Friday, October 27, 2006

looking for love in all the wrong places

feckless flirtation
Lusting lawyer sets sleazy precedent by offering tasteless tender to work colleague in a suggestive, but woefully worded email:
I was never looking for anything long term... I thought you were hot & was sure you'd be a rocket in the sack
Hmmm. Not quite a Petrarchan love sonnet, is it? Quite naturally, unimpressed inamorata voids contract immediately and forwards tasteless solicitations via chain email throughout legal circles. Aint he a schmuck, and an incontestable indictment on Aotearoa's attorneys. What do teach them at law schools these days? Certainly not the rhetorical arts of persuasion & sophistry. His poor future clients! Unable to sweet-talk own workmate, what hope he'll ever convince a judge?

skittish scholars
One of my fave moans & pet-hates: the long, slow death of intelligent life in universities by sociologists. Today's all-too-common atrocity concerns an academic fraud & flipped-out leftist nincompoop, whose:
"..current PhD research involves showing the film Chasing Amy to groups of young Danish & Kiwi men & women & discussing their attitudes to sexuality in relation to the film"
I'm sure she's a lovely gal, and yes, theses topics often specialise in arcane matters. But this 'study' (and countless similar) is completely devoid of scholarly merit and symptomatic of the lax standards & intellectual barreness in our ivory towers.
Does this 'study' truly add, in any meaningful way, to our collective repository of human wisdom? Puhleeze! Using reactions to a movie (insignificant, forgetable, insipid, formulaic pop-fiction) to assess social behaviour? Is this a genuine quest for knowledge? Or just lazy, indulgent, ill-disciplined, ruminations about pet hobbies, dressed up in report form, disguised as scholarship.

Using the same academic 'rigour', I could do 'research' and show the kissing scenes from my fave show, LOST, then survey NZers attitudes to smooching. How do they prefer it?:

a) unexpectedly by an anxious, harried companion hallucinating in a forest
b) tied to a tree, bloodied & exhausted having just been tortured
c) teetering on edge of terrifying clifftop, as desperate disaster-prevention measure, or
d) a tender, breathless silouhette against golden shimmering beach fire

Does this make me a 'researcher'? Can I have my doctorate now?

3 comments:

barvasfiend said...

I would imagine that this research aims to get a better understanding of New Zealanders' views on sexuality. These opinions are actually rather important given that they have a significant impact on life in NZ. I think perhaps you need to use your imagination for this one.

fm said...

Dr Phil (say, that has a ring to it)

b)

Because that's just the way it always seems to turn out (though "tied" has many meanings it's not always to a tree)!

Phil said...

Tied to a tree? Is that how they do it over there? Not surprised - I'd have to be tied to a tree before I'd ever kiss an Aus....

Ooh yuck, the thought's so horrible, I can't even finish the sentence.

Oh - I hope no one takes offence at that comment. [If I knew how to use the 'backspace' and 'delete' keys, I could erase said comment]

I HOPE no one from over there (especially anyone in QLD) misinterprets it and gets all insulted - that would just tear me up inside, it would. Truly.