“I hate to disappoint!” Genevieve McGuckin on Spencer P. Jones 1956 – 2018
I was lucky enough to know this charming funny and generous man who made incredible music, and who had a way of making me feel pretty damn special. Spencer was like a kid with a lolly jar around music and I found that irresistible in a man who’d written and played some of my all time favourite songs: Genevieve McGuckin on Spencer P Jones
The Loftus Rule, the Government Gazette and the NT judges who never were
Loftus Rule: A rebuttable presumption that where an NT government decision is questioned it is more likely to be a fuck-up rather than an innocent mistake. (Syn: snafu - situation normal, all fucked up)
Chris Wilson – the “Gentleman of Australian Blues” needs you
I’ve been thinking about Chris Wilson a lot since I learned of his diagnosis with pancreatic cancer. It’s very sad I probably won’t hear him play again, won’t get to watch him own a stage and destroy a room again. But I’ve been so very lucky to have these memories and many others to carry with me as fuel: Jeff Lang
The Barngarla people’s continuing struggle for native title rights – nuclear waste ballot heads to the Full Bench of the SA Supreme Court
The cost of dealing with Australia's nuclear waste only rises. Federal Resources Minister Matt Canavan is waving big money at anyone who'll take our waste, with latest figures indicating total funding of $31 million for the project. The current shortlisted communities have received Federal Government development grants totalling $4 million. Back in 2014, the Ngapa clans proposing Muckaty Station as a nuclear waste dump would have received a total of $12 million.
“Better than Roy and HG!!” – Stewie O’Connell calls the footy at the Yuendumu Sports Weekend
One fella came up to me at the end of the second day and said the comedy that came out of the commentators trying to keep up with whose who on the field was “better than Roy and HG!!” The starting point in any footy commentary is to get a good team sheet in numerical order. The challenge out bush is that there are often three players wearing the same number, several players with no number and some players with no guernsey at all. That’s when you have to get creative and write the player’s name next to “red boots”; “barefoot”; “topknot”; “big tummy” etc.
Aretha and me. Jane Clifton on losing your nerve and finding your own voice
Aretha made me go looking for my own voice, whatever that was, no matter how white, how weedy, and I thank her for that and for so much more.
The African gangs of Alice Springs
Other African gang members have snuck into the health care system, working at the local hospital as nurses and also as disability and mobility support workers, at the Aboriginal aged care centre and at local Aboriginal hostels. Taxi and bus drivers, university and TAFE students, checkout chicks and guys, pizza shop owners, cleaners and receptionists at the local casino, bank tellers, senior public servants, business operators and real estate agents. The list goes on.
Think you know what the world’s most dangerous job is? You’re dead wrong …
World Ranger Day is celebrated at functions worldwide on July 31st to commemorate Rangers killed or injured in the line of duty and to celebrate the work Rangers do to protect the planet’s natural treasures and cultural heritage.
Art in translation: Murray Garde and John Mawurndjul
One of the most troublesome subjects for interpreters who work with Australian languages is finding acceptable ways to refer to the concept of a sacred site. In Kuninjku, these are known as Djang. In central Australia, the term Tjukurrpa is becoming more well known by non-Indigenous people. These terms involve more than just a location, but also ideas about deep history, the period of creation and the association between specific groups of people and totemic aspects which have their historical focus in these places. The term ‘Dreaming’ is so inadequate and misleading and so many Indigenous people are starting to reject this term, although others continue to use it.
R v Bayden Flash – rough justice in the deep north
To ensure the adversarial system works as well as it can, the accused must have counsel at least on par with that of the Crown. Mismatches of lawyers at trial is the stuff of Deep South murder trials in the USA. There some accused, unable to afford sufficiently experienced lawyers in an environment of little or token legal aid, can be represented by law students or destitute lawyers willing to appear for all in fees of a thousand bucks to defend an alleged killer heading to the electric chair.