Engineers caught by Police, five students arrested at Ironworkers Memorial Bridge

By Samantha Jung
Published: February 2nd, 2009

February 2, 2009—9:12pm: Five UBC Civil Engineering students were arrested early Monday morning when their faculty’s annual prank failed.

Vancouver police officers responded to a call at 4:15am from concerned citizens, who spotted the students attempting to hang the shell of a Volkswagon Beetle off the side of the Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing. The students were caught red handed and arrested. Later that morning, the cables the engineers were attempting to use snapped, and the shell fell into the Burrard Inlet.

This the first time engineering students have been caught performing their annual prank, says Chris McCann, president of the Engineering Undergraduate Society (EUS). Engineering pranks are annual traditions, performed to commemorate Engineering Week, which runs February 1 to 7 this year.

The first prank, or “STUdeNt projecT,” involving a Volkswagen beetle was in 1980, when students placed it on top of the Ladner Clock Tower. Past pranks include the theft of the 9 O’Clock Gun at Stanley Park in 1969 and of the Rose Bowl trophy from the University of Washington in 1992. Previous pranks involving the Volkswagen beetle hung from a bridge include the Lion’s Gate Bridge last year, and more famously, from the Golden Gate Bridge in 2001. --NewsHammer 2/04/2009

Continue reading the Feb 2, 2009 article from the University Of British Columbia's The Ubyssey.

One Canadian's journey Through the Looking Glass and into the world of American partisan politics

By Tarik Chelali

Published: January 27, 2009

Like many of you, I woke up early January 20, 2009. The date has been etched into my mind for a few months now. It is the day an idol and an inspir­ing figure would begin his new­est journey. Barack Obama and I are not brothers, although a few of my friends say we look alike. Nor is he my president—I hold three passports, none of which are dark blue with a bald eagle on the cover. But, it is fair to say we share a few things in common.

Like President Obama, my ancestry lies in the heart of Af­rica. My father was born at the doors of the Sahara desert in a north African village in Algeria. Like President Obama, I con­sider myself a veteran in the process of moving from house to house and neighbourhood to neighbourhood; until UBC, I had never been at a school for more than two years at a time. Most importantly, I share with President Obama the belief that citizens, and not their govern­ment, are accountable for the state of their nation.

It is under this paradigm and with a flurry of enthusiasm that I took a trip to visit New Hamp­shire Democrats the weekend before Senator Obama became President-elect Obama.

On exchange to McGill Uni­versity from September to De­cember of this year, I joined the campus Democrats club. The club, which was mostly made up of Canadian students, orga­nized weekly trips to a variety of Democratic campaign offices throughout the Northeastern states. My group and I went to Claremont, New Hampshire and did everything we could to get these white people to vote blue.

I found myself in Claremont waving my arms with a sign that read “Red Sox Fans for Obama.” On the busy boule­vards, drivers honked, yelled or called me a nigger. Later on, I phoned old ladies only to hear them hang-up, cry with joy or complain that we had called them six times in three days. I knocked on enough doors to learn when to back down from seemingly evil Republicans and their small but vicious poodles. Claremont gave me a slew of photos for Facebook and a win­dow into the AmericanDream. --NewsHammer 1/28/2009

Continue reading the Jan 27, 2009 article from the University of British Columbia's The Ubyssey.