Sadly, an Onion article entitled “Fifth Grade Paper Doesn’t Stand Up To Peer Review” reminds me of my actual working life:
DECATUR, IL—A three-member panel of 10-year-old Michael Nogroski’s fellow classmates at Nathaniel Macon Elementary School unanimously agreed Tuesday that his 327-word essay “Otters” did not meet the requirements for peer approval.
Nogroski presented his results before the entire fifth-grade science community Monday, in partial fulfillment of his seventh-period research project. According to the review panel, which convened in the lunchroom Tuesday, “Otters” was fundamentally flawed by Nogroski’s failure to identify a significant research gap.
“When Mike said, ‘Otters,’ I almost puked,” said 11-year-old peer examiner Lacey Swain, taking the lettuce out of her sandwich. “Why would you want to spend a whole page talking about otters?”
“It’s probably only the dumbest topic in the history of the entire world,” 10-year-old Duane LaMott added.
Members of the three-person panel had many concerns about Nogroski’s work, foremost among them their belief that the fifth-grader did not substantiate his thesis. Two panel members even suggested that Nogroski’s thesis was erroneous.
“Otters are not interesting!” 10-year-old peer examiner Jonathan Glass said.
“Otters are so boring, I fell asleep for a thousand years and woke up with a long beard covered in ice,” LaMott said. “I had to defrost myself.”
“I had to defrost myself.”
Ouch poor fella, his heart must be broken into smithrens.
That was a harsh peer-review by any standards:-)
And whoever says that kids can’t be unimagibaly cruel?
Given the pettiness and name-calling in some “professional” circles, this isn’t all that funny… especially if you have to grudgingly admit these sort of people are in your field.
THIS IS A PUBLIC INFORMATION EMAIL
If you are given to sun bathing please hear this warning. Sun tans can get you killed.
Not by skin cancer, but by the police.
Running for trains, or in panic, can also get you shot. Running is now illegal exept in areas where there are no armed police. If you run around your garden you should be safe but, make sure that armed police have not raided the wrong house just up the road, first. If they have, and they see you running it is perfectly reasonable that they shoot you on the grounds that, “If they were innocent they would not be running, would they?”
If you have dark hair AND a suntan you are at particular risk of being killed by armed police.
If you are blonde and you dye your hair black AND have a suntan….this may lead to you beiing killed, not once, but 5 times. (It takes 5 bullets in the brain fired at close range to kill people, didn’t you know that! Duh!). Sun tans plus beards? Big no, no! Dont do it.
SUN TANS MAKE YOU LOOK ARAB OR ASIAN….STAY OUT OF THE SUN!
Police officers, anxious to be like movie detectives such as Dirty Harry, have been trained to empty their guns into you if they think you are a danger…PUNK!
Here is some good advice based on previous killings by police officers.
If you are a journalist and you drive a mini. Sell it. Do not drive it, because doing so can leave you surrounded by armed police at traffic lights and your car, and you riddled with bullets. Don’t laugh….this advice is based upon one of the first ever shootings of an innocent man and his girl friend by Dirty Harry wannbe’s.
Do not walk the streets with a coffee table leg in a plastic bag. Doing so will get you shot.
Do not be in possesion of black hair, thick lips and an accent other than middle class english. Doing so can get you shot.
Do not handle plastic water pistols. Doing so can get you shot. (Well, police officers armed to the teeth and hiding behind cars have no idea that your intention is not to spray them with deadly tap water. They HAVE to assume you are a raving psychopath with a gun, cos they are! Which proves that psychopaths itching to kill roam our streets…so, DUH!)
Do not run away from men dressed in street clothes waving guns and chasing you into tube stations. Doing so, WILL get you shot. Let them terrify you and cower down on the pavement. Whimpering is said to aid your chances of staying alive. REMEMBER: He who holds the gun NEEDS to feel all powerful….let them!
Pray silently but not out loud. Praying out loud these days, means you are an extreemist fundamentalist. Churchy people must be shot. Left wing governments hate them. As do feminists. Dont laugh, feminists that hate men run this country. A feminist (man or woman) WILL kill you or, at least, drive you out of your home, take your money and your kids and call your complaints “evidence” that you hate wimmen…and then shoot you. Avoid getting in touch with your masculine side. Its illegal and could get you shot.
Dont end up being a target for official terrorists with badges. Avoid sun tans and running away from psychopaths with guns who are desperate to kill someone….Anyone!
REMEMBER. People like Ken Livingstone wanted a man shot and killed for climbing a bridge and causing a traffic jam. Dont think he will spare you because you have a sun tan and are not really a bomber. He likes people being shot. It makes him feel powerful. Ditto for the Home Secretary, Tony Blair and Sir Ian Blair at New Scotland Yard. They are great at acting heartbroken, but ignore that…they LIKE shooting things.
The motto of the police force should give you a clue that you are a target. it reads as follows: Effercio Dixon of Navale Viridis surculus quispiam. Roughly translated this means, Stuff Dixon of Dock Green…shoot something!
You are a pleb. As such, you are disposable. However, once dead, your family WILL get a nice letter of apology.
It is REALLY IMPORTANT that this country become like America otherwise all the messages from those Hollywood movies about killing people with guns, will have been wasted.
In case you are afraid of this happening to you. Rest assured that if it does, a nice government minister and a few senior police officers will come on TV and tell us that as, “regettable” as your death was, it changes nothing. Innocent people must die so that the police can occassionally kill the right people.
REMEMBER: If the police kill you and you raise a stink and demand that police officers be prosecuted, they WILL go on strike and hand their guns back in protest. The government WILL then cave in and let them go on shooting people. If you do manage to get them nicked, the C.P.S. will not find enough evidence to bring a prosecution. If you manage to overcome that problem a good, reliable, government appointed, “independant” judge WILL throw the case out of court. Pissed off police officers where you live will then look for any excuse to kill you on the grounds that you are a danger to police officers. Keep all these things in mind and you should be safe…..For a while. Except of course, you will be already dead and so unlikely to complain very much.
There, dont you feel better now.
If any of the issues raised in this e-mail have caused you to be afraid. Call the BBC help line number that appears after every program in which they try to frighten you. You will not get an answer but at least you know they care.
George Rolph
PS. If I get shot soon there will be a good reason. This e-mail “may” be intrepreted as writing something likely to piss off government ministers. That is illegal. Enjoy your freedom!
ha ha. I love it so much I might have to blow it up!