May 2012
23 posts
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“When you first stop sleeping you can develop all kind of symptoms. Auditory and...”
– Summer and Antipsychotics in the City · Meanjin
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Adulting: Step 213: Do not comment on things... →
adulting:
The simplest example of this is not telling a tall person that they’re tall.
So much of our lives are shaped by weird rolls of the genetic dice, or fate, or God, or however you choose to interpret that particular mystery. Whether someone is short or tall or originally from Canada or gay or Asian or born to rich parents or redheaded or whatever — that’s not something they chose or...
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Bikinis and Body Image
It’s Summer in the Northern Hemisphere (or getting there, I don’t know how that hemisphere works), which means talk (or rather, posts) about bikinis.
To be able to wear a bikini in Summer at the pool/beach, regardless of what you look like (fat, thin, whatever) is kind of the height of body-love. If you can enjoy all that salt mixed with water has to offer with only a couple of flimsy...
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“Lane’s views on marriage seem somewhat lax. Really, if the lower orders don’t...”
– Algernon (via earnestquotes)
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How to carry out the perfect snub | Jean Hannah... →
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“because you’re playing on the “Straight White Male” setting, gaining points and...”
– Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is – Whatever
explaining privilege through a gaming metaphor.
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Living in the Congo line | Woroni →
This is an article about “Live Below the Line”. It’s mean, but it makes good points. For instance, there is probably limited need to ‘raise awareness’ of extreme poverty, I’m pretty sure everyone realises it exists.
This method of charity campaigning is a form of conspicuous consumption, where the product being sold is an absolution of guilt, peace of mind,...
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“The last thing writers want to do – and this is a terrible secret – is actually...”
– Benjamin Law | Everguide
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“Maybe now is the time to tell you that I’ve been having some serious doubts...”
– Tiger Beatdown › Dirty Girls and Bad Feminists: A Few Thoughts on “I Love Dick”
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“Imagine an alternative, in which fieldwork is reported as it happens. Site...”
– anthropologies: What’s wrong with anthropology?
This is a really interesting article for all those interested in the social sciences generally (this article covers anthropology, but it is potentially relevant to any research which involves talking to and/or observing people). I don’t...
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I'd Rather Dance With You: Please don't go. We'll... →
odiodiodio:
“Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me...
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Australia 1970
Die, wild country, like the eaglehawk, dangerous till the last breath’s gone, clawing and striking. Die cursing your captor through a raging eye.
Die like the tigersnake that hisses such pure hatred from its pain as fills the killer’s dreams with fear like suicide’s invading stain.
Suffer, wild country, like the ironwood that gaps the dozer-blade. I see your living soil ebb with the tree...
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“Representing Australia is a tricky business. There are almost 23 million of us...”
– Palmer vs Swan: who best represents Australia? - The Drum Opinion (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
I wrote this piece for the Drum last week, and it has literally taken me this long to post anything about it. It hasn’t exactly started a conversation about diverse political...
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April 2012
27 posts
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m-owgli:
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yes and yes: What Do You Wish You'd Known At 22? →
I think this is good advice and things that I’m just trying to get my head around now.
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My war story
My great uncle enlisted in the Australian Defence Forces at age 22 (incidentally, I’m 22 now). He was sent to France where he soon became ill on the battlefield with the mumps and was admitted to hospital before being discharged back to duty. It was then, writes Private McDougal, that ‘the Germans made and attack on [a] village…[and he] appeared to lose control of himself and ran into where...
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"They fought for your freedom..."
is a total non-truth. Please stop saying this! I’m sorry, but the only war that Australia had any business being in was World War II. If anything, the reason why Australians went to Gallipoli was so that the British had some extra bodies to expend. That’s the reality. It angers me because people honestly seem to think that war is a ‘necessary evil’ or something absurd like...
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“As young children we are brought up to believe in the ability of mankind to...”
– Climate change denial not just for fools
Mark Latham being surprisingly intelligent/sensible on why climate change denial is a thing in Australia.
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“What I think is really unhelpful in this debate… is when the issue of...”
– Melicious: internships: to write for free, or not to write for free?
Another perspective on the unpaid intern debate and the necessity of writing for free if you want to work in publishing.
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anarchism and self-improvement; environmentalism...
Anarchist writings tend to conclude that one shouldn’t work, that full-time employment is a cruel way to spend the most productive/healthiest years of your life. You can find alternatives anyway. Fun ones with creative projects.
Bizarrely, I realised that American motivational/entrepreneurial bloggers practically say the same thing!
I was at the book launch of Bigger or Better yesterday,...
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“1. Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and...”
– Letters of Note: C. S. Lewis on Writing
I wish more politicians would follow 5.
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“From this it can be drawn that many internships will be legitimate (and I...”
– Experience and exploitation: defining internships - The Drum Opinion (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
More on unpaid internships from the Fair Work Ombudsman
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“In all the modern talk about energy, efficiency, social service and the rest of...”
– George Orwell in Down and Out in Paris and London (1933)
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Unpaid Internships
Right now is an interesting time in the world of unpaid internships with Fair Work Australia launching an investigation into them and whether they are tantamount to exploitation.
I’ve written a post about it (and my experiences) which has appeared on Girl with a Satchel, available here. A post by Rebecca Armitage has also gone up on the Drum. Mamamia also featured a post about it from the...
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Teenage girls, pearl clutching and the overwrought... →
clementineford:
Despite Gale’s intimation that this behaviour has been thrust upon adolescent girls by recent corrupting forces (as if The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley, NKOTB, The Backstreet Boys, N’Sync, Justin Bieber, etc etc etc were all simply myths enshrined in legend), the truth is a touch less complicated than that: adolescent girls are interested in sex. They always have...
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“One should note that there is nothing here that is not inconsistent with the...”
– Philosophy, climate change scepticism and the avant-garde intelligentsia - On Line Opinion - 13/4/2012
This is something that I’ve been struggling with myself. I believe we must take action on climate change, but I think scientific practice is a social one as much as it is one that finds...
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“Except you can’t show a topless woman on TV - and you can’t defibrillate a woman...”
– re: feministing - for women, heart attacks look different
(via elfgrove)(via ultralaser)(via sarahb)(via distractedbyshinyobjects)
(via emes)
I never even thought of this! A similar thing happens with medication, because drugs are tested on men and used by women, even though women metabolise...
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Julian Assange to run for Australian senate →
rainbowcolouredbroccoli:
thoughtdreamer:
He’s running for Lalor. What a laugh! If this is for real he’ll probably win…
This guy has been charged with sexual assault against two different women. Stats are that false reports of rape are rare, which means that conviction or not the odds are that he did it. I hate the thought of a rapist in parliament and I hate what it would say about how...
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Women being mean to each other is still sexism!
I’ve been hearing a lot recently about how if women are horrible to other women (such as rude comments about dress/look such as Germaine Greer’s regarding Julia Gillard or that dished out to Ashley Judd, or as per the accusations of Samantha Brick in saying other women can’t stand her for being attractive), then clearly it’s not the patriarchy we need to be concerned about,...
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young people and the vote: 6 years on
When I was in year 11, I won an essay competition. The subject was ‘The voting age should be lowered to 16. Discuss’. I was actually 16 at the time and totally for the vote. I had a few points, the fact that young people can join the army and die for their country, get a job and pay tax (if not income tax, then certainly GST); the fact that young people deal with specific issues which...