''I don't think it's appropriate they feel discriminated against, and I'm very upset they feel that,'' "After inviting friends to her home for ''pre-drinks'', [Hannah Williams] stood on her doorstep and watched her classmates file into the darkness to attend one of the highlights of the school year. Instead of joining them, Hannah took off her heels and black dress and went to bed...A few weeks earlier a teacher had told the year 11 student she couldn't attend the dance with her 15-year-old girlfriend, Savannah Supski. She was asked to bring a male instead."
posted by rodgerd
on Nov 10, 2010 -
70 comments
Tegan Leach, the first Queensland woman to be charged with procuring her own miscarriage,
has been acquitted. She faced seven years in prison if found guilty.
[more inside]
posted by goo
on Oct 14, 2010 -
22 comments
Objects Through Time tells the story of immigration and the changing ethnic diversity of New South Wales, Australia through "
movable heritage" - that is, artifacts and objects with historical resonance. While almost ignoring 50,000 years of aboriginal occupation, the site does a nice job of both familiar topics through a fresh lens (e.g., Captain Cook's "
secret instructions"), but also takes pains to look at those lesser known topics which may be more accessible through material culture than through texts.
[more inside]
posted by Rumple
on Sep 14, 2010 -
7 comments
An ABC Investigative Unit team hit the streets of western Sydney, where young people are struggling to break a vicious cycle of unemployment and family breakdown, to find out what's being done to stop them from falling through the cracks.
In a great article by ABC reporters Eleanor Bell and Ed Giles, they found that the lack of resources, infrastructure and support for families in these communities is getting worse, not better but that despite this, many locals are still proud of their community.
posted by Effigy2000
on Sep 8, 2010 -
18 comments
In the wake of the
Port Arthur massacre, in 1997 Australia implemented a gun buyback program that reduced the stock of firearms by around one-fifth, and nearly halving the number of gun-owning households.
Leigh and Neill (2010) find that the buyback led to a drop in the firearm suicide rates of almost 80%, or about 200 lives per annum (with no significant effect on non-firearm death rates). This translates into an
annual benefit of $500M, or $800 000 per weapon destroyed. However,
Baker & McPhedran (2006) have previosuly concluded that there was no impact on homicides.
posted by wilful
on Aug 29, 2010 -
131 comments
Today mammals are the only surviving members of the Synapsids, but several hundred million years ago, they had company. Meet the
dicynodonts: beaked, sabre-toothed herbivores that look like nothing you've seen before.
[more inside]
posted by Catseye
on Jul 20, 2010 -
21 comments
As reported a few hours ago in
The Australian, the right wing faction of the Australian Labor Party
rolls on Rudd and a caucus meeting is scheduled for 9 tomorrow morning, where it's predicted that he'll lose the ballot. One senior party source said: "This crypto-facist made no effort to build a base within the party and now his only faction - Newspoll - has deserted him. He is gone."
posted by unliteral
on Jun 23, 2010 -
59 comments
Salo has been discussed
before here in the blue, but last week the
Australian Classification Review Board determined that the DVD release can be classified R18+ (available, but with sale restricted to adults), if it includes 3 hours of additional material proposed by the potential distributor,
Shock. In the decision, the Board notes that the additional material "facilitates wider consideration of the context of the film."
While this decision is a win for anti-censorship campaigners and film buffs, it may not be the final chapter. The film has had a
checkered history in Australia.
The Board's media release is
here (PDF).
posted by Artaud
on May 9, 2010 -
32 comments
In 2009, four Buddhist nuns (Bhikkunis) were
secretly ordained in Australia - the first ever ordination of Bhikkunis in Australia, and a first for the
Thai Forest tradition anywhere. London-born
Ajahn Brahm, a
long-time supporter of women's equality in Buddhism, facilitated the ordination. For this he was
expelled from his community, the
Wat Pa Phong Sangha, and his monastery's status was
revoked. This
video summarizes the conflict, and is possibly the first use of the Downfall meme related to Buddhism. This March,
more nuns were ordained in the UK for the first time since the Australia controversy, but they're
still not equal to male monks.
This blog post discusses sexism, fundamentalism, and the conflict between East and West.
The modern opposition to bhikkhuni ordination is no ancient Buddhist tradition. It can be traced no earlier, so far as I am aware, than the abhorrent 1928 ruling against bhikkhuni in Thailand, made by monks who thought it reasonable to arrest nuns and throw them in jail for ordaining. [more inside]
posted by desjardins
on Apr 14, 2010 -
72 comments
An Australian Madoff? Trio Capital, an Australian fund manager, has been
ordered to wind up its funds after being unable to account for $123 million in its Astarra fund since investigations began in October. The fund "has a total of $426 million under management - including
superannuation savings of about 10,000 Australians." Some worry what this means for more potential frauds in Australia's "privatized social security."
[more inside]
posted by FuManchu
on Mar 21, 2010 -
10 comments
Due to a serious form of tuberculosis which he contracted on a trip to South America
Christiaan Van Vuuren (aka
Fully Sick Rapper) has been quarantined in a Australian hospital room since January 18th. "This is starting to take it's toll on my mental stability, and
this song is about the impact (or lack thereof) it has had so far."
[more inside]
posted by ericb
on Feb 25, 2010 -
16 comments
The United States and Australia have long shared a peaceful alliance, but it was not always so. In 1942, U.S servicemen and Australian soldiers fought openly and violently in what is known today as
The Battle of Brisbane.
[more inside]
posted by Effigy2000
on Feb 8, 2010 -
51 comments
Ryan Strathfield has uploaded hundreds of rock and pop songs from Australia and New Zealand to YouTube, organized by year (full list inside). Here are some favorites, Marcia Hines'
Eleanor Rigby, The Boys Next Door's
Shivers, The Falling Joys'
You're in a Mess, Split Enz'
I See Red and Warumpi Band's
Blackfella Whitefella. Strathfield focuses on the period 1974-89 but it extends back into the 60s and forward into the 90s.
[more inside]
posted by Kattullus
on Dec 31, 2009 -
22 comments
In response to
shortfalls in organ donation, policy is undergoing a serious rethink in several countries. In
Australia, the government has just lifted a ban on animal-to-human transplants. In the UK, the Chief Medical Officer has called for
presumed consent, while in Israel a new law gives donor card carriers
a legal right to priority treatment if they should require an organ transplant. Many are looking to
Spain, which leads the world, having seen the number of deceased donors per million people - a commonly used benchmark - increase from 14 in 1989 when a new system was put in place to 34.2 last year. Interestingly,
people committing suicide have a higher rate of donating organs than average.
posted by MuffinMan
on Dec 21, 2009 -
99 comments
