Woroni Edition Two 2018 by Woroni

Week 3, Semester 1, 2018

woroni VOL. 68, Issue 2. Week 3, Semester 1, 2018

PAGE 13 politics of the pyeongchang olympics

PAGE 31 millenial tales

PAGE 36 six oscars contenders reviewed by you

FLOODS HIT ANU

Text: Jacob Thornton

It will take ANU weeks to assess the full damage of the university’s recent dramatic flash floods, but early assessments show that it is Chifley Library’s lowest floor, and construction sites across the university, that are most affected by the event. In a press conference on Monday afternoon, ANU’s Chief Operating Officer Chris Grange told media that things could have been a lot worse if the flooding occurred on a weekday: “We should be really grateful that yesterday’s flood came on a Sunday,” Grange said. “The good news is: we’ll be open again tomorrow.” The most serious damage occurred in buildings closest to Sullivan’s Creek,

including Chifley Library, the AD Hope building, and construction sites.

Grange, the damage could take more than 12 months to properly amend.

“We had about half a metre of water through the bottom of Chifley Library. We lost the electrical distribution boards, the air conditioning and the ventilation systems, and the IT infrastructure for the library,” Grange explained.

Within construction sites, 11 excavators were submerged. It is unclear whether the damage will significantly delay Union Court Reconstruction efforts.

It is unclear when the library will be reopened. As it stands, it is also not known what books were damaged, and of what value they are. In the AD Hope building, which houses much of the School of Archaeology and Anthropology, the lower ground floor was significantly affected, including damage to a number of materials and papers. According to

Vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt said that the closure of campus was necessary to ensure the safety of staff and students. “We closed the campus on Monday to allow essential safety checks on infrastructure including bridges, creek banks and electrical switchboards,” he said. “I’d like to thank our students and staff for their support and cooperation during the closure.” Other buildings that were affected included Toad Hall, which took on

PAGE 43 feminst campaigns key to reversing climate change

250mm of water, as well as the John Dedman building. The Tjabal Centre and Melville Hall were also flooded. As a precaution, three substations were shut down, which cut off power to a large part of the university. The last time ANU was closed down was in February 2007, when a supercell hailstorm wrecked a number of ceilings across campus, and caused fire alarms to start ringing. Floods are a rarer occurence: in 1947, when ANU’s Acton campus was brand new, Sullivan’s Creek overf lowed significantly and caused sustained damage. In 1961, Chif ley Library took on water in a similar event - and, in 1971, almost all of Canberra was hit by a major f lood that took the lives of seven people. W

Vol. 68 , Issue 02 News comment 10

Meanwhile in Canberra Jasper Lindell 11

An Evening with Demos Nick Blood 12

Canberra needs an Eating Disorder In-patient Centre Molly Saunders INTERNATIONAL

Knitting Our Way to Happier Days Sophie Johnson

Millennial Tales Miriam Sadler 32

Life vs Lore Tabitha Malet artS 33

Internal Worlds Michael Katsavos

The Politics of the PyoengChang Olympics Noah Yim 14

Education is a Prerequiste to Hope Emilio Lanera 15

Trump in Tweets Brandon Tan 16

God Save the Queen! Joyce Zhang ‘lore’ Features 17

Lore of the Lake Lachlan Forrester Red Enevelopes in a New China Jeffrey Weng 18

Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe Emily Gallagher MULTILINGUAL 19

De Camino a Yotala Written and translated by: Cassandra Wilmot Spanish edited by: Manuel Delicado 20

Tradition En Suisse Sarah Hodge ‘Unbroken’ womens week pullout

The World in our Pockets And How it Distracts Us Chris Walsh 35

50 Years Young Alisha Nagle

Oìche Shamhna: The Irish Halloween Natalie Murnane 30

Gibson Guitar Corp: An Euology Jeremy Tsui

Feminist Campaigns Key to Reversing Climate Change, Data Shows Nick Blood 44

How Cycling Can Change Your Life Jessica Woolnough creative 45

Witching Hour Waits Florence Wellfair 46

About You Amanda Dheerasekera

Reviews

Going Solo Shikhar Mishra

Darkest Hour Josie Ganko

This Poem Isn’t About You Kat Carrington

Lady Bird Lulu Cathro

Getting Into The Arena Alex Costello

Phantom Thread Chiara Cementon 37

The Post Ellie Doyle The Shape of Water Theresa Tran Three Billabords Outside Ebbing, Missouri Naini Rautela

sATIRE 48

“Why Would You Study Arts?” Caroline Dry My Recent Interest In Men’s Rights Has Absolutely Nothing To Do With My Chronic Case Of Foot Fungus, I Assure You Will Fletcher Sudoku Sebastian Rossi

Science 38

Ecosystem Services, or Why You Should Have More Plants In Your Life Brody Hannan 39

The Science of LSD Damian Bhalla Business & Economics 40

Life & style

It’s Getting Hot in Here Elizabeth Suk-Hang Lam

What Is an Actuary, Actually? Felix Ryan environment 41

ANU-invented Solar Panels on Acton Campus Ivana Dulovic

Cover art: Sophie Bear and Nathalie Rosales Cheng

This paper is recyclable. Protect the environment and recycle me after reading.

2 acknowledgement of country

We acknowledge the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, who are the traditional owners of the land on which Woroni is written, edited and printed. We pay respects to Elders past, present and future. We would also like to acknowledge that this land – which we benefit from occupying – was stolen, and that sovereignty was never ceded. Within this ongoing echo of colonialism we commit, as writers and editors, to amplify the voices and stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people at our university. We will honour the diversity of their stories.

Board of Editors

Editor in Chief: James Atkinson Deputy EIC: Nathalie Rosales Cheng Managing Editor: Jonathan Tjandra Content Editor: Mia Jessurun Radio Editor: Zoe Halstead TV Editor: Linda Chen Art Editor: Sophie Bear News Editor: Max Koslowski

staff and Sub-Editors

Financial Controller: Brendan Greenwood Website Development: Nick Sifniotis Senior Sub-Editor: Ben Lawrence Senior Sub-Editor: Maddie Kibria Comment: Georgia Alexiou International: Brandon Tan Features: Ally Luppino Multilingual: Charbel El-Khaissi Arts: Miriam Sadler Reviews: Josie Ganko Life & Style: Alisha Nagle Environment: Jessica Woolnough Science: Liam King Creative Writing: Annabel Chin Quan Creative Writing: Emily Dickey Satire: Caroline Dry News: Noah Yim News: Phoebe Lupton News: Kobie Chen News: Alessandra Hayward News: Luke Kinsella News: Dan Le Mesurier News: Jacob Thornton News: Eddie Landale News: David Wu News: Georgia Clare Executive Producer: Steph David Presenter Liason: Sonja Panjkov Radio Technical Officer: Adam Bell Music & Events: Annika Law Breakfast Producer: Imogen Purcell Radio Producer: Dorothy Mason Radio Producer: Maleika Twisk Radio Producer: Byron Dexter Radio Producer: Gil Rickey Radio Producer: Lulu Cathro Radio Producer: Jess Townrow Art & Design: David Liu Art & Design: Millie Wang Art & Design: Hannah Charny Art & Design: Clarence Lee Senior Camera Operator: Bremer Sharp Senior Video Editor: Shasha Ma Camera Operator: Manya Sinha Video Editor: Caitlin Jenkins Video Editor: Hayley Pang TV Producer: William He TV Producer: Ria Pflaum TV Producer: Zachary Schofield TV News Reporter: Isabella Di Mattina TV News Reporter: Judith Zhu TV News Reporter: Ayaka Miki Tsu TV News Reporter: Amanda Au

Contact

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Week 3, Semester 1, 2018

FISH DIES DUE TO EXTREME HEAT Text: Georgie Juszczyk

security guard who suspected that the burial may have held drugs.

The lack of air conditioning at Davey Lodge has once again faced criticism after a resident’s fish died due to extreme heat during O-Week.

The death of the 4-month-old pet, who was named Walter William Williams, has raised questions about the lack of air conditioning provided to residents at Davey Lodge. Built in 2009, Davey Lodge is the oldest of the four UniLodge residences.

The fish, owned by Alex Williams, died on the Thursday of O-Week. In a Facebook post in the dedicated UniLodge Facebook group, Williams announced that the fish’s’ “boily [sic] demise has saddened [him] beyond repair”. Williams told Woroni that her fish was perfectly healthy before the incident. “He was happy and healthy and then he started acting up for a day or so. Then he died. I was sad for a little, but realised there’s bigger fish to kill in this world”. A funeral was held for the fish later in the evening, where the pet was buried in the college’s courtyard. But the fish did not rest in peace for long: the next day, the grave was dug up by an overnight

All other UniLodge residences have air conditioning, including the new SA5 building that currently houses Bruce Hall, which has in-built ceiling fans. Davey Lodge residents often complain about how the extreme heat makes the building less liveable, forcing people out of their rooms and common areas, to study in other places on campus that offer more comfort. But UniLodge General Manager Peter Warrington told Woroni that the heat was nothing to worry about. “I actually lived in [Davey Lodge] myself, on the top floor, so I am aware that it does get warm. But by pulling

down your shades during the day it does reduce a lot of the heat,” Warrington said. “We unfortunately can’t have air conditioning because of the design of the building, but I do know that using a fan can cool it down quite quickly.”

Text: Max Koslowski

“Certain people have raised that their rooms are quite hot, and we’ve provided advice – we also sometimes have provided fans.”

Three people have been taken into custody by the ACT Police, following an alleged aggravated robbery on campus on Wednesday.

Warrington said that he had not heard about any dead fish:

The alleged act occurred just before midday. Police arrived at a carpark at ANU, where they approached a male and demands were made of his vehicle. According to some comments on ANU Schmidtposting, up to six police cars were seen.

“That’s the first I’ve heard of a fish dying, that’s news to me. But I’ll look into it.” In 2016, one resident even took legal action against UniLodge over the issue, going so far as to meet with ANUSA’s lawyers before dropping the case when they were moved into an airconditioned room instead. January and February are usually the hottest months of the year in Canberra, and data suggests that this year has been hotter than average. w

ANU NAMED IN BIG REPORT ON SEXUAL ASSAULT AND HARASSMENT Text: Max Koslowski The past half-decade of ANU hazing rituals have been compiled as part of a damning report on sexual assault and hazing during university O-Weeks around Australia. The most ANU recent incident discussed in the 211-page publication, titled The Red Zone Report and prepared by activist and journalist Nina Funnell, is Burton and Garran Hall’s tradition of men surrounding a group of women during the Daddy Cool song Eagle Rock, and pulling down their pants while women remove their tops. It also recalls the suspension of four students at St Johns’ XXIII College after 2017’s O-Week: the Daily Telegraph reported that students chanted “I wish all women were nails in my shed, then I’d grab my hammer and nail ‘em in my bed”.

Another post read: “The best thing about living at B&G is the laundry room - and girls who forget to bring their laundry in. Sometimes when I go in to do my laundry and they’ve left their stuff unattended, I’ll snoop through someone’s stuff and nick a pair of panties or bra. I take them and pretend girls have been sleeping with me in my room when my friends come over and discover they’ve ‘accidentally’ left them behind.”

The publication also refers to some lesser known incidents at ANU: in October 2013, an ANU Confessions Facebook post was released that read:

St Johns’ XXIII College head of hall, Geoff Johnston, told Woroni that none of the revelations concerning his college brought forward new information.

“Sometimes I want to beat the fuck out of my girlfriend because she says the dumbest things. I’ve slapped her and pushed her (she slaps and pushes me too, OK?) but sometimes I just want to give her a full fledged beating. The kind to leave bruises and blood. I know this won’t end well for me so I resist but holy fuck sometimes it’s

“The thing to realise with this report from our perspective is that it’s all historical. It’s awful to read of course, but we’ve been dealing with these issues for quite a few years to try and get rid of it,” Johnston said. “There’s no doubt we are making progress, but any cultural change is slow, and it’s a matter of getting our

The three arrests were made some time later in Kambah. In a statement, ACT Police said that the investigations were ongoing. “Enquiries in relation to these three individuals and their activities are ongoing. Police are urging anyone who may have any information that could assist police to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000, or via the Crime Stoppers ACT website. Information can be provided anonymously.” w

that create unsafe communities like those described don’t face any substantive consequences.” The report is titled The Red Zone because that is the name given to O-Week by student activists, due to the week’s reputation for rife sexual assault and harassment. Much of the report focuses on incidents at the University of Sydney’s residential colleges.

hard… Maybe I should get some girls to do it for me so I don’t get into shit”.

In yet another example, a post from the then-called ANU Stalkerspace (now Schmidtposting) elicited the comment “If fucking women with knives is wrong, I don’t want to be right”.

POLICE DETAIN THREE PEOPLE FOLLOWING ALLEGED ROBBERY AT ANU

A number of recommendations are suggested by the publication, such as improved oversight of student residences, counselling services at colleges, and greater transparency for information on residential hall culture.

student leaders to work with us to get results”. When asked whether the college was getting results with their aims to prevent hazing and sexual assault, Johnston said that they had taken recent steps, including barring a group of residents from returning to the college this year. Laura Perkov, ANU women’s officer, told Woroni that a residential hall’s efforts were usually not enough: “So often, ‘dealt with’ means perpetrators of violence and behaviours

Perkov told Woroni that she agreed with the recommendations, and noted that the suggestions could be reinforced by ANU’s review in college sexual assault procedures, which is due to be handed down later this year. “This is an incredibly important time for the formation of residential communities at the ANU - structural and cultural change is a long process and it is imperative that we get this right.”

In a statement from an ANU spokesperson, the university condemned residential college hazing practices. w

Vol. 68 , Issue 02

ANUSA LOSES TENS OF THOUSANDS DUE TO LOW FNP TURNOUT

balance sheet - almost a quarter of the whole O-Week budget.

Text: Max Koslowski

ANUSA’s Friday Night Party has attracted one of the lowest turnouts in recent student memory, in a blow that could cost the student organisation more than $60,000 in lost revenue. 1,307 tickets were sold for the event, which featured big name artists like Client Liaison and Thirsty Merc. Compared to recent years, that number is low. In 2016, social officer Cameron Allen reported that “around 2,500 tickets” had been sold for that year’s Friday Night

Party, dubbed Cloud Nine. The year before, 3,200 tickets were sold.

entry into the party for $35, when buying two or more tickets.

Friday Night Party has historically been relied upon as a money raiser for ANUSA’s O-Week events - the ticket sales can give the organisation more than $130,000 in revenue. That money is often used to bankroll top acts that headline the show: ANUSA set aside $85,000 for the line-up this year.

In 2017, more than half of ANUSA’s O-Week budget came from sources outside of the student services and amenities fee. This fee, known as SSAF, is money that is distributed by the university to student organisations such as ANUSA, PARSA, Woroni and ANU Observer.

Tickets were also offered at cheaper rates this year. One sale offered

Due to the lower number of tickets sold, ANUSA may find themselves up to $60,000 short on their O-Week

ANUSA’s management of the Friday Night Party will most likely be examined in the coming weeks. The organisation’s social officer, Anya Bonan, told Woroni that ANUSA will try to figure out what went wrong. “Every year, ANUSA learns more from our experience running Friday Night Party. This year we are looking forward to our debrief and feedback opportunities to ensure we can continue to run one of the best nights of the year for students.” 2018 was the first year that the Friday Night Party was held in the Australian National Botanic Gardens. w

IS THE CONSENT MATTERS MODULE ACTUALLY WORKING? Text: Dan Le Mesurier For the past year, ANU has rolled out the Consent Matters module, as part of increased efforts to prevent sexual assault and promote “safe and respectful relationships” within the university community. The Consent Matters module, developed by Epigeum with the advice and contributions of sexual health professionals and academics, is an online course aimed at helping “students understand sexual consent and promote positive change in the university community”. The program takes students through mock scenarios and questionnaires, designed to illustrate key concepts surrounding consent and harassment. In recent weeks, Consent Matters has been criticised as being “tokenistic” and a “cheap ‘tick-the-box’ online module” by opinion pieces in Australian media. Student leaders have also claimed that the module fails to make a difference in an environment where sexual assault and harassment is a major issue. Speaking to The Age, National Union of Students women’s officer Kate Crossin said the module “hasn’t been found to reduce sexual harassment or assault” and that “face-to-face training is much better”. The module forms part of a response to a report on sexual assault and harassment at Australian universities, which was released by the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) on August, 2017. The report identified focus

areas where recommendations for change were made. These focus areas included “changing attitudes and behaviours” and “residential colleges and university residences”. ANU has accepted all recommendations made by the report. ANU pro vice-chancellor Professor Richard Baker says the Consent Matters module is part of a “suite of initiatives” aimed at ensuring “the campus is a safe place to study, live, work and visit”. Introduced in 2017, the module is now compulsory for all students in residential colleges and new students coming to ANU in 2018. With “overwhelmingly positive” student feedback, the module has been taken by over 6,800 students. Online and face-to-face training by the Canberra Rape Crisis Centre has been provided for student leaders in residences in regard to disclosures of sexual violence. In addition to this, Professor Baker says ANU is in the process of implementing bystander training throughout 2018, and that residential committees have already completed this

training. It is important to note that the Consent Matters module also covers positive intervention and what bystanders can do to help prevent sexual assault. The university’s response to the AHRC report further emphasises the relationship between ANU and the Canberra Rape Crisis Centre, with the Centre having a full-time presence on campus. ANU’s response to the report and the present and future initiatives undertaken to prevent sexual assault and harassment are in line with the idea that there needs to be consistently repeated and reinforced measures to produce and maintain a shift in attitudes and behaviour. These initiatives, including the Consent Matters module, are partly aimed at introducing to new students at ANU a clear idea of, among other things, consent, positive intervention and communication in a sexual context. This can be valuable in the context of new students entering into an environment where these ideas and related issues

may be more talked about than in previous environments and school communities. Darcy Bembic, a Gender & Sexuality Advocate at one of ANU’s residential colleges, commended the Consent Matters module for its explorations of positive, non-confrontational intervention techniques. This helps equip people with the “ability to positively intervene in an unsafe situation for others”. Bembic also highlighted the module’s value “regarding people who may have skewed conceptions of consent in knowing what is and isn’t ok, and what does and doesn’t constitute consent”. w

Text: Noah Yim Woroni went around to each of this year’s college presidents and asked them questions about their life, their hopes for their college, and their dreams for the future. Meet your college presidents for 2018:

Week 3, Semester 1, 2018

MEET YOUR 2018 COLLEGE PRESIDENTS residency team to implement the ideas they have.

always see the same group of people at most of our sporting events.

What are you looking to do afin October are due to be the biggest Alex De Souza, Burton and ter you graduate? What are you looking forward ever. Garran Hall to the most this year? I want to do a master’s degree, probWhat are you looking to do afAlex is in her fourth year of univer- ably at the ANU, in culture, health Meeting the new residents and get- ter you graduate? sity, studying a Bachelor of Human Biology. She started her first year of university at Australian Catholic University, and came to ANU in her second year. She grew up in Sydney.

What did you do these past holidays? I travelled to Thailand for four weeks, and spent time backpacking there. Otherwise, it’s been mostly residency things; we’ve been planning for the year ahead.

and medicine. I’d like to become a surgeon.’

Bella Tobiano, UniLodge Bella is in her third year of university, studying a Bachelor of Science and Arts. Her major in science is biochemistry, and her major in arts is psychology, with a minor in criminology. She grew up in Sydney and started off her tertiary education there, at the University of Sydney, and transferred to the ANU in her second year.

ting them involved in activities! I’m really buzzed for O-Week. Our theme this year is “Wake me up before you go-go” We’re having a daily brunch, lots of barbecues, and parties.

What are you looking to do after you graduate? Not sure yet, but I’d like to be a nutritionist or dietician for a sports team.

Christina Fawns, Ursula Hall Christina is in her third year of

I want to travel to Machu Picchu, Europe and Korea. I’m also considering doing another degree, this time in law, because of the valuable skills it would provide, but also because I lowkey love Legally Blonde.

Hannah Minns, Griffin Hall Hannah is in the third year of a Bachelor of Environment and Sustainability. She was originally from Toowoomba, in Queensland, and started university living off-campus.

What do you usually do with studying a Bachelor of Science, mayour spare time? What did you do these past joring in biology. She grew up in What did you do these Wagga Wagga. She has three younger past holidays? holidays? I don’t usually have too much spare time; part time work, and my other commitments usually keep me occupied. Last year, I was the social officer for the Science Students’ Society, the culture representative at B&G, I was an administrator in the Pint of Science festival, and I was doing part-time work.

I went to Whistler in Canada for a skiing trip for two weeks. I really loved it there – everyone was really nice. Also, everyone seemed to be Australian, so I felt quite at home.

What do you usually do with your spare time?

What is different about B&G I play the saxophone and guitar, alfrom the other residencies on though I haven’t done that too much campus? since year 12. I also play a lot of The kitchen; it’s very open, and it’s very social. People always talk to each other and cook for each other – there’s really no better way to bond than to experience burning pasta for the first time.

sports; I played soccer, softball and hockey for UniLodge last year. I usually play striker in soccer, and winger in hockey. Other than that, I work part time, which keeps me quite busy.

siblings and two dogs.

What did you do these past holidays? I went back home to Wagga Wagga in this break, where I spent most of my time spending time with family, organising exciting O-Week events with the Ursula Residents’ Committee, and working on DIY projects, like the new set of pyjamas I’m making!

What do you usually do with your spare time? I enjoy the casual jog and shopping spree. I also like to start new DIY projects. Most recently, I read ‘Eat, Pray, Love’, but my favourite book to date remains ‘Hating Alison Ashley’.

What is different about UniLodge from the other residenWhat do you anticipate will be cies on campus? the greatest challenge in your year as president? Well obviously, UniLodge is not a What is different about Ursula college. Because of this, we have Hall from the other residenDealing with the results of the more freedom than the other resi- cies on campus? AHRC survey and the study into ANU colleges which is due to be released soon. We have to keep building on the progress that we’ve made. In particular, we need to ensure that we have less confrontational reporting procedures and more streamlined administration processes. This is a really complicated issue, since policies aren’t the only things that need to be changed; we need to teach first-years and everybody else about what’s okay, what’s not okay, and the boundaries that we all need to observe.

dencies on campus. Not everyone is expected to attend sporting events or college events, unlike most of the other residencies.

Ursula Hall is often characterised as the homely and community-oriented residency, like a big family.

I went to Vietnam for an environment science field school. Before that I was working, so that I could afford to go away! And after the trip I mainly just did O-Week preparation.

What do you usually do with your spare time? I work at the Street Theatre Cafe on campus. I’m a little bit into my music, like guitar and cello. I’m also a little bit into sport, like basketball and soccer - I don’t really focus on any one thing. I’ve got my fingers in a lot of pies!

What is different about Griffin Hal from the other residencies on campus? We face a lot of different challenges. More and more over the past few years we’ve been able to cater to a broad range of people. In the past we’ve been known as the “geek college” - I think it’s really lovely that we have the one common room on campus. Mind you, it is way too small, and I hope we get a bigger space with the Union Court redevelopment.

What do you anticipate will be What do you anticipate will be the greatest challenge in your the greatest challenge in your year as president? year as president? What do you anticipate will be the greatest challenge in your There’ll be a lot of challenges. But I usually prefer to be on top of ev- year as president?

What are you looking forward to the most this year?

mainly, keeping the office-bearers motivated throughout the entire year. We’ve found in past years that as time passes, many of the office-bearers lose their gusto. But this year, I hope that my energy, as president, and the executive team, will transfer onto the office-bearers.

O-Week. We’ve been preparing so much for it, and the whole team has worked so hard. But furthermore, I’m so excited to get to meet everyone, and get to know the residency team better. I’m excited to help the

Also, I’d like to see more involvement from everyone in UniLodge. A side-effect of that freedom I talked about before is that there are people you just never see; who never show their faces. Most of the time, you

erything; that’s why I anticipate that sudden events or issues that require my attention, that previous presidents warned me about, will be the biggest challenges I face this year as president.

What are you looking forward to the most this year? Christmas! Also, being the fiftieth anniversary of Ursula Hall, there were many exciting events lined up for the coming year. In particular, the celebrations for St Ursie’s Day

I really want to focus on making Griffin a more inclusive place, and getting more people engaged. Last year we had hundreds of sign-ups, but you only ever meet up to a hundred of those people. People sign up because they’re really keen, but sometimes they drop off early in the year. A broader range of events will hopefully help us achieve more engagement - and in terms of community vibes, we need to be encouraging people to use the Griffin community to the best of their advantage, to

Vol. 68 , Issue 02 meet more people, and not get stuck in their little group of friends.

law reform, or one of the NGOs on women’s rights.

What are you looking forward Max Moffat, Bruce Hall to the most this year? Working with my team. Everyone in committee are all really, really passionate and dedicated to their jobs. I think a lot of them have great ideas to make the college better. And because we are a young college, we can’t rest in the mindset of ‘this is how we are, we can’t change from this’.

Max is a Tuckwell Scholar in his third year of studying a Bachelor of Law and Arts. His arts major is psychology, with a minor in English literature. He grew up in Sydney, where he went to North Sydney Boys High.

What did you do these past holidays?

grew up mostly in Melbourne, and also had stints in London and Adelaide.

6 Burgmann with mobility impairments.

What did you do these past What are you looking to do afholidays? ter you graduate? I spent time travelling! I was travelling in China before Japan, where I am now, and I also played guitar and wrote. I’m also reading a fascinating biography of David Bowie now.

I’d like to travel – I’m thinking of taking a semester off next year to instruct on the ski fields. Long term, I’d like to be a music producer or recording engineer.

What is different about Burga- Tom Dodds, Fenner Hall mann College from the other What are you looking to do I went to the beach a lot, and I went residencies on campus? Tom is in his third year of a Bacheafter you graduate? to Japan with my friends for a while. lor of Law and Arts. His arts major I don’t really have any set to-do list. I might do a Masters, I might travel some more. But I want to make sure I am thinking about my end goal, which is sustainable development.

Lucy Bannon, John’s College Lucy is in her third year of a Bachelor of Law and Arts. Her major in arts is gender studies, though she changed degrees a few times. She grew up in Manly, Sydney and started off studying law and PPE, which was the main reason she came to the ANU.

What did you do these past holidays? I just got back from a three-week holiday in Nepal. My friend and I spent a week in Kathmandu and spent the next two hiking Annapurna. I worked as a paralegal before that for Centrelink. Since then, I’ve been working hard to prepare for O-Week.

I also volunteered at the Redfern Legal Centre.

What do you usually do with your spare time? I volunteer at LegalAid ACT, and play the trumpet. I’m looking to get back into soccer after high school (he played centre back). I also ran Inward Bound last year.

What is different about Bruce Hall from the other residencies on campus? Bruce doesn’t really have a set stereotype; unlike the other colleges. It allows people from all different backgrounds to find their clique. Since it’s a quite a large college – that’s probably its biggest benefit.

What do you anticipate will be the greatest challenge in your year as president? Mediating the divide between inter-

What do you usually do with national and domestic students. It’s your spare time? very prominent at Bruce Hall; when I like reading, taking road trips, and playing piano. Recently, I’ve been reading Headscarves and Hymens. Also, I play a lot of sports; last year, I played rugby, AFL, softball and soccer.

What is different about John's from the other residencies on campus? John’s is separated by its reputation; we’ve had incidents in the past. But otherwise, our college has a loyalty to each other and sense of camaraderie that isn’t found anywhere else.

you walk into the dining hall, there’s a visible divide. Actually, there was a study at the ANU that showed that the sense of belonging to a college correlates to the stability of your mental health. But we found that international students don’t really feel involved or as if they belong in colleges. There was a study that asked for the archetypal characteristics of a domestic, international, and college student, and it found that there was a strong correlation between the way students, even international students, described domestic and ideal college students. So, we need to make sure that international students feel that college is their home as much as domestic students.

What do you anticipate will be the greatest challenge in your year as president? What are you looking to do after you graduate? Probably dealing with that reputation and continuing the good work that we’ve done. We’ve actually had three female presidents in a row. It feels like John’s is at its tipping point now; we can shape the culture to a more supportive, safe environment, and get of that ingrained toxic masculinity once and for all.

Well based off volunteering at LegalAid and the Redfern Legal Centre, I’d like to end up in social legal work, like a service that provides a community with free or cheap legal advice, to increase access to justice. But, I haven’t had too much experience yet, so I’m not sure where I’d go.

What are you looking to do after you graduate? Ollie Brown, Burgmann College Well, I’m planning on going to Jordan for six months after graduation. I want to learn a language, and Jordan seems like a good place to study Arabic. Also, I’ve become really interested in feminism in the Middle East. But after that, I’d like to work in law; maybe something like indigenous

This is Ollie’s third year at university, and is studying music. Ollie is the first openly non-binary residency president, and feels most comfortable with he/they pronouns. Previously, Ollie studied physics. Ollie has been a sports sub-editor at Woroni, and worked in the radio team. They

Burgmann’s level of student governance and student autonomy is what separates it from the other residencies. The Burgmann Residents’ Association has broad powers. Interestingly, because the association’s acronym spells BRA, it is a tradition for some committee members to hang bras on their doors, a regular source of confusion for parents who visited their children’s residencies, I’m sure. The presidency comes with a powerful voice which means both an opportunity and a responsibility to be a strong advocate for resident needs.

is psychology and has completed a minor in international relations. He is due to start his second minor in forensic linguistics. He’s part of a community legal education program through the ANU, where he visits different schools and teaches students about simple concepts in law. He grew up in Anglesea in Victoria. What did you do these past holidays? I spent some time back home in Victoria. I spent time at the beach and went camping a couple of times. Otherwise, I’ve been busy preparing for O-Week with the residency team.

What do you anticipate will be What do you usually do with the greatest challenge in your your spare time? year as president? I think that it will be correctly dealing with the responsibility to respond to the AHRC survey regarding sexual assault and harassment that was released last year, and the upcoming ANU study regarding sexual assault and harassment in ANU colleges. I want to be a driving force to create timely, strict, and transparent policies to combat this issue plaguing the ANU and campuses around Australia. In particular, I want to create substantial, quantitative policies to ensure safe, non-confrontational reporting procedures for survivors and friends, the imposition of firm but fair sanctions to offenders, and improved educational and behavioural strategies to destigmatise the experiences of sexual harassment and assault survivors. We have a long way to go regarding this issue, and this isn’t a problem that will disappear overnight, during my presidency, or even while I’m at university. But it’s time to get the wheels rolling; doing something is better than doing nothing.

I like hiking, swimming and running. I often go camping too. Right now, I’m reading this book called ‘Pandora’s Star’, about fighting aliens.

What separates Fenner Hall from the other residencies on campus? About two kilometres of Northbourne Avenue. That makes us an almost off-campus residency. In this way, we’re more self-sufficient than the other colleges, and gives us a very different atmosphere to the other colleges.

What do you anticipate will be the greatest challenge in your year as president?

Continuing talks with the university about moving to SA7 (Fenner Hall is being relocated to the heart of the new Union Court, due to be finished in 2019). It’s meant to be a five-storey residency, but whenever I peek over the fences in the Union Court redevelopment, there’s nothing there yet that looks anything like a five-storey building. There’ll be problems, of course, with moving onto campus.

What are you looking forward to the most this year? What are you looking forward to the most this year? I’m looking forward to tackling that challenge the most. But otherwise, I look forward to advocating for the queer community and speaking at forums about these issues.

Also, I want to increase the accessibility of the college – it might seem trivial or may have slipped the minds of most, but I think many people will be shocked to hear that it’s actually borderline impossible to easily access Fellows or South Oval safely from

O-Week – I love the residency team, and we’ve been working hard to plan out a fun O-Week, and fun year in general. We’re planning a ‘Barn Night’, since our theme for O-Week is ‘rodeo’. We’ve even ordered bales of hay to decorate with.

What are you looking to do after you graduate? Probably going into law. I’ve really liked the law units I’ve done so far, especially Australian Public Law, so constitutional law would be fun to get into. Criminal law was good too, so I might look into that as well. Currently, my options are wide open. w

Week 3, Semester 1, 2018

NUS HAS AN NEW EXECUTIVE: CAN THEY FIX THE ORGANISATION'S OLD PROBLEMS? Text: Jasper Lindell

from the consciousness of most Australian students.

After spending three days attempting to sound sincerely aware of the needs, concerns and issues facing thousands of students across Australia, by the final night a lot of attendees at the National Union of Students national conference give up the pretence.

People behave differently when they know they’re being watched. But when you can’t play along at home via video link, they’re left to carry on in any way they see fit. That’s how NUS national conference proceeds. At past conferences, factions have sought to block doors and physically intimidate other attendees. Shouting matches have ensued and other sneaky business, including paper eating, on conference floor has taken place without its perpetrators being held accountable.

At “natcon”, as its known, you don’t have to worry about the Kool-Aid, but beware the punch. Student Unity, the tightly-rehearsed band of Labor right operatives that controlled the conference, drink a punch prepared to a secret recipe designed to maximise potency. They elect a cellar master from among their ranks each year to prepare the concoction for the comrades who pay $20 each night for the privilege. The National Labor Students (NLS), Labor left, drink something a bit fruitier, but still laden with enough plonk to make sure the smaller faction can take on Unity in a boozy singing contest: who can remember all the words to “solidarity forever” after this much to drink? The National Independents, the faction you have when you don’t have a faction, take punch after a complex and participatory ceremony, but not before a $400 transaction is processed at the nearest bottle shop. The recipe is a little more flexible, just as these delegates are allowed to be in their votes. And then Socialist Alternative, with no discernible punch of their own, come to the party in smaller numbers, still armed with their trademark bravado. They are ready to accept the hospitality and punch any other faction might offer. This is how the 2017 National Union of Students (NUS) national conference ends: in a car park at 3am with most content enough that the good work of student unionism has been finished as best as the system allows for the year. Never mind the conference skims over most policies, didn’t manage to discuss sexual assault on campus in a year when the Australian Human Rights Commission released a landmark survey showing it was a clear threat to students across the country, and instead spent more time talking about pineapple on pizza. As everyone drinks and chants and sings into the night, NLS’s Mark Pace, the 2017 campus president at Adelaide University, is all but certain to be installed as the NUS’s national president. Factional deals in place, the NUS is pushed off into another year, still certain of its own relevance but fading

Critics say live streaming would have prevented this. Outsiders would be able to see what was taking place and could hold their elected delegates accountable for their behaviour. Woroni and most other student publications have repeatedly called for the ban on live streaming to be lifted but, just as conference gets under way on the first morning in little more than a procedural murmuring, live streaming is banned. Throughout the conference, senior Student Unity members are at pains to remind Woroni that the behaviour of their faction on conference floor is not representative of either the faction or the NUS. If conference was live streamed, they say, home viewers would get the wrong idea about the good work Unity and the union do. When NLS caucused on the issue at their pre-conference gathering, they voted to move towards live streaming the event. A number of NLS members Woroni spoke to fully support the move, but many raised concerns about autonomous chapters. “We need to make sure people’s identity is respected,” one said. “It’s something that’s possible.” Autonomous policy chapters, which feature motions surrounding women’s, queer, disabilities, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues, can only be spoken on by people who identify as belonging to the group the policies concern. The NUS national conference is a political pantomime. The factions perform their choreographed routines, honed after years of tradition and founded on political knowledge passed down from one cohort to the next. There’s no room for dissent in Unity, the faction which controlled 45 per cent of votes on conference floor in 2017. A senior Unity figure stands out the front of the faction, all dressed in dark navy blue t-shirts which brand them as “STUDENT UNITY 2017” in a US college football jumper-style font, telling them how to vote. For most of the conference, it was Jill Molloy, the 2017 NUS national welfare officer, leading the faction. “Unity up,” Molloy would command during a vote, raising her conference lanyard over her head while

pacing up and down in front of the faction. All the other lanyards would be raised above heads in coordinated movement. No brain power required. NLS offers a similar spectacle, but seems a bit more relaxed. They sit on the other side of the main aisle on conference floor to Unity, the other family at the wedding. NLS wear red t-shirts, and at this conference had them emblazoned with Jeremy Corbyn and his phrase: “For the many, not the few.” Both Unity and NLS take their pews at the front. Socialist Alternative, universally known as the Trots, hardly have a quiet moment. The 2017 education officer, Anneke Demanuele, constantly moves around the faction and its hangers on. She leads the yelling and chanting, and isn’t afraid to get in the face of others on conference floor. (She did not respond to a request for an interview.) The Trots’ main tactic is to yell. They yell at Unity and NLS, they yell at speakers, they yell at other people on the floor. They seek to disrupt and divert attention, shouting indiscriminately for a more militant NUS, more protest, more action and more resistance. Elected ANU delegate Howard Maclean said that activism is the foundation of the faction. “They care about student interests only so far as they align with their own, and a very large part about why they care about student activism is it offers one of the most fertile grounds for recruitment and profit,” he said, pointing to their constant peddling of party newspaper Red Flag. Harry Gregg, a rising star of the NLS from the University of Sydney, said that if you can “see through the outrage” of Socialist Alternative “they’re willing to talk.” Gregg said NLS and

Socialist Alternative agree on many of the same things, including a socialist economy, but the factions had irreconcilable differences. Gregg said he didn’t expect adults to behave the way that they did. “I did expect passionate debate, but I didn’t expect getting people’s faces,” he said. Socialist Alternative have a reputation for getting in people’s faces. Constantinos Karavias, who was installed as education officer at national conference, threw a napkin at the education minister, Simon Birmingham, during a National Press Club address ahead of the last federal budget. Karavias, who spent 2017 actively campaigning the ANU campus, registered for national conference with an RMIT student card, Woroni understands, and told conference floor he was from the University of Tasmania. Karavias wrote for Monash University’s Lot’s Wife between 2012 and 2014, and was described as a Melbourne University student by the Herald Sun in February 2016. Karavias, who will lead the NUS’s flagship “Make Education Free Again” campaign in 2018, is part of the group of hardened, perpetual student activists who shout the loudest from the Socialist Alternative benches for a more militant NUS. Will the policies debated make a difference to most students? Probably not. The majority of Australian students do not turn up to the protests and national days of action (NDAs) organised by the NUS, so vigorously debated on conference floor. When debate floor finally faltered for the last time without discussing sexual assault, Howard Maclean said: “If

Vol. 68 , Issue 02 policy actually mattered, I’d be more disappointed than I am.” Harry Needham, the 2018 ANUSA education officer and co-convenor of the National Independents, said: “Sexual assault was not discussed because Student Unity pulled quorum on the morning of the last day of conference. I believe that this was due to a dispute within the faction, although I have no special insight into the murky inner workings of the Unity machine. Needham, who supported accreditation last year, said that the portrayal of the NUS as a collection of self-centred hacks is untrue. “Almost everyone I have encountered there does genuinely care about getting the best possible deal for students. It’s whether they have the right priorities and go about things in the best possible way that is open to question,” he said. “I don’t believe it was deliberately obfuscated but I do believe that the failure to discuss sexual assault can largely be attributed to the factional nature of ‘natcon’,” he told Woroni. Only Needham and Maclean travelled to the conference, attending as official observers rather than delegates. The biggest outcome at national conference is political point scoring for delegates and observers. Participation and involvement at the NUS is the tried and true pathway into federal politics for the up and comers of the Labor party. Federal Labor right senator Richard Marles was NUS general secretary in 1989 and current Unity members have worked in his office. The embattled, former Labor MP David Feeney, who survived the 2013 election in his inner-Melbourne seat of Batman on the scantest of margins only to resign after failing to prove he wasn’t a dual citizen, orchestrated the split from the National Organisation of Labor Students to create Student Unity in 1991. It was understood his influence was still being exerted over Unity members on conference floor in December. The leader of the opposition in the Senate, Penny Wong, has served on the NUS national executive, while former prime minister Julia Gillard was the last president of the Australian Union of Students (AUS), the precursor of the NUS, before it collapsed in 1983. Victorian senator Scott Ryan is one of the very few Liberals who has sat on the national executive at the student union. Less than 15 minutes after arriving at the Waurn Ponds campus of Deakin University, on the outskirts of Geelong, Woroni was shown in a carpark a list of people who would be installed onto the union’s national executive. The list was accurate when the result of the election was announced after the end of the conference. For Dylan Lloyd, a national conference veteran and part of the small Greens-aligned Grassroots faction, it’s particularly galling. Lloyd was unanimously endorsed last year by the Australian Queer Student Network for queer officer. Lloyd was never going to be elected to the role, it

was not in the deal cut by the major factions. In 2015, Lloyd missed out by a small margin. This year there was no chance despite nationwide endorsement from bodies representing queer students. Socialist Alternative, which does not believe in identity politics, gets the spot in a deal carved out by the major factions. But no one offers a clear path away from the factional parochialism that suspends the NUS and was identified in a 2014 audit by TLConsult, which said: “The status quo is unacceptable and its prolongation will have negative consequences for the future of NUS.” Since then, reformers have faced off conservatives in trying to adopt the bulk of advice in the auditors’ report. It’s just the way things are, they say. Nobody’s going to change it, no one has the power to. Maclean said it was best to think of the conference as an internal Labor party affair, with a few others attending. “A very large part of its purpose to the main Labor factions is as a way of ‘blooding’ relatively junior members of the party (same for SAlt) and giving them important political experience,” he said. But some do better than others to make the system work. Last year’s national president, Sophie Johnston, a former campus president from UNSW and NLS member, was popular in both Labor factions. “We did not let factionalism divide us, we did not let ‘natcon’ define us,” Johnston told national conference in her valedictory speech. “I think the next office bearing team has a lot of work to do. NUS can’t change in one year. We didn’t let our factionalism get in the way of us getting work done, it didn’t get in the way of running campaigns and representing students,” she said. By mid-January, Mark Pace is already in Melbourne, working long hours from the union’s new offices in North Melbourne. He’s gearing up for a lot of travel as O-Weeks commence around the country. But he’s also seeking to ensure the union is in a position to campaign during the next federal election. “I want to ensure that NUS is adequately prepared for a federal election. We’ve seen three consecutive major reforms to higher education fail since the election of the Abbott government in 2013,” he said. “I’ll be working with students across the country to develop a student manifesto, a document outlining principles that reflect the student view of a high quality and accessible education system, that can be taken by NUS to any upcoming federal election.” Pace leads a national executive which is the first in the NUS’s history to only have one woman, NLS’s Kate Crossin, who serves as women’s officer. “It is abhorrent that the national union does not have reflective

representation in its national team,” he said. “Both the majority of national office bearers and the majority of national executive are made up of white men. I have obviously contributed to this lack of representation and I am not denying that,” he told Woroni, also committing to working with the women’s officer to develop affirmative action policies for the union. While the NUS last year sought to turn a profit on the conferences it runs throughout the year, Pace is focused on making sure campus affiliate and pay their dues so the NUS is in a position where it can fund campaigns for students.

departmental equivalents,” Maclean wrote in the report.

“My priority will always be to ensure NUS conferences are accessible to students, and that includes keeping conference registration costs as low as possible,” he said. Pace has been put in a tough position. Factional insiders are concerned the NUS won’t be able to manage another surplus, like the one the 2017 general secretary, Nathan Croft, delivered to much applause on conference floor. In 2016, the NUS was in the red to the tune of $61,178, but in 2017 reported a surplus of $11,952. The surplus, which Croft took credit for, was achieved after Edith Cowan University, University of Western Australia and Griffith University re-accredited and were shown to have paid their fees on time. Croft used a diplomatic valedictory speech to reject claims the NUS, in its 30th year, was a dying organisation. “A lot of people have said this organisation would be dead in two years, I can safely say it won’t be. It’ll be around for another 30 years,” he told the conference. “We’re not just holding on. We have an upward trajectory.” Croft offered some advice to incoming national office bearers: “You can do it. You can fix this organisation. Be critical. Analyse what you see as wrong. It’s only through conviction you can make change, be proud of where you’re going. “Please note, if you put your factionalism aside, this organisation will grow and actually become strong,” he said.

Maclean’s report, which by its own admission favoured brevity over detail, was criticised by Niall Cummins, the ACT Student Unity convenor and NUS national executive member who attended the national conference.

The question of accreditation will again be on the agenda at the ANU, after the SRC voted last year to reaccredit as long as a series of key performance indicators (KPIs) were met by the union. On Tuesday, 27 February, Howard Maclean gave his report national conference report to the SRC which recommended ANUSA reaccredit with the NUS for $1 subject to last year’s KPIs. Maclean recommended circumventing the NUS and working through other peak advocacy bodies that are more capable, including the Australian Environmental Students Network (AESN), the Australian Queer Students’ Network (AQSN) and the Council of International Students in Australia (CISA). These “are often far more capable and bona fide than their NUS

The NUS signed memorandums of understanding at the end of 2017 with The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Postgraduate Association (NATSIPA), the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations (CAPA) and CISA. Maclean told Woroni that “disaccreditation is not a viable long term strategy” and that the “ANU must look to either committing to the NUS, or leaving entirely and looking at the creation of an alternative national organisation.”

“That Brevity is no excuse for a blatant lack of balance, and that ignoring the achievements of office bearers in 2017 is ignorant at best and deliberately malicious at worst,” Cummins said. He said he was: “speaking as a student involved in NUS” rather than as a factional player or national executive member. The 2017 ANUSA president, James Connolly, said ANUSA would not accredit with with the NUS in 2017 when Matthew Incerti was appointed the national conference returning officer. Incerti is a previous member of Unity, contravening a KPI set by the ANUSA SRC that the returning officer would not be a former factional member. But several sources have told Woroni that Unity general secretaries, which includes Nathan Croft, will always try to install a former Unity member as returning officer “just in case they ever need to meddle with the results.” Woroni is not suggesting results have been meddled with. In 2015 and 2016, Lambros Tapinos, a Moreland City councillor in Melbourne and the 2004 NUS welfare officer from Student Unity, was returning officer under Student Unity general secretaries Tom Nock and Cameron Petrie. In 2017, Matthew Incerti – a former staffer for Labor MPs Mark Dreyfus and David Feeney, former organiser at the conservative Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA) and 2009 Student Unity NUS ethnocultural officer – was returning officer under Student Unity’s Nathan Croft. Maclean said: “Our votes would have mattered [and] been the crucial factors that might have tipped several policies and elections, such as winning a second seat for the National Independents in the NatExec [national executive]. “This is why there is widespread suspicion that Unity deliberately avoided meeting the KPIs, although there is no evidence to substantiate that suspicion.” w Know more? Email: jasper@woroni. com.au

Week 3, Semester 1, 2018

PROFESSORS AND STUDENTS FRUSTRATED WITH COOP BOOKSTORE AS TEXTBOOKS DON’T TURN UP ON TIME — OR AT ALL Text: Alessandra Hayward

ANU’s Co-Op Bookstore has once again been unable to deliver textbooks in time for the start of semester, despite some course convenors going to significant lengths to ensure that their students receive them. Matthew Zagor, lecturer and course convenor of Australian Public Law, publicly apologised to his cohort when he realised that the course’s textbooks did not arrive until well into week one of term. “I take this matter very seriously. Students are entitled to expect their set texts to be available before the start of a course,” Zagor wrote in an announcement to the whole course. “APL is not the only course affected by serious flaws in the ordering process. My colleagues and I will be raising the matter directly with the Coop headquarters, and notifying the College executive of the situation.” Even when they did arrive, there were not enough textbooks: many students in

the course will have to wait at least another week before more books arrive. In an email to Woroni, Zagor explained the lengths he went to in an attempt to have the textbooks arrive on time. The convenor made his course’s original textbook order on 9 January. A week later, he had not received receipt of the order and entered the store in person to follow up, only to be told that it had not entered the system. He placed the order a second time, and when he returned on 12 February to order desk copies for tutors, he was informed that the second order had not been received and was once again not in the system. Calling the store, Zagor was informed the order must have been lost, but that the Co-Op Bookstore would place another one. By the end of the week the books had still not arrived. Zagor tried calling once again, but no one picked up - he redialled multiple times, but was met with a message that explained that the service was busy and

there was no one available to pick up the phone. His email was also ignored. At long last, the Co-Op responsed to Zagor’s inquiry into the matter, and stated that Cambridge Press had misplaced the second order – a claim later denied by the publishing company. ANU’s Co-Op Bookstore is most students’ only avenue for purchasing textbooks, particularly when new editions are released and second-hand copies become outdated. At the beginning of term, many students are left standing in queues for up to an hour, only to be told that their textbook has already sold out or was never ordered to begin with. When students only other option is to order online - a process that can take weeks - they can start the university semester at a disadvantage. One second year psychology student, who wished to remain anonymous, told Woroni that the Co-op Bookstore had let her down as well: “I ordered 2 textbooks (and paid for them) about two weeks ago and I haven’t heard anything since. I can’t get through

to them via phone or email and as you know, the lines have been super long.” Courses from a number of different academic colleges have been affected: Woroni understands that courses in environment science, English and psychology, as well as other law subjects, have all experienced issues with the Co-op Bookstore. The Co-op Bookstore has faced controversy in recent years, with some claiming that the organisation has become undemocratic, and has turned away from its not-for-profit roots. In March last year, one senior employee of the company told the ABC that the co-op's senior management "want members to know as little about [the annual general meetings] as possible". The company, which has been operating at a loss in recent years, has a history of holding their annual general meetings in rural NSW towns - or even in Tasmania - to allegedly try and limit the amount of student members who attend.

Vol. 68 , Issue 02

COMMENT

Meanwhile in canberra... Text: Jasper Lindell Graphic: David Liu By now we can only hope that Barnaby Joyce has slipped off into what passes here for ancient political history: a couple of weeks ago. Despite having a reputation which some might say is more tarnished than your grandparent’s silver, Joyce didn’t rule out a return to the front bench or the leadership. And of course he wouldn’t. Politics is a strange place. Anything could happen, even when it probably won’t. Speaking after a game of political football (no, really – the politicians do actually get together to play touch football at Parliament House), Joyce told the conveniently assembled televisual journalists: “I don’t expect to return, but I will always do the very best job I possibly can in any role given to me.” Would he be like Tony Abbott? The man whose famous statement after losing the prime ministership that there would be “no wrecking, no undermining, no sniping” was clearly meant to be taken sarcastically. No, he said. “I will be Barnaby,” he said. Conservatives in Australia are often accused of wanting to return to the 1950s. As prime minister, Paul Keating got stuck into John Howard across the despatch box: “[Howard said the 1950s were] a very, very good period, a golden age. That was the period when gross domestic product per head was half what it is now; when commodities occupied 85 percent of our exports; when …” You get the idea. Joyce, though, is probably wishing Australia had stayed firmly planted in

Howard’s golden age. Chances are, he’d still be deputy prime minister. Ream after ream has been dedicated to whether The Daily Telegraph should have splashed their front page with a photo of Vikki Campion, Joyce’s former media advisor and the woman with whom he is now expecting a child. The answer is clearly no. Should Barnaby Joyce’s affair have been exposed earlier? “Oh, I don’t know anything about that, Sir,” the schoolboys all lining up to participate in the cathartic act of denial would say. I’d heard about it though, and you have to wonder: if the political columnist at Woroni is aware, who else might be… Hypocrisy is a quick way to wreck your own political fortunes in Australia. Joyce, the country conservative sticking up for family values while leaving his wife of two decades and his four daughters for his younger media advisors, had clearly trodden the path. We cringed as we looked on. However, in the old days of parliamentary Canberra (as much steeped in mythology as misogyny), this would never have got out. It was all hush hush, for those blokes parked out in that Parliament sheep paddock, a town of only 6,000 fellow Canberrans nearby. Now, a media advisor can find themselves in hot water for sending out a meme that showed a picture of Joyce and Abbott sitting next to each other in Parliament with the caption, “When you get in trouble in class and get sat next to the weird kid no one likes.” With more witnesses, participants and technological intervention comes more a sophisticated rumour mill and greater scrutiny. The standards the voting

public demand may or may not be any higher than they ever were, but it’s much clearer now when they aren’t being met. You can see why Barnaby, from his back bench vantage, might be irritated with the modern world. The new Nationals leader and deputy prime minister, Michael McCormack, is probably quite happy with the arrangement: more opportunities to claim travel allowances to his wife’s property in Kingston. Once upon a time, Malcolm Turnbull was incredibly popular. Now, in his diminished state, he’s left make sure the government doesn’t look like a total disaster. “Yeah, but he’s better than Tony Abbott,” is, in many cases, the foundation of his political support. With a trip to the US planned while Joyce was scheduled to take personal leave, Turnbull left the finance minister, Mathias Cormann, in charge. He was fourth in line. And with Turnbull out of the country, the man who is touted as the next Liberal prime minister, Peter Dutton, took to some pontification at the National Press Club. “In my view, there is a place for the pledge in a broader rejuvenated civics effort with school-aged children, regardless of their background,” he said, noting that new citizens already pledge allegiance to Australian laws, liberties, rights and the nation itself. A textbook example in how to make a headline. “Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton calls for US-style pledge of allegiance for Australian school children,” said The West Australian. Well not quite, but close enough. And then acting prime minister Cormann backed it. “I think it’s quite

important for all Australians to be aware and conscious of our history, our culture and values,” he said. Never mind that we constantly struggle to have any productive conversation about that history, culture or values. Australians, on the whole, don’t like to make a song and dance about their national pride (if they have any), so this sort of stuff will often sound a bit naff. But for Dutton, a person for whom the leadership speculation must have gone to his head, it’s a clear signal of the sort of Australia he’d lead. And the kind of campaign he’d run. And that he’s prepared to do it. His approach to immigration is hard line and cruel, Australians will be patriotic – or else, and he’ll be tough and will revel in the opportunity to demonstrate it. Which is exactly the kind of political leadership that the world is overloaded with. Toughness in spades, thoughtfulness in limited quantities. When’s Turnbull’s downfall? Does Bill Shorten actually play any part in it? Will Peter Dutton be PM? But for now, teetering on the edge, Turnbull holds on. Still the best option in the eyes of his party – and never mind the voters who haven’t had a chance to have a say yet. No wonder Turnbull looks pleased to be putting his thumb up next to Donald Trump’s, which he did when he visited Washington last week. He’s still in the game, even if it has us cringing culturally on the world stage. Jasper Lindell is Woroni’s political columnist and a former news editor.

Week 3, Semester 1, 2018

COMMENT

an evening with demos

Text: Nick Blood Photo: Milou Hofman Last Valentine’s Day, the student-led journal Demos held an evening gathering to celebrate the launch of the journal’s first printed edition. For those unfamiliar with Demos, it’s a relatively young but fast-growing student media outlet that is importantly different to Woroni and ANU Observer. The night’s event was focused on the topic of student activism, a recurrent theme in the journal, and one its inaugural print edition focused on exclusively. Pre-event setup involved the hanging of an enormous banner representing a timeline of student activism at ANU from 1960 to the present day, charting a dizzying range of student protests, rallies, and publicity stunts. Some events were sobering historical reminders, like the Vietnam war protests. Others served to remind us of how elusive victory has been on some fronts, such as Invasion Day protests going back to the 70’s. Yet others provided some levity, such as the August 16th entry wherein “Bill Shorten was heckled”. In addition to an art installation which I sadly wasn’t able to check out - the event included a range of inspiring speeches from current and former staff and students. For a moment, the past, present and future of student activism coalesced into a single space, as people from across eras shared their experiences. Memorable was Judy Turner, a former student activist at ANU, human rights advocate, and fundraiser. Turner spoke of student activism with a great sense of humour, recounting how in her day – the psychedelic 70’s – student activists smoked pot “almost as a point of principle”. She described her movement as one fuelled by brown rice and tuna, a miasma of dope, and riddled with STDs! “What

did we want?” she asked of their protests, “pretty much everything!”. And with the patience of the Baby Boomer generation, the answer to “When do we want it?” was always a resounding “Now!” Turner closed with the wry ref lection that the answer to “What do we want” for her generation is now more likely to be “A new hip!” Not speaking at the event, but present to support it, was Mia Sandgren, an ANU tutor in sustainability, a Demos editor, and a contributor to the latest edition. Sandgren’s article ‘Redefining Normality with Acts of Everyday Activism’ is recommended reading. In it, she argues that students make ideal ‘everyday activists’ with small and ordinary acts like riding a bike to campus. Such actions help normalize more sustainable ways of living. I single her article out because the underlying message is an important one: criticism and destruction is easy, doing and creating are the harder tasks by far – and yet, some tasks are small in their commitment required, and large in their collective impact. There’s cause for hope and optimism in realizing such simple truths. Another memorable speaker was Katerina Teaiwa, an ANU academic and activist. Raised in Fiji, Teaiwa has worked and studied around the world at Santa Clara in Silicon Valley, in Hawaii, and more recently here at ANU. Teaiwa’s experience of activism within these different regional contexts was especially illuminating. Her view on writing for the Santa Clara media echoes my own beliefs – in it she saw an opportunity to share knowledge, and to reveal a part of her world and her experiences that people had no idea about. This very article appears for the same reasons – for a moment that evening I was part of something, and I want to do what I can to share it. Equally interesting was her recollection of a protest she attended here,

at ANU. A colleague questioned this, asking if she thought her participation as a staff member was appropriate. That moment struck Teaiwa because it ref lected an unfamiliar dynamic. In Hawaii, she recalled, the idea of students and staff coming together as activists was a common one – indeed, it was a collaboration seen as necessary for greater success. Here in Australia, however, we don’t embrace this sense of staff-student collaboration anywhere near as much. That’s a point of sadness, to be sure, but also represents a clear opportunity. What gains might student activism at ANU make if we collaborated more closely with our tutors, our lecturers, and other academics? As a joint project uniting staff and students, Demos itself is a great example of the fruits of such collaboration. Elsewhere on campus we can see similar benefits. The involvement of staff like John Minns and McComas Taylor in the Refugee Action Committee gives that student outfit considerable wisdom, expertise and organizational acumen. Although the event had so many important take-home messages, and the journal itself even more valuable lessons, perhaps this is the best point to finish on. If you’re involved in a student organization, whether as member or executive, you might consider the role you can help play bringing students and staff together. If you are a staff member, you might also consider what value you could bring to student’s lives and campaigns on campus. The benefits of “imagining ourselves as one community” – as Teaiwa put it – are profound, and there’s much work we at ANU can do in this space. Copies of both the first print edition of Demos Journal, and the ANU’s Activism Timeline are available at the Brian Kenyon Student Space (BKSS).

Vol. 68 , Issue 02

COMMENT

CONTENT WARNING: dicussions of eating disorders and mental illness

Canberra needs an Eating Disorder In-patient Centre Text: Molly Saunders Graphic: Gil Rickey

It’s June 2015 in Canberra. I’m 22 and have just been discharged from my seventh psychiatric hospital admission in five years. I’ve been referred to the public eating disorders program, and I’m here for my first appointment since I discharged myself in 2013. The form in front of me asks what my ideal weight would be. My pen hovers above the paper as I pause to think. I think about my current weight. Even significantly below is far too big a number for ‘ideal’. I consider a number a bit lower. I try and visualise myself at this weight. No, it’s still too much, I’m definitely still taking up too much space. I place the pen on the paper and write zero kg. I don’t want to exist. For me, starvation didn’t begin as a form of suicide, but a behavioural manifestation of the overwhelming feeling that I did not deserve to take up space on this planet. Year 12 consisted of half-arsed attempts to ‘eat healthier’ when ‘healthier’ really meant less, even if this wasn’t a conscious thought-process. Superficially, it probably came from a desire to be desirable. On a deeper level, I wanted to be accepted; I wanted to be loved. When puberty hit, I developed curves and even though I was still slender, in my head I was no longer skinny, which meant I was no longer special. I’m not proud of this perspective, and it’s definitely not something that I believe anymore, but I wanted to be wanted. I wanted to be important, lovable and desirable – and I had learnt that that meant I needed to be skinny. At 18, my eating behaviours moved from a niggling desire to be ‘more desirable’, to a conscious thinking pattern from which I sourced a sense of control. It was no longer about my body; rather, my attention was on numbers. The focus on my food, the control it took to only eat a certain number of calories a day, was immense. My day consisted of endless adding, subtracting, checking, double checking, cross checking, adjusting, recalculating, and so on. The fewer nutrients I fed my brain, the harder the sums became, so the less reliable my maths was and the more I had to re-check the sums I had already done. It was a noise

loud enough to drown out the self-hate that would otherwise occupy my mind. There were moments leading up to my diagnosis when I knew it was getting out of control. But the thing is, it had gotten out of control a long time ago. It had gotten out of control the moment a young girl was taught that being wanted, being important and being lovable, was the equivalent of being skinny. I think one of the most harmful myths about eating disorders is that they are about physical appearance, when so often, they are about self-worth. For me, at least, my eating disorder was a simple expression of a young woman’s desire to not feel ashamed by her own existence. When I was only 21, I spent six months in a specialist hospital for eating disorders in Sydney, as there was no centre in Canberra which could give me the life-saving treatment I so desperately needed. Seven years on and I am writing to you from a place of recovery. I have come a long way since I was first diagnosed with anorexia. I have learnt so much and while I am sure that I still have plenty more to learn, I am incredibly proud and grateful to say that in the last two years I have flown higher than I ever thought possible. I have experienced an unconditional selflove and a peaceful happiness that I don't remember ever feeling before. I have come to appreciate my personality and contribution to the world in ways not augmented by my appearance, but by the fullness of my life and openness of my heart, which are reduced by self-hate and self-criticism. I have so many people to thank for being here. So many who helped me realise that my relationship with food and my body was a manifestation of intense emotional turbulence and insecurity. Yet, I am one of the lucky few. Approximately 15 per cent of Australian women, and 9 per cent of the total Australian population, experience an eating disorder during their lifetime. Only 20 per cent of people with Anorexia recover; 60 per cent endure and 20 per cent of people die. This is the highest mortality rate of all mental illness, including depression. If you apply the nation-wide statistics to Canberra, 36,819 people in Canberra are currently suffering from an eating disorder. Yet, in

Canberra, there is still no specialised eating disorder in-patient treatment. While I am infinitely grateful for the incredible support and expertise of the staff at Calvary hospital and Canberra’s out-patient program for eating disorders, the facilities were inadequate for the intensive treatment that I needed to further my recovery. They were not specialised, and it continues to confuse me how physical health and mental health each have numerous complications, yet we have specialist wards for the former, but not the latter. I have met many others who have had similar experiences; people who have travelled to Melbourne, Sydney or even Perth to get treatment. I feel strongly that unwell Canberran’s and their families deserve better; they deserve a specialist in-patient treatment centre where they can access life-saving services surrounded by their support network and the familiarity of home. This year, to secure the healthcare system that Canberran’s deserve, I have started a petition urging the ACT Government to create a specialist eating disorder in-patient treatment centre in Canberra. Alongside this, in April I am shaving my head to raise money for the Butterfly Foundation and further increase awareness of this petition and eating disorders. Everybody who suffers from an eating disorder deserves to recover; Canberran’s deserve a government who recognises their healthcare needs.

Week 3, Semester 1, 2018

COMMENT// International

The Politics of the PyeongChang Olympics Text: Noah Yim Photo: Sophie Bear A few weeks ago, just before the Olympics started, the North Korean Olympic team and its support staff arrived in South Korea. They were greeted for the most part by a cautiously excited gaggle of South Koreans and many curious journalists. It felt all the pieces on a great game of wits had taken their starting positions after hours and hours of carefully crafted negotiations and talks between the two respective governments. All this happened remarkably quickly; I remember being excited just a little over a month ago at the news that the two Koreas resumed diplomatic relations after years of silence. Soonafter, it was abruptly announced that North and South Korea would enter the opening ceremony of the PyeongChang Olympics together under the same f lag. This was a tradition that started in 1991 but was ensconced as an Olympic tradition in Sydney 2000. That time represents the peak of North-South relations; South Korean president Kim Dae Jung physically visited Pyongyang and established many diplomacy campaigns. His efforts were recognised with the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000. Meanwhile, I was still in disbelief at the speed of the Olympics negotiations. However, I was less thrilled at the next piece of news to come out of these negotiations: the two governments would merge the female ice hockey teams, depriving half of the South and North Korean players from competing in the Olympics. The two governments were using young athletes as their pawns in their sovereign Photo-op. Regardless, I’m hopeful for the upcoming Olympics. To explain why, I need to talk about the sheer audacity and political genius of the South Korean Moon administration, both domestically and internationally.

Domestically, these negotiations and talks have considerably reoriented the South’s public discourse on hosting the games. News that South Korea would host the 2018 Winter Olympics garnered a poor reception

domestically, due to the economic burden it would impose. Furthermore, the people asked:, ‘Why PyeongChang?’. It was a relatively rural part of Korea that didn’t have the necessary resources or facilities to hold events of such a scale.Thus, it is easy to imagine the public outcry when the government started spending taxpayer funds to construct the required stadia that everyone knew would not receive a second glance after the Olympics were over. To add insult to injury, it was revealed last year that Choi Soon Sil, the woman at the centre of the web of corruption that impeached Park Geun Hye, purchased land in PyeongChang before it was announced as a nominee host city for the 2018 Winter Olympics (that announcement significantly hiked up land prices there, as you can imagine). However, by negotiating with North Korea and coming to these arrangements, the Moon administration has shifted the irate tone of public discourse to a more hopeful and optimistic one; a wise political move, all things considered. Internationally, the negotiations have brought a sliver of stability in very unstable times. Prior to negotiations, prominent nations like Germany, Austria, France and the USA raised concerns regarding the security of the PyeongChang Olympics, given the geopolitical climate within the Korean Peninsula and the general region. Between China continuing its highly illegal operations in the South China Sea, Trump’s naïve rhetoric regarding North Korea, and rising tensions in South East Asia, the Korean Peninsula is a very volatile area of the world, ready to burst at any moment. There were fears that the Olympics would present an opportune window for a quick southern skirmish on the part of North Korea. However, the participation and collegiality of North Korea during these negotiations seems to have settledthose qualms, and we’ve had a relatively smooth Olympic season. So here we are, at the close of the Olympics. It’s been a wild ride; from the unexpected popularity of North

Korea’s golden girl Kim Yo-Jong, Mike Pence’s cold treatment of theNorth Korean delegation, the sextet of quad jumps by Nathan Chen, and Japan’s Asahi accidentally tweeting #Pyongyang2018 instead of #PyeongChang2018. Admittedly, sports have always been an intersection of politics and society, and the South Korean government is only continuing the tradition of using the Olympics as a means of political gain. Only time will tell us the effectiveness of the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics in achieving their sanguine goals. However, I cannot help but hope that perhaps the Winter Olympics will mark the start of a new chapter in history titled ‘The Unification of the Korean Peninsula’.

COMMENT// International

Vol. 68 , Issue 02

Education is a Prerequisite to Hope Text: Emilio Lanera Graphic:Nathalie Rosales-Cheng As a university student in Australia, it’s not unusual for both my peers and I to complain a lot. Whether it’s about lecturers, courses, assignments, exams, or our growing HECS debt, there never seems to be a shortage of things to complain about. Although the Australian education system isn’t perfect and has room for improvement, we’re doing exceedingly better compared to other parts of the world. During this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Queen Rania of Jordan brought to the world’s attention that fifteen million children in the Arab Region do not have access to education. Due to factors such as conflict and displacement, these children do not have the same opportunities to go to school at a young age like we do. Consequently, this prevents them from attending university later on. While some Middle Eastern children are fortunate enough to receive an education, Queen Rania claims that the current curriculum is not preparing them for the future. In comparison to the rest of the Middle East, Jordan has one of the relatively better education systems. Firstly, students experience compulsory education for ten years, followed by two years of secondary or vocational education, which if students complete, allows them to apply for universities. While Jordan has a 99% enrolment rate in compulsory education, they are still struggling to get students to attend secondary school and university. In 2015, 100,000 students entered the twelfth grade but only 60,000 sat for the General Secondary Certificate Examination (GCSEs). There are high stakes surrounding these exams as results determine whether students are accepted into higher education institutions. Of the 60,000 students that sat the exam, only 40% passed. Both the low year twelve enrolment rate and dismal pass rate for the final examination exemplifies that the existence of the educational crisis Queen Rania discussed. Furthermore, Jordan has a young population, with 73.3% of its citizens under the age of 30. Due to the majority of young people not receiving a quality

education, it is causing issues for Jordan’s development. By not providing a quality education to their country’s youth, Jordan will struggle to produce future thinkers and innovators, and thus struggle to improve the nation’s living standard. This is why Queen Rania is so passionate about improving Jordan’s education system, because she knows from personal experience that education is the key to a better future and remains an essential “prerequisite for hope”. Since her ascent to royalty, Queen Rania has tried to overcome the educational crisis that has plagued Jordan and the Middle East for so long. In 2007, she became the chairperson of Jordan’s first interactive children’s museum, which was designed to help encourage lifelong learning for children and their families. This was further strengthened when she launched the Madrasati (my school) program, which currently works with 500 schools and 174,000 students to help deliver quality education and provide up-to-date facilities. However, her most significant contribution was when she founded the Queen Rania Foundation (QRF) in 2013, which aims to be the premier resource in researching educational problems in Jordan and other Arab countries as well as finding ways to influence policy to create educational change. While we often have good reasons to complain about university and the overall Australian education system, we should also be mindful of the less fortunate circumstances experienced by people within other countries. In order for Australia to achieve change, we just need to change legislation and practice. Although this may be difficult at times, Queen Rania’s speech highlights this pales in comparison to those living in Jordan, who have to overcome so much conflict and turmoil before they can even begin reforming their education system. really feeling a true sense of home in the country – despite my nine years living there, I left without any feelings of national identity or belonging. It wasn’t until I approached the decision of returning to Australia for university that I realised what defined ‘home,’ for me, was actually less about the place and more about the community of friends and family who shared the experience of growing up as an expat. Suddenly, when

I was faced with what I had supposedly craved – moving ‘home’ – I didn’t want to go. I found that, to my surprise, ‘home’ was more about an intangible experience of belonging. Despite my initial resistance towards returning to Australia, my parents insisted that it would be hugely important for me to root my identity and sense of belonging in the country I arbitrarily called home. I brushed this off, feeling that I no longer needed, or wanted, a national identity to feel secure in my understanding of ‘home’. It wasn’t until I moved that I realised how wrong I was. My eventual return to Australia, to attend ANU, triggered an identity crisis and has forced me to grapple once again with what home means to me. In many ways, the move back to my country of birth was far easier than I thought it would be. To my relief, the culture was largely the same as the one I was used to and I was lucky to make some of the best friends I have ever had. On the other hand, I was constantly reminded of the fact that I hadn’t grown up in Australia. Often these were reminders were small – TV show references, slang, music – but they contributed to a sense that I didn’t really belong. Despite the countries I grew up in, I was classed as a domestic student – and I didn’t feel that I belonged in the category of international students – so I found myself drifting somewhere between the two. I felt that I lacked the shared experiences and culture that brings people together and creates a sense of ‘home’. My answer to the question of ‘where are you from?’ is a complicated one. Now, two years after arriving back in Australia, I am more comfortablwith the reality that for me ‘home’ isn’t restricted to one place and that my sense of home is more fractured than some people’s. My ‘home’ isn’t Sydney, Singapore or Canberra – it is a patchwork of all of the people and places that have formed my identity and where I have come to feel a sense of belonging.

Week 3, Semester 1, 2018

TRUMP IN TWEETs Text: Brandon Tan Tweets: Nathan Ruser Whilst we may have well well past the first year of the Trump’s presidency, his term has remained incredibly tumultuous and globally significant. Thus, it is still something that needs to be discussed and examined. I am well aware that stories centred on Trump seem to flood our daily media,, yet it is still fundamentally important the actions of this presidency be discussed and not lost in a deluge of information. I’ve grappled with ways for presenting this article. As a result, I present, for the Twitter President, the Twitter Article. Below I have attempted to offer a succinct summary of the Trump Presidency, restricting myself to the parameters of his favourite medium.

Inauguration Size: 300 000 – 600 000 people present ( a blatant lie against what really happened)

Overall, these actions have been taken by a man without political experience or the proper maturity level required to be an effective leader. According to him, he does everything the best and nobody knows more about the topic at hand than he does. His obsession with numbers and records is also incredibly telling, highlighting how egotistical and self-centred this man can be. Thus, I believe there is no more of a fitting way to end this article than with some statistics.

The protection of dreamers removed: 800 000

Dow Jones: Up 31% $2.84 Trillion Rise in Stock Market $430 Billion Rise in Debt $1.5 Trillion Rise in Debt Predicted Because of the Republican Tax Bill Doomsday Clock: Two minutes to Midnight

Las Vegas Shooting: 58 Dead Sutherland Shooting: 26 Dead Stoneman Douglas High School Shooting: 17 Dead, Mostly Children

betty alto triply faux faux amis the get downs doors 8pm music @ 8.30

COMMENT// International

Vol. 68 , Issue 02

COMMENT// International

God Save the Queen! Text: Joyce Zhang Art: Millie Wang

a little harder into the significance and scandals of the poshest Poms we know.

Her Majesty, her Royal Highness, Queen Lizzie, dear old Beth, are just a handful of the monikers we use to refer to the British Queen who also acts as our head of state (I hope at this point in your lives, this is a surprise to none of you). To which the most ardently treasonous (republican) of you might indignantly protest: “Why the f*ck is the Queen still a thing!?” or “Wait, she’s not dead yet?” or maybe even “Egalitarianism

It might feel like our current monarch, Queen Elizabeth, has been an ancient and ceremonial entity since the beginning of time. For most of us, this is hardly untrue as she was at least seventy before most of us were whispers of foetal existence. But, like her great-greatgrandmother before her, she became queen only by virtue of her male predecessors failing to produce heirs and/or abdicating.

and a fair go can never be fully realized until our head of state is one of us!!!”. Whatever your flavour of fury, or perhaps conversely — unwavering adoration and royalism, one thing is certain, the monarchy’s been around since way before its subjects set foot on our beloved land girt by sea and declared it theirs. Unsuccessful referendums aside, the British Royal Family is here to stay and informs the social, constitutional, and cultural lives of every single one of us whether you like it or not. So, it’s probably worth reading

Victoria, not only a perpetually unamusing breeding ground of hipsters and coffee snobs, is today remembered as a stodgy old lady who wore exclusively black and never smiled. In fact, she was once an impassioned, obstinate, and uncompromising teenager who had the crown dropped into her lap (purportedly by her governess in a history lesson wherein //s u r p r i s e ! // her name was the next in line to the throne). Following a girlhood of being micromanaged by her mother and her mother’s creepo maybe-boyfriend, Vicky relished in her newfound liberties and power. After ascending the throne, she promptly moved her mum to the furthest wing from her own quarters and set to work ruling the country and occasionally breaking decorum by refusing to replace any of her lady’s maids of the wives of Whig MPs with those of Tory MPs, leading to the resignation of a Sir Robert Peel as Prime Minister – who felt it impossible to lead a government without the support of the monarchy. This “bedchamber crisis” as it came to be known, reinstated Victoria’s favourite, Lord Melbourne as PM. Taking into account the rumours of her romantic inclinations towards the much older politician — Melbourne as the capital city in the state of Victoria takes on new salacious meaning. Fast-forward a couple of centuries, and we find ourselves amidst the abdication that rocked Great Britain at the time and would ultimately put Lizzie on the throne. Edward the VII, unmarried at the time of his ascension to the throne, fell in love with and proposed to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson. As the monarch is also the head of the Church of England (we have Henry the VIII to thank for that, having ironically founded the denomination in order to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon in face of excommunication by

Roman papal authorities), Edward VIII could not remain both head of state and marry Wallis, as the Church did not then allow divorced people to remarry in church if their ex-spouses remained alive. In the face of this romantic dilemma of constitutional-crisis- proportions (almost as dramatically significant as Mooseheads on Thursday nights), Edward VIII abdicated his throne. Queen Elizabeth’s dad a.k.a. Colin Firth in the The King’s Speech was next in line, making her his successor. Having been born into an era where monarchies were the norm, Elizabeth II now found herself queen in an age were they were quickly becoming the exception. She may appear immovably collected and unflappable as we see her today, highly historical archival footage (The Crown) informs us otherwise. The show is somewhat of a public relations nightmare which comes with the territory of general awkwardness in taking creative license to detail the life and times of the eminently private royal family whilst most of its on-screen real-life counterparts remain decidedly alive and far from senile. However, we are offered an intimate if contrived glimpsed which simultaneously glamorizes and warns of the burdens of having the eponymous tiara perched atop your head. Specifically, in addition to the usual limitations of personal opinion, freedom, and the relentless demands of duty a presumptive heir expects, poor Liz had to deal with her husband’s indignant protests. From the emasculating humiliation of being subject to the emasculating humiliation of being “the only man in England not allowed to give his name to his own children” despite possessing only the nominal principality of Greece and Denmark whilst his spawn were matrilineal heirs to their mother’s throne, to remaining a few steps behind his wife and sovereign at all times, Philip found the protocal unacceptably demeaning despite women having endured such demands in resigned silence for millennia. Unsurprisingly, he reacts accordingly stroppily — gracing us with the show’s least compelling plot device. For better or for worse, the monarchy is only just another family after all, with all of its clashing vested interests and domestic drama being broadcast to the universe, with maybe a couple more titles thrown into the mix. Tune in soon for an update on how the monarchy responsible for the vast majority of colonial misdeeds and morally dubious imperialism deals with hosting the wedding of (shock, gasp, quelle horreur) an American African American halfie divorcee to their beloved roguish prince. But most importantly, who oh who will she be wearing?

Week 3, Semester 1, 2018

LORE OF THE LAKE Text: Jeffrey Weng Art: Sophie Bear Growing up in regional Victoria, I was acutely aware of the complete absence of what many would term ‘culture’. I mean, the closest thing I had ever seen to a festival was the annual pig parade at the Catholic school fete (in which, I should clarify, no animals were harmed). However, we were not devoid of creativity and inspiration as children. I had almost forgotten this fact until one day recently, when I had a conversation with a young cousin of mine at a family get-together by the lake. It went a little something like this: Me: “Don’t you want to go in the water?” Him: “Maybe later, when the snakes go to sleep.” Me: “The snakes? There aren’t any snakes in the lake. Don't worry!” Him: “Oh, you probably haven't heard,” (a bold presumption, I thought) “the Lake Mulwala

sea snake is one of the deadliest snakes in the world.” And there it was. My cousin had repeated a story I remember being told when I was his age, despite me being able to find no written record of the story when I trawled through the internet. If you ask any 8-year-old in Yarrawonga about Lake Mulwala, a lake which provides the tourism industry needed to sustain my town, they will proudly tell you that it is home to the world’s deadliest sea snake (spoiler alert: it isn’t). We used to sit around the fire and recall our second-hand accounts, usually from a higher authority (i.e. someone two grades ahead of us), of the treachery that had occurred on the lake. Apparently, Jake’s brother’s friend from school had a cousin who disappeared, and even though they never found anything, they knew it had to be a sea snake attack. Needless to say, Jake’s brother’s friend’s cousin was about as real as the Lake Mulwala sea snake. In the defense of our overactive imagines, Lake Mulwala is a man-made lake in which a great many of the trees were left standing. The dead trees give the lake an eerie albeit beautiful glow in the dusk

prompted // features

and early evening. Importantly, many of the more gnarly trees could be easily mistaken for something swimming around in the dark…like a serpent, for example. I have no idea how old the story is but it is at least as old as my parents’ generation. Whenever I would tell them was scared, they would reply (as would most parents), ‘don’t be silly there are no snakes left, the crocodiles ate them all’.I have always liked to think that, like drop bears, the Lake Mulwala sea serpent was first unleashed to scare gullible tourists but ultimately evolved to a point where the locals were running scared as well. The story is so good that it seems to have survived the proliferation of information available on the internet. In fact, it seems to have withstood the test of basic logic. For example, why would a sea snake be so far inland in a freshwater lake? Further, how did such a beast evolve in less than 70 years in a man-made lake? Evidently, monsters are as old as lore and human interaction itself and North-East Victoria is not special in this regard (in fact, there are probably more famous lake monsters out there…). My point is, rather, that even in a part of the world without an awe-inspiring culture or a strong sense of tradition, the people are still capable of creating all sorts of wondrous tales which spread and grow each time one is told. After all, even in our age of scientific advancement and reason, we still cannot resist the thought that maybe, just maybe, there is something lurking just out of sight.

Red Envelopes in a New China Text: Jeffrey Weng Photo: Sophie Bear Exchanging red envelopes is a Chinese New Year tradition. Its Cantonese name reveals more about its message: lai shi, which means “encouragement”. In the past, red envelopes were only exchanged between relatives during the Chinese New Year period. Nowadays, red envelopes are also given to colleagues after a deal is completed, security guards in apartment buildings, friends invited to weddings, etc. In ancient times, the amount of money inside the red envelopes did not matter. People used to place a coin inside them, while banknotes in ancient China were only used for big trades involving houses and land. But today, red envelopes are increasingly exchanged between people who are not necessarily close; therefore, the amount inside represents how much regard the giver has for the receiver. When one has received help from someone, they place cash inside red envelopes instead of presenting banknotes directly. This is because it appears more cultivated. This also prevents the impudence of checking the amount in front of the giver, as red envelopes are not

supposed to be opened immediately. Chinese New Year is likely the happiest period of time for security guards, amongst others who work in apartment buildings, because they are expected to receive red envelopes from hundreds of residents. However, the total sum each of them receives will depend on how they have treated each family over the past year. There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch! You can always expect things to turn ugly when bribery is involved. In mainland China, it has been an unwritten rule to give red envelopes to doctors and nurses when people visit hospitals. The families of patients believe that by doing so, doctors will put more efforts into the treatment. Until recent years, red envelopes were ironically the major source of income for many doctors in mainland China. Their salary is significantly lower than their counterparts in Hong Kong and Taiwan. However, when the anti-corruption campaign under Xi Jinping came into force, red envelopes have become a sensitive topic in hospitals. Yet, this custom

still prevails, especially among surgeons. Meanwhile, a new phenomenon has arisen with the invention of digital red envelopes on WeChat, the most popular mobile messaging application in China. Users can post digital red envelopes in group chats which include a quota for how many times they can be taken. On 15th February 2018, the day before Chinese New Year alone, 688 million WeChat users sent digital red envelopes across the Internet. People have even created programs designed specifically to detect and capture digital red envelopes. As China enters a new era of rapid economic growth and technological advances, the exchange of red envelopes has departed from its original intent. It has become a custom heavily revolving around materialistic benefits. Despite these changes, the philosophy of Confucianism still is deeply rooted in the act of exchanging red envelopes: Do not expect someone to treat you well if you do not treat them in the same manner.

prompted // FeATURES

Vol. 68 , Issue 02

Eenie, Meeny, Miny Moe How Old Were Your Childhood Games? Text: Emily Gallagher Peering closely at Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s oil painting Children’s Games for the first time is a little like playing Where’s Wally? From a distance, the large-scale painting is a rich, colourful rendering of medieval children at play. It is both bewildering and enchanting, a panorama of activity where no central figure or play group immediately draws our attention, with games at the corner of the painting appearing just as prominent as those in the centre. The longer we look, the more we see. Children play at hoops, knucklebones, leap frog, dolls, marbles, hobbyhorse riding and spinning tops. They hang from railings, perform headstands and forward rolls, hunt for insects, walk on stilts, climb trees, smash pots and shout into barrels. Others engage in mock fighting, blow soap bubbles, joust, play at drums and build sandcastles. There is even a child stirring dung – perhaps making mudpies – and another nearby inflating a pig’s bladder. Surely, one might think, playing with pig’s bladders is a tradition forsaken to the Middle Ages. Not so; football with a pig’s bladder was still being played in Australia in the 1910s. As Hector McKenzie explained in an interview for the NSW Bicentennial oral history collection in 1987: “the only football we played, or ever saw, was at home, where we used to use a pig’s bladder”. After blowing it up, McKenzie and his playmates would “kick it around” until it deflated. Still, there is more. Earlier adaptions of party games like “blind man’s bluff”,

bocce and gauntlet running – sometimes known as “fruit salad” or “human ladder” – appear in the painting. Children can be seen re-enacting a bridal ceremony, playing with a bird, balancing a broomstick on one finger and playing at tug-of-war. If you peer closely at the window on the left-hand side of the painting, you will see a child dressing up with a mask, and another on what looks to be – get ready for it – an indoor swing. Unlike many other artistic depictions of the late Middle Ages, these are activities that most of us do not need to type into Google or ANU SuperSearch to understand. While the earthy Renaissance colours and buildings of Bruegel’s painting draw our attention away from the twentieth and twenty-first century, nearly every activity pictured in the artwork simultaneously reminds us of a more recent past – of our own childhood. We know what these children are doing because we once played these games too (or variations of them at least). What should we make of this artwork? Children’s Games was painted over 450 years ago by a Flemish Renaissance artist, but it is also a familiar rendition of many of the games seen on the modern school playground. Of the eighty or so games pictured, a vast number are still played by children across the world. How is it possible that so many of the games depicted in Bruegel’s painting are still in widespread currency today? The continuity of children’s games has certainly intrigued many scholars in the English-speaking world over the last century. Most notable among them were the Opies. Soon after their marriage in 1943, leading folklorists Iona

and Peter Opie dedicated their lives to collecting and promoting the “curious lore” of British children. As Peter Opie recalled in an interview for the New Yorker in 1983, after having realised that children were repeating the same decade-old rhyme all over the country, “we thought, this is extraordinary”. In 1954, a similar fascination for children’s lore finally reached Australian shores when the American folklorist Dorothy Howard travelled to Victoria as a Fullbright Scholar. Captivated by Australian children’s games and rhymes, Howard subsequently undertook one of the most extensive catalogues of playground lore ever conducted in Australia (the collection is preserved in the State Museum in Victoria). An inspirational and humble scholar, a small generation of Australian folklorists would follow in her footsteps in the 1980s. Even today, the unusual persistence of old, sometimes ancient, types of play continues to intrigue scholars. Although games like marbles, hopscotch (or “hoppy”), skipping, elastics, knucklebones and clapping games have a long history, they are not unaltered vestiges of ancient and medieval eras. Children’s lore is living culture; as the Opies remind us, no living tradition is static. Children’s playlore preserves as much as it invents, adapts, forgets and resurrects. Across time and place, children have renovated and reinvented traditional playlore. In their oral lore, children have often been especially willingly to craft new rhymes. While counting rhymes like “Eenie, meeny, miny, moe” can be dated back to the 1820s, other well-known clapping rhymes such as “Pretty Little Dutch Girl” and “When

Susy was a baby” were first documented in the mid-twentieth century. If you are having a momentary memory lapse about “Susy”, this might help: “Ooh, ahh, lost my bra, Left my knickers in my boyfriend’s car”. As cultural sensibilities have shifted over the past century, the political and vulgar variety of children’s oral lore has undergone noteworthy changes. Indeed, collections of children’s rhymes, such as Ian Turner’s Cinderella Dressed in Yella, Wendy Lowenstein’s Shocking, Shocking, Shocking and June Factor’s five-series collection of children’s rhymes, are important reminders that, despite the preservation impulse of children’s playlore, children remain alive to the contemporary world. So, what should we make of Bruegel’s Children’s Games? With the passage of time the painting seems to only become more intriguing. Maybe the digital revolution will finally force the artwork into obscurity, but then again, maybe it won’t; children’s playlore has survived plenty of revolutions. As Geoff Maslen noted when he was reflecting on Factor’s Far Out, Brussel Sprout! in 2013: “children are tradition’s warmest friends, they were conservationists long before adults ever heard the word”. Emily Gallagher is a PhD Student of the ANU’s School of History.

Week 3, Semester 1, 2018

prompted // multilingual

De camino a Yotala On the Way to Yotala

Grapic: Gil Rickey Written and translated by: Cassandra Wilmot Spanish edited by: Manuel Delicado El médico hizo la señal de la cruz y susurró: —En el nombre del Padre, del Hijo y del Espíritu Santo. Amén. Besó el crucifijo que colgaba de una cadena de plata alrededor de su cuello y luego se volvió para mirarme con expresión pensativa. —¿Crees en los espíritus?—me preguntó, volviendo su mirada hacia camino desolado que teníamos delante. —Claro que sí. —¿Quieres escuchar una historia de terror?—me preguntó con una sonrisa malvada. —Cuéntame. The doctor made the sign of the cross and whispered, “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.” He kissed the crucifix that hung on a silver chain around his neck and turned to look at me with a pensive expression.2 “Do you believe in spirits?” he asked me, returning his eyes to the desolate road ahead of us. “Of course.” “Would you like to hear a scary story?” he asked with a wicked smirk. “Tell me.” Una noche después de una fiesta, yo y dos de mis amigos estábamos manejando de regreso a Sucre. Estaba sentado en el asiento del pasajero, aturdido después de demasiados Four Lokos. Mi amigo en el asiento trasero, Juan Carlos, comenzó a contar la historia de una mujer que fue brutalmente asesinada por su marido. Se rumoreaba que arrojó el cadáver en el área en la que nos encontrábamos. Aparentemente, su espíritu camina por la noche buscando a su marido para vengarse. Recuerdo que me sentía cómodo y me aferré a mi crucifijo. La conversación

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terminó y el ambente se había puesto realmente silencioso a excepción del suave zumbido del motor. —¡Mierda!—exclamó Juan Carlos, asustándonos a Rodrigo y a mí. El idiota no había abierto bien la bolsa de plástico, así que derramó un poco de llajua en sus pantalones. De repente, Rodrigo frenó bruscamente y lo inesperado de todo eso me hizo gritar. —Una cholita caminaba casualmente por el camino—dijo. Luego se volvió para mirarme. —Por cierto, si quieres tomar fotos de cholitas, siempre debes preguntarles. Algunas de ellas todavía creen que el hecho de que les tomen una fotografía es lo mismo que quitarles su alma. Rodrigo murmuró una serie de malas palabras en voz baja y continuó conduciendo. Me giré para echar otro vistazo a la cholita, pero no estaba a la vista. After a party one night, I was driving back to Sucre3 with two of my friends. I was sitting in the passenger seat, all woozy after one too many Four Lokos4. My friend in the backseat, Juan Carlos, starts to report the tale of a woman who was brutally murdered by her husband. It was rumoured that he dumped the body around the area that we were driving through. Apparently, she walks around at night looking for her husband to get revenge. I remember feeling uneasy and holding onto my crucifix. It had gotten really quiet except for the soft humming of the car’s engine. Then Juan Carlos exclaimed, “Shit!”, scaring me and the driver, Rodrigo. The idiot had spilt some Ilajua5 on his pants because he did not open the plastic bag properly. All of a sudden, Rodrigo slams his foot on the brake and caused me to scream. “A cholita6 was casually walking across the road!” he said. Then her turned to look at me. “By the way, if you want to take pictures of cholitas, you must always ask them. Some of them still believe that having

their photograph taken is the same thing as taking away their soul.” Rodrigo muttered a series of curse words under his breath and continued to drive. I turned around to have another look at the cholita but she was nowhere to be seen. Tenía una sonrisa en la cara todo el tiempo que el médico estaba contando su pequeña historia. —Ahora es mi turno de compartir mis experiencias sobrenaturales en Bolivia— respondí. —Cuéntame. I had a grin on my face the whole time that the doctor was recounting his little tale. “Now it is my turn to share my supernatural experiences in Bolivia,” I responded. “Tell me,” he said. Me decepcionó el no tener el tiempo suficiente para ir a La Paz para ver el Mercado de las Brujas. Viajé a Sudamérica porque quería encontrarme a mí misma y quería que alguien me dijera mi futuro, por lo que mi profesora de español me dijo que existía un mercado de brujas más pequeño en Sucre. Allí conocí a una bruja que leyó mi futuro usando cartas del tarot. Me dijo que iba a vivir una vida muy lujosa, pero que nunca encontraría el amor ni tendría hijos. Como mi profesora no creía en las cartas del tarot, me sugirió una lectura de hojas de coca y me ayudó a buscar una mujer especializada en esto. Una vez allí, agarré un puñado de hojas de coca y las arrojé sobre la mesa. Ella había estudiado todo el movimiento, desde la forma en que arrojé las hojas hasta la forma en que aterrizaron sobre la mesa: —Crees que has encontrado el amor de tu vida, pero no lo has hecho. El que coma achachairú te dará un beso que sabe a miel. I was disappointed that I did not have enough time to go to La Paz7 and see the Witches Market8. I travelled to South

America because I wanted to find myself and I wanted someone to tell me my future. My Spanish teacher told me that there was a smaller Witches Market in Sucre. I met a witch who read my future using tarot cards. She told me that I would live a very luxurious life but never find love or have any children. My teacher did not believe in tarot cards and suggested that I had my coca leaves read. We found a woman who specialised in coca leaf reading. I grabbed a handful of coca leaves and threw them onto the table. She had studied the whole movement, from the way I threw the leaves to the way they landed on the table. “You believe that you have found the love of your life, but you have not. The one who eats the Achachairú9 will give you a kiss that tastes like honey.” —Bueno, irás a Santa Cruz la próxima semana—comentó el médico. Es muy pronto para decir si la bruja que leyó mis cartas del tarot estaba en lo cierto. Sin embargo, puedo confirmar que la bruja que leyó mis hojas de coca había acertado. “Well, you are going to Santa Cruz10 next week,” the doctor remarked. However, it is too soon to say whether the witch who read my tarot cards was right. Though, I can confirm that the witch who read my coca leaves was precise. 1 A town in Bolivia that is often described as a place where time has stopped. 2 In Bolivia, citizens who are both Catholic and a doctor are well-respected. 3 The constitutional capital of Bolivia. 4 A popular alcoholic energy drink. 5 A popular hot sauce prepared from locotos (type of capsicum) and tomatoes. 6 An indigenous woman. 7 De facto national capital. 8 A market in La Paz run 9 A tropical fruit native to Santa Cruz. Achachairu means “honey kiss” in the indigenous Guarani language. 10 Santa Cruz de la Sierra is the most populated city in Bolivia.

Vol. 68 , Issue 02

prompted // multilingual

Tradition En Suisse Text: Sarah Hodge Graphic: Sophie Bear

En effet, la Suisse a une forte tradition de costumes traditionnels et cet article s’intéresse au costume traditionnel et à la danse folklorique en Suisse généralement, et spécifiquement au canton de Valais. Un aperçu unique de l’histoire sociale du pays provient de l’analyse des costumes traditionnels. Le style de danse et la façon de s’habiller réunissent les Suisses et favorisent leurs identités culturelles. Les fêtes folkloriques rassemblent les Suisses pour partager leur histoire et suscitent l’intérêt dans la culture suisse avec ce spectacle. La danse folklorique de la Suisse a été influencée par ses voisins et a continué son développement au cours du XXème siècle. Les danses sont variées selon les régions, et influencées par les traditions folkloriques italiennes, françaises et allemandes. Le développement des styles est lié aux régions linguistiques. Les formes qui existent en Suisse sont notamment la scottisch, la polka, la valse, la mazurka, la march-fox et le fox-trott. En outre, quelques formes de danse anciennes restent populaires, comme la danse des zoccoli au Tessin. Les danses folkloriques sont connues aujourd’hui comme les « vecteurs du sentiment patriotique ». Certes la Suisse a une longue histoire de danse, mais la cultivation de la danse traditionnelle dans la forme que l’on connait aujourd’hui a commencé dès les années 1930. De plus, ce n’est qu’en 1986 que la Commission nationale suisse pour l’Unesco a chargé un groupe de faire un inventaire des danses populaires suisses. Il existe encore des associations et groupes de danse qui participent à des événements comme la fête d'Unspunnen. En tout cas, la danse en Suisse s’est développée pendant le siècle dernier en mélangent les styles étrangers pour créer les danses patriotiques qui aident à célébrer ce qui est d’être suisse Symboliquement, en Suisse les costumes traditionnels ont un double sens : l’un de tradition et l’autre d’innovation. Il existe plus que 700 costumes traditionnels en Suisse. Chacun des vingt-six cantons à leur propre costume. Par exemple, dans le canton de Valais, situé dans la partie française de la Suisse, en

particulier dans les villages plus isolées de la région d'Evolène, un grand nombre de suisses ont continué de porter les costumes traditionnels de la vallée d’Hérens dans la deuxième partie du XXème siècle. D’un côté, les costumes sont vus maintenant comme les symboles de l’identité nationale, mais de l’autre côté, cette interprétation éclipse leur but originel et les réalités de la vie passée auxquelles ils appartiennent. D’un autre côté, les costumes traditionnels, autant pour les femmes et que pour les hommes, étaient séparés entre la tenue de tous les jours et celle du dimanche. Autrefois, les suisses possédaient seulement deux costumes et ces deux ensembles devaient leur durer très longtemps. Ils s’occupaient de leurs vêtements et devaient respecter des règles strictes, comme celles qui dictaient les occasions où ils pouvaient porter certaines couleurs ou types de matériaux. Le monde dans lequel ces suisses habitaient était celui d’une vie dure et simple. Les costumes sont un souvenir tangible et durable des suisses qui ont lutté contre la nature pour créer leurs existences simples. Les costumes sont un symbole des réalités historiques de la vie en Suisse, en même temps que les marqueurs des régions et communautés différentes, ce qui fait d’eux un symbole encore très puissant de l’identité nationale de la Suisse. En somme, le développement de la danse folklorique et les costumes traditionnels ont permis au pays de créer les symboles de son identité nationale et de partager leurs histoires avec les citoyens et les touristes au travers le spectacle. Tout simplement parce que quelque chose appartient au passé, ne signifie pas que ça ne peut pas aussi appartenir au présent. La danse et le costume traditionnel en Suisse sont à la fois des innovations et des traditions car ils ont une importance pour le passé et le présent.. Ils expriment l’identité nationale et offrent un moyen d’expression de la vie suisse. En conclusion, la Suisse est un pays uni, composé de différentes régions, chacune typifiée par leurs costumes traditionnels et leurs danses folklorique.

Switzerland has a strong culture of traditional costumes and this article focuses on traditional costume and folk dance in Switzerland generally, and specifically in the canton of Valais. By analysing such traditional costumes, a unique insight into the country’s social history can be gleaned. The dance style and the method of getting dressed brings the Swiss people together to promote their cultural identities. The folk festivals also brings together the Swiss people and arouses interest in Swiss culture through storytelling. The folk dance of Switzerland was influenced by its geographical neighbours and continued its development during the twentieth century. The dances are varied according to the regions, and influenced by the Italian, French and German folk traditions. The development of styles is also linked to linguistic regions. The forms that exist in Switzerland include Scottish, polka, waltz, mazurka, march-fox and fox-trott. In addition, some ancient dance forms remain popular, such as the Zoccoli dance in Ticino. Folk dances are known today as the “vectors of patriotic feeling”. While Switzerland has a long history of dance, the cultivation of traditional dance in the form we know today began in the 1930s. Moreover, it was not until 1986 that the National Commission Switzerland for Unesco commissioned a group to make an inventory of Swiss folk dances. There are still associations and dance groups that participate in events like the Unspunnen party. In any case, dance in Switzerland has developed during the last century by mixing foreign styles to create patriotic dances that help to celebrate what is to be Swiss. Symbolically, in Switzerland traditional costumes have a double meaning: one of tradition and the other of innovation. There are more than 700 traditional costumes in Switzerland. Each of the twenty-six cantons in their own costume. For example, in the canton of Valais, located in the French part of Switzerland, especially in the more isolated villages of the Evolène region, a large number of Swiss continued to wear the

traditional costumes of the Hérens Valley in the second half of the twentieth century. On the one hand, costumes are now seen as symbols of national identity, but on the other hand, this interpretation eclipses their original purpose and the realities of the past life to which they belonged. Traditional costumes, for both women and men, were separated between everyday dress and Sunday dress. Formerly, the Swiss had only two costumes and these two sets were to last for a very long time. They took care of their clothes and had to follow strict rules, such as those dictating the occasions when they could wear certain colors or types of materials. As such, the world in which these Swiss lived was that of a hard and simple life. The costumes are a tangible and lasting memory of the Swiss who fought against nature to create their simple lives. The costumes are a symbol of the historical realities of life in Switzerland, along with the markers of different regions and communities, which makes them a very powerful symbol of the national identity of Switzerland. In summary, the development of folk dance and traditional costumes have enabled the country to create symbols of its national identity and share their stories with citizens and tourists through folk festivals. Simply because something belongs to the past, it does not mean that it cannot also belong to the present. Traditional dance and costume in Switzerland are both innovations and traditions because they are important for the past and the present. They express national identity and offer a means of expression of Swiss life. In conclusion, Switzerland is a united country, composed of different regions, each typified by their traditional costumes and their folk dances.

Vol. 68 , Issue 1, 012018 Week 3, Semester

Vol. 68 , Issue 02

CANBERRA STANDS UNBROKEN

Text: Amy Blain and Brianna Keys

“You may have broken us once but today we stand unbroken together.” –

AUSLAN interpreters that donated their expertise. We had two profession-

Brianna Keys, Event Organiser

al photographers capturing the sense of community perfectly, from fun sign

It all started with a crazy idea, enthusiastic volunteers and an announce-

making, glitter and bubbles to serious speeches. You cannot please all the peo-

ment. After the challenging year that was 2017, our team at Jasiri were

ple all the time, but this is a movement, not a moment. We are always learning

shocked to hear that no march had been organised for Canberra – that this

and growing.”

city wouldn’t be contributing to the momentum created for women’s rights.

For this year’s Women’s March, inspiration centred on unity and solidarity,

This ended up being the catalyst for the 2018 Canberra Women’s March

which are strongly valued by Jasiri and were reflected in the event’s theme

(held on the 4th February 2018).

‘Unbroken’. Jasiri’s aim this march was to create a united and diverse front to

Caitlin Figeiredo, the CEO of Jasiri, a Canberra-based youth and women’s

express the strength and solidarity it is to be a woman. The idea behind our

right organization, decided that if no-one had currently stepped up to plan

unity spiral, a human chain of our supporters holding hands in union, was

a women’s march, Jasiri was going to be the organisation to host it. Canber-

that enough is enough. Women are tired of being demeaned, bullied, and vio-

ra needed to show strength, defiance and unity in speaking out against in-

lated. We were taking a stand and saying harassment and violence is no longer

equality and injustice experienced within our communities. And so began

going to be a normal experience to us anymore. We wanted to set a future

the momentous experience of planning a local event in two weeks, with no

standard of what the world should look like.

budget and a small number of volunteers.

Brianna Keys, an event organiser, spoke about her experience of attending the march and why it was needed: “Before I even arrived at the women’s march to set up, I experienced a common occurrence when I walk alone around Canberra, and that is the verbal harassment. From a personal perspective, loud hollers about my physical appearance, imposing messages about what these individuals would do to me, and the criticism of my response, left me feeling unsafe and cautious towards what the day would have in store for me. This is a situation that is all too familiar to many women. Movements such as #metoo expressed the extent of this violence epidemic, but enough is enough. Women

Organiser, Amy Blain says “Pulling together the Women’s March event in two weeks, on zero dollars, was ambitious and intense! Twice we almost cancelled. We were incredibly lucky to overcome logistical nightmares like insurance (thanks, UnionsACT) and permits. We had incredible support from the Canberra community that generously provided us with highly skilled, passionate, committed and enthusiastic volunteers. There were a lot of long hours and late nights to ensure everything ran smoothly. Accessibility, inclusion and safety were our core values. Our fabulous line-up of speakers platformed the rich diversity of women’s voices in the ACT, many of whom live with multiple and intersecting disadvantages. We prized those voices being authentic. We knew we needed St John’s Ambulance, a Safer Space and volunteers that could de-escalate disruptions. We made sure our speakers and performers could be clearly heard and understood with wonderful technical sound support (SideStage Productions) and two fabulous

deserve to be treated better and that’s exactly what movements such as this march are all about. It is a public announcement that you may have broken us once but today we stand unbroken together.” The Canberra Women’s March this year was a reminder that as a community we stand together to combat violence and harassment. This march gave us a

Content warnings: Sexual assault, Week institutional 3, Semester 1, 2018 betrayal, domestic violence 23

#PRESSFORPROGRESS Text: Imogen Purcell

In the months after the #metoo movement spurred a new social zeitgeist in

Weren’t you flirting with him all night? But you’ve slept with him before?

which finally, finally, women’s voices and experiences are being heard, be-

What did you think was going to happen, wearing that? What did you think

lieved, and treated with the same gravitas as men’s have for millennia – some

was going to happen if you walked home alone with him? If it really hap-

have opined that the movement has gone too far. That we have turned away

pened, why didn’t you tell someone sooner? That’s a very serious allegation,

from centuries-old social and legal framework of ‘innocent until proven guilty’

think about the damage you could do by spreading a rumour like that.

toward an assumption of guilt. That this is akin to the breakdown of polite society, and that the floodgates of feminism have opened and will not close un-

On top of the trauma of the assault itself, the experience of disclosing a sex-

til all the men have drowned. Naysayers seem inordinately worried – but not

ual assault is marred by mistrust and accusations of lying, which can lead

about the women getting assaulted and harassed every day. They’re alarmed by

to devastating re-victimisation. Despite the societal view of a rapist being

the media’s ability to destroy the promising and distinguished career of a fa-

a psychopath hiding in the shadows ready to jump out at any moment, we

mous and powerful man like Kevin Spacey or Craig McLachlan with impunity

know that the survivor most commonly knows the perpetrator of their sex-

and little proof. This is despite the fact that women are forty-five times more

ual assault. The perpetrator is most often a friend, domestic partner, boss,

likely not to report rape than to make a false accusation.

colleague, or a person in a similar position of power known to the survivor. As we have seen time and time again, when a survivor speaks out against

This is an argument that, respectfully, is a bad one. No feminist or champion

their perpetrator, they face the loss of their job, their family stability, their

of the #metoo or #timesup movement is asking for the court of public opinion

social circle and more. Survivors are routinely not believed in the wake of

to replace the traditional adversarial criminal justice approach. What we are

crimes of sexual violence.

asking for is for women to be heard and believed, as it is when we report any other crime. It’s so crucial to realise that in many ways, we already do live in a

This International Women’s Day, the theme is #PressForProgress. It’s a call

culture of guilty until proven innocent.

to action to build on the incredible momentum made by the movements of

Picture this: tonight your house is broken into. You are in the house at the time

the past several months and continue to fight against, not only the insidious levels sexual assault and harassment of women and non-binary people globally, but also pay parity, education equality, and more. It defies those who have said the movement has gone too far, and calls on all of us to reconsider how to be better allies and sisters in 2018. This IWD, the women in your life are finally speaking up, and your only job is to listen with an open heart.

and you see and recognise the perpetrator of this crime. When, the next day, you tell your friend/boss/colleague/family member about what has happened, they believe you without question. You saw and recognised the person. Why would you lie about that? Though a judge or jury has not yet tried this case, your trauma and experience are recognised without reticence. However, the experience of survivors who speak up about sexual assault is very different. But if you were drunk, you may have forgotten giving consent?

Content warnings: Sexual assault, AHRC survey, War Vol. 68 , Issue 02

FIGHTING BACK AGAINST A BAD NEWS WORLD Text: Miriam Sadler

The world is a strange place at the moment. It feels like there is an endless torrent of bad news, stories of faraway wars, devastated cities and atrocities too complex to comprehend. As students we’re told to follow the news religiously; keep up to date with the real world so that we don’t get swallowed up in the theory of it all. Apply what we’ve learnt to what’s happening today. And sure, it feels pretty spectacular when you can smugly whip out the Security Dilemma as the dinnertime conversation turns to North Korea. But reading a chapter of Clausewitz’s On War curled up with a steaming mug of chai provokes a very different emotional response to the 24/7 news cycle on the Syrian and Iraqi conflicts. Spend too long reading or watching the news and you’ll feel like the world is ending. Leaders become inhumane, situations become unsalvageable and helplessness comes crushing down on you. As a woman, the news at the moment can feel sickening. After the release of the Australian Human Rights Commission’s report into sexual assault

and harassment at Universities, all of my friends told me how tired they felt. We had raised our voices in a rallying cry, but hearing it all, every percentage and every story, cycling continuously through the news- we went into shutdown. The statistics on young people struggling with depression and anxiety are alarming and, no doubt, the endless stream of bad news makes it harder to stay positive when you’re struggling. It fuels the helplessness that is a hallmark of feeling low. The more you read and think you’re gaining knowledge, the more you forget to ground yourself and end up floating amongst endless upsetting headlines. Here are my seven top tips for fighting back. 1. Breathe Deep Okay this is an obvious one but I’m not sorry for including it – it’s so very important. We hear it all the time, from our counsellors and our friends, on Instagram feeds and even affixed to people’s walls (I’m a big advocate for living, loving and laughing as well). Taking even just ten seconds to focus on your breathing when you’re stressing out about the news will settle you down. You’ll cool that overheating brain, ground yourself in reality and, most importantly, watch that stress gently float away. 2. Take in what you read The biggest issue when you’re spiralling into a bad news funk is that you’ve read endlessly without fully processing. It’s too easy to sit on the BBC News site for an hour reading every article without taking the time to process both what you’re reading and the implications of it. By the time you’re done, even one of those joke stories about a runaway sheep in Devon seems dire. Read in small chunks and take a moment for each article just to digest. The real knowledge will come from synthesising the facts – which will only be possible when your brain isn’t overworked. 3. Recognise your limitations We are small fish in a vast ocean. Droplets in a puddle. What makes people most upset is the idea that they can do nothing – helplessness. We’ve all been there: having read one too many articles about a natural disaster far away, or children snatched by bombs, we resolve to drop this useless degree and train to be a doctor. Or give all of our money away to aid groups. When the world seems scary, remember who you are and where you are. You can only do so much. Therefore, be as effective as you can. Write to your local MP; give Malcolm a call; use your voice as passionately and as loudly as you can. Work within your limits and the endorphins will be just as great. 4. Send a message We all get overwhelmed at some stage. Usually, it’s when you’re in the middle of a 3,000-word history report and you’ve just read an article about the hardships American women face getting access to Planned Parenthood. And then you snap. You eat a block of brie and cry on the phone to an unsuspecting friend or partner, nursing your belly because you’re lactose intolerant. This is not a sustainable way to release emotions (speaking from experience). Send the message when you start to feel it all building up, not when you’re incoherent. Talk to someone about what you’ve read and what’s concerning you. I can guarantee that having a big group discussion on how to solve the world’s problems will soothe your soul. 5. Switch off I’m not an advocate for removing yourself entirely from the world or giving up. I’m talking about that little button on the right side of your phone (I acknowledge my clear iPhone bias). Press it; go on, I dare you. Switching off for even half an hour to

do a bit of that breathing we talked about earlier can do you a world of good. If you’re not that ready to disengage from your phone’s warm cuddle, turn off the devil known as ‘push notifications’. Go to the news when you’re ready and able. 6. Read some good news This may sound odd, but it’s easier than it looks. Good news can be literally anything: Kylie Jenner had a baby – great! Troy and Ashley from Married at First Sight might just make it work even though he chose that haircut – yay! One state leader said a nice thing about another state leader – smells like progress to me! Sure, these might sound irrelevant or trashy to the untrained ear, but they’re guaranteed to satisfy your cravings for something happy and remind you that life has to keep moving. 7. Change the world Stay strong and save the planet, solve world peace, resist complacency – fight back against the bad news, one article at a time.

Week 3, Semester 1, 2018

EMBRACE Phot Mercy Mcroll

This series was a way for me to investigate my own body and claim it back as my own. 2017 was a year of my body not feeling like it was my own and this series was a catharsis for me; a healthy way to express my ownership over myself. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve spent much of my adult life so far, preaching and promoting the need for female empowerment but, often failed to live by these words. When displayed these photos were covered by a chiffon curtain; this meant that each photo had to be experienced in an intimate setting as people have to immerse themselves under the fabric. The work is imperfect, relaxed and depicts my changing, developing sense of self.

Vol. 68 , Issue 02

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS Text: Katelyn Booth The first time I thought I loved,

HIS MANIC PIXIE DREAMS Text: Pheobe Lupton

a better time, indeed.

now I really see that he could never be

I know what to do now

She came to him in his dreams,

the one for me.

because I know what it’s like

Her golden locks cascading upon him.

to be treated

She had a blood-red pout that said:

I fooled myself

as if I were just a bike

“You know I can’t be real”.

believing that it might

hopped on and off

be more than

again

For she wasn’t. She was nothing

behind closed doors.

and again.

But the creation of his perfect woman. She was for him and for others like him.

Well, I guess I should have realised

This one is for all the

that I was being used

men

because I’m damaged goods

who treat women

She had no mind,

apparently,

as if they haven’t a care.

Her thoughts did not belong to her

I lose.

My own fault, really,

He could not see her any other way.

Because she was his; she was not her own. Your Time’s Up now

She was nothing more than a dream.

Beware.

for thinking he could grow and change,

She looked in his eyes, caressed his hair

he never did

And said to him in honey-coated voice:

and went on just the same

“Take life by its heels. Take it with me.

powerfully misusing other women

Do not be afraid. Your life is me”.

like me, who were blind to his shadows that lurked

She completed him and now

beneath.

He cannot live without her. If she ever leaves, he will never be whole.

Yes, I let this happen to me and I don’t regret. This thing truly, has let me stand stronger, more aware now of using my voice in times where I need to speak up for myself.

For others, indeed, who aren’t as strong or aren’t as freed, believe that there will be

Only a man with manic-pixie dreams.

Week 3, Semester 1, 2018

WOMEN’S RIGHTS: RHETORIC NOT REALITY Text: Alyssa Shaw Photos: Alyssa Shaw and CitizenGo

This time a year ago I was stomping through the snow covered streets of New York, slipping on ice and making sure to periodically move my toes so they did not freeze. I was cursing my unpreparedness for truly cold weather: no beanie, no gloves, and not enough layers. I was on my way to the Women’s Rights Caucus, a collective of progressive feminist individuals and organisations from around the world whose knowledge and expertise influence international negotiations on women’s rights issues. These early morning meetings, full of capable and committed women, were the saving grace of my turbulent United Nations experience. I was at my first Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), the annual United Nations forum that brings together member states and Civil Society organisations from across the world to discuss, debate, and decide on the future of women’s rights. The challenge of CSW is that in two short week’s member states had to negotiate and come to consensus on the Agreed Conclusions: the final document that would lay out rights and obligations for all member states regarding the focus topic. The topic that year: “women’s economic empowerment in the changing world of work.” I went into CSW feeling pumped! I was part of the World YWCA delegation - a large group of young women from places as diverse as South Sudan and Honduras, with the backing of a long standing and reputable women’s organisation. Being Australian, I was also fortunate that our Government and Civil Society organisations worked closely over the negotiations process. I had my game planned mapped out: attending Government and Civil Society events, soaking up knowledge from Women’s Rights Caucus elders, influencing negotiations through suggesting language and building relationships with representatives – it was an advocacy opportunity I had only dreamed of. And perhaps rightly so. As I soon discovered, my assumptions about women’s rights in the international sphere were completely and utterly wrong. I feel I should be forgiven for thinking that the Commission on the Status of Women, would be a space for progressive thinking, and progressive people. This was my first mistake. From day one I was confronted with the unsettling reality that for every progressive women’s rights activist there, there was some conservative scumbug to match. Worse, these right-wing, conservative, anti-choice, anti-contraception, pro-“women should only be in the kitchen or making babies” individuals, were often well-resourced and in some cases in positions of power. I should note that this was the first CSW under a Trump administration, and Vice President Pence had the political savvy to appoint conservative anti-choicers as the official NGO delegates on the United States delegation. On top of this, you had the usual regressive suspects – the government from Saudi Arabia for instance – and my new favourite group to hate, Holy See – the Vatican’s delegation. The power and influence of these people within negotiations should not be underestimated, and indeed contributed much to the degradation of robust language that would uphold women’s working rights. Trading off powerful language for weak language to gain American support was, under a Trump regime, inevitable. Despite the people, the power and the watering down of language, what I found perhaps more distressing were the personal attacks made by right-wing conservatives on progressive spokespeople, and particularly those who were queer-identifying. This largely took the form of public shaming through verbal intimidation and harassment but also threats and acts of physical violence. In addition to the targeted attacks on individuals, there was also public demonstrations. Notably, the “Free Speech Bus” better known as the Transphobic bus which espoused the gender-binary in bright orange outside the gates of the United Nations and essentially declared trans, intersex or gender diverse folk as non-existent. The attacks on women’s rights filled me with rage and enough anger to fuel the long and often frustrating hours sitting in UN corridors or running around to meetings. During negotiations there were attacks on the most basic, but hard fought for rights, such as contraception, through to the complex and often contentious rights, such as regulating sex work. But perhaps what filled my heart with the greatest

sadness and despair was the discussion of queer rights. So often the concerns of LGBTIQ people were marginalised, demonised and dismissed. The UN has been moving at a glacial pace in addressing these issues. Not having a forum like CSW to explore the rights of LGBTIQ people, or what is referred in human rights discourse as Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression (SOGIE), is perhaps the clearest indication of this. It has only been in the last year that the UN has appointed a Special Rapporteur for SOGIE –the only glimmer of hope I can see in an otherwise broken institution. Other than this, queer rights are a fringe issue at the UN – gaining minimal consideration at forums such as CSW.

Vol. 68 , Issue 02

A TALE OF TWO WOMEN Text: Blair Williams

‘And she knew, and we knew, and the whole world knew that the Housewife had become the Superstar’ (Dunne 1979, The Sun) ‘May began to channel her inner, hardcore Thatch … Here was the grocer’s daughter made flesh. The ordinary housewife … who looked after the shillings and pence on the nation’s weekly shopping bill’ (Crace 2016, The Daily Telegraph) The media often represents women politicians as women first and politicians second and, in what should be stories on their policies, they instead focus on their bodies, fashion and personal lives. My past research, such as my comparison between coverage of Julia Gillard’s and Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership ascensions, has revealed how women politicians are subjected to different and often more gendered/sexist media representation than their male counterparts. But… has this gendered media representation of women political leaders changed over time? Is it better or worse? To answer this question, I have investigated and compared Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May’s first three prime ministerial weeks in 1979 and 2016, respectively. This general phenomenon is known as ‘gendered mediation’ – when the mediation of politics not only reflects but reinforces gendered and/or sexist norms, stereotypes and assumptions. Through a gendered mediation lens, male politicians are constructed as the ‘norm’ while women are often trivialised, seen as novelties, and their gender is emphasised. While men are allowed to act in stereotypically masculine ways, and such behaviour is regarded as the ‘norm’ in politics, when women act in the same manner they are seen as aggressive, cold and ‘bitchy’. However, when they act too ‘feminine’, they are regarded as not being up to the job, weak and ineffectual. Simultaneously, with the rise of social media, the 24-hour news cycle and electronic communication, politics is increasingly being transformed into a type of mediatised entertainment where news is more trivialised, sensationalised and individualised. In other words, the ways the media construct politicians are more ‘personalised’ and ‘presidential’. However, while this can be beneficial for male politicians, as it can make them more affable and approachable, due to politics’ inherent culture of polarising femininity and politics women experience personalisation differently. Drawing attention to their non-normative and subversive gender choices potentially risks further trivialisation and ‘othering’. Importantly, while women politicians can and have used their gender and femininity to their possible advantage, the media can always potentially use gender against them. With this in mind, it is important to mention that Thatcher very successfully used her gender and femininity to her advantage and, coupled with her being the first woman prime minister of the UK, it is expected that the media would focus on her gender and femininity more than May’s. However, on average Thatcher’s gender was mentioned in 44 per cent of newspaper articles while May’s gender was mentioned in over half. Furthermore, while Thatcher’s femininity was emphasised on average in 33 per cent of the articles, media emphasis on May’s femininity increased to 45 per cent of the articles surveyed. Notably, conservative broadsheet The Daily Telegraph tripled the amount they mentioned both gender and femininity for May compared to Thatcher. Discourse analysis reveals a more entrenched kind of gendering. A Sun article, again with positive coverage of Thatcher, discussed how she was ‘just the girl to do the job’. Calling a grown woman, especially the prime minister, a ‘girl’ infantilises her whilst also emphasising her gender. It is disrespectful and infers that the author does not take her seriously as a politician. When we call women, especially politicians, ‘girls’ we are denying their adulthood, maturity and power and are using the strength of language to make them seem insignificant. This phenomenon is widespread within the media. Similarly, May was portrayed as both a grammar-schoolgirl and a headmistress. In a Daily Telegraph article, titled ‘Headmistress May has got us all sitting up straighter’, the author discussed how May has ‘formidable powers’ as, ‘since Theresa took over, Boris has combed his hair … if the woman can get Boris to comb his hair, just think what she can do to Putin’ [emphasis added]. In this, she is not the prime minister – a job reserved for men – but a headmistress, the feminine-marked other. One of the biggest gender tropes the media used was focusing on their appearance and fashion choices, though May was subjected to this far more. Thatcher’s appearance was mentioned in 15 per cent of articles surveyed while it was over double that figure for May. All four newspapers analysed increased this frequency, though The Daily Telegraph again was by far the most prolific, more than doubling from their portrayal of Thatcher. One article, titled ‘Inside Theresa’s top shop’ was advertised on the front page of The Daily Telegraph and accompanied photographs of May in various outfits. The sub-heading asked ‘where does the new PM get her outfits?’ followed by more questions in the body of the article, such as ‘who does Theresa

May consult over matters of fashion? Who hunts down the perfect pair of kitten heels?’. The over-emphasis of May’s personal attributes, such as her outfit, over her policies, highlights the subtle ways in which the media undermine women political leaders – here’s the woman, not the politician. Her kitten heels became a metonym for May herself in political cartoons and were frequently mentioned in hard news articles that concentrated on her policies and the state of the new government, illustrating clearly the extent to which the media use gender to undermine her authority and perceived significance. There are many other covert and overt ways in which the media use gender against women politicians, beyond these two. Despite an increase of women politicians and women in senior leadership roles, coupled with the recent rise of feminist discourse in the mainstream, the increase in gendered media representation of Theresa May indicates that women political leaders are still regarded as novelties. I’m left wondering – why? Perhaps this phenomenon is due to the rise of personalised mediation and thus the increase of informal journalism, which inherently has gendered ramifications, or is it because we are currently experiencing a societal backlash against ‘political correctness’ and feminism evidenced by the rise of conservative populism, the Alt Right and MRAs?

Week 3, Semester 1, 2018

olche shamhna irish halloween Text: Natalie Murnane Graphic: Gil Rickey

When most people consider Halloween, they imagine the American festival, which seems to celebrate plastic costumes, cheap candy, and fancy pumpkin carvings. When asked about celebrating Halloween in Australia, they say “What? Why would we do that? That’s so American!” and offer their thoughts on whether sending your kids to knock on a stranger’s door for lollies is a sane practice. I’d like to clear up some misconceptions. First of all, Halloween didn’t start in America. 2000 years ago in Ireland (and parts of the UK and Northern France), the Celts would celebrate Samhain (Pronounced sahwin). In the Irish language, Gaeilge, Halloween is called Oíche Shamhna (ee-ha how-na), which literally translates to ‘night of Samhain’. This festival was about lighting up the increasingly lengthening nights with bonfires and dancing – a harvest festival to herald the end of summer and the coming of winter. Ireland has very strong ties to the ideas of magic, fairies and spooks. It was believed that during Samhain, the boundaries between our world and what we might call Fairyland grew thin, allowing these creatures to move across. People left offerings of food and drink outside their homes, so that they might be left alone for another year. Masks and disguises were worn to trick the fairies, since disguising yourself as a magical creature was supposed to protect you from their mischief (often involving the destruction of livelihoods or stolen children). Gatherings were held around bonfires, and feasts and games were had. Masked revellers would go door-to-door singing songs, and if they weren’t rewarded with some food it meant misfortune for that house. Over thousands of years, Samhain traditions have slowly changed, with some hints of what it once was. In Ireland today, Samhain has become Halloween due to the inf luence of the Catholic Church. All Hallow’s Day, a day on which the dead are remembered and prayed for, is November 1st. Halloween is All Hallow’s Eve, and instead of fairies wandering around, it is now evil

spirits who lurk about in the dark. The festivities remain somewhat the same, but with much of the pagan rituals sanitised to be more ‘Christian’. Halloween was brought to America by immigrants, and evolved there to become what you see in movies today: bigger, brighter, commercialised. I grew up in Ireland, and I miss Halloween. I miss the sense of community, how everyone in every neighbourhood got involved. In primary school we would make decorations to hang around our houses. On the night, as it started to get dark, we would don our witch’s hats and face paint, our vampire fangs and capes, and head out to meet up with our friends. We’d knock on doors of houses decorated with lights, cobwebs, skeletons, gravestones and cackling witches. We’d shout “Trick or treat!” and often be asked to sing a song or rhyme before being given some kind of chocolate or lolly, peanuts or sometimes a few coins if the house had run out of food. There’d be other groups of people going around in the dark, no more than shadows on the other side of the street, everyone in masks or face paint. You couldn’t recognise people until you were right in front of them. We’d go back to someone’s house and play games that were played 1000 years ago, like bob-the-apple. Finally, everyone in the neighbourhood would gather to watch fireworks. It felt magical, a night when the usual routines of life were cast aside and the community came together in the dark, masks lit by torchlight, just to have fun. My family moved to Australia when my sister was eight. Before then, I had simply assumed that the whole world celebrated Halloween. I feel like she missed out on something that I treasure. Perhaps the lens of nostalgia has made the fireworks brighter, the lollies sweeter, but I choose to believe that Halloween is just as fun as I remember it. Last year we had one group of boys come trick-or-treating, because I had decorated the house for a Halloween party. They seemed a bit put out – perhaps because they hadn’t found many houses to knock at. I managed to find some biscuits for them, and I hope they’ll come again next year. Halloween is a festival that requires a community to celebrate together, and I think Australia could enjoy it, if people would only give it a chance.

Culture // life & style

Vol. 68 , Issue 02

Gibson Guitar Corp: A Eulogy Text: Jeremy Tsui Art: Clarence Lee

Gibson, we only knew you for so long. 116 years in the business, and within the top two culturally significant guitar companies for 72 of them. From Al Di Meola to Marty McFly, one iconic Gibson headstock or another has been at the pointy end of so many iconic moments in music. And with almost 100 years from the death of Orville Gibson, it’s concordantly sad to see a string (or six) of stories about your impending bankruptcy when we type your name into Google.

And then the SG, which, as AC/DC’s Angus Young showed us, needed nothing more than a Marshall to give a dirty, attitude-drenched rhythm tone. The Explorer, which in Metallica’s early years gave us James Hetfield’s So What and More Beer twin sisters, both so much more saturated in the studio than the ESP-made Eet Fuk that succeeded them. The self-evident majesty of the Flying V, of course, needs no words. And let’s not

forget the P90 pickup, whose cultural popularity has regrettably been eclipsed by the oddly shaped submachinegun of the same name. But then knockoff Chibsons got better and cheaper, and prospective musicians started looking to newer, shinier genres. You tried being other brands, like Onkyo, Teac, and even Philips, and moreover changed your name from Gibson

In 1952 you gave us the Les Paul, so much a staple of the electric guitar that, if the legacy of the instrument could be summed up in a few sheets of A4 paper, it would certainly belong in the top left corner. Who can deny that Slash’s “woman tone” is instantly recognisable from the first note of the first solo in November Rain? Surely it was the sound that came immediately to many viewers’ minds upon seeing the abandoned church in the middle of nowhere in the last season of Westworld, straight out of the November Rain music video.

Guitar to Gibson Brands, but we knew you wouldn’t ever stop being a guitar brand. Your bonds started to mount, your credit rating started to drop – and kept dropping. You tried making cheaper guitars, but that only put you in competition with your subsidiaries. And then you tried selling cheaper guitars at higher prices. You didn’t turn up to NAMM, and you listed a premium guitar with visible chipping on your website: the last stumbles of a company failing to make ends meet. And who approved the Modern Flying V that looks like unintentional Star Trek homage? But, we told ourselves, you’d survived being sold in 1986 – surely there was a chance we’d open our eyes to see you’d returned as the old Gibson we recall? It’s the Gibson we all remember that, despite every financial nail in the coffin (rosewood, of course), we’ll still have. Your bankruptcy may be inevitable, but so too is your legacy. So thank you, Gibson, for 116 years of highs and lows. Thank you for your indelible mark on rock and roll lore. Thank you for being you. Rest in peace. Jeremy teaches guitar, and can’t decide whether he likes his Ibanez or Jackson more.

knitting our way to happier days Text: Sophie Johnson Art: Hannah Charny

For a few years now, an emphasis has increasingly been placed on selfcare. Whether it takes the form of bubble-baths, meditating, or generally doing whatever it is that makes you feel relaxed, mental health has a massive place in our world. Young people are constantly reminded to set aside time to gauge where they’re at mentally, and mental health days are a valid reason for taking days off from work or school in a way that is a complete reversal from the aims for perfect attendance that dominated the past. Overall, society is beginning to approach mental health as an essential aspect of an individual’s overall well-being, and the outlook is a lot more, well, healthy. Hobbies, and arts and crafts in particular, have an interesting impact on our mental health. In an article in the New York Times, Jane Brody

chronicles her journey with knitting. Like her, I was taught to knit at an early age, but with a mind and body too energetic and hyperactive to sit still, it was put on the back burner until I reached university. Interestingly, knitting is having a resurgence around the globe: my sister recently showed me the blanket she’d crocheted, and according to statistics from the Craft Yarn Council, a third of women between the ages of 25 and 35 now knit or crochet, with numbers only on the rise as the knitters teach novices. On their website, the Council brags

about the positive health effects of knitting, which include feelings of accomplishment and raised confidence, reduced stress and improved mood. Moreover, knitting helps us to stay in the moment, thus stopping us from ruminating on our problems, reducing stress, and lowering both our blood pressure and heart-rate. In a survey among the clinically depressed conducted by

wellness coach Betsan Corkhill, 54 per cent reported that knitting made them feel happy or very happy, and the focus necessary for knitting can even improve children’s concentration and maths skills. It’s also been used as a form of therapy to help smokers or compulsive eaters to quit thanks to preoccupied hands and minds. And it’s not just knitting that has such positive effects. Arts and crafts groups are becoming increasingly popular as

a part of treatment programs in mental health wards, with research su ggesting that activities such as painting, clay modelling, drawing, and knitting or crocheting have a hugely positive impact on our mental health.

The rise of adult colouring books is only symptomatic of this – in letting ourselves colour inside or outside the lines, picking shades that work well together, and generally stopping the panic of our brains, we’re practising healthy habits with incredibly positive effects. It’s becoming more and more critical in the fast-pace of today’s world to keep up those creative hobbies that keep our hands and minds both preoccupied and in the moment. Persona lly, I’ve found setting aside time for creative hobbies has helped me enormously. Whenever I’m stressed about readings, work, or assignments, I’m able to set aside some time, pick up a laptop or notepad, and start writing. Other days, I’ll play the piano or draw a picture to stop myself over t h i n king that one i nt e r a c t i o n from last week, or even last year. And more and more, I’m finding myself putting on some of my favourite noughties’ bangers and knitting. Whether you find solace in painting, colouring in, playing an instrument, or knitting, the positive effects of putting aside time for yourself are only waiting to be felt.

Week 3, Semester 1, 2018

Culture // life & style

Millennial tales Text: Miriam Sadler Graphic: Mia Jessurun Narcissistic, unstable, self-absorbed, twitchy, emotional. These are just some of the words used to describe millennials. The diatribe against them is surprisingly venomous; writers of all eras, including millennials themselves, are quick to pour scorn on a self-obsessed youth, and even quicker to hark back to the better days of the baby boomers and the Gen Xs.

So who is a millennial? The generation is probably one of the most ill-defined, especially as the terms ‘millennial’ and ‘Gen Y’ are used interchangeably. Some argue it begins with people born in 1980, and others in 1982. End dates are even more elusive, with some commentators lumping in those born as late as 2004. In general, it’s safe to group millennials as those born between 1980-2000 – so anyone calling themselves ‘Gen Y’ is just hiding from the inevitable. Criticism of millennials is fierce, mostly centred on their extreme narcissism and apparent inability to thrive in the ‘real world’. They are obsessed with their image, constantly sending selfies and inane commentaries on their daily life across the world through social media. They are chained to their phones, checking notifications and twitching regularly. They are simultaneously completely apolitical and devoted to causes far from home. They are infatuated with self-care. What little money they

have is tossed away buying bubble tea and yoga pants. Millennials are unstable, unfit to spread their wings in the real world after a lifetime of being coddled and financially supported by devoted parents. In 2013, Time Magazine columnist Joel Stein identified the cause as an excess of self-esteem that leads to easy disappointment when opportunities aren’t neatly laid out on a platter. Most importantly, according to these critics, millennials unequivocally fail when pitched against the stories and legacies of preceding generations.

available, fighting so hard to make their schools safe from gun violence.

But what is the millennial story? Where a baby boomer in a grainy American sitcom says wistfully “I remember Woodstock,” or your mum says “in my day, we had to make our own fun,” what will millennials look back on as defining their generation? What will they tell their descendants when they describe their youth?

many atrocities – the planes f lying into the towers, of Abu Ghraib, of children washing up on beaches – will surely stay with them.

Undoubtedly, the dominant marker of this generation is technological advancement. Millennials have access to knowledge their parents could never have dreamed of. They can communicate across great distances in an instant; perhaps they will speak fondly of the friends they made across the globe simply through common interests. This access to information and constant news stream has got the youth involved like never before. We will look back on this time with pride at how young Australians used their voices online to push social change. Hopefully, too, we’ll be looking back in awe of the brave young Americans who are, using the platforms

There will be a darker legacy of social media. Millennials have been stripped of their privacy. Peer pressure is at its most potent; easily inf luenced children are forced into social media by their peers and trapped in a cycle of Instagram stories and ‘body inspo’. They bare their lives for all to see. Similarly, 24/7 rolling news coverage has opened up the ‘bad news world’ to impressionable young people. As they grow older, images of so

experience. Many articles I read saw greater homogeneity amongst youth across the world and that, increasingly, cultural differences are being blurred. Certainly youth in Russia have the same access to social media, but it is unclear as yet what this will mean for a country slumping into economic decline. Will the youth population be responsible for a political shift? In the Middle East, too, millennials have already sparked enormous change through their involvement in 2011’s Arab Spring. What legacy will they leave for the future of the region?

Millennials are some of the most talked about people in the world. Their story is confused, as yet unknown. Will they look back fondly on their youth as a time of communication, or a time of the hive mind? What we can say for sure, when we discuss their legacy, is that they are the most adaptable generation. They can adjust as quickly to a Snapchat update as they can to economic uncertainty or political change. Sure, they take a lot of selfies, but they also have endless knowledge at their fingertips – a power they could use to challenge the status quo, save the planet, maybe even finally solve the mystery of teleportation.

Millennials will also be looking back on a youth filled with pressure. Pressure to conform on social media is a big part of that, but also to be successful in school, college and the workforce. Pressure to balance work and social life, to be healthy and sleep well. Other generations are quick to scoff at the high levels of mental health issues amongst youth, yet with pressure like never before to attain andto conform to an image photoshopped in a glossy magazine, it’s no wonder increasing numbers of young And really, the generation we should people are struggling with anxi- be most scared of is those dreaded ety. Moreover, they’ve been taught, Gen Zs. by the countless articles deriding them, to hate themselves. Taught that only the ones who throw down their iPhones are the enlightened. In all of this, I can only speak from a Western perspective of the millennial

Culture // life & style

Vol. 68 , Issue 02

Life vs lore Navigating first year Text: Tabitha Malet Graphic: Clarence Lee As I prepared – with equal parts anxiousness, excitement and confusion – for the big move from Perth to Canberra, plenty of people had plenty to say about university. I knew it was a great opportunity, I knew I wanted to do it, but was I the right type of person? Was I ready? Lore of a kind surrounds every life stage. It’s almost a pact between people recounting an experience that some thoughts, some feelings, some moments will be preferenced over others. The endless dispensers of wellmeaning advice each constructed their own lore around university but reality never held up to these myths. The number one thing I was told was that you make lots of friends more or less instantly, especiall in a residential college (I’m at Fenner, for those wondering). So many people I spoke to had met their best friends at university. College sounded like a place where everyone on a f loor would dip in and out of each other’s rooms at random – where you cooked together and studied together, and where all property was more or less communal. I had readied myself for this experience. And of course, like all legends, this idea contained more than a grain of truth. But reality wasn’t quite what I expected. Most people at college are friendly, of course, and you will meet some amazing personalities. But you might not make lots of friends instantly, and that’s okay. While stress, sleep deprivation and homesickness might make you feel like everyone has a tight-knit group

of close friends except for you, I can assure you this is not the case. It also might take you a little while to get back into the swing of making close friends. Since starting high school, personally, I’d had no need to turn the sort of friend you might talk to when you have a break from class into the sort of friend you can talk to about your feelings. Rest assured that you will work out how to do this again. In fact, your closest friendships will probably be forged in unexpected fires. Try not to pressure yourself. I promise it will be okay. Something no one will tell you is that uni – and particularly college – can get very isolating. You will probably find yourself spending long periods semi-voluntarily alone in your room, unable to just walk next door and talk to a parent or sibling about what’s going on in your life. If you’re used to relying on family, rather than friends, to be your core support system, this can be particularly difficult. You might have doubts and periods of homesickness well past the first few weeks of the year. This doesn’t mean you’re not ready to be here. It does mean that you’re ref lecting on your experience quite intensely, which can sometimes take the enjoyment out of it. My biggest tips are to not put too much pressure on yourself to feel happy all the time, and to make use of the support available. When I have f lashes of homesickness I’ll

often spend time at our college café or in the common areas, because chatting to people makes me feel better. ANU Counselling is another wonderful resource, not only for people with existing mental health issues, but also for those who just need to talk to somebody without feeling guilty of burdening people with their problems. Something else I heard repeated like Chinese whispers was that nobody worked in first year. First year was a time to party and make lots of friends before you actually started putting some effort in. It’s worth getting this out of your head right now, because you will need to work in first year, and it’s worth starting early. I know plenty of people who nearly failed first year because they spent too much time socialising and too little revising, or didn’t watch their lectures until the day before the exam. If you sat exams to get into university, you can probably already tell me that you get better grades if you don’t leave things until the last minute. You don’t need to spend anywhere near all your time on work, but a few hours every day outside classes will be bucket-loads of help when exam period comes around. If you’re anything like me, you might also have internalised the thought that uni is a chance to reinvent yourself. Many of the adults I spoke to had got h or hippie phases during university, revealing little of their past to even their closest friends. This

idea of reinvention weighed heavy on me as I started to introduce myself to new people. I wondered if I had changed too little since high school – whether the t-shirts and JayJays denim skirt I liked to wear were too twelvie to be me now. Writing this article, I’m wearing one of those same T-shirts and the same skirt. It’s not tucked in, the way I wore it at 17. My hair is also longer, and I’m wearing cuffs on my ears and makeup I couldn’t have imagined doing when I first got here. The moral of the story is you don’t need to forcibly ‘reinvent’ yourself. It will happen naturally, and you need not do anything major to speed up the process. You won’t struggle to make ‘cool’ friends just because you haven’t erased every trace of your high school self. It’s okay. In short, I think this article can be summarised with one principle: don’t put too much pressure on yourself. A million people will tell you that “uni is what you make of it”, but if you think and worry too much about whether you’re making the most of everything you’ll never pause long enough to have a good time. Let yourself be. The good times and bad times will come and go, so take them as they come and allow yourself to feel them in the moment. You’ll blink and the year will be nearly over.

Week 3, Semester 1, 2018

Culture // arts

Internal worlds Creating lore in music Text: Michael Katsavos Graphic: Woroni Archives c. 2015

Lore is often used to reflect well established and internalised concepts that are relevant to a certain topic or story. In the case of music, I interpret this to look at the backstory that artists can construct through their own music - the stories they tell, and the establishment of overriding narratives that makes their art feel like a world of its own. Four artists are discussed in this article, each of which establishes lore by painting pictures of themselves or a character and exploring the world in which that entity exists. MF DOOM This man is one of the most iconic artists relevant to this topic - metal mask and all. With a myriad of aliases (King Gheedorah, DOOM, Metal Fingers, Vaudeville Villain, Zev Love X, King Dumile, King Ghidra, etc.), there is the opportunity to construct vivid worlds for these characters he embodies. This is done throughout his discography, usually devoting whole albums to different characters. Arguably, the most iconic and central element of lore is the story of the “Madvillain”, explored most explicitly through the Madvillainy album (a collaboration between DOOM and Madlib). This character and the respective backstory borrow heavily from pop culture and comic books, loosely basing himself off of Dr Doom from the Fantastic Four franchise. The character is painted as this menacing, dangerous individual - and every song on this album contributes to this overall picture that forms of the Madvillain. Origin stories and peripheral information are explored, with the overriding villainous tone of the album keeping everything grounded in the concept. This is similar to the Vaudeville Villain series of albums, which similarly construct this overriding narrative of an evil individual - carried by the lyrics themselves and the selected samples. Conceptually, the Madvillain acts as a grounding concept for a lot of DOOM’s more realistic personas - the archetype of evil and wrongdoing, matched by the slick lyrical delivery and dusty beats that form a

backdrop for so many of his iconic projects. One of his more strange characters, King Gheedorah, is quite literally characterised as a three-headed space leviathan - if that isn’t constructing a story through one’s music, I’m not sure what else he can do. MF DOOM in my mind is the best to ever approach this construction of lore through music. His characters and the overriding theme that binds them (villainy) is so explicitly and deeply explored that it feels as if each album and project exists within this world he has constructed. One could write for days about how well this is constructed, and how vivid the lore of Daniel Dumile’s world is. SZA Following the theme of capitalised artist names, SZA’s 2017 album Ctrl is a similarly vivid exploration of character, in this case, herself. The album tracks the progression and turmoil of a woman dealing with her struggles with being mistreated by those around her, bad relationships, and her own internal monologue as she develops and acknowledges her own sense of self-worth - there’s themes of sexual infidelity, liberation, freedom, and a-romanticism that also come into play. She crafts broad stories of her own experiences and feelings, painting the picture of someone trying to make sense of their own feelings, and dealing with the actions of those around her - while not always doing what people perceive as right. Lore, in this sense, is more so dealt with in terms of the establishment of SZA’s character’s backstory and feelings, looking at past treatment in relationships, and also from a wider social context. The album itself is triumphant and accepts that sometimes actions and people are not as they should be - this acceptance of injustice and imperfection really is developed through the inner workings of the world SZA has built with this project. It accepts the eventual wrongdoing of people in relationships and pursuits of love, and this knowledge just makes the album even more powerful, because there is a desire to push forth regardless. Alex Cameron Forced Witness, Alex Cameron’s critically acclaimed 2017 release painted the picture of an outsider. Not in some endearing, awkward way - like a scarily odd individual that you would cross the street if you say. Using this picture of the outsider that he invokes on purpose, Alex chooses to look at the concept of failure and what it means to be a loser. His lyrics border on self-deprecating sadism, very far from the glitzy and upbeat instrumentation he utilises so well. His music relates to lore in the establishment of

this overriding idea that Alex is the embodiment of this loser - and the facets of why he is labelled as one are deeply explored. Songs like Marlon Brando really explore this, as Alex’s character isn’t even made to be likeable, let alone relatable. In an interview with the Guardian following the release of his first album, ‘Jumping the Shark’ (one of the best ironic album titles ever), he disclosed that he felt that failure was an under-explored concept, so he uses the twisted characters and stories to explore the idea of failure, and what exactly it feels like to fail. Alex’s lore is that of failure and short-comings - bad decisions, shattered dreams, and unrealised hopes. The artistic exercise of exploring such a unique topic is aided by his ability to craft these dark and saddening narratives, over glitzy and catchy melodies. Kid Cudi Regardless of whatever critical vilification this man has endured, I have such a soft spot for (nearly) anything this guy releases. Man on the Moon one & two are excellent and personal albums. Cudi develops these recurring motifs of Mr Rager, The Man on the Moon, and Scott Mescudi (his actual identity) - these characters are all essentially the same and act as a way to explore self-destruction and his own attitudes and feelings. You may dislike these albums or think that they are unnecessarily artsy, but the commitment to crafting a really deep exploration of himself pays off, in terms of the sheer depth of the narrative. He paints himself as a young person lost in a whirlwind of drugs, lust, and fear for the future - and struggles with the fluctuations in emotion that come with these experiences. The mood of these first two albums are quite different, but paint similar pictures of poor mental health and trying to find a way to improve one’s life. We can see that music can be used as a means to craft deep narratives and backstories - lore. These are only a few specific artists that I think do this well, but there are a number of great musicians that construct similarly vivid worlds through their art. Honourable Mentions/Classic Picks: Kendrick Lamar - Good Kid; M.A.A.D City; Childish Gambino - Because the Internet; Kevin Abstract - American Boyfriend; Tyler, The Creator’s entire work. entire entire

culture // arts

Vol. 68 , Issue 02

the world in our pockets (and how it distracts us) Text: Jeremy Tsui Art: Clarence Lee

The hardest part of starting full-time study wasn’t what I had imagined. It wasn’t the labyrinthine enrolment system, nor the enormous campus, or even the difficulty of trying to parse Brian Schmidt’s (glorious) American accent. Instead, the most confronting challenge of the past two weeks has been trying to stay focused on study – in other words, ignoring my phone. I purchased a Google Pixel phone for an astonishing amount of money last year, and the truth is, I love it (I even named it Arty). Though I would never give him up, I’m also quietly aware that Arty comes with strings attached. The sad truth is that Google giveth and thus Google must taketh away – and they don’t just take my money, they also take my time. It’s incredibly difficult not to glance at your phone for an hour. Try it, I dare you (I’m scrolling while writing this). Its addictive quality isn’t an accident – modern smartphones are designed to engage you. But there’s a problem: they’re built to keep you busy, not to help you. Despite their many uses, we cannot ignore the fact that our phones distract us. The question then becomes: “What do they distract us from?”. The answer, in many cases, is ourselves. Ideally, a good student would feel completely comfortable alone in a room with nothing but their thoughts. They would be free to think, to question, to create - this space of intentional boredom is where some of the best creative ideas are born. But our phones are often the enemies of such experiences. ‘Addiction’ is a scary word, but it just describes a very normal impulse; running away from the joys, and terrors, of productivity. Our phones give us a way out of

our heads: they intrude, they buzz, and they alert. Alone with my thoughts, I may be on the edge of a creative breakthrough, but Arty is beeping in my back pocket. I might be powering through an essay; Arty is receiving updates for a free-to-play game. I’m writing an article for Woroni; oh, excuse me, I have three Very Important Messages. The nasty trick of mobile phones is the way they twist our priorities. They refuse to make any distinction between our needs and passing distractions, treating human and non-human notifications the same. The update of an app you haven’t used in twenty-two days makes precisely the same sound – and feels just as important – as the three missed calls from your mother. A healthier relationship with our phones is something we all need. So, for the sake of my sanity and study alike, I turned off all non-human notifications on my phone. Immediately, lectures were easier to sit through.

As much as Arty tries to distract me, I must admit he’s also an incredible tool - group chats for my degrees have saved me on multiple occasions, and I’m convinced that the online textbook exchange is the greatest thing ever. Thanks to Arty, at any moment I can look up the population of Abkhazia (240,000), see occurrences in politics (Goodbye Barnaby Joyce) or find the author of the fascinating line “Kisses are a better fate than wisdom” (E.E. Cummings). When he’s not bombarding me with notifications, Arty can be great at helping me make and share creative work – I can take amazing pictures with his camera, take notes about anything at any time and even work on projects on my computer with the Adobe Creative Cloud. Finally, it’s through Arty that I run my Instagram account, sending work to almost a thousand people every day and a million potential friends beyond that. In many ways, Arty gives me access to the world. Our phones are amazingly sophisticated and personalised devices – wonders of design and science working alongside capitalism to create the perfect attention trap. In some ways,

they are more necessary to our daily lives than our television sets, our skill with numbers (calculators do the work for us) or even our sense of smell. Yet they are undeniably primitive in comparison with the intellectual and emotional depth that can arise from a conversation with a real person. Our phones may give us a map of the streets of Berlin, but they cannot provide us with an explanation of what our partner might be feeling. Arty will help me follow ten news outlets at once, but he could never tell me, fifteen YouTube videos deep at two a.m., that it might be a good time to go to bed. That kind of insight can only come from another person – a person you’re most likely to find studying with you at university. So feel free every once in a while to actually turn your phone off and turn to the person next to you. Ask them the kinds of questions your phone could never answer, and I promise you won’t regret it.

Week 3, Semester 1, 2018

culture // arts

50 years young the art that changed modern storytelling Text: Alisha Nagle Art: Hannah Charny Where were you in ‘68? Knowing this paper’s demographic, you probably didn’t exist. But it’s guaranteed that you enjoy the results of these six cultural icons that continue to inspire storytellers even 50 years on. 2001: A Space Odyssey This esoteric triumph of cinema is perhaps the most important sci-fi film made. If you still don’t get what it’s about, don’t worry - anyone who claims to know is lying. Stanley Kubrick himself admitted that the film’s infamous ending is ‘incomprehensible within our earthbound frames of reference’. Can you get more avant-garde than not understanding your own film? Kubrick’s visual effects are so exquisite that they made conspiracy theorists claim he faked the moon landing. Where sci-fi films used tinny synthesisers to deliver space vibes, Kubrick opted for classical music, causing initial audiences to burst out laughing at the novelty. Ten years later, they rejoiced upon hearing the equally symphonic score of Star Wars. Most importantly, 2001 is a wondrous exploration of human achievement through imagery alone. In one of the most poignant moments, a hominid ape throws away a bone, screaming and rejoicing in victory. We watch the bone spin through the clear sky until the film cuts to a spacecraft floating silently amongst the stars. This simple transition invites us, briefly, to skim through the entirety of human history: through war, the marvels of art and science. Every notable sci-fi filmmaker since has arguably paid homage to Kubrick’s unparalleled storytelling. The Beatles: Yellow Submarine Following the release of Sgt Pepper, The Fab Four were obligated to fulfil an unfortunate movie contract. It was agreed that a cartoon be created, so long as The Beatles had no actual involvement other than providing four new (and shamelessly lazy) songs. The result was a nonsensical tale in which the evil Blue Meanies, music-hating monsters, set out to “oblueterate” the harmonious folk of Pepperland. A survivor seeks out The

Beatles to save the day. It deserves to be a complete disaster of a movie, yet it works. Considering the artists had only 11 months to complete the animation, the resulting genius is incredible. It’s a psychedelic menagerie of bold colours, photography and rotoscoping – all of which was hand painted on cels, frameby-frame. Simpsons writer Josh Weinstein said he was greatly influenced by satirical undertones of the clever script, and praised Yellow Submarine as being the forefather of modern animation by proving that adults could appreciate cartoons. 60 Minutes Fiction wasn’t the only type of storytelling to be revolutionised in 1968. Don Hewitt became a pioneer of television journalism after growing tired of the “hour-long snoozers” he oversaw at CBS. He set about developing a show able to tackle anything: from Richard Nixon to communism… to The Muppet Show. His writers worked hard to create an eloquent tone for each episode. Hewitt knew that audiences were captivated not only by hard facts, but the story constructed. The show became an instantaneous success, setting up modern journalism to aim for both credibility and enjoyment. Nowadays 60 Minutes is one of the most successful shows in television history that still airs weekly, and has spawned copies all over the globe. A Wizard of Earthsea While not as popular as other fantasy novels, Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea Trilogy is widely praised for its challenging take on the theme of good and evil. Unlike the villains invented by the likes of Tolkien, a black-and- white concept of evil in Earthsea is frustratingly absent. There is no real “villain” except the main character’s shortcomings – his pride, temper and vanity – inviting us to wonder if the potential for evil lies within all of us. Similarly, any clear religious allegory is absent. Just as in the real world, morality is not a monochromatic concept. Le Guin urged modern fantasy writers to break away from conventional tropes, and most importantly, reminded a new generation of writers that fantasy could be as complex works of realism, during a time when the genre was largely written off as immature. Notably, Harry Potter appears to borrow heavily from

Le Guin, though J. K. Rowling has refuted this. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K Dick is often heralded as the father of modern sci-fi, which isn’t surprising considering he wrote the story behind Blade Runner. This novel portrayed humanity’s struggle for meaning in an increasingly technology-centric universe – an idea that has only become more relevant with time. Unlike the film, Electric Sheep includes a sub-plot about a religion called Mercerism, which involves sending humans into a fabricated reality where they experience “real” emotions. The religion is absurd, yet it makes sense that humans would rather continue living under false pretences than face the emptiness of their artificial dystopia. Electric Sheep questions what it means to be human through the androids – machines that end up displaying truer emotions, perhaps, than the book’s own human protagonist. Dick asked what human experience would mean in the future, where he imagined (quite accurately) we would be living our lives through technology. It is an unnerving and brutally honest perspective on human advancement and undoubtedly influenced many later sci-fi works. Rosemary’s Baby The myth that everyone who worked on Rosemary’s Baby was cursed makes this landmark film even creepier. An outwardly pleasant young couple move into a building with a “high incidence of unpleasant happenings”. What ensues is not, however, your typical Poltergeist scare-fest, but instead a stylish exposition of paranoia and psychological trauma. Polanski said he aimed to build a sense of dread throughout the film without the use of easy pointers like constant music, jump scares or gory visual effects – in his words, a “classy” horror film. His Hitchcockian knack for suspense redefined the horror genre and paved the way for psychological thrills in film as seen in the likes of The Shining and Requiem for a Dream. Are the unfortunate “accidents” supernatural or coincidences? Is it the devil, or is it all a figment of Rosemary’s imagination? No actual violenceever occurs, and the only supernatural imagery we see is through glimpses of dreams. It is this masterful ambiguity that evokes dread and wonder in all of us even 50 years later.

culture // reviews

The POst

Vol. 68 , Issue 02

six oscars contenders,

Text: Ellie Doyle

Despite middling performances from its leads, The Post is a satisfying biopic that champions the free press. Politically topical and compellingly relevant, The Post is Steven Spielberg’s love letter to democracy. In a time when the media is under increasing amounts of scrutiny, The Post emphasises the importance of the free press. The powerhouse film also illustrates the power struggle between the government and the press in a functional democracy, and showcases the idealism necessary to be a successful, but more importantly, an honourable journalist. After an enthralling opening scene, The Post is a slooooow burn. There are no edge-of-your-seat moments; there really doesn’t need to be. The Post is captivating. It draws the audience’s interest by taking the first thirty minutes to set itself up. The film revolves around the 1971 leak of the Pentagon Papers, the classified documents regarding undisclosed information about US involvement in the Vietnam War. However, this movie is not actually about this, choosing instead to focus on the Washington Post’s decision to publish these documents. This decision, as one can imagine, was not simple to make, and calls into question journalistic courage, morality and integrity. All of this, of course, is underscored by the typical dramatic score by John Williams, who makes this slow-moving film about a real political scandal sound like the next iteration of Indiana Jones. Whilst playing a fun game of “What have I seen that actor in before?” viewers of the film are treated to lukewarm performances from Tom Hanks and Meryl (who doesn’t even need a last name mention). Saying that, it is difficult to imagine this movie being effective with other actors in these roles. Meryl plays Katharine Graham, the CEO of the Washington Post, and the token woman of the story. Her struggles as a woman in journalism in the early 1970’s are lightly touched on, but are never really fleshed out. The Katharine Graham of the film managed to avoid making any ground-breaking suggestions about women in journalism, but still met the Academy’s low threshold to nominate Meryl for an Oscar. Tom Hanks, who previously worked with Spielberg on Bridge of Spies, is greatly utilised by his director. In the role of Post editor-in-chief Ben Bradlee, Hanks is in his element. His charisma carries the role, as the character has no endearing traits to speak of or show-stopping scenes worth mentioning, really. The real star of this movie is Bob Odenkirk (Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul). Odenkirk is electric. He plays Ben Bagdikian, the assistant editor of the Washington Post, who is essentially responsible for bringing the damning documents to the paper who published them despite the White House’s restraining order against the sensitive leak. His anxious energy and moral battle are palpable in the cinema, and his performance is what really carries the film. All in all, The Post is not the most fast-paced film, nor is it the award-bait that Spielberg’s most recent releases have tried to be. It purports to showcase the drama of the power play between the state and the free press, and does exactly this. No more, no less. And it’s a pleasure to watch, if you can sit through the slow first act.

Darkest hour Text: Josie Ganko

In Darkest Hour, Gary Oldman’s portrayal of Winston Churchill shines in this otherwise forgettable biopic. Darkest Hour is yet another ‘Oscar-bait’ film documenting events of the Second World War. This take focuses on Winston Churchill rising to the Prime Minister’s office during the most hopeless stage in the Allied resistance against Nazi forces. The film details Churchill’s defiant stance for victory rather than negotiations, as well as following Operation Dynamo, the same conflict captured in fellow best picture nominee Dunkirk. The Academy can never resist nominating a historical biopic that involves accents, war and prosthetics, which I think can be the only explanation for its nomination alongside these superior films. And yet, I am still somewhat surprised that Darkest Hour secured a best picture nomination in the place of more original films from this year such as I, Tonya. That is not to say I didn’t enjoy the film. I did. But there was nothing particularly compelling about the structure or storytelling, and it went on far too long with no satisfying climax or resolution. The choice to focus almost exclusively on Churchill lost the opportunity to feel the emotional weight of what was at stake with each decision he made and the supporting characters where painfully underdeveloped. Less surprising however, is Gary Oldman’s best actor nomination, for which he is the heavy favourite to take out the prize. He is excellent in this role, and embodies this character brilliantly. A character such as Churchill has always given actors ample opportunity to show off: his accent, quirkiness, stature, humour, and inspiring speeches all lend to critically acclaimed performances. Oldman’s sweep of award seasons wins sees him join a bevy of actors who have won critical acclaim for portraying Churchill (See Albert Finney in The Gathering Storm, Brendan Gleeson in Into the Storm and John Lithgow in The Crown). This does not deduce from his likely win, but it does make it unsurprising that this is the role for which the long underappreciated actor will finally (most likely) receive an academy award. Darkest Hour, like most Oscar nominated films, is still worth the price of entry, but beyond Oldman’s performance there isn’t anything fresh to get out of this re-telling. While you may be entertained, it is likely you will have forgotten the film within hours of leaving the theatre.

Three billboards outside ebbing, missouri Text: Naini Rautela

Martin McDonagh’s film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, has received 189 nominations and 87 wins at award shows, and it deserves every single one. McDonagh shows us a story that from the surface evokes anger and revenge, but unravels to one of justice and community. Mildred Hayes (played by Frances McDormand) rents out 3 billboards probing the police department’s inability to find her daughter’s murderer. The consequences of her actions unfold a story with multiple subplots, and an fast-paced plot with twists and turns at every corner. McDonagh fills the film with commentary on everything from domestic abuse, to police brutality, racism and homophobia. Yet he still manages to keep the audience on the hook by intertwining his unpredictable plot line with recurrent dark comedy. The film’s portrayal of the undercurrent of racial prejudice in the local police department has been met with criticism, due to the limited portrayal of people of colour in the film, as well as the redemption arc of the main racist cop in question. While this does reduce from the overall experience of the film, and is probably what led to McDonagh’s snub in the best director category, the film manages to broaden its focus to a range of issues to the extent that it minimises its missteps in that particular subject matter. Ultimately, the film’s execution is seamless, the characters feel real, their dialogue perfectly parallel to their emotions- credit of which goes to the actors and writers. Frances McDormand is solemn and effecting in the lead role, but excellent supporting performances by Sam Rockwell and Woody Harrelson buoy the film to the heights of critical acclaim. Three Billboards is the kind of movie you will think about after leaving the cinema, because after posing so many questions McDonagh answers very few. It manages to shock, surprise and make the audience laugh even in the most dire situations. Not one to miss.

Week 3, Semester 1, 2018

culture // reviews

as reviewed by you Phantom thread Text: Chiara Cementon

Phantom Thread hits its stride in costuming and set, but ultimately leaves something to be desired. Late last year Daniel Day Lewis announced his retirement from acting, with his final film being Phantom Thread, a twisted fairytale following the oedipal love story of 1950s fashion house designer Reynolds Woodcock and a young waitress. His character is the epitome of classic genius, perpetually focussed on a bizarre routine and tortured by any disruption to it. Director Paul Thomas Anderson starkly contrasts the acquiescent manner of Woodcock’s sister, Cyril, against the strong-willed, contrary opinions of his new muse and lover. While the scenography gives airs of an aesthetically pleasing film, the dialogue and its manifestation in expression is unnatural and uncomfortable to watch. The director uses close-ups in silence to concentrate on emotion or the lasting effects of something said: however the immobility of facial features leaves something to be desired. Even if such inertia is a stylistic choice in insinuating the absurdity of Woodcock’s life and the complacency of the women who surround him, this device is not used in a satisfying way. The film follows, thankfully, a progression to a more egalitarian existence of the men and women within the Woodcock Fashion House, between designer, sister and muse. However, distinctions in power plays became hazy towards the end of the film and determining the source of control in each relationship is difficult. Perhaps this predicts, in a sense, the kind of equality we might achieve in some near future. There is no denying the brilliance of costume and set, which pervade the still silences and awkward piano to warmly immerse the audience in 1950s fashionable London. It is still difficult to be swept away by the peculiar relationship between the protagonists. Ultimately, Phantom Thread will disturb you in all aspects of romantic dependence and sadistic love.

the shape of water Lady bird Text: Lulu Cathro

Outstanding individual performances are let down by clashing narratives in Lady Bird. Saoirse Ronan plays the young, determined and quirky Christine ‘Lady Bird’ McPherson who is surrounded by complicated relationships and the unromantic realities of being a teenager. Whilst individual performances are strong, there is something missing from this Oscars favourite. There has been a lot of hype around Lady Bird: it’s been nominated for awards in a variety of categories, including winning best comedy or musical motion picture at the Golden Globes this year. Walking out of the cinema, I was confused. I knew it was a good movie but it clearly lacked something. The film was being pulled in too many different directions. Firstly, a complex and interesting relationship was developed between mother and daughter, however without fully exploring the character of mother Marion played by Laurie Metcalf . The film then detracts from this interesting relationship by emphasising young romance. The young love narrative of the film is interesting in of itself, the reality of being let down in young relationships and learning that romance is not necessarily like it is in the films. However the competing narratives of the film unfortunately don’t complement one another. Towards the end of the film Lady Bird’s grand expectations of life in New York after high school are dashed, as she doesn’t suddenly feel ‘complete’ in the place she thought she would feel at home. She even finds herself visiting a church and introducing herself by ‘Christine’ rather than ‘Lady Bird’, possibly in an attempt to grasp at familiarity from her Sacramento home and family. I was not satisfied, however, with this being the climactic dilemma of the film. Discussing the film with a friend we both realised we thought it lacked a tragedy, both half expecting a death in the family to occur, shaking the protagonist into disarray and reorganisation of her priorities. Dissatisfaction aside, Lady Bird is still a film worth seeing. It still stands as an exceptional directorial debut from Greta Gerwig, with outstanding performances from Laurie Metcalf and Saorise Ronan. Timothee Chalamet as impressive as ever however with less artistic license compared to Call Me By Your Name. My advice, don’t have expectations of an Oscar winning movie and you’ll enjoy Lady Bird a lot more than I did.

Text: Theresa Tran

The 90th Academy Awards saw The Shape of Water leading Oscar nominees with thirteen nods. Most prestigious was the film’s nomination for Best Picture, joining fellow nominee Get Out as two of only seven thriller-horror films* to have ever received a Best Picture nomination since the award debuted in 1929 – significant triumphs for the oft-forgotten genre. But inspired by his childhood memories of Creature from the Black Lagoon, director Guillermo del Toro’s trademark appetite for blood and body horror (think stinging cheek wounds) runs just as thick as the underwater romancing between our two unlikely lovers: a night-shift cleaner and an Amazonian river god. Described as an “adult fairy tale,” the film opens with an exploration of an apartment interior, submerged in the lush and luminous greens of seawater – a tone and colour palette preserved in the rich set and costume designs amidst occasional shocks of red. A “princess without voice” drifts serenely above a floating sofa bed, dreaming; treading del Toro’s precarious line between fantasy and reality. Our princess soon wakes as Elisa (played by Sally Hawkins), an orphan who as an infant was found by a river with gill-like scars that have left her physically mute. She lives on her own, though opposite to neighbour and confidante Giles (Richard Jenkins), and works as a cleaner at a secret government facility alongside friend and interpreter, Zelda (Octavia Spencer). The year is 1962, and the Cold War’s Space Race preoccupies the mind of the facility’s brutal head, Colonel Strickland (Michael Shannon), who has captured and delivered an amphibious creature from South America (Doug Jones) capable of language – and of love – to be harvested for research. The sublime narrative is poetically bookended with Elisa once again unconscious and underwater, though this time swathed in red that echoes moments throughout the film marked by longing: high-heeled pumps, an empty cinema, her favourite vinyl records. We hope she lives happily ever after. The Shape of Water is, all in all, a breathtaking piece of cinematic voice. The vision of production designer Paul Austerberry and cinematographer Dan Laustsen seamlessly blends the watercolours of the whimsical with the shadows preceding the violence. The score’s main theme, a simple tune of composer Alexandre Desplat’s own whistle and a tango accordion, is reminiscent of the soft ebb and flow of a warm undercurrent. The screenplay by Vanessa Taylor and del Toro himself is heavy with metaphor and thematic weight, containing obvious but nevertheless important political commentaries à la Pan’s Labyrinth, with references to privilege and prejudice, observing ableism, misogyny, homophobia, and racism. Particularly keen audience members will enjoy the film’s (boiled) Easter Eggs: Elisa’s Baltimore apartment is directly above ‘The Orpheum’ cinema theatre, named after the Greek legend of Orpheus; one of Giles’ cats, Pandora, loses its head due to curiosity; enamoured with polished shoes and tap dancing, Elisa is a mermaid soul trapped with human legs. This genre-blurring fantasy world de Toro has brought to life is too stunning to miss. Even as the story plummets in and out of torture and tragedy, the empathy and passion between Elisa and her Amphibian Man relentlessly holds our breath. Succumb to the smiles and heartache and dive into the wonder that is The Shape of Water. * The Exorcist (1973), Jaws (1975), The Silence of the Lambs (1990), The Sixth Sense (1999), and Black Swan (2010)

discover // science

Vol. 68 , Issue 02

Ecosystem services, or why you should have more plants in your life Text: Brody Hannan Graphic: David Liu and Johanna Uniacke Do you want to be more productive at work? Do you want to reduce stress and be happier? Reduce time spent in injury rehabilitation? What if I told you that there already exists one thing out there that can do all of this, and more? What if I told you that the answer was the environment? What The Environment Can Do For You Research has shown that nature and the environment does a lot more for humans than merely providing us food. Being around nature can lower your blood pressure and reduce stress. Having a view of the environment outside your hospital window can quicken recovery time. Having a pot plant in your office can increase productivity. For millennia, poets, musicians and writers have been inspired by the aesthetic sense of nature. Nature provides huge economic benefits as well. Marshes and wetlands purify our water and can be an important component of sanitation plants. Pristine beaches bring millions of dollars into Australia in the form of tourism. Many of our drugs, both medicinal and recreational, have originated from some part of nature. Not to mention the benefits that are often promoted by policymakers – nature cleans our air and water and reduces pollution. All of these things are known as ecosystem services – the benefits that humans freely gain from the environment. Ecosystem Services and Functional Diversity The amount of and efficiency of the ‘services’ an ecosystem provides are dependent upon what’s known as functional diversity. You may, however, be more familiar with the term genetic diversity, which is a little different. Genetic diversity looks at how the DNA within a population varies. For example, you may have heard that banana plants are ‘all the same’, this is because 95% of all banana exports are cultivated from the same variety. In other words, they all share the same DNA and have low genetic diversity. Functional diversity looks at the number of different functions performed in an ecosystem. An Antarctic ecosystem, for example, can be constructed from different species, but not necessarily functions – things like different feeding mechanisms, forms of motility, how many apex predators and prey there are etc. Compare this to say a tropical forest – birds, large and small mammals and reptiles all serve as a whole range of apex predators. Trees, shrubs, grasses, moss and vines – while all plants – have different ways of feeding. Fungi decompose

animals which then provide nutrient-rich soil to feed plants. The complexity of the ecosystem and the many different roles of its species are what give places like tropical forests their high functional diversity. It is functional diversity that provides these ecosystem services. Imagine a small, well-kept park with plenty of grass and trees and a small pond. Adding different species of trees to the ecosystem will have little impact on how it functions if the species are similar. Introducing frogs and other amphibians into the pond, however, will reduce mosquitos and control other pest species around the pond. It is the addition of species with a different trait that lead to a change in how the ecosystem functions. Reaping the Benefits of Ecosystem Services But what does all this mean? How can you take advantage of these amazing resources and reap the benefits of these ‘ecosystem services’? For starters, get some more ‘green’ in your life. Whether it be a cactus in your bedroom, spending time in a veggie garden or going for a walk in a National Park – by surrounding yourself with

nature, you’ll begin to feel better almost immediately. The key point to note is that we are already taking advantage of these resources, but to the point that we abuse them. Having a few trees in your local park or a nice lawn in your backyard is not enough functional diversity to provide the key ecosystem services we need for a healthy society, or to allow the current ecosystem to be accessed sustainably. We should all work hard to preserve and create complex ecosystems with a diverse range of not only species but functions as well – because our health, economies and societies depend on it.

Week 3, Semester 1, 2018

discover // science

the science behind lsd Text: Damian Bhalla Graphic: Clarence Lee

content warning: illicit drug use and mental illness. Hey team! If you’re going to use drugs – be safe, use drugs responsibly and look after yourselves.

LSD. It’s the contentious hallucinogenic psychedelic behind the counterculture movement of the sixties and the 10/10 IMDB rating for Paddington Two in 2018. Today, we’re going to be exploring the wacky science behind acid. LSD is a clear, tasteless liquid consumed in tabs - small pieces of acid-soaked cardboard placed under the tongue for approximately 30 minutes until dissolved. Come with me now on a journey through time and space to the world of tangerine trees, marmalade skies and girls with kaleidoscope eyes. Basic Effects The psychedelic effects of LSD can be grouped into two categories: sensory hallucinations and emotional sensations. Sensory hallucinations refer to vision-based, touch and auditory hallucinations. Sensory hallucinations can also cause Synaesthesia, where senses typically experienced by only one sense are also experienced by another, such as seeing sounds and tasting colours. The emotions felt relate primarily to that of unity, euphoria and divinity felt at varying times at various raised both with and without any antecedent. The Great Serotonin Channels of Shangri La Serotonin (5-HT) is an important Central Nervous System (CNS) inhibitory neurotransmitter that innervates hundreds of thousands of neurons in nuclei in the brain stem. These nuclei are interconnected with much of the brain, where they are responsible for the regulation of sensation via inhibition for protecting the brain from sensory overload and of norepinephrine, the hormone

responsible for regulating the sympathetic nervous system.

occipital regions. The normal function of the visual cortex, which lies in the orbital lobe, and takes the visual information from our eyes and tells us what we’re seeing. However, when we’re tripping, additional areas of the brain are involved in visual processing instead of the visual cortex alone, the greater the size of this phenomenon directly correlates with a greater the experience of visual hallucinations. Furthermore, the brain was showed to function as a more integrated brain; instead of individual networks performing distinct specialised functions, the distinction between these functions is broken down, and the brain operates in a strange unity.

The super-ego functions as a moral compass, possessing the two key systems of our conscience as well as our ideal image of self. The first phase predominantly concerns the ego, which guides our interactions with the outside world to satisfy our carnal desires; the resulting behavioural interactions are defined by Timothy Leary as a “Game”.

The activation of the sympathetic nervous system typically occurs in animals, when faced with a life-threatening situation, but also in adolescents and adult humans when tripping balls. The resulting symptoms include a raised heart rate, increased blood pressure, trembling/shaking, sweating, inhibited salivary glands, loss of appetite and sleeplessness.

Expansion of the Conscience Praise follows LSD, for its alleged consciousness-expanding experience, from both The Beatles and men who call shoes “foot prisons”. Much of the psychology behind this phenomenon is very mystical, to the point where you suspect the author may have regularly worn a wizard’s cape and not an academic gown at his graduation. The staple psychology behind it is discussed in the esoteric text of the Tibetan Book of the Dead and further enunciated by Timothy Leary in The Psychedelic Experience. These texts separate a trip into 3 phases. These phases have been heavily simplified and are very much context dependent, such that experiences will of course vary and may not even occur, though typically it is understood that the average Joe will rapidly oscillate between the three phases.

2. The Period of Hallucinations For those that hold fast onto their egos, the second phase will present as dominant due to the resulting anxiety and heightened brain activity. In this phase, one experiences unpredictable visions from werewolves on Lonsdale Street to shooting stars in Chifley. The differing hallucinations reflect different mental states. Set and setting determine the difference between a pleasant and scary trip. Set refers to the state of mind brought to the trip and setting refers to the environment that surrounds you, both the physical landscape and social setting.

Brain Scans and Smoked Hams Various scanning techniques have recently been employed to monitor blood flow and electrical activity in the brain, both on and off acid. Hallucinations have been attributed to the increased stimulation of the

1. The Period of Ego-loss or NonGame Ecstasy Ego dissolution forms the key focus of the acid trip, where the ego exists as a part of Freud’s psychoanalytical theory of the three personality elements of the id, ego and super-ego.

The primary pathway of the serotonergic system is the H-T2A receptor. This receptor affects a broad range of factors including those that stem from the prefrontal cortex such as cognitive and impulse processes. The H-T2A receptor is a G protein-coupled receptor that when activated via an agonist, typically serotonin, that causes a signal cascade that has the key effects of central nervous system neuronal excitement (thought to be the culprit for zippin’ your zapper), deregulated sensory input, activation of the sympathetic nervous system and hypothalamus stimulation, which can increase the levels of hormones such as oxytocin – the hormone that feels like a hug from mum. LSD weighs in here as it is structurally like 5-HT. It is consequently an agonist for the H-T2A receptor by disguising it as 5-HT and forming relationships with the H-T2A receptors, this plays a strong role in the key psychedelic effects of hallucinations and making you a tree hugging blabbering blundering bumbling baboon.

The focus of this phase lies on transcendence, which can only occur if one can “Turn off [their] mind, relax and float downstream”. Translated out of space-cadet lingo, as meaning, so long as one doesn’t panic nor try to rationalise their present predicament, they’ll be fine.

3. The Period of Re-Entry You return to Game reality, as well as to your Self, with the awareness brought on by ego dissolution and non-game ecstasy. One might say it’s like a roller coaster coming to a speedy stop, before hurriedly speeding right back down again like David Blaine, high on cocaine behind the wheel of a train out in coastal Spain.

discover // Business & Economics

Vol. 68 , Issue 02

What is an actuary, actually?

Text: Felix Ryan Graphic: Gil Rickey Xun Chun Tee, a 2016 graduate of ANU, discusses with current student Felix Ryan his experiences studying actuarial and the challenges and opportunities actuaries face in the coming years. I think many readers would agree that the actuarial profession is undergoing a process of rapid change in terms of job opportunities and education. As actuaries begin to find employment outside of the traditional areas of insurance, the skills that new actuaries need will only expand and diversify. But how will these new requirements and opportunities be affecting actuarial education and career experiences? I interviewed ANU graduate Xun Chun Tee on his time at university and his perception of the challenges and opportunities actuaries currently grapple with. Xun Chun undertook a bachelor’s degree of actuarial studies, where he achieved outstanding results. The multi-disciplinary nature of actuarial work, job stability and numerous career paths attracted him to the actuarial profession. Furthermore, with ANU’s world-wide reputation and resources meant that Xun Chun had no qualms about studying in Canberra. Xun Chun also had a lasting impact upon the university lives of other actuarial students; He co-founded ANU’s only actuarial society (ASOC), was a highly-respected tutor and a self-motivated research assistant. This combination of extra-curricular involvement and incredible academic results assisted him in landing a job as a financial trader in Amsterdam straight out of university. During the interview, Xun Chun revealed himself to be passionate

about the actuarial profession and its future trajectory. An issue I believed actuaries face was that the actuarial qualification is not widely known relative to the finance or statistics degree. Common opinion suggests that actuarial is a narrow degree preparing one for a career in insurance only, while attempting to break this mold ends in futility as employers prefer the traditional financiers or statisticians over the little- known actuaries. Consequently, I asked Xun Chun what he thought the major problems facing actuarial graduates were in both education and job opportunities. Xun Chun’s experiences however, dispelled what appears to be an outdated myth. Emphasising the broad nature of the actuarial training, which traverses areas from economic theory to statistics to finance and computing, Xun Chun describes an actuary as a multi-disciplinary master who is highly prized and renowned to employers. He believes, this has allowed actuaries to compete with finance majors and statistical modelers for roles in data science, financial trading and management amongst other occupations. In his case, the actuarial qualification unveiled the lesser-known career of financial trading, a job demanding the synthesis of financial, statistical and computing knowledge. As the importance of data becomes both increasingly critical and multi-faceted, the actuary’s unique understanding of data analysis and a plethora of disciplines will make them more employable in the future. However, Xun Chun does note that on occasions the lack of understanding of the actuarial qualification in the wider populous is at best, a minor problem. Unlike most professional employers, at a

university level, non-actuarial students often have difficulty understanding exactly what an actuary does. Even actuarial students he knew felt lost in the numerous academic fields in which they were traversing and confused about the career options available. The actuarial society, ASOC, was therefore to act as a beacon of light; an academic support network for students providing mentoring and tutoring sessions while simultaneously holding workshops with professional actuaries who discussed the skills that their careers required. Not only this, but Xun Chun hopes that ASOC raises the profile of actuarial students on campus and in the wider community, as well as keeping actuarial students up to date with the institute’s policies and changes in actuarial education. Xun Chun believes the most prominent problem in actuarial education is the inadequacy in proper programming skills. Actuaries are usually not taught beyond traditional computer basics as it relates to data analysis, such as excel or R studio(R). Xun Chun believes that modern data analytics requires higher level of competence in programming, as increasingly sophisticated softwares is needed to analyse the larger volumes of data being produced and solve more complicated business problems. Issues facing innovation and development in business and technology, such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, require both statistical skill and programming prowess to be solved. Many other university curriculum students, such as in statistics and computer science degrees, are already taught computer languages and coding that will modernize their statistical application and allow them to tackle these problems. Actuarial education however, has generally stuck to

the traditional business, economic and financial overview coupled with heavy statistical knowledge and limited coding/programming skills. What are the implications if actuarial education does not change? Xun Chun states that actuaries risk being relegated to insurance and re-insurance industries, while other quantitative degree holders with greater programming skills will dominate roles of data analysis and management in the workforce. Actuarial job options could potentially therefore be limited by a lack of understanding in programming. Xun Chun and I are optimistic that actuaries can overcome these hurdles and become the dominant and prestigious profession in the coming decades. Only actuarial has the broad understanding of a plethora of business and financial subjects as well as technical statistical modelling. All that essentially needs to be added to this expansive education is some additional programming and coding courses, that at least in ANU can be picked up via electives. Furthermore, combining one’s actuarial studies in a double degree with computer science is also ideal; ANU is unique in the extensive variety of degrees which can be fused with actuarial. As a student society, ASOC is here to inform students regarding the importance of programming to their job opportunities; and more generally the challenges and problems facing actuaries and how to tailor their education to account for them. Xun Chun has demonstrated critical foresight in saying that actuaries of the future must possess a business education and statistical ability, but also be adept in programming and software manipulation.

Week 3, Semester 1, 2018

ANU-Invented Text: Ivana Dulovic Graphic: Clarence Lee The ANU is becoming “greener” with the installation of 1700 ANU-invented “sliver cell” solar panels on the rooftops of seven buildings around the Acton campus. The panels will provide approximately 265 kilowatts of electricity generating capacity – which equates to the consumption of around 60 four-person households. The sliver cell technology utilised in these panels was invented by ANU researchers Professor Andrew Blakers, Associate Professor Klaus Weber and

Discover // Environment

solar panels on campus

Dr Matthew Stocks – all from the Research School of Engineering.

lighter and thinner,” explained lead researcher Klaus Weber.

Sliver cells have some key advantages over conventional cells, such as only using approximately one-tenth the amount of silicon. As silicon is quite expensive, this significantly reduces the cost of the cells. Lead researcher Klaus Weber explains how sliver cells are more efficient and thus cheaper:

The installation of the solar panels commenced in September 2017 and is due to be completed and fully operational by the middle of this year.

“The breakthrough idea was making solar cells from the volume of the silicon wafer rather than just using the surface. This has helped to significantly decrease the cost of the cells while at the same time it made the panels

Acknowledging themselves as one of the largest energy consumers in the ACT, the ANU is aiming to reduce their environmental footprint. To do this, the ANU has set several longterm plans – as well as some smaller changes to everyday operations. “…the University is looking at all options, including introducing onsite renewable energy generation across all ANU campuses and incorporating renewable energy generation into new building developments,” said Professor Ken Baldwin, director of the ANU Energy Change Institute.

These options would complement one of the targets set by the University’s draft Environmental Management Plan 2016-2020 – which aims to increase the generation of renewable energy by 50 percent by 2020. Currently, energy at ANU’s Acton campus is sourced from a mix of fossil fuels and some onsite renewable energy (photovoltaic arrays and evacuated tube solar hot water). However, the University is developing an Energy Master Plan – which will provide a strong foundation for the future direction of energy resources and sustainable operations. Supported by the Plan, and the implementation of projects such as this solar panel installation, it is clear the ANU is serious in its endeavour to become environmentally friendly.

Discover // Environment

Vol. 68 , Issue 02

It’s getting hot in here

Text: Elizabeth Suk-Hang Lam Graphic: Mia Jessurun and Nathalie Rosales Cheng

Feeling exceptionally hot this summer? Heatwaves have been a long-term problem in Australia, causing deaths all over the country since 1844. For example, in 2013 we were struck by the record-breaking heatwave in January, where temperatures exceeded 48 °C in many locations across northwestern New South Wales, northeastern South Australia and western Queensland. In 2014, the Climate Council published a report predicting that heatwaves in Australia would be happening more and more frequently. In fact, the number of hot days has already doubled over the last five decades. However, a recent survey in Western Sydney and the North Coast of NSW showed that 45 per cent of residents and businesspeople did not know what to do in the extreme heat. But, before digging into solutions:

What are heatwaves? A heatwave occurs in a region when there are at least three days in a row with high air temperatures - due to unusual excess heat. Excess heat typically occurs when the overnight temperatures are not low enough to cool the heat from the day. This causes the heat in the region to intensify when the sun continues to heat the land up again the next day. The exact definition and temperature requirements of a heatwave are specific to a region. For instance, a heatwave in Hobart

can have lower temperatures than a heatwave in Alice Springs.

How high is high temperature? There are many methods to measure and classify heatwaves. According to Scorcher, a study conducted by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, the maximum temperature of each day of the year is compared to a threshold that is specific for that date. The threshold is defined as the 90th percentile of the maximum temperatures on that date between the years 19611990. That is, when the maximum temperature for a consecutive three-day period is higher than 90 percent of the historical maximum temperatures for those same dates during the above 30-year period, a heatwave is said to have occurred.

Why are there heatwaves? Here comes the science: Not every part of the Earth receives the same amount of sunlight. The regions directly facing the sun are heated up more than those farther away. This is like how you feel hotter when standing directly under the sun at noon than when you are enjoying a beautiful sunset in the evening. This unequal heating causes the air in the equatorial region of the Earth to rise and travel to the south. Thanks to the Earth’s rotation, the hot air returns to the surface at a latitude of roughly 30 degrees. This is why most deserts on the Earth appear at this particular latitude – including the Arabian, Sahara, Kalahari, and Namib of Africa. The central part of Australia is covered by hot, dry desert. As air moves from the west to the east

coast, warm air from the central desert also moves to the East coast. The central desert causes high atmospheric pressures. This high pressure acts like a heavy blanket that blocks the hot-air below from rising - trapping it at the ground level. If overnight cooling is not sufficient to relieve the heat from the day, the heat will intensify and result in a heatwave.

Although an increase of one degree may seem insignificant, we can experience heat exhaustion if our body temperature rises above 38 oC. If our body temperature reaches 42˚C, heat stroke or death can occur.

Fortunately, when the soils are wet and moist, a certain amount of heat can be removed via evaporative cooling. However, in the case of drought, evaporative cooling cannot play its role, thus trapping and intensifying the heat. This leads to the same phenomenon described above: the daytime heat is not cooled through the night, meaning the morning may be as hot as the afternoon of the previous day. Then as the sun continues to heat the region even more, this may aggravate day by day and thus result in a heatwave.

First, excess heat can kill plants and crops, which threatens the health of our environment and food security. This may leave certain parts of the world unsuitable for growing crops, which could lead to famine. Second, heatwaves also increase the demand for cooling systems and electricity. Not only will you have to pay more for your electricity bills, but this could also increase the current burden on our climate systems. Third, not all animals can survive in the hot environment. This poses danger to precious species such as black cockatoos and koala bears. And lastly, as the sea temperature rises, coral reefs often cannot survive and are bleached. In fact, half of the Great Barrier Reef coral has been lost in the past three decades – with frequent and stronger heatwaves adding to their destruction.

Another cause of heatwaves is when the high-pressure system stalls in the east or south coasts of Australia. The hot air is pulled towards the south-east areas for longer periods and results in heatwaves. Heatwaves can also happen if a cyclone appears over the north west of Western Australia. During such an event, tropical heat is pushed into the upper atmosphere and then sucked down over central Australia. Central Australia heats up the air even more, which then travels to south-east Australia, causing severe heatwaves.

Why are heatwaves harmful for people? The human body operates at 37˚C.

Why are heatwaves harmful for our earth and society?

What can you do? In the event of a heatwave, we should remain calm and:

Stay hydrated Dress in light-colored clothing Stay out of the sun Seek air conditioning Never leave anyone or any pets in parked vehicles Take care of each other

Week 3, Semester 1, 2018

Discover // Environment

FEMINISM IS the KEY TO REVERSING CLIMATE CHANGE, data shows Text: Nick Blood Graphic: Hannah Charny

What if I told you that one of the best ways to tackle climate change is to be a good feminist? Well, that’s what the data shows us. I recently attended an ANU Climate Change Institute event where Paul Hawken, the author of Drawdown: The most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming, presented his book and its findings. The book examines 100 different ways to reverse climate change and ranks them according to their effectiveness. Many of the results from the research are surprising, like the one I opened this article with – educating young women (ranked #6) and providing them with access to family planning (#7) represent two paths to lower global emissions that are individually more effective than solar farms (#8), afforestation (#15) or mass transit (#37). Who saw that one coming? I’ve been studying the intersection of feminist causes and sustainable development for years – across a range of subjects at ANU – and even I was floored by this. Those of you doing Gender Studies: ask yourselves just how much of that field dedicates itself to promoting its cause as a core part of sustainable development? I ’ m guessing, as in m y own studies, that sustainability doesn’t quite have the prominence it deserves. For those of you who identify with or work to advocate for feminist causes, ask yourself the same question: how often do we talk about female empowerment in terms of emissions reductions? I’m guessing it’s not a common discourse, yet the data shows it clearly should be. That’s the beauty of a book like this and the research it’s based on – it’s pure number-crunching. As Hawken stressed at multiple points in his presentation: “We do the math: We map, we measure, we model. We are not advocates. We don’t engage in advocacy”. When you have that approach; when you dive into the numbers without an agenda, the results are often surprising. The #1 ranked solution to reverse global warming is refrigeration management – making our fridges and air conditioners emit less hydrof luorocarbons (HFCs). HFCs warm the atmosphere

some 1,000-9,000 times more than CO2 - and this simple fact makes them a huge problem. “Refrigeration is number one?!” Hawken recalled, feigning the disappointment he must have felt when his team discovered it was the leading candidate for climate change reversal: “That’s so unsexy. Nobody cares.” And that’s sustainability in a nutshell, basically – trying to make people care about utterly mundane, everyday things; the clothes we wear, the products we purchase, and the refrigerant chemicals we use to keep us cool in the harsh Australian summers. This is part of the problem when it comes to sustainability challenges like climate change, and certainly part of the explanation for our profoundly dangerous lack of

progress so far. It’s not sexy enough, so nobody cares. And yet with this new list of 100 solutions, we have something very topical and potentially very engaging. Solutions #6 and #7 in the list – educating young girls, and empowering them to choose their own family planning outcomes, both clearly fall under the broader feminist agenda. Feminism is a topic students and countless others are already engaging with right now, in a big way. It’s sexy in a way that HFCs are not. The #metoo movement represents another part of the broader feminist movement – this time against sexual assault and harassment. At face value, it may have little to do with educating girls, giving them access to contraception, or focusing on emissions

reductions, but it remains a powerful example of modern feminism’s reach and profile. What might the future of feminism look like when the incredible sustainability gains it offers become more commonly known - and are eventually integrated into campaigns of comparable size and scope to the #metoo movement? From a sustainability student’s perspective, that future looks very bright for all of us – for feminism especially. I have spent over a year working for the ANU Men’s Network – trying to create a community where issues like feminism could be discussed. And I can tell you that for some men, including those we share a campus with, feminism is a hard sell. Listing the myriad reasons for this goes beyond the scope of this article, but one prominent challenge lies in helping men recognise the value of feminism to them – that it’s a liberating, and not oppressing, force. Hawken’s findings suggest a way out of this seemingly intractable debate. With this data now present to bolster decades-long arguments about the benefits of empowering women, it seems to me that feminism has a golden opportunity to further increase the strength of its position, and to demonstrate its relevance and benefit to all. It can do this by embracing the truly enormous role feminist causes can play in the realm of sustainability. If we can unite under that banner and create a movement like #metoo, we could make a genuinely massive impact in reversing global warming. Indeed, Hawken noted that the combined effects of achieving solutions #6 and #7 would outweigh that of #1. Who could argue against such a thing?

Of course, in many ways these campaigns and arguments already existed. Topics like sustainable development and international development have long argued for the sustainability gains of feminism. What’s needed is more action and amplification of that message. If we can continue to reframe feminism as a movement that will save our planet and our species, it becomes much harder for reticent men and other critics to dismiss its relevance, or to argue that only some of us benefit. When that framing is grounded on number-crunching and cold, numerical calculations, it becomes even harder to disregard. As Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote way back in 1912: ‘You cannot lift the world at all. While half of it is kept so small.’ This is a long-running argument, and now we have access to some incredible new data to show just how relevant and important it is. So why not capitalise on that opportunity?

Discover // Environment

Vol. 68 , Issue 02

How Cycling Can Change Your Life Text: Jessica Woolnough Graphic: Millie Wang

than buying a new or used bicycle, which can range from around $50-500. You can buy a new bike from stores like Cycle Canberra in the pop-up village, and Big W in Canberra Centre. Or you can grab a recycled bike from the Recyclery down on the corner of Lawson Crescent and Lennox Crossing at the ANU. The Recyclery offers quite a few extra sustainability perks – in that it is a non-profit cycle business that employs people with disabilities to repair bikes for resale. When you purchase a recycled Recyclery bike, you’ll be helping support the great work they do. So if you are on a tight budget – or would rather save your money for something like travel – then a bicycle is definitely the way to go. Benefit 5: Quicker to get between classes ANU is a fairly small campus – and it doesn’t take too long to get from one end to the other… typically. But with the current redevelopments in progress, classes are spread far and wide between the remaining open buildings. This means the trail from class A to class B is likely a bit longer than usual – even taking around 20 minutes to

A n yone who has ever driven to ANU will tell you how hard getting a park can be. The battle to find a car space isn’t the only downfall to driving to ANU, with the costs associated with running and maintaining a car often burning holes in students’ pockets. So why not switch to a cheaper and more sustainable alternative? Why not cycle to Uni? I know what some of you are thinking: it’s just too hot to cycle. Well, first of all, it’s not going to be this hot in Canberra for much longer! And second of all, there are some pretty awesome benefits to cycling that I’m about to share with you. Benefit 1: Physical and Mental Wellbeing Cycling is a low impact form of exercise, whilst still being a great method for building muscle, strength, and stamina. As a mostly aerobic activity, regular cycling will do wonders for your heart, blood vessels, and lungs. Health benefits range from increased cardio fitness and muscle strength, to decreased stress, anxiety and depression. You’re likely to see some improvement in your flexibility and coordination too! Benefit 2: Sustainable, low-carbon transport Your average vehicle emits nearly five metric tons of CO2 every year. Yes, you read that right. To put it in context,

this is equivalent to the amount of CO2 emitted by the average energy-consuming household over 140 days, or that emitted by a 13-watt lightbulb run continuously for 43.91 years. As such, road transport accounts for over 12 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions produced in Australia – making it a huge contributor. This is far more than your average bicycle, which is an emission-free form of transport. So that’s one big sustainability tick for bike riding! What a wonderful way to reduce your carbon footprint, as well as local air pollution. Benefit 3: Easier to get a ‘park’ Anyone who has ever had to park at the ANU at any time much later than 8:30am will know how difficult it can be to find a park. I’m talking circling through all the permit parking regions for 30 minutes or more. Sometimes you even have to give up, and go park off-campus and walk in. Parking at ANU can be a frustrating ordeal… an ordeal you can easily surpass with a bike! With over 40 bike enclosures holding over 2,000 spots, why not ditch the car for cycling instead? Benefit 4: No need to pinch pennies This is a no-brainer, but I want to highlight just how much you can save by switching to a bike. According to the Australian Automobile Association, a Canberran will spend on average around $7,700 per year to maintain and run a car. This is a lot more expensive

walk it. And when you have 10 minutes to get between classes, this isn’t ideal! Thus, being able to save time by cycling between classes is definitely a plus! And abandoned bikes…? I know some of you might be wondering – how about abandoned bikes? Don’t they bring down the overall sustainability of cycling and fill up much-needed secure bike spots? It’s well known that many cyclers tend to abandon old bikes when they are no longer wanted… but ANU isn’t going to let them take up bike-spots for long, nor are they going to let them go to waste. In fact, any good-condition or repairable bicycles that aren’t claimed after three months get donated to charity. For ANU, this equates to around 140 bicycles donated a year. Any bicycles deemed unsafe for reuse are recycled, not put to waste or landfill – which is great to see! So, for those of you who live nearby, I ask you – why not reap the benefits and give cycling to uni a go? Even for those of you who live too far away, there still might be a way you can help… Given the sheer number of bicycles donated in Canberra every year, the ANU Sustainability Office is currently looking for more organisations interested in reusing bicycles or bicycle parts. If this sounds like something your organisation would be interested in, give the Office an email at anugreen@anu.edu.au.

Week 3, Semester 1, 2018

Witching hour waits Text: Florence Wellfair Graphic: David Liu The 21st century; an age of scientific breakthrough, progressive social liberalism, and an unrivalled freedom of expression. We are adapting our world to our demands so quickly that we think we’ve moved past the need for cautionary tales and folklore. We’ve become complacent about the stability of our progress. We believe in our ability to discern reality from superstition earnestly; we forget that everyone who ever lived did, too. Every generation has broken through the restraints of its predecessors to forge a new and better era. To our modern minds, fear and suffering belong to the past. We feel indestructible at our core, and liberated at our edges. Superior.

indiscernible. Its skin had bubbled and warped as though it were made of plastic, and its mouth gaped open in shameless, frozen agony. Blood was congealed on every limb – the torso, the head – from cracks formed by increased internal pressure. The skeleton was so deformed that the poor soul must have been paralysed. Laura wasn’t religious, but in this moment she prayed that paralysis might have stopped some of the suffering. She turned away from the pitiful, shrunken thing. It terrified her. This time, the disease had taken hundreds. One by one, the passengers packed on the peak-time train had been

CREATIVE

content warning: death

A safeguard to put everyone’s minds at rest, to reassure them it wouldn’t happen again – it was just a news story! Families, friends, and strangers watched on helplessly, horrified as the disease’s symptoms struck again. Bodies twisted and writhed, deforming and contracting as the mystery illness flooded their veins. There had been the Black Plague in the Middle Ages; the White

So, despite all our advances, why are we still scared to look in the mirror? With all our capacity to restrain danger, why does our subconscious create it, sustain it, search for it? Because really, we know the truth. We are always our own cautionary tale, a danger we can’t escape. We never move on from folklore because it doesn’t exist outside of us. It was never folklore we were scared of. It was never silly monsters and sprites. It’s us. It’s always us. Dr Laura Harville strode calmly – confidently – through the throng of panicked people. “It’s fine, it’s alright. Move aside, please.” Though grown men sobbed and children shook, the crowd parted like lost sheep, desperate for guidance. Eyes clung to her. “That’s it, easy does it now. That’s it.” The voice of reason. Laura made her way towards the sound as police directed people toward first aid tents and ambulances; anywhere away from the scene of chaos. People submitted in relief; they were safe. Laura looked down at the stretcher, struggling to maintain an impassive expression. The helpless thing laying there didn’t even look human anymore; gender and age were completely

was a punishment for all our consumerism and immorality. Ten minutes before the Death first struck, superstition had been a thing of the past; now it reclaimed its place, sustaining a single candle of hope in the darkness of the unknown. Those standing on the platform rushed and shouted and wept, trying desperately to help. Some banged on windows madly, trying to pull them open; some tried to phone the police, and received an infuriating voicemail advising them that help was on the way. Where the hell were they, then? The HAZMAT teams, the doctors that happened to be commuting and carrying cures in their briefcase - where were they? The people hurried and yelled instructions in spite of themselves. There was nothing else to do. Within minutes of horrific agony, all 1224 people on the train were dead. The last was a young woman. Drawing painstakingly desperate breaths from behind the glass, her bloodshot eyes widened, pleading. She coughed violently, spit and blood spattering from her cracked, yellowed lips onto the window. There was a bang as her head fell forward. After that, everything – even the living – was silent. Death took all.

infected with it. In turn, those on the platform had realised. The doors had been locked. There was nothing anyone could do. Blackened limbs had grasped at windows that had been sealed, airtight, to reduce outside contamination. People had panicked as they realised they couldn’t be saved, that they weren’t supposed to be saved. Sealing the trains had just been a news story, hadn’t it?

Plague-disguised tuberculosis. This was just called the Death. No one wanted to acknowledge, or even remember, that the Death was as out of control as two of the most terrifying epidemics in human history. It was compared to Ebola or malaria by authorities clutching at anything to reassure that something could be done. But the Death took more than those viruses ever had. Hundreds of thousands at a time suffered hellishly, without relief, as the world’s most trusted doctors and scientists staggered after it in vain. Usually, the Death took them as well. Many people turned to religion, desperate for consolation, some big-picture explanation. Perhaps this

It’s been a long time since the last of the Death took place. Humanity suffered as it had never suffered in living memory, and perhaps that’s the worst part. Perhaps if we’d remembered the tales told by our predecessors, we would have understood the reality; that the potential for widespread, uncontrollable calamity is always present. We truly are our own cautionary tale, and we always will be, though we won’t listen next time either. Our pride is too strong, our sense of superiority growing stronger with every success. But if the next generation learns anything from the mistakes of one which felt perennial, let it be this: Ours are not new wounds. Their scars will split to bleed again.

Vol. 68 , Issue 02

CREATIVE

Going solo Text: Shikhar Mishra Art: David Liu It was dark. A winter moon, sparkling white, right behind the starry night. A promise, a message, a dream Of a wondrous village, with great furore. A beacon of knowledge, power, light. And Truth.

about you Text: Amanda Dheerasekera

But all this was not “A long, long time ago.”

in your voice i see

“In a galaxy far, far away.”

a golden

No!

net

And that’s not how the story ended.

and

It continues.

banks

I talked to my ego, contemplating our A voyage ‘cross uncharted stars is all life, it seems, Questioning our existence, pushing against our strife. But the starry night, quite calm and serene, Both of us know that our little adventure Won’t budge lest we fight, was never one of leisure or ease, It schemes. And after all this way, We pack our bags, going solo. Little do we know, along comes our At the least our hearts stood appeased. ego. Our goal was never to reach the peak, Pitter, patter, off we go, Only experience the joy of the climb, Our destination, a miles’ throw. To break no bones, In sprawling darkness, off we rowed, Or to lose our mind. Over thunderous waves and murky swamps. And so here we sit together, me and my partner. Days past on this rusty track, With our old sea oars, rowing and smilYet the glittering moon still shone, ing, With our eyes still searching for a spark Merely shifted aback. bright, Along came another wintery night, All as we journey across this mighty, Another day of dismay, starry night. A New Hope for light.

of soil wet and bruised from birthing wildflowers and the sap spilling slowly from eucalypts that I watch (and you must too) and the Summer sun breaks and runs and runs

Week 3, Semester 1, 2018

content warning: domestic violence, suicide. It’s 7:26am. He’s snoring. Why do they always have to snore? You listen You think how easy it would to reach out, and Strangle him Watch him Die

You don’t. This is Not Him. Pause. Breathe. One. Two. Three. A new scent chokes you. You’re relieved it’s not the smell of love or despair or a year that is now ash from cigarettes on his lips. Eyebrows furrow, lips make this fucking half-smile that you thought was reserved for Just

And as you kiss you forget who this person is. And you panic. You need to remember. You want to know that this is someone New, something New. That you’re not going to wake with your heart Cut out. Bloodied bed sheets. With fifty missed calls, and A suicide note. You wish you could take a Fork to your brain and mash out all those memories. Chequered shirts Plaster wood Borrowed chairs Awkward drinks. And now you Need to breathe that smell of someone else’s flesh and sweat. One. Two. Three. You’ve forgotten what it feels like to have someone touch your skin. You’d never thought you’d want to feel that again. But this skin, this skin is yours. And not his. And he can’t touch You Now.

Getting into the ARENA Text: Alex Costello Graphic: Sophie Bear

Right there in front of you.

Him.

CREATIVE

this poem is not about you Text: Kat Carrington Graphics: Sophie Bear

I am standing solemnly in the tunnel leading out to the arena. There’s a slight chill in the air and my bare arms and legs are riddled with goose bumps. I am staring intently at my feet. The lace of my left trainer is loosely tied and I wonder if I should tighten it before I walk out. I take in one deep breath smelling the sweetness of the freshly mown grass, and the lingering, sharp scent of my perspiration. My breaths are shallow but rapid and consistent and my loose shirt billows over my chest and stomach. I must look like a boy in this uniform. I have a white-knuckle grip around the hem of my shirt. My view shifts and I think when did my legs get so lanky and pale? I begin to question whether or not I am built for a day like today. Whether or not I am built for this kind of physical contact. Doubt runs through my mind like blood through my veins. I am not ready. Maybe next year, I think. And then, almost ironically my feet begin one in front of the other, headed straight to the arena. My head is hot and my knees are weak. But I keep walking. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. I march. I am not ready. What if I fall? What if I can’t get back up again? What if I get hurt? My mother always warned me about these kinds of games. I am not ready. There is an eerie silence in the air, filled by the beckoning taunts of my consciousness. I am not ready. As I reach the end of the tunnel and raise my head, almost as if on a string and look out into the seats I see there are three people watching me. Waiting for me to enter. Only three. In the entire arena. I can feel the sweat running down my temples and my fists clenched around my shirt becoming clammy and sore. It is in this moment I want to turn around. I want to go back down the tunnel and away from these intense gazes. I want to go back to safety. Almost ironically, my legs keep moving. I will them to turn around and yet they keep marching forward, robotically, toward the middle of the grass, centralizing these six eyes onto me. I am not ready. I feel small. But I keep walking. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Once I have reached the middle of the arena, I look up. I see the same familiar six eyes, staring judgingly down at me. In this moment I realize I have lost all breath. Instead, I stand solemnly, not breathing, staring back at

them terrified. Second pass, and feel like years. Then I look down. To the front row of the arena and I see my mum. She’s waving at me, smiling from her seat, wrapped up in a blanket striped with my team’s colours. Then I see my dad. And my sisters. And my grandma. All smiling, waving, cheering me on. Then, as if part of a dream, sitting next to my family I see myself staring back at me. My cheeks are flushed, my eyes bright and the corners of my mouth turned upwards in a comforting smile. I squeeze my eyes shut and tears burst from their seams. I open them again and surely enough see myself sitting there. Still waiting. Still smiling. I draw in a deep breath and look up at the three people sitting in the nosebleed seats of the arena and suddenly they seem smaller and more distant. I stand up tall. And begin to play. Theodore Roosevelt said that ‘it is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming.’ According to Brene Brown, there will always be three people in the arena. Shame, scarcity and comparison. These three people will be there to watch, to judge, to influence. As a player, we have no control over them being in the arena. All we can do, is reserve a seat for them, distant from the play, distant from our forethought and continue. It matters not so much that they are there, but that you walked out into the arena in the first place. And instead of fixating about their presence, look to the front row. See who is there. See who is cheering you on. See who is wearing your colours because they are who matters. Whether you err, or are covered in goosebumps or want to turn back, the most important thing is that you made it into the arena and that you’re sitting in your own front row.

Vol. 68 , Issue 02

satire

“Why would you study ARTs?” asks local stem kid after not sleeping for three days Text: Caroline Dry Graphic: David Liu Reports indicate that on Friday, after spending seventy straight hours locked in a room monitoring a machine for his physics supervisor, local STEM student Matthew met up with the group of people that he sees once every three weeks and refers to as his ‘friends’. They kicked off their monthly slosh with some lively debate about how unfair the ATAR cut-off is for the PhB degree is and how the one biology student among them was objectively the worst person on the entire planet. However, it wasn’t long before the conversation was punctuated by long, awkward pauses. It seemed like

Matthew’s brief taste of human interaction was about to come to a crashing halt, especially after somebody suggested to the math kid that maybe doing highly specialised courses didn’t actually make him better than anyone and just made him unemployable. Matthew desperately fumbled around for a point

of conversation and, soon enough, struck gold. ‘But why would you do arts?’ he cried, downing his third energy drink in two hours. The comment was well-received, and the next forty-five minutes were dedicated to tearing into arts students and their sad, sad lives. One of their number, Ben, landed a joke lauded by the others as ‘spicy’ when he asked the group what the difference between a philosophy degree and a

bench was, and went on to explain that a bench could support a family. Incidentally, Ben had just spent the last two months reading WikiHow articles on ‘how to be empathetic’ in preparation for the GAMSAT. They made it through the entire night without awkwardly trying to work out each other’s GPAs, and instead cheerfully compared how many years had passed since any of them had actually read a book. All went home satisfied, with many informing their housemates that their friends ‘weren’t so bad after all’. It is widely reported that Matthew saw an article on Facebook discussing the lack of employment opportunities for law students and intends to raise the topic when he next sees his friends in twenty- four days’ time. More to come.

My recent interest in men’s rights has nothing to do with my chronic case of foot fungus, I assure you Firstly, I’d like to request that you stop pointing it out as I am very much aware of the social isolation due to this wicked odour. There is no correlation between my newfound interest in MRA forums and this ongoing fungal exile.

The mere fact that I may not be a successful romantic due to a microbial infection has no bearing on my astute analysis of the rights of men and women. I have dedicated many hours to pondering over the great thinkers of the Youtube Philosopher generation. They have led me to a conclusion which is in no way inf luenced by the cloud of rage which hovers over me, choking me in my own noxious gases as my feet re-odorise the tutorial room. Furthermore, I find people that point it out rather superficial. I am not

Sudoku

I have been the unknowing subject of many investigations into the ‘mystery smell’ pervading certain Arndt tutorial rooms and whilst I am legally obligated to apologise

to those who had to seek medical treatment, it does not come easy to me.

Credit: Sebastian Rossi

concerned with the physical plane of interaction, but rather devote my time to higher intellectual pleasures – philosophy, debate, et cetera. I have no time for superficial people. It’s known in the science of biology that only animals of crude nature select their sexual partners based upon physical traits, and that the true aphrodisiacal characteristic of man is his intellect. Please note that my designation of such people as superficial emerges not from a default position of excessive defensiveness, and if it did, it certainly wouldn’t be because I’m terribly insecure over my extremely stinky feet. I would be happy to engage you in a

Previous Edition Solution

Text: Will Fletcher Graphic: Hannah Charny

civil discussion at the digital podium. You can find me online at the ‘ANU Schmidtposting’ (note that I use an anime image as my display picture in order to keep my identity secret). Please give me ample time to respond to your comment, as in between brinebaths for my feet and cross-referencing your points to a home made chart of logical fallacies, I don’t have much time on my hands. Thanks.