Cutting the climbing chains at Uluru

Closing the climb was meant to be revisited once suitable alternative activities had been developed and climbing numbers declined to less than 20 per cent of visitors. These conditions appear to have been met, yet still the climb remains open.

We live in a world featuring multiple thinkpieces comparing and contrasting Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner’s careers post-Daredevil. How is that possible? On the other hand, as an Alias fan who saw Elektra in the cinema on opening day (Frank Miller’s scripts and art for Elektra: the ultimate problematic fave), Liz is okay with this.

First, Anne Helen Petersen, whose deconstructions of both contemporary and classic Hollywood PR and image construction are amazing:

How Jennifer Garner Went Full “Minivan Majority” and The Unbearable Sadness Of Ben Affleck

And then Forbes (you’ll need to pause AdBlock for this to work): Ben Affleck Survived ‘Daredevil,’ But Jennifer Garner Never Recovered From ‘Elektra’

[Warnings: rape, sexual harassment] Tabletop Gaming has a White Male Terrorism Problem

Amid the rise of lone wolf terrorism it is important for the ethical, responsible members of the gaming community to address and put a stop to it before anyone is harmed. Credit for foiling a potential mass shooting at the Pokemon World Championship goes to an unnamed forum moderator who had the sense to notice the dangerous, violent rhetoric of his posters and alert the authorities. How many sexual assaults could be prevented in the gaming community by men extending that same concern to women?

An important post that is regrettably applicable to lots of hobbies, nerdy and otherwise.

The Chinese Singaporean Way of Death

The truth about WebMD, a hypochondriac’s nightmare and Big Pharma’s dream

The article includes a bunch of WebMD alternatives at the end, but they’re all American. For an okay Australian health site, Liz recommends the BetterHealth Channel, which is overseen by the Victorian government. (Obviously the internet is no substitute for a trained medical professional, but this is better than a lot of other sites.)

Stand up and be counted: on how boycotting the Census is only good if you don’t need to be counted

There’s Now A Website That Gives Practical Advice On Fighting Public Transport Fines

Hospital accused of ‘incompetence or racial profiling’ in Gurrumul treatment

“Why was he left for over eight hours when the reason for his admittance was clearly evident in Michele’s explanation to A&E staff and was clearly in all of his notes?” Grose wrote.

“There are two assumptions I can make which are both very disturbing but which need answering: Was Gurrumul Yunupingu’s level of A&E care related to assumptions based on his race or is there a serious fault in the system which allows someone to be largely ignored in A&E while seriously ill?”

Stephanie has SO MANY QUESTIONS: Curtin University students shot in New Orleans during drug deal. A) MINING GAMES?! B) Australians, why must you insist on buying drugs in countries where you don’t fully understand shit? Just leave the drug taking for domestic purchase! C) Can anyone tell me if there’s a racial component to the dodginess of Bourbon Street?

[Liz says, yes, almost definitely.]

NASA Is Considering The Use Of Soft Robotic Squids To Explore Europa

Liz: Soft robotic squid is my aesthetic.

Random GoodReads thread of the week: Did others notice that Easter was portrayed as being in the autumn with the leaves falling and soon after school began? I found this very disconcerting and it colored the book for me. Don’tbooks havemeditors anymore? [sic]

Dear Jess, I Could Not Be Saving The Universe Right Now If I Were Not So Morally Certain You Should Be Fucking Me And Not Your Husband

This is quite old — 2007 — but reads like an extraordinary Mallory Ortberg ur-text. Except that it seems to be real? No, it cannot possibly be.

Australia is in crisis: of the six nominees for the Gold Logie, two aren’t white. This is shockingly discriminatory against white people.

Waleed Aly, Lee Lin Chin, and the sad ‘jokes’ about the Gold Logie

Waleed and Lee Lin have been nominated by popular acclaim; Waleed despite not campaigning for it, Lee Lin no doubt because she has threatened to kill all of us if she doesn’t win. There is no factual or rational basis for pointing to the colour of their skin or their ethnicity as having played any role at all in their ending up on the list.

Finally, a tribute to Melbourne’s ugliest piece of public art:

Hidden Vault: Tributes to ‘Yellow Peril’ sculpture found in public places across Melbourne

(NEEDLESS TO SAY, No Award does not endorse “yellow peril” as a nickname for Vault, or indeed, any other works of art. But we are in favour of hiding copies of super-ugly art all over the city.)

All That Isn’t Said: Kaye M. talks Islamophobia in YA

The octopus that ruled London — sadly not a tale of literal cephalogarchy, but an account of octopus-mania that overtook London in the 1870s.

Surprise! Food cycle couriers in Australian cities probably aren’t being paid minimum wage: Deliveroo and foodora accused of using sham contracts for bicycle delivery riders

(And why is it called foodora? “M’dinner.” NO! Let’s not do that.)

A great article on the difficulty of simplicity when you’ve struggled to own anything; when you’re refugee, immigrant, escapee. Marie Kondo and the Privilege of Clutter

HELLO: Diversity in Australian Speculative Fiction : A Bibliographical Exhibition. It’s online, it’s extensive, it’s relevant to all of our interests, STEPH IS LINKED IN IT, go forth and bookmark it immediately. 

Why Australia lies to itself about its Indigenous history

Instead, we want to be praised, to be acknowledged as a success. It’s a kind of national supplication, a constant search for validation. And history’s fine, as long as it serves that purpose. But if it dares step out of line, it can expect to be slapped swiftly with the Sandilands dictum until it changes the subject: “you’re full of shit, just get on with life”. Then we can be comfortable again.

Old but excellent: Move over Shakespeare, teen girls are the real language disruptors

50 Shades of Rey — just an interesting, not-entirely-terrible look at Rey/Kylo Ren shippers and the fic-writing end of Star Wars fandom in general.

A NOTE FROM LIZ:

I have broken my foot!  Which means, alas, that I’m not going to Brisbane — while I’m cleared to fly, it’s a struggle just to get around my little flat. I’m pretty devastated, but FEAR NOT, No Award fans, Stephanie will be at Contact, probably shouting about racism and climate change (I assume).

Sugar taxes and porridge gospels

Gorge on the saturated irony content of this argument: obesity disproportionately affects the poor. The poor have just been made even poorer, therefore will soon be more obese. Therefore taxing their consumption is an even more logical step.

Liz is currently reading Niki Savva’s The Road To Ruin, the infamous book on the Abbott-Credlin team that includes such media-friendly highlights as that time Credlin fed Abbott from her fork, and that other time Abbott slapped her on the bum, and also they were just really terrible to work with.

Less media-friendly, but more interesting to me, is how it demonstrates that there’s a strong culture of bullying in the Liberal Party, particularly in its right wing. So I’m not particularly surprised to find Cory Bernardi sending emails like this to a constituent who objected to his rampant homo- and transphobia.

Put Fat Girls in Your SFF YA

Books are supposed to help us dream and dream big but you’re starting to feel like you’re just too big to dream. You’ve read a couple books where fat girls get to be loved in the real world, and that’s wonderful, but fat girls don’t get whisked away into alternate worlds and told they’re a long lost princess. Fat girls don’t get to see the magical underside of New York City. Fat girls don’t save planets.

Please Stop Saying You Want to Go to Cuba Before It’s Ruined 

I appreciate good art direction just as much as anyone else, and I see that Cuba looks like a beautifully destroyed photo op. But it’s not your photo op. The old cars are not kitschy; they are not a choice. It’s all they have.

ASIA PAC EUROVISION

Disgusting as anything: Police officer who dropped Ms Dhu on concrete floor thought she was “acting”

The Safe Schools Debate reminds LGBT Australians of when our childhood bullying was ignored.

Let’s consider another reading: here is a powerful group carefully but ferociously dismantling something of significance to vulnerable people. This is the behaviour of bullies.

(I like this article but I wish it didn’t include a moment of oppression olympics)

‘Making mistakes with people’s lives’: the ethics of orphanages and voluntourism

‘When you go on holidays to Australia or America or Europe, you don’t go and visit vulnerable people and vulnerable children. You don’t go to foster homes; you don’t go and visit struggling families who are supported by welfare. It’s not part of your holiday itinerary. And so we really have to question why it is here.’

Not Your Korean Sidekick: The Frustrating Career of John Cho

Mythbusting Princess Leia’s Hair

(This post really speaks to Liz, because I spent much of my teen years with hair to my waist, attempting to reproduce Captain Janeway’s buns. Speaking of things that need mythbusting — or are we meant to believe Janeway was wasting replicator credits on hairpieces? THERE’S COFFEE IN THAT HAIRDO.)

Steph is an aspiring futurist (you might have guessed), and is super intrigued this interview at Business Insider with Ford’s futurist, who is a WOMAN YAY. (It’s a total con, don’t get me wrong, but some of the predictions are super interesting. Self-driving cars because of aging Boomers? Car sharing investment by car companies because it’s in their best interests not to create a grid-lock universe? TELL ME MORE.)

Trove and the case for radical openness #fundTrove

The agents of racism

East is eden: the Hollywood hits heading for a Chinese remake – in pictures

We are 100% going to watch the Mandarin remake of The Devil Wears Prada when it comes out. (And is subbed, in Liz’s case.)

Space Invaders: Why white cis gay men should check their privilege

(To save everyone the trouble: Not All White Cis Gay Men.)

The Boomer Supremacy — an interesting look at how Sydney’s lockout laws are yet another bar to young people participating fully in society.

That’s why Sydney’s lockout laws, and those planned for Brisbane, are copping such blowback. It’s not because the police are suddenly molesting wine bars in Paddington, or because the moralising class has started running a citywide temperance program. It’s because they are synergistic attacks on millennials, Gen Y and Gen X. They’re almost elegant in their efficiency: their motivator is youth’s use of public space, already diminished as the public square makes the declension to the shopping mall. They increase the price of already valuable properties further, and accelerate gentrification.

Graffiti tagger destroys historical Smith Street feminist mural

One of the artists, Ms Evans, said she felt sad and angry for the women whose stories were on the wall, but was not too “precious” about the artwork itself.

She said a lot of women, including some who were on the mural, contacted her upset over the vandalism.

“We don’t really care …it was very badly damaged anyway across the bottom because of many years of graffiti, it was never really looked after,” she said.

Artist Megan Evans said she felt sad that the stories of Northcote women were wiped out by the vandal.

“But the thing that I didn’t like …was the symbolic writing over the women. I felt angry on behalf of the women.

Steph is so into this article you have NO IDEA: MFA vs. CIA. A writer considers an alternate life as an undercover agent.

Steph’s local shopping centre when she was at uni just went solar: Perth shopping centre cuts grid power by 30% with WA’s largest rooftop solar array

Goat expectations: Don’t ever introduce animals to solve a problem

A great storify on disability access and pre-packaged foods. Please note that this is a North American ramble, and as such when they say ‘libs’ I think they mean little el liberals in the USAmerican context. Steph was SUPER confused.

“Women built this castle”: An in-depth look at sexism in YA.

While there are classic novels that can retrospectively have the YA label applied to them, the first YA book is considered by some to be Maureen Daly’s Seventeenth Summer. The novel, which focused on seventeen-year-old’s Angie Morrow’s budding attraction to Jack Duluth, published in 1942 as the idea of a teenager became to take hold socially.

But the book that most consider to be the first YA books is S.E. Hinton’s 1967 novel The Outsiders, about a group of teenage boys.

Fun story from Liz: I studied The Outsiders in year 10 — followed by Looking for Alibrandi in year 12; my education is basically an example of why studying YA in schools is awful — and I only just found out now that S E Hinton was a woman. Our teacher referred to her as “he” all through the term.

Stereotyping of Africans is everywhere, but Australians are particularly clueless

Australia is a nation that prides itself on being laidback and down to earth. The idea of everyone having a “fair go” is something most Aussies claim to value. So when marginalised people speak out against oppressive forces, I guess this image of fairness is threatened and people simply don’t want to face it.

…Sharing our experiences with racism is especially hard as black Africans here, because we are also subject to the “aggro race-card-pulling” archetype that is peddled by the media. Even in Australia’s most “progressive” spaces such as universities, conversations around racism seemingly always stop at Islamophobia and the experiences of black Africans are ignored. On the rare occasion that they aren’t, it is always through an American lens (thanks a lot Tumblr).

PR ‘stuff-up’: Michael Pezzullo defense falls flat, allegedly

Lifehack: never, ever use the word “alleged” in the context of Nazi atrocities. Not even to defend your island concentration camps and gulags from people who say they’re not very nice.

Lessons from Louise: the story of Paul Sheehan and the Sydney Morning Herald

A look at Paul Sheehan’s long career of right wing trolling in the guise of journalism. (Warnings for racism, domestic abuse, stalking.)

Weirdest and Sexiest Costumes from the Original Star Trek

You don’t really see crotch tassels on television any more.

Apply to things: Melbourne Fringe’s ‘Open Book’ concept.

Melbourne Fringe is excited to announce a new program in partnership with Melbourne UNESCO City of Literature Office – Open Book. The Open Book program provides free Fringe registration for selected artists with innovative ideas for new Festival projects that cast a fresh light on Melbourne and its relationship with literature.

All kinds of artists are encouraged to apply, particularly those interested or working in the literary arts.

Promoting an SF convention is hard.  But creating fake Facebook accounts and dubious ties to charity is never the solution.

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Defence Of Kanye

(This is an excellent piece; it’s only failing — and it might just stem from a decision to avoid digression — is its failure to interrogate the sexism behind the idea that Kim Kardashian “ruined” Kanye.)

A Full History Of The Deeply Personal Feud That’s Consuming Australian Politics

This is legit amazing. It’s In The Thick Of It if Malcolm Tucker was played by Michelle Gomez.

When is a TV Show Too Gay?: Representation and universality in Looking and Please Like Me — Or, is Australia lagging in terms of queer representation on television?

Zen Cho on PoC/Queer/Marginalised People in Western SFF Fandom

The Geek’s Guide to Disability

A book review: I’m Not Racist, But…Forty Years of the Racial Discrimination Act

Monash Undergraduate Prize for Creative Writing 

A bunch of responses to some bigoted, racebaiting journalistic fail this week, with content warnings for graphic false rape allegations:

A tissue of lies: Paul Sheehan and “Louise”

Finally, The Islamophobic Race-Baiting Of Fairfax And Paul Sheehan Blows Up In Their Face [Editorial note — that’s race-baiting by Fairfax and Sheehan, not of them.  Remember that time New Matilda could be relied on for its consistent quality? Yeah, that was a good five minutes.]

SMH columnist: I should not have written Middle Eastern rape column without fact checks

Paul Sheehan’s unchecked allegations ‘a catastrophe for sexual assault victims’

…if the alleged attacker isn’t white, all of a sudden previously silent men become militant feminists. It’s curious, then, that these men only use this newfound feminism as a cudgel against feminists.

Uber To Deliver Snakes To Your Office Whether You Order Them Or Not

“It’s all about disrupting the typical office space. It’s about disrupting the market. We’re shaking up the infospace with a box of cobras and rattlesnakes. They represent the dynamic shift that we’re bringing to the workplace. They represent the daring challenge we’re introducing to the modern world. Also, they’re very much a literal box of snakes.”

Torres Strait Islander flag repeatedly stolen from park in Heidelberg West because people thought it looked Arabic, which is terrifying on two levels

Footscray: melting pot turned hipster hotspot — a photo-essay about diversity and gentrification. #innerwestlief

Important Fatberg update, Newcastle edition

Steph went to Perth for LNY, and Hillarys was looking STUNNING. Reader, I definitely got in that water.

LINKTIME

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