#quote from sydney watson

[secretmellowblog]

You know how Nick/Gatsby and Holmes/Watson and Enjolras/Grantaire are super popular gay classic lit ships? I’m genuinely surprised there’s not a slash-shipping community around Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay from a Tale of Two Cities…like. I get the reason Darnay/Carton isn’t popular is because no one cares about A Tale of Two Cities but their relationship is so bizarrely homoerotic for literally no reason! It’s like Built to be some Dark Academia tumblr ship! I think Carton/Darnay should be in the tumblr gay classic lit canon, repping Dickens and the way Dickens’ misogynistic inability to write convincing heterosexual relationships results in his characters seeming extremely gay.

I could write an entire essay on why A Tale of Two Cities makes more sense if you ignore Dickens’ intent and read Carton as gay (with quotes supporting my point) but like. Carton insists he’s in love with Darnay’s wife Lucie but spends much more of his page-time talking to/flirting with Darnay (to the point where he’s never had an on page conversation with Lucie until he “confesses his love” to her in a scene where he also immediately rejects himself for her, and insists that their relationship would be Impossible for Reasons and that his heart isn’t Capable of feeling things the way it should, as if he’s chosen to convince himself he’s in love with her because she’s unattainable and he will never have to be in a relationship with her.) Darnay and Carton have all these tense charged snarky interactions that feel like fanfic. Darnay’s thing with Lucie is pretty bland but there’s this huge emphasis on the fact that he and Carton are “counterparts.” Whenever Dickens tries to write Carton as being sad that Lucie loves another man it generally comes across as Carton being jealous of Lucie, because he’s almost never had a full conversation with Lucie and spends most of his time instead having these very sad clingy desperate pathetic conversations with the men who love her. Carton has a weird homoerotic thing going on with his jock law partner Stryver, who he sacrifices everything for and spends all his time with and lets invade his personal space/walk all over him for reasons he refuses to explain (all while Stryver repeatedly mocks Carton for being incapable of falling in love with women). Carton ultimately sacrifices his life for Darnay by forcibly taking off Darnay’s clothes and disguising himself as him….like?

One of their first interactions is Carton heroically saving Darnay’s life, then drunkenly calling himself Darnay’s “counterpart” and asking him on a date.

Like.

Hm.

This feels like the banter you’d find in an Enjolras/Grantaire fanfic:

Fellas is it gay to

But yeah! The main thing people remember about A Tale of Two Cities are the cool peasant women revolutionaries, who Dickens is trying to portray as villains but who are actually the best characters in the book. And if I’m going to be mean to my high school self (who was obsessed with ATOTC for some reason) I’d say that the central melodrama between Carton/Darnay/Lucie is a weakness of the novel because Carton’s arc has nothing to do with the political French Revolution stuff, so his sacrifice feels thematically disconnected from all the book’s attempts at political commentary. HOWEVER. I think it works better if it’s gay.Also the Vengeance and Madame Defarge are gay, but people aren’t ready for that conversation!

So yee!! people on tumblr love ships that are like “hot goody-two-shoes classic lit boy in a suit x hot snarky classic lit sadboi in a suit”, but so few ppl remember Carton and Darnay, who were repping that all the way back in the 1790s 😔😔😔😔😔

[monriatitans]

Ta-Da! List: Saturday, June 29th

The image was made in Canva; check it out at the [referral] link here!

I share my “Ta-Da! List” every day so everyone gets a daily update and I have a reminder of what I’ve accomplished.

To learn more about “Ta-Da! Lists”, and other ADHD life hacks, check out @adhdjesse’s book Extra Focus: The Quick Start Guide to Adult ADHD.

Abbreviations

- O&T: Opinions & Truth Blog - WGS: The Weekend Game Show - ASO: Artist Shout-Out - COTM/Q: Cause of the Month Quote - BMAC: Buy Me a Coffee - TDL: Ta-Da! List

Ta-Da! List

✧ throughout the day: - kept emails manageable - loaded the dishwasher - filled out today’s TDL

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ✧ on the mobile phone: - Hive: shared today’s ASO

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ✧ on the bedroom setup: - Movies: watched “The Nightmare Before Christmas”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ✧ on the office setup: - WGS: gave a human artist, Jordan Lucchino, a shout-out by sharing it on O&T, Tumblr, and other social media; in the WGS Carrd, changed “neurodivergent” to “ADtistic (ADHD + Autistic)”; prepared the ASO for tomorrow, Jun. 30th; on Twitch, changed the “Artist Shout-Out Criteria” link from O&T’s to the ASO Ko-fi’s - O&T: created a new pinned message on Threads - Design: in Canva, went through templates and changed “Feature Image” to “Header”; added dates to the “COTMQs Post Headers” and “Monthly Wrap-Up Annc. Headers” templates - Gaming: played “Final Fantasy XIV” - YouTube: watched, listened to, and/or started: 1. Jim Sterling’s videos “Creepy Activision Wants To Know All About Their Employees’ Pregnancies”, “Idiotic Bill Proposes 10% ‘Sin Tax’ On Violent Videogames To Stop School Shootings”, “Corporate Parasites: Activision Pays Zero Income Tax, Gets A Refund Anyway”, “Net Neutrality: ISPs Can Throttle And Block Content So Long As They Admit It”, “EU Votes In Favor Of Article 13, Giving Copyright Holders Undue Power Over Internet Platforms”, “Should Activision Blizzard Be Hiring For Community Managers After Laying Off Community Managers?”, “Report: Epic Abusing Workers With Obscene Crunch Periods To Maintain Fortnite’s Success”, “Take-Two CEO Gets A Massive Bonus If People Spend Loads Of Money On Microtransactions”, “Pity Poor Waluigi”, “Switch Online Makes Nintendo Look Weak”, “How Fighting Games Are Carved Up To Extract Your Cash”, “Solo: A Single-Player Success Story”, “Nintendo, The Industry, And The Attack On Emulators”, “The Xbox One Is A Bit Shit”, “Harry Potter And The Crock Of Shit”, “Maybe The Wizard Game Just Wasn’t Very Good”, “The Game Awards Will Never Do Better”, “Sony Took Down A Shameless Rip-Off Of The Last Of Us On The Switch?”, and 2. Kasia Baba’s video “The Harmful Ideology of Radical Unschooling” 3. Sydney Watson’s video “Rage Bait: Influencers are making you mad ON PURPOSE”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ✧ chores and miscellaneous: - Food: had coffee, water, and grapes for breakfast; had grapes and Oreos for lunch; went to family dinner and had ice cream for dessert; had Pizza Goldfish as a snack - Chores: checked the mail

—

Well, these are all the updates I had for today! Thank you for reading!

May every decision you make be *in the spirit of fairness* and may the rest of your day *NOT go to $#!7*!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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[judgestarling]

The Origin of the Term “Junk DNA”: A Historical Whodunnit (Second Edition)

As textbooks would have it, the term “junk DNA” was coined in 1972 by Susumu Ohno as part of his work on the role of gene and genome duplication. I met Susumu Ohno at a meeting in Crete many years ago, and the way I remember, he told me that he “deliberately” chose a “provocative term” to emphasize the “uselessness” of this DNA fraction. (Indeed, the term “junk” comes with a “semantic baggage” since it used as a synonym for heroin and male genitalia—two terms that are verboten in polite company.) At a dinner, Ohno also told me (and other newbies) that rosé wine is produced by mixing red and white wines.

I no longer believe either of these historical “narratives.”

It all started with my obsession to read very thoroughly every article that I quote, instead of relying on indirect references. In this day and age, in which articles are signed by hundreds of authors, the vast majority of whom don’t even bother to read their “own” publications, I stand out like a nigella seed in mayonnaise. This disorder is probably due to my association with Mina Graur, who is a historian who only trusts “primary sources.” Indeed, so strong is her belief in primary sources, that I am quite certain she wouldn’t even trust a textbook description of the double helix—she would want to read Watson and Crick’s (1953) article, as well as their notebooks, correspondences, and preliminary drafts, and if possible interview each and every one associated with the lab in Cambridge including the janitors. What can I say? She does NOT trust “secondary” sources!

For a few years, I engaged in a bitter fight with the quacks of the ENCODE Project over “junk DNA,” and to my dismay, I realized that I cannot find a copy of Susumu Ohno’s (1972) article “So much ‘junk’ DNA in our genome.” So, I started searching the net for the article. My searches led me to discover three publications from 1972 that mention “junk DNA.” The above-mentioned paper by Susumu Ohno, an article by David Comings, and a New Scientist commentary by Tim Hunt.

Solving the origin of Comings’ “junk DNA” was easy. He got it from Susumu Ohno, who was his colleague at City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, California. Indeed, Comings quotes two “in press” papers by Ohno. The most interesting thing about Comings’ article, however, is that his treatment of junk DNA is much more thorough and much more informative and much more considerate than Ohno’s cryptic article, in which the term “junk” is only mentioned in the title.

The origin of Tim Hunt’s “junk DNA” proved to be much more interesting. In 1972, the future Nobelist was a 29-year-old researcher at Cambridge trying to understand messenger RNA and the great amounts of DNA that never produce mRNA. In time, his research led him into a different area of study, and in 2001, Tim Hunt shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine with Paul Nurse and Leland Hartwell. The work for which he was conferred the highest accolade in the sciences had nothing to do with either mRNA or junk DNA—the Nobel was in recognition of his discovery of proteins that control cell division.

In his 1972 commentary, Tim Hunt uses the term “junk DNA” to refer to “the large amount of nucleic acid that never finds its way out of the nucleus, which does not fit in with the old categories of genes and messages.” Note that Hunt’s 1972 “junk DNA” employs a mechanistic definition of junk DNA that is different from but not at odds with our current understanding of junk DNA as “useless and harmless.”

Where did Tim Hunt get the term? I sent him the following email.

“I have recently realized that although the late Susumu Ohno is credited solely with the coinage ‘junk DNA,’ he was not the only person to have used the term in 1972. In your ‘How mammals get the message’ in New Scientist, you have an entire section entitled ‘Why all that junk?’ In this section you mention “junk DNA.” I am curious whether (1) you got the term from Susumu Ohno, (2) he got it from you, (3) you coined it independently, or (4) you got it from a third person. I would greatly appreciate your help with this historical puzzle.”

The reply by Dr. Hunt was surprising.

“Gosh, yes! I did write that piece, and I never met Ohno. I got it from Sydney Brenner and/or Francis Crick—it was certainly current in Cambridge at the time. Maybe they got it from Ohno? You should ask Sydney.”

So, I wrote Dr. Brenner. The first sentence of his reply made the puzzle even more profound.

“I can confirm that we were using the idea of “junk” in the genome in the sixties at Cambridge.”

Really? The sixties? If the term was indeed current in the sixties, it is entirely possible that the term may have found its way into the literature and hasn’t been detected thus far. If it was there, I was determined to find it.

Enter Google Ngram, with which one can find short phrases in over 5.2 million books (published between 1500 and 2008) that have been digitized by Google.

With Google Ngram, I struck gold, a 1963 paper by Charles Ehret and Gérard de Haller entitled “Origin, development, and maturation of organelles and organelle systems of the cell surface in Paramecium.” The paper which was published in Journal of Ultrastructure Research is huge—42 pages and 86 figures. On page 39 it is written:

“While current evidence makes plausible the idea that all genetic material is DNA (with the possible exception of RNA viruses), it does not follow that all DNA is competent genetic material (viz. ‘junk’ DNA), nor that all Feulgen-positive material is active DNA.”

This was completely unexpected. Nine years before Susumu Ohno, two authors wrote about “junk DNA” in a casual manner without even bothering to explain what junk DNA is. If we assume that non-”competent genetic material” is the same as nonfunctional DNA, then their use of “junk DNA” was entirely modern. The problem was that I have never heard of the authors before. Who was Charles F. Ehret? Who was Gérard de Haller?

A little more digging revealed that Charles F. Ehret was a very important person, as evidenced by the fact that The Washington Post published an obituary on his death in 2007.

“Charles F. Ehret, 83, a scientist whose study of circadian rhythms led to a widely popular anti-jet lag regimen that improved the trips of untold numbers of world travelers, died February 24 of multiple illnesses at his home in Grayslake, Ill.

In more than 35 years of experimentation, Dr. Ehret found that the headaches, nausea, disorientation, fatigue, and malaise suffered by globe-trotters had almost nothing to do with thin air and the dizzying effects of supersonic speed, as was commonly assumed. Rather, jet lag is a matter of crossing too many time zones too quickly for the body to adjust. It can be ameliorated by adjusting eating, activity and sleep schedules according to a strict system that Dr. Ehret developed.”

A search of the literature revealed that the paper in Journal of Ultrastructure Research represented quite a detour in the scientific life of Dr. Ehret. With the exception of a 1948 paper in The Anatomical Record, entitled “The mating reaction of multimicronuclear monstrosities in Paramecium bursaria,” his entire research program dealt with circadian rhythms, jet lag, and light exposure.

Interestingly, Dr. Ehret worked on many different organisms which, according to The Washington Post, included “single-celled organisms, rats, his eight children, and volunteers.” Rats and eight children? That sounds like a winning combination!

The amount of information I could find on Gérard de Haller was quite minimal. He became Professor of Protistology at the University of Geneva in 1969. He mostly published in French, and the last known address for him was the Molecular Systematics Group at the University of Geneva. As far as I could ascertain, he published his last paper in 1993. In October, 2013, I wrote to the head of the Molecular Systematics Group, Jan Wojciech Pawlowski. He replied promptly.

“Prof. Gérard de Haller is a Honorary Professor of the University of Geneva. He was one of the jurors of my PhD thesis and the head of Protistology Laboratory since 1969. His specialty was the biology of ciliates. As far as I know he is still alive, although he is not scientifically very active since his retirement. I saw him last time about 2 years ago when he came to the University to participate in a ceremony for one of his younger assistants. He is still on the list of University Professors.

I was looking for more information about him but could not find anything more. However, I can easily find someone from his family who live in Geneva if this is necessary.”

In the end, the person who managed to find Gérard de Haller was Robert Hirt, Professor of Evolutionary Parasitology at Newcastle University. In May 2014, I got an email from Prof. de Haller.

“As far as I can remember, the first time we spoke of junk DNA was at a seminar with Werner Arber around 1958 or so, and I know that Eduard Kellenberger's department, where Werner was working, was in close contact with the big bosses of the raising DNA science [at Cambridge]. Unfortunately, that’s all I can remember, except that these were great times!

I asked Werner Arber, but he couldn’t add anything. He mentioned Francis Crick as a possible "inventor" of the term.”

At this point, I was quite certain that Ehret and de Haller did not invent the term “junk DNA.” They used it properly and in the right context, but it wasn’t theirs.

I wrote about my findings in my blog, and ended the article with an appeal.  

“In the manner of the appeals by Oxford English Dictionary, I would like to ask the readers: Do you have an earlier record of the term “junk DNA”? Please submit your evidence by email.”

Soon afterwards, an anonymous reader found an example of “junk DNA” from 1960.

“Following your example, I've been trying to find earlier "junk DNA" quotes using Google. I found this quote in the Year Book of the Carnegie Institution, Washington July 1, 1959- June 30, 1960 (Volume 59, page 278).

‘It is much more difficult to imagine how the different DNA’s could act as templates for the similar RNA’s. This is the problem that can be avoided most easily by considering a large part of the DNA to be junk.’”

The authors, however, did not like the concept of “junk DNA’, although they admitted that there were precedents.

“The idea that a large part of the nucleic acid is nonfunctional is repugnant. It seems unlikely that such an inefficient mechanism would have survived through evolution, although it must be remembered that enzyme molecules are very large in comparison with their active centers.”

The Carnegie Institution report was written by eight members of the Biophysics Group within the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism. Yes, “Terrestrial Magnetism”!

Several names stood out. Sadly, Richard Roberts died in 1980, Ellis Bolton in 2006, and Roy Britten in 2012. The person with which I was most familiar with was Roy Britten, who was was the discoverer of repeated DNA sequences in the genomes of eukaryotic organisms, and later studied their effects on the evolution of genomes. I have met Britten several times at scientific meetings, and if there was one thing clear, it was the fact that he was not a fan of “junk DNA.” When Roy Britten died in 2012 at the age of 92, his obituary in the journal Science was written by his close collaborator Eric Davidson.

So, I wrote to Eric Davidson, and got the following email.

“First off, I wouldn't exactly consider that citation as related to the later nonsense about junk DNA of the Leslie Orgel/Francis Crick variety. At Carnegie they were strictly concerned that year with the protein coding sequence load of the DNA, as seen through the lens of ribosome structure/function, without considering the function of mRNA and tRNA.

As for Roy, you are right, he couldn't stand the idea of junk DNA, but that was in reference to the Crick usage (which we heard about verbally all the time from him and others of his circle; in those days, late 60s and early 70s Roy and I were hotly involved in arguments about the organization of animal genomic DNA). Anyway, Roy could not possibly have been responsible for the Year Book citation you sent because that particular report concerned the year Roy wasn't even at Carnegie; he was in Denmark working on yeast. The Biophysics report then and in the succeeding few years at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism was written by the senior people, Bolton and Roberts, I think mainly Bolton (with whom Roy did not get along particularly well in intellectual terms). Roy was then very junior in the hierarchy and he wrote his own report on that year's activity; it is very doubtful he could have inserted anything like that even ex post facto. So, I don't think it is a likely hypothesis that Roy originated that term in any way shape form or manner, then or later.”

Is it possible that Davidson was wrong and one of the authors of the Carnegie report did coin the term “junk DNA” as a pejorative? One such precedent comes to mind. In 1955, British cosmologist Fred Hoyle derided a theory by American physicist George Gamow and called it a ridiculous "Big Bang." The name stuck. As far as “junk DNA” is concerned, however, there is little evidence for the pejorative-nickname hypothesis.

Why did the Biophysics group at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at Carnegie found the concept of “junk DNA” to be repugnant in 1959? The historical context was explained to me by Alexander Palazzo from the University of Toronto.

“To understand this report, you need to remember that it was written two years before the discovery of mRNA. Back then it was believed that each gene made a separate RNA that got incorporated into a ribosome (i.e., ribosomal RNA). Thus, according to this model, each ribosome contained information within it to make a single protein. Of course, today we understand that ribosomes are only enzymes, and that the protein-information is contained in mRNA. But considering that >90% of cellular RNA is rRNA, their old faulty model is understandable.

The Roberts’ group was analyzing the length of E. coli rRNA. In the discussion they write about the size of proteins and note that some of these are very small. In contrast, there was too much rRNA in each ribosome. This discrepancy indicated that in these cases the additional RNA was likely non-functional. Interestingly, Roberts missed a critical fact that was pointed out by others—that rRNA was not large enough to code for certain large proteins (beta-galactosidase, for example).

Roberts' group also noted that all rRNAs looked the same, whereas the nucleotide composition of DNA varied considerably. Thus, some DNA must not code for ribosomal RNA and this is where they invoke the idea of junk DNA.

Note that a new form of RNA (messenger RNA) was recognized in a landmark paper by Brenner, François Jacob and Matthew Meselson in 1961 making this whole discussion moot. (And yes, I'm aware that James Watson's group also demonstrated the existence of mRNA…)”

How should I summarize my current understanding on the origin of “junk DNA”—the term and the concept?

First, there is evidence that the term “junk DNA” was already in use in the early 1960s (e.g., Aronson et al. 1960; Ehret and de Haller 1963). I am, however, almost certain that none of these authors coined the term. All clues point to Cambridge in the late 1950s. My guess is that the term originated with Francis Crick, but at present I have no evidence for this claim.

And what about Susumu Ohno? I was reminded by a reader that “a conceptual discovery is usually ascribed to one who first stuck his/her neck out to push the viewpoint.” It doesn't really matter who said what first. “We remember Charles Darwin, not because he discovered natural selection (and sexual selection) or because he was the first to propose that adaptive evolution is due to selection. Others, e.g., William Charles Wells, Patrick Matthew, James Cowles Prichard, William Lawrence, and John Sebright, may (or may not) have recognized evolution by natural selection long before him. It was Darwin, however, who staked his reputation on what was considered at the time a grave heresy. It is, of course, interesting that Hunt, Brenner, De Haller, Roberts and perhaps others toyed explicitly with the idea of "junk DNA" before 1972, not to mention others who may have entertained the same idea without calling it "junk." However, it was Susumu Ohno who stuck his neck out and put his reputation on the line by advocating a very unpopular and contentious idea.

In my latest book, I decided on the following phrasing:

“We have written evidence that the term “junk DNA” was already in use in the early 1960s (e.g., Aronson et al. 1960; Ehret and de Haller 1963); however, it was Susumu Ohno (1972, 1973) who formalized its meaning and provided an evolutionary rationale for its existence.”

Literature

Aronson AI, Bolton ET, Britten RJ, Cowie DB, Duerksen JD, McCarthy BJ, McQuillen K, Roberts RB. 1960. Biophysics. pp. 229–289. In: Year Book: Carnegie Institution of Washington. Volume 59. Lord Baltimore Press, Baltimore, MD.

Comings DE. 1972. The structure and function of chromatin. Adv. Hum. Genet. 3:237–431.

Ehret CF, G. Haller G. 1963. Origin, development and maturation of organelles and organelle systems of the cell surface in Paramecium. J. Ultrastruct. Res. 23:S1–S42.

Hunt T. 1972. How mammals get the message. New Scientist 18 May:373–375.

Ohno S. 1972. So much “junk” DNA in our genome. In: Smith HH (ed.) Evolution of Genetic Systems: Brookhaven Symposia in Biology. Gordon and Breach, New York. 23:366–370.  Ohno, S. 1973. Evolutional reason for having so much junk DNA. In: Pfeiffer RA (ed.) Modern Aspects of Cytogenetics: Constitutive Heterochromatin in Man. Schattauer Verlag, Stuttgart, Germany. pp. 169–180.

Watson JD, Crick F.HC. 1953. Molecular structure of nucleic acids: A structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid. Nature 171:737–738. 

[indiemags]

What is Indie?

Indiecon 2018 - Indie nations

Oliver Gehrs – DUMMY  “Being independent means being free.”

Jana Al Obeidyine – a Dance Mag  “Indie is being true to yourself despite the adversity.”

Davide Cazarro – NANG Magazine  “A sprawling and layered term, an opportunity, an aspiration, a promise… a chimera?”

Mike Koedinger – Maison Moderne/Paperjam  “It’s primarily about freedom of expression, and less a matter of size.”

Sissel Hansen – Startup Guide  “Indie means trying new things, being unconventional and sticking to your own vision.”

Meg Miller– Eye on Design  “Free to be experimental, thoughtful, and dynamic with the contents of your publication, in pursuit of making something valuable and considered above all else.”

Iris Lee– ArtQpie Library  “Small scale but big impact.”

Laurel Schwulst – Beautiful Company  “I think it's short for independent.”

Monika Szewczyk – South as State of Mind  “Quote from The Life of Brian: ‘We are all indie-vidiuals’, defined by our alliances.”

Florian Mecklenburg & Karoline Buurman – NXS  “Being independent from any safe and proven formats and aesthetics.”

Indiecon 2017 - Indie first

Justinien Tribillon – Migrant Journal  “Being independent means highlighting stories and showing perspectives that are not bound to financial interests or sensationalist requirements.”

Ryan Fitzgibbon – hello mr.  “Indie means finding your motivation in challenging the status quo.”

Steve Watson – Stack  “Indie is unstoppable.”

Jeremy Leslie – magCulture  “Indie is anything you dream.”

Ibrahim Nehme – Outpost  “Indie is disconnecting from the system to find freedom.”

Stefanie Lohhaus – Missy  “Passionate, content-driven journalism. Avantgarde. Taking Risks both content and layout-wise. Being radical.”

Megan Le Masurier – University of Sydney  “Indie is the desire for a Utopian space, creating what is missing.”

Nelson Ng – LOST  “Indie is about having a strong belief in something.”

Yaonyou Yuan Di “Indie is without any interruption.”

Rose Nordin – OOMK “Indie is in line with D.I.Y – making projects happen with little resources and with a lot of personal investment.”

Kati Krause – ANXY  “’Indie’ is a carte blanche for radical creativity, for making magazines that verge on art. It means trying out subject matters and storytelling that readers didn’t even know they were interested in. It means forging audiences rather than following them.”

Besa Luci – Kosorvo 2.0  “Indie means being self-aware and self-critical.”

Joachim Baldauf – VORN  “Real Indie for me is non-capitalistic. Not focused on money, but spirit.”

Steve Anglesey – The New European  “Indie is the Second Annual Report album by Throbbing Gristle (1977) – self-written, self-recorded, self-performed using self-built equipment, self-published because no major would have dared; created for no-one but the artists, yet manage to inspire and connect a network of individuals.”

Heike Grebin – Troppo-Automated “Limitations make you creative – hopefully.”

Andreas Trogisch – Troppo-Automated “You get the idea and you do it.”

Timo Rychert – Troppo-Automated “The moment you find out what Indie is, it stops being Indie.”

Sara Schurmann – VICE / F Mag “For me magazines are „indie“, when the editorial team developed the idea independently and not on behalf of a client. Which doesn’t mean you can’t work with or for publishing houses.”

Susanne Eigenmann – Hamburg Kreativ Gesellschaft  “Indie is authentically, surprising and likeable.”

Teresa Bücker – Edition F  “Indie is about being stronger together.”

Indhira Rojas – ANXY  “Indie is creative freedom, freedom to invent and make things on your terms and follow that vision. It's taking the risk to pursue your ideas outside of traditional frameworks, and in that process finding your own path.”

Indiecon 2016 - Indienet Pioneer Communities

Danny Miller – Weapons of Reason  “I don’t have a definitive answer for this.”

Ricarda Messner – Flaneur  “Doing whatever you want to do.”

Agnese Kleina – Benji Knewman  “Inventing your own universe and rules.”

Joachim Baldauf – Vorn  “Real Indie for me is non-capitalistic. Not focused on money, but spirit.”

Steven Watson – Stack  “Indie is unstoppable.”

Fabian Weiß “Indie is doing what you like and listening to your heart.”

Sebastian Pranz – Froh  “Indie is creating alternative public spheres!”

Penny Martin – The Gentlewoman  “A lifetime membership of the London Library and a taxi account.”

Rosetta Mills – The Lifted Brow  “Making a thing you love with good people, for good people who will love it.”

Jeff Taylor – Courier “Today’s ‘indie’ crews have found multiple models that help them launch titles for far less money than before, and in the process, are creating a wave of fresh, unique titles.”

Veronica Ditting – The Gentlewoman  “Indie is an outspoken and personal voice.”

Sam Cooney – The Lifted Brow  “Indie is making meaning rather than money.”

Fabian Ebeling – Die Epilog  “Doing (almost) whatever you want.”

Klaus Neuburg – Froh  “Doing it anyway.”

Timo Durst – PFDFNDR “Indie is intrinsic.”

Max Weinland – PFDFNDR “Indie is autocracy.”

Richard O’Mahony – The Gentlewoman  “The opportunity of a lifetime.”

Sebastian Zimmerhackl – Selam X  “Through the wall.”

Michael Hopp – Hopp und Frenz  “Indie is print without regrets.”

Nelson Ng – Lost  “Indie is about having a strong belief in something.”

Indiecon 2015 - Indie forever

Philipp Köster – 11 Freunde  “Indie ist: Sich selbst ausbeuten, statt sich von anderen ausbeuten zu lassen.“

Ryan Fitzgibbon – Hello Mr.  “Finding motivation in the attempt to prove everyone wrong.”

Jeremy Leslie – Magculture  “Complete Control.”

Kai Brach – Offscreen  “Being able to decide today what the magazine will look like tomorrow, without asking anyone for permission.”

Ole Jendis – Impulse  “Indie jetzt gründen – der wahrscheinlich verrückteste und beste Zeitpunkt zugleich.“

Tristan Rodgers – MC1R  “The freedom to do everything you like to do and having it under your own control.”

Mathias Zeiske – Edit  “Getting to choose the people you depend on.”

Anke Eberhardt – CUT  “(i)nspiring, (n)iche dedicated, (d)eadline heavy, (i)nsane, (e)xceptional”

Julia Kahl – Slanted  “Independently created and published publications.”

Jan Spading – zmyk  “Sich unabhängig entscheiden zu können, von wem oder was man als Magazinmacher abhängig sein muss und will.“

Steven Gregor – Gym Class Mag  “Indie is a frame of mind. It’s an intention… a voice different from the norm. Indie is risk. It’s Shia LaBeouf’s rattail, not Kim Kardashian’s butt. Indie has nothing to do with fancy paper, typefaces or printing techniques. And it most certainly has nothing to do with small business models.”

Mads Pankow – Die Epilog  “To us indie means independent from the market, trying to make a magazine that reflects a unique point of view, without thinking about the target audience. Only if you keep straight to your own perspective you will find an audience which appreciates it.”

Dolf Hermannstädter – Trust  “Overrated.”

Ibrahim Nehme – The Outpost  “Indie is a blueprint of the world you want to live in – made with no budget.”

Juliane Schiemenz – Reportagen  “… wenn du Sachen anders machen kannst als die anderen – und davon trotzdem deine Miete bezahlen. // - und davon trotzdem deine Miete bezahlst. // wenn du Sachen anders machst als die anderen - und davon trotzdem deine Miete bezahlen kannst.“

Daniel Beskos – mairisch Verlag  “Working with people you like on magazines and books that are well done and worth being published."

Alexander Scholz – HOLO “A trade-off: the joy of answering to no one, the horrors of bearing all the risk.”

Chris Köver – Missy  “Wenn die Sache wichtiger ist als das Geld, das man damit verdient.“

Sebastian Pranz – Froh  “Indie is creating alternative public spheres!”

Indiecon 2014 - Was ist indie

Gabriele Fischer – brand eins  “Wenn die Idee stärker ist, als die Vernunft.“

Steve Watson – stack  ”Publishing because it matters, not because it pays.”

Kai Brach – Offscreen  “Etablierte Weisheiten über Bord zu werfen.“

Stephan Busse – dpv  “Zu machen, worauf man Lust hat - und dann erst die Erwartungen anderer zu erfüllen.“

Ale Dumbsky – READ “Indie ist ein dreichsnkliges Dreieck. Idiotie, Verantwortung, Romantik.”

Nikolaus Förster – Impulse  “Wenn die Lust auf Freiheit einen überwältigt - und sich auszahlt.“

Oliver Gehrs – Dummy  “Wenn man Themen bringen kann, die Anzeigenkunden meiden.“

Josephine Götz – Päng!  “Anzeigen zu verkaufen, während die Mitbewohner nebenan Sex haben.“

Michael Hopp – H&F “Wenn es mit uns selbst zu tun hat - und damit mit anderen.“

Ole Jendis – Impulse  “Mit den eigenen Ideen Leser zu begeistern und an sich zu binden.“

Fabian Knöbel – Analog Sonntag  “Indie-Projekte sind do-it-Projekte mit offenem Ausgang.“

Kati Krause – All Seasons Mag  “Indie ist Mut dazu, nicht von jedem verstanden zu werden.“

Volker Lilienthal – IJK “Immer wieder Pionierarbeit mit Kraft und Fantasie.“

Katarzyna Mol-Wolf – Emotion  “Indie ist authentisch, immer ein bisschen Rock'n Roll und nachhaltig erfolgreich.“

Horst Moser – Cut  “Indie c'est moi.”

Dirk Mönkenmöller – The Weekender  “Machen zu können, was man will.“

Boris Rosenkranz – NDR  “Indie ist das Gegenteil von Langeweile.“

Andreas Volleritsch – Neubau Design  “Indie ist immer mit Liebe und Leidenschaft gemacht.“

Marc Winkelmann – enorm “Indie ist Selbstverwirklichung durch Selbstausbeutung.“

Oliver Wurm - 547490 “Machen, zweifeln, sorgen, durchziehen, freuen. In der Reihenfolge.“

=== The Independent Magazine Festival is a project by Die Brueder Publishing. Indiecon 2018 online: www.indienations.de, instagram.com/indiemags, facebook.com/indiemags, twitter.com/indiemags

[themeresthobby]

To celebrate commemorate Reichenbach Day, I watched the local production of Max Gee’s 2013 stage adaptation of The Speckled Band that I said I probably wouldn’t watch.

It’s not every day you see a poster for a Sherlock Holmes play from across the street, along a street you never intended to walk down, then find out the theatre it’s being staged in, which you’d never heard of before, is going to be sold off after the current season of plays, and manage to buy a ticket to see it on a convenient date, which also happens to be Reichenbach Day, you know?

I’m not eager to admit where I currently live, but I want this post to be somewhat useful, so, here: it was staged at The Genesian Theatre, in Sydney, home to The Genesian Theatre Company.

What you need to know: the place was originally a church, St John’s Church, built in 1868. It’s owned by the Catholic Archdiocese, who are now selling it because it’s on prime real estate.

Putting aside my frustration about my Catholic upbringing that pops up when I’m in or near a Catholic institution, getting to see one of the more gothic horror-y Holmes stories staged in a cozy, Victorian-era church was pretty damn cool. It was a small space, and the smell of red wine in the air was a bonus for me.

The script was well-written; the plot was expanded, there was a thread about Holmes’ scepticism towards the supernatural, and there was a cameo from Charles Augustus Milverton, which was a nice way to introduce Holmes’ ‘flexible’ view of the law. It opened and closed with Watson alone* on stage, narrating to the audience, though he also narrated in a few other scenes. Holmes’ entrance had him dressed as a chimney sweep. There was humour scattered throughout, and that alone would have earned the play my approval, because I go through life constantly wishing for things to make me laugh.

The company is a small one, with the ‘community theatre’ label, but the cast (of only 7) were professionals more than able to carry their roles. The stage and sound design, too, made the most of the limited props and space.

Flashbacks were done using both lighting changes and a translucent curtain, which was also later used for a shadow puppetry scene. The 221B armchairs were wheeled to centre-stage during the train cabin scene. (If this sounds like Stage Direction 101, yeah, all I know of theatre is from high school classes and being an audience member, and I just want to describe these things for posterity.)

It wasn’t perfect in every way, because nothing is, but it was charming, and that was all I needed for a fun night at the theatre (alright, at Baker Street, because it did manage that) that I’ll hopefully remember fondly many years later. Before the show, I overheard in the lobby that tickets were ‘selling like hotcakes’, and that made me smile.

Some details that amused me:

Holmes’ dressing gown was made with Hokusai wave patterned fabric and dark red lining. Helen Stoner’s dress was dark purple, Julia Stoner’s dress was light purple, i.e., shades of violet (for a loose definition of ‘violet’). 

Favourite exchanges:

[After Holmes admits he didn’t tell Watson important details he knew earlier.]

Watson: I call it an appalling lack of trust!

Holmes: Yes.

and

[Inside Helen Stoner’s bedroom.]

Watson: It’s a bit spartan for a young lady’s room.

Helen Stoner: Have you been in many young ladies’ rooms?

Watson: ...

*In the undated opening scene, Watson quoted Holmes, and said “as Holmes used to say...”, while holding what might have been Holmes’ pipe. The closing scenes ended it on a high note, though.

[sportsmediainternshipportfolios]

Challenges

There were a few challenges when it came to the work: 

- Nature of the work and working hours: 

The immense impact of technology on our society is seen all around us. New, more advanced tools, such as smartphones, tablets, and other devices seem to appear almost daily with a profound increase in people's communication capabilities and access to knowledge, but with an accompanying complexity not see before. People who choose to take advantage of technology in their daily lives are at a distinct advantage over those who minimise or avoid its use. This is particularly true for people looking for new or better employment, with social media, job boards, web searches, electronic career materials, and Skype interviews quickly replacing newspaper ads, hardcopy resumes and cover letters and face-to-face interviews (Watson, S, 2016). 

Online was how I found my internships. All applications were done online, all interviews were conducted online via Webex or Zoom. 

The nature of the work was all done online, as we could not attend our internships in person and since the work is media based, online technology is what we use. This presented certain challenges in itself. I had to reach out over the phone or text, or send a message via slack to set up a Zoom call if I was unsure of any instructions or needed any help. 

With SportsCommunity, for about the first 50 hours my job was working on Yoast SEO readability. What the challenge was having to spend about three or four weeks straight doing the online learning course. It was a big challenge to go through two courses, watch long videos and read long texts. After all that having to do tests and a lot of the time having to get a score of 100%. It was a big challenge to remember all the information and I often had to repeat tests a couple times. 

It was also challenging once I got through the course that for the first 50 hours of my internship with SportsCommunity that I had the same repetitive tasks of helping them get their Yoast SEO readability to green. But what was motivating was to be able to look at the google spread sheet and see how many times I fixed up a topic and saw the score improve from maybe red to an orange or even green. It was also motivating to see my name on the list many more times than the other interns- as the manager said I did the most work consistently. 

With SportsCommunity because I only am doing 114-hours, I mostly did half days in the first 50 hours to allow time to work on academic assignments. For The Amy Gillett Foundation, I worked two full days on Tuesdays and Wednesdays generally. 

For the Amy Gillett Foundation, I had a wider range of roles. In creating a video, the first challenge was having to communicate to everyone required via email that I needed them as part of my video and having to schedule very specific times for each interview. The next part was, once it was made, having to change minor details over and over many times in order to get it perfect. This included the audio quality, improving out of sync talking by dragging back the time frame, changing the colours of the titles and making sure there were no black pauses. 

There was also the first time I ever had to do telemarketing. We were trying to sell a cycling safety survey to all local councils across Perth, Sydney and Queensland.  It was a challenge to follow a basic script and sometimes go a little bit into improvisation. But I overcame the challenge as everyone I spoke to said they were interested in receiving the survey. 

Another challenge was creating my first awards application for the Amy Gillett Website. I had to research what the Sharing Roads Safely (SRS) course was all about and then compose an awards application.

Creating my first news story was another challenge. It was about the fact that the Cycling World Championships were coming to Victoria in 2025.

Another was a story about the upcoming Amy’s Gran Fondo virtual ride. This included having to research about both events and get a quote from CEO of Amy Gillett, Dan Kniepp, for the story.

The last big challenge was having to design a financial statement template- using “Canva”. 

All in all, these are character forming experiences, which will help me in the real world without question. 

Watson, S, 2016, CHALLENGES FACED by OLDER JOB SEEKERS in a TECHNOLOGY DRIVEN AGE, Career Planning and Adult Development Journal, vol. 32, iss. 3, pp38-44, viewed 19 November 2020, https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.holmesglen.edu.au/docview/1816785153?rfr_id=info%3Axri%2Fsid%3Aprimo&accountid=%24%24CLIENTID

[misskahlia-blog]

Not-so campaign friendly

My study this semester has really struggled due to my ongoing health issues... another story entirely. But a few weeks ago, during my Digital Communities media course we looked at Digital Citizenship Politics and Civil Cultures.  It sounded complicated! Anything that mentions politics scares me. If people asked me to choose left wing or right wing I’d ask them which side the sun was on and if I could have a window seat. Thankfully this unit didn’t ask me to pick a side, but look more in depth at the relationship between politics, politicians and media, plus social media campaigns.

An article in the Sydney Morning Herald, 2013, compared Australian MPs and former Prime Ministers Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbotts social media pages. It was interesting to note that the pages where the men were more down to earth and posted more personal things were generally the more followed accounts. Do more likes equal more votes though? There is a big debate over whether all these new trends in political media are having a positive or negative impact (Young 2010). So how could media, which brings younger potential voters into the political world be a negative.

Politicians can spread their campaign to many more people, connect and communicate with individuals and give people a chance to have their own opinions and questions responded to. Well ask ALP candidate Peter Watson how his use of social media destroyed his political campaign, when posts he made as a 15yr old came to haunt him (Jericho 2012). In the wise words of Barack Obama ‘…be careful what you post on Facebook, because in the YouTube age whatever you do, it will be pulled up again later somewhere in your life”. In other words, our pollies are in a difficult situation, teetering between being human to connect with their voters, and tiptoeing around saying anything that could somehow be misconstrued.

Here is a link to a short YouTube film that shows how in the eye of the media it is quite easy for politicians to get themselves into trouble. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0qTjqBt3a8 Whether it be by not connecting emotionally to the audience, or looking less engaged than another politician. It’s very important for politicians to be their best selves when on camera.

Kara, Mitch, Izzy, Emily and Andrew from my online class created an awesome presentation about this week’s learning materials. They summarized digital citizenship perfectly for me on the first page! With a nifty little quote, I knew would be handy for everyone. It represents the “capacity, belonging, and the potential for political and economic engagement in society in the information age” ('Defining Digital Citizenship' 2006, p. 2). They also looked at a lot of statistics of voters and focused on the impact social media has had on Kevin Rudds campaign, and the 2016 US presidential campaign.

All in all, if you plan on having a career in politics…be careful what you do on social media and on camera!

References

'Defining Digital Citizenship' 2006, MIT Press, Chapter 1, p. 1 – 20, viewed 1 December 2017

Jericho, G 2012, 'How many votes are there on Twitter?', in The Rise of the Fifth Estate, Scribe, Victoria, Australia.

The Sydney Morning Herald 2013, Social Media stakes: Rudd & Abbott, viewed 3 August 2016, <http://images.smh.com.au/file/2013/08/07/4640158/Web_ElectionSocial/>.

Young, S 2010, 'News, political reporting and the internet', in How Australia Decides, Cambridge University Press, Victoria, Australia.

[rememberthattime]

Chapter 50. Goodbye Australia

I can’t believe we’ve been here for two years. How has it already been 22 months!? 

We’ve basically lived here just as long as the UK, yet our time in Sydney feels more like a semester abroad. I know the toilets flush a different direction here, but does time move faster too?? Are we so far away from the rest of Earth that there’s relativity distortion???

Regardless of how quickly it’s arrived, our time in Sydney is coming to an end. Like anywhere we’ve live, Sydney had its highs and lows, though I’m surprisingly more sentimental about Australia than any of our previous homes. Australia is a unique and special place, and this goodbye post will capture how proud and fondly Chelsay and I will remember our time Down Under.

The best and worst of Australia can actually be captured by the setting from where I’m writing this post. It’s 6:30 AM. The sun is rising, and I’m looking out my window at an empty Manly Beach, the vast Pacific Ocean in the distance. I have my iced coffee because it’s 85 degrees. It’s quiet. The setting is just perfect.

The birds start to rise from their evening slumber. Some light chatter. But then the magpies wake up. And then cockatoos. And then kookaburras. Pretty soon the romantic notion of waking up to birds chirping has turned into Baghdad. And that’s Australia in a nutshell: an absolute dream for the right amount of time, but then the magpies start & you know it’s time to wake up.

Now, it’s obviously more complex than that. Australia may be the most perfect place in the world to raise a family. First, the weather and setting are unmatched. Anywhere. In an age where American and British kids are glued to screens, Aussie kids are distracted from their phones or TV by sunshine, swimming, and surfing. Chelsay and I first observed this when we discovered the Northern Beaches.

Sydney has some phenomenal coastal walks, but our hikes through the Northern Beaches were my favorite. For 15 months, we were ferrying over to Watson’s Bay for the Bondi-to-Coogee. We’d wrap up with a frosé slushee from Coogee Pavilion, and stop in CBD on the way back for 678 Korean BBQ. It was great.

But one weekend, we instead decided to head north to see how many beaches we could cover by foot. North Manly, Freshwater, Curl Curl, Dee Why, Collaroy, Narrabeen. Pretty soon, we’d walked 20 miles and were stunned. This beautiful, quiet coastline had been in our backyard the whole time!? 

The Northern Beaches walks became our “Richmond Park” equivalent, and as we walked barefoot along the sandy beaches, Chelsay and I took note of the young families. Their kids weren’t stuck back on the beach blanket, looking at their phones. It’s impossible when your spoiled by one of the best settings in the world. They played backyard games on the beach, or volleyball, or ran around with their border collies. Dads surfed with their sons and moms & daughters worked out with the lifesaving club. Yeah, the LIFESAVING CLUB. Instead of tee-ball, Aussie kids are learning to swim out in the ocean and save people. It’s easy to see how Aussies have great attitudes when they’re raised in an environment like this.

That actually brings me to my next point about why Australia is special: the people. Just phenomenal. There are a couple bad eggs like anywhere, but on the whole, Aussies are light hearted, funny, kind, optimistic, and always after a good time. At work, I had the most supportive and entertaining colleagues, enabling the best two years of my career so far. When learning to surf, strangers were welcoming and encouraging (they would tell us when to paddle and cheer when we caught a wave!). And only Aussies could come up with sayings like “Piss in your pocket”, “Good bloke, like a beer” and “We’re not here to ____ spiders.”

I have two stories to exhibit this lovable Aussie attitude. The first came when Chelsay and I visited the Museum of Industry. It was the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11, so the museum was hosting a NASA exhibit. The whole thing was great: it was all about how Aussies helped with the moon landing. Really, they played a very small part by simply receiving the camera feed from the moon, which was only due to the Earth’s rotation making them best positioned for Armstrong’s first step. But the Aussies had so much pride in contributing to the accomplishment. They didn’t have the resources to send a man to the moon, but when the time came, Aussies happily and proudly stepped in.

My second story comes from North Curl Curl. Chelsay and I were on one of our Northern Beaches walks, when we came across a kids surf contest. (Again, instead of peewee football, Aussie children have surf competitions.) Anyway, the scene was great. It was sunny, the parents had come out to watch, and one of the teenagers set up a microphone to give play-by-play. Some highlights:

“Aw I’m calling it: best day of the year. The waves are     rolling, sausages are rolling.”

“There are sets! Out! The back!”

“Suns out, buns out! Well no buns yet, but the lasses     will be here soon.”

“Just a reminder to any surfers: yield your waves to     the kids. You got a problem with that, we’ve got a group of 20 locals     here. Get amongst it.”

This teen captured what it means to be Australian: funny, positive, and energetic.

I actually have a bonus third story about how much I love Aussie attitudes. Perhaps no story better sums up Australia’s priority of just having a good time than Steven Bradbury. Bradbury was an Australian speed skater that made it to the 1000m finals of 2002 Winter Olympic. As a quick aside, it’s a testament to Aussie athleticism that there is zero snow in the country yet they consistently compete and medal at the Winter Olympics. Back to Bradbury though. He basically only made the finals because all of his opponents crashed in the semi-finals. So now he’s in the finals. He’s matched up against the three fasted skaters in the world, and he knows he really shouldn’t be there. So, for 950m, he holds back. He’s enjoying that he’s made the finals in the Winter Olympics, taking in the moment and happy to let the other skaters fight. The front runners are stressed throughout, constantly passing one another and jockeying to take the lead.

With 50m left, Bradbury is a full 15m back. But then the aggression of the front runners costs them - after battling on the last turn, they all tumble. Bradbury, who was just enjoying a leisurely skate, passes them all and somehow with a grin and somehow wins gold! His quote afterwards captures his Aussiness: “I was the oldest bloke in the field and I knew that. Skating four races back to back, I wasn't going to have any petrol left in the tank. So there was no point in getting there and mixing it up because I was going to be in last place anyway. So I figured I might as well stay out of the way and be in last place.”

“Doing a Bradbury” is now another phenomenal Aussie saying.

The weather and people of Australia certainly exceeded Chelsay and I’s hopes when we moved to Sydney. That said, we’d never been here before, so how could we really know what to expect? Here are some other Aussie realities that turned out different than expectations:

The biggest surprise is how isolated Australia is. I knew it was far away, but didn’t grasp just HOW far. This makes travel harder, both because of flight times and flight prices, which ultimately is the biggest drawback of Australia. Sure we had some absolutely amazing trips (New Zealand, Western Australian, Fiji and Indo all stand out), but a just weekend trip doesn’t get you as far as it would in London. For this time in Chelsay and I’s lives, we’re really looking to see as much as possible.

On the positive side, We expected more bugs, spiders, and snakes. These have been a non-factor in Manly.

Despite the absence of insects, there have been far more sharks than expected. Not Great Whites, but 5 foot Dusky Whalers, Reef Sharks, Wobbegongs, and Port Jackson’s. I see at least one almost every time I go for a swim. After swimming with about 100 sharks over the past year, both Chelsay and I are much more comfortable with them than     expected.

We should be better at surfing. We live on an absolutely ideal beach to learn. Sure, we can competently stand on a 5-6 ft wave or catch the occasional “green face”, but we’d never be confused with pros. After two years, we can barely turn. Those kids in the North Curl Curl competition would surf circles around us.

Okay, we’ve made it to the end. As a “completeness check”, I took a look back at my Goodbye London post. That post was absolutely spot on - I perfectly predicted how I’d feel about London 24 months after leaving. It was such a good prediction that I actually feel a bit of pressure to do the same for Australia.

So here it goes. With Australia, I predict we’ll forget the lack of travel options and focus more on memories we did make. The freedom of driving through outback in Western Australia and the Top End. Drinking wine, snacking on “the goods”, and listening to the hits on a warm night in Esperance. Vacations visiting dinosaurs (Komodo) or other worldly Mordor (New Zealand). Day trips near Sydney to see koalas (Port Stephens) or kangaroos and wombats (Kangaroo Valley). Chic brunches on the Sunshine Coast, and capturing all the Pokémon (Aussie wildlife) on trips to Tassie, the Barrier Reef, and Far North Queensland. Our long weekend walks through the Northern Beaches, followed by delivery daal from our favorite Indian place.

Ultimately though, what I’ll miss most is the free Saturdays and Sundays that we so easily take for granted. Waking up and getting a pretzel croissant from Sonoma. Watching the surfers from the corso, followed by barefoot morning walk along the beach. Grabbing our boards, snorkels, a book, and some guacamole and hitting the beach. Ending the day with chicken nuggets, truffle fries, and an elderflower spritz at Hemingway’s. Taking in the unbelievably colorful sunsets EVERY SINGLE NIGHT!

Unlike London, there won’t be sights or events or attractions that I miss about Australia. It will be the feeling of a free weekend in Manly, the hot sun, and warm Aussies around us.

[tasksweekly]

[TASK 055: THE NAVAJO]

Shout out to @olivaraofrph​ for inspiring and helping compile this task! There’s a masterlist below compiled of over 220+ Navajo faceclaims categorised by gender with their occupation and ethnicity denoted if there was a reliable source. With 300,460 enrolled members as of 2015, the Navajo is disputed with the Cherokee to either be the largest or second largest federally recognized tribe in the United States. If you want an extra challenge use random.org to pick a random number! Of course everything listed below are just suggestions and you can pick whichever character or whichever project you desire.

Any questions can be sent here and all tutorials have been linked below the cut for ease of access! REMEMBER to tag your resources with #TASKSWEEKLY and we will reblog them onto the main! This task can be tagged with whatever you want but if you want us to see it please be sure that our tag is the first five tags!

THE TASK - scroll down for FC’s!

STEP 1: Decide on a FC you wish to create resources for! You can always do more than one but who are you starting with? There are links to masterlists you can use in order to find them and if you want help, just send us a message and we can pick one for you at random!

STEP 2: Pick what you want to create! You can obviously do more than one thing, but what do you want to start off with? Screencaps, RP icons, GIF packs, masterlists, PNG’s, fancasts, alternative FC’s - LITERALLY anything you desire!

STEP 3: Look back on tasks that we have created previously for tutorials on the thing you are creating unless you have whatever it is you are doing mastered - then of course feel free to just get on and do it. :)

STEP 4: Upload and tag with #TASKSWEEKLY! If you didn’t use your own screencaps/images make sure to credit where you got them from as we will not reblog packs which do not credit caps or original gifs from the original maker.

THINGS YOU CAN MAKE FOR THIS TASK -  examples are linked!

Stumped for ideas? Maybe make a masterlist or graphic of your favourite Navajo faceclaims. A masterlist of names. Plot ideas or screencaps from a music video preformed by a Navajo artist. Masterlist of quotes and lyrics that can be used for starters, thread titles or tags. Guides on Navajo culture and customs.

Screencaps

RP icons [of all sizes]

Gif Pack [maybe gif icons if you wish]

PNG packs

Manips

Dash Icons

Character Aesthetics

PSD’s

XCF’s

Graphic Templates - can be chara header, promo, border or background PSD’s!

FC Masterlists - underused, with resources, without resources!

FC Help - could be related, family templates, alternatives.

Written Guides.

and whatever else you can think of / make!

MASTERLIST!

Ladies:

Geraldine Keams (65) Navajo - actress.

Luci Tapahonso (63) Navajo - poet.

Freda J. Nells (20 as of 1979) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Elizabeth Woody (born 1959) Tenino, Navajo, Yakama, Wasco-Wishram, and Chinook - author.

Laura Tohe (born 1952) Navajo - author.

Audra Aviso (19 as of 1985) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Melanie Yazzie (born in 1966) Navajo - artist.

Wena Jesus (24 as of 1987) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Karen Leuppe (23 as of 1994) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Sharon Watson Murray (18 as of 1991) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Victoria Yazzie (42) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Audra J. Etsitty Platero (41) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Rhonda Tree-Mangan (born 1976) Navajo - model and blogger.

Sevaleah Begay (39) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Shaunda Mae Tsosie (23 as of 2002) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Sydney Freeland (36) Navajo and Scottish - filmmaker. - Trans!

Onawa Lacy (35) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Marla Billey (20 as of 2003) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Jonathea Tso (25 as of 2007) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Jocelyn Billy (24 as of 2006) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Deanne Jean VanWinkle (34) Navajo - model and makeup artist.

Rachelle James (20 as of 2005) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Cheyenne De Herrera (32) Navajo - model.

Carol Lee Jefferson (31) Navajo and Southern Ute - model.

Crystalyne Curley (25 as of 2011) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Leandra Thomas (25 as of 2012) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Yolanda Charley (20 as of 2008) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Jhene Aiko (29) Japanese, Dominican (African and Spanish), Yaqui (Unconfirmed), Choctaw (Unconfirmed), Cherokee (Unconfirmed), Navajo (Unconfirmed), and German Jewish (Unconfirmed) - singer-songwriter.

Winifred Bessie Jumbo (22 as of 2010) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Vonica Kaskalla (27) Navajo - model and actress.

Raytanna Williams (28) Navajo - model.

Natasha Hardy (24 as of 2013) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

McKeon Kova Dempsey (24 as of 2014) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Tashina Nelson (19 as of 2009) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Sage Honga (born 1992) Navajo, Hopi, and Hualapai - model.

Tatianna Olivia (24) Navajo - model.

Nizhoni Cooley (24) Navajo, Mexican, Irish, and Czechoslovakian - Instagrammer (nizhonicooley).

Tekayle Bitsilly (22) Navajo - model.

Siera Begaye (22) Navajo - model and fashion designer.

Gabby Tsosie (22) Navajo - model.

Ronda Joe (22) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Alyson Jeri Shirley (20 as of 2015) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Hon’mana Seukteoma (21) Tohono O’odham, Hopi, and Navajo - YouTuber (Seukteoma).

Emily Sera (21) Navajo, Western Shoshone, and Venezuelan (Unspecified Indigenous, Spanish, and Irish) - actress and YouTuber (Emily Sera).

Connie Brownotter (21) Navajo and Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux - Instagrammer (conniebrownotter).

Camille Manybeads Tso (13 as of 2009) Navajo - filmmaker, actress, and musician.

DeShawna Begay (19) Navajo - model.

Magdalena Begay (14) Navajo - actress.

Candice Costello (?) Navajo - actress.

Tash Terry (?) Navajo - musician (Indigie Femme).

Gloria Dodge (?) Navajo - actress.

Sahar Khadjenoury (?) Navajo and Iranian - actress and model.

Serene Hedin (?) Navajo - actress and producer.

Morningstar Angeline (?) Navajo, Blackfoot, Chippewa Cree, Mexican, and Unspecified White - actress.

Carmen Moore (?) Navajo - actress. - Trans!

Vtora Quimayousie (?) Navajo and Dutch - model.

Diana Ashley (?) Navajo - model.

Rhonda “Honey” Duvall (?) Navajo - rapper.

Khrissy Enditio (?) Navajo - model.

Katrina Kavanaugh (?) Navajo - actress.

Andrea Good (?) Navajo, Apache, and Zia - actress.

Monika Crowfoot (?) Navajo - actress.

Trina Secody (?) Navajo - model.

Lady Xplicit (?) Navajo - rapper.

Deirdre Begay (?) Navajo - model.

Makayah Crowfoot (?) Blackfoot, Navajo, Oneida, Irish, Armenian, English, and French - actress.

GiGi Sands (?) Navajo - model.

Lynntelle Slim (?) Navajo - model.

Shishonia Livingston (?) Navajo - comedian, writer, and actress.

Lena Carr (?) Navajo - filmmaker.

Sharon Burch (?) Navajo and German - musician.

Sarah Del Seronde (?) Navajo - filmmaker.

Tylah Nez (?) Navajo - model.

Cherish Arviso (?) Navajo - model.

Volanjayia Canuto (?) Navajo - model.

Nicole Lee Smith (?) Navajo, Haida, and Tlingit - actress.

Owee Rae (?) Navajo - model.

Lady Yazzie (?) Navajo, Ojibwe, Zuni, and German - model, vlogger, and dancer.

Allison Young (?) Navajo - actress.

Vera Saganitso-Thompson (?) Navajo - model.

Pamela J. Peters (?) Navajo - filmmaker.

Cheyenne Yazza (?) Navajo - model.

Tsailii Rogers (?) Navajo - actress and producer.

Sharon Anne Henderson (?) Navajo, Mexican, and Basque - actress.

Radmilla Cody (?) Navajo and African-American - singer and model.

Kahara Hodges (?) Navajo - singer.

Jeneda Benally (?) Navajo - singer and bassist.

Tiinesha Begaye (?) Navajo and Syilx - musician.

Carla DuBois (?) Navajo - musician.

Katonya Begay (?) Navajo - model.

April Brannon Yazza (?) Navajo and Zuni - beauty pageant titleholder.

Shaylin Shabi (?) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Brittney Jackson (?) Navajo - model.

Allie Young (?) Navajo - actress.

Sheila Hollow Horn (?) Navajo and Oglala Lakota Sioux - actress and model.

Krystal McCabe (?) Navajo - model.

Writtyn (?) Navajo - rapper.

Delilah Morgan (?) Navajo - model.

Clarissa Yazzie (?) Navajo - actress.

Kristina Jacobsen (?) Navajo - singer-songwriter.

Talibah Begay (?) Navajo - singer.

Geri Camarillo (?) Navajo - actress.

Clarissa Carlson (?) Navajo - model.

Brandi Smith Charley (?) Navajo - model and YouTuber (WaaavyNativeBaby).

Jaylene Reid (?) Navajo - model.

Rhiana Yazzie (?) Navajo - playwright and filmmaker.

Jannalee Atcitty (?) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

ShiRee Joe (?) Navajo and Ute - model.

Desiree Belone (?) Navajo and Japanese - model and makeup artist.

Josephine Tracey (?) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Ramona Emerson (?) Navajo - filmmaker.

Arlene Bowman (?) Navajo - filmmaker.

Tara Tsosie (?) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Tina James-Tafoya (?) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Jennifer Jackson Wheeler (?) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Geraldine Gamble (?) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Jaylin Tochoney (?) Navajo - model.

Sofina Shorty Brown (?) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Diane Taylor (?) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Taj Passion (?) Navajo - actress and model.

Lorene Lewis (?) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Shirley Paulson (?) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Dolly Manson Montoya (?) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Sandra Eriacho (?) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Sunny Dooley (?) Navajo - beauty pageant titleholder.

Ashley Smith (?) Navajo - actress and model. (Common name so recommend going straight to instagram and following links from there: lifeofash10.)

Male:

R. Carlos Nakai (71) Navajo and Ute - musician.

Craig Chaquico (64) Navajo - musician.

Roger Willie (born 1964) Navajo - actor.

Jack Soto (born 1965) Navajo and Puerto Rican - ballet dancer.

Scott Means (51) Navajo, Oglala Lakota Sioux, and Omaha - actor.

Ernest Tsosie III (born April 1967) Navajo - actor and comedian.

Jay Tavare (46) White Mountain Apache, Navajo - actor and blogger

Cory Witherill (45) Navajo - NASCAR driver.

J. LaRose (44) Navajo - actor.

Sherwin Bitsui (born 1974) Navajo - poet.

James Iron Moccasin (39 as of 2013) Navajo - model.

Rick Mora (42) Yaqui, Apache, and Navajo - actor and model.

Klee Benally (born October 1975) Navajo - singer and guitarist.

Raven Chacon (born December 1977) Navajo - musician and composer

Rodney Smith (39) Navajo - actor.

Jeremy Ray Valdez (36) Navajo and Mexican - actor.

Jacoby Ellsbury (33) Navajo, English, and German - MLB player.

Tatanka Means (32) Navajo, Oglala Lakota Sioux, and Omaha - actor.

Brian Lee Young (30) Navajo - model.

Rickie Fowler (28) Navajo, Japanese, and English - olympic golfer.

Nakotah LaRance (27) Hopi, Tewa, Nakoda Sioux, and Navajo - actor.

Lex Jaymes (25 as of 2012) Navajo - model.

Nataanii Means (26) Navajo, Oglala Lakota Sioux, and Omaha - rapper.

Christian Baste (22) Navajo and Oglala Lakota Sioux - actor.

N8ve Narrow (born 1995) Navajo - rapper.

Jamison Long (20) Navajo, Chinese, and Afro Mexican - actor. Also known as JJ Long.

Forrest Goodluck (18) Navajo, Hidasta, Mandan, and Tsimshian - actor.

Quinton Kien (13) Navajo - actor.

DJ Rey Love (?) Navajo and Filipino - musician.

Pete Sands (?) Navajo - singer-songwriter.

Jon Begay (?) Navajo - musician.

Robert D. Shorty (?) Navajo - actor.

Jermaine Sam (?) Navajo - YouTuber (Jermaine Sam).

Kelly Bedoni (?) Navajo - blogger.

Arkie Benally (?) Navajo - singer.

Kyerin Bennett (?) Navajo - model.

Jordan “Rude Boy Lice” Steele (?) Navajo - singer and guitarist.

Martin “Panda” Johnson (?) Navajo - bassist.

Aaron White (?) Navajo - flutist.

Keanu “Popeye” Lee (?) Navajo - singer and guitarist.

Andre “Dre” Alva (?) Navajo - drummer.

Jon Riggs (?) Navajo - actor and model.

Arthur Redcloud (?) Navajo - actor.

Jeremiah Bitsui (?) Navajo and Omaha - actor.

Rog Benally (?) Navajo - actor.

DJ Smog (?) Navajo - musician.

Levi Platero (?) Navajo - musician.

Keithan Richards (?) Navajo - singer-songwriter.

Wallace Book (?) Navajo - musician.

Makardi (?) Navajo - rapper.

Sick 2da Rick (?) Navajo - rapper.

Douglas Platero (?) Navajo - musician.

James Junes (?) Navajo and Hopi - comedian.

Bronson Begay (?) Navajo - musician.

Clayson Benally (?) Navajo - musician.

Franklin Yazzie (?) Navajo - musician.

Robert I. Mesa (?) Navajo - actor.

Kevin Nez (?) Navajo - rapper.

Natay (?) Navajo - rapper.

Def-i (?) Navajo - rapper.

Douglas C. Begay (?) Navajo - rapper.

Joseph Valdez (?) Navajo and Spanish - actor.

Loren Anthony (?) Navajo - actor.

Larry Yazzie (?) Navajo - actor.

Vince Redhouse (?) Navajo - flutist.

Ryan Begay (?) Navajo - actor.

Wambli Eagleman (?) Lakota Sioux and Navajo - actor.

Dallas Goldtooth (?) Mdewakanton Dakota Sioux and Navajo - member of comedy group, the 1491s.

Vic Buildsafire (?) Navajo, Pomo, Aztec, and Spanish - rapper.

Perry “Cheevers” Toppah (?) Navajo and Kiowa - musician.

N8v Ace (?) Navajo - rapper.

Jay Begaye (?) Navajo - musician.

Thomas Arviso (?) Navajo - musician.

Edsel Pete (?) Navajo - actor.

Kody Dayish (?) Navajo - filmmaker.

Larry Blackhorse Lowe (?) Navajo - filmmaker.

DJ Young Native (?) Navajo - rapper.

Dylan McLaughlin (?) Navajo - musician.

TheFly (?) Navajo - musician (ShitOuttaLuck).

Lazer (?) Navajo - musician (ShitOuttaLuck).

Tuco (?) Navajo - musician (ShitOuttaLuck).

Rattlesnake (?) Navajo - musician (ShitOuttaLuck).

Hansen Ashley (?) Navajo - musician (The Discotays).

Leon Garcia (?) Navajo and Acoma - model, actor, and musician.

Billy Luther (?) Navajo, Hopi, and Laguna - film producer and director.

Jeff Barehand (?) Navajo and Unspecified South Asian - actor.

Milford Calamity (?) Navajo - model.

Brian Young (?) Navajo - model.

Christopher Nataanii Cegielski (?) Navajo - filmmaker.

Derek Roy (?) Navajo - model.

Roger Benally (?) Navajo - actor, model, and dancer.

Patrick Spencer (?) Navajo - model.

Dustinn Craig (?) Navajo and White Mountain Apache - filmmaker.

Craig Littleman (?) Navajo - model and professional baseball player.

Verlin George (?) Navajo - model.

NB:

Brad Charles (?) - Two Spirit - Navajo - punk rock musician (The Discotays) and co-founder of Bands In Action.

Mike J. Marin (?) - Two Spirit - Navajo, Laguna, Washoe, and Mexican - actor, rapper, and filmmaker.

Nitasha Manning (?) - Two Spirit - Navajo - artist.

Demian DinéYazhi (?) - Two Spirit - artist and poet.

[emma-what-son]

Beauty and the Beastly Gender Politics

From University of Sydney Union April 2017: You have almost certainly seen Emma Watson’s recent Vanity Fair profile. (Or, more accurately, one scandalous bunch of pixels in it. You have likely seen, dissected, and – due to the apex of wokeness you have reached – promptly disregarded the bizarre fuss made over the semi-nude photo therein.) 

Overlooked within that piece is a telling anecdote. Watson is wrestling with her feminist values, particularly in the context of her starring role as Belle in Beauty and the Beast. To resolve this, she seeks – of all people – Gloria Steinem’s approval. In an exclusive final cut screening organised for Steinem, Watson receives it. “This is a new Belle,” lauds Derek Blasberg, the piece’s author, “much of it by Watson’s design.”

Unfortunately, Emma Watson’s feminist rehabilitation of Beauty and the Beast is, like its gothic kitsch, purely superficial.

Beauty and the Beast is not a complex film. Within the first three minutes, the Enchantress, who has rather rudely crashed a palatial party in search of shelter and/or cruel men on whom to impart moral teachings, warns the then-Prince (and soon-to-be-Beast): “Do not be deceived by appearances, for beauty is found within.”

That rather neatly summarises what you are to take away from the film. (A mild spoiler alert follows for those who have been spared the two-hour slog and wish to inflict it upon themselves nonetheless.) Belle’s father is kidnapped by the Beast. Belle finds her father and, in order to sate the Beast, swaps places with him, submitting bravely to her new captor. In short order, Belle falls in love with the Beast, fends off the reactionary towns-people who’d rather him dead, and, in finding love, the Beast is spared of the Enchantress’s curse. The Beast is once again the Prince (without his objectionable traits).

Here’s the rub: the celebrated relationship within the film is brazenly abusive. Beyond its obvious elements (the literal imprisonment of Belle, the Beast’s decision to spy on her via his magical hand mirror, and the coercion used by the Beast to force Belle to spend time with him), the Belle and the Beast tryst is at no point typified by consent.

For example, early on in the film, the Beast demands Belle join him for dinner. “You’ll join me for dinner,” he starts. In case the power dynamic is not quite clear enough, he adds: “That’s not a request.” Charming.

When Belle refuses the Beast’s request for dinner, the chattering household objects remind the Beast of how to be enchanting. Mrs. Potts, the maternal tea-pot played by Emma Thompson, reminds him: “Gently, the girl lost her father and her freedom in one day.” The whole ceramic menagerie prompts him to “be gentle,” “kind”, “charming” and “sweet”, and, finally, to “give her a dashing debonair smile.” The Beast is good, you see: deep, deep, deep down.

When Belle refuses once more, the Beast intimidates her by slamming loudly on the door, and then decides to punish her: “Go ahead and starve! If she doesn’t eat with me, she doesn’t eat at all!”

One of the most telling lines in the film comes in the next scene from Mrs. Potts, who enters Belle’s room to console her. Mrs. Potts tells Belle: “People say a lot of things in anger: it is our choice whether or not to listen.” This is indicative of the endless excuses offered for the Beast’s behavior. The mental gymnastics required to justify them are truly bewildering.

A similar instance comes from Lumière, the singing candelabra played by Ewan McGregor. As Belle expresses her surprise that Lumière would want to take her to a more comfortable room than the three-by-four metre concrete cell that the Beast had just condemned her to, Lumière implies that any fear of the Beast is unfounded. Attempting to mimic the Beast’s deep timbre, he mockingly quotes the Beast: “Once this door closes, it will not open again!” Immediately, he adds, in his normal voice: “I know, he gets so dramatic!”

Apparently, in both of these examples, despite her involuntary detention and threatened starvation, she has nothing to worry about; he’s just joking around. What he says (and does) when he is upset he doesn’t actually mean; and if you think otherwise, well, that’s your choice (and, therefore, your problem).

This fits neatly into the most common typology used to recognise abusive relationships. The ‘Power and Control wheel’, developed by psychologists and social workers in the early 1980s (now known as the ‘Duluth model’) to assist abuse survivors in understanding perpetrators’ tactics of control, is shown below (and sourced here).

The Beast’s behaviour, as documented above, fits into many of these categories. The use of ‘coercion and threats’, ‘intimidation’ and ‘isolation’ is self-evident; while the domestic servants employed by the Beast ‘minimise’ his actions (claiming they emerge from anger, not his true self) and ‘blame’ Belle for her interpretation of them. Instead of using children to guilt Belle, the Beast uses her father. Even the celebrated elements of the new film that attempt to distinguish it from the original, such as Belle’s equal status with her father as an inventor, simply play into stereotypes of abuse, as if clever and driven individuals can’t be trapped in such cycles. They can. And in Beauty and the Beast, Belle is.

Watson offers a general defence to these claims. In short, while implicitly conceding the Beast’s behaviour is inappropriate, she nonetheless argues that Belle’s decision to love him was consensual and not coercive, as she had maintained her fierce independence by aggressively refusing the Beast’s demands. “She’s giving him hell,” she says. “She gives as good as she gets.”

The simple issue with this is that the power imbalance of the relationship never allowed Belle to be the Beast’s equal, or give him anything approximating to what he gave her: after all, she is forcibly detained in the Beast’s castle, with the Beast actively marshalling his considerable coercive resources to keep her there. Her refusals do not level the playing field.

While in Watson’s mind, the instance where he “bangs on the door [and] she bangs back,” may indicate resistance, it doesn’t nullify the inequity in the relationship. This defence plays into a troubling narrative where consent is only about choice, not the capacity to choose. Discussions of consent should be informed by understanding the environments in which consent is given. (Hence why we consider formal consent, when given in circumstances with extreme inequities of informal power, such as Stockholm syndrome, or teacher-student relationships, even when the latter is over the age of majority, just to name two situations, to be insufficient.)

But why should we care about this? These films are fairy-tales, not road-maps, right?

Unfortunately, we know that isn’t true. Disney films are not quaint, self-contained narratives in which one can find the historical set-pieces of patriarchy on display. In the same way that The Lion King is not simply an instructive lesson on fraught relations in the animal kingdom, Beauty and the Beast is not just a story, but a vehicle through which broader messages are communicated, particularly to young girls. This is not conjecture. A recent peer-reviewed longitudinal study published in Child Development found the more that younger children interacted with Disney Princess culture, the more they would enact gender-stereotypical behaviour similar to what was displayed on screen. It is no surprise, then, that Disney films are also formative for children’s beliefs on what normative relationships – the kind that they aspire to – look like.

The takeaway message of Beauty and the Beast is simple: with enough love and patience, a man, however beastly, can become a prince. This moral is easily translated. That boy at school who pushes and teases you? Actually, he likes you – that’s just how boys show affection. That teenage boyfriend who treats you terribly? Actually, he’s just a fixer-upper with a tough exterior – with enough time and effort, he’ll love you right. And so on, and so on.

All women, particularly aspiring Disney princesses, deserve better. If Emma Watson intends to so publicly leverage her status as a feminist, she has a responsibility to give it to them. Her effort in Beauty and the Beast doesn’t even come close.

[judgestarling]

The Origin of the Term “Junk DNA”: A Scientific Whodunnit (3rd edition)

As most textbooks would have it, the term “junk DNA” was coined in 1972 by Susumu Ohno as part of his work on the role of gene and genome duplication. The first time I met Susumu Ohno was at a meeting in Crete many years ago, and the way I remember it, he told me that he “deliberately” chose a “provocative term” for “junk DNA” to emphasize the “uselessness” of this DNA fraction. (Indeed, the term “junk” comes with a “semantic baggage” since it used as a synonym for heroin and male genitalia—two terms that are verboten in polite company.) At the conference dinner, Ohno also told me (and other newbies) that rosé wine is produced by mixing red and white wines. I no longer believe either of these “narratives.”

It all started with my obsession to read very thoroughly every article that I quote, instead of relying on indirect references. In this day and age, in which articles are signed by hundreds of authors, the vast majority of whom don’t even bother to read their “own” publications, I stand out like a nigella seed in mayonnaise. This disorder is probably due to my association with Mina Graur, who is a historian that only trusts “primary sources.” Indeed, so strong is her belief in primary sources, that I am quite certain she wouldn’t even trust a textbook description of the double helix—she would want to read Watson and Crick’s (1953) article, as well as their notebooks, correspondences, and preliminary drafts, and if possible interview each and every one associated with the lab in Cambridge including the janitors. What can I say? She does NOT trust “secondary” sources!

For a few years, I engaged in a bitter fight with the quacks of the ENCODE Project over “junk DNA,” and to my dismay, I realized that I cannot find a copy of Susumu Ohno’s (1972) article “So much ‘junk’ DNA in our genome.” So, I started searching the net for the article. My searches led me to discover three publications from 1972 that mention “junk DNA.” The above-mentioned paper by Susumu Ohno, an article in Advances in Human Genetics by David Comings, and a New Scientist commentary by Tim Hunt.

Solving the origin of Comings’ “junk DNA” was easy. He got it from Susumu Ohno, who was his colleague at City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, California. Indeed, Comings quotes two “in press” papers by Ohno. The most interesting thing about Comings’ article, however, is that his treatment of junk DNA is much more thorough and much more informative and much more considerate than Ohno’s cryptic 1972 article, in which the term “junk” is only mentioned in the title.

The origin of Tim Hunt’s “junk DNA” proved to be much more interesting. In 1972, the future Nobel Prize winner was a 29-year-old researcher at Cambridge trying to understand messenger RNA and the great amounts of DNA that never produce mRNA. In time, his research led him into a completely different area of study, and in 2001, Tim Hunt shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine with Paul Nurse and Leland Hartwell. The work for which he was conferred the highest accolade in the sciences had nothing to do with either mRNA or junk DNA—the Nobel was in recognition of his discovery of proteins that control cell division.

In his 1972 commentary, Tim Hunt uses the term “junk DNA” to refer to “the large amount of nucleic acid that never finds its way out of the nucleus, which does not fit in with the old categories of genes and messages.” Note that Hunt’s 1972 “junk DNA” employs a mechanistic definition of junk DNA that is different from but not at odds with our current functional—or actually nonfunctional—understanding of junk DNA as “useless and harmless” per the definition of Sydney Brenner in 1998.

Where did Tim Hunt get the term? On September 18, 2013, I sent him the following email.

“I have recently realized that although the late Susumu Ohno is credited solely with the coinage ‘junk DNA,’ he was not the only person to have used the term in 1972. In your ‘How mammals get the message’ in New Scientist, you have an entire section entitled ‘Why all that junk?’ In this section you mention “junk DNA.” I am curious whether (1) you got the term from Susumu Ohno, (2) he got it from you, (3) you coined it independently, or (4) you got it from a third person. I would greatly appreciate your help with this historical puzzle.”

The next day, Dr. Hunt replied and his reply pointed me in a new direction.

“Gosh, yes! I did write that piece, and I never met Ohno. I got it from Sydney Brenner and/or Francis Crick—it was certainly current in Cambridge at the time. Maybe they got it from Ohno? You should ask Sydney.”

So, I wrote Dr. Brenner who stated that he was not the originator of the term “junk DNA.” One of the sentences in his reply made the puzzle even more profound.

“I can confirm that we were using the idea of “junk” in the genome in the sixties at Cambridge.”

Really? The sixties? If the term was indeed current in the sixties, it is entirely possible that the term may have found its way into the literature and hasn’t been detected thus far. If it was there, I was determined to find it.

Enter Google Ngram, with which one can find short phrases in over 6 million books (published since 1500) that have been digitized by Google.

With Google Ngram, I struck gold, a 1963 paper by Charles Ehret and Gérard de Haller entitled “Origin, development, and maturation of organelles and organelle systems of the cell surface in Paramecium.” The paper which was published in Journal of Ultrastructure Research is huge—42 pages and 86 figures. On page 39 it is written:

“While current evidence makes plausible the idea that all genetic material is DNA (with the possible exception of RNA viruses), it does not follow that all DNA is competent genetic material (viz. ‘junk’ DNA), nor that all Feulgen-positive material is active DNA.”

This was completely unexpected. Nine years before Susumu Ohno, two authors referred to “junk DNA” in a casual manner without even bothering to explain what junk DNA is. If we assume that “non-competent” genetic material is the same as nonfunctional DNA, then their use of “junk DNA” was entirely modern. The problem was that I have never heard of the authors before. Who was Charles F. Ehret? Who was Gérard de Haller?

A little more digging revealed that Charles F. Ehret was a very important person, as evidenced by the fact that The Washington Post published an obituary on his death in 2007.

“Charles F. Ehret, 83, a scientist whose study of circadian rhythms led to a widely popular anti-jet lag regimen that improved the trips of untold numbers of world travelers, died February 24 of multiple illnesses at his home in Grayslake, Ill.”

“In more than 35 years of experimentation, Dr. Ehret found that the headaches, nausea, disorientation, fatigue, and malaise suffered by globe-trotters had almost nothing to do with thin air and the dizzying effects of supersonic speed, as was commonly assumed. Rather, jet lag is a matter of crossing too many time zones too quickly for the body to adjust. It can be ameliorated by adjusting eating, activity and sleep schedules according to a strict system that Dr. Ehret developed.”

A search of the literature revealed that the paper in Journal of Ultrastructure Research represented quite a detour in the scientific life of Dr. Ehret. With the exception of a 1948 paper in The Anatomical Record, entitled “The mating reaction of multimicronuclear monstrosities in Paramecium bursaria,” his entire research program dealt with circadian rhythms, jet lag, and light exposure.

Interestingly, Dr. Ehret worked on many different organisms which, according to The Washington Post, included “single-celled organisms, rats, his eight children, and volunteers.” Rats and eight children? That sounds like a winning combination!

The amount of information I could find on Gérard de Haller was quite minimal. He became Professor of Protistology at the University of Geneva in 1969. He mostly published in French, and the last known address for him was the Molecular Systematics Group at the University of Geneva. As far as I could ascertain, he published his last paper in 1993. In October, 2013, I wrote to the head of the Molecular Systematics Group, Jan Wojciech Pawlowski. He replied promptly.

“Prof. Gérard de Haller is a Honorary Professor of the University of Geneva. He was one of the jurors of my PhD thesis and the head of Protistology Laboratory since 1969. His specialty was the biology of ciliates. As far as I know he is still alive, although he is not scientifically very active since his retirement. I saw him last time about 2 years ago when he came to the University to participate in a ceremony for one of his younger assistants. He is still on the list of University Professors.”

I was looking for more information about him but could not find anything more. However, I can easily find someone from his family who live in Geneva if this is necessary.”

In the end, the person who managed to find Gérard de Haller was Robert Hirt, Professor of Evolutionary Parasitology at Newcastle University. Through him, in May 2014, I got an email from Prof. de Haller himself.

“As far as I can remember, the first time we spoke of junk DNA was at a seminar with Werner Arber around 1958 or so, and I know that Eduard Kellenberger’s department, where Werner was working, was in close contact with the big bosses of the raising DNA science [at Cambridge]. Unfortunately, that’s all I can remember, except that these were great times!”

“I asked Werner Arber, but he couldn’t add anything. He mentioned Francis Crick as a possible “inventor” of the term.”

At this point, I was quite certain that Ehret and de Haller did not invent the term “junk DNA.” They used it properly and in the right context, but it wasn’t theirs.

I wrote about my findings in my blog, and ended the article with an appeal.  

“In the manner of the appeals by Oxford English Dictionary, I would like to ask the readers: Do you have an earlier record of the term “junk DNA”? Please submit your evidence by email.”

Soon afterwards, an anonymous reader found an example of “junk DNA” from 1960.

“Following your example, I’ve been trying to find earlier “junk DNA” quotes using Google. I found this quote in the Year Book of the Carnegie Institution, Washington July 1, 1959- June 30, 1960 (Volume 59, page 278).”

The quote from the Year Book was quite straightforward. 

“It is much more difficult to imagine how the different DNA’s could act as templates for the similar RNA’s. This is the problem that can be avoided most easily by considering a large part of the DNA to be junk.’”

The authors, however, did not like the concept of “junk DNA’, although they admitted that there were precedents.

“The idea that a large part of the nucleic acid is nonfunctional is repugnant. It seems unlikely that such an inefficient mechanism would have survived through evolution, although it must be remembered that enzyme molecules are very large in comparison with their active centers.”

The Carnegie Institution report was written by eight members of the Biophysics Group within the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism. Yes, “Terrestrial Magnetism”!

Several names stood out. Sadly, Richard Roberts died in 1980, Ellis Bolton in 2006, and Roy Britten in 2012. The person with which I was most familiar with was Roy Britten, who was the discoverer of repeated DNA sequences in the genomes of eukaryotic organisms, and later studied their effects on the evolution of genomes. I have met Britten several times at scientific meetings, and if there was one thing clear, it was the fact that he was not a fan of “junk DNA.” When Roy Britten died in 2012 at the age of 92, his obituary in the journal Science was written by his close collaborator Eric Davidson.

So, I wrote to Eric Davidson, and got the following email on November 11, 2013.

“First off, I wouldn’t exactly consider that citation as related to the later nonsense about junk DNA of the Leslie Orgel/Francis Crick variety. At Carnegie they were strictly concerned that year with the protein coding sequence load of the DNA, as seen through the lens of ribosome structure/function, without considering the function of mRNA and tRNA.”

“As for Roy, you are right, he couldn’t stand the idea of junk DNA, but that was in reference to the Crick usage (which we heard about verbally all the time from him and others of his circle; in those days, late 60s and early 70s Roy and I were hotly involved in arguments about the organization of animal genomic DNA). Anyway, Roy could not possibly have been responsible for the Year Book citation you sent because that particular report concerned the year Roy wasn’t even at Carnegie; he was in Denmark working on yeast. The Biophysics report then and in the succeeding few years at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism was written by the senior people, Bolton and Roberts, I think mainly Bolton (with whom Roy did not get along particularly well in intellectual terms). Roy was then very junior in the hierarchy and he wrote his own report on that year’s activity; it is very doubtful he could have inserted anything like that even ex post facto. So, I don’t think it is a likely hypothesis that Roy originated that term in any way shape form or manner, then or later.”

Is it possible that Davidson was wrong and one of the authors of the Carnegie report did coin the term “junk DNA” as a pejorative? One such precedent comes to mind. In 1955, British cosmologist Fred Hoyle derided a theory by American physicist George Gamow and called it by a ridiculous name, “Big Bang.” The name stuck. As far as “junk DNA” is concerned, however, there is little evidence for the pejorative-nickname hypothesis.

Why did the Biophysics group at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at Carnegie found the concept of “junk DNA” to be repugnant in 1959? The historical context was explained to me by Alexander Palazzo from the University of Toronto.

“To understand this report, you need to remember that it was written two years before the discovery of mRNA. Back then it was believed that each gene made a separate RNA that got incorporated into a ribosome (i.e., ribosomal RNA). Thus, according to this model, each ribosome contained information within it to make a single protein. Of course, today we understand that ribosomes are only enzymes, and that the protein-information is contained in mRNA. But considering that >90% of cellular RNA is rRNA, their old faulty model is understandable.”

“The Roberts’ group was analyzing the length of E. coli rRNA. In the discussion they write about the size of proteins and note that some of these are very small. In contrast, there was too much rRNA in each ribosome. This discrepancy indicated that in these cases the additional RNA was likely non-functional. Interestingly, Roberts missed a critical fact that was pointed out by others—that rRNA was not large enough to code for certain large proteins (beta-galactosidase, for example).”

“Roberts’ group also noted that all rRNAs looked the same, whereas the nucleotide composition of DNA varied considerably. Thus, some DNA must not code for ribosomal RNA and this is where they invoke the idea of junk DNA.”

“Note that a new form of RNA (messenger RNA) was recognized in a landmark paper by Brenner, François Jacob and Matthew Meselson in 1961 making this whole discussion moot. (And yes, I’m aware that James Watson’s group also demonstrated the existence of mRNA…).”

How should I summarize my current understanding on the origin of “junk DNA”—the term and the concept?

First, there is evidence that the term “junk DNA” was already in use in the early 1960s (e.g., Aronson et al. 1960; Ehret and de Haller 1963). I am, however, almost certain that none of these authors coined the term. All clues point to Cambridge in the late 1950s. My guess is that the term originated with Francis Crick, but at present I have no evidence for this claim.

And what about Susumu Ohno? I was reminded by a reader that “a conceptual discovery is usually ascribed to one who first stuck his/her neck out to push the viewpoint.” It doesn’t really matter who said what first. 

We remember Charles Darwin, not because he discovered natural selection (and sexual selection) or because he was the first to propose that adaptive evolution is due to selection. Others, e.g., William Charles Wells, Patrick Matthew, James Cowles Prichard, William Lawrence, and John Sebright, may (or may not) have recognized evolution by natural selection long before him. It was Darwin, however, who staked his reputation on what was considered at the time a grave heresy. It is, of course, interesting that Hunt, Brenner, De Haller, Roberts and perhaps others toyed explicitly with the idea of “junk DNA” before 1972, not to mention others who may have entertained the same idea without calling it “junk.” However, it was Susumu Ohno who stuck his neck out and put his reputation on the line by advocating a very unpopular and contentious idea.

In my book, Molecular and Genome Evolution, I decided on the following phrasing:

“We have written evidence that the term “junk DNA” was already in use in the early 1960s (e.g., Aronson et al. 1960; Ehret and de Haller 1963); however, it was Susumu Ohno (1972, 1973) who formalized its meaning and provided an evolutionary rationale for its existence.”

Will we ever know who coined "junk DNA”? I am hopeful that one day a scholar rummaging the archives of Francis Crick will find the answer.  

Literature

Aronson AI, Bolton ET, Britten RJ, Cowie DB, Duerksen JD, McCarthy BJ, McQuillen K, Roberts RB. 1960. Biophysics. pp. 229–289. In: Year Book: Carnegie Institution of Washington. Volume 59. Lord Baltimore Press, Baltimore, MD.

Brenner S. 1998. Refuge of spandrels. Curr. Biol. 8:PR669.

Comings DE. 1972. The structure and function of chromatin. Adv. Hum. Genet. 3:237–431.

Davidson EH. 2012. Roy J. Britten (1919–2012). Science 335:1183.

Ehret CF, G. Haller G. 1963. Origin, development and maturation of organelles and organelle systems of the cell surface in Paramecium. J. Ultrastruct. Res. 23:S1–S42.

Graur D. 2016. Molecular and Genome Evolution. Sinauer Associates

Hunt T. 1972. How mammals get the message. New Scientist 18 May:373–375.

Ohno S. 1972. So much “junk” DNA in our genome. In: Smith HH (ed.) Evolution of Genetic Systems: Brookhaven Symposia in Biology. Gordon and Breach, New York. 23:366–370.

Ohno, S. 1973. Evolutional reason for having so much junk DNA. In: Pfeiffer RA (ed.) Modern Aspects of Cytogenetics: Constitutive Heterochromatin in Man. Schattauer Verlag, Stuttgart, Germany. pp. 169–180.

Watson JD, Crick F.HC. 1953. Molecular structure of nucleic acids: A structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid. Nature 171:737–738.

[minnamarie1983-blog]

Quotes for Thursday July 27,2017

Appreciation  quotes Appreciate what you have, accept the blessings waiting for you to need them, and above all - realize that Source from which it all comes.--Michael Rawls Appreciation can make a day--even change a life, Your willingness to put it into words is all that is necessary.--Margaret Cousins Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.--Voltaire Appreciation, not possession, makes a thing ours.--Marty Rubin Jesus, please teach me to appreciate what I have before time forces me to appreciate what I had.--Susan L. Lenzkes Just about the only interruption we don't object to is applause.--Sydney J. Harris Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.--Abraham Joshua Heschel =========== Attitude quotes Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.--Winston S. Churchill Attitude is the mind's paintbrush, it can color any situation.--Unknown The attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be.--Alan Watts Don't wish it were easier, wish you were better.--Jim Rohn Each of us makes his own weather, determines the color of the skies in the emotional universe which he inhabits.--Fulton J. Sheen Every thought is a seed. If you plant crab apples, don't count on harvesting Golden Delicious.--Bill Meyer ========= Eleanor Roosevelt quotes Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift; that’s why they call it the present. You must do the things you think you cannot do. When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die. The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. When life is too easy for us, we must beware or we may not be ready to meet the blows which sooner or later come to everyone, rich or poor. Only a man's character is the real criterion of worth. It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness. For it isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it. ========= Encouragement quotes Any man's life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day.--Booker T. Washington Appreciation can make a day--even change a life, Your willingness to put it into words is all that is necessary.--Margaret Cousins As it is our nature to be more moved by hope than fear, the example of one we see abundantly rewarded cheers and encourages us far more than the slights of many who have not been well treated disquiets us.--Francesco Guicciardini Children may forget what you say, but they'll never forget how you make them feel.--Parker Palmer (from The Quotable Teacher, comp. by Howe) Correction does much, but encouragement does more.--Goethe ============ Faith quotes Faith and prayer are the vitamins of the soul; man cannot live in health without them.--Mahalia Jackson Faith begins where Reason sinks exhausted.--Albert Pike Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.--Voltaire Faith goes up the stairs that love has built and looks out the window which hope has opened.--Charles Spurgeon Faith is a continuation of reason.--William Adams Faith is about doing. You are how you act, not just how you believe.--Mitch Albom (Have a Little Faith: a True Story) Faith is a knowledge within the heart beyond the reach of proof.--Kahlil Gibron Faith is affirming success before it comes. Faith is making claims to victory before it is achieved.--Robert Schuller ========= Happiness quotes Happiness is a butterfly which when pursued is just out of grasp... But if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.--Nathaniel Hawthorne Happiness is a by-product of an effort to make someone else happy.--Gretta Palmer Happiness is a by-product. You cannot pursue it by itself.--Samuel Levenson Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.--Ralph Waldo Emerson Happiness is a present attitude--not a future condition.--Hugh Prather Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product.--Eleanor Roosevelt Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.--Thomas Merton Happiness is not a station to arrive at, but a manner of traveling.--Margaret Lee Runbeck Happiness is not found by searching for it, because you find it only when you realize you already have it.--David Charles Happiness is not in having being; it is in doing.--Lilian Eichler Watson Happiness is not the end of life: character is.--Henry Ward Beecher (Life Thoughts) ========== Prayer quotes If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough. -Meister Eckhart The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays. -Søren Kierkegaard Any concern too small to be turned into a prayer is too small to be made into a burden. -Corrie ten Boom Work as if you were to live a hundred years. Pray as if you were to die tomorrow. -Benjamin Franklin You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance. -Kahlil Gibran God shapes the world by prayer. The more prayer there is in the world the better the world will be, the mightier the forces of against evil. -E.M. Bounds We tend to use prayer as a last resort, but God wants it to be our first line of defense. We pray when there's nothing else we can do, but God wants us to pray before we do anything at all. - Oswald Chambers A prayer couched in the words of the soul, is far more powerful than any ritual. -Paulo Coelho

[naginasalah-blog]

Politics & social media

In 2009, Barack Obama gave the following advice to a group of high school students when asked how to become president one day: 

‘I want everybody here to be careful about what you post on Facebook, because in the YouTube age whatever you do, it will be pulled up again later somewhere in your life. That’s number one’ 

(Jericho 2013, p. 254).

This advice has proved true time and time again, with no shortage of politicians who have paid the price for misbehaving on social media. In 2012, Queensland ALP candidate Peter Watson was forced to resign from candidacy when homophobic comments that he made on blogs as a 15-year-old had resurfaced (Jericho 2013, p. 254). In 2018, anti-Muslim videos resurfaced from Liberal senator Jim Molan’s Facebook page which he had shared from far-right group Britain First in 2017, creating controversy during his swearing-in to Parliament (Karp 2018). Social media controversies have proved harmful for politicians, causing political parties to step in; in February 2018, it was revealed that the ALP had introduced a ‘blanket ban’ on personal social media accounts for candidates ahead of the next federal election, leaving all social media communication for their official ALP candidate accounts (Burrell 2018). This action was taken by the party in order to avoid embarrassment from candidates’ controversial personal opinions or past behaviours published on social media (Burrell 2018).

However, despite these instances of politicians’ social media use causing harm to their careers, social media can also be a powerful tool for political campaigns. This is illustrated by Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews’ successful social media strategy which has earned him the title of the most ‘liked’ Australian politician on Facebook (Yahoo7 News 2017). Andrews’ social media presence has enabled him to engage with young voters who are typically disengaged from the mainstream media (Gordon 2016). An example of this engagement is a meme posted by Andrews on Facebook relating to Victorian level-crossings and teen movie Mean Girls. The post was met with comments that play on quotes from the popular film, including ‘You’re not a regular Premier, you’re a cool Premier’, suggesting that this was a successful attempt at relating to younger voters.

(Andrews 2019)

Former New South Wales Premier Mike Baird is another example of an Australian politician who was successful with his social media strategy. From live-Tweeting the Bachelor to posting a Jimmy Kimmel Mean Tweets style video on YouTube, Baird was able to relate to a young social media savvy audience (Butler 2017). Baird’s social media popularity earned him extensive engagement, with his posts garnering tens of thousands of likes, potentially making him the Australian politician with the most successful social media presence (Butler 2017). However, controversial policies such as Sydney’s lockout laws caused Baird’s popularity to diminish, ultimately leading to his resignation less than halfway into his term in 2017 (Butler 2017). This suggests that even the most successful social media strategy may not be in itself enough to win over public opinion.

(Baird 2015)

Reference List:

Andrews, D 2019, ‘Level crossings? They don’t even go here’ [image], Dan Andrews’ profile, Facebook, viewed 30 January 2019 <https://www.facebook.com/DanielAndrewsMP/photos/a.149185875145957/2113876608676864/?type=3&theater>. 

Baird, M 2015, ‘Mike Baird Reads Mean Tweets Episode 1′ [video], Mike Baird’s channel, YouTube, viewed 30 January 2019, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlK0QAQK-Z4>. 

Burrell, A 2018, Labor Party bans candidates from using social media ahead of potential election, The Australian, viewed 28 November 2018, <https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/labor-party-bans-candidates-from-using-social-media-ahead-of-potential-election/news-story/6d4f8933330494c33c9bbc93ae3ea98>.

Butler, J 2017, Mike Baird Used To Be A Social Media Wizard, Huffington Post, viewed 28 November 2018, <https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2017/01/18/mike-baird-used-to-be-a-social-media-wizard_a_21657962/>.

Gordon, J 2016, Daniel Andrews, the Facebook premier who wants to convert ‘likes’ to votes, The Age, viewed 30 January 2019, <https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/daniel-andrews-the-facebook-premier-who-wants-to-convert-likes-to-votes-20160325-gnqxwv.html>.

Jericho, G 2013, Rise of the Fifth Estate: Social Media and Blogging in Australian Politics, Scribe Publications, Melbourne.

Karp, P 2018, Liberal senator Jim Molan shared anti-Muslim videos from far-right group, The Guardian, viewed 28 November 2018, <https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/feb/05/new-liberal-senator-jim-molan-shared-anti-muslim-videos-from-britain-first>.

Potter, B 2018, Victorian election 2018: Daniel Andrews' Labor Party landslide win against Liberals, Financial Review, viewed 28 November 2018, <https://www.afr.com/news/victorian-election-2018-daniel-andrews-labor-party-set-for-landslide-win-20181123-h18ahf>.

[whimsicalbibliophile]

@anelementofsurprise tagged me for this -- thank you very much, this was lovely!

Nickname: Reese is a nickname!

Star sign: Leo

Height: around 167cm/ 5ft. 5in.

Time right now: 17:47

Favourite music artist(s):  This changes quite frequently but for the moment: Ed Sheeran, James Arthur, James Vincent McMorrow, Laurence Fox, Andrew Bird, James Bay, Jamie Lawson, Taylor Swift, Josh Groban, Ásgeir, Beats Antique, The Last Shadow Puppets

*apparently I’ve got a thing for Jameses 

Song stuck in your head: Headlong by Laurence Fox

Last movie watched: The Siege of Jadotville

Last TV show watched: Midsomer Murders!

What are you wearing right now: Jumper, skinny jeans, fuzzy socks

When did you create your blog: September 2013

What kind of stuff do you post: Bookish photos, reviews, quotes and general ramblings! I read sort of widely, but most of my content focuses on general adult fiction, classics, literary theory, and Harry Potter. More about that (and me) here. 

Do you have any other blogs: No

Do you get asks regularly: Not very often but sometimes -- always feel free to stop by and say hello, I love hearing from people!

Why did you choose your URL: I love the word “whimsy” and books!

Hogwarts house: Hufflepuff!

Pokemon team: Oooh sorry, I don’t play pokemon.

Favourite colour: Blue!

Average hours of sleep: 6-7.

Lucky number: None!

Favourite characters: HAHAHhaha. ha. Erm, where do I start? Books, TV, films? *cracks knuckles* Mini list: Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Luna Lovegood, Miss Marple, Poirot, Captain Hastings, John from Here, There Be Dragons, Sydney Carton from A Tale of Two Cities, Will from The Ranger’s Apprentice series, Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, Mycroft Holmes (from the “Sherlock” tv series, not canon Mycroft). I’ll stop there.

How many blankets do you sleep with: One duvet.

Dream job: Prof. of French literature (working on that one), and literary translation on the side (pipe dream, probably)

Following: 336

I’ve been tagging quite a lot of people lately, so I’ll only tag a couple of people (if they’d like to participate!): @thecolouryellowandacupoftea, @phoebzreadz, and @victoria-tonks 😊

[todaybharatnews]

via Today Bharat India legend Yuvraj Singh could soon be back in the field doing what he does best. Cricket Australia (CA) is reportedly searching for a club for the star allrounder that could see him make his debut at this year’s Big Bash League. While the BCCI has allowed the participation of active India women cricketers in foreign leagues, it continues to discourage the male cricketers from doing so unless they have announced their retirement or relinquished their contracts. According to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald, Yuvraj’s manager Jason Warne (W Sports Media) has claimed the CA is searching for a BBL team that would be interested in signing the two-time world cup winner. “We’re working with CA to try to find him a home,” Warne was quoted as saying on Monday. But the English daily also added that so far, the interest from the various clubs has been lukewarm. Considering the high popularity of Indian cricketers, foreign cricket boards who have their own T20 leagues have long been wanting BCCI to change its stance. Australian Cricketers’ Association president Shane Watson reckons that the participation of Indian cricketers will be incredible for the various tournaments, “It would be incredible for them to be able to play in these tournaments. That is the ideal situation. There are so many world-class T20 players in India that aren’t playing for India that could be potentially available to play in the Big Bash and other tournaments around the world,” Watson said. “If that’s able to happen, that would make a massive difference,” he added. Yuvraj, who announced his retirement from all forms of cricket last year, played 40 Tests, 304 ODIs and 58 T20Is during his career, scoring over 11,000 runs across formats. He was adjudged player of the tournament as India won their second over ODI World Cup title in 2011. Yuvraj, though, has participated in the Abu Dhabui T10 League and the Global T20 Canada as well.