Loving this slimy weirdness from some superstars of melbn’s punk queer femme colour tribe, messing around with gender, texture, colour and beats.

I saw Gaff-E performing in Fox Pflueger’s “Freaky Sexy Weird” earlier this year at Midsumma – she was hilarious and freaky in a disturbing number about cats. Great to see this full production.

The very wonderful Fox is also in the video, along with the creative power behind Fizzy Fingers Fantascinators and Lexi La Fortune.

Warning: possibly NSFW

*melbn.. or wherever they are now, Berlin New York, i don’t know

**Official release at Kaltblut

Portrait of mathematician Ada Lovelace, by Alfred Edward Chalon (public domain via wikimedia)

It’s sad but true that there’s a worldwide backlash against science, facts and evidence.

Misha Ketchell from The Conversation was on 3RRR today, explaining among other things the ‘false equivalence’ line of thinking, which is how we get into this mess of discrediting researchers across many fields. The voice of a clueless but confidently opinionated blogger can now be perceived as equivalent to a researcher with 30 years experience and all the data. Kind of disheartening.

This started from a question about “Fake News”, and Misha made the strong point that fake news is actually a specific thing that happened during the US elections when a group of people spread misinformation for the purposes of making money. (The Saturday Paper produced a great article outlining this phenomenon.)

The Conversation has become one of my preferred outlets of information, because they’re connecting the knowledge of academia with the world of journalism. Academics must find a way to make their research accessible, while the public gains awareness of knowledge that was previously hidden behind the academic moat.

Great interview: here’s the “listen-on-demand” link from RRR, interview with Misha starts round the 10 minute mark, until roughly 30min: http://ondemand.rrr.org.au/player/128/201710231200 

Image credit: Alfred Edward Chalon, wikimedia 

One day soon this “debate” will be over. Hopefully a healthy kind of justice will prevail. I did that dumb thing of getting embroiled in the comments again, and wrote this:

Oh Malcolm Turnbull.. i hope Australia remembers the hell you unleashed on LGBTQ+ communities. I hope Australia remembers when you gave people like this (name) ‘character’ a license to spout their medieval and prejudiced viewpoints, when you declared that it was okay for people to share their intolerance of other people in public.

I also truly hope Australia recovers and gains some maturity from this disgraceful episode when you Malcolm Turnbull allowed hate speech to flourish for a simple case of political expediency.

Right now i’m hoping that the progressive forces of love and creativity will rise; the pendulum will swing back toward justice, inclusion and genuine healing.

I’m imagining a future where queer people of all kinds can walk safely down the street in public, in broad daylight or in the dark of night, hand in hand and unafraid, and Get Married If They Want To.

A future where these intolerant viewpoints have withered like dust and blown away. Where spiritual knowledge is based on experience rather than misinterpretations of an ancient text.

A future where everyone is valued for their strength and heart, for their humanity 

• #DontReadTheComments / Prof Frank Oberklaid on SSM
• “People are allowed to have opinions, but don’t use children as a reason for having an opinion against same-sex marriage.”
• Professor Oberklaid from The Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne says there’s no evidence children from same-sex couples do any worse.
• Posted by ABC News on Sunday, 22 October 2017

O M G research, wait is that SCIENCE? Ooooh, big word.