Woroni: Edition 7, 2012

AUNTY FLO RESPONDS TO YOUR DILEMMAS [BACK PAGE]

THE MEANING OF LIFE{[P14]

ANU PARKING TOO CHEAP?{ [P5]

IN DEFENCE OF OAKTREE{ [P7]

WORONI The Australian National University Newspaper Since 1948

NO. 7 VOL 64

MAY 24

School of Music Chaos

The ANU is in talks with Canberra businesses to provide additional funding for the School of Music, as massive protests last week forced a number of concessions by ViceChancellor Ian Young. The University has changed its methods, but not its goal, with regards to staff cuts at the School of Music: backing down from a “spill” of all staff, as well as, initial proposals to halve the amount of one-on-one tuition received by students also look set to be rethought.

Importantly, however, the proposal to sack half of the School’s full-time staff and overhaul the curriculum to a more “professionally oriented” one remains unchanged.

It has emerged the ANU misled students in claiming the proposed curriculum changes have been drafted over several years, with Adrian Walter, head of the School of Music, telling students at a consultation session that in “No way or shape has the [proposed] curriculum been developed over three years”.

This follows allegations from members of the School of Music Executive Committee such as Mike Price, a senior faculty member since 1990, that the Executive Committee had never seen the proposed curriculum restructure plans.

Whilst the University has emphasised the importance of the consultation process, Pro-

TOM WESTLAND & NAKUL LEGHA

VC absent as thousands protest changes Head of School jumps ship No consultation over new curriculum Businesses may step in to bolster budget Uni forced to back down on sacking methods, one-on-one tuition cuts fessor Walter admitted to students that how the consultation process would proceed was “not clear” to him. He conceded “the new curriculum will not attract or produce elite performers” but did not elucidate the position he was advocating to ANU management.

This comes after the announcement last week that Professor Walter has been appointed Director of the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts (HKAPA), a position he will take up in September. Woroni understands

that Chancelry sent Professor Walter a letter advising him to go on leave and to carefully weigh his options, following an indication from Professor Walter that he would like to take a few days’ leave.

It had been widely rumoured that Professor Walter was deeply uncomfortable with the proposed changes; however, he had announced them and publically defended them when they came under attack from staff, students and the national music community.

The position of Director at HKAPA had

been advertised since the beginning of the year, with applications closing in February; and Professor Walter said that his move to HKAPA was a case of unfortunate timing, At the consultation session, music students expressed disappointment and betrayal at the move, with one telling Professor Walter that “There is now a fundamental problem with us trusting you”.

Meanwhile, considerable concern still exists amongst many staff in the Music School that the proposed changes to the curriculum have been poorly thought through and will see a worsening standard of music education offered to students at the ANU. However, in an interview with Woroni, the Education Chair at the School of Music, Dr Jonathan Powles, said that the curriculum was designed to be more flexible, and that the proposed changes responded to student demand.

He said that while the Bachelor of Professional Music Practice was not well-subscribed, many Music students had been eager to take electives in subjects outside the traditional performance degree, and the new curriculum was designed to allow this.

He also said that it was unlikely that music

CONTINUED PAGE 3

NEWS//2

WORONI THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY NEWSPAPER SINCE 1948

Budget 101

Editorial, Schmeditorial When the poison-tongued American wit Dorothy Parker was asked by her editor why she had not submitted an article for that week’s New Yorker, she sent him a note saying: “I am too fucking busy. Or vice versa.”

You might find that anecdote funny. We don’t. That story makes us think of the countless weekends we might have spent picnicking, landscape gardening, or indeed, like the randy Miss Parker, engrossed in matters of an adult nature, instead of locking ourselves away in a rancid office, eating stale water-crackers and arguing over the optimal position of the English adverb.

But now we, erstwhile editors of your student newspaper, are hanging up our badges, leaving our fortified Union Court bunker, and selling off all the military hardware we have acquired through our connection with ANU Student Media Incorporated. After many commas, parentheses and blessed semicolons, our time as editors has reached a very definite full stop.

If you were to ask us (and you probably won’t), we’re pretty proud of what we’ve managed to accomplish. A radio station has blossomed, while the newspaper has flourished, with new writers, artists and readers. The final coat of paint is being applied to our revamped website, where we plan to unleash the full, non-pornographic potential of the World Wide Web. We now wish simply to thank everyone who has contributed to the Woroni newspaper and radio over the past year, with an especial loving motion of gratitude to all of the dedicated subeditors who have lightened our load. Above all we would like to thank our fellow editors for putting up with us. To Nakul, Zid, Lisa, Liv and our soon to be elected successors whose job it will be to take Woroni to new and strange heights – we wish you the best of British luck.

We encourage anyone interested in being a part of this odd journalistic beast to send us an email and get involved. Write an article or a letter; host a radio show, draw a cartoon. Woroni is a family, and we want you to join. After all, someone has to pay for our multimillion dollar golden parachutes.

With love, ANGUS MINNS TOM WESTLAND UMA PATEL VICTOR WHITE

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

For People too Lazy to Read News SHAN-VERNE LIEW Support to individuals and a net surplus were the key themes advertised in this year’s 2012-2013 Federal Budget.

The plan was described as a Robin Hood budget due to particular redistributive policies, and has attracted both praise and criticism from stakeholders.

The budget allocated 1 billion in spending over four years to establish a new National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), as part of a response to Productivity Commission findings that the current disability systems are underfunded, unfair, fragmented, inefficient and uncertain.

Youth Allowance, Newstart Allowance and other income support program recipients were also appropriated with $210 annual supplementary allowance, which will start in March 2013. Some argued that the supplementary allowance does not sufficiently provide individuals with the means to generate income above the domestic poverty line.

A Schoolchildren’s Bonus program, providing $410 to primary students and $820 to secondary students for books, uniforms and other school costs, was proposed as a substitute to the Government’s education tax refund.

The budget simultaneously pared down spending on several line items to achieve a minor 1.5 billion net surplus for 2012-2013.

Primary and secondary school funding was cut by 83 million over the next four years, despite recommendations in a recent report by David Gonski that substantial increases to school funding were desperately needed.

“Australia’s schooling system needs to help ensure that the targets for students attaining Year 12 or equivalent qualifications are met and that students leave school with the skills and capacities required to actively participate

in society,” the report said.

“Public schools cannot continue to rely on one-off programs which have a limited life,’’ Australian Education Union president Angelo Gavrielatos said, according to local news.

A commitment to invest 8 billion, or 0.5 per cent of GDP, in annual expenditure on foreign aid by 2015 was also delayed to the next budget year. The Foreign Ministry currently plans to allocate 70% of its foreign aid expenditure to the Asia Pacific region by 2015-2016.

“Australia’s aid program saves lives, and it could save more lives more quickly without these cuts,” Oxfam executive director Andrew Hewett said, according to local news sources.

Meanwhile, plans to cut the company tax rate by 1 per cent from 30 per cent, which would have reduced annual tax revenue by 3.6 billion, were also scrapped. Instead, small businesses were offered minor tax deductions for vehicles and assets under $6,500.

Defence spending was cut by 5.5 billion over the same time period, representing a reduction of 1,000 staff. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), which is constructing a new 1,800-member Central Office in Reid, has also been instructed to halt further growth.

Inflation adjusted funding for higher education and research remained unchanged. A response to last year’s Base Funding Review, which found that teaching costs currently exceed funding in most disciplines, is expected after a report on math and science participation from Chief Scientist Ian Chubb.

Arts funding was cut by 70 million annually, although an upcoming National Cultural Policy is expected to reformulate the funding criteria for cultural spending in future years.

$83 million

$70 million

cuts to primary and secondary schools

cuts to arts funding

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

ART DIRECTOR Yasmin Masri

WEB DIRECTOR Tom Garwood

MOST ELIGIBLE BACHELOR Angus Minns

BEST LINGUIST/MODEL Tom Westland

CONFIRM OR DENY And they’re up and running! The annual Flogging A Horse Until It Bleeds Votes contest that is an ANUSA election is gathering pace with tickets forming left, right and centre. But mostly centre, with independence being the political position du jour.

Three budding tickets have emerged for the right to sit on the Iron Throne (ticket names have been completely made up): Utopia! (Galvin Chia & Emma Eriksen) The ticket, which also includes Shan Verne Liew and Charlotte Glick, is spearheading a ‘crowd-sourcing’ model for putting together a ticket – distributing an open letter publicly calling for expressions of interest to anyone interested. Whilst we commend their openness and innovative approach, they displayed a lack of political nous in asking Woroni to publish, for free, what was essentially an advertisement for their ticket. This hasn’t stopped their electoral celebration, having confetti-bombed lecture theatres with their manifestos under the curious assumption that people who go to lectures care about student politics. But then again, maybe that’s the point.

Platitude! (Aleks Sladojevic & Tasman Vaughn) Filled with people who were cooler than you in High School and have BMWs with their name as plate numbers. College-focused, popularity-based, and Arts/Lawheavy, they are adeptly calculating the electoral math that propelled past Presidents like Sham Sara and Tully Fletcher to ANUSA fame and fortune. They also might have decent policies. We’ll only find out when the frantic meetings in The Gods are over.

Rigor Mortis! (Alex Bell-Rowe) The presence of Alex Bell-Rowe may already have poisoned the chalice for his ticket, given his past forays into the electoral cycle have been less than successful. Then again, this ticket is so cloaked in mystery, a surprise “AJ Neilson”-shaped package may be running. Who is hiding in the shadows? (Is someone even hiding in the shadows?) We just hope the Law Revue director will be able to inject some much-needed humour into a normally dreary electoral process.

Confirm or Deny wishes the participants the best of luck as they hole up this winter to make posters and Facebook pages dedicated to advertising their history of resume-building in the hope that you will elect them for some more resume-building.

As the saying goes, “When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground.”

(P.S. In the interests of full disclosure, independence is an ideal Woroni holds closely to its heart – so much so that only one Editor and two Sub-Editors will be running for Executive positions on ANUSA.)

Advertising advertising@woroni.com.au Submissions submissions@woroni.com.au Letters to the Editor letters@woroni.com.au General inquiries contact@woroni.com.au PRINTED BY CAPITAL FINE PRINT PUBLISHED BY ANU STUDENT MEDIA

Keep up with us on: facebook.com/woroni Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/woroni

WORONI

NEWS// 3

Battle for postgrad association heats up ANGUS MINNS

A new president, executive committee and council will be elected by the Post-Graduate and Research Students’ Association (PARSA) at the organisation’s upcoming Annual General Meeting (AGM) to be held on Friday 25th May at 2pm in the Graduate Lounge at University House. A raft of constitutional changes as well as a proposal to examine moving PARSA’s elections to an online model will also be considered.

Outgoing PARSA president, Areti Metuamate, will not seek a third term. Woroni understands that current PARSA Vice-President and Environmental Officer, Julie Melrose and current Equity Officer, Walter Reinhardt, have nominated for President. Alessandro Antonello, PhD Candidate at the School of History, told Woroni that he too might possibly nominate for the position of President.

Nominations for President and other council positions closed on Wednesday 23rd May, shortly after this article was written.

The candidates whom Woroni spoke to cited various reasons driving their decision to run for President.

Ms Melrose said she was running for president because she had “extensive experience working in advocacy and campaigns for various NGOs” and that she wished to utilise this experience as a “proactive and effective advocate for postgraduate students”.

Mr Reinhardt said: “I love this university and I want to improve the postgraduate experience at ANU”. He identified a desire to make improvements in areas such as “inequitable treatment of students, poor student experiences with coursework and research supervision”.

Potential presidential candidate, Mr Antonello, told Woroni that he may run because PARSA needs to be “a united voice” and must be “in favour of a strong and healthy university”.

Woroni asked each candidate to outline their key policy platforms.

Ms Melrose emphasised her desire to “strengthen PARSA’s voice on the ANU’s financial repositioning and the review of courses for compliance under the Advanced Qualifications Framework (AQF)”.

Local brewhouse brouhaha

SHAN- VERN LIEW

SHAN-VERNE LIEW

After nearly nineteen years in Civic’s Canberra House, the Wig and Pen is looking for a new home in the ACT or possibly interstate.

Ground floor shop owners in the building were notified in March that their month-bymonth tenancy contracts might not be renewed. The landowner, Prime Space, is considering redevelopment of the building into a new 12-storey residential or office building.

Ground floor tenants have a flexibility clause written into their contracts, which allows Prime Space to not extend tenant building leases in the event of a redevelopment.

This has sent Wig and Pen owner Lachlan McOmish hunting for a new location within Canberra. But if rents are lower outside the ACT, he told the Canberra Times that he would consider moving his microbrewery interstate. ‘‘Canberra without the Wig and Pen seems incomprehensible, so we’re certainly hoping we can get somewhere to relocate too, we’re

looking earnestly,’’ Mr McOmish said.

Although an official redevelopment date for Canberra Building has not yet been announced, the award-winning brewery owner is still looking for an appropriate new location.

The venue, which was founded at Canberra House in 1994, specialises its own variety of ten different microbrews, shipping in wheat from interstate and overseas.

Last week, the brewery won the national award for “Champion Small Australian Brewery” at the 2012 Australian International Beer Awards. Over 1,300 brews competed for the awards, which were decided on by a panel of 52 international judges.

David Moses Pharmacy, Vision City, Harvest Café and Subway are also located on the ground floor of the Canberra Building.

Canberra House was completed in 1975.

The building is a nest for several government agencies and law firms.

“I also want to embed a strong social and environmental justice ethic within PARSA,” said Ms Melrose.

Former PARSA Equity Officer, Mr Reinhardt indentified “graduate student welfare and equity” as his main priority, saying this was particularly relevant in light of “impending university cutbacks.” Postgraduate students must “receive the training, skills and support they need to go on to successful futures beyond the ANU”.

Mr Antonello stated that many members of PARSA are not only students but often are also casual teaching staff. “PARSA is unique in that it needs to be strong advocate for a strong working environment,” said Mr Antonello.

Mr Antonello further commented that he was “disappointed” in PARSA’s current direction or lack thereof; “PARSA needs to focus on more than the social lives of its members”.

The AGM to be held on Friday, 25th May will also consider numerous constitutional changes. These include proposals to create a constitutionally mandated Indigenous Of-

ficer and to remove the requirement that the Treasurer present the budget at the first meeting of each calendar year.

A proposal will also be considered to change PARSA’s constitution to allow an increase in the amount of honoraria able to be paid to the president. An email sent to all PARSA members stated this increase is needed because “PARSA has been given additional funding from the University for the honorarium of the next president” and this is “in line with the honorarium of the ANUSA president.”

Outgoing PARSA President, Mr Metuamate, told Woroni that in addition to these constitutional changes he will move a motion in his president’s report asking that PARSA’s new Postgraduate Representative Council (PRC) investigate options for a “more democratic election system”. Mr Metuamate indicated to Woroni that he would like to see options such as online voting explored.

When asked by Woroni, each of the prospective presidential candidates stated that they broadly supported such a move.

Music School Chaos CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

staff made redundant through the cuts would leave Canberra, given that many staff at the School of Music are currently employed on a casual basis and remained in Canberra. He said it was “ironic” that ANUSA representative Jack Hobbs had spoken against the casualisation of staff when his own teacher was a casual.

Staffing cuts will no longer be made through a “spill” of all positions, which would have seen all staff made redundant and then asked to reapply for fewer positions. Instead, the normal redundancy procedures will be applied, with the aim of achieving the same reductions to staff as under the proposed model which will see 23 full-time positions reduced to 13.

However, the ACT Secretary of the NTEU, Stephen Darwin, told Woroni that this would mean that all sackings would have to be justified by the university, possibly through action in Fair Work Australia. He said the NTEU was prepared to aggressively defend any staff member made redundant under the plan.

This comes after the NTEU had formally lodged a dispute arguing that the University has breached its Enterprise Agreement with staff last week.

Mr Darwin condemned the university for needlessly placing staff in a state of uncertainty and anxiety. He told Woroni that the university must have known that its proposal violated the Enterprise Agreement, and that announcing the redundancies was an “abominable” industrial tactic which had caused immense distress at the School of Music.

The ANU has also announced that it has held discussions with the ACT and Region Chamber of Commerce regarding a consortium of businesses who may provide funding to the School of Music, in a bid to reduce what the University claims is a $2.7 million annual deficit. No money has yet been promised, however. Additionally, Vice-Chancellor Ian Young has decided to reinstate weekly one-on-one tuition under the new proposed curriculum. Initially, the University had proposed only fortnightly one-on-one tuition.

University has not officially announced this

decision, the financial implications of which are unclear.

At last week’s protests, Mr Darwin criticised the University’s emphasis on financial stability, arguing “University is not about surpluses” and that “Ian Young has to stop being an intellectual book keeper”. He argued:“The people here today are here for the University; they’re not here for the surpluses…and they’re not here to fight for mediocrity.”

Chief Minister Katy Gallagher has said the ACT Government is not in a position to increase the annual funding from the $1.4 million presently given to the School.

Last Monday nearly one thousand students, staff and members of the Canberra arts community gathered in Union Court to protest the staff cuts and curriculum changes.

A motion was unanimously passed and presented by student representatives to Deputy Vice-Chancellor (and Acting Vice-Chancellor) Professor Lawrence Cram demanding the proposed changes be withdrawn immediately and condemning “the short-sighted financially-driven attitude displayed by the University.”

Before the main rally, music students played music at various spaces on campus, culminating in a “Protest Jam” which saw students join a brass marching band in Union Court.

In a passionate address to the rally, Stephen Darwin, the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) ACT Divisional Secretary, said: “What has become of the ANU when we have to convince the Vice-Chancellor that the best music school in Australia should stay?” He expressed disappointment that the University would view “the most incredible talent [as] disposable for the sake of a debt.”

Mr Darwin claimed Ian Young’s future leadership of the ANU would be “doomed” if he did not back down from the cuts: “Nobody will respect his leadership”, he said. “The time has come for Ian Young to back down. Again.”

A petition condemning the cuts has received 22,000 signatures and was presented to Chancelry.

NEWS//4

Rapper-Politician Discusses Change in Burma BEN HENSCHKE

Twelve years ago, Phyo Zeya Thaw’s debut hip-hop album hit number one on the Burmese music charts. Last year, he served a third year in prison for anti-government activities. On May 7th, he was addressing a packed Bruce Hall as one of Burma’s newest democratically elected politicians.

Along with fellow National League for Democracy (NLD) members Sandar Min and Phyo Min Thein, the former musician discussed the heady mood in Burma following recent democratic reforms and the NLD’s victory in 43 of 45 seats in last month’s byelection.

Hosted by the ANU’s Asia-Pacific Learning Community, the forum also featured ANU academics Dr Nicholas Farrelly and Dr Jane Ferguson, along with Labor MP Janelle Saffin.

The former musician founded the Generation Wave youth movement in 2007, in the wake of large-scale anti-government protests known as the Saffron Revolution. The nation’s military junta, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), quickly served him with a six-year sentence for pro-democracy activities.

He was drawn to politics as a way to reduce the suffering of the Burmese people, to which he had been exposed during his time as a musician.

“If the people feel pain, I feel pain. If the people are angry I feel the same too,” he said.

He joined the NLD upon his release from prison last year.

The three politicians, all former political prisoners, were in Australia as part of an NLD delegation personally chosen by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The NLD leader successfully stood in the April byelections, which were her first since she was placed under house arrest after winning a

landslide in the 1990 election.

Suu Kyi’s release from house arrest is one of the recent changes in Burmese politics that have triggered optimism both within Burma and internationally. An overhaul of the political system in the last two years dissolved the SPDC and replaced the military junta with what is nominally a parliamentary democracy.

Political reform is still in its infancy, however. The international community has derided the 2008 constitution, which reserves 25% of parliamentary seats for the military. The NLD boycotted the 2010 general election, citing an unfair electoral process, while two other opposition parties filed official complaints for fraud and voter intimidation.

Despite this, each speaker noted a palpable mood for change in Burma. Dr Farrelly spoke of unparalleled confidence in Burma. Among the Burmese people there is an “understandable urge to see everything change, right now,” he said.

Still, he added that four challenges — the militarisation of politics, ethnic war, poverty and a history of injustice — stand in the way of further democratisation.

Dr Ferguson stressed that the ongoing ethnic conflicts in Burma, particularly in the north-eastern Shan state, threaten to derail any positive steps towards democracy. The Burmese civil war is the longest-running civil conflict in the world.

But the ANU is well-placed to engage with the formerly reclusive state as it opens to the world, according to Phyo Min Thein.

“To be successful we need international collaboration with universities like the one here,” he said.

“We welcome anyone who wants to come and engage.”

BEN MCMULLIN

For 200 million people worldwide, the decision of who will be the next shepherd of their souls is happening behind closed doors.

For Twelver Muslims (Twelvers are the largest sect of Shi’a islam) in Iraq this is Grand Ayatollah Sistani. At 81, he is frail and hasn’t left his house in years. His age has highlighted the open nature of succession to his position, not to mention the key role that he has played throughout the last twenty years for Shiites and Iraqis in religion and politics.

From Saddam’s regime, through the IranIraq conflict, to the American invasion, he has been a voice of moderation that has strongly advocated non-violence and democracy.

Iraq’s political relationship with its religious leaders has been minimalist recently. Leaving policy making on the most part to the democratically elected government. This has been the method of choice for Sistani since the overthrow of Saddam’s Ba’athist Authoritarian regime, speaking for 200 million shi’a muslims , advising them of what god expects them to do, while remaining aloof of politics.

More recently, there have been alarming accusations of a Tehran-led overthrow of Shi’a religious power in Najaf, the heart of Iraqi Shi’a Islam. The implication is that Tehran aims to utilise the political power at the hands of the Grand Ayatollah (that hasn’t been used by Sistani in this way) to gradually shift the nation towards an Iranian-style theocracy.

It is substantiated by the fact that the likely successor is the protégé of the Current Grand Ayatollah of Iran, and is responsible for bringing the current Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, to power through the arrangement of the coalition of parties by which the current government is formed.

Not to mention that Maliki especially visited Sharhroudi when he was in Tehran last year.

This has caused many to speculate that the executive power of Government of Iraq will be beholden to the Tehran-backed Ayatollah Shahroudi to such an extent that he will be able to influence Iraqi policy towards theocratic rule.

Although extremely speculative, the potential for a Tehran-led campaign has interested parties around the world alarmed.

The US, which has invested itself in Iraq’s fledgling democracy, is concerned because it would mean the loss of an ally in a geopolitically sensitive area. It appears that these developments aren’t heeded by Iraqi stakeholders; the dual factors of his patronage of the community of Najaf and his Najafi origin are sure to be telling factors that the majaiya (body that decides on the Ayatollah) will reflect upon most. Sistani himself gave a lot to the Najaf community in much the same way as Shahroudi is now before the death of the last Grand Ayatollah, Khoei.

As it stands, Iraqi clerics have displayed their unease with the shift from a Judicial position in Iran to the purely religious position in Iraq, with Mohammed al-Mana Khani, a senior cleric, saying: “The way Shahroudi thinks has changed. If he had kept his views learned from Sadr and stayed in Najaf, it would have been better. But 30 years in Iran has changed him.” Further to this diversion from the traditions of Najaf, Shahroudi has deep sympathies toward militant Islam, which is chalk to the cheese of Sistani’s position.

Despite these factors, we can only estimate what the majaiya will do when it comes to appointing Grand Ayatollah Sistani’s successor but as it stands currently, Shahroudi is quite clearly the ‘frontrunner’, so to speak. As his organisational officer said, “for the future, you can’t tell. This is up to God.” Georgios Kollidas / Shutterstock.com

New International Law Journal Launched ADAM SPENCE The ANU International Law Society (ILS) has launched the latest edition of it’s very own student publication, the International Advocate. Issue two brings an insightful look at the development of international environmental law and its impact on the upcoming Rio+20 conference by ANU academic Don Anton; while Masters student Andaleeb Akhand examines the prospects for a legal resolution to the South China Sea dispute. Josefin Dahlerus, currently studying an undergraduate thesis at Georgetown University highlights the plight of non-citizens in Latvia following the fall of the Soviet Union, while Sherwood Du discovers there is such a thing as a free lunch.

Available online and in print, the International Advocate explores international law and its related fields along with providing essential news and advice for law students. “The Advocate extends beyond opinion articles on international law to cover information about student life, including reviews of international law electives, news of the society and feed-

The Ayatollahs Strike Back

back from students on experiences from their degree,” ILS President Katelyn Ewart said.

The publication is prepared by an editorial team from the society lead by ANU College of Law JD student Andrew Swanson. While featuring high profile articles from leading academics, it’s the contributions of students that the society envisages as driving the Advocate forward.

“It provides an opportunity for students to work together as part of an editorial board and be involved in the production of a high quality informal journal. The team is always looking for student involvement, whether you wish to write your own piece or join the editorial board,” Katelyn goes on to spruik.

The latest issue can be downloaded from the ILS website (www.anuils.com) and will be available in limited print distribution.

Disclosure: Adam Spence is a member of the ILS Committee and an editor of the International Advocate.

COMMENT// 5

ANU Parking: Too Damn High?

Parking is too cheap and price signalling is the way to go, argues Andrew Wade.

Parking at the ANU is too cheap. There, I said it. Now that I’ve put just about all off side, I’d like to convince you that 77 cents a day is too little to pay for a car park.

Students who drive often gripe that a parking permit at the ANU is actually a permit to hunt. The price is low and the number of permits issued almost unlimited. The result is too many drivers chasing too few car parks.

Over the years our sleepy sprawling university has colonized the spaces between its founding buildings. Retaining car parks is a low priority when expansion is concerned.

Car parks don’t generate much money or prestige – research space does. Furthermore, those ultimately entrusted with making the decisions are often the lucky recipients of dedicated parking spaces metres from their office doors.

Various calls have been made for more parking to be made available. And as recently as last year some ANU Students’ Association election tickets campaigned for the cost of parking to be reduced. However what is needed is a radical change, one that at first seems counterintuitive: to introduce marketlike pricing to our parking facilities.

We need this because the costs to students and staff are not just the loose change draining out of their pockets. There are lost opportunities and productivity when peak demand for parking means that students miss lectures, tutorials, meetings and sometimes even exams. It’s time students and staff paid for what they got and get what they pay for.

There has been an interesting experiment going on across the Pacific in the city of San Francisco, California. As with many American cities, traffic congestion was a serious problem. Parking downtown was virtually impossible. The result was an increasingly dysfunctional city. People simply couldn’t get business done when commuting into central districts.

The city of San Francisco has begun the trial of a radical new idea in city planning. The solution is at once simple and ingenious, to

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price parking empirically based on whatever price it took to ensure one spare car park on each city block. Prices started at a nominal value and were adjusted in small monthly increments, in a range from 25-cents to $6, until city blocks were just below full. Despite the reservations of many, it appears that the policy is beginning to pay off. Those willing and able to pay can park closer to their desired location. Others are weighing up the value of taking a walk.

The ANU could learn from the San Francisco experiment. We have a finite amount of space, campus demand outstrips supply and the opportunity costs, although yet unquantified, are substantial. Furthermore there are huge costs to the environment from people unnecessarily driving to university to crawl through car parks in search of a spot. Good vibes and environmental guilt trips go only so far in changing behavior. The long-term prospect is that with some seventeen thousand people on campus, the ANU will never have enough space to satiate peak demand for parking. If you want people to make rational decisions, you have to give them a rational price signal.

Uniform inflexible prices have created a crisis. Simply adjusting the overall permit price will punish everybody just to quell peak demand. If our parking office continues to apply this model, students will have no choice but to buy a permit and try their luck. A lack of flexible market pricing means that there is no information about how valuable a car spot really is.

Parking inspectors are out everyday fining people. Oh, how we love them. Why not leverage their time to also collect regular and accurate statistics on parking use. Fees can be adjusted between car parks for different time windows on different days. Thus we can have an informed pricing structure that ensures that space is always available. For some an extra walk will be worth the lower prices. For others a bit of pocket change will make the hunt a kill.

Thomson Scandal About More Than Hookers In a saga that seems to have dragged on for ages and managed to remain in focus even with the recent release of the Federal Budget, an immediate resolution is unlikely to be found with the reverberations of Craig Thomson’s actions set to be felt for some time to come. The scandal revolving around findings that Craig Thomson, the member for the Division of Dobell and former National Secretary of the Health Services Union (HSU), used nearly $500,000 of the funds of the HSU to pay for personal expenses including travel, meals, entertainment, prostitutes and his own election campaign has raised issues regarding the conduct of our elected representatives.

Amid the scandals surrounding Thomson and stood-aside Speaker Peter Slipper, calls have been renewed for the implementation of a new code of conduct, it was after all a deal sweetener offered by Gillard to the independents to help her form minority government, and even toughening rules to make it possible to ban MPs for civil as well as criminal offences.

Thomson for his part has displayed a jaw dropping amount of gall in his response to the intense scrutiny being placed on him, having claimed that it was all a convoluted plot hatched by enemies within the HSU to

DONG HYUN

“set him up with a bunch of hookers and ruin him”, all in the face of an 1100 page report of findings, not merely allegations, by Fair Work Australia. His implicit request for people to simply dismiss the evidence against him and instead accept his far flung explanations reeks of desperation, either that or a nearly ineffable level of self delusion, which has not sat well with an incredulous public who view him as a morally bankrupt sleaze, the Coalition who are baying for his blood and an embarrassed Labor government and union movement.

Questions about Thomson’s fate and the scandal’s effect on Labor and unions will probably be answered after Thomson delivers a tepid, obligatory Dennis Denuto-esque defence in front of Parliament, but there are other pressing issues at hand, namely, what to do with ethically challenged politicians.

It’s easy enough to say that politicians shouldn’t need a code of conduct to know that fraud and sexual harassment are unbecoming of their office, but the fact of the matter is that a formal code for members of the House of Representatives has become a political necessity.

The idea of a new code of conduct has been championed by Independent MP

Tony Windsor following damning civil allegations against Thomson and Slipper.

“Given the furore on this issue, particularly from the Coalition, maybe it’s time that the Parliament actually looked at what it can in fact do if people are found guilty of both civil and or criminal offences,” Windsor said. While this may raise some prickly questions about separation of powers between political and legal systems, Windsor’s heart is in the right place.

There are plenty of issues where a code is necessary, or would at least be helpful, to identify and outline inappropriate behaviour, for example, disclosure of secondary sources of employment or income, and at least with a formal code there is less ambiguity regarding acceptable behaviour and clearer guidelines on how to deal with transgressors.

But serious political action has been shelved until November as the standing committee of senators’ interests has delayed its report into a code and a parliamentary integrity commissioner – almost as if MPs would prefer there be no apparatus for reviewing their ethical standards, a sentiment that both sides of politics profess to, the Coalition openly and Labor under their breath.

COMMENT// 6

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR “Living In The Congo Line” (Woroni, Vol. 64 No. 6) Dear “Living in the Congo Line”, While I agree with a few main themes of your article in that charity work is becoming the new indie kid phase, for the most part you left me astounded at the over the top cynicism and vitriol that you targeted the rest of humanity with. For every person who worked their butt off to get into not only one of the best universities in Australia, but also one of the hardest courses (aka Arts/Law) it is both extremely arrogant of you and incredibly off-target to generalise them all as “gormless sycophants”. In this case, if you are incapable of writing anything nice or true keep your pen in your pocket.

I also take issue with you blasting the Live Below the Line charity for taking money to actually get the job done. Half the battle is awareness and they seem to have attracted your attention. 30% is actually a great deal less than a lot of other charities take to organise and fund their cause. Did you think the posters printed themselves for free? In any case creating jobs in this economic climate is something you should be applauding rather than stomping all over with your great, big, metaphorical feet.

As for ripping on the “trust-funders who spend their gap years digging wells on African dirt farms” whom you treated with such derision, have some respect for people who find there are actual ways to contribute in a healthy manner to society.

Learn from them maybe.

While what they are doing might not be perfect, they are actually doing something. If you cannot provide a better solution to a problem, then what do you hope of achieving by mocking people who are trying to help? Keep your feelings of hopelessness and despair to yourself. No one wants to hear you complain. Offer a better solution and someone might take you seriously.

Play nice.

Not a fan.

Brioney Bishop To Lisa, I just wanted to congratulate you immensely on your recent article in Woroni “Abortion and the Law” (Edition 6).

Coincidentally, a week prior to this article being published I underwent the medical abortion procedure at the Marie Stopes clinic in Civic, and quite unexpectedly, this article fleshed out issues for me that I didn’t think needed doing so in the week after the procedure. Mentally, emotionally and physically, the process of learning of an unexpected pregnancy to having an abortion and attempting to handle the unknown aftermath is an event, anywhere I imagine that is exceptionally life altering and does not receive accurate attention.

In saying that, I found it quite hard under the circumstance to feel worthy of any attention. As you said, the stigma surrounding abortion is astronomical and for no other age old reason than values stooped in various religions.

Also, I thank you again for pulling out valid statistics to support your argument.

I felt proud, for myself, which I haven’t felt in awhile, for doing what I thought was best, getting through it, and most of all, believing that it was OKAY and these things just happen. Although my close friends have said so, it sometimes just isn’t enough. To read it in a paper that hundreds of other people read, with legislation to justify the psychology around the issue, was no less than great.

On a side note, I wanted to tell you an anecdote around the comments regarding Red State legislation in the USA forcing women to have a transvaginal ultrasound before they commit to an abortion. Leading up to my abortion, I actually underwent a transvaginal ultrasound to exclude the possibility of an ectopic pregnancy. As it was an emergency appointment, the only place that could fit me in was Calvary Hospital in Deakin. I must be the only person in Canberra not aware at the time that Calvary Hospital is a religious hospital. So heading into the ultrasound I was surprised to not be asked about my choices regarding the pregnancy and whether or not I would like to watch the ultrasound.

In a dark room, alone, with a technician prodding you internally with an instrument you’ve never seen before, who was referring to the eight week old foetus as “bub” – absolutely traumatised me. Further, as a transvaginal ultrasound is much clearer and “zoomed in”, I not only had a very large image, on a plasma TV screen, of my unborn child forced in front of me with nowhere else to look, I saw the baby’s 120 beat per minute heartbeat fluttering in the darkness. Once aware of the heartbeat the technician then zoomed in and brought up the heartbeat lines so I could 100% see and, it might be my imagination now, but I think I heard the life I had living in my uterus.

Where does a 20 year old girl, who’s absolutely terrified, go from there? Nowhere is the answer. The next two days were nightmarish. The psychology, language and semantics during a pregnancy, and more so around an unexpected one, is something outstanding.

From one polar idea to the next, I was an hysterical wreck leading up to the procedure.

And although my hormones were quite active at this stage, I blame it on that ultrasound.

As you said in your article, at the Marie Stopes clinic the ultrasound screen does not face you and the nurses don’t speak of anything they see on the screen before you see the doctor for the procedure. I hadn’t thought about keeping the baby once, and in truth I didn’t think about keeping the baby after my experience at Calvary either. I’m too young and it’s not my time – this was never negotiable for me. It was the guilt that affected me the most. And I never experienced the guilt until then. All I could think about, and even now, was swallowing that first tablet which would successful bring my baby’s heartbeat to a stop. Slow it down, and slow it down, until it was no longer beating. Then you wait, 24 hours agonising mentally over this “murder”, you swallow a second tablet which literally brings forth an agony I will never articulate well enough. Kate* described almost the exact experience I had, but even still, there is nothing like mentally, and then literally feeling like you are bleeding a baby away.

Each edition, the best letter to the editor will win a bag of coffee from Two Before Ten. Send letters to contact@ woroni.com.au

Dear Editor, Coming across Daniel Rose’s article in the previous edition of Woroni, I felt deeply shocked that Woroni had sunk to accepting such bile.

Rose expressed his incredulity that Australians could still be unaware of the existence of abject poverty. Notwithstanding that we’re one of the world’s wealthiest countries, there’s a stark difference between seeing hungry people televised, and undergoing the same kind of trials they do.

He then savaged Oaktree as being run by career-minded and sycophantic Arts/Law students, with 35% of their money “wasted” on administration. Yet in 2009, 45% of Amnesty International Australia’s expenditure went to administrative costs.

Rose finally belittled Live Below the Line

as a campaign that merely acts to “build the resumes of over-privileged careerists”.

Even were this true, WHO CARES? Altruism and self-interest aren’t mutually exclusive. Many who run for ANUSA or volunteer will do so partially because they wish to bolster their CVs. That doesn’t however preclude them from wanting to make a difference.

My hall raised $6,884 for Live Below the Line. It’ll primarily go to Papua New Guinea, building a high school, training women in life skills and vocational training, and supporting young men to receive primary education skills and locate employment.

Most would be hard-pressed to disagree that those aren’t causes worth supporting.

Andaleeb Akhand

“Abortion and the Law” (Woroni, Vol. 64 No. 5) I know this sounds awfully morbid, but in respect of your article, I thought it just might serve to prove exactly what you were talking about. How we feel, even without compulsory transvaginal ultrasounds, and the importance of maintaining awareness, is essential in order to advocate for a more liberal attitude to women’s rights. I never really felt that lucky to live in the ACT for any reason, but after this, I will always appreciate it.

None the less, I am well on the mend now, and I really just wanted to say well done. It’s an incredible piece, it’s very well written, and I’m sure there are others who might thank you if they could as well.

I hope you understand my wish to remain anonymous, however feel free to do with this response what you choose.

Best.

EDITOR’S NOTE Dear Anonymous, Thank you for your kind words and for sharing your story with us. What an appalling experience - and one that can only flourish in the stigma and shame that surrounds abortion. The first step to breaking the silence is for you, and women like you, to speak up, so an accurate picture of what is really going on in the nation’s Catholic hospitals - 22 of which are public hospitals and receive public monies - can be known Hopefully your story inspires other women to speak out about their experience with Catholic hospitals and pregnancy “help” or “crisis centres’ that are run by religious opponents of safe abortion.

I have passed your letter onto leading women’s reproductive rights advocates.

Unfortunately, however, compliance with journalistic standards means that your anonymity precludes your experience from assisting in their efforts to expose these practices. If you look on a newspaper’s letter page, you will sometimes see “name withheld”. What this

means is that the paper didn’t publish the writer’s name, not that the name wasn’t known. Similarly, legal cases can be run where those involved have their identity protected, but this does not mean that their identity is not known. Providing anonymity allows normal fact-checking to take place, without the identity of the informant entering the public domain.

So please, if you can let us know who you are, it would greatly assist us to use the information you have provided to ensure what happened to you doesn’t happen again. And should others decide to come forward with their stories, please, please provide us with some means of making contact with you. This is the best way to ensure your information gets used to make a difference for others, while providing you with whatever level of privacy you require.

Please drop me a line on my personal email: lisa.emily.visentin@gmail.com, and I will provide you with more details.

Again, thank you so much for sharing your experience.

Lisa Visentin, Editor

In Defence of Oaktree KEYTA SLATTERY & CATHRYN STEPHENS

On 10th May, Daniel Rose wrote a critique of The Oaktree Foundation’s Live Below the Line fundraising campaign. He raised questions about the motives of volunteers, the passivity of those involved in Live Below the Line and the value of Oaktree as an organisation. Oaktree commends Daniel Rose on his acerbic wit and wordsmithery.

We do, however, feel it incumbent upon us to point out a few inaccuracies in his article and make clear the basic facts about Live Below the Line and Oaktree.

Oaktree works both overseas, by investing in education for disadvantaged young people, and in Australia, advocating for change and educating young people about the issue of extreme poverty. Our current partner projects are in Cambodia and Papua New Guinea. A majority of the funds from the 2012 Live Below the Line will go to opening two new schools for 1000 students in remote Papua New Guinea. The project will provide facilities and trained teachers to ensure quality education for future generations.

The Oaktree Foundation is a signatory to the Australian Council for International Development’s Code of Conduct. This code keeps organisations accountable and transparent in their spending. Oaktree complies with the industry standard ratio of 80:20, this means we do spend 20% on administration.

It is necessary to spend a responsible amount of money on administration – it ensures we are running the organisation efficiently and getting value for money on projects, rather than wasting cash on projects that do nothing for intended beneficiaries and participants. We simply refuse to lob money across the ocean hope it finds the needy. Oaktree also holds strong pro-bono relationships with a number of organisations that donate their time and resources to help promote our campaigns, a lot of our “flashy websites” are the result of these relationships.

Oaktree is an inclusive and diverse community. We have no prerequisites about who can and cannot volunteer – apart from an age limit of 26.

We do not issue a selection survey to volunteers to find out about the specifics of their educational or socioeconomic background.

It’s frankly none of our business.

We welcome constructive criticism and we grow exponentially from informed discussion and debate about our organisation and initiatives. And we have no problem with a healthy dose of cynicism – indeed, it is cynicism in the face of government inaction and the usual talk-fests about global poverty that lead many to volunteer.

But Rose’s article was sarcastic. He offered no alternatives to Oaktree’s work and no criteria for judging if it is worthwhile. Moreover, he simply had not done his research. It’s pretty easy to see that his cynicism and criticism is not the sort that creates robust organisations. It just serves the profile of the cynic.

It creates suspicion and warps the truth.

Oaktree volunteers would rather be getting on with their work than wasting their time responding to misconceptions and unjustified contempt.

Rose and fellow cynics, we implore you to actually spend some time with an Oaktree volunteer to better understand the organisation. We could even embark on an “I can change your mind about volunteering/ Oaktree/Live Below the Line etc” jaunt – it would have to be zero-cost, so there will be no flashy documentary, and we don’t think anyone will write a book about it – but at least you will be able to say you did your research.

COMMENT// 7 Make Ignorance History MARK FABIAN

There’s been quite a bit of hate towards Oaktree and other youth based aid organisations of late, some of which is misplaced. I think we can all agree that people doing anything for a “good cause” is commendable.

But I also agree with Daniel Rose and others that a great deal of what Oaktree et al do are masturbatory and pretentious. Having a bunch of twenty-year-old indies stand in a circle and make a video saying “my voice is power” is great for everyone’s ego but it doesn’t do a thing for the development cause. Neither does having a Jam with all your favourite indie musicians.

In organising these campaigns to raise “awareness” Oaktree et al are wasting a wonderful opportunity to increase knowledge.

Everyone knows Africa is in a bad way!

World vision’s multi-million dollar advertising campaigns took care of that. What people don’t know about is how to fix global poverty. Meanwhile, Oaktree promotes the millennium goals and other “aid for development” policies that have been thoroughly criticised in the academic discourse on the subject.

There is a massive debate on at the moment about whether aid has any place in development. Most scholars agree that it does, but they also agree that throwing money at a country won’t make development happen and often makes things worse.

Consider the following examples:

Oaktree

An aid organisation builds a road in a backwater. Can the people who use it see a connection between their taxes and infrastructure development? Do they have an incentive to maintain the road?

I’m a farmer starting a fledging business.

An aid organisation distributes food aid.

Where has my market gone?

An aid organisation builds a power plant.

Are there any locals with the engineering knowledge to operate it?

Is there any evidence that if you give someone a mosquito net for free to reduce malaria that they won’t use it as a fishing net and expect a new one when it breaks?

There is; Esther Duflo has done gamechanging research on the matter – not that Oaktree would know. These examples are the tip of the iceberg when it comes to development theory and Oaktree has no interest.

Awareness is a poor substitute for education.

Oaktree et al don’t even direct people to easily accessible material on these matters, some of which is produced right here at the ANU. I refer you to devpolicy.org and eastasiaforum.org. These are world leading Forums on the subject that Make Poverty History campaigners are oblivious to.

Oaktree allows people to shed their guilt and expend their enthusiasm on campaigns that entrench ignorance under the false pretence that they “raise awareness”. I commend the effort and entrepreneurship of the individuals involved in these organisations I just wish they would read a book before embarking on an ironic example of first world superficiality.

THE RESPONSE

COMMENT// 8

SCHOOL OF MUSIC THE CAMPUS REACTS The cuts announced for the School of Music have raised the passionate rage of a large group of students at the ANU. The reason?

They want other people to spend money on their education. The tale is not new at all — we have seen the same performance, with violent demonstrations frequently included, in many countries during the last 50 years.

First of all, demanding other people to help us against their will is not OK — no matter how much we need it, we cannot obligate others to give us a hand.

In the moment when we expect another person to help us, against their own will, we have deliberately ignored their right to manage their own property, an extension of their body, cutting their freedom over themselves. What kind of “right” is the one that requires another one to be violated?

That’s not a real right.

Why am I talking about other people’s money if we are all paying a tuition fee (much bigger in the case of international students)?

Simply because what we pay is not enough for covering the university spending and the ANU has to receive money from the government, that is, from taxpayers — all of us in different ways, but especially Australian citizens and, among them, entrepreneurs.

The money for funding the ANU has to come from somewhere. And I’m pretty sure that students demonstrating against the cuts are not willing to pay themselves what is necessary to cover the amount spent in the School of Music. They want this money to come from taxpayers, because they know that, even though they themselves are paying taxes, they’re not paying as much as others, and this makes them feel comfortable.

The arguments the protesters give in order to support their demands share the same spirit: they look after positive outcomes for the ANU and Canberra’s community from the work done in the School of Music.

They also denounce bad outcomes from the funding cuts. They are, therefore, focusing on the effects. This is the kind of argument that aims to achieve positive effects and avoid negative ones. But this argumentative line is wrong because it misses fundamental facts in order to achieve its goals.

It is the type of rationale given by dictatorial governments to maintain order in the streets, or that given by terrorists groups to support their violent attacks. They all pursue something good “at the end”.

What happens in the process doesn’t share the spirit of what they are all looking for — the wellbeing of everyone, happiness for us all, etcetera. And this is why protesters don’t feel guilty in threatening violent demonstrations in order to get what they want.

Following this line, who would oppose arresting suspicious people without evidence in order to prevent crimes? If we can take money from taxpayers against their will to fund our education (and still charge them once we have graduated), why not do that as well?

We have to be careful. The right to have access to education doesn’t mean that someone else has to pay it for us — it means that no one can prevent us from accessing it.

I should remember here that any “right” that requires the violation of another one to be fulfilled is not a right — it’s only a justification to ignore people’s dignity, and making a profit from that.

We cannot, therefore, demand other people to be robbed in order to pay for our education — this is simply not well. But this is precisely what many students are doing today — they’re fighting for the violation of fundamental rights.

Cristian Mancilla MPhil Candidate Classics

The proposed curriculum changes to the School of Music are academic infanticide, with older administrators pulling up the ladder on their successors. They are also a form of suicide, imperilling an important form of income: postgraduate research.

Australia is in a unique position to produce great music research of far-reaching influence.Thanks to a strangely good side effect of the otherwise disastrous Dawkins reforms, from 1988 practice-focussed Australian Conservatoriums were merged with academic-focussed Schools of Music. This permitted a healthy interaction of performers and musicologists. Overseas it is not uncommon to hear performers complaining that musicologists write useless, ill-informed diatribes, or musicologists calling performers inarticulate pianolas. In Australia, however, perfor-

Vice-Chancellor, In response to your letter, (“School Must be Secured”, Canberra Times, Editorial, 15th May, page 13) I would firstly like to thank you – to thank you for uniting us. For the ANU and the wider community are unanimous: there will be no changes to the School of Music. The public response has demonstrated, above all, that it is the quality and excellence of education which is truly valued: something that cannot be compromised by shortterm financial meddling on the part of an ambitious and partial bureaucracy. However, it is not my goal here to reiterate the moving resolve of students, staff and the wider community that has put beyond doubt the cultural significance of the School of Music, but rather to demonstrate that, even on the economic logic of the Chancellery, the changes you have proposed are, far from being a justified financial imperative, in fact poorly conceived and dangerous measures that will not provide solutions.

In particular, you have told us that the School of Music is a dysfunctional institution and claimed that it must be held accountable for its debt. Nevertheless, even in its most exaggerated form, the debt of the School of Music amounts to 2.7 million dollars – a sum that is truly insignificant for an institution that annual distributes more than 1 billion dollars between its faculties. To put this in perspective, the ANU is expected to make at least 14 million dollars in surplus and is currently investing hundreds of millions of dollars in building projects for the College of Science and the Strategic and Defence Studies School. You yourself are entitled to an $850,000 per annum salary package.

Furthermore, the alleged 2.7 million dollar deficit is itself grossly overstated. The ANU mance and musicology are mutually enriching, with musicologists teaching music history and theory and performers giving the lie to their words. Music research can occur in almost any discipline, but only in an Australian School of Music can a musicologist be in close contact with living performance traditions and serve them appropriately. Being around music is good for the life of the mind, too. The air at the School of Music is lighter and makes one “a better philosopher” as Nietzsche would put it.

If the ingredients of this musical ferment are eighth-grade, then the brew will be similarly sub-standard. The proposed combined theory, aural, and composition course will not provide students with the skills—unique to musicology—to write about music unless it has the weight of three subjects. Why combine the subjects if this were to be so?

Nor will the six instrumental lessons a semester provide the students with adequate insight into their instrumental practice to catch the musicologists up. I would always advocate more experts being brought to the ANU for master classes and lectures (something possible under the new scheme) but what about the world-famous experts we already have access to here daily?

Musicology affects everyone. If you ever play a score, read a musician’s

has continually passed the burden for the upkeep of Llewellyn Hall onto the School of Music and this year arbitrarily increased the cost of that rental from $400,000 to $900,000 in a move which appears to be nothing less than a shameless attempt to exaggerate the debts of the School of Music at the crucial moment when the cuts were announced.

Finally, the assumption itself that is embedded within your approach to the debt of the School of Music is a dangerous one. I refer to your belief that the faculties of this university ought to be safeguarded only with respect to their ability to earn the university money and to produce a surplus. For this entirely overlooks those other essential contributions made by faculties, such as the School of Music, to university: namely, cultural contributions, contributions to the prestige of the university and to the learning outcomes of the students. While these aspects are not necessarily quantifiable in the short term, disregarding them can only, in the long term, lead to the erosion of the public image of the university and, accordingly, the loss of staff and students.

I want then to offer you alternative solution to your question: what will make the School of Music an “innovative” and “sustainable” institution? The answer is beyond doubt: listen to the people of your university and the wider community; save the School of Music and it will continue, as it has done since 1965, to contribute in numerous and quantifiable ways to the welfare of ANU and the wider community. I trust you will do what is in the interests of the university and the wider community; your role as the Vice Chancellor entails nothing less.

Mathew Blithe biography, flip through a CD liner note, pick up an interesting book on music, or look up the dates of a musician (of any sort of music, mind you) then you are probably encountering the work of a musicologist or a journalist leaning on musicological work. To ensure the quality of academic musicology the School of Music has to play its part in producing elite musicians of all genres. Why else would we study musicology if not to be part of music?

As a student from a lower socio-economic background I have benefitted greatly from Australia’s music education institutions. I have seen it disappearing behind me and I despair for students only a few years younger than I. I realise I am already so many times amnesic, nostalgic for a system several times degraded.

I look at those educated, mostly for free, in the golden age of Australia’s tertiary education system. I see them pulling up the ladder on future generations. The proposed changes at the School of Music are academic infanticide, but we’re on a winning combination as we speak.

Matthew Lorenzon

OUT & ABOUT// 9

SCHOOL OF MUSIC PROTESTS PHOTOS BY TOM WESTLAND YASMIN MASRI ADAM SPENCE

WORONI EDITORIAL ELECTIONS Monday, 28th May - Friday, 1st June

Ten candidates have put their hats in the ring for the four positions opening up on the ANU Student Media Editorial Board.

Woroni asked them a few questions to help you make the right decision.

Full candidate statements are online on woroni.com.au.

Voting is online and opens Monday, 28th May at 9am. Check your ANU email for the link.

(Q1) What will you bring to the table? // (Q2) Any big plans? // (Q3) What is your spirit animal?

(Q1) I fancy my mad skills in english and have an endearing (some would say awkward) manner that will entice people to contribute.

(Q1) Experience as a Woroni News Correspondent and Life&Style Section Editor. Also, the ability to write coherently thanks to my English Major (which is otherwise useless!).

(Q2) I want to set up a monthly magazine on student life, real estate, and career prospects.

(Q2) Ensuring regular writers’ meetings and socials, expanding Woroni’s interactivity (voxpops!), and making Woroni something readable by the general public (and not just students).

VINCENT CHIANG

(Q3) Giant Panda

(Q3) Tiger (Jake King)

MARCEL DELANY (Q1) Radio manager/presenter on WHAM, writer for Woroni, producer and presenter on Barry Drive 98.3FM, editor of Burgmann Journal and work experience at The Age.

(Q1) As Back Page Sub-Editor and a WHAM co-host, I’ll bring the experience in both print and radio to keep Woroni the best & only ANU newspaper.

(Q2) I want to get permanent contributors broadening the appeal of Woroni and I want to get ANU Student Media much more involved in video production.

(Q2) More satire. More comprehensive feature stories on issues that matter. More up-to-date coverage on what’s going on at ANU. More podcasts.

No mo worries.

FARZANEH EDRAKI

(Q3) Zebra

FERGUS HUNTER

(Q1) Adobe skills. (I have worked on laying out the last seven editions of the paper in my role as Art Director.)

(Q1) I am yet another uninspired law student.

I will bring to the table boyish good looks, old school charm and mad editing skils.

(Q2) More social photos/cover more events, creative content supplement, visual style guide.

(Q2) Address the banter and music on WHAM Radio. Increase reader feedback to bolster both scrutiny and participation. Employ Andrew Bolt as lead columnist.

(Q3) Angora Rabbit

GUS MCCUBBING

YASMIN MASRI

(Q3) Paddy Mayoh

(Q1) Experience writing, knowledge of issues in the education sector and experience with studentrun organisations. All a product of too much time spent at university.

(Q1)Experience in teamwork and event planning and management as Bruce Hall Social and Arts Rep, Coordinator of the Arts Learning Community and ANUSA Gen Rep.

(Q2) Not really. Just looking to get on board and contribute.

(Q2) Improve WHAM program quality, promote individual shows as a way to further engage the ANU community. Social events each semester.

(Q3) Bacon

AJ NEILSON

CHRISTOPHER MONNOX

(Q2) Weekly Woroni editions, giving course credit for consistent quality contributors, an investigative story bank for keen writers, and individual feedback for every piece received.

(Q2) Fortnightly columns; Expanding WHAM radio through comprehensive content; Ensuring Woroni has informed writers covering the upcoming U.S. election.

(Q3) The Hawk

(Q3) Hilary Clinton

(Q1) I’ve been involved with Woroni for 4 years as a writer, a sub-editor, and a radio host. I’ll keep doing what I’ve been doing.

(Q1) Bachelor of Arts Qualification: Dinner-party conversationalist. Please provide: 1) Knife (cuttingedge journalism); 2) Fork (…in the road); 3) Love/ knowledge of our university and capital.

SINEAD O’CONNELL

(Q3) Bush pig

(Q3) Charmander

CAM WILSON

Enriching Your Student Experience

COMMENT// 11

ELIZABETH DEANE

The new ANU strategic plan, ANU by 2020, includes a commitment to creating “…a holistic educational experience, unique in Australia, which goes beyond the confines of the classroom”.

The ANU strives to ensure that every student admitted to the University achieves success in their academic program. This is more likely to happen when the experience of being at University is a happy one and where students are able to connect with the University, with fellow students and with staff members.

There are a huge number of activities supported by the University and by your Student Associations. These range from sporting activities, to clubs and societies which bring together students with common interests, both academic and non-academic; to the Learning Communities; volunteering; and cultural activities, such as the performing arts.

The existence of so many diverse groups on campus provides an opportunity for everyone to get involved and to feel part of the broader University community. They help you to build networks and friendships, some of which are likely to last a lifetime. While I recognise that many students are too busy to have much time for such activities, I hope that at some point every student will have an opportunity to get involved during the course of their studies. The physical and emotional

well being of students is also critical not only to academic success, but also to enabling students to fulfil their personal potential.

Counselling, Health and Disability Services provide students with assistance and support in this part of their lives. The Academic Skills and Learning Centre provides direct “out of the classroom” assistance to students, particularly those who are uncertain about the requirements of universitylevel study.

The ANU and its Students Associations - ANUSA and PARSA, ANU Sport, ANU Student Media are working together to raise awareness of the importance of your engagement in these extracurricular activities and support services and to seek your input into what activities and services you would like to see made available. We would particularly like to hear from you about how easy it is to find information about these activities and services and how we could raise awareness of what we currently offer.

All suggestions and comments can be sent to pvclts@anu.edu.au Thank you in anticipation of your positive input.

Professor Elizabeth Deane is Pro Vice Chancellor (Learning Teaching and Students)

Get your film out of my face ALLAYNE HORTON The Hunger Games was stupid. A guy’s face became a rock. It was ridiculous. Just like Avatar. Avatar was stupid too.

Okay, now that’s out of the way, I can talk about film more broadly with a clear conscious. 3D is destroying the film industry. It is repeatedly kicking quality films in the balls and allowing crap to be screened for longer than anyone should have to endure. Sure, I mean I understand James Cameron’s thought process in re-releasing Titanic in 3D: it’s totally raining cash monies for him. I love all 27 hours of Titanic, but I don’t need to see it again with stuff flying at my face. I can have stuff flying at my face whenever I want (nobody go to the innuendo, please), you know in like, real life. I choose a suitable distance from the screen and I respect the artifice of what I am watching as being 2D. Then there are those fools (sorry mum), who will only see a movie at the theatre if it’s in 3D. Hail to the glorious technology, they cry! It’s the crux of the movie experience,

apparently. This makes me sad and angry inside. Maybe I’m a cinema purist, but I just want to stare at the screen, without wanky glasses awkwardly messing up the sides of my hair, enjoy a great film and leave without a headache caused by my eye balls getting all confused and stressed out.

The point of going to the movies – and it’s gonna get slightly corny here, sorry – is to experience a portal into another life, perspective or world. Cinema is a beautiful and artistic form of voyeurism, one that requires a detachment from immediate reality, as provided by the separation between audience and screen. The idea that 3D provides an experience closer to reality, to me, degrades the integrity of true film – that the inspiring and engaging story is what attracts audiences, not the “coolness” of objects floating around with a perceived depth in a semi-realistic fashion.

Boycott 3D and save the integrity of the film industry! Do it. I’ll be at the 2D screening of The Avengers, like a boss.

A Growth Implosion or a Steady State?

DAVID BOSTON The earth’s climate and ecosystems are being affected by human activity. This is not a story, this is scientific fact. These changes are going to cause the deaths of millions of human beings. Change in earth’s temperature of 2 degrees will make some parts of the world completely uninhabitable through desertification or rising sea levels. A food security crisis is looming as soils lose their nutrients and water sources run out.

The rise of capitalism is definitely one cause of the increased effect of human activity on the environment. This is because capitalism’s existence is dependent on continual expansion of production and consumption, or economic growth. As we saw in 2009, we had to be given 900 dollars in the GFC to encourage us to consume so that the economy would be growing again. Intriguingly, this financial crisis alone did more to combat climate change than any government action to this day – global emissions dropped by 1.4% in 2009 but have redoubled now that the economy is recovering. Our “growth” seems to exist in an inverse relationship with environmental sustainability.

The problem with the need for perpetual growth is that there is only a limited quantity of any non-renewable resource on the planet. The need for growth is what is leading to overuse of non-renewable resources like soil, or fish, or trees. Constant production also leads to pollution, which as most of us are now aware is changing the climate of our planet drastically. Clearly, perpetual economic growth is an idealistic mirage, an impossibility, yet we exist in a state of mass denial about these facts.

One alternative to the growth economy is the economist Herman Daly’s idea of the

steady state economy (SSE). The SSE appreciates that the economy is located within a natural system with absolute limits. It therefore has a different idea of the “costs of production”. These are not just the costs of extracting a resource and creating a product, but the costs to the possibility of doing so in the future due to the damage that production is causing to the environment. We should still produce goods, but we should take account of these real costs, and limit the amount of resources and energy that go into production.

To support the idea of production costs reflecting real costs, Daly suggests the need for “depletion quotas”: licenses to extract a certain quota of resources from the earth to be sold to companies by governments. The sale of these quotas could help to reflect the real costs of production to the environment, and the amount that could be extracted at any time could be limited. This is one potential way of creating a more steady state and more sustainable economy.

We should not view ideas such as steady state economics as an ultimate solution to our growth based problems, but we should definitely experiment with their suggestions to see if we might change the way we live.

This is because the ultimate message of SSE cannot be ignored: the earth has a physical limit in the amount of economic growth it can sustain, yet we are currently living in a system that relies upon the assumption that growth can continue indefinitely. Contrary to Thatcher’s “there is no alternative” principle, there are alternatives, and they are not only possible but necessary if we want the future residents of Earth to live in a world in which food, water and dignity can continue to be provided.

12

Brad Runs North

Erin Neil on one student’s unorthodox journey from Canberra to Cape York.

Finishing my 5km run with burning legs and heaving chest I think of my closest friend, Brad Carron-Arthur, who ran at least ten times that distance every day for the past four months.

Brad, a 22 year old former ANU Psychology student, set out from Canberra on the 1st of January this year, running solo and unassisted up the East Coast of Australia. On the 10th May Brad reached Cape York, the northernmost tip of the continent, after four months and 5000km of running. Brad documented his journey via blogs and video-logs, a GPS sports-tracker, and many amazing pictures on his Facebook page and website. He named his adventure ‘Brad Runs North.’

As I relay Brad’s story to others I am often met with looks of shock and disbelief. The first question is usually “Why on earth would someone do that?” shortly followed by “How is that even possible?”

Rather than a Forest Gump-style aimless run, Brad’s journey was carefully planned and motivated by a number of factors. Finishing his Honours year in 2011, Brad was faced with the daunting freedom experienced by many graduates. Like some, he decided to take some time for travel and self-discovery.

However, unlike most, instead of boozing around Europe or backpacking in Asia, Brad wanted an extreme physical challenge and adventure in his own country. In doing this, he has seen and experienced the beauty of Australia and the hospitality and friendliness of its people which many of us often miss for the sake of travel overseas.

Brad’s epic run was also motivated by a particular fear. For a number of years Brad has been haunted by a beer advertisement which referred to a category of men who ‘peaked in high school’. An excellent sportsman at school, Brad feared he would end up in the category of guys whose physical ac-

complishments reached their zenith during their teenage years. As a way of ensuring this would not come to pass, Brad ran north for 5000km!

Lastly and most importantly, through his run Brad has raised over $20,000 for the charity AFFIRM (Australian Foundation for

Mental Health Research.) As one of his close family members struggled with depression for many years, raising money for a charity of this kind held a special significance for Brad.

But how did a 22 year old run for thousands of kilometres unassisted? Needless to say, Brad has an excellent sense of direction. He carried with him one backpack stocked with essentials such as; a map, a spare shirt, socks and underwear, a first-aid kit, a phone and a credit card. His route followed the coastline, staying off highways and instead sticking to fire trails and tracks. He ran approximately 50km a day, some days running over 100km and taking days off when he needed. He ran from town to town, sleeping in hostels, or with people who, hearing of his journey, offered their homes. The last leg of the trip from Cairns to Cape York proved especially challenging; the sheer remoteness, distance between towns, heat, humidity and wild animals all adding to the fun/challenge.

So what’s next in store for Brad? Upon his return in Canberra in late May he will be taking a small, well-deserved rest before continuing his fund-raising efforts for AFFIRM by hosting a charity dinner in June. After that, he is likely to continue studying in order to pursue a career in sports-psychology, helping other, physically gifted people achieve their potential. He also hasn’t ruled out more trans-continental, adventure runs in the future.

For more information and pictures from Brad’s run and to donate to AFFIRM, visit http://bradrunsnorth.com/

Homestays and Happy Endings :

COMMENT// 13

Nishadh Rego takes a closer look at the recently announced Community Placement program for asylum seekers.

Since November last year ‘boat people’ have been leaving immigration detention and, in a couple of weeks, many will be living in Australian homes. The program, entitled the Community Placement Network (CPN), is based on an earlier model for international students. It will be jointly administered by the Department of Immigration (DIAC), the Australian Homestay Network (AHN) and the Australian Red Cross (ARC), which is responsible for the community settlement of asylum seekers.

AHN’s official website explains how the arrangement will work. CPN will “facilitate a supportive homestay arrangement between a member of the public (host) and an eligible asylum seeker (guest) leaving immigration detention.”

The program runs for a six-week period during which the host is expected to provide a “clean, safe and properly furnished bedroom for their guest inclusive of a bed, wardrobe, chair, suitable light and heating/cooling.” Meals are not part of the facilitated arrangement and can be negotiated by both parties.

Not much else is definitively known about the CPN scheme. It has been poorly advertised by the government and, predictably, sparsely covered in the mainstream media. This is particularly frustrating because the program relies on the good will and active participation of the Australian public: of public servants, of suburban families, and of university students at places like the ANU. Compassionate members of the public understand their key role in this program; the larger the program will be, the more potential it will have to catalyze historic changes in refugee and asylum seeker rights in this country.

It is important that the CPN scheme is part of a much broader cost cutting

operation in asylum seeker management. A recent Asylum Seeker Resource Center (ASRC) report states that the government spent $160 $850 per person per night (at a gross annual total of $772 million) in 2011 to keep detention centers running.

In this scheme, recipients themselves will fork out $120 - $140 per week for lodging (and extra for food and utilities) from existing fortnightly assistance payments (equivalent to 89% of the Centrelink rate) allowing the government to forego substantial additional costs incurred for the provision of transitional crisis accommodation for BVE holders.

While the government has been keen to highlight its ability to substantially slash these costs rather than emphasize the potential benefits of the scheme to asylum seekers and citizens, the latter is where its enduring value lies. On a practical level, homestays will make the community resettlement process much easier. Living in a local household will provide the guest with a valuable community link. More often than not the link will be fundamental in helping the asylum seeker orientate themselves with the city, find permanent accommodation and some form of employment. Expectedly, finding long-term housing and employment is a difficult proposition for temporary visa holders who also happen to be, for the most part, non-English speakers. Indeed, the homestay will provide the guest with a supportive environment to speak the language regularly.

But beyond these tangible benefits, the CPN scheme provides a remarkable opportunity for this country to move beyond many longstanding myths about asylum seekers and reframe future debates on the issue. For too long ‘boat people’ have been deliberately kept hidden from view in remote and inaccessible detention centers whilst being misrepresented and demonized by the political system and a passive

and u n critical mainstream media. While Bridging Visa E has brought IMAs into the community, they are still living inconspicuously, away from the public eye.

But through homestays, asylum seekers will, for the first time, rely directly on members of the Australian public who will be partly responsible for their wellbeing. Citizens and residents, for whom ‘boat people’ was an abstract and misunderstood concept will now be brought face to face with the stories, struggles, and on-going vulnerabilities of asylum seekers whilst housing them as guests in their own personal and intimate spaces. The reeducative potential of such intimate contact should not be underestimated, especially on the scale that it could take place. This interaction could potentially galvanize thousands of asylum seeker apologists outside of the leftist activist minority in big cities across Australia.

Of course there will be logistical and operational obstacles to the CPN scheme. Language barriers may become frustrating, cultural differences and long standing psychosocial issues may surface, and the prospect of leaving a successful homestay placement after six weeks will be painfully difficult for both parties. In turn, it may actually serve to further isolate and even endanger this already vulnerable population. Nevertheless, it’s worth a try.

Ten years ago, to think of ‘boat people’ living outside of detention centers was absurd. We’ve turned that page, if only until Abbott is elected. The possibilities are immense, but only if members of the public are well informed, understand its benefits, and are willing to participate.

14

IN THE LAB

ELEANOR CAMPBELL

The meaning of life

What's A Drone to Do? Will our skies soon be abuzz with the sound of a thousand drones?

Elise Thomas explains.

It’s like something out of science fiction police drones patrolling Australia’s skies, able to track and transmit live video surveillance of any individual from 3km above, for up to 20 hours at a time.

In the US, it’s already reality. The first ever police arrest using a drone - a Predator B - took place on June 24th, 2011 in North Dakota. The drone was used to locate three potentially armed suspects. From a distance of more than 3km overhead, the drone was able to detect the perpetrators and show that they were not armed, allowing police officers to ambush and arrest them.

The drone belonged to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which has owned and operated the machines since 2005. They are used to search for people attempting to cross the border. They have also been used, without any public acknowledgement, in local, state and federal law enforcement and as part of FBI surveillance operations.

It is not illegal for law enforcement to conduct aerial surveillance without a warrant in the US. But former US Member of Congress Jane Harman told the LA Times that “There is no question that this could become something that people will regret.” According to Ms. Harman, the possibility of using spy drones for local police work was never discussed.

Ms. Harman is no conspiracy theorist or paranoid privacy advocate. She was a member of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee, and its chairwoman from 20072011. She was a strong defender of President Bush’s illegal wire-tapping program. If people like Ms. Harman are getting worried, perhaps

there really is something to be concerned about.

There are obvious advantages to the domestic use of drones. The technology could be invaluable in a search and rescue capacity, in high speed car chases and in evaluating whether a situation is safe for police officers to enter.

However, there are also very significant privacy concerns surrounding unmanned aerial surveillance (UAS), which can provide continuous surveillance of an area, vehicle or individual for up to and beyond 20 hours without refuelling. New technology currently being trialled may extend that to several days, or even allow drones to refuel in mid-air with the use of another drone. In addition to privacy, there are other reasons to be concerned about the use of drones.

Drones can be hacked. In 2009 the Wall Street Journal reported that militants in Iraq had used $26 Windows software to intercept live video feeds from Predator drones. US General David Deptula acknowledged the risks to using drones, saying that the long distances involved meant that, “those kinds of things are subject to listening and exploitation.” Police jurisdictions lack the cuttingedge technology and seemingly boundless resources of the US military; their systems, therefore, are that much more vulnerable to interference.

A third reason for concern is that forces in the US are already pushing for police drones to be armed with non-lethal weapons such as tear gas, capsicum spray and guns loaded with rubber bullets.

The Victoria Police Air Wing recently

hosted an international conference on the potential use of drones. The Air Wing currently provides helicopter support, but has confirmed that it is considering the possible applications of drone technology. “Victoria Police will continue to assess the quickly maturing UAS technology market for potential operational use in the future,” a statement read. There has been no further information released, either on how the drones would be used or on how far plans have progressed.

Victoria is not the only state which may soon be equipped with domestic surveillance drones. The Queensland police have already tested a small drone for search and rescue operations.

Speaking to ABC’s The Beast in July last year, ACT Police Chief Roman Quaedvlieg indicated that they were ‘actively exploring’ the possibilities of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and had been consulting with overseas police jurisdictions. He indicated that UAV could realistically be deployed over the ACT for police purposes within the next 5-10 years.

The major barrier to police forces is gaining the approval of the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA). CASA currently allows unmanned aircraft to fly up to 122m (400 ft) over unpopulated areas only.

Special approval is needed to fly higher, over other areas or in controlled or restricted air space. CASA has been increasingly under pressure to lift or at least significantly loosen these restrictions within the next few years.

The organisation has appointed its first specialist UAV expert, and is currently reviewing its regulations.

Researchers in the UK may have just redefined the meaning of life. An international group based at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge has developed synthetic genetic material they have named XNA. All life contains genetic information in the form of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) or RNA (ribonucleic acid). DNA and RNA consist of a molecular backbone structure and a variety of ‘bases’ that code genetic data: adenine, cytosine, guanine, thymine and uracil. In the case of XNA, these naturally occurring genetic bases have been replaced by different, ‘alien’ bases (the ‘X’ in XNA stands for ‘xeno’, referring to the alien or foreign nature of the bases).

This synthetic genetic material opens some interesting doors in a variety of fields, including the study of evolution, the potential for genetically designed therapeutics, and exobiology, which is the search for life beyond Earth.

Scientists have successfully created six types of XNA molecules that mimic DNA and RNA structurally and, most interestingly, behaviourally. Genetic information stored in DNA can be accurately translated onto these XNA molecules through the use of a specially designed enzyme. Another enzyme is capable of translating information back from XNA to DNA. In a sense, XNA is like a different genetic language, and these enzymes can act as interpreters.

The benefits of this new genetic ‘language’ are numerous. XNA molecules are designed to be difficult to degrade, which gives them broader applications in genetic medications and therapeutics than natural DNA and RNA. XNA molecules will be less likely to be deconstructed by the body, prolonging their activity and usefulness. The more robust XNA also expands research parameters.

Scientists working with XNA will be able to run experiments in a wider range of temperatures and acidities, widening the scope of genetic research.

Researchers have also discovered that XNA is capable of replication and random mutation, or in other words, evolution (just like DNA and RNA). This offers intriguing insights into heredity and evolution, suggesting that there is nothing innately ‘special’ about DNA and RNA, and that any molecule structured in a similar way can adapt to changing surroundings.

DNA and RNA have long been considered indicators or defining factors of ‘living organisms’. The creation of XNA will no doubt reignite discussion about what it truly means to be ‘alive’.

It’s a bitch eat bitch world Lisa Visentin goes down on feminism.

Feminism. Yawn. Yawn again. Eyeroll.

What a page-turner this word is. Without the cunnilingus reference in the headline, would you have lingered on this page long enough to be so abruptly confronted by the word cunnilingus? A safe bet says no; that upon first sight of the “f-word” you’d have pressed a saliva-primed finger to the crispycorner of this page and swiftly departed to the more salacious columns of the Life and Style section.

The fact that an article on feminism has to seduce a readership through gratuitous innuendo, arguably undermining the very cause it champions, captures the essence of the issue. Feminism has an image problem. And women are partly to blame for it.

For many, feminism is equal parts irritating, distasteful and dull. It’s also as about sexy as Rupert Murdoch in a sequinned g-string after a ten hour sponge bath. As a label, it carries the stigma of bankrupting its wearer of social capital, and young women are dissociating themselves with the movement en mass less they be typecast as one of those “crazy feminist types”. But how did it come to this?

How did a movement that galvanised generations of women in solidarity, a movement directly responsible for putting a textbook in our hands instead of an iron, create a generation of twenty-something, progressive and upwardly-mobile university types who find it so irksome?

The malaise can be attributed, in part, to the fact that feminism remains shackled by the stereotypes of its de-sexyfied past. Set against a backdrop of smouldering underwire brassieres, a historical montage of the

feminist movement can’t help but pause, like a jammed black and white VCR, on the plethora of unattractive ways women chose to fuck the patriarchy in our parents’ generation. Armpits were cultivated to forest-density, makeup and high heels were rejected as tools of oppression, and Germaine Greer called upon women to make a tasting-plate of their menstruating vaginas. The glory days of grossness.

Tw e nt y - f i r s t century feminism is beleaguered by the homage it feels duty-bound to pay to its past, whilst simultaneously trying to profess its relevance to an increasingly disinterested constituency. Since the radicalism of our mothers’ era, feminism has backlashed against itself, been reinvented and realigned.

Today it remains nuanced, pluralist and diversified, which unfortunately also means that it is fractured, directionless and divided.

It has lead to the perception that no lifechoice is safe from the all-pervasive feminist whinge, and its unsolicited erudition on the numerous ways in which our skinny vanilla latte is undermining the sisterhood. Every-

“

thing from porn, to career motherhood, the sculpting of pubes, to whether or not you wear pantsuits to work, you’re always falling short by some feminist standard.

Exhausted, many of us dismiss the whole movement as being “not for us”.

But confusion alone cannot account for the discomfort women feel with modern feminism.

Something much more sinister is at play here: the female misogynist.

It’s a pernicious phenomenon that has become so endemic, that to be a young woman in the twenty-first century is to accept the notion that women are bitches.

Few of us will reject this as a starting premise, and many will nod in agreement, recalling an incident of abhorrent mistreatment at the hands of another girl.

The savagery of the sisterhood is also being increasingly recognised in academic research.

Earlier this month, Time Magazine published the results of a comprehensive study conducted by Washington University into female representation in the upper echelons of the corporate workplace. It revealed that one of the first tasks of women who crash through the glass ceiling is to weaponize with a glue gun and seal behind them the very path they trailblazed. This conclusion is bolstered by a

For many, feminism is equal parts irritating, distasteful and dull. It’s also as about sexy as Rupert Murdoch in a sequinned g-string after a ten hour sponge bath.

”

2009 US Workplace Bullying Institute report which showed that while men are egalitarian in their bullying, women target their attacks on other women more than 70 per cent of the time.

It’s easy to reach the despairing conclusion that the sisterhood is a fallacy. At best, its fragile existence hinges on one game of “never-have-I-ever”, which is a spectacularly reliable way to watch saccharine friendships dissolve into vicious hatred, while savouring a cup of goon. Disheartening, however, is its ability to sap life from the genuine feminist cause. The movement is desperately trying to reclaim words like “slut” and “whore”, but they remain part of women’s default artillery of slander. We deplore the stud versus slut dichotomy, but continue to perpetuate it when we arbitrarily decide that a girl has crossed the line from sexually empowered to that “slut that fucked the boy that we fancied”.

Feminism objectively takes a hit when the aftermath of a threesome sees the guy high-fived, and the girls shamed. It objectively takes a hit when an educated, beautiful young woman viciously attacks another on the dance floor of Mooseheads.

We have every reason to be envious of the brotherhood that defines men’s relationships, but how are we supposed to feel any claim of pride to being female when we actively perpetuate the stereotype of bitchiness which plagues our gender? Iconoclast feminist Madeleine Albright famously declared there to be “a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.” Well, it seems that special place is getting damn crowed.

CU NT in the

EXPERIENCE AUSTRALIA’S VAST INTERIOR

Dear sissy, Let me guess. You need a holiday. You’re a hard-working SES2 in the Department of Multicultural Affairs, while your pashmina-wearing, part-timevolunteer-at-the-art-gallery wife has retired at the ripe old age of 51, to concentrate on her novel. Your daughter is still living at home, while your son is in Ecuador “finding himself ” with a charming young Hispanic man called Manuel. You just need to get away from it all, don’t you?

Here in the Northern Territory, we don’t have “it all”. All we have is a dusty Landcruiser that’s seen better days, a large problem with petty knife crime and a vain hope that one day, we’ll get television reception.

So come up and spend a couple of days with us. You’ll learn how to boil tea on your radiator, how to amputate your arm with your shoelaces, and the best way to sodomise a pet crocodile. Our friendly locals will laugh at your pronunciation, hide your belongings and question your sexuality to your face.

You’ll return to civilisation relaxed, rejuvenated, and filled with the passion to sue every single roadhouse that didn’t have soy milk. (It’s the desert, sissy.

Soy beans don’t grow here.)

So come on, sissy. See you in the NT.

NORTHERN TERRITORY TOURISM BOARD Get some tourism up ya!

FRIENDLY LOCAL, BOGAN BRETT, WELCOMES YOU TO THE DARWIN CBD

Art & Culture Moving Lattice Steph Mangos Recycled wood, bolts and brackets 2010 behance.net/stephmangos

LIFE & STYLE// 18

WORONI: WIPE YOUR ARSE IN STYLE

We’re looking for new writers to join our team. So shoot us an email at contact@woroni.com.au

HARDCORE PAWN: PLAYIN’ CHESS

STEPHEN PRIEST

it may be targeted by the light-square bishop.

9. Nf1 A move favoured by Capablanca. White intends to plant his knight on g3 and eventually f5.

9. … Nh5 10. h3 Bxf3 Retreating with Be6 or Bd7 losses a pawn after 11. Nxe5 dxe5 (or Nxe5) 10. Qxh5.

11. Qxf3 Nf6 Black has traded his good light-square bishop for a knight which wasn’t doing much at all!

12. g4 White begins the aggression by taking space on the kingside.

12. …a6 13. Ba4 b5 14. Bc2 d5 Black counters with play in the centre.

15. Ng3 dxe4 16. dxe4 Qc8 White’s pieces are all pointed at the black king! By contrast, Black’s pieces are tripping over themselves. Black’s knight on c6 blocks the backward c7 pawn, black’s bishop is hampered by his pawn on e5, black’s queen has no good square where she is free from harassment.

Black isn’t looking too happy!

17. Nf5 Be3 also looks strong, giving the black bishop, removing the only good square for the black Jose Capablanca v Jacob Rosenthal (1909 bishop. Or perhaps that square is to be the lure?

Rapid Transit Match) 17. … Bc5 White to move and blast open the black 1. e4 e5 kingside!

2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. O-O Be7 Again, all a very standard Ruy Lopez.

5. d3 d6 6. Re1 O-O 7. Nbd2 Bg4 8. c3 Kh8 Black prepares to advance his f-pawn by removing his king from the a2-g8 diagonal where New York City. 1900s. Think a sprawling city expanding rapidly. Think streetcars.

Think skyscrapers growing taller and taller.

Think chess great, Jose Raul Capablanca.

In 1906, an 18-year-old Capablanca entered Columbia University to pursue an engineering degree. By the end of his second year, Capablanca had decided study was not for him - having spent his summer playing chess daily, Capablanca concluded it was far more interesting.

And it turned out all right for him too! Three years later, he challenged Emmanual Lasker to a world championship game. Whilst the match never took place as the match conditions couldn’t be agreed on, there is no doubt Capablanca was one of the strongest players worldwide at the time.

The lesson is, you don’t need a degree to be a world-class chess player!!

The match for this edition took place in March 1909, just after Capablanca had left university. His opponent, the New York club player and later Grand Master Jacob Rosenthal, was no slouch either. However, after accepting Capablanca’s ingenious sacrifice, he is rapidly dispatched. The game is from a rapid transit tournament, which means decisions are made quickly and time is always short. It makes for a good game, though!

Tactics arise in only one of three circumstances: Where the king is exposed, where a piece is undefended or where a piece is poorly defended (with only one defender).

Here, black’s king is well-hidden. His king is hidden, so no luck there. Undefended pieces on c5 and c6 suggest there might be something there – but with nothing to attack these pieces, white’s out of luck.

But what about the knight on f6! Its sole defender is the pawn on g7. If that can be removed, the f6 knight is defenceless!

18. Nxg7 Kxg7 Got it! Black must take the knight, or else he’s down a pawn for nothing! Black can’t even try to recoup his losses with 18. … Nxe4 because of 20. Bxe4,creating nasty threats on the long diagonal 19. Bh6+! Kg6 Pulling black’s king out of his hiding place.

If 19. … Kxh6 Qxf6#. Black struggles to hold on with Kg6 20. g5 Nh5 This loses immediately. Then again, 20. … Ng8 isn’t much better, for example 21. h4 (threatening 22. h5#) Nxh6 22. Qf6+ Kh5 23.

Bd1+ Kxh4 24. Qxh6# 21. Qf5+ Qxf5 22. exf5# 1-0 Capablanca in his finest form. A great game by a great player!

Stephen Priest isn’t a particularly strong chess player, but that doesn’t stop him from writing! He currently plays, on-andoff, for the ANU Chess Club which meets weekly, 7:30pm on the bottom floor of the Baldessin Precinct Building.

LIFE & STYLE// 19

ILLUSTRATION: HANNAH WINTER-DEWHIRST

Winter is coming...

Too hipster for Chifley ALISSA McCULLOCH A friend of mine went to Chifley the other day to wander through the reserve section.

This would not be remotely newsworthy, if not for the fact that my friend had never used the University library book collection before during his undergraduate degree.

Ever.

What makes this particularly odd? My friend is a second-year Classics student.

Not just an Arts student – a Classics student, precisely the sort of person who should be spending every waking hour in the library.

Naturally this prompted me to consider: is it in fact possible to go through an entire arts degree without ever setting foot in a library? Does one really need books in the age of e-journals and Google Scholar? It’s an argument waved around for years by spacestarved librarians and innovation-hungry students. No more waiting for recalled books! Access everything online in portable, spine-saving formats!

To an extent, the answer depends on your discipline. It’s easier to imagine a Sociology or Political Science student relying predominantly on journal articles or online publications for their essays. It’s considerably harder to imagine a Classics student doing the same. While there are a lot of exciting things happening in the field, it’s at a much slower pace than most other subjects. After

all, everything of note happened two thousand years ago.

His refusal to visit Chifley up until this point had been largely a matter of stubbornness. Everything he needed was online, he argued: primary sources on the Perseus database, secondary sources in journals or on Wattle. He happened to own a couple of recommended texts already, but admits he has “no idea” how he managed to pass the first year Ancient Athens course.

Did he have a point to prove? Or was he merely afflicted by terminal laziness, the scourge of the arts faculty?

In any case, the internet proved no match for Paul Burton’s mighty Emperors and Madmen essay. Off my friend trudged to Chifley, a guard of honour formed by curious Classics hangers-on.

He was promptly befuddled by the catalogue system, but with the help of one such hanger-on he returned to the classics department triumphant, having photocopied a significant chunk of the reserve collection.

Though he had failed in his attempt to avoid Chifley for the duration of his degree, he hadn’t let the library get the better of him.

Unfortunately for him, not everyone agreed.

“The short loan section doesn’t count,” chided a fellow Classicist. “Go to level three

What is this you call study?

MEGAN SHELLIE

Excuse me for sounding like a bit of a knob, but how exactly does one study?

Coming to university, I’ve found that I can no longer rely on my year six trip to Canberra to get me through Politics, or my year of Legal Studies to supplement for my entire knowledge for negligence. It seems that in High School, I was one of the students that could rest on my laurels, watching the As come to me, not the other way around.

And now, sitting on a precarious P for most of my subjects, I wonder what exactly I need to do in order to bump up my grades.

In my lengthy time as a university student, I have experimented week to week with study techniques. One week I decided to do no study, and I drank instead.

This was enjoyable, but unfortunately not conducive to understanding political participation formulae. Another week I vowed to do all my readings; however, this quickly turned into skim reading most of the chapters and making my favourite kind of notes, mental ones.

Now that I am heading into exams, I find myself in an uphill battle against a mountain of notes which I jotted down but did not process. Boredom sets in, and I find myself writing articles for Woroni instead.

My knowledge of study techniques is limited to things I have seen on TV. Having tried the Bart Simpson method of writing everything out twenty times, I concluded that such an approach was slightly time consuming. I also tried the Glee method, doing no study ever and just singing about my feelings, and this too was ineffective.

Study, like waxing, is one of those things that people just do, but you never really hear particulars about, so you’re left in the dark as to whether you’re doing it right or not (just me? Ok).

I have taken to making mind maps, flow charts, tables and other visual representations of my utter confusion, in some attempt to order my knowledge. I have also become typing up my notes, the ultimate form of study procrastination.

Although I am confident that all will be okay in the end, I fear that the ship for effective study habits and techniques sailed away at the end of High School, and that now I am stuck up shit creek without a paddle. But it’s okay: I’ve perfected the Bear Grylls technique, and will fashion all of my lecture notes into a teepee. Problem solved.

LIFE & STYLE// 20 GAMECHAIR PHILOSOPHER

JIMMY BAI

How Brits see America Grand Theft Auto III

No-one under the age of 60 has a reason to have not at least heard of Grand Theft Auto.

If you’re middle-aged, anywhere between the ages of 35 and 60, your kids will have nagged you about it, your colleagues may have discussed it in hushed tones, and maybe your paster has spewed fire and brimstone about it. Now, if you’re anywhere south of that agebracket, then you’ve probably seen, heard, experience, nay lived, Grand Theft Auto somewhere along the last 11 years.

But not the old top-down Grand Theft Auto that demonised Hare Krishnas and thought ‘plot’ was something you used to plant hemp and other organic produce. The Grand Theft Auto that people have enjoyed for the last decade is the one created by Grand Theft Auto III. The idea of Grand Theft Auto, that universe of “American-pop-culture-cum-criminal-virtual-reality”, was born out of the rainfilled gutters of that grey, miserable, cynical representation of New York, Liberty City.

Here is a game that single-handedly popularised a genre, an idea and an experience: what is now called ‘sandbox’. Even if you thought the graphics were clunky, or you were offended by the sarcastic humour of America-as-viewed-by-Brits, or maybe bedding and attacking hookers just wasn’t for you, Grand Theft Auto III was a nuclear explosion on the landscape of computer gaming. From then on, people demanded more: they demanded worlds to be explored, characters to be interacted with (not just ‘cut-

scened’), more actual activities to interact with (like going to the gym). If not for GTA3, you don’t get to ride the Four Horses of the Apocalypse into the sunset; you don’t get a game like Batman: Arkham City (and that’s every little boy’s dream!); you don’t even get to see Tony Montana survive the ending of Scarface.

The story wasn’t terribly complicated, the characters artificially nuanced, and the representation of criminal ethnicities largely offensive (Triad gang members are on the record as saying: “Geta yo i-yesz chekked!

Yu corr dat a-drivink?”). You, an unnamed, unspeaking protagonist, are left for dead by your unhinged Latina squeeze after a bank robbery. As you are transported to prison following capture, your convoy is ambushed

by Hawaiian-shirt wearing Colombians (who, for clarity, sell an unspecified drug called SPANK, which is pretty much cocaine, as you would expect) and you bust out with a slick African-American hood called “8-Ball” who has friends of a certain Italian-American subculture. Let the climbing of the extended criminal underworld begin.

The Grand Theft Auto brand was built by this one game: the hilarious satire of everything we love to hate about America (the gun-nuts: AMMU-NATION, the philandering: Fernando’s New Beginnings, the crazy radio stations that don’t make any sense), the constant references to cool movies we know and love, the sheer joie de vivre of New York

(don’t deny it, you want to visit that “city that doesn’t sleep”), and the oh-so-guilty-pleasure of being a career criminal. Games that establish a billion dollar brand don’t come along every day. Think where GTA3 leads: Vice City, San Andreas, Liberty City Stories, Vice City Stories, Chinatown Wars, IV and its associated Episodes from Liberty City. These are games that nearly every person with an XY chromosome in our generation has been in contact with. Some more so than others (one of my crowning gaming achievements remains completing Vice City 100%: it remains one of the best games of that generation, sue me).

Grand Theft Auto III remains a seminal piece of pop culture, referenced in more TV shows than I can count, and seen, even in small microcosms, in every single game since. It was a game that brought attention to detail in modern gaming, forcing developers and studios to one-up each other in how complete they could conjure up a virtual world. It made falling headlong into a parallel universe, filled with hilarious stereotypes, pop-culture references, and wanton violence all that much easier. And then 100 hours pass by.

Next: The final gunshot was an exclamation mark to everything that had led to this point

Dan Spielman: the interview VINCENT CHIANG

Rarely do actors rise as powerfully as did Dan Spielman. Despite having no formal training in theatre, Spielman has been acknowledged repeatedly for his performances, through awards, through his membership of The Actors Company, and most recently, in his starring role in Bell Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

Which is why, when asked to interview Spielman, I was at once both flattered and nervous. Nevertheless, as became apparent, Spielman is as amiable as he is talented, offering Woroni a clear eye into the details of his latest work.

On Bell’s production as a whole, Spielman was happy to provide a precise description of a fairly straightforward artistic direction. “This production takes the piece in a fairly natural, abstract landscape,” he said, “We haven’t got in the way of any kind of interpretations or translations of any of the political aspects or tried to represent in any contemporary way - it’s a production that concentrates on the poetry and the collapsing psychology”.

Nevertheless, as Spielman was willing to accept, this did not necessarily mean a completely simple production either. As critics have noticed, his characterisation of Macbeth is noticeably refreshing: “Where the expectation might be for a fairly martial character, a butch, heavily blooded warrior to begin with, he hasn’t been cast that way”. Instead, what Spielman suggested he was performing was a Macbeth who started as “bright-eyed”, “with a lack of self-consciousness and energy”.

Most would understand that such a description of Macbeth is not constant throughout the play, and in Spielman’s words, the character in Bell’s production ends as “a rabid animal”. Indeed, such a transition of character matches the overall purpose of Bell’s production, as articulated by Spielman: “What we concentrated on is following as clearly and closely as we can the threshold that Macbeth

crosses in his mind, and in his conscience, step by step”.

Of course, accomplishing the full scope of the Macbeth character is a challenge venerated similarly to the playing of Prince Hamlet, and on this, Spielman was able to offer an extremely evocative image of what was required.

“I learnt most of [the lines] before coming into rehearsal,” he said, in relation to the most frequent woe of the amateur actor.

Instead, initial problems were more often physical, particularly the “intense training regimes for rehearsal [where] half of every

“ I’m more interested in what students think of the production than what subscribers and people who know the play do. ”

day [was] boot camp”.

Above all else, however, what Spielman considered most pertinent to Macbeth’s challenge was the sheer complexity of the role.

“It’s a huge role,” Spielman said, “I’ve never had to manage the kind of energy for this before. Emotionally the nature of his fall is so so far-reaching that the more I discover the more economy I find in the scenes the more it stretches me.”

“It’s an extraordinary challenge and privilege to be able to explore language like this, because it really does expand you. You could do it for years and still be finding new space and dimension inside it” With few minutes left in the interview,

Spielman offered some words concerning other aspects of Bell’s Macbeth, most notably his work and friendship with co-actor and Lady Macbeth, Kate Mulvany. Spielman described working with Mulvany as “terrific”, calling the actress a “very smart cookie”. In relation to their performing together, he also added: “We’re very lucky that we get along, trust one another a lot. I know we both really enjoy the ongoing discovery and exploration of this (Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s) mar-

riage”.

Asked for some closing words, Spielman concluded with the following: “I’m more interested in what students think of the production than what subscribers and people who know the play do.”

“I’m more interested in inquisitive minds from all different sorts and what their (students’) response might be”.

Bell Shakespeare’s Macbeth is showing until 2 June at the Canberra Theatre Centre.

Being Asian Ain’t Easy

LIFE & STYLE// 21

Vincent Chiang explores Asian stereotypes, identity and K-Pop

After years of self-denial, awkward conversations and sad semi-autobiographical fiction writing, I’m finally coming out. I confess it now: I’m a minority. That is to say, I am of Asian descent, meaning that I belong to an (not uncommon) ethnic minority within the Australian continent.

Hypothetically speaking, this could mean a few things. First of all, it drastically increases the probability that I am studying something in Commerce or Science, that I have had a phase of World of Warcraft addiction, and that I have a small penis. I was probably good at maths back in high school, and I should like eating Asian rice dishes or noodles over steaks or spaghetti.

Some of these cultural stereotypes may or may not be true of me. A lot of them aren’t.

I major in English Literature and Philosophy, and I actively participate in the university theatre and debating societies in my spare time. I enjoy musical theatre. Instead of AKB48 and Jay Chou, I listen to Lady Gaga and Nightwish (actually, that’s pretty fucked in and of itself).

What am I then, some sort of double-minority?

I’m not really sure, to be honest, but that does lead me to the point of all this – the fact

that self-identification, based on factors like ethnicity (and also gender, and so forth) is incredibly confusing. In my first year, I was taught the possibility that these factors are all socially constructed, and that there is no “objective reality” beyond what we have ingrained within us by society. So basically, it is nurture, and not nature, which determines everything.

A part of me does believe in some of this.

Without consulting Wikipedia first to check for case studies, I reckon that if you were to lock a bunch of boys in a room from birth, and told them repeatedly that Justin Bieber is the model human being, then they could very well sustain such a belief until later life.

Hell, I think if I created a page on Wikipedia right now about such an experiment (citing an appropriate number of imaginary sources, of course), quite a few more people would believe such a thing.

With that said, do I think that behaviour is entirely influenced by society? Probably not. In my case, my parents are both Chinese migrants and medical practitioners, but from birth I’ve always had a deep fascination with literary fiction, with the theatrical, and indeed, with symphonic power metal (seriously). It wasn’t until I became old and jaded

that I realised stereotypes expected me to play violin instead, or to solve maths problems in my spare time.

More pertinently, the Asian stereotype found its way into my life as well, not from outside, but from within. I’ve always preferred Japanese Anime to anything showing on Western television, except for possibly The Simpsons. Starcraft came into my life before I realised it was the favourite past time of thirty year old Korean virgins. Hell, despite my love for crazy European singers, I have to admit that Asian pop resonates within me in some sick, perverted fashion as well, not just because of the short skirts, but because the melodies are naturally more listenable for me than, say, Radiohead.

Again, I’m not taking a single stance on these ideas of questions of identity. More broadly speaking, however, I do think it important that we constantly consider both sides of the argument before we make quick, critical judgements about what incites people’s behaviour, particularly in relation to the influence of forces such as ethnicity. Maybe racist jokes hurt so much because they serve only to perpetuate harmful stereotypes. Or maybe they hurt, because they discriminate based on an inevitable truth.

Burgmann Trump Big Night Out Ben Latham speaks to the winners of Big Night Out 2012

“I didn’t believe it,” admits Dennis Nguyen, keyboard player and organiser of Burgmann College’s entry into the 2012 Big Night Out. “I hate hearing the announcements because I get too nervous. I was outside when my friend gave me a call and told me that we’d won. I didn’t believe it. I just don’t believe it.”

Sitting beside him is Madeleine McCloy and Harry Lawless, the band’s vocalist and trombone player, still beaming from ear to ear even a week after their victory.

And who can blame them? Winning the biggest event of the Interhall Arts calendar is no mean feat but, like true victors, they are modest to the core.

McCloy says, “I thought we were going to come fourth. The two bands we heard during sound check were amazing, which is why we didn’t think we’d do as well.” “Yeah,” Lawless agrees, “the band after us, Fenner, they were fantastic. They had a computer, and fancy guitars. I thought Fenner were all over it.”

Burgmann’s performance was unique in their preference for soul and Motown classics over the expected direction of rock ‘n’ roll and indie tunes.

As Nguyen relates, “When we came in our first year, the guy who was organising the band at the time chose those type of songs.

Next year we did the same thing, so this time we just followed the same pattern.”

But what was different about this year?

“Our brass section. Harry playing the trombone, and our friends Eddie and Millie on

trumpet. We wanted songs that would show the brass off as much as possible.”

And just as important, as McCloy relates, was the use of two female vocalists; “For the first time we had two female singers. It had a pretty big impact on the song choices that we made as well.” So goodbye ACDC and Guns ‘n’ Roses, and hello Marvin Gaye and Amy Winehouse.

But perhaps the greatest feature of Burgmann’s approach to choosing the perfect set for Big Night Out was their versatility; “We kept changing the setlist until we got it right.”

As Nguyen said, “We had some ideas [before rehearsals]. We brainstormed a list of twenty-five songs but it changes when you’ve got different types of singers and instruments.”

Lawless laughs, “Superstition’ was the only one that actually stayed the whole way through. Literally, we started learning “Young Hearts Run Free” three or four nights before. It was ridiculous, but so good! Literally everyone except Dennis came in hating it. But we heard it once and everyone converted.”

Nguyen admits, “When I told our drummer that we’d be doing it, the first thing he said to me was, ‘We’ve already lost.’ But I think he warmed up to it in the end. I’m really glad we did it.”

And were there any hidden secrets to Burgmann’s success this year? “There was plenty of Red Bull around! So much Red Bull!” But

THE SEVEN SEAS

KIERAN PENDER

Great Expectations Musing on travel, a wise man once said that, “If at some point you don’t ask yourself, ‘What have I gotten myself into?’ then you’re not doing it right”.

While such situations may be an essential part of any extended adventure, the prospect of something going wrong in a foreign land is still a large barrier to packing the suitcase and booking the flights.

“What if I get sick? What if we get mugged?

And what if the Eyjafjallajökull volcano goes crazy again?” These are all valid questions, and are all likely to put some off of boarding their transport to a far-flung country.

But, without getting all philosophical, occasionally in life the time comes to bite that bullet and get out there. Raft the Franklin, hike Kilimanjaro or travel the Trans-Siberian railway. Sometimes, that travel itch just needs to be scratched, no matter the obstacles.

So, after years of dreaming and planning, I’m finally off. My girlfriend Lizzie will be joining me on what should hopefully be seven and a half months of joyous gallivanting across one of the most diverse and interesting continents in the world.

Yes, Europe is hardly off the beaten track, but it remains an enduring attraction. Perhaps its eclectic mix of everything – fascinating history, vibrant and varied culture, international sporting events, beautiful landscapes and famous festivals – make it the primary destination for so many tourists.

Whatever the reason, I’m going! A brief trip in 2010 only furthered my desire to spend some serious time in the east, west and centre. I’ll be catching buses, trains, planes and boats across almost the entire expanse of land that is Europe (plus the United Kingdom and Ireland, if we want to get technical).

My feet will no doubt get sore, while my affinity for bicycles could be seriously tested. I will probably become a veteran at sleeping in uncomfortable locations, and my budget culinary skills could be challenged.

Yet above all, I have great expectations.

Dreams of delicious food in Italy, hopes of romantic walks through Paris, and ultimately, a desire to watch lots and lots of football (soccer). I’ll throw myself headlong into the delights of Europe, and hopefully come up smiling.

By the time this is published, I will be enjoying life on the Mediterranean coast in Valencia, Spain. We’ll then head to England, Scotland and Ireland, before flying to Belgium and beginning a grand European adventure.

Unless the Woroni editors get bored of my tales, I will bring you the best, worst and strangest of Europe right here every issue.

Wish me luck – I may need it!

other than that, there were no pre-show rituals to report; “We had dinner together, had some drinks, a bit of a chat, then just went on.”

And did playing in the latter half of the night help their chances of winning? “You could really tell that everyone was drunk!”

Lawless laughs. “Best crowd ever!” McCloy joins.

“It was good playing late,” Nguyen agrees, “I liked it. There were lots of people there and it meant that you didn’t have to wait nervously for the results. You played then heard it straight afterwards.”

Of late, Burgmann College has had an extraordinary run in Big Night Out, coming in third place last year after coming first the year before. But, as Nguyen admits, “We were a bit worried this year. Normally we have a core group that stays on year to year but they all left. Luckily we picked up so many great musicians. Last year we had one person who studied music, this year we had about four or five.”

“We had so much musicality overall!” McCloy agrees. “A lot of talent from the first years coming in.”

“Hopefully quite a few will stay around,” continues Nguyen. “As organiser, my main aim was for the first years to enjoy it enough to come back. I was worried we rehearsed too Kieran Pender is an Arts/Law student at hard in the week leading up to it, but it was the ANU, who has taken 12 months prodefinitely worth it in the end. They’ll have a gram leave in 2012 and is about to hit the really strong band next year.” Lawless agrees, road.

“The highlight of my year by far.”

LIFE & STYLE// 22

Write it down

The Handwritten Exhibition National Library of Australia

That Scottish Play THEATRE

Macbeth Directed by Peter Evans Canberra Theatre Centre The scene of the latest Bell Shakespeare opens on what appears to be a drought-affected minigolf course, sparsely populated by a troupe of soldiers who have, to judge by their attire, just escaped from a Bachelors and Spinsters ball. Above them is a giant hanging mirror, the function of which is presumably to tempt the Fates into snipping the wires that attach it to the ceiling, thereby confirming every thespian’s superstition about the Scottish play.

Here we are in a modern production of Shakespeare, in which the only rule of stagecraft appears to be that if the story or the script suggests a prop or a costume, that suggestion should be studiously ignored. There may once have been something thrilling and avant-garde about modernising the setting of a classic to make an artistic point, but the conceit has become thoroughly common that now, if you were to sit through a production of Julius Caesar set in an cyberpunk dysto-

A Bit Common FOOD

ANU Commons Café 26 Barry Drive, Acton A $5 lunch is usually a sufficient deterrent to returning home to Ainslie to pick up your cheese and pickles sandwich. The new Cafeteria and Commons on the ground floor of Lena Karmel Lodge seeks to find its market in the lazy college student, the forgetful “townie” or any other unsubscribed individual looking for a conveniently-located cheap lunch. Or perhaps I am mistaken. On Tues-

pia with members of One Direction playing the triumvirs, you probably wouldn’t even be entitled to a refund. Is it too much to ask that Macbeth be set in Scotland?

But it would be a mistake to quibble too much on the bizarre design, because it’s Shakespeare: there are far dirtier works afoot.

The story, in case you’ve missed it, is a relatively simple one. Macbeth (Dan Spielman) is a bit of a soldier, who, as the play begins, gets a promotion. This happy news comes to our hero courtesy of a witch, who prances about on the aforementioned golf course muttering prophecies to all and sundry.

Traditionally there are three of these witches, but here the director, Peter Evans, has opted for just one. Unfortunately, since the poor actress now has three times the normal amount of lines, she has been instructed to say them three times as fast, so if you’re not familiar with the prophecy, I advise you bring pen and paper.

The witch (Lizzie Schebester) tells him that he will one day become King, which poses a small problem, since there already is a King.

Owing to certain labour market rigidities in medieval Scotland, the only way Macbeth can ascend to the throne is to kill the incumbent, Duncan. Which, after a bit of Shakespearian dithering, he does.

Of course, before the body has even had time to cool down, the murderer begins to have second thoughts. Spielman’s impression of a man in torment leaves something to be desired – specifically, the torment – but the

basic elements of the man’s tragedy are presented with faithfulness and without doing too much damage to the pentameter.

And what the husband lacks in credibility, the wife is more than capable of supplying.

Kate Mulvany’s Lady Macbeth is a revelation: her soliloquies fresh and intelligently delivered, her diction crisp without being annoying, her gestures confident and precise.

Too often this character has been played, unimaginatively, as a frigid bitch. Mulvany, on the other hand, is fully sexed and filled from the crown to the toe topful of direst legginess, and when she declares to Macbeth that she would dash her own child’s brains out to acquire power, you get the feeling not only that she is capable of infanticide, but that there must be some darker history behind her indifference to the life of a baby.

Banquo is adroitly played by Gareth Reeves, who manages somehow to be good and noble without being dull, while the story of Mr and Mrs Macduff (Ivan Donato and Katie-Jean Harding) is very touchingly told.

The final fight scene is very well choreographed, and, as soon as Macbeth is killed, the lights go down and we are spared the usual kumbaya business of the last scene.

In the end, this is a more or less creditable approximation of Macbeth. It is well-executed for the most part, original here and there, pedestrian occasionally and downright baffling once or twice. You might as well go.

day, as this reviewer trialled a cafeteria lunch, the only clients of ANU’s latest eatery were public servants and business people from the surrounding offices. In fact, our party of three appeared to be the only students taking advantage of the discounted meals for ANU students and staff. The décor was typical of a shopping centre’s food court; uncomfortable and unpleasing, but clean. The background music was Channel V’s top 40, with the hit “Call me maybe” providing the atmosphere for our lunch.

The only thing to save ANU’s new cafeteria was going to have to be the food. The Cafeteria provides a small range of hot foods ($5$6) that appear to change on a daily basis, an assortment of $5 sandwiches, a burger menu ($10+) and some other odds and ends including a rather delicious and sizeable roast vegetable tart. While everything that we ate had a definite flavour of microwave radiation, the

food itself was fairly good and, in the case of the pork jambalaya and the beef, was actually delicious. Unfortunately, the portions were on the small side and left us wanting.

One of my companions had invested in the Fish Burger at $10 and was bitterly disappointed by a somewhat slimy experience as the mash of fish and potato (on a burger?) sought to appease him. In the end the burger was left unfinished and the roast vegetable tart was divided in three to provide some satisfaction to the otherwise disheartened diners.

The saving grace for the ANU commons may well be the sandwiches, which look good and are, after all, only $5. Overall, the lunch experience was a bit hit-and-miss. If you keep your fingers crossed and the fates are smiling, you may score a decent feed without dropping too much dough.

– TOM WESTLAND

– PATTY DEEGAN

Normally, when people think of libraries, it evokes a certain cathartic sensation and nostalgia for books – hard cover works with intricate bindings and fragile pages. Or, if you are less romantically-minded, libraries can stir up terrible feelings of guilt for that one book you borrowed from the university library that is still sitting in the corner of your bottom desk-drawer, collecting dust.

Whatever side you’re on, libraries are places of learning, and that statement couldn’t be truer for the National Library. As Canberrans, I feel we need to exploit this library for all the services it offers, and I’m not just talking about books. The National Library has been known to host many travelling exhibitions, and the best part of this is that most of them are free. Yes, I hear you, fellow students, anything free and including some form of thought is cause for great celebration.

Earlier this year, the National Library hosted a collection of written works from the Berlin State Library in Germany. These works were handwritten manuscripts, ranging from the medieval texts of the Venerable Bede, to more modern writers such as Karl Marx. These works were amazing; not only did I have a chance to see the true-to-personality handwriting of some of the most famous people in history, but I also learnt some valuable things about myself.

For instance, my handwriting will forever be neater than Ludwig von Beethoven’s.

Then again, Napoleon Bonaparte’s handwriting puts me and many of my generation to shame. The personality of Florence Nightingale’s penmanship seemed neat and clean, and the patent for Alfred Nobel’s dynamite seemed rather explosive. I could be calmed by the very spidery tilt of Niccolò Machiavelli and hastened by the rash, briskness of a somewhat confused Georg Hegel. I was reminded that these people were just like me: Martin Luther sent letters, Michelangelo Buonarroti wrote receipts, and Otto von Guericke even wrote to the council. My handwriting may leave much to be desired, but it is much better than that of Galileo Galilei.

The National Library did not disappoint with their setup, including interactive, electronic tablets in which you could submit your own piece of writing history. In addition, there was a separate room for the manuscripts, including surround-sound, and an iPad that included musical extracts from all the displayed works.

In short, I believe the National Library is wonderful place to expand your learning.

Even without the travelling exhibitions, there is usually something to see.

Next time you’re sitting at home and wondering if there’s something in Canberra to do, I suggest you check the National Library website; you never know what you might come across.

– KATHERINE PROUTING

REVIEWED// 23

I Like The Way You Moo LIVE MUSIC

Groovin the Moo The Meadows, University of Canberra

For the third year running, Groovin’ the Moo descended on the UC meadows, and Canberra’s usually concert-starved locals flocked to fill the lawns. And very well they might, for this year’s lineup was arguably the most impressive yet. It seemed that every taste in the all-ages crowd was catered for, and with the mood staying friendly and upbeat throughout, we could enjoy a day of real, brilliant festival fun, the likes of which Canberrans rarely get to experience on home turf.

Hermitude were the early highlight, filling the Moolin’ Rouge tent with their striking blend of hip-hop and dance. An awesome remix of Michael Jackson’s “Rock With You” was their standout – though Public Enemy’s DJ Lord would later upstage it by doing insanely destructive things to “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. Shortly afterwards, a mostly male niche crowd gathered for the bizarre disco-metal of Andrew W.K, who got away with having most of his set pre-recorded by declaring “I am not a musician and this is not a concert, I am a PARTIER!”. He followed this up by stuffing a pair of shoes down his pants.

LIVE MUSIC

Big Scary With such a huge array of artists performing at Groovin’ the Moo, Big Scary were one of the many acts of whom I’d never heard before. But, as with all festivals, I was able to leave with a long mental list of artists to check out as soon as I got home, with Big Scary topping the bill. An indie rock duo hailing from Melbourne, the band reminded me a lot of The White Stripes and The Black Keys and offered a similar blend of rocking guitar, burly vocals and thumping drumbeats. Most impressive were their acoustic tracks that, gentle and lyrically beautiful, provided a perfect balance to their set.

Matt Corby I spent most of the day with three women; my sister, my girlfriend, and my female best friend. With their thumbs still sore from texting votes in for Matt Corby back in his Australian Idol days, the dreamy, gorgeous singer/songwriter was a must-see on our list.

I’m a fan of his last couple of releases as much as the next person, but sadly Corby’s set seemed out of place at a bustling music festival. The ambient, subtle vocals of his opening few songs were lost in the windy expanse of the UC Meadows; it’s clear that this budding artist is better suited for more intimate settings. That said, his rousing performance of “Brother”, by far his most popular track, was utterly spectacular and one of the highlights of the festival.

360 Although completely out of my depth when it comes to Autralian hip-hop music, G360 was an artist endlessly hyped by my fel-

The big names began to hit the stages after five o’clock, beginning with Ball Park Music.

Their lightweight, welcoming pop provided much-needed relief after the uncompromising metal assault of Parkway Drive, and lead singer Sam Cromack, who looks and acts like a cooler, wittier version of Sid from Skins, kept the crowd laughing and jumping while the temperature rapidly plummeted. The rain never quite materialised, despite general expectation, but the crowds were in for a cold, cold night. Those who passed by the ice cream vendor any time after five could see the stallkeeper, devoid of any custom, looking rather lonely and forlorn.

After City and Colour’s Coldplay-based acoustic grandeur came a thrilling fifty minutes of full-on, intelligent and impassioned noise music from hip-hop’s most venerable elder statesmen, Public Enemy. Here is a sad anomaly: a group that has reasonably been called the Beatles of hip-hop, musicians who in their heyday were among the best and most radical in the world, now play the warm-up act to people like Kimbra and the Kaiser Chiefs, neither of whom will be reckoned among the greats twenty years from now. Public Enemy’s set was superb. After the music came some heartfelt final words from Flavor Flav, who spoke on no less a subject than the need for humanity to set racism and separatism aside and find power in unity. Backed up by the moral force of their music, this was inspiring stuff. Kimbra is not untalented, but her familiar vein of overembellished pop sounded weak indeed after such a set as this.

Thankfully, there were better acts to come.

Hilltop Hoods proved themselves worthy heirs to Public Enemy’s throne, delivering a brilliant set of Australian hip-hop highlights.

Then, while Digitalism provided the climax to the more dance-oriented lineup in the tent, rock fans stuck around at the main stage to close out the night with the Kaiser Chiefs.

These guys make up for their rather samey and pedestrian brand of Brit-rock by powering their live shows with a truckload of charisma. Frontman Ricky Wilson set the seal on this by dashing off the stage, mid-song, jumping onto the adjacent fairground ride, and then, mike still in hand, continuing to sing just as forcefully while the great, spangly wheel spun him up and around and upsidedown, over and over, through the night sky.

This reviewer had already spent an unprofessional amount of time on said ride, and can attest that it is not easy, when one is on it, to do anything other than scream.

Give it a few more years, and Groovin’ the Moo looks set to settle into a regular deal.

Hopefully, by then, they’ll have outgrown the rather irritating marketing angle (sample sentence: “As the GTM cosmogram loves Mother Earth there will be the opportunity for the tribe to partake in the journey of recycling drinking vessel and food pouch.”) In the meantime, we’re lucky to have a festival that delivers such impressive lineups to a smallish place like Canberra. It was well worth braving the cold for this one, and it should have us all excited and optimistic for next year’s visit.

low festival-goers. After following the herds ing furry animal costumes to ward off the of people pouring into the Moolin’ Rouge Canberra cold. They weren’t exactly Kathtent (whether to see 360 or escape the violent mandu material – more like Kathmand-moo mosh created by Parkway Drive, I’m not too – but the costumes at least gave festival-goers sure), I was surprised to recognise a couple another protective layer against the nippy of his tracks from my rare forays into Civic breeze. And now, with cows and other such on a drunken Thursday night; “Killer” and friendly barnyard animals strutting across “Child”. In my mind, however, his set is most the festival fields, the festival was able to live notable for his bizarre rants between every up to its pastoral namesake. song, including the gem, “I’m not a heavy Kimbra drinker, but every once in a while Dressed in a stunning, I like to get fucked up and I sparkling gold corset with figured Canberra would a long, billowing rainbe the place to do it.” bow-coloured cloak His evident state of wrapped around inebriation would her shoulders, it probably explain felt like a modhis extensive use ern-day Wonder of the phrase “dog Woman was takcunt”, which was ing the Groovin’ not only used the Moo stage. to describe exKimbra performed girlfriends, but a spectacular set of also particularly jazz-infused indie agro members of the pop; the audience was crowd who caught the awestruck and dazzled by rapper’s eye.

BEN LATHAM her commanding, dynamic presence. “Settle Down” was the Animal Costumes highlight of the set, showcasing KimBy late afternoon, any distant onlooker would have thought that the animals bra’s incredible vocal ability atop her groovof Canberra Zoo had broken loose and rioted ing, ridiculously cool backing band. across the city, flocking to the UC Meadows Hilltop Hoods to catch a glimpse of their favourite artists.

Like I said before, Australian hip-hop muThe reality was almost as bizarre. As the temperature plummeted with the setting sun, sic is not my thing. But while waiting for Kaiand with Groovin’ the Moo hoodies from the ser Chiefs to perform, I figured Hilltop Hoods merchandise stand outrageously priced at might be a great way to kill some time. How$70, shivering patrons resorted to purchas- ever, all I can really remember of their set is

THE ‘MOO AT A GLANCE

– ROBERT SELTH

the fact that they felt the need to stop most of their songs halfway through, complaining that the crowd wasn’t being loud enough before launching into it all over again. Maybe they’re too lazy to rehearse enough songs to fill up their allotted fifty minutes or, as one friend suggested, they cut the music to build up suspense, but their attitude felt disrespectful and arrogant. As a result, the crowd seemed annoyed and far less enthusiastic during each song’s second play.

Kaiser Chiefs After an earlier sighting of MuteMath frontman Paul Meany performing a handstand on a keyboard mid-song before leaping into the arms of his adoring audience to crowd surf, I would never have believed that another act could top such a stunt that very same day. Enter Kaiser Chiefs, or more specifically, lead singer Ricky Wilson. After roaring through crowd favourites like “Ruby” and “Angry Mob”, Wilson took the notion of stage antics to the next level, dashing off the stage during the introduction of “Take My Temperature” to strap himself into Power Surge, the stage-side amusement ride where those brave enough are spun upside down and every which way imaginable far, far in the air. With microphone in hand, Wilson didn’t miss a note, a word, or a single beat while the crowd was absolutely dumbfounded at what they were witnessing. After his feet were again placed on firm ground, perhaps a little bit dizzy, he gallivanted back onto centrestage before tearing into the closing song of Kaiser Chiefs’ set, and the festival itself.

– BEN LATHAM

REVIEWED// 24

Get your tophat, we’re going to the pictures Autumn Allure - A Season of Classic Films in Canberra, Dendy’s

A very nice engagement

FILM

The Five Year Engagement Directed by Nicholas Stoller 124 minutes, rated MA. Obviously, anyone who shuffles into a screening of a film called The Five-Year Engagement – whose promotional poster features two well-liked, attractive Hollywood personalities in gaudy wedding attire – knows what they’re getting themselves into.

There’ll be true love; playful hijinks involving misunderstandings, bungled gestures and overreactions; a peppering of soul-searching; and a fairly balanced ratio of laughs to groans. And if that isn’t enough, the film’s central character, Tom, is played by feel-good funnyman Jason Segel, which means you’ll be sure to get a decent eyeful of his bare butt.

Starring alongside Segel is Emily Blunt, who stole the show in The Devil Wears Prada and appears here as Violet, a dedicated psychology academic and Tom’s loving fiancé.

At the start of the film, which coincides with the start of Tom and Violet’s engagement, they are a warmly-affectionate, madlyin-love pair who met a year earlier at a New Years Eve party. That fateful night, their eyes met across a crowded room, and there was something about the way Tom was rocking his bright pink bunny suit that made the love of his life fall into his arms with nary a moment’s hesitation.

Over the course of the next five years, however, things don’t run so smoothly.

Violet’s career in academia forces the couple to relocate to Michigan and delay their wedding – a move that Tom initially supports but ends up resenting, as he gives up an opportunity to run his own restaurant in San Francisco to accompany her. Once they

Next year, The Birth of a Nation, Hollywood’s first feature-length film, is going to reach its centenary. That’s, by most measures of human endeavour, old. In a recent article for the New York Review of Books, Geoffrey O’Brien mused that while once the span of movies could be measured in a single lifetime, by now that month-old baby who the Lumiere Brothers shot being dangled in the arms of someone while the train that chugged past in L’Arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat, circa 1896, has most certainly been put to rest in the cold earth. The movies can no longer be encompassed by a generation or two; instead, the movies have a history now. Film as a medium, an art form, is getting old.

All of a sudden, people are talking about “the classics”; critics draw up lists of the “Greatest Movies of All Time” and a few curious first-years sign up to something called Film History 101. Film becomes academic, and reels of dust-worn tape are put under scrutiny and argued over as if each film had some greater significance than merely entertaining an audience and raking in cash for however long the studios can flog it. People watch old movies for disparate reasons: the film nerd is looking for cache, the old geezer next to him is recalling his wasted adolescence, others are just curious. There is no universal reason for the appeal, and the great thing is, there doesn’t have to be.

Until recently there wasn’t much opportunity to see old movies on the big screen in Canberra. The Arc is great, when it doesn’t

arrive at their new home, Emily continues to succeed while Tom ends up making sandwiches in the town’s local deli, hunting in his spare time and hating every moment of their new lifestyle.

It gets messier. What follows is a series of events with both goofy and serious implications: there is a shotgun wedding between Violet’s sister and Tom’s best friend, a personality experiment centred entirely on doughnuts and an altercation between Tom and Violet’s licentious boss.

Punctuated by episodes of the absurd, The Five-Year Engagement steers clear of most romcom platitudes, armed with a clever script by Nicholas Stoller and two completely loveable leads. Its insights and epiphanies are tempered with a healthy dose of squirminducing ridiculousness – one of the most meaningful exchanges in the film is an argument between Violet and her sister, conducted entirely in the voices of Elmo and the Cookie Monster.

The film is, undeniably, too long, but one thing I can guarantee is that you will leave the movie theatre madly in love with Emily Blunt. Her performance is intelligent, charming and relaxed, and she develops a sweet, believable chemistry with Segel.

While delivering the various elements of a pink-packaged romcom, The Five-Year Engagement shows that life really doesn’t pan out the way you expect. This film, for instance, with its excellent cast and witty throwaways, certainly exceeded expectations.

forget itself, mistaking obscurity for merit.

Otherwise your hopes were pretty dire. Then Dendy launched its first season of classic Hollywood cinema, Autumn Allure. At $7.50 for Club Dendy members, suddenly my friends and I had a reason to go to the cinema every Monday night because we were guaranteed at least a good movie, if not a great one.

This was watching film in its natural element, as it should be: nestled amongst a tumultuous crowd, the film score echoing throughout the auditorium, Clark Cable and Orson Welles standing monolithic upon the giant screen. It wasn’t long for the realization to come that some people sitting down hadn’t seen these movies before. You could feel it. The anticipation, the shock of the unexpected was electric, contagious. People gasped when they finally discovered what “Rosebud’” meant; they cheered when Rhett Butler finally, frankly couldn’t give a damn; and they hummed along while Gene Kelly sung in the rain and didn’t watch Sam play it again. And it was history. A great history of moments that had once brought whole audiences together in unified awe, being revisited, the layers of recycled pop allusions torn away to expose that one original, glorious moment.

Alas, for those interested in joining in, the Autumn season has almost petered out, with the exhausting torpor that is Cleopatra the sole remaining flick. However, such has been the rabid enthusiasm of the run, Dendy has just announced its Hitchcock-heavy Winter Wonderlands season. Do yourself a favour and find out why these celluloid relics still matter.

C B

– MICHAEL QUINCEY O’NEILL

– JESS MILLEN

Going away? Keep up with Woroni online: woroni.com.au facebook.com/woroni twitter.com/woroni

SPORT// 25

City Finally Bring It Home There were parties and celebrations on the final day of the Premier League in Manchester yet again. This time however, it was the blue side of the city that was jubilant. Manchester City Football Club have won the Premier League for the first time in 44 years in spectacular fashion.

Manchester United and City were tied on points going into the final game of the season with the Sky Blues only ahead on goal difference. City were big favourites to win the league playing 16th ranked Queens Park Rangers at home whilst United faced a tougher test playing Sunderland at the Stadium of Light. The fate of the trophy was dependent entirely on City’s performance; a win would see them they take it home, while a draw or loss would mean they would lose the title if United won against Sunderland.

With each game being played at the same time, the stages were set for one of the closest and most tense finishes to a Premier League season in history. United were the first to make a breakthrough in their game with a Wayne Rooney header in the 20th minute.

Meanwhile, City were dominating proceed-

JOSHUA CHU-TAN

ings at the Etihad Stadium, but they couldn’t find the back of the net until Pablo Zabaleta’s driven shot was palmed by the keeper into his own net. From then on, it seemed as though City would cruise their way to victory and the title.

However, QPR had different ideas when Djibril Cisse scored right after the start of the second half after a horrible defensive blunder by Joleon Lescott. 1-1 at the Etihad, 1-0 at the Stadium of Light.

QPR captain Joey Barton was sent off soon after for elbowing Carlos Tevez. He left the pitch kneeing City striker Sergio Aguero in the leg which will surely result in a lengthy ban. With the Rangers left with only ten men on the pitch, few doubted that City would win the game. They had all the possession and QPR were sitting back and trying their best to keep the ball out.

Then in one of Rangers’s rare possessions, they started a counter attack down the left wing, crossed the ball into the box and Jeremy Mackie met it with a diving header that bounced into the goal and stunned everyone watching. Tears and silence at the Etihad,

advantage United.

City pressed and pressed but still could not break through the staunch QPR defense.

90 minutes gone and the score was still 2-1.

With five minutes of extra time left in the season, the Citizens had to score twice to win the title. Edin Dzeko headed in from a corner at 91 minutes and gave City a sliver of hope. Meanwhile, Manchester United’s game was over, final score 1-0. The fans thought they had won the title, chanting and cheering while they awaited the outcome of the City game.

Little did they know, that one of the greatest moments in Premier League history was about to occur, and to their demise unfortunately. 93 minutes had gone at the Etihad and still a goal was needed. Substitute Mario Balotelli received the ball just outside the box and slipped it through to the surging Aguero who latched on to the ball, passed a defender and rocketed the ball into the goal.

The whole stadium erupted, there were tears again but this time it was not only confined to the stands. The players and staff of Manchester City could not hold in their emotion

and rightly so. It was a certainly a sight to behold.

Rarely do you see two goals scored in a span of three minutes, even more rare that you see this in stoppage time of the title-deciding match. An epic finale to a stunning season.

“It was a crazy finish for a crazy season,” City manager Roberto Mancini said, “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Captain Vincent Kompany was obviously delighted they won the title and described it as a miracle. “Miracles do happen in Manchester, but it’s this side of the road this time... but please never again this way.”

What an absolutely amazing season the world has witnessed for the past eight months. Easily one of the most competitive seasons, and a new winner has emerged. The blue side of Manchester will never forget this season, not only because they won the title, but also because of the spectacular fashion in which they did. Congratulations go to Manchester City FC, winners of the Barclays Premier League 2011/2012. Hollywood, it’s movie time.

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LIFE & STYLE// 26

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LIFE & STYLE// 27

LETTER FROM PLANET EARTH

The Back Page Thumbs Down Canberra frost It’s 9am on a Monday morning. You somehow muster the energy to get out of bed to go to a lecture. As you unlock your bike, you realise your bike seat is covered in a thin film of frost. NOT OK, CANBERRA. It’s May. May. It’s not winter for another month. Kapish?

Two big, cold thumbs down.

YouTube parties At some point during a night of hanging out, one of your friends will say something along the lines of, “Have you seen that YouTube video with the otter/cat/K-pop song?”

At which point he/she will get out his laptop, and before you know it you’re watching videos of pandas sneezing for the rest of the night.

Mature age students For making non-mature age students feel guilty about not doing the “Further Readings”, “Recommended Readings”, and “Non-Essential-Non-Recommended-Don’tEven-Bother Readings”.

Thumbs Up

Snuggies Sure, they’ve been around for a while, but for recent Snuggie converts, they’re a godsend. These blankets with armholes are perfect for late night study sessions, movie watching marathons, or novelty party costumes.

Joe Hockey For making Australians realise the idiocy of his antisame-sex parents stance after a recent Q&A tussle with Penny Wong - thank you.

JAMIE FREESTONE

Dear Aunty Flo, My boyfriend said that he thought the man living next door to us was a drug dealer. The guy seems nice enough to me, but I’m worried about our safety if it’s true. How can we find out exactly what he’s up to?

Dear Nosey Neighbour, It is hard to be certain of anything, Nosey Neighbour, but there are telltale signs which will help you present a compelling case to the police. Are there strange smells coming from his shed? Has he come over to your house, asking to borrow a cup of sugar and a pinch of benzoylmethylecgonine? Is he of foreign extraction? Was he educated at a public school?

What’s important, surely, is not that you are both 100% certain of your neighbour’s guilt. All you need to do is paint a picture which will justify a citizen’s arrest.

For example, my husband and I once were once extremely vexed by a tree growing next door that blocked our view of the exclusive beach we paddle in.

However, we had very little success in getting the decrepit old lady who lived there to cut it down. Not to be defeated, my husband and I adopted the following strategy: every time her phone rang, we rang the police and reported a noise complaint. Eventually the little pensioner became so distressed that she moved to a nursing home and died shortly thereafter. We snapped up the place at a bargain price, cut down the tree and lived happily ever after.

So as long as you can frame your neighbour for something, you needn’t worry whether he’s a drug dealer or not. Once he’s been arrested on trumped-up charges, you can buy his property and build a lovely kitchen extension right where his meth lab used to be. Or might have been.

With love, Aunty Flo

Got a quandary you’d like Aunty Flo to solve? Send a little letter my way at woroni@anu.edu.au!

NICHE SYMPATHY CARDS

WORONI BOOK CLUB

So sorry to hear no one liked your Facebook status.

EUGENICS Dear Gzorgax, It’s time I came clean: I’ve been allowing my university’s newspaper to publish my side of our correspondence over the last few months. Surprisingly, despite the publication of these epistles and despite the fact I’ve now included, among other hot potatoes, a description of the Prophet Muhammad as a “child rapist”, I’ve not received a single complaint or been rewarded with a single fatwa. So understandably old friend I feel I have carte blanche to say what people on Earth really think, even if it’s impolitic. So I’ll move straight on to eugenics.

A study by some quack doctors this month is circulating and it has the unsettling finding that when you control for socioeconomic background, children of heterosexual parents do better than children of homosexual parents. We’ll overlook the questionable methodological rigour of the study and grant it its findings. This presents us with a very uncomfortable truth which, even if we don’t like it, we must face up to, though it conflicts with our ideas of freedom. Maintaining a clear minded, realist position we must admit the obvious policy implication: we shouldn’t let poor people have children.

You see, the differences between the gay and straight parents were pretty small, but when you compare parents and don’t control for socioeconomic background the findings are fucking stark.

I mean, I’m not usually all about stopping certain people from having kids, but if we’re considering effectively neutering gay parents on the grounds of parental skill, then let’s call a spade a spayed and start by sterilising poor people, criminals, scientologists, weirdos and reality TV contestants.

We tiptoe around this issue of eugenics, kind of because Nazis and Communists took it into some dark territory in the ‘30s and ‘40s. Now it’s considered gauche, to say the least, to suggest eugenic policies, unless of course you’re trying to stop gay people living normal lives. Funnily enough, one could construe any effort at changing the reproductive habits of different kinds of people as a eugenic policy. The baby bonus, abortions, contraception, welfare payments for single parents, no-fault divorce — all these things have changed people’s reproductive choices. Are they not then part of an inadvertent eugenic, or more polemically still, dysgenic policy agenda?

When you get educated people talking, Gzorgax, really talking I mean, often late at night after much wine has passed, you can find that people who would blanch at talk of Hitler’s and Stalin’s attempts to remove unwanted elements from society, will have their own severe views about runts in the litter. Probe into any social ill, like our more dire public schools, the third generation unemployed, repeat offenders, the problems with public housing, or Summernats and you’ll find people are wont to conclude, only half jokingly, that we “shouldn’t let them breed” or, more boldly, “that we should just drown them at birth”. And indeed who can argue that slaughtering the babies of criminals won’t reduce crime? We’re a nation of eugenicists Gzorgax and we don’t even know it.

Yours earthily, Jamie.