Sceptics get the wooden spoon...hilarious stuff
Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 5:16 pm
The Diary, Sydney Morning Herald
Date: June 30 2009
by Sean Nicholls and Emily Dunn
Sceptics fight defies belief
Bent spoons have been flying in the offices of the Australian Skeptics after the
editor of its national magazine The Skeptic, Karen Stollznow, left Australia to
return to the US, leaving accusations of sexism in her wake and declaring the
organisation "a gentleman's club for curmudgeons".
Inspired by the American debunker of the paranormal, James Randi, the group is
best known for its annual Bent Spoon Award, bestowed for the worst "paranormal
or pseudoscientific piffle". But the group is being forced to defend itself
against Stollznow's charge that "scepticism in Australia is still for
cantankerous bearded bespectacled old men".
Stollznow, an Australian who is a research associate at the University of
California, Berkeley, was appointed executive officer, which encompasses the
editor's job, in the middle of last year. But after arriving in Sydney in
January, she resigned in April. Stollznow told the Diary she was unhappy at not
being given a contract or an office and that "meetings and correspondence were
rife with inappropriate and sexist comments about women".
She also says the group has withheld pay. The president of Australian Skeptics,
Eran Segev, denied the organisation was sexist and said the dispute was the
result of "a gap of expectations". This included the start date, which he said
had led to the pay dispute. "We think she did a wonderful job with the
magazine," he said. Stollznow says she "will do whatever I have to do" to
recover the money she believes is owed.
Date: June 30 2009
by Sean Nicholls and Emily Dunn
Sceptics fight defies belief
Bent spoons have been flying in the offices of the Australian Skeptics after the
editor of its national magazine The Skeptic, Karen Stollznow, left Australia to
return to the US, leaving accusations of sexism in her wake and declaring the
organisation "a gentleman's club for curmudgeons".
Inspired by the American debunker of the paranormal, James Randi, the group is
best known for its annual Bent Spoon Award, bestowed for the worst "paranormal
or pseudoscientific piffle". But the group is being forced to defend itself
against Stollznow's charge that "scepticism in Australia is still for
cantankerous bearded bespectacled old men".
Stollznow, an Australian who is a research associate at the University of
California, Berkeley, was appointed executive officer, which encompasses the
editor's job, in the middle of last year. But after arriving in Sydney in
January, she resigned in April. Stollznow told the Diary she was unhappy at not
being given a contract or an office and that "meetings and correspondence were
rife with inappropriate and sexist comments about women".
She also says the group has withheld pay. The president of Australian Skeptics,
Eran Segev, denied the organisation was sexist and said the dispute was the
result of "a gap of expectations". This included the start date, which he said
had led to the pay dispute. "We think she did a wonderful job with the
magazine," he said. Stollznow says she "will do whatever I have to do" to
recover the money she believes is owed.
