An open thread, where at your weekend leisure, you can discuss anything you like.
38 Responses to “Saturday Salon”
Leave a Reply
Please read the comments policy. If you would like an icon beside your comment, please register a Gravatar.
There is a Comments Preview function below the typing box which activates when you start typing.
I think this is a worrying development
Link on the wrong word. Oh well, it’s late.
Klaus:
Heavens-to-betsy! I’m shocked! Mortified! The end of civililation as we know it is nigh!
Let’s all take to the streets in moral outrage!
Oh, by the way, did I miss something in that story? I couldn’t find any reference at all to standards of literacy and numeracy.
A friend of mine is bringinging round her 15 (I think) daughter this morning to ask me questions about growing up in the 1950s and 60s. Its part of a school project and they’re going to videocam it. All of this I totally approve of, of course, but in light of Klaus’s comment, should I wear my Socialist Alliance T-shirt on camera? (Being a bit of a lair I was going to wear a bright red shirt instead.)
“During an afternoon meeting with principal Julie Organ and local schools director Maurice Brennan, Ms Tziolas was issued with a letter signed by Mr Brennan.”
With a name like “Organ” you would have thought the principal may have been a little more understanding. Anyway, it’s good to see the moral police are around all forms of publishing.
Great! Married couple confess they have sex. Leads to getting the sack. More madness.
Psst. Is there not one good man or woman of authority about who can release my comments from the mark of spaminator Cain on the Papal apology thread?
Fine [6]:
You used that three-letter word [other than “the”] in your comment. Don’t try to make out that you didn’t; your assault on our decency is there for all to see. Don’t pretend you didn’t know what that word meant because you used in IN context.
Don’t try to squirm out of your guilt by making reference to a “married couple”. We know you evil-doers and unrepentant servants of Satan; you’ll try any deceit and tricks to avoid eternal damnation for your lascivious talk and for enticing clean-living people into a life of drunkenness, whoring, gluttony, swearing and Sabbath-breaking with your sinful words.
…. Fred, get the ducking-stool and the ropes ready; praise be!, we’ve caught another one of the Devil’s hand-maidens red-handed.
i reckon the parents were already concerned with her alternative image and this is just the icing on the cake for them.
Primary school teachers are usually v v square looking - all sweetness and light!
Anyone know what the school is like?
Gem of the Day
The Courier Mail, observing that “AUSTRALIA is in the middle of a new baby boom, with the nation’s birth rate the highest in 10 years.”
Adds The average woman can now expect to have 1.8 children in her lifetime. [link]
Best reason I’ve read in a while for a gal NOT to be “average”!
Has anyone heard whether Newstopia will be getting another season on SBS? What do peeps think of it’s replacement, Salam Cafe? Piss weak I thought.
[Has anyone heard whether Newstopia will be getting another season on SBS? What do peeps think of it’s replacement, Salam Cafe? Piss weak I thought.]
Salam CAfe was originally produced for Ch 31 in Melbourne and has won several Community Television Antenna Awardss, including Program of the Year.
This is the 3rd Community Television show, the others being Vasilli’s Garden (which only lasted one season, before the host decided he preferred Ch 31, and Blokes World, which initially went to Ch 10, and I think now is on a pay TV Channel.
I know I’m going straight to hell Mr. Bell. I’m a wicked, wicked woman.
Newsptopia will be going for a 3rd season later in the year. Give Salam Cafe a couple of eps to settle in. Everything takes time.
“Adds The average woman can now expect to have 1.8 children in her lifetime. [link]
Best reason I’ve read in a while for a gal NOT to be “average”!”
Yer, all right for you to say DeeCee, Ms Non-Average, but what about all those “.8 of a kid”, out there, trying to live normal lives?
I thought Salam cafe was hilarious.
0.8 of a kid? Spare a thought for the parents! There’s a 0.1 of a kid (by volume) crawling around the floor right now, refusing to go to bed. Rebellion starts early these days. I blame (shakes magic RWDB eight ball) sparing the rod! Apparently I should be using my belt, and not the end with the holes in it.
How many more essays do I have to mark before I can go to bed?
Just enough that you can believe in finishing them tomorrow, Laura.
Five more than you want to Laura. It’s the rule of boring and is universal.
I took my mum to see Keating! The Musical tonight as a Mothers’ Day present. It was brilliant!
The guy who played Howard really had the ratty body language down pat.
And the Alexander Downer number in fishnets and corset was just swish…
The audience was a who’s who of the ALP from Anna Bligh down.
Frank @ 12,
Thanks for that. I didn’t know the history of the show and my “piss weak” comment had more to do with it feeling and looking like a community channel show, which it obviously was. I’m not really a Blokes World kind of guy but I think it was on The Comedy Channel for a bit and might be on that Aurora Community Channel on Foxtel now. btw Fine, thanks for the heads up on the eventual return of Newstopia. I’m just always a touch worried he’s going to get the axe again.
Mark @ 20,
I’m really glad you and your mum liked Keating! I haven’t seen it but it just did a run here in Adelaide and got some great reviews. I wonder if the Member for Mayo found the time between lunch dates and co-hosting radio shows to go and see it while it was on here? I went and got my mother the present every mother wants tomorrow, Underbelly-uncut.
Well, the ‘Howard-lite’ myth takes another battering with the medicare surcharge changes.
I’m delighted: and if the insurance industry thinks its going to be easy running a scare campaign they’re dreaming. I liked Swan’s dry comment ” people who want private health insurance will still have private health insurance”.
Right on Wayne. How about choice, rather than being arm-twisted? Its going to be a piss easy sell for the government. Plus the ‘waiting lists will explode’ line just isnt backed by the stats at all, and they know it.
My fave is the “but teh premiums will rise!!”. What, like they aren’t already?
What’s even more significant about Labor’s Medicare decision is that it has exposed Howard’s plan to destroy our National Health System, Medicare, by stealth. People can now see what it was Howard was really trying to do. As I said on another thread, evil creeps up on you. Well, this is one piece of Howard slime that looks like its come to an and, for all intents and purposes.
Yes, Paul, you can almost smell the Tories’ impotent panic as the Emporer’s nude arse is catwalked.
Its good policy, and clever politics. This is a major headache for Nelson. The problem is, the Howard policy cant actually endure two seconds of evidence-based scrutiny. Its a compelte flop on all scores - it survived on rhetoric and government protection alone.
I rreckon give it two weeks, and the Libs will realise they’re just gonna have to let it go away and die. Its indefensible territory. Walk in there and die: its gonna be a turkey shoot.
[Right on Wayne. How about choice, rather than being arm-twisted? Its going to be a piss easy sell for the government. Plus the ‘waiting lists will explode’ line just isnt backed by the stats at all, and they know it. ]
And the Doctor’s Union don’t like it either. They make a killing so to speak out of private insurance - especially in charging for multiple hospital visits when in fact you’re lucky to see them once a week.
[Plus the ‘waiting lists will explode’ line just isnt backed by the stats at all, and they know it.]
I just wonder how many of these Waiting List problems are caused by people postponing surgery for various reasons such as family events, holidays, Christmas/New Year etc, and Doctors going on leave, medical confrences ?
If it was REALLY life & Death, they’d get you in somehow - plus I reckon hospitals beds are being tied up by the elderly waiting to be transferred to a proper aged care facility, and by people going in for boob jobs etc.
The several times I’ve had to go to hospital for life-threatening asthma attacks, and what might have been a heart attack (it wasn’t) I had no trouble getting into Armidale hospital, and had to stay longer than I liked.Though I did enjoy the rest from everyday life. Now, if this garbage about waiting lists was true, they wouldn’t have been able to find me a bed, would they7? Or am I lucky because I live in the Bush in a university town?
I’m not sure! Downer had a somewhat more sympathetic portrayal than Howard - that was really a cruel performance I thought!
How many more essays do I have to mark tonight before i can go to bed?
Clues: Today, since 8.30am, I’ve done fourteen @2000 words each. There are sixteen left. I’m meeeting my co-marker tomorrow at ten to exchange essays.
Rebel against two-week turnarounds?
If you do find the answer, Laura, please share!
Laura, I see it’s 10.43 am in Victoria — how did you go?
I didn’t read this thread till late last night or I would have suggested that your fellow-marker was probably in exactly the same case and you could ring him/her up and renegotiate the meeting.
Does every essay have to be double-marked these days, and if so, why??
I haven’t encountered standard double marking for a very long time. The last I saw of it was when I was doing honours in 97 when everything honours students did had to be double marked. But perhaps Victorian universities maintain higher standards than Queensland ones? Or, as I was assuming, Laura has to swap the essays for moderation - ie to make sure both markers are applying the criteria comparably?
My co-marker is the sole lecturer/tutor for 110 students taking her American Literature unit. I am doing relief marking, having taught in this unit in past years. So I have 30 of hers as well as the usual 60 from my own lot. We were meeting to exchange and double mark As and Fails and so I could give the 30 back.
I’m now trying to get the remaining thirteen done tonight. Then, no more essays for three weeks, hooray.
I’m having a pretty cruisy semester marking wise. Big undergrad unit with a lot of multi-choice and exams that don’t need comments, and small numbers in the postgrad unit where they write teh actual essays.
I think what they say about childbirth is also true of marking: it’s so excruciatingly painful that you forget what it’s like out of sheer self-defence … until you have to do it again.
A glass of wine often helps!
Yes, first year essays.
*shudders in remembrance*
24 Lefty E May 11th, 2008 at 11:19 am
I love the smell of Lefty crowing in the morning. Smells like…hubris. A quick glance at the USE political scene shows how drasticly the cup can be dashed from Left-liberal lips.
Has anyone yet noticed that the European parliamentary Left seems to be in political decline, if not free fall? I have been predicting this rightwing turn of the worm for the better part of the decade, mainly focusing on the US/AUS.
I tried to make this point over at suz’s post but have been condemned to moderator purgatory for making an unkind remark about Ken Livingstone. Apparently that red flower is too delicate to be exposed to the elements.
The facts seemed to have overtaken my prediction as I had little idea of the strength of the USEs right wing reaction until I started compiling the shopping list of right-wing horror govts. It turns out that pretty much every USE govt is now controlled or dominated by Centre-Right parties:
Belgium: Czech Republic: Denmark: Estonia: France: Germany: Greece Italy: Latvia: Luxembourg: Malta: Netherlands: Poland: Romania: Slovenia:
I will wager $100 that the Tories will win the next UK election. Any takers? (I will also wager $100 that the Dems will win the next US election. Different story.)
I see that Newseek has now bothered to glance at the 800lb gorilla that has been squatting in the corner of Europes living room since the early noughties, although with maximal sourness and ill-grace:
I especially liked Newsweeks wistful but jaded evaluation of USE Left-liberal propensity to confuse symbolism with substance:
Sound familiar?