Indy Media Watch

Via Tim Blair comes this report from an Australian professor who writes:

Left-wing political parties need to rediscover humour (which at present seems to me to be almost exclusively the preserve of the Right).

Elsewhere in Australia, via Melbourne Indymedia, we get a glimpse of the problem.

Somebody posted the following story:

A civil-conscious teacher had asked the students to write an essay on the police. The essays were of course varied, but one in particular alarmed the teacher. It was short and to the point:

"All copers are barstids"

The teacher contacted the local police and said there was a PR exercise waiting for them. So the cops really laid it on for the kid. They were all nice-cops for an entire day. They gave the boy ice-creams, showed him over the station, took him around in a patrol car, showed him gory pictures from crime scenes, ended the day with a gift of real handcuffs to take home.
Shortly thereafter the teacher put on a repeat essay on the same topic. Back can the boy's essay:

"All copers are CUNING barstids."

To which came the following concerned reply:

And herein lies another message. The teacher was failing this child, by virtue of the kid's poor spelling. Perhaps more time may have been spent on teaching the basics of language to this kid rather than discussing the esoteric.

I am assuming the spelling was a direct lift from the kid's response, rather than the above author being an inarticulate fuckwit.

Sigh...