So a few weeks have passed since I had time to do any blogging. I have just finished a non-stop seven week cycle of university, work, study and attempts at a social life and feel like I have come through relatively unharmed. In the future I will know that the end of a week in which I have an exam and over 3000 words to write, I ought to take a night off work so I don't hit a brick wall! Furthermore it would benefit my workmates also who have to deal with me dragging my feet and wanting to burn small animals..

Aside from that I feel like I put out some pretty good stuff this term. An online news article I wrote would have got a distinction (but didn't due to a small oversight) and though I failed it because of that, it only counts for 5% of my grade so I am not feeling too horrible about it. Having never failed an assignment or received less than a credit for most work I do though I didn't feel too great about it to start with though.

If I knew how to upload videos, too, I'd put up a news story I wrote whose visuals I'm pretty proud of. I chose to do my first TV news story of the year on the issue of the insertion of Indigenous/Torres Strait Islander experience into the proposed national curriculum and ended up feeling like it was more about self-determination than the curriculum. I interviewed Andrew Barr (an experience I grew to hate after watching the interview over and over while editing; also learned what I can do to make myself cringe endlessly), a UC Ed. student and Aunty Jude at the National Tent Embassy and the latter two talent had a lot to say on the issue, mostly relating to the failures of paternalism in closing the gap.

In doing a piece on Indigenous issues I felt a little (very) white and that I was treading the fine line between perpetuating white paternalism and providing a forum/platform for those who are not only in touch with their community but in positions to address government/bureaucracy in order to create positive change.

In the conversations I had with Adam and Aunty Jude though I came to question why I felt I was in any position to do such a piece and in doing so I came to realise a few things about myself and what I may like to do in the future. Ultimately, I came to realise that the issue of human rights is one I feel strongly about. What I've learned in my International Studies units combined with Journalism will put me in a great position to research, understand and then bring attention to issues that prevent the realisation of equality between all people.

An offshoot of that is my increasing disdain toward global, liberal market. I'm still developing ideas but the overwhelming feeling that money is the ultimate device of control within such a system is leading me to some big thinking about the nature of capitalist society. I'm not quite ready to go and join Socialist Alliance but it is something I'd like to take a bigger look into.

But the news story I wrote is one I'm proud of, mostly in the way I illustrated it and tied it into my script - obviously there's a few little cringe-worthy moments where I had to cut bits of interview to get the strongest points from Adam but largely I feel I created good visual juxtaposition of White and Indigenous histories with good transitions that tied into the script.


Today is the first day I've had off with absolutely nothing on in such a long time it feels biiiizaare! Don't know what I should do with it. But because I feel this blog has been a little staid til now I think the inclusion of some visuals should liven it up.

But by liven it up I mean simply 'illustrate' - the images I'm going to use are black and white.

Some of my favourite hip hop artists right now.   (Mos Def/Aesop Rock/A Tribe Called Quest)

I wake up with a Sublime song in my head every day. I am not even kidding.
Yesterday it was 'Scarlet Begonias,' today it was 'New Song'.
And if the scope of Sublime's influence over my life is not evident yet, I'd like to share a paragraph from the essay I turned in on Friday for my Peace and Conflict Studies class.

" Before foraying into academia to explore ‘development’ however, many observations of the negativity of its various forms can be found in popular culture and may underpin these ideas with a more appreciable succinctness. One particularly favoured by the author and thought to have significant relevance to this argument can be found within the ska genre. Bradley Nowell of Sublime penned ‘We’re only gonna die for our own arrogance’ in the early nineteen nineties, a concise summary of colonial and imperial practices and applicable to the globalist system of today:
‘Early man walked away, as modern man took control. Their minds weren’t all the same, and to conquer was the goal. So he built his great empire, and he slaughtered his own kind. He died a confused man, killed himself in his own mind. We’re only gonna die for our own arrogance.’ (Nowell, 1992)
That example of popular culture’s observations of history warns against behaviour typified by arrogance and prompts an exploration of the various forms of ‘development’ to understand in greater depth its failures for that reason. "

I also used Mos Def/MF Doom in the same essay:

" Even in developed countries like the United States, unequal distribution of wealth contributes to systems whose structure contributes to conflict. Observations of this can also be found in popular culture, and though vernacular of the following quote is specific to the culture from which it came, its message is relevant to the idea that even in developed nations liberal principle maintains an inequitable system.
Beef is when working [folk] can't find jobs, so they tryna find [folk] to rob. Tryna find bigger guns so they can finish the job ... [Beef is] when a soldier ends his life with his own gun, [then] tryin' to figure out what to tell his son ... Beef is oil prices and geopolitics ... Beef is Iraq, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip ... Beef is real life, happening every day. (MF Doom, Mos Def, 2006)
Highlighting issues that contribute to a state of negative peace even in the so-called developed world, this kind of social commentary is widespread and is a reminder that simply compelling states or previously marginalised peoples to join the ‘free’ world and providing them the tools thought to be needed to do so is not enough to support the achievement of peace. "

/wank.
In any event. Will be back in the swing of posting regularly soon!