Time to boycott the anti-female Observer
Once again, the Observer is proving its anti-female credentials, basically repeating the ridiculous Prospect article on which I commented earlier this week, and calling it, ridiculously, academic. Now I think most people would agree that an academic article is one that appears in a peer-reviewed journal, which Prospect certainly isn't. If I were still buying newspapers, I would be boycotting the Observer, which with its anti-abortion and anti-working women stance is looking more like the Sunday Mail every week!
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An interesting piece in the Sunday Times on online shopping, which basically argues that online, people are "harder" shoppers, shopping around more and less prone to impulse buys. Although what it fails to mention is eBay - which has certainly changed the way I shop. If I decided, as I did say the other day, that I wanted a thermos, it was the first place I went, and I had what I wanted in five minutes - much less hassle than sloping down the shops.
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Finally, another in the "name and shame" category, from today's Independent:
Stephen Ladyman, the transport minister responsible for green fuels, drives a new diesel-powered Alfa Romeo GT. He has a passion for sports cars and motorbikes. And he is being blamed for personally resisting plans to subsidise the purchase of cars with low carbon dioxide emissions such as the Citroën C1 and Toyota Aygo.
Sounds like a good protest target for me....
posted by Natalie Bennett at 3/26/2006 10:14:00 am
7 Comments:
I agree with your response to the Prospect article in your earlier posting, and with your line in this posting!
I've noticed a growing tendency to call articles "academic" just becuase someone vaguely "academic" writes them. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but an opinion piece or publication, as you say, is not the same as an "academic" piece or publication, as the label "academic" refers to a particular standard of agument -- notably including some kind of independent scrutiny before publication.
Liked the online shopping piece, also -- I have used Ocado since day 1, and although the service has gone progressively down since the early days of customer focus (always two drivers, careful packing, etc), the equation of saving 2-3 hours a week trawling round a supermarket and the odd squashed tomato is no contest. Unlike one of the people quoted in the Times piece, I think Amazon is great. For clothes, I use the Next site (for my daughters mainly) as their e-commerce and distribution network are second to none. Next is also unpretentious, good value and you can find enough "natural fibre/non-logo/slogan-bedecked" stuff in there to keep fairly up-to-date (but non-fashion-victim) girls happy.
So according to Clanger (oops, maent to type Brad!), an "academic" article in the humanities/social sciences is not independently scrutinised becuase it wouldn't get published unless its conclusions agreed with the preconceived agenda of the publication?
So, following this logic, one can publish any old rubbish, even if it was written in 5 minutes and full of shoddy, unsubstantiated arguments, if it is what the editors want to read?
So not "academic" in any sense of the word, then?!
(I do hope for the sake of the field, that Clanger/Brad's characterisation is exaggerated.)
Keep those arrows sharp, Natalie. Your target list for the anti-females will get longer, I'm sure.
Great blog!
Disappointed to hear you are Brad Pitt Clanger; I'd envisioned you as being much more handsome and dashing...
While I don't necessarily disagree with you about the limitations of peer review (and as much I'd say in the sciences as the humanities), I'd suggest the editorial process in "mainstream" publications is a lot worse still.
As for etailing, I tend to think impulse buying is less likely than among those sad people you seeing having domestics in the middle of a sea of plastic carrier bags on Oxford St on Saturday afternoons.
ANd thanks Joanne!
Ah Clanger/Indy, I'm sure you could cope with Oxford Street if you wanted to - a couple of cracks of the whip should clear a space nicely.
I avoid this problem by passing through on my bicycle - unfortunately to get to the London Library you have to cross Oxford St at some point. So the hazard for me is not leaflet-pushers but drivers of those ridiculously large Mercedes tanks who never know where they are going and have never been intorduced to either indicators or rear-view mirrors. I haven't kicked a door in yet, but it may only be a matter of time.
Perhaps not exactly "liberating your newspapers from their vendors without the exchange of legal tender", rather liberating their readers from them ... hopefully!
Ah yes, the "Methodists ban Tai Chi" is one that comes around every couple of years ... I associate Methodism with a mean, pinched respectable lower-middle-class world, terrified of "what will the neighbours think" - as rather nicely portrayed by Orwell in A Clergyman's Daughter (when she's teaching in London). Associate it all too closely, since it was part of my upbringing....!
Clanger needs TinyURL!!
http://tinyurl.com/
It really is the neatest thing for fixing those ultra-long web addresses.
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