Woroni: Edition 6, 2012

SEX, DRUGS, AND A MURRAYS BUS TRIP [P15]

INSIDE:

AVENGERS: THE VERDICT [19]

DANIEL ROSE ON LIVE BELOW THE LINE {[P5]

WORONI The Australian National University Newspaper Since 1948

NO. 6 VOL 64

MAY 10

The Day the Music Died Staff cuts and massive curriculum restructure announced at School of Music

Up in the air?

Has the Vice-Chancellor backed away from controversial cuts?

TOM WESTLAND, NAKUL LEGHA & VICTOR WHITE Music students, staff and the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) have hit out at the University’s proposed staff cuts and restructuring of the music curriculum, which will see full-time positions nearly halved at the school and the phasing out of a performance-focussed Bachelor of Music and one-on-one tuition. Students have planned a major rally in the coming week which will present a petition to Chancelry, and the NTEU has formally lodged a dispute arguing that the University has breached its Enterprise Agreement with staff.

From 2013, students will be offered an overhauled and “professionally oriented” curriculum that centres on “graduate outcomes” for students. The School of Music head, Professor Adrian Walter, and Deputy ViceChancellor (Academic), Professor Marnie Hughes-Warrington, said that funding pressures and a “challenging environment” had forced the school to dramatically change its offerings to students. A staff email distributed

by Vice-Chancellor Ian Young stated that the proposal was “business driven with a focus

on a developing a sustainable educational rationale”.

There will be approximately ten full-time jobs cut from the School in a “spill”, with all 23 full-time positions to be declared vacant, and staff encouraged to apply for only 13 full-time positions. Most staff at the School are employed on a casual basis, however, the University did not specify whether cuts will be made to sessional employment.

New music students will lose access to oneon-one tuition and dedicated theory classes, with intensive workshops and videoconference master classes replacing many current course offerings. Students will be given an allowance which they can use to purchase tuition privately (around $600 a semester).

Professor Walter conceded this will be half of what is currently available, and would buy around 6-8 hours of private tuition at market rates. Currently all students are offered 13 hours of tuition per semester.

The two made it clear that the changes would only apply to new students, and that current students would be allowed to com-

plete their degrees in their current forms.

However, students have “Career destinations will underpin what we offer”, said Professor Walter. Professor Hughes-Warrington said that the changes were “educationally exciting” and offered “new opportunities” to the school. Both emphasised that the new degree focus had developed out of areas of “student demand”.

At a press conference following the announcement, Professor Hughes-Warrington said the changes had been in the works for three years, although the recent financial environment had necessitated a faster timetable.

She said that the School of Music ran an annual deficit of $2.7 million, and confirmed that the goal of the restructure would be to eliminate the deficit, and for the School to “live within its means”.

She said this proposal was not related to the recently announced (and partially retracted) cuts across the University, totaling $40 million.

However, Stephen Darwin strongly challenged this assertion, saying that the both proposals

CONTINUED PAGE 3

In an email to all ANU students and staff on Monday 30th April, ANU Vice-Chancellor Professor Ian Young announced a change in the timeline and procedure of his Financial Repositioning Plan.

The plan, which had included $40 million of budget cuts. Most notable is the announcement that proposed staff cuts, originally totalling $25 million, will now take place over a longer time period.

But, following Professor Young’s subsequent announcement of a dramatic restructuring of the ANU School of Music, which includes staff redundancies, the veracity of Professor Young’s “back-down” have been called into question.

While the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) Marnie Hughes-Warrington denied any link between the Music School cuts and Professor Young’s proposed university-wide cuts, the timing of the changes has raised questions amongst staff and student bodies.

Following the close of the consultation period last Friday, Professor Young said he accepted the general concern amongst staff that “the proposed timelines were too ambitious to allow careful consideration of implications” and that there were alternative ways of making savings.

He said more savings could be made by “removing administrative duplication and generally improving our business processes”, a process that will take “up to 2 years to complete”.

The announcement came after a large protest against Professor Young’s proposal the previous week, at which more than three hundred members of staff and some students gathered in Union Court to condemn the cuts. The protesters then marched to the Chancery, where they delivered a petition

CONTINUED PAGE 4

NEWS//2

UniLodge’s Senior Resident Confusion MARIE NGIAM

Canberra rental market: brutal SHAN VERNE LIEW

LESS than seven per-cent of rental housing in Canberra is affordable, according to a Anglicare report that was released last week to The Canberra Times. ‘’Housing costs have increased 63 percent in Canberra over the last six years, and the ACT now has the highest private rental market of all states and territories,’’ Anglicare ACT general manager Jenny Kitchen said to The Canberra Times.

The report defined affordable housing as any property requiring rent equal to less than 30 percent of total household income. ‘’There is no other major urban centre in Australia that is unable to supply any affordable housing for families on a minimum-wage income,’’ she said.

Of the 2,000 rental properties surveyed, the study failed to find a single property that was affordable for unmarried individuals receiving NewStart, Youth Allowance or AusStudy

support.

For some demographics, the only affordable accommodation available for renters was located in Harden, Marulan and Goulbourn, over an hour’s drive from Canberra.

High rates in Canberra have been less difficult on renters employed in the public service.

But rates have also forced some to choose between paying rent and affording basic necessities, according to the report.

A separate ACT Shelter report, also released last week, cited high rent as a primary cause of prolonged homelessness in Canberra, “both as an underlying driver of housing poverty and an immediate ‘trigger’ for eviction into homelessness.”

Once homeless, the report found that Canberrans spend on average 112 days in crisis accommodation, compared to an average of 54 days in Queensland.

Confusion has arisen among Senior Residents (SRs) at UniLodge as to the nature of responsibilities being undertaken.

In a meeting held last week with UniLodge management, SRs were asked to initiate and oversee projects which were aimed at improving the life of residents living in the four UniLodges at the ANU. Although they were given the opportunity to contribute their own ideas, a number of SRs were confused about the nature of projects they were to undertake.

Cameron Bestwick, former Residents’ Committee President and current Community Coordinator has informed Woroni that “The projects are essentially the type of work that SRs do in their portfolios at the ANU halls, which are focused on improving the residents’ experience.”

“These are projects that the SRs have been engaging in over the past few years,” Bestwick said.

“SRs were invited to engage in projects to improve residential life. By formalising this process, we can achieve a lot more for the residents - which is our focus as the pastoral care team at UniLodge.” he added.

Yet an informant who wishes to remain anonymous told Woroni it has been suggested that SRs carry out a range of administrative roles in undertaking these projects.

These include responsibilities normally carried out by receptionists employed by Unilodge, cleaning and tidying the UniLodge bike sheds, organising keys to buildings in the four UniLodges as well as ensuring that receptionists have adequate first aid training.

Though the role of SRs is essentially one of pastoral care, Woroni understands that certain individuals have indicated they were threatened with having to undertake them, or risk foregoing a positive reference from the Dean.

&CETERA Clive’s big boat

The skinny on Vogue

The mining magnate recorded his most successful day trolling, announcing his plan to build a giant boat in the same breath as he declared his intention to seek pre-selection in the “Stop the boats” Coalition. According to Palmer, the Titanic replica will “not be designed with a hole in it” and will bring jobs to Australia even though it’s being built in China. One can only assume that these jobs will come via illegal immigrants on the ship’s maiden voyage to Australia.

All 19 editions of Vogue have declared that its glossy pages will cease to use underage models to masquerade eating disorders as beauty. But with the camera adding 10 pounds darling, this promise, like its models, is paper-thin. As for its supersized take on the protection of minors, well that’s what makeup is for right?

MARIE NGIAM

BRIEFLY Campus NAB branch to close National Australia Bank (NAB) has announced that it will be closing its ANU store from Friday 15 June at 5pm. The store is currently situated at the ANU Chancelry Building on Fellows Road and customer details will subsequently be transferred to the NAB Canberra City store, located at 179 London Circuit. Customers will still be able to do their banking at any NAB store, and NAB City Store Manager, Julie Hammond, has assured customers that they will be contacted directly and iformed of the closure as well as the range of personal and business banking services available at the London Circuit branch.

– MARIE NGIAM

EDITORIAL BOARD Angus Minns Uma Patel Tom Westland Victor White Nakul Legha Lisa Visentin Zid Mancenido Liv Clark

ANU Climate Scientists’ Death Threat Claims Unfounded: Privacy Commissioner

PARSA president elected VP of national postgraduate council Areti Metuamate, President of ANU Postgraduate and Research Students’ Association (PARSA), has been elected Vice President of the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations (CAPA). CAPA is the national representative body of postgraduate student associations and represents over 320,000 postgraduate students at tertiary institutions.

Mr Metuamate will act in the Vice President role for the remainder of the year, filling the vacancy created by the resignation of the previous Vice President from the University of Sydney.

– LISA VISENTIN

SUB EDITORS

Marie Ngiam Shan-Verne Liew Richard Keys Gareth Robinson Vincent Chiang Jess Millen Farzaneh Edraki Ben Henschke Tasman Vaughan Fergus Hunter

– – – – – – – – – –

Campus News Canberra News Comment Features Life & Style Reviewed Back Page At-Large Radio Radio

The ANU made the headlines of The Australian last week when it emerged that reports of ANU climate change scientists being subjected to death threats were unfounde.

In June last year, a range of media outlets including Fairfax Media and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported how ANU climate researchers were subjected to a terror campaign, including a foray of vicious email exchanges alleged to contain abusive and offensive language as well as death threats.

At the time, Vice-Chancellor Ian Young denounced these threats as intolerable and increased the security of the scientists embroiled in the fiasco, including moving them into more secure buildings. However, Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pigrim debunked these threats. In a recent ruling, Mr Pilgrim

ART DIRECTOR Yasmin Masri

WEB DIRECTOR Tom Garwood

CARTOONISTS

Hannah Winter-Dewhirst Daniel Kim

found that 10 of 11 documents, all of which were all emails, did not contain any death threats while the 11th document “could be regarded as intimidating and at its highest perhaps alluding to a threat.”

“I consider the danger to life or physical safety in this case to be only a possibility, not a real chance,” he said, referring to the last email exchange.

It was further revealed that at the time, despite denouncing behaviour found in these emails, ANU staff declined to ask police to further investigate the matter. The Australian Federal Police division in Canberra said it was not contacted by the university over the matter.

“As no complaint has been received, no investigation has taken place,” a spokesman said.

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WORONI

NEWS// 3

The day the music died

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 were part of a larger plan to abolish tenure at the university. He said that the cuts had “nothing to do with curriculum” and were designed to radically change the university’s character.

The University has said that it expects a “significant” increase in the number of students at the School due to the changes.

Currently around 260 students study at the School. Last year the school accepted less than 100 students from more than 500 applicants. Professor Walter conceded that the changes may mean that the School will enroll students with lower standards of music performance.

They said that the changes may allow people from rural and regional areas or lower socioeconomic status backgrounds who have been denied high-quality musical education to enroll in the new programme.

However, music students have attacked the proposal, saying that it would turn the school into a “glorified musical TAFE”, and student representatives have planned a major protest on Monday 14th May that will see a petition presented to the Chancelry demanding a stop to the proposed cuts and restructure. At the

time of printing, the petition had 7100 signatures.

They have expressed doubt about the viability of the School of Music in training performing musicians, and future of the Canberra Symphony Orchestra (CSO) and Canberra International Music Festival who rely on School of Music students and staff.

The CSO has expressed concern that the move away from performance-based tuition will reduce the number of highly trained performers graduating from the school. They argued the new curriculum “will not attract leading performance staff which in turn means that the top performing pre-tertiary students may not come to Canberra.”

The Canberra International Music Festival is particularly reliant on School of Music staff and students, and more than half of the Canberra Symphony Orchestra are current staff or students at the School.

The NTEU has lodged a formal dispute arguing the University has breached its Enterprise Agreement, specifically clauses relating to Redundancy, Job Security, and Managing Change. ACT Divisional Secretary of the NTEU, Stephen Darwin, told Woroni he was furious with the way staff had been treated and that consultation had been negligible.

Defence Cuts To Hit ANU Graduates Hard BEN HENSCHKE

The Federal Government’s plan to slash defence spending is likely to hit jobseekers at the ANU, with students in the specialist strategic and defence studies program fearing for their job prospects.

The $4 billion cut, announced on May 3, is part of a broader cost-saving plan to bring the May 8 budget back into surplus from a $40 billion deficit.

The Government pledged that the changes will not affect Australia’s current military operations or front-line servicemen and women, instead announcing the delay or abandon big-ticket procurement projects. It remained silent on whether the cuts will affect the civilian Defence workforce, but several analysts have inferred that wholesale redundancies are the only way for it to reach its reduction targets.

Aslan Mesbah, a Masters student at the ANU’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, told Woroni that the cuts will exacerbate the difficulty of finding a job for students in his degree.

“It puts a lot more pressure on us to get into a graduate program,” he said.

The Government has already targeted public sector jobs by increasing the efficiency dividend – the annual reduction in resources allocated for the same output – from 1.5 per cent to 4 per cent. The Coalition, meanwhile, has committed to cutting 12,000 public service jobs by natural attrition, which would also result in fewer graduate and entry-level positions.

Mr Mesbah says that this will make it difficult for graduates entering the workforce without having worked in the field. “For people with knowledge but no experience, it makes the range of job options pretty limited,” he said.

Mr Mesbah, who has been searching for defence sector jobs for the past six months, has already felt the impact of the increased efficiency dividend. One entry-level position for which he applied was withdrawn due to a

hiring freeze.

As well as displaying the Government’s determination to return the budget to surplus, the May 3 announcement reflected an understanding that Australia’s changing strategic environment requires a rethink of the country’s defence policy.

The end of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as a winding down of the assistance missions to East Timor and the Solomon Islands, means that the Australian Defence Force is likely to be less engaged than it has been in the past decade. To that end, the Prime Minister has brought forward the publication of a new Defence White Paper, the major document that outlines Australia’s defence priorities, strategic outlook and estimated funding. The release was planned for 2014, but has now been shifted to next year.

The 2009 White Paper reflected concerns from the Rudd Government that the risk of war between major states had not disappeared, so Australia must concentrate on defending its northern approaches from armed attack by a major power. That assessment brought with it an ambitious procurement agenda, including twelve new submarines and 100 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft at a cost of $40 billion and $16 billion respectively.

Budgetary constraints and sluggish decision-making have put both of those aspirations on ice. A recent report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute concluded that the Government has delayed its choice of submarines for so long that they may not be completed by the 2030 deadline, leaving Australia without the level of protection the White Paper advocated. The Prime Minister also announced on May 3 that the Government would hold off on its purchase of 12 Joint Strike Fighters for two years.

The ANU’s National Security College will hold a panel discussion on the next White Paper on Monday May 14.

“What they have told those staff, even though they work in the School of Music, their skills aren’t fitting in. This is dramatic, it is radical and is a violation of the ANU enterprise agreement,” he said In a letter to the University’s Director of Human Resources, Mr Darwin said that the University’s Enterprise Agreement required that the University explore all options in reducing staff before it sacks staff, including as well as that the University engage in meaningful consultation before the staffing changes are made.

Chancelry did not respond to Woroni’s inquiries about the Enterprise Agreement before this newspaper went to print.

ANUSA President Dallas Proctor said that the university’s attitude towards students was reprehensible, arguing that the focus on vocational training was at odds with the university’s emphasis on academic excellence.

“From [our] perspective it seems like a cover up to remove the ANU School of Music altogether,” he said. “You need money to fund the school of music, they should be lobbying the government.”

At the announcement to School of Music students, many predicted that there would a mass exodus of students and staff, and were visibly upset by the proposal, saying they felt betrayed by the University’s decision.

There have also been allegations that student representatives have been kept in the dark and misled about the changes. Representatives from the ANU Students’ Association Yasmin Masri and Jack Hobbs say they were told by CASS’s Associate Dean (Education) Dr Royston Gustavson that any changes to course offerings would “be based on student demand and not cost-cutting”. They accused the university of deceiving them and expressed “disappointment that the university was watering down the School of Music”.

At the time Woroni went to print, the University had not responded to these allegations.

They argued promises about transition arrangements for current students could not be trusted, given the way music students had been treated by the School of Music and the College of Arts and Social Sciences (CASS).

There will be a consultation period of three weeks about the proposed changes.

This move comes after Vice-Chancellor Ian Young last year gave the go ahead for the closure of the School of Music library, and the relocation of its collection to the Art School library as part of a cost-cutting and “consolidation” exercise of specialist libraries.

SEE ALSO COMMENT: THE CAMPUS REACTS

US Homeland Security Secretary talks up Intelligence Cooperation GARETH ROBINSON The 70th Anniversary of the Battle of the Coral Sea was the perfect opportunity for the US Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, to reinforce the long standing US-Australian defence partnership. In a speech given at the ANU last Thursday, Secretary Napolitano spoke of a new phase of information sharing between the two allies.

However, the Secretary also stressed the need for privacy, citing “the right to be left alone” as a core value in the formulation of US laws.

While Secretary Napolitano did mention the need to continue to strengthen antiterrorism cooperation, her comments also suggest a slight shift towards a more consensus driven approach to neutralising “threats from individuals and groups who have been radicalised at home.” At the heart of this new policy initiative is the role of “actionable intelligence”, that is shared between the US and its allies to regulate the flow of potential terrorist suspects.

In particular, Secretary Napolitano cited the establishment of agreements with allies such as the European Union (EU) to access passenger name records (PNR), as an example of intelligence sharing. These flight details can then be cross-checked with the US’s records to ensure no known or suspected

criminals fly into American airspace.

The Secretary also emphasised that, “transparency is the cornerstone of international information sharing.” As part of this approach the Department of Homeland Security has introduced a new immigration processing system called Global Entry which allows travellers to undergo several security checks before flying to the US, significantly reducing the immigration clearance time on arrival.

In addition to Global Entry Secretary Napolitano also made mention of the Traveller Redress Inquiry Program (TRIP), a system allowing travellers to file complaints about the conduct of Homeland Security personnel and processes.

However, Secretary Napolitano also clearly sees allies such as Australia playing an important part in upholding the US’s border integrity, commenting that, “we are talking about joint national interests and shared values.”

Secretary Napolitano concluded her visit to Australia by signing a new anti-terrorism agreement with the Australian Attorney-General, Nicola Roxon, that aims to strengthen checks on cargo and passenger flights travelling between Australia and the US.

NEWS//4

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Over thirty students gathered outside the Vice-Chancellor’s office at the University of Sydney, laying their bodies flat onto the pavement.

It was an education crime scene.

While prospects of cuts continue at the ANU, thousands of staff and students at the University of Sydney have been engaging the media and administration to protest similar cuts scheduled for later this year.

In November, University of Sydney vicechancellor Michael Spence announced plans to eliminate 150 academics and 190 general staff, which would cut staff costs by $53 million, or 7.5 per cent.

“We can no longer carry members of the University who are not pulling their weight.

It is simply too expensive to do so”, he said in a video that was emailed to students and staff.

“We need to consider the position of that small minority of academics who do not contribute significantly either to our research or teaching,” he said.

The initial plan targeted academic staff who have published fewer than three articles in the past two years. This includes about 100 of the university’s 7,500 academic staff.

Dr Spence said the cost savings are necessary because of a fall in expected student fee income from 9.6 per cent to less than 7 per cent during the next three years.

“More domestic students than usual deferred or lightened their load. And of course the international student market has been affected by a strong Australian dollar and uncertainty about government policy changes,’’ he said.

The University’s finances have also been adversely affected by building maintenance costs. The cuts will be used mainly to build a new $385 million building for the Centre for Obesity, Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease.

Student protest has been widespread since the cuts were proposed in November.

“The University has said that the cuts will benefit staff and efficiency, but the measures are arbitrary and unfounded,” Sydney Student Representative Council president Phoebe Drake said to Woroni.

“It means larger class sizes, lower quality teaching, longer grading times and a weakened university reputation,” she added.

In late April, about 1,000 staff and students protested outside the vice chancellor’s office.

About 50 students later occupied the Dean of Arts’ office before police removed them.

Students also staged a media protest by pretending to lie dead on the pavement outside the vice chancellor’s office, aiming to represent an education crime scene.

“The broader student body is actually quite passionate about this issue, because many of them realise they are in the process of losing out on teaching,” Pheobe said.

Over two days, over 4,000 students gathered at two meetings to “vote” against the cuts. In comparison, the university’s Student Representative Council elections draw only about 5,000 voters.

Academics have also expressed disapproval, arguing that the cuts would further damage the university’s quality and reputation.

“An already overstretched workforce will be left to spend more of its time plugging gaps in basic teaching and administrative provision than concentrating on improving the service for students,” states a letter signed by over sixty university staff.

Over 70 per cent of the university’s English Department teaching staff signed the petition.

“The change process engaged in by university management is lazy and unimaginative,” NTEU branch president Michael Thomson said in an open letter.

“It is not driven by financial imperatives, but by a desire on the part of university management to cut the number of ongoing staff in favour of less secure forms of employment,” he added.

However, Dr Spence argued that the cuts will benefit the university.

“I think that staff want to see that the university is being managed responsibly and that people are providing for their future and I think that is good for morale at the University,” he said at an interview with the ABC. Staff expect the cuts to be finalised by August this year.

Has the VC backed away from proposed budget cuts?

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 to Professor Lawrence Cram, who was Acting Vice-Chancellor while Professor Young was overseas.

The protests had sparked some security concerns at Chancelry, with all entrances to the Chancelry building itself locked before protesters arrived.

Among the other changes to the budget cutting process outlined by Professor Young include an explicit promise that any savings made through “College rationalisation” will stay within the Colleges to be re-invested in our education and research” instead of contributing a previously proposed $35m budget surplus and that staff reductions will be primarily through “natural attrition, agreed separations and early retirement” rather than through forced redundancies.

In response to Professor Young’s announcement, ANU Students’ Association President, Dallas Proctor, said: “We are glad that the

jobs of our teachers, supervisors, lecturers and tutors are no longer on the line and hope that the VC’s revised processes prove successful in improving quality without making unnecessary educational sacrifices.”

Postgraduate and Research Students’ Asssociation President Areti Metuamate said that he “welcomed the announcement of a more consultative approach” and that “dreaded forced redundancies seem to have been put on the backburner”.

National Tertiary Education Union ACT Secretary, Stephen Darwin told Woroni: “We support the Vice Chancellor’s commitment to explore all processes other than forced redundancy as the basis for any future cost cutting initiatives.”

Professor’s Young’s statement did not specify whether the University still plans to cut $40 million from the budget as originally proposed, or how long the process will now take.

COMMENT// 5

“

ILLUSTRATION // HANNAH WINTER-DEWHIRST

Living in the Congo line

Daniel Rose questions the worth of Oaktree’s Live Below The Line campaign.

On Monday 7th May, several thousand youths across Australia will take up the White Man’s Burden and, for a week, live on less than $2 a day (excluding rent and utilities) to raise money for people living in abject poverty across the world. Or is it awareness they are raising?

The Oaktree Foundation, the charity responsible for this annual media stunt, says both. According to its website, Live Below the Line’s purpose is for: “raising funds for educational opportunities in the developing world, and creating widespread awareness of this important issue (HINT: conversations are the key!)”.

Firstly, it escapes me how anyone alive in Australia today could not be aware that there are people living in the worst kinds of poverty – their lives bared to the whims of nature and the global economy, and without a hope of ever attaining an education due to their nation’s peripheral economies being hoovered clean.

The Oaktree Foundation is a charity run by and for shiny young spivs looking to accelerate up the slippery careerist totem pole, and their efforts are by and large supported by the labour of a gullible conga-line of youth

suffering from an acute case of liberal guilt.

Almost half of their directors have attained, or will attain the trusty Arts/Law degree, the staple path of study for gormless sycophants Australia-wide.

For every dollar received, Oaktree plunges 35 cents down the sink in administration costs, advertising and investment. The rest of the money is spent on campaigns in Australia and internationally, such as ending poverty and education.

Live Below the Line was started in 2009 by a couple of young Melburnians and since then, this week of poverty-chic has spread to the USA and the UK. The structure of Oaktree is such that it is organised into regional branches, with the express aim of grooming the young leaders of the future. A bit like a pyramid scheme selling the next-best-thing, if you’re the first into the pile, there’s a significant chance to earn a mountain of social capital, but if you’re last in, your role is simply to boost those in charge of your particular area or campaign.

With Live Below the Line in particular, their goal is not to directly gain donation money, but to make Australian youths live on less than $2 a day and have them solicit dona-

tions for Oaktree. To support them is a slick social media and advertising campaign, just to reinforce the message that poor people are poor and the kids who engage in this campaign are just great people.

This method of charity campaigning is a form of conspicuous consumption, where the product being sold is an absolution of guilt, peace of mind, and, for those donating their labour, a complex process of positive social signalling.

“

The Oaktree Foundation is a charity run by and for shiny young spivs looking to accelerate up the slippery careerist totem pole, and their efforts are by and large supported by the labour of a gullible congaline of youth suffering from an acute case of liberal guilt.

”

Charity, rather than being sold as a duty, is cheapened, repackaged, and consumed as a desirable statement of taste and selfhood.

At least the trust-funders who spend their gap years digging wells on African dirt farms can say they gave a considerable amount of labour and money to their cause; those Living Below the Line will have a week of saved pocket-money, horrible constipation and enough social capital to bank.

If you fancy yourself the next Kipling, perhaps think about some community work, or give anonymous donations to a charity that does not piss your money down the toilet on administration fees.

The issue at heart is not that the charity done is unworthy, but that we are collectively enabling a campaign that acts to build the resumes of over-privileged careerists.

The fact that living below the poverty line is a novelty for these people belies their sheltered upbringing and worldview.

For those of us who have had to endure real poverty, eating rice and lentils for a week straight drives home the ugly truth that poverty exists everywhere, and turning it into a social commodity leaves the taste of shit in our mouths.

COMMENT// 6 Invisible Canberra

ILLUSTRATION // DANIEL KIM

ROBERT SELTH

A few weeks ago, my girlfriend and I were in Adelaide staying for the weekend with a friend. Over dinner one night my girlfriend commented on some comic greeting cards she’d seen in a newsagent that day and remarked, half-jokingly, that they seemed at least half as rude again as any she’d seen in Canberra. To which our friend’s Adelaide-native mother commented quite seriously: “Yes, I guess in Canberra they have to be more PC than here”.

Now, stop and think about that for a moment, and you’ll realise it’s an entirely illogical thing to suggest. Cardmakers do not manufacture a different set of cards to cater to some politically extra-sensitive Canberra market. The idea gets more ludicrous the more you think about it. Yet my Adelaide acquaintance was expressing a notion that you encounter surprisingly often once you venture outside our capital. To many, Canberra is not a city, it is the Australian government – and so the city’s greeting cards must toe the line accordingly. In the imagination of many Australians, Canberra equals policymaking, and the independent life of the city, or the people who live in it, simply does not exist.

Art critic Robyn Archer, who is directing next year’s centenary celebrations, touched on this in a speech she made last month: “Canberra is not the same thing as our federal government”, and nor should it be “described relentlessly as an enemy of the people”. Her target was the common practice in our media of using the word “Canberra” as a shorthand for “the federal government”. And she’s quite right on this: it does, after all, make no sense to say: “Canberra has imposed a 30% tax on tobacco companies”, or whatever.

The tax has not been imposed by some kind of collective decision taken by a referendum of Canberra-dwelling people. British people do not say “London” when they mean “our government”. “Paris” does not send French troops to Afghanistan. How come Canberra must take the flak for all of our government’s misadventures?

Fact is, Canberra has become generally identified with its functions in the national bureaucracy, and everything else about the city has become, for many Australians, invisible. To be sure, this has been easy because Canberra is quite the lightweight as far as population and commerce are concerned.

But that doesn’t excuse the entire city’s people being besmirched by constant association with our politicians. Most of Canberra has nothing to do with the politicians. We should be grateful for that.

Is this nitpicking? Probably. Am I merely preaching to the converted by saying this in a Canberra-based university newspaper? I don’t think so. I think we Canberra locals are just as much to blame for this as anybody else.

Do we not, when we go interstate, talk disparagingly of our hometown as a whitewashed land of civil servants and red tape? Do we not reinforce the image of Canberra as the policymaker and nothing else? I think many of us do. I personally don’t even like Canberra all that much, but what I dislike about it has nothing to do with its being the seat of the federal government. It’s odd to think that for much of the general population, we politically uninvolved Canberrans are, effectively speaking, invisible people.

On the other hand, last year when I was in Queensland I met an Australian man of my age who had sincerely never heard of Canberra. I suppose Canberra-the-Policymaker is at least a step up from that.

God Loves You: Conditions Apply* Michael Bones on the dark side of faith.

Up until my early twenties I was a sincere and devout Christian. I prayed earnestly and often read the Bible cover to cover, regularly attended Church and actively evangelised “the lost” with my faith. From creationism to Revelation, I tenaciously believed the indoctrination of my childhood: the Bible was the literal word of God, and God was my life.

However, I had many crises of faith, and was often frustrated at spiritual leaders’ unwillingness to confront and satisfactorily answer paradoxes contained within the Bible. Eventually, the day came when biblical answers no longer satisfied, so I followed my conscience out of the fold. Here are some ruminations informed by my ovine time in the pen, goaded by the ANU Fellowship of Christian University Students’ (FOCUS) recent “What is Love?” poster campaign.

Christianity’s number one aim, aside from convincing you to give at least a tenth of your pre-tax income to the Church, is to save your soul. There is no other way to couch it: if you do not believe Jesus Christ is your Lord and Saviour, that he died on the cross for your sins and rose again three days later, then you are hurtling headlong down the highway to hell. FOCUS believes this so intently it’s in their charter.

According to FOCUS’s Statement of Beliefs, they uphold many fundamental truths of the Christian faith, including: “[t]he universal sinfulness and guilt of humanity since the fall, rendering men and women subject to God’s wrath and condemnation”. This tenant, derived from Romans 6:23, where the Apostle Paul asserts that the wages of sin is death, is critical from a theological perspective because it legitimises God’s otherwise patently

misanthropic vindictiveness. Death, disease, famine and flood are physical manifestations of God’s judgement – the Lord giving us wretched, sinful humans what we deserve – even though our only ostensible crime is existence. And our existence is crucial, as Christians for the most part believe the soul is a distinct substance from the body, and while the latter may perish, the former will persist after death. So, what happens beyond the grave is of utmost importance.

Unfortunately, due to the unsavoury subject matter of eternal damnation, and the difficulty of convincing non-believers of their inherent sinfulness, we don’t hear as much about eschatological fire and brimstone as we do proclamations of Jesus’s love.

And Jesus is Christianity’s get out of jail free card. The second part of Romans 6:23 asserts: “the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord”. If you accept the teachings of Jesus and invite him “into your heart”, you will be absolved of your guilt and be set free from sin. Because the thing we need salvation from is our very essence, our inseparable humanness, the message is universal. Because the stakes are so high – eternal damnation without Christ versus eternal bliss with him – devout Christians have an extraordinary compulsion to share their “good news” by preaching or giving witness through personal testimony. The religious term for public sharing of faith is evangelism, but its manifestation is more often an uninvited intervention into others’ lives.

If something feels off-putting about this, it’s because something is off-putting about this. If Christian life were a police drama, Jesus would be the good cop with the role of

bad cop going to Father God. Today, Christians like to distinguish between Good Cop Jesus and Bad Cop God, often by diminishing the Old Testament’s obsession with sin and punishment in favour of the New Testament’s feel-good emphasis on love and grace.

The problem is you can’t have one without the other: if God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and if God is the Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), then the love and peace preached by Jesus cannot be separated from the wrath and genocide of the Father. As Jesus said in Matthew 5:17, he came to fulfil the law of the Old Testament, not to do away it.

Christians like to compare the combination of fear and love one should feel towards God as that of a child to a father. However, being sent to your room or getting spanked doesn’t really compare with pestilence, war, smiting, or human sacrifice. In reality, Stockholm syndrome better explains the relationship Christianity induces between the believer and God. God holds us hostage in an existentially torturous position: tied down by the bonds of sin, we are water-boarded with guilt, shame, and suffering, then told we can obtain boundless joy only if, through sodden gasps, we declare our absolute love, devotion, and trust in Him. FOCUS, I tender a humble suggestion for your next messianic public relations campaign. If you are going to provoke us by asking what love is, don’t suggest disingenuous answers like money or Nike. Instead, ask: is love torture? Is love fear? Is love a negation of our very essence as human beings? If you answer these questions in the affirmative, only then may you truly declare Love is Jesus Christ.

COMMENT// 7

Poster campaign puts the Focus on public space Whatever you thought of the What is Love campaign, it made us think about our public space, says Louis Klee It was hardly possible to walk through the ANU campus in the early weeks of this semester without encountering posters urging us to ponder the question, “what is love?”

However, the only real question anyone was pondering was not, “what is love?” but “who are they and what are they advertising?” I was naïve enough to hope that people were wrong, but as it turned out these posters were, as most had suspected, part of an elaborate publicity stunt by a Christian youth group which ended on the rather flat, clumsy and assertive note, which told us: “you’ve thought enough about it and here is the answer: God is love, now come to our youth group!”

However, the sad denouement of this episode raised an interesting question – namely, how

do we conceive our public space? The answer, more often than not, is that the only legitimate use sanctioned for our public space is to advertise a recognised brand or group.

The walls of our city have become a monologue, inscribed with commands and entreaties. And it seems that the way that we think about public space at the ANU – those walls buried beneath ghostly reels of generations of posters upon posters – is apparently much the same. Each poster has an agenda, wants to sell us something, alert us to something or speak to us in the imperative voice.

But this is not to say that public space necessarily needs to be a monologue. In fact, the most interesting thing about the “what is love?” campaign was that, in spite of it explicitly be-

ing used as a marketing tool, it also implicitly suggested the very opposite. It was this possibility that was alive in the replies that it provoked – the spontaneous, vigilante poster and chalk responses – less coordinated, but by no means less interesting. Some told us that “love is universal” or that “there is no single question to the answer what is love”. Above all else, however, they suggested the possibility for our public space to be a forum, a sharing of ideas or a dialogue.

So even if the “what is love?” campaign didn’t make us ponder the meaning of love, at the very least it brought into question the way we think about our public space and suggested, perhaps, the possibility for a more genuine and open conversation.

A sex scandal is a sex scandal

Simon Copland wonders why the media can’t get over the fact that Peter Slipper’s accuser is a man.

It’s a titillating tale isn’t it?

A new Speaker, Peter Slipper, is appointed after a controversial defection from the Coalition. An openly gay man, James Ashby, begins working in his office. As the months go on, Ashby starts to feel like he’s being harassed. He alleges that he’s been asked if he can shower with the door open. Apparently he is sent dirty text messages and he has been sexually propositioned against his will.

Oh boy, it’s a sex scandal.

And even better than that, it’s a gay sex scandal.

Gay sex scandals are so much better than those boring hetero sex scandals, and not only because you get the put the word gay into every sentence you write (I mean, when was the last time you heard someone talk about a “straight sex scandal”).

No, they offer so much more than that.

Gay sex scandals allow us to pour out the built-up gay jokes, stereotypes and innuendo we’ve been waiting to use for ages. We finally get to talk openly about the dirty, sex-filled lives of gay men. We can bring out all our innuendos and jokes and fill our newspaper columns with them – and nobody complains.

Oh, it’s just so much fun.

A gay sex scandal truly is a journalist’s wet dream (noting of course that any lesbian sex scandal would result in simultaneous multiorgasms for every journalist in the country).

But, guess what! This one is so much better than your usual gay sex scandal: there is a third involved in this one.

After the original allegations about Slipper came out, new allegations have arisen that the rumoured gay member of the Coalition caucus, Christopher Pyne, (noting of course that this rumour has never been proven to be true – not that we should care either way) once met Ashby. Even better than that, the meeting was late at night (in fact it was a drink) and at some point Pyne may or may not have asked for Ashby’s phone number.

That’s right: it’s a gay sex scandal triangle!

Of course, reporting about Pyne’s involvement has been focused on whether he was aiding and abetting Ashby in the development of his claims about Slipper (one must ask, since when is it a crime to help a colleague who is feeling harassed at work?). But we all know that the information we’re really after is whether Pyne was trying to get it on with Ashby himself. That would make this story so much more fun.

And of course it must be true!

As a gay man myself, I have personal experience with what it is like to encounter other men in my workplace.

When I see a gay man, I, like everyone in the gay

community, can’t help myself. We are like the women who can’t help but get drawn into a pillow fight when watching a movie – if another gay man enters my office; we know that we are going to eventually get drawn into something.

We gay men are just like the women of the Victorian Age (and, according to some, the women of the modern age). We are driven solely by our irrational emotions, ours focused wholly around sex. Every seven seconds – that’s how often we think about sex.

Mothers, lock up your sons. Children lock up your father. We gay men are out to get them.

And if you

don’t stop us we will bring them down – taking their career and the Government with them.

Of course, how else could accusations that Ashby was a “plant” get by if it wasn’t for the overly sexual nature of gay men today? Of course someone could be a plant in an office like this – put a nice looking gay man in and of course Slipper is going to crack. We gay men can’t help ourselves – put the bait in front of us and we’ll take it.

Yes, there is nothing better than a gay sex scandal.

But at the same time, there is nothing worse than reporting on a gay sex scandal.

Journalists, after you (finally) drop the word gay in front of the word sex scandal when it involves two men, could you do one more thing for me?

Next time, could you forget your stereotypes, drop the innuendo and stop writing as if sex is all that is on the mind of gay men.

Sexual harassment accusations are serious, and it would be great if we could treat them seriously as well, even if there is gay sex involved.

COMMENT// 8

SCHOOL OF MUSIC

THE CAMPUS REACTS

We received a huge number of comments in our inbox and on our website about the University’s recently announced changes to the School of Music.

ALEXANDER O’SULLIVAN I was shocked to read the posts on Facebook describing the proposed cuts (because that’s what they clearly are) at the School of Music. Upon reading the information available online, I wish to register my profound disappointment and anger at the decision. I graduated with a University Medal and First Class Honours last year in Musicology. This result was entirely due to the support of my supervisor and my own efforts than to any institutional support from the School or University.

During my time at the School, I witnessed a rapid shift in the way students were taught. The education became less focussed on real skills (such as performing, accompanying, theory, aural, arranging, etc.) and more focussed on individual’s self-directed discoveries. Hence a plethora of quickly canned ‘Ideas’ courses, Professional Practice Projects and tie-ins with the CIMF and other festivals. Most students, including myself, could only see such activities as cost-cutting exercises. Why pay a lecturer to teach a course when you can send the students to festivals where they will ‘learn’ at no cost to the school? During my Honours year, I witnessed my supervisor throwing away well-researched lecture plans, because he had to tie his course (which was completely written by him) to the various festivals that were occuring. Did the students benefit? Of course not.

Instead of developing a firm understanding about the history of the music they plan to play for the rest of their lives, they developed half-formed ideas about ‘Romanticism’, ‘Politics’ and ‘Modernism’.

I recently travelled to the United States to interview for PhDs in Music History and Theory.

I should tell you that the entrance tests for many prestigious US schools such as Cincinnati and Eastman required skills that I had not been taught at ANU. None of these skills will be offered in any detail in the proposed structure. Indeed, by combining History, Theory, Aural and Composition into a single stream, it will be amazing if graduates will have sufficient skills to instruct high school music.

During my degree I contracted (at great expense) a private theory teacher to give me the necessary groudning for graduate study. Sure, on my applications I could talk about how a ‘professional’ internship programme at the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA), the National Library and other institutions had taught me to write teaching outcomes for myself (as I was forced to do in my Honours year as well), and basically discover research with no as-

sistance from Academic Staff. This is not what I expected or desired from my programme.

In the new model, what will students get from the University? It seems that most of the content will come from elsewhere: the School of Music will merely “aggregate” content from contractors, overseas institutions and external events. With this in mind, students might wonder why they should bother enrolling at all, or whether they should stay home and watch YouTube “how-to”’s.

At last year’s graduation drinks, Professor Adrian Walter, after letting the School take credit for my and my colleagues’ University Medals, proceeded to tell me that the School was an elite institution and that it attracted the finest musicians from around Australia.

What musician would want to study at an institution which will have no instrumental teaching beyond a few hours a semester, no dedicated library, no specialisations and plainly no emphasis on performance?

In the end, the word “professional”, which seems to appear with great frequency in the documentation I have read, seems to really be related to ‘vocational’ education - Just like a TAFE. How many students have approached the School and said: “What I want is to study with people via video-conferencing”?

In the end, I made a decision at the end of last year to move away from Music as a Career. If this is the way the sector is going, I don’t want a part of its funeral. Just look at the experience of my supervisor.

After completing a PhD at a prestigious Australian university, he gets offered a casual 0.4 part-time contract at the ANU, in which he is told to write several large new courses. He is not allowed to determine the content of these courses; even if he completely disagrees with the approach taken. Now his job is vacant.

It is unlikely that he would recommend a career as an academic in Music to me. Why would he? Would the University recommend I undertake a career as an academic in Music? Where I would be expected not to specialise (unlike every single academic at the ANU) but to teach paltry amounts of general and facile content preparing students for careers as facilitators for great artists rather than as great artists themselves.

It is clear that the new direction of the school is towards mediocrity.

Alexander is now studying a Masters of Linguistics - a discipline that he hopes will not suffer the same fate.

SARAH CAMPBELL As a year 12 student at the Tertiary Open Day in 2009, I felt a special vibe from the School of Music (SoM) the second I stepped in the door. There was music floating down every hallway, there were staff and students mingling at the café and the building itself seemed to be reverberating with passion for the art of music. I could not bear to think of attending anywhere else. Every day since I started here in 2011, I have become increasingly filled with gratitude for the opportunity I have to study at this incredible place. How amazing is it that the worlds of hundreds of students like myself have collided with those of elite performers and internationally acclaimed pedagogues?

Despite their talents, these teachers are extremely humble, accessible and willing to give their time to assist students in any way they can. Not only do they work with us to establish firm technical foundations in our chosen fields, they also provide us with inspiration and professional insight, and become our mentors, career advisors, musical resources and friends.

My vocal teacher has performed for The Queen. My aural lecturer has presented his own pedagogical resources worldwide.

Students travel from across the nation and the world for the tuition of these renowned educators, but they truly give us so much more than just their expertise.

This vital connection will be severed if the proposed curriculum changes take place. The ANU claims to pride itself on the quality of its education, yet no one is hiding the fact that these changes are aimed not at striving for excellence, but simply at getting more students through the doors. SoM students aspire to be elite professional performers, and these dreams should be encouraged and nurtured, not quashed. To achieve our best, we must be guided by the best. But these proposals are saying to us that we will never reach elite level anyway, so we should just lower our ambitions. What kind of a message is this to be sending to prospective students?

Of course, this upheaval more directly affects the SoM staff. Through the proposals, their renowned talents are being deemed worthless, and the time and energy that they have chosen to dedicate to educating musical youth has gone unacknowledged and unvalued. It is insulting that they must reapply for their jobs, as though they need to justify the positions they hold. And for those whose applications aren’t successful or who choose not to be involved with the changes, it will be tough to find employment for their qualification level elsewhere in Canberra. Even if they were to remain as private tutors for SoM students, the students’ $600 tuition allowance would only afford half the amount of lessons we have now, leaving teachers short of work and income.

So what choice would staff and students have but to leave Canberra? Teachers may have to uproot their families in search of employment, and students may struggle to find the financial means to live in bigger cities. Those attempting to complete a double degree may not be able to continue with their other courses elsewhere, yet nor could they adequately complete their music studies here. These are issues upon which future careers are suspended. The changes simply defy all logic and fly in the face of what are meant to be the university’s values.

But what pains me the most is not what would result from the changes, but what we would be missing out on. Studying at the SoM for me has been a life changing experience. My mind has been opened in ways I never imagined, and my heart has come to love music and performing more than ever. Every day as I walk through the doors, I get the same vibe I did on Open Day nearly three years ago, only now I am the one creating music that floats down the corridors, and I am the one greeting peers, friends and staff at the café. I am not only visiting. I am home.

COMMENT// 9 SIMON HUKIN The notion that this will attract a “significant” increase in student enrolment is ridiculous. When a university requires its students to privately contract teachers, when it expects them to suffer dramatic cuts to the quality of their education, when it undermines the fundamental purpose of one of its departments, it can not seriously expect to attract more students to the discipline. It’s obvious this is simply the precursor to the closure of the school.

Professor Walter ought to feel ashamed for being the smiling front man to this circus of death. If he was interested in the future of the school and the arts more generally in Australia, rather than simply scared of losing his position and salary, he’d resign in protest. The Vice-Chancellor, as we have seen by his proposal for sweeping cuts, is a penny-pinching bureaucrat of the worst kind - lacking in any vision beyond the perfidy of neo-liberal mediocrity.

ADAM SPENCE The ANU was founded as a national institution devoted to intellectual endeavour. An institution fostering knowledge and understanding of Australia and the world. In its early days, names like Florey, Oliphant, Clarke and Hancock are what sustained it and allowed it to prosper. The School of Music was founded long before it became part of the ANU, by acclaimed violinist Ernest Llewellyn. It shares with the University a similar genesis; a purpose beyond mere vocational training and a staff that comprised some of Australia’s most talented musicians.

Many things have changed over time about the ANU. We’re told of new paradigms, new fiscal pressures and grandiose capital projects. One thing that must not be allowed to change though is the value we place on the people, the human capital. Those who have, and continue to take this institution forward and enable it to fulfil its fundamental purpose.

The University’s intention to declare all School of Music positions vacant, cut the number of positions going forward and greatly restructure and cut down the music program, demonstrates a woeful disregard of those very people and for the principles on which the ANU was founded.

MELANIE POOLE Martha Nussbaum has it right: “History has come to a stage when the moral man, the complete man, is more and more giving way, almost without knowing it, to make room for the... commercial man, the man of limited purpose. This process, aided by the wonderful progress in science, is assuming gigantic proportion and power, causing the upset of man’s moral balance, obscuring his human side under the shadow of soul-less organization.”

The humanities and the arts are being cut away, in both primary/secondary and college/university education, in virtually every nation of the world. Seen by policy-makers as useless frills, at a time when nations must cut away all useless things in order to stay competitive in the global market, they are rapidly losing their place in curricula, not to mention in the minds and hearts of parents and children.

ROSEANNA STEVENS We’ve had time now to assess the gravest potential damage being dealt to the ANU School of Music. The most outstanding issues are the cutting of ten positions out of 23 current academic and administrative staff, and the supposed elimination of an entire performance degree. ‘It’s going to be a difficult period.’ Adrian Walter announced matter-offactly in last Thursday’s press conference.

I concede how exhausting and infuriating the perceived destruction of professional avenue is; the loss of necessary educators, facilities and courses.

I’ve also heard many times that regardless of however many millions the university receives from government, for whatever reason the two million the ANU SoM requires to remain in its ongoing state isn’t there. I’ve been told Walter and his cohort had two options: shut down the School in its current running state, or reshuffle the School. It’s a bit of an irony, then, that students are campaigning to ‘Save the School of Music’ by forcing a reversion to the model deemed unsustainable.

One of the biting and unfounded ‘Save the SoM’ campaigns I’ve happened across is a website titled, ‘Canberra School of Music Hotline’. It features a supposedly prophetic conversation between an aspiring flute performance student and administration, set in the dark future, when the SoM is going to be run like a ‘glorified TAFE’ to borrow a hot phrase. The student’s unproductive conversation with admin reveals the SoM has become a washy establishment with no vision or guidance at all, let alone performance options. The piece also features an image of the brutalist face of the SoM, brandishing the phrase, ‘Welcome Class of 2013. Free steak knives for anyone who enrolls. Someone. Please?‘ Congratuwelldone to the person paying for the hosting of that ridiculous mode of propaganda.

If we’re going to protest, we need to ground our arguments beyond hysteria. If students want to save the School as-is, then start a fundraising campaign proving the money can be raised (indifferent to the fact the ANU could well have a spare two bob tucked neatly somewhere.) Don’t spruik an online petition featuring no statistical or quotable information so those signing aren’t sure what kind of rage or upset their signature is manifesting.

It’s not that there’s no reason to be opposed to the changes within the School of Music; I am a

Higher Research Degree student within the SoM. On Monday, May 7th, the HDR students gathered to discuss how the reshuffle might affect us. Not once in Thursday’s press conference, nor in the Change Management Project document (verbose at best) are Postgraduate students mentioned, and we’re one of the school’s guarantors of financial stability. As one HDR student noted, on page nine of the Change Management document there’s a blockish graph that suggests we will have one member of staff specialising in research. We don’t know if we’ll have relevant supervisors. We’re all being affected by the changes.

Regardless, the 15-page Change Management document highlights a truth or two.

Despite those students mourning the ‘death of the elite’, music is surprisingly an invention designed for everyone (and we need younger people to engage with it, because the average age of the CSO concertgoer is not 23.) It doesn’t mean being an impeccably trained performance specialist is. That’s why students studying under, say, the Professional Practice strand proposed in the new model, will receive a $600 allowance to, for example, pursue practical training with whomever the student deems fit to teach them. This student will also have to learn about an array of musical fields to ensure that when they exit the school, they’ll actually be diversely employable.

Hopefully this is going to mean the fabled secondyear horn student who has had two hours of tuition contact since the commencement of Semester (because the SoM never employed anyone to fill the position after the prior teacher left) will be able to go out and find someone to actually satisfy the gap the failed SoM model has already made for them. I can’t help but think the changes are a little exciting.

As frightening as it is, there’s little harm in looking at how this new model might work. At the end of the day, the success of the SoM comes down to how we receive it and how we use it. Brandishing the School a ‘glorified TAFE’ is a terminology we have chosen to use. Students could deem the new School an innovative and adaptable model conceding to the need for budget cuts. If we love our Music School, we need to help it. We are bright, adaptable young things who can make the model work for us. This model has been designed to work for us.

Stop shit slinging and for god’s sake, help save your Music School.

10

IS OUR CHILDREN LEARNING? ALISON TANDY

In the words of Epictetus, “Only the educated are free.”

We take it for granted that with education comes choice and that education is a symbol of empowerment and progress. But have you ever tried to imagine how a young person could face education and be met by a void?

That they could only see a false, empty and irrelevant institution? That they could not feel the exhilaration of hard-earned self-improvement that opening one’s mind to learning gives?

It was these responses that first gave me reason to pause and question. It was late last year, and I had been working as a teacher’s aide in a regional high school with an ugly reputation.

Despite having attended a socio-economically disadvantaged high school myself, I’d always loved school. Learning excited me, and I was keen to help foster this enthusiasm in my students. So I’d given them my naively optimistic questions about hope for the future. What I hadn’t expected was what they handed me in return. Comments such as,“I’m not a smart person, but I’m smart enough to know that nobody will care if I don’t do any work.”

I countered that of course school is important. You can be anything you want to be. But you can’t feed clichés to teenagers who’ve had it rough. They sense the unknowing behind your conviction and they tune you out. I was at a loss, and suddenly confronted by a huge

problem underlying our education system.

The reality is that a large proportion of young Australians are caught in a complex cycle of Systemic Educational Disadvantage.

This is a problem that the majority of tertiary students are privileged enough to have never faced.

Only 15% of university students come from the lowest socio-economic quartile, while 42% of us come from the top quartile.

Australia’s education system has been described by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) in its 2011 Review of Funding for Schooling as “High Quality – Low Equity”.

This means that, despite the general high performance of our schools by international standards, there is a significant deficit in academic performance of students from low socioeconomic, rural and Indigenous backgrounds, compared to high performers.

Just a glance at the 2009 PISA results illustrate this. 50% of year 9 students in very remote areas of Australia fall below the national minimum standard for reading. Year 10 students from Australia’s lowest socioeconomic quartile lag 3 years behind those in the highest quartile. 31% of Indigenous children fail basic numeracy and literacy tests.

The blame for this kind of educational inequity has been put down to the usual suspects: socio-economic circumstances in combination with demographic and geographic factors.

Extreme cycles of generational inequality prevent our young people from realising their academic potential. Simply put, children in low income families are likely to have decreased educational outcomes, leading to reduced future earning capacity and social inclusivity.

Here in Australia, over 500,000 children live without an employed parent in their household. The chance that these children can improve their situation is unduly slim.

And if you imagine that the effects of privilege are confined to the minority – that you’ve escaped them – you’re wrong.

Take the ACT for example. According to the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), the increase in educational achievement of students here is substantially correlated with the socio-economic gradient.

Meaning that, if you grew up here like I did, your marks would have been significantly influenced by both your parents’ income and the school’s demographics.

But explaining away the cause of generational educational inequity in terms of just socio-economic status just conceals the true complexity of the problem and distorts the way the Australian public envisions it.

It is against the “Aussie battler” spirit to let money keep you from your goals. We, the majority, are fed half the story, and remove ourselves from the issue when we fail to realise that values and attitudes towards education are what undermine the whole system.

The most striking characteristics of many underprivileged Australian schools, far beyond the evident lack of funding and resources - are the values and attitudes that students and their families bring with them into the education space. Students are unaccountable for their behaviour. Teachers are “incompetent”. Grades are things to be given, rather than earned. Generally, being at school is a pointless waste of time.

Values and attitudes like these are problematic because, in many rural and lowsocioeconomic areas, they seen normal and acceptable. They are passed down through generations, and they are likely to be more detrimental to a young person’s education than issues like funding and classroom size.

This is what is meant by socio-educational disadvantage; if there is no will within a community for education to effective, it cannot be achieved.

Systemic educational disadvantage in Australia is real, immediate and significant. Any attempt to confront this problem cannot focus solely on quantitative measures.

If there are going to be improvements in the opportunities of our young people, we have to take existing generational cycles of socio-educational disadvantage into account.

Alison is an ANU Campus Ambassador for Teach for Australia, a not-for-profit organisation aimed at confronting educational inequity by placing outstanding graduates in teaching and leadership positions. www.teachforaustralia.org

IN THE LAB

ROT T E N ON T HE I N S I DE Max Phillis takes a look at how fresh food is being dumbed down for aesthetic vanity I have always been taken aback by how supermarket produce can look so perfectly uniform. We have a moderately well-kept veggie patch at home, and despite some serious effort I don’t think we’ve ever managed to grow a straight carrot, an inoffensive looking tomato or an un-scabby apple.

So I was disturbed, though not entirely surprised when I heard of the concept of “offspec” produce. This is where the supermarket chains apply minimum standards to purely cosmetic features of the fruit and veg they sell.

For instance, oranges must not have green patches despite it being a natural reaction to sun-exposure, potatoes must be within a 15% size variation and pears must be noticeably pear-shaped.

While all of this may seem harmless if a bit bizarre, it is actually causing an unseen nightmare for producers and unnecessary pricehikes for consumers.

Estimates from OzHarvest are that up to 40% of all Australian fresh produce is discarded or ploughed into the ground, mostly as a result from the supermarkets’ cosmetic specifications.

More than half of all mangoes grown in Australia are discarded, while during last year’s banana shortage close to 100,000 tons of ripe fruit were rejected for not being “onspec” despite the price reaching over $16 per kilo.

The Riverina region of NSW, which has for once had a good growing season, is now perversely seeing tens of thousands of tons of “too big” pumpkins, every male (seeded) watermelon and sun-greened citrus being

ploughed back into the ground because it is cheaper than harvesting them when they can’t be sold.

The farmers who have invested in planting and tending these crops will make a loss despite having grown perfectly good food.

This is especially unfair when the sorts of

“

For instance, oranges must not have green patches despite it being a natural reaction to sun-exposure, potatoes must be within a 15% size variation and pears must be noticeably pear-shaped.

”

disqualifying features are typically unavoidable in the course of growing food in a natural environment.

Sunspots on fruit, russet patches on apples and insufficiently brown peel on onions (which we remove anyway) cannot effectively be reduced by changing farming practices, so farmers are forced to accept these losses.

None of this produce is any less edible; it simply doesn’t live up to the visual expectations enforced by Coles and Woolworths.

A further implication of the supermarkets’ choosiness is that the raw price of food is pushed up by the need to cover the cost of the rejected produce.

Consumers are forced to accept higher prices because they can’t easily opt out of the supermarket duopoly. This system is especially unfair when hundreds of thousands of low income families in Australia, let alone in our developing neighbours, are unable to afford fresh produce.

To some degree this explains why poor nutrition is most prevalent amongst Australia’s least well off: it’s just cheaper to eat badly.

Finally, in the quest for more consistently “on-spec” produce, farmers are heavily incentivised to use more pesticides in spite of progressively diminishing benefits.

On top of the negative impact these chemicals have on non-agricultural land and waterways, they result in higher production costs and higher sale prices, further feeding the cycle of cost increases for consumers.

The supermarkets’ response to criticism of their specifications policy is that consumers asked for it by rejecting the type of produce that they now screen.

While this is a valid point, the more sustainable response is to close the expectation gap between what people have been conditioned to expect of a pear/pumpkin/potato and what is simply the natural variation within fresh produce.

Educating city-dwelling consumers, who probably have never even seen “off-spec” fruit, that green oranges are still ripe and that pears aren’t necessarily pear shaped will ultimately lead to the more consistent availability of fresh produce, lower prices and a less wasteful approach to food supply in Australia.

11

ELEANOR CAMPBELL

Print me out, Scotty If it’s digital, it can be uploaded, downloaded, shared, edited and embellished.

With advances in 3D printing technology, internet accessibility may soon apply to physical items too, including over-the-counter drugs.

3D printers have existed since 2003, and are already in mainstream use for the production of industrial and medical components. Similar to a regular inkjet machine, 3D printers follow digital instructions to produce a physical copy of an item. This is done by precise layering of materials such as plaster or plastic to build up a 3D structure.

During demonstrations of the technology, the printers have taken 3D scans of various items (including an Academy Award statuette and some particularly tasteful gargoyle figurines), then replicated those items using various materials.

There’s more to 3D printing than just copying trinkets though. The potential to perform pre-programmed chemical reactions could turn home offices into small-scale laboratories.

Recent work at the University of Glasgow has demonstrated the capacity of relatively affordable 3D printers to act as tools for performing chemistry. Reaction vessels were ‘printed’ in layers of quick-setting bathroom sealant, and the chemicals required for the desired reaction were ‘printed’ into those vessels. By preparing a digital blueprint for the production of paracetamol tablets, for example, the machines could print out a specialised chemistry set and perform a choreographed reaction with minimal human input. The end product would be freshly produced painkillers, essentially downloaded from the internet.

The trials of this technology were carried out using a commercially available 3D printer that cost around US$2000. For that sum of money, and the additional cost of buying reaction ‘recipes’, any household could become capable of producing their own nonprescription medication.

Before this use of the technology becomes commercial, issues of user safety need to be addressed. A printed chemistry set would have to be impossible to adapt for illegal uses; it’s not hard to imagine digital recipes for preparing illicit drugs being shared online. The availability and safety of the chemical ingredients would limit the range of reactions that could be performed. Despite these hurdles, 3D printing and desk-top chemistry might be the next advancement in bringing goods and services into homes.

WRITE FOR WORONI!

We’re always looking for new writers to join our team!

We’re particularly keen to recruit more news & sports reporters, but if you’re interested in contributing to any part of the newspaper (body, mind and spirit), please get in touch by emailing contact@woroni.com.au

SPORT// 12

www.law.unimelb.edu.au/jd

Art & Culture

“Mahatma Gandhi�

Daniel Kim Derwent 24 Watercolour pencils and Uni Ball- Eye Fine Pen/ Uni Ball Eye Micro Pen. d_kim07@hotmail.com

OUT & ABOUT// 14

Eurovision Organisers intimidated by the success of Big Night Out The Battle of Hastings. The Battle of Waterloo. The Gallipoli Campaign. All battles displaying great courage, planning, cooperation and (most likely) a certain quantity of alcohol. To that list ANU now adds Big Night Out 2012.

At Bruce Hall (that’s right, Springsteen is not the only Bruce who can rock out) on the chilly yet momentous evening of the 3rd of May, eight plucky, valiant, talented bands hit the stage, turned their volume up to eleven and battled it out to some sweet sounds.

Close to 1000 tickets were sold in the weeks coming up to the event, boding for a night that would soon take its place in ANU legend. Just as Inward Bound is the largest event on ANU’s sporting calendar, so is Big Night Out the biggest event on the arts calendar, contributing to that grand trophy of Interhall Arts Shield.

For those who don’t know, Big Night Out is the annual ANU band competition run by the Inter-hall Arts Committee (IAC), pitting one band from each of the on-campus halls and residences against each other.

Indeed, it could be described as on par with such events as Triple J’s Unearthed and Eurovision. Like the latter, musicians (and supporters) don costumes which, in most cases, involved some combination of sequins and tight pants. Residents of each College turn up to dance, mosh, sing and scream along to their respective bands, all while having a few drinks, chatting, bouncing about and comparing onesies.

This enthusiastic crowd was more than matched by the energy of the performances, treating the spectators to such sounds as Muse’s “Knights of Cydonia”, Tom Jones’ “Sex Bomb”, The Black Keys’ “Lonely Boy”, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”, Guns & Roses’ “Sweet Child of Mine”, Maroon 5’s “Sunday Morning”, Matt Corby’s “Brother”, and Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition”.

Nevertheless, there could only be one victor – Burgmann College, followed by a tie between Johns and Fenner, Burton & Garran Hall, UniLodge, Bruce, Ursula and Griffin Hall. Every band performed to a phenomenal standard of musicianship, performance, and general mind-blowing awesomeness.

It is certain that the judges (Geoffrey Lancaster from the ANU School of Music, Ashley Thompson, the soon-to-be editor of BMA, and Jesse Sewell from the 2010 Triple J Unearthed winners Los Capitanes) had a difficult time in deciding upon a winner. This task could be likened to such formidable decisions as what to choose from the menu at London Burger, or which Bon Iver track is one’s favourite.

Feeding, watering, entertaining, containing, and packing up from a crowd of such a size involves a phenomenal organisational effort, which was more than met by the various parties involved in the event. A big congratulations is deserved by IAC for organising such a great night out. Despite some worries in the days leading up to the night – including the cancellation of some judges, and the possibility of the event being rained out – it ran incred-

ibly smoothly. A shout out is also in order to the judges, the ever intrepid Red Frogs, the Senior Residents who volunteered to stay sober and responsible, and those residents of Bruce who helped out with set-up and the running of the bar.

So watch out Pop Asia and Eurovision, because Big Night Out just keeps on getting more bodacious, bigger, bolder, and brighter.

– MEG DAVIS

BIG NIGHT OUT 2012 Photos by Janis Lejins

LIFE & STYLE// 15

Nakul Legha investigates your options for surviving that staple of student life in Canberra: the Murrays bus trip.

So you’ve feigned a sudden coughing fit, casually sprawled yourself across both seats, and even done your best to look like a threatening minority. But alas, you luck out on the veritable lottery that is seating on a Murrays bus and fate throws together two entirely innocuous participants in the human race for a couple of hours of intimate proximity.

Having a grandfather who was General Manager of the Rajasthan State Road Transport Corporation always proved beneficial when it came to extended bus trips. In a boon to our upwardly mobile, middle-class (and typically South Asian) aspirations, my mother and I were always invited by the kindly driver into a separate cabin at the front of the coach. Akin to a classy bordello, it was comfortable, opulently furnished (hello velvet upholstery, floral wallpaper and a smorgasbord of Hindu deities), and a world away from the reality of Indian public transport.

In Australia, however, family connections will only get you as far as a shadow cabinet portfolio in the Liberal Party. For everything else, the egalitarian spirit reigns supreme.

Nowhere is that embodied moreso than the three and a half hour Murrays bus trip between Canberra and Sydney. Even my friend James, whose uncle is the eponymous Mr Murray, doesn’t get the privilege of choosing where to sit.

Sure, Greyhound has allocated seating but it would be a disservice to our forefathers, and to common decency, to subject yourself to a fate of polyester seating riddled with stains of questionable provenance, and a bus fleet essentially comprising several dolled up rickshaws. Have some self-respect.

So, with a stranger by your side, you’ve mounted your leather upholstered (take that, Greyhound!) chariot of fire and pulled out

of Jolimont. Once you overcome those early, awkward moments of over enthusiastic small talk, here are some tips on making the rest of your journey together worthwhile: 1) Go to sleep.

It’s preferable to rest your weary crown upon the shoulder of your companion. In pinning them down for the entire trip, not only do you successfully acquire a human headrest but you are able to outsource droolremoval duties to your friendly neighbour. Be courteous and choose someone wearing fabrics which provide optimal saliva absorption such as a woollen sweater or cashmere scarf.

2) Spark up a conversation with your kindly neighbour and get to know them a little better.

Ask a few preemptive questions before using it as a launchpad to regale them with droll tales of your naughty nieces, your daughter’s diminishing marriage prospects, and perhaps even delve into your suspicions about Monique, your philandering ex-husband’s mistress.

3) Only travel when hung over.

After a considerable night on the turps, nothing is more ideal for your situation than squeezing your sorry carcass with 80 other passengers in a confined space hurtling down a major highway at 110 km/h. If you start to feel sick, don’t even worry about going to the toilet because, as a teenager once demonstrated on a V-Line bus trip through regional Victoria, the floor in front of you, and indeed, the person next to you are all apt repositories for last night’s dinner.

Even though the vomiting fiend sat several aisles in front of me, the undulating slopes of the Victorian countryside gave his claggy mess the opportunity to traverse the bus floor and make acquaintance with my duffel bag.

And with it, all my clothes.

4) Hit on your companion.

Whilst it’s wise to ensure the other person doesn’t have their spouse or significant other seated right behind them (a lesson well learned that day), don’t let it be an impediment. In all other situations, your pathetic small talk (managing to get your Shih-tzu to take a shit in the kitchen sink isn’t as ex-

“

A stream of amber liquid painted the walls in a kind of ephemeral graffiti as my disappointingly top-heavy body frame, with its nonexistent core strength and sense of balance, was pummelled side to side.

”

citing as you think) and general stench of desperation would drive away any potential partners. But within the confines of a bus, Stockholm syndrome is your friend. Watch gleefully as your captive ‘hostage’ gradually develops feelings of empathy and fondness, and then make everyone else watch in horror as you consummate this courtship.

5) Take drugs.

I can’t speak from personal experience, but I’ve no doubt a bevy of opiates and amphetamines will broaden the horizons of your mind, elicit waves of enlightenment,

and definitely not freak the shit out of your fellow travellers. If acid is your preferred hallucinogenic, you can enter new dimensions of existence where your bus driver suddenly morphs into Sandra Bullock, you become rough-edged LAPD cop Jack Traven, and you are tasked with keeping your Santa Monica Transit commuter bus travelling above 50 miles per hour at all costs. As you proceed to re-enact the entire screenplay of Academy Award winning action-thriller, Speed, you realise that you are re-enacting the entire screenplay of Academy Award winning action-thriller, Speed.

6) Do not ever, ever, attempt to urinate standing up (in the toilet, obviously).

Invariably, this advice works best for people with a penis or those whose natural inclination is to pee standing up (see: most women at a three-day music festival). I once made this grave error of judgement as the bus entered the labyrinthine streets of inner city Sydney and made a lot of very sharp turns.

A stream of amber liquid painted the walls in a kind of ephemeral graffiti as my disappointingly top-heavy body frame, with its non-existent core strength and sense of balance, was pummelled side to side. With that level of humiliation and dampness of cloth, there’s nothing one can do but hide in the toilet until the bus has arrived at its destination, the passengers have exited, and make a hasty, unseemly getaway. So be a lady and sit down to pee.

Finally, please let me know if you’ve ever managed to actually get one of those $15 special bus fares Murrays advertises. It’s on par with the Easter Bunny, the tooth fairy and good coffee from Degree as entities of considerably questionable veracity.

Happy travels!

LIFE & STYLE// 16 GAMECHAIR HOUSE HUNTING PHILOSOPHER

JIMMY BAI

In the Shadow of 2001

The above reference is not to that amazing Stanley Kubrick film involving homicidal AIs, monkeys and ominous slabs (requiring repeated viewings for full appreciation). Nor is it a reference to Arthur C Clarke’s book that the movie was based on. As much as I want to contribute columns on both film and literature, my editor keeps getting on to me about gaming. Go figure.

Now, if, unlike me, you’re a regular reader of Edge magazine then you’ll probably have read the interesting article discussing the so-called “Untouchables”: games that are so beloved, so critically praised, that since their release, no-one has dared to level fair criticisms against them. The games that were chosen by the fine editors of Edge were HalfLife 2, Rez, Grim Fandango, Resident Evil 4, Halo: Combat Evolved and the original Super Mario Galaxy.

Ultimately, the criticisms that people made against these games were pretty weak: repetition, predictability, inconsistencies and balance issues tended to be the only things self-appointed “experts” could agree on in this respect.

While the post-modern world, with its reliance on cynicism and over-use of irony, might suggest that it’s a good idea to “take people down a peg” (i.e. the time-honoured tradition of ‘tall poppy syndrome’), to me, that would be like picking nits off a hippopotamus. It’s a good way for computer game reviewers/industry analysts to earn a living, but it’s not really helpful for people who aren’t as clued-in or up-to-date with their computer gaming experiences.

So let’s focus more on the legacy of what I think has, so-far, been the most important year in gaming: 2001.

I know, of course, that everything looks pink through rose-coloured glasses, but I think of 2001 as a year that pushed the envelope: it publicised open-world gaming, it brought pop-culture sensibilities to video games, and it broke through norms that might otherwise be associated with high literature or critical thought.

Although 2001 has plenty of instant classics, the more important contribution of many of these titles was to put ideas and concepts into the industry that irreversibly changed gaming, and the way gaming could be viewed. So, starting with this column, I’ll be looking at the legacy of 2001, as seen through three games: Grand Theft Auto III, Max Payne and Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. In each case, I’ll give a rundown of the game, its overall legacy since and more importantly, its impact on gaming.

Strap in, kids, this is going to be a long one…

Next: Vehicular homicide, Americanastyle

Interviewing for a new housemate is like speed dating on crack. The process is the same. You meet, you introduce yourselves, you talk a little about yourselves, asking more pointed, more gutsy questions than you would have had you met otherwise. You make over-exaggerated readings of them— about whether they are nice or honest, or won’t use your shampoo, or will use up all your milk, all of which may not matter anyway, because they’re really hot. But this is where the comparison ends. (Conceivably, it’s not like speed dating at all, I just wanted to talk about crack.) Here are three differences taken from recent experience.

First, instead of you meeting for the first time in some neutral place, like a function room designed to service unfortunate, unattractive people , you’ve invited this stranger into your home. What’s more, you don’t just sit idly in the lounge room while scoping

each other out, you give them the all-access tour: “Here is where we store the jam”; “Here is where I bake my secret family cupcake recipe”; “Here is where the medicines are kept”; “Here is where I sleep at night”; “Here is where I defecate”.

Second, instead of you considering this person as a one-day, five-week, or four-hour

ZID MANCENIDO hook up, you’re supposed to think of this person as someone in the room next to you who won’t axe-murder you while you sleep. For our ADHD generation, this means that awful concept: commitment. After this 15 minute meeting, you are together until death (them murdering you, obviously) do you part.

Third, this isn’t so different, but it’s still crazy so it’s worth the mention. Instead of letting the conversation run, you first speak but say absolutely nothing: “I really enjoy partying but sometimes I like just hanging out and staying in”; “I love meditating but other times I love going out”; “I’m really tidy but not too tidy”. Then you start speaking in or interpreting what the other person says as code: “I really like hanging out”, which means STONER; “I love meeting new people”, which means SLUT; or “I really like to bake”, which means SINGLE HAG. Happy house hunting!

Student society life, Japanese style Cracking social circles at a Japanese university is riddled with heirarchy, discovers Eric Shek “Erikku, drop your waist!”

“Hai.” “REPLY!” “HAI!” My legs were already bent and shaking, but I had to somehow muster the strength to bend them even more to lower my waistline. Inside my mind, I was praying that this round of basic drills would come to an end soon. Had I come on exchange to Japan to escape the vigours of ANU assessment, only to experience a different sort of pain?

Such was the physical pain that came part and parcel of being a member of the Osaka University Shorinji Kempo Club. Shorinji Kempo is a widely practiced form of martial arts in Japan that has been overshadowed in the international sphere by other Japanese martial arts, such as Karate. I only came to know about it when I saw a member of the Club in their martial arts outfit recruiting new members on campus. I’d thought I join just to have a bit of fun. Little did I know of the massive commitment I had just signed up for.

Clubs and circles, as they are called, occupy a key space in Japanese universities.

One of the first priorities of new university students is to decide which club or circle they will join, as most friendship groups are forged within these groups.

But joining a club or circle is not just putting your name down on your list. Members are assigned with particular roles and substantive tasks to complete, and meet several times a week. They are expected to remain in the club for the duration of their degree.

The Shorinjikempo club happened to be one of the most vigorous clubs; I was required to train Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 5pm to 8pm, and Saturday 9am to midday. These training hours exceeded my nine hours of class each week.

The Shorinji Kempo club had a strongly hierarchical structure of seniority, typical of all Japanese clubs and circles. The Shorinji Kempo club’s sempai had the responsibility of organizing events and leading training.

As a kohai (junior student), I was expected

to prepare equipment for training and follow the orders of the sempai. Fourth year students and graduated students were granted the honorary status of OB sempai (Old Boy Sempai), and occasionally came to help out in training.

What shocked me about being in a sempaikohai relationship for the first time was the real social distance. As a kohai, I had to address all the sempai as “X-sempai”, speak to them in formal language, and hand them their training gear and water during training.

Whenever one of the OB sempai showed up to training, everyone had to stop what they were doing and rush to the door to greet them. When they left, everyone had to be standing at the door until they were out of eyesight.

Perhaps the sempai-kohai relationship might seem condescending. But it works.

I could not help but be impressed at the amount of dedication the sempai put into organising and leading structured training programs, week in week out.

The intensity of the training was beyond anything I had ever experienced. During group drills, the sempai would shout directives like ‘Keep your back straight’, to which everyone else responded ‘Hai!’ and comply, no matter how painful or contorting the moves were. There was no place for slackers; you had to “Drink water quickly!”

The most gruelling training happened during the boot camps each holiday, where the kohai had to state their aims to the entire club at the start of camp, followed by waking up 5:30am for seven consecutive days for an hour of circuit training, and three sessions of formal training each day. It was during the summer camp that I experienced the most physical pain my life, an experience that left me unable to walk properly for a week.

My experience with the Shorinji Kempo Club may have been physically gruelling and at times, culturally uncomfortable, but it was cultural immersion in its true sense. I left Japan humbled by the members’ devotion to the club, and by the unwavering support and warmth they extended to me.

LIFE & STYLE// 17

We are all Kardashians

Cam Wilson on why Kim Kardashian is smarter than you, and why you disagree This article isn’t about Kim Kardashian it’s about you.

Let’s look at the hard facts: Kim is wealthy, successful and famous. She’s a producer, a fashion designer, an actress, a singer and of course, a socialite. Her fame is indisputable - she was the top celebrity searched in 2011, apparently ‘Googled’ over 9 million times a month during the year.

Kim has had her criticisms as well. Born into a wealthy family, Kim’s rise to stardom came from a variety of high-profile relationships, a sex-tape and then a reality TV show.

From here she’s exploited herself, her family, her relationships and her gender to stay in the spot light. Notably, her well publicized and short-lived ‘marriage’ to Kris Humphries lasted a whopping 72 days, leading the media to claim that it was a publicity stunt.

Kim, at best, seems to be a cunning businesswoman who has managed to squeeze every last bit out of her 15 minutes of fame.

At worst, she is a vapid, unintelligent and sadly influential woman who has capitalised on her sexuality and is famous for being famous.

At least, that’s what you want to think.

Despite this, the reality is that Kim is probably much smarter than you. As mentioned before, Kim has enjoyed immense success in a variety of fields. She was given a great head start - but there are a multitude of people who were born in the same position who are not as accomplished.

From all accounts, Kim is a workaholic, constantly maintaining her public persona.

Undeniably, the Kim Kardashian that we know is a character that has be created and maintained by public relations firms, her family and Kim herself. Regardless of the image, Kim Kardashian has set out to be the

most famous celebrity alive and has achieved that. The woman, who once said “Eww, I don’t like big balls on a dog”, has also stated that, “I feel lazy when I’m not working”, demonstrating her drive.

So why isn’t she heralded as a modern day Renaissance woman or a strong role model for entrepreneurs everywhere? So why do you still think that Kim Kardashian is “worthless”?

This article isn’t about Kim Kardashian - it’s about you.

Kim is an abstract concept that you use to justify your own existence, and she’s happy to let you do so. You don’t know Kim any more than you know Aristotle, but she is part of your self-serving bias - a phenomenon referring to the individual’s ability to take any evidence and attribute it to their own way of thinking. You look at Kim and you use her to tell yourself why you aren’t happy. You want to be rich, famous and successful like her? “I do, but I don’t want to sell out and be as dumb as her.” That’s fine with Kim - in return she just gets more of the things she wants. The reality is that Kim is your ego’s punching bag that you let your frustration out on. Except with every hook you throw, the character grows a little heavier, a little bigger, more real.

This isn’t a celebration of Kim Kardashian.

It may sound like a capitalism-fueled hero worship - praising the person with the most money or power - but it isn’t. What is enviable about her is that Kim is realising her dreams and reaching her goals. It’s irrelevant whether hunger for fame can ever be sated or is just a fool’s errand, - the fact is, she is attaining what she set out to do. So what are you trying to do, and are you doing it?

This article isn’t about Kim Kardashian - it’s about you.

GETTING POSITIVE ABOUT ARTS The Australian National University is a thriving community, with many things to offer to its students. One discipline in particular, that offers so much to the community of the ANU, is the Arts. It seems almost silly to point out the huge potential for Arts on campus, because it encompasses so, so much. A, and yet, it is exactly this that we need to focus on. Simply the fact that the Arts is such an expansive field is enough to blind us to how important it really is. Somehow, people miss the fact that an incredible amount of ANU culture stems from the Arts discipline, and we end up with this mistaken belief that Arts on campus is dying. We are students, so yes, all need our fill of worldly cynicism, and yet the Arts seems to have been slightly particularly stigmatised of late.

People will often be heard around the ANU making fun of the Arts student on campus:, in fact amongst the other disciplines, we are the joke! Yet it is the kind of joke said fondly, with a lingering feeling of: “Aah, if only I could get involved in this ‘Arts’ I have heard so much about…” Nevertheless, And yet there is so much happening all the time! To every person who has fondly mocked the Arts as “not a real degree” in their time at university, I say this: “What would your university be like without mu-

sic on a market day? Without performance in the Arts Centre? Without the Art School?

School of Music? Humanities? International Relations?” This is not just about having Arts subjects, but the energy, the atmosphere and the culture that these subjects bring to us as a University.

The blend of Arts in general, including everything from Theatre, Music and Art, to the Social Sciences, Philosophy, and yes, even International Relations, are the life blood of this University.

This is not an attack on other disciplines, but rather a celebration of the fact that we do, in fact, having have a thriving culture here

at the ANU, and one that needs cultivation, not cynicism. If we all focus on what is going wrong for Arts at ANU, then we are just shooting ourselves in the foot. For every joke about “a useless degree”, I want to see a debate, a poem, some creative writing, a play, a speech, a gig, a dance, and a picture of Karl Marx. I want to hear someone use the word “Enlightenment”, have someone do their readings on Chifley Meadows, drink a coffee, research a past culture, and work out the meaning of life.

By all means have your joke at the Arts student’s expense, but remember them again when you see the next Student play, when you go to the next recital, when you find the next Art Show. ANU has a massive Arts following, but we somehow keep focusing on the negatives.

REMY GRAHAM We should relish our Arts for all the good that it brings our community, not look at what has gone wrong.

For the Arts to succeed at ANU, we need a positive attitude change. Support everything “Arts” you can find, make an effort to embrace your inner Arts student, and think of all the good that comes from this amazing field.

Don’t treat this like a stat on an international rankings board, but see it as the atmosphere we live and breathe every day. With a mix of enthusiasm, appreciation and a bit of an attitude shift, there is no reason why Arts cannot mean as much to everyone as itdoes to me.

Remy is the Artistic Director of the National University Theatre Society

ILLUSTRATION // LEONARDO DA VINCI

REVIEWED// 18

LIVE

THEATRE

Yes. Prime Minister Sydney Theatre Directed by Tom Gutteridge In this time of almost universal disappointment in Australian political personalities, the live show of Yes, Prime Minister offers a refreshing satirical take on the hot mess that is world politics. The production was penned

by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, the brilliant writers of the original BBC series, and maintains the playful spirit and quick wit that made the series so popular in its time.

Fans of the TV show will naturally approach the stage revival with caution, and there has certainly been a tweak here and there to pull the characters into 2012. Talk of Blackberries and the Euro crisis gives the play a decidedly contemporary feel, and the writers have upped the physical comedy ele-

Forgotten Victims Eyes to the Floor ANU Drama Labs Directed by Shannon Steele Inside the small and cosy theatre audience is hushed in anticipation as they observe six ragged young women standing solemnly, staring into what seemed to be endless space.

The excited whispers of the crowd that always come before shows of this kind soon turned into cold silence as the girls began uttering

Politics, pomposity and plenty of prattle ment to take advantage of the spatial opportunities offered by the stage.

Set in Prime Minister Jim Hacker’s study at Chequers, the play centres upon the conflict between practicality and principle as Hacker, played by Mark Owen-Taylor, attempts to seal a multi-trillion dollar deal with oil-rich Kumranistan that could save Europe from the cusp of economic collapse. The catch – the Kumranistan Foreign Secretary, who is staying at Chequers, will not sign off on the loan unless Hacker can procure for him an underage prostitute. It’s a big ask; should the PM compromise the ethical principles of the Western world if it means saving the European Union from total fiscal meltdown?

Helping the PM to navigate this minefield of moral, political and economic issues is Permanent Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby, whose ludicrous but mesmerising verbosity is captured adroitly by Philip Quast. Quast is wonderfully smug and suave, and delivers Sir Humphrey’s circumlocutions and linguistic evasions with aplomb. It is, predictably, Sir Humphrey’s ludicrously wordy but ultimately meaningless speeches that spark the most generous bursts of applause.

Another change made for the live production is the character of Bernard, the PM’s

Private Secretary, who is an anchor of sombre calm in the television series, but is transformed onstage into a nervous, naïve manchild. John Floyd Fillingham’s bumbling take on Bernard is a constant source of humour – he delivers a hilarious physical performance (at times he seems part-man, part-slinky beneath his too-big suit) and spends the entire production at varying levels of endearing distress.

Additions to the cast are Caroline Craig, who plays the PM’s archly cool advisor, Alex Menglet, who calmly turns moral principles on their head as the Kumrani ambassador, and Tony Llewellyn-Jones, who is suitably indignant and puffed-up as the BBC DirectorGeneral.

Needless to say, there are a lot of things going on. There is something about Jay and Lynn’s razor-sharp, distinctly English style of comedy that manages to concoct situations that are laughably ridiculous and disconcertingly feasible at the same time.

At one point, for lack of a better idea, Hacker and Bernard even fall to their knees and pray for a solution for the mounting problems of European debt, illegal immigration and climate change – the audience’s laughter at this moment bordered on hysterical, per-

haps because this particular political strategy of “grasping at straws” hit distressingly close to home.

What makes Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister so brilliant in both their television and theatre forms is their sense of thinlyveiled chaos – the general tone is one of playful panic, as though the characters have found themselves trapped on a rickety raft in the middle of the ocean and are earnestly trying to fill the holes in their vessel with cotton wool.

Director Tom Gutteridge does well in managing the many threads of Jay and Lynn’s turning and twisting script, skilfully balancing faithfulness to the original with new stylistic choices to elicit many a raucous laugh and knowing groan from the audience.

Since the end of its run in 1988, the original TV series and its cast have been greatly missed. Of course, there is no Sir Humphrey like Sir Nigel Hawthorne, no Jim Hacker like Paul Eddington and no Bernard like Derek Fowlds, but the live show of Yes, Prime Minister is a thoroughly entertaining two hours that will have you chortling long after the curtain drops.

unusual words, streams of consciousness evoking anxiety and tension preparing us for what was about to be a rather confronting ride into a strange world.

Such was the opening scene of director Shannon Steele’s honours assessment production Eyes to the Floor (originally written

by Alana Valentine). The story of Australian girls during the 20th century who were classed as delinquents and placed in hellish reform institutions was told with striking realism. Scenes of abuse and cruelty were displayed on stage without restraint, with an instance of a male actor slapping a girl to the

floor and another of strangulation as part of the climax of the play. These moments transported us beyond the comfort of the theatre into a harshness of a bygone era where personal corruption went unpunished and innocent lives were tainted by irreparable devastation.

The minimalist set, designed by Chris Brian, along with the dynamic lighting techniques which frequently cast dim shadows across the small space, intensified the movement of the people on stage. We, the audience, experienced a deep personal connection with the characters, which was a clear testament

to the skill and focus harnessed by the cast among whom was Kat Allen whose poetic monologues revealed a troubled young mind, the collective subconscious of those who suffered at the hands of injustice.

Without a heart-warming denouement, the emotional experience seemed to linger beyond the curtain call to the cold walk back across the campus as thoughts in my mind continued to race. A powerful and transporting play that is definitely worth a great degree of recognition to drama fanatics, amateur and professional alike.

– JESS MILLEN

– EAMON WEINER

REVIEWED// 19 LIVE MUSIC

Charmed to Extinction Last Dinosaurs Transit Bar In Transit Bar, you would never have guessed that it was a typical Sunday night in Canberra. Outside the streets were empty amidst a freezing, budding autumn; inside, the roaring musical hub was packed to the brim. With tickets sold out days in advance, the audience was kept warm by wild dancing and shared body-heat. And even though the first day of the second university term was looming on the dawn of the ungodly and wretched Monday morning, the spirit in the bar was jovial and blissfully elated.

Such is the overwhelming popularity of

Last Dinosaurs, the Brisbane indie rockers hugely hyped by Triple J and raved about by Bloc Party as the next big thing.

What was beautifully refreshing about Last Dinosaurs was their absolute delight in performing and sharing their love of music.

Every band member exuded a youthful, energetic exuberance; perhaps they have not yet been exposed to exhausting months on the road or the tedium of a non-stop cycle between recording and touring. The band even admitted that they did not yet have a set long enough to fill up their allotted hour,

The Avengers Directed by Joss Whedon 143 minutes, rated M.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel Directed by John Madden 124 minutes, rated PG

Let’s be realistic: growing old is not the most exciting thing. Given that The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is centred on a group of aging British retirees, I can be forgiven for my initial hesitation to watch the film. My reservations were only heightened when upon entering the theatre, my friend and I discovered we were the only ones below the age of fifty.

Yet, hedging my bets on the ensemble cast of British veteran actors including Bill Nighy, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith and Tom Wilkin-

front of the stage that rivalled lead singer Sean Caskey’s own enlivened stage presence.

And the band members themselves are as accessible and as dynamic as their music, selling their own band shirts on a shaky table off to the side and making friendly conversation with any adoring fans who had built up the courage to say hello. If you haven’t listened to Last Dinosaurs yet, do it now. And if they’re ever in town again, make sure to grab a ticket early, or else catch them at some other venues around the country like Splendour in the Grass in late July.

– BEN LATHAM

Whedon’s Back With A Vengeance

FILM

Golden Geriatrics

bringing out the track “Saturn” from their original EP, as well as a mash-up of two songs that were huge way back in the band’s early childhood; Sophie Ellis Baxter’s “Why Does It Feel So Good” and Modjo’s “Lady”.

As the dreamy, opening guitar line of their first single, “Honolulu”, rang out across the bar, the crowd exulted with exhilarated dancing and the roaring of back-up vocals to the band onstage. But the performance reached a feverish pitch at the band’s last song, “Zoom”.

The pinnacle of the set and perhaps the band’s best known track, a frantic mosh began at the

son, I resolved to go through with it.

Needless to say, it was the right decision.

At first glance, the plot of the film might seem ordinary at best and dreary at worst. It tells of the disenchantment and frustrations that six elderly citizens experience in Britain, all of whom end up staying at the hotel for the “Elderly and Beautiful”, all for different reasons.

Upon their arrival in Jaipur, India, they discover that the hotel is run by a novice entrepreneur, played by Dev Patel of Slumdog Millionaire fame. The advertised grandeur and majesty of the old hotel is far from the reality of the ancient structure: some bedrooms are missing doors, while others are equipped with leaking faucets and inopera-

John Ford once said, “Most of the good things in pictures happen by accident”. You can feel that dynamism when the camera captures something accidental, unexpected. There is something instinctive and pure about those moments, an exuberant rawness that dilutes an otherwise heavily stylized medium.

In Joss Whedon’s The Avengers, nothing occurs by accident. That’s the law of the blockbuster: there’s simply been too big an investment in this behemoth for it to fail. It’s almost like printing money instead of frames. So Whedon plays it safe and delivers what David Stratton calls “mindless entertainment”. And it’s good - really good - but ultimately it’s just 143 minutes of thoughtless fun. Every shot is meticulously planned, every turn of the plot is part of a well-oiled machine, and every explosion is expanded to evoke just the right amount of thrill.

Hence, there’s nothing exciting.

It’s no Dark Knight, where you felt Christopher Nolan was trying to explore an idea beyond a mere display of coolness and consequently made a great film, where all the kids left with their favourite Joker line on their lips and a rough sketch of what Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil

might actually be about. David was being too polite in his disquisition. What he meant to say was, “Yeah it’s great, but it doesn’t fuck with your mind”.

There is nothing here that really gets you, holds you or terrifies you. The bad guy makes a few awkward references to Nazi Germany.

Whedon depicts his heroes as frustrated and emotionally-damaged, but does not imbue their pain with any significance. It’s like the teenager wearing an excessive amount of black because he wants everyone’s attention.

But god it’s a fun film, and it’d take an actual wrecking ball tearing through the screen and bringing the walls crashing down around you to create a more exhilarating experience in a cinema right now.

Despite all this investment in action and effects, the best moments are the more subdued ones, the moments between the rapid violence and set-piece explosions, when the characters are forced to talk to one another to push the plot on and ahead. Whedon’s trademark pop-inflected, screwball humour comes through: his penchant for capturing the interior motives of a character. It’s during these moments that you feel like there’s an authorial personality behind the camera: when the movie goes beyond the generic path and delivers something resembling the personal and human. It’s almost like the filmmaker has something to say.

tive telephones. The characters respond to this revelation and their wider culture shock in different ways: some maintain a keen sense of adventure, some are frustrated and some just don’t know what to expect.

The feel-good message of the film, like that of other ensemble storylines of the Love Actually persuasion that seek to intertwine the lives of different people, should render this comedy indistinguishable from the rest. Yet what makes The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel stand out is to the film’s focus on a group of people attempting to come to terms with growing old and all that it encompasses.

Their quests for love and happiness and their attempts to seek out adventure are, as it turns out, dreams to which everyone can relate.

Perhaps the saving grace of the film that lifts the characters above feel-good platitudes is the experience and talent of the six main actors. From Maggie Smith, who portrays a former housemaid in need of a hip transplant, to Mark Wilkinson’s character, a former high court judge who has come to India to seek out a lover whom he left behind during his youth, they all display a memorable performance. Judi Dench’s portrayal of a mourning housewife whose husband left behind a trail of debts after his passing is particularly moving.

It is the way in which the film combines each character’s unique elements that will ultimately allow it to, excuse the pun, endure through the ages.

– MARIE NGIAM

– MICHAEL QUINCEY O’NEILL

LIFE & STYLE// 20

CAMPUS For more Campus Style, check out facebook.com/woroni

Woroni will be scouting Union Court on Thursdays at 1pm

Yasmin Masri Nakul Legha

STYLE

LIFE & STYLE// 21

OUT & ABOUT// 22

STOP THE CUTS RALLY

Photos by Yasmin Masri

N

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SPORT// 23

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AFL’s multi-million investment into the heartland of rugby league has sparked a more tense rivalry between the two sporting codes.

With the inclusion of the Greater Western Sydney Giants, to West Sydney, where the Parramatta Eels, Penrith Panthers, Canterbury Bulldogs and Wests Tigers of the NRL hail has certainly heated up this new socalled “Turf War”.

Addressing the rivalry between the two sporting codes, NRL head honcho, David Gallop, said, “There’s no doubt it’s a competitive landscape, but we are concentrating on what we do, and what we do is pretty unique in Australia sport.”

The rivalry, I believe, stems from the intense inter-city rivalry between Melbourne and Sydney. With AFL being the main sporting code in the state of Victoria and rugby league presiding predominantly in New South Wales, and the almost reluctance of the two states of accepting the opposing sport, the rivalry most probably emanates from this.

The two sports have, of course, expanded into different cities and states but the base of the two codes are still situated in these states.

Being originally from the US, this rivalry provided to be actually quite baffling for me.

In the States, sports co-exist with each other.

Take Dallas, Texas as an example. People love the Rangers (baseball), support the Cowboys (football) and rally for the Mavericks (basketball).

There is no so-called “rivalry” between what is known as the “big three” sporting

Neil Balderson / Shutterstock.com

disciplines in the US. Fans cheer for their respective city’s team, not the actual sport itself.

So coming to Australia where there is this hostility between League and AFL, has me at a loss.

“

The inter-city rivalry between Melbourne and Sydney could potentially be greater with the teams having the full-backing of their entire city. Granted, there are people who follow both AFL and League, but there are plenty more who are against one or the other.

” In the States you see the professional sports teams spread across the country in every major city, just like in Australia.

The people who love their sports, however, will go to games of their favourite teams in all the sporting codes.

To use myself as an example, I have been to games in all of the big three sports back in Dallas. Granted, baseball is my preferred sport, but I also love watching the Mavericks and the Cowboys play as well.

Children in the US would play baseball in

the spring, football in the summer/fall and basketball in the winter. You could say that the sports live harmoniously with each other.

So why can’t rugby league and Aussie rules co-exist in a country where sports holds such a high pedigree?

Australians are extremely passionate about sports and I love that about this country. However, I feel as though a peaceful collaboration between the two could result in higher ticket sales for teams, even more passion and a much more intense rivalry between teams in the NRL and AFL, instead of with each other.

The inter-city rivalry between Melbourne and Sydney could potentially be greater with the teams having the full-backing of their entire city. Granted, there are people who follow both AFL and League, but there are plenty more who are against one or the other.

I have encountered many people who despise either one of the sports and many more who have not even watched or played a full game of league or AFL, let alone understand the rules to one or the other.

Now that the AFL has infiltrated what is known as the heartland of rugby league, the rivalry between the two sports has become more evident.

Although this turf war is somewhat fascinating for a Yank like me, I believe there is no reason why the AFL and NRL can’t enjoy each other’s company. Rivalries should be seen between teams, not sports.

LETTER FROM PLANET EARTH

The Back Page

ONEOAKCOALITION JOIN US ON A JOURNEY TO CHANGE THE WORLD Dear [Friend’s Name], How are you, [Friend’s Name]? It’s been so long since we caught up! We should get coffee soon and talk about [List mutual interests here, if any]. How is your course going? Are you still studying [Political Science/Development Studies/International Law/ Some other, less worthy discipline]?

I was just sending you this personalised Facebook message to let you know that this week I’m taking part in OneOakCoalition’s Living Without The Clothesline campaign.

This week, I will only be washing two items of clothing a day, which means making hard choices between my long-sleeved button-up paisley shirt and my strategically shortened corduroy slacks.

I was just wondering if you’d like to sponsor me as I make this sacrifice?

Around the world today, many billions of people live in desperate need of ironed shirts, pastel knitted jumpers, and distressed skinny jeans. Your contribution to my campaign will help raise awareness and fund the advertising necessary to recruit people to take part in campaigns like this one.

Anyway, hope we can catch up soon. Cheeky coffee at [Vivaldi’s/Gods/overpriced café in Surrey Hills]?

Yours in sartorial deprivation, Tom

WORONI BOOKSHELF

JAMIE FREESTONE

THE REPUBLIC OF LETTERS Review: The Assorted Press Releases of Professor Ian Young My darlings, I have come across a new star in the literary firmament. Professor Ian Young, present Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University and noted facial topiarist, has yet to release his first book or poetry collection; however, his is certainly a name to watch.

His chosen form, as far as I can make out, is the press release, and if you said that he was the foremost exponent of the art today, you would hardly be scratching the surface.

Today I would like to walk you one of his more recent works, a delicate little peach called “A Bachelor of Music For The Twenty-First Century”, in which Professor Young cleverly announces that he will be sacking the entire staff of the School of Music.

The title of the press release itself gives a clue as to the exact nature of Professor Young’s literary abilities. Other, less talented authors would be tempted to announce that the ANU will sack twenty-three music teachers, perhaps with something along the lines of “The ANU To Sack TwentyThree Music Teachers”.

But not Professor Young! Indeed, his is an infinitely subtler pen. “A Bachelor of Music For The 21st Century”, he says, with a sly little wink, as if taunting the reader.

Whimsical understatment of this calibre is encountered but rarely. It is as though Winston Churchill, after the German invasion of Poland, had declared war on Hitler with a statement entitled “Shoring Up Britain’s Position on the European Continent, For A Better Tomorrow”.

“Significant changes to the School of Music are proposed”, Professor Young goes on to say, his sentence artfully constructed as to conceal the identity of the proposer. Is it Professor Young himself? One of his friends? Franz Schubert?

As Professor Young makes his way through the press release, he continues to flaunt established, and, I would argue, outdated literary conventions. Commas, splatter the text at random as if thrown, by Jackson Pollack. Conventional sentence structure playfully subverted occasionally is. The word “impact” appears in a part of the sentence where mere mortals might put a verb.

The rest of Professor Young’s œuvre evinces a similar sense of cinematic vagueness. “Ensuring Ongoing Excellence”, a more conventional prose poem which also meditates on the theme of budgetary discipline, asks that the University (a sort of quixotic central figure in the narrative, ever embroiled in misadventure of one kind or another) “invest in its future”. Since the University’s Future is not a listed stock, as far as I can tell, we must assume that Professor Young is speaking metaphorically, although on what subject is less clear.

Professor Young is an emerging talent in the press release genre, and we hope to him tackle more varied subjects, like the clash of civilisations, or stamp duties.

NICHE SYMPATHY CARDS

So sorry to hear about your third degree burns!

Much sympathy on the news of your bankruptcy

TOP 5 Tracks on Ian Young’s iPod 1. Oops! …I Did it Again 2. Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime?

3. Hot and Cold 4. Pretty Fly For a White Guy 5. White Noise (Industrial)

EPISTEMOLOGY Dear Gzorgax So the other day I saw an interview with a very kindly, warm-hearted woman who claimed to have survived inoperable cancer by praying to Mary Mackillop: a long dead Earthling organism whose remains are now presumably so decomposed that barely a fragment of what was previously her living self remains and therefore one of the least qualified people to do anything to affect another person’s biological health.

You might be wondering what help or counselling we are offering this clearly harmless, but delusional or stupid lady who believes in such, as it were, rot.

None. In fact, the interviewer didn’t question her extraordinary claim at all. You might further wonder why the remainder of the news program and the remainder of the news week weren’t devoted to this extraordinary discovery of several magical processes which invalidate most of the claims about the universe on which you and I base our actions every day.

Well, Gzorgax, on our planet we have an interesting relationship to knowledge about the world, which I’ll try and outline as simply as I can. When knowledge is very well established, through experiment, data collection, peer-review, etc., like the claim that the Earth is getting warmer owing to post-industrial age human activity, we approach with incredulity. In fact in such cases of near unanimity of opinion among the very people who have learnt the most about the topic, we make sure to give equal credence to dissenting, ill-informed voices, in some bizarre obeisance to favouring even pathological scepticism. Which is fine I guess.

But we relax a little bit when talking about something where there is some written, historical record of events, intermingled with obvious confabulation.

Take, say, Islam, which is a system of belief founded by a middle ages warlord who shagged a nine year old girl and who claimed to speak regularly to a god no one else could hear or was even allowed to claim to be able to hear, lest they be slaughtered by armies of that selfsame child-statutory-rapist. In such cases we challenge adherents only when they go too far and actually put their beliefs into practice by killing non-believers.

The least amount of scepticism is reserved for those who profess to believe in stories of creation which aren’t even written down and based on historical record, but are instead oral traditions of indigenous peoples. In such cases, because of a mix of condescension, respect and guilt for wrecked cultures, we generally don’t judge these claims at all, despite their obvious status as sub-standard fairy tales rather than coherent ontologies.

You might be worried that our civilisation is on the verge of collapse because we employ this reverse burden of proof for claims based on an inverse relationship to how much evidence the claimant can furnish. But luckily we have a failsafe called “hypocrisy” which means that people don’t actually believe any of this fluff and live their lives as if we live in a causal universe based on scientific laws and not mumbojumbo. So even while they’re praying, they still see their doctors and take their medicine.

Yours earthily, Jamie.