FFS! Academic clown alert. Pass me a pitchfork.

15 Responses to FFS! Academic clown alert. Pass me a pitchfork.

1. Darin says:

   January 30, 2012 at 03:11

   And still people deny that liberalism is a mental disorder
2. oswald bastable says:

   January 30, 2012 at 03:52

   I detect a lead deficiency…
3. Flashman says:

   January 30, 2012 at 04:17

   This is absolutely routine and typical academic “research” wankery.

   These “conferences” start with a catchy [but generic] title and then populate themselves with drones recycling undergraduate research essays. The more popular ones are held in interesting locations [e.g. somewhere tropical and exotic or suitably expensive and sophisticated] where it’s possible to attend the plenary opening session, do a bit of networking, pick out one or two papers to attend, deliver your own paper and in between times piss off and fill your boots with whatever is on offer outside the conference venue.

   One has to be a genuine dribble-mouthed topic crusader to trek out to the likes of crapholes such as Port Moresby for a three-day yawn fest on some BS theme like “Entrepreneurship and Developing Economies: New Paradigms for the 21st Century”. It has to be said though that conferences in backwaters does have the benefit of allowing dead-ended academics in local institutions [e.g. Mosquito Bottom Polytechnic Institute of Learning] a chance to have a trot around the paddock waving their dreck “research”.

   Sadly this empty-caloried indulgence is an entrenched feature of NZ academia – and all on the taxpayers dime.
4. Andrei says:

   January 30, 2012 at 04:41

   Meet the steering committee

   Dena Fam
   Research Consultant, Institute for Sustainable Futures,
   University of Technology Sydney, Australia
   +61 2 9514 4966

   Michelle Graymore
   Horsham Campus Research Precinct, University of Ballarat, Australia
   +61 417 109 813

   Kate Harriden (Co-ordinator)
   Principal New Flows Research; Australian National University
   +61 2 6100 3608

   Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt
   Fellow, Resource Management in Asia-Pacific Program,
   Australian National University
   +61 2 6125 4343

   Abby Lopes
   Lecturer in Design Theory, School of Engineering,
   University of Western Sydney, Australia
   +61 2 9528 5024

   Zoë Sofoulis
   Research Fellow, Centre for Cultural Research,
   University of Western Sydney, Australia
   +61 2 4759 3930

   They have something in common – do I have to point out what it is?
   • Darin says:

     January 30, 2012 at 05:28

     Fuzz muncher convention?
   • Kris K says:

     January 30, 2012 at 06:43

     A coven of Gaia worshipping Wiccans?
   • Andrei says:

     January 30, 2012 at 06:50

     This one is well named: Kate Harriden (Co-ordinator)
5. Andrei says:

   January 30, 2012 at 04:43

   Of course if you can’t go to that one there is always this: Decolonise Your Minds: marginalised gendered People of Colour DECOLONISATION hui
6. kowtow says:

   January 30, 2012 at 06:59

   Kuntala Lahiri Dutt…………hmmm if I were a poet the rhyming might get a bit blue.
7. Kris K says:

   January 30, 2012 at 07:06

   Seriously, though, this is indeed linked to the whole Gaia worshipping “Green Movement”. Much like those who worship at the altar of Global Warming, this is indeed a religion where faith, rather than [genuine] science, is the prime mover.

   People say we live in a post-Christian, religion-free West; but in reality all we have done is exchanged worship of the Creator for a Wiccan-style worship of the creation. A view where man is seen to be a disease which Mother Earth [Gaia] is trying to reduce or eliminate for the sake of her health. There is a clear link here with many watermelons/Wiccans wanting to reduce the population of man down to a mere 500 million.

   While we may regard these people as nuts, they are DANGEROUS nuts.
   • Andrei says:

     January 30, 2012 at 07:26

     Kris, Western Civilization is on its way out – it is unsalvageable I fear.

     Concepts like “gendered water” are a symptom of our malaise.

     A couple of years ago I went to my daughters graduation ceremony – right up front was a tattooed maori harridan (she was unbelievably hideous) wailing some heathen nonsense and everybody took it in their stride as an every day thing, which I suppose it is.

     This creature of the dark side has a PHD my daughter told me and is a very important person.
     • Kris K says:

       January 30, 2012 at 07:51

       You’re quite right, Andrei – we in the West have removed the Judeo-Christian foundation and replaced it with paganism [the whole Wiccan/Green movement] as well as embracing/elevating heathen/demonic practices of our ethnic [Maori ‘spirituality’] minorities. Not to mention the whole atheistic philosophy of humanism where man worships himself as ‘god’, and where he becomes his own moral authority where everything is up for grabs and nothing is set in stone.

       Western civilisation is the author of its own demise. Short of turning back to our Creator we will continue down the road to ruination.
8. KG says:

   January 30, 2012 at 08:58

   “NZ is lost.
   For the sake of leftist political power, two generations at least have been brainwashed and not educated, and what country can ever recover from that loss and damage?
   That the National Party, led by this crawling little left wing separatist sycophant and narcissist is so weak and so far from what it should be, yet simultaneously so popular, confirms this hypothesis.”
   Redbaiter, today.
   http://truebluenz.com/2012/01/29/apologies-and-thanks-for-your-concern/#comments
9. mara says:

   January 30, 2012 at 18:18

   Andrei, the decolonise your minds…marginalised gendered people… conference. I’d pay seriously good money to see you there engaging with the participants. I really would. I’d pay even more to see Mr Bastable there with you, fingering his rapid lead projector.
10. KG says:

    January 30, 2012 at 18:46

    “I’d pay even more to see Mr Bastable there with you, fingering his rapid lead projector.”
    Me too!