Usually, odd things – like politicians, the Townsville Bulletin, Clive Palmer and the contents of your sock drawer – are accidentally odd. This week, the Nest highlights some of the things that were deliberately odd.Like the annual international Ig Nobel Awards handed out for the weirdest ‘scientific’ research of the year, and here in Oz, the 2016 sisterhood celebration of the Ernie Awards for sexist comments.
And speaking of such, The Magpie asks … and answers … who could be more scary-addled-ignorant than Donald Trump?
And the Daily Telegraphs spectacular own goal …. Gosh, you’d think The Astonisher iditor and former deputy iditor of the DT, Ben Bogan English, was still working there.
But first …
Interesting comment on the blog this week from ‘Gagged & Bound’ (not his real name) who reasonably suggests that Aaron Airhead Harper (his real name) at least has enough nouse to know he is on the nose and his gold pass to the gravy train is likely to be revoked when Inspector Electorate next comes checking credentials – and hallelujah! that would mean no disgraceful pension for this one-time, unrepresentative hole in the air.
Our apparently recreationally broadminded informant G & B says Harper is making noises within the union movement for a sinecure as some featherbedded factotum Which would make sense since his cock-up of berating the Astonisher for publicizing our juvenile crime wave and thus ‘damaging tourism’. Even more mysteriously than the statement itself, this parliamentary swipe came just days after the government tourism chatbags released some highly questionable stats which claimed 1.3 million tourists visited the Ville the past financial year. (The Pie must’ve been mowing the lawn that day and missed them.)
As always, Bentley neatly summed up the thrust of the Harper argument.
Something You Wont Read About In The Bulletin
The Magpie always likes to let you know what the self-censoring News Ltd-owned Townville Bulletin won’t tell you, so maybe you haven’t caught up with the spectacular own goal by the Sydney Daily Telegraph. This is relevant to Townsville since the Telegraph is used as the (totally inappropriate and ineffectual) tabloid template for the Bulletin.
On September 14, the DT (an acronym that can surely be applied to the condition of some of their ‘reporters’) ran this rabble rousing front page.
We’ll put aside the historical meaning of bludger – i.e a person living off the immoral earning of a prostitute – but the Tele knows what an emotive word it is to Aussies.
Dubbing the two girls as typical of the new breed of NEETs (Not In Employment Education or Training), the paper took the high moral ground and slammed the girls in the story, photograph and video interview. From the outset, any experienced journo would sniff either a set-up or a prank.
As it turned out, it was a bit of both a set-up and prank, at least for 17 year-old Amy Aman. Turns out for her this was somewhat of a lark to lead on some over-eager, green and sensation-seeking reporters into this particular swinging door.
She is neither poorly educated (she had just completed year 12), had a part time job (at Maccas) and is going to trade TAFE next year. Admittedly, she brought the subsequent embarrassment and scorn on herself by fibbing for fun, but that hardly excuses this sad excuse for a newspaper being so sloppy in its report checking. Not to worry, other media soon let the world know although the paper still refuses to acknowledge that it was inexcusably off the mark in having a casual chat to a couple of teenagers and taking their word for what they said … and then attacking them as bludgers. News Ltd even called in the troops to pump the story, and even then inadvertently made a fool of some of the defenders. Like Sharri Markson, who tweeted.
For once, Ms Markson hit on the right word – unbelievable – but not the way she meant it. This is of course the same Shari Markson who as Media Editor of The Australian defamed The Magpie a couple of years ago which has cost News a small fortune in fruitless legal fees (damages yet to be assessed after a jury found for The Pie). She was soon afterwards removed from the column to the bullshit position of Senior Writer.
The now-retired former editor of the Australian Chris Mitchell has a lot to answer for with his personal reward regime for certain staff members.
The 2016 Ig Nobel Awards
It seems a natural segue to the 26th annual Ig Nobel awards for the weirdest research projects of the year. The ceremony was held at Harvard University during the week.
The projects were real, and therefore funded with real money.
The sex life of rats proved to be of interest to more than News Ltd reporters in Canberra, with Egyptian urologist Ahmed Shafik studying the effect on the sex lives of rats if they wore trousers.
Although just what this proves is yet to be explained, the upshot is that polyester is a real ‘drooper’ while cotton and wool duds for rodents make them …err, perkier.
A team from the UK and New Zealand won the Economic Ig Noble for the study of the personalities of rocks. They presumably got their sample group from their heads. There is also a rich vein of yuk-yukery in the fact that they put their rocks in front a panel of 225 Kiwi students, no doubt appropriate in the land of the All Blacks. However, it might be prudent to put some of this panel under 24-hour surveillance. One rock was judged to be ‘a liberal, attractive female maybe mid-30s … and enjoys organic food’. (You can almost hear the adolescent panting.) The verdict on another rock suggests drug testing might have been prudent when it was judged to be a ‘New York-type businessman with slick hair, not a good dude’. A third rock was a ‘modest farm mechanic’. It is understood the rocks refused to confirm or deny any of the findings, although presumably asked several times.
But the biology award certainly gets an E for effort. Pommy Thomas Thwaites, apparently off his meds at the time, created special limbs which allowed him to ‘move and live like goats’ – which he did for four days of alpine lunacy.
At least Mr Thwaites gave a reason for his labours … ‘I tried to become a goat to escape the angst inherent in being a human.’ Which would point to a political career for others but not Mr Thwaites, who was funded by the UK government on his quest. Look at this bit of foaming lunacy here.
There is no truth in the rumour that Mr Thwaite’s missus is divorcing because she caught him sleeping with the kids’ nanny.
The other genuinely interesting Ig Nobel was the German research team which discovered that if you have an itch on your right side, look in a mirror, and scratch your left side and it will be relieved. (This one is apparently serious.) This is probably related to the well known principle that you cannot tickle yourself (also true).
The award for topsy-turvy perception went to the Japanese team who investigated how different things looked if you bend over and look at them through your legs. The ‘Pie tried this after his morning shower, but his view was blocked. Big time … heh heh heh).
Perhaps they were inspired by the famous Japanese professor who discovered the Zachery Syndrome, wherein depressed patients stripped off and crawled on all fours back and forth across the room, revealing if the cause of their depression was that their face looked Zachery like their arse.
Another Sort of Ignoble Award
Down in Sydney during the week, the annual Ernie Awards were handed out. Selected members of the sisterhood gathered to judge the most sexist public statement of the past 12 months. Nothing like a bit of man-bashing to bring the gals to their feet – literally – because the winners were judged by the biggest booing on the night. The awards themselves were for the most part the usual tedious, humorless thin-lipped judgments (Eddie McGuire for suggesting a female footy writer be drowned … which is of course is wrong for its blatant discrimination, all footy writers should be drowned … Mark Latham for disagreeing with something Rosie Batty said, the usual stuff).
Barrister Ben Mallick
But one The Pie thinks worth reporting was the award to Melbourne barrister Ben Mallick, who defended a taxi driver on a charge of indecently assaulting a female passenger. Mallick told the court that the woman had ’sat in the front seat, which she was advised by her mum not to do,’ and she could have avoided the situation ‘by doing what other women do by sitting in the back seat’. Makes one hark back to back-of-the-bus laws in the 1950s USA. At least the gals got that one right.
(But that is child’s stuff next to the Canadian judge Robin Camp, who is now facing the chop after telling a rape victim ‘Couldn’t you just keep your knees together?’, and that ‘pain and sex sometimes go together’ and then promptly dismissed the case because ‘I find the testimony of the accused more credible.’ There is a new trial coming up and the Canadian Justice Minister is expected to direct that Camp be permanently decamped from the bench.)
But back with the Ernies : The Pie was interested in the background of the awards. And although they sound like some modern female back-slapping excuse to get none-too-daintily shitfaced, the Ernies go all the way back to 1933!
Unionist Ernie Ecob
The award is named for one Ernie Ecob, who was the secretary of the AWU, the old Shearers Union. In his day, Ernie was famous for his saying that women only wanted to be shearers for the sex. (he never explained whether he meant with the sheep or fellow shearers.) Women were a tad upset about all this, so when Ernie retired in 1933, some female unionists had a lunch to celebrate, where the first award – a portrait of Ernie and a sheep on a plinth- was given for the most bestial remark of the year. And so it went, and so it goes.
Trumpeting The Trump
So the question was posed earlier… who could be more scary-addled-ignorant than Donald Trump?
The answer? His supporters. And boy is it scary. Vox pops with Americans always seem to reveal an ignorant insularity from the rest of the world, but it appears there are plenty of people who have parted company with reality in their political lives over there. Trump and his supporters make Sarah Palin look sane … and she’s got way nicer hair.
