The West is running a “Leavers’ Diary” in their Blogs section: Day One, Day Two, Day Three, Day Four. It’s a tedious, poorly-written mishmash of “got pissed, got laid, spewed, fuck yeah.” As you’d pretty much expect from Schoolies’ Week.
The latest entry is starting to show signs of a “Dangers of Alcohol” story beloved of PSAs everywhere.
My question: Real or fake? Pointless reality tale or mocked up morality fable? Will we see it all culminate in disaster, or fizzle out with a few Beroccas and an aspirin?
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Audrey Apple has been in The Big Apple, and she spotted a violence-against-women PSA on the street.
[image via thesmileinn on flickr]
Audrey writes:
I was heading to meet a friend for dinner the other night when I passed an unexpected advertisement on the side of a bus shelter. Alongside a teenage boy draped in a jumper bearing the words ‘Awaiting Instructions’ was the following: “Eat your vegetables. Finish your homework. Respect women.”
I was astonished.
More about Audrey’s thought on the White Ribbon Foundation study over at her place.
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As noted at Tech Wired Australia, the Greens have LOLcat 403 and 404 pages on their website. This amuses me.
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Latest internet filtering links, as added to my Australian Internet Censorship Links Roundup:
The Guardian (UK): “The big business of net censorship: Clamping down on free speech on the internet has been a lucrative enterprise for software manufacturers“. 17 Nov 2008
ZDNet Australia: “NSW calls Conroy on Euro filter fudge“. 21 Nov 2008
Somebody Think of the Children: “With a public intellectual like this, who needs barbarians?” 22 Nov 2008
Somebody Think of the Children: “7:30 Report tackles filtering again this week“. 23 Nov 2008 (includes video of the 7:30 report programme, which featured many of the key players – except Conroy, who declined!)
Broadbanned Revolution: “A reply from Clive Hamilton – public intellectual“. 23 Nov 2008
Liberal Party of Australia: “Labor’s arbitrary internet filter plan misguided and deeply unpopular“. 25 Nov 2008
Australian IT: “Greens won’t back federal plans for internet filters“. 25 Nov 2008
Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy: “ISP Filtering Live Pilot – Questions and answers“. 25 Nov 2008
Libertus.net: “Statistics Laundering: false and fantastic figures“. 25 Nov 2008
Computerworld: “Gen-Yers will use social networks to bypass Internet filter, critic says” 26 Nov 2008
GetUp Australia: “Save The Net” email petition, Fact Sheet, and blog: “Colin Jacobs: Filtering at Odds with Broadband Revolution.”.
Syd Wakler: “Clive Hamilton & I: Getting Personal about Sex, Lies, Hate & Censorship“. 26 Nov 2008
Stilgherrian: “Live Blog: Internet censorship forum“. 26 Nov 2008
You might also enjoy the Greens WA 403 page…
link is broked
Oops. It’s at http://wa.greens.org.au/403accessdeniederror
just in case I screw it up again… :-)
[admin image magic ~L]
I read the Leaver’s Diary. Yuck. Teenage Blogging: Ur Doing it Rong.
On the other hand, the lolcats were cute. They sealed my Green vote (and I just enrolled too! *is excited about civic duty*).
*thinks about how to adapt Greens LOLcats error pages for Hoyden in way that adds cleverclogsishness not just display copycattishness*
Ooo, I need one of those ‘respect women’ posters in my classroom…
On Leavers’ Week, this is hardly a good news story, but the (tiny) plus side of it is that what some might dismiss as a dance-floor grope is being taken seriously and prosecuted as a sexual assault.
“Cops allege schoolie sexually assaulted on dance floor”
tigtog: The answer is clearly to limit yourself to lolotters!
My main issue with that anti-violence sign is that taken to its logical conclusion, “respecting women” = “eat vegies/do homework” means that “respecting women” is something you should do, because it’s good for you … but is also something you inherently don’t like doing.
So happy I’m a member of the Greens. I do believe their slogan should be “Greens: right about everything since 1973″.
QoT: the other side of that coin is presenting “respecting women” as something that is a normal adult state of being that is good for everyone concerned, including the person doing it, rather than it being forever and everywhere an onerous task that takes an awful lot of effort.
I can see both sides.
My main issue with that anti-violence sign is that taken to its logical conclusion, “respecting women” = “eat vegies/do homework” means that “respecting women” is something you should do, because it’s good for you … but is also something you inherently don’t like doing.
Once you’ve beaten them at something that’s true of ALL blokes in my experience.
*thinks about how to adapt Greens LOLcats error pages for Hoyden in way that adds cleverclogsishness not just display copycattishness*
Any chance of re-directing to a flash animation of a panting hamster lying in its back with the caption: “Sorry, our Hamsters are dying. Please try again later” when a connection times out?