My girl & I were curled up on the couch watching TV as the usual reel of KFC and McDonalds ads rolled past.
It was at this point that she observed that the people in the fast food ads don't look like the people we reaaally see when we stop for junk food on our long trips.
Out of the mouths of babes...
Showing posts with label InTheNews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label InTheNews. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Monday, February 1, 2010
Sooks and censorship...
A while back, an Indonesian newspaper published a satirical cartoon depicting John Howard and Alexander Downer as slavering dingoes 'mounting each other'.
Now, to be fair, Howard basically replied to the media's hysteria with the very Aussie 'get over it'.
Up my way, however, local news stations were appalled at the evil Indonesian media's bad taste and political shortsightedness in depicting our national treasures in such an unflattering light.
Now I can’t say Howard is my favourite former politician and don't even ask me about Downer - but I was impress by their responses.
According to ABC online, Howard said...
'In relation to the cartoons, well I've been in this game a long time, if I got offended about cartoons golly, heavens above, give us a break.'
Mr Downer said the cartoon was tasteless.
He says people can choose to publish tasteless and grotesque cartoons in a free society
Now, don't quote me on this, but isn't one of the Western world's biggest complaints about Indonesia the continued evidence of empire building, a trend towards dictatorships and...ohmigod...even CENSORSHIP!?
And here we are condemning a newspaper for printing (gasp gasp) distasteful political commentary in the form of a cartoon!
What would Larry Flynt say, really?
And let's remember, there are no actual laws to protect free speech in Australia - just conventions, which many heretofore unnamed media barons have done their best to circumvent.
(Long live the Goanna?)
My least-favourite lecturer at Uni taught me, what I now believe is, the most valuable journalistic lesson I ever learned.
Free speech means even the wankers get a say...and let's face it, they're always the first ones to pull up the soapbox.
(And yes, I am not unaware of the irony of me writing this - but, please, let's move on)
So, what's the world coming to if Aussies are upset at someone taking a poke at the pollies?
The Indonesians aren't saying anything we haven't said a million times, about our own politicians - not to mention theirs, and the rulers of every other nation on Earth - so, in my eyes, this is really a wonderful step towards multicultural understanding.
(Ask me about Indonesia's role as the world's last empire-builders and you'll hear much worse language than dingo-rooter).
The upside of this whole issue is that Australia and Indonesia now, agree on something.
The avenues of communication are now, finally, open...
Let's reopen trade, we can bitch about the Yanks together, it's all good.
But what I really want is to find a site with the damn cartoon on it. Someone send me a link! It appears to have been expunged from cyberspace.
And where are the Chinese cartoons, the Bosnian commentaries, the Haiti satires?
And note to the media, rom one journalist to another, what the hell is all the fuss about?
Or to quote a short man – “golly, heavens above, give us a break!”
Now, to be fair, Howard basically replied to the media's hysteria with the very Aussie 'get over it'.
Up my way, however, local news stations were appalled at the evil Indonesian media's bad taste and political shortsightedness in depicting our national treasures in such an unflattering light.
Now I can’t say Howard is my favourite former politician and don't even ask me about Downer - but I was impress by their responses.
According to ABC online, Howard said...
'In relation to the cartoons, well I've been in this game a long time, if I got offended about cartoons golly, heavens above, give us a break.'
Mr Downer said the cartoon was tasteless.
He says people can choose to publish tasteless and grotesque cartoons in a free society
Now, don't quote me on this, but isn't one of the Western world's biggest complaints about Indonesia the continued evidence of empire building, a trend towards dictatorships and...ohmigod...even CENSORSHIP!?
And here we are condemning a newspaper for printing (gasp gasp) distasteful political commentary in the form of a cartoon!
What would Larry Flynt say, really?
And let's remember, there are no actual laws to protect free speech in Australia - just conventions, which many heretofore unnamed media barons have done their best to circumvent.
(Long live the Goanna?)
My least-favourite lecturer at Uni taught me, what I now believe is, the most valuable journalistic lesson I ever learned.
Free speech means even the wankers get a say...and let's face it, they're always the first ones to pull up the soapbox.
(And yes, I am not unaware of the irony of me writing this - but, please, let's move on)
So, what's the world coming to if Aussies are upset at someone taking a poke at the pollies?
The Indonesians aren't saying anything we haven't said a million times, about our own politicians - not to mention theirs, and the rulers of every other nation on Earth - so, in my eyes, this is really a wonderful step towards multicultural understanding.
(Ask me about Indonesia's role as the world's last empire-builders and you'll hear much worse language than dingo-rooter).
The upside of this whole issue is that Australia and Indonesia now, agree on something.
The avenues of communication are now, finally, open...
Let's reopen trade, we can bitch about the Yanks together, it's all good.
But what I really want is to find a site with the damn cartoon on it. Someone send me a link! It appears to have been expunged from cyberspace.
And where are the Chinese cartoons, the Bosnian commentaries, the Haiti satires?
And note to the media, rom one journalist to another, what the hell is all the fuss about?
Or to quote a short man – “golly, heavens above, give us a break!”
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Nyah nyah! My school's better than your school...
If you have a child in school, there’s a good chance you were one of the thousands of parents who helped crash the www.myschool.edu.au school comparison website last week.
How’s that for a show of parental competitiveness and involvement – so proud!
There’s a lot of concerns about this site, especially in small, country towns like mine.
How can an average government school of 50 kids – from Reception to Year 12 - square up alongside a private school with more than that many kids in a single grade?
Well, myschool tells us it just can’t.
The myschool site is confirming all country school parents’ greatest fear that:
numbers = resources = results = more resources & more numbers
Little country schools have an awful lot of red shaded rectangles showing up on their pages and yes, it is disappointing, maybe even demoralising, for those students, teachers, families busting their butts to find out that…well…it’s still not good enough.
But when we’re talking about resources I think it’s important to point out that the most important resource in education is people. Real live, sweating, bite-my-tongue-and-get-down-to-work people.
For instance, in schools where just one or two local teachers stick with a single grade over several years, their teaching ability becomes very clear in the NAPLAN (National Assessment Program Literacy & Numeracy) results.
And, at my school, I’ll make you a bet that that same Year 3 group that’s doing better than the school’s other grades will score equally high next year with the same teacher and different kids.
How’s that for an uplifting example of just one person making a real difference?
But it’s not just teachers who make the difference.
While a larger school, with bigger, better music or sports programs may be able to hire the best – in some smaller communities, equally wonderful people are donating their time, and getting great results too.
Maybe it’s about pride and ownership? And if so, then the big question is how do we get our students, teachers, communities and governments to take more pride in our schools – our small, country, red-shaded schools – and invest more resources?
I’d suggest we need to celebrate our successes better.
Support our teachers and school teams more.
Get off our arses and help out – before and after our own kids leave our local schools. It’s not just parents who have something to give to their local school communities.
But, you know what?
People in small country towns know that their kids are disadvantaged for resources and rich in great people. We’ve always known that.
But, conversely, not every city school is going to have better results or be better suited to your child than the small, underfunded one he or she is currently attending.
I’d rather have my hormonal pre-teens surrounded by people I know, who know me, and who care about all of us…and who are too embarrassed to lose their temper because they know they’ll have to front up to me on the netball court the following Saturday.
I want teachers who are invested in my kids, and schools that are working for better results.
I want a school whose team looks at those results on the (constantly crashing) website and says ‘bugger that, we’re better than that and we can prove it’.
So – I think www.myschool.edu.au should be the making of a lot of schools.
The ones who dismiss the figures (& pretty red and green boxes) as irrelevant, are fooling themselves.
Schools are quite happy to hand out reports - what's wrong with them occasionally receiving one.
This site isn't negative - it's just statistical. And we all know the old saying about statistics don't we? (You don't? Really? Well what did YOU learn at school?)
The idea that we shouldn’t be able to publicly publish those tables in the media is ridiculous!
We publish the top five holiday destinations, we publish the five most dangerous cities…crap, we’ve published the five favourite sex positions in 25 countries.
We publish who is better than who – every year, every week – on the footy field. And if we put in as much support, money and pride into our schools as we do our sporting teams then all our kids would be kicking goals academically.
For those who say you can’t compare schools…I say suck it up. Of course you can. Parents want to.
We are a nation of comparison shoppers and we want the best.
Now the challenge is to be the best.
And that’s not just about SACE results – it’s about nurturing, community involvement and opportunities - as well as academic success.
But let's face it, if you're falling down in the academic arena and you're a school - well, you better have one hell of a good music program going for you.
How’s that for a show of parental competitiveness and involvement – so proud!
There’s a lot of concerns about this site, especially in small, country towns like mine.
How can an average government school of 50 kids – from Reception to Year 12 - square up alongside a private school with more than that many kids in a single grade?
Well, myschool tells us it just can’t.
The myschool site is confirming all country school parents’ greatest fear that:
numbers = resources = results = more resources & more numbers
Little country schools have an awful lot of red shaded rectangles showing up on their pages and yes, it is disappointing, maybe even demoralising, for those students, teachers, families busting their butts to find out that…well…it’s still not good enough.
But when we’re talking about resources I think it’s important to point out that the most important resource in education is people. Real live, sweating, bite-my-tongue-and-get-down-to-work people.
For instance, in schools where just one or two local teachers stick with a single grade over several years, their teaching ability becomes very clear in the NAPLAN (National Assessment Program Literacy & Numeracy) results.
And, at my school, I’ll make you a bet that that same Year 3 group that’s doing better than the school’s other grades will score equally high next year with the same teacher and different kids.
How’s that for an uplifting example of just one person making a real difference?
But it’s not just teachers who make the difference.
While a larger school, with bigger, better music or sports programs may be able to hire the best – in some smaller communities, equally wonderful people are donating their time, and getting great results too.
Maybe it’s about pride and ownership? And if so, then the big question is how do we get our students, teachers, communities and governments to take more pride in our schools – our small, country, red-shaded schools – and invest more resources?
I’d suggest we need to celebrate our successes better.
Support our teachers and school teams more.
Get off our arses and help out – before and after our own kids leave our local schools. It’s not just parents who have something to give to their local school communities.
But, you know what?
People in small country towns know that their kids are disadvantaged for resources and rich in great people. We’ve always known that.
But, conversely, not every city school is going to have better results or be better suited to your child than the small, underfunded one he or she is currently attending.
I’d rather have my hormonal pre-teens surrounded by people I know, who know me, and who care about all of us…and who are too embarrassed to lose their temper because they know they’ll have to front up to me on the netball court the following Saturday.
I want teachers who are invested in my kids, and schools that are working for better results.
I want a school whose team looks at those results on the (constantly crashing) website and says ‘bugger that, we’re better than that and we can prove it’.
So – I think www.myschool.edu.au should be the making of a lot of schools.
The ones who dismiss the figures (& pretty red and green boxes) as irrelevant, are fooling themselves.
Schools are quite happy to hand out reports - what's wrong with them occasionally receiving one.
This site isn't negative - it's just statistical. And we all know the old saying about statistics don't we? (You don't? Really? Well what did YOU learn at school?)
The idea that we shouldn’t be able to publicly publish those tables in the media is ridiculous!
We publish the top five holiday destinations, we publish the five most dangerous cities…crap, we’ve published the five favourite sex positions in 25 countries.
We publish who is better than who – every year, every week – on the footy field. And if we put in as much support, money and pride into our schools as we do our sporting teams then all our kids would be kicking goals academically.
For those who say you can’t compare schools…I say suck it up. Of course you can. Parents want to.
We are a nation of comparison shoppers and we want the best.
Now the challenge is to be the best.
And that’s not just about SACE results – it’s about nurturing, community involvement and opportunities - as well as academic success.
But let's face it, if you're falling down in the academic arena and you're a school - well, you better have one hell of a good music program going for you.
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