Lot's Wife Edition 2 2015
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Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong><br />
MONNSH UNIVERSITY STUDENT MAGAZINE - CLAYTON<br />
ISSUE TWO - <strong>2015</strong>
The federal Liberal Government’s proposed plans to deregulate<br />
fees, cut funding and slash student income support will mean a<br />
decade of debt for students and a generation of young people<br />
ruling out tertiary education. In <strong>2015</strong>, students are coming<br />
together to make our voices heard in opposition to the<br />
Government's plans for our universities.<br />
unistudent.com.au<br />
@NUS_Education<br />
NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION<br />
2 5 MAR CH <strong>2015</strong>
As Caulfield being my main campus, I am only familiar with a<br />
few things, namely a couple of buildings at Clayton; Robert-<br />
Blackwood Hall, the Campus Centre and the monumental<br />
structure that is Menzies. To an extent these buildings represent<br />
Clayton in a nutshell, the representative elements of Monash<br />
promotional material. However, the images I mostly associate<br />
with the Clayton campus are the spectacular gumtrees and<br />
quintessentially Australian flora that shroud the buildings.<br />
Without the existing nature, the Clayton campus would arguably<br />
be a barren metropolis.<br />
The idea for the cover art came to me as fleeting<br />
thought, the Clayton campus in prehistoric tense. My work is an<br />
abstract expression of the untouched bushland that remains at<br />
Monash, a representation of Australia’s pure landscape before<br />
British colonisation. Perhaps some of the tree existed prior the<br />
eighteenth century. The cover art was created using fine liner<br />
pens and markers to develop a dynamic, primitive landscape<br />
to spark ones imagination about what Clayton may have<br />
possiblbvy looked like many thousands of years ago. Another<br />
idea I had was to imagine the environment of our world many<br />
hundreds of years into the future, and perhaps the image I’ve<br />
created also satisfies that notion. The odd colouring of the<br />
swamp water, with the slimy substances oozing off limbs, may<br />
reflect our future. Who is to know how different the Earth will<br />
appear in many years from now, and how the planet looks is in<br />
our hands.<br />
I’m an individual who firmly believes in the protection<br />
of Australia’s natural flora and fauna. Therefore, it’s without<br />
a doubt that the actions we take now will determine our<br />
environment’s future. I feel that this idea of environmental<br />
change will be an ongoing theme throughout my artistic<br />
practice, and within my BVA degree. Moreover, these ideas are<br />
perhaps topics that we should collectively be engaging with, to<br />
celebrate and preserve Australia’s extraordinary environment.<br />
“Without the existing<br />
nature, the Clayton<br />
campus would<br />
arguably be a barren<br />
metropolis.”<br />
COVER ARTWORK BY<br />
MONICA HUNT
EDITORS<br />
Anna Hill<br />
Bill Molloy<br />
Claire Rowe<br />
Jarrod Verity<br />
Contents<br />
DESIGN<br />
Danielle Natividad<br />
Timothy Newport<br />
5 Editorial 6 OB Reports 8 Letters<br />
Politics<br />
POLITICS<br />
STUDENT<br />
AFFAIRS<br />
Bree Guthrie<br />
Hareesh Makam<br />
Kirsti Weisz<br />
Tom Clelland<br />
Julia Pillai<br />
Kristin Robertson<br />
Nathan Steinkoler<br />
Rosie Boyle<br />
10<br />
12<br />
14<br />
15<br />
16<br />
Hijacking #AutismSpeaks<br />
When senior ministers<br />
attack the public offices<br />
Age of Entitlement<br />
US Education System told<br />
through TV<br />
Political Donations<br />
SCIENCE &<br />
ENGINEERING<br />
Alisoun Townsend<br />
Kathy Zhang<br />
Student<br />
Affairs<br />
ARTS &<br />
CULTURE<br />
SEX<br />
Emily Neilsen<br />
Kashmi Renasinghe<br />
Kelly Pigram<br />
Lisa Healy<br />
Michaela Scully<br />
Rhyss Wyllie<br />
18<br />
20<br />
22<br />
24<br />
25<br />
Science &<br />
Engineering<br />
Bring it on Melbourne!<br />
One World Festival<br />
Clubs Worth a Scope<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> Top Four: Units<br />
Misusing Prescription<br />
Drugs<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY<br />
Adrienne Bicknell<br />
Carina Florea<br />
29<br />
30<br />
31<br />
32<br />
33<br />
34<br />
The Forest in the Trees<br />
True Science Facts!<br />
Mitochondrial Diseases<br />
How Smart are Computers?<br />
Internships<br />
Sustainability at Monash<br />
© Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> <strong>2015</strong>, Monash University Clayton, Victoria<br />
As you read this paper you are on Aboriginal land. We at<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> recognise the Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung<br />
peoples of the Kulin Nations as the historical and rightful<br />
owners and custodians of the lands and waters on which<br />
this newspaper is produced. The land was stolen and<br />
sovereignty was never ceded.<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> condemns and will not publish any<br />
material that is racist, sexist, queerphobic, ableist, or<br />
discriminatory in any nature. The views expressed herein<br />
are those of the attributed writers and do not necessarily<br />
reflect the views of the editors or the MSA. All writing and<br />
artwork remains the property of the producers and must<br />
not be reproduced without their written consent.<br />
Arts &<br />
Culture<br />
36<br />
38<br />
40<br />
41<br />
Sex<br />
44<br />
46<br />
47<br />
48<br />
50<br />
The Dark Knight Rises<br />
Superfoods<br />
Celebrity, Power & Kim K<br />
Monash Music<br />
Learning Kamasutra<br />
Gaytriarchy<br />
The Wondering Uterus<br />
Tricking<br />
My Kitchen Rules
Editorial<br />
Hello there! We’ve been really really really busy in the<br />
past few weeks in preparation for our second edition.<br />
We’ve been so busy that we haven’t actually left our<br />
office at all. In fact, we haven’t even seen our families<br />
in almost a month. You know what; we’ve been so<br />
busy that we have no idea whether or not Tony Abbott<br />
is still our prime minister. We don’t even know if the<br />
Easter break has come and gone, or if university fees<br />
have been deregulated.<br />
So for all we know, we’ve missed the midsemester<br />
break, acquired a 100,000,000 dollar HECS<br />
debt* and Cory Bernardi has become the leader of our<br />
country.<br />
Naturally, being so busy, we had no idea all<br />
the other office bearers were equally as busy until we<br />
received their OB reports;<br />
Our secretary Daniel King notes that ‘It’s<br />
been a busy few weeks at the MSA with Orientation<br />
Festival and then getting everything up and running<br />
for the Semester.’<br />
Similarly, our treasurer Abigail Stapleton<br />
claims that ‘It has been a very busy few weeks for the<br />
MSA executive.’<br />
And it’s not just the executive that’s been<br />
busy…<br />
‘The Education (Academic Affairs) department has<br />
been really busy preparing for the<br />
MSA Peer Support Program’.<br />
‘It’s been a busy month for the Education Public Affairs<br />
department with O-week being really successful.’<br />
‘It’s been a busy beer for Activities’.<br />
‘The Environment and Social Justice Department has<br />
been busy over the last few weeks.’<br />
But being busy has its advantages too! After spending<br />
hours on the phone trying to acquire advertising, we<br />
now know that Expedia has the best waiting music<br />
going around (look out for our article in the next<br />
edition; ‘top 10: call waiting music’).<br />
So what is it that has kept us so busy, you<br />
ask? We improved our carpentry skills by building<br />
a new magazine stand situated near lecture halls<br />
E1-3. In other news, while Bill has been restricted<br />
to the confines of Sir John’s bar drinking the same<br />
pot of Nine Tails for the past two weeks, the others<br />
have been cooped up in the office producing this fine<br />
publication. Jarrod has now also listened to the entire<br />
discography of Radiohead and Bill is beginning to<br />
learn what a pint is.<br />
However, some people who are actually<br />
busy have been so kind as to volunteer their time<br />
to this magazine. A special mention to our graphic<br />
design team, who have put in countless hours to<br />
collate all of our content - approximately the same<br />
amount of time it would take for us to be taught how<br />
to use paint. Our writers, as usual, have also made a<br />
significant contribution to this magazine.<br />
We’d especially like to thank Dr. Alice<br />
de Jonge, a senior lecturer here at Monash,<br />
for submitting her piece on the Human Rights<br />
Commission. Dr. de Jonge was involved in the open<br />
letter written in support of the Commission and its<br />
President Gillian Triggs. We are very grateful for her<br />
taking the time to write on an issue which we believe<br />
is an extremely important matter for our society.<br />
However, if you’re reading the editorial of<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong>, let’s face it; you’re probably not so busy.<br />
Hence, we are more than certain that you will have<br />
enough time to attend the National Day of Action<br />
against fee deregulation on March 25 at the State<br />
Library.<br />
If ever you have a burning question for us**,<br />
feel free to swing by our office where at least one of<br />
us will be. However, Bill of course, will never be in the<br />
office. He will still be in Sir John’s, half way through<br />
his second beer, poured in 2013.<br />
*However, Claire would have only accrued a 100,000<br />
dollar debt as, being a woman, she would study<br />
nothing other than nursing or teaching.<br />
**We actually got letters to the editor this time!
6<br />
OB REPORTS<br />
President: Sinead Colee<br />
Week 4 already? I can’t believe it myself! After a successful<br />
Members Week in week two, we are now well and truly into<br />
the semester! A thank you to everyone who came out to enjoy<br />
the Members Week Carnival, the Moonlight Cinema, the Rocky<br />
Horror of a Boo Cruise and all the free food and prizes that were<br />
on offer - but most of all, thank you to those of you who chose<br />
to support the union that supports you by buying an MSA card.<br />
We now almost have 9000 members and are still growing!<br />
Another project I’ve been working on is the MSA Laptop Library<br />
- a service that allows you to loan a laptop for up to two weeks<br />
if yours breaks down which will be operating out of the MSA’s<br />
John Medley Library. Keep an eye out for its launch in the<br />
coming weeks.<br />
And lastly, if you’re having trouble getting a blue<br />
parking and want to complain to somebody just send me an<br />
email at president.msa@monash.edu and let me know how<br />
effects you and your studies!<br />
Ciao for now!<br />
Secretary: Daniel King<br />
It’s been a busy few weeks at the MSA with Orientation Festival<br />
and then getting everything up and running for the Semester.<br />
We’ve had a very successful start to the semester with almost<br />
9,000 MSA Members already and almost the same number<br />
getting involved with clubs. If you haven’t already, got your MSA<br />
card and get involved with some of our clubs and events!<br />
Note: Some of my fellow office-bearers took creative licence<br />
with editing my last Report, for the record; I have not yet been<br />
fortunate enough to be involved with the fantasy and sci-fi club<br />
and have never been involved with the Marxism Conference.<br />
Treasurer: Abby Stapleton<br />
It has been a very busy few weeks for the MSA executive. We<br />
have had lots of things to organise in regards to orientation<br />
week and MSA member’s week. This included making arrangements<br />
for the moonlight cinema, as well as planning for the<br />
‘Rocky Horror show’ themed ‘Boo cruise’. Along with helping<br />
with the set up of members week I have finished the chart of<br />
accounts for each department. The chart of accounts provides<br />
office bearers with an idea of the amount of money they have to<br />
spend throughout the year. We have heaps planned for the rest<br />
of semester, so keep an eye for your MSA reps!<br />
Education (Academic Affairs):<br />
Amelia Veronese<br />
Hi everyone! The Education (Academic Affairs) department has<br />
been really busy preparing for the MSA Peer Support Program<br />
that will begin in Week 3 this semester and run until Week 12 in<br />
the John Medley Library for students who want to improve their<br />
English Language in assignments. So, if you have upcoming<br />
assessments and need assistance with English language proficiency<br />
or know someone who does, come along to a drop-in<br />
session. I’m also currently working on ensuring that all faculties<br />
maintain that delayed deferred exams remain on offer to all<br />
students. Stay tuned as there will be an upcoming campaign<br />
released where students will be able to have the opportunity to<br />
express why they think it’s important to have delayed deferred<br />
exams.<br />
Education (Public Affairs):<br />
Sarah Spivak & Mali Rea<br />
It’s been a busy month for the Education Public Affairs department<br />
with O-week being really successful. We spoke to hundreds<br />
of students, handed out flyers that outlined the impacts<br />
of deregulation, advertised our department week (Week 3) and<br />
spread the word about the upcoming National Day of Action<br />
protest on March 25th. We’ve had three successful Monash<br />
Education Action Group meetings which have been important<br />
in our organising and building for the NDA. We’ve also been<br />
planning events for our department week the week prior to the<br />
NDA. Like the MSA Education page for more info or how to get<br />
involved!<br />
Environment & Social Justice<br />
Officers: Lauren Goldsmith<br />
The Environment and Social Justice Department has been<br />
busy over the last few weeks. We’ve been planning for what<br />
was a very successful Global Divestment Day, speaking with<br />
students during O-Week, building up the membership of the<br />
Environment and Social Justice Collective, and working on the<br />
Fossil Free Monash campaign; a broad and grassroots effort by<br />
the student population to convince the university to divest its<br />
finances from fossil fuels, and reinvest in funds which support<br />
growth and research in renewable energy.<br />
The Fossil Free Monash introductory meeting and<br />
planning session was very lively, and started the process of<br />
planning some exciting actions and events for the Fossil Free<br />
national day of campus action, coming up on April 22nd!<br />
As students, it is up to us to show that we want our<br />
University to take a stand on the issue of climate change, and to<br />
take positive action for climate justice.
7<br />
Queer Officers: Viv Stewart &<br />
Jarvis Sparks<br />
The Queer department has spent most of its time in the past<br />
few weeks setting up and preparing for a wonderful year<br />
ahead. During O-week we Queer Officers enjoyed greeting old<br />
and new faces alike, expanding our mailing list and introducing<br />
our events and plans for the next year at our wonderful<br />
rainbow-coloured stall. Since then, we have spent the majority<br />
of our time planning ahead for Queer Week and starting up<br />
our weekly events. There has been a Queer morning tea, Queer<br />
Beers and a Queer screening so far with more to come in the<br />
next few weeks. Furthermore, we have been meeting with various<br />
other people, such as the Ally Network and the Faculty of<br />
Arts in order to plan and being collaborations in order to make<br />
the university as a whole more welcoming and supporting of<br />
queer students.<br />
Women’s Officers: Ellen Flach<br />
& Sophie Vassallo<br />
Semester is well in the swing of things and so are we! O-week<br />
was a huge success with over 300 students wanting to get<br />
involved in the department – we are very excited to have you all<br />
around!<br />
We also had our Meet the Department Morning Tea<br />
(which was in the afternoon) in the Women’s Lounge. It was<br />
great to see so many new faces also in our first discussion<br />
group ‘Why a Women’s Room’. The pace is not letting up, we<br />
have our first monthly Skill Share happening on Thursday.<br />
Week 3 (19th of March) at 2pm which will be on<br />
gardening with the Monash Permaculture garden and our wonderful<br />
Twilight Market Fundraiser on Thursday, Week 4 (26th of<br />
March).<br />
Activities Officers:<br />
Tahnee Burgess & Jake Krelle<br />
It’s been a busy beer for Activities. O Week saw more people<br />
come through than we have ever before. This included serving<br />
more than 5600 sausages, veggie burgers, hash browns and<br />
thousands of beverages throughout the week. As well as this<br />
the Luna park event was a huge success with almost 1500<br />
people coming down for unlimited rides from both Monash and<br />
Melbourne.<br />
Stay tuned for more info on our Comedy Night, Auntie<br />
Donna is already confirmed and more acts will be announced<br />
soon.<br />
OB REPORTS<br />
Welfare Officers:<br />
Rebecca Adams & Jesse Cameron<br />
WOO - the start of semester has begun! We had many people<br />
come visit our O Week stall to check out what we do and<br />
peruse our temporary Survival Centre set up (so much perusal<br />
that we are now short on supplies! We always welcome more<br />
donations). The permanent Survival Centre is located L1 down<br />
the corridor from the John Medley Library and on your right,<br />
and is always open to come get what you need, when in need<br />
(including clothes, crockery, other odd assortments). We had<br />
our first Free Food Mondays (running every Monday 7:30 at<br />
Wholefoods) where students indulged on delicious roast veggie<br />
pasta and potato dahl with rice.<br />
The much anticipated <strong>2015</strong> Survival Guide is now<br />
released! Come get a copy at any of our events or from the MSA<br />
reception desk.<br />
Exciting plans are also underway for Survival Week<br />
in week 4, so keep an eye out on our Facebook page for all<br />
updates and events: MSA Welfare Department =)<br />
Disabilities Officers:<br />
Edie Shepherd & Andrew Day<br />
<strong>Edition</strong> two? How are we up to edition two already?<br />
After what was – for a new department – a very<br />
successful OWeek the Disabilities and Carers department is<br />
rolling on into the semester. Many thanks to our volunteers<br />
who helped out at the stall, the Monash Autistic Collective in<br />
particular. You guys do good work.<br />
We’ll have our first campaign coming out in Week 4,<br />
Caring for Carers so be sure to keep your eyes and ears peeled<br />
for us. We’ve also got a survey circulating called “Monash<br />
Check-Up” where you can give your feedback on disability<br />
services around Monash. There’s no improvement without<br />
consultation!
8<br />
Letters<br />
Dear Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong>,<br />
I don’t think its to much to expect perfection from<br />
a team of student editors from their frist publication which is<br />
why I was outraged at the speling mistake on the front cover<br />
of your most recent edition.<br />
If we are ever to save the english langage and<br />
the fragile creature that is print media we must expect<br />
nothing less then a slave like devotion to correvt spelling<br />
and grammer from people who wish to position themselves<br />
as leaders in the feild. Profreading is a vital and necesary<br />
process.<br />
I will bereading your next edition with a fine tooth<br />
combe and will be dilligantly making sure that I am getting<br />
my value for SSAF money.<br />
Yours<br />
Concerned Arts Student<br />
*sent from my iphone*<br />
A request has been made of us to publish one of our<br />
editor's responses to the following letter. We decided to<br />
act upon this request to ensure our readership is made<br />
well aware of the unerring professionalism that permeates<br />
throughout the editorial board here at <strong>Lot's</strong> <strong>Wife</strong>.<br />
Dear Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> (Student Affairs Team),<br />
I offer my sincere gratitude after reading last issue’s ‘Dear<br />
First Years’ piece, and would like to express that I found it<br />
immeasurably helpful and informative. Being new to the whole<br />
“university life” system I was more than relieved to discover your<br />
thoughtful listing of 20 Things I Should Know As A First Year That<br />
No One Can Tell Me Officially. Despite my inadequate experiences<br />
of Monash University culture I do believe that the article reflects<br />
the charitable, considerate mentality shared by the students and<br />
assorted associates of the uni. I was glad to learn that the clubs and<br />
societies at Monash are so accessible and did - in fact - go out and<br />
join almost ten of them with fervour. Thanks for the tips on WiFi<br />
as well - I won’t even bother searching for an ‘eduroam’ or ‘guest<br />
wireless’ connection on my smart phone (my new friends seemed<br />
to have tried those. Whenever they yell “Eureka! A connection!” I<br />
glare at them darkly and hiss “plebeians” under my breath.). I’ll<br />
also be sure to head to the Rotunda whenever nature calls. I don’t<br />
think I could stand having to “go” in a tiled cube-room reminiscent<br />
of a Flinders Street Station stall. And the free printing! This means<br />
that I can make infinite copies of my home-made extremist political<br />
fliers whilst disregarding the environment and saving the money I<br />
would’ve otherwise spent (e.g. 10 cents per page) to buy mutant icecream<br />
burgers at Maccas. The piece was truly loaded with valuable<br />
info on starting university: no on-campus drinking; no reserving<br />
controversial political opinions; no worries about transitioning<br />
or “learning curves”; and lastly, no reading Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong>, which is<br />
undoubtably not a magazine built by intelligent, open-minded,<br />
good-humoured people.<br />
Infinite thanks,<br />
A proud JAFFY.
Politics<br />
Articles by Julia Pillai, Dr. Alice de<br />
Jonge, Hareesh Makam, Mali Rea, and<br />
Tom Clelland<br />
ILLUSTRATION BY JULIA PILLAI
10<br />
Why #ActuallyAutistic people<br />
hijacked #AutismSpeaks10<br />
BY JULIA PILLAI<br />
CONTENT WARNING: MURDER, MEDICAL MALPRACTICE, ABUSIVE THERAPIES<br />
To celebrate their tenth anniversary, American Autism<br />
organisation Autism Speaks, launched ‘#AutismSpeaks10’ which<br />
was designed to get individuals sharing stories about how the<br />
organisation had touched their lives. The expectation was that<br />
these stories would be produce positive messages, such as this:<br />
@USRepMikeDoyle ‘Congratulations @<br />
AutismSpeaks on 10 years of autism education, research,<br />
advocacy, and assistance to individuals with ASDs.<br />
#Autismspeaks10’<br />
However, the tag was overwhelmingly used by a range of<br />
individuals and groups within the Autism community to express<br />
their anger and discontent with the organisation. Other tags such<br />
as #ActuallyAutistic and #AutismChampions were also used to<br />
express opposition to Autism Speaks.<br />
Author and Autism self-advocate John Elder Robison<br />
was actively in support of the tagline hijack on Twitter. Until<br />
November 2013, Robison was a member of both the science and<br />
treatment boards of Autism Speaks. He also was the only openly<br />
autistic person who was a member of an advisory board of the<br />
organisation. Robison resigned after becoming disillusioned<br />
with the organisation, in response to co-founder Suzanne Wright<br />
publishing the Op-Ed “Autism Speaks to Washington - A Call<br />
To Action’. In it she proclaimed that families of Autistic people<br />
‘are not living… Life is lived moment-to-moment… In despair.’<br />
As part of the hijack, Robison tweeted a powerful message;<br />
‘We asked Autism Speaks to listen but that’s not enough,<br />
and it hasn’t worked. It’s time for Autistic People to take over<br />
#AutismSpeaks10’.<br />
Ari Ne’eman who is the co-Founder and president of the<br />
Autism Self Advocacy Network (ASAN), run by Autistic people with<br />
international chapters, was also in favour of the hijack. In a reply,<br />
he tweeted ‘ … So good to see so many folks in our community<br />
speak out against those who talk about us without us.’<br />
Other tweets included:<br />
@katimillsart tweeted ‘How has #AutismSpeaks10<br />
“touched my life”? They helped me go from human being to<br />
burdensome epidemic. Thanks A$! #ActuallyAutistic’<br />
@xndrmcd “Autism Speaks wants to know<br />
how they’ve touched us? That’s like Bill Cosby calling the<br />
morning after.#AutismSpeaks10 #ActuallyAutistic’<br />
@THEKarenOglivie’#autismspeaks10 would have<br />
you believe that my #ActuallyAutistic son is broken. Its time<br />
to stop speaking and start listening, Autism Speaks!’<br />
Rage against Autism Speaks is not a new phenomenon, and the<br />
underlying cause of this dissent is the clash between differing<br />
ideologies. Autism Speaks subscribes to what is known as the<br />
Medical Model of Disability. In this case, it means that they see<br />
autism (and other disabilities) as a tragedy that needs to be cured<br />
or prevented in order to help Autistic people and their families.<br />
Hence, the organisation encourages prenatal screening of autism,<br />
potential cures for Autism and endorsement of controversial<br />
therapies. An example of these therapies is the Applied Behaviour<br />
Analysis which endeavours to make Autistic People ‘pass’ as<br />
being non-autistic. Furthermore, Autism Speaks have had<br />
association with the controversial Judge Rotenberg Centre (JRC)<br />
in Massachusetts, which is known for electro-shocking patients as<br />
a form of aversion therapy. The JRC has ignited a debate within<br />
the Autistic community regarding the ethics of Autism treatments<br />
in the US.<br />
On the other hand, many Autistic individuals, allies,<br />
and support groups, endorse Neurodiversity; a branch of the<br />
Social Model of Disability, specific to neurological conditions.<br />
This sees disabilities as an aspect of an individual’s identity<br />
and not necessarily as an aspect that is entirely negative.<br />
Furthermore, unlike the Medical Model, which focuses mainly<br />
on medical interventions to support disabled people, the Social<br />
Model of Disability not only emphasises non-abusive therapies<br />
and medical support, but also emphasises education and social<br />
change. Those that subscribe to the Social Model encourage<br />
therapies such as speech and occupational therapy, equipment<br />
for non-speaking autistic people and education and employment<br />
solutions. Unlike more invasive forms of therapy, these measures<br />
endeavour to allow Autistic people to have full accessibility into<br />
society whilst still acknowledging their differences. Rather than
making Autistic people fit a certain mould of normality, a culture<br />
of acceptance of difference is emphasised in order to better<br />
accommodate people with disabilities.<br />
Autism Speaks has also been subject to a series of<br />
controversies regarding its films, advertising and the nature of<br />
its campaigns. For instance, in 2009 the organisation run an<br />
advertisement called ‘I Am Autism’ which portrayed autism as a<br />
child-stealing, family ruining monster, claiming to be ‘visible in<br />
your children’ and ‘working faster than paediatric aids, cancer<br />
and diabetes combined’. Many people in the autism community<br />
denounced this advertisement as they claimed that demonising<br />
Autism doesn’t help Autistic people or their families. In 2006<br />
Autism Speaks also sponsored a short film titled ‘Autism Every<br />
Day’. This documentary style film featured a woman who, in<br />
the presence of her autistic child, tells the audience that she<br />
had thought of throwing her child off a bridge. This was an<br />
attempt to illustrate the lack of support afforded to parents of<br />
autistic children. As the killing of disabled children by parents<br />
or carers is a reoccurring issue, with recent cases including the<br />
death of London McCabe in November 2014, the short film was<br />
seen as overly sympathetic to those who kill disabled children.<br />
Unsurprisingly, many people in the community found it to be<br />
grossly insensitive.<br />
It’s unlikely that a broad populist movement that<br />
had taken over hash tags on twitter will destroy the empire<br />
that is Autism Speaks. Lobbying with governments, groups and<br />
corporations that support the organisation, will however, be<br />
effective in transcending the organisation. Furthermore, this sort<br />
of action taken against them will only be legitimised if there is a<br />
large shift in the perception of Autism and disability within the<br />
community. Unless Autism Speaks chooses to radically change<br />
its fundamental ideology, we could potentially witness smaller<br />
autism organisations become influenced by the ideologies<br />
advanced by Autism Speaks as many smaller organisations<br />
continue to perceive of it as a leader in the industry.<br />
This incident, however, could be a turning point for the<br />
Autism Rights Movement, particularly in educating bystanders<br />
about what Neurodiversity is and why they disapprove of Autism<br />
Speaks. This incident has received some media attention from<br />
widely read websites such as Buzzfeed and The Daily Beast,<br />
meaning that a larger audience can be more aware of this niche<br />
issue. Furthermore there is a misconception that Neurodiversity<br />
is only championed by ‘high functioning’ Autistic people, who do<br />
not understand what it is like to be severely disabled by Autism,<br />
nor what it is like to be a parent or carer of an Autistic person.<br />
Due to the accessibility of social media as a form of activism, this<br />
hash tag hijack displayed opinions of Autistic people with various<br />
experiences of the condition (such as non-verbal writer Amy<br />
Sequenzia), but also the opinions of parents and carers against<br />
Autism Speaks. Having such a diverse group of individuals, who<br />
are pro-Neurodiversity speaking out on Twitter, destroys this<br />
misconception. The question now is if this dissent online will<br />
turn into a larger movement against Autism Speaks and similar<br />
organisations in real life, and if it does, what this will mean for<br />
the sector.<br />
11
12<br />
Why we should be concerned when<br />
senior ministers<br />
attack public offices<br />
BY DR. ALICE DE JONGE<br />
Independent public office holders are an important part<br />
of modern democratic societies. Their task is to ensure<br />
accountability for abuses of power by government. Their capacity<br />
to perform this role depends on their independence and ability<br />
to act impartially. The Australian Human Rights Commission (the<br />
Commission) is one such institution.<br />
The Commonwealth law under which the Commission<br />
operates empowers it to ‘inquire into any act or practice that may<br />
be inconsistent with or contrary to any human right’. As former<br />
President of the Commission Professor Brian Burdekin has noted,<br />
the role of it ‘is to stand up for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged<br />
groups in our community: the homeless, the mentally ill,<br />
indigenous people, people with disabilities, children in detention.’<br />
Particularly in circumstances where the judicial branch<br />
of government is unable to provide protection from abuses of<br />
power, ‘The things that the Human Rights Commission is obliged<br />
to do by law are directly related to those very vulnerable groups<br />
and its highest priorities have to be those who are least able to<br />
defend themselves’.<br />
Perhaps not surprisingly, when independent public<br />
office holders perform their duties properly and expose the<br />
human rights failings of government officers and/or institutions,<br />
they are not looked upon favorably by members of that government.<br />
Nor is Gillian Triggs the only President of the Commission<br />
to be placed under political pressure after exposing human rights<br />
abuses – Brian Burdekin, the very first President of the AHRC, also<br />
experienced such pressure.<br />
Independence and impartiality are undermined when<br />
senior politicians attack holders of public office; and even more<br />
so when sections of the media join the attack by presenting inaccurate<br />
accounts of the work of public institutions.<br />
By January <strong>2015</strong> it was becoming obvious that certain<br />
senior members of government were determined to cast the work<br />
of the Commission in as negative a light as possible. An opportunity<br />
to do so arose in relation to the case of John Basikbasik. In<br />
late November 2014, the Commission’s President found that the<br />
continued and indefinite detention since 2007 of Mr Basikbasik,<br />
a recognized refugee in the Villawood Immigration Detention<br />
Centre, was arbitrary. It therefore was a breach of Australia’s<br />
obligations under the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and<br />
Political Rights.<br />
Mr Basikbaik was a refugee who had resided in Australia<br />
since 1985 when, in 2000, he was convicted of the manslaughter<br />
of his de facto spouse and sentenced to seven years<br />
imprisonment. His Protection visa was cancelled in 2003. After<br />
Mr Basikbasik was released from prison in June 2007, he was<br />
detained at Villawood, where he remained in indefinite detention,<br />
despite having served his prison sentence. Returning Mr<br />
Basikbasik to Indonesia, a place where he would be a risk of<br />
persecution, would be a breach of Australia’s non-refoulement<br />
obligations under the Refugee Convention.<br />
In such cases, the Minister for Immigration and Border<br />
Protection has a range of options available. These include the<br />
power to specify alternative detention arrangements, such as<br />
community detention, if necessary with conditions and restrictions<br />
attached if to mitigate any perceived risks. The Minister,<br />
however, has declined to take any such option. Under international<br />
law, detention must be both necessary and proportionate<br />
to the aim of the detention in order to be lawful. In light of the<br />
alternative options for managing any risks posed to the community<br />
by Mr Basikbasik, the Commission concluded that holding<br />
him in indefinite detention in Villawood was neither necessary
13<br />
“Independence and impartiality are undermined<br />
when senior politicians attach holders of public<br />
office; and even more so when sections of the media<br />
join the attack by presenting innacurate accounts of<br />
the work of public institutions.”<br />
nor proportionate. Furthermore, due to the finding that between<br />
2007 and 2014 Mr Basikbasik had been held in arbitrary (and<br />
therefore unlawful) detention, the Commission’s President also<br />
recommended that he be paid compensation in the amount of<br />
$350,000 – an amount based upon similar amounts awarded in<br />
previous cases of illegal detention.<br />
The Basikbasik case was publicly labeled by the Prime<br />
Minister, Tony Abbott, as a ‘bizarre ruling’ and an ‘extremely<br />
questionable judgment’. Sections of the media screamed outrage<br />
at the idea that a ‘wife killer’ should ‘be released’ - and ‘with<br />
compensation’ to boot! Without, of course, bothering to point<br />
out that this was never what the Commission’s President had<br />
recommended at all. A less restrictive form of detention is not<br />
the same as ‘release’.<br />
Recommendations made by the Commission are not<br />
binding. The government rejected the recommendations made<br />
in the Basikbasik case, hence he remains in an immigration<br />
detention centre today.<br />
By this stage it was known that the Commission had<br />
completed its report into children in detention and had handed<br />
it to the government. It was also known the report was not going<br />
to cast Australia’s immigration detention practices in a good light<br />
when it would be made public in February. It was also obvious<br />
that the continued attacks on President Triggs were aimed at discrediting<br />
the Commission and its work prior to the Report being<br />
made public. And so it was that a group of 25 legal academics<br />
signed an open letter expressing support for President Triggs and<br />
their confidence in the work of the Commission.<br />
But neither the letter nor other expressions of support<br />
for the Commission coming from members of the legal profession<br />
proved sufficient in preventing the howls of outrage from the<br />
government when the Commission’s Forgotten Children Report<br />
was made public. The Prime Minister was quick to label the report<br />
as a ‘blatantly partisan political exercise’ and a ‘transparent<br />
stitch-up’. Neither the Prime Minister nor any other person has<br />
pointed to any errors in the Report, which includes a detailed,<br />
albeit disturbing, analysis of facts and figures taken from data<br />
held by the Government’s own Ministry. As Professor Ben<br />
Saul has noted, the Government’s response is not a reasonable<br />
and civilised disagreement about law and fact. Rather, it is a<br />
defensive political attack on the independence and integrity of a<br />
Commission doing its job – namely, calling out governments for<br />
breaching human rights law standards.<br />
Having drafted and circulated the first letter signed by<br />
academics, it was, for me, a case of ‘here we go again’. And when<br />
I began contacting human rights scholars at Monash and other<br />
Australian universities, it soon became clear that this sentiment<br />
was shared. As our second letter circulated for signatures, it also<br />
quickly became obvious that Gillian Triggs was widely respected<br />
for her intelligence and integrity, particularly amongst the many<br />
of use who have been her students and/or work colleagues<br />
over the years. Both Brian Burdekin and noted human rights<br />
advocate Julian Burnside QC joined the 50 or so legal academics<br />
in signing the second open letter. Other public figures and legal<br />
bodies, including former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, the<br />
Australian Bar Association and the Law Council of Australia, also<br />
spoke out publicly in support of the Commission, its President<br />
and its work. Finally, even the Senate decided to censure the<br />
Attorney General, George Brandis, for impugning, and even possibly<br />
undermining, the independence of the Commission and its<br />
President.<br />
The work of the Commission serves to protect the very<br />
essence of what makes us human – the mutual respect for the<br />
humanity of every man, woman and child. The human rights<br />
which the Commission serves to protect have been hard fought<br />
for over many centuries. We all need to cherish them and to<br />
preserve the respect and dignity of the institutions, including the<br />
Commission, which protect those rights.<br />
DR. ALICE DE JONGE IS A SENIOR LECTURER IN<br />
THE DEPARTMENT OF BUSINESS LAW & TAXATION<br />
AT THE MONASH BUSINESS SCHOOL.
14<br />
Age of entitlement or expectation<br />
of Government?<br />
BY HAREESH MAKAM<br />
‘Let me put it this way: the age of Entitlement is over’ Joe<br />
Hockey told the Institute of Economic Affairs in 2012. I struggle<br />
to understand what the current Treasurer of the Coalition<br />
government meant by this statement. This speech preceded his<br />
tough and controversial budget that followed after the Coalition<br />
won government in 2013.<br />
It is questionable as to whether our budget is actually<br />
facing a fiscal crisis. When you consider the current credit<br />
rating that prominent financial institutions and bodies have<br />
given us, our low level of debt compared with the rest of the<br />
OECD and of course the fact that our economy is growing at a<br />
healthy level, it is reasonable to say that Australia is not facing<br />
any form of financial crisis. Despite this, some economists have<br />
said that structural problems in our budget will have damaging<br />
ramifications in the future. Hence, there is a supposed need to<br />
stabilise government spending in order to bring the nation’s<br />
finances under control.<br />
But why does this comment; ‘ the age of entitlement<br />
is over’ sound strange? Today, citizens living within recognised<br />
states pay a percentage of their annual financial income to the<br />
government. In some socialist countries their effective tax rate for<br />
the highest income earners is over 50% of their income. In return,<br />
citizens receive essential services such as health, education, and<br />
a military, all of which can create a stable nation and state.<br />
Therefore, citizens in these states who pay a high level<br />
of tax each year are ‘entitled’ to a number of benefits, privileges<br />
and services. In this country, government revenue is close to<br />
$400 billion and over $40 billion is spent on essential services<br />
such as health and education. These services are integral to the<br />
operation of Australian society and allow the country to advance<br />
as a nation. This means that citizens are getting something in<br />
return from being slugged by the government each year to pay<br />
taxes.<br />
The government spends millions of dollars on welfare<br />
to help the less advantaged and lower classes find jobs and<br />
improve their financial situation. The government also spends<br />
billions of dollars to ensure that this country continues to stay<br />
‘open for business’. The theory of tax and government spending<br />
ensures that this process occurs in reality and suggests that<br />
people are ‘entitled’ to some sort of compensation for being<br />
financially worse off.<br />
In a capitalist economy, people earn an income by<br />
engaging in paid work. Some people earn millions a year and<br />
some earn $2 a day, but that’s just the reality of our economic<br />
system. Without a government body, social and economic<br />
inequality could become unsustainable and may have a<br />
detrimental effect on the country. The taxation system allows our<br />
politicians to create a more equal society.<br />
If we consider the above logic then we start to see a<br />
familiar economic pattern emerge in which citizens (the seller)<br />
gives the government (the buyer) a monetary contribution. In<br />
return, the buyer (the government) gives the seller (the people)<br />
essential services such as health, education, social security etc.<br />
So Joe, I accept that the current state of our budget is<br />
not sustainable. But your ‘age of entitlement’ rant does not make<br />
sense. This is because it’s non–existent; the process of giving and<br />
taking tax is similar to the fundamental feature of the common<br />
market – ‘buy and sell’. What makes the government different<br />
from all those buyers (in the economic market) who must provide<br />
their sellers with compensation within a monetary transaction?<br />
We shouldn’t say that the ‘age of entitlement’ is over but instead<br />
say that the ‘age of fiscal prudence is beginning’.<br />
HAREESH MAKAM IS A<br />
MEMBER OF THE LIBERAL PARTY
15<br />
The American higher education<br />
system told through TV<br />
BY MALI REA<br />
The Education Minister Chris Pyne has openly said he wants to<br />
emulate the American system of higher education, which we know<br />
has progressed into a situation where student debt is second only<br />
to credit card debt. Due to their privatised and deregulated system<br />
there is a two-tiered system where there are a few very expensive,<br />
well regarded universities which are inaccessible to the general<br />
population. Consequently, there exists a sea of underfunded<br />
institutions which are forced to lower the cost of degrees at the<br />
expense of teaching and learning quality.<br />
The inequality that exists around this system is deeply<br />
entrenched within American culture. The American ‘college’ is<br />
frequently depicted on television and film. Evidently Mr Pyne has<br />
spent more time watching American daytime television than reading<br />
public policy reports and analysis. Here are some things that he’s<br />
learnt from American TV.<br />
The Waltons<br />
While some generations can go to university, others will not. Although<br />
none of the Walton parents or grandparents went to university, most<br />
of the children do. This can be seen as a result of the introduction of<br />
mass higher education.<br />
Your ability to get into university will be based on where<br />
you went to school. Mary-Ellen had serious trouble getting in to<br />
nursing from the local country school despite her intelligence and<br />
ambition. Mary-Ellen even experiences institutionalised sexism when<br />
she attempts to enrol in a further medical degree because women<br />
don’t become doctors. This episode must have inspired Pyne’s belief<br />
that ‘they [women] will not be able to earn the high incomes’ because<br />
they apparently will only be ‘nurses and teachers’.<br />
Roseanne<br />
If you don’t have a ‘college fund’ and come from a family who cannot<br />
pay the electricity bills, you won’t be able to get into college and will<br />
have to go in to a community colllege.<br />
“So even if I get into these schools I can’t afford to go?<br />
What was I working for, what was the point of getting A’s? All this<br />
time you told me if I worked hard and got good grades I could make<br />
something of myself. (You still can). Yeah going to night school<br />
working at the buy and bag, I’m going to wind up just like you!”<br />
Daria<br />
You may have to send one of your children to ‘beauty school’ because<br />
it’s too expensive to send both children to college.<br />
You may also receive acceptance letters with small print that reads<br />
‘manatee college has no class but offers beachside accommodation<br />
at $10 000 per semester’.<br />
Universities will refer parents to family businesses because<br />
they can set you up with a cash loan. They sell candy, make loans,<br />
and haul trash; they have a lot of interests.<br />
We’re also shown that there is such thing as ‘campus<br />
police’ and that you will have to spend all of high school doing ‘extracurriculars<br />
for your college application’.<br />
If your uncle ‘donates a wing’ and you went to a private<br />
school, your grades are barely considered before being accepted.<br />
This highlights the issue that American universities rely on<br />
endowments, universities such as Harvard get up to 32 billion dollars<br />
in endowments a year.<br />
How I Met Your Mother<br />
Despite going to university, you will still have trouble with finding<br />
steady employment. There has been a lot of criticism in the last few<br />
years around massive students debts, as according to a poll by NBC<br />
News, 40% of 2011-2012 college graduates were underemployed in<br />
2013, and in serious debt from their student loans.<br />
We also learnt that your student debt is likely to stop you<br />
from being able to get a good interest rate on your home loan-unless<br />
you have a larger credit card debt.<br />
Gossip Girl<br />
If you go to an elite private school you’ll get good marks regardless of<br />
your work once you’re a senior. This relationship between elite private<br />
high schools and elite universities makes these far better funded<br />
universities entirely inaccessible for students not from these private<br />
high schools.<br />
We also learnt that at $46 000 a year, Brown is a ‘hippy<br />
school’.<br />
‘Second semester seniors get a free pass, Constance wants<br />
their students to get into the best colleges. That’s why this free pass<br />
exists. The headmistress, if she knew about this grade, she’d rap you<br />
on the wrist.’<br />
Community<br />
Set in a community college, this show gives a good idea of the kind<br />
of prejudices surrounding community colleges. We are shown that<br />
people assume that you have stuffed something up in your life to<br />
have ended up in Community College.<br />
These kind of prejudices are rooted in the kind of classism that is<br />
exacerbated by a two-tiered system. We can trace the history of<br />
higher education in America, from the era of mass higher education<br />
in The Waltons to the effects of crippling debt in How I Met You<br />
Mother. Overtime we have witnessed the ideology behind government<br />
legislation and funding change. Whilst mass higher education was<br />
encouraged, in order to have a more educated population, in the past<br />
few decades this had changed to a belief that people go to university<br />
for individual gain, hence it being their responsibility to fund it. The<br />
current system in place in America is rooted in classism and prevents<br />
social mobility, through attitudes towards Ivy League schools in<br />
Gossip Girl and community colleges in Roseanne and Community.<br />
Come along to the Protest on March 25th to oppose the<br />
Americanisation of our education. Free buses will be leaving from<br />
Robert Blackwood Hall at 1pm on the day.<br />
For more information contact msa-education@monash.edu<br />
MALI REA IS THE<br />
EDUCATION (PUBLIC AFFAIRS) OFFICER
16<br />
Political donations<br />
BY TOM CLELLAND<br />
Imagine a self-governing town of one hundred people.<br />
The town needs, among other things, a leader, and so<br />
decides to hold elections every four years to determine<br />
who the head honcho will be. There is a catch, though;<br />
to enter the electoral race, a candidate needs money to<br />
run their campaign, and to stand a realistic chance they<br />
need a substantial amount (read: a shitload). The aspiring<br />
candidates, then, do the rounds in their town to raise<br />
money for the impending electoral race. Two of the more<br />
enterprising members of the community seize on this<br />
opportunity, and decide to offer an extremely large cash<br />
payment to Bill. Bill’s motivations in running for office are,<br />
for the sake of the argument, noble, and he accepts the<br />
payment knowing that this is the only way that he may<br />
secure office and help his town. Once elected, though, he<br />
realises that he is somewhat beholden to the wishes of<br />
his donors, and reluctantly approves the development of<br />
a casino in the centre of his small town to get them off his<br />
back. Bill tries to frame the casino as a necessary budgetary<br />
measure for the town, but it soon becomes clear that the<br />
casino (surprisingly) makes life a lot more miserable for the<br />
residents of this once-pure community. That’s not really<br />
kosher, right?<br />
On the 21st of January, 2011, Campbell Newman<br />
gave an impressive speech about Brisbane City Council’s<br />
decision to use green energy sources to power street lights.<br />
I say impressive because I have never seen an orator so<br />
accurately channel the essence of a block of wood in their<br />
delivery. He was quoted as saying that “it would be a great<br />
idea if rather than digging up huge piles of black stuff out of<br />
the ground a few hundred kilometres north of here to keep<br />
those lights on, perhaps it would be better in the long term<br />
for our children, our grandchildren and the generations to<br />
come that we set things up a bit differently”. The sentiments<br />
contained in his remarks were ostensibly noble, greenies all<br />
over Queensland were buzzed, and it looked like someone<br />
with a semblance of environmental conscience was flitting<br />
around the halls of the Queensland State Parliament. 18<br />
months later, however, and Campbell was in a war of words<br />
with UNESCO, who had warned that the Great Barrier Reef<br />
may be listed as ‘in danger’ if the wanton dumping of sludge<br />
didn’t stop some time in the general future. Obviously,<br />
this greatly offended the sensibilities of the Newman<br />
government, who fired back that Queensland was ‘in the<br />
coal business’, and that if people didn’t like that, they could<br />
shove it (I may be paraphrasing). I wish I could say that such<br />
a backflip was rare, but the starkly contrasting opinions<br />
should pique the curiosity of even the most apathetic<br />
observer. What happened to this man to lead him to so<br />
fundamentally shift his position on such a divisive issue?<br />
Some background is perhaps necessary.<br />
During their term, the Newman Government both raised<br />
the threshold for donations that must be declared, and<br />
proposed that the cap on the amount that may be donated<br />
to a political party be abolished. This year, an ICAC hearing<br />
was told that the price of a meeting with Campbell Newman<br />
was a $5000 contribution to his re-election fund, and it<br />
was revealed that three government ministers who were<br />
to debate the extension of the New Hope Group’s coal<br />
mine near Toowoomba were showered in lavish gifts by<br />
the mining conglomerate, including box seats at various<br />
sports events. A picture emerges from the smog. It is one<br />
of a government languishing in moral turpitude, where<br />
the interests served are those of corporations rather than<br />
citizens. It is not a unique situation in Australia. Between<br />
1995-1998, corporations donated $29 million to political<br />
parties in this country. In 2004-2005, the Labor party raised<br />
$64.8 million, while the Liberal Party raised $66 million.<br />
These amounts having continued to climb in recent years to<br />
levels without precedent.<br />
This piece is not aimed at the Newman<br />
government. The situation in Queensland is a microcosm<br />
of what is happening elsewhere in Australia, including our<br />
home state. I don’t claim to understand the ins and outs<br />
of political contribution regulation and legislation. I don’t<br />
claim to be an enlightened political thinker. I do, however,<br />
believe that the unregulated flow of money is warping<br />
and twisting the nature of our democracy so as to leave<br />
it unrecognisable. The appearance of political and quasipolitical<br />
figures such as Clive Palmer and Gina Rinehart<br />
on the national scene should be treated as a barometer,<br />
an indicator that all is not well in the Australian political<br />
landscape. Money should not, in and of itself, equal power<br />
in a pure representative democracy, and this seems to have<br />
been forgotten in the rush to dig up rocks and send them<br />
overseas.
Student<br />
Affairs<br />
Articles by Anna Schouten,<br />
Sabby Gill, Kristin Robertson & Julia<br />
Pillai, Monica Hunt, and Kirsti Weisz<br />
ILLUSTRATION BY JULIA PILLAI
18<br />
Bring it on Melbourne!<br />
BY ANNA SCHOUTEN<br />
The experiences of an exchange student from The<br />
Netherlands at Monash University<br />
It wasn’t until I was half way through, reading ‘Dear first<br />
years…’ published in the first edition of Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> <strong>2015</strong>, that I<br />
realised the writer was joking with me. After laughing at myself<br />
during this stupid incident, I wondered whether I was the only<br />
student who experienced reading this article in that certain<br />
way. Veteran Monash students are probably making a joke of<br />
me right now, but how was I supposed to know? In this column,<br />
I – a Communications and Journalism exchange student<br />
from Utrecht University, in The Netherlands - am sharing my<br />
experiences of the first weeks at Monash University with you.<br />
Although I am in my third year of University back in The<br />
Netherlands, my first day at Monash University made me feel like<br />
a first year again. I changed my outfit about four times, before<br />
leaving my apartment – where I just moved in the day before. I<br />
double-checked the PTV-planner (yay for these kind of apps) and<br />
the classroom I had to go to. After I arrived (about 30 minutes<br />
too early, because by all means, I did not want to be late) I had<br />
a few awkward chats with other fellow first day ‘victims’, to kill<br />
some time. One hour on and I had already forgotten most of the<br />
names of the people I spoke to. Neither did I remember their<br />
place of births and what they are studying. I eased myself with<br />
the thought that they must have forgotten this information about<br />
me too. At least we will remember each other’s faces. Now, there<br />
are some people whom I can say ‘Hi!’ to, when I walk through the<br />
hallways during the first weeks of classes.<br />
One thing is clear: the Clayton Campus is huge in<br />
comparison to the campus of my home university in Utrecht.<br />
I am glad to hear that some of the natives I met still get lost<br />
sometimes. This means that I can use lateness as a valid excuse<br />
if I don’t arrive to class on time. Another thing that stands out<br />
is the fancy names of the streets; ‘Rainforest walk’ for instance,<br />
whoever thought of that?<br />
That students enjoy their time at Clayton Campus,<br />
is no surprise for me. There are so many activities going; I am<br />
sure that Monash students never get bored. Free ‘brekkie’ or a<br />
weekly ‘barbie’ (oh, how I love Australian slang) would never<br />
be something that happened at Utrecht University. In The<br />
Netherlands, you come to your campus to study, not to hang<br />
out with your friends. This is probably because the city centre in<br />
Utrecht is close to the campus, meaning that there are plenty of<br />
alternative places to relax outside of campus. At Monash it takes<br />
more time to arrive in the CBD, which means that students are<br />
more inclined to stay on campus during their breaks.<br />
That brings me to the following point: Melbourne,<br />
like Campus Centre, is also relatively enormous. Four million<br />
people in one city, it is hard to imagine for someone from a small<br />
country like The Netherlands. All of a sudden, Amsterdam, the<br />
capital city of The Netherlands with less than a million habitants,<br />
begins to look like a tiny village. As an exchange student in<br />
Melbourne, I feel at home, because there are so many different<br />
nationalities in this multi-cultural city. I am not the only one<br />
who is from overseas here, which sometimes makes me feel a<br />
little more comfortable. Australians are probably the kindest<br />
people I have ever met – no, this is not to flatter you, I am being<br />
serious. When I am looking lost, strangers will approach me to<br />
ask whether I need directions and repeat their instructions three<br />
times in a row if necessary. I love the fact that Australians are so<br />
helpful – I truly believe it is something that Dutch people can<br />
learn from.<br />
Kindness also appeared when I was talking to native<br />
students and lecturers during the first week of classes. They<br />
waited patiently when I needed some time to think about the<br />
way to formulate a sentence, for example. I was also really happy<br />
when my tutors reassured me that it would not be any problem<br />
to help me out with academic writing in English. Writing in a<br />
language other than that which I am familiar with is something I<br />
am quite insecure about at this stage.<br />
After the first week of classes, I can tell that the level of<br />
an Arts undergraduate study at Monash University is comparable<br />
to the level of Utrecht University, and that the assignments are<br />
equal at both universities: doing readings and thinking about<br />
deep thoughts on that subject are very much central at both<br />
institutions. The biggest difference I have experienced so far, has<br />
to do with the Australian perspective on life, which I am only now<br />
beginning to learn about for the first time. In The Netherlands, I<br />
mostly learn about Great Britain or the USA. I am curious about<br />
what Australian culture will teach me. Bring it on!
19<br />
“I love the fact that<br />
Australians are so<br />
helpful – I truly believe<br />
it is something that<br />
Dutch people can learn<br />
from.”<br />
UTRECHT UNIVERSITY
20<br />
One World<br />
Festival<br />
BY SABBY GILL<br />
The first thing that people notice when they come to Australia<br />
is the diverse culture and the many different faces that they<br />
encounter. Perhaps that’s the beauty of this country; the dazzling<br />
natural landscape on display, combined with our cultural<br />
differences, creates a beautiful masterpiece that is accepting<br />
and welcoming to everyone. This masterpiece is on display at the<br />
moment, at our very own Monash University run event.<br />
What amazing event is this you ask? It’s the One World<br />
Festival, of course!<br />
The One World Festival, which is jointly organized<br />
by Monash University International Students Service (MUISS),<br />
Campus Community Division, Team Monash and Monash Abroad<br />
aims at celebrating and embracing the existence of its rich<br />
cultural diversity.<br />
Every year, the One World Festival gets bigger and<br />
better, and this year is not an exception. Over three days, this<br />
festival will definitely encourage you to plunge into a plethora of<br />
cultures and embrace what it is like to be a ‘citizen of the world’<br />
in its true sense. Last year, about 26 cultural clubs at Monash<br />
participated in the festival.<br />
This year, the cultural societies and clubs of Monash<br />
have heaps of activities planned from the 14th to the 16th of<br />
April. Monash University has always been proud of its alliances<br />
with universities around the world and has therefore acquired<br />
the status of being a ‘Global University.’ As a part of celebrating<br />
these relations with our foreign partners, an ‘Exchange Fair’ will<br />
be held on the 15th of April. Representatives from the partner<br />
universities abroad will be able to pay our campus a visit, which<br />
is also a wonderful opportunity to get chatting to exchange<br />
students from around the globe.<br />
No festival is complete without food, right? Well, don’t<br />
worry because we have it covered. Look forward to getting a<br />
taste of street foods from around the globe; whether it be the<br />
famous ‘chaat’ from India, or the classic original dumplings from<br />
China. So come on down to indulge into a gastronomical fantasy.<br />
Imagine, sitting under the light of the stars and the moon, the<br />
cool evening breeze whistling past you whilst immersing yourself<br />
in an amazing cinematic experience. Brace yourselves and get<br />
your popcorn ready, because the One World Festival is bringing<br />
to you the ‘Moonlight Cinema’. True to its name, it’s a chance for<br />
you to catch a movie with your friends in the classic old way. The<br />
Moonlight Cinema will be held on Thursday night the 16th April<br />
and will screen of some great foreign classics that you’ll never<br />
regret watching.<br />
However, the fun doesn’t end there. ‘One night around<br />
the globe’ is an international student themed party, where you<br />
can explore the world beyond your cultural barriers. There’s<br />
nothing better than talking about striking differences between<br />
cultures, practices and traditions over a couple of drinks and<br />
some appetizing food.<br />
A festival like this which enjoys diversity and<br />
appreciates differences could indeed bring out the best in people<br />
and create beautiful moments. Capture these moments on your<br />
camera, and you could have your photos recognized throughout<br />
the Monash Community, by getting it featured on the ‘Humans<br />
of Monash’ page that recognizes the beauty that lies in everyday<br />
moments on campus. All you have to do is upload any pictures<br />
taken by you during the One World Festival on Instagram and<br />
Facebook under the hashtag #oneworldfestival, and if the panel<br />
of selectors think your picture is worth it, you get a special<br />
mention and a chance to win some exciting prizes.<br />
The One World Festival is also an amazing platform to<br />
showcase your talents. Participation in the One World Festival<br />
is open to any individual or group willing to participate. If you<br />
reckon you can perform and entertain, submit an expression<br />
of interest to any of the participating Monash clubs or MUISS.<br />
Financial assistance will also be provided to selected performers<br />
if needed.<br />
So, look forward to having an amazing three day journey as<br />
you travel around the globe at Monash University, no tickets or<br />
passports needed. All you need is enthusiasm and willingness to<br />
soak it all in and make the most out of the enthralling cultural<br />
outpouring at your very own Monash Campus.<br />
SABBY GILL IS A MONASH UNIVERSITY<br />
INTERNATIONAL STUDENT SOCIETY’S<br />
PUBLICATIONS GENERAL COMMITTEE MEMBER
22<br />
CLUBS WORTH A SCOPE<br />
BY KRISTIN ROBERTSON AND JULIA PILLAI<br />
STEW: Students Teaching<br />
English to our World<br />
Migrants and Refugees in Australia have found some<br />
much needed help from this club who continue to<br />
volunteer to teach them the basics of English. Not only<br />
does this club offer much needed assistance for their<br />
everyday lives, but volunteers themselves can gain some<br />
beneficial teaching experience too. If you are interested<br />
in volunteering, for a few hours a week, you can become<br />
a tutor that is mentally and culturally prepared to make a<br />
difference in the lives of others and in your own.<br />
MCJAF: Monash Club of<br />
Juggling and Fire Twirling<br />
After 11 years on campus, MCJAF continues to theatrically<br />
teach and entertain with fire-filled tricks and skilful displays<br />
that including juggling, uni-cycling, diablo, spinning plates<br />
and so much more. Beyond building impressive skills, this<br />
club promises thrilling social events including outings to<br />
the circus, flying trapeze and BOUNCEinc as well as number<br />
of camps. They teach from beginners to advanced, with<br />
the chance to show off your skills at their variety show next<br />
semester.<br />
mcjaf@monashclubs.org or Facebook<br />
stew@monashclubs.org or Facebook<br />
Progressive Law Network<br />
Linguistic Society<br />
(LingSoc)<br />
If you love free pizza and punny Thesaurus jokes this is<br />
the club for you!<br />
With a focus on the social side of linguistics, they have<br />
fortnightly board game parties and plan to cash in on<br />
Australia’s acceptance into Eurovision by creating a mega<br />
social event along with other cultural clubs. These word<br />
nerds are also hosting a Q/A this semester with Monash’s<br />
Chair of Linguists, Kate Burridge, to discuss how to use<br />
linguistics beyond university.<br />
After about 5 years on campus, this club has created an<br />
outlet for students interested in law and social justice<br />
without the need to be enrolled as a law student. This<br />
club is open to anyone interested in law, politics and<br />
human rights, who want to use the law for social change<br />
and is a great way to network with other students looking<br />
into this sector. Members are offered the opportunity to<br />
attend law and political seminars that, this year, include<br />
Monash’s Patrick Emerton and Kate Seear to discuss the<br />
thought-provoking connection between law, politics and<br />
our society.<br />
progressivelawnetwork@gmail.com, www. progressivelawnetwork.org.au<br />
or Facebook<br />
lingsoc@monashclubs.org or Facebook<br />
Gleam: Gay and Lesbian<br />
Engineers at Monash<br />
After 4 years on campus this supportive group still accepts<br />
anyone who is interested in engineering, while they target<br />
Monash’s gay and lesbian community they still label<br />
themselves as an all-inclusive engineering society. They<br />
have a blend of social and network events to create a caring<br />
environment for like-minded people to discuss science and<br />
make friends. Their social events include pizza lunches,<br />
picnics and bar nights, as well as industry nights. They are<br />
also keen to link students to support services where needed.<br />
Monash University<br />
Fencing Club<br />
Ranking in top spots in Australia for Uni Games, this group<br />
of swashbucklers welcome anyone interested in the sport,<br />
including beginners. It’s the cheaper alternative to other<br />
fencing clubs in Victoria that practices with sabres, foils<br />
and epees. This sporting club is also involved in social<br />
fundraising and community based events throughout the<br />
semester. They offer classes 5 nights a week in different<br />
weapons so you will certainly be able to fit it into your busy<br />
student schedule.<br />
monashfencingclub@gmail.com or Facebook<br />
gleam@monashclubs.org or Facebook
23<br />
CLUBS WORTH A SCOPE<br />
MASSA: The Monash African<br />
Students’ Assoaication<br />
With this being the only club on campus to represent<br />
an entire continent, MASSA’s wide variety of cultural<br />
experiences from all around Africa means it has<br />
something for everyone. In amongst their cultural and<br />
social events, MASSA also takes part in successful social<br />
activism; having raised $1883 last year for Islamic relief for<br />
Syrian youths within one day on campus. So whether you<br />
are longing to get in touch with your African heritage or<br />
have a passion for humanitarianism this welcoming club<br />
is well worth a look.<br />
MJC: Japanese Club, Monash<br />
If you are interested in Japanese culture, or simply just<br />
socialising with others over a good meal, this club has<br />
both aspects covered. MJC have a social calendar loaded<br />
with all the quintessential aspects of Japanese culture;<br />
from origami, sushi and calligraphy to karaoke, karate and<br />
a trip to the Peninsula Hot Springs. Being able to speak<br />
Japanese is not required although “conversation classes”<br />
are being offered this year.<br />
monashjapaneseclub@gmail.com or Facebook<br />
african@monashclubs.org , www.massastudents.org.au or Facebook<br />
Monash University<br />
Philharmonic Society<br />
The Monash Phil is driven by a love of music and a desire<br />
to meet like-minded people. With 3 ensembles; Jazz band,<br />
concert band and orchestra, the Phil welcomes a variety<br />
of players and musical styles. They are less formal than<br />
the Monash Academy Orchestra and socialising, with<br />
events like trivia and game nights, music camps as well as<br />
a charity concert that feeds into youth and music causes.<br />
Can’t play an instrument? You are still welcome to join as<br />
a “flop”: a Friend and Lover Of the Phil, which allows you<br />
access to all social their social events and discount tickets<br />
to their shows.<br />
MAC: Monash Autistic<br />
Collective<br />
Whether you are on the autism spectrum or are friends<br />
or family with someone on the autism spectrum MAC<br />
allows a safe haven to socialise and network while ed and<br />
creating awareness with its social events, campaigns and<br />
meetings. They have weekly events on Thursdays, as well<br />
as larger events. MAC also welcomes those with other<br />
neurodiverse conditions such as ADD, ADHD, Dyslexia,<br />
Turrets and other neuro-diverse conditions.<br />
https://www.facebook.com/groups/MonashAutisticCollective<br />
philharmonic@monashclubs.org , www.monashphil.org or Facebook<br />
Ultimate Frisbee<br />
After 7 years on campus, this sporting team boasts a great<br />
chance to socialise with other students as well as being a<br />
platform for truly good sportsmanship. In amongst trivia<br />
nights and potluck dinners, their social league offers free<br />
coaching and equipment each Wednesday which welcomes<br />
even the most inexperienced beginners. With Ultimate<br />
Frisbee being a self-refereed sport the spirit of sportsmanship<br />
is an essential quality for all who want to get involved.<br />
monashultimatefrisbee@gmail.com or Facebook<br />
Wom*n of colour collective<br />
An autonomous group for those who have either been<br />
treated as outsiders, humiliated for our differences,<br />
exoticised, or taught to feel ashamed of ourselves and our<br />
respective culture. They run a mixture of social events and<br />
political campaigns. We start the year with a mix-tape party,<br />
which involves delicious food and listening to awesome<br />
music by Women of Colour. In the past they have organised<br />
workshops on various topics ranging from beauty standards<br />
to cultural appropriation. Last year, they launched the<br />
‘I,Too,Am Monash’ campaign - a photo campaign working<br />
closely with the MSA Indigenous Department that aims<br />
to address the devaluation and micro-aggression felt by<br />
students from racially different backgrounds on campus.<br />
Every women of colour will have a different reason to join<br />
this collective. The WoC Collective is for those who want to<br />
share, discuss their experiences, as well as challenge and<br />
learn from each other.<br />
https://www.facebook.com/MonashWomenOfColour
24<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> Top Four: UNITS<br />
BY STUDENT AFFAIRS TEAM<br />
Are you short a unit? Are you contemplating asking the<br />
void of Monash StalkerSpace what is the best, ‘bludge-y’<br />
unit that you should take to propel you to HD-dom? Fear<br />
not! Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> has specially selected the best four units<br />
for you!<br />
LYF2357: Intermediate Life Skills<br />
Living on a $10 budget? Tired of eating cereal and mi goreng for<br />
breakfast, lunch and dinner? Need to learn some life hacks…that<br />
actually work. Like how to turn you instant beef noodles into an<br />
authentic style pho noodle soup? If you want to not only survive<br />
university, but also survive in the big scary world, this is the unit for<br />
you. Students will learn how to avoid scurvy and rickets by eating at<br />
least a vegetable a week, and attempting to occasionally go out in the<br />
sun.<br />
To be considered for this unit you must prove you are a student of true<br />
grit by not living with your parents. Life hacks are of no use to those<br />
who have never tried to shower next to an exposed water heater while<br />
wondering how much of your RDI you can get out of a beer?<br />
MED4783: Advanced Student Media<br />
Ah, student media, the life-blood of university culture. No we aren’t<br />
saying that because we’re Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong>. Students will learn how to do<br />
incredible things in tiny deadlines. Students will master the art of<br />
live tweeting all events, from MSC to daily activities like drinking tea.<br />
Students will learn how to accurately proofread while still maintaining<br />
the student media norm of having at least one glaring typo in every<br />
edition. Students will also learn fatigue management for use while<br />
waiting for your first letter to the editor to come in.<br />
CRY3205: Navigating University<br />
Bureaucracy<br />
University bureaucracy is more university bore-o-cracy, however,<br />
regardless of what you are studying, an advanced understanding<br />
of mind-numbingly illogical and robotic bureaucracy is absolutely<br />
essential in getting a degree. It’s more important than, um, actual<br />
studying. Students will learn how to apply for scholarships, special<br />
consideration, financial support, and disability services. Students<br />
will master the arts of document signing, form filling and crawling in<br />
a ball, sobbing uncontrollably, while contemplating dropping out, to<br />
become a busker.<br />
HCK9919: Advanced Professional Student<br />
Politics<br />
(HONOURS, THOUGH THERE IS NO<br />
HONOUR IN STUDPOL)<br />
Do you see student politics as more than simply a way to get<br />
experience in leadership through advocating student rights? Do you<br />
see student politics as an entity of its own, rather than a watered<br />
down ‘baby’ version of so-called ‘actual’ politics. Do you believe<br />
that the proletariat revolution will be delivered by a vanguard of<br />
white, middle class, private school educated, arts students who call<br />
themselves Marxists? If you do, this unit is for you.<br />
Students will first take a “Sorting Hack” test, where they<br />
will be sorted into factions. Once sorted into factions, you will learn<br />
about intricate inner workings of the MSA Students will then learn<br />
how to defer their degrees for decades at a time in order for them to<br />
spend more effort working on what is really important; the revolution.<br />
Finally, students will learn variety of ways to ‘Fuck Tony Abbott’ in<br />
multiple positions.<br />
ILLUSTRATION BY MONICA HUNT
25<br />
Uni students misusing<br />
prescription drugs<br />
BY KIRSTI WEISZ<br />
Uni’s back and while there is an air of excitement parading across<br />
campus, there’s also an undercurrent of anticipated stress. Amid<br />
studying, working and socialising, uni life can be equally exciting<br />
and stressful.<br />
Striking that work-study-life balance is difficult, if not<br />
impossible. To stay awake during those three hour lectures or<br />
to get through the fifty plus pages in the weekly reading guide,<br />
students often turn to one of the many coffee shops available<br />
on campus. But a new study is investigating whether Australian<br />
university students are also misusing prescription drugs and<br />
stimulants to enhance academic performance.<br />
The new survey titled “Non-medical use of prescription<br />
stimulants by Australian university students” is currently being<br />
commissioned by the National Drug & Alcohol Research Centre<br />
(NDARC). It will mainly examine attitudes, prevalence, patterns<br />
and consequences of use and motivations for non-medical use.<br />
Prescription drug misuse, the focus of the survey,<br />
occurs when someone takes medication prescribed for someone<br />
else or is not taking their own prescription in the way<br />
recommended by a doctor. Commonly misused<br />
substances include modafinil, prescription<br />
stimulants like methylphenidate,<br />
supplements, relaxants and caffeine.<br />
Dr Sharlene Kaye, senior<br />
lecturer and project member, says<br />
the survey will examine the study<br />
habits and health related behaviours<br />
to determine if students are misusing<br />
substances such as caffeine, drugs and<br />
prescription medication.<br />
“We’re looking at the<br />
prevalence of the use of these things to<br />
help with study… so when students report<br />
that they’ve used x, y and z, then we’ll look at any<br />
negative effects and the motivation for the use,” Dr<br />
Kaye says.<br />
Whether this is a widespread issue in Australia is still<br />
unclear so the survey aims to determine the extent to which this is<br />
affecting university students.<br />
“There’s been a lot of media-hype about enhancing<br />
academic performance, particularly in the US, and we really don’t<br />
know what the prevalence of that is here. So it’s more trying to<br />
get an estimate of what it is or whether it is happening here in<br />
Australian universities and then the extent of the… behaviour,” Dr<br />
Kaye says.<br />
A 2013 pilot project examining how Australian university<br />
students use such substances reported that a higher than<br />
expected number of university students in Australia were using<br />
drugs to improve academic performance or to stay awake. The<br />
“A new study is<br />
investigating whether<br />
Australian university students<br />
are also misusing prescription<br />
drugs and stimulants<br />
to enhance academic<br />
performance.”<br />
results also showed that it might be higher than the average<br />
misuse reported in the US.<br />
The pilot project surveyed more than 1700 students<br />
across four universities and found that students rated their drug<br />
use in terms of the effect, like improved concentration rather than<br />
the outcome, being to improve their grades.<br />
The main substances taken to improve marks were<br />
cognitive enhancements at over 40 per cent, prescription<br />
amphetamines at about 30 per cent and supplements at less than<br />
14 per cent. Similarly, substances used to stay awake included<br />
caffeine at just over 83 per cent, cognitive enhancements at about<br />
75 per cent and prescription amphetamines at around 54 per cent.<br />
Dr Jason Mazanov, the leader of the pilot project, says the “real<br />
surprise packet” was the use of Ritalin, which is commonly used<br />
for ADHD.<br />
The pilot project demonstrated the need for further<br />
evidence and encouraged consideration of whether this issue<br />
should be dealt with as one of health or one of legalistic<br />
prohibitions where misuse of prescription drugs is construed as<br />
‘cheating’.<br />
Dr Mazanov says some of the main reasons<br />
students misuse prescription drugs is to improve<br />
focus and concentration or to stay awake so<br />
they can win a scholarship or improve their<br />
grades.<br />
“While it is concerning that<br />
medicine and law seem to be at higher risk,<br />
people across different faculties are trying<br />
to enhance concentration and focus with<br />
some kind of substance,” he says.<br />
“It seems to be self-medicating fatigue.” Dr<br />
Mazanov warns about the dangers of using<br />
such serious drugs incorrectly and suggested that<br />
students seek medical advice.<br />
“People will rob from sleep to pay for everything else,”<br />
he says. He also highlighted long-term repercussions of this<br />
tendency, saying that students may take these practices into the<br />
workforce.<br />
“Students learn their professional culture when they are<br />
at university. What happens if they take these drugs into practice?<br />
What does this mean in terms of regulation for these types of<br />
substances?” he says.<br />
Interestingly, there is no evidence to suggest that using<br />
these substances does improve performance. It may provide a<br />
placebo effect where the student feels they are studying better,<br />
according to Dr Mazanov.<br />
Monash University has been approached to participate<br />
in the survey which will hopefully be up and running in the next<br />
few weeks. The completion date for the study is March 2016.
26
27<br />
PHOTOGRAPHY BY CARINA FLOREA
Science &<br />
Engineering<br />
Articles by Alisoun Townsend,<br />
Timothy Newport, Rachel Brasse and<br />
Rubee Dano<br />
ILLUSTRATION BY CEITIDH HOPPER
29<br />
The forest in the trees<br />
BY ALISOUN TOWNSEND<br />
Days before the caretaker period of the November state election<br />
of 2014, Victoria’s commercial logging business (VicForests) was<br />
handed the state’s western forests on a plate. Prior to this there<br />
was minimal logging in this part of Victoria and what did occur<br />
was under the direct government supervision. This expansion<br />
of VicForests’ logging comes on the back of community<br />
campaigning for sustainable forestry practise and an Auditor-<br />
General’s report that showed management of State Forests was<br />
a farce.<br />
Many communities in country Victoria are rightfully<br />
angry about VicForests’ native timber logging practises, such as<br />
seed tree logging and clear felling.<br />
The practise of using seed trees seems like it should<br />
work. Land is cleared with a few trees left to produce seeds.<br />
Tough Australian trees often have this beautiful adaptation that<br />
requires fire to crack open the seed capsules and allow seedlings<br />
to grow. This means seed tree style logging needs fire to produce<br />
seedlings of trees VicForests would be able to fell in the future.<br />
Australia’s climate and other factors has meant that<br />
controlled burning of seed tree logging coups do not always<br />
work. Logging trucks can only carry straight logs. Others are left<br />
near or on the logged coup. Approximately 16% of wood is left on<br />
the forest floor as waste.<br />
Exacerbated by the 2007 drought and an excess of dry<br />
timber, regeneration of one coup in the Strathbogie Ranges can<br />
only be described as a miserable failure. The seed trees and the<br />
seedbed that should have been created were killed when a fire<br />
burned far too hot through the dried timber left over from the<br />
logging. Coupled with the rapid establishment of pioneer species<br />
like wattle and tea tree, any slower growing eucalypt that might<br />
have survived the hot fires was choked out leaving now, 10 years<br />
later, a paddock of weeds scarring the beautiful landscape.<br />
VicForests is an interesting company. Forest harvesting<br />
supports many families in the hardwood and softwood timber<br />
plantations. But there are fewer jobs in the native timber<br />
industry due to dropping demand for this wood. In the minds<br />
of some people, VicForests somehow manages to hold onto the<br />
persona of a company that makes money selling good native<br />
Australian timber for furniture all over the world. Few people<br />
realise that the vast majority of the native wood VicForests<br />
harvests goes straight into the chipper. These wood chips are<br />
used to heat greenhouses and to produce paper, notably the<br />
Reflex brand.<br />
Somehow these wood chips are construed as a<br />
sustainable and ‘green’ energy resource. The rules of what<br />
constitutes a ‘green’ energy resource are iffy at best. Yes, trees<br />
can regrow, but the habitats of animals are often completely<br />
changed. The state emblem of Victoria, the leadbeater’s possum,<br />
is endangered and could be extinct by 2020. It lives in pockets<br />
of forest in the Central Highlands north east of Melbourne.<br />
The possum’s habitat, as well as the homes of the endangered<br />
spotted quoll, is being trashed by VicForests for native wood<br />
that will primarily be used for wood chips. Although there are<br />
other legal definitions of habitat for the leadbeater’s possum,<br />
it’s not a sustainable option for VicForests to log in areas where<br />
endangered animals are sighted and known to live.<br />
VicForests is also an unsustainable company. When a<br />
contract to South East Fibre Exports was dropped by the Eden<br />
based and Japanese owned woodchip company, VicForests<br />
began to consider selling native timber as firewood, chipboard<br />
or for bioenergy production, which is simply the act of burning<br />
wood instead of coal to produce energy. It is bizarre to see a state<br />
funded company investing money into the firewood industry.<br />
Also the thought of using native wood for energy production<br />
causes a lot of people to be rightfully nervous. Is this the back<br />
up plan the government has for when coal and gas becomes too<br />
expensive to produce Australia’s energy?<br />
An Australian company, Brickworks, recently secured<br />
a 20-year contract with VicForests for wood chips via the Federal<br />
government’s Direct Action Plan, an oddly named emission<br />
reduction program. It is interesting to note the managing director<br />
of Brickworks, Lindsay Partridge, is a well-known Liberal Party<br />
donor. Brickworks refer to native timber as a renewable resource,<br />
and thus ignore the notion of sustainability of supply.<br />
An investigation into VicForests’ logging practice,<br />
environmental impact and commercial viability needs to happen.<br />
The new Labor government may be bowing to pressure from<br />
Unions, but communities all through the Central Highlands and<br />
elsewhere continue to campaign for a Victoria Environmental<br />
Assessment Council (VEAC) audit into VicForests. It is only if our<br />
forests are managed sustainably that the jobs of people who<br />
work in the forests will be sustainable.
30<br />
Absolutely 100% true<br />
science facts!<br />
BY TIMOTHY NEWPORT<br />
Houseflies always buzz in<br />
the F key.<br />
If you say ‘hot as balls’, you<br />
mean it’s probably about<br />
32.3 degrees Celsius.<br />
About 65 billion neutrinos will pass<br />
through your fingernail in a second<br />
If you drove your car<br />
straight up you’d get to space<br />
in about an hour<br />
An ostrich roars sounds<br />
like that of a lion’s.<br />
The atmosphere on Titan is too<br />
thick for humans to fly in.<br />
A medium-sized cumulus<br />
cloud weighs about the same<br />
as 80 elephants.<br />
The giant squid’s brain is<br />
doughnut shaped.<br />
A pig’s orgasm lasts for 30<br />
minutes.<br />
DISCLAIMER: THE ARTIST HAS NEVER SEEN AN OSTRICH, ELEPHANT, SQUID OR PIG.
31<br />
Should Australia legalise the<br />
‘three parent baby’ technique?<br />
BY RACHEL BRASSE<br />
The UK has become the first country in the world to legalise<br />
the use of the ‘three parent baby’ technique in a bid to prevent<br />
mitochondrial diseases. What exactly does this mean, and should<br />
Australia follow suit?<br />
A technique recently legalised in the UK will result in the<br />
birth of children each with three biological parents. This<br />
may sound a little far-fetched, but this historic decision<br />
may help save countless lives every year. Although<br />
people fear that this may lead us down the path of<br />
designer babies, Australian Mitochondrial Disease<br />
Foundation CEO Sean Murray says this is an “unrealistic<br />
comparison”.<br />
As many of you know, mitochondria are often<br />
referred to as the powerhouse of the cell. What some<br />
of you may not know is that mitochondria are the only<br />
part of the cell (apart from the nucleus) to have its<br />
own DNA. This is thought to be because mitochondria<br />
may have been - once upon a time - independent<br />
bacteria. Also, unlike nuclear DNA (which gives us our<br />
genetic traits), mitochondria are passed down almost<br />
exclusively from the mother. The bad news is that if a<br />
woman carries defective mitochondria, she is at a high<br />
risk of conceiving a child with the same condition.<br />
Since mitochondria are responsible for<br />
converting our food into 90% of our body’s usable<br />
energy, mitochondrial diseases can cause an array of<br />
symptoms. The condition causes the most damage to<br />
areas of the body that demand the most energy, such<br />
as the brain, heart, muscles, liver, inner ear and eye. In<br />
mild cases, the sufferer may simply require more rest;<br />
but more severe cases may result in defects including<br />
blindness and deafness as well as the inability to walk,<br />
eat or talk. Some cases can also be life threatening, as<br />
the cells of vital organs are unable to get the energy<br />
required for normal function.<br />
Two ‘three parent baby’ techniques exist,<br />
although they both work through IVF conception.<br />
The first begins by removing the nucleus of both the<br />
mother’s and the donor’s egg cells. Then, the mother’s<br />
nucleus (and therefore her genetic material) is inserted<br />
into the donor’s egg cell, which contains healthy<br />
mitochondria. The donor’s egg is then fertilised as<br />
usual, resulting in the embryo inheriting only 0.054% of<br />
its overall DNA from the donor. The second works at the<br />
embryonic stage where the nuclei are exchanged after<br />
both eggs have been fertilised.<br />
As mitochondrial DNA is not responsible for<br />
the inheritance of traits, none of the child’s traits will<br />
come from the donor. Also, as the nuclear DNA of both<br />
parents remains unaltered during the procedure, the<br />
child is in no way artificially ‘designed’.<br />
According to the Australian Mitochondrial<br />
Disease Foundation (AMDF) fact sheet, it is estimated<br />
that one Australian child is born with the potential to<br />
develop a severe form of mitochondrial disease each<br />
week. This equates to around 50 births each year -<br />
and these are only the statistics for the severe to lifethreatening<br />
cases. Research shows that one in 200<br />
Australians may carry the defective gene, which may<br />
cause symptoms at any point in a person’s life. To<br />
make matters worse, there are few treatments available<br />
and currently no known cure. This is why prevention<br />
is key. Using this technique, women with defective<br />
mitochondria will be able to have biological children<br />
without the fear of passing their condition on.
32<br />
Artificial Intelligence:<br />
How smart are computers?<br />
An interview with PhD student Nader Chmait<br />
BY RUBEE DANO<br />
What is intelligence, and how do we measure it? With the last 20<br />
years bringing us massive advancements in the development<br />
of artificial intelligence, or AI, it is becoming increasingly more<br />
difficult to measure the intelligence of both humans and<br />
machines in a definitive way, let alone compare them.<br />
The Anytime Universal Intelligence test is a measure<br />
for the intelligence of any being, animal or computer. It provides<br />
an answer, between -1 and 1, based on the subject’s ability<br />
to respond to increasingly difficult tasks, such as recognising<br />
patterns in a punishment/reward kind of setting. To find out<br />
more about the Anytime Universal Intelligence Test, I went to the<br />
IT faculty to speak to Nader Chmait, a PhD student who uses the<br />
test in his research.<br />
First of all, let’s<br />
define what is meant by<br />
intelligence. Nader explains,<br />
that for the purposes of<br />
the test, intelligence is an<br />
approximation of an organism<br />
or object’sperformance in<br />
different environments, under<br />
different levels of complexity.<br />
In the AUI test, in each<br />
environment the test subject<br />
must take observations and<br />
respond to the test. Intelligence<br />
is measured as how well one<br />
responds to a punishment/<br />
reward conditioning system.<br />
Essentially, if you can learn<br />
patterns in this kind of system, you should do well on the test.<br />
Nader uses the test to measure the abilities of various<br />
computer programs, or algorithms. He wants to see if these<br />
computer programs have the ability to learn. The algorithms that<br />
Nader works with are designed to take an action as a response<br />
to an observation. In doing this, the question asked is whether or<br />
not they will learn to predict the right response and come to the<br />
best solution to a problem, based on the recurrence of patterns<br />
and observations.<br />
You could argue that there are many different kinds<br />
of intelligence, from academic intelligence to emotional<br />
intelligence, to creativity. In the AUI test Nader defines<br />
intelligence as the ability of the subject to perform at a task that<br />
involves learned responses to negative and positive outcomes.<br />
The subject’s main goal in the test is to continue with minimal<br />
harm, avoiding bad consequences while seeking good ones. A<br />
person or computer that can learn which responses will most<br />
likely give a positive outcome will do best on the test.<br />
As we develop smarter machines and smarter<br />
programs, measuring their intelligence becomes increasingly<br />
important for further development, says Nader. It allows us to<br />
see exactly where we are at, and what our machines are capable<br />
of. AI as a concept has been around since Alan Turing’s day.<br />
The Turing test was the first test of this kind, and Turing himself<br />
did much for the early world of computing. The Turing test,<br />
developed in 1950, tries to determine if a machine’s intelligence<br />
is indistinguishable from a human’s, in essence.<br />
Nader says that, in the world of AI, there is a concept<br />
called the singularity, which refers to the point at which<br />
computers will overtake human intellect, and consequently<br />
they will no longer need us. He says that AI is set to develop<br />
exponentially in the next hundred<br />
years, though when exactly we<br />
will be eclipsed by machines is<br />
totally subjective. There’s a lot of<br />
debate in the IT world about when,<br />
or if the singularity will become a<br />
reality, with many different sides to<br />
the debate. There are many ways<br />
in which we outshine computers,<br />
Nader says, using body language<br />
and emotional recognition as an<br />
example. He believes that one day,<br />
computers might be developed<br />
to respond to these social cues,<br />
but at the moment they are not<br />
adept to do so. On the other hand,<br />
computers have adapted well<br />
to the logical reasoning aspects of intelligence. For instance,<br />
computers are now used to assist high level chess players in<br />
training, as they play at the equivalent level to a Grandmaster.<br />
As for where we’ll be in the future, Nader says he’s<br />
not sure, but he knows that with the progress we’ve made in<br />
the past two decades, and the progress we’re making now, that<br />
we’re always improving our knowledge of computers and AI.<br />
Maybe we’ll have computers that are smarter than us, maybe<br />
they’ll even be conscious beings one day. It’s an ongoing debate,<br />
however it’s one that will definitely be aided by the Anytime<br />
Universal Intelligence Test.<br />
IF YOU ARE A PHD STUDENT AND WOULD<br />
LIKE LOT’S WIFE TO WRITE ABOUT YOUR<br />
RESEARCH, PLEASE CONTACT<br />
jarrod.verity@monash.edu<br />
OR CALL 9905 8174
33<br />
Internships<br />
Look out for more opportunities online, March/April are the months most<br />
internship programs open. Winter Research Scholarships at Monash open in<br />
May <strong>2015</strong>.
34<br />
Sustainability at<br />
Monash<br />
BY RACHEL BRASSE<br />
Monash definitely talks the talk when it comes to<br />
sustainability, but do they walk the walk? Big organisations<br />
tend to spend more time and money in claiming to be<br />
green than in implementing practices that minimise their<br />
environmental impact. With such a big science community<br />
at the university, one would expect pretty innovative and<br />
genuine approaches to climate change from Monash.<br />
In 2007, the university signed ULSF’s<br />
(Association of University Leaders for a Sustainable<br />
Future) Talloires Declaration. Basically, this means they<br />
pledged to do as much research and educate as many<br />
people about sustainability as possible. Since then, the<br />
university has funded environmental improvements,<br />
projects and compliance programs as well as run<br />
hundreds of sustainability workshops and seminars. With<br />
initiatives like the ride to uni day, the bikeshare program<br />
and the carpooling system, Monash reduced its unleaded<br />
transport-related CO2 emissions by over 40% between<br />
2009 and 2013. In fact, transport only accounted for 1%<br />
of Monash’s total CO2 emissions in 2013. In addition, with<br />
programs such as the ‘bin there, done that’ program,<br />
Monash generated 214 tonnes less waste than in 2010.<br />
In alignment with the university’s pledge to<br />
educate people about sustainability, Monash utilised<br />
social media to engage students. The ‘connect with your<br />
environment’ Facebook campaign increased from 3,770<br />
likes in 2013 to 9,387 this year. Since its creation, the page<br />
has raised $19,280 for on-campus renewable energy by<br />
donating $5 for each like received. As an additional mode<br />
of traffic generation onto the page, the Monash Office of<br />
Environmental Sustainability ran a scavenger hunt with<br />
a bike as the grand prize. This also offered extra initiative<br />
to bike ride around uni which many thought was a good<br />
idea. Whether this increase in traffic is a testament to<br />
Monash’s continuous efforts to raise awareness about the<br />
environment or simply to our generation’s heightened<br />
awareness on the subject, it definitely indicates a step in<br />
the right direction. Students were also involved through<br />
Environmental Sustainability staff members’ range of<br />
lectures on the subject of sustainability as well as studentrun<br />
events such as Earth Hour, Clean Up Australia Day and<br />
the Race for Sustainability.<br />
The Campus Centre’s 416 solar panels generate<br />
around 100,000 kWh of electricity per year – equivalent to<br />
30 households’ annual consumption. The reflective paint<br />
on the Deakin Hall’s roof provides emission-free cooling<br />
during the warmer months and the solar hot water heating<br />
at the Hockey Pavilion provides around 80% of the hot<br />
water used by the building throughout the year. With these<br />
infrastructural changes, our campus was able to decrease<br />
its electricity usage by 2.1%.<br />
Disappointingly however, our campus also<br />
increased its gas consumption by 4.7% in the same<br />
timeframe. It seems that despite the slogan ‘greening up<br />
our act’, we still have a long way to go. Also disappointing<br />
is the upward trend we seem to be experiencing in our<br />
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Since 2009, Monash’s<br />
carbon footprint has increased by 8% - only 1% below<br />
‘business as usual’. This means Monash’s carbon footprint<br />
was only 1% lower than if they had simply continued<br />
emitting as they had previously with no effort to reduce<br />
emissions. Also among the increases are the emissions<br />
from gas used for heating and cooling with an increase of<br />
7%.<br />
In 2013, Monash aimed to reduce their potable<br />
water (drinking-water) consumption by 30% from 2010<br />
levels by 2020. This seems a little ambitious considering<br />
that in that year, they consumed 68,218 kilolitres more<br />
potable water than in 2010. Also intriguing is their goal<br />
of reducing energy consumption by 30% by 2020 even<br />
though in 2013, 101,991 gigajoules more energy was<br />
consumed than in 2010.<br />
Although these efforts may not appear<br />
monumental, they are definitely a step in the right<br />
direction. Climate change is a huge issue that needs to<br />
be dealt with (despite what Tony Abbott may have you<br />
believe). Every step is a good step. Although there are still<br />
plenty of things to do to achieve greater changes, we’re<br />
doing pretty well so far.<br />
“It seems that despite the slogan ‘greening<br />
up our act,’ we still have a long way to go.”
Arts &<br />
Culture<br />
Articles by Kelly Pigram, Lisa Healy,<br />
Emily Neilsen and Lauren Arnett<br />
ILLUSTRATION BY JULIA PILLAI
36<br />
The Dark<br />
Knight Rises<br />
BY KELLY PIGRAM<br />
Coburg’s Batman Market<br />
returns in <strong>2015</strong> with more<br />
food trucks than you can<br />
handle.<br />
EVERY SUNDAY<br />
from 9am-3pm<br />
14-22 GAFFNEY ST,<br />
COBURG
37<br />
It’s early Sunday morning, and the somewhat narrow space<br />
between Batman train station and an old textiles factory is<br />
beginning to bustle with the sound of up to forty food trucks,<br />
fresh food stalls and market stalls – Coburg’s new Batman Market<br />
transforms the space into a foodie’s paradise.<br />
“The market was my Brother’s idea about three years<br />
ago, he’s the entrepreneurial one of the family.” Winnie Chen is<br />
fairly modest about her involvement in launching and designing<br />
the Batman Market late last year, which since its launch has<br />
enjoyed amazing and somewhat unexpected success.<br />
Ex-Monash students, Winnie and Ethan Chen regularly<br />
visited markets while growing up in Melbourne and became<br />
familiar with the market culture that dominates the Melbourne<br />
lifestyle. They visited and researched markets, but never acted on<br />
the idea of incorporating their familiar elements into their own<br />
until late last year, when the perfect opportunity came along to<br />
take control of an ideally located section of land in Coburg.<br />
“Basically we had access to some land behind an old<br />
textile factory. It wasn’t being used, it was just a spare lot and it’s<br />
“It’s very diverse. When you go to<br />
market, especially a farmers’ market,<br />
there’s a lot more western or English<br />
style food. One thing we tried to<br />
do was bring back what we saw in<br />
markets in Asia: a lot more treat<br />
foods, things that are cheap.”<br />
next to a train station, so we thought ‘why not?’” Chen said.<br />
The land in question is located right next to tram stop,<br />
train station, bike path and the only Bunnings in a 6km radius,<br />
which Chen says brings in people from four suburbs away on<br />
weekends.<br />
Batman Market is a nice contrast to some of<br />
Melbourne’s more popular, well established markets, where<br />
you tend to spend most of your time fighting through people<br />
scrambling for their weekly fruit and vegetables. At Batman<br />
Market you can stroll casually down a laneway of food trucks<br />
and street food stalls, each with their own personality and<br />
together offering an extensive array of cuisine, and then grab<br />
your fruit as you head out. There are splashes of flowers, art,<br />
crafts and groceries, but it’s a lot less of a farmers’ market, a lot<br />
more of a foodies’ market. A fact that’s great for Chen, because<br />
she’s been able to target a particularly young crowd, one that<br />
is full of potential and generally overlooked by other markets in<br />
Melbourne.<br />
Farmers’ markets across Australia are generally<br />
targeted at a much older demographic, “we’ve had vendors that<br />
have said they can’t sell their cakes at a farmers market because<br />
everyone is diabetic,” mostly middle aged people who come<br />
weekly to do their fruit and vegetable shopping. Chen says the<br />
young crowd at Batman Market comes for the food trucks that<br />
appear at the market every weekend. Popular trucks like Knock<br />
Mama, N2 Gelato and Little Mushroom all appear regularly. “It<br />
was originally a big thing that differentiated from other markets<br />
on the scene. We’ve got a good turnover of trucks so there’s<br />
always something different and we’re able to attract a lot younger<br />
crowd – to the point where our vendors say ‘oh your customer<br />
base is too young, we can’t sell our expensive wine bottles here.’”<br />
Many food trucks already set up in areas in Melbourne’s North,<br />
particularly around Brunswick and Coburg, and were excited that<br />
a market was opening in the area where there would be young<br />
people and a range of food, so were easy to persuade to take up<br />
spots in the market.<br />
Food trucks also played a key role in initially growing<br />
the market and its young customer base. “Trucks that are famous<br />
usually have about five to six thousand followers on Facebook,<br />
so it’s pretty much the power of social media that helped us a<br />
lot. They would do a post and give us a shout out and it really<br />
ballooned from there.”<br />
Another core component of the market is<br />
multiculturalism. Chen’s Chinese heritage is shown through the<br />
food offered. “It’s very diverse. When you go to market, especially<br />
a farmers’ market, there’s a lot more western or English style<br />
food. One thing we tried to do was bring back what we saw in<br />
markets in Asia: a lot more treat foods, things that are cheap.”<br />
At the most recent Chinese New Year market, they<br />
managed to get a hold of Dean’s Café, a popular Malaysian<br />
restaurant in nearby Thomastown who set up an extremely<br />
popular stall at the Chinese New Year market in Southbank. “They<br />
have a bit of a following… they just make the best satays, they<br />
are just to die for and then be re-incarnated and then to die for<br />
again”.<br />
Melbourne certainly isn’t devoid of food markets, which<br />
makes the decision to launch a new one somewhat daunting.<br />
The Queen Victoria Market is arguably the city’s most famous,<br />
bringing in thousands of people every day and recently launching<br />
a popular gourmet night market specifically for food stalls.<br />
The South Melbourne and Prahran markets are also extremely<br />
popular, frequented by chefs and foodies alike and providing<br />
fresh, organic food to its customers.<br />
But Winnie says that their success lies in their area.<br />
Coburg is an area of Melbourne which is somewhat neglected<br />
by markets. Strange, as Coburg neighbours with Brunswick and<br />
Thornbury, both suburbs dominated by Melbourne’s food and<br />
coffee culture, and an area often frequented by food trucks<br />
during the day. “There are farmers’ markets but there’s nothing<br />
really like this in that area, more of a foodies’ market. We get<br />
people from Reservoir, Strathmore… people more than two<br />
suburbs away.”<br />
They’re now encouraging local, returning customers by<br />
incorporating a groceries element into the market, to make the<br />
market part of their customer’s weekly routine.<br />
“Our market’s a bit different in the way that it took off. A lot of<br />
markets might start off really quietly and they’ll build over time,<br />
whereas we had a massive opening and it’s kind of settled down.”<br />
“I suppose in just in three months the market has<br />
transformed a lot and it’s going to keep changing, so it’s pretty<br />
exciting to be a part of it and to be doing something for the<br />
community… I really can’t wait for a day when the locals can’t<br />
remember a time when the market wasn’t open.”
38<br />
Superfoods<br />
BY LISA HEALY<br />
Kale chips. Cancer-fighting acai berries. Goji berries. Quinoa.<br />
Cacao. Teff. Maca. Coconut oil/milk/water/meat. The list could<br />
go on and on about what trendy ‘superfoods’ you should be<br />
replenishing your body with. If you’ve ever attempted to go on/<br />
read about a two-week detox or are a massive trendy foodie<br />
or health fanatic, these are just some of the typically normal<br />
groceries you would pick up if they had an infinitely overloaded<br />
bank account. While it’s common place to see different health<br />
and food trends circulating every so often (remember cupcakes?<br />
Probably not because you’re drowning those memories in froyo),<br />
the latest one seems to have stuck around for the last few<br />
years is ‘superfoods’.<br />
Superfoods are typically defined as foods considered<br />
to be highly nutrient-dense and beneficial for one’s health. While<br />
it is great that some little black seeds can provide up to 17g of<br />
protein per 100g (I’m looking at you, chia), what has not been<br />
so great are the ramifications of the Western world’s health<br />
food pursuit. Not only is the price-tag for most of these foods<br />
ridiculously exorbitant, another overarching problem most seem<br />
to forget is the taxing issues it can cause for the developing<br />
countries that are producing and exporting these foods to our<br />
shores.<br />
This current trend of achieving optimal health and<br />
tossing processed foods out of our diets is great. Hopefully by<br />
the time we’re all old, we are dementia and wrinkle free, look like<br />
we’re 35 and ride our motorcycles, while cooling off with a Mojito<br />
in our retirement village apartments. Yet this is all a Western<br />
pursuit that is ‘trendy’ at the moment. So at what cost are we<br />
profiting off extracting staple foods and importing them from<br />
developing nations?<br />
Deakin University Lecturer Michael Vagg argues in a<br />
2014 report titled ‘Superfoods’ another battleground between<br />
marketing and common sense’ that our own pursuit for perfect<br />
health and fitting-in is damaging the livelihood and sustainability<br />
of many communities in developing countries. He states that<br />
‘it certainly doesn’t make ethical sense for healthy consumers<br />
in affluent countries to poach the staple crops from those who<br />
actually need them’. So how exactly could the radical increase<br />
in popularity of particular foods be causing grief for farmers and<br />
communities?<br />
Let’s use good ol’ quinoa (or kin-no-ah as some prefer to call<br />
it) as an example. Quinoa is considered to be a pseudocereal -<br />
not really a cereal, not really a seed; it’s been feeling pretty left<br />
out for a while. It has been harvested and consumed in South<br />
America, specifically Peru and Bolivia for thousands of years. Up<br />
until a few years ago, its existence was pretty much non-existent<br />
to a lot of Westerners. It wasn’t until it was discovered to be<br />
gluten-free and a high source of protein that it finally emerged<br />
out of the dry soil and started to immerse itself into cafes and<br />
health food stores across the Western world. Since then, quinoa<br />
has been on the way up, even having the UN appoint 2013 ‘The<br />
Year of Quinoa’. It was in that same honorary year that The<br />
Guardian UK reported that retail prices of quinoa had risen a<br />
staggering 600% since 2000.<br />
The increase in demand for quinoa has been anything but<br />
minute. From 20,000 tonnes a year in the 1980’s to what is now<br />
approximately 100,000 tonnes a year, Peru and Bolivia have had<br />
to make way for the high demand. And it isn’t only us having<br />
to pay for the huge spike in demand and cost. Government<br />
officials and heads of quinoa collectives have spoken out against
39<br />
“Not only is the price-tag for most of these foods ridiculously<br />
exorbitant, another overarching problem most seem to forget is<br />
the taxing issues it can cause for the developing countries that are<br />
producing and exporting these foods to our shores.”<br />
the pseudocereal’s popularity stating that it is making it more<br />
expensive and difficult to obtain for those who actually grow it.<br />
Because of this, head of the La Paz quinoa farming collective,<br />
Daysi Munoz, said in 2013 that “as the price has risen, quinoa is<br />
consumed less and less in Bolivia.”<br />
Yet here at home, people will continue to pay, no<br />
matter the high price. At Coles, where the prices are meant to<br />
be ‘down down down’, a 500g packet of quinoa sells for $8.50 in<br />
comparison to its fellow gluten-free, ‘true grain’ counterpart, rice,<br />
which sells for $1.80 for a 1kg of long grain rice. Yes, rice has been<br />
eaten in greater quantities for longer than quinoa in Australia,<br />
but it still seems that if a trendy new food is touted around<br />
enough, the price is often nearly irrelevant to trend-abiding<br />
consumers who will purchase it regardless.<br />
Despite the disagreement some may have towards the<br />
superfoods movement, on the other side of the spectrum there<br />
are others telling everyone to calm down. University of Toronto<br />
professor Pierre Desrochers argues that increased interest<br />
in these foods may not necessarily adversely affect farmers<br />
and the community. Instead, promoting these foods as being<br />
globally accessible may actually improve rather than hinder<br />
their standard of living. He further contends that, “the culprit of<br />
hunger is often bad local politics, not other people wanting to<br />
buy your food.”<br />
Other experts have noted that what is happening is a<br />
perfectly normal food evolution, with foods such as potatoes,<br />
corn and wine having previously transitioned at some point in<br />
time from ‘exotic’ to becoming a staple in the Western diet. And<br />
while it appears we could essentially be robbing producers and<br />
consumers overseas of their staple foods, some agree that it<br />
is integrating more diverse and foreign foods into the diets of<br />
developing countries, such as pasta and rice.<br />
The rollercoaster that is this movement doesn’t appear<br />
to be slowing down anytime soon. Going into most cafes across<br />
Melbourne usually results in seeing foods like quinoa, goji berries<br />
and kale on the menu. Acai berries, a berry with a high amount<br />
of antioxidants were hardly known before they emerged out of<br />
Brazil around 10 years ago and in the last few years have had<br />
a huge following. According to Time Magazine, coconut water<br />
exports out of the Philippines were up 300% in the first 3 months<br />
of 2012. Some have expressed similar worry regrading quinoa,<br />
that as demand goes up and prices follow suite that the profit for<br />
coconut farmers won’t equal the costs to produce.<br />
So what happens when the kale isn’t so much greener<br />
on the other side, when people realise that quinoa looks like a<br />
strange transparent version of caviar and goji berries - which<br />
happen to be strangely addictive -are just like shrivelled up red<br />
sultanas? It’s hard to predict what will happen when the next<br />
‘it’ food swoops in and the same cycle of demand and supply is<br />
meant to occur. Yet if the market for a particular food suddenly<br />
shrinks, what sort of further consequences can we expect and<br />
how long can the agricultural industry keep up with our trends<br />
and bids for ‘perfect health’?<br />
So while we may take delight in eating our beetroot<br />
quinoa salad with flaxseed, just remember that people have<br />
been eating all these funky foods for thousands of years. So<br />
really, perhaps those quinoa-growers and eaters in Peru or the<br />
goji berry farmers in China are the true hipsters and we’re all just<br />
Western carbon copy wannabes.
40<br />
Celebrity, media power<br />
and Kim Kardashian<br />
BY EMILY NEILSEN<br />
“Did you hear about how Kim Kardashian broke the internet with<br />
a nude photo of her huge butt?” That is the first thing my friend<br />
said to me when I saw her most recently. While I was willing to<br />
discuss Kim’s butt size at the time I really don’t give a damn<br />
about the girl. The internet has since been repaired since her<br />
infamous photo-shoot earlier this year but her media presence is<br />
unwavering.<br />
After reading Graham Turner’s Understanding Celebrity<br />
for class last year, I went on a discovery to see if I could find out<br />
how media power plays a part in the concept of celebrity. Many<br />
celebrities exist because they fit into a particular ‘media narrative’<br />
and not necessarily for their talents, if they have any at all. Take<br />
Corey Delaney for example. He was all over the media back in<br />
2008 when he had an out of control house party, Project X style.<br />
The media narrative he fit into was that of the typical teenage boy<br />
who doesn’t care about misbehaving and the consequences.<br />
Academics have studied the concept of being a<br />
‘talentless’ celebrity, saying they are intentionally fabricated to<br />
satisfy our exaggerated expectations of human greatness. So,<br />
while these celebrities are seemingly talentless, the constant<br />
media coverage makes their lives become part of our lives. Soon<br />
enough, we start following what they do and where they go as if it<br />
is the most fascinating thing on earth.<br />
Yet, sometimes it is. Thanks to the invention of<br />
television and photography, we can see celebrities going<br />
about their everyday lives. Professor Andy Ruddock of Monash<br />
University states in his journal Youth and Media that “Celebrity is<br />
also the product of media industries that rely on ordinary people<br />
and places for content”. This means that for the audience, we see<br />
that these celebrities are actually just ordinary people like us and<br />
we develop a connection with them.<br />
Ruddock also made the argument that these reality<br />
effects are what provide us with the ideas and stories that we<br />
use to make sense of the world and ourselves. It is also how a<br />
participatory culture is created between the youth and celebrity.<br />
By following media output, but also by assuring that the celebrity<br />
stays in the spotlight, we are validating our existence through<br />
the media. Every time you take a photo in front of a celebrity’s<br />
house or with the celebrity themselves, you are contributing and<br />
engaging with the life of the celebrity that the media is portraying.<br />
This attraction is where an imagined intimacy occurs. Younger<br />
people draw out similarities between their lives, which forms a<br />
greater attraction to the celebrity, also relating to fandom.<br />
These days, there’s even more ways to participate in<br />
the celebrity culture and contribute to media power. Social media<br />
platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat mean<br />
we can share photos and videos quickly in any part of the world.<br />
Celebrity only survives because of the broad spectrum of these<br />
modes of consumption.<br />
Now, let’s talk about Kim Kardashian. She’s the perfect<br />
example because she is famous just for being famous. One could<br />
argue that, in fact, before she became famous she was already<br />
starting a fashion business with her sisters. But I’m going to stop<br />
you right there Kimmy K fans. She isn’t a celebrity because of<br />
these successes. Her father was a celebrity long before she was,<br />
who managed to create a career out of the media by staying in the<br />
spotlight. Her successes are completely overshadowed by the way<br />
the media represents her as a celebrity and not as a successful<br />
business woman. However, her beauty and fashion lines became<br />
successful because of her audience who are connecting with<br />
this representation and use her products as a way to develop a<br />
connection with her.<br />
The reality show of her family The Kardashians shows<br />
her glamorous life, but most importantly it also shows the<br />
ordinary, every day parts including normal family dramas. This<br />
disguises the fact that only those who fit into established media<br />
narratives can become a celebrity. Body image is something<br />
that is criticized in the media frequently and that young people<br />
have various issues with. By showing her curvaceous body on the<br />
pages, a wider demographic of young girls who, like Kim, have<br />
different bodies to the typical models and actresses that cover<br />
the pages are drawn to her. By seeing this different figure, women<br />
respect her more for it and develop a connection with her.<br />
Advancement of new technologies is working in favour<br />
of these celebrities and young people are aiding in making media<br />
power stronger. It also shows that the media is reliant not only<br />
on audience participation but also the idea that anyone can be a<br />
celebrity. Anyone, like you.<br />
“Every time you take<br />
a photo in front of a<br />
celebrity’s house or with<br />
the celebrity themselves,<br />
you are contributing and<br />
engaging with the life<br />
of the celebrity that the<br />
media is portraying.”
41<br />
Monash music<br />
BY LAUREN ARNETT<br />
Call me biased, but most kids whose hearts are in the music<br />
are good to the core. They care. They have discipline. They are<br />
enthusiastic and are continually striving for a divinity that is<br />
practically unattainable. That is the beautiful and terrifying thing<br />
about music – the sky is the limit!<br />
The Music Faculty is a humble one – a relatively small<br />
musical community where people flock to practice for hours,<br />
collaborate in chamber music or small ensembles, or just hang<br />
out in the Den sipping coffee in between Ear Training and Jazz<br />
Arranging. What I love about the Music faculty is the sense<br />
of connectedness. Because you rely on each other for group<br />
collaboration and ensemble work, you gradually get to know The<br />
Piano Kids, The Brass Guys, The Classical Voice Students, Those<br />
Pesky Clarinets, the Creative Music Technology whizzes and the<br />
innovative composers, to name a few! You can catch the string<br />
players of the Faculty and musicians from the broader university<br />
in the Monash Academy Orchestra, which is a semi-professional<br />
orchestra playing classical repertoire at our very own Robert<br />
Blackwood Hall. Rehearsal periods are in short bursts, but are<br />
intense and rigorous. Their concerts are to a very high standard,<br />
and best of all, they are free for Monash students. Make the most<br />
of this opportunity – their concert highlights for the year include<br />
Brahms 4, Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No 1 and Beethoven<br />
9! This orchestra is open by audition to any Monash Clayton<br />
student, so even those outside the music faculty can have a go.<br />
We in the music faculty are very excited to announce<br />
that we have lodged an application to start our own Music society<br />
with C&S. Over the last few years, we have enviously watched<br />
the Law Ball, Science Society social events and Mess Camps take<br />
place, and we were baffled as to why there was not a space for<br />
us to be social outside of the Performing Arts foyer too! Some<br />
of the society’s aims will be to promote social and professional<br />
connections between students, to provide study aid and to<br />
support first year students. We cannot wait for the society to get<br />
off the ground! Watch this space!<br />
If serious orchestras are not your style, other musical<br />
outlets such as the Monash Philharmonic Society, Monash<br />
Big Band and Monash University Choral Society are highly<br />
recommended. All three of these clubs allow you to continue<br />
where you left your instrument in Year 12, or to gain performance<br />
experience in a fun and relaxed environment. I caution that the<br />
jazz bands are auditioned, so you might want to brush up on your<br />
instrument if you haven’t played since your mum was picking you<br />
and your double bass up from after-school jazz band; all those<br />
years ago.<br />
As a music student, the general reaction that I get<br />
when I tell people what I study is one of delight and interest.<br />
The beauty of music is that it is a universal language. As a sonic<br />
medium, we can enjoy music in so many forms. Often the people<br />
I converse with begin to reminisce about when they played an<br />
instrument, and they fondly remember how they reached Grade<br />
5 and then stopped. Often there is an irritating stigma directed<br />
towards Music and Arts students that is something along the<br />
lines of studying simply for the sake of studying. The career<br />
options at the end of your time at university are slightly vaguer<br />
than Law, Business or Engineering. Contrary to popular belief,<br />
however, musicians have dozens of career opportunities such<br />
as becoming professional performers, teachers, Foley Artists,<br />
sound technicians, DJ’s, Performing Arts Centre personnel, sound<br />
samplers, musicologists, conductors and composers.<br />
Whether you are a frustrated high school<br />
instrumentalist or an inner virtuoso yet to discover your musical<br />
powers, I would greatly encourage you to get involved in music in<br />
and around the University community. If you consider yourself an<br />
aspiring musician, join the Facebook page ‘Musos from Monash’<br />
to find friends, jobs, gigs and advice. In the bowels of the Campus<br />
Centre you will find practice rooms (and possibly a gateway to<br />
the Chamber of Secrets or a closet to Narnia), so why not wheel<br />
your cello to uni and have a bit of a play down there someday?<br />
The walls echo, so you will sound amazing by default. Unlike the<br />
weekly booking sheets in the School of Music, the Campus Centre<br />
rooms operate on a first in, best dressed basis so if you want a<br />
room, get in quick. I also give you permission to kick out those<br />
members of the community who use the rooms for activities<br />
other than music. Because after all, what happens in the practice<br />
room...stays in the practice room.
Monash Bikeshare<br />
fun - healthy - convenient - sustainable - affordable - flexible<br />
Available to everyone at Monash<br />
Become a member and use a bike to get around<br />
campus, travel to the train station, grab a coffee, or<br />
ride just for fun! For more information, membership<br />
options, and to register, visit:<br />
monashbikeshare.com<br />
fernwoodfitness.com.au<br />
facebook.com/fernwoodfitness<br />
Monash Student Association<br />
Student Rights<br />
When things go wrong...<br />
Level 1, Campus Centre<br />
(Next to MSA Reception)<br />
21 Chancellors Walk<br />
msa.monash.edu/studentrights<br />
• Unit Failure (Exclusion)<br />
• Discipline<br />
• Grievance<br />
• Special Consideration<br />
...and you need to understand your options.
Sex<br />
Articles by Betty Woodville, Rhyss<br />
Wyllie, Karen Freilich, and Anonymous<br />
ILLUSTRATION BY JULIA PILLAI
44<br />
Tales from the Cunnilinguist<br />
Learning the<br />
Kamasutra<br />
Note: The sexual positions descrived in this piece refer to<br />
heterosexual couples. Unfortunately, the Kamasutra itself<br />
refers to hetersexual couples. Time for a re-write?<br />
I have always thought of the Kamasutra as that book that everyone in the 60s went mad over; which<br />
inspired all that crazy porn in 70s; which then became a punchline in the 80s; and by now has evolved<br />
into something that cultists, shamans and other new-agers cling to as a remnant of ancient<br />
sexual literature. It was written as a guidebook to a life of virtue and grace in love, family life<br />
and sex. Considering there are chapters called ‘acquiring a wife’, ‘treatment of other<br />
men’s wives’ and ‘duties and privileges of the wife’, I found myself skipping over<br />
the stuff about virtue and hunting for the only thing that remains relevant<br />
to a feminist nymph like me: the sex positions. It’s time to see if the<br />
Kamasutra is as crazy as mainstream culture presents it to<br />
be, and if I could attempt them with anything<br />
resembling ‘grace’.<br />
C O N T E N T W A R N<br />
I N G : T H I S P I E C E C O N TA I N S<br />
E X P L I C I T D E S C R<br />
I P T I O N S O F<br />
S E X<br />
A C T S<br />
BY BETTY WOODVILLE
45<br />
Foreplay<br />
As with any ritual, the Kamasutra considers foreplay a<br />
preparation of the body: absolutely necessary and an act of<br />
respect to one’s self and one’s partner. From applying lipstick<br />
to lube, any act that makes you feel sexy and you know will<br />
enhance your sexual experience is an act of foreplay. Aside from<br />
mental preparation, there is also the physical. There is a massive<br />
focus in the Kamasutra on the erogenous zones and playing with<br />
non-penetrative sex in order to ready the body (particularly the<br />
female body) for penetrative sex. Breasts, thighs, butt cheeks,<br />
nipples: do what it takes to bring her to orgasm now rather than<br />
later. Spanking is described in detail, and is encouraged to be<br />
reciprocal, possibly due to the balance of harmony the text wants<br />
to create. I was more impressed with how normal this all seemed<br />
to me than shocked by any content: the neckkissing, earlobenibbling,<br />
booty-grabbing and body spanking behaviour seems<br />
perfectly pedestrian - nothing I am a stranger to. I flick through<br />
the text more, trying to find something to shock me.<br />
Receiver-on-Top<br />
I tried every one of these and loved them and I would describe<br />
each and every one but there isn’t enough space in the whole of<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> for me to do each and every one justice. Instead, I’ll<br />
talk about my favourite. Funnily enough, I discovered this one<br />
not during my ‘research’ for this article, but after a toga party in<br />
firstyear. After a six-pack and a joint and a half, I went home with<br />
my boyfriend and took a massive nap, woke up in the middle<br />
of the night and we went to town on each other. The best thing<br />
about sobering up after drinking is that you know exactly what<br />
you’re doing but you’re just drunk enough not to care how gross<br />
it might look. This isn’t a position that will imbue anyone with<br />
‘grace’: Tuck your feet into the crevice of his hips, squat down<br />
onto him, rest your hands (or hand) on his thighs and ride with<br />
spirit. This is not a position to try and be cute about. This is a<br />
real animalistic kind of position that will make you ferociously<br />
sweat and grunt and want to cover your mirrors. Though<br />
honestly, after one try, you will stop caring.<br />
Giver-on-Top<br />
With heaps of stuff about ‘lift your legs up and rest them on his<br />
shoulders’ and ‘increase the pressure’, I got very bored. This is<br />
material I have been working since my first sexual experience<br />
- instinctively. Give me something more impressive than<br />
missionary-but-with-my-ankles-by-my-head. But then I found<br />
it. With the knees and thighs pressed together, and both legs<br />
propped over his shoulder, we did something very impressive<br />
indeed. Prime access to the G-spot, easy boob-grabbing and easy<br />
clitoral [self] stimulation, I was having multiples for minutes and<br />
minutes on end: I definitely found a new usual.<br />
From Behind<br />
The best one the Kamasutra could offer me works well on a<br />
table or on a couch, depending on how tall you are and how<br />
high it sits. I am bent over from the hips, with something to rest<br />
my entire torso on (my bed is high so I used that, but the dining<br />
room table is just as high), and part my legs to shoulder-width;<br />
the results were astounding. The stretch in my legs created<br />
heaps of muscular tension; pressure we all know is created<br />
when we bend over; and the freedom with which my boyfriend<br />
could thrust combined to create a fuck that was very powerful,<br />
very satisfying and guaranteed to please both of you within a<br />
minute or two. Of course if you get bored of that, you are both in<br />
prime position to switch it up for some oral, and there’s always<br />
something lovely about being turned around, laid down and<br />
eaten out before you even know what’s going on.<br />
Afterplay<br />
Penile multiple orgasms are not only possible, but encouraged.<br />
Why stop at one, anyway? I know it takes a lot out of them, but<br />
seriously, it can be done! I tried it. They have to want it, and they<br />
have to work with you, but it is definitely possible. Take a break<br />
afterwards, let them get their breath back, and start using your<br />
hands ever so gently on the frenulum and the shaft. Plenty of<br />
communication is key here to make sure there isn’t anything<br />
incredibly painful happening, but once you break through that<br />
post-orgasm wall together, you can start again and go at it ‘til<br />
dawn.<br />
Afterthought: From this entire expedition I can report that there<br />
is nothing graceful about the Kamasutra. It is primal, it will return<br />
you to your most animal, mammalian state. The idea that we<br />
ever thought it was ‘crazy’ and ‘complex’ is frankly laughable<br />
when we get down to just how simple it all is: prolong the<br />
pleasure for as long as possible.
46<br />
From patriarchy to<br />
gaytriarchy<br />
The misogyny of gay men<br />
BY RHYSS WYLIE<br />
Growing up a gay male in rural Victoria I experienced my<br />
fair share of pain and legitimately thought I was the most<br />
oppressed person around.<br />
Fortunately for me I had a great support network of<br />
women, which seems to be common to gay men around the<br />
world. What is also common to gay men is the subtle and<br />
inherent misogyny of us towards women, which we often<br />
don’t see. Our privilege as cisgender men blinds us to the way<br />
that we utilise women for our own personal gain or mental<br />
health.<br />
I was socialised from a young age to demonise the feminine<br />
in myself and therefore in others. Growing up in a masculine<br />
culture does its best to ensure that gay men hate themselves<br />
growing up, or more specifically hate the femme in them.<br />
It is hardly a radical idea then that we internalise this<br />
misogyny and utilise women as currency for favour with<br />
straight, masculine men? I loved being the ‘gatekeeper’ of<br />
my female friends at school – it allowed me to compete with<br />
straight men. But all this really did was involve me in a game of<br />
ownership over my friends.<br />
That’s fucked.<br />
Internalised femmephobia in the gay community isn’t just<br />
directed at women, but at anyone who doesn’t fit an idealised<br />
concept of what a gay man should be. A quick glance at<br />
Grindr or Tinder will leave you with a smorgasbord of “no<br />
femmes” and “str8 acting” (a completely vile phrase, I might<br />
add) for you to access, but only if you’re masculine too.<br />
We are taught to hate the femme in ourselves and this<br />
reinforces a toxic gay ideology that still values masculinity<br />
over femininity. We can easily become a caricature of the<br />
worst of straight men, as the narrative is dominated by those<br />
on top (pun intended).<br />
The number of gay men that I have met who have serious<br />
problems with giving head or ‘being a bottom’ is painful.<br />
They can’t bring themselves to be submissive or passive,<br />
which reflects this femmephobia; their desire to insulate<br />
themselves and their masculinity from the disempowering<br />
effect of loving other men is distressingly obvious.<br />
Touching women’s bodies without their consent is<br />
something that so many gay men are guilty of. We feel we<br />
have an entitlement to this because we aren’t sexually<br />
attracted to women.<br />
This is bullshit.<br />
It reflects and inherent misogyny that reinforces<br />
“Internalised<br />
femmephobia in<br />
the gay community<br />
isn’t just directed at<br />
women, but at anyone<br />
who doesn’t fit an<br />
idealised concept of<br />
what a gay man<br />
should be.”<br />
female disempowerment and, by extension, our empowerment.<br />
We want to touch and have opinions of women’s bodies to utilize<br />
as masculine currency – if we can get away with things that straight<br />
men can’t then that makes us better than them, right?<br />
This extends to the tired cliché of our entitlement to judge<br />
and comment on female bodies as impartial, expert third parties.<br />
We feel our objectification of women is innocent, but it elevates us<br />
to a position of gatekeeper once again. Our opinions and voices are<br />
valued over female ones.<br />
A strong criticism leveled at the gay male community is their<br />
neglect of lesbian and queer women’s needs within the gay rights<br />
movement. While gay activists are up in arms over Chick Fil-A’s<br />
‘biblical values’ or any bakery that refuses to make a gay wedding<br />
cake, we are noticeably absent when it comes to IVF access, equal<br />
pay, abortion rights and the gendered stereotypes that we need<br />
to challenge. The prevalence of these issues makes it difficult for<br />
queer women to maintain active and productive involvement in<br />
the movement.<br />
To work towards a more just world for both ourselves and<br />
for women, we can’t keep subscribing to patriarchal ideals that<br />
suppress femininity. We have to acknowledge that just because<br />
we are oppressed, we cannot ignore other oppressions.<br />
It’s time to get real.
47<br />
Content warning: Descriptions of<br />
medical examinations and procedures<br />
The<br />
Wondering<br />
Uterus<br />
BY KAREN FREILICH<br />
How do I know if I have an STI?<br />
Is it likely that I will actually get<br />
one, and if so, which ones do I<br />
need to check for?<br />
- JAMES<br />
Most people who have an STI have no idea that they have<br />
one. Most are silent and asymptomatic, leading to a false<br />
sense of security! Some may present with discharge,<br />
itching, warts or pain. STIs are common amongst all age<br />
groups, and even more common amongst 15-29 year olds.<br />
In Australia, the most frequently reported STI is chlamydia,<br />
with up to 1 in 20 young Australians currently affected. Each<br />
STI can lead to different consequences down the track. For<br />
example, untreated chlamydia can cause pelvic inflammatory<br />
disease (PID) and can lead to infertility. Testing for STIs<br />
is usually free and incredibly easy, and chlamydia (the most<br />
common bacterial STI) can be tested simply by peeing in<br />
a cup. Some STIs may also require a swab (oral, vaginal or<br />
anal, depending how you sex), a simple physical examination,<br />
and some may require a blood test. Treatment varies<br />
between STIs. For chlamydia, treatment is usually one day<br />
of antibiotics only. Super straight-forward!<br />
It’s recommended to get regular checks once<br />
you start being sexually active and every time you have a<br />
new partner (preferably before being sexually active with<br />
a new partner!). As you’ve probably heard a million times,<br />
the only thing that can prevent STIs are condoms. There is<br />
quite a range of condoms and (water-based!) lubricants out<br />
there to suit individual needs, and it may be worth testing a<br />
few out to see what works for you. If you’re thinking about<br />
stopping condom use with a new partner, it’s worth both (or<br />
all) of you heading down to your local clinic to get a check.<br />
If you do have an STI, your doctor or local clinic<br />
can speak to you about the best way of informing past or<br />
current partners, and some anonymous services may be<br />
available. And finally, don’t hesitate to have the slightly<br />
awkward conversation and ask your new partner if they’ve<br />
been tested, or about using a condom.<br />
Someone was saying that a pap<br />
smear is a type of STI check.<br />
Whaaat?<br />
- STEPH<br />
Great question! Pap smears check for changes to the cells<br />
in the cervix (the ‘doorway’ in between the vagina and the<br />
uterus), which may indicate a greater risk of cervical cancer.<br />
These pre-cancerous and cancerous changes to the<br />
cervix are usually caused by the Human Papilloma Virus<br />
(HPV), which is actually a viral STI. Fifty years ago, cervical<br />
cancer due to HPV was one of the leading causes of death<br />
in women from cancer, but now thanks to pap smears<br />
- which can detect early pre-cancerous changes - it has<br />
dropped to the 13th most likely cause of female cancer<br />
mortality. The confusion regarding the link between STI<br />
and pap smears seems to have been a relatively clever<br />
marketing tool to avoid reference of ‘STI’ with the words<br />
‘pap smear’, or ‘Gardasil’ as a means to avoid the stigma<br />
associated with getting checked. The Gardasil vaccine is<br />
excellent in helping prevent HPV transmission (and men,<br />
go and get one too), but like anything is not 100% effective<br />
and so make sure to get a regular pap! As they say, it’s<br />
just slight discomfort for a lot of peace of mind.<br />
I’ve heard about using Mooncups<br />
for preiods, but apparently they<br />
are really messy. What do I need<br />
to know about them?<br />
- ISABELLA<br />
The Mooncup is a re-useable silicone menstrual cup<br />
which is used as an alternative to pads and tampons and<br />
marketed as being eco-friendly, safe, ethical, and cost-effective<br />
as they can last up to 10 years. They are usually<br />
Bell shaped and are placed inside the vagina below the<br />
cervix (the roof of the vagina) and collect menstrual blood<br />
over 8 hours. Many women find the Mooncup to be very<br />
comfortable and don’t usually feel it at all whilst wearing<br />
it. They are not thought to be associated with causing<br />
infection, though some women have found that they<br />
may aggravate UTIs. So, is it messy? It shouldn’t be, but it<br />
does take practice to get used to using the cup effectively.<br />
When taking out the cup, take it out slowly and try not<br />
to tilt it on an angle. If there is leakage, it may mean that<br />
it wasn’t inserted properly, or the size of the cup may be<br />
wrong. For a slightly more entertaining explanation, check<br />
out Tampon vs Mooncup Rap Battle on Youtube.
48<br />
Tricking<br />
BY ANONYMOUS<br />
I’m the last person in the world you’d expect to see in a porn film.<br />
Male, mid 20’s hipster student: for all intents and purposes, the<br />
definition of Melbourne normal. The path leading to my decision<br />
to appear in porn is tangled and complete happenstance. I saw an<br />
ad on Facebook looking for male talent for solo shoots. The person<br />
posting the ad, Julia*, is an Australian feminist pornographer in her<br />
40s, who later told me she has been working in the industry for the<br />
last ten years. It’s very much a grass roots industry, she told me; kind<br />
of an underground scene. At the time I was in a mountain of debt and<br />
getting paid to wank didn’t seem like such a bad idea. I sent her a<br />
message.<br />
To my surprise she promptly responded and told me<br />
the studio had accepted me. The content would be produced<br />
for a new German website and I would be required to perform a<br />
filmed interview that she would conduct. I would then undress and<br />
masturbate before camera to climax on her couch. I agreed to those<br />
conditions and we set up a date.<br />
I’d decided not to tell my friends what I was about to do, as<br />
I wanted to have the experience then measure whether or not it was<br />
worthy of my narrative. You have to control what you tell people. It’s<br />
important to have a consistent image and this was definitely an out of<br />
character venture I was about to embark on.<br />
Once outside Julia’s apartment the nerves set in. I pace up<br />
and down on the street five times before summoning the courage to<br />
send her a message to let her know I’m outside. I can’t quite believe<br />
that I am standing only minutes away from entering the world of porn.<br />
I hadn’t even clearly formulated a decision about whether or not this<br />
was something I should go through with, but I’d come too far to wimp<br />
out.<br />
Julia’s apartment was neat and stylish, nothing about her<br />
apartment or character screamed riches. She made every effort to<br />
make me feel comfortable, like this was an everyday thing; like the<br />
whole world does it and it’s simply matter of fact. Her psychology<br />
was effective; it made me feel at ease. It was very different to the<br />
stereotype of a pornographer’s relationship with a performer, which is<br />
seen to be exclusively, inherently exploitative.<br />
The nature of control is never more challenging than in the<br />
context of sexual experiences.<br />
I sat down on the couch, she issued me a release form,<br />
got me to show my ID, photographed it for her records, then ensured<br />
that I was totally cool with what I was about to do and aware of the<br />
consequences.<br />
There was a stack of 50 dollar bills on the table, just to let<br />
me know that once I gave the money shot I’d have dollars to show for<br />
it in my pockets. Julia positioned me on a chair before her camera, a<br />
consumer DSLR. There were two lights either side of me. This is where<br />
the interview would happen.<br />
‘Have you ever been in porn before? When did you first<br />
start masturbating?’ Questions pulled straight from the script of<br />
casting couch porn, which I’m all too familiar with. I tried to speak but<br />
my mind couldn’t work in harmony with my mouth. I felt out of body<br />
as the words poured out, like it wasn’t me speaking the gibberish<br />
I was being asked to deliver. What the fuck am I talking about? I<br />
thought. Julia noticed something was out of place.<br />
‘Would you like to sit somewhere else? Do you feel<br />
uncomfortable in this set-up?’ Yes. So I moved to the couch. She asked<br />
if I wanted something to drink. I was gagging for one. She poured me<br />
a scotch and almost immediately things started to feel better. The<br />
camera took aim and this time I could answer the questions naturally,<br />
uninhibited.<br />
I noticed I was talking to her like she was a friend. My
49<br />
“I guess I’m not as<br />
progressive as I thought.”<br />
mind tried to hide the fact that she was a pornographer and I was her<br />
subject. The questions become a little less predictable.<br />
‘What would your advice be for someone going on a first<br />
date?’<br />
‘Have some drinks beforehand. You need to loosen up. Be<br />
in a position to act like you don’t give a fuck. But I wouldn’t throw my<br />
advice to anyone. The sort of advice I give isn’t healthy.’<br />
‘Do you have any fantasies?’<br />
‘Nothing too outlandish. The fantasies I have are about<br />
things I want to achieve in real life. I don’t see the point in fantasizing<br />
about shit I couldn’t do. I mean it just seems fucking stupid.’<br />
‘What sort of porn do you like?’<br />
‘I like amateur porn with women I can realistically imagine<br />
being with. I’m not into the fake tits, Hollywood Barbie Doll bullshit.’<br />
After downing another scotch she led me through what<br />
I was expected to do. I had to unbutton my shirt, slowly. Let it fall<br />
to the ground. Fuck it felt ridiculous doing that in front of a camera.<br />
I’ve never been able to gracefully take off my clothes. Then I had to<br />
remove my belt, unzip my pants and lie down on the couch in my<br />
pants. Then start touching myself.<br />
‘You’re doing really good, would you like some porn to look<br />
at?’<br />
‘Yeah.’ I needed something. It was fucking difficult trying<br />
to get an erection in front of a complete stranger who had no sexual<br />
relationship with me beyond the lens of her voyeuristic camera. She<br />
put her laptop down on the table and told me to take my time finding<br />
a porn clip that would make me aroused. Didn’t take long. I selected<br />
a clip then resumed my pathetic attempt at masturbating. I’m not<br />
an exhibitionist by nature. The clip of a woman fingering herself was<br />
working and I tugged off in front of Julia as she walked around me,<br />
filming with the DSLR in hand, getting a variety of angles to work with<br />
in the edit. I guess she was big on the mise-en-scène.<br />
After about fifteen minutes with no money shot, she asked<br />
if I needed a break and suggested it might be better for her to give<br />
me some privacy. Fuck yes it would be better. I got some more scotch<br />
and went back to work pulling off. Wanking in front of a camera on a<br />
tripod in a stranger’s apartment for a measly four hundred dollars is<br />
an experience that definitely makes you question your choices in life.<br />
I could hear the sound of the neighbours coming and going<br />
through their front door just across the hall. This made me slow down<br />
- I didn’t want them to have to hear the sound of one lubricated hand<br />
clapping.<br />
I wondered if this might sound like home to them. Surely<br />
they would have heard many sounds of a far more exhilarating sexual<br />
nature emerging from this apartment. I had to focus. I thought of the<br />
money. Then I thought of the woman in the porn clip and her pussy.<br />
Imagined myself there in the clip, next to her, fucking her. I had to<br />
disengage from the present situation to strike the right mood. My<br />
mind stuck to this and I climaxed. I cleaned up the mess and quickly<br />
dressed, hit by a sudden wave of Catholic-like guilt and shame. I<br />
guess I’m not as progressive as I thought.<br />
I sat on the couch in silence for a few minutes collecting my<br />
hazy thoughts before Julia opened the door to see how things were<br />
going. ‘Oh, you’re done. Are you usually this quiet?’ She was startled.<br />
‘It’s funny,’ she said, ‘I find men are far more quiet than women, who<br />
can be very noisy… you should’ve told me you were about to come.<br />
We normally get a shot of your load on your tummy.’ Thank God I’d<br />
been spared this indignity. I feigned ignorance about the correct<br />
procedure.<br />
She replayed the footage to herself to inspect the moment<br />
of climax, to ensure it was an audiencefriendly moment. She was<br />
happy with the result. I must be a natural. I pocketed the cash.<br />
I walked back onto the street like nothing untoward<br />
had happened, but I had a big secret I was trying to make sense of.<br />
When I think back on the whole affair, I’m struck by how completely<br />
unspectacular it all felt. There was nothing too scary for me. Julia<br />
wasn’t a complete weirdo. All things considered it was a pretty<br />
smooth ride. Maybe I was lucky but it dispelled any notion I had about<br />
porn being a difficult industry to enter into. I’m exactly the same<br />
person I was before I met<br />
Julia.<br />
Only difference is I’m in a soon to be released porn film.<br />
* NAMES AND AGES HAVE BEEN CHANGED
50<br />
Exciting new stereotypes for<br />
My Kitchen Rules<br />
BY RHYSS WYLLIE<br />
Channel 7 has announced that 2016’s My Kitchen<br />
Rules will include ‘more stereotypes than even<br />
a thermomix can handle’, as they build on the<br />
successful utilisation of every gendered trope they<br />
could find in the Herald Sun’s opinion pages.<br />
My Kitchen Rules is inarguably the best<br />
show on television. One producer put its popularity<br />
down to the seamless editing that made the<br />
audience feel at home.<br />
‘We try to make our viewers - especially<br />
our male ones - as comfortable as possible by<br />
not missing an opportunity to remind everyone<br />
that women are bitchy and often forget to put<br />
the requisite berries in their raspberry swirl<br />
cheesecakes. The incompetence that we manage<br />
to portray through selective editing is such an<br />
accomplishment, almost as great as Pete’s tan’.<br />
My Kitchen Rules has been criticised for<br />
selectively editing footage to produce villains each<br />
season, however one producer told Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> that<br />
this was ‘Masterchef’s fault. If they didn’t have more<br />
competent cooks than we do then we wouldn’t<br />
have to sensationalise things. Channel 10 are<br />
literally forcing us to destroy people because none<br />
of our lot can cook for shit.’<br />
Each year My Kitchen Rules picks a<br />
couple of young women to be victimised and<br />
edited to appear as the villains. When asked about<br />
the rampant bullying and hospitalisation of one<br />
of last year’s villains due to exhaustion and stress,<br />
Channel 7 told us that, ‘if the contestants can’t take<br />
the heat they should get out of the kitchen’, before<br />
chuckling, turning into a wasp and flying away.<br />
In the latest season of My Kitchen Rules,<br />
Channel 7 has gone to great lengths to victimise<br />
promo models Katie and Nikki as the ‘bitchy girls’.<br />
‘Splicing footage together to make it appear as<br />
though all they talk about is boys, girls and how<br />
pretty they are hopefully inspires young girls as<br />
much as it does us,’ a producer told us.<br />
‘Some of the contestants are pretty<br />
selfish and really can’t see the bigger picture in<br />
terms of what brings in ad revenue for us. Then<br />
there are guys like Mark who make our job so much<br />
easier - we didn’t even have to ask him to be a<br />
shameless dickhead who takes up too much space.’<br />
Recently it was revealed that Mark -<br />
the loud, patronising, chauvinistic piece of shit<br />
tennis coach - has neglected to pay child support<br />
payments of $36,000. Unfortunately this is not<br />
satire.<br />
Channel 7 are proud that their<br />
mistreatment of contestants is ‘not just confined to<br />
denigrating women…we’ve also done the lesbians’.<br />
‘Last year we made an executive decision<br />
to not let the lesbian couple Carly & Tresne be “out”<br />
on the show.’ Instead of lovers, they were depicted<br />
as best mates. Naturally, Channel 7 continued, ‘we<br />
just wanted to make sure they weren’t victimised by<br />
the public or other contestants because at the end<br />
of the day that’s our job.’<br />
Indeed it is.
Write lots?<br />
Write Lot’s!<br />
Lot’s <strong>Wife</strong> is a student-run publication, written<br />
by people just like you.<br />
If you’re a writer, artist, cartoonist, illustrator,<br />
or just a plain-old narcissist, we want to<br />
publish you!<br />
(First timers welcome)<br />
Drop by the Lot’s Office on the 1st floor of<br />
Campus Center, or send an email to:<br />
msa-lotswife@monash.edu
52<br />
Peer Support offers one-on-one sessions with trained facilitators to help<br />
improve English language in assignments.<br />
Bring your assignments along and get feedback on areas to<br />
improve English language skills<br />
Facilitators will provide you with tips and resources to improve<br />
your English language skills<br />
No appointment needed, just come along<br />
The Program will run throughout the semester, in the John<br />
Medley Library (Campus Centre) on the following days:<br />
TUESDAY<br />
WEDNESDAY<br />
THURSDAY<br />
11am – 2pm<br />
11am – 2pm<br />
11am – 2pm<br />
msa.monash.edu/peersupport