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Small furry creature, lives in the garden. Always curious. she/they/dr  Naarm, Wurundjeri land  #AutisticElder #sociologist  The map is not the territory. Where we look from & our #ToolsToThinkWith determine what we see. We can choose kindness. ⭐️ = I hear you.  Avatar: Winged rabbit wearing blue trousers from an Ivy Wallace book. Banner: Japanese bronze Buddha wearing a green crochet beret w a lorikeet feather in it. On each side a vase of nasturtiums w orange flowers reaching across to touch.

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Last Notes

2026-07-18 23:15:35 UTC

The ‘screen for T’ initiative makes perfect sense as part of a broader strategic policy of policing gender.
Goes like this: define gender as binary & the extremes of its cultural expression as natural; assume a hierarchy in which men are superior to women; normalise institutional cultures in which the highest status is accorded to those who most clearly embody attributes coded as male.
These framings offer a pathway for men whose life prospects have been destroyed by the accelerating plunder & obscene enrichment of the oligarchs to direct their anger toward any ‘other’ who is not like them (except their wealthy heroes of course) & find status based on their obedient manifestation of exaggerated masculinity. Join the army. Be a man.
Any man no matter how exploited can know himself to be better than a woman. Men’s status is supported by the progressive disenfranchisement of women - we are denied autonomy over our own bodies, lose access to means of making a living independently of men, eventually lose the right to vote (see Margaret Atwood for details).
This is a long term plan. Boys and men are valued as cannon fodder. Girls & women exist to provide service.
Its success rests on keeping us distracted with clickbait media and shiny toys & eroding our collective ability to understand history, see patterns & think critically about them. Is no surprise that the disciplines that teach these skills have been progressively defunded over decades.
This is white supremacist christian patriarchy in action. Crises are an opportunity. Colonialism is the business model. Plunder & exploitation are the means, profit & power are the goals.
We see you.
#colonialism #plunder #hierarchy #gender #misogyny #racism #obedience #history #sociology #AusPol
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/18/us-military-testosterone-screening-doctors?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

2026-06-24 00:00:08 UTC

I have been on both sides of this story.
Graduating in the 1970s as an undx autistic woman I completely lacked the skills required to identify & apply for any kind of suitable work. I spent 8 years on dole. None of the help I received was useful & the constant rejection was soul destroying. After a while I decided to see the payments as an arts grant, & pursued deep dives into special interests, meeting likeminded people & having adventures. Eventually I joined the APS via the clerical entrance exam & that environment, with its clear hierarchies & explicit rules, suited me well. I worked across a lifespan of social policy areas & by the time privatisation of government services became a thing was in a role whose job was to make our part of the organisation look as if it was delivering the services we were funded to do while also providing services to commercial clients & running a surplus - all the while keeping our unionised professional staff happy by ensuring minimal change to their work. In practice this meant providing people on benefits with minimal services while recording them as greater than they were, providing lucrative services to our commercial clients & showing most of their payments as profit. This situation was intolerable to me & as I was unable not to name it my time there was colourful. When I returned to policy work it became increasingly clear that our job was to tell the minister what they wanted to hear, bc if the minister didn’t like what they heard from us they’d buy their research & policy advice elsewhere. We would routinely assess tenders for projects that were transparently designed to deliver the desired results. Escaping into a career in research saved my life.
I was completely unsurprised by #RoboDebt. Colleen Taylor is a hero.
In such environments the price of a career is collusion. No wonder autistic folx burn out & leave.
#PublicAdministration #AusPol #unemployment #ActuallyAutistic #ethics
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jun/23/job-that-changed-me-dole-office-people-desperately-wanted-work?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

2026-06-22 02:07:40 UTC

Capitalism depends on convincing exploited groups to blame each other for their suffering as away of deflecting attention from the actions of the oppressors. Its most successful strategy has been creating & weaponising the idea of racial hierarchy.
Social scientist and historian WEB Du Bois, the first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard, spelled this out in 1935:
‘…the racial order required by capitalism could only be maintained if white elites successfully manipulated the white masses against their class alliances with other races. … Convincing poor white farmers to side with the wealthy land owners they otherwise begrudged required posing newly enfranchised African Americans as a threat to even the lowest white man’s standing.’
It worked.
Evidence shows that white people whose livelihoods are threatened by profiteering capitalists are still easily persuaded to locate their identity in an imagined superiority over a racialised ‘other’ - & often a gendered ‘other’ as well - instead of identifying their common interests with others who are being exploited.
All these years & we still fall for it.
This slice of American history is very relevant to Australia now.
#AusPol #history #RacialHeirarchy #DivideAndRule #capitalism #plunder #exploitation #history #sociology
https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/ng-interactive/2026/jun/21/american-racial-anxiety-white-working-class-rights?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

2026-06-01 23:41:36 UTC

To anyone who has been watching the evidence - including the generations of policy researchers who have for decades been waving the evidence around, burning out & withdrawing from the fray - this is bleeding obvious.
The Liberals under John Howard turned housing from necessary shelter to an inflationary scam. For decades, naming this was a sure way of making your voice & your work invisible in the policy arena. Political anathema.
Undoing the damage will take years. Every step will enrage those who have made Howard’s gravy train their business model.
#profit #plunder #AusPol #governance
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jun/02/property-prices-budget-negative-gearing-capital-gains-investors?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

2026-06-01 23:33:00 UTC

This is what’s driving the increase in popularity of far right politics in Australia.
The strategy used by the parties & politicians owned by the wealthiest few is to deflect attention from the plunder that’s feeding their obscene profits & entice those who are being royally screwed to blame others like themselves. It’s working.
Because Labor has spent decades playing ‘business as usual is fine, please Gina / Rupert don’t attack us’, they have zero credibility in countering this.
Our familiar two party system is over. Mainstream media’s fatuous team sport reporting is animating a spectre.
What do we need? Policy, clarity, integrity, leadership. One Nation has a story but their actions are all about support the wealthy, screw the oppressed.
Time to support independent media & think critically about everything we read.
#inequality #plunder #exploitation #misinformation #polarisation #AusPol #governance #integrity #leadership
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jun/02/australian-billionaires-richer-than-last-year?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

2026-05-17 23:30:21 UTC

The raft is not the shore.
As someone who has spent my whole long life in finding ways to make sense of my experience I know how important a raft can be in helping us survive. I have assembled so many rafts. The ones I find useful now, I try to carry lightly.
Always the relevant question is not, ‘is this true?’. It’s ’is this useful?’ And ‘for what / where / when / who - & whose experience does this framing erase?’ And, when thinking in company, ‘does the person I’m talking to want to know about this?’ (Generally, no! 😅)
Nadine Levy on the Buddhist teaching of non-attachment to views, even Buddhist ones.
However cool they are, the map is never the territory.
#buddhism #epistemology #ethics
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/18/learned-not-to-cling-to-my-beliefs?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

2026-05-08 23:15:38 UTC

If only we treated people as aunties / uncles / siblings / kids whose wellbeing is part of our own, instead of ‘others’ to be demonised.
Scapegoating can be good politics. As policy it harms all of us.
#AusPol #ResponsibleGovernance #community
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2026/may/08/the-children-of-is-linked-families-must-not-be-treated-as-extensions-of-their-parents-but-individuals-shaped-by-years-of-trauma-ntwnfb?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

2026-04-18 23:50:38 UTC

The thread through all this? A feeling of aggrieved entitlement.
When we don’t have the critical thinking skills needed to listen to claims, identify who is making them, assess the evidence they’re based on & notice whose interests are served by the arguments presented, we are Very Vulnerable to manipulation through this feeling.
No wonder political parties of the white patriarchal supremacist right have been systematically defunding the institutions & disciplines that teach these skills.
People are not our enemy. Ignorance is.
#education #history #sociology #philosopy #ethics #CriticalThinking #schools #universities #NeoLiberalism #strategy #manipulation #polarisation #plunder #profit
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/apr/18/the-families-torn-apart-by-older-relatives-going-far-right?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

2026-04-17 03:22:39 UTC

We are each other’s strength.
Bec Shaw on solidarity.
#ethics #kindness #resistance
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/16/i-thought-hell-would-freeze-over-before-i-agreed-with-the-pope-but-in-a-world-riven-by-cruelty-that-day-has-finally-come?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

2026-04-14 23:20:08 UTC

How interesting that most senior managers say using AI makes them way more efficient, while those who do the intellectual work say using AI to generate drafts generates reams of fatuous slop that needs to be extensively rewritten & saves no labour time at all.
Is this because senior managers are using AI mostly to draw on quality information produced by workers?
Or because for senior managers (& politicians!), AI works because talking in verbose, content-less management speak - that can never be factually or analytically challenged bc it is invariably ambiguous, always plausibly deniable & often makes no sense at all - is what they are paid to do. It is actually THE JOB.
I’ll love to see an empirical study that tests this 😎.
If you know of one, please tell!!
#AI #slop #InstitutionalEthnography #sociology #ethnography #research #politics #business #lobbying #PlausibleDeniability #AusPol
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/apr/14/ai-productivity-workplace-errors?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

2026-04-07 22:38:37 UTC

Solidarity across difference? Or savagery. We choose.
Must-read review of Molly Crabapple’s new book on the birth of Zionism & the Bund, the Jewish internationalist solidarity movement that opposed it.
During WW2 the Bund was defeated. But they were right.
The dynamic they identified is playing out in blood before our eyes.
Solidarity across difference? Or savagery. We choose.
#history #theBund #zionism #imperialism #savagery #genocide #ethics #solidarity #hope
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/07/molly-crabapple-new-book-jewish-socialism?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

2026-03-07 06:44:42 UTC

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wow. How wonderful it is being us 😎🙏🏻

2026-03-07 02:59:16 UTC

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Hi Murdoc! I also have heightened interoception. My body is So Loud, All The Time, that it's really hard to sleep. I also know exactly what my body needs to eat, & when - & I do. It's great. Also am waaay sensitive to all kinds of drugs, incl food that are stimulants or relaxants. Is it like this for you?
I've met a few others like us in #ActuallyAutistic communities, but we're definitely a minority. A whole extra world of complexity 🌈

2026-03-02 00:36:09 UTC

Great article about the kinds of mental load involved, for women, in domestic labour.
Sadly, this is old news.
Twenty years ago I completed a PhD thesis that unpacked & examined these aspects of domestic life.
By interviewing parents & kids separately, asking the same open ended questions - ‘what gets done, who does what, is it fair, & how do you think it should be?’, which I ran through 3 times, first for domestic tasks, then for the work of identifying what needs to be done & making sure it happens, then for noticing how everyone is feeling & keeping every happy in the process - then taking the family as my unit of analysis, I showed that men & kids were unaware of much of the physical & almost all of the intangible work women did in their homes. Boys & men thought everything was fine. Girls did not want to assume, as adults, the domestic servant role they saw their mothers placed in but had no strategies to achieve this beyond ‘I’ll just tell them’.
There was a hierarchy of work in these families in which men’s work & leisure time had highest priority, then kids’ schooling & leisure, then domestic work of all kinds. Womens paid work & leisure was lowest priority of all.
The families that lived without conflict were those in which the hierarchy of work was not disputed. Where women sought to disrupt the hierarchy there was conflict - which became another part of the domestic load she was expected to manage.
My findings showed that contrary to popular narratives of ‘progress’, this dynamic was not likely to change until men as well as women recognise the dynamic & choose to shift it.
This argument was not popular.
Twenty years later, here we are.
I wish I had been wrong.
#DomesticLabour #EmotionWork #MentalLoad #sociology #research #women #mothers
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-02/the-four-stages-of-the-mental-load-explained/106348264?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other

2026-02-22 00:06:16 UTC

What a great story.
Scammers accessed Age pensioner Ian Williams’ debit card details & withdrew $1,338, which is 5.5% of his annual income. He provided proof to his bank (NAB) but they did not accept responsibility or refund his money.
So he sued the bank - on his own, without legal representation - for 5.5% of their annual profit. That’s $379,005,000.
The bank did not respond to the case. He won.
On appeal to the Supreme Court the case was dismissed on technicalities & Mr Williams ordered to pay the bank’s legal costs.
Only after the story was widely publicised did the bank do what they should have done from the start: refund Mr Williams’ $1,338 & offer him an apology. They also waived their claim to costs.
Dragged kicking & screaming to basic ethical business practice. It’s a good look, NAB. We see you.
#bank #scam #megaprofit #NationalAustraliaBank
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-22/ian-williams-on-why-he-sued-nab-bank/106093720?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other

2026-02-04 06:36:54 UTC

Guess what? We're not computers. The framing we use to think about how our brains work is JUST A METAPHOR.
When we're trying to understand stuff, examining our assumptions is essential.
#NeuroScience #metaphor
Your brain does not process information and it is not a computer | Aeon Essays https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-information-and-it-is-not-a-computer

2026-02-02 02:14:25 UTC

Resistance starts with looking after our neighbours.
#Minneapolis
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/01/minnesota-twin-cities-ice-protests?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

2026-02-01 23:52:14 UTC

Our worst ever PM #Scott 🤡 played the politics of continual sideshow to distract from his party’s total absence of policy, thereby effectively maintaining conditions for accelerated plunder at whatever cost to people or planet. This is the strategy. The current Lib Nats continue the same by performing self destruction as a clowshow 🎡🎪🤡.
And still our media report it as news.
Why can’t we disregard these clowns? If we regarded the Greens & independents as the actual opposition our government, with its huge majority in the lower house, might be challenged & empowered to step away from state capture by fossil fuel industries & meet our perilous times with integrity & courage.
This is serious, folks.
#governance #media #reporting #clownshow #AusPol
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/feb/01/spotlight-remains-on-a-coalition-in-chaos-as-parliament-returns-with-splits-and-spills-looming-over-policy?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

2026-02-01 04:21:38 UTC

Holding public officials accountable? Bring it on. Frank & fearless advice? Yes please.
Having created a system where senior officials know they hold office only as long as they serve their ministers’ political interests, we now live with the slow poison.
The tenacious Rick Morton is not going to let this go.
#governanace #integrity #competence #ethics #RoboDebt
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/share/22492/2jMjgB2i

2026-01-28 22:37:26 UTC

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Thank you for this lovely window into your day & greetings from Naarm (Melbourne) Australia where it was 47 Celsius in our garden two days ago. Our state is parched & some areas burning. Ageing, here as well, is about noticing the beauty ❤️.
https://o.mastodon.au/media_attachments/files/115/975/102/966/109/859/original/f8f9f8eff4a343fe.png

2026-01-26 23:25:38 UTC

Once again incompetence - as in ‘but this is how we do it’ - is claimed as defence against administering programs illegally, to the detriment of vulnerable people they are funded to serve.
Another manifestation of decades of toxic culture in the APS.
How might we protect against this? Here’s an idea.
Every public servant who is newly appointed or starting in a new position, plus every company contracted to administer government programs & every person they employ or contract to work on them, at every level, could be required to begin with the legislation & learn the purpose, authority & processes of the programs they are part of & must demonstrate understanding of same before they start the job.
I did this with every position I worked in during my decades in the APS, where I started as ‘ClerkClass1’. It meant that in every workplace I asked all the awkward questions that showed up gaps between what we were empowered to do & what was actually happening. I was not popular but this approach led to rapid promotion (until the questions became too uncomfortable under the privatisation agenda & consequent cultural changes inaugurated by JohnHoward, then it totally didn’t).
But then, as I realised only decades later, I am autistic😎.*
Maybe the public sector needs more of us.
*I don’t know Colleen Taylor, but with the greatest respect & appreciation I claim her as neurokin 🙏
#PublicSector #incompetence #ethics #RoboDebt #ActuallyAutistic
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-27/services-australia-knowingly-broke-law-for-years/106261814?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other

2026-01-20 23:49:56 UTC

This is alarming.
Our experience in Australia with bickering between the states over the starved & failing Murray river shows that even when the catastrophes are local we do not deal with them well.
As with all aspects of the global polycrisis, ‘It’s mine! You can’t have it!’ Is not the answer. Sadly this appears to be the only response our politicians know. Or that our media approve.
There will be huge movements of populations as local ecosystems collapse. It seems to me that the belligerent climate deniers of the far right have always known this. The cruel & aggressive actions they’ve taken to police borders have been a preemptive response to the catastrophes they’ve always known are coming.
We have been successfully distracted by the sideshows these clowns run & the fatuous team sport reporting delivered by our media.
How do we shift this?
#ClimateChange #Water #Displacement #governance #ExistentialThreat #ethics
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/20/era-of-global-water-bankruptcy-is-here-un-report-says?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

2026-01-15 22:01:48 UTC

Beach summer in Victoria: bushfire on one side of the hill, flash flood on the other.
No rain fell on the burning side of the hill.
Flood inundated campsites & swept cars out to sea. The bushfire is still out of control & continues to threaten communities.
This is our new normal, for now. Are we taking climate instability seriously yet?
#ClimateCatastrophe #preparation #governance #AusPol #Victoria #bushfires #floods #summer #NewNormal
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-16/flooding-great-ocean-road-victoria-wye-river-lorne/106232918?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other

2025-12-21 22:50:55 UTC

Serious reflection on creatures we use for food.
What if all creatures are sentient? All plants? Rocks & minerals?
How would we live differently if we recognised all manifestation as sentient & ourselves as not separate from any of it?
What if trees grieve the mining of coal as desecration of their ancestors?
What if we are part of a continually evolving system?
What if our maps of reality - that we see as truth - don’t describe the territory well at all?
What if most of what we think we know is wrong?
Maybe we can seek to understand as best we can, knowing that our maps are blinkered, & choose to practice kindness 🩷
#sentience #WhatIf #kindness #ontology #epistemology #buddhism #food #ethics
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/22/crustaceans-feelings-sentient-christmas-new-year-prawns-australia?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

2025-12-08 21:46:52 UTC

‘Can you imagine a female politician surviving a story arc in which she commences a relationship with a staff member and leaves her husband who has raised their kids and fibs about it to colleagues and then blows up her government with her resignation and then later passes out in the street, which is captured on video, and now quits the party that's sponsored her into parliament?’
I often find commentary from Annabel Crabb to be arch & flippant. This time she’s spot on.
These are the unwritten rules: a woman who is not perfect in every domain of her existence has no place in public life. A man who forks up is just ‘boys being boys’. Exemplified in Gillard / Abbott, or Clinton / Voldemort. Too many to name.
The narrative runs bc it gets clicks. Can’t we grow the fork up now?
#AusPol #PubTest #DoubleStandards #misogyny
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12-09/barnaby-joyce-annabel-crabb-expenses-one-nation-defection/106114804?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other

2025-12-05 03:58:05 UTC

Interesting that the analysis here focuses on how *couples* behave in response to each other’s speech. I’d love to see the data to examine, within each couple, which partner does the most work in responding to the other’s bids.
I have learned, & choose to practice, to respond to any random statement from by partner by stopping, looking at them & saying ‘tell me about it’. Because being present & listening is how we show respect. It’s how we cultivate understanding, & understanding is the ground of love.
When I ask for my partner’s attention when I want to say something they will stop, look at me & sit rigidly as if gritting their teeth to perform an unpleasant but necessary task. If I’m lucky. Mostly it’s a mumble, a grunt, or no response at all.
Maybe I’m boring? (Kidding. I’m not.)
Fun game: guess our genders 😎. Bonus points for identifying which of us is #ActuallyAutistic
#Relationships #Respect #Listening #gender #neurodivergence
https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2025/dec/04/bird-theory-relationship?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

2025-11-09 22:56:05 UTC

This land has been home to my family for five generations. It has been home to the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people for tens of thousands of years.
My ancestors came here as part of a colonial project. Our enjoyment of this land rests on the forcible dispossession of its traditional owners. Sovereignty was never ceded.
Native title for the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people? Yes please!
It’s way past time to acknowledge our histories. Let us care for this living land together.
#NativeTitle #Wurundjeri #KulinNation #Naarm #colonialism #disposession #justice
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/nov/09/traditional-owners-indigenous-people-file-native-title-claim-over-melbourne-australia-first-nations?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

2025-09-15 23:36:56 UTC

One of the hardest things about raising a neurodivergent child is that the approved strategies for behaviour management Just Don’t Work.
When you, the parent, are undiagnosed, unsupported & still in denial & shame about your own lifelong neurodivergence the obvious conclusion is ‘it’s like this because I am bad & broken & inadequate & I may as well die’.
From the inside, the experience of being a child like this, or a parent like this, is living with constant, extreme terror. Self loathing & suicidal ideation become part of the daily air we breathe.
My kids are adults now but I still hold this terror in my body. Every day.
The way to understand these kids’ extreme behaviours is to LISTEN TO US. Please.
#neurodivergence #PDA #ProfoundDesireForAutonomy #AutisticElders #trauma
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-16/pathological-demand-avoidance-awareness-of-autism-subtype/105772066?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other

2025-08-10 23:04:34 UTC

Australia - although we were British subjects then - HAS done this. And all of us colonisers / settlers / immigrants who live here continue to benefit from the genocide perpetrated against the custodians of this country. Sovereignty was never ceded.
Our shameful denial of this history is exposed when the leader of a state that is actively perpetrating genocide can - correctly - point to Australia like this.
What will we teach our kids? Do we value the land we share & our common humanity - in this country & any other - or is this a team sport? White supremacist colonial plunder has been the business model for far too long. (‘But the profits 😱!!’ ‘But the cost 💔.’)
It’s our choice.
#genocide #colonialism #shame
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-11/netanyahu-defends-plan-to-occupy-gaza/105634928?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other

2025-05-07 23:47:21 UTC

Troubled by unseasonal extremes of weather?
This is our new normal. Until it gets worse.
The longer we delay serious action on #ClimateChange the worse it will get.
We are watching you #ALP #Greens #AusPol
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-08/southern-australias-heat-and-drought-explained/105264074?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other

2025-05-03 22:55:27 UTC

#LauraTingle spot on as usual.
The Right - globally - has relied on grievance politics bc it has worked for them. Now the D0nald administration has shown us what unfettered governance by these 🤡 actually delivers 🎡🎪, this time Australian voters have chosen moderation instead.
Enough of division & hatemongering. Let’s focus on policies & our kids’ future 🌏🏡🩷 #AusPol #inequality #climate #together
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-04/election-result-labor-victory-positive-future/105247606?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other

2025-02-22 23:00:49 UTC

This is a good start. Now, let’s include dental care. Urgently. #AusPol #health #dental #medicare
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-22/labor-medicare-promise-to-make-gp-visits-free-for-most/104969694?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other

2025-02-06 00:04:23 UTC

This lovely story is the #TrolleyProblem with cats: an ethical conundrum, asking ‘when we believe that our obligation is to all sentient beings, how do we choose to act when saving one may mean denying aid to another?’
As humans we face this dilemma every day. IMO there’s no always right answer, but making our choices consciously means we can act with intention & learn from experience. And be kinder to ourselves & each other for our choices when we’re placed in impossible situations.
Meanwhile I am glad this much-loved cat was saved.
#ethics #kindness 🐈🐈‍⬛
Doctor faces inquiry after giving his cat a Cat scan at Italian hospital https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/05/doctor-inquiry-injured-cat-scan-hospital?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

2025-02-01 02:37:27 UTC

A prayer for land, poem by Vietnamese Buddhist teacher Thich Nath Hanh, music & performance by monastics from Plum Village monastery.
https://youtu.be/gK1pzgBeBkA?si=mqnyQqK4rGVAuf05

2025-01-24 23:07:58 UTC

This story needs more profile. #AlaaAbdElFattah #PeterGreste
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-25/peter-greste-hunger-strike-london-alaa-abd-el-fattah-egypt-jail/104854732?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other

2025-01-16 01:16:33 UTC

Whose interests are served here? Those whose aim is to maintain the profits of fossil fuel industries!
Our major political parties & the media they are enmeshed with sell fictions to distract us from the seriousness of #ClimateChange & urgency of action. Why? Because it works.
We can do better. #AusPol
From @npub1yj3…32e5
Australians should be angry about another year of climate inaction. But don’t let your anger turn into despair https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2025/jan/16/australians-should-be-angry-about-another-year-of-climate-inaction-but-dont-let-your-anger-turn-into-despair?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

2024-12-31 22:30:33 UTC

I remember this. For months #Howard refused to discuss possible deployment, saying ‘it’s hypothetical & I will not discuss hypotheticals’. Then it was ‘oops too late’. It was brazen.
So much of the poison we see manifest in Australian politics today was seeded & cultivated under Howard. The ‘nation of shareholders’. The demonisation of anyone who was not cis het white Anglo people with well paid work. Reframing social problems as individual deficits. Sending our country to war based on a lie. The tragedy is, as politics, it worked. Howard the cruel, unscrupulous ‘strategist’ is still their hero.
That government caused so much damage. We remember. #AusPol #CabinetPapers #IraqWar
Australia kept quiet about early deployment of forces ahead of Iraq war, cabinet papers show https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/jan/01/australia-kept-quiet-about-early-deployment-of-forces-ahead-of-iraq-war-cabinet-papers-show?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

2024-12-21 00:21:26 UTC

The Australian cartoonist #MichaelLeunig, who died this week, was loved by many. His work gave voice to an outsider’s sensibility in an era of cultural change (1970s onward) that shaped many of our lives.
But remember, for all the joy & exploration of those years, for many of us the culture of the time was not a safe place to be a woman (esp if queer, black, or in any way chosing to exist in ways that did not suit the comfort of privileged white men). For many men, we were visible & permitted to exist only as reflected through their gaze & constructed as a commodity serving their pleasure. Women who thrived did so within this framing, & dissent could be spoken only in separatist (marginalised, belittled) spaces. Many of us carry trauma from those years.
The creative work of so many women - like Michael’s sister #MaryLeunig (whose work is 🤯) - has been written out of the cultural canon while that of often less incisive & talented men has become iconic to the point of cliche.
So with thanks for the joys provided by Michael Leunig’s work & respect for the sensibilities of those grieving his his loss, please remember, not everyone remembers those years, or the cultural moment his work embodies, fondly.
https://maryleunig.com/publications/new-drawings
https://o.mastodon.au/media_attachments/files/113/687/935/765/244/982/original/44b95b7d6256d95a.png

2024-12-11 01:08:42 UTC

This is scary. #ClimateCatastrophe
Arctic tundra is now emitting more carbon than it absorbs, US agency says https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/10/arctic-tundra-carbon-shift?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

2024-11-22 04:53:56 UTC

More of this please.
Iceland’s shorter working week has been a huge success – and it’s changed my family’s life https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/21/iceland-36-hour-working-week-stress-job?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

2024-11-19 04:02:08 UTC

Fascinating
Air is an overlooked source of nutrients – evidence shows we can inhale some vitamins https://theconversation.com/air-is-an-overlooked-source-of-nutrients-evidence-shows-we-can-inhale-some-vitamins-243486?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Science%20newsletter%2086&utm_content=Science%20newsletter%2086+CID_6efc021b01d781ec460ae54520228aa2&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=Air%20is%20an%20overlooked%20source%20of%20nutrients%20%20evidence%20shows%20we%20can%20inhale%20some%20vitamins

2024-11-17 05:38:30 UTC

Review of ‘Mean Streak’, #RickMorton’s unmissable book on the bureaucratic incompetence, willfull cruelty & self serving politics that was #RoboDebt
Debts were raised using different criteria from those used to calculate benefits. Benefits are calculated with relation to income per fortnight, to recognise the hardships arising from irregular hours & from intermittent employment. Debts were calculated by averaging income across a full year.
It was obvious to anyone with experience in public administration that this was indefensible. In the explicitly politicised culture of the APS, those to whom this fundamental error was obvious were not permitted to say so. (This is the criterion that distinguishes those who are on a career path from those who are not - those vilified as ‘dead wood’. Being on a career path requires a person to pretend that the lies & the bs being spoken make sense.)
Without the investigative skills & persistence of advocate #AsherWolf & the journalists who took up her story, these abuses would not have been exposed. A shameful episode. #AusPol
https://insidestory.org.au/somethings-really-really-up/

2024-10-20 00:09:22 UTC

#HelenTudor-Fisk is my all time favourite representation of what it’s like being autistic in a workplace.
. Wear the same daggy (comfortable, loose fitting) clothes every day? ✅
. Struggle to figure out office small talk? ✅
. Avoid work social events? ✅
. Miscommunications bc we take things literally? ✅
. Don’t get other people’s humor & they don’t get ours? ✅
. Get in trouble for plain speaking & calling out bullshirt? ✅
. Comfortable in a familiar & clearly defined role? ✅
. Master of a bounded field of expertise? ✅
. Really good at the job & do all the work while everyone else faffs about playing politics? ✅
. Unwavering sense of ethics? ✅
. Hate getting out of our comfort zone? ✅
. Perpetually bewildered? ✅
All these things describe my career before I recognised I was autistic. I was stubborn, but it was HARD.
Thank you Kitty & Penny Flanagan for writing Helen & everyone concerned for bringing her to life.
Oh, & ABC? Your saying you didn’t want to produce the show bc the character is ‘too unlikeable’ reads as ‘no one likes autistics’. We see you.
This one is for us #ActuallyAutistic @npub10v4…s27h
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-20/fisk-season-three-kitty-flanagan-interview-abc-tv-comedy/104489254?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other

2024-09-21 00:40:19 UTC

Any party that puts politics above policy loses my vote. Not looking good for #Greens atm. #AusPol
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-21/australia-housing-crisis-requires-reset-poisonous-debate/104376854?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other

2024-09-16 02:07:40 UTC

Let’s treasure our libraries. They’re a safe launching place for us all 📚📚
In otherwise chaotic times, Victoria’s state library gave me purpose and peace https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/16/in-otherwise-chaotic-times-victorias-state-library-gave-me-purpose-and-peace?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other