’t try comforting you in her doggy-way, try refocusing your perspective of the dog with: “It’s a special animal. It’s somebody’s lifeline.”  

From Estelle and me, see you around campus!

 

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Photos by Catherine Goce

On Feb 1, the Hamilton Student Mobilization Network, a local activist group, hosted a rally at Gore Park in downtown Hamilton to protest the government’s proposed changes to the Ontario Student Assistance Program.

The event featured various speakers including Angie Perez, president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees 3096, and Sandy Hudson, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Toronto.

“Students have gone to strike for less,” HSMN organizers said at the event.

Following a brief performance from Mother Tareka, @sandela, one of the founders of @BLM_TO, and @SarahJama_, a Hamilton organizer, are up. pic.twitter.com/fNwUzJ3ULw

— The Silhouette (@theSilhouette) February 1, 2019

Beyond the issue of OSAP, various speakers advocated for completely free tuition. All stressed the need to support grassroots student activism.

The protest downtown followed a protest in the McMaster University Student Centre on Jan. 31, where the HSMN called out the McMaster Students Union for failing to advocate for the student body effectively.

Multiple musicians and poets were also featured at the two-hour long rally, performing pieces on the issues of capitalism and gentrification.

Hudson stresses the power of students, pointing to the success of Quebec student organizers.

— The Silhouette (@theSilhouette) February 1, 2019

“It is a strong sense of solidarity, a strong sense of agitation, and a strong sense of annoyance,” one protester said when asked why he attended the rally.

After an hour of speakers and performers, the protest took to marching on the streets, stopping traffic around the downtown area.

The HSMN was launched in the first few weeks following the government’s announcement on Jan 17.

The organization strives to equip activists to mobilize against shared struggles and is mostly run by students and workers from McMaster University and Mohawk College who had already been organizing separately.

“We started having conversations about what it would look like if we came together on campus across campuses across the city and really bolstered a more cohesive body of resistance,” a HSMN organizer and McMaster student said.

Though the rally was centred on the changes to OSAP, the HSMN is also focused on the adverse effects that cutting tuition and student fees will have.

The student organizer pointed out that McMaster is set to lose $22 million in funding next year, with no additional funding from the government to offset the loss.

“We are looking at suffering quality of education given that there will probably be increases of class sizes. We are looking at part-time staff, faculty associate professors being made vulnerable, anyone that really does not have security or stability of tenure or status in the organization,” they said.

“There are a lot of communities being affected by this, not just students on OSAP,” they added.

Nonetheless, changes to OSAP will not make it easier to afford tuition anyway, according to the student organizer.

“The tuition cuts are very misleading,” they said. “If you cannot afford the tuition even with it reduced, you are still taking out higher loans, which means higher debts, higher interest rates, and in the long run, it is going to cost more.”

The HSMN is also very concerned that the option for students to opt-out of certain student fees will jeopardize some student services.

“We need to really come together as a community and realize that services we do not use today we might need tomorrow. We need to support services for each other and recognize that student fees help build a stronger, healthier community,” the student organizer said.

For the HSMN, the rally represents only the first step in what they hope will be sustained student mobilization and advocacy.

“It represents an entry point for a lot of students to mobilize around these changes and we are going to be having a sustained campaign,” they said.

The HSMN has not released any other planned actions to the public at this point.

 

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By: Rob Hardy

With society having been in the digital age for about two decades now, we are not unschooled in the many problems that technology can bring, along with its purported conveniences.  But with the explosive outreach of global communication and new smartphone apps every day, old problems are multiplying and morphing, while new ones are also rearing their ugly heads.

Viruses, Malware and Spyware are expanding their reach

It might seem all dandy that we have a plethora of tech options these days but the more avenues for digital plug-ins, the more opportunities for malicious programs to reach us. And with the number of devices most people have today, these problems now also easily spread to all of them, forcing us to debug not just our computers but phones and tablets as well.

lifestyle_6_ways2

Everything is becoming “linked in”

It feels convenient to have your Facebook linked to your email linked to your phone linked to everything else. But when our goals are to diligently divide our casual selves from a more cultivated professional image, sharing anything can cross paths and wind up on the wrong platform, clashing disastrously.

More automation means more to manage

Things going online have become a no-brainer that has made life convenient — until everything else did as well. Accessing your bank account, messages and grad school application on-the-go is a breeze, but multiply these online accounts by ten and suddenly having dozens of passwords, secret questions and website policies to keep up with is anything but effortless.

Even toasters are about to go digital

It's being sold as wonderful that we can now run our heating and home-security systems by using a smartphone. As the presence of these devices in our homes becomes normalizes, we are not paying enough attention to the security and privacy issues that arise. And fixing them will be hopelessly more elusive when they break down, as their very functionality depends on their electronic rather than mechanical components.

lifestyle_6_ways

Meeting people often happens online

Gone are the days when we always met people face to face. Whether we are looking for employees or dating partners, we now demand to screen profiles so that abstract judgments can be made on whether to bother meeting for real. In this way, the days of scary science fiction have arrived. Don't like that “creepy” person on the bus? Just pretend that you need to text. It's a neat way to avoid unwanted interactions until you find yourself on the receiving end.

Advanced technology is disposable

It's ironic that with all the technological advances, things last for a much shorter time.  And when even “advanced warranties” lapse after a few short years, it's clear the company is telling you that whatever you are buying will break very quickly. Television sets used to last for 30 years — I still have one that works great. The future, however, is a landfill overflowing with broken electronics we have to perpetually replace, if we can even afford to do so.

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