‘Save the Tarkine’ tree vigil
Follow me deep into one of the last remaining cool temperate rainforests on earth, as I follow a dedicated group of campaigners for The Bob Brown Foundation who are protesting Forestry Tasmania’s plans to log the area.
Is the system failing abused children?
Jay Stevens had a “pretty rough upbringing” – and that’s putting it mildly. When he was a child he witnessed his mother’s murder (the product of domestic violence), so he knows more than most what it’s like to be the victim of child abuse. Jay Stevens just doesn’t want any more kids to end up in the same situation he did.
Help: Diversified
Helping the community doesn’t always have to follow conventional forms. I talk to three very different subjects on the ways they are making an impact locally using their own unique skill-sets. From muscle, to music, to dance – I explore some of the slightly less orthodox ways members of our local community are bringing people together to help disadvantaged groups.
Robot-alypse now?
It is not a world of slate and gun-metal greys, of faceless droids and complacent, compliant humanoids unquestioningly serving the state. There is no future as we imagined it when we were young. Beyond 2000 – which seemed so omnificent to us then – is already upon us. We are here. We have arrived. There is no future, only now. Today. Tomorrow. Next year. Always bigger and better and brighter than the last. Ever steadily morphing increments bring the future to the fore. Open your Facebook newsfeed. How many articles have been released about robotics just in the last month alone? We are being primed. Prepared to accept. Disney are even getting our kids in on the action, with the likeable Baymax in Big Hero 6. This is how propaganda works: with the sneaking, creeping, insidious dissemination of information from a trusted source. We will accept our new world. We are already part of it.
My journey into the spectrum
AUTISM: THE MILLENNIAL DISORDER
I’ve always thought my son was of above average intelligence. Perhaps every mother does? From an early age he showed a keen interest in numbers, letters, geometric shapes, and patterns. I marvelled at the focus he displayed in assembling elaborate constructions of toy cars and blocks. For hours he could happily amuse himself with little intervention from me. He was a tired-overworked-single-mother’s dream child. I thought he might grow up to be an engineer.
Inside the enigma: George Begbie
George didn’t just win the Rudy Brandsma Award for Songwriting Excellence at the awards last year, although that in itself would be something to brag about. He also placed 7 songs in the top 30 across 6 categories, including snagging a number 10 spot for his song ‘24 hours’ – setting a record for the competition which has been running since 1979.
Planning for failure
When I was a girl, dreaming of becoming a rock star didn’t seem entirely unrealistic. By the time I made it to university, it wasn’t even realistic to bank on your first choice of a white collar job.
Jenna Cesar writes 