Here at No Award, we embrace and promote conscious consumption (and Steph is always willing to talk about it because that’s her job and she loves it). In The Bottom Line: Patagonia, North Face, and the Myth of Green Consumerism, you can have a read about winter sporting wear Patagonia’s business practice of minimising consumer purchasing as part of an overall strategy to make our society less disposable. BASICALLY THE BEST. It might not work as a strategy right now, but it’s pretty great.

Victorian Labor wins election by stealing the Greens’ strategy; also swears about Australian media and Lolstralia doesn’t blink.

This Idiot Senator Wore A High-Vis Mining Vest In Parliament And Got Torn To Bits By Everybody.  This is old, but totally worth it.

It is worth noting at this point that Macdonald, who is both Australia’s longest-standing current Senator and a fully-grown man, is perfectly happy to stand in a chamber of Parliament and loudly advertise that he is literally sponsored by a corporation.

The terrible psychological consequences of our border policy for the naval personnel who implement it.

New Atheism, Old Empire – examining the way New Atheism just coincidentally overlaps with fascism and imperialism.  Warning for violent language in the quotes.

Tansy Rayner Roberts asks, Does Sex Make Science Fiction Soft?  A look at SF’s traditional wariness of romance, the division between “soft” and “hard” SF, sexism and intersectionality, and there’s also a reading list which might even inspire Liz to try once again to read romance.

It’s an inter-network battle to the death as newsreaders take up arms in … are Hunger Games comparisons considered tasteless in the wake of ABC cuts?  The important thing is that No Award is Team Lee Lin Chin.

30 Years of Hating Alison Ashley

On many levels Hating Alison Ashley is a farce of character. Erica Yurken is rude, self-centred and intoxicatingly megalomaniacal. Her delusions of grandeur are completely at odds with her life at Barringa East Primary School – a school of such disrepute that Erica laments its sole mention in the local newspaper, which occurred when a classroom burned down prompting the headline ‘Arson Suspected at Barringa East Primary’. In Erica’s Barringa East we see shades of Porpoise Spit, the depression-inducing town from the classic Australian film Muriel’s Wedding.

(a) I can’t believe Hating Alison Ashley is 30 years old; (b) that means it was already eight years old when I first read it, yet it felt totally fresh to my childhood eyes; (c) let’s pretend the movie — which transplanted the story to a high school and featured my nemesis Delta Goodrem in the title role — never happened; (d) I didn’t know that Robin Klein has suffered a stroke and can no longer speak or write — that’s very sad; (e) with details like Erica’s mother being a proud welfare cheat, I wonder how modern kids perceive this book?

The Best of Mike Bowers’ Brick Senate – Senate rules limit photography.  So The Guardian makes do with Lego.  Obviously.

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.

A tumblr thread discusses how all work that is feminised becomes devalued, and it’s a good discussion about the evolution of various fields such as chemical engineering, biology and teaching, and how they became undervalued as more women moved into the fields and they became known as ‘female’ fields. It makes Steph think about her own work in sustainability and climate change mitigation, and the professional workshop she attended last week where of 19 attendees, all sustainability professionals and experts, only 3 of those attendees were men. And sustainability and climate change are controversial, soft topics, and how much does that have to do with how many women are in the field?

(Liz notes that Lois McMaster Bujold has written about this for a long time — her novels are often dismissed as “soft” sci-fi, or not “real sci-fi” at all, because the primary technological innovations she writes about are biological — uterine replicators, social implications of genetic engineering, adaptive surgeries for people with disabilities.  You know, lady science.)

Not Australian, but as Terrible Young People, No Award is especially interested in this article at Treehugger: More proof that millennials are ditching the car. Please note that 100% of No Award contributors do not own a car (50% of contributors have current drivers licenses valid in Australia).

(Liz wishes to point out that her learner’s permit is current and valid in the state of Victoria, and she can totally go, um, forwards and around corners.  SO THERE.)

Following on from the Great Potato Cake War (aka the Potato Scallop Police Action aka WHY AM I NOT EATING POTATO RIGHT NOW), The Guardian looks at regional variations in Australianisms.  Liz, having moved from NSW to Queensland during primary school, prides herself on never having used the terms togs” or “port rack” except in conversations where she expresses pride in never having used these terms.  Internalised Queenslandophobia?  Ponder that while we wonder why Far North Queensland and the delightful regional language of Katter Country was excluded from this study.

New Matilda reveals that English professor/curriculum reviewer Professor Barry Spurr is a deeply unpleasant man who yearns for a time when — we quote — “Abos, Chinky-poos, Mussies, graffiti, piercings, jeans, tattoos, obese fatsoes or darkies“ formed no part of the Australian landscape.  In addition to the ugly, racist language, the link above includes misogyny, transphobia, victim blaming, the violation of a disabled student’s privacy, and also he’s bigoted against Methodists, which is small cheese compared to the rest, yet somehow impressive.

Liz notes, however, that as much as she sympathises with the people who’d prefer to see him summarily dismissed from society in general and the University of Sydney in particular, there’s a lot to be said for organisations taking their time to follow procedures and conduct investigations.  Mostly because, if that doesn’t happen, they tend to get sued, and Liz would rather that Professor Spurr doesn’t ultimately walk away with a taxpayer funded windfall.

In any case, next time someone says something about ignorance and lack of education being the cause of racism, we can trot out Spurr as proof that education is no help if one is determined to be a dipstick.

‘Am I Being Catfished?’ An author confronts her number one online critic.  Or, Kathleen Hale is a terrible person who demonstrates exactly why people use pseudonyms online, even for something as innocuous as book reviewing.  Since the reviewer wasn’t threatening Hale with violence or saying she should be raped and/or murdered, there’s no reason at all to link her online identity with her real life.

Smart responses to Hale:

Smart Bitches, Trashy Books – The choices of Kathleen Hale

An Open Letter to Kathleen Hale & Guardian Books: Stalking is not okay

A response to the support received by Kathleen Hale after she stalked a book blogger

Liz adds here: I have a lot of sympathy for authors who feel that their books are being misrepresented or misinterpreted by reviewers.  Not that I’m a published author, but I’ve kicked around fandom long enough to be declared The Worst Person In Doctor Who Fandom by an anon meme.  It’s hard to resist the urge to explain yourself, or at least ask for clarification.

(Once I posted a fic which, although it was rough due to a deadline, basically said what I wanted it to say, though not as well as I’d have liked.  One reviewer described it as nihilistic and politically regressive.  I was going for realism and bittersweet hope mixed with angst!  Which other reviewers said I achieved!  But it’s always the awful reviews that stick in your head, right?)

But I think most of my author friends know that the appropriate response is to vent in email or in person, or in a forum where the public can’t see.  And maybe basing a future villain on your reviewer.  (Liz, uhhhh, may have inspired a villain in a popular author’s contemporary mysteries.  She regrets nothing.)  Stalking: not the answer.  Did we really have to say that?  Seriously?

In important shark news: a 13 year old surfer dropped in on a wobbegong shark while surfing at Avoca, and then facebooked about how it wasn’t the shark’s fault. THIS IS CORRECT. She dropped in on the shark, as it was minding its own business and she was gadding about on a giant fucking board, and the shark just did what it had to do! Killing sharks for being in their own environment is never the answer.

Sidenote from Liz: this girl is EXCELLENT, and is welcome to come and catsit any time.  House o’Squid: over a year since our last cat mauling!

BookThingo, linked above, is an Australian book blog that mostly covers romance.  We here at No Award don’t read much romance, not out of any disdain for the genre, but it’s not our cup of tea.  Here, blogger Kat highlights the link between a publisher’s lawsuit against a blog that discussed its shady business practices, and Australia’s ongoing refusal to protect whistleblowers.

At the Guardian, Top 10 Female Power Dressers. Steph notes: If I had the time I would compose a post to Miss Parker (from the Pretender), who is the Power Dresser Hero of my youth. Also she would include Dowager Empress Cixi, and Fan Bingbing.

Hilarious article about media bias and journalism over at Junkee: The Australian’s Media Editor Goes To Uni “Undercover”; Is Outraged That Media Degrees Are Teaching Media Students About The Media

Disclaimer: No Award is a ridiculously leftist website. In case you hadn’t noticed.  Also, Liz did, like, six months of a Bachelor of Journalism before she realised she hated talking to people.  That was back when NewsCorp was more or less respectable, and it still provided 95% of examples of terrible media bias.

Stephanie adores Leigh Sales, and she interviews Annabel Crabb re: the Wife Drought and allows me to love her even more (and Annabel is also good). Annabel Crabb explores the Wife Drought.

Stephanie super loves art, and she especially loves south east asian art, and being mean to European art, so this article at The Toast, Literally All of Europe Can Suck It, about the new discoveries in Indonesia, fills her with glee and delight. (Here is an article in Nat Geo if you didn’t know about it yet)

Frozen, Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and the Narrative Right to Trauma

Trauma in modern American media is a tricky thing. On one hand, the backstories of nearly everyone, heroes and villains alike are full of it. On the other, trauma is heavily shamed, and leaves characters open to accusations of weakness, or of being whiny. This means that while we want characters who go through traumatic experiences, we are extremely uncomfortable with expressions of trauma. Also, we are much more comfortable with some expressions of trauma than with others. Only certain kinds of traumatic expression are allowed, and like so much about culture, who and what a character is determines what kind of traumatic expression we as a society will allow them to have. Straight white men are given the most freedom to be traumatized, and stereotypically masculine trauma is the most widely viewed as legitimate within fandom in my experience.

Don’t Look Up: a Guide to not Being Completely Gullible and Making an Idiot of Yourself by Reblogging False Information on Tumblr

One of Liz’s pet peeves is the way Tumblr culture encourages rumour, misinformation and outright falsehood.  It’s partially a problem with the platform’s limitations in general, but it’s more complex.

Anyway, this post gives some useful, practical tips on finding sources and confirming facts, and generally applying critical thinking.  (One of the advantages in growing up in a super right wing household, as Liz did, is that her parents taught her how to critique the left, and then she discovered the same skills could be applied to anything.)

In amazingness, British backpacker Daniela Liverani had leech up her nose for weeks.

This weekend unexpectedly split Australia as we saw the great potato CAKE debate of 2014. Important Australian stuff. Stephanie stopped off on her way home for a potato cake.  PS TEAM POTATO CAKE.

Talking about chronic illness, as a reader and as a writer.

On Chinese Horror: Part 1 at Snow Pavilion

No Award around the place: Steph forgot to mention, but a couple of weeks ago she put up her long essay on feminist monsters of Asia! It’s 8500 words originally published by The Lifted Brow, now available for download. Sympathy for Lady Vengeance: Feminist Ghosts and Monstrous Women of Asia. The monstrous women of Asia, feminism, and colonialism.