Woroni: Edition 8, 2012

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Your Guide to Bush Week

Happy Birthday Monday

Christmas Tuesday

WORONI

Extra Info The Australian Free Mulled Wine (122pm) and other refreshments served from the Brian Kenyon Student Space in Union Court all week.

More info on the ANUSA website and ‘Bush Bash Week’ Facebook page.

Event tickets online at www.anusa.com.au

Australia Day Wednesday Maaaaaaaaattteeee. Not much more needs to be said. There will be snags. There will be prawns.

There will be beer.

09:00-17:00 Market Day. University Ave and Union Court.

12:00-14:00 Australia Day Lunch. Union Court.

12:00-14:00 Food Co-op $4 Lunch. ANU Food Co-op.

18:30-21:30 Acoustic Soup. ANU Food Co-op.

19:30-late. Woroni Launch Party. Knightsbridge Penthouse, Braddon.

You can laugh, you can party, you can cry if you want to. Its Bush Bash Week’s Birthday celebration!

We are kicking off the week by turning Union Court into a kids birthday fiesta! Party food and a jumping castle will get you kiddos hyped up, whilst the mulled wine served all week from the Brian N a tKenyon i o n aStudent l U nSpace i v e will r s add i t ya N e w grown-up touch.

11:00-15:00 Birthday Party Bush Bash Week Launch.

Birthday Party fun times in Union Court.

Union Court will be smothered in festive cheer as Bush Week brings you Christmas in July.

10:00-12:00 Queer* Collective Champagne Breakfast.

Copland Courtyard.

FREE 11:00-14:00 Christmas NO. 8 VOL 64 Lunch. Union Court.

spaper Since 1948

JULY 23

11:00-12:00 Unicycles Bike Maintenance Seminar.

Union Court.

12:00-14:00 Food Co-op $4 Lunch. ANU Food Co-op.

18:00-late Women’s Department Blazers and Bellinis. Networking event for female students at ANU Commons.

15:00-17:00 Coffee Party at the Brian Kenyon Student Space.

Halloween Thursday

New Year’s Eve Friday

Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and caldron bubble. Bush Week gets spooky as we invite the ghosts and gouls of ANU’s past to haunt us with their presence.

We’ll be counting out our week of festivities with Academy Nightclub where the champers will flow and the DJ-hyrbid supergroup Antiheros will get you jumping. This, the biggest night of Bush Week, will be an absolute corker.

10:00-12:00 ANUDisabilities presents Brunch and Movement Session. Union Court and Dojo Room.

12:00-14:00 Universal Lunch Hour. Union Court.

12:00-14:00 Food Co-op $4 Lunch. ANU Food Co-op.

14:00-18:00 Univibes DJs. Refectory.

16:30-22:00 Crash A Country Pub. Secret Country Pub Location, departing from the Refectory.

22:00-late. Christmas Karaoke at Transit. Transit Bar 7 Akuna St, Civic.

17:00-20:00 Girls’ Night In at the Gym. ANU Sport and Rec. 22:00-late New Year’s Eve Party. Academy.

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The Justice of High Court Appointments [8]

Sorkin’s Latest a Soapie By Any Other Name [25]

What’s With The Fucking Civic Sheep [19]

Gloria Jean’s Grindr Problem [16]

WORONI The Australian National University Newspaper Since 1948

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JULY 23

Student Investigated Over Allegations of Stolen Student Association Funds A STATEMENT FROM THE EDITIORS Woroni is a party to an ongoing criminal investigation into the alleged financial misconduct of ANU Student Association, ANU Student Media, and Interhall Sports Organisation funds over a three year period by a former member of these organisations. We referred the matter to the Australian Federal Police in June and are currently awaiting the outcome.

Woroni’s Board of Editors is devastated at the damage these allegations have had on the student body at large and to our brand and the rapport that we have worked tirelessly to build with the ANU community over the past 18 months. The Woroni team also acknowledges that many students are deeply dissatisfied by Woroni’s ongoing silence on this matter.

The Editors were prepared to run a headline article this edition covering the facts surrounding the investigation but received clear legal advice that this would likely prejudice or interfere with potential civil or criminal proceedings. The advice stated that this would leave us open to defamation or contempt of court. We want a fair and just outcome and unfortunately publishing anything more than this statement won’t let that happen.

Whilst this is going on, we are happy to foster debate and discussion about the existing financial processes of your student associations and how they can stay accountable with your money. This includes the comment pieces we published online over the break. We welcome further submissions.

We promise we’ll keep you as updated as we can.

READ ANUSA’S PUBLIC STATEMENT PAGE 3

Fight for the School of Music Over as University forges ahead with massive restructure Compromise reached with Union as ‘working party’ set up to ‘review’ staff cuts Staff cuts & curriculum change to go ahead but exact status of SoM staff uncertain for several more months Union backs down from threats of industrial action or any future protests NAKUL LEGHA

As planned curriculum changes at the School of Music are set in motion, the University appears to have forced the National Tertiary Education Union into a compromise over another contentious element of the proposed restructure, the plan to cut 13 full-time academic staff. A working party comprising representatives from Chancelry and the National Tertiary Education Union has been convened to “help plan and review transitional staffing arrangements”.

According to a joint statement from Ron Watts, Director of Human Resources, and Stephen Darwin, ACT Secretary of the NTEU, emailed to all ANU Staff, the working party will “allow us to jointly resolve and develop the detail of the likely actual staffing needs and the specific impacts and timing for staff consistent with the overarching

provisions of the ANU Enterprise Agreement 2010-2012”.

The working party has been tasked to develop transition mechanisms as some staff move into contract or sessional employment.

The joint statement recognises that “staffing aspects around the changed working arrangements are complex and [could] have potentially significant implications”. It emphasised that it was “important we exhaust all options to minimise adverse aspects on staff ”.

However, when contacted by Woroni, Mr Darwin appeared resigned to the University’s decision to go ahead with the restructure. He said the working party would “only marginally” change the number of job losses and that the NTEU would “not be pursuing further industrial action”.

The compromise was a “tremendously diffi-

cult decision but we had no choice”, he said.

“This is to accommodate the change, rather than stopping them.”

“It forces Chancelry to talk to staff – who would otherwise have been excluded from the debate. But it still doesn’t undo the damage,” said Mr Darwin.

The future for School of Music staff still remains unclear as the process is set to take “many months”, a move likely to disappoint members of the ANU and ACT arts community who have strongly argued for an immediate back down on any proposed cuts.

Earlier last month, Vice-Chancellor Professor Ian Young, announced the final plans for the School of Music, which included restricting its degree program offerings and shedding 13 academic staff and 2

administrative staff. He also announced that certain elements of the initially proposed plan had been taken out following the consultation period, including one hour a week of one-to-one performance tuition for all students. In protest, the NTEU’s Stephen Darwin has vowed to begin “immediate” industrial action.

It followed a protracted conflict between School of Music staff and students and Chancelry since the outgoing Head of School, Professor Adrian Walter, and Deputy vice-Chancellor (Academic), Professor Marnie Hughes-Warrington, announced planned changes to the School of Music in response to “funding pressures” in May. The ANU currently subsidises School of Music losses of up to $2.9 million a year.

INSIDE: Confirm or Deny [4] // Higgs Boson [4] // Music Elitism [10] // Gay Marriage [12] Scottish Highlands [20] // Snow White [24] // Prometheus [25] // State of Origin [29]

NEWS//4

The Gods Mosque Be Crazy

IN THE LAB

WTF Higgs?

Higgs-Boson Explained ELEANOR CAMPBELL

It’s a discovery that’s been hard to ignore.

Since early July, news websites and science blogs have been buzzing with the announcement that a Higgs boson-like particle has been observed in CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The scale of this discovery has been compared repeatedly to man landing on the Moon, an analogy that is perhaps a bit difficult to swallow until you wade through the hype and understand the significance of the Higgs boson in our current model of physics.

Bosons are a type of fundamental particle, like electrons and the different varieties of quarks and neutrinos. A fundamental particle is one that cannot be broken down into smaller components; they are the indivisible building blocks of all matter and energy in our universe. Bosons are ‘force carriers’, a quantity of energy associated with a type of field. For example, photons are the force carriers of the electromagnetic field. They are essentially packets of energy that describe light.

The already-identified W and Z bosons are the force carriers for the ‘weak nuclear force’ (one of the four fundamental forces of nature, the other three being gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong nuclear force).

The Higgs boson is the force carrier for the Higgs field. Both field and particle were proposed in 1964 as a way of incorporating mass into the standard model of physics. As it stands, the mathematics of the standard model does not work if mass is used as ‘input’ into the mathematical machinery, but it also doesn’t give mass as an ‘output’, which has left a gaping hole in our understanding of the physical world. We know mass exists, and the Higgs field might be a method of describing it in terms of the other fundamental particles in the standard model.

The proposed Higgs field would create ‘drag’ on different particles. Some things would be greatl affected by the field and hold tightly to it (high mass), while some things would be less affected and be free to move more easily across the field (low mass). The best way to verify this theory is to observe the force carrier associated with the Higgs field: the elusive Higgs boson.

If the particle observed at the LHC is the Higgs boson (it might be something else!), then scientists could verify the existence of the Higgs field, completing the standard model by incorporating mass into it.

It might not be as flashy as the space program, but this discovery could add the finishing touches to the standard model of physics and for that, it is worth the hype.

EDITORIAL BOARD Nakul Legha Lisa Visentin Zid Mancenido Liv Clark Cam Wilson Yasmin Masri Gus McCubbing Farz Edraki

SHAN-VERNE LIEW Development plans for the construction of a mosque in Gungahlin’s Valley Avenue has attracted direct opposition from particular community groups in Canberra.

Notices distributed by the Concerned Citizens of Canberra, which is opposing the development, insists that the mosque will cause traffic, parking and noise problems. Individual submissions to the ACT Government have commented that the mosque raises compatibility issues with Australian values.

“Everybody has a legitimate right to raise concerns about various projects,” said multicultural affairs minister Joy Burch to the Canberra Times.

“But to guise concerns about faith, religion or culture through other things such as traf-

fic, that is not the way we do it here,” she said.

“Anything that is biased against developments based on culture or faith is unacceptable.’’

Gungahlin Uniting Church minister Malk Faulkner and the Gungahlin Community Council have voiced support for construction of the mosque, arguing that the noise and traffic complaints are unfounded.

“The Council still believes the site is an appropriate one for a Mosque and concerns about traffic will prove unfounded once the proposed ring road system is completed,” read a statement issued by Gungahlin Community Council public officer Kevin Cox. Canberra Muslim Community president Borhan Ahmed told media that there were no plans to broadcast the Muslim call to prayer, through speakerphone, beyond the vicinity of the mosque.

BRIEFLY WITH SHAN-VERNE LIEW Med School exam troubles The ANU Medical School has begun cracking down on the common practice of students reproducing exam papers.

The Medical School does not provide past exams for students, so for many years, students have made their own.

This year, the School asked (but did not require) students to sign a declaration saying they would not reproduce exam material.

But the Dean, Professor Nick Glasglow, told Woroni that some people had not kept their word. At a meeting of 2nd year students, he said that a signature from a doctor was a professional statement, and had to be respected.

Theft in a cold climate

Woroni’s surface analysis of publicly available ACT Police data indicates that, from April to June, reported incidents of burglary in North Canberra fell by 36% as compared to the same period in 2009-2011. While it would be speculative to conclude that Canberra’s chilly climate contributed to this decline, the bush capital recently experienced its coldest weather since 1965 – in early July average temperatures dropped to below 4C for eight consecutive days.

Hospital falsifies data

A recently published investigation found that, since 2010, a Canberra Hospital employee has been falsifying data to understate emergency ward waiting times. Officials no longer have any valid data on average waiting times, but paramedics reported in April that ambulance patients sometimes spent 40 minutes in Canberra hospital waiting for treatment. Emergency department clinical director Michael Hall reported that about half of all patients who walk out on emergency services, which is equal to about 385 patients each month, leave the hospital due to frustration about the waiting times.

Honky Customer Service After Laurence Kain made three store visits and spent five unsuccessful hours calling Optus customer service to switch his iPad business account, on June 29 the Honkytonks co-founder brought a camera crew and stopwatch into Canberra City’s Optus store, and chained himself to the counter. The chains remained padlocked for 22 minutes and 47 seconds before store security asked him to leave. His iPad account was switched on the following day, three months after his initial request.

SUB EDITORS Interested? Apply!

Shan-Verne Liew Gareth Robinson Vincent Chiang Jess Millen Ben Henschke Fergus Hunter Maggie Thompson

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In response to the development, Concerned Citizens of Canberra members have distributed leaflets listing the group’s criticisms, and provided instructions for the lodgement of submissions to the ACT Government.

“This 500 capacity mosque will dominate the viewscape and will impact on you and all other residents of Gungahlin,” stated the leaflet.

Approximately 30 submissions opposing the proposed development were received during the consultation period which closed last week, in contrast to 20 submissions that supported the mosque.

In an online survey conducted by Canberra Times, 62% of 5,356 respondents said they supported the mosque proposal. 31% opposed the proposal, and 7% were unsure or expressed no preference.

CONFIRM OR DENY

A Garment-Focused Election Woroni has discovered that the upcoming ANUSA elections will showcase the labels A Naked ANUSA and Common Thread. No, these aren’t fashion labels from Frankie or some Chapel St boutique, they’re the trendy ticket names that will be plastered over campus for the next five weeks. Better than Stimulate!, we guess?

ANU Union: Together in Absence Woroni has heard that since Union Board member, Joel Dennerly, jetted off on exchange late last year, a Union Board seat had been conspicuously empty. Seems not too conspicuous though considering it took them until June to tell anyone or to attempt to find a replacement.

Caterina’s Takes On China Despite being a man down, the ANU Union will reopen Caterina’s, that demountable behind the Law School. Woroni hopes the promises of improved coffee can be believed, since the brew previously served there tasted like it had been made from engine lubricant and factory sweepings. The Union estimates it will lose $100,000 over three years on the venture. The Union is hoping that when Caterina’s is demolished to make way for the new Centre for China in the World building, the uni will let them run the new café. Only problem?

Woroni hears that senior uni administrators are openly laughing at the prospect...

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ANU Research needs to ‘tell its story better’, says ANU’s new DVC TOM WESTLAND

Professor Margaret Harding, ANU’s new Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), has outlined a desire to help develop the university’s narrative and reputation both in Australia and abroad. In an interview with Woroni, she said that the ANU “needs to tell its story better” and that it must “articulate why Australians should invest in the national university”.

Speaking just after the release of the 2012 QS World University Rankings which saw the ANU ranked in the top ten in seven disciplines, Professor Harding said that while the plethora of rankings had meant that “their currency has been a little bit devalued”, the ANU’s performance was a “great achievement” and helped build the university’s reputation, especially amongst prospective international students.

Professor Harding, a professor of chemistry, took up her position at the ANU in June, having previously been the Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) at the University of New South Wales.

She told Woroni that she had been attracted to the ANU by the quality of its research, its staff, and also by the fact that the ANU had Australia’s highest proportion of students studying a higher degree by research.

Professor Harding said that the ANU should look at increasing the number of research students, which, she said, are still below those of elite world universities like Harvard. Last year, Professor Ian Young’s ANU by 2020 plan aimed for an increase in the ratio of postgraduate to undergraduate students from 36% to 40%, although there was no specific goal for the number of research students.

Professor Harding also commented that a significant proportion of ANU’s research students go on to careers in academia, which reflected the quality of research and research supervision.

The ANU’s research program has been

bolstered in recent years by significant cash injections from the government, especially under former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who pledged money for the establishment of an Institute of Public Policy and for the Centre for China in the World.

However, when asked whether the special financial relationship with the Commonwealth meant that the university should align its research with the government’s policy priorities, Professor Harding said that while the university would always feel a responsibility to contribute strongly to the national debate, it was up to the ANU to determine national priorities in research.

She said that the ANU’s strong focus on the Asia-Pacific region and Indigenous affairs were examples of its commitment to research in areas of national importance.

Professor Harding also decried the “unhealthy discussion of ‘impact’” in some areas, citing some disciplines in the humanities, and said that the impact of research in some areas was impossible to quantify, and research was above all about “intellectual endeavour”.

Professor Harding also emphasised the need to cater for a changing demographic makeup in the research student community, noting that 40% to 50% of research students no longer commence their degree straight after undergraduate study, with many juggling work and family commitments in addition to their research.

She also said that it was important to increase support structures for international research students. She said that she had had discussions with the Postgraduate and Research Students’ Association (PARSA) about developing a ‘buddy’ system to connect current and prospective international research students to help with the often difficult transition for students who move to Australia to undertake a research degree.

NEWS// 5

ANUSA Public Statement THE ANUSA EXECUTIVE

ANUSA has adopted a multi-faceted approach to handle apparent discrepancies in Association funds. The matter is being actively investigated by the AFP Fraud Team, to which we are currently awaiting the outcome. We are assisting the police and due to the ongoing nature of this matter we are unable to provide any further comments or answer related inquiries. Concurrently, we have engaged a top tier forensic accounting firm to conduct an audit of ANUSA’s accounts and report back to us. This will provide us a more complete view of the circumstances surrounding the apparent discrepancies in Association funds.

ANUSA is a named party on ANU’s inurance policy, which contains certain protections for the Association in relation to its funds. The insurer will be able to clarify their position upon presentation of the forensic audit report.

Unfortunately, ongoing Police investigations necessitate stringent confidentiality which may not be wholly consistent with our commitment to transparency. In order to best serve the interests of the Association and all its members, there is little more we can do pending finalisation of the aforementioned investigations. Previous financial statements can be viewed on our website, with the exception of those related to the aforementioned investigation. We will be releasing all withheld details as soon as it is proper to do so. The Student Services and Amenities Fee expendi-

ture report containing expenditure for the 2012 calendar year will be released on 15th August. All financial matters regarding the 2012 calendar year will be available, in line with ANUSA’s commitment to transparency.

We are reviewing our internal financial control processes through several processes including the forensic audit, which will include potential procedural gaps as part of their report. We are strongly committed to implementing best practice financial control processes in ANUSA and will seek the active engagement and consultation of the student body to any future changes.

This will include open student consultations over the proposed reforms, prior to presentation at the OGM. ANUSA has implemented more stringent financial controls since the start of the year. Primarily, a finance specialist will be employed using funds specifically attained during the prolonged SSAF negotiations earlier this year. This specialist will provide services to all student associations and will assist the existing staff.

We expect a full report to be presented at our next OGM on 29th August, though the exact nature of the report will unfortunately be subject to limitations depending on the stage of the aforementioned investigations and legal advice.

For more information about our internal processes see www.anusa.com.au.

ANU Goes to Rio (+20) Student Delegation attends UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Brazil JULIE MELROSE

Seventeen ANU students attended the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 20-23 June.

ANU students were the largest Australian delegation at the Conference. They attended briefings with the Australian Government and asked hard questions about their negotiation tactics and line at Rio+20.

Some students were able to influence the negotiations through observing the negotiation process, making networks and relationships with negotiators and suggesting ways forward on several issues such as oceans management and the proposed new institutional framework for sustainable development.

“Funnily enough one of the best times to influence the process was on the bus rides to and from negotiations. I continuously spoke to ambassadors, negotiators and civil society leaders (sometimes intentionally seating myself next to them) and discussed different policies and ideas,” said delegation member Luke Kemp.

“People need to realize that students and young people can make a real differ-

ence in a professional way. We have the expertise and skills to create compromise and further ambitions through networking, lobbying and suggesting text.,” he said.

Other students found themselves drawn to and inspired by the large civil society presence at the Rio+20 Peoples Summit – an alternative gathering of organisations and indigenous groups at a separate outdoor location in Rio de Janeiro where many prominent world leaders and activists attended to discuss their ideas on sustainable development.

There were mixed reactions about the political outcome of the conference, but the variety of people the delegation had the chance to meet and the feeling of being a part of the international community made the experience incredibly worthwhile and life changing.

“From protests about fossil fuel subsidies and green washing, to the launch of the Sustainable Energy for All initiative and impressive voluntary commitments, following the private sector at Rio+20 can only be described as a rollercoaster of anger, frustra-

tion, optimism and hope,” said Tatiana Stotz.

The ANU delegation also met with Prime Minister, Julie Gillard to ask questions and discuss the Australian Government’s priorities during the conference.

The students presented the Prime Minister with a Brazilian soccer ball, signifying the need for a level playing field. They also presented her with a sunflower, signifying their wishes for Australia to invest in renewable energy and eliminate fossil fuel subsidies.

Delegation Director Julie Melrose asked Julia Gillard to consider creating a permanent youth position on Australian Government delegations to environmental conferences, as several other countries have done, to which the Prime Minister had a positive response.

The delegation will be hosting a series of forums this Semester 2 to talk about activities and experiences at Rio+20.

The delegation was supported by the Student Extra Curricular Enrichment Fund (SEEF), sfaculties, the Australian Centre for Environmental Law (ACEL), the Climate Change Institute, ANUgreen and the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID).

COMMENT// 6

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What is love? A ridiculous idea…

Samuel Blanch responds to critics of the ANU Fellowship of Christian University Students Until my first year at University I was a sincere member of the secular club. For almost 18 years, I was a firm believer in making the most out of my life according to the secular rules. Admittedly, this club doesn’t have any membership fees and it doesn’t have a clearly defined structure. I never even realised that I was a member. But certainly I worshipped at the club’s temples. Most of the time that consisted of a whole-hearted service of myself.

How can I improve myself today?

Occasionally, I felt inspired to try to better society. I was deeply worried by our destruction of the earth, our propensity to exploit one another, our wilful blindness. Yet in that first year here at ANU, I came to realise that the explanations offered by the secular club to such problems – about human worth, about the existence of suffering – were deeply unsatisfying. I got involved with the Fellowship of Christian University Students (FOCUS) and, eventually, I found better answers in the life, death and resurrection of a man named Jesus.

Most of Michael Bones’ article (“Christianity In FOCUS”, Woroni, Vol. 64 No. 6) about Christianity and FOCUS was quite correct. Let me pull out a few examples. We do indeed believe in the “universal sinfulness and guilt of humanity”.

In those moments when we are pulled out

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of the comfortable décor of Degree Cafe towards the conditions in the factory that made our iPhones, or perhaps towards the genetically mutated pig that gave birth to the ham in our sandwiches, such a view is not particularly inexplicable. We do also emphasise Jesus’ love before we talk about damnation. The gospel, after all, means the good news about Jesus, which is something we unashamedly want to tell people about. And if you stopped for a chat rather than giggling and running away, we would make it clear to you that these ideas only make sense together. We do also quite proudly affirm that “Jesus is Christianity’s get out of jail free card”. So, yes, that Christian zealot who is harassing you in Union Court might actually be interested in talking to you about highly threatening and unorthodox topics like justice, human nature, or love. Be careful, such things are surely to be avoided at university.

We also agree, as Michael said, that something about the Christian message of redemption “feels off-putting”. It has always been off-putting.

Jesus wasn’t crucified because he made people feel nice. He wasn’t interrogated by the local legends because he made people feel good about humanity’s performance. In the words of the bible itself, the news about the crucified Christ is “a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles” (1

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In that first year here at ANU, I came to realize that the explanations offered by the secular club to such problems… were deeply unsatisfying.

Corinthians 1:23). The good news just seems ridiculous given the wisdom of the world.

In a crucial sense, however, Michael’s suggestion that “Jesus is Christianity’s get out of jail free card” is not quite right. Rather than

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The suggestion that “Jesus is Christianity’s get out of jail free card” is not quite right. Rather, a better analogy might be that we get out of jail because Jesus posts the most expensive bail requirement in history.

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ty and one’s ability to remain “critically open”.

Yet modern culture is also deeply alienating.

All of us on this side of the poverty line eat more, tweet more, change our Facebook profile pictures more, and more and more of us seem to be getting buff, and yet I, at least, felt quite malnourished in that world. Jesus’ death and resurrection was, by contrast, deeply compelling. He died, crucially, because we all laughed at him, we all thought that the idea of a man saving people was folly. Although I am still unsure about most things in this world, I do find that wondrous love compelling. He died, and that was love.

So next time you encounter a Christian who is trying to talk to you about love, consider their situation for a moment. They live in a country and go to a university where it is systematically assumed that God does not exist. The economy, the education system, their friends, the media, the law – the very engines of society – all operate in theory or in practice as if God did not exist. This is the hegemony, the modern unthought of the secular world.

The Christian who is talking to you is actually in a minority, existing in spite of that dominant context, and they consider the good news about Jesus valuable enough to try to talk to you about it.

70 or more raging evangelicals – hellbent on converting the masses into mindless pre-Copernicans who sing hymns and vote for Sophie Mirabella – meet every Thursday at 1pm in the HA Tank. If you are brave enough, you would be very welcome to join us.

a randomly chosen card, a better analogy might be this: we get out of jail because Jesus posts the most expensive bail requirement in history. Jesus actually used similar terminology in Matthew 20:28, for example, he says about himself that “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many”. And he did give his life.

And the idea of God’s own sacrifice being at the heart of history is certainly a stumbling block to a secular world which is abjectly unused to the idea of admitting its own weakness.

Jesus’ death seems ridiculous in a modern culture that places so much value on meritocratic success, or on philosophical complexi-

What to Expect When You’re Not Expecting

We take you through the powerplays, politics and non-core promises in the lead up to the federal election ON THE HILL

JOSH DABELSTEIN

Don’t waste your time wondering what the Labor and Coalition machines plan on doing to get your support over the next twelve or so months leading up to the 2013 federal election.

It’s going to be what the major parties don’t do which will decide this one.

Expect little in the way of policy or progressive debate, as the outcome of the upcoming federal election will turn on a handful of issues which have been deliberately engineered to produce nothing other than an election result.

Striving for good public policy and social progress is a much more difficult and politically risky way of winning an election and, as a result, is not part of Labor or the Coalition’s agenda at all.

For it is the myth of the rational voter that has destroyed this government and the next government’s ability to implement a legitimate Carbon taxation system and mining super-profits tax. It is the systematic cultivation and subsequent abuse of the irrational voter that has prevented any ethical live animal export policy or legal immigration policy from being heard.

Even if Joe Hockey could cry a canal of crocodile tears to carry the boats back to wherever they came from, it would still be in his party’s best interests for him not to. A meaningful resolution on boat people is not being sought because it is not actually in the interests of the opposition to ‘stop the boats’ any time soon. Stopping the boats has never been about stopping boats!

Working together to improve the conditions

of those forcibly displaced wouldn’t be politically rewarding for either party. If the opposition has the power to block policy, it will, and based on the law of averages it’ll be good for their polling. It’s easier to make people angry than happy; it’s easier to accommodate a lot of angry peoples’ various concerns with blanket blocking and brick-walling than to produce a policy which the majority of people agree on.

Furthermore, establishing that the party in power doesn’t actually have the power to pass policy before being destroyed or discarded has done the coalition wonders.

The carbon tax, the mining tax, Juliar Gillard, and all of the other issues that will dominate the lexicon of the 2013 election are going to continue to be dealt with in the most destructive way possible. The issues are being used as weapons, not treated as problems that need to be solved by our elected representatives.

Framing complex issues ideologically is phase two of the democratic hijacking, whereby parties use the implacable voters’ notions of more basic fundamentals to cre-

ate an us v them climate. Two examples: 1. “Real negotiation is should we have a tax or shouldn’t we have a tax” (Clive Palmer). This sentiment eventuated in the replacement of Kevin Rudd, after the mining magnates’ campaign against taxation resulted in a public opinion landslide.

2. “The Coalition’s position for at least a decade has been that ‘we will determine who comes to our country and the circumstances in which they come’” (Tony Abbott press release 19 September 2011) We see this tactic used just as effective across all issues. If you support boat peoples’ right to asylum you are anti-jobs; if you cap industry with a super profits tax you are anti-free market.

So who will win the next election? Without a leadership shuffle, the Mad Monk’s got it in the bag.

All I can tell you for certain is what not to expect: rational political discourse, fact-based policy, public opinion-based policy, or any bi-partisan cooperation.

COMMENT// 7

Got an app idea?

If you are a student, we want to hear your fresh, original idea for an app that will make using an IT or Library service at ANU easier.

Enter your app idea in the Information Services App Contest by 21 September 2012 for your chance to win an iPhone 4S. For more information, and full terms and conditions, please visit information.anu.edu.au/app-contest-2012 Division of Information information.anu.edu.au

COMMENT// 8

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High Stakes For High Court Appointments Nicola Roxon has a chance to reshape the High Court, writes Ryan Turner

In the coming months the Attorney-General, Nicola Roxon, and the Cabinet will have an opportunity to have a lasting effect on the law, legal culture and government, irrespective of the outcome of the next federal election.

Much has been written about Roxon’s desire to look “outside the square” for Australia’s next justices. But she wouldn’t have to look hard to find capable judicial officers that stick out in contrast to the white, Anglo-Saxon, male judge hailing from one of the eastern states.

It was not until the appointment of Justice Wilson in 1979 that a Western Australian was appointed to the High Court, and not until Justice Gaudron was appointed in 1987 that a woman sat on our nation’s highest court.

Since Federation, only four states have been represented on the High Court. Western Australia has had three justices, including the current Chief Justice, Queensland has had seven, Victoria has had twelve, and New South Wales has had 27. No South Australian, Tasmanian, Northern Territorian, or ACT local has ever sat on the High Court.

Some will argue that the legal system need not be representative of the population; that the legislature is the chief representative arm of government. Yet the dominance of partic-

ular cultural, social and gender—even geographic—types imputes to the judiciary an implicitly oppressive character.

A majority of barristers continue to be men, with the result that most cases are argued from a male-dominated bar table to a male-dominated judiciary. Three of nine United States Supreme Court Judges are women, while Lady Hale is the only woman on the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom and Chief Justice Sian Elias is the only woman on the Supreme Court of New Zealand.

It raises the question, whose justice?

The legal profession is changing and there is no shortage of qualified female judges and advocates. Chief Justice Marilyn Warren (61) of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Western Australia Court of Appeal President Carmel McLure (56), and, particularly, Justice Susan Kenny (58) of the Federal Court are just three potential names.

Annabel Crabb wrote of a two-year old girl that stood outside the High Court when Justice Heydon was sworn into the High Court.

Standing with her mum, she held a sign that asked, ‘Mum, can women be High Court judges?’

By appointing a female judge to the High Court, Roxon would send a strong signal to young girls and women that the traditional mould of the profession is being broken down. The nation that was one of the first to extend suffrage to women would become the first with a majority of women on its highest court. That’s something of which we could all be proud. Even if we pretend that judicial appointments are meritocratic and unbiased, there’s no evidence to suggest that the best person for the job is necessarily a man.

Yet recent pronouncements by the High Court will niggle at the back of Roxon’s mind in the selection process. The political im-

portance of the Court’s composition is highlighted by their rejection of the Government’s Malaysia Agreement in Plaintiff M70 and their recent restriction of the scope of executive power in Williams v Commonwealth of Australia.

Just as the Obama Administration would not appoint a justice that opposed a woman’s right to choose or universal healthcare, the values and thinking of candidates is an important consideration. In particular, the almost inevitable election of an Abbott-led conservative government may lead Roxon to lean towards progressive judges or those who see a limited role for executive government.

We cannot afford, for example, for Julian Assange to become a second David Hicks, or to see a High Court hostile to internationalism and cosmopolitan ethics.

Two safe options would be professor of constitutional law and advocate George Williams, or former Minister for Justice and (briefly) Attorney-General in the Keating Government and recent appointment to the Federal Court, Justice Duncan Kerr.

Whether strategy or signalling will prove decisive in the appointment process will soon be evident. What is clear is that either way, Roxon has the opportunity to re-make the Court in her image.

ROMMEL VARGHESE

Indonesia and even Papua New Guinea, which had a growth rate of 7% in 2010, are part of this changing landscape.

One country that is often forgotten is Indonesia. This is surprising because it is next door, is the fourth largest country in the world in terms of population, and considering its geography, it has tremendous potential to shape the dynamics of our region. Professor Peter Drysdale has recently wrote that considering Indonesia landed on solid economic ground after the Asian financial crisis, it is on the way to becoming one of the six biggest economies in the world.

We should be considering the opportu-

nities and consequences of having a large powerful economic neighbour to our north.

The current relations between both countries could be in much stronger shape. The Gillard government’s decision to suspend live cattle trade was regarded in many policy circles as a serious diplomatic error especially because the Government suspended this trade without consulting the Indonesians. When it did resume, Jakarta halved the quota of Australian beef it imported and since then the Indonesians have looked to increase their domestic industry and find alternative foreign suppliers. Ultimately, it brought damage to Australia’s reputation as a reliable supplier

and we also threatened Indonesian food security.

The Australia Government must be proactive in engaging with Jakarta on all areas of trade and economics, national security and the important issue of asylum seekers.

This includes redressing the imbalance that around 17,000 Indonesians study in Australia and only 200 Australians study in Indonesia. A modern version of the “Colombo Plan” could address these concerns and create new opportunities for more young Australians to study the language and customs of this diverse country. One would hope the Asian Century White Paper addresses these issues.

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A two-year old girl stood outside the High Court building with her mum when Justice Heydon was sworn in and held a sign that asked, ‘Mum, Can Women Be High Court Judges?’

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The Indonesian Elephant in the Room

Since it was announced on September 28th 2011, policy experts and enthusiasts on Australia’s relations with Asia have been eagerly waiting for the arrival of the Asia Century White Paper. Australia in the Asian Century written by former Treasury boss Dr Ken Henry is considered by many as the Gillard government’s opportunity to explain Asia’s emerging story to the electorate.

When one thinks of the rise of Asia, many of us automatically turn to China’s growing presence in the region—be it through trade, overseas investments, or even local cinema.

However we forget other nations like India,

COMMENT// 9

Library friendly food and drink

You are now able to consume cold food and covered drinks in most areas of the library. Hot food and uncovered drinks are not permitted.

Food and drink is not permitted near ANU computers, in Group Study Rooms and other designated areas.

Please dispose of your rubbish thoughtfully, and advise a Library staff member of any spills.

The Library is continuing to find ways to enhance your library experience.

Division of Information information.anu.edu.au

COMMENT// 10

Elitism: A Necessary To Tax or Not to Tax? Aspect of the ANU

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ALEX O’SULLIVAN

Like most aspiring musicians, I spent my early university years prostituting myself in schools. I taught keyboard, conducted ensembles and accompanied choirs. At one primary school I taught at, another music teacher founded an auditioned choir to much objection. Many of the parents believed it unfairly provided opportunities to some students and not others. I asked around if the school formed sporting teams for interschool competitions. The answer was no: for the same reasons.

A similar argument is present in the debate over the ANU School of Music. Implicit in the new course guide is the stench of antielitism. Music courses will no longer be de-

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If people wish to participate in music as an amateur, there is no reason for them to study it in detail at a university. There are many amateur ensembles and community institutions that offer such instruction. In Canberra, many of these organisations are staffed or assisted by staff, students and graduates of the School of Music.

What has been forgotten in this debate is that the ANU is the place of the elite. People attending courses at the ANU have to pass entrance requirements that prove they did better in high school than their peers. The ANU is “one of the world’s leading centres of research and teaching”. I ask if it is the place of such a world-class institution to teach courses to those that are not the best.

When I studied at the School of Music, my goal was not to leave with a broad understanding of all aspects of musical practice and research. Instead, I wanted to have an excellent knowledge of a particular area – as did my peers. If I had wanted a degree that led directly to a career, I would have studied accountancy, law or dentistry. It may be an extreme argument, but I believe it would be a great loss to Australia if the ANU removed every course that did not directly teach skills necessary for employment. The purpose of study at the ANU should be to gain advanced specialist knowledge and this is what will separate graduates in the marketplace.

There is nothing wrong with providing opportunities for high-achievers in particular fields, and we should celebrate their successes. It is okay to tell people that they are more capable than others in particular areas. And most importantly, it is okay for the government to assist these people in becoming leaders in their fields through education. There is nothing wrong with having a children’s sporting team or choir that chooses the best – as long as the other students are not denied the opportunity to play or sing elsewhere.

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Many people have said: “You and I know that anyone can sing the Messiah or Mozart’s Requiem”. While this is true, these are not performances that I would pay to attend

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ANDALEEB AKHAND

signed to teach the best specialist musicians entering tertiary study, but instead be designed for those wanting a broad – and shallow – understanding of the field. According to the Vice-Chancellor, the courses will provide opportunities for students who would not be able to study at a conservatory.

In online discussions, radio talk-back and letters to the editor many people defending the new courses have accused their opponents of a form of elitism: “you and I know that anyone can sing the Messiah or Mozart’s Requiem”. While this is true, these are not performances that I would pay to attend.

On 1st July this year, the Federal Government’s National Energy Savings Initiative – known more colloquially as the carbon tax – came into effect. This is a tax levied on polluters who will pay for each tonne of carbon that is released into the atmosphere.

However, it won’t affect most Australian businesses, instead applying only to the country’s 500 largest emitters, known as liable entities.

These emitters generate more than 25, 000 tonnes of greenhouse gases annually as well as supplying or using natural gas. They include not only companies, but also universities and councils.

The government considers encouraging Australia’s largest producers to reduce carbon output to be a key move in the fight against climate change. The tax will initially be set at $23 a tonne, increasing gradually until 2015 when a shift to a trading scheme will let the market determine the cost.

The cost of the tax will be passed onto consumers. Whilst the extent of this is unknown, as the tax is still in its very early stages, food, utilities and petrol are all set to increase in price. The Government estimates that average weekly family expenses are set to increase by $9.90. In theory however, this should be completely mitigated by the $10.10 the average family will receive in weekly additional assistance through tax cuts and payments.

The introduction of a carbon tax to discourage polluters from emitting greenhouse gases is hardly unprecedented. Scandinavian countries have been leaders in this field, with Finland introducing the world’s first carbon tax in 1990, Norway in 1991 and Denmark in 2002. Closer to home, our neighbour New

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As any first-year economics student can tell you, if you aren’t forced to internalise the environmental impact of your activities, you have no incentive to consider strategies to reduce that environmental impact.

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Time to Take our Asia-Pacific Degrees Seriously CONRAD GUIMARAES It is a well-established fact that the College of Asia and the Pacific (CAP) has one of the largest uptakes of double degrees among its students (roughly half of all enrolled).

It is great to see people with exotic combination of degrees, such as Paddy Mayoh (a celebrity amongst younger Mandarin students at CAP), who did a Law/Asia-Pacific degree. However, it does not impress me that some students, who are genuinely interested in the field, decide to take up another degree such as Arts, Law or Science simply because they believe having only an Asian Studies degree will not get them over the line in the national and international job market.

Asian Studies has a special place in the Australian education system and especially so at the ANU. Apart from the impact of the Asian continent’s spectacular economic growth, Australian students should place Asian studies as a key priority simply because we are geographically located in the Eastern Hemisphere. Anything that happens in our neighbourhood clearly influences our

national interest. Also, our large mining and education industries rely heavily on our relationships with Asian countries.

This special place of Asian Studies in Australia led to the ANU becoming a pioneer in establishing a stand-alone faculty of Asian Studies some years back. On top of that, the university has recently invested millions of dollars in a public policy precinct around the Crawford School of Public Policy (including Kevin Rudd’s pet project of a China in the World Centre). This investment indicates the desire of government and businesses for graduates with skills in the area.

Public servants like Ross Garnaut and Hugh White are examples of how strategically important the study of the economic, political and strategic developments in Asia is for Australia. In short, I feel that the fears of double degree students are unfounded, simply because any Asia-related capabilities are in great demand in Australia.

On a more general point, in the current global economic climate, a person’s job prospects are unlikely to be determined by their undergraduate degree. In a talk earlier this

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Zealand has one too.

Over the next three years, the Government is expected to raise $24.5 billion from the tax.

Of this, the Government says it will use $15.3 billion to assist households affected by it. It will also assist industries which may be particularly impacted, as well as invest in the research and development of cleaner and more efficient technologies.

The government has said that the Clean Energy Strategy (of which the carbon tax is the main pillar) will reduce net expected pollution by at least 23 percent in 2020. Or, to put it another way, the same as if we were to take 45 million cars off the road.

By motivating businesses and individuals to reduce their carbon footprint, as well as making our energy use more efficient, carbon pricing is an excellent policy initiative.

However, its implementation has not been an easy one. It has had to endure a maelstrom of opposition, most prominently from the Liberal Party and Opposition leader Tony Abbott. Mr. Abbott has vowed that if elected, getting rid of the tax will be his first order of business. The Coalition’s intended retraction of the tax emanates from their belief that the tax will impose financial pain with no environmental gain.

According to Liberal MP Craig Kelly, “every Coalition member will sign a blood oath to get rid of this tax.” As we speak, an advertising and billboard campaign is going up around the country to achieve this very goal.

Some businesses share the Coalition’s “concerns.” The NSW Business Chamber has urged businesses in the state to go online and share stories about how the carbon tax is affecting them on a new online portal as part of a campaign against the tax. Manufacturing Australia released a statement saying the tax would make Australian business less competitive and would be detrimental to the economy.

That is not to say, however, that all Australian businesses are fiercely opposed. In fact, a consortium of almost 300 big businesses, including Westpac, AGL, Unilever and GE, have signed a joint statement backing the tax.

To say that action on climate change is important would be a severe understatement.

To put it more accurately, it is imperative. If we continue to allow our biggest emitters to pollute for free, the economic effect, not to mention the environmental impact, will be much greater than it is already. At the risk of sounding alarmist, there’s no point discussing the economy if the effects of climate change, remaining unchecked, completely destroying our present way of life.

As any first-year economics student can tell you, if you aren’t forced to internalise the environmental impact of your activities, you have no incentive to consider strategies to reduce that environmental impact. A carbon tax will give us that incentive. And this is far too serious an issue to sacrifice on the altar of spurious sound bites and political pointscoring.

semester, a senior academic at CAP explained how the job market has become so competitive over the last twenty years that a Masters degree has become all but essential in order to gain a competitive position. I believe it is more important to get good marks in any field of study to gain access to a high-quality postgraduate institution. This is where undertaking one single degree that you genuinely are passionate about plays an important role in your professional career.

My argument is not intended to disparage students undertaking double degrees. If you genuinely love law, and want to become a lawyer then by all means take up a double degree in Law and Asian Studies. But those who are first and foremost interested in undertaking the study of Asia should not be burdened by any sort of guilt or fear if they choose a single degree – their place in the sun is as good as anyone’s.

Its time that Asia-Pacific students became genuinely confident about their degree, and that they feel it is as good as a Law, Arts or Science degree – that’s the smart move in the Asian Century.

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Information Services Guide, Learn How, and Teaching & Computer Room Map

The Division of Information’s 2012 publications—Information Services Guide, Learn How, and Teaching & Computer Room Map—have been distributed around campus.

Grab your copies from any Library, Information Commons, ANU residence or various other locations around campus. All information from these publications can be found at information.anu.edu.au Division of Information information.anu.edu.au

COMMENT// 12

Gay Marriage: The Uncomfortable Truth ABout Defintions When the boundaries of one word are piously defended in favour of legal inequality and institutionalised discrimination, it’s time to accept the suitability of another word. As definitions go, the word “bigot” is controversial in its usage but not in its definition.

LISA VISENTIN

Opponents of same-sex marriage loathe being called bigots. And quite rightly. It places them in the company of some detestable people, among whom they can count Michelle Bachman and Rick Santorum as allies.

They claim that the label marginalises them for merely exercising their democratic right to freedom of expression. The parameters of free speech, however, grant only the right to speak; they have never extended a right of respect over the opinions being articulated. In short, you have a right to express a bigoted view, but when you do so, you will be called out for it.

It seems self-evident that the very process of arguing against legal equality for those outside the heterosexual norm is bigotry 101, but the rigours of any definitional debate should always begin with a quick dictionary consult. The glorious keepsake of meaning, otherwise known as the Oxford English Dictionary, prescribes a “bigot” to be “a fanatical adherent or believer; a person characterized by obstinate, intolerant, or strongly partisan beliefs.”

What belies the simplicity of this official definition, however, is the fact that the word “bigot” is among the most odious labels one can be slapped with. Its application carries the practical effect of stigmatising and disempowering its wearer, automatically rendering his or her views as repugnant ramblings deserving of instant dismissal. As an ultraloaded word, brimming with negative connotations that frequently share the same breath with other undesirable labels - racist, sexist, homophobe – its propensity to cause stinging offence has seen it reserved as an epithet only deserving of those people so poisoned by prejudice as to be incapable of reason. We’ve been conditioned to believe that a bigot must be in possession of a belligerent “them and us” mentality, a hate-spitting rage-fuelled antagonism and, of course, a parochial and shameful ignorance.

But in the absence of the stereotype - when bigotry presents itself in an altogether more subtle guise - the bigot label is shied away from. It sits most uncomfortably when it is incongruous with all the stereotypical identifiers – when it isn’t poor, uneducated or vitriolic. The label sits uncomfortably with the luxurious linens and refined lifestyles of those who live in Australia’s elite suburbs. It sits uncomfortably with some of our leading commentators, many of whom are the beneficiaries of the most prestigious Australian education on offer. It sits uncomfortably in Sunday church pews as demurely dressed parishioners imbibe a message of tolerance and love. Hell, it sits uncomfortably with the prestige of the Prime Ministership. It sits uncomfortably with nice people, good people, charitable people.

But bigotry need not be wielding a picket, nor does it require one to be showered in spittle as derogatory abuse is hurled at them. Prejudice can be passive and latent. As one US commentator put it, bigotry can have a kind and noble face.

Opponents of marriage equality have effectively cultivated a distinct shame in bigot-shaming. With exceptional success they have normalised the idea that the arguments against same-sex marriage deserve immunity from accusations of bigotry, simply because they are not exclusively advanced by extremist fringe groups. But since when did mass appeal provide an inoculation against prejudice?

The reality is that bigotry has become so standard in the same-sex marriage debate that it tends to follow a generic and predictable format. Beginning with the declaration of indignation at being sullied with the bigot

label, this is followed by the production of flimsy “evidence” to the contrary. The statistical certainty that even they, vocal opponents of same-sex marriage, have homosexuals haunting their family tree is repackaged as “proof ”. Apparently, nothing says “I can’t possibly be a bigot” like the sprouting off of a list of gay friends or gay family members.

From there, the speaker assumes impunity to navigate a passage through the scum-filled depths of bigotry to which they swiftly and predictably descend. Couched in the tempered language of “family values” and accompanied by an assurance of their genuine intention to avoid causing offence, it is easy to fail to see this for what it really is. These are the unmistakeable and ever-so-popular opening lines to the “I’m not a bigot, but…” speech.

The utterly unpersuasive and shamelessly discriminatory diatribe of the anti-same-sex marriage platform centres upon the team-line that gays should be excluded from marriage because they can’t biologically become parents. That is, they can’t put a ring on it because they are not in possession of the right “bits”. To witness the defence of this standpoint is to watch with jaw-dropping astonishment as an adult human being of supposed rational thought articulates some of the most embarrassingly flimsy logic to feature in public discourse in recent years. The representation of these views as “argument” would be laughable, indeed embarrassing for those making them, were it not for the fact that Australian gays are currently denied their right to be treated as equal citizens at the hands of this bewildering spectacle of intolerance. Is it any wonder that the gay community is so exasperated with offence?

“ “ ” ” Bigotry need not be wielding a picket, nor does it require one to be showered in spittle as derogatory abuse is hurled at them.

When gay marriage is referred to as “tearing at the fabric of society”, or as “demeaning and degrading” marriage, the message is one which is fundamentally anti-gay. It stands in conflict with an ever-growing body of academic evidence which shows that children of same-sex couples are just as happy and welladjusted as children of heterosexual couples, if not more so. Religion has imposed a spontaneous and petulant claim of semantic ownership over the word “marriage”, bestowing an immutability upon it that completely ignores the wealth of historical evidence to the contrary. The abolition of bans on interracial marriages between Aboriginal and White Australians, the creation of no-fault divorce, and recognition of rape in marriage all testify to the evolution of the institution within the last century alone.

It is also important to remember that marriage ceased being a Christian franchise long ago. It is governed by civil law, not the Bible, and in 2010, 69% of all Australian marriages were conducted by a civil celebrant rather than a religious minister.

Given the history of hate and oppression that has plagued the gay rights movement, the legacy of which is still felt in the alarming high number of youth suicides that are connected with sexual identity, the time has come to cease being ashamed of bigot-shaming. Opinions do not enjoy merit merely because they are sourced in divinity, or articulated by those who hold a respectable office.

Unfortunately for the opponents of same-sex marriage, being a generally good person does not absolve them from the prejudice of their views. It does not render their intolerant message any more tolerable.

Disagreeing with someone else’s opinion doesn’t make you a bigot, but advocating for laws which entrench discrimination against them because you don’t approve of who they love unquestionably does. Uncomfortable though it may be, this is the indisputable truth of this debate.

COMMENT// 13

My Voice is Not My Own

KELLY KRISTOFFERSON

For many years, I didn’t have my own voice.

This isn’t to say that I couldn’t talk, only that I had no dialogue to utilise. Most people had no vocabulary for what I was, or what should be done about me. I had no safe space in which to speak.

Additionally, because of the hurdles female-to-male transgender people face in accessing voice-deepening hormones, I had no physical voice to speak.

Let me get something straight for all your heteronormative types. I am not a whining freeloader. Nor are most gender variants like me. We are lawyers, doctors, students, tradespeople and public servants. We are brothers, sisters and siblings. Many of us are tertiary educated.

Yet, we are required to waste years of our lives and tens of thousands of dollars, sometimes even traveling overseas) to undertake risky surgery so that we may change a small but essential thing– our identification.

Sound like a hassle?

That’s not half of it. In order to earn the right to spend my own money, I have to travel across the continent to find available psychiatrists who are willing to see my kind.

This is because the prerequisite to receiving hormones and completely reversible surgery is a diagnosis of ‘gender identity dysphoria’.

A cisgender woman who wants chest tissue removed only needs to pay for it. But not a transgender person.

Not even an articulate, published author working several volunteer jobs and studying fulltime, all without being able to show my face in public!

As the result of these hurdles, the vast majority of transgender people are not recognised as members of their gender, and may never be.

Meanwhile, intersex people are worse than unrecognised. They are pathologised, often surgically eliminated at birth. They are not allowed to list a third gender on their birth certificates, nor opt out of listing their gender on formswhere gender shouldn’t be visible.

Instead, they must choose either male or female, even when this causes them enormous anxiety.

These requirements have been called inhumane, and rightly so.

Without legal status, transgender and intersex people cannot be recognised by banks, the Tax Office, Medicare, the RTA or academic institutions. We cannot marry, and are forced to carry a paper trail that often prevents us from securing employment, even when we can demonstrate a higher level of education than others in the community.

We are victims of violence and discrimination. For too long, nobody listened.

But in a recent report, the ACT Law Reform Advisory Council (LRAC) proposed removing the requirement for transgender people to have unnecessary surgery. Intersex people should be acknowledged flexibly, or relieved from stating their gender on forms.

Years of suffering and countless suicides could be avoided, all at no cost!

What’s the problem?

Plenty, according to members of RiotACT (a user generated Canberra news website), who prove that transgender vilification is alive and violently kicking.

Shortly after the report was released, RiotACT posted an article – ‘Won’t someone please think of the trannies?’ – that lampooned everything gender diverse people have toiled for. Commenters expressed the ignorant view that transgender people are not worth helping, that the intersex do not exist and that they should choose a ‘proper gender’.

To these remarks I say, yes, how horrible it is that we are helping people evade years of suffering and suicide! Perhaps we should think of the poor majority, whom we are surely inconveniencing with our cries?

Every argument against a costless aid to gender variant people is based on arbitrary hate. There is no reason to not give us recognition. We suffered for your heteronormativity for over a century of Australian government. Step back for five ungrateful minutes and throw us a bone.

The ACT government is supposed to represent me. RiotACT is not my voice. A Gender Agenda and the LRAC are. I hope parliament listens, for the sakes of all who are voiceless.

Each edition, the best letter to the editor will win a kilo of roasted ground coffee from Two Before Ten. Send letters to contact@woroni.com.au LETTER OF THE WEEK: To the editor: I was curious to see one lonely letter supporting Ian Young’s reform of the music school in your most recent edition (p8, no. 7, 24/5). However on reading further I was disappointed that the case was so poorly made; it outrageously compared music students to terrorists and the brunt of the argument was that the university and the Australian taxpayer should not be funding music students’ more expensive education. It seems Mr. Mancilla is unhappy that he has been indirectly supporting the School of Music through his fees and taxes. I would remind Mr. Mancilla that his taxes also go towards the payment of social welfare and provision of services to all manner of people in the country whether he likes it or not. To object to public funding being allocated to education is ridiculous in the extreme, as this is something from which we all benefit.

There are plenty of good arguments to support reforming the music school: for instance, is it appropriate for a research university such as the ANU, (which refuses to have vocational courses like teaching or nursing), to have a career-focused school devoted to professional skills acquisition? Does the school of music pursue ground-breaking studies or fields of inquiry of national and international significance, as do all the other faculties on campus? Perhaps not, but until given more justifiable reasons for reform than mere hasty cost-cutting, I for one prefer to agree with Mr. Blithe: the School of Music has brought the ANU community together, improves the public status of the entire university and is the most dynamic and engaged faculty at the ANU. Sincerely, DANIEL LYNCH

A Tale of Two Women

I’m sure I wasn’t the only reader to feel sad for the anonymous lady who wrote in about the abortion she had (“Letters to the Editor”, Woroni, Vol. 64 No. 7). But I don’t want to enter into an academic argument on her statements. I just want to present the story of two women. You’ve almost certainly known both these women.

Take the first woman. She’s announced that she’s pregnant. Her family’s pleased.

Her boyfriend or husband is delighted and supportive. Her colleagues organise her a baby shower, with cute balloons and presents for the bub. She’s buying baby clothes. Her friends are happy and are queuing up to come and see the baby when it’s born. They tell her she’s doing a great job, that the baby’s beautiful.

Now the second woman. She discovers she’s pregnant. She tells maybe three people – her boyfriend, her best friend, her doctor.

Maybe she’s young and still completing her education. Maybe she’s unsure about how she can juggle motherhood and her studies or work. Maybe the baby’s father isn’t supportive, or not even around. So she goes to a clinic one morning, and then the baby is gone. She will never see his or her face. She will never get to celebrate his or her birth, or buy baby clothes, or show the bub off to her friends. She has been a mother but will never see her child.

There is no justice, no compassion, and certainly no real choice in this second scenario. It is a story of abandonment, of loss and of the failure of family, friends and community. Yet it is one which is repeated thousands of times each year in Australia.

This scenario might have been different if someone had been there to say “You might

regret some things about your life after having a baby, but you will never regret not having an abortion”. Or, even better, to ask “How can I help you so you can go ahead and have your baby?”.

The anonomymous woman mentions she had support from her friends, and I don’t doubt their good intentions. However, for whatever reason, apparently no one was there at the ultimate, lonely moment before she underwent the abortion. It is really troubling that at this pivotal moment, there was no one there to say to her, “You can still pull out of this.” At any other crossroads in life, there are (or should be) family, friends or community members to give true support and love. It is not a real response to a pregnant woman to say, “You do whatever you feel is right” or “It’s up to you”, because ultimately, even if these words are said in good faith, they still equate in a practical sense to “You’re on your own with this decision.”

Marcia Hines has spoken very movingly about her experience being a single mum - in particular, how grateful she was to be supported by her own mother. I think everyone could take inspiration from her words: “…I wouldn’t change having Deni for the world… [My mother] said the kindest thing [when she found out Marcia was pregnant]: “You’ve chosen a very strange career.

And this will probably be the only child you’ll have. You make sure you keep it and you take care of it. And if it gets too hard, send her home to me””. Maybe it’s time for Australians to learn a lesson from that story.

Perhaps, then, one day, every woman will be able to welcome her baby into the world, secure in the knowledge that she isn’t alone.

BELLE JOSEPH

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Crikey, It's Bernard Keane!

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Gareth Robinson talks to Bernard Keane about politics, convergence, and the confusing world of online journalism.

When it comes to interviewing people Skype isn’t exactly the ideal medium to use. If you don’t know the person on the other end there is always that awkward moment when you introduce yourself to a digital interface or pixellated image. Then there’s the risk that the call will drop out and you wonder if it is just the bandwidth playing up or the interviewee has had enough of your probing questions. But when Woroni called Crikey’s Canberra correspondent, Bernard Keane, Skype seemed a fitting setting to conduct the interview.

As something of an internet deity who made the switch from political blogging to full-time writing for the Crikey website, Skype is very much a part of Keane’s natural habitat. Keane has developed a cult following among internet savvy political aficionados and the Canberra political elite. Perhaps part of this appeal stems from Keane’s unorthodox approach to journalism. “It’s rather different to a lot of the journalism you’ll find in the mainstream media”, he admits.

Rather than following the traditional political content found in the pages of the Sydney Morning Herald or the The Australian, Crikey’s coverage focuses on providing analysis and commentary that can’t be found elsewhere. This is certainly an approach Keane has embraced, often taking a bold stand on issues when mainstream journalists wouldn’t dare for fear of alienating their readership. In a recent article on the asylum seeker policy debate Keane wrote that, “there is no ‘impasse’ on asylum seekers, there is only bloodyminded evil from the Coalition.”

He is equally as critical of the Government’s role. “Julia Gillard has managed to stuff this (asylum seeker policy) up significantly most-

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ly by identifying asylum seekers as one of the issues she was going to fix and then demonstrably failing to fix it.”

Such bluntness is refreshing to hear in the otherwise stuffy and constrained media coverage of the political debate. Keane goes even further though when it comes to internet freedom and freedom of speech. In particular, he has recently taken a very public stand in protesting against the treatment of Julian Assange and Wikileaks. In Keane’s view there is no question over whether the Wikileaks releases should be classed as journalism. “Good journalism tells you things people in power don’t want you to know and that is in the public interest to know and that perfectly summarises what Wikileaks does.”

Keane is also deeply concerned by what he describes as the Obama Administration’s “war on free speech”. “It’s probably the primary source of threat to online freedom in the world today”. While this may sound extreme, Keane speaks with the same clarity and conviction that he writes with and he’s not afraid to take a publicly protest against the US’s desire to put Assange on trial, as he did at a recent forum held at the ANU by the Friends of Wikileaks ACT (FOWL).

“Its (the US’s) actions in regard to Wikileaks are quite clearly those of an orchestrated

campaign of harassment and intimidation against it”, Keane states, leaving little doubt about his belief that the Wikileaks saga has grave implications for freedom of speech around the world.

Although Keane modestly attributes being offered a full-time position at Crikey to “timing and good-luck,” he acknowledges that his ability to critically analyse political issues, developed during his time as a public servant, has contributed greatly to his current journalistic role. “The Australian public service is certainly a very good training ground for thinking critically about issues of public policy”. It’s this different tradition that has placed Keane and Crikey in a unique position in the Australian media landscape. “We kind of rely on the mainstream media being weak,” Keane admits. In his view Crikey wouldn’t exist in its current form if the press gallery was, “full of people like Lenore Taylor, Laura Tingle and Phillip Coorey.”

Crikey’s success cannot merely be attributed to filling the void left by the increasing lack of in-depth political analysis. Its pioneering of the online pay-wall model through its subscription email newsletter has placed Crikey in an enviable financial position compared to the loss-making mainstream media outlets who are only now considering pay-walls.

So does Keane believe that the business

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Could [online news website] Crikey perhaps become the dominant news outlet in Australia? “I should hope not”, responds Keane.

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model that has made Crikey a small yet successful independent news outlet can still work for the mainstream media? “I don’t think it can work under the current mastheads”, he states grimly. According to Keane the key problem is that Crikey has always had a pay-wall and so, “there is no expectation that it should be free.” By contrast, mainstream media groups have for years provided free content making it very difficult to develop unique content. “They have to identify specific aspects of the news business that are not easily replicable elsewhere and until they do that their business models are going to continue to falter.”

Keane is also pessimistic about the future of the media. In twenty years time he predicts that, “we won’t have print newspapers...

I think print books will be like vinyl records.”

But its not all bad news. Keane believes that instead of television we will have “content generation houses” that will bare the names of TV networks and allow those companies to still have value as media brands. Similarly, the divisions between different content types will be broken down. “We’re moving to an environment where we receive a huge variety of content on a huge variety of devices”.

Whatever the future of the media might be it’s clear that Crikey isn’t going anywhere but could it perhaps become the dominant news outlet in Australia? “I should hope not”, responds Keane. And with that the interview is over and he disappears back into the abyss of the internet, less of an enigma than he was before but still a mysterious anomaly in the changing media landscape.

You can hear the full interview with Bernard Keane on the Woroni website.

Tight Security at Ti-anniversary

BEN HENSCHKE Each year, the Chinese authorities greet the June 4 anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown by ramping up internet censorship and implementing “wartime” security measures in some parts of Beijing. However, even the ruthlessly efficient Chinese Community Party security apparatus was unable to halt the publication of a damning reassessment of the incident by the former mayor of Beijing, Chen Xitong.

Chen was initially believed to have strongly supported the government’s measures. His mayoral report described the military crackdown as a “correct” means of quelling a disturbance caused by a “tiny handful of people”.

However, in a new book of interviews published in Hong Kong this month, he revised his position on the methods used to stop the

protests, calling them “a tragedy that could have been avoided”. He insisted that he had nothing to do with the writing of his report but instead was forced to publish it by Party officials against his will. He regrets the loss of life, which some claim to run into the thousands, although Chen originally put the number at 200. “As the mayor, I felt sorry. I hoped we could have solved the case peacefully,” he said.

Chen’s interviewer and the book’s author, Yao Jianfu, reported that government officials had contacted him, requesting that he cease publication of Conversations with Chen Xitong and offering to cover any financial losses incurred. While books published in Mainland China must pass through a rigorous censorship process, publishers are less restricted in Hong Kong, where freedom of speech is generally respected. As a result, many works by

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dissidents and former student activists have appeared in Hong Kong, but only reach the mainland as illegal pirated copies.

Removed from office for corruption in 1996 and later sentenced to 16 years in prison, Chen was released on medical parole in 2004 and now lives under constant surveillance. His fate has been shared by many former highranking officials who have disagreed with the official line. Recently, the flamboyant populist Chongqing Party chief Bo Xilai made the pages of Woroni when he was dismissed from his posts and slapped with charges for “serious disciplinary violations”. Similarly, former Premier and CCP General Secretary Zhao Ziyang, who dissented from the decision to send in the troops to Tiananmen Square, was quickly removed from office and lived his last 15 years under house arrest. His memoirs, smuggled from the Mainland, appeared first

Seoul Searching

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Adopted as a baby by Australian parents, Elise Horspool, writes about her emotional journey home to South Korea

When I arrived at Incheon International Airport, I had that bizarre detached feeling of returning somewhere I had been previously in my life but didn’t remember. As the Korean Air plane flew through the clouds and the contrast of green hills and high rise buildings came into view, I felt as if I had come home. It’s like when you leave Australia for an extended period of time and they play “I Still Call Australia Home” on the plane as you land at Mascot.

After spending three hours trying to find our hostel I was pretty frustrated. Everyone we encountered spoke absolutely no English, which was expected, but it was more from their assumption that I could speak Korean; and I can’t. I’ve attempted my limited Korean numerous times, but my accent makes my words indistinguishable. Lately I’ve been smiling, nodding, saying Kamsamnida (thank you) and bowing, which makes me feel like a pseudo-Korean. From my lack of recognition and responses, most Koreans assume I’m Chinese so I get Xie xie (thank you) and Ni Hao (hello) instead.

Korea has not let me down. While Seoul is still a busy metropolitan city, there are large areas of natural parks and country side that remind me of a small rural village. The architecture and design of Seoul is ridiculously high tech and juxtaposed against palaces and bustling food markets where dried fish

hang and little old ladies sell cherries while crouched on the ground. In all, the Korean people are wonderful. I dropped a wad of money on Jeju Island and a lady came running after me to return it. Numerous young girls have come up and fixed my skirt when it

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Being here and knowing [my mother] could be one of the faces in the crowds that I pass daily… I feel further away from her than I did in Australia.

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Hanbok and taught me how to tie it correctly.

Right as I left, they put a traditional hair piece in my hair and said “gift”.

The most surreal experience for me was returning to Eastern Social Welfare. To look upon the building that made such a large impact on my life was bittersweet. I arrived an hour early, so my social worker ushered us to the nursery. We took our shoes off and came to a glass viewing window. Right below the window were five babies; the entire room held twenty-five. Three tired nurses bustled around and babies cried loudly at intervals.

Staring down at the tiny babies wrapped in pink blankets with colour coded tags on their ankles it was hard for me to believe that twenty years ago, I was one of those babies.

I wonder if a stranger had watched over me too, as I laid in a cot sound asleep unaware of the world around me.

I have another appointment at Eastern next week when I will meet the Director and see the babies again. With four weeks left, I’ll be honest, the search for my birth mother is at the back of my mind. Being here and knowing she could be one of the faces in the crowds that I pass daily, if anything, I feel further away from her than I did in Australia.

But I don’t mind, returning to Korea is the best decision I have ever made. I now know that I am definitely Australian and Korean.

has been caught in my bag.

One of the loveliest moments was when I was in Gwangjang Markets trying to buy a Hanbok traditional dress. I couldn’t understand them so I kept saying Hoju (Australia) but they kept cupping my face and saying Hanguk (Korea). So with my limited Korean I said Ibyang (Adoption) and immediately they understood. They dressed me in a fine

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in Hong Kong and then in English three years ago, as Prisoner of the State.

This year’s 23rd anniversary of the protests is particularly sensitive for the CCP, who are fearful of any instability in the lead-up to this year’s decennial leadership transition. As well as increasing the number of security forces in specific areas of Beijing, the government temporarily enhanced its internet censorship known colloquially as the “Great Firewall of China”. The expanded list of blocked search terms included words only tangentially related to the protests, such as “candle”, “blood” and “mourn”.

Despite Chen’s revelations about the events of June 4, the Chinese govexrnment shows no signs of altering the official account of June 4, 1989. One foreign ministry spokesman assured a press conference that the “political case” of the student uprisings “was concluded long ago”.

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Grindrs Have Had Enough Coffee Luke Mansillo explores the dark and seedy underbelly of Gloria Jean’s gay agenda

Members of the online gay geo-spatial app Grindr are amongst the latest angry customers to demand that Gloria Jean’s clean up its politics and are boycotting its percolation.

This is one of many reactions to Gloria Jean’s Coffees’ $30,000 donation to the Australian Christian Lobby. The social media furore went into overdrive recently, causing reactions from many individuals.

ACL was recently described in The Brisbane Times as giving disproportionate amounts of interest to opposing euthanasia, LGBT rights, and the rights of women to have abortions.

Richard Tutin from Queensland Churches Together, an ecumenical forum, describes ACL as, “totally [having] an agenda” and “interested in upholding a very, very traditional view of marriage [which is] derived in their eyes from scripture and societal practice”.

This has lead many, particularly women’s groups and LGBT rights activists, to deem ACL to be a reactionary lobby against the accomplishments and ideas of the sexual liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

Gloria Jean’s claims the money was to fund the Make It Count event, however, the donation was made five months after the event. It was entirely run by ACL and featured a forum of ACL delegates questioning Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd two days before Julia Gillard became Prime Minister. The purpose of the event seemed to be for Abbott and Rudd to win evangelical votes. The ACL lobbied for both Rudd and Abbott to deny their respective party members a conscience vote on marriage equality. Abbott agreed.

The ACL has a clear ability to adjust the positions of major Australian political parties to its own auspices. As a result, Gloria Jean’s has run into a bit of a pickle. Customers now know they actively support a fringe political

lobby group. Many are livid at the idea that their morning coffee has been fuelling what most people would deem as the bigotry that the ACL is engaged in.

Social media understandably has been vi-

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Gloria Jean’s Coffee has attempted to distance itself from the [Australian Christian Lobby] saying the $30,000 was a “once off donation during the time of the election”

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the Australian Competition Consumer Commission (ACCC), provided the much needed services of lesbian curing and their speciality, highly sought after exorcisms to extract the “gay” from patients as they compulsory took their Centrelink payments.

Some have felt uncomfortable with this to say the least. In 2008 and 2009 board members of Gloria Jean’s were also on the board of Mercy Ministries and were funnelling Gloria Jean’s monies to the organisation for over a decade. This was a contentious point that stuck like mud to Gloria Jean’s as it was a contractual obligation for all stores to have a donation box for Mercy Ministries. It comes as no surprise then that amongst ‘Grindrs’, and thousands of other coffee lovers, there has been outrage at the $30000 endowment for this fringe political organisation.

In a statement Gloria Jean’s Coffee has attempted to distance itself from the ACL saying the $30,000 was a “once off donation during the time of the election”. The usual damage control stuff. “As a company we hold no position on marriage law, and in line with our values support people’s freedom to choose who they love,” the statement said. “We are not homophobic” it repeated.

This statement has not satisfied critics who

ral, spewing indignation. The corporate beast has been stunned by the revelation. Gloria Jean’s rushed to assert that they had no connection to the evangelical happy clappers at Hillsong Church in Sydney’s North West.

When anyone googles the terms “Hillsong” and ‘“Gloria Jean’s” a raft of pre-2010 articles on things such as Mercy Ministries appear.

What is Mercy Ministries and what connection to Hillsong and Gloria Jean’s does the wise Google inform us of?

Mercy Ministries, a now defunct Christian organisation thanks to those secular bigots,

saw the five month gap between the event Gloria Jean’s claimed to have paid for in June 2010 and the donation being made in November 2010 as evidence to the contrary. The social media response has centred upon a Facebook page, Boycott Gloria Jeans for funding Homophobia. In three weeks it has amassed over 7700 members. Recently the page leaked two internal documents from Gloria Jean’s.

The first stated: “In light of the recent activity on our Facebook page, we will take this opportunity to temporarily postpone [our] campaign launch.” The intensity of concerned LGBT community comments about its activities shows no sign of abating and has stymied Gloria Jean’s marketing strategy. With these internal documents going public, stymied is an understatement.

It was evidently not the wisest move for Gloria Jean’s to donate to the ACL. Important stakeholders get annoyed: customers, who feel outraged that they’re funding lesbian abortions or ACL calling the LGBT rights activists Nazis on Seven’s Sunrise, and franchisees, who have been put in harm’s way with a potential loss of customers because of the head office’s irresponsible actions.

Luke Mansillo is a third year political science student. He started the Facebook page, Boycott Gloria Jeans for Funding Homophobia, along with Meaghan Grace.

Art & Culture

Maria Kunz The Electrician’s Mess Tubing 2012 http://www.behance.net/mariakunz

WORONI COMMUNITY NOTICEBOARD burton & garran hall PRESENTS: anything goeS WHEN: 8th-11th August – 7:30PM (& Matinee on 11th) WHERE: Papermoon Theatre, ANU Arts Centre The Australian National University residential hall, Burton and Garran, present ‘Anything Goes’, in association with Tams-Witmark music library. The production is a student initiative which provides an opportunity to showcase the talented musicians, dancers, artists and actors at B&G and to promote leadership amongst residents. Talented cast & crew include Joshua Wiseman, Tate Sherian, Ben Purser, and Caitlin Overton.

Tickets are $20/$15 and are through B&G Hall Front Office: 61940000

wheelout@anu WHEN: Friday 3rd August – 10AM-4PM WHERE: ANU Sport & Rec Association It is a wheelchair basketball competition open for everyone to experience and have fun! All funds raised will be put towards development of a sports outreach program in the Solomon Islands for people with disabilities (especially for those in remote communities), later this year. Team entries now open for up to 10 players.

Entry is $300 per team or $30 for an individual.

Includes competition, lunch & prizes.

Visit www.sportmatters.org.au for more details.

living green festival WHEN: Sunday 14 October – 10AM-4PM WHERE: Albert Hall, Canberra The Living Green Festival brings innovative green and carbon-reducing practices to the Canberra community, with an emphasis on low carbon food and other products. Held at the historic Albert Hall on the last day of Floriade, there will be live music and dance performances, sustainable, fair-trade and cruelty-free food, products and services, market stalls, talks on environmental, animal protection and health issues, free yoga, cooking and gardening workshops, a children’s area and much more!

2012 Lions Oratory Competition Represent your ANU College at the 2012 Lions Oratory Competition and you could win up to $1,500 in cash. Simply write an oration plan of no more than 150 words outlining the speech you would deliver at this year’s Lions Oratory Competition. One speaker from each College will be selected to deliver an eight minute oration at the final on Wednesday 5 September. Oration plans must address one or more of the great human values of truth, righteousness, peace, love and non-violence.

Log on to anu.edu.au/lionsoratory for more information.

Amnesty Presents: Molly & MObarak WHEN: Thursday 26th July – 7PM WHERE: The Food Co-Op, ANU Amnesty International’s Canberra Youth Action Group are holding a film screening on Refugee and Asylum Seeker Rights at the ANU Food-Coop on the July 26 at 7pm. The film will be Molly and Mobarak - it is about the process and difficulties of fitting in in a new community, and about going back to an old one.

Got something you want to tell people about? get your event on OUR noticeboard by sending a short spiel to contact@woroni.com.au

LIFE & STYLE// 19

” A Lesson in Canberra Art History: The Fucking “ Civic Sheep

VICTORIA PERIN

If you don’t know Les Kossatz, I’m sure you’re intimate with his sheep. The Civic Sheep, also known by their proper name Ainslie’s Sheep, were commissioned from Kossatz by artsACT in 2001 for placement in the proverbial paddock that is City Walk.

Kossatz has a history of public commissions in Canberra. When the High Court was being built in the late ‘70s, somebody had the good sense to ask the coolest Melbourne artists of the time - Kossatz, Jan Senbergs, Bea Maddock and George Baldessin (of our very own Baldessin Precinct Building) - to provide the foyer artwork. Kossatz made the coats of arms on both the front and back glass façade of the building, and finished off some panels for the ceremonial doors that he was working on with Baldessin, before Baldessin’s death in a car accident in 1978. He also led the design team that engineered the Korean War memorial, one of the simplest and most elegant memorials on Anzac Parade.

This guy’s stamp is all over Canberra, but have you ever stopped to consider his funloving sheep? Tourists and drunk people are crazy about those sheep, but have you – sober you – ever wondered what these sheep are about? The plaque on the back of the sheep’s chair will tell you that the sheep represent the livestock of James Ainslie, a pioneering Scottish pastoralist who, in 1825 (1825!) settled in the area between Mount Ainslie and Civic.

Ainslie lived with an Aboriginal woman and had a daughter with her named Nanny, before he pissed off back to Scotland in 1935.

He also apparently liked his vests. That is exactly how I imagine every colonial pastoralist ever.

Kossatz’s sculpture is a gentle satire on this guy who could barely struggle out a decade in Canberra, before it was Canberra.

There’s more to the story though.

Kossatz has used sheep as an ambiguous symbol in his artwork since the early ‘70s. They provide a generous metaphor: at once his sheep-inspired works represent our pioneering history, the ongoing grazing industry that was born from it, environmental and ethical concerns and, most compellingly to me, the sheep as a commentary on human behaviour.

This last point isn’t clear-cut or moralistic.

Never does Kossatz explicitly claim something heavy-handed, like “humans treat sheep poorly, therefore humans are terrible” He is a better artist than that. Works such as Ram in Sling (1973) and Hard Slide (1980) play on the sheep’s naturally amusing, harmless-

looking body shape, and contrast their soft, fuzzy wool with the sharp points of industrial metal (the ‘sling’), or the hard, unfeeling processing equipment (the ‘slide’).

You’re left looking at these really cute rams, tumbling around, and they look funny! Sheep are amazingly comedic once you take them out of their paddock setting.

Kossatz wants to confront you with this dual response of innate sympathy versus innate humour.

He doesn’t smack you around the face with his message, but instead opens up a discussion that a lot of people are uncomfortable with: “What are we doing with animals, guys?”

The Civic Sheep is one of my favourite Kossatz pieces. It’s not as edgy as his ‘70s work; the sheep themselves are quite plainly rendered cast-aluminium. But the same thing that interests me is the same thing that gets the drunks and the tourists giggling: those sheep seem deliberately positioned so that

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We’ve got to ask ourselves when we see someone responding to the (admittedly fake) sheep in such an amorous way – why is fucking a sheep so funny?

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passers-by can pretend to have sex with them.

What the people posing and whipping out their iPhone cameras may not realise is that this is not an accident. Kossatz isn’t naively cooking up compromising sheep sculptures here. He’s been making them for over 30 years and he knows what they look like. The line he trots out at ACT Government events is that the sheep are a delightful contrast, being animals that belong in pastures but that are somehow in the middle of the city centre.

But that kind of talk is just for the PC types. Public art has to look uncontroversial in order to pass the toddler test.

The genius thing about these sculptures is that they are standard-looking on their own, but that they come alive when we interact with them. Do you ride on the sheep?

Do you laugh at them? Do you hug them?

Do you ignore them? Do you mount them?

I have watched people act out all of the above, and I have become pretty uncomfortable with the last of these responses Kossatz has been using these sheepsymbols for many years as a way of talking about human behaviour. Although it’s not the only way they can be interpreted, many people’s uninhibited response to these works is sexual. When we see someone responding in such an amorous way, we’ve got to ask ourselves: why is fucking a fake sheep so funny?

LIFE & STYLE// 20

Getting your kilt off in the Scottish Highlands

Everything you need to know about travelling abroad THE SEVEN SEAS

KIERAN PENDER

Where?

A place of mystery, history and incredible scenery, the Scottish highlands are an amazing destination for those wanting to get away from the hustle and bustle of Europe’s big cities. The landscape is breathtakingly beautiful, and a plentiful array of activities in the area makes Scotland a destination of choice.

When?

Like most of Europe, the area can be thoroughly miserable from October to March.

And with tourists flooding the highlands in summer, May and September provide ideal times to explore the wondrous landscapes complete with mountains, lochs and coastal views.

Visit?

Oban: A good launching point for further adventures along the west coast, the small fishing village of Oban provides numerous accommodation options and an incredible view to the Hebridean Islands. For those with a religious bent, nearby Iona is apparently a must visit, while several hills close to Oban provide a fantastic place to watch the sun set.

Isle of Skye: Perhaps the most popular Scottish isle, Skye is an eclectic mix of highland heritage, natural attractions, and a bustling tourism industry. Having struggled through the 70s and 80s, locals were initially hesitant to accept the flood of foreigners arriving to start hostels, hotels and restaurants. But that animosity is now long gone and Skye is a welcoming and friendly destination. Don’t miss a trip to MacKenzie’s Bakery in Portree, the capital of Skye, home to incredible pastries

for less than a pound.

Loch Ness: And finally, a trip to the Scottish highlands wouldn’t be complete without a visit to the home of Nessie. While the area is now a huge tourist trap, the lake is still mightily impressive and with a little foresight it is possible to escape the droves of day trippers.

Stay?

Morag’s Lodge: Nestled behind Fort Augustus not far from Loch Ness, this funky hostel is clean, cheap and has a cool vibe.

They offer a different home-made dinner option every night for only 7 pounds, although there is also a kitchen for those preferring to cook for themselves. The hostel bar is also full of fun, with quiz nights, karaoke and much more. Top tip – try a local honey beer.

Eat? Food options are plentiful, although not everywhere is helpful to the budget of a student traveller. Haggis is an obvious dish to try, while any coastal town will do excellent fish and chips. Several big supermarket chains operate in the area, and many hostels have kitchens, so those living cheaply can usually fix a meal for five pounds.

Transport?

Due to the large distances between towns, getting around can be problematic, especially for students. Hiring a car would be the ideal solution, but sadly many companies refuse to accept people under 25. The train and bus network is solid though, and provides a reasonably cost effective (if slow) means of moving from A to B. Finally, numerous tour operators run trips to the area, with options from one to 10 days.

Cost?

Although the highlands may be cheaper than Edinburgh or England, a trip to the area will still take some serious saving. Dormitory rooms range from 15 to 20 pounds, while transport is not inexpensive. Budget perhaps 50 pounds per night (approximately AUD $75).

Fun Fact?

There is only one lake in Scotland – Menteith. All the other bodies of water are lochs, not lakes.

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There’s no Love in Loneliness

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A LADY

I recently watched a mildly successful video that someone had shared on my Facebook newsfeed, the “Speed Dating” skit, which revolves around the perils of finding a meaningful relationship and the avoidant tactics of today’s youth. It seems that our generation is plagued with the lust for instant gratification, manipulation and mind games. When did it all become so complicated?

As it goes, our escalating sense of individuality and choice has not liberated us, as some would hope, but trapped us in a stalemate, where we sabotage our own chances of happiness because it is easier than being vulnerable. And not just easier: we have begun to base our existences on the absence of “something” and the inevitable dissatisfaction that comes with knowing that we “don’t have it all”. It is that established void that preserves our yearning to be forsaken and feeds our comfortable emptiness.

The “Speed Dating” video portrays two young people continually engaging in intimate pastimes, yet constantly lying about “not wanting anything serious” even though they have “developed strong feelings towards one another”. What it shows is that our consumerist obsessions have transcended into the emotional realm where commitment phobias, “having the upper hand” and zealously protecting yourself have become paramount.

It’s not as simple as asking someone out or telling them that you’re in love with them

anymore. Nowadays, we have been taught to be over analytical to the point where it inhibits all of our ability to admit defeat. Falling in love is seen as weak and pain has become the ultimate seductress.

Instead of going out and getting what you want, we wait, thinking that it is our godgiven right to be handed everything on a silver platter. The movies we were brought up on, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, con us into believing that we are all destined for a magical happy ending; so when the fuck is this knight in shining armour coming to save us?

Actually addressing our problems and feelings has become too scary, so we torture ourselves with our suffering and use our fears to justify our escapism. I mean the last thing we would desire is getting exactly what we want, because then there would be nothing to keep us in that steady state of emotional destitute. Society’s horror stories of broken hearts and the confronting statistics that half of all marriages end in divorce, have unwittingly instilled the fear of impermanence within us and we won’t let ourselves be loved or feel love, because we’re too afraid of giving ourselves to someone we might lose.

I guess the greatest irony of our generation is that we strive for freedom and yet we are hopelessly imprisoned by our own fear and our own inaction. Our supposed intelligence has made us slaves to certainty and thus, victims to the great fall of irrationality.

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Actually addressing our problems and feelings has become too scary, so we torture ourselves with our suffering and use our fears to justify our escapism.

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LIFE & STYLE// 21

The Politics of Facebook (Un)Friending CHRISTINA RAE While Bush Week may not provide quite as many opportunities for friend-making as its counterpoint, O-Week does, it does allow for the befriending of the few people you don’t know at your college, or the expansion of friendships into other colleges. It is also conveniently placed in the middle of the year when, let’s face it, a lot of the people you met in O-Week have now become mere acquaintances, or, in the worst case scenario, completely irrelevant to your life.

O-Week was also when meeting these people was accompanied by fanatic legitimization of these newfound friendships through the medium of Facebook; Bush Week, however, is when I wonder, at what point is it okay to delete these people off of your friend’s list, as opposed to simply hiding their annoying posts from your News Feed?

During High School, a close friend of mine decided to delete a number of girls in our grade off of her Facebook friends list. Over the next two days she was confronted by several of these girls who demanded to know why she had deleted them. Of course, she lied and told them that her Facebook “messed up and was deleting people randomly” and that it was an accident. She then re-added them on Facebook. This was terrifying back then simply because it implied a level of pre-oc-

cupation with the Friends List that I hadn’t realised existed. It signalled an obsession with a number that supposedly represented relationships both frivolous and serious and indicated the popularity contest element to these numbers.

More importantly, it suggested F a c e b o o k ’s development into a platform for social diplomacy as well as a platform wherein relationships are free for the perusal and engagement of others – a public affair.

The addition of an individual to your friend’s list is made publically visible on Facebook with a small post on News Feeds as well as a post on the Friender and the Friendee’s walls respectively. This immediately announces to both parties’ Friends Lists that the Friender and Friendee apparently know eachother, but does not indicate whether they met for a brief period of time or had been best

friends for several years. Assisted by the ability to determine mutual friends, third parties are able to become involved in this supposed friendship, no matter how frivolous or serious it may be. While undoubtedly this ability for third party involvement is a positive aspect of Facebook as it does enable more engagement with other friends and the enlargement and affirmation of one’s social sphere, it also results in the promulgation of any negative elements of the relationship.

I have a now ex-best friend listed as my sister on Facebook, despite the fact that I haven’t spoken to her in a year. If I choose to make my Friends List reflect reality, I will delete her and where her face used to sit on my profile will be a conspicuous white space ready to be questioned by either of our mutual friends.

Facebook defines friendships as “Yes – because we are friends on Facebook” and “No

– because you deleted me or didn’t accept my friend request”. It does not allow for a surreptitious removal of an individual from the List as ultimately friendships are represented by numbers. The removal of a friend from your Friend’s List has developed into a dramatic statement of un-acknowledging or a retraction of any relations of sort with that individual.

While of course an individual could simply attempt to filter whom they choose to accept as a friend on Facebook and accept only the closest of proven friends, I have to wonder what justification you will give to that one person you don’t know that well at work, or, even worse, an individual you have known for a long period of time who believes they are your close acquaintance.

Facebook has gifted relationships with pseudo-affirmation.

It is worth considering then, when you trawl through your newsfeed of Instagram and cat memes, how many of these people do you actually genuinely consider to be a friend? Why have you listed them as your friend, then?

I’ll be the first to admit that many of my ‘friends’ are only there for the sake of attempting to be diplomatic. The prospect of the fall out when I try to explain to 300 people that I actually do not like, or care about them, is terrifying.

Graduating soon?

Here’s how to nail the interview...

CAMERON BESTWICK

Try censoring us now, Zuckerberg!

Want to piss him off even more? Well, write, draw or take photos for us

Send your submission or ideas to contact@woroni.com.au before 31st July and someone could read your work on the dunny too!

Sitting interviews is always difficult, no matter how many you’ve done in the past.

Even if you are eloquent, charming and sophisticated you still need to have the best content to get a lead over the other applicants. So how do you do this?

Well you could try to second-guess what they might ask and duly prepare some answers, but if you guess wrong you could find yourself looking very underprepared. Alternatively you could not prepare anything and hope for the best – but these are both mistakes of the past.

The world of employers has moved on from traditional job interviews to a new style called behavioural interviews. The behavioural interview involves questions starting with “can you tell us about a time when….” and typically end with some sort of challenge related to the requirements of the job. The stories that you tell are then used by the interviewers to see if your behaviours in the story match the behaviours they need in their new employee.

This new technique has a validity rating of 0.48 – 0.61, compared to traditional interviews which are only 0.05 – 0.19. These crazy new interviews are the way of the future.

So here’s how you nail the interview: 1.

Look at the job description from the advertisement including both the responsibilities and the selection criteria, and then translate everything into verbs. For example a responsibility might be “customer enquiries” which translates to “building rapport with the customer” and/or “soliciting useful data from customers” (for which you would need to have rapport anyway – always start from the lowest common denominator).

2.

Then think of few stories for which your behaviours demonstrate this ability. But remember: like any other story there needs to

be a problem and a series of events in which the resolution was found. Continuing the previous example, the question will probably sound like this: “tell us about a time when you found it very difficult to get along with a customer and then describe what you did to improve the situation?”

3.

Once you have stories for all of the competencies in the job ad, write prompts for these stories into the notes you intend to take in with you, so that when you are asked for a story you can pick the right one to match their ‘ideal employee’.

Finally, there are some things to remember in case what you had planned doesn’t seem to be working for you on the day.

If you get asked to elaborate on the story, the interviewers are asking for your role in the story and what the contribution you made was in solving the problem. This will probably happen because you said the words “we” and “us” too much. These interviews are designed to put introverts and extroverts on an even keel, so don’t be afraid to take time to think and don’t be alarmed when they probe for more detail on behaviours.

The other thing to remember is that if the question is asking about a competency for which you don’t have a story, don’t just use one of the ones you prepared. Listen to the question carefully and it will tell you what they’re after, such as “name a time when you had to work autonomously under pressure” or “explain what techniques you have used to prioritise different tasks”. The clues are at the end of the question, so feel free to start your answer with the end (the resolution) and work back to the problem and the series of events that helped to find that resolution.

If you want to practice, the best Google searches are “behavioural interview questions/example” and “STAR method”. Best of luck!

LIFE & STYLE// 22

Ca n b er r a G i g G u i d e

Your ultimate guide to what’s hot and what’s happening on the Canberra music scene MARTIN PEREZ-MCVIE

Cat Cat Harm’s Way BLUE JUICE Who else? Deep Sea Arcade and The Preachers When? Tuesday 14 August Tickets? Ticketek and on the door Winter at university was never a good time for the members of Bluejuice. Concentrating on “Oedipal Complexes of The Leopard Slug and Resulting Ramifications For High Density Housing” was difficult in all that cold, and all that darkness. Hard times indeed. They survived though, and this winter, instead of insisting daily that their manager make them slow-cooked meals with polenta on the side, Bluejuice have decided to try and ease the plight of freezing students by touring the universities of Australia.

JINJA SAFARI Who else? Kody Neilson (previously Opossom) and LA’s White Arrows When? Wednesday 15 August Tickets? Ticketek and on the door Our favourite party starters Jinja Safari are very pleased to be joining The Blind Date Tour. As way of a welcoming corsage (the kind you take home to your mother) the band have a brand new track to get you shaking. ‘Toothless Grin’ premiered Wednesday night this week on triple j. Although Australia has been pining for their live antics, don’t expect any cobwebs with the band recently getting the UK and North America on board their safari. Trend setting NYC label Neon Gold called their shows at this year’s Great Escape Festival in the UK a ‘bristling force of nature’. BBC1’s Rob Da Bank also jumped on the bandwagon, naming the group a ‘cosmic pop safari’.

The band have plans to return to the UK, as they were hand-picked for Bestival in September later this year, but not before reminding Australia why the are one-ofa-kind on the Blind Date Tour.

Attention fans of jangly indie-pop: playing their first of two Canberra shows on their east coast tour, Cat Cat will be performing at Transit Bar on the evening of Thursday the 26th of July. On the back of the success of their first album ‘Urbala’ and supported by Mornings and Danger Beach (now playing as a full band), this is a show not to be missed.

Saturday the 28th of July sees the

America’s Harm’s Way will be think we’ve forgotten you. Be sure headlining a night of hard riffs and to see what’s coming up as part of tough-guy hardcore punk on the the Capital Jazz Project that’s runlast night of July. Twenty dollars on ning in early August. A highlight is the door at the Tuggeranong Youth sure to be some of Canberra’s finest Centre (next to the bus interchange) musicians performing in the guise will get you in to see Canberra’s own of Pollen Trio on the 3rd of August Frail, as well as inter-staters Phan- at The Street Theatre at 7.30 for $25.

Canberra’s favourite post-rockers toms, Relentless and Snakepit.

For something a little more cosmic, Mornings will be unleashing a new

Mornings

Danger Beach second instalment in the ‘Abstractions’ series in the foyer of The Street Theatre, curated by Canberra’s outstanding experimental music imprint hellosQuare recordings. Headlining is Sydney’s highly regarded electronic project Pimmon, having just released a new album ‘The Oansome Orbit’. Doors are at 8pm and entry is $10.

At the other end of the spectrum,

make your way down to see the epic post-metal stylings of Philadelphia’s Rosetta at Bar 32 on August 1. With a memorable live show (people still talk about the time they played at ANU bar 4 years ago) and supported

by Brisbane’s Nuclear Summer and the future-punk super group Life & Limb, this will be well worth the 20 dollars entry fee – tickets through Moshtix and on the door, kicks off at 8pm.

For all you jazz fans out there - don’t

single while supporting two great Sydney bands at Smith’s Alternative Bookshop on the evening of Saturday the 4th of August. JuliaWhy? has been described as a mix of The Drones and PJ Harvey while Sleep Debt plays a fuzzed out, rollicking brand of garage rock.

Pimmon

Nuclear Summer

REVIEWED// 23

Local Artist Spotlight: Runaway Skyline Every fortnight, Woroni takes some time to talk to a local band doing great things.

AT THE LOCAL

NAKUL LEGHA Runaway Skyline Who: Foster Nihill (Guitars/ Bass/Drum Programming) & Ben Loewenstein (Vox/Guitars/Bass/ Synth) What: A Lighter Blue EP, download/stream at http://runawayskyline.bandcamp. com In a music scene so saturated with young bands trying to recreate that indie folk/rock sound, it’s refreshing to hear Runaway Skyline’s discerning lack of ukulele, handclaps and tweed, and a distinct abundance of sweatpant wearing. “I don’t think we’ve played a gig where we haven’t been wearing sweatpants”, notes lead vocalist Ben Loewenstein.

Instead, the duo has carved a wonderfully distinctive niche combining spacey pop melodies with synthy, ambient electronica, which they helpfully term “progressive pop”. If you take a listen to their songs you’ll see there are

many more musical ideas bubbling away under the surface but Foster Nihill, RS’s other half, makes the point, rather deprecatingly, of not wanting to “be one of those bands who spout bullshit like ‘We don’t want to be pigeonholed because our music is genre defying”.

For two guys who’ve been performing together for a relatively short time, there is a striking clarity and confidence in their sound.

It’s a unifying thread through all eight songs on their debut EP, A Lighter Blue. But it was never intentional, says Foster: “We use pop structures; we like hooks and melodies. But our style of music is a function of the song writing. We didn’t have a sound in our head before we started or think about what was trending at the moment”. Ben passionately remarks that “A lot of young, undiscovered so-called ‘indie bands’ sound like they’re trying to make something that permits them to wear the clothes they’re wearing…you’re just not sure the songs they wrote are their first priority”.

Runaway Skyline’s song writing and lyrical delivery reaches at something far more personal and raw without being emotionally indulgent. “This album was written in the wake of a pretty shit year for both of us. Lyrically, it’s about coming out of a bad thing with a little bit of hope,” explains Foster, the main songwriter.

Putting the EP together was itself a labour of love that took eight months to complete.

Though their first two songs, “Always Me” and “Into Place”, remarkably came together in one afternoon many months ago, they feel “the gradual process has helped us understand the songs and made us really think about what we could change”.

It’s clear they have a deep appreciation for the construction of sounds. Both are inspired by artists who haven’t been shy to explore different genres, from The Cure’s forays into New Wave and Post Punk and melodic pop to John Frusciante whose albums span the length of electronic, rock and synth-pop. So is a dub-step record next on the cards? “Absolutely”, they respond enthusiastically.

Their rather unique musical backgrounds also hint at the talents so clearly on display in A Lighter Blue. “I auditioned for an acapella barbershop group in high school called ‘The Croonivores’, which was the first time anyone heard me sing seriously”, Ben sheepishly admits (and rightly so). So that explains the phenomenal vocals on the record. And those

elegantly crafted guitar melodies? It emerges that Foster used to play guitar in a heavy metal band called, fittingly enough, A Burnt Memory. “That was really not my world. It’s great to be playing music where people can hear the singing and there are actually girls at the gigs”, he says.

“We’ve spent so much time recording, nitpicking and getting our music ready that it’ll be nice to finally get out there and perform them live,” Ben says with some relief.

Here’s hoping some girls also get along to see them.

Read the review of their EP on p.24 and find gig details at facebook.com/runawayskyline

Foster (L) and Ben (R) seen here in happier days // Credit: Charles White

Remastered and reissued, My Bloody Valentine still stun LISTEN // ALBUM My Bloody Valentine Loveless, Isn’t Anything, EPs 1988-1991 [Reissues] ROBERT SELTH The music of My Bloody Valentine has a way of inspiring reviewers to bring out their inner poets. That’s partly because the music is so beautiful and otherworldly that it seems to demand description in words that evoke some level of beauty themselves. It’s also quite simply because MBV’s music is still completely unlike anything else you will ever hear, and so most reviewers have to resort to metaphor because there just are no words in their standard lexicon for these kinds of sounds. In that spirit, here is the truest image that my imagination has given me for the sound of this band: they are like an impossibly dense thicket of pine trees, fashioned all of metal, bristling with razor-sharp edges, and glowing red-hot.

Because of course, this is not music that most people expect to associate with the words “beautiful” and “otherworldly”. It is the sound of the electric guitar pushed to its weirdest and most brilliant extreme. It is electric noise distorted beyond recognition, layered so thickly and so deep that you cannot sense any bottom nor any end to it. It shrieks and crunches and roars and rakes. And yet – and here is what makes this band extraordinary – it is profoundly and genuinely sooth-

ing, and it is also exhilarating. Somehow, by a work of magic that I don’t believe any other band has yet managed, MBV created songs that sound as delicate and gorgeous as a still lake, and yet are simultaneously as thrilling and as harrowing in their sonics as anything in the hardest punk or grunge. This music is a miracle.

And it is a miracle, moreover, that has just been newly reissued on CD. Twenty-one years after the band’s last release, front man Kevin Shields – who is the master behind these records – has finally completed and put out the remasters that he has been promising fans for more than a decade. The reissues cover their entire output for Creation Records (effectively all of their music that matters), and that’s not, after all, much. All we have are two full albums – 1988’s Isn’t Anything and 1991’s Loveless – and a collection of EPs 1988-1991, which encompasses three EPs, some B-sides, and a very few previously unreleased tracks.

For those already acquainted with the albums, that last collection is something to treasure. It’s an enormous pleasure to be able to just lie back and listen to music that sounds new and fresh to your own ears, even while it is wrapped in the same blissful sound that you know so well from your old favourites. This is the most varied set of MBV music on record, ranging between perfect pop, fast, grinding rock tunes, and droning, longdrawn-out pieces that resemble dance music more than anything else (you may want to skip the ten-minute version of “Glider”). All

are shrouded in the same hazy, swirling distortion that is the band’s signature, and despite the variety, there are very few tracks that don’t sound superb.

As for the two more familiar records, they sound as good as ever. So much of the greatness of this music relies on the very delicate balance of the sonics that Shields has chosen, wisely, to do a very conservative remaster.

Both albums are a fraction louder, and that’s about it. Loveless is confusingly presented in two different versions: one disc has the album remastered from the original tapes, the other from the original half-inch analogue tapes.

No, I’m not entirely sure what the difference is either. What I am sure of is that hardly anybody who has yet commented can detect any aural difference between the two discs. One of them, however, has a digital glitch at about the 2:46 mark on the track “What You Want”; so when you import the album to your computer, check that you’re using the clean one.

Beyond this, there is little more to say that is not better communicated by the music itself. So listen to it. Isn’t Anything is guitar rock made to sound less like a set of sharp edges than like a cloud of gas. Loveless takes this same aesthetic and uses it to create music that is, quite simply, angelic. Loveless, for the record, is the band’s masterpiece, and anyone who cares about music should hear it. But really, everything that My Bloody Valentine recorded with Creation is so much more than worth your time, as this wonderful set of releases will show you.

REVIEWED// 24

First effort a Runaway hit LISTEN // ALBUM Runaway Skyline A Lighter Blue

BEN LATHAM

Snow White? Not Quite

There are no happy endings in this half baked adaptation WATCH // MOVIE Snow White and the Huntsman Directed by Rupert Sanders ‎2hr 7min‎‎, Rated M‎ JESS MILLEN With nature scenes reminiscent of Avatar and battle scenes à la Lord of the Rings, Snow White and the Huntsman is an impressive project, both in the scale of its special effects and the magnitude of the disappointment one feels while watching it.

The major problem with the film is its lacklustre human element – despite all the investments made in the film’s magnificent special effects and stunning visuals, we simply don’t really care what happens to its characters.

Transforming fairytale figures into people we care about onscreen requires interesting back-stories and strong performances to put flesh on their stock-character bones. In Snow White and the Huntsman, both of these requirements are so absent that we exit the cinema practically sobbing with apathy.

We all know the story – an evil queen usurps her husband’s throne, poisoning the kingdom with her wickedness and plotting the murder of her beautiful stepdaughter, Snow White. Throw in an apple, a talking mirror and some vertically-challenged brigands, and there you have it.

Although various characters in Snow White and the Huntsman repeatedly identify Snow White as The Chosen One who will heal the kingdom’s woes, she doesn’t seem particularly special to the audience – her purity and bravery are lauded in the dialogue of supporting characters, but for the first hour of the film she mostly just flops about in puddles and runs around with her skirts askew.

In her most shining moment she is simply part of the scenery, wandering through an enchanted forest as sunlight glints across

her face and fairies dart from flower to flower around her. It’s a beautiful scene that captures much of the magic that is missing from Snow White’s character and the film in its entirety, but it only lasts for a couple of minutes, which isn’t a long time in a movie that feels more drawn out than the Napoleonic Wars.

This difficulty in empathising with our heroine is partly the fault of thin plot development and partly the fault of Kristen Stewart, who has the charisma of wet cardboard and the emotional range of an autistic mole. Her performance is infuriatingly unvaried; she looks as consistently put-out as she makes us feel. Each sullen pout and laboured sigh serve only to irritate – the undeniable fact that Stewart’s Snow White is beautiful enough to be classed as “the fairest of them all” is undermined by the unwavering desire to see her sat on by a walrus.

In contrast, Charlize Theron’s evil queen is just about the only character who seems more interesting than an alfalfa sprout; her pain and frustration are more deeply felt than that of those who suffer under her tyrannical reign. Bizarrely, Theron’s character is given more of a background story than most, which reveals the film’s other principal flaw: timing.

Instead of prioritising particular characters and moments, Sanders pitches everything at the same level of importance, spending precious minutes on what could have been communicated in a fleeting glimpse. By trying to make us feel that everything is important, the film only succeeds in glossing over what it should have highlighted (the dwarves, for instance, who are embodied by an assortment of great English actors but are always at the periphery) and flogging the living daylights out of what it should have skipped.

Snow White and the Huntsman may present itself as a gritty, empowered take on the original fairytale, but thanks to an underdeveloped script and a less-than-inspiring heroine, we simply don’t buy it.

Innovative, captivating and beautifully constructed, A Lighter Blue is the debut album of Runaway Skyline, blending familiar indie pop and experimental electronica and formed by two incredibly talented ANU natives, Ben Loewenstein and Foster Nihill.

Runaway Skyline has perfected the art of layers. A vocal melody, charming but simple on its own, is able to soar and resonate so much more powerfully when coupled and countered with another. The instrumentation follows suit, with each song crafted with layer

upon layer of guitar lines, synthesisers, and processed drum beats. It feels like such a cop out to mention that overused and utterly exhausted G-word, but comparing the album’s reverberating vocals and ambient electronica to those of Gotye and the Local Natives is only the beginning of a difficult struggle to somehow describe the band’s distinct sound.

A Lighter Blue’s opening track, ‘-figure-‘, is breathtaking. Although under two minutes long, ‘-figure-‘ captures the album’s subtle but stunning electronic ambience. Allured by beautifully crafted guitar melodies and the soulful, poignant timbre of Loewenstein’s vocals, the listener is helplessly drawn into the album’s embrace.

The title track of the album, ‘A Lighter Blue’, is an absolute stand out. It is a song seemingly of two cohesive halves separated by a guitar break that is reminiscent of John Frusciante, an influence that appears on and off throughout the album. In the first, a simple verse is introduced, only to be developed and embellished by a stunning array of vocal and instrumental layers in the second. ‘Time’ is another fantastic track on the album, while the brilliant instrumental conclusion to ‘Into Place’ is a refreshing culmination of jazz and funk hidden sneakily up the band’s sleeve.

You can download or stream A Lighter Blue at runawayskyline.bandcamp.com/ album/a-lighter-blue.

In Arcadia, We Go WATCH // THEATRE Arcadia Directed by Vincent Chiang LILLIAN WARD Amongst the music posters and religious jargon plastering ANU’s concrete pillars towards the end of last semester, a poster depicting a classical painting of ponderous men in togas began to appear. Those who were lured in by this puzzling paper trail to The National University Theatre Society’s (NUTS) first production of the year were in for a treat.

Accompanied by bewildering program notes that made much more sense as an epilogue to the play than as its prologue, Arcadia by Tom Stoppard was NUTS member Vincent Chiang’s first foray into directing the company. The choice of Arcadia was an inspired one. It is a brilliant play that switches fluidly between the present day and 1809 and for those who had never seen it, the text alone could have made the experience worthwhile. Its themes of philosophy, mathematics, the scientific method, academia and sex are enough to entice anyone engaged in academic pursuits and completely indulge the tastes of NUTS’s regular audience members.

The play is intelligent and emotionallycandid and was performed as such. Elizabeth Koschel was charming as the precocious

Thomasina Coverly and Dylan Van Den Berg’s comic moments as Septimus Hodge were excellent. Steph Routely was delightful as the sparkly-eyed Chole Coverly and Caitlin Overton and Dean Batten gripped the audience with their passion for differing areas of academia in their earnest portrayal of Hannah Jarvis and Valentine Coverly.

The standout performance of at least the contemporary component of the play was delivered by Tim Boston, whose portrayal of the larger-than-life figure of the alternatively callously arrogant and endearingly excited Bernard Nightingale was at times confronting and completely entertaining.

All of the cast and production team deserve mentions for their contributions to this challenging play that shifted time periods with ease and abounded with well-executed comedy and emotionally genuine performances.

The play is by no means a masterpiece. Its ending was at times painfully laboured and the small stage of the Drama Lab, while predominately a pleasingly intimate setting, felt claustrophobic in the busier scenes. Certain failings must, however, be forgiven for student productions. Arcadia’s brilliant text was on the whole skilfully handled and from five dollars a tickets, like all NUTS productions, it was completely worth it.

NUTS has a four play season and their second play ‘God of Carnage!’ is on 1st-4th August.

REVIEWED// 25 Prometheus Bound to Bore WATCH // MOVIE Prometheus Directed by Ridley Scott 2hr 4min‎‎, Rated MA Spoiler alert ALEKS SLADOJEVIC Prometheus (noun): 1. Greek Mythology. A Titan who stole fire from Olympus and gave it to humankind, for which Zeus chained him to a rock and sent an eagle to eat his liver, which grew back daily.

2. One of Saturn’s smaller moons.

3. Worst. Movie. Ever.

A Soapie By Any Other Name?

Aaron Sorkin’s new HBO series teeters on the brink of irrelevance WATCH // TV SHOW The Newsroom HBO/The Internet PICO PAL Aaron Sorkin’s latest offering, The Newsroom, captures some of The West Wing’s magic. All the Sorkin familiars are present: fast, witty, dialogue; poignant drama; hyper– intelligent characters; the idealism to paint politics as it should be.

This time, however, Sorkin has traded the dim corridors of The West Wing for the bright lights of a cable TV news show. The stage is set for something great. But two episodes in, The Newsroom lacks an indefinable spark.

The Newsroom’s characters are both its strength and weakness. Will McAvoy is the protagonist. Dubbed the Jay Leno of anchormen, he treads a carefully apolitical path, until he publically declares something which would only ever shock an American. He admits America is not the greatest country on earth. The horror.

Will’s boss, proud of Will’s moment of honesty, pounces on the chance to create a news program that doesn’t pander to ratings, and brings in a new Executive Producer in the form of Mackenzie MacHale, who happens to be Will’s ex–girlfriend. She offers the perfect foil to Will. Where Will is a seasoned cynic, quite happy to bask in popularity and

let ratings drive content, it is Mackenzie who dreams of a news show that actually broadcasts the news – a news show that aims to educate the electorate.

Mackenzie is smart, funny, quirky and benevolently ruthless in getting what she wants.

She delivers a series of Bartlet-esque speeches, spouting the virtues of America and free press and American citizens who are not as dumb as Will thinks. The effect is slightly undermined by Mackenzie claiming their reports will speak “truth to stupid.” Still, Will is convinced, and in the pilot they work together to deliver a fine hour of journalism. It’s a West Wing-esque moment, where at least on screen we get the President, or in this case, the anchorman, we deserve.

This promising start derails in the second episode. The characters are inconsistent, and the plot teeters too close to a soap opera for comfort. Mackenzie has appeared competent and professional thus far, but she now bumbles through meetings, knocking over whiteboards, and accidentally sending emails to all 175, 000 of the company’s staff, informing them that she cheated on Will and broke his heart. Apparently, she is capable of reporting from a warzone in Afghanistan, but the vagaries of modern email are beyond her.

Meanwhile, the half–baked love triangle between Will’s assistant, Maggie and two other staff members continues, making viewers struggle to remember why they care. To make matters worse, Maggie, who has been

introduced as a painfully soft-spoken girl, develops a snarky attitude and spends the episode sniping at her new Senior Producer, who happens to be one third of the love triangle. “I don’t know why I’m being so mean to you,” she says, a few times. Neither do we, Maggie, neither do we.

Unfortunately, the problems don’t end there. The Newsroom is set in 2010, so it deals with actual events in recent history. In the pilot, which covers the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, dramatic irony works in the show’s favour. With the benefit of hindsight, viewers urge Jeff to be gutsy, to side-step the story of the dead and missing crew members and to be the first to report the story as one of environmental disaster, of negligence from the government and a billion dollar company.

The second episode focuses on illegal immigration and a new, arguably racist bill in Arizona. But what felt fresh in the pilot is laboured in this episode. In The West Wing, Sorkin had the chance to stay interesting and relevant by rewriting recent history. In The Newsroom, he risks regurgitating it.

If later episodes do not shake off the problems plaguing the characters’ portrayal, the show risks becoming half news hour, half badly-written soap.

Still, The Newsroom offers an interesting premise and a strong cast who deserve more than they have been given: enough for Sorkin faithfuls to hope these are just teething problems, and the show will soon find its feet.

From highs such as Gladiator, Black Hawk Down and Kingdom of Heaven, Ridley Scott’s latest flick was really quite a letdown, not only for the classic rom-com lovers. Even zealous sci-fi fans, passionate dedicatees of movies such as E.T., Alien vs. Predator and even the Transformers series, will be unimpressed with Scott’s offering.

The plot makes about as much sense as current discourse in Australian politics. In cynical summary, the movie is about the crew onboard the spaceship Prometheus and their outer space quest to learn more about strange archaeological remains found on Earth.

These remains suggest the existence of an ancient, somewhat advanced alien civilization.

The film’s central theme gravitates around questions on the origins of humanity and the meaning of human existence. Nothing new.

The crew eventually find the aliens, but relations quickly turn sour. After all bar one of the crew are killed, the story winds up with the remaining survivor jumping on an alien aircraft and flying to another foreign planet in order to continue the pursuit for answers.

Aside from light years of travel, nothing really happens in the two hours it takes for the movie to play out. There is no sense of resolution: no questions are answered, no war is won (or even waged), and virtually no characters survive (killing off Guy Pearce and Charlize Theron should be a big cinematic no-no).

To be fair, this reviewer hasn’t watched all the films in the Alien franchise, and maybe Prometheus can be appreciated more in its broader context. But in all honesty, a movie about the Greek Titan, whose self-regenerating liver is devoured by an eagle every day, probably would make for a more riveting plot. Perhaps Prometheus would better serve audiences as a repackaged video game for pre-pubescent boys.

Woroni Radio is coming back bigger and better than ever this semester!

Broadcasts 12-2 and a podcast publication schedule.

Check it out at woroniradio.com.au or chuck us an email at contact@woroni.com.au if you’d like to help out!

SPORT// 27

JOSHUA CHU-TAN It is becoming a common sight when Spanish national football team captain Iker Casillas, stands atop a podium holding a trophy aloft among his fellow compatriots, donned in the famous red and gold with confetti surrounding them. Euro 2012 was no different.

Spain reigned supreme yet again, continuing the dominant era that they have set in the world of football.

With the Euro 2012 under their belts, the Spanish football team become the first team ever to win back to back European Championships. What makes this even more impressive is the fact that in between their 2008 and 2012 wins, they also took home the FIFA World Cup in 2010.

Some pundits have said that in this year’s European Championships, Spanish side were not at their best. With their talisman striker David Villa, and centre back Carles Puyol ruled out due to injury, the Spaniards seemed to lack the attacking firepower and flair that they had previously possessed. They played

Interhall Sports Shield Standings Results as at start of semester two

Johns : 86 Griffin : 78 Burgmann : 75 Fenner : 62* B&G : 52 Unilodge : 50 Ursula Hall : 40 Bruce : 30 PS. ISO is looking to appoint a new IB committee as well as opening a new paid administrative position through ANU sport. Any applications made should be handed in to the ANU Sports Front Desk.

“

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The Spanish Era

the majority of their games in the tournament without a natural striker. Instead, Vincente del Bosque opted to play with six midfielders.

Having said that, Spain still ended up winning the tournament without losing a game.

The first half of the final was a somewhat even affair with the Italians actually holding long periods of possession throughout. It certainly didn’t look as though a 4-0 romping loomed ahead. The Spaniards took the lead in the 14th minute thanks to an excellent guided header by David Silva following brilliant build up play, much like the type of football Spain are used to producing.

The Italians were fired up after this but still could not break through the stern Spanish

defence. In the 41st minute, a blistering run from Spanish full back Jordi Alba was met

by Xavi’s ball that pierced right through the Italian defence. Alba calmly passed the pall past the sprawling Italian keeper and captain, Gianluigi Buffon, and into the net. 2-0 going into the second half, and it was essentially all but over for Italy who began to look tired.

The Azzurri started the second half brightly though, with an early chance squandered by second half substitute Antonio Di Natale.

He again had another shot blocked shortly after. However, any chance of an Italian comeback was quelled after the Italian side’s third substitute Thiago Motta got stretchered

”

With the Euro 2012 under their belts, the Spanish football team are the first team ever to win back to back European

“

off the field due to a hamstring injury (only three substitutes are allowed and so Italy were playing with only ten men).

With an extra man, Spain began to play their brand of Tiki Taka possession football that the world has become so accustomed to. The Italians ran out of steam as they were outclassed by the Spanish on the final night.

The final two goals came in the 84th and 88th minute respectively with substitute Fernando Torres slotting home and then, later on, providing an assist to his Chelsea teammate Juan Mata to score with an easy finish.

La Furia Roja were too dominant for an Italian side that defied all odds to make it to the final. Iker Casillas stood upon the podium in the Olympic Stadium in Kyiv, Ukraine and held the European cup high over his head, a trophy that now for the first time ever, has the same country’s name engraved in it back to back.

This really is, at least in the footballing world, the Spanish era.

SPORT// 28

Eastern Uni Games 2012 Quiet Tamworth receives a rude awakening GUS MCCUBBING Whilst regularly known as the Australian home of country music, sleepy Tamworth was for one week host to throngs of youths during the 2012 Eastern University Games (EUG). More than 2,000 university students gathered to participate in the annual competition which pits liver function against cardiovascular ability. The sports on offer ranged in physical exertion and actual legitimacy like football and hockey, to the leisurely lawn bowls and ridiculous Ultimate Frisbee.

Both hyped up and written off before the event, few could have had any idea whether Tamworth could successfully host a five night long bender. The opening ceremony was, so very appropriately, staged at the National Equine Centre. To begin, horse riders, lit up like Christmas trees, galloped around the stadium to the ubiquitous chant of “Fuck off UT-S”, apparently the Collingwood equivalent of the EUG. With the formalities and cavalry display over with, Canberran house duo, The Aston Shuffle, kicked off the fun times, impressively coaxing a largely sober crowd— due to horribly overpriced drinks—into a night of dance and debauchery. The following nights would all begin with your teammates and their sport’s own brand of drinking game before forming a greater motley crew of ANU athletes for a raucous bus ride to the Imperial Hotel. This venue was much like any other hybrid pub/club establishment and would feel especially familiar to the ANU mob who frequent places like North Bar or Mooseheads. The only striking difference was that wherein a said Canberra venue one who was involved in a full scale brawl might simply be

told to take a light stroll and invest in some stomach lining, the guardians of Tamworth’s “Impy” would extract patrons frequently and completely arbitrarily. For example, this writer on consecutive nights, when removed for no apparent reason, received the paltry line, “You’ve been identified as being intoxicated”.

Neither a polite suggestion that most patrons were indeed catatonically intoxicated, nor the more blunt “You’ve been identified as being a fuckwit” proved to be at all persuasive in the attempt to prolong my night.

As mentioned, sport was also a thing and despite in most places appearing like the desolate set of Wake In Fright, Tamworth was home to some top quality facilities. University of Technology Sydney (UTS) was the hot favourite to take out the trophy, having won it the year before and notoriously being the only university to take the competition seriously—the only question being, would anyone care? Whilst ANU managed to win gold in the Men’s Touch and Mixed Ultimate, UTS predictably won out overall, to the complete indifference of all involved. Of slightly more interest, Australian College of Physical Education (ACPE) was awarded the ‘Spirit of the Games’ trophy, which could relate to anything from sportsmanship to the mystical art of hangover recovery, to the per capita amount of sexual intercourse enjoyed.

Whatever is the criteria of this ambiguous trophy and whatever is the ultimate purpose of Uni Games, Tamworth, with its endearingly bogan charm, provided for a fantastic sport infused O-Week like experience.

Photos: Adam Robertson

Photo: Lucy Joesph

SPORT// 29

Blues See Red. Again.

Maroons win seven State of Origin titles in a row JACK DIGBY

AF(ina)L Countdown MURRAY ROBERTSON

park is a good start. With the Swans sitting on top of the ladder at this time of writing, something must be said about their seemingly meteoric rise up the ladder, unbiased of course. Coach John Longmire has cunningly rejuvenated an old playing group with a burst of speed and a miserly defence. Previously unknown and unheralded players such as lightning quick Lewis Jetta and Ted Richards are cornerstones of a team, which, can and will challenge for a premiership (I bleed Red and White). While the Swans are dominating teams, reigning premiers Geelong have fallen from grace. They, along with Melbourne, are the disappointments of 2012. Melbourne not only lost a club great in Jim Stynes, but to rub salt into the wound they have lurched on the field from bad to worse. Their short-term future is filled with dark clouds and crying children. Geelong is reminiscent of a champion heavy-weight boxer who is lying exhausted on the canvas. The question is will they stand up to endure further punishment? Or will they succumb to throwing in the towel? The season is the most wide open in years and the game is better for it. God Bless Andrew Demetriou; God Bless the Sydney Swans and God Bless America.

At the time of writing, the end of the AFL season is nigh and the tension is palpable. No less than twelve teams can make the finals in a competition that is becoming increasingly more competitive, something that will no doubt delight Andrew Demetriou and his lackeys. The pressure-cooker environment of the AFL, with a media spotlight far more intensive than its NRL and Super 15 counterparts, has resulted in some distinct winners and losers. Dan Connors, of Richmond, recently left the club in disgrace after yet another mishap. Carlton’s Heath Scotland is still under an assault charge and worryingly, Melbourne’s Liam Jurrah is yet to face charges of manslaughter. It has become abundantly clear that man’s ability to play football overshadows his off-field liabilities. The handling of Ben Cousins, who continues to struggle with his drug addiction, is a blemish on the brand of AFL and in sport in general. With the even nature of the competition so far, a handful of factors have made some teams stand out. Sadly, one of these factors is the top teams’ ability to demolish the two new faces of GWS and the Gold Coast. Hawthorn recently liquidated GWS to the tune of 162 points.

Comparatively, Geelong struggled to quell a Murray Robertson is an unbiased Sydney spirited Gold Coast by 14 points. With per- supporter. centage surely going to play a part in deciding positions, wiping the expansion teams off the

Sitting in a country NSW pub wearing a maroon jersey in what could only be described as a wardrobe malfunction, I looked on eagerly as NSW and Queensland once again took battle to determine which state would reign supreme. By now we had witnessed 160 minutes of grueling and physical rugby league without either side getting any leverage over the other, and Victorians had finally realised who actually participated in the State of Origin. Nonetheless we witnessed one of the most nail biting deciders in Origin history where both teams showed that the difference between the states is much closer than Queensland’s seven straight series victories indicates.

After being the top story in every tabloid, website and newspaper for the past week, the match exceeded expectations by living up to the hype that any journalist could ever possibly generate. It was almost the perfect start for NSW. After overcoming a modern day brawl where players from either side stood around at close proximity and gently held each other’s jerseys for several seconds, the boys down South jumped to an early 8-0 lead when Brett Morris crossed the line in the 13th minute.

However, in true Queensland fashion, quick tries to Boyd, Thurston and Hodges all before halftime meant that within a blink of an eye NSW went to the break with a 16-8 halftime deficit.

Queensland knew they had one hand on the trophy, but with their backs to the wall NSW came out of the sheds with a point to prove that was long overdue. A touch of Brett Stewart magic cut the gap to 2, and when

Todd Carney slotted the sideline conversion from a Josh Morris try, suddenly the scores were level at 20 each!

Back at the bar and the locals had started to gain hope. More beers were consumed and the cheers became louder with every linebreak or big hit. The patrons started to dream of a possible NSW victory.

However, Cooper Cronk turned all those dreams into dust when in the 74th minute he snapped a long distance field goal to stun the NSW supporters. The bar became dead silent as they attempted to register what they had just witnessed. Surely the Blues could not again. Six straight series defeats had been too much, will the Maroons really get a seventh?

NSW had one last chance to save the game, and a foray into the Queensland half gave the faithful a faint glimmer of rare Origin glory.

However, a sloppy play-the-ball and a missed drop goal meant that for the seventh year running, Queensland had managed to overcome a NSW resurgence and once again claim their title as Australia’s rugby league Capital.

The effect on the bar was devastating. The lone Queenslander celebrated euphorically only to leave the bar just as quickly as the other patrons began to throw their schooners at him. Grown men began to shed tears, drowning their sorrows in the six Tooheys they had just ordered. Although the only winner in Tamworth that night was the bar which was drunk dry (and any Queenslander I suppose), there was enough encouraging signs in the NSW performance to suggest that maybe next year is the year that the drought will finally end.

DIGESTED READINGS

The Back Page PERLUSTRATING ASSERVATIONS

NICHE SYMPATHY CARDS

Examining commonly held beliefs with a blow torch and a & MATHEW McGANN bunker buster JAMIE FREESTONE

TOM WESTLAND

Moby Dick is the most famous work by American novelist Herman Melville. It is a classic of nineteenth century literature, a compendium of scientific knowledge, and, printed as it often is in the form of a book, it could also successfully function as a gun emplacement or as a chock while you change a tyre.

What I mean is that, as far as novels go, it is what we professionals call “a long one”, and so it’s essential we get on with analysing it straight away in case bad light stops play fourteen minutes before stumps.

Captain Ahab, a man of the sea, is possessed by the idea of exacting revenge on his mortal enemy, Moby Dick (short for Moby Richard). Now, Moby Dick is dark, handsome, mysterious, and, would you believe it, a sperm whale. The reason that Mr Ahab and Mr Dick have become enemies is that previously the whale tore off Mr Ahab’s leg.

Captain Ahab assembles a crack team of whale hunters to help him in his revenge mission, including our friend Ishmael, a harpooner called Queequeg (who I’m certain sleeps with Ishmael in the second chapter), Starbuck, Flask, Stubb, and sundry others.

Just after they set sail, there’s a great big meeting at which Captain Ahab enlists the support of his crew for the brutal murder of Mr Dick. Everyone is thoroughly enthused, except for Starbuck, who is more interested in expanding his vast coffee shop empire and has no time for quarrels.

To cut a dreary story short, after a great deal of prancing about in boats, Captain Ahab shoots a harpoon at Moby Dick, gets tangled up in the rope, and Moby Dick drags him down into the ocean, where he either drowns or is eaten by mermaids – Melville doesn’t offer clarification on this point. Ishmael survives the shipwreck by clinging to a coffin, which is symbolic of something – existential despair, I guess, or the Common Agricultural Policy.

That, you see, is the trick with Moby Dick.

Melville certainly does imply that his novel is a simple story of a whale and the man who hunts him down, with some contextual information inserted here and there. (Melville appears to have learnt the art of whaling from the Encyclopedia Britannica, and he has helpfully copied it all down for you.)

However, asserting this fact in literary circles will see you being uninvited to book club meetings faster than you can say, “Marieke Hardy is overrated, isn’t she?” You have to remember that everything in Moby Dick is a symbol of one kind or another. Ishmael symbolises Solitude and Self-Reliance, Queequeg represents Charity and Hospitality, and Moby Dick, in a complex literary manoeuvre that saw its author being nominated for a Daytime Emmy, symbolises both the Dewey Decimal System and Lutherans.

Now if, after all that, you feel you can’t commit yourself to the novel itself, then I urge you to at least consider going to the upcoming stage adaptation, Moby!. The great Shakespearian actor Sir Ian McKellen has been cast in the role of Ahab, while Moby Dick will be played by Joe Hockey and Gina Rinehart lashed together with some heavy nautical rope.

‘The theory of evolution isn’t complete, what about missing links?’

JAMIE FREESTONE MATTHEW MCGANN

Creationists and advocates of the theory of intelligent design (also known as “ID” or “creationism”) claim that scientists can’t account for the missing links between species and their ancestors. Researchers keep discovering new, intermediate species, but creationists point out that there is then a gap between the original species and the new intermediate.

The problem is that sceptics want to see the evolutionary sequence without any gaps.

Well, it’s theoretically possible, although practically difficult to satisfy them. To provide watertight evidence of an unbroken chain of evolution from, say the earliest mammal to Homo sapiens, one needs to observe all the steps and because evolution occurs by random mutation, one really needs to be there for all the steps, from each generation to the next.

So we simply need to arrange for a procession of every single mating pair of the relevant organisms to pass in chronological sequence, before the eye — at the point of insemination — of the creationist in question.

Only by observing the ejaculate events of all copulating pairs in the 39 million generation lineage from the earliest mammal to the first homo sapiens, will the creationist’s heavy burden of proof be relieved.

But to truly guarantee that these inseminations are the ones that precipitate the birth of the ensuing offspring, one need also observe the actual birth, but thankfully not the lengthy gestation in between. This could be achieved, but only with excellent organisation in what amounts to a veritable Noah’s Ark of sex. After a mating pair was brought in front of the observer, pre-fitted with an intravaginal endoscopy, they would be rotated behind, the spent male discarded and the female kept in captivity for weeks or months, until she starts crowning, only to be brought back in front of the discerning creationist to look upon the disgorging of the foetus in a final verification of the genetic legacy from one generation to another.

Because 39 million generations of even

brisk orgasms and parturitions will take some time, a truly dedicated Christian voyeur will be required. Assuming a stalwart protestant work ethic yielding 14 hours a day of non-stop observance of mating and crowning mammals (subtracting one seventh of their adult life because it would be anathema to watch thousands of animals coming on the sabbath), it’s possible to fit all this in 92.89 years.

The complicating factor will be that once the organisms being watched approach something resembling a human (say, the emergence of the genus, Homo about 2.5 million years ago), the devout Christian may encounter a scriptural injunction: “Everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell” (Matthew 5:28). As such the only way to continue to watch the carnal acts of proto-human women without damning ones soul beyond redemption would be to cast away the offending eye. This would lead, in the final stages of the process, to legions of blinded creationists, unless of course they procured bionic eyes: a technological infeasibility and, until the medium term future, highly expensive.

Accordingly our model shows that it is best to observe the acts in a chronological manner, delaying the observation of the Homo genus until a time where the sin can be offset by bionic eyes that have become effectively free in the post-scarcity world, saving $11.5 billion. However, as part of the observed lineage yourself, you might consider paying the $11.5 billion lest the final image to burn across the photosensitive electrodes of your cyborg eye (with a direct live endoscopic feed) be the shuddering head of your own father’s penis.

Q.E.D The spreadsheet for calculations in this article can be found at: http://goo.gl/Mt848

WORONI BOOK CLUB

presents

WORONI

WEBSITE AND RADIO LAUNCH $7 Cocktails Beer and Spirit Specials

Woroni is taking over Knightsbridge! Come and join in the celebrations as they unveil their brand new website and relaunch Woroni Radio. With Knightsbridge decked out with the most salacious vintage Woroni editions that could be found in the archives, come and delight in a delicious $7 cocktail while grooving to the chilled beats of the rad Knightsbridge DJs. Beer and spirit specials also available.

wednesday july 25th // doors open at 7:30pm // free entry knightsbridge penthouse // mort st braddon