That’s some third level we’ve got… April 7, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, Irish Politics.trackback
… or so one would think reading the Sunday Business Post front page a while back. For there, under the headline ‘EC Study: Ireland produces most highly-employable graduates’ was a most counter-intuitive piece wherein the European Commission announced that:
International recruiters believe that Ireland produces the most highly-employable graduates in the world, according to a European Commission study of third-level education.
…
The EC report was based on a study of the efficiency and effectiveness of public spending on tertiary education. It found that Ireland was the top of the list of countries, which recruiters found were producing the ‘‘most employable’’ graduates.
Counter-intuitive? Oh wait… I left out a paragraph in the middle…
Universities in other countries have rated Ireland’s universities as ‘‘excellent’’ in the report, which was prepared for the Commission’s Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs.The release of the report comes just after a review into ‘grade inflation’ at Irish third-level institutions, following comments from some multinational business leaders to education minister Batt O’Keeffe about the quality of Irish graduates.
Comments? From multinational business leaders? Where could they have been reported?
Well for some unknown reason the Sunday Business Post is unaccountably coy about the following articles it carried, here and here.
As regards the issues at hand, I’m no fan of many aspects of third-level. There are serious issues as regards the lack of focus on students, curricula, teaching practices, the expected role of non permanent staff, and so on. But to try to shove that into the ‘one-size-fits-all’ public sector tropes of the likes of Jerry Keneally, such as…
Kennelly said that Ireland was ‘‘paying the price for highly-protected, union-led nonsense, where lecturers live in a cossetted, highly-paid bubble’’.
‘‘Like private companies, educational establishments at all levels need to become meritocracies where the best are rewarded and the incompetent are dismissed. It’s called management,” he said.
Really, that’s the private sector? Well that level of simplification (not to say possible delusion) doesn’t do any of us any favours.
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
Cause of course all forms of human activity ought to conform to some management ideal laid down at the University of Chicago 60 years ago.
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And perfected by a fascist military dictator in South America.
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How and why did you go into business and create Stockbyte?
I was a photojournalist working for a freelance agency in Tralee covering Ireland for international and national papers for 15 years. I also worked in my family’s business Kerry’s Eye from the age of 14.
http://www.siliconrepublic.com/careers/434/the-friday-interview-jerry-kennelly-ex-stockbyte-ceo/
That’s a big f***ing built-in leg-up for an “entrepeneur”. Will every young person receive such an advantage when going through the educational system in Mr. Kennelly’s private-sector-values utopia?
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That’s a real problem I have with some supposed entrepreneurs in this state who by their careers are anything but. And the thing is that there are people who do start businesses from scratch who do put stuff on the line, etc. But then I guess most of them are too busy doing actual business to mouth off in the media.
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I’m not so sure that this is the silver spoon you imagine. Firstly there’s quite a gap between shooting photos for a provincial newspaper, and building a world-class multi-million stock company. In any case his 14 year old ‘leg-up’ experience seems pretty entrepreneurial:
[i]In March 1974 my old man, Padraig, announced that he was going to start a newspaper in order to campaign against the flooding problem which was besieging Tralee at that time. Me and my three brothers were sort of drafted in to do every job in the newspaper, from collecting money, to writing stories, to taking pictures. Those were very difficult times and we were competing with the most successful provincial newspaper in Ireland [the Kerryman]. So we had a lot of convincing to do to get people to accept that we were a credible alternative. When years later with Stockbyte I was up against very substantial competitors like Getty and Corbis, it absolutely mirrored what my old man was doing in the ’70s.
What was his management style?
Well, firstly he was a bit of a creative genius. But he was also confident enough to empower other people. When I was 14, he put me in charge of distributing the paper. He had committed to his advertisers that the newspaper would be delivered free to every house in Tralee. So I came up with a community delivery solution which reduced our 7,000 drops down to 400. Being thrown in the deep-end is what brings out the best in people. Give people responsibility![/i]
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The father (Padraig) was a successful photographer from a well-off family. The son clearly had access to substantial resources and connections.
Already possessing wealth and having the right connections are more important than any ‘entrepeneurial’ skills (in this country or any other), and nothing here suggests otherwise that I can see. Thus, holding out the mirage that everyone can “succeed” helps in creating and maintaining an environment friendly (both in taxation and regulation) to such a privileged few, but everyone else is a fool to believe this guff.
And:
When the [Apple] Mac came out I saw its importance immediately and learned about it inside out. By the late Nineties CD-Rom drives were shipping as standard in computers.
Because I understood how to make high-quality digital imagery I was able to create a delivery mechanism for 650MB of stock photos. I figured out how to take a €5-piece of plastic and turn it into €500 of revenue.
“When the [Apple] Mac came out” it was a revolutionary but very, very expensive item ($5,000 in today’s money). Clearly, few in 1984 Ireland was going to get such access to expensive new technology.
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You seem determined to suggest that the newspaper was bound to succeed, and that the guy didn’t earn his stripes from the ground up – when it’s patently clear that neither is the case. That his da had the capacity to start a freesheet (some money and a printshop from a small postcard business) doesn’t remove from the reality that most publishing projects are a route towards throwing good money after bad. Any 14 year old who helps pitch in and make a success out of that scenario undeniably shows some initiative and, yes, entrepreneurship.
And in 1984 (or ’85 when Apple postscript printers appeared) pretty much any publishers would have bought into the Mac – it reduced typesetting and artwork overheads considerably, particularly for trade ad layouts. And by the time that CD-Rom drives were standard, the costs were trivial for anyone in the media business.
Strikes me that there’s a serious dose of sour grapes and parsing at play here – no-one handed this guy the keys to the kingdom, and he built up Stockbyte off his own initiative, insight, and effort.
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It’s very interesting, how defensive the supporters of the Irish oligarchy get when their creation myths are challenged. I think it’s one of the defining features of Capitalism With Irish Characteristics, this spurious appeal to some sort of fig-leaf of fairness and equal opportunity. It’s notably absent in the UK, where inherited wealth is part of the culture. In Ireland, even Old Money acts like New Money.
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Hmmm… well now, that’s an unusual critique to be directed against EWI and myself. Not ‘parsing’, obviously. That’s what we do round here. But ‘sour grapes’? Really?
Hold on, let me look at the top of the screen… mmmm Cedar Lounge Revolution… yep, all there. “For lefties…”, sure, present and correct.
So it’s unlikely it’s ‘sour grapes’ unless one believes that both myself and EWI are jealous of his money and/or prestige in the business world. Now really does that sound remotely plausible to anyone on this site?
Briefly. Definition of entrepreneurship is organising a business and taking on a greater than usual business risk. Clearly at 14 since no financial risk accrued to him personally at that point, he had good organisational skills surely, he was not entrepreneurial in any real sense of the term. The point as to whether the newspaper was bound to succeed or not is irrelevant, it simply wasn’t his problem at 14.
What we have a guy who had a clear family background in one area from an early age moving in quite a logical way to a related business, photojournalism for 15 years and then onto a further related area.
It’s not particularly entrepreneurial either, given the risks would be fairly limited since he had the photo-journalism to fall back on. Sale to Getty, excellent, though nice if he’d kept the company Irish.
Re the Apple Mac. ‘any publishers would have bought into the Mac’ says it all and in a way is precisely the point EWI makes – his use of a Mac in the early 1990s, while again laudable, would only be exceptional had it happened outside of a specific area of a general expertise/industry. But it didn’t happen outside that specific area since he was involved in photojournalism where it made perfect sense particularly with the rise of Photoshop from that point on (I myself bought a Mac LC in 1991 or so – and even then it was just short of being prohibitively expensive but even so it stretched a redundancy package I received – was I being more entrepreneurial than our hero or less so given that I was exposing myself to some financial risk… hmmmm redux).
And all that would be grand, I’d even be happy for him to consider himself a fantastic entrepreneur if that’s what makes him happy, if it weren’t for the fact that although a good business man who without a doubt had a stroke of luck to see his boat rise (the reports indicate that he and his wife, the two directors, were taken by surprise by how fast the companies expanded – they didn’t expect that. No problem there, but hardly indicative of a master plan), he feels qualified to opine at length in our Sunday media about the public sector in a particularly unthinking way.
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More parsing.
The sour grapes are evident enough in the kneejerk dismissal of the guy’s achievement as anything other than a condequence of the ‘advantages’ of his background. Reality check – his da was a small town pharmacist and had the sort of income that entails – he shifted career to build up a local photography business and then a small postcard printing business – again no obvious wealth for anyone to coast off. In ’73 he set up a local freesheet and the ‘non-entrepreneurial’ was responsible for distribution. No biggie there of course – no doubt we were all at similar stuff at that age.
As for Stockbyte – if it was such a well trodden path to diverge from photojournalism into the digital stock game, you have to wonder why so few bothered at the time. Nothing remotely entrepreneurial in spotting a niche in an emerging market, getting in ahead of the game, building a global player in that market, and then selling out at a peak. Nope. He clearly just got carried along on the back of the Kerry’s Eye gravy train and a ‘stroke of luck’.
You might not like the guy’s politics/ideology/lecturing, but it’s petty stuff to discount the success of his business inititiative on the back of that distaste. As for the imaginary dichotomy between ‘lefties’ and desire for business success – well that speaks volumes for one reason why left politics might have become so sidelined in this country. Talk about painting yourself into a corner! – enterprise has nothing to do with ideological wings – left or right. Ceding that ballgame to the right wing is the sort of self-indulgence worthy of an ivory tower.
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“imaginary dichotomy between ‘lefties’ and desire for business success”
It’s hardly imaginary I would have thought.
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Well sorry old pal, but your understanding of the term ‘entrepreneurial’ is clearly incorrect. You seem to believe that it’s synonymous with being in business. Not so, as a moments glance at the definition one can get from the Dashboard widget or Wiki will tell you. It’s centrally about exposure to financial risk. Now again, he wasn’t at risk personally at 14. If you’ve got a problem with that definition take it up with them.
As for Stockbyte, I’ve pointed out it was a good company, but entrepreneurial? Not so sure about that and again the reported statements which I reference above of his suggests that it was far from a done deal, as much about being in the right place at the right time.
As for more sour grapes or painting ourselves into a corner, not sure why you think anything is knee jerk here. Indeed so far it’s you who is pushing up those straw men – no-one prior to you mentioned ‘enterprise’. This ‘dichotomy’ appears to be very much in your own head. What is actually more accurate here is a scepticism about the boosterism of some proponents of the private sector… a boosterism you appear all too keen to participate in.
In any statement about his business and its success I’ve been nothing but complimentary (I explicitly noted that when saying in the comment you initially responded to “And the thing is that there are people who do start businesses from scratch who do put stuff on the line, etc. But then I guess most of them are too busy doing actual business to mouth off in the media.” ), my gripe is with the notion that he somehow can paint himself as an uncomplicated entrepreneur and therefore this confers some extra knowledge as regards the public sector.
The guy made an asinine series of comments about the public sector, paints himself as an entrepreneur and so on. Everything above is contextualised in regard to that. So perhaps a little less stuff from you about self-indulgence and ivory towers might be appropriate – eh?
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This ‘dichotomy’ appears to be very much in your own head.
seemingly not:
It’s hardly imaginary I would have thought.
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In any statement about his business and its success I’ve been nothing but complimentary (I explicitly noted that when saying in the comment you initially responded to “And the thing is that there are people who do start businesses from scratch who do put stuff on the line, etc. But then I guess most of them are too busy doing actual business to mouth off in the media.” ),
eh, you’re seriously trying to pass that off as a compliment about his business success?!
riight.
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Well sorry old pal, but your understanding of the term ‘entrepreneurial’ is clearly incorrect.
Clearly a widespread misconception, given that Kennelly won the Ernst & Young Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year in 2005. But no doubt you know better.
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Look back a couple of comments. ‘Laudable’, ‘excellent’ are the terms I used in direct reference to Stockbyte. And actually that quote you pull is pretty complimentary about people who y’know, actually do business etc not least that it recognizes that some people in business put their lives and their finances into something at significant risk to themselves. That’s something I admire, hence my point that they’re different to supposed entrepreneurs.
As to the dichotomy, any that exists isn’t in relation to business and the left per se but in relation to how some in business appear to believe they have license to mouth off about the public sector in that unthinking way I noted previously. And in that respect Jerry Kenneally is Exhibit A.
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Clearly a widespread misconception, given that Kennelly won the Ernst & Young Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year in 2005. But no doubt you know better.
If you’re so taken with the unanswerable primacy conferred by awards, you should reflect on the fact that you’re arguing politics with the proprietor of the Best Irish Political Blog 2009 (that’s not why he’s beating you into a cocked hat, though.)
Or alternatively, just get over your splenetic fury at the fact that socialists are disinclined to kowtow to capitalists and the lies they tell about themselves.
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Oh you crush me, you crush me Al, Ernst and Young, Ernst and Young… now, what was that quote EWI sent me back in November?
Of course, the same E&Y:
“Anglo Irish Bank
In January 2009, in the Anglo Irish Bank hidden loans controversy, EY was criticised by politicians[20] and the shareholders of Anglo Irish Bank for failing to detect large loans to Sean FitzPatrick, its Chairman, during its audits. The share price fell by almost 99% and the Irish Government had to subsequently take full ownership of the Bank.[21] The then Chief Executive of the Financial Regulator told a parliamentary committee that “a lay person would expect that issues of this nature and this magnitude would have been picked up” by the external auditors.[22] EY declined to appear before the same committee after receiving legal advice.[23][24] EY subsequently said their non-appearance was due to wanting not to be part of the media debate around the issue.[25] The Chartered Accountants Regulatory Board has initiated an investigation into the “circumstances around the issue of inappropriate directors’ loans at Anglo Irish”[26] and into the performance of EY.[27]”
Yeah, quite the champions of our unreconstructed private sector EY are.
But look, don’t bother doing any boring stuff like analysis, just go with what you feel or what you’re spoon fed by EY and keep up the good work of believing that your definition of the man at 14 is entrepreneurial endeavour at its finest.
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As to the dichotomy, any that exists isn’t in relation to business and the left per se but in relation to how some in business appear to believe they have license to mouth off about the public sector in that unthinking way I noted previously
It’s all the nasty businessman’s fault? We all have licence to mouth off about the public sector – he just happens to have a higher profile on the back of providing one model for lifting ourselves out of the mess we’re in currently (you know – export driven recovery?) You say ‘unthinking’, but I can’t see a problem in a meritocratic system in third level teaching, and can’t deny that reality of ‘lecturers living in a cossetted, highly-paid bubble’ – it’s a real enough syndrome – and I know you’re well aware of this yourself. What else do you take exception with? He doesn’t like unions? No he doesn’t, but I note you’re no great fan of IBEC. Sticks and stones.
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If you’re so taken with the unanswerable primacy conferred by awards, you should reflect on the fact that you’re arguing politics with the proprietor of the Best Irish Political Blog 2009
The pertinent distinction would be that no-one is claimning that this isn’t a political blog. If they were I’d be equally incensed – Incensed I tell you!
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But look, don’t bother doing any boring stuff like analysis, just go with what you feel or what you’re spoon fed by EY and keep up the good work of believing that your definition of the man at 14 is entrepreneurial endeavour at its finest.
No, no – E&Y (and Shnnon Development for that matter) – are in no position to judge whether a man is an entrepreneur or not – that would be reserved for you and your selective summantion of a wikipedia entry. That’s what passes for ‘analysis’ these days, isn’t it?
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And voila! Finally, finally after how many comments on our iniquity you actually start to address the central issue albeit with yet more putting phrases into my mouth. Who said anything about it’s the ‘nasty businessman’s fault?’… ‘sticks and stones’… ‘sour grapes’… can you see a five year old contributing to this discussion I somehow can’t?
Look back at my original post where I said:
As regards the issues at hand, I’m no fan of many aspects of third-level. There are serious issues as regards the lack of focus on students, curricula, teaching practices, the expected role of non permanent staff, and so on. But to try to shove that into the ‘one-size-fits-all’ public sector tropes of the likes of Jerry Keneally, such as…
Kennelly said that Ireland was ‘‘paying the price for highly-protected, union-led nonsense, where lecturers live in a cossetted, highly-paid bubble’’.
‘‘Like private companies, educational establishments at all levels need to become meritocracies where the best are rewarded and the incompetent are dismissed. It’s called management,” he said.
Really, that’s the private sector? Well that level of simplification (not to say possible delusion) doesn’t do any of us any favours.
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‘summantion’? Hmmm…
Oh you mean this?
“Wiki:
An entrepreneur is a person who has possession of a new enterprise, venture or idea and assumes significant accountability for the inherent risks and the outcome.
Dictionary Reference
–noun
1.
a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, esp. a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk.
Dictionary Widget/Dashboard
a person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks in order to do so.
• a promoter in the entertainment industry.”
yeah, I’m just all over the place aren’t I in my summantion [sic] of the term.
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Spare me the five year old stuff – I’m not the one claiming an obviously successful business innovator (who got in early to a market niche and consequently took risks that you can’t bring youtself to acknowledge) is a ‘supposed’ entrepreneur (and lets ignore the laurels cast at his feet being just that), and that he got a ‘leg up’ from Daddy Warbucks the Kerry media mogul.
What the man had to say – specifically about the cossetted dead wood and lack of meritocracy in educational institutes is far from ‘unthinking’ – if you were honest you’d chime in behind in on those specific concerns. The only point of conflict I can see is that he thinks the prtovate sector offers better models, and you don’t – Hang him now!
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That’s right, clearly I’m the one being childish in my language and my approach here. And I know I’ll pay for it with the commentors and contributors to the CLR tomorrow. 😉 (but I won’t care having almost got to the end of Season 1 of the Wire later this evening, first time viewing it)…
But okay, let’s get back to basics. Look at the original post I wrote, and more particularly the section I conveniently cut out for you a few posts back, and then tell me where it is that you’re, deliberately or not, misrepresenting my thoughts (and those of others) about third level and where it is that you’re, deliberately or not, misrepresenting what I said about Kenneally’s thoughts.
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Or here, damn it, I want to get over to watching Omar and McNulty and see what’s happening…
Clue #1
I wrote nothing at all to indicate that I wasn’t supportive of a meritocracy in third level – despite you making that a centre piece of the discussion so far.
I am indeed, and while there are meritocratic aspects I’d be the first to argue they have to be increased (see Clue #2).
Clue #2
But he was arguing that the private sector was meritocratic.
Well, I’ve been through numerous companies and I’ve seen the lie as regards that in many many instances. Indeed, having worked with the public sector more broadly (and that is distinctive from 3rd level) now I’d tentatively suggest that internal promotion etc there was more keenly overseen in a meritocratic fashion. Obviously I’ve also seen in the private sector instances of good meritocratic practice but to suggest that that was the norm… I’m highly dubious.
I’d also suggest that on balance, and with obvious exceptions, the situation in 3rd level has improved considerably in the decade or so I’ve been lecturing and teaching there. It’s so far from perfect that it’s not funny, but I don’t genuinely understand how you could construct this edifice your argument is based upon without recognizing that that was implicit both in my references to ‘teaching practices, the expected role of permanent staff and so on’…
As for ‘better models’ from the private sector? I have a profound lack of faith as regards that notion. Could it be that an educational environment isn’t a commercial one? Surely not.
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You seem determined to suggest that the newspaper was bound to succeed, and that the guy didn’t earn his stripes from the ground up – when it’s patently clear that neither is the case. That his da had the capacity to start a freesheet (some money and a printshop from a small postcard business)
I believe the family were pharmacists – so, middle-class and hardly stuck for a few bob.
doesn’t remove from the reality that most publishing projects are a route towards throwing good money after bad.
Some are, some aren’t – and certainly more were profitable, back then before d’Internet. You may want to take note of the many clearly-profitable freesheets, even today.
Any 14 year old who helps pitch in and make a success out of that scenario undeniably shows some initiative and, yes, entrepreneurship.
I’d say hard work, more like – unless you’re going to claim that a child was helping to manage a newspaper business? I’m unaware of any claims that the person in question was a child prodigy – could you share a link?
And in 1984 (or ‘85 when Apple postscript printers appeared) pretty much any publishers would have bought into the Mac – it reduced typesetting and artwork overheads considerably, particularly for trade ad layouts. And by the time that CD-Rom drives were standard, the costs were trivial for anyone in the media business.
That’s irrelevant to my point, which is that the BS about “meritocracies” completely fails to mention that your chances of becoming a success in business are pretty dependent on advantages that you possess by accident of birth – as Jerry Kennelly’s story itself demonstrates.
Strikes me that there’s a serious dose of sour grapes and parsing at play here – no-one handed this guy the keys to the kingdom, and he built up Stockbyte off his own initiative, insight, and effort.
“Sour grapes”, says you – but no-one is denying him his success, rather only his very questionable assertion that it’s all down to “entrepreneurism”, and just possessing this magical quality means that you, too, will become a multi-millionaire! Rather, his own backstory shows that he had a considerable leg-up over any other person of equivalent initiative and drive who might have come up with the same idea at that time, advantages from his social class and family fortune that can’t be dismissed with a wave of the hand.
We wouldn’t be discussing him here, if not for his own particular ill-advised contribution to this Randian myth.
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Clue #1
I wrote nothing at all to indicate that I wasn’t supportive of a meritocracy in third level – despite you making that a centre piece of the discussion so far.
I am indeed, and while there are meritocratic aspects I’d be the first to argue they have to be increased (see Clue #2).
Clue #2
But he was arguing that the private sector was meritocratic.
Well – when you claim that his comments were ‘unthinking’, you implicitly dismiss the problems he points to – if you agree with him on the specific problems, wouldn’t it make sense that you make mention of that somewhere? If your soul concern is that the model for meritocratic advancement and management that private companies is not the best model, then what’s so ‘unthinking’ about his opinion? You simply hold differing opinions. And I fail to see anything in his comments (directed at the grade inflation issue – a real enough problem based on my own experience) amounts to a “‘one-size-fits-all’ public sector trope”.
I’ll stick to my view that you don’t like the guy’s ideology, and therefore feel free to deny his (otherwise obvious) entrepeneurial skills, as well as ascribe a pretty slapdash accusation of ‘delusional’ ‘one-size-fits-all’ public sector tropes against the man. I’d consider that pretty childish alright (along with the highlighting of typos natch).
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I said his comments were unthinking. I never dismissed a problem. Indeed I clearly pointed out before quoting him that there were problems and laid them out in some detail.
Why on earth should I accept his point? I didn’t, he made a stupid one suggesting that the private sector was more meritocratic. I think that’s rubbish and I said so.
It’s not a question of ‘holding different opinions’, and in some respects it’s not just about ideology although given that this is a left wing site and this man holds views about the public sector wildly at variance with the experience of many us, it’s a question of him making a broad brush unthinking generalization and one that is couched within using ‘entrepreneurial’ endeavor as bona fides to substantiate it which I don’t accept.
By all means stick to your views. I suspect most people here would consider that you’ve demonstrated as comprehensively as one might require your inability to understand my original points and a continuing need to twist the meaning of everything subsequent to them from whatever quarter.
Re typo’s, it’s ‘sole’ incidentally, not soul – and if you think highlighting of typos is childish and you implicitly argue mine and others approach here is childish then one would have to wonder yet again why you bother your barney coming to the CLR at all? Nah, don’t answer. I think we know.
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no-one is denying him his success, rather only his very questionable assertion that it’s all down to “entrepreneurism”, and just possessing this magical quality means that you, too, will become a multi-millionaire! Rather, his own backstory shows that he had a considerable leg-up over any other person of equivalent initiative and drive who might have come up with the same idea at that time, advantages from his social class and family fortune that can’t be dismissed with a wave of the hand.
Absolute rubbish. Where does he claim that entrepreneurism will result in multi-millionaire outcomes? He points to his own father as a man who applied his own entrepreneurism, and built up a respectable business on the back of it, but far short of any millionare status. In his role of mentoring and encouraging young entrepreneurs he makes no reference to any ‘magical quality’, but rather a checklist of strategic requirements and skills that anyone can take advantage of in setting up on their own.
His own ‘backstory’ indicates that he was responsible for business decisions from a young age, that he leveraged some knowledge of a shortcoming within photo-publishing into a new niche market product and distribution system, and did so ahead of many others. His own business was built on the advantage of venture capital, and his own capacity to sell the digital stock model as an emerging revenue stream, not the ‘leg-up’ of his father’s business. The notion that he wasn’t an entrepreneur because he came from a photojournalism background, or his da ran a provincial newspaper, or that his success was entirely down to the accident of birth is just as I say – sour grapes.
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Actually, he’s reminding me at the moment of this lot (recently in the news in the US):
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/04/the_gops_young_eagles_if_youve_got_a_little_insecu.php?ref=fpa
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Whoops, wrong link. Here’s the one:
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/04/if_you_dont_have_an_oil_well_get_one_inside_the_la.php
“But just who are the Young Eagles? We showed you the Facebook page of the group’s mid-Atlantic director, J. Roby Penn IV, which includes quotes like: “I believe in a purpose driven life… if life’s purpose is backgammon and tennis,” and “If you don’t have an oil well, get one.” And here’s a bit more to fill out the picture of the 29-year old oil-and-gas heir.”
The sheer arrogance and sense of entitlement on display, and no doubt (like someone else) the first to mouthing off about ‘meritocracies’.
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The first SBP article linked to above:
“Education must aim for higher standards
Sunday, March 07, 2010 – By Martha Kearns
Question: What was Gandhi’s first name?
Answer: Goosey?
It might be an urban myth but this answer – attributed to a third-level student on British quiz show University Challenge -might raise a smile among the general public but, for some lecturers and employers, it’s no laughing matter.”
20 euros says that Martha Kearns doesn’t know Gandhi’s first name either.
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It doesn’t even make sense. If the story is untrue or an urban legend then it’s worthless as data. It’s only if those self same lecturers and employers can point to actual instances of lack of knowledge pertinent (as you rightly point out Bartholomew) to the area they are overseeing that it would have any validity at all. It’s not a laughing matter, or not not a laughing matter. It’s a complete irrelevancy.
Any btw I bet you’re right about people not knowing Gandhi’s first name (incidentally even if true that could be a function of mishearing rather than misunderstanding or lack of knowledge – but given that it’s apocryphal who gives a rashers?).
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I’d love to see how a cross-section of employers got on in a general knowledge test.
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Good question: what is Gandhi’s first name – Mohandas or Mahatma?
Wikipedia gives his full name as Mohandas Karanchand Gandhi but also states that his other names include Mahatma?
So, if the student above answered Mahatma would he or she still be wrong?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhi
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It would be interesting to know Martha Kearns answer to that question you pose.
ejh, a useful experiment if it were possible to put into practice.
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Yes, the student would be wrong, because ‘Mahatma’ is an honourary (sp?) title meaning ‘holy one’.
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That’s interesting – but that adds another twist to the original question. Would the student in the example above have had the level of insight to distinguish between Mahatma and Mohandas had they had an inclination as to Gandhi’s correct first name?
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Professor Ed Walsh was his usual helpful self on The Last Word today. Ended by threatening the wrath of the private sector worker on teachers, and goading the TUI leader: in the Irish Examiner today he said they should go on strike for a year and that this would break them.
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Ah, the old ‘we don’t need ’em’ trope. I saw a comment on the IT website earlier in the week suggesting that grans and grandads could home school the children during any dispute. Hmmm… now, am I the only one to see the flaw in that otherwise brilliant plan?
But, re Walsh, isn’t it time that sort of blustering rhetorical macho stuff he comes out with was put away? I mean, it may impress some in the circles he moves in, but… it’s all a bit childish… no?
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There seems to be a reluctance to meet fire with fire. The TUI man tried to argue but Walsh sneered and snorted. Why not just point out that Walsh was a very highly paid public servant, whose concern for private sector workers is purely to use them as a stick to beat the unions: where was he when Dell workers looked for better redundancy terms? During the Green Isle strike? MTL? Thomas Cooke? If all these people love the private sector workers so much why don’t they support them in cases like these? The ICTU should be bigging up how many members it has in the private sector (most of UNITE are private sector, 2/3s of SIPTU etc). But I think the unions largely give up on the argument. Walsh, Carey, Harris, O’Hanlon and co should be told fuck themselves.
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Yeah, it’s a sort of weird passivity. I’ve found this when talking to teachers union members, it’s sort of like just being a teacher is justification enough. Er… no, no it’s not when faced with a ferociously hostile media (and in the case of teachers a public many of whose experience of education personally wasn’t exactly wonderful for one reason or another, not least that at the very point when people are growing up and defining their own personalities the teacher is a not exactly loved authority figure). And this seems to be true of others in other unions as well.
Come out fighting or don’t bother.
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Why not just point out that Walsh was a very highly paid public servant, whose concern for private sector workers is purely to use them as a stick to beat the unions
And no just him; Miriam O’Callaghan (trying this trick last night on PrimeTime as well) could have done with a dose of it, too.
Meanwhile, here’s a fun fact I pulled out of the Croke Park documents that IMPACT have put up on their website: one in eight of the permanent staff of the local authorities went during 2009 (and I’d give a kidney to find out the number of ‘temporary’ staff – graduate professionals and the like – let go, which must be near 100% by this stage).
By the way, those documents:
Public service agreement document
Appendix: Service delivery options
Part 2 – Sectoral agreements
Appendix: Redeployment arrangements
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Honestly, it makes my blood boil. Maybe we could all set up a Facts and Fiction website to counter these lies from business and media?
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Not only could we, we should do it. Perhaps as a subsection of this website – though I wouldn’t presume to second-guess our hosts here.
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Dead right Dilettante,someone told me that the CEO of Pennys/Primark and the top dog of Accenture were on the “transformation of the public sector taskforce” for this Croke Park sell out.George Orwell couldn’t come up with better,if my someone is reliable and she usually is.I’m sure Pennys source all their clothes from child free sweatshops.
A brief aside on meritocracy.I always liked this quote from the man,Michael Young, who actually coined the word(meritocracy) “the 5% of the population who knows what 5% is”.His satire” The Rise of Meritocracy” was written over fifty years ago and is fairly good read,especially The Chelsea Manifesto fightback of dissidents and misfits against the meritocrats
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Dr. X/Dublin Dilettante, can I say that’s a brilliant idea which I meant to respond to previously. How do we go about doing, or rather in what form?
Fergal, yeah, that always makes me smile about the usage of meritocracy as against the original meaning.
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Has any government department published figures on the numbers, grades and length of service of those who took early retirement. Peculiar that it hasn’t been flagged by any of the papers, whether as a success or a failure.
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Peculiar that it hasn’t been flagged by any of the papers, whether as a success or a failure.
Hasn’t been mentioned, even (not to speak of the many temporary staff let go).
As you say, “curious” (and don’t RTÉ journalists get very defensive when this is queried?).
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. I think it’s one of the defining features of Capitalism With Irish Characteristics, this spurious appeal to some sort of fig-leaf of fairness and equal opportunity.
More Boston than Birmingham, innit?
The ideas that -spurious – equality of opportunity licenses outrageous inequality of outcomes.
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