Opinion | Issue 23

Vol. 78

Issue 23

S

The Opinion Issue

28 September

Contents REGULAR CONTENT

4–13 NEWS

3 Editorial 14 Letters 14 Notices 46 Comics 47 Puzzles

5 6

Editor Sam McChesney editor@salient.org.nz Design and Illustration Ella Bates-Hermans Lily Paris West designer@salient.org.nz News Editor Nicola Braid news@salient.org.nz Investigative News Editor Sophie Boot Chief Sub Editor Kimaya McIntosh Sub Editor Zoe Russell

Senior Feature Writer Philip McSweeney Feature Writers Sharon Lam Gus Mitchell Distributor Beckie Wilson News Reporters Tim Grgec Emma Hurley Charlie Prout Beckie Wilson Elea Yule News Interns Jordan Gabolinscy Alexa Zelensky News Photographer Jess Hill

Gee Whizz Big Year for the Blues

15–45 OPINION

Section Editors Sharon Lam (Visual Arts) Jayne Mulligan (Books) Bridget Pyć (Science) Kate Robertson (Music) Fairooz Samy (Film) Jess Scott (Fashion) Cameron Gray (Games) Other Contributors Auntie Agatha, Baz Macdonald, Bridget Pyc, Brittany Mackie-Ellice, Bronte Ammundsen, Rick Zwaan, Rob Barratt, Cam Price, Dan Fraser, Renée Gerlich, Tom and Luke, Philosophy Girl, Charlotte Doyle, Hamish Popplestone

Read Salient online at salient.org.nz Contact Level 2, Student Union Building Victoria University PO Box 600, Wellington 04 463 6766 Advertising Jason Sutton sales@vuwsa.org.nz 04 463 6982 Social Media Philip McSweeney philip@salient.org.nz fb.com/salientmagazine @salientmagazine Printed By Inkwise, Ashburton

About Us Salient is published by, but is editorially independent from, the Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association (VUWSA). Salient is a member of the Aotearoa Student Press Association (ASPA) and the New Zealand Press Council.

Salient is funded in part

by Victoria University of Wellington students through the Student Services Levy. The views expressed in Salient do not necessarily reflect those of the Editor, VUWSA, or the University.

Complaints People with a complaint against the magazine should first complain in writing to the Editor and then, if not satisfied with the response, complain to the Press Council.

See presscouncil.org.nz/ complain.php for more information.

Editorial

Welcome to 2015’s Opinion Issue! But first, an announcement.

It’s with an inordinate level of excitement that I can now reveal Salient’s editorial team for next year. I’m thrilled to announce that Emma Hurley and Jayne Mulligan will be co-editors of Salient in 2016.

This year as a news reporter, Emma has broken many of our biggest and best stories, including the University contracting prison labour for its laundry services, and the Chancellor responding to the lack of women on University Council by saying he’s “not hung up on gender”.

Emma’s thoroughness, patience and sharp critical eye currently make her the best news writer in New Zealand student media.

Jayne has been books editor this year, a role she has performed with panache. She has also penned a number of outstanding feature articles, including profiles on book collector Susan Price and reproductive rights advocate Dame Margaret Sparrow. Jayne has a rare eye for detail, and a knack for telling moving stories and capturing personalities in print.

They’ve put together a comprehensive and exciting vision for Salient next year. I would say more, but I’ll leave it to them—watch this space next week.

Anyway, back to what I was talking about before Emma and Jayne so rudely interrupted me. This week is the Opinion Issue—the annual issue in which we give the magazine over (almost) entirely to our writers’ views. There’s only one brief: write about whatever the fuck you want.

It’s often said that opinions are like arseholes; in which case, welcome to the issue of twenty-seven arseholes. Much like arseholes, opinions are wonderful things that are essential to our health. And as I’m sure you’ll agree, having a good dump every now and then is an unmatched relief. Pity those without opinions; I’m not sure what the cognitive equivalent of a colostomy bag would be, but I can’t imagine it’s pretty.

I’m not going to lie; putting this issue together has been a gigantic brainache. But it’s all been worth it (though Ella and Lily might disagree). Thank you to everyone I nagged, cajoled, bullied and bribed into writing this week—the diversity, salience (heyyy), and sheer randomness of the views herein were a pleasure to edit, as they hopefully will be to read. Enjoy this bizarre fucking smorgasbord!

04

Person of the week

Viola Davis

salient

BY THE NUMBERS

32 South Africa’s least favourite number after losing to Japan by two points in the first round of the Rugby World Cup.

120,000 Refugees to be relocated amongst the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania, as decided by the EU despite resentment from several of the countries.

US$100 million Pledged by the Los Angeles mayor and City Council to be spent in the next year on housing and other services to help their thousands of homeless.

12+ Last week actress Viola Davis won an Emmy award for lead actress in a drama, the first Black woman to do so in the Emmys’ 67-year history. In an industry in which only 13.7 per cent of television staff writers are minorities, Black women make up only 2 per cent of the characters on American television, and Kerry Washington’s lead role in Scandal made her the first Black female protagonist in a network drama in almost 40 years, Davis’ achievement points to a glaring lack of diversity in American television. Davis accepted her award quoting African American abolitionist Harriet Tubman and concluded, in her own words, “the only thing that separates women of colour from anyone else is opportunity”. www.salient.org.nz

The number of deaths caused by selfies this year.

8 The number of deaths caused by shark attacks this year.

issue 23

05

N EWS. K E E N E Y E F OR N E W S? S END A NY TIPS, LEA D S O R G OSSIP TO N E W S@SA LIENT.O RG .NZ

Gee Whizz!

WELCOME TO PRESIDENT TOWN JONO Last Thursday the hardier members of the Salient staff gathered in the Hunter Lounge with bated breath for this year’s VUWSA election results.

Given that we were essentially sitting shiva for Rick’s Presidential career for half an hour before the results were in, we had several opportunities to make David Attenboroughesque observations of the nominees and their hoards that surrounded us. Throngs of liberal-looking second years and pack of lawyer/commerce/suited students chatted in anticipation for what was to be a tough election for some and a “woop”-filled victory for others.

Jonathan Gee will be next year’s VUWSA President after a resounding victory over rival Liam Gallagher.

Gee, who ran on a platform of campaigning for student issues in next year’s local body elections and strengthening VUWSA’s connections with its Pipitea and Te Aro campuses, won by 1960 votes to 474.

Gee told Salient he would “maybe” get crunk but would “drink responsibly”.

The news that VUWSA would be staying in NZUSA received noticeable cheers from the crowd. Just like the Scots, association members have voted “yes” to staying with their overarching national body with 1251 votes in favour to 476.

The Student Media Committee, responsible for overseeing Salient’s budget among other things, will now have two new members: Lucas Davies and Jacinta Gulasekharam, both of whom gained 1178 and 1375 votes, respectively.

The position of Wellbeing and Sustainability officer was the most hotly-contested seat in this election with five candidates all vying to fill incumbent Rory Lenihan-Ikin’s shoes.

The job went to Anya Maule who took out 943 votes out of the 2349 votes placed overall.

Annaliese Olivia Wilson was named Education Officer and took out 1125 votes overall. Wilson told Salient she was looking forward to working with her fellow exec members and expressed her surprise at being elected by such a large margin. In true futurepolitician fashion, Wilson was also quick to thank her flatmates and friends who had helped her to campaign in the final weeks.

The closest results this election came in the race for Clubs and Activities Officer, which was won by Tori Sellwood by a close 379 votes. More than that, the margin between running mates Zamir Adib Mohd Arizan and incumbent Clubs and Activities Officer Rory McNamara was only 54 votes (each got 703 and 649 votes respectively).

The contest for Welfare Vice-President was taken out by Rory Lenihan-Ikin, this year’s

current Wellbeing and Sustainability Officer, comfortably ahead of Chennoah Walford, this year’s Equity Officer.

Some results were unsurprising, with the Equity Officer, Treasurer, Campaigns Officer and Engagement Officer all running unopposed.

Despite her lack of opposition, newly elected Equity Officer Chrissy Brown told Salient she was “very happy” with the results and took delight in the limited votes of no confidence she received (a mere 227 when compared to her 2179 votes in favour).

Engagement Officer Nathaniel Manning said he was “looking forward to next year” and was excited about leading a “great engagement team”. Manning was also excited to have “beat out no confidence” (only receiving 300 no confidence votes) and concluded that there was “great things to come from VUWSA next year”.

Alice Lyall comfortably took Campaigns Officer with only 395 votes no confidence to a whopping 2008 in favour.

Treasurer George Grainger appeared enthusiastic about his upcoming role.

However, he admitted he was surprised by the results considering some nominees “may not have campaigned as hard as they could have” and claimed “three positions went the wrong way” this election.

Full results on page 08 editor@salient.org.nz

06

salient

News

aw yeah, VUWSA to continue posting $45,000 deficit

Sam McChesney VUWSA has voted to rejoin the New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations (NZUSA) by a resounding margin.

In the referendum, held alongside the VUWSA Executive elections, 1251 students (72 per cent) voted to retain VUWSA’s membership of NZUSA, while 476 students (28 per cent) voted to withdraw.

VUWSA gave 12-month notice of its withdrawal from NZUSA on 23 September 2014, citing a lack of value for its $45,000 membership levy. As a result, VUWSA’s membership of NZUSA had ceased last Wednesday, the day before the referendum result was announced.

The result means that VUWSA will rejoin NZUSA with immediate effect.

The margin was greater than VUWSA’s last referendum on its NZUSA membership. In the 2013 referendum, 63 per cent voted to stay in NZUSA only if the national body implemented nebulous “reforms”, which the 2014 Executive claimed hadn’t occurred.

Despite the comfortable margin, questions will remain around NZUSA’s legitimacy given the low turnout. Fewer than 10 per

www.salient.org.nz

cent of VUWSA’s members voted to stay.

VUWSA Clubs and Activities Officer Rory McNamara, the most strident critic of NZUSA on this year’s Executive, described the referendum result as “shit”, although he also conceded he had “just had three shots” and was “fucking wasted”.

McNamara had been unable to express his views publicly in the lead-up to the referendum, as the current Executive were required to follow a strict code of omerta to avoid tainting the results.

The campaign to leave NZUSA was largely devoid of leaders, while the “stay in NZUSA” campaign had strong backing from Labour Party figures and a sizeable (by student politics standards) war chest.

NZUSA President Rory McCourt has been actively campaigning at Victoria for the “stay in NZUSA” vote, along with a group of mostly Young Labour volunteers.

Complaints The referendum result could be called into question after numerous complaints were laid with the VUWSA Returning Officer.

The complaints relate to Facebook posts

by NZUSA, McCourt, and MPs Grant Robertson and Jan Logie, urging Victoria students to vote to stay.

Because the posts were published last Tuesday and Wednesday, after voting had already opened, they ran afoul of VUWSA’s election rules, which ban any actions during the voting period that could potentially influence students’ votes.

The complaints also relate to NZUSA’s campaign spending in the run-up to the referendum. Candidates for VUWSA Executive are limited to a maximum spend of $250; if this spending limit also applies to referenda, NZUSA is likely to have overspent significantly.

VUWSA will need to appoint an independent arbitrator to judge the complaints. If the arbitrator upholds a complaint, they could potentially declare the referendum result invalid.

Given the margin of victory, however, it would seem unlikely that NZUSA’s transgressions would have had a material impact on the outcome of the vote.

News

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Big year for the blues: Vic students prove you can be smart and sporty Last week 56 Victoria Students were awarded for excellence in sports at the University’s Blues Awards.

Awarded to those who have “brought credit to the institution through their sporting achievements or contribution to sport”.

Described as one of the most prestigious and long-standing accolades the University can grant (apart from your actual degree, of course), the awards have existed at Victoria since 1903.

Vice-Chancellor Grant Guilford claimed the awards give the University “the opportunity to acknowledge those students who have achieved outstanding sporting success through tremendous hard-work and dedication, while also successfully balancing the academic responsibilities of assignments, tutorials, labs and lectures”.

VUWSA President Rick Zwaan told Salient that “it was a fantastic event and a pleasure to acknowledge the immense amount of sporting talent we have at Victoria” with the 56 awards making it “one of the largest Blues awards we’ve had in a while”.

Around 30 awards were given out in 2014 and 2013 respectively.

Victoria Sportsperson of the Year James Blackwell Sports Administrator of the Year Sean Durkin Pasifika Sportsperson of the Year Teariki Ben-Nicholas Maori Sportsperson of the Year Ryan Hunt and Te Wehi o Mahura Wright Blues Awards for Sport Swimming Liam Albery Netball Portia Barcello Cameron van Baarle Futsal Tai Barham Mohsen Maddah Rugby Liam Doherty Elizabeth Goulden Joanah Ngan-Woo Zackery Power Sauimoana Solia Cricket Harry Chamberlain Navin Patel Fencing Feliz Boyce Nicola Martin Nathaneal Walker-Hale Canoe Slalom Fergus Bramley Thomas Guest Sprint Kayaking Tobias Booke Max Brown

Football Ruairi Cahill-Fleury Rifle Shooting Jess Fair Underwater Hockey Jessica Freeland Richard Kay Tristan O’Neale Helen Payn Rowing Jack Gilpin Kate Jordan Johannah Kearney Lauren McAndrew Brook Walker Luke Watts Henry Whitford-Lee Athletics Jackson Henry Liam Malone Keeley O’Hagan Flying Disc James Holth Luke Humphries Jonathan Jackson Aaron Miller Taison Pelman Matt Richardson Li Hao Yeoh Volleyball Sophia Johnston Basketball Joanna Judge Hockey Olivia Logan Harry Miskimmin Debating Daniel Wilson Sports Administration Oscar Battell-Wallace Frances Gray Kimberley Savill Eva Weatherall

editor@salient.org.nz

08

salient

News

PROVISIONAL RESULTS OF THE VUWSA GENERAL ELECTION - Note Election Results will be finalised at the end of the disputes period

PRESIDENT

Jonathan Gee (1960)

WELFARE VICE PRESIDENT Chennonah Walford (975) Rory Lenihan-Ikin (1519)

Liam Gallagher (474)

Total : 2494 Total : 2434

ENGAGEMENT VICE PRESIDENT

ACADEMIC VICE PRESIDENT No Confidence (173)

No Confidence (300)

Jacinta Gulasekharam (2262)

Nathaniel Manning (2129)

Total : 2435

Total : 2435

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News

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CAMPAIGNS OFFICER

TREASURERSECRETARY No Confidence (339) Georger Grainger (2043) Total : 2382

No Confidence (395) Alice Lyall (2008) Total: 2403

WELLBEING AND SUSTAINABILITY OFFICER

CLUBS AND ACTIVITIES OFFICER Tori Sellwood (1082)

Mabel Ye (585)

Rory McNamara (649)

Annaliese Olivia Wilson (359)

Zamir Adib Mohd Arizan (703)

Emily van Voornveld (134)

Total : 2434

Anya Maule (943) Jason Chappell (373) Total: 2394

STUDENT MEDIA COMMITTEE REPRESENTATIVES

EDUCATION OFFICER Emily van Voornveld (399)

Emily van Voornveld (378)

Samuel Stead (850)

Jacinta Gulasekharam (1375)

Annaliese Olivia Wilson (1125)

Lucas Davies (1178)

Total : 2374

Total: 2931

EQUITY OFFICER No Confidence (227) Chrissy Brown (2179) Total : 2374

SHOULD VUWSA RETAIN MEMBERSHIP OF NZUSA OR WITHDRAW MEMBERSHIP OF NZUSA? Withdraw Membership (476) Retain Membership (1251) Total : 1727

editor@salient.org.nz

10

salient

News

“Only good pig’s a dead pig,” Otago researchers SAY Alexa Zelensky

Otago University has come under fire for experiments conducted in 2009, studying the blood splatter pattern of pigs when shot in the head.

The study was published in July of this year, with Peta U.S.A. then criticising the use of pigs for this research project and bringing awareness globally to what’s happened in Dunedin.

In a statement, Otago University said the pigs “were all very closely monitored for signs of pain and none was observed ... [back-spatter] is often important evidence in homicide cases and its accurate interpretation can be key to exonerating the innocent or convicting the guilty.”

Dunedin animal rights activists held a vigil last Tuesday afternoon, burning memorial candles for animals killed in experiments for science.

Carl Scott, spokesperson for the Dunedin Animal Rights Collective, said “many alternatives exist which allow scientists to collect the data they need, yet don’t require any animals to be killed”, including methods used by science-based shows like Mythbusters to replicate the human body without actually hurting anyone—pig or human.

“Also, because pigs’ skulls are so different than human skulls, it is difficult to imagine how the data they collected could even be useful,” Scott said.

In 2014 alone, 21,705 animals were used by Otago University, with 18,166 of them dying in the process.

Many activists view this as a waste of life and this issue as much more than just an “animal welfare problem”.

Faculty Games Beckie Wilson Keen to watch your fellow classmates fumble with a bit of ball? Well here’s your chance.

On 2 October, VUWSA will host the Faculty Games. At the one-day sporting tournament students from a variety of faculties will compete in sports such as Indoor Soccer, Touch Rugby, Basketball and Ultimate Frisbee.

Clubs and Activities Officer and co-organiser Rory McNamara says that the games is an way for people from different faculties to “opportunity to promote sporting events on come together a mingle,” said Jayne, a keen campus which I believe we have a lack of at Ultimate Frisbee player. the moment”.

On the day there will be a BBQ and Red The aim of the day is “for students to have Bull, The Edge and Mai FM will be there, a day of fun outdoors and to help build plus an epic trophy. a sense of community at Vic. Also to encourage physical exercise,” says VUWSA You can register for the games on VUWSA’s website, while the actual games will be held Engagement Vice-President Toby Cooper. on the Boyd-Wilson field, 1pm–4.30pm on Students think it's a good idea, “it’s a good 2 October. www.salient.org.nz

This news comes out only shortly after it was announced that Otago University ranks in at 2nd in New Zealand for biological sciences, with only its partner-in-crime for this act, University of Auckland, displacing it from the lead position.

When it comes to Victoria, the University claimed that “Victoria takes the review of animal ethics very seriously. Any animal research that is conducted at Victoria University is reviewed by an ethics committee comprised of members of the community, a student representative, expert animal researchers, animal technicians, a veterinarian, and non-animal researchers.”

Current research at Victoria that involves animals ranges from the catching, tagging and tracking of small animals such as hedgehogs and fish, to inducing tumours in mice for the purposes of cancer research.

News

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Students get their Break Last week the Academic Board voted down the University’s proposal to extend trimester three and cut trimester two’s midterm break.

Thank God.

VUWSA submitted in opposition to the proposal in the hope of preserving “the student experience and the wellbeing of all those who attend VUW”.

In the lead up to the decision, VUWSA and students had expressed strong opposition to the changes on the basis that the extension would reduce students’ holidays and take away the time needed for assignments, work and general R&R.

“If we are to provide a student experience that is second to none, it is crucial that students are not only listened to in this regard, but are also involved in the implementation process of any changes to the academic year,” the association said.

In fact, 65 per cent of students surveyed by VUWSA either “disagreed” or “strongly disagreed” with the proposal.

The Academic Board also received 38 submissions from individual academic staff, schools, programmes, committees, faculties and central service units, and while not all were against extending trimester three, many rejected shortening the second trimester break as a solution.

Interim Provost Professor Barrie Macdonald proposed the changes on the basis that an extended trimester three would benefit international students and those studying towards 180-point Master’s, and assist undergraduates in completing their degree “more quickly”.

one really knew what the reason for doing it in the first place was”.

While Zwaan noted the proposal was described by a fellow Board member as a “slow trainwreck”, VUWSA Academic Vice President Jonathan Gee praised the Academic Board for recognising “that students matter and our wellbeing matters”.

VUWSA President Rick Zwaan, who voted on the decision during Tuesday’s meeting, pointed out that a number of academics spoke against the proposal claiming that “no

Follow the Money Jordan Gabolinscy Future students may soon be literally following the money when it comes to deciding on a career in New Zealand after university.

Minister of Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Steven Joyce has announced that as of 2017, all universities and wananga throughout the country will be required to publish information regarding “the employment status and earnings” of all graduates, listed by specific degrees and diplomas.

The National Party initiative is aimed at helping students decide what degrees they should pursue and which degrees will grant them the greatest monetary reward.

Joyce claimed that “it is more important than ever for students to consider carefully their tertiary study options”.

Currently Victoria carries out an annual Graduate Destination Survey which, along

with other research, can give students an overview of what students could expect in terms of jobs and pay when they graduated.

According to the University’s Director of Student Academic Services Pam Thorburn, “Universities have been aware for some time of the Government’s interest in making more information available to students to enable them to make more informed decisions.”

Increased information sharing and the introduction of the Government’s “Rate My Qualification” service next year will, according to Joyce, “let employers provide direct feedback to tertiary providers, and students about the qualifications employers value.”

The move is likely to see an increased industrybased focus in universities. Universities New Zealand Executive Director Chris Whelan expressed concerns that “it will be as easy for this exercise to mislead and confuse as it will be to guide and inform”.

Thorburn told Salient that the University had “not yet received any detailed information” from the Government about the new requirements. “As a result, we do not know how much, if any, additional work will be required by Victoria staff,” Thorburn said.

Students at Vic generally believed that the idea was fine, with one claiming the initiative was a “good idea in the sense that it will let students honestly know what they are in for”.

When asked about the potential lack of earnings surrounding certain degrees students claimed that they would study what they want regardless of its projected outcomes, or as another student put it, “most students wouldn’t be swayed by the stats.”

The information that will make up the data in 2017 will be gathered by Statistics New Zealand and the Inland Revenue Department.

editor@salient.org.nz

News

THAT M A ES I R

ER TT

STO

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Student loan/Studylink giving you a hard time? Why not try the wank bank?

Leading porn site, Pornhub, is offering a $25,000 university scholarship as a part of their new programme: Pornhub Cares.

The application process requires the aspirants to submit a video answering the question: “How do you strive to make others happy?” Pornhub’s vice president, Corey Price, responded to public outcry by assuring critics that “you don’t have to film porn to be a winner”. Candidates must be college or graduate school students, at least 18 years old, and with a minimum 3.2 GPA.

Absurd-sounding documentary swears it’s not pulling your leg The film Finders Keepers is soon to be released, documenting two men’s custody battle over the remains of a gnarled human leg.

Back in 2007 Shannon Whisnant, from Maiden, N.C. called 911 after he discovered the leg on the grill of his auction-bought smoker barbeque. After making local news, the leg was found to belong to amputee, John Wood, who claimed he had misplaced it. Whisnant was unwilling to give up the leg, declaring: “he is its birth owner… but I still feel I own it”.

Tight-knit gang create a right

“Iran out of things to do” An odd incident recently occurred at the Great Manchester Police Station—so odd that they tweeted about it: “Male arrested earlier at our front desk when he demanded to be returned home to Iran as he has had enough of Manchester after 10 years”. The angry young man was so disenchanted with his life in the UK that he admitted to having been an illegal immigrant for 10 years, in the hopes of a free flight home.

stitch-up

I solemnly swear that I am up to no good

Three Scottish towns were bombed… with yarn… by a knitting club known as the “Souter Stormers”. Spearheaded by 104-yearold grandmother of six, Grace Brett, the Stormer launched a crusade to cover fences, benches, and lamp poles all across the towns of Selkirk, Ettrickbridge, and Yarrow in elaborate knitted art. Full of warm fuzzies at her accomplishment and the following media interest, Grace said in an interview, “It’s very nice of you to take any notice of it”.

Move over James Potter, because the invisibility cloak may soon become a real life thing. Scientists are currently experimenting with microscopic gold blocks which conform to the shape of objects and render it undetectable to visible light. While it is believed that the technology may be applicable to military operations among other things, the study’s lead author Xingjie Ni also suggested the cloak could make pimples and wrinkles invisible or could “be made to hide one’s own belly”.

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editor@salient.org.nz

Letters and Notices

14

Letter of the Week:

salient

Careers and Employment 2015-16 Internships and 2016 Graduate Jobs See Recruitment Schedule for details: http://bit.ly/1zGNacY Currently recruiting: Aviat Networks, OMD, Communication Agencies Association NZ (CAANZ), Mars New Zealand, Fast Enterprises, Accenture, AgResearch, SAS Institute, Loyalty NZ… and many more.

Connect with employers via Recruitment events: http://bit. ly/1DOS0WK NZX Graduate Open Day – 1 Oct Check in with a Careers Consultant during our daily drop-in sessions! http://bit.ly/1A1ORgv Get help with your CV, Cover Letter, Interview skills etc For more info, login to www.victoria. ac.nz/careerhub with your Student Computing login!

Ngā Taura Umanga Constitution Kia ora. Ngā Taura Umanga, the Māori Commerce students’ association, is in the process of amending our Constitution. If you want to review the Constitution and have your say in the process please come to us! Our office is located at Pipitea Campus in the Railway Building, level 2, room 207.

Amazing opportunity for students learning languages...

Letter of the Week normally receives two coffee vouchers and a $10 book voucher from Vic books.

This one doesn’t.

www.salient.org.nz

At Musica Linguae we run ‘language immersion environments’ - cooking classes, yoga classes and a few other things, in foreign languages. We have a Cooking in French course and Yoga in Spanish course, both running for 4 weeks from mid October. In mid November we have Yoga in French andCooking in Italian courses, running for 4 weeks respectively also.

For more information or to book a class, please visit our websitewww. musicalinguae.com. Student discount available for all classes.

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Contents: The Opinion Issue 16 Better off Yeezy 17 Historical Shows Are My Anti-depressants 18 Empathy Politics 19 Why You Should Stop Using the Cry-Laugh Emoji 20 This Is a Picture 21 This Is a Title 22 I Hate Pete Evans 23 Dan Bilzerian Is Not the Man 26 The Moan Zone 27 The Neighbours Can Go Fuck Themselves 28 Red-iculous 29 Mr Human 30 One Dollar’s Worth of Cinematic Utility is Dying 31 Pitchfuck 32 The Fight Against Bigotry in Nerd Culture 33 The Silliest Debate of All 34 A White Feminist’s Opinion on White Feminism 35 Modern Day Masculinity 36 404_Error 37 Boys Are Scared of Dark Lipstick 38 Music Is No Place for Misogyny 39 Opinion: This Is Probably Not Worth Reading 40 We’re All Going to Die 41 Spending Time 42 The World’s Worst Humanitarian Crisis Is Still the

West’s War on Brown Children 43 The Human Condition Is Terminal 44 Left Shark Is My Spirit Animal 45 I Fucking Love Architecture School

editor@salient.org.nz

Fairooz Samy Film Editor

16

salient

Better Off Yeezy Earlier this year, I had the idea of reappropriating Easter as “Yeezter” (copyright pending). It makes total sense. During Easter, we celebrate the miracle of an all-around good dude achieving a physical impossibility (allegedly) by overeating chocolate and participating in a socially-mandated lie about a giant bunny. All so that we can… hide some eggs? (I’m not a parent). It’s a consumerist tiding-over until the hellscape that is Christmas shopping. Since Jesus probably wouldn’t approve of the mass-marketing done in his name, I reckoned Kanye would be the perfect figurehead.

Kanye might be an arrogant iconoclast-inwaiting, but he’s self-aware. What’s more, he grapples with his conceit, perpetually stuck in a love-hate relationship with his own image. Kanye wants to believe his hype, but writes catalogues of music that detail his frustration at his inability to be truly great, and in this concession, we find his real genius.

Yeezy is brash. Yeezy is cocky. Yeezy watches himself in the mirror while he eats breakfast, pondering the origins of his crippling selfdoubt and wondering if his ego is the media equivalent of a Frankenstein’s monster (allegedly). No one better symbolises simultaneous pleasure and self-loathing. In between the megalomania that we love to hate is the reflexive self-checking, the social anxiety, the fear of failure, and in these things, we see ourselves.

If that’s true, why do we hate him with a level of ire usually reserved for serial killers?

His wife, Kim (you know the one), recently topped a poll as the most hated celebrity of the year. Yeezy doesn’t need a poll to tell him the public is not on his side, and neither do we.

We implicitly know to hate him. Is it his star status? As far as scumbag celebrities go, Yeezy is a non-runner. He’s never tied his superstar fiancé to a chair and abused her for hours www.salient.org.nz

(look it up), or carried out the systemic abuse of numerous impoverished underage girls (look it up), or performed sex-acts on dozens of unconscious women (you should already know this one). Unlike the aforementioned scumbags, Kanye has never pretended to be a great humanitarian or a beloved pillar of the community. Kanye might be coolerthan-thou, but he’s certainly never pretended to be holier-than-thou. Yet collectively, we put more energy into despising him than we do at engaging in a meaningful dialogue about infidelity-shaming and the sanctity of privacy (oh hello, Ashley Madison debacle).

To illustrate my point, here’s a list of people/ things the average person demonstratively hates less than Kanye but probably shouldn’t: –Global Warming –Donald Trump –Revenge porn sites and whoever runs them –Puppy mills –The globalisation of overpriced coffee –The celebrity-phone-sex-crime hackers –Most of the programming on MTV/TLC –Bad high school Sex-Ed programmes For all his bravado, Kanye admits his flaws.

When he stormed Taylor Swift’s VMA stage, he spent the following year in an isolation punctuated only by apology appearances on morning talk shows. When he returned, he gifted us with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, a magnum opus about failure, corruption, and magnificent redemption.

More importantly, Kanye is brave. In the aftermath of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, the world has accepted the mismanagement of the Bush administration and the many, many lives it cost. Back in ’05—a mere four years after 9/11—it was career suicide to run afoul of Patriotic America (just ask the Dixie Chicks). That didn’t deter Yeezy. In a precursor to the frustration that sparked the Black Lives Matter movement (see

“the internet” for more details), a clearlyanguished Kanye looked down the barrel of a live-streaming camera and declared, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people”. Kanye had just released his second album. To middle America, he was a barely-somebody, just another rapper to fill out the audience at BET award shows. Risking his livelihood to deliver a heartfelt critique of the portrayal of African American Katrina victims was a risky move, but his final words to the nation before the network cut him off—“they’ve given [the cops] permission to go down and shoot us!”—would prove to be prophetic.

He was one of the first mainstream rappers to come out in favour of LGBT rights, and post-Yeezy juggernaut he used his fame to urge acceptance of transpeople. That’s the third social frontier he’s repped, in the knowledge that at best, he’s earned the shrug of the everyman, and at worst, he’s once more put himself in the crosshairs of trolls.

Our treatment of Kanye illustrates larger issues about culturally sanctioned hatred.

We rag on Yeezy because it’s easy, and while he certainly ain’t paying us no mind (if Kim’s Instagram feed is to be believed), we’re the ones who ultimately end up losing.

We should challenge the structures of belief that we frequently draw on to judge who deserves what level of bile, and while we’re at it, borrow a little of that Kanye-confidence to temper the anxiety we all collectively share. In the meantime, start saving those pennies—LudaChristmas isn’t far away.

Fairooz Samy is a post-grad in SEFTMS. She is the friend who bores you with her vast pop culture knowledge and tendency to intellectualise Nicki Minaj videos.

Nicola Braid News Editor

issue 23

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Historical Food Shows Are My AntiDepressants There are few things in this world that I have truly bonded with people over. You know the bond—the one you find with a fellow 15-year-old online because they’ve also included Fall Out Boy lyrics in their Bebo profile, or the sweet bond of being drunk and having “the same song” as another equally drunk stranger. The bond. Historical food shows are my guaranteed bond maker—you like em’ and we’re going to be best friends, immediately. Sure, readers might think this opinion piece was hastily typed out while I put on my chainmail for LARP, or put some inspiration quotes on my children’s Facebook walls, but it wasn’t, I swear. I am a sane twenty-something, sans children or fictional worlds, who just really likes historicallybased cooking.

The main culprit, of course, is the everwonderful Supersizers Go. Two seasons of British wonderment where comedian Sue Perkins and food writer Giles Coren circumvent time, and eat their way week by week through the Restoration, the Elizabethan period, wartime, the seventies, etc. Or, as the show foreshadows every episode, “over the coming weeks, we’ll be gobbling our way through six periods in British history. Each week we’ll be medically tested, dressed the part, and then trough our way through the breakfasts and banquets of Britain’s culinary past”.

Heston Blumenthal is perhaps the most well-known host of historically-based food shows, with his series Heston’s Feasts basing a whole meal around specific periods, be it Tudor, Victorian or the more abstract, “Heston’s Titanic Feast”. Don’t like the idea of a British-based show? Well, why not look to Historieätarna (the “History Eaters”), a Swedish version of the same show. While I have yet to figure out how to watch it with English subtitles, the hosts Erik and Lotta look to be having a really good time. Penguin

Books have also commissioned a fantastic series called Great Foods—basically literature about food from Isabella Beeton’s Victorian household classic The Campaign for Domestic Happiness, or Agnes Jekyll’s A Little Dinner Before the Play, a collection of Tuscan recipes from the 1920s.

While some of you might be chalking these shows (and books) up to niche interests that might be more appealing to a single aunt (along with quilting), I assure you— historical food shows and/or books span the genres. Into romance? Well, did you know Bird’s powdered custard (what we know as instant custard powder) was invented by Alfred Bird in 1837 because his wife was allergic to eggs? Adorable. More interested in horror and gore? The Ancient Romans used a fermented fish sauce called garum, literally made from rotting fish blood and intestines (before they threw it all up again in Vomitoriums of course).

There is an immense pleasure to be derived from watching a show like this, and knowing that you could be eating the very worst food possible and it still wouldn’t be as bad for you as what they’re putting in their mouths. The sadist in me has a real fondness for watching episodes in which the hosts are told they’ll have constipation, halitosis and a shit load of protein all in the name of historical accuracy.

Oh God and the learning, THE LEARNING! These shows teach you everything from new cooking methods—e.g., fricassee n. a dish of stewed or fried pieces of meat served in a thick white sauce—to resources you could eat should you be caught in a crisis—e.g. cow’s tongue wrapped in the amniotic sac of a calf, cox combs (the frilly hat piece that roosters have), and pastries that can be used (and reused) to preserve a bevy of unworldly animal parts.

On a wider level, it’s fascinating to see how changes in time and history have affected the everyday consumption we are used to.

In the Victorian period, it was unsavoury (lol) to show enjoyment for your food. In the seventies, Len Deighton’s Action Cook Book recommended each party-goer consume half a bottle of spirits every two hours, with doses increasing to three-quarters of a bottle as “drinking will increase if people haven’t gone home by then”. Stop blaming RTDs for binge drinking, Stuff, it started in the seventies.

Food and drink are timeless, and everything you eat has some sort of connection to the past. The coffee you had at Vic Books today—that originated in the 15th century and was the foundation of coffee houses that hosted political gatherings from Mecca to Paris. Did you have milk? If you were a school kid in 1940s New Zealand, you would have been given it daily. What about sugar?

In the 17th century, sugar had the same value as pearls and was farmed off the back of slave labour in the Caribbean.

If this starts to sound like an advertorial for a 2007 BBC Two programme, that’s exactly what it is. And if you’re wondering whether I’ve thought about inviting friends over and cooking them period-based meals, of course I have. But I know you’re going to YouTube it later and see how King Louis ate crayfish in champagne, or at the very least you’ll Google recipes like “Nymphomaniac’s Prayer”.

Nicola is Salient’s news editor. When she’s not fighting off colds, as she was during the writing of this piece, her professors describe her as an “adequate” writer. editor@salient.org.nz

Charlotte Doyle Feature Writer

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Empathy Politics “If I were a boy, I think I could understand”—Beyoncé Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy fail to hit it off for a very long time. Rudeness, arrogance and pride are not exactly desirable qualities in a soulmate. Yet, presuming you have at least had the pleasure of watching Colin Firth romantically dive (somewhat inexplicably) into a lake, we all know how the story ends.

Mr Darcy’s personal story is revealed to Elizabeth upon a visit to his mansion and she finally understands the reasons behind his initial behaviour. Everything then makes much more sense and they live happily ever after. Pride and Prejudice has always been an informative story with a fun romantic twist but as an older, guidance-seeking human being, I have now realised that Jane Austen teaches timeless romantic lessons.

While dishing out some valuable relationship advice, a wise family member once told me that there’s a difference between someone’s personality and their behaviour. Social psychologists (coincidentally the occupation of this family member) call this distinction the “fundamental attribution error”. This describes the tendency for people to give undue weight to someone’s personality to explain their behaviour rather than that person’s situation, and is often committed in everyday contexts where we tend to attribute someone’s behavioural failure to their character, while failing ourselves to take into account whether their rude remark is influenced by context. Maybe the person who pushed in front of you in the toilet line isn’t a b***h, they were just desperate. Maybe they didn’t smile at you in the corridor www.salient.org.nz

because they had just dropped their phone and cracked the screen. Maybe they said something completely thoughtless because they were trying to make up for their own insecurities.

People generally explain their own behaviour as a response to their particular situation.

So why is it so difficult to recognise the situational influences on another person?

Because the context is always more important to the “actor” themselves than to the “observer”. For your date, waiting hopefully at a lonely candle-lit table, your timeliness is the most important indicator of how seriously you take them. They can’t really know all the details of your great difficulty in finding a park with the machine rejecting all your 20 cent coins, unless they’re willing to listen to you explain. In Western societies, where individualism tends to run rampant, this “attribution error” is supposedly committed on a larger scale, than in cultures which have a more holistic outlook and pay greater attention to other people’s concerns. So if someone breaks the rules of the relationship game, it might not be a reflection of that someone’s personality but a completely incompatible life schedule that just kept getting in the way.

So perhaps the solution to all this interpersonal confusion is greater empathy—the endeavour to stand in someone else’s shoes.

In many ways we are innately empathetic animals. Yawning, for example, is thought to be an ancient form of empathy, where you’re

apparently more likely to yawn if the person next to you is a friend, family member or simply someone you find attractive. In the modern age our empathy skills are, however, frequently lamented to be lacking, perhaps why Facebook has recently announced the introduction of an “empathy button”.

Obama has also called for greater discussion about the world’s current “empathy deficit”.

The President’s belief is that greater empathy will spur on a greater incentive to take political and social action. Surely this principle equally applies to our personal relationships.

In spite of all this, there must also be boundaries and it’s simply not possible to be understanding of other people’s actions all the time. If someone has crossed a line and said something thoughtless and stupid then definitely tell them. Maybe some guys, or girls, are just insensitive and no matter how much you try to understand, they will continue to behave in a way that negatively affects you. Empathy can sometimes only go so far, especially if we have different shoe sizes.

But then again, responding to someone’s behaviour with a dose of understanding is worthwhile, because perhaps they’re not an arsehole, just a Mr Darcy.

People are often surprised Charlotte’s coffee choice is not a long black.

issue 23

Tim Grgec News Reporter

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Why You Should Stop Using the CryLaugh Emoji It’s the year 2015 and humankind no longer needs words to communicate. All dialogue is now in the form of BuzzFeed recipe videos, gifs, and small yellow typographic facial expressions. Call me conservative, but to save the world from drowning in a sea of emojifilled irrelevance, you need to stop using one of those wee cartoon faces in particular.

Yes, I’m talking about the cry-laugh emoji. You know the one. It depicts a face crying with laughter, it’s the new LOL for Generation Z, the one you use 500 times a day. This needs to stop.

It takes a certain type of humourous situation in life to make somebody actually cry from laughter. Examples might include: releasing chickens into the end-of-year assembly at the girls’ school down the road; getting caught swimming in your police officer neighbour’s pool with your mate wearing nothing but an elegant women’s one-piece he found on their washing line; your brother getting charged with indecent exposure for pulling a man-gina to an entire grandstand after a hockey game at national tournament.

These are all rare moments of unpredictable hilarity that cause one to physically laugh to the point of tears.

Alas, the yellow cry-laugh gremlin is one of

the most popular emojis on social media, with Instagram ranking it first in its emoji usage.

And I get it, emojis are supposed to convey something that text alone cannot: emotion.

But are you really crying with laughter?

For some, it certainly appears so.

From that couple who still reside in your home town, living together in their own house and whose only jokes are each other: “Emma comes into bedroom and says wanna hear a joke about amnesia and I says yes she says sorry I forgot it [200 cry-laugh emojis in a row] had to share this on Facebook so funny – feeling amused with Emma Girlfriend”.

That status about having a such a “messy” night which really just sounds like a 40-year-old’s birthday card: “They say as you get older you also get wiser but I still get hangover so maybe some things never change! [stupid amount of cry-laugh emojis] #happybirthdaytome #22 xxx”.

Some awful list of embarrassing prom memes posted by Fortafy that your friend comments on: “OMG cant deal, @friend that was so us DYING LOL [cry-laugh emoji] [cry-laugh emoji] [cry-laugh emoji]”.

Chrysippus, a Greek philosopher in the third century BC, reportedly “laughed too

much he died” (Diogenes Laertius 7.185) after lacing his figs with wine to intoxicate a meddling donkey. Random Facebook friend I haven’t talked to since that one time we met at a party several years ago, you, on the other hand, did not die from laughter. As for you, Fortafy, who are you and why do you keep showing up on my news feed?

All of these people infer they are laughing so hard they have started to cry. Perhaps these moments caused a wry smile, maybe even a wee chuckle, from the otherwise straight-faced mundane sadness that is their unfulfilled lives. But uproarious laughter to the point of tears? Unlikely.

Clearly I’m just an overanalytical, selfrighteous arsehole who takes social media comments too literally, but just know that as you and your small yellow circular headed friends are crying with laughter, I’m crying with misery.

Tim Grgec is a soy-latte drinker, e-Reader addict, Mom, and foodie. When not writing for Salient he likes to give sex advice and talk about school-zones. editor@salient.org.nz

Lily Paris West Designer

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Ella Bates-Hermans Designer

This Is a Title This is a subtitle Serionfiri se tam Romne prio norum ad ne condum in tea mant? Utervirtem iaescred fuit iam audem et; esimus.

tervite libulinatat, cero consuloctuus iam nius oridiemum aperviv issenitri iam dum.

Serfituratum volin des iam.

Movereh ebatil cres conscer firtercerit furnitil ute consus sunum det perum is se commo tat, utem atquam ocreis hocurni medeesiliu etimpl. Catidiurarte aperi publicat, ego manum vatrei porenterei condam inclabem aus se num cere virmantra rem cre addum pubi ceracrit; nondell abultia di ia amquod finte ortem factum retis hilin Ita, nunum coena nonsult orbis. Gracia nostribus criuspere reorestem obsentre cupimmora?

Ari factum it; nunterm isquonv oltus, ad con ad porum milia opublis, quem publiquone nondachus il hilnem diuremqui conduconerei factem adduciv endicia? Icaudestum ego C. Hosterorivir unclum ade abentius re avocaedem dius cus, dis. Patum prios ves o huius et inium quam et atur quisquius, iam nos intem maximus, deffres! Senicatus, facita Simulocchum. Fulviri ciosum hos es silici pri se nostere ssentru rsultortil cupimen te, desupio ingul ut intemus, quo med maximorei pritis.

Gitanum publiis andam Romnius noctasd acciam audem ina, mandere, nerimpris ationti urnihilique cons esin videm modi, untempo nostia virimulint. Simus co iam efectus aucibus, us; inatili, me populic aedina, nonimor icionumum oc factur. Valius etrare nor inat, prat, nos hi, simurio cusatia duciena, que consum di su virmaio nsulem se, conules cervirte, virit, co nis pos ac verem, vir los o untemoena, vatatim antiendem octa, culla rei inte comnerum se inatimis. Mullerf ectatam essilictus publis su querum ineque patque ia publium oculicae ta mus, sunte, fue con vis hora ium noteliam seniam. Serris, fuerfit.

Iptem idem oris, quam Rommo te, simusquit pon num in hoccitemus, quidi se mentrei percero bunterei inatiendam terit, nosupplin acivera edienatiam di in hocus erbentemprae fuit niciente, consit L. Ivigit; nunc mus, clegilicta vilin traticit.

Us adet ina, C. Na, inum mo esil ublicul abusper nicercepos acrio moverei ex nestiam antem atuam in seris. Itam ad cria Simus, orum auc vernic omponsinem, cem stodierfex nos bonsusp icaperioccit gra? Onsulvi dientra? Gulocae quonsul us factorit. Quam con re consim scripio raridef actantem uro, nende ex ses pribultum, Ti. Abunt. Milicereste itum hostrit; nonferivent?

Nos An demoero urnum es con publi, satum se tua in iam ne hoca; Cupio, untrit.

Eporum med adescies nos, ex num auceres

Ahabemusqua spiendeffre, C. Gra sed atquerfente con demuripsedo, nonsulia?

Ox nost faciend ientric iamperid crebunum nu quideo veniquam me cestebunum omne mei publicibus pri ta sulleribus deme tato ena, ublicis coendam seribus et? Eludam ex mo utenata ndamquo vernius fac tanum locupiorum ut nes remorumum inat. Oc, qua rehem habenteribus public renterit; hos perim sil videm vilincultore egit.

Lare audacta, cus peciam ente adella nor los spio, que et graedes rei tam desimer ibunit que finempliur. Habuninte que me tem is foratri buntum elus peris in sis, con hum,

C. Quo con tem apereis hos bonsum peridi condam, ta Serestin inum suntrei pro Cerfir iam ius patuus, urbisqui cerisuliis ad rem Romnius, num deperti eredo, num di si cupio te non sendam untus atantem.

Solium. Oximorum vivestis, firmisquid Catili is nihilicaes vidi, urbit, etifeconum factum ublin de oracemo in vis consulicae converit dent. Ahac tum se addum tesilin delibutes An rei pos perum nonfit; Castod fuidea in tem ta, quam egit arem obus etistinprid reis pulus satic tam inater inatatus virmaxi mihinum in strit interedita re ad facteris is, publicerobse neri in Itanteribus Castili incesulis aut in temus commodi, quemniri prox se firissimpest ius. Habulabem tumus patrati cone aus iaed mei iu etris sedees, sperfin ataritem, nesimmo enterficam ta vive, viris inica condina res aceris elicae convere hebunteatuam adhuci perum ute ilicermis res im praciam tia? Ad st optebatus consuam tem di publissentil us, nonum puliam dii pullabus conihilibus mo vis non res iac mor liistors vit L. Batiorem faudam.

Sedet vatis. Do, confin terbis, publicaedit viciam. Overcer mihilintiam temquiteris aucto cribunternum tem inte, nostem te is? Bem locuperori publin rem us opublic iterum firmil unihilicam tes! Avehebus caet; nostrum ocatiam, Catuidicae, nines hora?

Oximulu demoviliis adertus.

Ella and Lily and are seeking employment.

If you are looking for smart design solutions for your brand, call us on 0800 DESIGNSLUT. editor@salient.org.nz

Jayne Mulligan Books Editor

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I Hate Pete Evans I’m not really sure when I started hating him.

It probably grew out of impatience around the paleo diet—it sounds a lot like any other high-protein-and-vegetables low carb diet that has ever been created ever, except the marketing guy struck gold with the whole “caveman” thing. And Pete bloody Evans bloody loves it.

For those blissfully ignorant of who Pete Evans is, I am envious and shall enlighten you. Pete Evans is a glorified celebrity chef who made it big in the pizza business in Australia, and became one of the judges on My Kitchen Rules. He is also a huge advocate and figurehead of the paleo diet.

My loathing may have grown as I sat on a stool one afternoon and peeled labels off 80 of his cookbooks. There had just been an event; tickets had been in the neighbourhood of $100 to hear him talk about the paleo diet, or advertise his paleo cookbooks. As I looked again and again at his plastic expression and saw his artificially bright blue eyes (it has to be artificial—I mean, how do his eyes get so blue?) I became enraged. How has he built such a consumable celebrity for himself off a diet no one wanted to eat for millions of years?

The paleo diet isn’t new to anyone unless you’ve been living in a cave… oh wait… The basis of it is thus: a diet based on the types of foods presumed to have been eaten by early humans, consisting chiefly of meat, fish, vegetables, and fruit, and excluding dairy or cereal products and processed food. This is all because, according to the Paleo-Petes of the world, despite the paleolithic period being 2.6 million years ago, our digestion hasn’t yet www.salient.org.nz

evolved to be able to consume and process grains, legumes, and dairy. Sure.

In recent months his latest cookbook, the grossly title Bubba Yum Yum: The Paleo Way, was pulled by the Australian publishers Pan Macmillan as there were claims that recipes might, well, kill babies. The recipe that was particularly alarming is one that calls for bone broth as a replacement for formula— needless to say the FDA is looking into these claims. Pete, along with the co-authors, released an online version instead, and are still backing it.

As a rule, dieticians generally say that unwarranted removal of food groups from one’s diet, especially vital ones such as grains, legumes, and dairy (my dinner tonight was literally all three groups—beans and rice with cheese), is depriving people of that food group’s nutritional value. There are also the risks of building unhealthy relationships to food.

Pete Evans has shiny blue eyes and luminescent teeth, his skin is dark in the Australian kind of tan way—he is the picture of a healthy life. An Australian reporter, Mike Willesee, took on the challenge of Paleo-Pete, who relished in the reporter’s scepticism. With the help of his wife Nicola Robinson (or Nicky Watson for you minor kiwi celeb fans (note: her Instagram handle is “nurtitionalmermaid”—a perfect description for the mythical nature of their diet, and the pseudo-science that backs it)), they set Willesee up with the goods he needed, and binned all of his Cokes.

Willesee

loses

weight, his

cholesterol

improves a bit, and his addictions have passed. For Willesee, it was his first real attempt at eating healthily: cutting out his three daily Cokes and ice cream, and including vegetables and proteins instead; it isn’t surprising he saw health benefits. But as most scientific studies have concluded, the results only prove short-term improvements, which are often marginal to insignificant at best. It’s a nicely packaged “eat healthy” slogan.

It’s not personal—Pete might be a really nice guy. He might be really into dental bleaching and contact lenses. My issue is that this diet has reached huge levels of fame and has people like Pete endorsing it with such unrelenting devotion. A diet that has been criticised by professionals, one that is akin to a juice cleanse for its removal of vital nutritional fibres and proteins, and one that has been augmented and expanded into a “lifestyle”.

Look at Pete’s Instagram account, or nutrionalmermaids’, and you’ll see that “the paleo way” allows people to have a lot of time and money, and live an agricultural dream, and also own a horse. Who wouldn’t be fooled?

We have parameters to measure religious extremists, to measure excessive racism and sexism. So do we need to develop a way to measure the excessive and unnecessary proselytising of a diet, especially one so unsubstantiated?

Jayne has recently made it as an adult after purchasing a yoghurt maker.

Emma Hurley News Reporter

issue 23

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Dan Bilzerian Is Not the Man My Instagram and Facebook pages are sometimes tainted with a glimpse of the “brand” that is Dan Bilzerian: naked women, guns, and cash.

Bilzerian is a gambler, a publicity seeker, and notorious fuccboi. He gained his fame as a poker player and maintains it through his social media following. He feeds off the controversy of his smug and sexist posts, with captions such as “Just got dick sucked by 3 girls, happy, told pilots to fire up my Jet, cuz it’s 5am and I’m not tired so fuck it going to NYC”.

He is a man whose greatest interest in women is when they have no clothes on. Other posts include captions like “Last night at my party a midget fucked 2 girls in my bathroom” and “I haven’t got any pussy in a few days, here’s a pic from when I used to get laid”. I pretty much despise his existence, and find it sad that 70 of my Facebook friends “like” him.

Of course I could just block him and forget he exists—as his fans have pointed out. Yet I can’t help but be intrigued. He has over 12 million followers on Instagram and 9 million likes on Facebook. Why is this man is worthy of respect and admiration? Why do so many men look up to him and how is he cool?

Aside from the women and the excessive wealth, part of his appeal is his embodiment of a certain kind of masculinity. He embodies the myth that to be a real man, you have to dominate women. To be “manly” is to be aggressive, sexually and physically dominant.

You can’t show weakness or emotions.

Bilzerian is hyper-masculine to the point of absurdity.

It is alleged that he kicked a woman in the face at a nightclub in December last year.

The woman did not seek to press charges and Bilzerian’s response to the reporter was “I know girls never fight over you b/c you’re a loser and everyone hates you, and nobody wants to fuck you, but how about you get you [sic] facts straight instead of publishing nonsense like your garbage website”.

Those who aspire to be Bilzerian desire his power over women’s naked bodies, his ability to watch them kiss each other while he plays with his gun. His posts convey the idea that women are nothing more than an accessory to a “fun” lifestyle, they are just objects to enjoy. (In reality these women are paid good money to be in his presence—because who would do it for free?)

To express the slightest vulnerability, to exhibit care and compassion, or to have a

relationship with women based on equality, would not be “manly”. Dan Bilzerian demands respect from his social media followers, but he doesn’t deserve it. He represents a culture that values money, material greed and power over everything— especially in the hands of a man.

Interspersed with the pictures of women and guns are shots of his private jet, boats, cars and casino sessions. These are the things that symbolise success or someone who has “made it” in our society. A lifestyle like this seems to promise happiness and self-fulfillment.

Supposedly, Bilzerian was a lonely boy who got no attention because his dad was always working. He grew up in an eleven-bedroom mansion, and used daddy’s trust fund to kickstart his gambling career. His dad ended up in prison for financial fraud. Maybe it’s not hard to see why his life rests upon gaining the attention of his male followers.

That a man like Dan Bilzerian is looked up to by thousands says a lot about our society’s attitude towards masculinity and women, and the idea of what constitutes a good life.

Emma is a self-proclaimed 7 out of 10. 8 on a good day. editor@salient.org.nz

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Teresa Collins Cricket Cages ferrerty.tumblr.com www.salient.org.nz

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editor@salient.org.nz

Tom and Luke feat. Philosophy Girl Columnists

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The Moan Zone This week is the opinion issue. But for us at the Moan Zone, every week is the opinion issue. Our flat is indisputably the closest thing to a frat house in Wellington and its inhabitants could easily be close relatives of the Stifflers. This has resulted in a slightly two-dimensional literary contribution this past year in our beloved humour column. So we took it upon ourselves to invite one of our dear friends to be a special guest Moaner.

“The Big Questions” probably imagine all of us sitting around in a joint-hopping circle eating kale chips while some dude named Blade plays guitar in the background. And although I’m not fully confident in saying that isn’t true, hopefully this list gives a bit of insight into the problems we philosophy students have to endure. Not for sympathy purposes (altruism has that covered) but purely because they suck.

So here are some thoughts from our friend who may actually make you laugh, and if that fails, at least she may actually provide you with some sustained insight—something we have never been able to do. We have faith in her ability to entertain you, at least until your lecturer starts talking or your overpriced flat white is ready.

1.

Please welcome her to the stage, Tom and Luke

2.

-

Philosophy. Constantly referred to as the drop-kick subject of any university. Any brave student will tell you that studying it can sometimes feel like a full time job of justifying what it is you even do.

And I get it. I’m sure those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of trying to unravel

3.

Constantly questioning your existence.

Is that book red? Is your red the same as my red? If you take a flexed gym selfie and don’t post it to Facebook, do you even lift? Basically, once you get into the deep web that is philosophy, you’re always going to be that paranoid friend who seems like she’s trippin’ sacks all the time. Because how can you ever be fully sure that you’re not just a brain in a vat somewhere?

Our lecturers are always late. On top of that, their over-sharing is more cringeinducing than having your friends pull up 2010 Facebook statuses. Marriage problems, kid problems, sexual fetish preferences (it happens). Yep, listening to your philosophy lecturer bitch about their life instead of teaching you is like listening to that girlfriend you had in high school who never put out.

There will always, always, be one girl in your class that gets angry enough about

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www.salient.org.nz

4.

everything to resemble Brick in his “I love lamp” Anchorman scene.

You become so good at logic that everyone starts to hate you for it. Both a blessing and a curse, students who take one logic class are much like those first-year kids who think they’re already lawyers. Moral of the story: don’t start an argument with a philosophy student about anything remotely pointless because chances are we already know everything about it.

In summary, while identifying as a metaphysical solipsist might sound deep on your Tinder profile, in reality you’re probably best to steer clear unless you know what you’re getting into. Not only will we never get jobs, but last week we had to do a group therapy sesh after questioning whether our parents truly love us or are just biologically inclined to… so give us a break, yeah?

Yours equivocally, Philosophy girl

Tom and Luke are Salient’s resident dudebros. We don’t know who Philosophy Girl is but she sounds a lot smarter than either of them.

issue 23

Dan Fraser Salient TV Director

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The Neighbours Can Go Fuck Themselves I was asked to contribute my opinion on something to this week’s issue of Salient.

As a guy who has an opinion on fucking everything (much to the annoyance of just about everyone, and often to my own shame and embarrassment), it struck me as odd that I had nothing prepared for such an occasion.

I thought I could possibly discuss the current glut of top-quality animation being served up by shows like Gravity Falls, Regular Show, and Rick and Morty (along with many others), or I could complain about Wellington public transport (boooorriiiing, move back to Melbourne you ape-faced dingleberry), but ultimately none of it was really inspiring. I couldn’t gather enough energy for a positive or negative opinion on anything, it seemed.

I thought all was lost, but then our current house guests reminded me of my neighbours.

Specifically, how my neighbours can go fuck themselves. Because my neighbours can totally go fuck themselves.

My wife and I live in a small unit out in the Wellington Bays. Ours is a little one-room place, a converted garage to be specific, bounded on three sides by houses with fences as high as our roof. This has never been a problem, as the sun streams through into our sun room/clothes drying room/smokers pit from the one remaining

unobstructed boundary. That is, until our fuckwit neighbours decided to build a second story the exact length of our unit, once and for all blocking us completely from warmth and light. Already in a constant battle with the mould that crawls across our ceiling and rots all our windowsills, we are now at the mercy of the vicious spores that have taken advantage of conditions they thrive in to dominate every sunless corner of our now forever dank abode.

This is only one part of what I can pretty much guarantee you already feel is a pretty trivial issue. The other is the builders and the constant noise.

Being so small, our house was already pretty claustrophobic. Shut in on three sides, with the southerly constantly threatening to blow us to Oz, we now have, less than a metre and a half from our front door, builders constantly banging and hammering. They are sometimes on our property for no reason I’ve been able to ascertain, and that’s also where they occasionally decide to throw their trash.

What is worse is that another house on the other side of us has decided to start renovations as well. While the first set of neighbours who can go fuck themselves has employed builders who are compassionate

enough to let us sleep until about 8.30am, this other set of neighbours who can go fuck themselves let their builders start at 7am, and at 8:30am on Saturdays. On Saturdays. On motherfucking Saturdays. Like, I’m aware it’s legal, but that doesn’t mean it’s decent. I mean, pissing on the floor in the bathroom is technically legal, but it’s gonna bum somebody out eventually.

Now, I can feel you rolling your eyes, thinking to yourself that I should really get some perspective, but if it was you, I know you would also wish a fiery death on these incredible arseholes. As I come to the end of my degree and my grip on reality slowly detaches, I’m forced to assume that this is karma for every shitty thing I’ve ever done, and I’m willing to admit the balance sheet is against me, BUT STILL. Fuck those guys.

I hope they get haemorrhoids and their underwear rides up their crack.

Dan turned up in our office earlier this year claiming he’d been told there was a job going. There wasn’t and he won’t leave, please send help. editor@salient.org.nz

Bronte Ammundsen Science Writer

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Red-iculous If you’ve been anywhere near Facebook in the past couple of weeks, you’ll almost definitely be aware of the latest trend in national nitpicking: the Red Peak nipple flag design.

I want to preface this by saying that I am not overly opposed to the Red Peak flag. What I AM opposed to is the flawed arguments being flung all over social media, and the fact that the mainstream media has taken the issue on board without even attempting to turn it into a valid message. Once more, every news portal is being clogged with yet another childish example of the way New Zealand politics can be most astutely described as “toddlers fighting in a sandpit”.

One of the first arguments brought to my attention is the claim “it’s a true representation of New Zealand, unlike the other suggestions”. Yes, triangles are a very unique New Zealand article of geometry.

Well, except for the other triangle based flags, which are essentially the Red Peak turned right 90 degrees: Cabo Rojo, Czech Republic, Jammu Kashmir Liberation, South Africa, etc., etc.

Ignoring my petty stab at triangles, this “true representation” is apparently tied to what the triangles each symbolise. So what do they symbolise? Well, that depends on who you ask. The description by the artist himself is rarely mentioned, not even being accurately explained on the change.org petition. The various descriptions resemble a widespread game of Chinese whispers, a problem that is hand-waved by explaining that the range of explanations is “a representation of how widely it can be applied to different features of New Zealand”. However, it’s equally attributable to the age-old point that “if you look hard enough you’ll find what you want to see”.

Let’s take the Austrian flag, with two red www.salient.org.nz

stripes flanking one white stripe. The official explanation is “when Duke Leopold V of Austria returned from war his white battle dress was soaked with blood. When he took off his belt, however, the cloth underneath was still white.” One could claim that the real explanation from the flag came from when Duke Leopold returned from war and was greeted by a threesome with two menstruating women.

Regardless of the lost meaning in this “true representation”, to claim that the endemic silver fern and the historically relevant Southern Cross aren’t representative of New Zealand is a bit extreme.

My anger was fuelled amid the claims that we “just totally, like, have to change the law now” to appease a social media tirade.

A petition with 50,000 signatures does not equate to a reasonable argument. At less than 1.25% of the population of NZ, it is by no means representative of the wider population. In fact, the initial response to the Red Peak placed it 37th out of 40 (and the least preferred for Māori). This response is also the only one actually based on a sample that is not exclusively drawn from the internet. Internet polls are widely slated as invalid data, in part because of their inability to represent a wide demographic sample.

The bigger problem isn’t that the issue took social media by storm. As I alluded to earlier, the mass social media phenomenon caught the attention of the mainstream media, who continued to report on it as a social media phenomenon. Media picking up the story could have a platform to a real discussion regarding the referendum, but instead the entirety of the coverage consists of politicians responding to Facebook comments and tweets, and the tiresome bickering between National and Labour over who can piss further. Why didn’t the media expand

beyond social media to garner a wider public perspective? Where are updated polls of the average NZ viewer in light of this upheaval?

We also need to be wary of potential repercussions that may arise from the plight of the Red Peak. The success of a design that previously had such a low ranking could easily spur a repetition of the whole ordeal for a submission that had higher public ratings. Why not argue for Wa Kainga/ Home by Grant Alexander?

The ultimate problem really though is the entire flag referendum. It has been rushed and poorly executed. It should be scrapped and started again. Importantly, there needs to be more of a public forum and attempts to represent a wider demographic. Additionally, I believe it was misguided to hand the job over to the average Joe to design a national flag. Instead, the public contributions should have been another way for the public to express what they want, then it should have fallen to actual designers and (more than one) vexillologists to collaborate and produce a range of designs on which the public could vote—and definitely not a range of just four finalists, selected by a panel with little to no professional experience with flags.

My big problem is not that I dislike the Red Peak design. It’s the evangelical keyboardbashing around it, along with the lazy media portrayal. Oh, and the buttfuckery that is this entire flag debate.

Bronte is a fourth-year science student, on a mission to prove science isn’t just for geeks as she runs around in Star Wars and superhero merchandise, inducing glazed eyes on everybody within earshot as she insists that protein interactions are awesome.

Gus Mitchell Feature Writer

issue 23

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Mr. Human In between essays and articles, the two shows I most recently binge-watched were Black Mirror and Mr. Robot. Both shows are about the profound effect that technology has on our lives and our society, and it got me thinking about how much of a love-hate relationship we have with our devices, despite the innumerable benefits of interconnected communication, at least in the developed hyper-accelerated capitalist world.

As much as you can champion the new mediums we’ve created, it’s paradoxically very difficult to be pro-technology, especially when it comes to that Unholy Trinity of smartphones, the internet and social media.

We live in the future, but apparently that future consists of people forever zoning out on their smartphones and becoming “zombies” addicted to their devices and not engaging with the “real world”. Uuuuurgh.

But fine, you want to have a real conversation?

I want to talk about where that complaint came from, and what systems of narrative we have around technology that crop up whenever we do talk about them. Hopefully it comes off as some kind of “opinion”.

First off, from a purely linguistic perspective, I hate when people treat the internet as some distinct organism apart from themselves.

Also that it’s somehow nobler or better for you to be apart from it. This narrative has been around since the turn of the millennium. The Matrix all gave us the fear that machines would use humans instead of the other way around, plugged into a world that seemed real but was actually an illusion, some inconsequential fabricated world that you will be better off being without.

But the internet isn’t a separate world like the Matrix. It IS our world, an environment that we created as an extension of ourselves.

The internet and its media are both a mirror reflecting on our lives, and an umbrella over all our interactions. To that end, I think the complaint of becoming a “smartphone zombie” derives from two big cultural biases—we mistake idleness for laziness, and we’re unable to allow ourselves to feel okay with being alone.

The narrative in the Western world has explicitly tied fastidiousness and busyness to being inherently good, and doing nothing to evil or at best a lack of attention to your moral character. There’s an old Calvinist saying, “when you’re down on your knees, you may as well scrub the floor”. It makes a devil out of anyone who doesn’t appear to be pulling their weight and vilifies anything that doesn’t look sufficiently engaging to be called “busy”. “The devil makes work for idle hands” and all that hokum. But there’s a difference between the willingness to not do any work and simply taking a break in the moments between work, never mind that we’re doing most of it on computers anyway. Idleness is not the same as laziness.

To all those old farts who demand that we put down our phones and move back to a simpler time when we all used to talk to each other, I call an Augean Stables worth of horseshit. We haven’t forgotten how to have a conversation, we’re just holding them in a world beside you. If anything, we’re more social than ever; you’re the ones who invented the best ways for humans to ignore each other. There’s an old photo circulating online of everyone on a train reading newspapers on

the commute to the city, ignoring each other just as they accuse smartphone-addicted millennials of doing the same. So, pots and black kettles all around.

To me, the beauty of the ‘net is that it takes a sword to that Gordian knot of human interaction—how do I be a part of the world and apart from it at the same time?

You can tune out your surroundings and just scroll your feed. I don’t see it as ignoring the world, you’re just participating from another vantage point.

I think we’re still a little boggled by that capability, as our technology surpasses our ability to comprehend it. It’s in this that I do have some empathy for that older generation who are bewildered by iPads and smartphones, and who champion the great equaliser that is the face-to-face conversation.

You’d be mad and a little betrayed too if you were old, had more time than you knew what to do with post-retirement, and no-one can talk you in the way with which you’re familiar. I’m sure the same thing will happen to me when I miss out on radiotelepathy or whatever with my grandspawn and complain that no-one posts things on screens anymore.

And the cycle continues.

Technology always changes. People, in general, do not. We will probably be having this conversation in twenty years time, so stop cluttering my feed with re-posts.

Gus Mitchell is a feature writer, comic artist and biology student, in order of decreasing attention paid to each. His favourite Marvel movie is all of them. editor@salient.org.nz

Hamish Popplestone Film Reviewer

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One Dollar’s Worth of Cinematic Utility Is Dying

As a moviegoer in 2015, you can pay around a one-dollar premium for a 3D option.

While the opportunity cost of a couple of Mi Goreng packets is small, a lot of us still refuse to pay for the extra dimension of cinema. Since their golden era in the early 1950s, 3D films have had a turbulent history.

Every decade, it seems, Hollywood tries to bring 3D films back to the mainstream with incremental changes to the experience, and the resurgence usually deflates back to novelty status. Flagship 3D films like Avatar, Life of Pi, and Gravity demonstrate the commitment directors have made to cinematic innovation, but critics, including Roger Ebert, claim that the technology is dying an early death.

The stats agree with the critics here. 41 movies in 2012 had 3D attached to them, 2013 had 35, and 2014 had 28, and the regression isn’t hard to understand at all.

Research based on Twitter dialogue reveals why audiences are turned off to 3D. People hate having to return the glasses after paying for the 3D ticket, the set pieces made purely to showcase 3D is superficial and superfluous, and the glasses are just straight up uncomfortable. More weighted criticism www.salient.org.nz

comes from Ebert: It steals illumination from the screen, it adds nothing to the experience, and it’s just a marketing effort to charge more in box office receipts.

But, the way I see it, for an extra dollar and the agony of wearing plastic one-sizefits-none glasses for two hours, 3D is a bargain. These days, directors are aware that Spy Kids 3D premiered 12 years ago, and they understand the placidity movie-goers exhibit when an apparatus pops out from the screen, simply to get a reaction. In other words, 3D films in 2015 have matured, and 3D is used to make movies immersive and look sophisticated. Plus, you should do something different every once in a while— it’s a good life habit. You can’t get the unique 3D experience from streaming Putlocker on your laptop, so make the most of every cinema visit.

It was disappointing when The Hobbit trilogy received flak for the mix of 3D and 48fps picture. It made me think audiences just didn’t like change, rather than subscribing to a rational reason for their disdain.

And, whether it’s a marketing tool or not, innovation in the movie experience is what

keeps the cinema competitive to on demand online entertainment services, especially when devices are becoming more advanced in audio and visual technology. I can’t argue that we owe cinemas our unconditional customer loyalty purely because they’re trying, but we shouldn’t dismiss their cinematic enhancements as grand capitalist conspiracy.

If you’ve been disenchanted by 3D over the past couple of years, there’s a long run of options to consider next year that will showcase the evolved role of 3D picture: Tintin right through to a Ben Hur remake.

But, if nothing on the circuit jumps at you and you want to be convinced that 3D adds to the experience, check out Gaspar Noe’s Love in 3D. If you don’t know the work, you should do the research yourself, and then decide how far we’ve come since Spy Kids 3.

Hamish is working on a degree in finance, but spends his time writing up unpopular opinions on film instead.

Rob Barratt Salient FM Station Manager

issue 23

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Pitchfuck I love music. A lot. If I could only have one sense, it would be hearing. I seriously couldn’t live if I couldn’t hear. That sounds so clichéd, but I say it with complete sincerity.

I managed to get a job where my primary purpose is to listen to it, and make sure other people can too (shoutout to VUWSA for my paycheque, you da real MVPs—also, listen to Salient FM, I promise we aren’t that shit).

But there are parts of this industry that I really don’t like. I’m not going to talk about the fact that the label industry is wrecked, the weird laws around copyright that have been taken to extremes, or the fact that streaming services have made being a small artist an unsustainable occupation, as those have all been done to death already.

Instead, I’m going to rant about the music reviewing industry.

I’ll preface this by saying I have nothing against reviews themselves; I think they can be a valuable resource in discovering content that one would not usually be exposed to, and that quite often the praise/derision given to some artists is deserved.

over the last half-decade, hip-hop fans) has always been somewhat of a sore point for me.

In 2013 it was reported that Pitchfork earned somewhere between US$5 and $10 million in advertising revenue alone.

Pitchfork’s advertisements are primarily focused on promoting either an artist or an upcoming album, as is to be expected of a site dedicated to music, but the problem is the almost uncanny correlation between the albums Pitchfork advertises, and the albums Pitchfork gives high review scores to.

Couple this with the more recent invention of the Pitchfork Music Festival, where artists who headline or feature regularly get higher scores on the site, and you have the perfect recipe for a batshit insane conspiracy theory.

While you could easily say that they only advertise shit they really enjoy, the thought that paying for advertising on the site will get you a higher review score, or even a spot in their wildly popular festivals, will always be there.

But the advent of the internet has led to the commodification of music reviews to an insidious extent.

This isn’t a problem for just Pitchfork though. For amateur reviewers on YouTube like Anthony Fantano, popularity drives view counts, and panning an album that is popular could very easily lead to a loss in income.

Pitchfork, the darling of indie crowds (and

This isn’t even getting started on the fact

that music is an entirely subjective thing. If you like Nickelback, I might think you’re a fucking idiot, but I won’t criticise you (to your face). The same goes for if you only listen to Pink Floyd because “today’s music is so garbage”, while you comment on videos of Miley Cyrus or some shit.

I think what I’m trying to get at here is the fact that for a review to truly be impartial, you have to remove both the individual reviewing it, and any form of compensation that could go towards the review. This obviously isn’t a solution at all, as it would reduce reviewing to a hobby, and hobbies don’t put food on the table.

So that’s that. Rant is over now. TL;DR, listen to what you want to listen to, read reviews, but form your own opinions on those pieces, and fucking own the shit.

Robert runs the world’s best student radio station, Salient FM. When he isn’t fighting VUWSA over funding so he can buy cables, he’s usually preaching the importance of 808s and Heartbreak, or lamenting the fact he can’t afford San Pellegrino. editor@salient.org.nz

Baz Macdonald Games Writer

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The Fight Against Bigotry in Nerd Culture Hasta la vista... bigotry.

I’m proud to be a nerd!

More than that, I’m excited that there has never been a more acceptable time to make such a declaration. Over the past two decades, nerd culture has gradually moved from the fringes to the forefront of cultural signifcance. Like H.G Wells’ Red Weed, nerd culture has grown exponentially, wrapping its tendrils around every facet of pop culture. Books, TV, film and, of course the self-professed meccah of nerdom—video games.

I have made the somewhat foolish decision to pursue a career writing about such things.

Because of this, to my family and friends, I’ve become the “video game guy”. In most ways, I like being thought of this way... let me emphasis most ways.

I say this, because over the past few years my friends have been bringing to my attention cases of sexism, racism, homophobia and allround toxic bigotry within nerd culture.

People ask me for explantions as though I speak for these people, as though simply by investing in this culture I inherently understand them. Let me be clear, I do not, and nor do 95 per cent of other people who would proudly call themseleves nerds. But this fact doesn’t change public perception. I see first hand that people are moving from seeing nerds as adorable social misfits, to hateful, disgusting basement trolls. www.salient.org.nz

It is often futile to justify these bigots as simply a vocal minority. That minority has become so loud in this internet generation and their hate is so profound that it grabs headlines and offers them the spotlight that they so desire.

There have been two such cases over the past few years which have really got my hackles up.

The first incident was last year when Anita Sarkeesian, an insightful and intelligent critic, created a video series called Tropes Vs. Women in Video Games. This video series, and other minor events during the same period, sparked a fierce debate online surrounding the role of gender diversity in the gaming industry. Gamers dubbed this argument “Gamergate”. I could attempt to describe what those arguments against Sarkeesian were, but honestly they weren’t wellconsidered enough to justify explanation. The anti-Sarkeesians began to produce a steady stream of sexual and physical threats, causing her to be temporarily moved from her home and put under police supervision.

A similar case happened this year, caused by the most prestigious literary science fiction award, the Hugo. A group of writers lashed out against the award’s inclusion of minorities. The hate mongers attempted to steer voters towards writers they sanctioned, all of whom were white, heterosexual males.

I’m happy to tell you, however, that not one

of the writers sanctioned by this group won an award. In fact the awards had a larger voting pool than ever before, leading to the most diverse range of winners in the award’s history.

Thankfully, stories of social progression winning out like this are becoming more common. Fans and creators are fighting back by creating and supporting diverse content.

The chauvinists are undeniably the minority—a minority whose strength comes from their volume. It is the responsbility of the majority to drown them out. Our numbers are so much greater than theirs, all it would take is a whisper from each of us to drown them out completely. So I call on you to fill comment boards, forums and content with ideas and words of logic and insight. Don’t be afraid to disagree with the bigots—their aggresive words can’t stand up to reasoned argument.

Do this and we can return to what this culture should have always been—simply a group of people who celebrate and discuss content they are passionate about.

Baz is a student media butterfly who flits from town to town, publication to publication, breaking hearts along the way.

Cameron Gray Games Editor

issue 23

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The Silliest Debate of All

I’ve never really been one to get into arguments on the internet. For many people it can be an easy trap to fall into, fuelled by pride, bravado and a determination to prove that stupid cunt you’ve never met before is wrong about everything. Words like “douchepants”, “shitlord”, and “filthy, dirty, disgusting, brutal, bottom-feeding, trashbag ho” may be liberally thrown about like toffees at a lolly scramble, and it just ends up being a mess that some poor moderator has to clean up.

Nowhere is this kind of toxicity and bile more prevalent than in the multitude of online forums dedicated to gaming. Diving into the depths of these sites is a great idea only if you wish to lose your faith in humanity.

You may find the occasional thread that discusses the merits of games as an artistic medium, or possibly a heart-warming story about how gaming changed someone’s life for better or worse, but there’s a lot of idiocy to sort through first. This kind of offensive impenetrability can only result in the gaming subculture becoming even more marginalised than it already is.

But of all the petty online arguments about games, one single topic has endured for years.

It has produced more digital venom than any other. It has made enemies out of friends and divided families.

PC versus Console.

To many, the debate over which machine is best for games isn’t really a debate at all. They just think they’re right, end of story, no need to bother anymore. Yet somehow, in spite of this blatant arrogance, it persists and it will live on until the medium ascends beyond the

comprehension of us mere mortals. Let’s just say for now that both sides have their fair share of pros and cons, and it’s worth looking at what these are.

For PC gamers, it’s all about that pure processing power. There’s no denying that the capabilities of numerous processors and graphics cards vastly exceed anything that the eighth-generation consoles can push out, making gaming in ultra high definition a very real possibility. You can customise your setup to suit your tastes and get the most out of the games you love. The top distribution platform has numerous sales and consistently offers high quality, low cost games, with free multiplayer and dedicated servers being a bonus. However, the real barrier to entry is cost and time—getting a high-end rig running will likely set you back thousands of dollars, while getting games to run how you want them takes quite a bit of fiddling with both in-game and system settings. There are low-cost options available, but there is still a bit of messing about to be done first.

Ultimately, if you’re a dedicated enthusiast, PC will suit you best.

With consoles, you’re pretty much guaranteed that both the hardware and software will work straight out of the box with minimal fiddling required, at the expense of not having the game run to its full potential. Exclusive titles keep each console’s line-up of games fresh and exciting, although doing so risks cutting off large swathes of the market. A monetary investment in a console is much less compared to maintaining a decent PC rig, making it more accessible to casual players. However, making consoles is expensive and the manufacturers will be making their costs back through charging

full price for most games (especially through digital, so don’t bother) and making you pay for online multiplayer. If you’re looking to just play the occasional blockbuster without worrying too much about performance, then consoles are likely for you.

Having said that, frankly I don’t give two shits about which machine you play your games on, and arguing about it is pointless. You are allowed to like what you like and there is nothing that anyone else can do about it.

It’s all subjective, and whatever you think is best will ultimately only matter to you; your individual opinion is not an excuse to spit bile at someone else about theirs. All I’m doing here is giving you some suggestions, based on the facts.

Gaming is now a key cornerstone of popular culture, and worrying about the little differences between what is ultimately a large and diverse medium and the communities that surround it only serve to make ALL gamers look like the idiotic man-children the mainstream media likes to portray us as. Yes, there are people out there who think that others are only allowed to like the things they like, but these people are idiots and don’t deserve any sort of attention.

If we want video games to be taken seriously as an artistic medium, we need to stop this bullshit once and for all. It’s not helping anyone.

Cameron Gray thinks games are an important artistic medium. Considering that Goat Simulator exists, he’s probably full of shit. editor@salient.org.nz

Brittany Mackie-Ellice Columnist

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A White Feminist’s Opinion on White Feminism As a feminist I always assumed that my beliefs about, and criticisms of, society were the result of a movement committed to women’s rights. Being from Christchurch—the most painfully white city in New Zealand—I had a limited understanding of how the struggles that me and my white, female peers dealt with were not necessarily the same as the struggles of women of colour (WOC). Over the past year I have learnt more about feminism than the other 18 years combined, and this has caused my understanding of feminism to be tested, proved inherently white, and finally, evolved into the state it is now.

White feminists talk about wage equality between the genders, but don’t acknowledge that women of colour are paid significantly less than white women. White feminists talk about challenging domestic abuse, but don’t acknowledge that Māori women are seven times more likely to be hospitalised by assault. White feminists talk about sexual abuse in New Zealand, but forget to acknowledge that Māori women suffer about twice as much sexual abuse than European women living in New Zealand.

White feminists talk about the effects of the patriarchy on children, but they forget to say 42 per cent of Māori households are considered high-risk situations by the government. By omitting these women’s stories when we talk about feminism, we are effectively silencing them.

Now is about the time when we start to get defensive about our feminism. Here is a list of the main arguments we use to defend our white feminism and why they are redundant:

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Feminism is for all women, we shouldn’t have to expressly include WOC. Yes, we do. Historically, feminism is a movement for white women to gain equality and many of the ideals cater specifically to the Western world. This isn’t to say that feminism doesn’t have roots in all cultures. It just means that as white women, we have a responsibility to understand that people of colour are oppressed in different ways as well as for being women.

If white feminism is helping feminism become mainstream then it can’t be a bad thing. While it is important that feminism is being talked about in mainstream society, we have to be careful it isn’t pushing minorities to the fringes. Sometimes the platforms we use to talk about feminism (e.g.

Hollywood feminists like Miley Cyrus and Amy Poehler) are framing how people perceive feminism, while simultaneously pushing others out of the frame.

I am too busy dealing with my own oppression. It’s really important to remember that the patriarchy is pretty much shit for everyone in some way or another. But this doesn’t mean we don’t have privilege as white women. WOC are oppressed in loads of ways that white women just don’t have to experience.

This is where intersectionality comes in and it is something we often forget to think about. It’s the same idea that straight, cis women have privilege over LGBTQ women or trans women. It’s not a competition for whose oppression is worse—it’s about using our personal,

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unique privilege to give other women a hand.

There is always going to be someone worse off than me. Upsettingly, this is one that I have heard a lot. The thing is, this is true. Growing up as a white women in New Zealand, there are probably billions of people worse off than you.

This doesn’t negate your experiences or your journey, and it definitely doesn’t negate your feminism. It just means you need to remember to look backwards sometimes and decide where you can use your privilege to help.

Feminism shouldn’t be about walking on eggshells, or having to say “and of course this applies to all the coloured ladies out there too” at the end of every feisty speech or, in my case, a weekly feminist column. We should be able to express ourselves in a way that celebrates our strength and challenges our personal, everyday patriarchal obstacles.

However we also have a responsibility. As white women in a Western country, we are fundamentally privileged. Being a feminist with privilege doesn’t make you a bad feminist or mean that you need to feel guilty, but it does mean that you have to educate yourself and learn how to empathise. You need to learn how to find strength in others’ stories, whether or not they relate specifically to your own experiences and circumstance.

By day Brittany Mackie is an under-grad journo student but by night she is an angsty feminist keyboard warrior with a weakness for hyperboles and generalised statements.

Auntie Agatha Columnist

issue 23

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Modern-Day Masculinity What is it that makes the man? Having hair on your chest, a sizeable penis, playing the most sports? Masculinity used to mean that one was virile and independent, and to be a real man you would have to strive for power, control and self reliance. In order to display power and control, you had to exert that on others in the form of misogyny, racism and homophobia.

Things have changed though, right? I mean, surely the modern man doesn’t need to be a low-key bigot to show that he is truly totes masc?

In the modern world men are expressing themselves in heaps of different ways— through fashion, music, spoken word, dance, or art. However, these all come with qualifiers. Men who are into fashion can now be identified as “metrosexual”, although this is now becoming more of an antiquated term.

There is, however, a tipping point—suddenly you’re discriminated against for being feminine, because, naturally, fashion is a girly thing. Body image and personal presentation are totally tied up in this too.

There are almost “safe” tropes where someone can “play-it-masc”. Like the lumberjack (wear some plaid and grow out your facial hair), future yo-pro (keep your Macklemore ‘do in check and make sure to keep up with Barkers’ latest releases), and the obviously straight and stock-standard student (have a few chinos, a jersey, and some stripy and blank tees to cycle through).

In terms of homophobia, the “no homo” movement speaks for itself. You can have a bro, as long as you use the disclaimer “no homo” when you’re doing anything too ~intimate~, like getting dinner together or

taking a selfie. As though the worst thing in the world would be to be assumed gay.

With queerness comes masculinity erasure.

As though someone who self-identifies as masculine and projects a masculine vibe out to the world somehow has his masculinity stolen because he happens to like some D on the side.

Although, within the queer community, there is still a serious issue with masculinity, misogyny, body image and racism. Just scrolling through an app like Grindr you could play discrimination bingo with phrases like “no fems”, “no fatties”, “no Asians”, “I’m straight acting” and “looking for tranny fun”. Although you could argue that being on Grindr in the first place is hardly very “straight acting”.

Most people are pretty switched on to basic feminism, in the sense that it’s totally NBD for a woman to dress as revealing or conservatively, femininely or masculinely as she likes, or have short hair or long hair in any colour under the sun. Yet it isn’t as accepted for men to have this freedom of expression, despite this being an obvious part of the feminist movement.

So many young boys are being raised by a society that tells them to harden up and act like men, when there is no real guide that tells us how a man is supposed to act. Young boys are raised in a culture that supports violence and physical activity as the pinnacle of what it is to be “male”, yet ignores the need for emotional literacy in young boys.

This is carried on by the idea that men aren’t allowed to show emotion or call for help with depression, anxiety, other mental illnesses, or even basic emotional distress. Many men are raised without the adequate tools to express

themselves when they’re vulnerable. What are men supposed to do after they’ve been dumped? Sit quietly in solitude curing meats and drinking dark spirits?

Furthermore, we are in an age of men being the easy gag joke in the media. It’s harder to have an open discussion about men’s issues and the unattainable standards of masculinity without it sounding like a punchline of a joke or like you’re bagging on feminism. If you try and bring it up on social media, you’re bound to get a barrage of sarcastic, belittling and dismissive comments that try to erase the male experience.

While it is true that white middle-aged men have been roaming the earth shitting over everyone, it doesn’t mean that the male experience should be suffocated entirely.

Things like male infertility, male-pattern baldness, even trough urinals are malespecific, and are all tied to masculine identity.

While it’s easy to dismiss issues like these as “fragile masculinity” and chuckle away, it’s something that people have to live with.

If we want to improve emotional literacy and actually help with men’s issues, maybe we shouldn’t be dismissing masculinity as something that is only important to “fuccbois” and “dude-bros”.

When it comes down to it, masculinity is more of a spectator sport. While people are still expanding what they consider masculine, there is still a lot of discrimination against and from the actors involved.

Aunt Agatha is an anonymous agony aunt hellbent on providing disappointing life advice, despite not having a life herself. editor@salient.org.nz

Philip McSweeney Senior Feature Writer

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404_error It’s 10:09am on Thursday and I’m staring at a mostly empty Google doc. “You were the hardest in tha game,” I tell myself softly.

“You’ve just written three articles in a row and now you’re on top of the world. You can do anything, go anywhere. The opinion issue is your only chance to unleash your self-indulgence. The acclaim, the plaudits, the sexily gyrating men and women! You can’t leave that behind! You have to write something; splay the canvass with the darkest hues of blues and greys. Write something that yearns and longs amidst the clatter of digressions and navel-gazing asides; that takes the reader on something that approximates a journey, like the best journalism does”. But what the hell do I write about? Error_404_opinion_not_found Go with your original idea: a socialist critique of Golding’s, that dive in the middle of town. Talk about why it represents everything that’s wrong with capitalism.

Insist that you want to impose a moratorium on any more “craft beer bars” being created for the foreseeable future—it creates a false dichotomy that enforces ideas of class and superiority amongst already susceptible professionals and means you can’t get a cheap brew anywhere in town any more, which contributes to the dearth of student culture in the city.

Too fucking niche, too stilted, too pedantic. Fuck.

Umm. Why not just submit an empty page, a blank canvas? Make a comment about how people should listen, or how they impose their own values on a given page? It’s been done you blundering incompetent, you’ll bring shame upon your house and family if you keep up like this. O.K. How’s this? “I think Radiohead should change their name to Boomboxxxhead and write hip-hop songs. Skeet Spirit! Hail 2 da thief ! OHKAAAY Computer ft. Lil Jon!” That is the most offensive sentence I have ever read.

The music theme might be a fruitful and fecund line of enquiry, though. Talk about your favourite album this year! John Fahey’s “Record Plant, Sausalito”, a bootleg of a live show recorded while he was in his prime, www.salient.org.nz

after the epochal “Fare Forward Voyagers”.

It’s finger-pickin’ good; the man’s prowess behind the guitar, the juxtaposition between euphoric guitar lines that sooth like cooling balm and sinister ones that grab you by the throat and don’t relinquish their grip until long after, despondence breathed into every note, a man drinking a quart of whiskey, smoking a pack and playing guitar on his porch on the last day before apocalypse.

Not bad, but is it serious enough? Especially in light of the theory I’ve been mulling over for a while: that society relies on notions of “purity” and “palatability” to achieve its imbalances, to encourage us to ignore suffering or elide it or pretend it doesn’t exist or grapple with it tokenistically? Jesus Christ Philip, save it for the Foucault symposium. God forbid you ever give anyone a straight-forward opinion.

O.K! I can do that! Pop music is good. Duck is an amazing food you’ve already talked about that, at length. Hmm. I could talk about my dislike of #redpeak? Topical! and lowhanging fruit. Touche.

Of all the Meek Mill diss tracks AR-AB’s is the most unfathomable. “I heard Nicki fuck you in the ass with a strap-on”? Like, are you trying to make me jealous? Good one. I’m not joking.

Prefixing a sentence with “I’m not trying to be rude, but…” should be outlawed unless you’re R. Kelly performing Ignition (Remix) live.

That WINZ health and sickness forms don’t inquire about health but one’s ability to work demonstrates that if you’re sick and disabled you’re actively a burden of capitalistic government.

There are two kinds of mental illness: the more palatable, and the ones—psychosis, schizophrenia, manic bipolar—that render you “crazy”. Think of how many first-person pieces on depression and anxiety you’ve read; any discourse on any of these other illnesses always comes focalised through medical

treatises or “suffering” family members.

Our culture excises people’s vocal chords, amputates their hands—one of the pitfalls of falling to the “crazy” side of the “sane/insane” dichotomy.

What’s the deal with Houdini Poos that are also no-wipers? Also, is there any worse feeling that needing to poo straight after you’ve taken a shower? I think not. You are a monster of unspeakable vulgarity.

Forcing Japan to play Scotland three days after their last match is fucking bullshit and proof that the Rugby World Cup favours “better teams”, while “minnows” are only there to help the big teams rack up points.

O.K. This isn’t working. Think of one salient (ha!) thing worth saying. How’s this? We all have internal voices putting us down, telling us that we’re stupid, unoriginal, that we’re not important. Everyone feels like an imposter, a fraud, an ersatz adult blundering their way through a life that has its cards stacked against us. This is true. We don’t know as much as we think we do. You’ll always realise how fuck-witted you were a year too late.

That’s life.

But that voice in your head that’s telling you you’re in the wrong place, that everything is shit, that you’re unoriginal and stupid and immature? Fuck it. Tell it “hush yo gums”.

You’re entitled to your opinions, you’re allowed to be wrong, you’re allowed to have opinions on a huge range of things because we live with such an influx of information, of overwhelming issues, that you shouldn’t have to limit yourself. It’s hard, damn hard, being a young adult in the twenty-first century. Don’t let your inner voices make it harder.

If I can be frank, I think that opinion is a bit contrived. Go fuck yourself, Frank.

Philip McSweeney bribed his way into being the Senior Feature Writer for Salient this year. He is currently dole-bludging and rationalising it as a government grant to write short stories and promote indolence.

issue 23

Jess Scott Fashion Editor

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Boys Are Scared of Dark Lipstick Okay SO, why is it that a straight boy smear campaign is launched against me as soon as their aesthetic choices come into question (as was displayed by the menagerie of h8 mail in response to the publication of a certain column), yet simply by existing within the public sphere as a female, my appearance is freely available for critique?

The act of occupying a body becomes a political act, every curatorial decision I make in relation to my appearance can be, and will be, dissected. For those who identify as female, even the decision to leave one’s body hair in its natural state, to actually refrain from altering one’s appearance, is perceived as an incredibly radical statement.

There is no way of occupying space without inherently being judged upon the way you look whilst doing so.

Case in point: last week a complete stranger came into my workplace, and very nonchalantly tells me that he thinks I’m too thin. Checking my privilege here*, but in what universe is it socially acceptable to provide totally unsolicited, body-shaming commentary on the way someone looks?

Why did he feel the need to impose his negative opinion upon my body? Why is the way I choose to present my flesh prison anyone else’s business? It wasn’t intended as complementary in any manner; it was solely a means of intrusion and objectification. I was evidently confident enough to be tottering about in a mesh crop top and mini skirt, so he decided to dismantle that by making me feel rampantly uncomfortable.

When I criticise puffer jackets, bucket hats and reindeer cardigans, guys are offended enough to write in complaining that I am

an obnoxious arsehole, but it is these same guys who share articles on Facebook entitled “Trends you love that men hate”. It is perfectly acceptable for males to have strong views on the way they think women should look, but the reverse is highly controversial.

A recent polite inquiry as to why the human I was with couldn’t just use his hairline as a surrogate for forgotten ID whilst purchasing wine at Moore Wilson’s was “not funny” (it was definitely funny enough to recount to my coworkers, flatmates and half the party we were later at), but to provide critique about how I would “still be gorgeous if I [didn’t always wear dark lipstick / wore flat shoes / actually wore something under that black mesh thing]” is so normalised that nobody bats an eyelid.

Honestly fuck right off, women do not exist to cater to the male gaze, I could not care less if you prefer what you think is the “natural look” (which in fact is the result of extremely careful contouring, bronzing, concealing, brow grooming, etc. to appear as though you’ve just emerged from bed in a ray of Valencia-filtered sunshine), or if you’re “intimidated because [I] always wear six inch heels” (life is difficult when you are cursed with the stature of a 12-year-old). You don’t get an opinion on my body.

I have very distinct memories of my mother instructing pre-teen scene queen 13-year-old Jess that “boys are scared of red lipstick”, a notion that has truly made me want to gouge my own eyeballs out since before I really understood why. It’s incredibly gross that we live in a heteronormative, patriarchal social environment that raises girls to think they have to conform to notions of what men find

attractive in order to be attractive. That we have to be pretty to be valued.

Men hate makeup because it gives those who wear it the power to control their appearance, it gives you tools of agency over self expression, you can accentuate the features you like and conceal those that you don’t. You are enabled reclamation over the space you inhabit and the way in which you choose to be portrayed and viewed, the way in which you desire to exist within the worlds of others. So unless you are wearing makeup, or there is enough purple lipstick smudged over your face that you’ve started joking that you’re a walking MAC commercial (MAC Heroine, $40, available from Kirkcaldie & Stains), you have absolutely no right to voice your opinion on it. *Disclaimer: This isn’t intended as one of those obnoxious “5 things that suck about thin-shaming”-esque statements, I 100 per cent support the fact that although bodyshaming in any form is totally unacceptable, thin-shaming is the least severe instance of it and by complaining about conforming too much to social standards which value thinness as attractiveness, I sound like a total pissbaby (please don’t send me angry mail, I am a very sensitive soul).

Jess Scott is a fashion school runaway, lingerie connoisseur and the one friend who physically cannot finish a bottle of wine at a BYO. In her high school leavers’ yearbook she claimed to aspire to be a trophy wife with a PHD. Nothing has changed. editor@salient.org.nz

Kate Robertson Music Editor

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Music Is No Place for Misogyny Humans, we need to talk. There’s a problem in the music industry that I can no longer stay silent about and I would like it very much if you were on my side.

And before you go dismissing me as some preachy feminist based on the title of this piece, I ask that you give me a little more credit than that. Think of this more as a straight up convo between two pals about some bullshit realities that really need addressing. I promise to not give you regurgitated man-hating content if you promise me your attention for the next 600 words.

So here goes…

For a society that is so progressive and open to equality, we seriously need to sort our shit out when it comes to the kinds of music we let grace our airwaves. Some of the music we’re letting saturate our top 40 literally promotes not only general sexism, but domestic violence, victim-blaming, male dominance, objectification, and the perpetuation of an already despicable rape culture.

“But I don’t listen to that stuff !” I hear you firing back at me, to which I respond, “Oh yes, you do”. How do I know? Because I too am guilty of singing along to such songs, oftentimes obliviously. My case in point, a song we deemed worthy of the number one spot on our charts for 11 consecutive weeks back in 2013—“Blurred Lines”. Now, I know for a fact you’ve at least hummed along to this bop some point in the past two years.

With a hook so catchy it shouldn’t have been www.salient.org.nz

legal and a superstar lineup, we somehow seemed to glaze over the fact that this song is the definition of everything wrong with the industry right now. With lyrics like “I’ll give you something big enough to tear your ass in two” and “I know you want it”, I’m disgusted that we let anyone under the age of 16 listen to it.

But I’m not here purely to criticise Thicke and his comrades, they’ve had enough grief already. What I am here to ask is why we continue to embrace it when we know it’s wrong? There is so much academia out there proving the effects negative themes in music have on us, yet here we are, in 2015, still not actively doing anything about it.

In a nutshell, listening to derogatory music on the regular desensitises us. The more we consume, the less we care and the less we notice. A “bitch” here and a “hoe” there start to slide by under the radar and the crude music videos become just music videos, and so the cycle continues.

In what reality do we want young women to think that submission is a desirable trait?

Or that being treated as an object to be lusted after is more rewarding than being acknowledged for your intelligence and wit?

Yes, what men make of such music is a big part of the issue, but this kind of carry-on is just as damaging for us females. When women become desensitised to it, their perception on things such as sexual harassment and rape are altered, often leading them to believe that anything they experience isn’t as bad as they

think it is because they’ve seen it portrayed in music in a more low-key manner. I don’t know about you guys, but I think that’s goddamn terrifying.

So who are they? Well, the list of offenders is long and there are definitely some unsuspecting characters in the mix. If I had my way we’d blacklist them all, but, alas, I am a realist and I know that simply wouldn’t be sustainable. Instead, I ask just a small favour.

I ask that we all agree to pick out just a few of the repeat offenders and be done with them.

Who’ve you got to choose from? Plenty.

Eminem, Jason Derulo, Robin Thicke, Meghan Trainor (deceptively anti-feminist), Usher, Yeezy—it takes little more than a quick Google search to find yourself a sizable list. Kick ‘em to the curb and encourage your pals to do the same.

It makes me feel physically ill that this kind of blatant misogyny exists in such a universal medium, and if you don’t agree with me on that then I hope I never meet you. We all know that one person can’t change the world, but we can start chipping away at it. If Perez Hilton can successfully implement and execute a one-week Kardashian ban, then we, the well-informed students of Victoria, can, at the very least, clean out our playlists for the greater good. ‘Nuff said, I’m out.

Kate is a lover of 90s boy bands and all things basic. Her Mum once told her she has too many opinions for her own good so here she is.

issue 23

Elea Yule News Reporter

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Opinion: This Is Probably Not Worth Reading While being offered this opportunity to shout about whatever I liked, I made a very bold assertion: “E.Z. mate. I have an opinion on everything”.

Which, though slightly hyperbolic, is true in sentiment. Following the end of the conversation, I mentioned the task to a few friends who all responded in various degrees of amused apprehension: what was the allocated word count, because it would likely not be enough; which of my many rants about inequality would I be rehashing; how many people was I going to outrage; or alternatively, would my “opinion” be made redundant when everyone agreed with me and it was less of an opinion than it was simple common sense (no one said the last one but is it really that unlikely?).

As I pondered the endless possibilities, I became increasingly persecuted by a question of legitimacy. I had opinions, but did anyone really care what they were? This was unfamiliar territory for me; I am normally entirely without qualms when it comes to speaking out on various issues. The cancellation of Hannibal marks the beginning of the end for television standards. Virginity is a bullshit heteronormative social construct that should have been outmoded several decades ago.

Mochas are not a “coffee abomination”.

However, adding marshmallows or sugar to a mocha most certainly is.

When it came to declaring my opinions, I concluded that people would either already agree with me; call down various

condescending curses upon myself, my ignorance and my children; or glance at the title before skipping past to the sudoku or The Moan Zone (you can’t fault Tom and Luke on their quality content)—so what was the point?

I mulled this question over in the company of friends and several gin and tonics (a light and refreshing drink that does not deserve to be scoffed at), hoping to be thrown a buoy of inspiration amidst a sea of shanter (shit banter) and unnecessarily deep philosophical discussion. I can neither confirm nor deny whether this was a productive endeavour— upon waking I couldn’t remember anything.

I went on to research other opinion pieces and was largely met with well-written, fact-checked, meticulously constructed arguments. And while I agree that, ideally, opinions should have some sort of factual grounding, there remain plenty of circumstances where this is not the case.

With regards to this piece, my opinions could be categorised with one of three considerations: 1) Too short for 500 words, e.g. kumara is the absolute worst vegetable.

2) Too long for 500 words, e.g. WALL-E is an accurate representation of how humanity will evolve using technology.

3) It’s just how I feel, e.g. Taylor Swift kind of annoys me.

With all three categories I continued to be obstructed by my initial concern: when

it comes to being published, what makes my opinions worth anything? Sure, I could damn the patriarchy to all hell, but someone else would surely have done it better than I could last minute on a Wednesday night.

At best an opinion piece will educate—but even then it is still a presentation of thoughts and information based on selective bias.

Generally, people tend to seek out opinions that align with their own anyway—it’s why I don’t read anti-gay publications or reviews that say Sucker Punch is a good film.

So, after almost a week of constant dithering, I started throwing shit at a Word document to see what stuck (on reflection, that’s probably one of the lines that should have been cut) and I now present to you my convoluted and poorly structured opinion on opinion pieces.

They can be entertaining and can, in some cases, spark a discussion of content—but ultimately, whether you agree or disagree with anything I have said, it’s very unlikely that you do so because I said it (and if it is, you need to reassess). But hey, you probably killed some time in that 3pm lecture and if that puts my writing on par with the sudoku for entertainment value, I’ll take it.

Elea is a second-year English Literature and Theatre major. This entitles her to simultaneously feel culturally superior to everyone, while bracing herself for a life of poverty—a future she may struggle with as she is morally repulsed by two-minute noodles. editor@salient.org.nz

Rick Zwaan Features Lame Duck President

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We’re All Gonna Die I distinctly remember being 8 years old and driving up the Thames Coast Road to my primary school, Te Puru, with my dad discussing how the road we were on was likely to be underwater by the end of the century.

That’s when the idea of climate change became real to me. I realised that my beautiful beachside school would be inundated with 1m of sea level rise. That thought scared me.

My dad, being one of the kindest people I know, realised that making an 8 year old depressed about the future of the world probably wasn’t the best idea. So he reassured me that humans can be an incredibly intelligent species and would work to prevent and adapt to changing world. From an early age both my parents instilled a notion that solutions to social and environmental problems wouldn’t only prevent degradation, but could make the world a far better place for everyone to live in.

Eight years later, I was 16 and part of the largest climate march in Copenhagen in 2009 during the infamous “COP15” UN negotiations—there was an air of hope.

This was the make or break moment. I had spent a week getting to know other young people from some of the poorest nations in the world who were already suffering the harsh realities of climate change. This was no longer an academic scientific debate—the survival of entire island nations was pinned on a decent deal being achieved. We put faith in our political leaders to deliver that. Obama flew into town on a wave of hope. The 12 hour accord was struck with compromise and the global climate movement left in despair.

Our world leaders had failed us. www.salient.org.nz

But the optimism that my parents had instilled in me prevailed. Alongside a number of other young kiwis ranging from policy wonks to science geeks to activists, I went to the following year’s negotiations in Cancun, Mexico. We bought over a giant basketball court-sized cloth fern made up of messages from hundreds of young people from around Aotearoa, in the hope that it would force our official delegation to take notice.

Instead, Minister Nick Smith seemed more interested in joking about how funny the business round table would find a photo of Minister Tim Groser riding a bike around negotiating centre.

Needless to say, we came home somewhat disenfranchised by the UN process. Some of our delegation went off and started Generation Zero, some put their energy into 350.org, others into more radical actions.

I started my first year at Vic studying Geophysics, Environmental Science and Politics, with the hope to help bridge the gap between science and policy while spending my spare time helping organise the largest youth climate summit in New Zealand, Powershift.

I got into student politics and ran for VUWSA as I saw it as a place that had an established reputation and the scale to make a meaningful difference. I knew that the common narrative of “change your lightbulbs—every bit makes a difference” was not enough to prevent the largest issue facing our generation.

We needed large institutions, like Victoria, to take a lead. That’s why I was so pleased when our Vice Chancellor announced the plans to divest the university’s investments from fossil

fuel industries last year. It sent shockwaves through the government and industries that were used to New Zealand universities being passive. Suddenly we were being true to a core purpose of universities—being the critic and conscience of society. We were actually putting our research into practice.

But I’ve been even more inspired by the accounting lecturer Pala Molisa. From his perspective, we must challenge the systems of power that have caused emissions to continue to grow at accelerating rates. We need a more structural approach to solve the super wicked policy problem. Pala has this unique capability to express this incredibly important narrative from an accounting perspective that effectively negates the idea that this issue is only relevant to hippies and conspiracy theorists.

In a couple of months, another major climate change negotiations will be held in Paris.

New Zealand is heading over with shameful commitments. Obama, on the other hand, is heading there with a desire to make a difference.

No matter what happens at Paris, we need to contribute to solving the climate crisis at all levels of society. We have an ever shortening window to prevent huge geophysical feedback loops from running away on us.

As a university we can contribute, as a city we must be putting our climate plans into action, and as a society we must pressure our world leaders to do their job and lead.

Rick Zwaan is a man of many faces.

President. Drinker. Babe. He can be found around campus, lurking beneath a tea cosy.

Bridget Pyc Science Writer

issue 23

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Spending Time

I had coffee with a friend the other day; she’s a fresh new yo-pro. “Work’s going good,” she said. “Been doing heaps of overtime, my boss is always there and he promotes people who put in the hours, so I always start an hour early, and only finish when he leaves.” It’s an all too familiar concept, but it doesn’t make sense. Why should one’s work be measured in hours, rather than output or productivity?

I have a feeling I’m not going to like the 40 hour work week, not because I can’t see myself slipping into that lifestyle very easily, but rather that I know that life has been specifically designed to encourage me to consume—and I’m not into that.

week, I’ve spent my time at the art gallery, walking through Hyde Park with friends, and finishing my book. I suddenly have an excess of time, and I’m not spending money.

The opposite has also been true. When I have done 40 hour work weeks, I found myself very quick to justify spending—”It’s gonna be a big day, I should get that bombdiggity muesli from Prefab to start my day off properly, it’ll make me way happier than porridge at home, and therefore I’ll be more productive.” (Yeah, right). Too much time is the enemy to the economy—work ‘em hard, take away their time, and they’ll spend lots of money when they have it.

The 40 hour work week didn’t come into existence through evolution—it was invented, and for a specific purpose. During the industrial revolution, factories were operating around the clock, and staff were working 16 hour days. Then, in the 1920s, Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motors, changed things by creating the five day/40 hour week. Why? Because how were people meant to buy anything (specifically Ford cars) if they didn’t have any time to do so? By creating the 40 hour work week, people had enough time off to spend money, but were also working enough that they felt exhausted, and were hungry to consume as a reward.

By living in a corporate society in which we are more or less locked into working the nine to five, we are moulded to be spenders.

Parkinson’s Law is the notion that work expands so as to fill the time available for completion, and maybe this is the only reason that the work week takes 40+ hours.

It wouldn’t take this long if we had less time, but we let our work take 40 hours because that’s what everyone else does. And then we work overtime. And then we spend more than we should.

I’ve certainly noticed how my own spending patterns have changed with my workload. I’m currently travelling, with no income and lots of time. You’d think I’d be chewing through money faster than ever before, but when you have time, you find rewarding experiences without needing to pay for them. This past

However, it doesn’t necessarily need to be this way. Not long after the industrial revolution and the implementation of the 40-hour work week, economist John Keynes predicted a dramatic increase in living standards. Using a mathematical model, Keynes determined that in the next hundred years, people would only need to work 15 hours to achieve that same standard of living, as what was being achieved in 40 hours at the time. Fast forward

to now, and it turns out we’re still doing the 40 hour work week. Yes, our living standards have improved eightfold, but now we want more, so we spend more, and we work the same hours. Improvements in technology have done little to change our predicament either. Technology has improved our productivity so much, that it only takes us 11 hours to produce as much as 40 hours work did in 1950. Yet still, nothing has changed, and we still leave work time poor at the end of the week.

I don’t know what the solution is—I’m applying for a graduate job at the moment and I can’t imagine convincing them that I only want to work four days a week, but something needs to change. Raising wages isn’t going to give us more time. Studies have shown that as people’s wages increase, they work longer hours because work becomes an increasingly profitable use of time.

Essentially, when people view their time in terms of money, they grow stingy with time to try and maximise money. I think the first step towards any real change is an awareness.

If we constantly evaluate our use of time, and try to measure both our work, and our breaks, in productivity rather than time, we’ll be making the first step in the right direction.

Yes, we need managers and big companies to take a step in this direction as well, but if we don’t start talking about it, we’ll never see change.

Bridget studies physics, maths and marketing; she hopes one day to use this to open a cafe. editor@salient.org.nz

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Renée Gerlich Contributor

salient

The World’s Worst Humanitarian Crisis Is Still the West’s War on Brown Children The current refugee crisis has many times been framed as the “worst humanitarian crisis since WWII”. It seems this framing functions to counteract numbness in the West, much like the viral sharing of that gut-wrenching photograph of Aylan, the three-year-old boy taken from this world by what looks like an unfeeling, indiscriminate Mediterranean Sea. That numbness is due, at least in part, to our incapacity or our unwillingness to name the true cause of a crisis that has produced more than 4 million refugees, out of 19 million globally, who are fleeing from Honduras to Nigeria to Libya, from Afghanistan to Myanmar. As European nations patrol their borders fiercely, the “worst since WWII” framing does not help us.

By treating events as separate and relative, we implicitly downplay the connections between them, and this obscures their nature.

The eurocentric framing hides the fact that the current crisis is an extension of ongoing imperialism, a war on brown children that is centuries old, led to WWI and II, and is ongoing. When we do not name this problem, we cannot work to end it, and in that context our mass consumption of images like that of Aylan becomes predatory and voyeuristic.

We’ve seen a stream of images of this kind in all of our lifetimes. I remember television pictures of the Rwandan genocide in which one million Tutsi died—it was 1994, and I was ten. I did the forty-hour famine resolutely each year, raising a good few hundred dollars a fast; I did not know then that the suffering was not sporadic, that Rwanda’s Hutu and Tutsi populations were pitted against each other in a divide-and-rule strategy adopted

by Belgian colonisers. I of course could not foresee the U.S., who appeared to my young eyes to be delivering us the nightly news in sympathetic disbelief, giving Rwanda over $1 www.salient.org.nz

billion in military aid from 2000.

These crises were, however, too numerous, long-lasting and disturbingly similar not to prompt me to question the faith I had in the world of responsible, European adults who took care of emergencies.

It was 1884 when Belgium seized Rwanda— along with Burundi, and Congo, where slave labour in ivory, rubber, gold and diamonds has claimed five million lives. It was the year of the Berlin Conference at which European nations divided Africa among themselves.

The Italians took Libya, Eritrea and Somalia; the French an East-West slice of Africa including Algeria. Britain got the lion’s share, a corridor from Egypt to South Africa. The Dutch East India Company had already taken control of South Africa in 1652 and lost it to Britain in 1795, one hundred years before the Boer Wars.

WWI (which, of course, created the preconditions for WWII) was a war between these competing, imperial powers. During it, Britain and France sliced up the Middle East between themselves too, through the SykesPicot agreement. Indeed, in a 2014 speech, Isis caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi stated that the Isis “advance will not stop until we hit the last nail in the coffin of the Sykes-Picot conspiracy”.

Since the world wars, of course, Russia and the U.S. have fought an arms race in the Middle East. In Syria, Russia has supported the state; the U.S., and increasingly regional Islamist groups, the rebels. Isis, now rampant in Libya, Iraq and Syria, was begat by Al Qaeda, raised with U.S. support. This year our Prime Minister sent troops to Iraq in what we are supposed to believe is his moral crusade to support the U.S. to stop them.

The mandate given New Zealand in WWI was over Samoa—and we greeted Samoa in

1918 with an influenza epidemic that wiped out 22% of its population. New Zealand’s own population of Māori had halved through the late 1800s, through lack of healthcare and Land Wars. The 1863 Waikato invasion saw an army of between 14,000 and 18,000 sent out against about 4,000 Māori defenders; the settler administration cut off Tūhoe from their fertile plains and seafood sources. Te Papa currently attributes their resistance to WWI conscription to “pacifist beliefs”.

Still now, one in five Māori and Pasifika children live in poverty here. Last year we saw the televised pictures of two-year-old Emma Lita Bourne, after her life was lost to pneumonia from a cold, damp state house; lost to the same war that took Aylan.

I am not a historian. But I have grown up with images like Aylan’s, and I see that the West is not alleviating but is incriminated in the brutality and neglect of so many children of colour. The greatest humanitarian crisis we face now is not a singular, freak event (in Europe) to be compared in scale with another singular, freak event (in Europe). The systemic poverty, violence and environmental crises we face today are still occurring within the same context of white imperialism as the world wars, arms race, colonialism and the slave trade.

Images of this ongoing crisis, in art history and media, are far too plentiful already.

I want that we would, collectively, not just watch but name the centuries-old war that every day claims children like Aylan and Emma, so that we can work to make it end.

Renée Gerlich is a writer based in Wellington. She is currently working on a documentary about work undertaken by the old Arts and Crafts Branch within our first Labour government’s Education Department.

Cameron Price 2014 Co-Editor

issue 23

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The Human Condition Is Terminal Trigger warning: this piece is dark, real dark.

Bleak as fuck. There’s mention of all sorts of truly horrific stuff. Read at your own peril.

will. But the tragic banality of her short life and the evil that took it is something we can learn from. Evil is so easy it’s almost boring.

As I’m writing this, the sun is coming up in Ganggye, North Korea. Government scientists are getting ready to go to work at a military base.

And as bad as that all is, don’t forget for a second that me and you and everyone else in the world is consciously perpetrating an equivalent evil: we know this is happening.

We have the power to stop it1. But we do nothing.

There, at the behest of Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un, they will test chemical weapons on children with mental and physical disabilities.

If you’re reading this over a morning coffee, the experiments are taking place right now.

Can you feel it? There goes one—a child with Down’s syndrome, punished by the random nature of genetics, cursed by the entirely natural phenomena of being born with an extra chromosome, pried from the arms of her desperate mother, loser in the cruel and morally ambivalent lottery of birth.

See her now, her tiny body, shackled to a gurney. She’s probably smiling—the beauty of Down’s is that those with the syndrome are unable to comprehend or grasp man’s true capacity for evil, so she is likely unaware of the gruesome fate that awaits. Some consolation.

Now the gas (chlorine, mustard, sarin, take your pick—that twisted maniacal Kim fuck makes his scientists test them all) is smothering her nasal passage, choking in her throat, burning her chest, melting her lungs.

Her small frame writhes in agony.

She takes a while to die—the gas doesn’t kill her directly. Instead, she drowns in her own blood and mucus.

The scientists record their observations.

That girl was real. She existed, she was alive, and she had a name, even if no-one will ever learn it—I don’t know what it was, and never

And personally I’m terrified of what would happen if we did liberate these people. When (if ?) the people of North Korea escape the treacherous grip of the Kim dynasty, we will have a lot to answer for. They will learn about the outside world, how everything they’d ever been told about it was a lie. They will plead with us, demand an explanation.

And we will have no response—at least I know I won’t. I’m not sure we as a species are yet capable of reckoning with the darkness at the heart of our collective soul, but I’m certain we wouldn’t be ready even if we could.

And that’s just one example in one country at one point in time: consider the desperate plight of Aylan, the dead Syrian baby on the beach and the millions of faceless others who have died and will continue to do so because we allow Bashar al-Assad to execute a campaign of hatred and extermination (incidentally he has also used, and continues to use, chemical weapons on his own people).

Consider the fact that Vladimir Putin, a man who almost certainly murdered people in his time at the KGB, is conducting a proxy war on the helpless people of the Ukraine while the NATO alliance stands by and watches from afar.

After the Germans first used mustard gas in World War I, we promised we’d never allow chemical weapons to be deployed in combat.

After Hitler exterminated millions of his own citizens (recall that he also targeted humans with disabilities), we said we’d never let it

happen again. After our species narrowly avoided committing collective suicide in 1945, we vowed that if any superpower attacked a defenseless neighbour, our allies, then it was an attack on us all.

And yet here we are.

Consider the hatred shown to women, to homosexuals, to those born in a different geographical location, to those different to us, a hatred that doesn’t seem to have a beginning or an end. Consider the rape and domestic abuse and violence and hurt that we have always inflicted on each other.

Consider the depressing reality that we are all descended from ancestors who were barbaric as fuck, and for most of its existence homo sapiens has had no conception of consent, which means that me and you and everyone else is the product of rape.

Consider the fact we had the idea to create a bomb so powerful it vaporizes everything in its path. Then consider the inexcusable and unavoidable truth that we dropped two of them on cities which were home to millions of innocent human beings.

Consider the fucking lobster. Basically, I’m saying that man’s capacity for evil is unlimited.

And you might say that there is less war today than there has ever been in human history, and that would be true, but I’m not sure that’s something to crow about it.

Remember North Korea? Not a state of affairs to be proud of.

Cam is happy to be proven wrong about all of the above—send him an email at cameronprice92@gmail.com if you disagree.

editor@salient.org.nz

Mam SicChesni Redditor

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salient

Left Shark Is My Spirit Animal The other day I walked past a giant unidentified mascot in the Hub and it got me thinking. Specifically, it got me thinking about what I would do if I, too, had a giant mascot outfit that would allow me to pass unidentified in the Hub. I’d feel awkward at first. Eventually, once I was satisfied nobody could tell who I was, I might bust some moves.

Am I the kind of person who would dress up in a mascot outfit and do a little dance?

I’m not sure. But I am sure that most people I know definitely don’t see me as the kind of person who would dress up in a mascot outfit and do a little dance.

Compared to how we see ourselves, we’re far more likely to view other people as cohesive packages defined by several broad personality traits. We’re also far more likely to make these judgements quickly, based on incomplete snippets of evidence. On the other hand, it takes a significant amount of time, effort and honesty to pick out even one of your own defining traits. And when you do this, it’s likely to be aided by the observations of others—for instance, I’m only aware that I’m grumpy and arrogant because my friends have often pointed it out to me (thanks guys). For the most part, our self-images are hopelessly deluded and idealised.

Other people don’t just provide judgement— they actively shape you. I only became a highly reserved, introverted person after starting high school, being uncool, and beginning to consciously filter everything I said in an effort to avoid exacerbating my situation. The process took several years and by the time it was finished, I had transformed myself from an overt maniac into someone www.salient.org.nz

whose every one-on-one interaction took on eye-stabbing levels of awkwardness.

Unfortunately this meant I was still uncool, just in a different way, so I started listening to altier music. That helped a bit.

So much of what we do, and which parts of our personalities we choose to put into the world, are influenced by other people’s expectations that it becomes a prison. At the end of the day, though, I’m not here to waste your time with trite remarks about how social conformity is a bummer and tends to turn people into image-obsessed, narcissistic wankers. Instead, I’m here to sing the praises of anonymity.

When Left Shark got on stage behind Katy Perry in his? her? their? mascot outfit and, yes, did a little dance, it was a heartwarming moment. Not because we were all able to experience a bit of collective schadenfreude and superiority, but because we were able to have a laugh at some poorly-executed dance moves by a big blue furry shark without caring too much about who was inside said shark.

As far as I’m aware, Left Shark’s identity is still unknown—and that’s great. If I think back to the most humiliating experiences of my life, they all involve goofing during live performances. There was the one time I was in the school musical, but was so bad at singing I had to speak my singing lines.

There was the other time when my recorder group got on stage to do a performance, but my carefully-transcribed “A-F-B-D-etc” notation had been replaced by sheet music, which I had no idea how to read, so I just looked over at Laura Barker who was sitting next to me and poorly mimed her finger movements. Then my mum decided to give me crap about it afterwards (I was seven!

Fuck’s sake). Oh, what I wouldn’t have given for a handy shark outfit.

Anonymity doesn’t just free you from judgement, it frees you from expectation.

Is The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling any good? Don’t know; haven’t read it. To be honest, don’t really read books, lol. Yet I don’t rate my chances of finding an unbiased perspective; it’s impossible to judge the merits of the book without dragging along pounds of baggage from platform nine and three-quarters. But when Rowling adopted the nom de plume Robert Galbraith she was, before she was outed, afforded the great luxury of anonymity—having her work judged on its own merits. And those merits were, according to most reviews, quite substantial. Who’d have thought?

I’ve long been a big believer in pseudonyms (although obviously Mam is my actual name). I always put my real name on my bitchier, more aggressive stuff because I think you need to own that shit; and I usually put my more whimsical, tenuous or flat-out nonsensical writing under a pseudonym— not necessarily because it’s worse, but because it’s a facet of my personality that I choose not to make public. After all, anonymity isn’t just about ideas; it’s also about self-discovery, about finding yourself without having to shut yourself away from the public sphere.

Of course, that argument could also extend to wanking inside a trench coat, but for once I’d prefer to focus on the positives.

Mam is definitely not the editor of Salient— lol, what a shitrag, amirite?

Sharon Lam Feature Writer

issue 23

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I Fucking Love Architecture School

Hoo boy, if there is one thing in this world that I love more than anything else it is studying fucking architecture at Te Aro campus. The rest of the world can be swallowed up in flames leaving nothing but that beloved red building for all I care, for nothing exists for me outside of architecture school and nothing else needs to! An architectural education satisfies each and every single one of my wants and needs and I have zero fucking complaints! Although if I had to nitpick, I suppose it would be just how fucking hard it is to decide what my absolute favourite thing about architecture school is!

First of all, I just love the main preoccupation of an architecture student—looking for your fucking metal ruler! It was on the desk RIGHT THERE just ONE FUCKING SECOND ago and now it is ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE TO BE FOUND. Oh disappearing inanimate metal ruler, you know how to make a girl happy!

Sometimes the benevolent unknown forces will shake things up, and I’ll be screaming after my fucking scale ruler instead, or perhaps punching walls in search for masking tape! So many surprises! In each assignment I make sure to note just how much fucking time I spent throwing everything off my desk and rearranging furniture to find runaway stationery—usually if you spend more than three hours it’s an instant pity A+!

Secondly, I love the educational prowess of a degree in architecture. What have I learnt in the past four fucking years? God, I don’t know! How thick is wall? Fuck, I don’t know!

What is that building made out of ? Haha, I still don’t fucking know! And can someone

please tell me why everyone is so fucking obsessed with Le Corbusier!? While on that topic, please, please, PLEASE can we have more old white male architects featured in lectures? I know it’s about 90 fucking per cent crusty old white men already, but I just can’t get enough of them! I’m only sleeping in class because I want to be having erotic dreams about Mies van der Rohe! But anyway, back to the education—I really do love having almost zero exams; assignments are so much easier than multiple choice tests to fluke an A on.

Perhaps, though, my number one favourite thing about architecture school is how it is entirely geared towards a very specific kind of person and completely excludes idlers, scatterbrains and daydreamers. All while parading as an “art” and “creative discipline”! Hypocrisy, fucking love it!!!

Disparate interests? No room for that in architecture school! Irregular attendance?

But all the classes are at 9am to make sure you’d come! Yes, the star of architecture school is a morning person, churning out boring buildings with lots of fucking fire escapes and even more fucking toilets, who can afford to buy a fucking forest of balsa wood for modeling material, prioritises allnighters over their health, and who always knows where their fucking metal ruler is. I myself have yet to successfully mould myself into this ideal form but I hope that with each –2% for attendance I get closer. I just absolutely cannot wait for the day where I spring out of bed at fucking 6am to read about the latest building codes, go for a run to the florist before heading to university to sweet talk a lecturer, and then get to work on

designing upmarket apartment complexes.

Unfortunately, I only have one year left of architecture school, though it could be the best fucking year of all—thesis year! Fuck, there are just so many thrilling theses being written—about medium density housing (wooh, my palms are sweating just typing those words!), parametric design (the uglier the building, the better right?!), and selfrighteous “charity” projects (who better to design for a minority than a privileged student who has absolutely no relationship or connection with a culture or its people!?).

As for myself, I cannot fucking wait to start writing my own thesis, The Successful Architect: All You Need Is A Penis and Rich Clients!

So there are some reasons why I fucking love architecture school. But in all sincerity it’s really not all that bad at Te Aro—we have on-campus showers and don’t have to walk up that bloody hill. Why I’m still plodding along after four years of whining? Well, perhaps it’s because it’s too late to change degrees for a second time, or perhaps it’s because, for all its flaws, I still blindly cling on to the belief that good design can better our lives and academia is a path towards that, and perhaps I really do fucking love architecture school.

Sharon Lam was born in 1863 and is perhaps best known for playing Catherine So, the seventh friend on the hit television sitcom Friends. editor@salient.org.nz

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Comics

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issue 23

Puzzles

47

Target goals: Pretty Good—42 Solid—49 Great—54

Issue 21 Solutions:

Wordsearch: ‘Whodunit?’

No word list this week it wouldn’t be much of a mystery otherwise. The leftover letters will spell out a message that might have been helpful to know before you started...

editor@salient.org.nz

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