Aujourd’hui, la médiation culturelle repose encore sur une logique simple :

ajouter.

Ajouter des panneaux. Ajouter des écrans. Ajouter des explications visibles.

Chaque ajout est justifié. Mais, progressivement, le lieu change.

Ce qui devait être transmis se retrouve entouré, encadré, parfois recouvert.

---

Ce projet propose une autre voie.

Transmettre sans ajouter.

Ici, rien n’est installé dans le lieu. Aucun panneau. Aucun écran. Aucun dispositif visible.

Le lieu reste tel qu’il est.

---

Et pourtant, le contenu est là.

Il est accessible. Il est riche. Il est vivant.

Mais il n’occupe pas l’espace.

Il apparaît seulement lorsque le visiteur le cherche, lorsqu’il regarde, lorsqu’il s’approche.

La technologie ne s’impose pas. Elle se retire.

---

Ce changement est fondamental.

On ne transforme plus le lieu pour le rendre compréhensible. On permet au visiteur de le découvrir, tel qu’il est, avec des clés invisibles.

Le lieu redevient central. La médiation devient discrète.

---

C’est aussi une réponse à une attente du public.

Aujourd’hui, les visiteurs ne veulent plus seulement lire. Ils veulent comprendre, entendre, ressentir.

Mais sans être guidés à chaque pas. Sans être entourés de dispositifs.

Ils veulent une expérience plus libre, plus directe, plus vraie.

---

Cette approche permet cela.

Un visiteur peut :

• entendre une voix dans une pièce où elle a réellement été prononcée
• voir apparaître une image exactement à l’endroit où elle prend sens
• accéder à plusieurs niveaux de lecture, sans surcharge

Et tout cela, sans que le lieu soit transformé.

---

C’est aussi une question de responsabilité.

Un lieu patrimonial n’est pas un espace neutre.

Chaque ajout modifie :

• sa perception
• son usage
• son équilibre

Ici, le choix est clair :

ne rien ajouter qui ne soit absolument nécessaire.

---

La technologie permet aujourd’hui d’aller dans ce sens.

Elle permet :

• de transmettre davantage
• sans installer davantage
• de faire évoluer un contenu
• sans modifier le lieu

Le lieu devient stable. Le contenu devient vivant.

---

Ce projet ne cherche pas à démontrer la technologie.

Il cherche à la faire disparaître.

Ce qui compte, ce n’est pas l’outil. C’est ce qu’il permet de préserver.

---

Préserver un lieu, ce n’est pas seulement le protéger.

C’est éviter de le transformer inutilement.

C’est accepter qu’il n’a pas besoin d’être expliqué partout, tout le temps.

C’est redonner au visiteur une place active.

---

Ce projet propose simplement cela :

une médiation qui respecte le lieu une technologie qui ne laisse aucune trace une expérience qui reste fidèle à ce qui est déjà là

Raphael Maltais Bourgault

---

PROPOSITION TECHNIQUE

Système de médiation invisible par reconnaissance visuelle

Unity + Vuforia – fonctionnement hors ligne

---

1. Problématique

Les dispositifs classiques de médiation (panneaux, cartels, écrans, codes QR) présentent des limites importantes dans un contexte patrimonial :

• dépendance à internet (QR, contenus en ligne)
• dépendance à l’électricité (écrans, bornes)
• ajout d’éléments visuels intrusifs
• transformation de l’usage et de la perception du lieu
• multiplication des supports physiques difficilement évolutifs

Dans un lieu patrimonial sensible, ces dispositifs altèrent progressivement l’intégrité visuelle et symbolique du site.

---

2. Principe de la solution

Le système proposé repose sur une approche radicalement différente :

Remplacer les supports physiques par une couche numérique invisible, activée directement par la perception du lieu.

Le visiteur utilise une application installée sur tablette (ou téléphone), fonctionnant entièrement hors ligne.

La caméra devient l’interface principale :

• elle reconnaît les éléments réels (objets, pièces, lieux)
• elle déclenche automatiquement les contenus associés

Aucun ajout physique n’est nécessaire sur le site.

---

3. Technologie retenue

Environnement technique

• Unity : moteur de développement de l’application
• Vuforia : reconnaissance visuelle (objets, images, espaces)

Types de reconnaissance utilisés

• Model Targets → reconnaissance d’objets 3D (sculptures, mobilier, outils)
• Area Targets → reconnaissance d’espaces complets (pièces, zones du domaine)
• Image Targets (complémentaire) → éléments visuels spécifiques ou archives

Cette combinaison permet d’associer du contenu :

• à un objet
• à une pièce
• à un environnement complet

---

4. Fonctionnement

Déroulement

1. le visiteur ouvre l’application

2. il pointe la caméra vers le lieu ou l’objet

3. le système reconnaît l’élément

4. le contenu est déclenché automatiquement

Types de contenus

• audio (témoignages, ambiances, narration)
• texte (explications, citations)
• images (archives, comparaisons)
• réalité augmentée (superposition visuelle)
• messages contextuels (orientation, progression)

---

5. Fonctionnement hors ligne

L’ensemble du système est conçu pour fonctionner sans réseau :

• contenus intégrés dans l’application
• reconnaissance locale
• aucune dépendance internet

Le dispositif repose principalement sur :

• des tablettes dédiées, configurées pour la visite
• une éventuelle application mobile en complément

---

6. Types d’expérience

Visite libre

• exploration intuitive
• activation spontanée des contenus

Visite guidée

• parcours structuré
• séquence narrative contrôlée
• messages orientant le visiteur

Couches multiples

• différents niveaux de lecture
• contenus évolutifs dans le temps

---

7. Réalité augmentée – stratégie

Le système privilégie une approche maîtrisée :

• médiation sobre et immersive sur la majorité du parcours
• utilisation de réalité augmentée forte sur 1 à 2 éléments clés

Cette stratégie permet :

• d’éviter la surcharge visuelle
• de préserver la crédibilité du dispositif
• de créer des moments de forte intensité (climax)

---

8. Avantages

Respect du patrimoine

• aucune installation physique
• aucune modification du lieu
• absence totale de pollution visuelle
• réversibilité complète

Fiabilité technique

• fonctionnement hors ligne
• indépendance des réseaux
• contrôle complet du matériel (tablettes)

Évolutivité

• ajout de contenu sans intervention sur le site
• modification des parcours dans le temps
• adaptation à de nouveaux usages

Cohérence muséale

• expérience immersive et silencieuse
• disparition des supports techniques visibles
• intégration naturelle dans le lieu

---

9. Gestion du système

Mise en place initiale

• sélection des points d’intérêt
• capture / modélisation des éléments (objets, espaces)
• création des contenus
• intégration dans l’application

Exploitation

• distribution des tablettes
• mise à jour des contenus par version de l’application
• gestion centralisée du corpus

Maintenance

• limitée (aucun matériel installé sur le site)
• mise à jour logicielle uniquement

---

10. Limites et solutions

Conditions de reconnaissance

• dépendance à la lumière et aux angles → solution : calibration et sélection des cibles

Complexité du lieu

→ solution : hiérarchisation des points d’intérêt

Charge technique

→ solution : tablettes dédiées optimisées

---

11. Positionnement

Ce dispositif ne constitue pas un simple outil de visite.

Il s’agit d’un système de médiation invisible, permettant d’intégrer des technologies avancées sans altérer le lieu.

La technologie n’est pas ajoutée au site. Elle est activée par lui.

---

12. Références et tendances

Les grandes institutions muséales intègrent déjà des dispositifs mobiles pour enrichir la visite :

• Smithsonian Institution (États-Unis)
• British Museum (Royaume-Uni)
• Musée du Louvre (France)

Ces approches utilisent :

• applications mobiles
• contenus numériques contextuels
• réalité augmentée

La solution proposée s’inscrit dans cette évolution, tout en allant plus loin :

suppression complète des supports physiques visibles médiation entièrement numérique et réversible

---

13. Une approche adaptée aux enjeux actuels

Dans un contexte où les institutions culturelles cherchent à concilier :

• accessibilité du contenu
• innovation technologique
• et préservation du patrimoine

il devient essentiel de repenser les modes de médiation.

La solution proposée répond directement à cette exigence :

offrir plus de contenu, sans ajouter de matière au lieu.

Elle permet de sortir d’un modèle basé sur l’accumulation de supports physiques, pour entrer dans une logique plus durable, plus sobre et mieux adaptée aux lieux sensibles.

---

14. Une réponse aux attentes du public

Le public d’aujourd’hui ne souhaite plus seulement observer :

• il veut comprendre
• il veut entendre
• il veut ressentir
• il veut vivre une expérience

Cette technologie permet précisément cela :

• entendre une voix dans un lieu où elle a réellement existé
• voir apparaître une archive au bon endroit
• accéder à plusieurs niveaux de lecture selon son intérêt

Sans détourner l’attention du lieu lui-même.

---

15. Un outil au service du lieu, et non l’inverse

Contrairement à de nombreux dispositifs numériques :

• le lieu n’est pas transformé pour accueillir la technologie
• la technologie s’adapte au lieu

C’est un renversement important.

Le domaine demeure tel qu’il est. La médiation vient s’y poser, sans le modifier.

Cela garantit :

• le respect de l’intégrité du site
• la continuité de son usage
• et la fidélité à son esprit d’origine

---

16. Une solution sobre et durable

Ce dispositif présente des avantages concrets en matière de gestion :

• absence d’infrastructures à installer
• aucune maintenance sur le site
• pas de dégradation liée à des équipements visibles
• mise à jour uniquement logicielle

Il s’agit d’une solution :

• légère
• réversible
• durable dans le temps

---

17. Une capacité d’évolution unique

Le contenu peut évoluer sans contrainte physique :

• ajout de nouveaux témoignages
• enrichissement progressif des parcours
• adaptation à différents publics
• intégration de nouvelles recherches

Le lieu reste stable. Le contenu, lui, peut se développer librement.

---

18. Un potentiel structurant pour le projet

Ce système permet d’ouvrir plusieurs perspectives :

• création de parcours thématiques
• valorisation d’archives existantes
• intégration de contenus audio et visuels déjà produits
• mise en valeur d’une mémoire vivante

Il devient ainsi un outil structurant pour le développement du projet culturel, sans imposer de transformations matérielles.

---

19. Une approche cohérente avec la mission patrimoniale

Dans un lieu chargé d’histoire, la priorité demeure :

préserver, transmettre, et faire comprendre.

La technologie proposée ne détourne pas cette mission. Elle la renforce.

Elle permet :

• de transmettre sans simplifier
• d’expliquer sans surcharger
• de rendre accessible sans dénaturer

---

20. Conclusion — une médiation d’un nouveau type

Ce projet propose une évolution claire :

• passer d’une médiation visible à une médiation invisible
• passer d’un support fixe à un contenu vivant
• passer d’un lieu aménagé à un lieu respecté

Il ne s’agit pas d’ajouter de la technologie. Il s’agit de retirer tout ce qui n’est pas essentiel, et de laisser le lieu parler.

Conclusion

La technologie Unity + Vuforia permet de créer une médiation :

• invisible
• autonome
• évolutive
• respectueuse du patrimoine

Elle offre un équilibre rare entre :

• innovation technologique
• intégrité du lieu
• liberté de création

Raphael Maltais Bourgault

---

Years ago I snarked at Michelle Wu on Twitter—she said something about supporting public education, and I asked her why she then kept voting for budgets that harmed it.

Her response was to reach out to me and ask if I wanted to get some folks together who knew about school budgets so she could listen to us and learn. Some time later, I got people who knew a LOT about school budgeting (I was in touch with such people then because Twitter facilitated building communities of like-minded local folks to get stuff done, which is probably another reason Musk wanted to kill it) together and we met with then-councilor Wu in the meeting room at the JP Library. She took the T from City Hall and walked 15 minutes from Green Street to the library. And she really listened. And took notes.

And so this is how I came to break one of my own rules, which is “don’t stan politicians.” I volunteered for Michelle Wu’s first run for mayor and really believed that, unlike Marty Walsh, she cared about people who live in Boston, not just people who use Boston. She had all kinds of cool progressive ideas for making the city a better place, so much so that she was derided in right-wing circles as a “radical left mayor.” (This was mostly because she opposed the secret police rounding up our brown neighbors.)

And then she absolutely, conclusively THUMPED Josh Kraft in the primary, which is effectively the final in Boston because we are not electing Republicans here. So now she’s been unleashed to really enact her progressive agenda!

Except…it’s not happening. She’s frozen work on a bunch of safe streets projects. (i.e. projects that may inconvenience car drivers in order to make the street better for people walking, biking, and using public transit.) The city may lose federal funding already allocated to these projects if they are frozen too long.

The new city budget (the council technically votes on the budget, but the way Boston is set up, the mayor has a ridiculous amount of power over the budgeting process, so I’m laying this at her doorstep) eviscerates the schools. Hundreds of young teachers across the city are losing their jobs. Class sizes will increase. The quality of education will decrease.

Meanwhile the Wu-appointed school committee voted to give Superintendent of Schools Mary Skipper a 15% raise. (!)

Oh yeah, and the Boston Police Department is level-funded. (The BPD’s overtime budget, which is primarly spent on having cops stand around and do nothing outside of construction sites, eats up 100 million dollars per year.)

So—keeping the city car-centric and prioritizing policing over education. Actually over pretty much everything else, as most city departments have had their budgets frozen.

Man, I’m glad we didn’t elect the billionaire!

So why, with an absolutely absurdly strong showing in the recent election, has Michelle Wu suddenly abandoned the priorities she professed? Well I have an idea.

We know she’s ambitious, which I do not hold against her. She doesn’t want to be Mayor of Boston forever, which I think is a good thing. The city certainly didn’t benefit from being Tom Menino’s personal fiefdom for 21 years. We also know she’s a mentee/former student of Elizabeth Warren, whose current term will expire in 2030, after she turns 81 years old. Perhaps Warren has given Wu the heads up that there’s going to be a vacant Senate seat in 4 years, and Wu, who is widely loathed in the suburbs, is selling out Boston in order to win over the suburbs. And the wealthy suburbanites who bankroll Senate campaigns.

The sad thing about this is that abandoning making Boston a better place to live does absolutely nothing to shore up Wu’s chances with people who will never forgive her for being “from Chicago.” (She is originally from Chicago, but has lived in Greater Boston for nearly 20 years and chose to settle and raise a family here. People who complain about her being from Chicago use it as code for other facets of her identity they’re not allowed to complain about openly, at least in Massachusetts.)

Another incredibly dumb thing about this strategy is that it follows the conventional idiocy of the Democratic Party, which seems to be “don’t do anything that might alienate Republicans.” But people are hungering for politicians they can support who seem to actually have principles and who are willing to ruffle feathers in order to get things done. Wu is a skilled politician who has the ability to explain progressive policy choices, and people like the idea of a politician who stands for something!

Instead, it looks like she’s decided to follow the failed Democratic playbook of pretending to be progressive and then being centrist. Thanks, Obama! No, literally, thanks, Obama, who won the presidency in Michelle Wu’s sophomore year of college by pretending to be progressive and then proceeded to be a moderate conservative President.

Nobody can predict the future, and it may well be that Wu’s intelligence and charisma and the fact that she’s both a woman and a Chinese American will give her the appearance of progressivism to the statewide electorate while not actually ruffling the feathers of the big money people who are ruining everything. Good luck to her, I guess.

But damn—is it so much to ask that Democratic voters actually get the candidate we voted for? People on the right vote for hatemongering theocrats and by and large get exactly that. And hatemongering theocrats who fight like hell to enact their troglodytic priorities! Where the hell is that energy from the Democratic party?

I’m going to continue to vote because I believe that it’s foolish to abandon any of the tools at my disposal to make the world better, but I have probably knocked on my last door as a campaign volunteer.

I say that, though the next time we get someone posing as a progressive running for mayor, I’ll probably support them enthusiastically as well, hoping, like Charlie Brown, that this time I’ll finally get to kick the fucking football.

My care team doesn’t understand me. They pretend they do. But they offer sympathy, not compassion. Textbook dialogue and sterile warmth; there is no soul behind their surgical reassurance. I swear, I can see it in their eyes. They understand too little and say too much.

They place me in hell and call it health. Progress to them is that I suffer in new ways. That suffering is my problem, not theirs. I’m left miserable while they feel proud of what a good job they did in helping me return to the arms of my fears and pains.

Other disordered people get it. Not everything, and not all the time, but enough. I love them. They understand the safety that an eating disorder offers. They understand the pain of trying to separate from it. My clinicians? They learned from words. Words lie. They follow a shadow of a scientist’s interpretation of my situation. Disordered people actually know the reality.

Having latterly acquired an oil-painting for the first time in decades, it only took me two more weeks to get another one. I had wondered what art might be on offer at ebay. What I found there was a bewildering variety of unappealing work at price points ranging from tens to tens of thousands of pounds. Among the affordable options were very few that caught my eye – but after browsing for some time a still-life painting did eventually give me pause for thought. It was listed in an auction starting at only about £45. Expecting to be outdone, I threw in a bid, and was surprised when it proved to be the only one.

The painting (Fig. 17) depicts five items: an antique brass microscope; an empty glass jar; a seashell; a piece of rock crystal; and an ammonite fossil. Unlike the last piece I bought there's a clearly legible signature: R.P.B. Gorringe. He, it seems, was a freelance illustrator and painter who also did some teaching. It's a small piece in a good frame that has improved a corner of my hallway. There's scant chance of my accumulating any fine art on my budget: I'm happy to have been able to expand my humble collection at relatively low cost.

---

I had not suspected that kora virtuoso Toumani Diabaté had recorded with bassist extraordinaire Danny Thompson, until reading about the album Songhai a few weeks ago. It's a record that they made with the Spanish flamenco ensemble Ketama in 1988. I was alerted to its existence via a list of notable nuevo flamenco records compiled by Noah Sparkes at Discogs. I ordered a second-hand CD copy, which arrived on Friday.

What a wonderful record! It's a joy to hear the interplay of influences from either side of the Mediterranean. The strumming guitars and the twangling kora are the obvious co-stars, with Thompson's bass oftener in the background than the spotlight. Here's some footage of this ensemble performing the album's opening track 'Jarabiu', in a live performance. And here's some more with just Diabaté and Thompson on stage. In '88, nuevo flamenco was having a moment with the worldwide success of the Gypsy Kings. Diabaté, meanwhile, was just beginning to build his international reputation. As for Thompson, his other engagements around that time included contributions to records by Richard Thompson, Sam Brown and Talk Talk.

---

Murphy the cat reached the milestone of his eighteenth birthday on Wednesday. Although very much an elderly gent these days he still hasn't lost his good looks (Fig. 18).

Also on Wednesday, there came, just after dinner, the unmistakable sound (an enclosed descending flutter) of a bird falling down the chimney. Could it have been a sort of birthday offering for Murph from a well-meaning but misguided higher power? As it happened cat and bird did not meet, with the latter (fortunately uninjured) needing no prompting to leave as soon as I'd contrived to open up an exit route for it.

• Ok just be honest with me, do you not wanna come to Achensee with us next weekend or not?
• ÄÄÄÄ of course I wanna go to Achensee next weekend with you? Why would you say that?
• Well the way you were talking about it before and then you were like “Oh yeah next weekend we have Achensee..”
• Haha what?
• “Achenseee...”
• I was just telling them what we are doing next weekend, we're going to Achensee with your family.
• It wasn't what you said, it was the way you said it. Like you went down on “Achensee” like that wasn't something you were looking forward to do.
• That's just how I talk, it's not my language, I had to think for a minute, I don't know, you are joking right?
• No that's actually not, that's actually not how you talk. Like when you talk about true crime it's like
• But it's TRUE CRIME!
• See? “TRUE CRIME!” “Achenseee..”
• Man, you cannot compare true crime in general with other stuff, and true crime is not a german word and yes oh my god, can we go back to the part I just said I am excited to go to Achensee? Excited like in a natural way, it's a family thing, just as much as you are excited for, I don't know, for Weinwandertag on my birthday with my cousins, I mean, it's..
• Weinwandertag...
• I'm sorry?
• I said “Weinwandertag..”
• Why are you saying it like that?
• You see?
• What? Do you not wanna go?
• Well, exactly. You see how that make me feel like you might not wanna go? What if I'd say WEINWANDERTAG ON YOUR BIRTHDAY!
• That's nonsense. You want to put up a fight, like you are invested into creating a problem. I'm not falling for that.
• It was just an observation about your tone.
• Ok then let's talk about your tone the next time I invite you to... I don't know, my fucking japanese movies at Filmcasino
• Sure.
• So do you want to join me at Filmcasino tomorrow?
• I mean when? I have stuff to do, but yes, fine
• SEE, you said “fine”
• FINE!
• Not “yes, let's do it!”
• It's just Filmcasino, how am I supposed to get excited?
• EXACTLY, that was my whole point, I am not expecting you to get overexcited, unless...
• What?
• I mean, I can give you a hand with getting excited.
• Are you deviating this conversation to flirting with me as you always do?
• No. I'm preventing this straight relationship from sounding like a weird lesbian fighting cause speaking of tone, that's what it sounds to me like right now, and by the way, YES, I AM TRYING TO FLIRT WITH YOU TO GET YOU EXCITED OMG HOW DARE I? IT MUST BE HORRIBLE TO BE YOU RIGHT NOW
• Hahahaha
• Oh a laugher, is that a white flag?
• Yes..
• You ready to get excited?
• I am excited
• Nice. Hold your fire, I need a shower
• Should I join?
• Sure. I mean, it's not ACHENSEE, but..

/2022

The Kwantlen Student Association (KSA) has been frequently in the headlines for all the wrong reasons: alleged mismanagement, flagrant lack of transparency, and questionable fiscal priorities. While it is easy to blame the individuals currently in power, the ultimate root of the problem is a 25-year-old legislative failure.

The dysfunction we see today is the direct result of a specific 1999 policy shift that stripped universities of their oversight and handed student societies a blank check with no strings attached.

The Great De-Regulation of 1999

Before 1997, the [College and Institute Act](https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/rs/rs/9605201)_ provided a common-sense balance of power. Under the original Section 21, university boards held the discretionary power to collect and remit student fees. Most importantly, the law included a “kill switch”: boards could stop collecting fees if a student society failed to comply with the Societies Act, failed to produce audits, or—crucially—failed to maintain “sound fiscal management.”

That safeguard was erased during the premiership of Glen Clark. In 1999, responding to intense lobbying from the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) and various B.C. student societies seeking “total autonomy,” the provincial government fundamentally rewrote Section 21 (see its original here).

From “May” to “Must”: The Death of Oversight

The shift occurred via Section 4 of the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 3), 1999 (also known as Bill 81). While the NDP government passed the law in 1999, it officially took effect on June 1, 2000, under BC Reg 407/99. This legislative “one-two punch” introduced two catastrophic changes that remain on the books today:

1. Mandatory Remittance: The original Act stated that boards “may” collect and remit fees. The 1999 amendment changed this to “must.” This wasn't a grammatical tweak. It transformed university boards from overseers into collection agents. Institutional boards were stripped of their discretion and legally compelled to hand over millions in student funds, regardless of a society’s track record.

2. The Deletion of Fiscal Standards: Previously, Section 21(2) allowed a board to stop the flow of money if a student society failed to maintain “sound fiscal management in the opinion of the board.“ The 1999 amendment deleted this “fiscal management” clause entirely. By removing the board’s ability to act on its professional judgment of a society’s financial health, the province effectively blinded the only body capable of providing immediate, local oversight.

Jennifer Saltman reported in The Province, these changes were pushed through despite explicit warnings from institutional leaders. The result was a legislative paradox: student societies were granted the status of fully autonomous private entities, yet they were funded by a “mandatory tax” that the university was legally forced to collect and could no longer withhold for bad behavior.

The Logical Outcome of Legislative Design

When you grant a private society a guaranteed, multi-million dollar revenue stream and simultaneously strip the funding body of its power to demand financial competence, you don't get “autonomy”—you get systemic risk.

Under the current version of the Act:

• Universities are “Handcuffed”: Even when a board sees red flags, they are legally obligated to continue the flow of cash.
• The “Must” Clause Prevails: As long as a society exists on paper, the money must flow. Regardless of the concerns the university remitting these funds, they are compelled to release these fees which contain portions of tax-payer public student loans.
• Fiscal Accountability is Optional: Without the credible threat of losing their fee-collection status, societies have little incentive to prioritize professional governance over internal politics. Under the current law, the only remaining recourse for students is often the court system: a path that is fundamentally impractical.

Student associations frequently shield themselves behind expensive legal counsel and opaque bylaws, creating a daunting labyrinth for students who are already balancing full-time academic loads. This creates an asymmetric power dynamic: student leaders use mandatory student fees to fund legal defenses against the very students who are forced to pay them. When the law removes institutional oversight, it leaves 19-year-olds to act as their own private investigators and litigators—a burden no other segment of the public is expected to carry.

Restoring the Safeguards

The ultimate progenitor of these fundamental issues plaguing the Kwantlen Student Association since early 2021 is not a student; it is a 1999 legislative amendment that prioritized political lobbying over fiscal responsibility. To fix this, the Province of British Columbia must revisit the [College and Institute Act](https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/9605201)_ and restore the protections that existed prior to the Glen Clark era.

The Solution requires three specific legislative actions:

• Revert “Must” to “May”: Return discretionary power to the boards so that fee collection is earned through transparency.
• Restore the “Sound Fiscal Management” Clause: Explicitly allow institutions to pause remittance if a society is in breach of the Societies Act or failing its audits.
• Protect the Student Paycheck: Ensure that mandatory fees are treated with the same level of provincial oversight as any other public fund.

The Bottom Line

We cannot expect student societies to reform themselves when the law provides them with a guaranteed income regardless of their behavior. The cracks in this 25-year-old system are now so wide that the Province has been forced to intervene.

In March 2026, Finance Minister Brenda Bailey took the rare step of issuing a ministerial order to freeze the assets of the Kwantlen Student Association, citing concerns over “problematic conduct” and the potential misuse of funds. While this investigation is a necessary emergency measure, it is a symptom of a deeper disease. The government shouldn't have to wait for a “Registrar of Companies” report or a multi-million dollar deficit to trigger a freeze; the authority to enforce accountability should have remained with the institutions all along.

It is time for the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills lead by Jessie Sunner to coordinate with the Ministry of Finance to undo the damage done decades ago. We must restore the institutional safeguards that were stripped away in the name of “autonomy.” Until the College and Institute Act is amended to prioritize the students who pay the fees over the organizations that spend them, these scandals will continue to repeat—not by accident, but by design.

23 March 2026

Sub scene (working title): alighted at Wood Green station and noticed, for the first time, an odd and artful decorative ventilation grill up high on the tiled platform wall close to the ceiling. It depicts an idyllic scene in a panoramic Art Deco style—what appears to be a deer seated under a shining sun, flanked on either side by a flying bird and three trees. Turns out it's a bronze that was designed by the artist Harold Stabler (1872-1945) in the early 1930s for the station's unveiling in 1932, which he made along with two others (same size/dimensions) that now reside at Turnpike Lane and Manor House stations. Apparently the designs were meant to allude to the history and daily life of each station's neighborhood, which is something to sit with given the current state of things in that part of the city (more on that later, have been thinking a lot about the street life where I live). But I was initially drawn to it for the strange effect of the serenity of its subject matter rendered in what is now, nearly a hundred years after its creation, almost charcoal gray metalwork that floats on a mesh grid over the intense deep blackness of the vent's interior. There's one bit in particular that I've been working with, from the left half of it, where a bird's wing is clipped at the top by the boundary of the rectangle that frames the entire piece while its other wing is almost fused to a vertical line behind it. While in flight.

#002324 – 09 de Agosto de 2025

Pedalo até casa. E reconheço o vestido turquesa. Afinal não é uma rapariga, é uma senhora. Tão bem assentava na descrição a juventude, que me saiu sem hesitação ao referir o quadro da mini-produção para as redes sociais. Só agora ao nos cruzarmos no passadiço é que a idade da pessoa descrita afinal se revelou próxima da minha. Quem sabe que equívocos provoco eu, de enorme barriga a arredondar a camisola amarela, a quem me vê passar e se cruza mais tarde comigo.

(Notice I use the word redundancy… versus inefficiency.)

• A cramped creative space
• Lists and lists without deadlines
• Awareness of my own awareness of being a hoarder, and yet perpetuating maximalism and hoarding
• Defining boundaries and telling people how important they are but not clearly communicating them in every single one of my own interactions.
• Not following my vegetarian weekdays and omnivore weekend diet and then falling ill

I left the above list open and hanging, unpublished as I stewed in bed, with whatever illness this is. Is it a cold? A flu? COVID? No idea. I’m returning to this window to babble and then hit publish.

As part of the lecture-performance I went to, we did quite an intimate thing passing our mobile phones around in a circle last Monday (long story) and I suspect that is where/how I might have caught a bug. Somewhere in public, exposed to other people’s hygiene habits. Bah. How dreadful. I could barely raise my head for the last two days. I don’t think I had a fever but felt very dizzy. I haven’t been this sick since last year… I thought I was doing okay building my immunity and strength again. I got that weird stomach bug exactly a month ago, but it wasn’t too bad. It barely lasted a few days.

I was telling a friend that I intuited getting sick. I had this thought just as we finished passing each other’s phones around. I was so excited about the lecture-performance piece that I lost track of whether or not I sprayed my hands with hand sanitizer and if I washed my hands as soon as I got home as I normally do. Then, this. Constantly resetting, helps to train our attention to be mindful and to notice how every single thing is connected. Hands. Phones. Mouth. Eyes. Bacteria. Touch. Taste. We’re so distracted, we have all the technology to be well, to live well and yet, here we are still making ourselves sick.

I am many things...but I am not someone who rejoices in exploiting another human being (for profit or entertainment) and I never will be. Life can be surprisingly fun, fulfilling and meaningful without it. Try it.

#002323 – 08 de Agosto de 2025

O barulho destas duas motas de água é irritante. Passam a subir o Douro a alta velocidade e removem da atmosfera da esplanada qualquer sossego. Mas quando estão já longe da vista e dos ouvidos e durante minutos, escuta-se o líquido balanço das ondas que provocaram a bater na margem. Tinha pensado que estas máquinas eram a interrupção do som da água, mas são a sua causa.

#002322 – 07 de Agosto de 2025

No parque oriental uma rapariga de vestido curto turquesa, sentada de pernas cruzadas numa rocha, virada para o rio Tinto, que ali é um riacho. Foi ao passar de bicicleta que uma cintilação para ali me puxou o olhar. Um espelho de maquilhagem, com um pequeno pé e mais apetrechos pousados na rocha, quem sabe para difundir nas redes sociais a beleza de um dia tão primaveril como este vigésimo quarto de Março, mas ainda assim em melancólica solidão. Já no Gramido a solidão adolescente é menos pronunciada, aos pares e trios, alguns de óculos de sol, viram-se para o rio para receber o sossego que nem os ecrãs perturbam muito. Acabo por ser eu, cinquentão, que aqui pego no telemóvel para escrever isto.

Anything you might be seeing on the news about the U.S. government's effect on the operational capacity of TSA (Transportational Security Administration) is an understatement. I just made it through what may just be the longest queue in human history; 7 hours. That is not a 7-hour standstill, but rather a 7-hour moving line. It was a very very long line. It snaked in and out of the terminal, and back in again and all through it and around it, and down in the tunnel underneath it and circled back again, then up... this must be the type of thing purgatory is made of.

Once I'd finally made it through security, I had already missed my flight by a good 3 hours. It was after 10:00pm, and all the restaurants at George Bush Intercontinental Airport had already closed (a completely alien concept at, say, Istanbul International Airport (as an aside, isn't it funny how they like to point to the autocratic nature of certain “Eastern” nations that only ever name their airports after cities, but it's countries of the “West” that almost exclusively name their airports after their political figures? Never mind the wholly unnecessary confusion it brings upon international travelers).

I thought, rather naively, that I'd be able to get on another flight that very same evening or at most next morning, but no, turns out I could only get on the flight heading out a full 24 hours later. No way I was going to leave the terminal after persevering through the 7-hour queue of torment and deal with it all over again the next day, so of course I sent the night on a crappy airport waiting seat (No sleeping pods or convenient terminal hotels, which is shocking to any traveler whose ever flown through Thailand or Istanbul or Mexico City—which most Americans clearly haven't).

Severe failed state feels at George Bush International Airport right now, where in spite of it all, you can still score yourself a bottle of Channel no. 5.

The really crappy part is that all my luggage flew out without me. With a transit in Paris. I have a feeling my bags will be the recipients of their own brand of logistical horrors.

#journal

My dad passed away in February. So, I’ve been away from home, down in Florida, getting things squared away there. They’re not squared away – in fact, I’d say they feel pretty misshapen and all over the place. They’re… fractalized?

In any case, although I brought pencils with me, and acrylic pens, it was hard to do anything creative while I was gone. It was a lot of get up, go to my dad’s house, clean/pack/sort, go back to the airbnb, sleep, do it all over again. We did get away for half a day to the beach, at least.

So, here’s a work in progress – I’m not sure where I’m going with it, so how it turns out will be a mystery for all of us.

And, one of these days, I’m going to get better at taking photos of my work.

I recently bought a cover from Amazon to hold my notepads and other stationery items. This unknown brand cover holds a couple of 3.5” x 5.5” notepads. Unfortunately, it doesn’t fit my small collection of A6 notepads. So, looking in my cubby there were a couple blank paper Moleskine Cahiers with previous writings that I wanted to finish before buying new notepads.

But writing on blank pages is unsettling. My sentences drift off center, the sizing is inconsistent, and my paragraphs smush together like a sat-on sandwich. This chaos makes my thinking just as jumbled as if I was typing them on screen. Ever wonder why you always have trouble writing on a blank screen? It’s the same with blank pages. There’s no structure.

Lines on a paper give order in the chaotic world of writing. It tells you can write as long as you don’t overstep your bounds. You don’t need a ruler. Lines are your companions helping you make those first few steps before they let go.

So the next time I’m given a blank notepad, I’ll just sketch random stuff. Like stick figures shooting at other stick figures, tanks, ships, helicopters, and fighter jets.

#writing #blankpage #notepad