Steph adores The Katering Show, and this is great:

I was so ready to be mad about this article, and I am still, but I’m also sort of delighted by PS 307: Brooklyn hipsters fight school de-segregation: They ‘aren’t racists’ — ‘they just don’t want to be in a ghetto’. Also No Award will probably never understand the numbering system for Primary Schools, and we’re okay with that.

Wrong turn: Man watches car being hit after GPS sends him onto suburban train line IN COBURG. NOPE NOPE NOPE.

Steph’s high school in the news for censoring queer art.

No Award has many feelings about the cancelling of Visas, but this one’s pretty hilarious: American Anti-Abortion Campaigner Troy Newman Is Currently Being Detained At Melbourne Airport. What’s not hilarious is how fucked he is.

Operation Rescue regularly targets people who work in abortion clinics with campaigns of sustained and aggressive harassment, posting signs outside their houses, following them in the street and publishing their home addresses on the internet.

No Award is pro-choice.

[Liz notes that, having been raised in the trenches of pro-life activism, her official stance on abortion is putting her hands over her ears, closing her eyes and running away going NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE and hiding until everyone stops talking.]

19 Times Australians Confused The Hell Out of Everyone On Tumblr

Australian exceptionalism takes the from of the firm belief that our country is weirder than everyone else’s.  But the comments here are great.  Democracy sausage is a real thing.

The 89th Down Under Feminists Carnival is up at Blue Bec. Many excellent antipodean feminist business there. In grand tradition, No Award will be hosting the November edition, coincidentally number 90. If you have something to submit, please leave a link here or email Steph before October 31.

On how Australia treats its international workers: Worker’s paradise or black labour haven? And also read this one: ‘Black jobs’: Rampant exploitation of foreign workers in Australia revealed.

Little research or official data exists on how many temporary foreign workers and students are employed in Australia, let alone how many are being illegally underpaid, but the Fairfax investigation surveyed Mandarin-language websites, where it was common for jobs to be openly advertised at $10 to $13 an hour, significantly below Australia’s legal minimum wage of $17.29 an hour.

The study of 1071 job advertisements aimed at temporary foreign workers, largely from China, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Taiwan, show the vast majority offer work either below the minimum wage or the award.

APY Lands artists push for Alice Springs studio for protection from ‘carpetbaggers’

Shark business: Far north NSW communities call for shark nets, immediate action to prevent shark attacks

An important update from 1992: Brashs’ Facebook presence.  Given that they went out of business in 1998, it’s probably not official.

Linkspam: legal edition

What? Liz enjoys legal shenanigans

That awkward moment when a Federal Circuit Court judge is found to be biased against immigrants.  (Spoilers: He was a Brandis appointee.)

Speaking of immigration matters, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (sigh) gets a belting from the Full Bench of the Federal Court.  It would be glorious to behold if it didn’t involve the actual lives of actual vulnerable people.

Horticulture Innovation Australia Ltd v Westley [2015] NSWSC 1292 — Sure, it sounds dry, but then…

For the most part, Mr Westley used the misappropriated funds to pay costs and expenses associated with a theatrical production known as “Avenue Q”. Mr Westley was the executive producer of that production, which was staged at the Enmore Theatre from 2 July 2015 to 18 July 2015.

A hometown story of prejudice and ablism from Liz’s hometown: Down syndrome man refused entry to Brisbane JB Hi-Fi.

The way we treat immigration in Australia has directly resulted in this completely preventable death: Illegal worker dumped in toilet block near Mildura died from treatable condition, police say.

On a related note: the incompetence of Border Force is breathtaking to behold.

Stonewall is very USA, and as Australians we can be forgiven for not knowing specifics, but the new movie is very clearly wrong about the specifics on queer things and racial things, as this great review at Vanity Fair specifies. This Gawker review is also excellent.

Stonewall teaches you about as much about being gay as the Aristocats taught you about being an aristocrat.

Teddy gets left behind at a Canberra hotel; goes on a tourist trip of Canberra before returning to Sydney. Steph loves photos of stuffed toys having adventures, always feel free to tweet them to her.

#FreeKaren

Gay people in National electorates have a pretty rough time of it. (Trigger warnings for suicide and homophobia.)

Rebecca “@brocklesnitch” Shaw writes on a subject very dear to Liz’s heart: girl gangs, female friendship, and the portrayal of such in middle-grade and primary-aged fiction.

Hugo Award nominations broken down by country.  Liz will say something about this as soon as she gets her spoons together.

Vonda N. McIntyre recalls her career as an author of Star Trek tie-ins.

Anti-gentrification protesters target cereal cafe and estate agent in Shoreditch. Look, Stephanie acknowledges that, living in Melbourne’s inner north, she is a part of Melbourne’s gentrification problem. (She also volunteers at a kitchen that has a low income meals program, and has strong feelings about community vegie gardens, but still). HOWEVER this article is still excellent and strangely comforting. Not that riots are a great option, OBVIOUSLY, but also: “Cereal cafe. £5 for cereal when people are starving. F*** gentrification.” DAMN RIGHT.

The Future of Language. Language predictions based on MATHS and also I have some unfinalised questions about the bias of requiring apps to be produced in English thus leading to the need to learn stuff in English and the continuing bias of studies on that. Go away and read the article then come discuss in the comments.

Have you read about Kesha? You should read about Kesha. People are demanding #FreedomForKesha: Here’s what accusing a powerful producer of rape has cost her.

 

Who knew that hot jam doughnuts are a specifically Melbourne thing?

Steph is so into this article: An exile from Iran on the beaches of Australia

Do you believe in alternate universes?  Here’s one from the reality where Malcolm Turnbull is a dangerous leftist.  But what really made us sit up and pay attention is the discovery that Turnbull’s mother, Coral Lansbury, was amazing.  Through her, Turnbull is also distantly related to Angela Lansbury of Murder She Wrote fame.  GUYS.

This interview with the director of Hackers on its 20th anniversary is so great.

Our Own Two Wheels, on using sex from ladies to sell, especially in a community filled with ladies.

Can You Match the Pigeons to the Way They’re Ruining My Whole Life? The anti-birb agenda spreads!

Photos of many adorable sharks.

Obviously the title of this article is now post its prime but the article still stands: Nick Cave implores Malcolm Turnbull to remove Arts Minister George Brandis; with a special note to Sam Twyford-Moore (former EWF director and twitter about town) who put it all together.

How embarrassment: Learning to speak Australian at Peril re: noted boofhead Senator Ian MacDonald.

On the ‘stepping down’ process at Metro Trains.

DON’T RUN OVER WOMBATS.

Because of this racist fucked up country: Adam Goodes to farewell Sydney Swans fans next season after quietly announcing AFL retirement. The man is a role model for Australians and there are a whole lot of AFL supporters who Steph would kick in the groin area if she could.

Rebecca Shaw (aka @brocklesnitch) provides a women’s sport round-up.  Liz found out just last week that women’s AFL is a thing that exists!

Every non-white person outside the United States is not a “person of color.” An interesting and critical examination of US responses to Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians and China Rich Girlfriend. (Spoilers, Steph, as a mixed-race SEAzn, hates these books for exactly these reasons.)

Shaun Tan has done some stuff with fairy tales and it is excellent. The Singing Bones.

I hope we’ve all come to terms with the fact that our government is full of people who would leave us all to rot, individually and collectively: New York Times: It Would Be ‘Unconscionable’ For Europe To Follow Abbott’s ‘Inhumane’ Refugee Policies; at the SMH, where it’s all just gross; Dutton thinks climate change in the Pacific is hilarious (more on that tomorrow); Secret freeze on refugee citizenship processes.

Don’t make friends with salad. Or, for that matter, any other food – on food and morality.  (Disclaimer: Official Potato Moya strongly feels that people should be friends with food if that’s what they want, some of our best friends are food, etc.)

This one goes out to Official Potato and Occasional Official Calligrapher Moya: How the Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive.

Refugees, the most enterprising migrants in Australia

Unions slam proposal for one-hour shifts ONE HOUR SHIFTS ARE TERRIBLE JUST SAY NO

Training quolls to not eat cane toads by…throwing them sausages laced with cane toads.  #straya

Things and Their Makers: From “European Labour Only” to “Ethical Consumerism” – a great piece at Right Now by Lia Incognita with a very Melbourne focus

On the Other Hand – a rare profile of the Muppeteer who took over the role of Kermit after Jim Henson’s death

An Edwardian admonition against manspreading

Liz is really into this 1955 BBC short doco about cycle touring:

Russian Witch Baba Yaga’s Guide To Feminism

6. Promote healthy consent by asking visitors to your hut if they came of their own free will. (Or were sent by someone else.) It’s important for your students/admirers/victims to understand that they have bodily autonomy and don’t have to wander around the woods looking for weird witchy huts if they don’t want to. Have some diagrams and source materials ready, just in case you need to get more in-depth on the topic of enthusiastic consent.

Q. and A.: Ken Liu on Science Fiction and Chinese History

A Social History of Jell-O Salad

The [Americans with Disabilities Act] at 25: How One Law Helped Usher in An Age of Accessible Design

I strongly suspect this article is a bit too optimistic about the so-called Age of Accessible Design, but it’s a great read nonetheless.

Qantas staff ‘cursed’ after removing ceremonial boomerangs from flight, says Doomadgee

MWF stuff: Excellent post on Mark Latham’s MWF panel: “If You Don’t Like It, You Can Fuck Off”: A Reluctant Recap Of Mark Latham’s Melbourne Writers Festival Talk; fun little MWF ‘reviewer for a day’ review How to Review Voicing Race at Melbourne Writers Festival 2015: A Guide in Three Parts.

Eleanor Robertson went to a panel on “grievance feminism” so we didn’t have to.

…anyone who’s actually thought about this beyond Baby’s First John Stuart Mill pop-up book realises that the issue is far more complex than three-word slogans can handle.

Twitter blocks access to some accounts that archive political tweets (specifically political tweets that then get deleted). Our dystopia is here~

A wombat joins Tinder. Wombats are the best.  Even this total “why do lady wombats always say they want nice guys and then hook up with jerk wombats?” fedora-sporting nice guy.

Is It Legal To Release Balloons Into The Air? Not in NSW. But MORALLY and ETHICALLY, just don’t do it. I know it’s beautiful, it’s meaningful, it’s a memorial. But it’s terrible pollution, in Australia it’s literally like throwing three dozen condoms straight into the water. Just like that. Don’t do it.

Unsourced ‘cos we found it in the comments to an article about cyclists: Cycling-in-the-News Bingo.

Having feelings about this article on why Al Jazeera stopped using the word migrant. I love it so much.

No Award refuses to be drawn into a conversation about gun control, but this quote about how a temporary ban on the Adler shotgun has been lifted in exchange for a vote from Leyonhjelm is interesting:

Senator Wright said the Government had traded gun safety for Senator Leyonhjelm’s key crossbench vote.

“He’s traded off a vote in relation to migration law to push forward a weakening on gun laws and it highlights the risk he will push the Coalition further to water down their gun laws,” she said.

Obviously, by ‘interesting’, No Award means are you shitting me, a deal on migration and guns? Like that’s not a loaded statement. But, I mean, whatever makes old white men happy, I guess.

This video game is quite offensive and highly problematic, if you are Liz.

A very important work of credible non-fiction: John Scalzi Is Not A Very Popular Author And I Myself Am Quite Popular: How SJWs Always Lie About Our Comparative Popularity Levels by Theophilous Pratt.

Most helpful review:

Brilliant and, in all modesty, possibly one of the great works of the 21st century. I especially liked the Chapter layout and how they were sequentialized. This groundbreaking tome once and for all settles the matter of the perfidious John Scalzi’s popularity! This book actually has THREE bonus Chapter Fives, unlike some other lesser works which give you barely two. This NEEDS to be nominated for a Best Editor award next year!

Awesome Australian film Gayby Baby was banned by the NSW Premier from being screened in schools as inappropriate during school time. A good school is one that teaches pupils to think for themselves; Labor MP Penny Sharpe Perfectly Sums Up The ‘Gayby Baby’ Furore In This Passionate Speech; The NSW Government’s In Seriously Hot Water For Caving To The Daily Telegraph Over ‘Gayby Baby’.

It’s been a busy day for progressive Australians on Twitter, forcing Australian Border Force to go from promising neo-fascist visa checks on the streets of Melbourne over the weekend to cancelling the whole thing.  Three cheers for successful social media outrage coupled with a successful protest (organised in less than an hour, mind, and held on a work day).

Buzzfeed has the breakdown:

A Timeline Of The Border Force’s Very Bad, No Good, Terrible Day

The Guardian’s rolling coverage has a bit more detail, and, with no disrespect to Buzzfeed, gravitas.

Useful source for the next time this happens: what to do if the immigration department demands to see your papers.

Remember, if you see a person being subjected to harassment, and you feel safe doing so, grab your smartphone and start recording.  (Friend of No Award Amanda almost got punched in the face in a Hungry Jacks once after she confronted a guy being rude to a Singaporean employee, so use your best judgement.  No Award takes no responsibility for any assaults you may suffer while doing the right thing.)

“Australians may or may not be making booze out of Vegemite” is hilarious right up until you realise that the rumour is about Indigenous Australians, and ties into a long history of government interference in Indigenous communities.

Important fatberg update: Fighting the fatbergs: how cities are waging war on clogged sewers.

From that link: Arne Hendriks is building his own fatberg.  I legit hope this comes to MONA.  I’ll go back for that.  I’ll even take the boat.

The cats of the State Library of Victoria tumblr.

When changing names means changing identities. Steph has so many feels about this.

That awkward moment when Our ABC briefly employed a Nazi spy.

A group of students have figured out a way to disrupt the period industry in low-income countries. Amazing brown girl innovation.

Remember that time Mark Latham almost became prime minister?  These days, he’s probably* a misogynistic and transphobic troll on Twitter, and causing some grief for the Australian Financial Review, which publishes his rants.

* “Probably” = the twitter account in question claims it’s run by an old school friend of Latham’s, which doesn’t explain how its tweets end up word for word in AFR columns, but obviously Latham can’t blame his nanny.

ETA: It’s most definitely Latham, so there goes that slender shred of doubt!

Koala on a quadbike. Probably a dropbear.

Steph has a new housemate, proving that sometimes it pays to enter twitter competitions. (Stay safe around trains, quokkas!)

 

This post has been sitting in our drafts since before Aussie Spec Fic Week, so bear with us if some of these links are a bit out of date.

The six problems ruining Melbourne’s rail network.

Last week the other week Steph went to the White Rabbit Gallery in Sydney (in Chippendale!) and it was great! Modern Chinese art, yes, thank you. And on 30 July they close the current exhibition to bump in the new one so GO TODAY. The current exhibition is heaps of fun.  Sorry, sorry.

Aboriginal mothers kept in jail “for their own safety”, family violence hearing told. Love a system where being victims of DV means being jailed. Awesome. Good times. Definitely post-racial.

Are you a girl under 18 who wants to write crime fiction? There’s dollars available for you for that.

Grill’d is totally paying staff under Award and that is bull.  But since we started this post, they’ve been forced to increase wages and reinstate the fired worker who drew attention to them.

How ‘Privilege’ Became a Provocation. NYT.

Steph is SO EXCITED about Jane Rawson’s new book ‘The Handbook: Surviving and Living with Climate Change’. She’s also very jealous that she didn’t write it, but we all have our climate change burdens to bear. Here is a blog post in relation to it.

Ghost bikes.

This story about killer seagulls justifies everything Liz believes about birds.  Also, don’t feed wild birds, and don’t go on a spree of revenge bird killings, that’s just terrible.  Anyway, birds will win that war.

Octopus Wrestling and the Cephalopod Uprising. No Award does not approve of this article’s strong anti-cephalopod bias, not to mention what passes for journalism at Vice, but there are some interesting cephalopod facts in there.

Britain’s Secret Ghost Trains – restless infrastructure from beyond the grave!

Underneath the ‘Orientalist’ Kimono – a brief look at the issues that arise when Asians living in western countries consider something — in this case, white people trying on a kimono — racist, while Japanese people regard it as a positive sign for the future of their culture.  Intersectionalism is complicated!

Melbourne Aquarium conducts an underwater census.  Warning: PUNS.

Pictures of 19th century Sydney show that it was totally a great place for women and ethnic minorities.  We are linking to this for the pictures and the quotes from Josh Quong Tart, not the “cultural assimilation is the mark of a great immigrant” narrative.  (Such narratives tend to overlook the fact that Quong Tart died of injuries sustained in what was almost certainly a racist assault.)

Steph is having a lot of feelings about this post at the Toast: Grief in the Diaspora.