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TRUTH SPOKEN TO POWER
Presenting The Elevator, by Lisa Bridges. One of 2005’s outstanding essays from the University of Wollongong’s Science, Technology & Society class.
(Via Michael N.)
UPDATE. Ken H. locates the University of Wollongong’s source of outstandingness.
UPDATE II. Andrew Bolt locates the primary source.
Is it possible to laugh, puke, and be put to sleep simultaneously by this sort of rubbish?
Sure it is. I’m doing it right now, and I didn’t have to go any further than page 3.Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2007 01 24 at 03:00 AM • permalinkScene 2: ...the tradesmens entrance has been left unattended and slightly ajar…
Which explains how this piece of excrement managed to escape.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 01 24 at 03:10 AM • permalinkSweet Jesus! I just read 2 pages of it and I want that 2 mins of my life back.
By ‘outstanding’ do they mean perhaps that it distinguished itself by its amazing crapulece in a field of the merely mediocre?
Posted by Harry Buttle on 2007 01 24 at 03:10 AM • permalinkHeavens the rest are just as bad. (i’ve only skimmed them admittedly). They all follow the same format. A conversation between representatives of goodness and light and evil capitalism. Gandhi is in two of them. They’re absolutely brainless, witless and awful. Is that a real university??
Please where is that memory eraser!?!
“intentional community”?
I think Magrot might have proofed it during her webdiary days.
Posted by mauriemoose on 2007 01 24 at 03:16 AM • permalinkI am sick to death of the crap that comes out of Dawkins Universities (although UW may in fact not be an actual one, it just aspires to descend to their level).
I had the misfortune of attending a Christmas sermon, where the minister was on leave and I had to put up with a guest sermon from a lecturer from an unnamed NSW northern rivers Dawkins uni (unnamed to protect the naivety of prospective students). After regaling us of her recent tour through europe, which seemed to consist of chardonay sipping dinner parties with european lecturers where the main topic to discuss seemed to be the decadence of anglo-saxon society, she moved on to the disgust she felt at the wanton consumerism of Christmas. This middled aged spinster with no kids then proceeded to explain how people should do what she did, that for her 4 and 5 year old nieces she gave then a card saying that instead of a gift for them, she had bought a goat in africa for a poor kid. Bet they appreciated that.
It was at the point where she started quoting Clive Hamilton (from Affluenza)that I walked out before the temptation to get up and tell the ignorant bint off got too much.Here in brisbane we have to put up with poorly trained graduates from the local Dawkins Uni, Griffith. You can easily pick the Griffith graduates at job interviews - they are the ones with an understanding of issues that is shallow at best, but generously seasoned with polemic (and a guaranteed leftist viewpoint, not that there is anything wrong with that if coherently argued). Nowadays I use the university at which they qualified as a culling process. I hardly need to read the rest of the application.
Like ‘SwinishCapitalist’, I reached page three and cured my constipation. Another University Gaia worshipper. Her future, The ABC, Fairfax, Greens, Democrats. These ‘sad fad’ merchants seem to bred out of our ‘seats of learning’ like maggots on a corpse, to rot on the Body Politic of any healthy nation. Also, if the rest of the disjointed rubbish is the same, it will make for a riviting read.
i keep expecting Socrates to show up and skewer all of Gaia’s arguments… a good Socratic rebuttal is really what this essay is begging for…
(oh, and i’ve found out what an intentional community is, but it’s still stupid. if you were to automatically accept children of members into an ‘intentional community’, and accepted selected new members/immigrants based on specified criteria, then we’re already living in one.. twits)
I would love this little girl to read her essay when she is 40. She would cringe in shame.
At least it makes me feel better about one of my undergraduate essays that I felt did not age as well as me, but let’s face it, it involved hamsters, masking tape and my fellow college residents and was placed in the annual year book.
The Saudi peace plan was a more cogent read.
I notice Gaia took the lift rather than the stairs. Typical!
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 01 24 at 03:37 AM • permalinkIt’s the footnotes that make it cringe-worthy. Well, even more cringe-worthy.
Posted by Ernst Blofeld on 2007 01 24 at 03:41 AM • permalinkas usual, the mandatory “extensive education programs for adults and children… to create awareness of environmental problems and.. to implement solutions” (footnote 28) are all that is standing in the way of us and this intentional utopia.
where have i heard that before?
i try not to mention to people that i studied at that university. sadly, the whole place is riddled with lefty garbage masquerading as intellectual thought.
class after class of arguing with the groupthinkers nodding in unison with the various moonbat lecturers spouting their nonsense left me disillusioned with the whole idea of university, supposedly where you can go to develop your own ideas of the world and debate them. the real mantra was: think for yourself, as long as it’s the same as us.
i took up full time work halfway through my course to maintain links with the real world and finished part-time so i could remind myself that the whole place was really just a sheltered workshop and thankfully not indicative of wider society.
Where was Howard’s security detail for heaven’s sake? I thought their job was to protect the PM from anarchists and feral ratbags. Oh, I see, it was only a wet dream!
I f Lisa Bridges is typical of the output of ‘Gong U, then God help the south coast!Unadulterated crap, mental masturbation, fantasy - where do you start to disect this drivel. It is beyond parody.
BTW - young, earnest Lisa needs an editor - her spelling is
atroshusatrocious and she repeats herself like a chilli sandwich.Very sad and an indictment of the shit being rammed down the throats of impressionable kids in our so-called ‘universities’.
I hope she received no marks whatsover for this obvious suck-up to her demented lecturer.(HeHeHe. Smugly thinks to self that policy of reading comments before reading the links in the header post has paid off again. Avoids further pollution of already addled brain cells by being exposed to undergrad crap in the links.)
Posted by Stop Continental Drift! on 2007 01 24 at 03:48 AM • permalinkKeep in mind this was a science and technology subject at a major university, not a Byron TAFE filler in weaving your own yoghurt.
You’d think you could find a better piece to swipe off the ‘web than a 6 year old Phillip Adams piece as well.
Ever wondered why there’s such a plethora of pig-ignorant, illiterate and unemployable graduates out there? Question answered.
I demand a re-count. Ronald McDonald and Gandhi flying above the Amazon is a way cool story.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 01 24 at 04:00 AM • permalinkI wish to assure readers outside Oz that this is no hoax.
Yes there is a place called Wollongong and it does boast a university:
http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/Apart from everything else, that girl really needs to learn to punctuate.
Posted by James Waterton on 2007 01 24 at 04:11 AM • permalinkO/T and maybe only a may be but yeh never know, eh?
Herald Sun:
‘Al-Qaeda’ threatens to kill newspaper editors…(lead paragraph from article)
A MAN claiming to represent al-Qaeda in Australia has left a telephone message at an Arabic Australian newspaper threatening to kill its editor-in-chief and destroy its offices in Sydney and Melbourne.
Scene 1. - A large group of protestors has gathered, outside the Sydney Conference Building, hosting the Kyoto Protocol convention on global warming and sustainable solutions.1
Narrator: 6:45pm. The sun is setting over a barren landscape that once formed part of the Amazon Rainforest, striped of life to make way for cattle grazing1. The landscape resembles a scene from the western front during the first world war, denuded of vegetation and lifeless. The nutrient depleted soils2 appear almost as a stain on the earth in comparison to the remnant pockets of unspoilt rainforest
vegetation. The lungs of the planet are faltering. Meanwhile, in the hedonistic consumer culture of the capitalist first world, millions of Mc consumers are mindlessly devouring McDonalds products.
Elsewhere, in a dimmed and quite ward of an American hospital, a doctor is calling the time of death of Ronald McDonald3…Enter a exhausted George Bush: after a day of riding around in his pickup truck and chasing armadillos with his two dogs1 on his ranch in Texas. Bush walks out onto the porch and eases back in his ol’ rocking chair. The radio is playing in the background on a non-commercial radio station.
I was sitting at home and relaxing in my recliner after a particularly difficult day in Washington. We had finished an arduous general committee meeting on formulating a strategy to engage with criticisms about our policies from
Environmentalists. I was just dosing off when a great stream of light roused me to consciousness, I scurried from my chair and was stopped by an awesome sight of an angel like figure.Setting: The year is 1997, and the characters are in Bangkok, Thailand. A symposium is being held to address the Peoples Republic of China’s proposed scheme of constructing eight dams on the Upper Mekong. The first dam, the Manwan Dam was completed in 1996, with construction of the second Dam, Dachaoshan, starting the same year.1
Fuck I’m depressed. Where are my rusty razor blades? I need to end it all now.
Out of eight - EIGHT! - “Outstanding Essays” five have dodgy grammar, bad spelling or both in their opening paragraphs.
This is third year university? Bugger the razor blades, send me a Freedom Sack TM.
If I received a job app with such abysmal grammar, it wouldn’t get past the first read. I’d probably send it back with red pen all over it.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 01 24 at 04:30 AM • permalinkCheck the lecturers CV out…
The central theme in my research is the dynamics of power, with special attention to strategies for challenging repression and exploitation. I have explored power dynamics through an interplay of theory and case studies, including nonviolent action, dissent and scientific controversies.
Research areas include strategies to oppose injustice; nonviolence and social defence; whistleblowing; suppression of dissent in science; controversies over nuclear power, fluoridation, pesticides, nuclear winter and origin of AIDS; technological vulnerability; values in science; environmental politics; institutional roots of war; plagiarism and educational methods; democratic alternatives to representative government; information alternatives; critique of experts. Earlier scientific work was in stratospheric modelling and numerical methods; astrophysics; and wind power and electricity grids.
These ‘essays’ are abysmal. They aren’t essays in the strictest use of the word and they are an absolute mockery of everything our society has worked hard to achieve.
Standards are falling big time.
Posted by The Best Infidel on 2007 01 24 at 04:37 AM • permalinkThis Woolongong school is a university for “special” students, right?
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2007 01 24 at 04:38 AM • permalinkIf i was stuck in the lift with a feral named giaia theres a good chance id be struggling to breathe as well.
All that armpit “old growth” and tie dyed pubic hair would do that.I was waiting for the magical pink unicorn to come out, Im deducting marks for its non-appearance.
The best bit for me was in her footnotes, something allong the lines of “Anarchists believe people will act in a rational and caring way without the restraints of society..” or similar drivel to that.
Nilknarf Arbed
Thanks for the preview of the others, spared me poking out my minds eye.Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 01 24 at 04:41 AM • permalinkThat is one of the most appallingly poor attempts at political humour that it has been my misfortune to read. It is shockingly written and by the end of page one you are wondering whether or not you are reading an attempt by a thirteen year old write like a ‘grown up’.
Unfortunately, page one is the best of them and by half way through this turgid excuse for satire has descended to a depth previously unplumbed in the annals of Loewenstinian prose.
Why is it that the left think that the only thing you need to do to be funny is to call Howard/Liberal Party/Bush etc juvenile names?
Posted by Jack Lacton on 2007 01 24 at 04:42 AM • permalink#24 Habib. So we may have a touch of plagerism here. From an Adams ‘script’, no less. Well, if that is the case, this young pseudo-intellectual, could well gratuate with honours from the Lane/Fisk school of journalism, with her self deluded fantasy scribble. Then again, it could be a Centrelink, future for her.
#32 “Dissent and scientific controversies?” Hahahaha! Paging Heidi Cullen, call for you on line 3.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 01 24 at 04:55 AM • permalink#35
“When I grow up, I want to go to Bovine University.”—Ralph WigginsPosted by The Mild Colonial Boy on 2007 01 24 at 04:56 AM • permalinkIn real life, John Howard’s CPP team would have made her eat her own head. At least they would in a sensible world.
I’ll be in the corner trying to inject a litre of commercial grade disinfectant into my brain to clean that shit out.
Or maybe if I beg Wronwright enough he’ll let me go back in the Tardis and it will have never happened.
36 frollickingmole:
“spared me poking out my minds eye.”
Food all over the keyboardPosted by arrowhead ripper on 2007 01 24 at 05:05 AM • permalinkThat was bad.
I don’t mean 2006 Best Blog Posts Awards bad, I mean rip-my-eyes-out-and-piss-directly-on-my-frontal-lobe bad.Posted by Rachel Corrie's Flatmate on 2007 01 24 at 05:16 AM • permalink#48 dramatis personae; personal drama. As said, a wannabe pseudo-intellectual. It makes the tripe look convincing, and is supposed to show deep incite, and give a certain ‘philosopher status’ to it. Typical lefty way of doing things. All show on top, but get below the surface and you’ll find more crap, than you will find, in the S-bend of a toilet.
Non Scholae sed vitae Discimus.Cool stuff, I just printed it out on my non-recycled paper and threw it in the ensuite for future use. No, I don’t mean reading - I reserve that room for “Chainsaw Monthly”, “Aussie Hotrods” & “Modern Boating”.
Posted by surfmaster on 2007 01 24 at 05:38 AM • permalinkEither the student who wrote this is a semi-literate with appallingly bad research skills who is serving her fifth-rate lecturer with a great steaming helping of bovine excrement because she knows what jangles his chimes, OR the student who wrote this is a semi-literate with appallingly bad research skills who is also a puerile cretin.
No middle ground.
I would fail any graduate student who presented this to me for grammatical atrocities alone.
The idea that this is outstanding, or even an essay, is asinine.
I am now going to drink several glasses of Madeira to sweep this ghastly drivel from my mind.
Good catch, Tim.
Don’t you ever do that again without giving the ‘puerile drivel follows’ alert, or we will come over and force you to drive a Renault in public.
MarkL
CanberraWe need a new literary term, ‘wanklature’ or something, a genre in which some pathetic leftist tool takes out his frustrations by casting his opponents as fictional characters whose words and actions can therefore be controlled.
I mention it because we’ve seen quite a lot of this stuff, didn’t some trite commie masturbator write a play in which Mary Cheney was a character, and didn’t Robin Williams do one in which Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz featured? You could not imagine a more cringingly pathetic, feeble and cowardly ‘revenge’ on ideological enemies you haven’t got the balls to face yourself or even the stature to attract the attention of. Most of the time the target of the idiots indignant little literary jerk-off is a person of actual consequence, as in this case, and is too busy doing an real, gown-up job he gets paid for to even notice the squeaking of some irrelevant little tax-sucking leftist driveller, so none of this sweaty fantasizing amounts to anything other than cheap therapy for the dumbass in question.
So this is it, this is as good as they can give. I don’t think even Shakespeare could delineate what a fucking joke these people have become, though he’d probably be grateful he’s not alive to see this anyway.
Oh dear. I had to deal with this piece of work known as Dr Martin in a professional capacity about 15 years ago. It is clear that the incipient mental illness that I pondered at the time (after being told that we were about to be swamped by a nuclear holocaust) has now progressed into a major condition. The BIG question is why can’t his University deal with this in a humane way and just resolve the problem. In all seriousness, this bugger is a genuine worry.
Further…. Brian Martin co-authored a book called Intellectual Suppression some years ago. A full conspiracy theorist that is still roaming free just like you and me. This is clear living proof of the failure of the mental heath and tertiary education systems. The student, by the way, is clearly FITH (or F***d In The Head)
Sigh!
My only regular contact with good ol’ UOW these days is to attend an annual lecture by a
bearded manenvironmentalist, conducted in the name and memory of Albury Shifton, the Elder. I forewent the privilege this year, free cheese and bikkies not withstanding. I’ve never heard such a load of anti-capitalist, Gaia-huggng crap (and that’s just students talking in the cafeteria before I even make it to the lecture)!I was in a train that stopped at North Wollongong Station today. I wonder if young Lisa was one of the starry eyed waifs that boarded? (Not quite Uni season yet, but most on the station had that Uni student look about them)
Anyway, how is that failed contender for a federal Yarts Grant, in any way manner or form, an essay?? Last time I wrote something like that and tried to pass it off as an essay, my English teacher read it to the class for a laugh, and to show everyone exactly how NOT to write an essay.
Posted by AlburyShifton on 2007 01 24 at 06:12 AM • permalink# 31
Lisa’s opening para:Scene 1. - A large group of protestors has gathered, outside the Sydney Conference Building, hosting the Kyoto Protocol convention on global warming and sustainable solutions.1
Adam’s opening para:Narrator: 6:45pm. The sun is setting over a barren landscape that once formed part of the Amazon Rainforest, striped of life to make way for cattle grazing1. The landscape resembles a scene from the western front during the first world war, denuded of vegetation and lifeless. The nutrient depleted soils2 appear almost as a stain on the earth in comparison to the remnant pockets of unspoilt rainforest
vegetation. The lungs of the planet are faltering. Meanwhile, in the hedonistic consumer culture of the capitalist first world, millions of Mc consumers are mindlessly devouring McDonalds products.
Elsewhere, in a dimmed and quite ward of an American hospital, a doctor is calling the time of death of Ronald McDonald3…
Kate G’s opening para:Enter a exhausted George Bush: after a day of riding around in his pickup truck and chasing armadillos with his two dogs1 on his ranch in Texas. Bush walks out onto the porch and eases back in his ol’ rocking chair. The radio is playing in the background on a non-commercial radio station.
Katie’s opening para:I was sitting at home and relaxing in my recliner after a particularly difficult day in Washington. We had finished an arduous general committee meeting on formulating a strategy to engage with criticisms about our policies from
Environmentalists. I was just dosing off when a great stream of light roused me to consciousness, I scurried from my chair and was stopped by an awesome sight of an angel like figure.
Victoria’s opening para:Setting: The year is 1997, and the characters are in Bangkok, Thailand. A symposium is being held to address the Peoples Republic of China’s proposed scheme of constructing eight dams on the Upper Mekong. The first dam, the Manwan Dam was completed in 1996, with construction of the second Dam, Dachaoshan, starting the same year.
Nilknarf, I think you’ve inadvertently cut and pasted some entries from this year’s Bulwer-Lytton Contest. Last year’s winner went thusly:
“Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you’ve had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean.”
Must be Detective Paco’s first cousin…
Posted by AlburyShifton on 2007 01 24 at 06:22 AM • permalinkAh, there are some things Mastercard can’t buy…
Funny thing about anarchists: apart from the freedom to use drugs, they want to force you into everything they say.
I’d almost call myself an anarchist. After all, I don’t believe in the victimless crime - you want to do something, knock yourself out, if it doesn’t directly harm others. Which is why I’m a laissez-faire capitalist, and abhor socialism.
I’ll agree with Lisa that there’s too much government. However, without an even more controlling regime, I wonder how she plans to enforce the environmental utopia of her dreams.
If everyone was perfect, we wouldn’t need any government at all. But this is where reality intrudes on idealism. Lisa might realise that in 10 or so years - and that the essence of civilisation is its ability to adapt the environment to its needs, not vice versa. The society she advocates would be a pitiless dark age. Nothing in her “essay” contradicts this. The scariest part is, people like Lisa would say that is a justified sacrifice for the preservation of Gaia, and they are convinced it is a necessary sacrifice - the dark ages, or oblivion.
Grimmy, you think the islamofascists are our greatest threat. Sorry to disagree. I have no fear of Muslims. This greenie/leftoid fifth column within our midst, however, is a worry.
Comrade Bridges does not restrict herself to just being a bullsh*t artist.
Perhaps this is a good thing.
Posted by Andrew Landeryou on 2007 01 24 at 06:28 AM • permalinkFootnotes 9 and 10 are great - one follows immediately after the other and they are neatly contradictory.
From #9: Anarchists support a stateless society, where all individuals are free to run their lives without imposed or oppressive laws which tell them what they must do
From #10: The Howard Government focuses on policies which support a growing economy, for example deregulating the market and cutting taxes (wish this waa true)
Now isn’t deregulating and cutting taxes shrinking the state and leaving individuals more “free to run their lives” in the aggregate? Yet you say it like it’s a bad thing. I’m confused, Lisa!
From #9: anarchist’s (sic) feel they should be able to follow their own
consciences, they also believe that humans are instinctively moral and rational.From 10#: they also reduce spending on social welfare policies, and
especially environmental funding.Don’t worry, Lisa! Howard doesn’t need to tax the buggery out of everyone to pay for social welfare and environmental funding (unforunately he will anyway, but let’s pretend Lisa’s simple world actually exists for argument’s sake) - people should be able to “follow their own consciences” and are all “instinctively moral and rational”, Remember? So they’ll donate voluntarily towards these causes, right?
The pitiful girl clearly can’t discern the glaring inconsistencies in her worldview.
Posted by James Waterton on 2007 01 24 at 06:40 AM • permalinkSorry everyone. Margo Kingston’s proofing my comments.
Posted by James Waterton on 2007 01 24 at 06:43 AM • permalinkThis post was not up when I went to bed last night. Once again Tim Blair writes a good post so that the Australians (and the New Zealanders with electricity) can comment to before the Amerikkkans.
I feel so, so second class. I think I deserve a quota or government hand out.
Posted by wronwright on 2007 01 24 at 06:56 AM • permalinkAmos
You doubt something this bad could be produced??
Try this pap for a lefties wet dream.as a bonus this review is written by Margok!!
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 01 24 at 06:56 AM • permalinkI stopped at,
I don’t think I can face this crowd today they look potentially violent,
and I am wearing ArmaniAnyone who knows anything knows that he wears Anthony Squires
Words fail me….
I laughed for pages on end until I realised that - maybe- this wasn’t a hoax. It still could be. If I were in this class this is precisely what I would write, only I would submit 4 lines of text and 30 pages of footnotes.
There was a renowned (bad) poet who added explanatory footnotes to his verse, the name escapes me though.
You should submit this to the Oz Tim.Makes one long for the days of the MrS degree.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 01 24 at 07:14 AM • permalinkIf you look at the Kyoto counter, you will see that the total temperature increment hypothetically subtracted from the global temperature in 2050 has just surpassed three negative millidegrees centigrade! Congratulations to everyone. It’s an exceptional moment of human history.
You can now proudly inform your grandkids that in 2050, if they’re still around, the global average temperature will be about 14.863 Celsius degrees even though otherwise, without the bold acts of the grandfather and millions of other great people, it would probably be frying 14.866 Celsius degrees although no one will be able to prove this assertion.
The Pseudo-University of Wollongong’s brain-washing experiment seems to have worked just fine. Shame the literature classes failed so dismally.
Lisa will do just fine as a left-wing opinion piece writer. The fantasy world, puerile sub-teen style and a deep understanding of absolutely nothing. Phil Adams has a successor
#82. I read the article at the link, and all I can think is, Goddamn I love this country and our PM!
The man is a legend. For someone so vilified by the opposition and moonbats, he’s so bloody down to earth. He’s such a bloke!
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 01 24 at 07:21 AM • permalinkCEO FAIRFAX HILMER acknowledges age and smg total bias of left wing. SMOKING GUN i think
Hilmernovel- todays ozziePosted by Astonished on 2007 01 24 at 07:30 AM • permalinkMy definition of anarchy:
Getting a ute and mounting a .50 cal on the back and driving around blatting combi’s with flower stickers on the back. When news helicopters hover overhead to grab some footage, shoot at them with RPG’s.
Hang on, that’s starting to sound suspiciously like Somalia…. Somalia looks like an environmental wonderland to me. Dust and goats and camel shit from one end to the other.
Why can’t we have conscription, but use it to conscript wankers into a “peace corp”. You give them 5 minutes training in how to pull the rip cord, then push them out of the back of the Herc over some dump like Somalia. Any that make it back alive don’t have to pay their HECS bill.
Should be a cheap program to run.
Posted by mr creosote on 2007 01 24 at 07:42 AM • permalinkWow! So this is science in Australia. STS300 is listed as an honours assessment and so one presumes that this “outstanding” researcher has gone on to do a doctorate.
Makes my pissy little honours project on the quantum mechanical equivalence of Schrodingers energy formulation and Richard Feynman’s principle of least action look rather silly. But then again I was never bright enough to be an environmental scientist, just had to take second best and continue on with a bit of theoretical physics.
Posted by Whale Spinor on 2007 01 24 at 07:57 AM • permalinkOMG - Young Lisa was only doing what she was told to do. I take it all back. There is a format for these essays that presumably (if you wish to pass) you should follow. Brian Martin outlines it here.
OK sarcasm/off - Read the above pdf and weep. An honours student in science having to be given a loaded political proforma for an essay that should at least contain a little scientific originality.
Pathetic. Mindnumbingly pathetic. No wonder fewer and fewer students wish to do science these days.
Posted by Whale Spinor on 2007 01 24 at 08:18 AM • permalinkSo, a fantastically poorly done dialectic is considered an “outstanding essay”. I weep for our future.
A dialectic, properly done, has both participants pulling their weight. This one just has John Howard acting as a foil for Gaia.
You might get away with this in year 10 English, but something like this getting a pass, let alone high marks in a third year university class is just woeful.
It’s amazing the sort of rubbish some professors will let you get away with writing if you flatter their prejudices.
Posted by Korgmeister on 2007 01 24 at 08:19 AM • permalinkI did a quick search of this professor of ‘gong U that assigned this project, Brian Martin. It turns out he’s some kind of super-hippy. He’s published a book arguing against intellectual property (ironic?), and the second week of the course our friend Lisa attended was about Backfire. “Some attacks backfire against their attackers… See especially the articles on the invasion of Iraq and the beating of Rodney King.”
Wow. I can’t imagine how painfully unpleasant it must be to be around him.
#89 Astonished, here is the link to the Hilmer article. He has written a book on his days at fairfax. Could be interesting reading, more from a business sense that from a political one. Unless he has some amusing anecdotes.
#95 - that is an excellent link. But for the life of me, I can’t understand how a story containing Mao and Ghandi doesn’t end up with Ghandi stuck in front of a People’s Tribunal having to confess how he has betrayed the revolution, and then being led out the back to be suffocated by having a plastic shopping bag stuck over his head.
Posted by mr creosote on 2007 01 24 at 08:24 AM • permalinkThe Pseudo-University of Wollongong’s brain-washing experiment seems to have worked just fine. Shame the literature classes failed so dismally.
That’s unfair. The University of Wollongong is doing some brilliant stuff in the IT and Biotech areas.
I’ve just checked, and the ‘Science and Technology Studies’, despite the name, is in fact a part of the Arts Faculty. Enough said…
I think I’ve read more believable dialogue from Kunthea Ker. Although “John Howard: Well that’s just nonsense!” is uncannily accurate.
#32: The central theme in my research is the dynamics of power, with special attention to strategies for challenging repression and exploitation. I have explored power dynamics through an interplay of theory and case studies . . .
Manager: Yes, yes, Ms. Bridges, I’m sure that’s all admirable, very admirable indeed. But you forgot to change the oil in the french fry vat, again, your register was short by twenty dollars, and you’ve been seen routinely taking a sip out of customers’ milkshakes to test for thickness. I’m sorry, but I’m afraid you’re just not up to Burger King’s standards.
Surely this is brilliant satire, meant as a very subtle dig on her leftoid professor…
Naaaah.
Loved the Abbott and Costello bit, though.
Posted by Tommy Shanks on 2007 01 24 at 09:28 AM • permalinkThere is probably no form of writing that, when it fails, fails as badly as satire. The skilled satirist starts with an idea, which usually has at least a modicum of ostensibly rational appeal, and then carries that idea to its logical and absurd conclusion. If the writer commences with a distorted and cartoonish version of the idea, then he is exhibiting either incompetence or laziness (or both), and usually winds up unintentionally satirizing his own ideas. As is the case with the unfortunate Ms. Bridges.
With respect to Phillip Adams: well, a good beard covers a multitude of chins.
Re #95, thanks for that link, Whale. I think.
Well, it does show there’s a faint possibility that the students wrote those horrible essays just to pass that course.
Please note the emphasis on “faint”. Alas, I suspect that the probability of that occuring is depressingly low.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 01 24 at 09:47 AM • permalinkOoooh, I’ve finally realised.
They were science essays.
I thought they were first year drama students.
Just a BTW I thought science had something to do with facts or something.
—Nora
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2007 01 24 at 09:58 AM • permalinkI’ve just checked, and the ‘Science and Technology Studies’, despite the name, is in fact a part of the Arts Faculty. Enough said…
Ah. Reminds me of the worst college course I ever took: “Technology and Society”, taught by a philosophy prof. I learned more about technology and society from the engineering college’s semester-long team design project which involved no actual work on a device; just hashing out the pluses and minuses and learning to deal with different personalities.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2007 01 24 at 10:07 AM • permalinkHaving taught at the ANU, it’s obvious to me what the students are doing: maximising their mark.
The lecturer has very firm opinions, that brook no contradiction. He wants Guff, so Guff they give him, great turgid steaming piles of the stuff. Some will just regurgitate the Party Line, others may put in the odd little satirical dig, confident that the marker will be so blinded by their own smug superiority that they won’t question it. But in the end, they’re getting the GPA that is all important. They’re paying enough of their hard-earned spondulix for the course, after all. They’ve paid for those marks (or is that Marx?), this embarrassing little farce is just a little humiliating rite they’re forced to undergo.
It’s normal for Arts students. It’s sad though when you see budding Scientists and Engineers who eschew all originality of thought just to get the HD that’s worth another grand after graduation. Never taking risks.
I’m afraid it appears to be ingrained in them from their experiences at High School.
Is Alice’s name not Bruce, then? That’s bound to cause confusion if she becomes a professor.
Posted by andycanuck on 2007 01 24 at 10:22 AM • permalinkOr ‘Lisa’, even? [Hey cut me some slack; I just got up 40 minutes ago.]
Posted by andycanuck on 2007 01 24 at 10:23 AM • permalinkTommy Shanks - ‘cept Lisa can’t claim it. The Abbott and Costello gag has been around for years.
Zoe - you may well be right, mate. However, observing the political positions of the vast bulk of my alumni, maximising their grades in the manner you describe isn’t exactly a long stretch from their actual point of view. Most more or less bought that garbage a long time ago.
Posted by James Waterton on 2007 01 24 at 10:25 AM • permalinkSharon is interested in the dynamics of environmental and technological controversies and has special interest in the social aspects of engineering; environmental politics; the rhetoric of sustainable development; the philosophies behind environmental economics; and trends in environmentalism and corporate activism/public relations. Most recently she has broadened her research interests to include a critique of the work ethic; market solutions to social problems; and neoliberalism more generally.
Whatever happened to just studying frickin’ engineering and doing something useful with it?
A mate of mine got his PhD in Civil Engineering at Wwoolleennggoonnggg.
And he’s one of the best young engineers I’ve seen for quite a few years.
There must be some enclaves of excellence there.
jlc
Posted by Jack from Montreal on 2007 01 24 at 11:42 AM • permalink#117 RebeccaH
You are absolutely right. As an engineer involved in water and power, I see political correctness and the new religion of GW encroaching day by day on science and technology.
I fear for my grandkids, god bless ‘em.
jlc
Posted by Jack from Montreal on 2007 01 24 at 11:49 AM • permalinkSharon is interested in the dynamics of environmental and technological controversies and has special interest in the social aspects of engineering; environmental politics; the rhetoric of sustainable development; the philosophies behind environmental economics; and trends in environmentalism and corporate activism/public relations. Most recently she has broadened her research interests to include a critique of the work ethic; market solutions to social problems; and neoliberalism more generally.
Hmmm. Yes, put that down on your job application. If I were reviewing it, I would focus on the following words:
- environmental and technological controversies
- social aspects of engineering
- environmental politics
- rhetoric of sustainable development
- the philosophies behind environmental economics
- environmentalism and corporate activism
- a critique of the work ethic
- market solutions to social problems
This baby would take one minute to screen. Or maybe I would schedule a job interview just for some laughs. I would have to include some buddies on it though. My “job interview board”. Beer would be involved somehow.
No, no, no. The type of skills that employers are looking for are those that show creativity and initiative such as taking hum drum quotes posted by RebeccaH and sprucing them up, making them exciting by making them red or in italics. Yes, that’s a person to hire, with a fat compensation package I might add.
Posted by wronwright on 2007 01 24 at 01:24 PM • permalinkI will not comment further on the appalling grammar and syntax of subject “outstanding” essay. At least we can hope that with such dim-wittedness, this student will not ever become part of the working public.
The instructor, however, will gladly comment on “a critique of the work ethic” as soon as she damn well feels like it.
#111
It’s apparent that the kids are learning first hand how to recycle ... their mentor’s excreta.
Sadly, this looks like high school level of critical examination: check your brain in at the door, no thought necessary.Chief objection: tax bux payin their anachronistic ‘anarchist’ leader, thanx for Bolt’s pic.
STS300: The Environmental Context
Autumn session, 2005, all campuses
SUBJECT OUTLINE
Subject coordinator
Brian MartinObjectives
• To promote critical thinking about environmental issues ...For success in most jobs, the most important attributes are, according to employers:
...
• skills in critical thinking.
...
In STS300 there is emphasis on ... critical thinking.
Whose ‘critical thinking’, Brian: theirs or yours?#118
A mate of mine got his PhD in Civil Engineering at Wwoolleennggoonnggg.
And he’s one of the best young engineers I’ve seen for quite a few years.
There must be some enclaves of excellence there.
See #100. It’s an Arts Faculty offshoot.
Also, Via Bolta’s page:
Wollongong University’s Dr Mark Imisides begs us not to judge the place by one loopy department:
In short, we in the science faculty consider the whole STS department to be a laughing stock - please don’t take them too seriously.
# 32 Clearly he needs to add “teaching creative writing” in there.
Posted by carpefraise on 2007 01 24 at 11:02 PM • permalinkComplete and utter bullshit. Oi! Cosmic being! Three minutes of my life back, please, and make it snappy!
I don’t know if any Blairites are active in the online fanfiction communities, but there’s a word for characters like Gaia: Mary Sue. “Mary Sue” is commonly defined as follows:
Mary Sue, noun. An obvious author avatar, often given an unusual or unlikely name for purposes of drama, which acts as a wish-fulfillment vehicle for the author’s own daydreams while simultaneously gang-raping the language, characterization, and canon of the story and leaving its bones to rot.
Sounds familiar, no?
“Gaia” (gah, what a name- it’s worse than Silver RavenWolf) is a full-blown self-insert Mary Sue. This kid obviously has a recurring fantasy of being able to corner John Howard and tell him what she allegedly thinks. But she’s committed the first major sin of fiction by turning Howard into an OMG TEH EVOL villain version of himself.
And she won an award for this junk? Brain not . . . working . . . somebody get the TARDIS . . . prevent this from occurring . . . horrible implications for human sanity . . . Doctor!
Posted by Tungsten Monk on 2007 01 24 at 11:04 PM • permalink#115—Thanks. As a Yank, I had no idea. On second thought, it’s pretty obvious that if a country has ministers named Abbott and Costello there’d be plenty of wisecracks from Day One of such a cabinet arrangement.
Posted by Tommy Shanks on 2007 01 24 at 11:05 PM • permalink# 37. Because to the Left “the only thing you need to be funny [IS] to call Howard/Liberal Party/Bush etc juvenile names”.
I must admit though that I made a left-wing audience laugh twice without needing to do that. But then, I was being endearing.
Posted by carpefraise on 2007 01 24 at 11:06 PM • permalinkHmmm, what total and utter garbage eh… Remember to never let me go there, as I’m sure their degress are considered not worth wiping your bum on by most rational people…
The other thing, she and her anarchist friends aught to be thankful for, is the day society crumbles and falls to these type of scum, will be the day i go out and start shooting everyone of them I can find, and there won’t be any coppers to protect them, until we have sufficiently culled these dregs to re-establish a bit of law and order…
So its really in their best interest that all these laws and oppresive police forces stay in place while they spout off…
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