Don't believe everything you see on the news

It won't be up for long, but Global Edmonton has the video up of their report from Thursday night posted regarding the campout in quad at the UofA to highlight affordable housing.

(Update, 1:39pm: This link should work for the next week: just click on "housing help" under Friday. After next week I fear the video will be lost forever.)

After Thursdays broadcast, says the video, several viewers have called and emailed offering accommodation to 3rd year physics student Matthew Comeau (pictured), who the night before showed off the shed he was staying at.

When asked by the Nightwatch reporter why he didn't get a part time job, he replied to the effect that "I'm a student, that's my full time job." The implication, of course, is that Comeau didn't have the time on his off hours to work. That might fly in Halifax or Baton Rouge, but this is Edmonton in 2007: you can set your own hours.

I bring this up because at one point the Nightwatch crew said "right now Comeau is in this shed" when he was not. At the 11pm broadcast on Saturday, I know precisely where Comeau was, and really wish I'd taken my camera to document it: he was 2 tables away from me drinking beer at the University bar RATT.

Now if he wants to drink at RATT, fine. If he wants to live in a shed instead of getting a job, fine. But as soon as he wants to get a good place to live, drink at RATT, not work, and bitch about money and be part of a group demanding increased government funding, we have a problem. If you have serious hardship then the cry for help may be justified. But when the bar is full of people cheering and celebrating because their advocacy group is on the news, there's something fundamentally wrong with this picture. Global TV got duped, but be glad that Third Edge of the Sword is here to the rescue!