Busted!
This is very funny. At least I think so. Apparently what it is, is a blog set up by an English teacher at a small US college (or perhaps university), where students are supposed to post as part of their coursework. Actually that’s not funny; given the level of difficulty of what they’re doing and the fact that this is a college or even a university, it’s bottomlessly depressing; given the fact that some of them are seniors and juniors, it’s – oh never mind. Anyway, their first assignment was to post urls of five misleading websites and explain why they are misleading. Well (you’ll have realized where I’m going with this) – guess who made the cut! I’m so proud. The others are just obvious choices like weight-loss sites and diploma mills and sites that give you free money, but with the last item we hit pay dirt – we hit a really, genuinely, bafflingly misleading site. Misleading not because it pretends it can make you lose 200 pounds in a week or because it’s going to tell you how to make millions of dollars with just a spoon and a Jack Russell terrier – no, that’s kid stuff, this site is misleading because for one thing what the hell is the name supposed to mean?! What butterflies? Where? I don’t see any fokkin butterflies! And what’s with the wheels bit? And what is all this stuff, and what are they trying to do, and where am I?
This site is misleading because its title is butterflies but it talks about issues other than butterflies. The information doesn’t seem legitimate. Topics aren’t clear to me. It seems that this website is based on opinions and not real facts. Not sure what this website is trying to accomplish. The look of the website isn’t appealing and not very clear as to where I should go. It has links to other sites but I don’t know if I would trust the information given.
Very true. Why do people do that? Have titles with words in them but talk about issues other than those words? And information that doesn’t seem legitimate? It’s puzzling.
Mind you, it’s also puzzling that a bit of writing that brief and with such short, clause-free sentences (and such minimal research and sub-minimal thought) should constitute an acceptable assignment in a college English class, but so it is.
Oh, I dunno, most of them would get a pass on the 11+ English shorter writing task.
Hee hee.
At the very least, it poses the question: why would someone be looking for a site that was literally about, well, butterflies and wheels? I mean, is there a lot to talk about, there? And what would such a site contain?
Oh. Wait. I know: it’s mostly pictorial…
Sample caption: ‘And, above, we have a lovely example of Carterocephalus palaemon… or, at least we think it was once a lovely example of Carterocephalus palaemon–you can sorta see a bit of the wing spots, still intact, in the upper left of the frame… anyway, from the tread pattern, the wheel in question was almost certainly a lovely example of a light truck, outfitted with an equally lovely set of Pirelli all-seasons…’
Yep. Also, don’t forget to visit our sister sites: Butterflies and radiator grilles, Moths and headlamps, Grasshoppers and windscreens… aaand, of course, the ever popular Bumblebees and wing mirrors.
shriek cackle drool
Thanks, AJ!
How about “Larvae and Spokes”? Or “Bugs and Axles”?
I also think we ought to point that student in the direction of “The Onion” so that it can be unmasked as having nothing to do with bulbs used for culinary purposes. That makes it particularly untrustworthy and the veracity of some of the news items very suspect. That’s why you can’t believe anything you read in “Time” magazine; because it has nothing to do with chronometry.
Just pity the poor prof. Imagine how hard it is to explain to someone who is terminally literal-minded that they are, well, terminally literal-minded…
Well, I tend to think that teachers usually get the pupils they deserve… if you see what I mean.
AJ Milne, you made me recall an old riddle: What is the last thing that rushes trhough a fly’s brain when hitting the windscreen?………
…And the answer is of course
the asshole….
I wonder if they’re a Guns N Roses fan ?
I think the actual idea for the activity has potential – encouraging critical thinking and investigation of (especially online) sources. However…
Stwart said: I also think we ought to point that student in the direction of “The Onion” so that it can be unmasked as having nothing to do with bulbs used for culinary purposes.
Too late! One of the other students posted this:
Hahahahaha!
Wow… truth did get there before fiction.
Although…
“The articles are misleading and untrue.”
They may be made up and therefore not (factually) true, but are they misleading? Good comedy often points the way to insight. I suspect a high percentage of the better “Onion” pieces could legitimately be interpreted as making very pertinent comments about topical issues.
If one is not American and can do irony, of course.
Apparently it was all set in motion by :
“Beth Ritter-Guth
Age: 33
Gender: female
Astrological Sign: Scorpio
Zodiac Year: Rat
Industry: Education
Occupation: Professor “.
I love how the scorpio/rat bits come before the unimportant data, like education.
OK, I confess. The first time I came here I was expecting to see hot-rods with pictures of butterflies air-brushed onto them. You know, for the testosterone fueled gear head with a sensitive side…
But this article did get me thinking. How many other sites in my favorites list are deceptively un-literal? Take my work site for instance, Ball Aerospace. I’ve worked here for years and never once have we put a ball into space. Oh sure, we have launched vaguely spherical things plenty of times, but nothing that the average 6 year old (or college student from the article evidently) would consider to be a “ball”.
It’s misleading I tells ya!
And don’t get me started on how few of the books on ABEbooks are actually written by anyone named Abe.
Oh. I originally came here expecting to find information on domesticated rodents who exercised in the equipment provided by using an unusual swimming stroke.
Why else would one come here?
OB, you definitely came upon a treasure trove! I loved this one, from another student:
http://www.perrspectives.com/features/wwjd.htm
This was a site that I had found agian thnking it was articles about Jesus. It should have been about the famous question: What would Jesus do? (WWJD) Instead it is a website that bashed President Bush and the 9/11 attacks and how he handled the situation. There are many negative issues on this site and it is compltetly bias.”
By the way, you haven’t addressed that famous question either, I have noticed. And in particular, the combination question concerning Jesus dreaming he was a butterfly wondering if he was actually a butterfly dreaming he was Jesus. In which case, WWJD? And please, don’t be compltetly bias in your answer. I hate that. Especially when many negative issues come up.
ps — oh, I couldn’t resist. One more. College seniors say the darndest things.
“www.theonion.com The site opens up with an advertisement and not the site of which you have to then skip the ad to get to the actual site. The site appearance is attractive until we get a closer look. The first think that was noticeable was on the bottom of the page it states no one under 18 allowed on site. So what looks like a news site is not. The articles are misleading and untrue. It is a comic commentary. People tend to have more credibility for a news site and this one does not show any credibility and should not be taken seriously.”
Remember: these are the leaders of tomorrow!
Roger,
outeast posted that one already. Surely there’s enough silliness masquerading as (or actually believing it is) erudition not to have to recycle. Ok, I know you somehow must have missed it (even though it was accidentally posted twice), but I do make it a personal rule to be familiar with “the thread till now” before posting in order to avoid it.
As for your WWJD question above, doesn’t it require a definition of Jesus? The Tim LaHaye answer to that question is pretty clear. And is the question “WWJD – if he had been elected Republican President of the USA?” or “WWJD – if he actually lived 2,000 years ago?”
Now you can see why I named my site “Pharyngula”. It scares away the small children.
But Stewart: get with the program. WWJD has been clearly and defintively answered by at least 50% of the American population: JWD what GWBWD: (Jesus Would Do what George W Bush Would Do). HE does consult with the Higher Power before any decision, after all.
(You were a little harsh on roger, by the way. He missed it in a burst of enthusiasm for the OP site….)
Pharyngula was indeed one of the first things I thought of. Okay, where are all the pharyngulas then, and how do I download them to my cellphone, and why don’t they ring, and what are all these squids doing here?!
BTW, just did those thought experiments. Strewth, hadn’t realised what a callous bastard I was.
Didn’t mean to be harsh on Roger, just wanted to point out we’d already seen it. Sorry, Roger, if you took it hard.
Pharyngula was also one of the first things I thought of, but it’s explained on the site. With B&W, you have to really search hard for the explanation of the name, i.e. click on “About B&W.” Maybe, for those unfamiliar with medieval torture methods, one ought to add that the wheel was often reserved for those who thought in ways similar to the folks at B&W.
Stewart, sorry about the ps. I got lost in the wonders of that little site. The candy store effect.
But… I didn’t know Tim Lahaye had an answer to the butterfly dreaming of Jesus question! It is obviously time to convert the Daoists.
I didn’t mean specifically about butterflies dreaming of Jesus. I meant only generally, from the bloody excerpts I’ve read from the “Left Behind” books, that the answer to WWJD is kill as many unbelievers as horrifically as possible.
Well, Stewart, your LaHaye remark now makes sense. After all, according to Tom Paine, you can sum up the sense of the Bible as: Adam stole some apples, so God decided in response to torture his son and then nail him to a cross. Paine points out that God really should have just nailed Adam to the apple tree if he was that pissed about it. Would have been a whole lot simpler.
What can you say? The demiurge has anger issues.
If God was that furious about an apple, imagine if Adam had stolen some raspberries.
Pure fucking genius:
“www.ihr.org At first you think you are looking at a website for the Institue for Historical Review, but it really covers mainly Holocaust and Israel issues”
I began wondering if it’s a spoof. Then I started to hope that it was…
“If God was that furious about an apple, imagine if Adam had stolen some raspberries.”
I suppose someone out there knows the joke about the guy who punished his parrot. I know it in two variations, one with the bird stuffed in the freezer, the other nailed to the wall.
And why is the teacher so fond of circumlocution, one wonders.
“After review, we began discussing the foundations of research. In groups, we tried to identify 3 social issues that most negatively impact our society.”
Why “negatively impact”? Why not just “harm”?
And why does it all seem to be pitched at ten-year-olds when it’s supposed to be a college course? My brain hurts.
This is funny take on the whole fundy ideology. (It fits with my vaguely Gnostic ideas).
http://www.jhuger.com/tract/dtr/index.php
“By the way, you haven’t addressed that famous question either, I have noticed. And in particular, the combination question concerning Jesus dreaming he was a butterfly wondering if he was actually a butterfly dreaming he was Jesus. In which case, WWJD?”
Give Pinkerton some bad sushi, I think.
Oh, missed the punished parrot joke. No. It rings a bell, but no more than that. (How easily all parrot jokes are elbowed aside by a mental image of Cleese in a transparent plastic mac.)
I’ll keep ’em brief.
In variant A, the parrot is repeatedly told off for relatively mild swearing and is finally punished by being stuck in the freezer, where he sees a frozen chicken. He says “You must have said ‘F**k you’!”
In variant B, it’s a Brazilian parrot, who runs up a horrendous phone bill calling home to Brazil. His punishment is to be nailed by his wings to the wall all night. He sees a small human figure on a cross that’s also hanging from the wall and asks it how long it’s been there. “Two thousand years,” it replies. The parrot is pretty shocked: “Where did you call to?”
snerk
Is that the same frozen chicken that features in ‘Taboo’?
Given how the parrot’s owner treats him, it wouldn’t surprise me at all.
Oh God
This is so depressing. If it’s any comfort I think your site is well designed and stuffed full of facts.
The student also can’t seem to get his head round the idea of “comment”. The “facts” are the ideas being discussed.
And when is someone going to introduce poor, deprived Rosa to Alexander Pope?
Or does that school deny the canon and deprecate the teaching of Dead White European Males?
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