Can you have a garden in New Zealand?  The entire existence of Reddit is justified with one post and its amazing comments.

Remembering Heartbreak High — ABC + ’90s nostalgia + Aussie teen drama = a No Award approved post!

According to Australian Screen curator, Tammy Burnstock, Heartbreak High was based on a stage play written by Robert Barrett, first published in 1988, which was adapted into the successful film The Heartbreak Kid (1993), starring Alex Dimitriades and Claudia Karvan. The 1993 film set out to be diverse and capture the ‘melting-pot’ Australia that, at the time, wasn’t being portrayed in shows like Neighbours or Home and Away. According to producer Ben Gannon (who would go on to become executive producer of Heartbreak High): “The Heartbreak Kid was presenting a world that we didn’t think was widely known outside of Australia; a multi-racial, urban, more ‘gritty’ high school. Up until Heartbreak, we didn’t feel that had ever been properly represented on film or television.”

This need for multiculturalism translated into the Hartley High inner city school setting; Heartbreak High not only offered seven seasons of diverse casting, but also explored racial tensions within the school setting. The pilot episode centered on character Rivers (Scott Major) repeatedly goading new student Jack Tran (Tai Nguyen), resulting in an after-school brawl.

The Guardian‘s series on Australian anthems is always good, but Liz is particularly keen on Clem Bastow’s remembrance of “! (The Song Formerly Known As)” by Regurgitator, an electro-punk tribute to the glories of staying home.  It’s been Liz’s personal theme song since she first heard it on Triple J, and gets more relevant to her life every year.

We at No Award have little to contribute to the subject of Ferguson and the murder of Michael Brown, being Australian and not black.  We would mostly like to see our fellow Aussies being less smug about that “never happening hear”.  Guys, Australian cops have a long history of killing black children, and also black adults.  The only difference is, they’re less heavily armed over here, so they have to arrest you first.

But Larissa Behrendt says it better than we can: Indigenous Australia knows the cynicism exposed by Michael Brown’s killing in Ferguson.

Watching the events in Ferguson unfold raises similar questions about Australia’s own legal system. The parallel is immediately drawn with the failure to secure a conviction in the case of 36-year-old Cameron Mulrunji Doomadgee, who died in a Palm Island lockup over 10 years ago.

Mulrunji was picked up for singing “Who let the dogs out” at a police officer, Chris Hurley, who drove past him in the street. He was charged with public nuisance. He had been in police custody for only an hour when he died. An autopsy revealed four broken ribs, which had ruptured his liver and spleen.

Hurley was indicted for assault and manslaughter but acquitted in 2007. He is the only person ever charged over a death in custody of an Aboriginal person in Australia.

The Ferguson issue this week had Liz, at least, asking some questions about the grand jury, ie, WTF?  Luckily, The Conversation is here to outline the history of the grand jury and why they’re not that great a concept:  Only in America: why Australia is right not to have grand juries.

Mood whiplash:

One for Sleepy Hollow fans: what are Henry’s ethical obligations to Frank Irving as an attorney?  

Henry also has a significant conflict of interest with Irving, as Henry’s goal is to bring about the Apocalypse under the direction of Moloch, which goes against Irving’s interests.

Liz works in the legal industry, so she thinks about this sort of thing a lot.

Disability or Superpower?  Deaf identity in YA

Keighery is hearing, and had major qualms about writing a deaf protagonist. ‘The more I researched deaf experience, particularly the politics, the more worried I became. At times, it seemed an impossible task to represent such complexity. But I discussed these terrors with people whose opinions I respect. My sister told me it was good and correct that I felt fear, since it showed a healthy respect for the topic I was going to tackle.

(This strikes Liz as being good advice for any author writing about a culture or identity they have not lived for themselves.)

 

Because Cory Bernardi is a dickwad: Putting a woman in a headlock sometimes justified, Cory Bernardi ACTUAL GOVERNMENT MINISTER tells domestic violence inquiry.

Juries can be influenced by where defendants sit in a courtroom, Australian study reveals.

The sobering reality of actual black nerd problems, over at Black Nerd Problems, discusses violence against black men, cosplay, and perception. It is unusually US-centric for No Award, but we’re all about perception and intersections and this one time a brown male friend of Steph’s was stopped in the Perth CBD by coppers because he was running with bags (they held laptops, and he missed his bus). We still laughingly refer to that as the time B was stopped for running while brown, but the laughter is mostly to stop the anger.

Stuff about the G20: Junkee implies Obama is unimpressed dad vis Australia and climate change; G20 sounds like one of those terrible meetings where everyone wants to talk about one thing but the chair is the one person who keeps ignoring that one issue (that’s us, and it’s about climate change). No Award hates those meetings.

Here’s more: Australia left to cringe once more at a leader’s awkward moment.  The article is self-explanatory, but we at No Award would like to take a moment to question the policy of international bonding via koalas.  Did you know that 80% of koalas have chlamydia?  This causes urinary tract infections, which makes their practice of pissing on any human unwise enough to hold one even grosser.  And they’re high all the time on eucalyptus leaves.  Is that really a message President Obama wants to send the world?  What is the political subtext of handing foreign leaders koalas?  How has nobody declared war over this yet?

Finally, over at the Guardian (of course), local activist, feminist and columnist Van Badham (of course!) lists 10 things we learned at the G20, from the importance of sunscreen to which bra you should wear while protesting climate change.

(No Award notes that it believes in koala conservation and not destroying koala habitats.  They should be left to flourish and be disgusting in peace.)

The dude on Today wore the same suit for a year and is now talking about sexism and how he’s judged on his performance and his lady cohosts aren’t.  It’s a small thing in many ways, but a good example of a white dude using his white dude privilege for good.

Steph doesn’t want to sound judgy, but there’s a Buddhist school in Daylesford and everyone interviewed in regards to the school has a name that isn’t traditionally associated with Buddhism. Although here at No Award we respect the right of people of all ethnicities to do all things, we have a healthy suspicion of white people co-opting Asian things.

(Someone recently described Daylesford to Liz as the natural habitat of middle-aged, upper middle-class white hippies.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that!  It’s just not a demographic known for being thoughtful about its appropriative practices.)

SPEAKING OF, it was The Colour Run in Melbourne on Sunday, an event which is both cultural appropriation of the actual religious festival of Holi, and also not at all a charity, not even a little bit and wow do they want you to know it:

The Swisse Color Run is a commercial event, which chooses to support charities. As a for-profit event we are proud to give back to the local community, something we do not have to do, but we choose to do.

What copyeditor allowed ‘choose’ to feature in two sentences in a row? A copyeditor who was overruled, that’s who.

The Color Run is neither a charity nor a non-profit organization. The Color Run is a “for profit” event management company and our number one goal is to produce high quality events.

REALLY NOT A CHARITY. REALLY.

Family Court Chief Justice calls for a rethink on how High Court handles cases involving transgender children.

Basically, a trans kid in Australia who wants to transition needs to have their case examined by a panel of experts, and then the Family Court has the final say.  Liz has transcribed a lot of these cases, and while it’s not an adversarial process, and the judges are generally quite sensitive to these children’s needs and gender identities, it’s still a load of stress that can probably be avoided.  So well done Bryant CJ for pointing out that the court probably doesn’t need to be involved at all.

Fear and Loathing in (the) Land Down Under

There are fault lines in Australia that we know have always run through its sociopolitical crust that can’t be suppressed. A history of shameful, despicable seasons: the White Australia policy, the Stolen Generations, equating Aborigines with flora and fauna, the Children Overboard scandal, the Cronulla Riots, the horrific treatment of “queue-jumping” asylum seekers that gets worse. “Go back to where you came from!” you hear some shriek like harpies. “This is ’Straya, not Muslimania!”

A Report on Damage Done by One Individual Under Several Names

We at No Award have watched the unfolding of the Winterfox/Requires Hate/Benjanun Sriduangkaew saga with interest, having been aware of that individual and her, uh, works, for some time. (Liz was a lurker in the 50 Books POC debacle, and found herself frequently agreeing with RH’s reviews while also avoiding them because RH’s abusive language was a major anxiety trigger; Stephanie has been known to nope out of situations involving RH, despite also frequently agreeing with RH’s reviews) This detailed post outlines both RH’s behaviour under various pseudonyms and her more recent actions under the Benjanun Sriduangkaew persona, and offers stark proof that RH particularly targeted fellow women of colour for abuse.  (Screencaps include racist, transphobic and abusive language.)

Who Killed the Cup Day Billy Cart Derby? Steph has friends who live on this street and used to make falafel to sell, and is having a lot of feelings about the Melbourneness of this article and the importance of this bit:

When asked if there is a moral to the story, one organiser simply said: “Get more things like this happening. Don’t rely on other people to produce an event. Do one yourself. There could be thousands of ***** street derbies, it could be an underground movement. If people are that keen to follow it then start more. All you need is four wheels, a piece of wood and a plank and you’re off.

For sale: W Class Tram

Liz and Steph gave serious considering to buying this before we eventually concluded it would be impractical to move, store and restore.  But if you’re wondering what to get the social justice blogger/infrastructure nerd in your life for Christmas…

In No Award news, Stephanie accidentally wrote a really popular parody on the internet with Hayley Inch (OZTEN: Pride and Prejudice for Aussies), and Liz announced she’s editing an anthology (Companion Piece: women celebrate the humans, aliens and tin dogs of Doctor Who).  And Liz and Stephanie are BOTH appearing in FableCroft’s Cranky Ladies of History, an anthology of short fiction about historical women with no time for nonsense.