Woroni Edition Nine 2018

woroni VOL. 68, Issue 9. Week 5, Semester 2, 2018

PAGE THREE

ANUSA 2019 TEAM ELECTED PAGE FOUR

PARSA NOMINEES ANNOUNCED

PAGE SEVEN

"IT'S JUST A JOKE." BEN JEFFERSON PAGE 39

GLITTER

CANADA GAVIN

PAGE 46

ALIGHT KATHARINA FEHRINGER

Vol. 68 , Issue 09 News

UNI LIFE

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Meanwhile, in Canberra...

Let the Climate Burn, There's Politics to Play Jasper Lindell 7

"It's Just a Joke."

Ben Jefferson 8

Mythical Playlist ANU Students

In Defence of Long-Distance Anonymous

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Hidden Shame: How Staff Keep Sexual Assault a Secret Sayan De INTERNATIONAL 12

ASEAN in Southeast Asia Cerelia Lim 13

"Beauty is Pain"... Literally

What Your Fruit Bowl and the Galaxy Have in Common Fiona Panther 35

Touring ANU's Particle Accelerator Andy Yin 36

Oil is the Cheat Code Nick Blood 37

Black Magic: Nine Mind-Boggling Facts About Black Holes ENVIRONMENT

‘Mythic’ - Features

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Q Told Me So Mark Perry 15

Mythbusting History; How did the Science of the Nuclear Bomb keep the Cold War Cold?

Turning the Corner: Farmers Facing Climate Change Xavier Anderson 39

Glitter Canada Gavin 40

Felicity Millar

Caged or Protected? PredatorProof Fences in Australia

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Xavier Anderson

Artist Showcase Katharina Fehringer

Natalie Murnane

Surbhi Arora

Multilingual

CREATIVE

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Anonymous

Geoffrey Bonning

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An Untold Chapter of Antoine de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince Alisha Nagle 21

Disappearing Existence A Little Fuji Apple 44

Q and A With a Shooting Star Clare Myers

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ARTS 28

Tales of Tails Abigail Manning 29

No Coward Soul is Mine Tabitha Malet REVIEWS 30

'Dogfight' Review Noah Yim

Woroni apologises for failing to correctly attribute the article "India and the Curse of Whatsapp" in the international section of Edition Eight. The writer of this piece was Riddhi Mehta, and we apologise to Riddhi for this error. The online version of this article has been attributed correctly.

Huh

From the Archives FOOD FIGHT PULL-OUT

Woroni apologises to the author of 'When I Get Used to Something' for failing to correctly format the piece in Edition Eight.

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The Rise of a Religious and Spiritual Market

Thrill Seeker

This paper is recyclable.

Protect the environment and recycle me after reading.

BUSINESS & ECONOMICS

Land of Mist and Myth

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We will honour the diversity of their stories.

Isabel Richards

Eloise Rattle

We acknowledge the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, who are the traditional owners of the land on which Woroni is written, edited and printed.

We would also like to acknowledge that this land – which we benefit from occupying – was stolen, and that sovereignty was never ceded. Within this ongoing echo of colonialism we commit, as writers and editors, to amplify the voices and stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people at our university.

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acknowledgement of country

We pay respects to Elders past, present and future.

Madeleine Sinnis

Jonathan Tjandra

Michael Katsavos

Sebastian Rossi

Exploring Canberra

SCIENCE

Mythic Music – How Artists have Cemented themselves on Barely-Real Pedestals

Sudoku

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The Tuckwell Myth 9

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I Have a Problem with Fairytales Sophie Johnson Alight Katharina Fehringer 47

Board of Editors Editor in Chief: Mia Jessurun Deputy EIC: Ben Lawrence Managing Editor: Jonathan Tjandra Content Editor: Alisha Nagle Radio Editor: Zoe Halstead TV Editor: William He Art Editor: Sophie Bear News Editor: Noah Yim

staff and Sub-Editors Financial Controller: Brendan Greenwood Distributor: Jasper Lindell Business Development: Sumedha Verma Marketing Sub-Editor: Daniel Schuler Social Media Sub-Editor: Brandon Tan Senior Sub-Editor: Miriam Sadler Senior Sub-Editor: Caroline Dry Comment: Ben Jefferson International: Riddhi Mehta Features: Abigail Manning Multilingual: Melissa Nuhich Arts: Tabitha Malet Reviews: Surbhi Arora Uni Life: Madeleine Sinnis Environment: Xavier Anderson Science: Erin Ronge Business & Economics: Soumyadeep Sengupta Creative Writing: Phoebe Lupton Satire: Gene Pinter News: Aishwarya Taskar News: Caitland Coulson News: Dan Le Mesurier News: Jeffrey Weng News: Nick Richardson Station Manager: Steph David Executive Producer: Imogen Purcell Presenter Liason: Maddie Kibria Radio Technical Officer: Ben Donald-Wilson Music & Events: Albie Ryan Breakfast Producer: Sumithri Venketasubramanian Radio Producer: Patrick Bruce Radio Producer: Vikram Sondergaard Radio Producer: Maleika Twist Radio Producer: Gil Rickey Radio Producer: Claudia Weatherall Radio Producer: Jeremy Abdul-Karim Art & Design: David Liu Art & Design: Millie Wang Art & Design: Hannah Charny Art & Design: Clarence Lee Art & Design: Maddy McCusker Art & Design: Georgie Kamvissis Technical Manager: Bremer Sharp Executive Producer: Zachary Schofield TV Producer: Jasmine Ryan TV Producer: Nathalie Rosales-Cheng TV Producer: Ria Pflaum Video Editor: Cedalise Mariotti Video Editor: Aryanne Caminschi Video Editor: Savannah Benson Camera Operator: Derek Wu Camera Operator: Prakash Singh Camera Operator: Cathy McGrane

Artwork by Millie Wang

Contact

sATIRE

Phone: (02) 6125 9574 Shop 14, Lena Karmel Building 26 Barry Drive, Acton 2601 Woroni is printed by Capital Fine Print

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Staying Warm in Canberra This Winter Lily Lervasi

Want to contribute?

Send words to write@woroni.com.au and visuals to art@woroni.com.au.

Woroni is powered by....

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Week 5, Semester 2, 2018

ANUSA 2019 TEAM ELECTED

Text: Dan Le Mesurier and Nick Richardson With voting for next year’s ANUSA positions having closed at 4pm on Thursday, 16 August , the election results have now been released.

Due to a number of positions being elected unopposed, including all but one of the executive roles, students voted to decide who will occupy the positions of Education Officer, NUS Delegates,

General Representatives, and College of Asia and the Pacific Representatives.

Tanika Sibal was elected as Education Officer, on their Refresh ticket.

Brandon Tan, Henri Vickers, Jade Lin, Ailsa Schreurs, Anabelle Nshuti, Christopher Atkins, Peter Sun, Jocelyn Abbott, Isabella Keith, Taylor Heslington, Harsh Thakkar, David Harvey,

Madeleine Lezon, and Yasmin Poole were all elected as General Representatives.

Kai Clark and Alison Wong were elected as College of Asia and the Pacific Representatives.

ANU is able to send 5 delegates to the National Union of Students National Conference. The delegates elected were Niall Cummins from Ignite, Ashish Nagesh from Reform, and Lachy Day, Tanika Sibal and Croft Sun from Refresh.

Voter turnout in this year’s elections is well below the numbers of past years.

1688 (9.32%) students submitted an electronic ballot, down from the record high turnout of 2651 (18.84%) submitted last year and the 2190 (21.92%) witnessed in 2016. w

ANU QUEER* DEPARTMENT CALLS FOR REMOVAL OF NUS QUEER* OFFICER Text: Dan Le Mesurier and Caitland Coulson

The ANU Queer* Department has called for the resignation of Jasmine Duff, one of the two National Union of Student (NUS) LGBTI Officers.

The call for resignation follows a motion of no confidence passed at the Queer Collaborations conference in June, where delegates from across Australia cited examples of “transphobia, harassment, bullying and intimidation”.

One such example occurred during the 2017 NUS National Conference, where Duff reportedly misgendered a Queer* student who had expressed dissatisfaction with the NUS. After the student

corrected her, Duff reportedly told them to “get fucked”.

In a post to Facebook, the ANU Queer* Department held this behaviour to be “unbecoming of a national representative and, in particular, of one representing a marginalised student body such as the Queer* community.”

Jasmine Duff is one of two NUS LGBTI Officers, along with Kim Stern – both of whom are factionally affiliated with Socialist Alternative (SAlt), represented on campus through Left Action. Despite being enrolled at Monash University from 2015-2017, Stern has been active on the ANU campus this year, organising student protests and, in March, stalling ANUSA’s second SRC. Reported in Farrago, Duff was also accused of “failure to comply with, or

complete a number of her responsibilities” as outlined in the NUS Constitution. The cited responsibilities include a responsibility to liaise with LGBTI groups in the wider community as well as supporting LGBTI officers across campuses and encouraging communication between them.

When contacted by Farrago, Duff claimed such accusations had never been raised with her prior to the motion of no confidence, and that contrary to the motion she had in fact upheld her responsibilities as listed above.

When contacted by Woroni for comment on the length of time it took for the ANU Queer* Department to publicly call for Duff’s resignation, Matthew Mottola, the current Queer* Officer, responded that the motion was passed during the winter holidays and was affirmed “at the

first department meeting of the semester”. As such it was affirmed as soon as possible given when teaching periods and meeting dates lined up.

When asked what he would like to see in an NUS LGBTI Officer, Mottola stated that he “would like to see that the candidates who are endorsed by Queer* Collaborations are actually elected at NatCon.” Something he acknowledges is highly unlikely due to factionalism.

To date it appears that Jasmine Duff has not tendered a resignation as she is still listed on the NUS website along with counterpart Kim Stern. While Mottola has a good working relationship with Stern he has acknowledged that there are “a lot of other Queer* Officers across Australia who have expressed their frustrations about a lack of communication and collaboration with the officers.” w

Vol. 68 , Issue 09

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ISD AMENDS ELECTION PROCEDURES Text: Jeffrey Weng and Nick Richardson

Monday, 13 August: The International Students’ Department’s second Ordinary General Meeting of 2018 was held at the Brian Kenyon Student Space.

Motions were passed to make amendments to the ISD Constitution in preparation for the upcoming ISD elections.

From 2018 onward, elections will only be held for the four executive positions: President, Vice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer.

The four portfolio directors (Education, Social, Publication, Well-being) will be appointed instead of being elected. Members of the current executive committee are allowed to apply.

When asked to explain the rationale of the amendment, ISD President Mina Kim commented that the past elections were “toxic” and “over-politicised”, often developing into a “popularity contest”.

has asked Eden Lim, the incumbent ANUSA General Secretary, to be the Returning Officer of the ISD election.

In previous years, the ANUSA General Secretary has always the Returning Officer.

“By reducing the number of elected executive committee members, candidates will have to consider the benefits of having a ticket against running independently.”

At least three Probity Officers will be in office for the annual election. A new section 8.8 will be inserted in the ISD Constitution describing their powers and roles. At least two will be elected at a General Meeting of the ISD, and another Probity Officer will be a representative of the Interhall International Committee. Candidates cannot be nominated themselves as Probity Officers.

A panel consisting of the four newly elected executives and at least one of the current executives, given that there is no conflict of interests, will review the applications. Applications will be open in week nine, and interviews will be conducted in week ten.

To comply with Section 8.7 of the ISD Constitution, ISD President Mina Kim

Probity Officers will have the power to refer candidates, who they believe have breached the constitution, may recommend the candidate to the Returning

officer and recommend action under ANUSA Electoral Regulations section 3.2.3.

“The problem about having only one Returning Officer is that the Returning Officer was overburdened and wasn’t able to respond to complaints fast enough, giving unfair advantage to some parties.”

The purpose of having at least three Probity Officers is to ensure that there are enough Probity Officers to work on alleged or suspected electoral infractions and misconducts when a Probity Officer has a potential conflict of interest with the candidates involved.

ISD Elections will be held in week eight after the presidential debate in week seven. w

PARSA ANNOUNCES ELECTED OFFICERS AND CANDIDATES FOR UPCOMING ELECTIONS Text: Aishwarya Taskar

The campaign weeks for the upcoming PARSA election have begun. Nominations for candidature closed on Friday, 10 August.

Uncontested positions have been elected unopposed as per the rules of the recently revised constitution. Positions for which no nominations were received have been declared as casual vacancies.

Only four casual vacancies have been declared – for the position of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Officer as well as three directors for the board.

Candidates have been announced under three different tickets: ‘Vision’,

‘Empower’ and ‘ARAGMA’. A few independent candidates have been announced as well.

Five independent candidates have been elected to the board of directors. Three casual vacancies remain for the board.

The elected members of the board are as follows: Alyssa Shaw Chris Wilson Binota Julian Windup Leonard ‘Vision’ claims to be guided by the values of “community spirit, proactive leadership, accountability and fairness, advocacy, accessibility and support”.

Their proposed policies have several initiatives for accommodation, community building, student employment, scholarships, PARSA’s administration, creating a safer campus, support for parents studying at the University, creating inclusive communities, health and wellbeing, academic support and engagement with members.

‘Empower’ wants to “fight for an inclusive and more supportive community”.

Empower’s policies include initiatives for mental health and physical wellbeing, sexual harassment, creating a community, the environment, consulting and communication as well as advocacy for education, international students,

equity, family and parents, accommodation and LGBTIQQA+ issues.

Contested positions will be determined by a ballot of members. Online polls for the election will be conducted from 27 to 30 August.

While canvassing for votes, all candidates have to follow rules defined by the PARSA constitution. Actions such as paying for social media advertising or offering food or money in exchange for votes are electoral offences. A team of probity officers will assist the Returning Officer to investigate any alleged breach of code of conduct. Students can also report any such action through a form that will be available on PARSA’s election website. w

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Week 5, Semester 2, 2018

EDUCATION OFFICER NOMINEES IN ANUSA ELECTIONS DEBATE Text: Nick Richardson

The Pop-up hosted the first ANUSA debate between the two nominees for Education officer Niall Cummins for Ignite ANUSA and Tanika Sibal for Refresh ANUSA. The position of Education Officer is the only contested executive ANUSA position in week four’s student elections.

Both candidates echoed the sentiments of their policy documents when prompted with notice about their proposed actions towards the currently implemented 12 week semesters. Cummins strongly asserted that the current system “takes students for granted” and that he will consult with the education committee to campaign against the current 12 week system. Sibal highlighted how courses are being condensed to fit into the shorter semesters and subsequently, students are receiving less for the same amount of money. Sibal also asserted that she would “work closely” with Vice

President Campbell Clapp and President Eden Lim to produce campaigns centred around how the 12 week semesters have influenced the experiences of students and teachers.

When queried as to their opinions on the live streaming of the NUS, Niall demonstrated his concerns. He highlighted that a live-stream of the event, removed the ability for the union to discuss “contentious issues” and was sceptical as to what benefits a live-stream of the event would provide. In contrast, Refresh Candidate Sibal, supported the proposal. She drew on her experience at this years conference, asserting that when camera’s accompanied the appearance of Greens Senator, Sarah Hanson-Young, the discussion became far more efficient and she believes that a live stream would achieve a similar result.

Sibal was queried as to whether she would distribute a list of parliamentarians and how they voted on issues in light of her proposal to collate and distribute

information on politician opinions regarding increasing HECS repayment threshold. The Refresh ANUSA candidate expressed an interest in pursuing a similar course of action given the upcoming election likely to be held in 2019.

Prompted on notice as to his plans to reform the education committee, Cummins outlined that he plans to emphasise key focuses of the committee going forward. Drawing experience from the recent committee meeting on housing, Cummins outlined that a clear meeting objective allowed for greater student engagement and productivity. The Ignite for ANUSA candidate also outlined his plan to shift the structure of the committee to align closer to the model of a parliamentary system. He also asserted that he wished to work with two passionate general representatives to work towards more effective campaigns.

Both candidates asserted that funding cuts from the federal government are the greatest foreseeable education issue

in the coming year. Sibal demonstrated that she aims to counteract this through the provision of lobbying campaigns through print and social media. Cummins more directly cited action to lobby directly to cross benches as well as producing campaigns demonstrating student opinions.

An audience member asked both candidates as to how they will respond to the recent cuts to the diploma of languages by the federal government. Cummins demonstrated his intent to produce a “big campaign”, which utilises the testimonies of alumni and those who missed out on the program. Sibal praised the current efforts of the education committee and pledged to continue their work.

The incoming President and Vice President were also interviewed. They showed enthusiasm for their upcoming terms. 2019 will be the first time in three years that the two positions are nominated from different tickets. w

ANU PHYSICIST AWARDED 2018 ACT SCIENTIST OF THE YEAR

Text: Jeffrey Weng Friday, 10 August: Dr. Rose Ahlefeldt is the recipient of the 2018 ACT Scientist of the Year.

Dr. Rose Ahlefeldt is a Research Fellow at the ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering. She graduated from ANU with a PhD in Solid State Physics in 2013, and returned to ANU after visiting France and the United States as a Fulbright Scholar.

The first ACT Scientist of the Year was presented in 2015. The awards aims to recognise excellence in scientific research and innovation in the ACT, and to inspire young people to consider a

career in STEM. The award is accompanied by a $30,000 prize money.

be stored and released for at least 1/10 seconds.

approach was the right one.” said Sellars.

Dr. Rose Ahlefeldt studies the optical spectroscopy of rare-earth crystals and their application in making high-performance quantum memories.

Dr. Rose Ahlefeldt has been part of a team led by Associate Professor Matthew Sellars. They discovered that a large magnetic field can improve the quantum storage time of erbium crystals by a factor of 10,000 to more than one second. Last year, their findings were published in Nature Physics.

The findings suggests hope for building global networks for quantum computers to reach their full potentials.

“I like working with quantum memories because I get to apply fundamental understanding of materials to real world problems, and possibly develop new technologies for the future.”

Researchers have been working on quantum memories for over a decade.

Storing quantum information for even 1/1000 seconds has proven to be a challenging task. But quantum internet is feasible only if photons can

Erbium is one of the seventeen rare-earth metals. It is the only element that can absorb and emit light at the telecommunications wavelength of 1,550 nanometres.

“We had this idea 10 years ago, but many of our peers told us that such a simple idea couldn’t work. Seeing this result, it feels great to know that our

Researchers have already identified several applications of quantum computers, including secure networks, artificial intelligence, and new drugs.

When asked about her advice for young people considering a career in science, Dr. Rose Ahlefeldt said it starts with “curiosity about some aspect of the world”.

“As a child, I enjoyed building things and spent a lot of time in my dad’s garage making stuff. Thinking creatively about the world and building

COMMENT

Vol. 68 , Issue 09

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Meanwhile, in Canberra…

Let the Climate Burn, There’s Politics to Play Text: Jasper Lindell Graphic: Sophie Bear If the last decade and more has shown us anything, it’s that politics clearly isn’t up to the task. Climate change is still advancing and we’re not doing nearly enough, captive to a system that will never prioritise action.

And yes, you should be interested in its anthropogenic origins, unlike agriculture minister David Littleproud who said on ABC’s Q&A earlier this month that it was a “big call” to blame humans.

There is the straight up lunacy of those who flat out deny climate change is happening. This European summer, ferociously baking the continent, should give some indication; mild summer days, reliable winters and ice sheets which have stood since time immemorial are not part of our new reality. Not to mention the drought Australia currently faces.

But beyond this misguided interpretation, there is the far more sinister view that agrees that climate change is happening but contends that it might well be a natural cycle. A variety of vague anecdotal justifications follows, with references to great changes in climate that have occurred in the past and muttered condemnations of the science.

Literature reviews have found the clear majority of peer-reviewed papers on global warming agree that it is happening. This is not the slim kind of majority

which has plunged Britain into the mess of sorting out Brexit. This is a superbly solid 99.99 per cent majority.

So what purpose does agreeing with climate change but remaining vague on the cause serve?

It charts a firm course towards the Island of Inaction, steaming along on the Good Ship Politics. If we didn’t cause it, the argument runs, we can’t do anything about it, so why bother? Let’s leave things how they are: our polluting industries and petrol cars, our global trade networks and our waste, our throwaway mobile phones and, of course, our electricity grids.

The National Energy Guarantee (NEG) is the policy this type of thinking leads to.

It’s a temporary solution to a long term problem, one which shows the limitations of the system which created it.

The NEG, now with support from the Coalition party room, replaces the Clean Energy Target, putting a reliability requirement and emissions requirement on electricity retailers and large electricity users.

The reliability requirement means suppliers must supply a certain proportion of their energy from non-intermittent sources. That means gas, coal and batteries – but this would not have prevented the 2016 South Australian blackout, according to the Energy Efficiency Council, which developed the scheme. This is a political fix – and it’s the only one we’ve got.

The NEG also mandates a 26 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions

on 2005 levels by 2030. Greenpeace says this is “grossly inadequate”. In the first two years, modelling shows the first 24 per cent of that reduction will kick in, leaving a decade to achieve a further two per cent reduction. So much ambition.

The NEG is complicated. There’s more detail than there are column inches.

Barnaby Joyce, who keeps popping up in this column, summed up the political situation: “The issue is this: people in the Kmart, people in the local pub, they don’t care about the Paris agreement. It means nothing to them. It has no purpose.

“What matters to them is this: that they can be able to afford their power bills and they currently cannot,” he said.

If people in Kmart or the local pub don’t care, it’s not because they don’t have the capacity to. It’s because politicians like Joyce – who as member for New England represents some of the most drought affected farmers in the country – have failed in explaining why it matters.

In the absence of any leadership on the planet’s future, the government is attempting to cut through to the hip beapocket, with the promise of cheaper electricity prices. But how much do electricity prices matter when the planet is left to melt?

Quite a lot, as it happens. As long as the sea hasn’t risen the 577 metres to flood Canberra, politics is still the main game (even though, at that height, the waters will have inundated a number of key electorates).

The “greatest moral challenge of our time”, as Kevin Rudd put it, has instead become the greatest existential threat to political leadership of our time. Malcolm Turnbull’s first stint as Liberal party leader came to an end when he stood up for an emissions trading scheme.

Julia Gillard was weakened by Tony Abbott’s incantations about the carbon tax.

As prime minwister, Abbott just didn’t care about the climate.

Malcolm Turnbull sits precariously in the polls. It’s not a good time to start talking about the drastic measures that developed and developing nations would need to take to prevent the onslaught of climate meltdown. (Instead, an easy political win is orchestrated with a renewed effort to abolish the rightly unpopular GST on tampons and other sanitary products.)

With Newspoll favouring the opposition at the next election, no one wants to talk about the positive impact on the environment winding down coal mining would have, or significantly limiting the number of litres of petrol we can buy.

With Newspoll the way it is, the great grandkids will just have to rely on more air-con in those nasty hot summers they’ll face.

Politics is not equipped to tackle climate change. The kind of vision we need just doesn’t cut it with the focus groups.

Jasper Lindell is Woroni’s political columnist and a former news editor

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Week 5, Semester 2, 2018

COMMENT

“It’s just a joke.”

Text: Ben Jefferson Graphic: Georgie Kamvissis

Content warning: Sexual assault and harrassment, discussions of racism, discussions of misogyny "It's just a joke."

targeted jokes actually believe all of what they’re saying in the joke.

But I will still condemn it because it a) relegates racism from something serious to something that can be laughed about and, possibly more importantly, b) lays the foundations for actually believing it.

hatred. Incels on reddit make jokes about violence and sexual assault; while there’s no necessary causal link between making these jokes and the actual incidences of violence caused by incels, the defence of “it’s just a joke” doesn’t continue to hold when something like that happens.

This is my ‘controversial opinion’.

It’s nothing novel for me to suggest that making racist jokes implies a lack of consideration for the impact that racism has on people. I believe that beyond that, making those jokes actually fosters an internal and group-oriented acceptance of the content the jokes are making light of. I don’t think that this is something that happens consciously or instantly - it’s something that happens over time and without the participants really noticing it.

People will continue to make jokes that devalue massive societal problems, and they will continue to justify their actions by arguing that “it’s just a joke.” Try and remember that jokes don’t always stay jokes.

It’s only by breaking that culture of group acceptance that we can disrupt our self-persuasion towards our worst thoughts. It’s up to us to keep ourselves and others accountable.

That’s a lot of opinion, so let me explain what I mean more slowly.

I’m not trying to argue that people shouldn’t make jokes about anything that might cause offence to anyone. This is a straw man argument often constructed by ‘anti-PC’ activists to suggest that being considerate amounts to giving up on humour. I think that comedy has an important role to play in opening dialogues about sensitive issues; well-constructed standup routines and TV shows can tease without overtly offending.

The first reason that I believe the assertion “it’s just a joke” is a myth is because the standard we walk past is the standard we accept (to quote David Morrison). If we think that a topic is fair game to make jokes

Furthermore, I don’t believe that making jokes about sensitive issues means that the joke-maker actually believes the import of what they’re saying in the joke. I don’t think that all people who make racially

The best example I can think of is ‘incel’ culture. Incel is short for “involuntary celibate”, and is a term for a male who, essentially, has a terrible attitude towards women including entitlement and feelings of

But is it?

Humour is used in many different ways. To express belonging, to playfully tease; to ridicule, to bully. At its worst, humour is used to denigrate and degrade. I think that humour can often be seen as something much less powerful – and much less dangerous – than it actually is. I think that “it’s just a joke” is a myth. I think that sometimes we don’t know where we sit between positive and negative uses of humour. And I think that we all have a responsibility to think more about that, and to hold each other accountable because of it.

about, we relegate it from a podium of seriousness in our mind to something that can be laughed at.

Often this happens in group settings; an individual would never pen a racist joke in a room on their own, but in a group of people they think will accept it they feel more comfortable crossing that line.

Vol. 68 , Issue 09

COMMENT

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The Tuckwell Myth Text: Jonathan Tjandra Graphic: Noah Yim It’s time to dispel the myth that the Tuckwell Scholarship is a merit-based scholarship. It is a myth which has proliferated not only among people associated with the Scholarship, but also among its critics. It’s a myth that is damaging not only to the Scholarship’s reputation but also to Scholars, applicants, and the wider community.

The Tuckwell Scholarship is not a merit-based scholarship. More importantly, it should never be. Rather, it is a values-based scholarship awarded because the recipient displays carefully selected criteria reflecting the values that the Scholarship Program deems most important.

Firstly, let us consider the overarching vision as stated on the Tuckwell website. Established through the generosity of Graham and Louise Tuckwell, “The program has a focus on giving back to Australia” and the vision is to “see highly talented and motivated school leavers to fulfil their potential and reinvest their knowledge, skills and experience in ways that positively benefit others.”

The Scholarship “is designed to attract and extend the abilities of students who wish to build and strengthen Australia as a nation and to give back to Australia through the application of their skills.”

It is all about giving back to the community, in more ways than just academics.

Next, let us consider the criteria by which the Scholarship is awarded. According to the website, it is awarded

based on four criteria: 1. Academic potential and achievements to date; 2. Other significant achievements to date, of any type; 3. Demonstration of the Attributes of a Tuckwell Scholar; and 4. A desire to eventually give back to Australia.

Looking at points one and two, the Scholarship is at least partially merit-based. The minimum ATAR requirement is 95 (EAS bonus points can be taken into account) – lower than equivalent scholarships around the country, and in particular lower than the ANU’s premier merit scholarship (the National University Scholarship) minimum of 99.90 (no bonus points). Applicants are also required to have studied both English and Maths in Year 11 or 12.

Thus, even the merit-based aspects reflect the value of being well-rounded academically and in other activities.

But by far, the most weight is put on the values that the applicant demonstrates through these achievements which signal a desire to eventually give back to their community.

By no means am I saying that all Scholars demonstrate all of the attributes at all times. Far from it. Instead, it is composed of a list of aspirational values that the Program believes are essential for fulfilling the vision of giving back to the community.

Finally, throughout the application and beyond, the applicant needs to demonstrate how they and their family are “connected and committed” to their

community and Australia more generally. There is therefore a large emphasis on connection to place and eventually giving back to the community.

This is my fourth year in the Program, and for me, there has always existed immense pressure to be a perfect Tuckwell Scholar. Ever since I came to the ANU, I was confronted with questions like “Oh but how can you be a Tuckwell Scholar?” before referencing a mistake I made or a flaw I possess, or exclamations like “Wow, but you seem just like an ordinary person” following their realisation. The promotion of the Scholarship as merits-based feeds into a culture of toxicity, competition, and imposter syndrome.

To me, the Scholarship should not be about how perfect someone is, but rather an ascription of the values that we aspire to. Merit and achievements may be important but are devoid of meaning in and of themselves.

The significance of our achievements rests on how they are grounded in or contribute to the aspirational values of giving back to the community.

Too often has the categorisation of the Scholarship as ‘merit-based’ been used as an excuse in response to constructive criticism of the program. It has been used to defend accusations that the Scholarship disadvantages applicants from low SES backgrounds, or the lack of State/ Territory representation, disappointing ethnic and cultural diversity, and lack of representation of minorities, in particular Australia’s Indigenous peoples.

A scholarship which is truly meritorious would not need to defend itself against such claims, as a merit-based scholarship would automatically reflect the diversity of Australia’s peoples,

notwithstanding any systemic barriers to achievement faced by minority groups. But a Scholarship which claims to be Australia’s most transformative scholarship needs to be better than that.

To Graham and Louise Tuckwell and those at ANU tasked with administering the Scholarship: please consider the message you are sending to young people all around the country. I know for a fact that there are students from low SES backgrounds or from minority groups that have been discouraged from applying simply because the message that they are receiving (whether true or not) is that the Scholarship will not accept people like them. And this is a great shame, a loss to the Scholarship, the ANU community and Australia more generally.

In light of our Parliament’s moving and unifying response to Senator Anning’s divisive comments last week, I urge the University and the Tuckwell Scholarship Program to consider the values it stands for, and the values that they would like potential students to hold.

Listening to the speeches on the morning of August 15, I can remember the exact points where I was moved to tears: Senator Wong’s speech, where she asked our leaders to consider the impact in schoolyards across Australia; Dr Aly’s speech, in which she reflected on an event she attended with young migrant children where she realised that they were still facing the same challenges that she faced 30 years ago; and Senator Gichuhi’s speech, where she asked “What am I going to say to my daughter, trying to apply for a job, coming to me to saying, ‘Mum, I don't think I can get this.’” These are the questions the Scholarship needs to consider.

And finally, to potential applicants who may stumble across this article: do not be disheartened. I believe that we, and the Scholarship, can be better than this.

If you’re on the fence about applying, I urge you to do it. Apply. Imagine how much worse things might be if people like you and me didn’t give it a go.

I and other Scholars are committed to ensuring that the values that we represent reflect the diversity and achievement of the Australian community.

Jonathan Tjandra is a Tuckwell Scholar and Managing Editor of Woroni. The views and opinions expressed in this article are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Tuckwell Scholarship Program or Woroni.

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COMMENT

Mythic Music - How artists have cemented themselves on barely-real pedestals CONTENT WARNING: Sexual identity, mental ill health Text: Michael Katsavos Graphic: Georgie Kamvissis

Music, like all art forms has some pivotal individuals or groups who, through their work and the context in which it fits, have reached levels of reverence at the loftiest of heights. This has been achieved through quality of output, their approach to the art form, and a myriad of other factors that give these individuals a larger-than-life identity and appearance. This article will explore some periods of time where artists have reached these heights, as well as the disappearances and shifts that have evoked this sort of mysticism.

Frank Ocean – Pre-Blonde Era: Following his stellar career debut, Frank Ocean followed up the critically acclaimed tape 'Nostalgia, Ultra’ with the beautiful album Channel Orange. It was an evocative piece that dealt with the trappings of fame, Frank’s own struggles with sexuality and self-acceptance, and larger issues with the music industry and society as a whole. The acclaim this album received for such a young artist was barely seen before this time, and fans and critics alike looked to Frank to become a consistently talented fixture in contemporary music.

Then he vanished.

Without any real notice, Frank secluded himself from the modern eye – no one had any knowledge of his whereabouts. Since then it has been disclosed that his nomadic artistic journey took him through parts of Asia

and Europe; yet somehow, he dodged press and his associates alike. The discourse surrounding his disappearance only exponentially built the hype he was already surrounded by – releasing tiny snippets of songs or even things as miscellaneous as liking a tweet pulled headlines from blogs. It seemed as if Frank’s disappearance brought him more attention than his music ever did – the lack of visibility for an artist that could be dictating mainstream trends propelled him to an incredible height of artistic respect. People began to understand that he was crafting something, and despite numerous delays and fanfare – he delivered with Blonde.

This disappearance followed by a piece of art so refined and well-constructed firmly cemented his role in the modern music industry more than regular output and press interviews could ever have done. Frank Ocean harnessed music fans’ tendency to glorify and mythologise artists to draw everybody in, allowing him to perfectly showcase a deeply personal piece of art.

Lauryn Hill: Heralded as one of the best hip hop artists of all time, Lauryn had incredible success in her solo career, and her time with the rap group The Fugees - the group that was essentially tasked with founding hip hop once more, following the deaths of Tupac and Biggie Smalls.

‘The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill’ is often looked to as a true classic in rap music, with powerful subject matter and a beautiful attention to detail.

This period of time within Hill’s career cemented her as one of the most decorated female artists of all time,

granting her a status of mythic proportions – the sheer consistency and commercial appeal of such politically and socially driven music was a fresh change to the mainstream at that point in time, and was a welcome and necessary moment of representation in a male-dominated genre.

Since this glorious run, Hill’s personal life has taken a toll on her, and her public image is slipping - with concert no-shows, delays, and a lack of engagement with music relative to her prior work. Despite the backlash from fans and press alike, she still remains an artist of mythic proportions due to the quality of her work in such a brief period of time - it’s as if a rush of inspiration triggered all of these incredible pieces of work, and then she simply stopped.

Arthur Lee and Love – The Forever Changes Era: A less well-known choice, but Arthur Lee and his work with his band Love has some immense backstory that cements ‘Forever Changes’ as a beautiful piece of experimental psychedelic rock music.

The band was in a tumultuous state – Lee was in conflict with fellow leading member Bryan Maclean and Lee’s outlook on the contemporary Hippie movement of the 60’s was cynical to say the least. He wrote the album with the prospect of his own death on the horizon, believing the era was doomed and concerned for his personal health and wellbeing.

Conflict and turmoil are the backdrop of the album, with Lee exploring grand

political ideas and analysis at odds with the ‘peace-and-love’ ideology of the time. The ideas seemed to emerge out of a vacuum, as if Lee was the only person who could see what was going on in the world around him.

The album is beautiful, packed with psychedelic guitar work, beautiful string arrangements, and concise but meaningful lyrics – yet despite this, the critical acclaim the album received was average at best.

Despite this, in the following years the music community slowly began to look to Love as one of the more pivotal rock bands of the era – ‘Forever Changes’ sounds radically different to any work of Lee, Maclean, or Love as a whole – and its cleareyed and borderline contrarian content and analysis positioned it as an album incredibly ahead of its time.

It’s impossible to recapture the situation that produced this album – but for it to grow to such a level of acclaim so long after its release imbues it with a mythical quality. It’s almost as if Lee could see how significant this piece of work would become, sacrificing inter-member conflict and tension for his artistic vision.

This article is merely a summary of some individuals near and dear to my pretentious music-loving heart, but they provide excellent examples of how fan engagement and artistic integrity can elevate individuals to levels of mythical proportions.

Read more of my ramblings on repeaterradio.com or tune into Thanks for Your Vospitality on Woroni Radio, 7-8pm on Fridays.

Vol. 68 , Issue 09

Comment

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Hidden Shame

How Staff keep Sexual Assault a Secret CONTENT WARNING: Sexual Assault and Harassment, Institutional Betrayal, AHRC Report

Text: Sayan De Graphic: Sophie Bear In 2015, a male ANU student sexually assaulted a female ANU student outside an event run by the ANU. The response to this incident, both immediately and in the longer term, by peers, the perpetrator and university administration, was disappointing and lacking in empathy and effectiveness. Repeated efforts to bring this story to the attention of the University were stifled and aggressively reframed by senior (and continuing) ANU staff members.

This story has played out a thousand times in any number of configurations; female students are assaulted and subsequently ignored or silenced with disgusting and depressing regularity at Australia’s Number 1 Ranked University. The discrepancy between the University’s public remarks and their documented responses reveals the University to be an irresponsible agent acting with a veil of feigned ignorance. Protecting the welfare of rapists is seemingly their priority.

The response of the University to 2017’s Human Rights Commission (HRC) Report almost had a tone of surprise and indignation – “This report gives us, for the first time, a real understanding of how sexual harassment and sexual assault affect university students. It is difficult reading. [...] We should all be shocked.”

If Nobel Laureate Brian Schmidt (AC, FRS, FAA), was shocked, it was in spite of the continued efforts of ANU students who attempted to bring the frequency of these incidents to the eye of the public.

For every story that reaches the collective consciousness such as the incredible and continuing efforts of Codie Bell, the University brushed aside countless other opportunities to effect any degree of meaningful social change on campus.

From 2014 to 2016, I was the photographer and one of the interviewers for the Faces of the Australian National University Facebook page. Transparently inspired

by the extremely popular Humans of New York, Faces of ANU held a niche as a student-run, staff-overseen snapshot into ANU life. Stories had to be okayed by staff, but were short, often irreverent to the activities of the usual intelligentsia, and in 2015, was reaching an increasingly larger cohort of the student population.

It was in this climate that we decided to start work on an interview and profile of a survivor of on-campus sexual assault.

As this was before the publicity of the HRC Report, the problem of campus sexual assault was simmering in the undercurrent of student discussion. Most students knew a survivor, and many likely knew a perpetrator. While the toxic culture had been reported at various levels of exposure – from national surveys detailing its prevalence to Woroni articles highlighting the mismanagement of sexual harassment allegations any efforts to gather valuable information or effect useful change had thus far been shelved by Australia’s top universities, at least partly “based on perception of reputational risk” as per the words of Dr. Damian Powell of the University of Melbourne.

Our feature was to be an attempt to broadcast a survivor’s story through an ANU-sponsored publication with a broad readership. A completely anonymised few-hundred-or-so words stripped of all identifiable details, the survivor’s story talked of the emotional impact of the on-campus incident, victim-blaming rhetoric present on posters and avoiding certain parts of the university to ensure she didn’t see her rapist. She felt that telling her story could be valuable for her and for others – “perhaps the only good that may come out of my experience is to raise awareness around the University.”

This story was a vehicle through which a survivor could take her power back.

As the article went through the vetting process, it reached the desk of a senior ANU staff member who had never previously interacted with Faces of ANU. I received a request to meet from this

extremely male collection of Directors-of and Senior Administrators; in recognition of the fact that two men were meeting to discuss a woman’s assault, I asked a female colleague to accompany me. The staff member’s (henceforth referred to as Rugen) immediate reaction was to ask my colleague to leave so that he could speak to me directly. He asked to reframe the article in line with a sanitized ANU Reporter piece which did not mention an incident or response, and responded to my claim that “we both know that sexual assault is a huge problem on campus” with “we’ll have to see the statistics before saying anything like that”. The meeting ended with a direction to hold off on publishing the piece.

In the following weeks, I received multiple requests for the survivor to speak with Rugen, ANU Counselling, ANU Reporter and other senior staff members about her experience, disrespecting her desire for anonymity. Conversely, although it was established that the perpetrator was known to the survivor, Rugen did not request information about a rapist that was still (and is still) a member of the student body, demonstrating a massive disregard for the safety of students. Rugen repeatedly established that the piece would not be published on Faces of ANU, and eventually by way of inadequate compromise we were permitted to publish a series during White Ribbon Day. This was a three-profile series, which included a male student’s (not a survivor) perspective, a male staff member’s (not a survivor) perspective and a piece from a member of the Canberra Rape Crisis Centre. The final series score was 0-3 towards our goal of telling a survivor’s story – we were swept in the first round.

In 2017, I approached a journalist with the intention of reporting and publicising the aforementioned events. A series of events led to a separate senior staff member – henceforth referred to as Jesse - requesting a sit-down meeting with me. In carefully chosen and considered language, Jesse asked me to refrain from publishing the piece, established that “there may be consequences, ranging from a brief chat to a

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much more serious chat” if the piece were to come out, and that dealing with any fallout from the piece would be a distraction that would impede her from doing her job in helping students. Jesse and Rugen continue to be employed by the university, secure in their positions of not helping students.

The response of the ANU to the numerous allegations brought forward by students betray a focus on maintaining the university’s reputation above student welfare.

When faced with an opportunity to confront a problem head-on, perhaps leading the way for other Australian Universities to address the growing issue, they chose to make a business decision rather than stand behind their students. In this context, the eventual response to the Human Rights Commission report was profoundly lacking. The Australian National University, via ineffectual and cowardly agents, let down a survivor trying to effect change. Again.

Woroni is committed to standing with survivors of sexual harassment and assault. If you or someone you know have been affected by this piece, please reach out to the support services below.

Canberra Rape Crisis Centre, Crisis Line (02) 6247 2525 This is an over the phone counselling service. It is open from 7am to 11pm, seven days a week. You can also use this number for counselling related inquiries or to book face-to-face appointments with Canberra Rape Crisis Centre, including on ANU Campus. All services are free of charge. You do not need a medicare card to access this service. They will not tell the police or the university that they have spoken with you. Canberra Rape Crisis Centre can also provide advocacy support if you choose to formally report an incident to the police or the university.

ANU Counselling (02) 6125 2442 This is the phone number to book an appointment with ANU Counselling. You can book a standard appointment (50 mins) anytime. To book an on the day appointment for urgent help (25 mins) call at 9am or go into the Counselling Centre just before 9am, as these appointments are first in first served. You can receive 6 free sessions per semester. You do not need a medicare card to access this service, but you must be an ANU student.

They will not tell the police or the university that they have spoken with you.

1800 RESPECT 1800 737 732 This is over the phone counselling and it is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They can also refer you to local services. It is free of charge. 1800 RESPECT has a triage system, so the first person you speak to is not a counsellor.

We recommend that you request to be put through to a counsellor straight away.

ANU Women’s Department Contact the Women’s Officer, Laura Perkov: sa.womens@anu.edu.au The Women’s Department is part of ANUSA, and it advocates for and supports all ANU Women and non-binary students.

As Women’s Officer, [insert name here] can provide pastoral care, referrals to local support services, and give information about options for reporting within ANU and the support ANU can offer.

ANU Queer* Department Contact the Queer* Officer, Matthew Mottola: sa.queer@anu.edu.au The Queer* Department is part of ANUSA, and it advocates for and supports all Queer* identifying students. [insert name here] can provide pastoral care, referrals to local support services, and give information about options for reporting within ANU and the support ANU can offer.

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INTERNATIONAL

Vol. 68 , Issue 09

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ASEAN in Southeast Asia Text: Cerelia Lim Graphic: Johnathan Tjandra Southeast Asia is at a turning point. Increasing investments by China and skirmishes between the Chinese and U.S. navies in the South China Sea have made the site a place of contestation by two major powers. Within the region, steady economic growth has powered the rise of a majority middle class which is expected at 65% of the population in 2030.

The region is also home to the regional organisation, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which comprises 10 diverse countries. In this regard, its operating model differs from other regional organisations such as the European Union.

Commonly called the “ASEAN way”, it seeks the cooperation of all member countries based on non-intervention. As a result, many of the ASEAN agreements are non-binding, and member countries have the autonomy to decide if they will ratify them in their domestic policies. Such an operating model has brought criticism upon the organisation for its inability to act as a supranational entity that exerts a regional will on individual countries. But against

such a backdrop, the organisation facilitated the signing of the Treaty on Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone which has kept the region nuclear weapon free.

Ties between young people from Southeast Asia and Australia are growing stronger.

In March 2018, the Australian government announced an additional 50 ASEAN-Australian Awards Scholarships for the next generation of leaders from ASEAN countries to undertake postgraduate study in Australia, bringing the total number of ASEAN-Australia scholarships to 1,050.

Young Australians are also given the opportunity to deepen their literacy of ASEAN, with more than 13,500 Australian undergraduates on the New Colombo Plan studying or interning in ASEAN countries, which is about 43 percent of the total number of New Colombo Plan award recipients.

As a testament to the region’s growing relationship with Australia, a group of 11 undergraduates and postgraduates undertook a field trip to Jakarta, Indonesia during the

winter break. They interviewed representatives from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and the ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights, and explored developments across various topics. Topics included the protection of the rights of migrant workers, rights to freedom of speech, human rights and also critiqued the limited potential for a defence architecture in the region. The ANU ASEAN Society also hosted a photo exhibition as a reflection of their field trip. The field trip was made possible by the Student Extracurricular Enrichment Fund (SEEF).

Cerelia is the Vice-President, of the ANU ASEAN Society.

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INTERNATIONAL

"Beauty is pain"...

Literally Text: Eloise Rattle Graphic: Maddy McCusker

Fashionista vocabulary has expanded over the past decade, with ‘ethical’ and ‘sustainable’ becoming extremely à la mode. These two approaches are the industry’s way of combating the destruction caused to communities and individuals by something known as ‘fast fashion’. For the youth, gaining knowledge about this topic is incredibly important as we are future leaders with the ability to evoke change. Living on student budgets, we are naturally eager for the best bargains possible on clothing, food and other essentials without giving much thought to where and how these products are produced to make them so cheap and easily accessible. Education around the topic is the first step towards change, because the more we know, the less is hidden behind commercial jargon, and an informed consumer is likely to be a more ethical one. Information gives us the power to make thoughtful decisions for ourselves based upon facts and morality.

Ethical brands, charities and ambassadors prioritize helping individuals and communities to benefit from fashion, the largest commercial enterprise in the world, second only to oil. The urgency for a new, ethical, approach to fashion stems from the devastating direct and indirect impacts of fast-fashion upon factory workers and their communities. Poverty stricken countries are targets for major retailers to use as sites for clothing production due to loopholes in employability laws which allow for illegal work practices and exploitative labour, otherwise known as modern day slavery.

The 2013 Rana Plaza disaster was one of the most horrifying incidents of inhuman workplace conditions. The collapse of an 8-storey clothing warehouse in Dhaka, Bangladesh, resulted in over 1,000 deaths and over 2,000 casualties. Due to relaxed contract laws, no major retailer has been held responsible for the incident as the companies do not directly employ their laborers. The deaths of 1,000 workers was a result of poor construction, for which fast fashion should arguably be held accountable. With growing demand for cheaper, more easily accessible clothing, retailers are

constantly in competition and are being forced to cut corners to save money in order to afford to produce the cheap, constantly evolving clothing that our culture craves.

These cutbacks include slashing wages to as low as $2USD a day and constructing factories without safety regulations.

There is an inextricable link between the fashion industry’s slave labour and the economic structure of western capitalism, unfortunately dictating the extent to which the industry can change. Commercialism is, arguably, the foundation upon which our societies exist. Therefore, to completely transform this practice would not only be impossible but would harm western economies and those of countries such as Bangladesh where a huge 80% of their global exportation is commercial.

Therefore, small yet immediate changes are needed. It is certainly possible to better the situation, with some very simple and cheap approaches everyone can take part in.

Firstly, we can start by asking two questions when treating ourselves to some retail therapy: ‘Where did this come from?’ and ‘Who made this?’ By imagining a

particular person in their working environment, we are encouraged to think with greater consideration about our individual impact. Engaging on a practical level can involve boycotting or minimizing expenditure in ‘naughty’ high street retailers, a term coined by Oxfam in their list of naughty and nice ethical fashion brands in 2016.

‘Nice’ brands include GAP, Big W, Uniqlo and Bonds. Sadly, some of our beloved brands appear on the naughty list; Topshop, Zara and Peter Alexander. To prevent boycotting, pressure needs to be placed on the major retailers themselves to provide the consumer with clothing which has not been made by slave labour. Here is where social media and the internet become the best tools. Signatures and names hold significant power in their numbers. Taking minimal time and effort to sign a petition, write an email to a retailer or hashtag an Instagram of a clothing label with #WhoMadeMyClothes? can really make a difference. There are websites available that host extensive information on fast fashion and tips for living and shopping ethically and numerous documentaries available online about ethical and sustainable fashion. There are also avenues online to sign petitions including some that advocates for big fashion retailers such as H&M to keep their promise of fair working conditions.

So, get onboard and be part of the fashion revolution! Small changes really do count.

Vol. 68 , Issue 09

FEATURES

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Q told me so Text: Mark Perry Graphic: Sophie Bear

When, in 2016, Donald J. Trump was elected President of the United States, none claimed to be certain of the consequences except the vast majority of his supporters. They were absolutely sure that Trump would drain the swamp, lock up Hillary Clinton, “just keep winning.” However, in the first nine months following Trump’s inauguration Clinton was not locked up, the swamp appeared as full as ever; the joys of winning seemed hard to spot. In the face of apparent chaos in the White House, some Trump supporters became disillusioned. But, many more avid supporters stayed in support of Trump, on a variety of platforms such as Reddit, Twitter, and 4chan. It was on 4chan in particular that one of the most complicated conspiracy theories of the century cropped up, that of the elaborate proTrump conspiracy QAnon.

The story started during a photo-op before a military dinner on October 5, 2017, where Trump claimed that the dinner may just be “the calm before the storm”. Regarded as an alarming comment by some, it was instantly latched onto by the subreddit /r/conspiracy, as well as 4chan’s board /pol/ as the defining feature of the Trump era. The Storm, they argued, would be a sweeping series of arrests and restructurings, all led by Trump, to oust the “Deep State” and reclaim America from its “oppressors”. Three weeks later, a poster on 4chan’s /pol/ board made a bizarre series of claims. Hillary Clinton was to be arrested on October 30th, and /pol/’s readers were warned that “mass riots would occur”, and to “be ready”. This poster identified themselves simply as “Q”, supposedly an allusion to Q-level security clearance, a high-ranking security classification in the Department of Energy pertaining to knowledge of nuclear weapons. Hours later Q posted a series of oblique statements, left behind nominally for /pol/ to decode the hidden meaning behind.

There is a common appeal to many conspiracy theories, from flat-earthers and

moon landing deniers to QAnon and Pizzagate. It is the feeling of knowing a hidden truth about the world. It makes the theorist feel smart, powerful, one of a select few people who know things about the world that everyone else does not. To QAnon’s followers, all die-hard Trump supporters, that hidden truth was panacea: Trump was in control.

The apparent chaos in the White House was staged. The oppressive reign of the ‘evil liberals’ was at an end. The winning they had been promised was just around the corner. And the man they were willing to put their absolute faith in was just about to bring it about. The secret truth was not merely something that they wanted to believe to feel smart, it was something that they had no choice but to believe since, to the Trump supporter, it made so much sense. How else could it be but that the brilliant billionaire businessman would be able to drain the swamp in such a huge way? Everything was going to be okay.

October 30th came and went, and Clinton was not, despite Q’s predictions, arrested. The majority of QAnon’s followers were undeterred. On November 1st, Q later claimed that DNC campaign chair John Podesta was to be arrested.

Further, to prevent the spreading of fake news around the issue, Trump would use the Emergency Broadcast System to “provide a direct message… to all citizens”. The Emergency Broadcast System has been defunct since 1997, when it was replaced with the Emergency Alert System, although to QAnon this was but a tiny detail. One might imagine that QAnon may have been more deterred when Mr. Podesta was not arrested as Q claimed. But from here on the conspiracy theory had gained a sizeable amount of momentum, and with its growth it became far vaguer. Broad, seemingly meaningless claims by Q such as “Epicenter. Full House. They are all here.

24/7/365. Enjoy the show.” became far more common, and the vagueness of the theory allowed supporters to map their own theories and ideals onto Q’s claims. Branches of the theory have

incorporated everything between the pizzagate conspiracy, false flag shootings, the power of the illuminati, and Jewish bankers being secretly in control of the world. Many insisted that Q’s seemingly vast knowledge of both these conspiracies and the inside workings of the Trump administration were indicative of Trump’s secret moves to end all of these evils and more. They were moves which would leave him with eventual full control of the government and the ability to usher in a new golden age.

To be clear, the truth behind Q’s messages is non-existent. Kim Jong-un is not a secret CIA plant, the Democratic leadership have not all been impeached yet, and Hillary Clinton did not get arrested on October 30th. The hydra of a theory, however bizarrely totalitarian and seemingly anti-democratic it appears, is utter bunkum. The real question behind the theory is why, despite its complete untruth, it has so much support. It still draws a wide base of supporters, and one that seems to be spilling over into the real world. At some of Trump’s most recent rallies, supporters have appeared wearing “We are Q” shirts, or carrying similarly branded placards. Despite “their man” having won the election, QAnon’s followers are still holding out for more. The reason that QAnon still draws so much appeal ties directly to that belief of ‘more on the way’. It has tapped into something common among Trump supporters: blind faith. QAnon’s basis in truth is as fragile as that of the flat earth theory, but this does not worry its followers for an instant.

Merely believing in QAnon is enough to be reassured that the man into which they put so much faith in 2016 will pull through. To this group of fanatics, no matter how dire the investigations into the Trump campaign seem, no matter how much chaos seems to pervade the White House, their “winning” is only just over the horizon.

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FEATURES

Mythbusting History: how did the science of the NUCLEAR BOMB KEEP THE COLD WAR COLD? Text: Felicity Millar Graphic: Millie Wang

The effects of Hiroshima and Nagasaki left a devastating impact on the world, whilst cementing the US as a major strategic power. The lessons learnt from the power and force of nuclear weaponry significantly influenced the introduction of the nuclear strategy of deterrence. The taboo associated with using these weapons of mass destruction was discussed by many historical figures of the time.

The anti-nuclear war notion held by these figures led to other avenues to relieve the Cold War tension between the West and the Soviet Union. The science behind the development of the atomic bomb, however, led to other uses for nuclear energy within Western military strategy, including the use of submarines in naval espionage that aided to keep the Cold War cold.

The use of the atomic bomb in late WW2 left Japan devastated from its effects, whilst elevating the US to a much stronger position as a world power, with an emerging influence stretching from Europe to Asia. As illustrated through a number of nuclear weapons created by the US between 1945 and 1962; over 3,000 missiles with nuclear capabilities, whilst the USSR only procured approximately 1,500 missiles with nuclear power. This disparity between the two world powers of the time suggests rising tensions and the West’s domestic concerns over Soviet military actions. The United States’ policy of deterrence in military strategy demonstrates the levels of precaution taken with these weapons in the 1950s by Western nations. The Truman administration’s attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki left an impact on the political mindset regarding the application of nuclear weapons.

This is exemplified in Truman’s press

conference in 1950 where he described the bomb as a weapon “of mass destruction” with significant impacts on non-combatants in the war – “innocent men, women, and children who have nothing to do with the military aggression”. This illustrates the anxiety surrounding weapons of mass destruction and highlights the growing taboo of the use, rather than the development of, nuclear weapons by the US and other Western nations. Historians have argued that the rationality of States in this period was a major factor for the non-use of nuclear arms.

This rationality, the taboo against using these weapons, the fear of mutual destruction held by both West and East, also led to the removal of the potential for ‘total’ war seen in the earlier part of the 20th century with WW1 and WW2. The gap between US and Soviet expansion of nuclear weapons was another issue raised by historians to counter aggressive American growth of weapons of mass destruction. As a result, Western and Soviet military strategy turned to espionage and early technological warfare and redirected nuclear technology use to other military means, including powering the engines of submarines.

Espionage and the emerging use of strategic intelligence from the 1940s to 1960s was another military policy that was used by Western nations.

Human, signals, and technological espionage was widely used by both the USSR and the US. The US harnessed technological espionage for mobile collection operations that had the ability to collect intelligence across Soviet borders. Between 1947 and 1960 as many as 13 US intelligence flights were shot down over Soviet territory. These flights, however, heavily

impacted Soviet intelligence groups, such as the NKVD, and subsequent retaliation of Soviet intelligence forces created an ‘intelligence war’. This retaliation resulted in a pursuit for more innovative and less invasive intelligence systems to be developed after 1960. Despite the ‘intelligence war’s’ need for a high level of secrecy, some aspects became surprisingly public.

For example, the 1945 defection of the code clerk Igor Gouzenko, from the Soviet embassy in Ottawa publicly revealed the scale of Soviet espionage on, then supposed, allies in Northern America. This led to regular public trials of these ‘atomic spies’ in both the West and the USSR and spurned an East-West ‘war of words’. The intelligence war of the ‘First Cold War’ was the main impetus for modern intelligence agencies, with many of the organisations founded in the 19401950s still operating today. The use of these technological and signals-based intelligence operations therefore became a key component of the arguments for non-use or use of atomic weapons throughout the Cold War. Submarines were one of the main espionage instruments in use during the Cold War, both before and after the 1970’s. US nuclear submarines were developed in 1951, and the British joined them in 1960. These submarines allowed Western maritime strategy to expand, with nuclear reactors needing no fuel, and they had the ability to remain below periscope level for longer periods of time. This contrasted with previous submarine technologies that were primarily diesel electric, which would routinely have to come to periscope level to take on air every 36 hours. The emergence of the new engineering techniques of

nuclear submarines suggests that nuclear development – and weaponry – had a major impact on the strategies of the US, British, and even the Soviet Union. Submarines could not only be a tool for gaining maritime communication intelligence but also provided a mode of transport for weapons (both nuclear and otherwise) during the ‘First Cold War’. Although Western nations – particularly the British and the US – were preoccupied with the perceived threat of nuclear warfare through the air-powered atomic bomb, the development of submarines allowed blue water navies to engage a more balanced fleet of surface and underwater warfare. The enhancement of intelligence technology particularly submarines clearly derived from the fear of nuclear war, with the growth of espionage a major outcome of the development of nuclear technology on the conduct of the Cold War. The policy of deterrence of nuclear weapons in the US suggested that States had an underlying rationality and credibility which would prevent them turning to nuclear war. Intelligence and espionage were major military strategies during the Cold War, as the ‘intelligence war’ provided an opportunity for Western nations to enhance military equipment and weaponry, most notably submarines of the US and the Royal Navy.

FEATURES

Vol. 68 , Issue 09

ARTIST SHOWCASE Katharina Fehringer is a musician and painter currently based in Darwin, who is currently studying a Juris Doctor online through ANU. Her pieces are contemporary, abstract, eclectic, vibrant

and full of high energy. They are pieces which can brighten any space. She likes to use mixed media on canvas and is currently working toward her next exhibition in Darwin.

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FEATURES

Vol. 68 , Issue 09

FEATURES

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Land of Mist and Myth

Text: Natalie Murnane Graphic: David Liu In Ireland, mythology is embedded in the history of the country. It’s said that you can see Tír na nÓg (The Land of Youth) on the horizon if you look out to sea on a clear day. There are no native snakes, supposedly because St Patrick expelled all snakes from the island.

The Brú na Bóinne site, built 5,000 years ago (older than the pyramids of Egypt) holds a chamber which is lit by the sun only on the solstice every year. I used to live near Lough Derravaragh, a lake where four children were supposedly turned into swans by their evil stepmother and cursed to wait 900 years for the spell to be broken. These myths and landmarks have survived thousands of years, as have the names from such stories, such as Oisín (uh-sheen), Aoife (ee-fah), Niamh (neev), Fionn (f-yun) and Meabh (may-ve), which are still very popular in Ireland today.

More recent history is given the same mythic treatment. Gráinne Mhaol (graw-nyah wale) was a pirate queen and Gaelic aristocrat. In 1593 she was charged with her crimes and threatened with hanging. So, she personally went to the court of the English Queen Elizabeth I, who at that time claimed sovereignty over Ireland, and pleaded that she had lived the life of a pirate out

of desperation, and that if released she would change her ways. Legend has it that they spoke in Latin as Gráinne refused to speak English, and Queen Elizabeth did not know Gaelic. Elizabeth pardoned the majority of Gráinne’s crimes, but Gráinne continued to make her living “by land and sea” until her death in 1603. Many years after her death, the legend of Gráinne Mhaol became a symbol of Irish rebellion against English rule. I was taught a song about her in primary school, Óró Sé do Bheatha ‘Bhaile, which welcomes Gráinne and a thousand warriors to come and free Ireland.

Even the Irish rebellion in 1916, the Easter Rising, has become almost mythical.

If you’ve ever been to Dublin, you will have walked along O’Connell St and seen the General Post Office building, where some of its pillars are still pitted with bullet holes. Kilmainham Gaol, where the leaders of the rebellion were held and then executed, is now a museum and landmark. The song that the rebels sang, Amhrán na bhfiann (owrawn nah veen), is now the national anthem of Ireland. On the other side of Ireland, in a village called Dingle, there is a memorial to the sons of Dingle that fought in that rebellion. The story is so widely remembered and commemorated

that you could almost believe that the rebels won independence for Ireland on that very day. Instead, it was in 1949 when the southern part of the Island became a republic and officially cut ties with the British Commonwealth.

The Irish are known globally as musicians and storytellers. Their history, which has been marred by tragedy and hardship and struggle, is enriched with tales told and songs sung for hundreds of years. People across the world who claim Irish heritage are often drawn back to this tiny island, with a hunger to understand where they came from. The country has changed a lot, and is still changing today, but one thing remains constant. They will find a country which has fought for its identity by holding on to its myths.

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Week 5, Semester 2, 2018

MULTILINGUAL

THRILL SEEKER Content Warning : Self-harm, references to mental illness, hospital references CZYLI ŻYCIE NA POGRANICZU. DOSŁOWNIE. Text: Anonymous Graphic: Maddy McCusker

Na początku jest rozrywką. Partnerem w spontanicznych, nieprzemyślanych decyzjach. Podejmuje ryzyko, tańczy na linie nad przepaścią, zmienia zdanie, plany, a czasem całe swoje „JA”. – Tak ją przynajmniej opisują, bo sama przecież nie wie kim jest. ‘Zaburzenia tożsamości’ to w końcu jedno z głównych kryteriów diagnostycznych. Ale wie jedno, jest tym czymś, czymkolwiek ją nazwali, wypisując tabelkę ‘diagnoza’ w reporcie wypisu ze szpitala…

Do czasu aż z tej liny spadnie.

Wtedy ochrzczą ją mianem niestabilnej emocjonalnie manipulantki, krzywdzącej się dla uwagi.

W szpitalu przewrócą oczami i z pożałowaniem stwierdzą, ‘znowu się widzimy’. Nic nowego, wie, że wróci.

I nagle, niespodziewanie nie jest już źródłem podekscytowania, unikatową odskocznią od codziennej monotonii.

Jej diagnoza staje się twoim usprawiedliwieniem. Wymówką na wszelakie konflikty.

I siedzi na tej głupiej łódce i nadal nie potrafi zdecydować czy lepiej płynąc samemu i w końcu się utopić, czy pozwolić ci wejść i razem tę burzę przetrwać.

At the beginning she’s fun. She’s a partner in spontaneous, thoughtless decisions. She takes a risk, she dances on the line above the abyss, she changes views, plans, and sometimes all of herself. At least, that’s how they describe her, because she herself doesn’t know who she is. ‘Identity disorders’: at the end of the day, that’s one of the main diagnostic criteria. But she only knows that she is something, whatever that is, while filling in the ‘diagnosis’ rubric in the hospital report…

Until the time she falls off that line.

Then they label her an emotionally unstable manipulator, harming herself to attract attention.

In hospital, they’re rolling their eyes and with compassion, they’re saying “see you again”. Nothing new, she knows she will be back.

And suddenly, unexpectedly, she’s not the source of excitement; a unique escape from everyday monotony.

Her diagnosis becomes your justification. An excuse for all kinds of conflicts.

Jest przykładowym dzieckiem z plakatu osobowości z pogranicza.

And she is sitting on that stupid boat, still not managing to decide whether it’s better to sail on her own and drown herself in the end, or allow you to get on and weather that storm together.

She’s the poster child for borderline personality disorder.

Krzyczy, „nie odchodź!” Tak bardzo cię nienawidzi i potrzebuje.

She shouts, “don’t go away!” She hates you and needs you so much.

Jest zaprzeczeniem samej siebie.

She’s a negation of herself.

I wydaje się, że każdy ją zna. Każdy, z wyjątkiem jej samej.

And it looks like everyone knows her.

Everyone, with the exception of herself.

MULTILINGUAL

Vol. 68 , Issue 09

'Le Petit Prince' d'Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: Un chapÎtre inconnu Text: Alisha Nagle Graphic: Sophie BEAR

Le petit prince avait décidé de quitter sa planète pour explorer l’univers, en quête de savoir – car il cherchait des réponses. Il arriva, par hasard, sur la Terre, dans un champ aride.

Le petit prince attacha ses oiseaux sauvages à une poste.

Le champ était habité par un grand, étrange animal que le petit prince n’avait jamais vu. C’était une bête impressionnante, plein d’élégance. Il avait des poils le long de son dos, qui finissaient comme une longue chevelure.

Bonjour, dit le petit prince. Quel sort d’animal êtes-vous ?

Bonjour, petit bonhomme. Je suis un cheval, répondit-il fièrement, et il leva son long museau vers le ciel.

Que faites-vous ici, tout seul ? demanda le petit prince.

J’attends l’armée. J’amène les soldats à la bataille, et ils me donnent des pommes en échange, que j’adore. C’est un travail tellement noble.

Et le cheval était en effet une créature très noble. Êtes-vous un soldat ? demanda-t-il.

Non, dit le petit prince. Je suis un prince.

Ah oui ? Alors vous voulez sûrement mener une armée pour conquérir plus de terre !

Qu’est-ce que signifie « conquérir » ? demanda le petit prince, de plus en plus intrigué. « Conquérir » signifie posséder quelque chose, et avoir l’autorité absolue.

Le petit prince réfléchit pour un instant.

Une fois, j’ai vu un roi qui gouvernait tout.

Eh bien, il a dû y avoir beaucoup de batailles, répondit le cheval avec confiance. Les gens veulent toujours s’emparer des possessions d’autres.

Oh ! J’ai toujours eu tout ce dont j’avais besoin chez moi.

Le cheval n’écoutait plus.

Les gens ont besoin d’une bête noble comme moi pour gagner une bataille. Malheureusement, il n’y a pas eu d’armées depuis longtemps, et j’ai vieilli. J’ai peur qu’ils n’aient pas besoin de moi. Mais vous êtes petit et léger comme un enfant. Je pourrais vous porter !

Le petit prince pensa tendrement à sa planète avec ses trois volcans et sa fleur.

Il n’y a pas grande chose à conquérir sur ma planète, mais c’est assez pour moi. Je ne suis pas comme vos soldats. Je ne veux rien.

Et il commença à préparer sa volée d’oiseaux sauvages pour le départ. Le cheval s’ébroua et traîna ses sabots dans la terre nerveusement. Ça ne me dérange pas. Laissez-moi vous porter quand-même ! J’obéirai aux ordres tant que vous me donnerez des pommes. Ça, dit le petit prince, n’est pas si noble après tout.

Et le petit prince s’en fut, laissant le cheval bien confus.

An Untold Chapter of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s 'The Little Prince' The little prince had decided to leave his planet to explore the universe, in search of knowledge – for he was looking for answers. He arrived, by chance, on the Earth, in a dry field. The little prince attached his wild birds to a post.

The field was inhabited by a large, strange animal that the little prince had never seen before. It was an impressive beast, full of elegance. It had bristles down the length of its back, which ended in a long lock of hair.

“Hello”, said the little prince. “What kind of animal are you?”

“Hello, little fellow. I am a horse,” it replied proudly, and it lifted its long snout towards the sky.

“What are you doing here, all alone?” asked the little prince.

“I’m waiting for the army. I carry the soldiers into battle, and in return they give me apples, which I adore. It is a truly noble profession.”

And the horse was indeed a very noble creature.

“Are you a soldier?” it asked.

“No,” said the little prince. “I’m a prince.”

“Oh really? So you must surely want to lead an army to conquer more land!”

“What does that mean, ‘to conquer’?” asked the little prince, more and more intrigued. “’To conquer’ means to own something, and to have absolute authority.”

The little prince thought for a moment.

“I once met a king who ruled over everything.”

“Well then, he must have led many battles,” the horse replied confidently. “People always want to own the possessions of others.”

“Oh! I always had all I needed on my little planet.”

The horse was not listening.

“People need a noble creature like me to help them win a battle.

However, there have not been armies here for many years, and I have become old. I am worried that they will not be able to use

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Week 5, Semester 2, 2018

From the Archives Photos from the Woroni Archives

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Week 1, Semester 2, 2018

FOOD FIGHT

Help reduce

waste Help local

farmers Pay less than half

Vol. 68 , Issue 07

FOOD WASTAGE: NEED TO KNOW STATS AND FACTS Text: Sophie Bear

33% of all food produced worldwide goes to

Unfortunately AUSTRALIANS are even more wasteful...

$8 billion

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS

THE BREAKDOWN

of edible food is thrown out be aussies each year.

• 20% of the food we purchase is discarded • 40% of the average household bin is food.

• The average Australian household wastes $1036 on food that is thrown out.

$2.67 Billion of Fresh Food

33%

$2.18 Billion of Leftovers 27% $1.17 Billion of Packaged & Long Life Products

15%

$727

Million of Drinks

9%

$727

Million of Frozen Food

9%

$566

Million of Takeaway

7%

WHY IS IT WASTED • An estimated 20-40% of fruit and vegetables are rejected even before they reach the shops, mostly because they don’t match the consumers and supermarkets high cosmetic standards.

• We cook too much food • Food is mistakenly thrown out before the use-by/best before date.

• We forget about leftovers in the fridge/freezer • We don't know how to use leftovers • We buy too much because we don't stick to a shopping list • We don't check the cupboard or fridge before going shopping • We are not planning our meals and menus as much as we could • Buying takeaways at the last minute instead of cooking the food we have in/family members changing plans

Sourced from www.wwf.org.au

• Increases greenhouse gas emissions by eight per cent • Costs millions of farm animals their lives • A whopping 28 million tonnes of fertiliser and pesticide applied for no purpose • The Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations estimated that global food waste and its environmental, social and economic impact account for US$2.6 trillion dollars annually • Vast forests are cut down, and wetlands drained, to produce food that is never eaten • 24 per cent of food wastage was produced using fresh water, which we can ill afford to sacrifice • Accounts for billions of dollars worth of human labour

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Week 1, Semester 2, 2018

GUILT IS NOT A SOLUTION Mia Jessurun

Feeling bad about our food waste is not enough to make a real difference. We know we shouldn’t be wasting food, and most people don’t do it simply because they just don’t care. Like many environmental issues, there is a more complicated underbelly of social and economic factors that explain Australia’s extortionate food wastage problem. There are systematic reasons that people waste food, and in particular why young people do . Overlooking these reasons in favour of individual shaming will only get us so far.

For example, often unpredictable casual work can make it really difficult to meal plan if you don’t know which nights you’ll be home, or whether you’ll have time for breakfast before an early start. Proponents of meal planning and prepping often suggest this as something you spend your weekend on, which is great – unless you’re balancing a weekend job with classes during the week – and this sort of unrealistic expectation often pressures people to buy more than they need to try and reach an unattainable goal of home-cooked, fresh produce.

Supermarkets send so many conflicting signals to us about what we should want, how much it should cost and the quantities we need. Often, it is difficult to buy small quantities of food, and for a society in which people increasingly live alone, this means often choosing between wasting food or severely limiting the variety of foods we eat. Food is usually cheaper in bulk – and regardless of how much we use, supermarkets advertise these specials in deceptive ways that make buying bulk packs feel like the “smart” choice.

To assume people are simply choosing to waste food also disregards the very real skills it requires to plan, manage and budget for groceries. This is no coincidence – these skills have long been gendered, and like so many “feminine” knowledges, they have been undermined and overlooked. But it’s bloody hard, and time consuming, to know how much food you need to buy for a week, to keep track of what’s in your fridge and to know what to do with the

food you have. I feel so incredibly lucky to have grown up in a family where food was a priority, and that my Mum had the time and skills to get me involved in these things so that when I would eventually move out, saving leftovers and planning meals was second nature to me. But we cannot rely on children learning these things from their parents. We need education, from the primary level up, on not only how to cook, but all the admin that goes with it. Here at ANU, this is something that colleges can help students, who are often living out of home for the first time, to learn and practice.

Solutions to food wastage are also not always financially accessible. Meal kit delivery services purport to offer a food-wastage free way of eating fresh and home-cooked meals, but often cost more per serve than cheap take away.

That isn’t even to mention the scale of packaging many of these services offer.

Similarly, buying vegetables straight from markets is one of the best ways to ensure you only get the quantity you need, but this can be more expensive, or at the very least, rely on access to transport to and from the markets with kilograms of groceries, which not everyone has. This is also an accessibility issue for people with disability, for whom catching public transport to the supermarket might not be an option. Similarly, for people with chronic illnesses, having the energy at the end of the day to cook the food in the fridge isn’t a given.

I don’t mean to trash the real, small-scale efforts people are making. I would never want to discourage people from doing their own bit – I think that freezing your leftovers, shopping mindfully and generally planning ahead are things that most students can and probably should be doing. But I do think that we need to look at the bigger picture, and that we need to listen to the voices in the environmental conversation movement that are typically marginalized: people living in food deserts, or with disabilities, or from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, for example. Eliminating food waste, even just at the household level, will require systematic and policy changes to make

Vol. 68 , Issue 07

20

BOTTOM OF THE FRIDGE "VEGGIE PIES" Recipe by Phoebe Lupton

Most of us have a stack of veggies lying at the bottom of the fridge which we don’t really know what to do with. This recipe takes your leftover veggies and puts them into a delicious, easy-to-make puff-pastry style pie.

Ingredients

Method

Puff-pastry (the number of sheets will just depend on how many people you’re wanting to feed – generally, 1 sheet will serve 2 people)

1. Preheat the oven to approximately 180 degrees

Approximately a cup (per sheet of puff-pastry) of cut-up assorted veggies of your choice Any cheese you might have lying around: feta and cheddar are particularly yummy!

1 egg (optional)

2. If the puff-pastry is frozen, consider putting the sheets in the microwave for 1 minute to soften them 3. Lay the puff-pastry flat and place the veggies on one half of the sheet 4. Sprinkle the cheese of your choice across the same half of the sheet which the veggies are on. Season with salt and pepper 5. Fold the side of the puff-pastry sheet on which there is no filling across to the other side of the sheet.

Salt and pepper to season (optional)

6. Fold in the horizontal sides of the sheet as close to the middle as possible 7. Beat an egg and use a fork to spread the egg across the top of the pastry. This will give the pastry a nice golden glow and makes it even yummier!

8. Take a baking tray and line it with baking paper.

9. Place the pastry on top of the tray and put it in the oven for 15 minutes, or until golden-brown 10. Once the pastry is cooked, cut it in half (one half per serving) and it’s ready to eat!

NO-WASTE CHICKEN RISOTTO Recipe by Miriam Sadler So you’ve treated your housemates to a lovely roast chicken but now what to do with the carcass? This easy risotto not only lets you utilise that carcass to make a delicious stock, it also has minimal other ingredients.

To make the chicken stock, throw the chicken carcass into a pan and cover it with water. Chuck in some old vegetables: onion, carrots or shallots work really well. Once it has come to the boil, simmer for a good 45 minutes to an hour. And make sure you season well! You also can, of course, also buy premade stock.

Ingredients

Method

110g butter

1. Cook the onion and celery over a low heat with around half of the butter.

One onion chopped One stick of celery, finely chopped 1.2 litres of chicken stock 100 ml white wine (goon is fine!)

2. When the onion and celery have softened, add the rice and cook for a minute. Then add the wine, simmer and stir until the liquid is absorbed.

Grated parmesan to your taste

3. Put in a ladle of the stock and let that simmer until it has mostly been absorbed.

Salt to taste

4. Repeat step 3 until the rice is creamy.

5. Add in parmesan to your taste and stir.

My top tip is to make sure you are always stirring to prevent the rice sticking to the bottom of the pan. You can add bits of chicken if you’d like your risotto a little more substantial.

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Week 1, Semester 2, 2018

SQUISHY TOMATO AND CAPSICUM SOUP Recipe by Sophie Bear We are all a culprit of letting our veggies get a lil squishy at times; the key is to find ways to use em’ up instead of throwing them out. Have no fear, my delicious veggie soup is here! It’s vegan friendly and HIGHLY appropriate for any imperfect or oddly shaped veggies you have.

Ingredients

Method

4-5 tomatoes

1. Roast the tomatoes and capsicum with the 3 cloves of garlic, tuscan and coriander seasoning for 40 min utes at 150 degrees celsius

1-2 capsicums 2 tablespoons of olive oil 1 white onion chopped 3 cloves of garlic 3tsp vegeta stock 2 cups of water 2 cups of coconut milk tuscan seasoning coriander seasoning salt and pepper to taste

2. Add the two table spoons of olive oil an chopped on ion to a pot on medium-high heat for 1-2 minutes 3. Add the 2 cups of water and 2 cups of coco nut milk to the pan and wait till simmering.

4. Add the vegeta stock, roast to matoes and capsicum. Leave on low-medium heat for 30 minutes.

5. Pop the soup into a blender/food proces sor if you want to make it smooth.

6. Add salt and pepper to taste.

SPOTTY-NANA CHOC CHIP MUFFINS Recipe by Stoff David No one really likes eating spotty, overripe bananas.. unless they are in yummy choc chip muffins! This recipe will leave alleviate your potentially decaying fruit problems and satiate your sweet cravings all in one.

PS: if you want to save your spotty nanas for this recipe to use at a later date, just chuck them in the freezer!

Ingredients

Method

4 spotty nana’s

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.

2/3 brown sugar 1/3 cooking butter tsp vanilla essence 1 tsp baking soda 1 1/2 cups of flour 2 cups of water 1 1/2 cups of semisweet chocolate chips

2. Grease up your muffin tins 3. Peel your spotty nanas and put them in a big baking bowl.

4. Melt the butter in the microwave for approximately a min ute and then add to bowl and mash it all together.

5. Add the brown sugar, eggs, vanilla and with a wooden spoon mix until just combined.

6. Pop the salt and baking soda 7. Scoop and divide the mixture into the tins 8. Bake for roughly 18-20 minutes, depending on your oven’s tem perament. A good way to test if they are ready is by poking the muffin with a toothpick, if it comes out clean they are ready to go.

Vol. 68 , Issue 07

22

THE STUDENT'S GUIDE TO CUTTING FOOD WASTE Noah Yim

Australians are serial wasters. We waste roughly 20 per cent of the food we purchase, which equates about $1000 per household of food waste in a year. This, in turn, makes up about $8 billion of net food wastage in Australia.

Food wastage, other than just being a waste of money, is detrimental to the environment. While food usually decomposes quickly and relatively cleanly, this is not necessarily the case with mass decomposition. Anaerobic decomposition, decomposition without the presence of oxygen, results in a build-up of methane gas which is a key contributor to global warming. Anaerobic decomposition environments are created in waste dumps where food is often covered by other waste.

One of the most high-volume contributor to this net wastage is the demographic aged 18-24. This is largely because we are mostly unmarried individuals who are relatively poorer, while supermarkets often package and sell food on the assumption that they are serving relatively wealthier, larger households.

Here are a few tips to help you reduce your food waste: 1.

You can turn leftover food into stock. It’s quite easy – just sauté vegetable scraps with some butter or oil, water and let it simmer.

2.

Shop for fruits and vegetables at smaller stores dedicated to fruits and vegetables instead of the larger supermarkets. You can usually buy smaller quantities there which means that you can get exactly how much you need.

3.

Sharing food with housemates or other people at college means that you can go through your dairy and

perishables a lot more quickly, meaning that you won’t be throwing anything out because it goes off.

4.

Meal plan your week, so that you can keep an inventory of what you already have and what you need – this way, you can make sure that nothing goes off and you don’t double up on buying anything the next time you’re at the supermarket.

5.

Plant your own herbs so that you don’t have to buy large bunches at the store.

6.

Clean out your fridge – not only will this just generally make you feel better, but it’ll help you manage your inventory better.

7.

Pack your lunch. Home-made foods tend to have less waste than fast food or restaurant food.

8.

Don’t overeat your food. Just because you’ve overestimated just how large that chunk of minced meat was, don’t eat the whole thing. Pack it up in a tupperware container and store it in the fridge or freezer to have at a later date or have for lunch on campus.

ARTS

Vol. 68 , Issue 09

28

Tales of Tails Text: Abigail Manning Graphic: Sophie Bear

Frequently throughout myths and folklore we can see the presence of nature spirits. Theirnames are varied and numerous: nymphs, faeries, sprites, elementals. Through differentlocales, cultures, and times, these capricious and mercurial embodiments of the naturalworld remain a constant. Some of the most well-known among these spirits are creatures ofwater. In almost every mythology there are malicious water spirits who will drown theunwary, or benevolent presences delivering fish, fresh water, and prosperity. The stories which surround them tell us a lot about the relationship between humans and the water soever-present on our planet.

Most notorious among these water spirits are the seductive sirens who lure men to theirdeaths. In reality the sirens of 'The Odyssey' were not the beautiful, mermaid-liketemptresses we might imagine. The sirens Homer described were half woman, half bird.

Butthe idea of a spirit luring the unwary to a watery grave was not unique to the Greeks. In the British Isles there is the Morgen, a female spirit who bewitched men with her beauty andillusions of underwater gardens, and the kelpie, a shapeshifter that would take many formsto coax people into the water where it could devour them.

Slavic folklore tells of the Rusalka, the beautiful, restless spirits of drowned women who appeared in streams to

lure passersby to their death. Though these images of seductive femmes fatales may seem familiar, deadly male water spirits abound also. In Slavic myth we find the Vodyanoy, inFinnish myth the Nakki, in Japanese lore, the Kappa, and in the Solomon Islands the Adaro. The portrayal of these spirits and their interactions with humans reveals the relationship of those humans with water itself.

Stumbling across one of these beings was seen as an ever-present danger when one ventured near rivers, lakes, or the ocean. And being drowned by one was often a result of not taking necessary precautions, being reckless, orguided by impulse rather than rationality. This is also true of interactions humans have withwater. Particularly in ancient times, death by drowning was a constant risk, but one that was essential to life.

While water elementals in myth echo the ever-present danger and mercurial nature of water, they also remind us how important it is to our survival.

Sirens may be the better remembered ‘mermaids’ of Ancient Greece, but far more commonplace in Greek and later Roman society were water nymphs: naiads, nereids, oceanids, and many others. While these nymphs retained the unpredictability of more malevolent elementals, it manifested in them as carefree, youthful energy. They were known for singing and dancing and were often associated with and bound to specific bodies of water.

Nymphs were well-respected in Greek mythology. Seen as minor deities, they were often placed in the retinue

of gods and goddesses. Other such benevolent or neutral spirits occur in widespread mythological traditions around the world. In Chile, there is La Pincoya, a female mermaid-like figure who summoned fish, and rescued those who were shipwrecked. In various traditions in Africa, the figures known as Mami Wata were capricious but ultimately benevolent spirits who brought bring water to the people who worshipped them. Selkies are Scottish folkloric beings who transformed from seals into humans, and featured in tales where they married or were forced to marry humans. Irish Merrows are the closest to the modern conception of a mermaid; beautiful half-fish, half-humans, they played lovely music from underwater. They were mostly considered peaceful and benevolent, and could interact with, or even fall in love with, humans, despite also being capable of luring humans into the water in a trance. These more ‘friendly’ portrayals of water spirits, that often coexist in the same traditions as the decidedly more dangerous entities mentioned before, add a level of complexity to the story about humans’ relationship with water. While the danger of drowning is ever-present, the life-giving nature of water, and the fish that dwell within it, has never been forgotten. The presence of often humanlike nymphs and mermaids in myth and folklore is interesting because it can show the fascination, wonder, and joy humans have always

found in the unpredictability and freedom in nature, particularly in water.

Water spirits endure to modern times, but their representations now reflect a more confident and secure relationship with nature. Drowning is no longer a constant concern, and Australia in particular is known as a nation of swimmers. Our portrayals of mermaids reflect that view of water and the ocean: indeed, any fear of the depths below now manifests in the decidedly non-mermaid -like figures of sharks and sea serpents.

Mermaids inhabit an escapist fantasy space, with children’s media like ‘H2O: Just add water’, ‘Ponyo’, ‘The Little Mermaid’, ‘Aquamarine’ and the Ingo series of novels. We can wish we were mermaids, romanticise the beauty of breathing underwater and swimming effortlessly through the sea. Other ideas become caught up in the mermaid myth. Dolphins become an approximation of horses for an undersea civilisation. The legend of the sunken city of Atlantis pops up as a fantastical underwater metropolis of merpeople. Our portrayal of entities that live beneath the surface of our blue planet no longer reflects a respect, fear, and awe for a water which is both life-giving and lethal.

Instead it conveys the curiosity and wonder evoked by the oceans as the last undiscovered places in our world.

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Week 5, Semester 2, 2018

ARTS

NO COWARD SOUL IS MINE Text: Tabitha Malet Graphic: Alisha Nagle

On the 200th anniversary of Emily Brontë’s birth, a man plays a violin in a field of lavender. The stalks are high enough to brush his severely trimmed beard, and he tilts the instrument upwards to evade the sky-seeking flowers.

His face, low beetling brows and prolific sideburns, stares directly at its neck. The body is sycamore, from an age-old tree felled close to the Brontë Parsonage in Haworth.

He thinks it might even have been there during her lifetime. In an artistic sense, he says, the wood he spent three months labouring over has now come back to the moors.

While Steve Burnett has made violins for a number of historical figures, Brontë seems uniquely suited to this treatment. Burnett sees music as an extension of the literary world – and indeed, her literary world is almost all we know for sure of Emily Brontë. Independent and mysterious, our conception of her life has been shaped by the assertions and aspersions of biographers and laypeople alike and has given rise to a number of strongly-held beliefs which remain, despite little to no proof, foremost in many people’s minds.

If one thing about Emily Brontë is certain, it is that she never had it

easy. Educated and impoverished, she was motherless and her parson father absent. Her dream, to start a school with her sister Charlotte, never eventuated. Brontë died of tuberculosis at 30, a year after her only book was published, on the same estate where she’d lived since the age of. As improbable as it seemed, that book would become one of the foremost in the English literary canon, and after Brönte’s death a million and one myths would spring up around her life. What better occasion than the 200th anniversary of her birth to re-examine them?

Brontë was a weird homebody and a loner A recent book by academic Claire O’Callaghan argues that while it is clear that Brontë was shy and reserved, this doesn’t make her weird.

Charlotte claimed in her preface that Emily rarely spoke to people in her village. However there is evidence that Emily was in fact quite well-known, and records remain of many people visiting her house. While Emily was boarding at Roe Head, Charlotte says she “felt in her heart that [Emily would] die if she did not go home,” but later historians suggest this was hypochondria brought on by the deaths of two members of the family from tuberculosis. And while Charlotte described the position Emily took at Law Hill as “slavery” in letters home, it is clear that Emily had no great love

of teaching and this is just as likely to have been the cause of her resignation. Reports from her teachers at Heger’s School remember her as a “darling child” who was both intelligent and loved, and only left upon the death of her aunt. So while Charlotte might have constructed Emily as a weird homebody, this seems to be a way to excuse the unorthodox nature of her writing rather than the truth.

Her approach to writing was not intelligent or disciplined In Charlotte’s preface to Wuthering Heights, she portrays it as “wrought with a rude chisel” and suggests that Emily was unable to control her artistic gift. In her biographical notice – a prelude to Wuthering Heights written after Emily’s death - she outright describes her sister as having “no worldly wisdom.” However these statements are widely seen as an attempt to protect Emily’s reputation, which was at risk due to her highly unconventional novel. Additionally, Charlotte regularly left Emily in charge of the whole family’s financial affairs, and her teachers remembered her as very learned, making it very unlikely that any of her sister’s statements were true.

She willed her own death Charlotte’s biographical notice stated that her sister “did not linger” over her own death and grew mentally stronger even as her flesh perished. This hypothesis was supported by Charlotte’s declaration that the poem No Coward Soul Is Mine – a sort of elegy to one who may never be destroyed as they live on in God – was Emily’s last.

However this poem was written much earlier on - before Emily wrote Wuthering Heights, in fact. Additionally, the tuberculosis which has been well-recorded to have claimed Brontë’s life had previously claimed those of several members of her family, and it was wellknown that doctors were powerless to stop it. Perhaps Emily simply wished to live out her last few months in peace.

She had a secret lover Several of Brontë’s biographers have been convinced that she couldn’t possibly have imagined Heathcliff and Catherine’s love story without having had one of her own. However, despite the sordid love stories of several of her siblings being immortalised in letters and lawsuits, none of Charlotte’s letters or the interviews conducted with Brontë’s acquaintances after her death have managed to turn up any evidence of a lover. The assumption that her poems show evidence of a lover are similarly flawed. Most of them have been well-established to relate to fictional characters, rather than Brontë herself. It has been noted that assuming Bronte couldn’t have written these stories without a lover is even somewhat belittling of her creative talent.

Emily Brontë’s life is immortalised in artefacts: a violin, gloves, letters, and perhaps most importantly the book she is most known for. While it is irresistible to delve into the personal life of our most celebrated authors as well as the literary, it is more than valuable to critically consider the myths that spring up. And while Brontë may be long dead, her courageous soul lives on.

REVIEWS

Vol. 68 , Issue 09

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DOGFIGHT: A Review Content Warning: Sexual Assault and Harassment, AHRC Report Text: Noah Yim Photos: Em Roberts This is the second time in two editions that I am reviewing something that I am utterly not qualified to review. I’m starting to think that this might become a regular column: clueless guy reviews things far beyond his understanding. The title is a work in progress.

On Friday night I had the pleasure of being in the audience for ‘Dogfight’, performed by the ANU Musical Theatre Company. Right away, I’d like to start by saying that I had a great time.

‘Dogfight’ is told through the memories of a visibly traumatised young man who has just returned from fighting as a US Marine in the Vietnam War. The plot is set into motion by the ‘dogfight’ – a ritual undertaken by the US Marines in which they unabashedly and outwardly objectify women. While doing so, the protagonist, Birdlace, played by Rohan Pillutla, develops feelings towards Rose, played by Tegan Braithwaite.

The first thing that really impressed me about ‘Dogfight’ was its production value. The set was designed beautifully, the graphics were amazing, the band was enrapturing, and the cast moved with precision and confidence that reflected the hours of practice they must have put into creating this production.

Rohan Pillutla portrays Birdlace, the protagonist, as a deeply divided character: on one hand, he is bound by the deeply rooted, masculine cultures and traditions of the Marines, and on the other, he hides his true self and lives in fear of exposing his vulnerabilities. It is only when he meets Rose that he feels comfortable enough to expose these vulnerabilities to another person and questions the customs and traditions that he has grown up with. It felt as if he was tied to two trains whose tracks would soon diverge at a fork. Birdlace himself saw the disparity between his identity and social expectations growing, but could not bring himself to make a decision between one or the other. I found it to be a moving and relatable performance: I saw myself in Birdlace, trying to navigate an already fully developed society, with tired of being left in the dust of a world only a developing mind and a developing that seemed to be speeding ahead of her, understanding of myself. and sought affirmation of her validity as a young adult.

This motif of duality and a collision of two worlds continues in Tegan Braithwaite’s It’s when I start thinking about these performance as Rose. Rose is a shy young things that I realise that the entire woman trying to find her place in the production plays off this theme, and all world. She desires to conform to the its elements come together to balance social norms and ideals that are expected this theme of duality and exist in the of her at her age, but she finds her own liminality where two worlds collide. The identity clashes with those expectations. band, conducted by Jack Quail, performs It is through meeting Birdlace that she a score that is often a carefully balanced sees those social norms and ideals for pastiche of different genres. The set what they really are, and he gives her design, overseen by Kat Carrington that final spark of confidence to become and Millie Bull, continues this theme her own person and truly express all of duality: half of the set is painted red, her nuances and beauty. This was also while the other is painted white. The a moving and relatable performance, costumes, designed by Jen Murnane, but in a different way to that of Pillutla’s continue with the colour motif: Rose Birdlace. Instead, I felt that Rose was

always wears costumes which are red or white, the balance of which changes depending on how far she leans towards her own identity or society’s idealistic expectations of women at her age.

In this way, I find ‘Dogfight’ to be an extremely pertinent and timely production. As the director’s, Zoe O’Leary Cameron’s, foreword states: “it’s not comfortable for the actors to portray, and it’s not comfortable for the audience to watch” a production which “blatantly displays misogynistic behaviour”. Given the recent findings of the AHRC Survey and the Red Zone Report, I feel that the production takes the audience on an analogue of Rose’s journey. Entering into society as young adults, finding that there are cultures and institutions that we

are repulsed, disgusted and horrified by, and seeking change to create changes in the way we live to make sure that those cultures are not further propagated.

Furthermore, ‘Dogfight’ also tells the story of growing up and entering an often hostile world, trying to cling on to whatever we had before and trying desperately to recreate the comfort and simplicity of a bygone time, like Birdlace.

I think that ‘Dogfight’ perfectly captures the confusing, confronting, and oftentimes humiliating process of growing up as young adults today. It is an apt and complex production, which prompts introspection with the guise of retrospection.

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Week 5, Semester 2, 2018

UNI LIFE

MYTHICAL PLAYLIST Text: ANU Students Graphic: James Atkinson From songs that will take you to another place entirely, to songs that remind us of a time back in our past. We asked around, and here are our top ten picks for songs that remind us of all things mythical, and a bit about what makes them so special.

‘Cinnamon’ by JOME “Eyes shut, clothes drapes over you, and suddenly you are where your heart most desires.”

‘Immigrant Song’ by Led Zeppelin “It’s a song about Norse mythology, but most importantly it’s arguably one of the greatest rock songs of all time. Such a classic.”

‘River’ by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard

‘Song of the Goddess: The Eternal Path’ by Erutan

“It’s a long psychedelic piece that is about drifting down a river.”

“Shows how music can create emotion in people even without the need for language. The song was created for a high fantasy game called ‘Dragon Nest’, so it invokes a sense of wonder and adventure. Even without the visuals, the song sounds like a hero's journey. It starts off gentle, just like the call to adventure – picks up after the verses, just like the trials of a hero – ending with strong vocals, just like the final battle between the hero and villain.”

‘All I want’ by Kodaline Think: “Windy road trip and soul filling.”

‘Rhiannon’ by Fleetwood Mac “Not only is it a classic, but it’s a perfect song for mythical/fantasy themes. Basically Stevie Nicks was inspired by the fantasy novel Triad: A Novel of the Supernatural by Mary Leader, which tells the story of a woman being possessed by a spirit called Rhiannon. It has a lot of links to the Welsh goddess, Rhiannon, who Nicks was also interested in. It’s a hauntingly beautiful song.”

‘Where’s My Love’ (Acoustic) by SYML “Invokes a feeling [love] that you, yourself have never felt, but after listening to this song, you know exactly what it [love] feels like."

‘琴師’ by 音頻怪物 (Qínshī by yīnpín guàiwù)

‘In the Court of the Crimson King’ by King Crimson

“I like the story behind the song, and how the music perfectly captures the emotions behind the story. It's mostly about how time passes by no matter what your circumstances are, and about how we are never truly free.”

“[It’s] lovecraftian, very mysterious, feels like you're stuck in something you can't even comprehend.”

‘Purity Ring’ by Sea Castle “Because imagining myself within the lyrics and bassline makes me feel like God.”

Vol. 68 , Issue 09

UNI LIFE

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Exploring Canberra Text: Madeleine Sinnis Graphic: James Atkinson The ACT is filled with many hidden gems to explore. Places that seem untouched and tranquil are only a stone’s throw away from campus. So with the end of winter near and spring around the corner, head to some of these places for a mystical time away from campus. Grab some sturdy shoes and your phone and get exploring!

Recommended by an avid outdoors-explorer, Jozef Meyer.

See the end of the article for some useful pages full of free and detailed maps!

Let’s start with the basics:

Black Mountain – the classic A standard location for many – it’s close, it’s quiet, it’s easy to walk to but can also be challenging depending on where you go. You can also choose to drive to the top. The views of the city are beautiful, and if you go there at night, the city sparkles. It’s free and right behind campus.

Mount Ainslie – perfect views of the Nation’s Capital Mount Ainslie Lookout is another popular destination. It’s located in the city centre and a 13-minute drive from Campus. Mount Ainslie will give you stunning views of Anzac Parade and the Parliamentary Triangle.

If you want to hike it, you will need approx. 1.5 hours (return) and again, it’s free. '

Mount Majura Circuit – the quieter one of the bunch Although its views of the city are not as noteworthy as its neighbour Mount Ainslie’s, Mount Majura offers you a more remote location where you can have time to be alone and away from the hustle and bustle of campus.

Think open grassy areas and more rugged trails – but still a relatively easy walk. There is a carpark at Hackette Gate, right at the base of Mount Majura, which is an 11-minute drive from the campus. Free entry.

Mount Stromlo – Schmidty’s favourite Many people will be familiar with Mount Stromlo – it houses the Mount Stromlo Observatory, which is the headquarters of the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics. The mountain itself isn’t particularly special to hike, but it offers one of the greatest mountain biking facilities in Australia and the stargazing is beautiful. The drive to the top will take you approximately 22 minutes, which is worth it considering the beautiful night sky.

Now onto some funky places:

Yankee Hat Mountain Walk – the top pick from the list This place will take you about an hour’s drive to get there, but it is a standout. The location is full of history and is home to many ancient Indigenous rock paintings. If visiting these beautiful artworks, keep in mind that the artwork is vulnerable – do not touch the art or the rock surface, and be respectful of the heritage and culture that these artworks represent. The total distance of the walk is 6km and is suitable for all levels of fitness. Note that there is no phone signal in this area. Free entry.

Mount Painter – the dramatic ending This is one of those places that is all about the destination, and not the journey. The views at the end are unmatchable, and it is relatively close to campus (right behind Black Mountain). It will take you an 11-minute drive to get there, and approximately an hour return to walk the trail, unless of course you get caught up in the beauty of it all. Free entry.

Gibraltar Falls – for those who really want to explore Located in Namadgi National Park, Gibraltar Falls is a 45-minute drive from campus and offers stunning waterfall views. The falls have a 50 meter drop, and offer unmatchable views of the valley. Think Yosemite vibes, but on a smaller scale. The trails aren’t well marked, so definitely bring a map.

Free entry.

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Week 5, Semester 2, 2018

UNI LIFE

in defense of long-distance Text: Anonymous Graphic: Maddy McCusker

“You’re so brave. I don’t know how you do it, I certainly couldn’t.”

I hear this a lot. Nearly every time I tell someone I’m in a long-distance relationship, this is the reply. While people pretend it’s a compliment, it really isn’t. It’s a judgement. It’s a dismissal of a long-distance relationship, an assessment that it’s doomed to fail. I’m fighting back. Long-distance is hard. But it can be so worth it.

There’s a fair few kilometres that separate my partner and me. Over a thousand. And a body of water. We live very different lives: wildly different degrees, schedules and home lives. It can be very hard. I spend a lot of time travelling, doing my uni readings on planes and catching up on sleep on coaches.

Time spent together is often packed – trying to squeeze in as many dates as possible. We all know how hard tone is to convey via messages, and that is never more the case than in a relationship such as ours. I spend a lot of time trying to work out hidden meanings.

It's also just like any other relationship.

People think long-distance is spending long hours on the phone, but it’s actually quick conversations snatched in between tutes, or on the work phone. We’re your

average final year undergrad students, stressing and complaining about assignments. We send photos of our dinner, we gossip, we make plans for the future.

And it’s the most special relationship I’ve ever had. People talk the talk about the negatives of long-distance, but I’m at my most happy when I’m flying out somewhere to see my partner. We meet in different cities across Australia. I’ve travelled so much in the last year. I value what limited time we have and try to make it special.

All relationships are about work, about putting in effort and working out problems. For me, most of my family and friends also live away; long-distance relationships are something I’m very used to. For many people at uni away from home, there’s a fine art to maintaining the relationships you left behind and a romantic one is no different. Sure, in some cases, your high school friendships may have fizzled out, but for others maybe the distance has matured them and made you realise how much you value them.

Maybe this article isn’t just in defence them right now. It’s not about being of long-distance romance, but all rela- brave or proving yourself to anyone. tionships where you can’t see each other It’s about holding on to what you value. every day. There’s value to having people you love dotted around the world, not least because you have an excuse to travel to new places. They teach you how to communicate, how to put effort into phone calls and gifts. They teach you not to take things for granted.

So this is for you. You love that girl who lives in woop woop – give it shot!

You want things to stay the same with your best friend at home – message

SCIENCE

Vol. 68 , Issue 09

34

What your fruit bowl and the galaxy have in common

Text: Fiona Panther Graphic: Maddy McCusker Antimatter is one of the ultimate science-fiction ideas: matter with the incredible destructive power to “annihilate” when it comes into contact with ordinary matter. In Dan Brown’s “Angels and Demons, the idea of a destructive antimatter bomb is a key plot point.

Despite what science fiction would have you believe, the scientific fact of antimatter is much more benign. In fact, you may have a common antimatter source lurking in your fruit bowl right now!

When scientists talk about the production of antimatter, it usually brings to mind particle accelerators – like the Large Hadron Collider at CERN – which are capable of producing vast amounts of antiparticles by colliding extremely energetic particles. However, some everyday items are actually tiny antimatter factories that don't require such superconducting magnets. One form of radioactivity, beta decay, can produce anti-electrons or positrons. A radioactive element that decays to produce positrons is Potassium-40. A potassium-rich fruit, like that banana sitting in your fruit bowl, can contain up to 48 micrograms of radioactive potassium and will thus produce a positron every 75 minutes or so.

Should you be worried about your daily banana? The level of radiation produced by an average banana (known by scientists as the “banana equivalent dose”) is

a measure of the level of radiation exposure encountered on a daily basis. To put it simply, it isn't harmful. In fact, eating a banana a day exposes you to substantially less radiation than what you would experience taking a plane ride from Canberra to Sydney. You would have to eat 200 bananas to be exposed to a comparable amount of radiation from a chest x-ray, and it would take around 100 million bananas to kill you (and the cause of death probably wouldn't be radiation sickness)! The antimatter itself shouldn't worry you either: the positron produced inside the banana will encounter an electron almost instantly, annihilating the positron before it can escape.

However, the story would be very different in space. Suppose you take all the radioactive potassium atoms and put them into orbit around the Earth. Space is a near-vacuum - there is around one atom per cubic centimetre, making it far less likely for a positron produced by radioactive atoms to bump into a rogue electron and annihilate. This means that positrons can float around for millions

of years, carried on magnetic currents in interstellar space before they extinguish.

The idea of radioactive material in space isn't fanciful either. When dying stars form elements, they are often created in highly radioactive states which later decay. Many of these decays can produce positrons, which then float around for a while before eventually annihilating.

So, is there antimatter annihilating with electrons out in space? For fifty years, astronomers have observed antimatter positrons via the high energy radiation produced by this process. The exact origin of these positrons has been uncertain for most of that time. However, a small team of researchers, including several astronomers from ANU, think they may have found the answer. They have concluded that a rare type of dying star system may be responsible.

Unlike the sun, some stars are born in pairs, known as “binary star systems:.

Once they run out of fuel to produce heat and light, all that remains of these deficient mass binary systems is a pair

of “white dwarf stars”. If a white dwarf star forms on its own, it will eventually cool and fade. However, in a binary system, two white dwarf stars can spiral closer and closer together until they merge, causing a supernova explosion. This explosion produces large quantities of radioactive material.

Last year, in a paper published by ANU astronomer Dr Roland Crocker and his collaborators, the astronomers described how this process can form radioactive titanium, which decays to produce positrons. Even if only one of these supernovae occurs in our galaxy every few hundred years, they can generate almost 1042 positrons per second, explaining the origin of most of this galactic antimatter.

What also makes these supernovae special, is that they occur among five billion-year-old stars, whereas ordinary supernova explosions are usually associated with stars less than a billion years old. Hence, scientists mapping the annihilation of positrons find that most positrons annihilate where the oldest stars in our galaxy are, not in regions where one would expect to see ordinary, run-of-the-mill dying stars. This offers a crucial piece of the puzzle of understanding the origin of galactic positrons.

So next time you look at your fruit bowl, you can remind yourself that your banana and our galaxy have something in common that sounds more like science fiction than fact: they're both excellent sources of antimatter. Just keep your banana away from Dan Brown's Illuminati.

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Week 5, Semester 2, 2018

SCIENCE

Touring Anu's Particle Accelerator Text: Andy Yin Graphic: Maddy McCusker

I had the privilege of attending a tour of the Heavy Ion Accelerator Facility (HIAF) at the Department of Nuclear Physics, during the ANU Student Research Conference this semester break. The tour was led by Aqeel Akber and Ben Coombes, both PhD students from the department.

In the HIAF, physicists use particle accelerators to study the atomic nucleus: the core of the atom, deep within a cloud of electrons, where an immense amount of energy is locked.

The first thing you notice about the HIAF is that the facility itself is not glamorous. The main door looks more like a back door, which opens directly into a carpark next to some metal tanks containing unseen substances. Inside, the main control room looks ancient. Near the entrance, banks of looming machines sprout wires like Einstein’s hair.

Atop a curved desk, modern computers share space with old-fashioned instruments and displays.

It’s easy to imagine this same scene existing in an earlier era of physics.

And that’s for a reason – the facility was built in the seventies when nuclear physics was all the rage.

Down a corridor and past radiation-proof doors, we find ourselves at the bottom of a ten-storey tower. From the outside, it’s a striking, windowless, white-painted block that towers above the rest of the facility. You’d never imagine it houses a 40-metre-tall particle accelerator called the 14UD Tandem Accelerator. From inside, on the ground floor, we can only see the very bottom of the machine: a vertical tube that extends upwards and out of sight, hidden by stairs that spiral around it.

Invisible somewhere above us, about halfway up, is the ‘terminal’. To accelerate particles up to tremendous speeds, the terminal is charged to a voltage of around 15 million volts.

This immense voltage is actually produced in a similar way to a Van de Graaff generator: metal spheres you find in science museums that produce huge sparks. Although Van de Graaff generators accumulate charge with a rapidly-moving conveyor belt, the accelerator at the HIAF uses three

loops of chain instead. Each chain link consists of a pellet made of nylon and metal – a little bigger than a film cartridge - that can hold a small amount of electric charge. The chains of pellets run up the accelerator and feed into the terminal. During operation, they spin at up to 60km/h and rapidly deposit positive charge, which creates an enormous voltage in the terminal. This kind of accelerator is fittingly called a “pelletron”.

Particles are introduced to the accelerator at the top of the tube. First, they are given excess electrons and become negatively-charged ions.

This means that they are attracted to the substantial positive charge on the terminal below, and therefore rapidly accelerate downwards.

The ions quickly reach the terminal, but it’s only the halfway mark.

They also shoot through a sheet of carbon, which rips off some of their electrons. Suddenly, they become positively-charged ions. The positively-charged terminal no longer attracts them but repels them downwards. So, instead of slowing down, the ions continue to build speed down the second half of the accelerator. These two separate stages are why it is called a ‘tandem accelerator’.

At the base, the tube of ions feeds into a vast red metal casing: a colossal magnet, taller than a person, with a magnetic field strength of 1 Tesla. In comparison, the planet’s natural magnetic field is a few tens of microteslas – some 100,000 times weaker. The magnet’s purpose is to redirect the current of ions from a vertical trajectory to one of several horizontal tubes, called ‘beamlines’.

Each beamline takes the current to different analysing instruments. One line even feeds the current to a second accelerator! The second accelerator housed at the HIAF – called the LINAC – is horizontal, unlike the 14UD. It snakes around the floor of a huge room so the ion current can be accelerated over as great a length as possible. There are more red casings at the corners of the pipe, which are more magnets to deflect the ions around the bends. Signs warn us not to cross a line marked on

the floor or the accelerator will turn off. Thankfully, it's already off, but that’s not solely because of our tour.

The LINAC is simply not used very often. Aqeel compares turning it on to “doubling the university’s power bill”. The 14UD is comparatively less expensive, but still not cheap, as the electricity costs to create such voltages are considerable. The price is justified by how invaluable the accelerator is to the Department of Nuclear Physics. It benefits many areas of research – some physicists use it to investigate nuclear reactions, some try to create rare isotopes, others research the subatomic structure of the nucleus, just to name a few.

Aqeel’s area of research is nuclear structure. He describes it to us by analogising his work with the research done by 19th century chemists, who classified the chemical elements and founded the basis of the Periodic Table of Elements. Previously, chemists’ understanding of the elements was not so systematic.

The table arranged the elements into ‘groups’ (columns), whose members are chemically similar, and illuminated the order and relationships inherent in the universe’s elements.

However, Aqeel’s field is physics, not chemistry - instead of focusing on chemical elements, Aqeel’s work deals with different atomic nuclei. To date, there are more than three thousand known kinds of nuclei (called ‘nuclides’, or more informally ‘isotopes’).

According to Aqeel, our knowledge of their structure, relationships and patterns still have a long way to go.

As the tour finishes back in the antique control room, I can't help but think of the legacy of science. When the elements were charted - although they were tiny, distant and imperceptible – they became universal knowledge.

The work of nuclear physicists, like Aqeel, is part of that legacy – bringing the smallest scales of our universe within our collective understanding.

With this in mind, a particle accelerator seems like a small investment to make.

SCIENCE

Vol. 68 , Issue 09

OIL IS THE CHEAT CODE Text: Nick Blood Graphic: Millie Wang

One barrel of oil equals 6.1 Gigajoules. One way to conceptualise this amount of energy is to imagine how many hours of human labour it represents. Since labour varies significantly in physical demands, this measurement is subject to variance, but 6.1 Gigajoules is equivalent to 2,078 - 14,544 human hours of work. The average US citizen uses 60 barrels of oil a day, which is roughly equivalent to 60-450 years of human labour.

60-450 years of energy – used in a single day!

Oil is basically magic.

Many ideas about human progress assume that as one natural resource becomes scarce, we can substitute it for another. This idea, known as ‘Prometheanism’, was popularised by political theorist John Dryzek. Missing in Dryzek’s analysis is an acknowledgement that oil is not just one of many natural resources - it’s particularly special. One way to appreciate this is to recognise that oil is basically millions of years of solar energy that has been trapped and fossilised, lying conveniently under the surface for us to discover and use.

then leave that energy behind. In video game terms, the numerical amount of energy left behind by the last big attempt is like the ‘high score’ you get at the end of the game after you die.

However, we also have a huge advantage going into the next game, as some of the progress from the last attempt was saved in the form of trapped energy.

Energy and human development.

Energy and development go hand in hand. There are strong arguments that oil (and the high-quality energy it provides) was chiefly responsible for the last century’s unprecedented population growth and development.

Graham Zabel, writing for Resilience. org, describes how history often attributes this development to specific factors, such as medicine, public health, sanitation, agriculture, trade, and transportation. However, people often discount how each was ‘aided and influenced by the availability of cheap, high-quality energy’.

Even more fundamentally, the link between development and energy can be seen in evolutionary biology, such as in our own cells. The evolution of simple eukaryotic cells to their prokaryotic counterparts – the basis of complex life – is ultimately the story of the mitochondria, which allowed eukaryotic cells to command far higher levels of energy (some 200,000 times more). In a sense, nature selects for increased energy and complexity.

We are fortunate to have oil. More than we realise.

Cheaters with an inflated sense of skill.

The idea that oil is fossilised sunlight (stored energy) demonstrates its uniqueness. Consider all the countless plants, animals, and even entire ecosystems that have once soaked up solar energy. All this biota represents evolutionary processes spanning millions of years: a progression of heightened complexity, energy production and consumption. From single-celled organisms, to plants, to animals - as life evolved and advanced, it too extracted, accumulated and condensed increasingly greater levels of solar energy. Eventually, the biota decomposed and was compressed, and after countless years of geological processes, became oil.

In a sense, oil represents the total progress of a past ‘civilisation’, summed up by its ability to store solar energy and

Imagine that life is a game of chess.

Now imagine that the previous ‘dinosaur’ civilisation – the one that became oil – had to play the game as we know it: usual rules, no advantages or special consideration. They played hard and eventually lost.

Now it’s our turn, but because the dinosaurs did well, we have an advantage. Thanks to all the stored energy in the form of oil, we can remove three pieces from the opponent’s board. If you know something about chess, you will understand that this upper hand changes the game completely. Naturally, you would press this advantage as quickly and ruthlessly as possible

to consolidate and lock in your head start.

That’s exactly what we’re doing. We’re winning the game and kicking ass.

But here’s the thing: unless we discover alternatives to oil, we are going to lose this advantage someday. This doesn’t seem to concern people very much though, perhaps because many of us have faith in our ability to ‘figure something out’. Some of us put this faith in technological innovation, while others trust human ingenuity more generally. Typical among these narratives, however, is an overinflated sense of progression, driven by a dishonest account of our history. Yes, we have been winning games and kicking ass – but we had a considerable advantage, remember?

From this perspective, we have what I’d call a ‘cheater’s sense of skill’. All that progress we’ve made – that we look to as inspiration for meeting the next great challenge - is founded on a unique and finite resource that has given us a head start. Should oil production plateau and energy supplies drop precipitously enough, then we will be playing chess for real once again, like ‘Team Dinosaur’ had to.

Perhaps, given this risk, we should be a little humbler about just how clever we, in ‘Team Monkey’, actually are.

I will leave you with this…

You're not golden and I'm getting tired Act like you own the place when really, you've only just arrived I caught first glimmers in hides and skins Look who's all grown up, black swanning about the solar winds You're gonna lose it all and find yourself on your knees So get a grip and you might flow reverse the great slow bleed I've tried patience but you always want a war This house won't tolerate any more Imogen Heap – Earth.

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Week 5, Semester 2, 2018

SCIENCE

Black Magic: Nine Mind-boggling Facts About Black Holes Text: Isabel Richards Graphic: David Liu Black holes are perhaps the most whimsical yet terrifying aspect of our universe. These cosmic carnivores have long mystified scientists by defying all known laws of physics. They were predicted

by Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, although Einstein himself considered them too “weird” to exist.

Black holes have several mysterious qualities and for many, they are the most fascinating objects in space. For these objects, fact becomes stranger than fiction. Read on to delve deep into these regions of spacetime and find nine peculiar "black hole facts" to ponder…

1. Black holes come in all sizes, ranging from nanoscopic to colossal There are hypothetically three main types of black holes, characterised by mass and size. The smallest are called “primordial black holes”, which are believed to be as small as a single atom, yet have a mass similar to a large mountain (think Mount Everest!).

Medium-sized black holes, known as “‘stellars”’, are the most common. These black holes typically weigh 20 times more than the sun and can fit inside a ball with a 16-kilometre diameter. Dozens of these are likely to exist inside the Milky Way.

– a disklike flow of material rotating around a black hole – also heat to extremely high temperatures, which emit light that can be detected by telescopes.

“Supermassive black holes” are the most colossal. These monsters are more substantial than 1 million suns combined and can fit inside a ball with a diameter the size of the Solar System. Sagittarius A is an example of a supermassive black hole that is located in the centre of the Milky Way.

4. Black holes are scarily abundant

2. Most black holes are formed from collapsed stars

5. Black holes warp time and space

Stellar black holes are formed when the centre of a star collapses on itself. This event commonly results in a supernova: an exploding star that blasts into space.

Eventually, the collapsed star compresses into a tiny, dense singularity, forming the centre of the black hole. Primordial black holes are believed to have formed soon after the Big Bang, while supermassive black holes formed at the same time as the galaxy in which they live.

3. Black holes are invisible to the naked eye No light can escape black holes. However, their gravitational pull affects the orbit of nearby stars, allowing scientists to discern them. The materials inside a black hole’s accretion disk

It is thought that our Milky Way galaxy alone holds 100 million stellar black holes. With 100 billion galaxies out there - each probably containing 100 million stellar black holes of their own - the total number of black holes is astronomical.

The extreme gravitational pull generated by black holes is a result of matter being compressed into a tiny space. If you happened to pass by a black hole, the pull would increasingly slow time and distort space. You would be dragged closer and closer to the hole, and eventually spiral inwards and become “spaghettified” as you plunge towards the black hole’s centre. At this point, gravity equations fail catastrophically because the warping of space-time is off the charts. Calculations approach infinity and thus lose their meaning.

6. Nobody knows what goes on inside black holes Also referred to as the point of “no return”, the event horizon is the boundary that marks the limits of black holes.

Nothing can escape past this point, including light and radiation. Therefore, anything that enters a black hole can’t get out or be observed from outside the event horizon. This means that what happens inside a black hole is largely unknown.

The only way of finding answers (that we know of) is to journey inside, but with the consequence of never returning.

7. Black holes devour matter – but also weirdly spit it out These galactic beasts prey on any unlucky material that wanders too close. Thankfully, Earth isn’t on a collision course with any identified black hole. However, Sagittarius A occasionally belches “spitballs” the size of planets that might someday destroy us. Spitballs can travel up to 30 kilometres per hour and are made from assembled matter that escapes just before passing the point of no return.

8. There are some rogue ones When galaxies collide or merge, black holes can be thrust from the crash site and left to travel through space at whopping speeds. The first known ‘rogue black hole’ was around 600 million times our sun’s mass and roamed space at 5.9 million kilometres per hour. It is likely that hundreds of other rogue black holes wander the Milky Way today.

9. Supermassive black holes can create new stars Similar to how spitballs are expelled, supermassive black holes occasionally release enough material to form entire new stars. Some of these stars end up in deep space, far beyond their origin galaxy. As they actively regulate star formation, an article released by Nature in January 2018 suggests that black holes thus control the number of stars within galaxies.

Vol. 68 , Issue 09

ENVIRONMENT

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Turning the corner: Farmers facing climate change

Text: Xavier Anderson Graphic: Sophie Bear

It seems that recently, every article I write or edit is in some way related to climate change. It is a big issue and is hard to escape at university. My professors are talking about it, I discuss it with my friends, and I frustratingly try to explain it to my parents.

Most of the population is on the fence still, though. I can see why. The impacts of climate change still ‘feel’ far off. Personally, it’s hard to recognise a one to two-degree rise in temperature across the globe. However, Australian farmers are starting to turn the corner on how they view climate change. They are at the forefront. The first to herald its arrival and to feel its impacts.

now, we do need to help our farmers through the short-term. But drought-relief packages won’t solve the problem. It will only ease the pain.

Farmers have always been well aware of Australia’s climate. According to the National Farmers’ Federation head, Fiona Simson, “people on the land can’t ignore what is right before their eyes.” Australian farmers have made it through tough droughts before. But, with being so connected with the climate, farmers know that the growing trends in highly variable weather is no coincidence.

directly dealt with, the impacts could be devastating. Not just for farmers, but for everyone.

A recent study from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America has gone viral around the world. The paper analysed “the risk that self-reinforcing feedbacks could push the Earth System toward a planetary threshold that, if crossed, could prevent stabilization of the climate at intermediate temperature rises.”

Many argue that drought is just part of the Australian climate.

However, what we are seeing today is an increase in the severity and duration of weather, including drought. Global warming is significantly impacting the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO).

In response to these troubling times, politicians have stepped up to protect the vital agriculture industry. They have offered drought-relief packages to those struggling. These comprise of zero-interest loans, subsidies and donations. In the past, these packages were met with praise and gratitude from farmers. This time, farmers are fed up. Politicians touring regional Australia are being now posed with some tough questions. Right

Researchers from the University of East Anglia and Southern University of Science and Technology have concluded that a two-degree increase would be devastating. “Aridification would emerge over about 20-30 percent of the world's land surface by the time the global mean temperature change reaches two degrees Celsius.”

The regions most at risk of aridification are the Mediterranean, Southern Africa and the east coast of Australia.

“Aridification is a serious threat because it can critically impact areas such as agriculture, water quality, and biodiversity.

It can also lead to more droughts and wildfires.”

Regional Australia is currently facing serious drought. Our farmers are calling out for help. They are some of the most resilient people in Australia, but they are on their knees.

Stock is dying, salinity is worsening and crops aren’t growing.

ENSO refers to the sustained period of warming or cooling in the central and eastern tropical Pacific. Depending on the phase, rainfall will increase or decrease due to the temperature of the ocean north of Australia.

With global warming, this cycle is being thrown off balance. As such, the phases of ENSO are increasing in severity and duration. This means that droughts will become more severe and last longer. A worrying trend for farmers if climate change is not addressed.

Agreement. The most significant of its aims is “Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below two degrees above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.” Keeping temperature below a two-degree increase is paramount for the future of agriculture in Australia.

The Paris Agreement is a huge step in the right direction. It provides uniform goals to move towards a better future. But with the threat to our farmers so high, we must build on this voluntary agreement and move towards more concrete policy.

Despite their rhetoric, the Australian Government is well aware that climate change is affecting droughts. Rather than, you know… doing their job, they are placing the onus on farmers instead. On his recent tour of NSW and Queensland, Malcolm Turnbull stated that the farmers need to become more “resilient” and to adapt to what is “clearly a drier, hotter and more variable climate”.

Now, the government is committed to giving incentives for building feed and grain storage facilities, or even running fewer stock. This is just a band-aid solution, though. It doesn’t get to the heart of the issue. If climate change is not

It warns of the planet becoming “Hothouse Earth”. This refers to the tipping point in which heating would enter a feedback loop. It would drastically affect “ecosystems, society, and economies.”

The study stresses that “Hothouse Earth” is not inevitable and can be avoided. This is only if CO2 emissions are reduced. Even if we don’t reach this Armageddon tipping point, farmers will still be affected.

To combat climate change, the world’s nations have come together for unprecedented cooperation (apart from the U.S, but that’s a whole issue in itself).

What has resulted is the Paris Climate

Without government action on climate change, no amount of drought-relief packages will help us.

If politicians really care about their constituents, they will take action. Climate change is not some far off issue. A few degrees might not mean much to some, but for farmers, it is everything.

If farmers are the backbone of Australia, then we need effective policy to protect them. Attitudes are changing. This isn’t a social issue. It is not a matter of opinion. Climate change will affect us all. We need to face this. Before it’s too late.

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Week 5, Semester 2, 2018

GLITTER

Text: Canada Gavin Graphic: Mia Jessurun

Glitter. Those tiny flakes of sparkle and shimmer can enhance any beauty situation. It can play a crucial role in creating spectacular Coachella hairstyles or be a fun addition to the infamous mermaid and unicorn makeup looks that have been trending. At some point, (even if it was the disastrous, 2000s glitter makeup looks) glitter has scattered itself into everyone’s beauty regimes.

Recently, adding a sprinkling of gold glitter to a pair of perfect braids has become a festival staple across the globe. As such, the market for cosmetic forms of glitter is growing exponentially. Most brands now sport a line that features the glow of finely milled glitter in a kaleidoscope of colours.

Despite its alluring, aesthetic appeal there are some devastating environmental impacts of glitter. The most significant being the disposal of glitter into waterways. This particularly affects aquatic species such as turtles and fish. Mainstream glitter is generally made from tiny pieces of plastic, referred to as microplastics. Microplastics are any piece of plastic less than five millimetres in length. Overall, they make up approximately 85 percent of plastic pollution found in the natural environment.

The minute size of microplastics allows them to move freely throughout the ocean. Tiny organisms then consume them. Microplastics are now even being found inside oysters. Once consumed, products such as glitter make their way up through the food chain. This has caused the premature death of many fish species before reproduction age, thus aiding the depletion of fish species. Additionally, some fishermen have found traces of glitter in their catches, meaning that it is possible for these microplastics to make it all the way back to us.

Despite these distressing consequences, only four countries have banned the use of microbeads in cosmetics. These include The Netherlands, US, UK and Canada. The bans aren’t for microplastics as a whole though. It is just for the small plastic beads often found in exfoliating products. This means there is still an enormous way to go in terms of reducing the negative consequences of other microplastics. Glitter and other microplastic that are commonly found in cosmetic products are still not banned.

Now it’s not all doom and gloom for all the glitter lovers out there. Many companies have taken initiative and are now creating biodegradable, environmentally friendly glitter. Making it possible for everyone to still be sparkly whilst being kind to the environment.

ENVIRONMENT

ENVIRONMENT

Vol. 68 , Issue 09

40

CAGED OR PROTECTED? PREDATOR-PROOF Fences in australia Text: Xavier Anderson Graphic: David Liu

The increasing establishment of international schools has become a growing trend within the Southeast Asian region.

While this could be attributed to the effects of globalisation or increasing job opportunities in the region, the growth has been largely due to an increased local demand. In Malaysia, for example, 80 per cent of the students in international schools now are locals, compared to a previous quota of 40 per cent established by the government.

International schools were originally meant as education centers for the children of expats and diplomats living far from home to ensure that they received an appropriate education. They have since become institutions offering an alternative curriculum. This might perhaps be due to the growing dissatisfaction with the local curriculum coupled with parents’ desire for their children to learn critical thinking skills and attain results from a more widely recognised program.

Having experienced this firsthand, I too followed my parents’ whims and transitioned from the local Malaysian curriculum to an International school curriculum, around the same time the Malaysian education policy was announced to be switching language mediums for teaching Mathematics and Science from English to Malay.

As a higher number of people are now going abroad for tertiary education, having an initial exposure to an international school background helps prepare students. The local curriculum and its subsequent qualifications, on the other hand, is often not recognised or held in lower regard to international school curriculums by tertiary education institutions abroad. Furthermore, the costs of

That said, the transition is not as seamless as there are several things that one has to get used to. Along the way, you develop a kind of culture with the other international school students, which can be entirely different from the background you grew up from. I’ve met some Malaysians who were less than fluent in Malay or Mandarin, two languages used within the Malaysian community. In fact, as my time within an international school increased, I myself felt became less articulate with speaking those languages since there were fewer opportunities to practice it.

studying at an international school are a somewhat suitable replacement of studying overseas yet remaining close to home.

The most popular study curriculums in Southeast Asia are the International Baccalaureate and the British A-levels, although options like the American and Australian international schools do exist. For a large number of students, the difference in curriculum means learning much more interesting and diverse content. History lessons in the local curriculum would be largely focused on detailed history of the country while

an international curriculum enables students to learn about world history alongside the history of their own nation. Furthermore, taking up creative subjects such as sociology or drama were an option, as opposed to the near universal decree where everyone following the local syllabus had to focus on studying further mathematics and sciences. New concepts such as the celebration of international week and attending school trips were new traditions that demonstrated a greater amount of variety beyond the classroom.

While it took me some time to adapt to the new culture, it being where I am during my most important teenage formative years has arguably shaped who I am today.

Internat iona l schools offer new opportunities that local schools are often unable to offer and cater to the needs of students looking for a curriculum that would put them on par with students around the world. Whether it was engaging in multiple new opportunities such as MUN or learning about other’s cultures, I’ve certainly learned a lot and have been incredibly privileged to have gone through this.

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Week 5, Semester 2, 2018

BUSINESS & ECONOMICS

The rise of a religious and spiritual market

Text: Surbhi Arora Graphic: Georgie Kamvissis

When any conflict emerges in a nation, multiple stakeholders gather their physical and mental armour to fight for their interests. Each stratum of the society seeks comfort in what they know. Now a person can get information from sources including but not limited to national news, individual communities and their immediate family. But what if these sources of information reflect the cultural or religious bias of certain people? Such sections of our society vulnerable to the prejudiced opinion are the first ones to fall trap to the fault lines of religious fanaticism.

In our first lesson in economics, we are taught that humans are rational.

That humans are expected to choose amongst scarce resources available

to them rationally and prudently.

But if recent trends are to be believed, not all humans behave rationally. During conflicts, very few people are cognizant of their immediate reality. Even fewer can grasp the tangible facts of ongoing strife.

While a few people take immediate steps to know more about the situation and formulate an educated opinion, there is an immensely growing section of society which is impressionable and naive. This level of naivety inherently makes such people susceptible to some mischievous elements rooted in our society. Instances range from the exploitation of a person’s faith for someone else’s financial gain and establishing a person’s religious beliefs as grounds for a battle call.

There have been numerous cases in recent history where a community as a whole has taken rash

decisions based on blind faith and dogma. There is an increasingly unstated and subtle competition implying that “my idol is better than yours,” and what was once a society that hoped to be guided by reason became a society driven by the fear of God and on the wheels of ill-advised decisions.

It has been believed that “once gods and religious figures are installed in place, they cannot be dislodged.”

Such shrines attract millions of devotees each year. A report by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) showed that “average expenditure on religious trips has more than doubled,” between 2007 and 2015 so much so that “religious tourism” has become one of the biggest highlights in recent government policy.

This debate on whether religion is a money-making business has revealed surprising facts. As is

evidenced by some studies, it seems that such religion and faith-related institutions do generate a socio-economic impact. A study conducted by the Religious Freedom and Business Foundation stated that “religion annually contributes almost 1.2 trillion dollars” worth of socio-economic value to the United States economy, which is more than the global revenues of the world’s top ten tech companies, including Apple, Amazon and Google.

Naturally faith is not a bad thing - but capitalizing on a community’s belief for politics and other financial gains has become an efficient money-minting scheme.

People are increasingly relying on their sage’s prophecies, blissfully unaware that their priests are reaping the profits of God.

CREATIVE

Vol. 68 , Issue 09

HUH Text: Geoffrey Bonning Graphic: Georgie Kamvissis

Two organic drops collide your face results Flesh and skin drawn tight across the contours of your bones that make me fluster at their sight A pleasurable rush and a fluttering heart A billion years of evolution tell me Your symmetry is worth my time

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Week 5, Semester 2, 2018

Disappearing existence Text: A Little Fuji Apple Graphic: Georgie Kamvissis

When the hustle dies down And silence slowly suffocates, Mind wanders about And trespasses guarded gates.

With each creak the hinges give way A little bit more And heart heavy, mind blank, Can no longer ignore.

What will the waves of memory wash ashore this time?

Caught off guard again…

Voice lost…can only mime.

Try to struggle free from the sand But sink deeper.

Step away, footprints are Devoured by the salty reaper.

Conflicted, confused, confounded Are thoughts.

Desired both freedom and bond – Taut or untaut?

CREATIVE

Vol. 68 , Issue 09

CREATIVE

44

Q AND A WITH a shooting star Look up. Look far.

The night lures you in.

What do you desire?

Text: Clare Myers Graphic: Georgie Kamvissis

Clarity…

Peace…

The Hopeful

Silence…

Stillness…

She loves me. She loves me not. Why won’t she love me?

Reflection.

His mind unravels his past decisions, picking them all apart. Where have they gotten him?

Beware the bewitching hour,

Lonely and heartbroken, that’s where. Alone and in need of solace he walks by the lake, the

It entices

trance of the moon as his guide, as long as he can see through his tears.

The hopeful,

The stars sparkle their mysterious glare. So far away and yet, they seem to smirk at his state.

The skeptic,

Then he sees it. His chance. His star. The answer. It swoops down, weaving its path, unabashed and unapologetic.

He could wish.

He could hope.

He does hope.

And then…

He does wish.

Now she will kiss him. Now she will love him. The stars can work their magic.

If only it were that simple… right?

The Skeptic Why the hell not?

The star shot so quickly she could have missed it. One second earlier or one second later and she would never have seen it. Do people call that a sign? she wonders.

She’s not one of those girls who asks for someone’s astrology sign when she likes them to make sure they’re ‘compatible.’ She doesn’t subscribe to the black puffer life. She looks like a dying fish doing pilates. She’s no buddhist, hippie, tree of life loving, bandana and khaki wearing kind of girl.

aaaaaaaaaaa

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Week 5, Semester 2, 2018

CREATIVE

The weekly horoscope readings are for those people who need some sort of affirmation in their life. Some divine guidance.

They’re too weak to find it themselves. They must realise it’s just an old, unsuccessful excuse of a writer who hates the life that’s supposed to be giving them their ‘meaning’? Pathetic…

But… then… why did she see look up at that exact moment? Why did it have to happen at that exact moment?

Creepy.

Oh well. It’ll do nothing if I wish or don’t wish. Cause it doesn’t work.

She tries to reason with herself. But the thought is there. The seed planted. And she’s a critical over thinker. So now, there’s no hope of going back.

Fuck it, I’ll wish. But it won’t come true! Life just doesn’t work like that. I work hard. That’s how I’ll get to where I want to be. To where I need to be. And then everything will all be worth it.

Ha…They always fall… aa a Who’s the pathetic one now?

The Lost Please send help. I’m in need. Like desperately. Like now. Why won’t you listen?

They turn in circles inside a cave of mirrors. Reflections mangled. Distorted. Pathways are blocked.

And time warps. Everything folds in on itself.

I need a miracle here. Everything is falling apart. I don’t even feel like I’m rock bottom – I feel like I’m sub level thousand!

Their desperation is the most obvious cry for help.

They see the answer. A literal light at the tunnel. A beacon to bring them out. And they go for it.

I need… I want… I’m longing for… I desire…

They do realise Santa Claus is a marketing campaign?

They wait for the response.

Oh sweetie…zz I listenzzzz zzz But the providing is on Why wish?

you.z zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Dreams are for the hopeful, Luck for the skeptic, Fantasies for the lost.

You have to grow the lemons to make the lemonade.

You have to lay the yellow brick road before you can follow.

So,z z Make a wishz Take a chance And then go out and do it.zz

CREATIVE

Vol. 68 , Issue 09

46

I Have a Problem with Fairy Tales Text: Sophie Johnson Graphic: Georgie Kamvissis You see, the fairy tale barely mentions that Ariel second guessed herself, Tried everything in her arsenal, But still wasn’t good enough.

The fairy tale barely mentions How long Belle took to open up, Protected by walls and fortresses She didn’t know how to bring down.

The fairy tale doesn’t mention that Sleeping Beauty got cold feet on her wedding day.

The prospect of forever was just too daunting.

She had no time to find herself.

The fairy tale doesn’t mention that For every Cinderella enchanting their own Charming, There are ten girls dancing at the ball Who didn’t get their chance, who won’t find their prince.

And you see, I’m just a girl.

I’m not a firework that dazzles, Leaving an imprint on the back of your eyelids.

You won’t get caught in my short, tangled eyelashes.

Alight Text: Katharina Fehringer Graphic: Georgie Kamvissis

The blood curdles in my veins,

There’s not much to see In my edged smile and sharp words.

In my ribcage, there’s just lungs and ruby red blood – I’m not made out of starlight.

the romance in the garden is all the same.

I’m not fearless, I’m the girl who spends every moment afraid.

I’m not the lioness – I’m the deer that’s ready to bolt.

rather than live like a drone.

I’m not a daydream Disney princess, I’m not always sure that everything will work out And I’m beginning to worry That ‘happily ever afters’ aren’t for everyone.

Electricity flavours my bones.

I should've bathed by candlelight

These weary stars and fan-forced seas Are a wreckage, pulsations of sunkissed salty waters that want to hustle, breathe into my knees, bend with the moon and dance like a tiger, ravaging the afternoon like the wilder beasts and hyenas, like dazzling stars breathing in the oasis of moments passed.

As the seasons envelope my excited skin and the grass folds between my toes, I show my candid scars.

Alight is my grin!

Effervescent, I seize the night poised and ready to roll.

Watch my swagger, get ready, sit tight.

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Week 5, Semester 2, 2018

CREATIVE

Textiles at school of art

This project focuses on sustainability issues in the clothing industry - by resusing discarded fabrics and redyeing them with indigo dye, these fabrics have a new life now!

Artwork: Millie Wang Instagram: @milliesminigram

Vol. 68 , Issue 09

SATIRE

48

Staying Warm In Canberra This Winter Text: Lily Iervasi Graphic: Noah Yim With Canberra experiencing one if its coldest winters on record, students are torn between cranking up the heater and the reality that is having to pay for said heating. But there’s no need to stress; at ANU we are #thoughtleaders taking innovation in our stride. Here are some novel ways ways to beat the big freeze without compromising your utilities bill!

1. Burn your notes from first year We all know you already regret using up most of your electives while trying to “find yourself” in first year. Seriously, what are you holding on to the extra notes for – do you think you’ll ever actually read through your microeconomics assignments, or admire those cringe-worthy life drawings from when you thought you’d fully embrace the starving artist lifestyle? You don’t have to be starving when you can save money on heating by chucking all those notes

onto a big ol’ bonfire to keep you cozy.

2. Reach out to your crush Nothing is spicier than things heating up between you and your significant other! If you’re afraid of an icy rejection when asking them out in person, why not utilise the services of the ever-popular ANU Crushes 2.0? The sparks that fly from your newfound chemistry will be sure to warm your spirit.

3. Access student-friendly spaces Venture into the BKSS on any weekday between midday and 2pm and you’ll be sure to warm up from the static energy created among you and

Edition 8 Solution

the throng of other students waiting in line for the microwave. Just be careful of what you bring for your lunch: microwaving last night’s curry will either spice things up in the room, or create a cold exclusion zone around you.

4. Stage a dance party in Mooseheads If you’re lightning on your feet and always boogieing on the D-floor at Moose on a Thursday, then why not tap into that canned heat in your heels to reduce your share-house’s heating bill?

Your housemates will thank you – but maybe not so much when you stumble home in the wee hours of the morning…

Schmidtposting. Try parking on campus, debating about trigger warnings, or literally anything related to politics. With all the roasting that is sure to ensue, you will no longer have to resort to hunkering down in a cozy spot in Chifley to stay warm.

6. Become a comedian Your penchant for telling jokes with your quick-fire wit could finally reap some benefits. Provided you have a sufficient audience and your jokes are actually funny, the hot air released from people's mouths as they laugh should be just as heartening as a warm blanket.

5. Start a controversial thread in Schmidtposting One sure-fire way to stay toasty is by bringing up a controversial topic on

Edition 9 Sudoku