The True Blue Honour Roll of Academic Freedom

The Sydney Morning Herald published an article yesterday which had the Young Liberals demonstrating the depth of rigorous research that lies behind their finger-pointing before the 2008 Senate Inquiry into Academic Freedom and their listing of a number of 'bad' academics, when national president Noel McCoy pointed out that evidence for alleged teaching bias was basically found by Googling these same academics.

Because of that I was going to call this post; One man's Google or 4633 kilobytes that certain uni students will very likely be ashamed of when they reach retirement.

Then I clicked onto the Senate website and found this group's submission Make Education Fairer, dated 13 August 2008 .
One hundred and five PDF pages of the most malicious drivel I have read in quite some space of time.

Suddenly it wasn't so amusing anymore. This little witch hunt even named an entire university department in what boils down to charges of thought crimes against white, Anglo-Saxon males.

Especially jaw-dropping is the notion found in the submission that this excerpt is apparently considered a biased and unnatural aim:

2.1 1 Schooling should assist in overcoming inequalities between social groups, seeking to produce equal and high educational outcomes for all social groups.
[Australian Education Union, Curriculum Policy 2007]

I invite you to read it all here. Unfortunately at the time of posting this, the hearing transcripts were not up yet for 9 October 2008, when the Young Liberals presented their supposed evidence in person.

Those academics named in the Make Education Fairer submission deserve to be recognised and supported against such nonsense:

Wendy Bacon
Eva Cox
Peter Singer
Catharine Lumby

The entire Department of Critical and Cultural Studies at Macquarie University, including Doctors Anderson, Francis-Cranny, Lambert, Murray and Sullivan

Peter Manning
Sarah Maddison
Carol Johnson
Tom Bramble
Jamie Doughney
Carole Ferrier
Martin Hirst

Rick Kuhn

Georgina Murray
Damon Riggs
Anna Szorenyi

Kathleen Conellan

Alia Imtoual

et al

This week's political blog giggle

Yes we can (hold babies) has just turned up on my radar.

This is a light-hearted piece of photo campaigning from a college student called Eliza:

Many political scholars have referred to the "baby kiss effect" as the penultimate test of the capabilities of a nominee. If a politician doesn't kill the baby with his partisan lips, the country knows he's capable of taking that 3am call.

Barack Obama, in his majestic campaigning, has kissed many tots, held many youngsters, and charmed many mummies. Photographers snap pictures of these moments, because the images have the power to charm more than just mummies. They have the power to bring joy to the most cold-hearted of politicians, the most unfertile of citizens, and the most cynical of young voters.

Here, on this webspace, I bring you those uterus-rousing portraits, those testis-rejuvenating daguerreotypes, those happiness-inducing tableaus.

Surfin' the Coldstream Festival, Yamba 24-27 October 2008

Surfin' the Coldstream is on in Yamba NSW between Wednesday 24 to Saturday 27 October.
It features a mix of free street performance and music.
Strong lady, sword swallower, human pinwheel firecracker, acrobats, jugglers, comedian, flamenco dancers, singer and muliple bands.

Tickets to the 7pm Saturday Tent of Marvels Show in the Kitchen to Table BigTop can be purchased from ArtHouse Australia or bookings can be made by phoning (02) 6646.1999.

Clarence Valley Council: Williamson's World

A letter to the editor in The Daily Examiner this week:

Williamson's world

When the Clarence Valley local government election results were published, it was obvious that residents and ratepayers would have a predominately inexperienced set of shire councillors.

Now under Mayor Richie Williamson it is also obvious that this council intends to throw what is left of local government access and equity out the window, in favour of a closed shop for the convenience of the mayor and certain councillors' private working hours.

By changing the time of day at which ordinary monthly meetings start from 9am to 4pm [Clarence Valley Council,telephone advice,03.10.08], Mayor Williamson has locked out electors - who have to rely on bus transport to travel to Maclean or Grafton and return - from staying for the full length of those monthly meetings.

Bus timetables for the Grafton-Maclean-Iluka-Yamba run do not allow for any weekday travel after 5.26pm and 5.32pm to 6.07 pm from Grafton and Maclean respectively. [Busways timetable].

Allowing time to walk to the nearest bus stop, Lower Clarence residents and ratepayers without private transport will only be able to stay at a Grafton monthly meeting for an hour and at a Maclean monthly meeting for and hour and fifteen minutes to an hour and three-quarters if they are lucky.
Grafton residents and ratepayers without private transport will have to leave the 4p.m. Maclean meetings before the bus back to Grafton at 5.32pm.
Iluka people relying on bus travel just won't have any access to any ordinary monthly meetings, as in practice there will be no timely Maclean transfers available.

With an aging population in many areas of the Clarence Valley and a dwindling pool of friends and neighbours capable of driving long distances as the light is changing or in the dark, many people will not be able to attend monthly meetings when issues that concern them come before council for consideration and vote.

It is my understanding that there was no real debate of this issue, that councillors "just voted".

If this is Mayor Williamson's brave new world, it is a tawdry comparison to that which went before.

JUDITH M. MELVILLE
Yamba

International award for Ballina woman

According to ABC North Coast NSW last Wednesday:

Australian Seabird Rescue's (ASR) Marny Bonner will today be honoured with an international award.
The International Fund for Animal Welfare Action Award is also dedicated to Ms Bonner's partner, the late Lance Ferris, known as 'the pelican man'.
The presentation will be made to Ms Bonner at the group's headquarters in Ballina.
Erica Martin from the fund says the group has made remarkable inroads into animal protection and raising awareness of environmental issues.
"ASR efforts have been going in Ballina since the early '90s," she said.
"The extraordinary work that they've managed to do in rescuing over 1,500 pelicans, 60 different species of seabirds and hundreds of marine turtles is an extraordinary accumulation of work.
We really felt that it was time that these remarkable people get recognised."

Congratulations to Marny and all at Australian Seabird Rescue.

Their work is greatly appreciated by the Northern Rivers community.

Photograph from The Far North Coaster online magazine

Well, someone had to do it!

Another month has gone by and it is past time to have another look at Rudd's Grocery Choices website to see if it offers the consumer anything worthwhile yet.

Quite frankly, I drew the short straw.
Clarrie's away, Roo's up to the armpits, WaterDragon crossed the street, and Clarencegirl off-loaded the task and ran.

I really didn't want to click onto Kevin's baby and realise that it was just as spud-faced as before.
And, yup, there it was - the same old broad comparison across regions composed of thousands of square kilometres with little or no public transport and laughable competition levels.

Here's the bottom line poor man's basket results for the North East NSW:

Basket of Staples

Coles/BI-LOW $77.31

Woolworths $75.55

SafewayFranklins $78.66

Independents $79.99

ALDI $61.34

How much is this website costing us all again? Weren't we sorta promised that this site would get better over time? The cove who sold this idea to Rudders must have more front than Woolworths.

We turn one today!

A years ago today North Coast Voices was created (though it took another full day to figure out the nuts and bolts so that we were displayed out there in the blogosphere and a few more days after that before we were indexed).

Thankyou to everyone who has popped in to peek at this baby blog or stayed on to have a good read.

Petering Time, clarencegirl, Clarrie Rivers, K. Roo, WaterDragon, and Boy the Wonder Cat

Graphic from Google Images