Friday, November 21, 2008

Ernies



One of my favourite awards, the Ernies are awarded for sexist public comments. The annual Ernie Awards have 10 categories and are decided by the level of boos, jeers and stamping of feet at the women's only event held at the New South Wales Parliament.

This year the Golden Ernie was awarded to the Mayor of Mount Isa, Councillor John Moloney for suggesting that ugly women should move to Mount Isa, in NW Queensland where men outnumber women 5:1, to find themselves a husband. "May I suggest if there are five blokes to every girl, we should find out where there are beauty-disadvantaged women and ask them to proceed to Mount Isa," Cr Molony said. But it was when local women retaliated against the comment that Mr Molony earned his golden Ernie award by replying, "The protesters are blaming me for their looks."



Winners of the Silver Ernies, from whom the Golden Ernie winner is chosen were:

  • Western Australia's Treasurer Troy Buswell picked up the Political Ernie for snapping the bra of a female Labor staffer, making sexist remarks to a Liberal MP and famously sniffing the chair of a Liberal staffer.
  • The Nine Network's John Westacott won the Media Ernie for his comment that "Sheilas do health and consumer stories - you want your blokes, your main guns, doing the real news stories."
  • Professor Mark Wooden from the University of Melbourne won the Industrial Ernie for saying - at a National Press Club panel discussion no less - that "The pay equity gap has got a lot to do with the fact that women are not prepared to work longer hours."
  • The hotly contested Elaine Award, "for remarks least helpful to the sisterhood", went to federal MP Sophie Mirabella for her comment during a debate in parliament about taxpayer funded staff at the lodge. Pointing to Deputy PM Julia Gillard, who does not have children, she said "You won't need his (Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's) taxpayer funded nanny, will you?".
  • On a positive note, the Good Ernie Award "for boys behaving better" was a dead heat between rugby international Brendan Cannon, and transport company Veolia.
    Cannon said, "I don't want my daughter Phoebe growing up in the country where almost all women will be victims of physical violence or sexual abuse during their lifetimes" and the Veolia transport company was acknowledged for applying to the Anti-discrimination Commission for exemption from the Anti-Discrimination Act, so they could exclusively employ women drivers "because women are better drivers and gentler on the buses."

Monday, November 10, 2008

Congratulations Obama

Heard this on the radio the other day and loved it:

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Friday, November 7, 2008

The Last Post



So, this is my second time going through what was originally the 23 Things. I've learnt a bit more, but I do feel that some things could have been done in more depth while other things, as mentioned in my previous post, have not been covered at all. I feel this has been a show-us course and now I'd like to see Library 2.0.1 giving us more in-depth information, some this-is-how-you-do-it-yourself support and assistance in getting up and running with some of this stuff.

That said, I do appreciate the hard work that the PLNSW team have put in and their feedback via comments and Help! emails has been great. Well done boys and girls!

This is for you (does a wobbly curtsey)


I've mentioned to our manager that maybe small groups of us could take a web thing and really investigate it, work out how to work it, assess it's potential for our library and perhaps DO something with it. Time, money, getting staff together, motivation - all are potential barriers.

There is, though, so much potential for exciting, interesting web 2.0 stuff

Networking

Networks. Hmmmm

The Rotarua Bebo site was awsome - looked really smart and dynamic. And the Coshocton Animanga Club looked cool. I'd like to take a look at the East Renfrew Council Facebook site but I'm all out of time today (only access between 12 and 2pm).

It'd be nice to have something like that for BMCC. However, as always, I fear funding and lack of time will preclude that for this little library. It takes enough time to keep things going in the Readers in the Mist blog, never mind Bebo/Facebook/MySpace - and would we just choose one of those, or would we need to be in several places? The latter I think. And would enough people take a look to make it worth all the effort? How many 'friends' or page views would constitute making it worthwhile.

I just don't get the whole SecondLife thing at all I'm afraid. I have an active enough FirstLife with a family, friends, Rural Fire Service, two bookgroups, 3 schools, children's sport, my sport, reading, having a sex life, childcare, meetings, uploading pictures to Flickr, work, homework, cooking, blogging, cleaning, sleeping, dog-walking, being an insomniac, keeping fit, listening to music, watching the sun rise, navel-gazing, LIVING . . . where would I find the time? Why would I find the time? What do the people do in those SecondLife libraries? Why?

I was hoping there'd be some discussion of Twitter and how it is/can be used by libraries. I have come across several articles/blog posts about it through my RSS feeder over the past few weeks. I know other places use it, Chrystie Hill was very enthusiastic about it, but at the moment it's another "I just don't get it" web 2.o thing. I'll post the articles and share them anyway:

1. Social Groups built around websites

2. Finally I see a reason for Twitter

3. List of Twitter applications

4. Twitwheel