The Stermy Awards for January 2008

This month was really tough, you bastards. There was far too much Exemplary Writing in the Atheosphere.

So to help me make my selections, I decided to amend a rule I came up with for the last Stermy ceremony. The original rule was:

• No blogger may win more than one Stermy in any month, but a blogger may win Stermies in consecutive months. That would really upset my sensibilities, however, so it will happen only rarely, if ever. And the second month's post better be a real doozy.

So, of course, everyone from last month comes up with a real doozy. Thanks a bunch. Combining all the posts into one, it might have been called: A fishy-smelling, bullshitting Bush spins into the middle ground to have brilliant alien-controlled sex in public with iggy and Dick Funk. If anyone can actually write a coherent post with that title, he or she will definitely win a special Stermy next month.

Anyway, the amended rule is:

• No blogger may win more than one Stermy in any month, but a blogger may win Stermies in consecutive months, provided that both months end in r.
  

Oh, gosh! Sorry!

Fortunately, there were some other real doozies, too. So here are this month's winners, in the usual alphabetical order:

Heather at Why Don't You Blog?
for Google this
Many are training their students for an imaginary academic career, as it would have been thirty years ago. They feel that students are workshy unless they put in the physical effort to search in libraries, pay large sums for course books and compete with other students for access to obscure library journals. Are these activities assumed to be “educational” by their very nature, just because the lecturers had to do them when they were students? Now, we have instant access to material from all over the world. Finding it quickly, judging its value and how it relates to other bits of information are the skills we need now.

KC at Bligbi
for Pretending to be guilty to please others
As a woman one of the most annoying things I can think of is the social expectation that women pretend to be guilty about something that we may not feel a bit guilty about. Of the things that are on that list, abortion is the most important. A woman who gets an abortion should not behave in a manner that says “I’m fine with this”.

The Lifeguard at The Meme Pool
for time to change: a rant on presidential politics
I'm sick of "change." No, I sure as shit don't want another four years of George W. Bush, but I am plain sick and tired of hearing politicians argue about who can best effectuate change. Tell me what changes you propose. Tell me how you will make better changes. Just don't argue about change as some rhetorical abstraction-- a meaningless marketing ploy you hope to use as a crowbar for separating yourself from the opposition.

ordinary girl at tales of an ordinary girl
for her series on Christian Education (5 posts)
I didn't expect evolution to be part of the curriculum. When I was in school learning under the Beka curriculum we had an English teacher who dared say that she believed evolution was a tool used by God for creation. She was fired for it. And now that I think back on the event I realize it was probably the fault of students like me who found her line of reasoning heretical because I'd been indoctrinated to a point that I couldn't even imagine anything apart from the literal interpretation of the Bible (when it suited the church).

sacred slut at A Whore in the Temple of Reason
for Beside the Point
Yet really, what is the supposed meaning that reunion with God provides? I have never heard anything coherent articulated on this point. If you consider impartially what "point" there is to any of those vaguely-envisioned outcomes - usually entailing some sort of nebulous, disembodied eternal bliss - the process of living seems more important than the end goal anyway.

Once again, I'd like to make my monthly plea reminding everyone to give me a tap on the e-shoulder if you see a post that might be Stermy-worthy. Please, though, if you notice that I've left a comment at that very post, chances are good that I've not only seen it, but that I've actually read it. (This may not always be the case, but it's highly likely.) However, if you stumble across exemplary writing that you think I might have missed, let me know. Thanks.