We wish to acknowledge the ancestral, traditional and unceded Aboriginal territory on which T.S.D.B.D.W. will be held and apologize on behalf of those Aboriginal people for their earlier colonization of the north and south American continents and the subsequent extinction of the mastodon, woolly mammoth and giant sloth through overhunting. We apologize for the Y chromosome and European Culture. The conference is carbon neutral so those attending are asked to keep a detailed dietary log.
Monday 9am
FRONTIERS IN EUROPEAN DESIGNER EYEWEAR
This session deals more broadly with the full conference attendee and panelist kit, from techniques for disentangling lanyards and necklaces to using your E.A. or intern as a luggage Sherpa. You are your brand the moment you walk into the conference hotel lobby. Should your dress or shoes always be an on-brand statement colour, or has Chrystia Freeland jumped the shark? The unshaven, open shirt with bespoke suit look has been a boon for conference-going men in recent years, should women consider this option? The difficult question of hats. Can adventuresome socks sell your two piece business suit look as being European, while still broadcasting you harbour a deep and genuine remorse over Europe’s colonial history? The Lagarde Question: How tanned is too tanned? What to do with your hands when you are on a panel. How to hold a microphone to convey authority without sending an unintended message and TED Talk-style hands-free presentation.
Tuesday 2pm
TWEET THAT
To remain competitive in the conference world, your message needs constant reinforcement. Exploration of how we can reframe old tautologies with buzz words like “innovation,” “engagement,” “stakeholder,” or simply prefacing keywords with “Bio-“ “Inter-“ or “Cis-.” Compound neologisms like “stakeovationment.” How is it that the term “digital” retains its vitality yet “cyber” feels old? How to keep a straight face when using terms like “discoverability.” Use of various pictographs like emojis to convey a sense of meaning in an increasingly post-literate world.
Wednesday 10am
ACADEMY RESOURCING
Securing and maintaining that highly compensated University position with little or no teaching responsibility is essential to continuing in the Global conferencing network. You need an office with paid staff and a top salary position with benefits at a University or well-endowed N.G.O. to sustain your conferencing practice. Consultation contracts with increasingly impoverished Governments are profitable only when your operating costs are subsidized by the profits realized from the retail undergraduate education market.
Thursday 10am
WHERE TO EAT
Every conference goer has had the crushing experience of returning to the restaurant that was “in” the last time you were in the city, only to find it has been discovered by civilians. If Chowhound knows about a place it is too late. Having a reservation for six to eight at the best new place in town is some of the highest denomination conference currency and puts you out ahead of that most humiliating of conference questions, “Where’s everybody going?
Thursday 11pm
NETWORKING AND BONDING BACCHANAL AND SWAG ORGY
The traditional conference piss-up and f*ckfest not only makes lasting connections, it assures that what happens at the conference stays at the conference by virtue of mutually assured destruction.
This is a classic case of The Onion & Beaverton ruining satire. Satire is political. Satire is edgy. Satire confronts and starts conversations, it’s not meant to gather LOLs and Facebook shares. I think Suzanne is right: “How dare white people apologize for aboriginals” is the very point of the piece. Once again, Ed’s take on topical politics, like the Lake Melville, is the best conversation starter on the matter of white guilt and the shrugging off of our treatment of Labradorians. Also: why don’t you people use your real names if you care so much? Conversations are weird when you dunno who you’re talking to.
Hi “B.” & “B.S” I think it’s great you want to make sure no one’s poking fun of a serious thing here! BUT: The idea of white conference-going men apologizing for aboriginal overhunting was supposed to sound audacious for effect: how dare someone say that is the point. Satire can be tricky, but in exchange, it can be biting.
There is no satire in racism. Saying something racist and calling it satire does not make it less racist or more satirical.
“…apologize on behalf of those Aboriginal people for their earlier colonization of the north and south American continents and the subsequent extinction of the mastodon, woolly mammoth and giant sloth through overhunting. ”
This is only racist. There is no humour in a joke that conflates the violent colonization and oppression of Indigenous people and the experiences of the woolly mammoth, no matter the writer’s intention (or the reader’s IQ).
And to correct both “B” and “D,” Ed Riche is addressing Liberal Guilt here, and how easily we cure ourselves of it with empty apologies. It’s not your fault reading Riche requires age and IQ many readers might not have, and that’s not meant to be saucy, so much as to stress that anyone who has been of age in the era of White Guilt long enough, and who is well read upon it, would see that that’s what’s under attack here.
So now the world’s most left leaning hipsters are crapping on the world’s most left leaning newspaper. How utterly foolish to watch. Dear “B, You, this paper, and this writer are all on team Left, work together, not apart, and stop dictating, Hitler-like, as to how this company & writer should conduct itself.
I usually like Ed’s satire but making fun of land acknowledgements is low. its an amazing movement to acknowledge our colonial history and its not ok to poke fun at it.
the overcast fails again..
The only “fail” here is your understanding of the article? This article is making fun of people who make fun of land protectors, unless I am reading it wrong? It is, as you said, satire, and satire uses humour to address politics and very serious things.