Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Wallace, Associate Professor, 50/50 By 2030 Foundation, Faculty of Business Government & Law, University of Canberra

Australian Cabinet papers from 2000, released today, reflect a relatively quiescent Australia where Islamic militancy and offshore detention were barely glimpses on the horizon, and climate science denialism was not a factor in cabinet considerations at all.

It was the year before the “year that changed everything”: 2001, when Al-Qaeda attacked the United States on September 11, and the Howard government created its “Pacific Solution” asylum-seeker deterrent. They would both become prisms through which Australian politics would be refracted for many years to come.

In contrast, in 2000, John Howard (prime minister 1996-2007) later mused, “we had no conception of the challenges which would engulf the world in the next few years”.

The government’s concerns half-way through its second term, with a 14-seat majority, were overwhelmingly domestic. The approach to global issues mostly prioritised local implications over international obligations.

Minchin throws a stick in the wheel of an ETS

On climate change, the papers reveal a working consensus among cabinet ministers, with one exception, that an emissions trading scheme (ETS) was not only a possible but a likely route by which Australia would eventually fulfil its international environmental obligations.

The market-based nature and sectoral neutrality of an ETS made it the quality choice, cabinet submissions and departmental co-ordination comments make clear. The papers show early work being done on an ETS within the government.

Industry and Resources Minister Nick Minchin stood out against the ETS consensus. Advocating a massive expansion of the gas industry, Minchin pushed for compensation for carbon-intensive industries so large and across so many sectors that it would have massively blunted an ETS’s impact. This drew sharp adverse comments from across the key departments.

Treasurer Peter Costello and his department supported expansion of the gas industry, but drew the line at Minchin’s proposed emasculation of a future ETS. Costello would unsuccessfully bring an ETS proposal to cabinet three years later, in 2003. Howard announced one in the lead-up the 2007 election.

So the 2000 papers contain foundational documents at the heart of this policy arc. They show Minchin as central in swerving cabinet from its consensus ETS support in 2000, to hostility by the time he helped install Tony Abbott as Liberal opposition leader in 2009.

Read more: Bushfires won’t change climate policy overnight. But Morrison can shift the Coalition without losing face

The GST takes flight

Costello’s implementation of the goods and services tax (GST) was the centre of heavy cabinet deliberations ahead of its implementation on July 1 2000.

It was the culmination of a textbook exercise in conceiving, publicly advocating for and then successfully implementing a major, complex public policy – an object lesson for governments today.

It begs the question whether, had the Coalition won the 2007 election, an ETS might now be an unremarked-upon aspect of public finance in Australia too, just like the once controversial GST.

Rural and regional Australia was a major focus, with cabinet submissions generally including rural impact statements.

Howard benefited from a congenial relationship with the National Party leader and deputy prime minister, John Anderson.

Anderson was the best-educated Nationals leader since Earle Page. He was aligned with the National Farmers Federation (NFF) push for market-oriented policy over the old Country Party “deal-making” policy style, to which the Nationals later reverted.

Howard could count on Anderson’s support in cabinet. In exchange, Anderson ran a massive infrastructure program bringing concrete benefits to the bush and regions and kept its voters welded to the Coalition.

Read more: Cabinet papers 1998-99: how the GST became unstoppable

On many issues, little has changed in 20 years

Women are barely mentioned in the papers and were almost non-existent in Howard government decision-making. There was only one woman in the 17 strong cabinet: the family and community services minister, Senator Jocelyn Newman.

In the outer ministry, the aged care minister, Bronwyn Bishop, came under pressure when it emerged residents at Riverside Home in Melbourne were being subjected to kerosene baths, with lethal consequences. Problems in other aged care homes quickly emerged.

Bishop’s cabinet submission in the wake of the crisis trumpeted the government’s Aged Care Act 1997 as “the basis for a sound and sustainable aged care system” and “the most significant change for the industry in its history”.

There was no need to restore nursing ratios, she argued. A “return to ratios would return the industry to detailed input regulation and reduce its efficiency” the submission, which cabinet backed, said.

Indigenous Australians are little mentioned other than in relation to workforce disadvantage and the Northern Territory’s move to mandatory detention for minors.

Cabinet supported only a fraction of the assistance requested by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs Minister John Herron to address deep and worsening Indigenous unemployment.

The government decided not to override the NT government’s mandatory detention move. Instead, it asked Attorney-General Daryl Williams to write to his NT counterpart about its concerns. A week later, cabinet was outraged when it found a United Nations committee investigating potential human rights breaches in Australia against Indigenous citizens, without consultation.

What the 2000 cabinet papers reveal concerning the growing issue of unauthorised boat arrivals in Australia, and in particular the “deterrent” approach Immigration and Multicultural Affairs Minister Philip Ruddock recommended, and cabinet adopted, is historically significant.

They show a government under increasing pressure and moving quickly down a particular path. Departmental comments show this rang increasingly loud alarm bells in the major departments, even as they broadly supported the “deterrent” approach.

There are, and likely always will be, different opinions about the deterrent strategy, and public discussion usually turns on the binary question of whether it was right or wrong.

The 2000 papers are important, not least because they open up critical additional questions, even for its supporters, about whether this strategy could have been implemented differently and better.

Anglosphere politics had begun to make a particular kind of shift to the right, and the Howard government was in the vanguard. It was still relatively early days in that shift, as the fact the government had a cabinet position that included “multicultural affairs” in its title attests.

To put this shift into international context, media mogul Rupert Murdoch would not appoint Roger Ailes CEO of his Fox News channel in the United States until the following year.

Australia’s insurgency of explicitly nativist politics was marked by the arrival in Canberra in 1996 of One Nation’s Pauline Hanson as the member for Oxley. Internationally, this wave may have peaked in the election of another nativist redhead, US President Donald Trump, 20 years later.

The fierce conduct of the “history wars” in Australia from the 1990s, the prominent role of conservative think tanks in it, and the early challenge and ongoing political consequences of unauthorised boat arrivals in Australia – which has only relatively recently emerged as an issue in Europe – make Australia an early example of a phenomenon that shifted mainstream conservative politics to a distinctly different place from that occupied before.

In 2000, elements of it were evident but not yet fully activated. The following year, from September 11, they would be supercharged.

Read more: Pauline Hanson built a political career on white victimhood and brought far-right rhetoric to the mainstream

Chris Wallace is the official historian for the 2000-2001 cabinet papers release from the National Archives of Australia. You can read her full essay on the 2000 papers here.

– ref. Cabinet papers 2000: the Coalition before climate denialism, but on the path to offshore detention – https://theconversation.com/cabinet-papers-2000-the-coalition-before-climate-denialism-but-on-the-path-to-offshore-detention-151576

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christian Swann, Associate Professor in Psychology, Southern Cross University

It’s that time of year when many of us are setting goals for the year ahead. The most common New Year’s resolution – set by 59% of us – is to exercise more.

But our research suggests the way we typically set goals in exercise often doesn’t work. So, what should we do instead?

Our research interviewing elite athletes suggests one possibility is to set open goals instead.

Read more: Can trying to meet specific exercise goals put us off being active altogether?

Specific goals can actually put us off

Generally we’re advised to set specific, or SMART, goals (where SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timebound). Aiming to walk 10,000 steps per day is a common example.

This advice is typically based on goal-setting theory from the 1990s. However, that theory has now evolved, with research now suggesting specific goals in some cases can actually put us off.

One problem is specific goals are all-or-nothing: you either achieve the goal or you fail.

That’s why you might feel you’ve failed after “only” recording 9,000 steps when your goal was 10,000. In reality, 9,000 steps might actually be an achievement (especially on a busy day) — but because you didn’t reach your specific target, it can feel disappointing.

When you stop making progress towards your goal, or start to feel like you’re failing, it’s easy to give up — just like many of us do with New Year’s resolutions.

Used incorrectly, specific goals even cause unethical behaviour (like using devices to artificially increase our step counts and benefit from lower insurance premiums!).

One alternative is to set what’s known as an open goal.

What are open goals?

Open goals are non-specific and exploratory, often phrased as aiming to “see how well I can do”. For example, professional golfers in one study described performing at their best when aiming to “see how many under par I can get”.

When colleagues and I interviewed elite athletes about exceptional performances, a Mount Everest climber described how:

I was just thinking, ‘Oh I’ll just see how it goes and take it as it comes.’ I climbed higher and higher and the climb had got more and more engrossing and difficult and all-encompassing really […] until I discovered that I’d climbed like 40 metres without consciously knowing what I was doing.

Open goals don’t just work for elite athletes – they work well in exercise too. One study found insufficiently active people performed better (in this study that meant they walked further) when pursuing open goals than they did with SMART goals.

The fitness industry is already starting to use open goals. For example, the Les Mills fitness brand now recommends open goals (“to see how active you can be”), and the Apple Watch now incorporates open goals as a workout option.

Psychological benefits of open goals

Open goals aren’t just good for performance — they’re also much more psychologically beneficial than SMART goals.

Indeed, the elite athletes who first reported open goals described how they were an important part of experiencing flow – the enjoyable, rewarding state when everything just seems to click into place and we perform well without even needing to think about it.

Follow-up studies found open goals – compared to SMART goals — make walking more enjoyable, make people more confident and make them feel they performed better. That boosts motivation and suggests open goals can help people stick with exercise routines longer.

One participant said open goals “took away the trauma of failing”.

Why do open goals work differently to SMART goals?

There’s another important difference between open and SMART goals. When you set a SMART goal, you’re identifying something in the future you want to achieve (“I want to be able to walk 10,000 steps every day”).

So pursuing SMART goals is about reducing the gap between where you are now and where you want to get to – you’re always lagging behind where you want to be. That can make it feel like your progress is slow, and slow progress doesn’t feel good.

When you set an open goal, your focus is on your starting point. If your goal is to “see how many steps I can reach today”, then as your step count rises, it will feel like you’re making progress. You may start to think, “Oh, I’m already on 2,000 steps… Now it’s 3,000 steps… Let’s see how many I can get to.”

Rather than comparing against where you should be, you’re constantly building on your starting point.

That makes the process much more positive – and the more positive we feel during exercise, the more we’ll want to do it again and again.

To set your own open goals, think first about what you want to improve (for example “being more active”). Then identify what you want to measure, such as your daily average step count.

Phrase your goal in an open-ended, exploratory way: “I want to see how high I can get my average daily step count by the end of the year.”

And then get started! With an open goal, you’re more likely to see progress, enjoy the experience, and stick with it until you’re ready to set — and achieve — more specific goals.

– ref. Want to exercise more? Try setting an open goal for your New Year’s resolution – https://theconversation.com/want-to-exercise-more-try-setting-an-open-goal-for-your-new-years-resolution-149172

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Lee, Research assistant, The University of Queensland

So you’re one of the 21% of Australians who got sunburnt last weekend.

While we should be avoiding sunburn, it’s sometimes easier said than done in the Australian sun.

What can you do once you realise you’re turning into a temporary lobster?

First, the bad news

Once you’re sunburnt, you can’t undo the damage to your DNA and skin structures, and you can’t speed up skin healing. You can only treat the symptoms.

Sunburn is a radiation burn caused by too much exposure to ultraviolet (UV) rays, causing extensive damage to the DNA in your skin. When your skin’s DNA monitoring and repair system judges there’s too much damage to fix, it flags the cells for destruction and calls in the immune system to finish the job.

The immune cells and extra fluid squeezing into the skin cause the swelling, redness, heat and pain we know as sunburn. Blisters develop when whole sheets of cells die and lift away, and fluid fills in the space below. Later, dry peeling results when large sheets of dead cells peel off to make way for fresh ones.

Read more: Explainer: what happens to your skin when you get sunburnt?

However, while your skin does its thing, you can manage the symptoms and make yourself more comfortable.

Step 1: Prevent further damage and assess your burn

First, get out of the sun until the redness and pain have subsided, even if this takes several days. The full effects of a sunburn can take up to three days to develop, and further UV exposure will only compound the damage.

Next, assess whether to seek medical help. Severe cases can involve second-degree burns, which disrupt the lower layer of skin, the dermis, and stop the skin from regulating fluid loss effectively. If you have a second-degree burn across a large area of you body, complications can include electrolyte imbalances due to large amounts of fluid loss, or shock, also due to extreme fluid loss. Secondary infections are also possible since the upper layer of skin is no longer acting as a tough barrier to germs. You should definitely see a doctor if you:

• have large areas of blistered skin, especially on the face

• have severe swelling

• can’t manage the pain with over-the-counter painkillers

• experience fevers, chills, nausea, dizziness or confusion.

Blistered sunburn in children needs immediate attention from your GP.

Step 2: Ease the suffering

As with a thermal burn, water is your friend. Drink plenty to correct any dehydration from being in the sun too long and replenish the fluid being drawn into your skin. Cool baths, showers or damp cloths ease the sensation of heat and can be used as often as you like throughout the day. Avoid putting ice on a sunburn, as this can make matters worse by causing intense vasoconstriction, where blood vessels narrow sharply and cut off local blood supply to already damaged skin.

Moisturising lotions can also help soothe by keeping moisture in, but avoid skin-numbing creams unless prescribed by your doctor. Any water-based moisturiser should do, including aloe vera gel.

Despite its popularity as a home remedy, there’s surprisingly little research on aloe vera for sunburn specifically. There’s promising data for its use in wound healing, but many studies investigated aloe extracts taken orally, rather than gel on the skin. In any case, a commercial aloe vera gel won’t do you any harm if you find it soothing. However, gel straight from the plant in your garden comes with a risk of soil-borne infections in skin that’s already damaged (warning: gruesome pictures in that link).

Over-the-counter painkillers like ibuprofen or paracetamol can take the sting out of your sunburn and help you rest more comfortably. If your skin is very itchy, try an antihistamine. US guidelines also often suggest low-dose (0.5-1%) hydrocortisone cream; there’s not much evidence for its effectiveness, but it also won’t hurt you to try it for a few days.

If you have blisters, try not to pop them as that exposes the damaged skin underneath to infection; cover them up with a wound dressing if you’re tempted.

While none of these remedies will fix the damage in the way antibiotics fix an infection, they will make you more comfortable while your skin gets on with healing itself.

Read more: Monday’s medical myth: we’re not getting enough sun

Step 3: Make a plan

While you’re stuck inside, pinpoint how you got burnt and how you might prevent it next time. Most sunburn happens when you did not expect to be outdoors for long, or when you thought sunburn was unlikely because the weather was cool, windy or cloudy. UV radiation is still present in these conditions, but you don’t have the benefit of feeling hot to remind you to get out of the sun.

Here are a few familiar scenarios:

• got burnt when you unexpectedly had to park 10 minutes’ walk away? Apply sunscreen as part of your daily routine whenever the UV index will be 3 or over. This will protect you from these sneaky sunburns and also from sub-sunburn levels of UV damage. Don’t worry — there’s no evidence wearing sunscreen every day will make you vitamin D deficient or cause a toxic build-up of chemicals in your body

• arrived at the cricket and realised you left your hat or sunscreen at home? Many venues offer free sunscreen, so ask at the check-in or the health and safety officer

• coming in from the beach, garden or bike ride just a bit too late? Sunscreen won’t protect you all day, so make sun-protective clothes part of your regular attire — a rashie, long-sleeved shirt, or UV-protective armguards and leggings

• got to the park BBQ when all the shady spots were taken? Arrange your next outing to avoid the most UV-intense middle of the day. The SunSmart app or Bureau of Meteorology weather report will tell you the UV forecast and when you need sun protection

• forgot to reapply sunscreen? Set an alarm on your phone next time to remind you.

The more you practise this kind of thinking, the easier it will become.

– ref. How to treat sunburn pain, according to skin experts – https://theconversation.com/how-to-treat-sunburn-pain-according-to-skin-experts-150070

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Norman Day, Lecturer in Architecture, Practice and Design, Swinburne University of Technology

Throughout the world architects are designing green buildings, whether it’s in their sustainable construction, environmentally friendly operation or actually green by style.

It’s broadly titled biophilia, connecting people with nature, and it can lead to some creative and innovative designs.

But now we are finding that literally greening the world — by covering building walls and roofs with vegetation — can also come with some unexpected problems.

Read more: Greening our grey cities: here’s how green roofs and walls can flourish in Australia

A bug’s high life

In the Chinese city of Chengdu, a vast green experimental housing estate of 826 apartments was constructed where people can live in a vertical forest with every open space and balcony containing live vegetation.

Trouble is they must share the plants with a scourge of mosquitoes and other bugs. Most apartments in the Qiyi City Forest Gardens development were sold by April 2020, but six months later only a handful of families had reportedly moved in.

The towers were built in 2018 and plants were provided to reduce noise and clean up pollution. But the plants thrived, while sales moved slowly, and no one was clipping the greenery to keep it in control.

Read more: Unbuilding cities as high-rises reach their use-by date

Now mostly empty balconies have cascading branches of plants overtaking space, blocking windows.

It might not help that Chengdu and its population of 16.3 million people are located in Sichuan, central China, which is humid and semi-tropical, a perfect environment for fast-breeding mossies.

But a slow uptake, with tenants slow to move in, made the problem worse as the plants subsumed their buildings.

Some vertical vegetation living success

Other green projects across the globe have avoided this particular problem, so far.

Milan’s Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest) was designed by Stefano Boeri and botanist Laura Gatti.

They reportedly spent long hours selecting suitable vegetation, a variety of 800 trees, 5,000 shrubs and 15,000 plants, which would suit their location and the Milanese climate.

Read more: Australian cities are lagging behind in greening up their buildings

Their plan was to improve air quality in the city via the green facades, and residents have embraced the concept, which appears to be where Qiyi City Forest has gone wrong.

In Chengdu, maintenance and care of the plantings is almost non-existent, so no truly symbiotic relationship between accommodation and human occupier has formed as part of biophilic living. As is nature’s way, the non-human occupiers (the bugs) are winning.

Gardens need a gardener

US landscape architect Daryl Beyers, from the New York Botanical Garden, says the Chengdu setup didn’t work partly as a result of bad design.

In Chengdu’s humid climate and clammy monsoons, stagnant water collects in planters which are not properly drained, and mosquitoes breed in these.

Beyers adds:

They [the developers] didn’t think about the maintenance […] You can’t have a garden without a gardener.

They were touting it as a manicured garden outside on your deck. If it’s manicured, someone has to do the manicuring.

The idea of fully manicured vegetation on balconies only works if the plants are cared for regularly. Apparently, gardeners attend Qiyi City just four times a year to maintain the plants, but they require weekly care.

Sydney’s green space on the up

One Central Park apartments in Sydney, by French architect Jean Nouvel, takes on a green mantle with plants covering most of its walls and balconies.

French botanist Patrick Blanc selected the plants on the building for their capacity for healthy growth and suitability to the Sydney habitat.

By using acacias (wattles) and poa (grasses) on upper levels and goodenia (hop bush) and viola (native violet) lower down, the vegetation is attuned to its place and growing successfully.

More than 1,100 square metres of walls support many species of plants, most of them native to Sydney. They are at home with the local climate and seasons. The plants can withstand hot, dry and windy Australian summers and have survived since 2014.

How to green your buildings

Green buildings are necessary for the environment. We need to redress the loss of our natural resources and their benefits, and green buildings can do that by adopting appropriate design, energy efficiencies, renewable materials and green technologies.

Read more: A third of our waste comes from buildings. This one’s designed for reuse and cuts emissions by 88%

Central Park’s success could be emulated at Chengdu, by tracing back the original design intent and adopting a workable maintenance and management plan.

The lessons from both projects indicate that proper planning and appropriate selection of vegetation, which is then fed and watered by applicable technology, will yield a proficient green building.

People feel comfort living with nature, and a vertical garden gives those in high-rise towers a chance to share that comfort. But with the benefits come responsibilities.

The clue here is that a faithfully biophilic building must be appropriate for use. That means appropriate in terms of the place, natural resources, local climate and the people who must manage and occupy the natural surroundings.

– ref. Green buildings can bring fresh air to design, but they can also bring pests – https://theconversation.com/green-buildings-can-bring-fresh-air-to-design-but-they-can-also-bring-pests-147838

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Pickles, Professor of History, University of Canterbury

What’s with those jandals, hokey pokey ice-creams, buzzy bees, Swanndris and gumboots? Far from being random and unrelated objects, these icons of so-called Kiwiana tell a story of late 20th-century nostalgia at a moment of rapid social transformation.

Definitions of Kiwiana vary and the term is widely applied to objects, expressions and pastimes that evoke a sense of national identity. But, as sociologist Claudia Bell has argued, it’s an identity where Pākehā culture is dominant.

When including Indigenous content, Kiwiana has occupied a largely aesthetic and apolitical place. The focus has been on flora and fauna, such as the kiwi itself, the silver fern, koru and pāua shell. Māori incorporation within Kiwiana involves myth-making, traditional costumes and objects such as kete, poi and tiki.

In the 2020s, then, Kiwiana is arguably no longer fit for purpose in a diverse, decolonising nation. Yet these relic symbols persist, part of art and culture in schools and still selling products.

Comfort in times of anxiety

When Britain joined the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973, New Zealand lost its major trading partner and status as “Britain’s farm”. Global oil shocks dealt a further blow, ending the post-war economic “golden weather”. Decolonisation spread from the economy to the social, cultural and political worlds.

As author Richard Wolfe put it, Kiwiana objects emerged as “reminders of who we are”, which served as anchors in a world of change. It was sentimental and looked backwards, nestled in nostalgia.

Read more: How the Australian Women’s Weekly spoke to ’50s housewives about the Cold War

This all happened in the context of a wider popular “heritage moment” in the late 20th century. The British historian Raphael Samuel said these “historical fictions” were affectionately conjured up, often in reaction to change, with Americana, Canadiana and Australiana all part of the same phenomenon.

In the 1980s, however, economic deregulation meant cheap imports began to flood the local market. Iconic brands were subject to buyouts and takeovers, fuelling nostalgia for a post-war rural idyll.

Symbols out of time

In a sense, Kiwiana was about evoking the uniformity of a post-war closed economy. The farmed bounty of the land, in particular from the traditional meat and dairy industries, was the mainstay of New Zealand’s economy.

Comforting Kiwiana clothing revived a settler farming and rural mythology, such as the Swanndri, a New Zealand-made woollen bush shirt popular in the 1950s and ’60s with rugged outdoor men including farmers, deer cullers and timber workers.

Read more: Born to be wild — revelling in the design and desire of the motorcycle

Along with lamb chops and full-cream milk, nothing captured this quite as much as the breakfast cereal Weetbix. According to legend, Weetbix fuelled Edmund Hillary in his successful ascent of Mount Everest in 1953. By the 1980s it had captured an estimated 40% of the breakfast cereal market.

Similarly, Tip Top commanded the domestic ice-cream market. Its hokey pokey flavour, a local adaptation involving toffee nuggets in vanilla, became popular in the post-war years. From the 1980s it qualified as Kiwiana, promoted as an example of Kiwi ingenuity, originality and playfulness.

When local supermodel Rachel Hunter become the advertising face of Tip Top, she embodied the connections between the land, produce and consumption. Commercial interests were central in the construction of Kiwiana.

An expression of uniqueness

As cheap imports began to replace locally made objects, Kiwiana came to represent a strange kind of authenticity. The humble jandal is a case in point. Auckland businessman Morris Yock started making these “Japanese sandals” in his garage in 1957. Touted as an example of Kiwi ingenuity and adaptation, they were sucked up into the Kiwiana vortex.

The buzzy bee re-emerged in response to the plethora of plastic toys from overseas. Manufactured from 1948 by the Ramsey brothers, the local variation of the wooden pull-along toy was lodged in the infant memories of baby boomers.

Read more: Confronting colonial legacies in London’s ‘Little India’

Objects such as the buzzy bee and Crown Lynn crockery became valued for their manufactured localness — a response, as Claudia Bell put it, to “the risk of annihilation of difference through the impacts of globalisation”.

In the late 20th century, trade with China, Australia, the United States and Japan had overtaken Britain, and tourism had become a major industry. Ironically, kitsch Kiwiana souvenirs made overseas filled a new demand for symbols of an invented national story of Kiwi culture.

Meanwhile, massive social, socioeconomic and political change was challenging the post-war Kiwi consensus. Race and gender relations were shifting. The Waitangi Tribunal’s powers were extended in 1985 and te reo Māori became an official language in 1987. Homosexuality was decriminalised in 1986, paving the way for civil unions and same-sex marriage in the early 21st century.

The past isn’t what it used to be

Post-war family values gave way to a greater acceptance of divorce, blended families, and solo and gay parenting. Traditional Kiwiana was effectively out of step in this new world.

At the same time, migration from Asia and the Pacific was creating an ethnically diverse population with no cultural memory of Kiwiana or its origins in the fuzzy sameness of a New Zealand that no longer existed. The professional transformation of the once predominantly rural and amateur “national game” of rugby embodied the shift.

Read more: Friday essay: the singlet — a short history of an Australian icon

And yet, Kiwiana has been carried along in the visual, digital age by a wave of marketing and souvenir commerce. The symbols may have been past their expiry date, but there was still profit to be made in Kiwiana.

It might even be that Kiwiana filled a void left by the decline of religion and its icons in an increasingly secular age. As a kind of national symbolism it is broad, accepting and appealing.

But a closer examination reveals a narrow and nostalgic set of symbols that mirrored colonial settler narratives at a time of economic, social and cultural change. Comforting nostalgia on one level, it’s nonetheless the assertion of an imagined world that was fading away.

With international tourism paused for the time being, maybe now is the perfect opportunity to gently draw the curtains on our Kiwiana past and re-imagine the symbols of our national identity.

– ref. Kiwiana is past its use-by date. Is it time to re-imagine our symbols of national identity? – https://theconversation.com/kiwiana-is-past-its-use-by-date-is-it-time-to-re-imagine-our-symbols-of-national-identity-149967

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Warwick Smith, Research economist, University of Melbourne

Before the recession we were on a collision course with environmental disaster.

The recovery provides a rare opportunity to do things differently; to rebuild a better economy that can support living standards without irretrievably damaging the environment.

The closer we get to irreversible climate change, the harder that will become.

Doughnut economics, a concept principally developed by UK economist Kate Raworth, provides an intuitive way of thinking about it.

The ideas outlined in her book, subtitled Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist, are increasingly being used around the world, including by a new collaboration Regen Melbourne, that’s looking at ways to making Melbourne a better, more socially-just and environmentally-responsible city.

The image to keep in mind is that of a doughnut, on the inside of which is economic and social freefall.

We need a certain amount of economic and social/political development to ensure everybody can live a good, healthy life with full social and political participation.

On the outside of the doughnut is an unsustainable impact on the environment.

The sweet spot, the “safe and just space for humanity” is, of course, in the doughnut itself. Mmm… doughnuts.

Conceptually it’s pretty straightforward. Practically, it is challenging.

Economics is traditionally defined as the study of the way societies allocate scarce resources. But in the modern world the reality is that, for rich countries such as Australia, there is no overall scarcity.

The challenge is to remain within the doughnut

Such countries have homeless and hungry people, for sure. But the also have enough resources, homes and food to provide for them. That they don’t is a question of distribution rather than scarcity.

In terms of the diagram, we already use enough resources to ensure nobody need be left in the hole on the inside of the doughnut. The danger is that we use too many resources and move beyond the outer edge of the doughnut into climate and ecological breakdown.

Read more: Next phase of a pared-down JobKeeper will last until end of March

Here’s another diagram.

For quite some time amongst economists there’s been faith in what’s called the Environmental Kuznets Curve, where increasing consumption is said to lead to increased environmental degradation up to a point.

Beyond that point, as a society becomes post-industrial, extra consumption is said to lead to less environmental degradation as people become more environmentally conscious and use their wealth to buy different things – more services (such as yoga classes) and fewer goods (such as hamburgers).

While the Environmental Kuznets Curve does indeed appear to be real, there is every indication that the global peak in environmental impact is far higher than the biosphere can withstand, which means a diagram like this:

We will need to bring the peak down, and that will be difficult for precisely the same reasons that people remain poor amid extraordinary wealth.

One is the capacity of deep-pocketed interests to influence regulators and governments to maximise profits. The other is the extent to which neoliberal economic thinking permeates social and political structures.

The modern neoliberal thinking tells us the best outcomes are achieved when markets are “free” without government “interference”.

Read more: Carbon pricing works: the largest-ever study puts it beyond doubt

Government attempts to tax, fine or charge for environmental damage are portrayed as interference, rather than protecting the environment.

This is easy because each individual hectare of vegetation that’s cleared doesn’t, by itself, do much damage to the environment, just as each tonne of carbon dioxide that’s released doesn’t do much damage to the climate.

It’s possible to introduce a carbon price or a carbon tax, but its easy to lobby against. Australia’s lasted two years, and governments are frightened to have another go.

The pandemic has expanded what’s possible

The pandemic has shown us that it’s possible to overcome that fear.

Environmental campaigner George Monbiot points out that for 10 years the number of people living – and dying – on Britain’s streets had climbed year by year. There wasn’t enough money to house them.

Then suddenly when the pandemic hit, and they were seen as potential carriers, the money could be found.

He says for decades government and industry had claimed that people would never give up international holidays and business flights. When humanity’s future was seen to be on the line, they did.

It was possible to embrace shift to “private sufficiency and public luxury”.

This is a challenge not only to economics but also to individual economists.

For better or worse, our discipline has a lot of power in the modern world and our views carry disproportionate weight.

We need the best of our economic minds helping us to build frameworks that will keep us in the doughnut. The future of our species depends on it.

– ref. Stay in the doughnut, not the hole: how to get out of the crisis with both our economy and environment intact – https://theconversation.com/stay-in-the-doughnut-not-the-hole-how-to-get-out-of-the-crisis-with-both-our-economy-and-environment-intact-151917

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, President, Australian Association for Professional & Applied Ethics. Senior Research Fellow, Moral philosophy, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law, Law Futures Centre., Griffith University

2020 has been a challenging year. For some challenges, such as the coronavirus, a light is appearing at the end of the tunnel. But for others, the true consequences may be only beginning to appear.

This is perhaps no more true than in the assault on political legitimacy. In 2020, this was threatened by forces on opposite sides of politics: cancel culture on the left and conspiracy theories on the right.

Each poses a serious threat, as a collapse in political legitimacy means people think the normal rules don’t apply anymore, making the world a more difficult and even dangerous place for all of us.

What is political legitimacy?

What exactly is political legitimacy and why is it important?

Let’s start with a definition of legitimacy. Legitimacy, in this context, refers to whether we should accept a decision, rule or institution.

It doesn’t require wholehearted agreement. For example, we might think a workplace decision is misguided, but decide that as an employee we should go along with it anyway.

Political legitimacy refers to the legitimacy of laws and authorities in the eyes of the people. It allows rules and public institutions to function effectively.

We will never all agree on exactly what the law should be — particularly in pluralistic societies. However, we can all agree that democratic decision-making is an appropriate way to make laws.

Of course, legitimacy has limits. If a democracy votes to enslave an ethnic minority, this wouldn’t be acceptable. Legitimacy only works when the outcomes are tolerable.

Read more: To combat conspiracy theories teach critical thinking – and community values

The perils of cancel and call-out culture

The terms “cancel culture” and “call-out culture” — which became ubiquitous in 2020, particularly on the political left — refer to practices of shutting down, shaming or deterring those who are perceived to speak in offensive or harmful ways.

Examples abound, but one notable case occurred during the Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality in the US in May.

Political analyst David Shor tweeted a summary of a Black Princeton professor’s research about the historical impact of violent protests on Democratic voting. When called out for perceived anti-Blackness, Shor apologised, but was nevertheless fired.

Read more: Is cancel culture silencing open debate? There are risks to shutting down opinions we disagree with

More recently, employees at Penguin Random House in Canada lodged an official protest at the news that a sequel to Jordan Peterson’s bestseller, 12 Rules for Life, would be published. It echoed an earlier employee-led revolt against the publication of J.K. Rowling’s new children’s book.

Stifling and shutting down controversial voices, such as Peterson and Rowling, presents two challenges to political legitimacy.

First, it prevents inclusive dialogue. Those in the minority on any issue can no longer console themselves with the fact that at least they had the opportunity to say their piece and have their views considered. Instead, they are silenced and excluded.

Second, the idea that voters on the right have not just wrong, but harmful views poses a further threat to legitimacy.

Why should progressives respect democratic outcomes — such as the victories of Republican legislators in the 2020 US elections, or Trump’s win in 2016 — if these outcomes simply reflect what they perceive as the manifestly intolerable views of millions of conservative voters?

How conspiracy theories undermine democratic legitimacy

From the opposite side of politics comes another threat: conspiracy theories.

To be sure, conspiracies do occur, but they are usually confined to close-knit groups at single organisations that excel at secrecy (for example, intelligence agencies).

Many currently popular conspiracy theories require strikingly poor reasoning practices.

Even setting aside QAnon’s wacky beliefs, the idea peddled by outgoing President Donald Trump that the US election was stolen is far-fetched. No tangible evidence has been presented for this claim.

In fact, many of the institutions certifying the result were run by Republican officials, while Republican-appointed judges have thrown out many Trump campaign cases brought to court. And though Joe Biden won the presidential contest, Democrats had an unexpectedly poor showing in other races.

If Trump’s claim was true, such a conspiracy would have to be far-reaching (including both Republicans and Democrats) and powerful (leaving no evidence), while at the same time being stunningly incompetent (having forgotten to ensure Democratic victories in Congress).

Yet, this theory is extraordinarily popular, with the vast majority of the president’s 74 million voters believing fraud changed the election outcome.

Read more: Conspiracy theories may seem irrational – but they fulfill a basic human need

This impacts political legitimacy because a stubborn lack of respect for evidence undermines public deliberative practices. It is impossible to find points of agreement when large-scale conspiracies throw so much into question.

Conspiracies about election results also threaten democratic legitimacy. If everything is controlled by a sinister cabal, then elections are a farce.

Worse, if one’s political opponents are seen as utterly evil — for example, cannibalistic Satanic child traffickers — then not even authentic elections could legitimise their rule.

Striking similarities

So, both conspiracy thinking and cancel culture can challenge the legitimacy of democratic decision-making.

But this is not all they have in common. Both are longstanding practices whose recent rise has been fuelled by social media. Both are personally rewarding, as they allow believers to position themselves as manifestly superior to others (the “deplorables” or “sheeple”).

Both views are also “self-sealing” insofar as adherents shield themselves from contrary ideas and evidence (allowing groupthink to flourish).

Cancel culture advocates never need face uncomfortable critique because opponents can simply be cancelled or called out, derailing further discussion.

And conspiracy theorists can simply dismiss critique as part of the conspiracy, or based on falsities spread by the conspiracy.

What can be done?

Even in Australia, commentators have observed the woeful state of political deliberation and its impact on trust in institutions. In the wake of the Banking Royal Commission, for example, Commissioner Kenneth Haynes lamented

political rhetoric now resorts to the language of war, seeking to portray opposing views as presenting existential threats to society as we now know it.

Unfortunately, because these views are self-sealing, and because they attach to people’s chosen identities, there are no easy responses to them.

Still, these movements are not monolithic. Many from the left have spoken out against political intolerance, and some Republican officials in the US have stood up against Trump’s conspiracy theories.

Perhaps the best message as we enter a new year is to remain respectful and empathetic to others.

At a base level, keep in mind that others may have legitimate concerns: conspiracies do happen and everyone has limits to what they will tolerate.

Rather than reacting with anger or mockery, or directly challenging someone’s position, it’s often best to enquire carefully into their views.

And if you disagree with them, rather than aiming to change their mind, instead try to sow a few seeds of doubt that may lead to reasonable discussion and encourage later reflection.

– ref. Conspiracy theories on the right, cancel culture on the left: how political legitimacy came under threat in 2020 – https://theconversation.com/conspiracy-theories-on-the-right-cancel-culture-on-the-left-how-political-legitimacy-came-under-threat-in-2020-150844

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Olive, ARC DECRA Fellow, The University of Queensland

Summer is the season when we like to cool off with a plunge into water. For some it’s in the local or backyard swimming pool, but others prefer the salt water of the ocean.

Sometimes referred to as “wild swimming”, it is happening at many of the beaches, coves, bays or estuaries in Australia.

Read more: Why should my child take swimming lessons? And what do they need to know?

But wild swimming is not only good for our health, it can also be good for ocean and beach ecologies too.

A healthy ocean plunge

Annual competitive ocean swims, such as the Byron Bay Winter Whales and the Bondi to Bronte, are a mainstay of many Australian coastal towns and city suburbs. Daily and weekly recreational swimming groups are also well established at many of our beaches.

In European cultures, immersion in salt water has long been believed to be good for human health and seaside resorts there remain popular.

Ocean swimmers often wax lyrical about the health and wellbeing benefits they get from their regular ocean swims. And research from both the humanities and sciences backs up these claims.

It’s common to hear swimmers describe their troubles and anxieties washing away in the water. Like a daily cleansing, they emerge from their swim feeling energised, calm and ready to face their days.

Journalist and broadcaster Julia Baird has written about how her daily swims in Sydney inspire a sense of awe that shifts how she navigates other challenges in her life.

Other research talks about swimming as a process of “therapeutic accretion” whereby the pleasures of our regular short dips and longer swims in the ocean layer onto us and “build to develop a resilient wellbeing”.

In the UK, online movements such as #risefierce and Mental Health Swims promote regular swimming as a positive practice for our health and wellbeing.

Part of this is accepting that ocean conditions can change day to day. Some days are calm and clear, others are wild with waves and winds. If we want to swim, we have to learn to navigate the conditions we are dealt.

This capacity for decision-making in the face of challenge is helpful for a sense of confidence and resilience – something that has been clear during COVID-19 lockdowns around the world.

Encounters with the wild

For swimmers, the water offers other rewards.

Swimming, like other ocean sports like surfing and diving, is a way of immersing us in ecologies and bringing us into contact with animals, plants, weather, waves and rocks in a way that we cannot control.

We may encounter fish, birds, rays, turtles, cephalopods and other animals. All are reported to help with a sense of wellbeing. This highlights how we are part of these ecologies too.

The recent film My Octopus Teacher resonated with many people who swim and who regularly encounter the same animals.

Some swimmers even relate the effect of swimming to animals that live in oceans. In a study on swimming in the UK, one swimmer explained how they “went in like a cranky sea lion and came out like a smiling dolphin”.

Care for the oceans

Being part of an ecology means we have responsibilities too. In Australia, we need to take a lead from Indigenous Australian people to care for the sea country we swim in.

Ocean plastics, sewage and the antibiotics in agricultural run-off are a potential problem for our health as we swim in polluted oceans.

Our encounters with animals that live close to shore can impact their health too, so we need to remember to respect their space.

Many cultures are aware of the interconnections between people and the environments they live in. For example, Native Hawaiian and Māori researchers write about their links to oceans, and the Ama women in Japan connect with underwater soundscapes as they dive for abalone.

Read more: Swimming with whales: you must know the risks and when it’s best to keep your distance

In Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are deeply aware of the connections between the health of people and the land, sea and sky countries they live on.

People cannot be healthy if Country is not healthy, nor can Country be healthy if people are not.

And that’s why wild swimming could be good for ocean and beach ecologies too. The more we learn about the health and wellbeing impacts of ocean and coastal ecologies, the more we should feel invested in taking care of them.

Let’s swim together

The lack of control we have over conditions in ocean waters can be frightening, and the same encounters that thrill some people are terrifying for others.

Even for experienced swimmers, drowning is a very real risk. Between July 2019 and June 2020, 248 people drowned in Australia, with 125 of those coastal drowning deaths.

Read more: Shark nets are destructive and don’t keep you safe – let’s invest in lifeguards

For others their fear of shark attacks and encounters is enough to keep them out of ocean water.

So if you want to give the ocean a try this summer, many people find comfort and safety by wild swimming with others. This is reflected in the growth of swimming groups.

Websites such as oceanswims.com and Swim Sisters list ocean swimming groups and competition swims around Australia. It’s easy to find information through your local community too.

Swimming in the sea can be as simple as taking that first plunge in knee-deep water, or as challenging as an hours-long marathon along the coast. Whatever you prefer, take the time to enjoy being immersed in a watery world.

– ref. Why going for a swim in the ocean can be good for you, and for nature – https://theconversation.com/why-going-for-a-swim-in-the-ocean-can-be-good-for-you-and-for-nature-150281

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Mitchell Lee, PhD Candidate, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

Australia built a number of coastal defences to help protect the country from any enemy attack during the second world war. Now, almost 80 years later, some of the physical remnants of those historic facilities lie forgotten and decaying.

These monuments to the nation’s home defence are in desperate need of preservation. While their condition varies greatly, too many have faded into obscurity.

Read more: What happens now we’ve found the site of the lost Australian freighter SS Iron Crown, sunk in WWII

In defence of Wollongong

For example, if you take a drive through the city of Wollongong today you could be forgiven for thinking the city played no role in the war. There is little indication this city was once heavily defended against a much-feared Axis attack.

If you take a 15-minute drive south of the city centre you’ll find some remnants of the city’s home defences. The well-developed Port Kembla Heritage Park, with its cluster of tank traps and ruined gun instalments, alludes to the history of a city that was once extremely important to Australia’s war effort.

This site, known as Breakwater Battery, was the first, smallest and weakest of three interconnected strongpoints designed to defend the industry of the Illawarra region of New South Wales from attack.

But this raises the question: where are the other two stronger points of Wollongong’s defensive network?

Our hidden defences

These sites still exist but are hidden. If you head to the leafy suburb of Mount Saint Thomas or Hill 60 Park in Port Kembla, you will find the more impressive remnants of the city’s defences.

Mount Saint Thomas and Hill 60 Park once hosted the military centres of Fort Drummond and the Illowra Battery respectively.

Dug into the hillside in both locations are impressive concrete casemates that once housed powerful naval guns. Hundreds of men and huge amounts of Australia’s limited wartime resources were dedicated to building and staffing these sites in the wartime period from 1941-1942.

The Illowra Battery, sitting right on the coast, was designed to replace Breakwater Battery as the pivot of local defences. It was strengthened over time with barbed wire, radar and tunnels deep in the hillside.

In the case of Fort Drummond, the 9.2-inch coastal guns were originally slated to be installed in Darwin in the Northern Territory, but were diverted south to strengthen the defences of Wollongong.

The prioritisation of the defence of Wollongong over Darwin, which was bombed, shows just how important protecting this southern region was.

The three strong points were designed to operate in concert to defend the region from an attack on Australia’s manufacturing core.

The industrial Illawarra was an economic behemoth for wartime Australia, producing everything from bullets to aircraft parts. It exported the materials of war across the British Empire, as far away as England and Singapore, and alongside Newcastle (in NSW) was the heart of Australian industry.

Yet, despite their important role in the war, these monuments are now overgrown, slowly being reclaimed by nature.

Read more: Lest we forget our other heroes of war, fighting for freedom at home

Kept in the dark

In the 1960s and early 1970s, the dark tunnels of Fort Drummond were converted to mushroom farms, not military history attractions.

As for Hill 60, instead of being developed as a tourist attraction the place has appeared on lists of the most haunted places in the Illawarra.

Reports five years ago that Hill 60 would be redeveloped, opening the tunnels, adding signage and highlighting the area’s Aboriginal history, have come to nothing.

Such stories of neglect are repeated at other defence sites across Australia.

Significant sites in Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Newcastle are dilapidated and eroding.

Even in areas of historical significance to Australia, where the country’s colonial history has been well preserved, such as the Sydney suburb of La Perouse, the nearby second world war artillery battery sites and lookout posts are neglected.

Considering these sites are often in idyllic locations and — by necessity at the time they were built — boast impressive ocean views, it is odd their value, even as tourist sites, remains unrealised.

There are other sites across Australia that have received investment in preservation, such as Fort Lytton in Brisbane and Fort Scratchley in Newcastle. These are now tourist destinations.

Read more: The Cowra breakout: remembering and reflecting on Australia’s biggest prison escape 75 years on

With relatively small investments the neglected sites could be made more accessible. The public would then be able to learn and understand their history and significance.

Signposting, basic repairs and publicising these important relics of our wartime history would be easy first steps to revive public interest in these locations.

The educational and touristic values of Australia’s second world war defences are readily apparent. All they require is a little bit of attention after so many decades of neglect.

– ref. Left to ruin: we must preserve our forgotten wartime defences – https://theconversation.com/left-to-ruin-we-must-preserve-our-forgotten-wartime-defences-149435

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

The Deficit Myth: How to Build a Better Economy

Stephanie Kelton, Hachette Australia

No book prepared ahead of time better targeted the year in economics.

Just as governments including Australia’s were embracing debt (A$800 billion and counting) and creating money out of nowhere ($200 billion scheduled) came a treatise explaining that at times like these (actually, at any time when the resources of the economy aren’t fully employed) that’s entirely responsible.

Stephanie Kelton’s book has rightly been displayed on Alan Kohler’s desk, and Kohler himself has become a convert to modern monetary theory which the book outlines in the clearest of terms.

Kelton explains that in an economy such as Australia’s the purpose of tax isn’t to raise money but to slow spending, and something else: demanding the payment of tax in Australian dollars forces Australians to use them.

The example of teenagers not cleaning up around the house that she used in her talk at Adelaide University in January is priceless. You can watch the video here.

Economics in the Age of COVID-19

Joshua Gans, MIT Press

Written as we were coming to grips with what to do, and posted online chapter by chapter to get real-time feedback, the Australian author’s flash of inspiration was that we have experience in shutting down an economy and then restarting it.

We do it every Christmas writes Joshua Gans, and “no-one screams depression”.

That his way of seeing things now dominates talk about the pandemic doesn’t make it less radical. It’s partly because of his insights, published in April, that most governments no longer think that in this crisis they can trade off health against wealth.

He persuades by analogy. Fans of Mission Impossible II, the computer game Plague Inc and the came of chess will appreciate the references.

Radical Uncertainty

Mervyn King, John Kay, Hachette Australia

The idea that every possibility can be reduced to a number, to a probability, is what makes simple mathematical economics work. It’s what makes insurance and credit ratings and assessments of the risk of getting coronavirus work. And it’s wrong, as became clear in the devastation caused by the global financial crisis.

By itself, that’s not a particularly useful observation, but what is useful is the author’s discovery of where the idea that probability could be reduced to a simple number came from. The Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman shares much of the blame. He insisted that every uncertainty could be reduced a number that a rational utility-maximising human being could use to make decisions.

Before Friedman and contemporaries, there used to be two numbers, one representing risk, and the other representing uncertainty, which are quite different things and can’t be thrown together.

If you’re too busy for the book, try the London School of Economics podcast.

Fully Grown: Why A Stagnant Economy Is A Sign Of Success

Dietrich Vollrath, University of Chicago Press

Advanced economies may or may not roar out of the recession, but they are unlikely to boom as they did before. For decade after decade throughout the 1900s annual economic growth has been strong, averaging 2% per capita in the US.

In the first two decades of the 2000’s that growth has been weak, averaging 1% – only half of what it did.

Dietrich Vollrath, who blogs on growth and had no preconceptions, approached the puzzle as a mystery and found that the usual suspects (rising inequality, slower innovation, competition from China) didn’t explain enough.

The extra comes from success. The populations of the US and kindred nations have become so rich and (on average) old that having more children and striving for even higher incomes no longer makes sense.

The technical stuff is at the back. The message from the front is that we’ve arrived at our destination, which needn’t be a bad thing.

Economics in Two Lessons

John Quiggin, Princeton University Press

I’ve slipped this one in from 2019 for a reason. John Quiggin is about to publish a sequel, The Economic Consequences of the Pandemic.

Economics in One Lesson, published in 1946 financial journalist Henry Hazlitt, was a homage to the power of prices in a free market.

In lesson one (the first half of the book) Quiggin teases out Hazlitt’s thinking, and in lesson two shows how it follows from it that in many circumstances the market has to be contained.

Central to both lessons is opportunity cost, “what you give up in order to get something”, the most important concept in economics.

Polluters will make the wrong decisions if the cost of their pollution (largely borne by others) isn’t charged for. It’s a persuasive and increasingly-pressing argument.

– ref. (Economics) books to read over summer – https://theconversation.com/economics-books-to-read-over-summer-152088

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Siobhan McHugh, Honorary Associate Professor, Journalism, University of Wollongong

A friend listened to her first podcast last month – an investigative journalism narrative – and binged the whole series over a long Friday evening. Now she’s avid for more. It was a reminder that, despite the vaunted podcast boom, 70% of Australians surveyed last year still hadn’t listened to one.

So to get you started, here are some of the best to listen to on these long summer days.

I’ve avoided heavy true crime, and while audio fiction is on the rise, I’ve opted for mostly true stories because to me that’s what podcasting does best: taking us inside another person’s head and heart.

Scintillating and surprising, this series examines notions of morality, home, politics, inclusion and the American psyche, with classic country songs and brilliant production by Shima Oliaee and host Jad Abumrad.

Premised on the question “how did the queen of the boob joke become a feminist icon?”, the podcast interviews Parton to document her life story, alongside commentary from academics who parse pro-woman lyrics written by someone who despises the word “feminism”.

Parton defies pigeonholing. One story explored is her friendship with Abumrad’s father, Naji, a doctor at Vanderbilt University. They met when he treated her after a car accident, and the episode traces the unlikely connection between his Lebanese village and the two-room Appalachian cabin where she grew up.

From this friendship, last month it was revealed Parton had donated US$1 million (A$1.37 million) towards COVID-19 research at Vanderbilt.

Read more: And I will always love you: how marketers measure Dolly Parton’s magic

A quirky Kiwi take on the “I-was-scammed” genre, in Snowball, three brothers track down the Californian con-woman who made their parents homeless.

Host Ollie Wards’ wry, affectionate approach blends serious sleuthing with domestic detail – such as informing us of his father’s burning ambition to make it on to an episode of Dr Phil.

The most likeable family in podcast land.

A woman recounting her husband’s death from lung cancer doesn’t sound like standard holiday fare, but this is a precious, tender offering from veteran ABC Radio National producer Sophie Townsend and acclaimed UK producer Eleanor McDowall.

Townsend’s writing is achingly honest, moving from well-observed trivia of family life to the surreal horror of watching your partner die. McDowall has a real feel for personal storytelling and the production avoids mawkishness.

You will smile and cry.

A compelling British variation on the con artist genre started by Dirty John and given an Australian twist by Who The Hell is Hamish, this centres on a charismatic Bulgarian purveyor of bogus currency, Dr Ruja Ignatova.

Host Jamie Bartlett and producer Georgia Catt uncouple themselves from their BBC background to include podcasty, meta-stories about their process as they hunt Ignatova across Europe while the FBI close in.

A soaring Bulgarian choir adds class and the bonus episode provides a satisfying close-up of the elusive Ignatova.

The payoff doesn’t deliver, but the journey is so delicious you forgive host Patrick Radden Keefe.

Keefe is exploring a fascinating theory: that the CIA tried to gain “soft power” in the disintegrating Soviet Union of the early 1990s by writing the song “Wind of Change” for a popular German heavy metal band The Scorpions.

Throw in cocaine dealers, intelligence agents and former Panama dictator General Noriega and you’re still only halfway there.

Read more: Michelle Obama, podcast host: how podcasting became a multi-billion dollar industry

A strangely touching exploration by New York Times journalist Ellen Barry of a family caught in a time warp in the fallout of the India-Pakistan partition.

Barry comes across a man professing to be part of a displaced Muslim royal family, who lives in a crumbling palace in the jungle, in the middle of New Delhi.

The Jungle Prince is a study of Barry’s own obsessive urge to investigate, as she gets caught up with the tragic prince and heads to the UK to sort out an intertwined history of colonialism, sectarianism and madness.

A clever idea from the Metropolitan Opera and New York radio station WQXR, this podcast explores one famous aria each episode, featuring a celebrated opera singer and guests who relate to the opera’s theme.

A Song Exploder for opera, the podcast links compelling contemporary personal stories, whetting the appetite for the conclusion where the guest singer delivers the aria in full.

Aria Code is an engaging way to get acquainted with the canon, or a satisfying extension of the relevance of the aria for those already in the zone.

Resistance tells stories of black activism around the world in a warm, personal style.

In one episode, host Saidu Tejan-Thomas Jr introduces us to a 22-year-old black New Yorker who, in a few months, goes from attending his first street protest to deciding to run for city council.

In another, Tejan-Thomas tries to understand how the only black man in a mid-Western town hangs onto his “blackness” in such a cultural void.

A timely show that chimes with the #BlackLivesMatter movement.

An effortlessly seductive podcast in which a Great Writer selects a short story by another Great Writer, tells fiction editor Deborah Treisman why they like it — and reads it aloud.

Sometimes the pairing seems obvious: Margaret Atwood selects fellow Canadian Alice Munro; Dave Eggers picks another American former wunderkind Sam Shepard.

Sometimes it is more intriguing: Salman Rushdie goes for Italo Calvino; Orhan Pamuk for Jorge Luis Borges.

Apart from the sheer pleasure of having great stories read aloud, the podcast provides an intimate insight into writers’ literary passions.

Yes it’s been around since 2017, but this is the apotheosis of audio storytelling.

Set aside seven hours for this Southern Gothic ode to the mordant genius that is John B. McLemore, a disgruntled resident of “Shit-town”, Alabama.

Produced by the team who broke the internet with Serial, this is literary journalism for your ears. It starts a bit slowly, but episode two is a massive gut punch and it gets more and more mesmerising from there.

If Truman Capote had had a podcast, this would be it.

– ref. 10 summer podcasts perfect for strolls along the beach – https://theconversation.com/10-summer-podcasts-perfect-for-strolls-along-the-beach-150528

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Houseman, Emeritus Professor of Geophysics, University of Leeds

The end of an era is something of a cliché, but it’s the only way to describe the closure of Sydney University’s International House at the end of this year.

Prominently located on the corner of City Road and Cleveland Street, in Darlington, Sydney, it’s been home to many thousands of university students, both international and local, since 1967.

Read more: How unis can use student housing to solve international student quarantine issues

One of those local students was me. International House was my home for three years during the 1970s.

My career as an academic led me to jobs in the US, Australia and eventually Leeds in the UK, but I still have fond memories and many friends made at Sydney IH.

A home away from home

The accommodation model of residential halls like International House provides the opportunity to socialise daily with a broad spectrum of people from different countries studying different courses.

The friendships made by those who have lived there are of enormous value to both the individual and society. What you learn from interacting with the kind of diverse population living there can equip you for living in a globalised world, better than anything you learn in class.

Read more: Why countries should leverage universities as a new force in global diplomacy

International House at Sydney University has its origins in a different era, when the White Australia policy was only recently discarded.

The federal government was only then getting around to constitutional amendments that protected the rights of the original Australians. International students were relatively few.

Some high-profile initiatives such as the Colombo Plan, an intergovernmental program designed to strengthen relationships within Asia and the Pacific, were in place and Australian universities had begun to attract privately funded foreign students.

Read more: Colombo Plan: An initiative that brought Australia and Asia closer

The universities saw the many benefits that could accrue from attracting foreign students, in particular the opportunity for students from other countries to interact with Australian students and to learn about each other’s cultures and attitudes.

International House was an initiative to support that goal. It allowed foreign and Australian students to share the university experience at a deeper level than is possible when you only meet other students in formal lectures and tutorials.

The alumni of International House are testament to the many life-long friendships formed in this environment.

It started in New York

The idea of an International House came originally from Columbia University in New York in the 1920s. It was conceived by Harry Edmonds, a far-sighted man who resolved to overcome the barriers and isolation faced by foreign students in New York.

As Edmonds told the New York Times in 1979:

One frosty morning [in 1909] I was going up the steps of the Columbia library when I met a Chinese student coming down. I said, ‘Good morning.’ As I passed on, I noticed he stopped. I went back.

He said, ‘Thank you for speaking to me. I’ve been in New York three weeks and you are the first person who has spoken to me.’

With my wife’s insistence, I agreed I had to do something.

The support of prominent philanthropists like John D. Rockefeller junior helped Edmonds transform his idea of an International House into a reality.

The International House model has influenced the lives of many thousands of students, first at Columbia University but later in many cities around the world where the concept was adopted and thrived.

At Sydney University in the 1960s, the then deputy principal, Wilson Harold Maze, championed the concept but it was only realised with major sponsorship from Rotary International.

Award-winning architect Walter Bunning designed the distinctive buildings, and the house officially opened its doors to students in 1967 under director Graeme de Graaf.

Where the world comes together

International House is more than just a student dormitory. Going to live there opened my eyes to a world view that sees people rather than nations, and cuts away much of the baggage associated with nationalism.

Meals were taken together in a common dining hall where any resident could talk daily with others from around the world who were taking courses in anything that the university offered.

This daily give-and-take provided for me the essence of the university experience. One of the things you learn in a place like International House is that people basically have the same range of needs, wants, capabilities, problems and potential, wherever they come from.

At a time when populist politics too easily leads people to label others as different, or threatening, or somehow less good or less deserving, such institutions are more important than they have ever been.

Without this kind of environment, a foreign student can feel completely isolated, or fall too easily into the habit of mixing socially only with students who have come from the same country. They then never really experience what the host country has to offer.

Read more: ‘I love Australia’: 3 things international students want Australians to know

If you go to university with the objective of just learning the dry technical details encapsulated in the course you enrolled in, you miss a huge opportunity.

So what happens next?

Why then is International House closing on December 31 2020?

Those award-winning buildings now have some serious maintenance issues and are too small for what is required to keep residence fees at a competitive level. A redevelopment of the site is planned.

We expect to see in coming years a new, larger complex on the same site. It should further develop the essential role of International House, providing a home and learning environment to many future generations of students who will end up working in Australia and around the world.

– ref. ‘A world view that sees people rather than nations’: the legacy of Sydney Uni’s International House – https://theconversation.com/a-world-view-that-sees-people-rather-than-nations-the-legacy-of-sydney-unis-international-house-150086

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julie Barbour, Senior Lecturer, Linguistics, University of Waikato

Malekula, the second-largest island in the Vanuatu archipelago, has a linguistic connection to Aotearoa. All of its many languages are distantly related to te reo Māori and the island is the site of a long-term project to document them.

Vanuatu has been described as the world’s “densest linguistic landscape”, with as many as 145 languages spoken by a population of fewer than 300,000 people.

Malekula itself is home to about 25,000 people, who between them speak more than 30 Indigenous languages. Some are spoken by just a few hundred people.

For 20 years, our team of linguists has been working with small communities to document their languages and to develop resources to help preserve them.

Indigenous languages around the world are declining at a rapid rate, dying out with the demise of their last speakers. The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) estimates one Indigenous language dies every two weeks.

As each language disappears, its unique cultural expression and world views are lost as well. Our project in Malekula hopes to counter this trend.

Read more: Indigenous languages matter – but all is not lost when they change or even disappear

Malekula languages

The work in Malekula began in the 1990s when the late Terry Crowley hosted a Neve’ei-speaking university student from a small village. The encounter inspired his interest in the island’s many Indigenous languages.

The Malekula project works with communities to facilitate literacy initiatives, often in the form of unpublished children’s books and thematic dictionaries. The research highlights the value of Indigenous languages as an expression of local cultural identity.

The Malekula project is a response to the urgent need to record the island’s Indigenous languages in the face of significant changes to almost every aspect of traditional life.

These changes have brought indigenous languages into contact and competition with colonial English and French and the home-grown Bislama, a dialect of Melanesian pidgin. From education to religion, administration and domestic life, Bislama is now often the language of choice.

Why is that a problem? The value of Indigenous languages lies in the fact that they articulate the way in which people have engaged with and understood their natural environment.

Malekula has a 3,000-year history of human settlement. Each language spoken on the island encodes unique ways in which its speakers have sustained life.

Another fundamental aspect of Indigenous languages is their direct link to cultural identity. In a place where distinctive local identities are the norm, the increasing use of Bislama reduces the linguistic diversity that has been sustained for millennia.

Returning knowledge to communities

In recent times, the way of life for the people of Malekula has shifted from intensely local communities to broader formal education. Imported religions have similarly influenced local belief systems.

The same centralised governance that facilitates infrastructure development and access to medical care also affects the autonomy of small communities to govern their affairs, including the languages in which children are taught.

Read more: The state of Australia’s Indigenous languages – and how we can help people speak them more often

Traditionally, linguistic field research has produced valuable research for a highly specialist linguistic audience. Most scholars had no expectation of returning their research to the community of speakers.

We initially followed this tradition in writing about the Neverver language of Malekula, but grew increasingly dissatisfied with the expectations of the discipline. Looking to modern decolonising research methodologies and ethical guidelines in Aotearoa, we developed the “first audience principle”. This means Indigenous language communities should be the first to hear about any field research findings.

The Malekula project has a dual purpose: to conduct linguistic research and to develop language resources with and for their people. In 2019, its mandate was closely aligned with the three topics of the International Year of Indigenous Languages: support, access and promotion.

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and travel bans brought linguistic fieldwork to an abrupt halt. During this unwelcome hiatus from fieldwork with Malekula communities, it has been tempting to focus on more technical analysis for our fellow academics. But our obligation to communities remains, and we are developing new ways of working with our archived field data in preparation for the time when we can return to Malekula.

– ref. People on Vanuatu’s Malekula Island speak more than 30 Indigenous languages. Here’s why we must record them – https://theconversation.com/people-on-vanuatus-malekula-island-speak-more-than-30-indigenous-languages-heres-why-we-must-record-them-122253

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

On December 10, it finally happened. Instead of demanding an interest payment from the government in return for lending it money, a group of investors offered to pay the government in order to lend it money.

Naturally enough, the offer was accepted.

The government needed A$1.5 billion which it promised to repay on March 26.

It sought tenders. What was the lowest return an investor would accept to lend it the money?

It wasn’t short of offers. It fended off $8.2 billion of bids, and some of them were prepared to accept very low returns indeed.

The lowest was -0.01%. The minus sign indicates that, instead of the government paying the lender a return for lending to it, the lender would pay the government a return for the privilege of lending to it – a perfectly-legal backhander if you like.

The government got a fair chunk of the $1.5 billion for less than nothing.

Some of the bidders demanded more, but nothing too far into positive territory.

It happened because the sale of bonds benefits both parties: the government gets to borrow money it needs and the investor gets a safe place to park their money.

Read more: The government has just sold $15 billion of 31-year bonds. But what actually is a bond?

In those circumstances, where benefits flow in both directions, there’s no reason to suppose that the final payment will flow in only one direction.

And sometimes the direction chosen is arbitrary. Economist Joshua Gans made the point on Twitter talking about the coronavirus vaccine.

He said “half of the economists out there think people should be paid to be vaccinated, the other half think they should pay to be vaccinated earlier.

He asked: “can we at least work out whether the price is positive or negative?”

Which bank pays which bank?

Two banks are involved when you whip out a debit card to pay for a purchase – your bank (that issues the card), and the seller’s bank (that accepts the card).

Which should pay which? Usually the seller’s bank pays a fee to buyer’s bank, but not always. Depending on the type of card and bank, sometimes the fee flows the in the other direction, from the buyer’s bank to the seller’s bank.

The truth is both parties benefit from the transaction, and who the banks ultimately manage to pass the fee on to (the buyer or the seller) is another question altogether.

Home taping is killing music?

The advent of cassette recorders frightened record companies, and throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s they persuaded governments in Australia, Canada, the United States and much of Europe to impose levies (taxes) on the sale of blank recording media such as cassette tapes and compact discs in order to compensate the companies that would suffer.

There was only one problem. The companies didn’t suffer. The advent of the cassette made it possible to listen to recorded music in places other than the loungeroom record player (most notably in cars and later, with the Walkman while walking or jogging).

The amount of time people spent listening to recorded music shot up, recorded music sales in the US more than doubled, and the record companies took in more money than ever before.

Radio stations should pay to play, or…

If anything, record companies should have been paying the purveyors of cassette tapes rather than the other way around.

The same sort of two-way exchange happens when radio stations play music.

Radio stations pay the artists, composers and record companies for the music they play (although not very much) and sometimes the recording companies pay the radio stations (payola) in order to ensure their records are played.

Read more: Spotify may soon dominate music the way Google does search — this is why

In 1970 Australia’s six largest record companies demanded more money from the radio stations, which they refused to pay. The resulting “record ban” saw commercial radio drop the British and Australian artists represented by the majors and instead play the American and independent local artists whose companies weren’t demanding more money.

Without airplay, sales faded. The Long and Winding Road cracked the top five most places it was released, but not in Australia.

Six months on, each side realised it needed the other.

Google should pay newspapers, or….

Now the government is insisting that platforms such as Google and Facebook pay news organisations for the content they link to, in something of a world first.

Or at least it seems to be. The original draft legislation released in April required the arbitrating panel to take account of the direct and indirect benefits of the news content to the digital platform.

After representations from Google and Facebook the revised final legislation released in December also requires the panel to take account of the benefit “to the registered news business” of having the digital platform pointing to its content.

Read more: World is watching plan to make Facebook and Google pay for content: Frydenberg

That benefit is huge. Without Google and Facebook, news websites would be bereft of traffic (which is why they allow Google and Facebook to point to their content).

The Treasurer calls it a “two-way value exchange”. At least to me, it’s no longer clear in which direction the money should flow.

Prices can be negative as well as positive.

– ref. Sure, interest rates are negative, but so are some prices, and when you look around, they’re everywhere – https://theconversation.com/sure-interest-rates-are-negative-but-so-are-some-prices-and-when-you-look-around-theyre-everywhere-152081

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lydia Edwards, Fashion historian, Edith Cowan University

The shoe known in Australia as a “thong” is one of the oldest styles of footwear in the world.

Worn with small variations across Egypt, Rome, Greece, sub-Saharan Africa, India, China, Korea, Japan and some Latin American cultures, the shoe was designed to protect the sole while keeping the top of the foot cool.

Australians have long embraced this practical but liberating shoe — but history shows we can’t really claim to it as our own.

Read more: The erotic theatre of the pool edge: a short history of female swimwear

Geishas, workers, soldiers

Japan is often cited as the pivotal influence, perhaps because the culture features not only the thong’s closest ancestor (the flat-soled zori, traditionally made from straw) but also the chunky geta sandal, famously worn by geisha for centuries in an effort to keep trailing kimono hems out of the mud.

In the late 19th century, Japan started to export aspects of its culture to diverse corners of the world. An early example was the Hawaiian “slipper” or “slippah”, a thong-like version of the zori with roots in the footwear of Japanese plantation worker immigrants in the 1880s. The slipper rapidly became part of the Hawaiian sartorial code (as in Australia, the shoe suited the relaxed outlook and beach lifestyle).

The popularity of the shoe may have spread after US soldiers, stationed in the East Pacific during the second world war, brought back souvenirs — but that claim is contested.

During the 1940s the technology for mass-producing synthetic rubber was developed, and this undoubtedly increased dissemination and influence of the humble flip flop. However, it was not until around the same time Hawaii became the official 50th state of the USA in 1959 that thongs became a globally recognised symbol of leisure.

Downunderfoot

Despite the thongs’ strong identification with Australia, details of its exact arrival here are not easy to pin down.

From 1907 onwards, for example, advertisements described “Japanese sandals” with “flexible wooden” or jute soles, although the few illustrations that exist do not depict shoes with a thong fastening.

In 1924, Melbourne’s The Herald discussed criticism levelled at Melburnians for walking with a “flip-flop movement, bringing the back of the heel down too heavily on the ground, causing jarring to the body and fatigue”.

Heels were suggested as a remedy for women with this complaint. Nearly a century later, podiatrists still recommend avoiding thongs for long term wear. (These days, they’re not fans of heels either.)

In 1946, department store David Jones promoted “Olympia”, a Greek-inspired thong sandal with additional ankle straps. But it was not until around 1957, when Kiwi businessmen Maurice Yock and John Cowie both claimed credit for what they termed the “jandal” — a portmanteau of “Japanese” and “sandal” — that Australia’s connection with the flip flop became more established and, at the same time, questioned.

In 1959, Dunlop in Australia imported 300,000 pairs of thongs from Japan. They started producing them internally in 1960.

Read more: Take a plunge into the memories of Australia’s favourite swimming pools

As Australia’s tourism boomed during the 1950s and 60s, so too did its sartorial image, with thongs taking centre stage as the footwear of choice for an egalitarian, laid-back society.

So widespread did they become, in fact, that by the mid 1960s bans were being sought by state governments to avoid frequent injuries at the workplace — especially construction sites.

In the name of professionalism, in 1978 the Queensland government decreed that schoolteachers not be permitted to wear thongs to work. This year, they have been banned for wear at Australia Day citizenship ceremonies — a decision reflecting a wish for greater “significance and formality” to be represented at official events.

But the rubbery love affair endured, perhaps shown most ardently when Kylie Minogue made her entrance as part of the Sydney 2000 Olympics atop a giant rubber thong carried by lifeguards.

Dressing up, dressing down

Thong-related concerns have not been limited to Australia.

In 2005 members of an American college women’s lacrosse team wore them to the White House to meet President Bush. There followed a furor over whether this brazen act was disrespectful, a distraction from the women’s achievements or signalled a casual shift in attitudes to leaders (and fashion) in the years after the Clinton sex scandals.

Since the late 1990s it has been possible to buy more formal heeled versions. Although these were widely mocked as expensive aberrations of the style, they looked to making a Kardashian-led comeback in recent times.

Branded versions are also available, with couturiers like Hermès selling a very unassuming flip flop for a cool A$600.

There is a poignant irony in the fact that thongs are the most popular kind of shoe in developing countries, precisely because of their cheap manufacture (often made from recycled rubber tyres) and consequently, very low purchase cost.

This practice of appropriating “ordinary” or “working class” clothing — transitioning it from the practical to the fashionable — is nothing new. We’ve seen it with singlets and boilersuits. Clogs are another footwear example.

Rather than a form of fashion whimsy, Australians take their thongs seriously. Even the naming of them — after the structural make-up of the shoe’s fastening rather than the onomatopoeic “flip flop” used by other countries — flies in the face of the Australian preference for shortened diminutives and nicknames.

That shows true commitment, but also that thongs are not really so dinky-di, after all.

Read more: Friday essay: vizards, face gloves and window hoods – a history of masks in western fashion

– ref. Flip flop: the un-Australian history of the rubber thong – https://theconversation.com/flip-flop-the-un-australian-history-of-the-rubber-thong-150068

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachael L. Brown, Director of the Centre for Philosophy of the Sciences and Senior Lecturer at the School of Philosophy, Australian National University

Throughout the pandemic we have seen a deluge of outright lies, conspiracy theories and pseudoscience from various peddlers of self-interest.

But to a philosopher like me, more vexing than these calculated cases of disinformation has been the amount of sloppy reasoning in public discourse about Australia’s COVID epidemic.

Barely a day goes by without a politician, official or commentator making the kind of basic failure of critical thinking that I teach first-year philosophy undergraduates to avoid.

While these are sometimes deliberate attempts to obfuscate, it is more frequently the well-intentioned who fall victim to these often appealing fallacies. The only antidote is a large dose of scepticism, mixed with some understanding of where our reasoning frequently goes wrong.

Here are three critical thinking errors that were rife in 2020.

Fallacy 1: false comparisons

In arguing against lockdowns, it was not uncommon to hear people decry the “hidden cost” of public health measures designed to curb the virus’s spread. Commonly cited examples include drops in cancer detection or the negative impacts of school closures, particularly on students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

It is certainly reasonable to ask whether the costs of lockdown outweigh the benefits. But any such reckoning needs to factor in the costs of not imposing a lockdown.

It is a mistake to use the “pre-COVID normal” as the baseline for comparison. We’re not in Kansas any more, Toto. Pre-COVID cancer rates or school grades are irrelevant when thinking about the impact of public health measures in our current circumstances.

What is relevant is the expected outcomes given the impact of the COVID infections that would occur without public health measures in place. In the case of cancer detection, for example, we should expect a drop in diagnoses relative to pre-COVID levels both with, and without, lockdowns in place. During a pandemic, the fear of infection creates a significant extra factor that would make people less likely to visit their doctor for a cancer check.

Similarly, when looking at the impact of school closures, particularly on socioeconomically vulnerable students, we need to factor in the likely impact of increased COVID infections. As has been shown both at home and abroad, the impacts of COVID outbreaks are disproportionately felt by disadvantaged communities.

Read more: The costs of the shutdown are overestimated — they’re outweighed by its $1 trillion benefit

Fallacy 2: failing to see the nuance behind the numbers

Victorians were understandably glued to the daily case numbers during their epic lockdown, while their New South Wales neighbours nervously kept an eye on their own tally. But the focus on numbers can mislead; bald case numbers don’t tell the whole story.

Why, for example, did two such similar states have such contrasting fortunes? Behind the headline numbers were some key differences that can explain why Victoria endured a major second wave, while NSW escaped relatively unscathed. Not all of them involve differences in contact-tracing capacity.

To illustrate, despite similar absolute case numbers over the ten days to October 14, about 60% of the cases in NSW were returned international travellers, compared with none in Victoria. Given that a positive case in hotel quarantine is easier to contain than one at large among the public, Victoria clearly faced a more challenging situation than NSW.

Similarly, there are other features of the demographics of the Victorian outbreak that also set it apart from NSW, such as the average size of the households in which infected individuals live and the source of their infections. The devil is in the detail.

Read more: Finally at zero new cases, Victoria is on top of the world after unprecedented lockdown effort

Fallacy 3: thinking everything happens for a reason

The ancient Greeks blamed unexpected bad outcomes in their lives on Tykhe, the goddess of chance, and the Romans similarly blamed Fortuna. In our largely secular modern world, however, we typically assume a bad outcome to be a sign of failure rather than simple bad luck.

But in a pandemic, not only can relatively small differences in situations lead to large differences in outcomes, but these small differences often come down to dumb luck. This is especially true when talking about very small numbers of cases, as we have in Australia now.

At such low numbers, bad luck and chance are likely to play a big role in our fortunes. South Australia, for instance, may have been plunged into lockdown as a result of dodgy ventilation in a hotel corridor.

It is easy to interpret any jump in case numbers as indicating a failure of the public health measures in place. But this overlooks the role of other factors: whether a COVID-positive person lives with one other person or six, or whether they work in aged care, or from home, where they shop, whether or not they developed symptoms while infected, and whether or not they self-isolated as a result. All of this can make a significant difference to the potential number of others whom they infect with the virus.

It is also harder to trace the contacts of someone working outside the home, compared with someone working from home and only leaving to go to the shops once a week. No two infections are truly equal.

Read more: Exponential growth in COVID cases would overwhelm any state’s contact tracing. Australia needs an automated system

This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be concerned by a sudden spike in cases, and it doesn’t mean we can’t ask questions about what went wrong. But it also doesn’t mean it necessarily warrants any shift from our current public health measures.

It’s an uncomfortable thought, but luck is a huge part of where we find ourselves today, and where we could be in the future.

– ref. 3 fallacies that blighted this year’s COVID commentary — have you fallen foul of any of them? – https://theconversation.com/3-fallacies-that-blighted-this-years-covid-commentary-have-you-fallen-foul-of-any-of-them-148518

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alison Young, Francine V. McNiff Professor of Criminology, University of Melbourne

If there’s one thing everyone seems to agree on, it’s that 2020 was a nightmare of a year. This was the year of political crisis: not just one, but several, one after another.

Street artists have always responded to the political issues of the day by writing, painting and sticking posters on walls. What kind of street art could be seen on walls in 2020?

In the early months of 2020, Australia’s political street art was dominated by the bushfires that incinerated over 17 million hectares of land, destroyed 3,094 homes, and killed 34 people and over a billion animals.

Shocked by the severity and extent of the fires, many people, including artists, wondered whether this was no ordinary fire season. Posters quickly appeared in Fitzroy, simple sheets of paper, each with two news photos. One showed a child in a boat fleeing the fires in Mallacoota on New Year’s Day; in another, firefighters ran through a torrent of burning embers. Between the two images, block capitals stated: “THIS IS CLIMATE CHANGE”.

A few weeks later, climate anxiety continued to motivate street artists: during the Australian Open tennis tournament, a “street sculpture” was glued to a windowsill in Melbourne’s Hosier Lane. Initially looking like a large blob of lime-green ice-cream, a closer look revealed it to be a melting tennis ball, emblazoned with the words #ClimateCrisis.

Soon after the bushfires, the spread of a new coronavirus led to the declaration of a global pandemic. Lockdowns and states of emergency were implemented in numerous countries from March onwards. Despite stay-at-home orders, graffiti and street art have appeared on walls in cities all over the world.

Much of this was about the pandemic itself. During Melbourne’s first lockdown from March to early June, posters satirised the hoarding of toilet paper or showed Bart Simpson saying “ay corona”. Some artists simply wrote “COVID-19” as if it was a graffiti tag, evoking the tag names of decades gone by in New York and other American cities.

After the second wave of coronavirus infections hit Victoria in July, Melbourne’s lockdown intensified. Street art reflected the divided views expressed in media and political debates about public health. An artist added the words “MOCKING SCIENCE” to a “STOP” sign, perhaps as a riposte to COVID-deniers or anti-mask campaigners. Others wrote on bridges over freeways “the government lies” and “it’s just a flu”.

As this second lockdown went on, artists’ activities became more elaborate and more emotional. In South Melbourne, one mural revised Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam, which shows God giving life to Adam and is famed for its almost-touching fingers. This rendition placed the two figures far apart and put the words “physical distancing” between them.

Separation from friends and family members generated extensive anxiety and sadness in lockdown. Posters in Fitzroy exhorted us to “Be kind. Let’s look out for one another” and reminded us that “kindness is contagious too”. In Brunswick, one artist created posters evoking the semi-abstract figures of Matisse, with two people embracing, surrounded by the words “together soon enough”. Frequently, individuals simply condensed their emotions into two words, writing “fuck corona”.

As Melbourne’s harsh second lockdown ended, well-known artist Lushsux painted a mural of Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, posting a photograph on Instagram accompanied by a voice-over criticising Andrews for “the longest and most severe lockdown probably in the entire world”.

Black Lives Matter

The killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis on May 26 led to widespread unrest in America, Australia and around the world. Artists both protested and memorialised his death. Murals, usually showing Floyd’s face and often including phrases such as “Say his name” and “I can’t breathe”, appeared in dozens of cities, including Barcelona, New York, London, Berlin, Los Angeles, Binnish in Syria, and in Minneapolis itself.

In Melbourne, posters proclaiming “Cops are not our friends” and the spray-painted slogan “NO JUSTICE NO PEACE” appeared in Hosier Lane, as the same messages sprung up in London and New York. Black Lives Matter protests were held in several Australian cities.

Artists contributed temporary and more long-lasting interventions. Pieces of cardboard were left propped up against trees in the Exhibition Gardens in Melbourne, stating “432 Deaths in Custody” and “Justice for Tanya Day”. On the outside wall of the Tote Hotel in Collingwood, Melbourne, someone had written “END ABORIGINAL DEATHS IN CUSTODY” in huge white capital letters.

Although much street art is anonymous, some makers sign their street artworks. During 2020, two artists stood out for their creation of highly political artworks.

In Sydney, having painted Prime Minister Scott Morrison on holidays while bushfires blazed in Australia in December 2019, Scott Marsh continued to paint murals that pressed buttons on hot topics throughout 2020. He followed up his Morrison-in-Hawaii mural with one of climate deniers and, in June, a mural in Redfern of a burning police van, which was removed within 24 hours of it being completed.

As US President Donald Trump protested that the election outcome in November was based on fake results, Marsh took inspiration from CNN anchor Anderson Cooper’s description of Trump as a turtle flailing on its back in the sun. Marsh painted this as a cartoonish mural on the wall of a Newtown pub. (Marsh’s website is also selling T-shirts of Trump as a turtle.)

As 2020 came toward an end, with everyone hoping for respite from the crises that had dominated their lives, Melbourne artist Julie Shiels created an art installation in the streets of Fitzroy that seeks to keep politics in the minds of the public.

The Grandmasters is a series of paste-ups featuring famous artworks altered to include the heads of Australian politicians. From their mouths, speech bubbles emit comments made by them in 2020. The series includes 12 separate works, pasted along a hoarding at a construction site.

It features federal government ministers such as Alan Tudge and Josh Frydenberg, former prime minister Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison. Each is featured in an artwork whose scenario relates to the politician’s role. When juxtaposed with the speech-bubble quotations, the painting’s titles provide excoriating political critique.

Frydenberg features in Caravaggio’s The Cardsharps; Morrison is shown in Quentin Massys’s work, The Money Changer and His Wife, saying: “We don’t want to see women rise only on the basis of others doing worse.” Morrison’s mouth is open and he stares directly at the spectator, while the eponymous wife stares resignedly downwards.

The only non-Australian politician featured is Donald Trump, shown spliced into Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson saying: “Don’t be afraid of COVID. Don’t let it rule your life.”

And, as if to keep our minds on the issue that began the disasters of 2020, Shiels includes a reworked Raft of the Medusa by Gericault with Abbott sitting amid dead and dying refugees on a sinking raft, saying: “Climate change is crap.”

Despite the seemingly endless series of disasters in 2020, we can take some comfort and inspiration from the ways in which so many artists expressed their views on the walls and in the streets of Australia.

– ref. Getting to the (street) art of a year like no other – https://theconversation.com/getting-to-the-street-art-of-a-year-like-no-other-149923

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joseph M. Cheer, Professor in Sustainable Tourism, Wakayama University

The COVID-19 pandemic brought the global tourism industry to a screeching halt in 2020. With vaccines starting to be rolled out, there is hope international travel can resume soon, but exactly when — and how — is the million-dollar question.

Before COVID-19, there was much concern about whether tourism had grown too big for our planet. There were calls to scale back tourism, make it more environmentally sustainable and help over-touristed locations become more resilient to crises.

However, with almost no international travel in 2020, we now have the opposite problem. The pandemic caused a 70% drop in international tourist arrivals globally from January to August, compared to the same period last year.

Destinations reliant on international tourists have been the hardest hit. Many are in developing countries, where tourism is a major export earner. For example, according to the World Bank, tourism makes up nearly 15% of Thailand’s GDP, which is why it recently started allowing select foreign tourists to return for extended stays.

But attempts to reboot international travel on a wider scale have so far failed due to successive waves of COVID-19.

As a more transmissible and harder-to-control coronavirus variant has emerged in the UK and South Africa in recent days, dozens of countries have announced they would close their doors to travellers from both nations. Some countries, like Japan and Israel, have gone a step farther, banning all foreign nationals from entering.

Even before this, travel bubbles and corridors between countries have been proposed, but few have managed to take root.

With borders closed, many countries have put a focus on attracting domestic tourists instead. This has helped maintain economic stability in countries such as China and Japan.

Hopes for a swift recovery of international travel are now pinned on a silver bullet: the rapid and widespread distribution of a vaccine.

Beyond this, we believe getting people back in the air again will be shaped by three key issues.

Read more: A vaccine will be a game-changer for international travel. But it’s not everything

1) What travel regulations will prove effective?

Travel health requirements may soon start to resemble the past. In the 1970s, having appropriate vaccinations and health clearances was essential for travel to and from many countries. Coronavirus vaccinations will likely become similarly standard for international flights.

This should be rapidly adopted by all countries, and could even be applied more broadly – in hotels, for example.

However, any vaccination regime will need governments to pass strong laws and regulations. Digital travel passes and vaccination passports may be one solution, but in order to work, these will require standardisation across borders.

One solution may be the CommonPass, a new digital health passport that looks to be a trustworthy model for validating people’s COVID-free status consistently across the globe.

Other health measures will also remain vital, including mandatory in-flight masks, pre-departure and arrival testing, mandatory quarantining and social distancing. If vaccination uptake in destinations is low, these measures will become even more important.

Read more: Can governments mandate a COVID vaccination? Balancing public health with human rights – and what the law says

Touchless travel should also become standard at most airports through the use of biometric technology. And passengers should expect temperature screening and reduced in-flight services to be the new norm.

Lengthy quarantine periods are one of the biggest obstacles to restarting international tourism — few people can afford 14 days in a quarantine hotel on top of their holiday.

There are potential alternatives being tested. Before the new COVID variant emerged, British Airways and American Airlines had piloted a voluntary testing program for some passengers as a way of avoiding the mandatory 14-day quarantine period in the UK.

The British government also implemented its new “test and release” policy in mid-December, which could shorten the quarantine period to five days for international arrivals.

2) How will airlines restart their businesses?

The International Air Transport Association expects the airline industry won’t reach pre-pandemic levels again until at least 2024.

This means any tourism restart is going to require restoring transportation infrastructure and networks, especially for aviation and cruising.

Many planes are now parked in deserts in the US and Australia. They will need to be retrieved and thoroughly serviced before recommencing flights. Crews will have to be rehired or retrained.

But it’s not as simple as just getting planes back in the air. A more formidable challenge for airlines will be reestablishing air routes while ensuring their ongoing viability.

As airlines slowly build up these networks again, travellers will have to put up with less frequent connections, longer journeys and drawn out stopovers.

There is some encouraging news, though. In the US, domestic airfares have dropped, and though international flight schedules have been drastically reduced, low demand has kept some prices down.

Smaller and more nimble airlines should perform better. And expect smaller and more efficient aircraft to also become more common. Demand for long-haul flights may remain low for some time.

Airports, meanwhile, will require temporary or permanent reconfigurations to handle new public heath screening and testing arrangements — providing yet another possible frustration for travellers.

Cruise ships and port terminals will face similar requirements, as will hotels and other accommodation providers.

3) Will traveller confidence return?

For leisure travellers, the lingering fear of coronavirus infections will be the most formidable obstacle to overcome.

The Thanksgiving holiday in the US and Golden Week in China suggest the appetite for travel remains robust. Some analysts also anticipate leisure travel will likely recover faster than business travel.

However, it remains to be seen whether travellers will have a high appetite for risk, or how quickly they’ll adapt to new safety protocols.

The key to bringing traveller confidence back again will be standardising safety and sanitation measures throughout the global travel supply chain. One idea is a “Safe Travels” stamp once companies have complied with health and hygiene protocols.

Read more: Worried about COVID risk on a flight? Here’s what you can do to protect yourself — and how airlines can step up

How we can build back better

COVID-19 has prompted much reflection about our relationship with the planet.

Advocates for more sustainable tourism are hoping the coming years will lead to a rethink of international travel, with more innovation and a renewed commitment to addressing climate change and crisis management.

However, the likely reality is that destinations will be desperate for economic recovery and will compete vigorously for tourism dollars when borders reopen.

So, if consumer behaviour trends are anything to go by, the new normal might not be too dissimilar from the old. It’s doubtful, for example, that we would tolerate flying less when travel is proven safe again. This doesn’t bode well for the planet.

If international travel is going to “build back better”, communities, governments and the global tourism industry must come up with a transformative plan that is workable and helps drive traveller behaviour change and decarbonisation.

The pandemic has given us a chance for a reset — we should make the most of the opportunity.

– ref. Vaccines may soon make travel possible again. But how quickly will it return — and will it be forever changed? – https://theconversation.com/vaccines-may-soon-make-travel-possible-again-but-how-quickly-will-it-return-and-will-it-be-forever-changed-150268

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cameron Webb, Clinical Associate Professor and Principal Hospital Scientist, University of Sydney

It’s the holidays and we’re spending more time outdoors. This means we’re exposed to the more annoying and painful aspects of summer — insect bites and stings.

There are plenty of products at the local pharmacy to treat these. Some treat the initial bite or sting, others the itchy aftermath.

What about natural remedies? Few studies have actually examined them. But if they work for you, and don’t irritate already inflamed skin, there’s likely no harm in continuing.

Read more: Buzz, buzz, slap! Why flies can be so annoying

Why do insects bite and sting?

When insects bite and sting, they are either defending themselves or need something from us (like blood).

Whatever the motivation, it can leave us with a painful or itchy reaction, sometimes a severe allergic reaction, or even a debilitating disease.

While insects sometimes get a bad rap, there are relatively few that actually pose a serious threat to our health.

Flies, mosquitoes

Many types of flies, especially mosquitoes, bite. In most instances, they need blood for nutrition or the development of eggs. The method of “biting” can vary between the different types of flies. While mosquitoes inject a needle-like tube to suck our blood, others chew or rasp away at our skin.

While researchers have studied what happens when mosquitoes bite, there is still much to learn about how to treat the bites.

So, avoiding mosquito bites is especially important given some can transmit pathogens that make us sick.

Read more: Feel like you’re a mozzie magnet? It’s true – mosquitoes prefer to bite some people over others

Fleas, lice, mites and ticks

There are lots of other insects (such as bed bugs, fleas, lice) and other arthropods (such as mites, ticks) that bite.

But it is difficult to determine which insect has bitten us based on the bite reaction alone. This is generally because different people react in different ways to the saliva injected as they start to suck our blood.

Bees, wasps, ants

Then there are stinging insects, such as bees, wasps and ants. These are typically just defending themselves.

But as well as being painful, the venom they inject when they sting can cause potentially severe allergic reactions.

How do you best treat a sting or bite?

If you suffer potentially severe allergic reactions from bites or stings, immediately seek appropriate medical treatment. But for many other people, it is the initial painful reaction and itchy aftermath that require attention.

Despite how common insect bites can be, there is surprisingly little formal research into how best to treat them. Most of the research is focused on insect-borne diseases.

Even for recommended treatments, there is little evidence they actually work. Instead, recommendations are based on expert opinion and clinical experience.

For instance, heath authorities promote some general advice on treating insect bites and stings. This includes using pain relief medication (such as paracetamol or ibuprofen). They also advise applying a cold compress (such as a cold pack, ice, or damp cloth soaked in cold water) to the site of the sting or bite to help reduce the inflammation and to ease some of the discomfort.

There is also specific advice for dealing with stings and removing ticks.

However, if you do nothing, the discomfort of the bite or sting will eventually fade after a few days. The body quickly recovers, just as it would for a cut or bruise.

If you’re still in pain for more than a couple of days, or there are signs of an allergic reaction, seek medical assistance.

What about the itch?

Once the initial pain has started to fade, the itch starts. That’s because the body is reacting to the saliva injected when insects bite.

For many people, this is incredibly frustrating and it is all too easy to get trapped in a cycle of itching and scratching.

In some cases, medications, such as corticosteroid creams or antihistamines could help alleviate the itchiness. You can buy these from the pharmacy.

Then there’s calamine lotion, a mainstay in many Australian homes used to treat the itchiness caused by insect bites. But there are few studies that demonstrate it works.

Read more: Are itchier insect bites more likely to make us sick?

Do any home remedies work?

If you’re looking for a home remedy to treat insect bites and the itchiness that comes with it, a quick internet search will keep you busy for days.

Potential home remedies include: tea bags, banana, tea tree or other essential oils, a paste of baking soda, vinegar, aloe vera, oatmeal, honey and even onion.

There is little evidence any of these work. But not many have actually been scientifically evaluated.

Tea tree oil is one of the few. While it is said to help treat skin reactions, the oil itself can cause skin reactions if not used as directed.

However, if a home remedy works for you, and it’s not causing additional irritation, there’s no harm in using it if you’re getting some relief.

With so much uncertainty about how to treat insect bites and stings, perhaps it is best if we avoid exposure in the first place. There are plenty of insect repellents available at your local pharmacy or supermarket that do this safely and effectively.

– ref. Bzzz, slap! How to treat insect bites (home remedies included) – https://theconversation.com/bzzz-slap-how-to-treat-insect-bites-home-remedies-included-148722

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Clements, Botanist, CSIRO

If you ask someone to imagine an orchid, chances are pots of moth orchids lined up for sale in a hardware store will spring to mind, with their thick shiny leaves and vibrant petals.

But Australia’s orchids are greater in number and stranger in form than many people realise. Rock orchids, fairy orchids, butterfly orchids, leek orchids and even onion orchids all look more or less the same. But would you recognise a clump of grass-like roots clinging to a tree trunk as an orchid?

What about a small, pale tuber that spends its whole life underground, blooms underground and smells like vanilla? This is the underground orchid, Rhizanthella, and it’s perhaps the strangest Australian orchid of them all.

Even to me, having spent a lifetime researching orchids, the idea of a subterranean orchid is like finding life on Mars. I never expected to even see one, let alone have the privilege of working on them.

Known for almost a century, but rarely seen

The family Orchidaceae is the largest group of flowering plants on Earth, comprising more than 30,000 species. Australia is home to around 1,550 species and 95% are endemic, meaning they don’t occur naturally anywhere else in the world.

Rhizanthella has been known to science since 1928, when a farmer in Western Australia who was ploughing mallee for wheat fields noticed a number of tuber-like plants among the roots of broom bushes. Recognising them as unusual, he sent some specimens to the Western Australian Herbarium.

In 1931, another underground orchid was discovered in eastern Australia at Bulahdelah in NSW by an orchid hunter who was digging up a hyacinth orchid and found an unusual plant tangled in its roots. Three quarters of a century later, I was involved in conserving the population of Rhizanthella in this location when the Bulahdelah bypass was built.

And most recently, in September, I confirmed an entirely new species of underground orchid, named Rhizanthella speciosa, after science illustrator Maree Elliott first stumbled upon it four years ago in Barrington Tops National Park, NSW.

Elliott’s discovery brings the total number of Rhizanthella species known to science to five, with the other two from eastern Australia and two from Western Australia.

All species are vulnerable

For much of its life, an underground orchid exists in the soil as a small white rhizome (thickened underground stem). When it flowers, it remains hidden under leaf litter and soil close to the surface, its petals think and pink, its flower head a little larger than a 50 cent coin.

Read more: ‘Majestic, stunning, intriguing and bizarre’: New Guinea has 13,634 species of plants, and these are some of our favourites

Its pollinator is probably a tiny fly that burrows down to lay eggs in the orchid, mistaking the flower for a fungus.

Today, all Rhizanthella species are vulnerable: the species R. gardneri and R. johnstonii are listed as critically endangered under national environment laws, while R. slateri and and R. omissa are listed as endangered. The most recently discovered species hasn’t yet been listed, but its scarcity means it’s probably highly vulnerable.

The conservation of the underground orchid is complicated. Knowing where it exists, and where it doesn’t, is one problem. Another is knowing how to grow it.

All orchid species need a buddy, a particular soil fungus, for their seeds to germinate, and Rhizanthella must have its habitat to survive. Unfortunately, it’s extremely difficult to just grow it in a pot.

Seeds like ball bearings

We also know very little about the biology of Rhizanthella. But here’s what we do know.

We’ve discovered the fungus that buddies up with underground orchids in Western Australia is indeed the same as that in eastern Australia. We know underground orchids tend to grow in wetter forests and that burning will kill them. And we know that after pollination, the seed head of an underground orchid takes 11 months to mature.

Most orchids have wind-dispersed seeds. Some are so light that drifting between Queensland and Papua New Guinea might be possible, and might explain its vast distribution.

The seeds of underground orchids, however, are like ball bearings and the fruits smell like the famous vanilla orchid of Mexico, whose seeds and pods add scent and flavour to everything from candles to ice cream.

In nature, bats disperse the seeds of the vanilla orchid. So we set up infra-red cameras in Bulahdelah as part of the bypass project to find out what animals might disperse the seeds of the underground orchid. We observed swamp wallabies and long-nosed bandicoots visiting the site where R. slateri grows.

We suspect they disperse the seeds of underground orchids via their excrement, finding the orchid among truffles and other goodies in the leaf litter and soil of the forest floor.

In Western Australia, these animals are locally extinct. Without bandicoots and wallabies to transport seeds away from the parent plant, the natural cycle of renewal and establishment of new plants has been broken. This cannot be good for the long-term survival of the two Western Australian Rhizanthella species.

An alien in the floral world

Conservation of the underground orchid might require intricate strategies, such as reintroducing bandicoots to a protected area, preventing bushfires and using alternatives to burning to manage the land.

An important first step is to find more populations of underground orchids to help us learn more about them.

Our work with DNA has shown, in the orchid family tree, Rhizanthella is most closely related to leek orchids (Prasophyllum) and onion orchids (Microtis).

But as you can see from the photo of a leek orchid above, it bears no resemblance to a subterranean flower, like an alien in the floral world.

Read more: Leek orchids are beautiful, endangered and we have no idea how to grow them

– ref. ‘Like finding life on Mars’: why the underground orchid is Australia’s strangest, most mysterious flower – https://theconversation.com/like-finding-life-on-mars-why-the-underground-orchid-is-australias-strangest-most-mysterious-flower-144727

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Gildersleeve, Associate Professor of English Literature, University of Southern Queensland

Summer is the time for holidays and travel. But as we weakly wave goodbye (we hope) to the horrors of 2020, international travel is off the table and even domestic travel is still restricted.

A book is still your most faithful companion on summer journeys, even if that trip is limited to the journey between the kitchen and a sun lounge in the backyard.

Curated here is a mix tape of great literary road trips. There is one oldie but goodie, some 21st-century hits and shout-outs to the authors who mapped the way. Buckle up — or curl up — and enjoy.

Read more: Friday essay: Alice Pung — how reading changed my life

1. Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (c. 1400)

Our journey begins with The Canterbury Tales, one of literature’s earliest road trip narratives, although Chaucer’s work takes its lead from Giovanni Bocaccio’s Decameron (c. 1353).

A series of stories told by a group of travellers, in Chaucer’s Middle English, takes readers on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Thomas à Becket in Canterbury. Indeed, the pilgrimage can be seen as the earliest form of today’s holiday (a “holy day”), in which the faithful would journey for days or even weeks to visit a holy site. The physical demands of the travel itself contributed to the pilgrim’s spiritual growth.

Each pilgrim of The Canterbury Tales represents a different class or social position — the knight, the priest, the merchant, and so on. Additionally, each story not only represents a particular and symbolic genre — the low humour of the miller’s fabliaux, or the knight’s idealisation of the courtly love poem — but when taken together signify the interactions between people and experiences of the period.

Read more: Chaucer’s great poem Troilus and Criseyde: perfect reading while under siege from a virus

If you enjoy The Canterbury Tales, you might also like Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey (8th C BCE) — a heroic adventure on the high seas. Likewise: Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in Eighty Days (both first published in English in 1872), or Jonathan Swift’s satirical masterpiece, Gulliver’s Travels (1726).

2. Cheryl Strayed, Wild (2012)

Perhaps best known for the image of Reese Witherspoon tossing her hiking boots into a canyon in the 2014 film adaptation, Cheryl Strayed’s memoir of her solo hike along the Pacific Crest Trail is an epic pilgrimage in its own right.

Just as the archetypes of The Canterbury Tales undertake both a physical and a spiritual journey, so too Strayed commits to the trail as a trip of transformation and discovery: “a world I thought would both make me into the woman I knew I could become and turn me back into the girl I’d once been. A world that measured two feet wide and 2,663 miles long”.

Wild constitutes a modern, even feminist, reimagining of the American frontier narrative — a lone journey into the “wild west”, stripped of the markers of civilisation to truly find a self-made paradise. The book echoes and subverts the classic road trip novel, Jack Kerouac’s On the Road (1957) — a compulsory addition to any literary road trip list. It also hearkens back to Mark Twain’s boyhood novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), or even Vladimir Nabokov’s twisted trip in Lolita (1955).

Read more: Mythbusting Ancient Rome — did all roads actually lead there?

3. John Green’s Paper Towns (2008)

That the road trip is frequently used as a symbolic journey of understanding the self makes it ripe for the contemporary bildungsroman form — a novel of development — in the Young Adult genre. Author John Green has plumbed this trope a number of times, perhaps most successfully in Paper Towns. The acclaimed Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour by Morgan Matson (2010), or the more recent I Wanna Be Where You Are by Kristina Forest (2019) both also fall within this category.

Poised on the precarious cusp of adulthood and searching for their adventurous friend Margot, the teenaged protagonists of Paper Towns set off on a road trip through the night, determined to “right a lot of wrongs … wrong some rights … (and) radically reshape the world”. It is thus a moral journey, an effort to imprint the emerging self on a world not yet acknowledging its presence. The travellers want to make decisions about their lives, rather than be swept down a predetermined road.

Read more: The kids are alright: young adult post-disaster novels can teach us about trauma and survival

4. Tara June Winch’s Swallow the Air (2006)

Australian road trip narratives are more often described by fear than frontierism, as in Kenneth Cook’s Wake in Fright (1961) or cinema’s Wolf Creek (2005). Similarly, Ari’s drug-fuelled trip around inner Melbourne in Christos Tsiolkas’s Loaded (1995) tracks the urban intersections of individual, national and multicultural identity.

2020 has been a triumphant year for Tara June Winch. Her earlier short story cycle, Swallow the Air won the David Unaipon Award.

With a nod to the structure of The Canterbury Tales, Winch’s stories follow the cross country journey of a young Indigenous girl, May. She is determined to escape and change the cycles of violence and misery to which her family has been subjected. Like Tony Birch’s Blood (2012), it adopts the road trip as a means of going back to Country, providing not only a specifically cultural innovation in the genre, but a different understanding of self-discovery.

Read more: The Yield wins the Miles Franklin: a powerful story of violence and forms of resistance

5. Joe Hill’s N0S4A2 (2013)

Not all road trips constitute journeys into the self. Instead, a psychological voyage might constitute a plunge into the depths of the nightmarish unconscious.

Joe Hill, son of that most famous horror writer Stephen King, offers up a road trip we might prefer not to take, although it does have a festive theme. In N0S4A2, Christmasland is the horrific and fantastic destination for the child victims of a phantom vehicle and its deranged driver.

Hill offers the chilling prophesy that “sooner or later a black car came for everyone”, pointing out the horrific inevitability of one final road trip. It’s a journey in the tradition of the monstrous vehicle, as in King’s Christine (1983), as well as the apocalyptic father-son walk in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006), Josh Malerman’s Bird Box (2014), King’s The Stand (1978) and (as Richard Bachman) The Long Walk (1979).

After the year we’ve all had, I hope your road trip is less nightmarish.

– ref. Hit the road, Jack: 5 epic literary road trips that are not by Kerouac – https://theconversation.com/hit-the-road-jack-5-epic-literary-road-trips-that-are-not-by-kerouac-150159

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Bennett, Chair in Epidemiology, Deakin University

The news on the Sydney northern beaches COVID-19 outbreak is encouraging, with just five locally acquired new cases announced today from more than 15,000 tests in the last 24 hours. All five locally acquired cases were contacts of known cases and already in isolation.

The way NSW Health has managed this outbreak — and at such a tricky time of year — has been impressive, but risks remain. The number of people coming forward for testing has fallen in recent days. Worryingly, cases continue to pop up outside the northern beaches, including several around the Belrose Hotel where the chain of transmission is unclear. NSW Health has asked anyone who spent any time there during December to get tested.

New Year’s Eve presents a higher risk, because it often involves different household groups gathering indoors, talking face-to-face for extended periods, without masks. These are the conditions the coronavirus likes best.

However, there’s a lot you can do to reduce your own, and the collective, risk in coming days.

Read more: Australia on alert as Sydney’s northern beaches COVID cluster grows, linked to US strain

New Year’s Eve parties: just because you can, it doesn’t mean you should

NSW has now cancelled a previous plan to offer frontline workers special access to the harbour foreshore to watch the New Year’s Eve fireworks display. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has encouraged everyone to stay out of the Sydney CBD for New Year’s unless they have a permit from Service NSW.

Tighter restrictions remain in place for people in the northern beaches area.

In Greater Sydney, however, you can have up to ten visitors in your home (including children) for New Year’s. Outdoor gatherings have been capped at 50, as long as people are socially distanced and separate groups don’t mingle.

But just because you can do these things doesn’t mean you should. It’s like a speed limit — you don’t have to drive at the maximum.

If you’re planning to go to a party in Sydney on New Year’s, think quite carefully about whether you really need to. New Year’s decisions should include doing everything possible to support what NSW Health is trying to do — and that might mean staying home.

Don’t create the opportunity for you to be linked to the next NSW cluster; being linked as a casual contact to an outbreak can mean an incredibly inconvenient period of quarantine for you and your household, even if you don’t get the virus. The less mixing everybody does, the better.

If you must get together, do what you can to reduce risk — try to make the gathering outdoors or in a well-ventilated space, encourage physical distancing, avoid crowding around drink or snack tables and keep a record of all attendees.

Encouraging response but risks remain

Overall, I’m confident in how this outbreak is being managed by NSW Health. The way they are communicating cases details and their understanding of risk, the amount of detail contact tracers are gathering within the first critical hours, the updated lists of exposure sites and the high testing rates this has encouraged — it’s all reassuring.

However, there are still cases of community transmission where the exact relationship to known cases is unclear — and that could signal a potential new cluster.

That terrible mix of someone at their most infectious taking the virus into an enclosed space, being face-to-face with others, with no mask — that’s the worrying scenario that could drive an escalation in numbers.

That’s what NSW saw with the Crossroads Hotel outbreak in July. It took months to shut it down as it kept reappearing in new clusters because there were ongoing insidious chains of transmission.

The same could happen if the virus spreads into greater Sydney, or beyond.

It’s important to remember we are still not quite capturing all the cases in this outbreak, despite the generally high level of testing. And so it’s vital testing levels remain high.

Crucially, people should consider repeat tests if they were near any of the exposure sites. If you test negative in the early days after exposure, you might still be incubating the virus and could become infectious and test positive a week or more later. You are not in the clear until 14 days after exposure, so if you get symptoms, you must re-test. And even if you don’t, it’s worth re-testing after day 11.

What about the beach or the gym?

In general, I am less worried about Sydney beach visits than I am about household gatherings. If you’re outdoors at the beach and you maintain physical distance from others, it’s not as risky as, say, going to shopping centres or supermarkets without a mask. You absolutely should be wearing a mask in Sydney if you are on public transport or visiting any indoor crowded area with people outside your household.

If you’re a Sydney-sider considering hitting the gym after Christmas, make sure the gym is operating in a COVID-safe way. Is equipment cleaned regularly? Are numbers tightly controlled so distancing can be maintained? If you get to the gym and it’s crowded, turn around and head home. Go for a walk or a run instead. A crowded Sydney gym is not where you want to be right now.

Outbreak control is about individual responsibility but it’s also about what the community does as a whole. We don’t ever count on everyone doing the right thing all of the time but if most of us do, we will reduce the risk to ourselves and our loved ones, and help NSW Health get on top of this faster. And that means a speedier return to normality.

Read more: How to reduce COVID-19 risk at the beach or the pool

– ref. Should you go to a Sydney New Year’s Eve party? NSW has handled COVID outbreak well but risks remain – https://theconversation.com/should-you-go-to-a-sydney-new-years-eve-party-nsw-has-handled-covid-outbreak-well-but-risks-remain-152552

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Wallace, Associate Professor, 50/50 By 2030 Foundation, Faculty of Business Government & Law, University of Canberra

It has been both a remarkably good and remarkably bad year for Australian women.

Their leadership in Australian politics and public life has been more prominent and successful than ever before. Yet the pandemic has set back the broad swathe of women at home, in education and in the workplace.

A new golden age

First the good news. In 2020 we have entered something of a golden age for women in political leadership.

In October, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk emerged as the most successful female politician in Australian history, when she became the first woman to win three elections in a row.

Read more: Queensland is making election history with two women leaders, so why is the campaign focused on men?

Palaszczuk’s victory capped her 2015 success as the first woman in Australia to win an election from opposition. It also follows her 2017 win, when she created gender equity in an Australian ministry for the first time.

But a woman would have been premier whatever happened on October 31. With Deb Frecklington leading the LNP, the Queensland election was the first state or federal election to see two women going head-to-head in a contest for premier.

Queensland has had a female leader for 10 of the past 13 years — between them, Anna Bligh and Palaszczuk have won four elections.

Palaszczuk’s achievement, and Bligh’s before her, is worth pondering. They show the often privately voiced assumption in federal political circles that male leaders are more likely succeed in what is seen as the masculinist state of Queensland as one of the great lies of Australian politics.

Palaszczuk and Berejiklian

Palaszczuk also survived sustained attacks on her COVID border management in the lead up to and during the state election. She stared down NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and brushed off similar pressure from Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

The Queensland premier’s battles with her NSW counterpart Berejiklian also draw attention to another important feature of Australian politics in 2020. From opposite sides of politics, these two women govern about half of Australia’s population (about 13 million out of almost 26 million people) – literally, no small thing.

If there was a NSW election tomorrow, it too would be governed by a woman whatever the result, since the NSW opposition leader is Labor’s Jodi McKay.

Women win big in the ACT

Meanwhile, Australia got its first majority female ministry in a majority female parliament at the ACT Assembly election in October. Each party in the ACT Assembly is at least 50% women, and the ACT Liberals chose an all-woman leadership team in the election aftermath.

New ACT opposition leader Elizabeth Lee — as an Australian of Korean heritage — is the latest example of women thriving in politics despite not fitting the male Anglo-Celtic stereotype.

She joins Palaszczuk, with Polish and German heritage, Berejiklian with Armenian heritage and senior politicians like Penny Wong, with Chinese-Malaysian heritage and Tanya Plibersek, with Slovenian heritage — all making conspicuous contributions to Australian public life.

Lastly, it remains too little known that men and women are almost equally represented in the federal Labor caucus – a mighty achievement and, given its commitment to the quota mechanism that helped bring this about, one set to last.

Women prominent in pandemic response

Women leading in a broader sense has been more conspicuous in 2020 than ever before, too.

Female chief health officers have been prominent in the management of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Australian Council of Trade Unions leadership team of president Michele O’Neil and secretary Sally McManus have been unrelenting in their efforts especially for those in the most vulnerable parts of Australia’s highly casualised workforce – typically women.

Australia’s main employer organisation, the Business Council of Australia, is female-led too. Jennifer Westacott is due to reach her ten year milestone as chief executive in 2021. The chief justice of the High Court is also a woman, Susan Kiefel.

That’s the good news. The bad?

But (still) too few women in the federal Coalition

Less than one-quarter of Morrison government MPs are women. This is because the federal Coalition parties remain stubbornly against the proven method – quotas – which can change this. They do so on narrow ideological grounds.

ABC journalist Louise Milligan’s Four Corners report on the bullying of female staffers inside the government provides the latest in a string of reminders of the cultural problems in Coalition ranks. These are both a product and cause of gender inequity in the Coalition.

This lack of female representation has fed into a disastrously gendered policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which was already especially bad for Australian women. They won’t quickly forget the government providing free childcare during lockdown, only to withdraw it as one of its first policy decisions post-lockdown.

Already in a weaker position in the workforce, concentrated in low-paid, casualised work, women disproportionately withdrew from the labour market compared to men during the pandemic — the hasty withdrawal of free childcare was a critical factor in this.

The 14% difference between female and male average full-time weekly earnings – the national gender pay gap – also influenced family decisions about who should pick up the extra burden at home. This and gender stereotyping saw men’s domestic labour rise a little during the pandemic and women’s rise a lot, especially for childcare and home-schooling.

Read more: She won’t be right, mate: how the government shaped a blokey lockdown followed by a blokey recovery

Women withdrew from higher education at greater rates than men during the pandemic. Domestic violence, overwhelmingly committed by men against women,rose too.

Despite a chorus of community voices and academic analyses showing how and where the Morrison government was either blind to, or actively worsening,the gendered impacts of its pandemic response, it failed to change course. Bereft of enough women to lean against these policies, the Morrison government discounted and disadvantaged women across the board.

The agenda for 2021

So a “pink” recession has taken hold. 2020 likely marks a structural lurch backward in the position of women at home, in education, and in the labour force so significant it takes years to recover.

We need to take a leaf from the grace, guts and drive displayed by women working to make things better, come what may. They get up, get going, show solidarity with other women, and get things done.

Sharing the load, sharing the benefits and sharing the power ought to be on every woman’s agenda, and every other thinking person’s agenda, in 2021.

Read more: COVID-19 is a disaster for mothers’ employment. And no, working from home is not the solution

– ref. Victory, history and a pink recession: the highs and lows for women in 2020 – https://theconversation.com/victory-history-and-a-pink-recession-the-highs-and-lows-for-women-in-2020-150064

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of Waikato

A year ago, who could have even imagined 2020 would turn out the way it did? A pandemic, closed borders, lockdowns, economic crisis, a delayed election … but here we are at the end of a year like no other.

So, if New Zealand were to receive a report card for its performance in the year of COVID-19, measured against members of the global community, how might that look?

On the pandemic

We take gold at being the best in the world at confronting the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Foreign Policy publication.

Global business leaders agree, report The Guardian and others, citing a Bloomberg Media survey that looked at a number of factors including political stability, the economic recovery, virus control and social resilience.

A place to do business

The World Bank says we are the best place in the world for doing business.

Transparency International says we are back to being top of the class (joint 1st with Denmark) in terms of being corruption free.

The Economist says our internet (in terms of affordability and access) is also ranked 2nd best, behind Sweden.

But not competitive

Conversely, the last Global Competitiveness Report has us fall a spot, to 19th place.

Similarly, the Global Innovation Index, recorded New Zealand falling out of the top 25, to 26th position.

A peaceful place

For peace, in terms of societal safety and security, the extent of ongoing domestic and international conflict, and the degree of militarisation, Vision of Humanity says we are ranked 2nd best, behind Iceland.

The Index for Economic Freedom (which covers everything from property rights to financial freedom) has us as third best.

A democratic place

The Democracy Index, which looks at considerations such as free and fair elections and influence of foreign powers, has us at 4th best in the world. Norway, Iceland and Sweden do better.

Excellence is also merited for our democracy in the Freedom in the World Index with a score of 97 out of 100, but we dropped one point due to the Christchurch terror attack.

The Global Gender Gap Report notes an improvement of one place and lands us as the 6th most gender equal country.

The World Justice, Rule of Law, Project has us as 7th best in the world, up one place since last year.

A happy place

Our happiness remains steady, as the 8th most cheerful place on the planet, says the World Happiness Report.

Reporters Without Borders has us as 9th best in the world, but we fell two places due to recent concerns about the quality and independence of some media outlets.

Our wellbeing

In terms of falling out of the top ten countries, but still doing really well, the latest Human Development Index has us increase two places, to 14th, in terms of life expectancy, education and income.

That’s just ahead of the United Kingdom and the United States but well behind Australia in 6th place.

The environment and climate

With regards to environmental concerns we do good, but not great. According to the Yale Environmental Performance Index, which measures environmental health and ecosystem vitality, our overall rank is 19th, noting we are falling, not rising, in this ranking.

In some areas, such as with fresh water and sanitation, we are only 26th in the line-up.

In terms of climate change, the Climate Change Performance Index has our country rise to 37th, a good jump from the previous position of 44th.

But the Climate Tracker Index is a little harsher, putting our response as “insufficient” despite our good intentions with our Zero Carbon law.

Jobs and earnings

Unemployment hit 5.3% in September, which although a percentage point higher than where it was pre-COVID it’s not that bad, and certainly better than most comparable OECD countries at the moment.

As of the middle of the year, the medians for weekly earnings from wages and salaries, compared to last year, increased NZ$44 (4.3%) to NZ$1,060.

A drop in suicides

One area better than expected is with the suicide statistics. Although New Zealand’s rate is high in terms of comparative examples, in the year to June 30, 2020, 654 people died by suicide compared to 685 the year before.

Although each one of these deaths is a tragedy, and we have a very long way to go as a country in this terrible area, this decrease (of 31 deaths, and a drop in the suicide rate from 13.93 deaths per 100,000 to 13.01) is moving in the right direction.

Crime …

In terms of crime, New Zealand Police figures show assaults have increased more than 14% on the previous 12 months but that’s partly due to the introduction of new family violence offences.

The amount of both burglary and theft has fallen.

… and punishment

Slight progress is evident with our rates of incarceration. While high compared to similar countries, the good news is the number of people in prison has fallen slightly to 9,469 by the middle of 2020, down from 9,969 the year befofre.

The housing crisis

The housing crisis, driven by demand outstripping supply and prices escalating much faster than comparable countries, is creating a fearful situation for those who cannot afford an abode, or the costs of it eats up too much of their money.

Homelessness, which was entrapping tens of thousands before the COVID pandemic remains systemic.

People in poverty

Probably the sharpest end of the poverty crisis is with children. Figures from the beginning of 2020 show about one in five Kiwi children (235,400) lived in relative poverty.

So while New Zealand’s report card contains a very impressive collection of clear excellences, and reflects some positive changes, we need to be vigilant and must seek to improve. There are a few areas of failure that must be addressed if we wish to claim we are the best country in the world.

– ref. New Zealand’s 2020 report card: doing well but could try harder – https://theconversation.com/new-zealands-2020-report-card-doing-well-but-could-try-harder-149982

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dan Caprar, Associate Professor, University of Sydney

Finally, the holidays are here — the break you’ve been waiting for. You want to leave work behind, kick back and enjoy time with family and friends.

But you’re still checking work emails and taking work calls. Even if you are at a remote location that screams holiday, you’re still thinking about work, or even doing work, although you promised yourself this time would be different.

If this sounds familiar, you’re not the only one struggling to switch off on holidays.

One reason is you, like many others, might derive a strong sense of self from your work.

Work helps shape your identity

Humans crave answers to the question “who am I?”. One place we find these answers is in the activities we do — including our work. Whether we work by choice, necessity, or a bit of both, many of us find work inevitably becomes a source of our identity.

We develop professional identities (“I’m a lawyer”), organisational identities (“I’m a Google employee”), or as we discovered in our research, performance-based identities (“I’m a top performer”).

Such identification can be beneficial. It has been linked with increased motivation and work performance, and even better health. But it can also prevent us from switching off.

Read more: How our obsession with performance is changing our sense of self

Your work identity can make it harder to switch off

We all know people who are mentally “on holidays” even before the holidays have started. But for others, switching off from work is not so easy. Why?

One factor is our identity mix. We all have multiple identities, but the range and relative importance of our identities vary from person to person.

If work-related identities occupy a central place in how we see ourselves, they’re likely to shape our thinking and behaviour beyond work hours — including during holidays. In other words, we stay mentally connected to work not because the boss or the job necessarily requires it, but because it’s hard to imagine other ways of “being ourselves”.

Equally important to why some of us struggle to switch off on holidays are environmental cues. That relaxing chair by the pool or the company of family tell us we’re off work. But email alerts or phone calls, or even the simple sight of our laptop, can activate work identities and associated mindsets and behaviours. No wonder our plans for switching off are doomed.

Yes, but what can I do about it?

It’s worth considering all that obvious advice you’ve heard on the benefits of digital detox.

This is even more important in the new normal of working from home in 2020 and beyond. For many of us, the office and home are now one and the same, meaning we have to work even harder to protect non-work time from work-related incursions.

From an identity perspective, though, there’s a lot more we can do.

First, we can scan the environment and remove any cues that might activate our work identity (beyond switching off email alerts). This might be something as simple as hiding your laptop in a drawer.

At the same time, introduce cues to activate other identities. For instance, if you’re a tennis player or an aspiring artist, keep your gear visible so your brain is primed to focus on those aspects of your self.

Second, research suggests we can engage in “identity work” and “identity play”. That’s deliberately managing and revising our identities, and even experimenting with potential new ones. Imagining and trying new and more complex versions of ourselves takes time, but it can be an effective antidote to an overpowering work identity.

But simply trying to not think about work over the holidays is likely to do more harm than good. Much research shows trying to suppress certain thoughts tends to have the opposite effect, making us not only have the thought more, but also feeling worse afterwards.

A better approach may be to accept the thought for what it is (a simple mental event), and naturally let your mind move to the next carriage in your train of thought.

Read more: We’re all going on a summer holiday – well, some of us …

In the long term, it’s worth reflecting on whether you might be over-identifying with work.

One way to test this is by assessing how you feel about doing the unthinkable of completely unplugging for a while. Does that make you anxious?

What about the idea of retirement — that final “holiday” we’ve worked towards our entire life? This too can be challenging for identity reasons: giving up work can feel like giving up a part of ourselves. We can prevent that, and ensure we enjoy retirement and all other holidays, by considering what else we could use as equally valid sources of identity.

Ultimately, the aim is to see ourselves as the complex creatures we indeed are, defined by more than just our work, so we can make the most of our precious time away from it.

Disclaimer: We wrote part of this article on holidays. Academics are perhaps the best (or worst?) example of over-identifying with work. Time for us to really practise what we preach.

– ref. Here’s why you’re checking work emails on holidays (and how to stop) – https://theconversation.com/heres-why-youre-checking-work-emails-on-holidays-and-how-to-stop-148720