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Watch out for the snark. He can take a toe off!

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By Matthew Flinders

We all know that the sea is a dangerous place and should be treated with respect but it seems that Australian politicians have taken things a step (possibly even a leap) further. From sharks to asylum seekers the political response appears way out of line with the scale of the risk.

In the United Kingdom the name Matthew Flinders will rarely generate even a glint of recognition, whereas in Australia Captain Matthew Flinders (1774-1814) is (almost) a household name. My namesake was not only the intrepid explorer who first circumnavigated and mapped the continent of Australia but he is also a distant relative whose name I carry with great pride. But having spent the past month acquainting myself with Australian politics I can’t help wonder how my ancestor would have felt about what has become of the country he did so much to put on the map.

The media feeding frenzy and the political response surrounding shark attacks in Western Australia provides a case in point. You are more likely to be killed by a bee sting than to be killed by a shark attack while swimming in the sea off Perth or any of Western Australia’s wonderful beaches. Hundreds of thousands of people enjoy the sea and coastline every weekend but what the media defined as ‘a spate’ of fatal shark attacks (seven to be exact) in between 2010-2013 led the state government to implement no less than 72 baited drum lines along the coast. Australia’s Federal Environment Minister, Greg Hunt, granted the Western Australian Government a temporary exemption from national environment laws protecting great white sharks, to allow the otherwise illegal acts of harming or killing the species. The result of the media feeding frenzy has been the slow death of a large number of sharks. The problem is that of the 173 sharks caught in the first four months none were Great Whites and the vast majority were Tiger Sharks – a species that has not been responsible for a fatal shark attack for decades.

The public continues to surf and swim, huge protests have been held against the shark cull and yet the Premier of Western Australia, Colin Barnett, insists that it is the public reaction against the cull that is ‘ludicrous and extreme’ and that it will remain in place for two years.

If the political approach to sharks appears somewhat harsh then the approach to asylum seekers appears equally unforgiving. At one level the Abbott government’s ‘Stop the Boats’ policy has been a success. The end of July witnessed the first group of asylum seekers to reach the Australian mainland for seven months. In the same period last year over 17,000 people in around 200 boats made the treacherous journey across the ocean in order to claim asylum in Australia. ‘Operation Sovereign Borders’ has therefore ‘solved’ a political problem that many people believe simply never existed. The solution – as far as one exists – is actually a policy of ‘offshore processing’ that uses naval intervention to direct boats to bureaucratic processing plants on Manus, Nauru, or Christmas Island. Like modern day Robinson Crusoe, thousands of asylum seekers find themselves marooned on the most remote outposts of civilization. But then again – out of sight is out of mind.

The 157 people (including around fifty children) who made it to the mainland last week exemplify the harsh treatment that forms the cornerstone of the current approach. After spending nearly a month at sea on an Australian customs vessel they were briefly flown to the remote Curtin Detention Centre but when the asylum seekers refused to be interviewed by Indian officials they were promptly dispatched to the island of Nauru and its troubled detention centre (riots, suicides, self-mutilation, etc.). Those granted asylum will be resettled permanently on Nauru while those refused will be sent back to Sri Lanka (the country that most of the asylum seekers were originally fleeing via India). Why does the government insist on this approach? Could it be the media rather than the public that are driving political decision-making? A recent report by the Australian Institute of Family Studies found that the vast majority of refugees feel welcomed by the Australian public but rejected by the Australian political institutions. How can this mismatch be explained? The economy is booming and urgently requires flexible labor, the asylum seekers want to work and embed themselves in communities; the country is vast and can hardly highlight over-population as the root of the problem.

There is an almost palpable fear of a certain type of ‘foreigner’ within the Australian political culture. Under this worldview the ocean is a human playground that foreign species (i.e. sharks) should not be allowed to visit. The world is changing as human flows become more fluid and fast-paced – no borders are really sovereign any more. And yet in Australia the political system remains wedded to ‘keeping the migration floodgates closed’, apparently unaware of just how cruel and unforgiving this makes Australia look to the rest of the world. What would Captain Matthew Flinders think about this state of affairs almost exactly 200 years after his death?

From sharks to asylum seekers Australian politics seems ‘all at sea’.

The post Sharks, asylum seekers, and Australian politics appeared first on OUPblog.

        

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by Lisa Doan Darby Creek / Lerner  2014 Smart kid, dumb parents, and a menacing whale shark! What more could a kid want from a book?  Jack is a sheltered kid on the cusp of puberty living with his Aunt Julia safely in Pennsylvania. Or at least he was living safely until his Aunt met with misfortune and Jack was forced to call his world-traveling parents home from their latest scheme,

Didn’t get a doodle done today because I was finishing up my holiday cards. (Yeah, it’s tradition to be this late, thank you very much!)

So although it’s a bit of a cheat I decided to repost this from a couple of years ago. Thought it might be appropriate.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

I love holiday cards. I love getting them, but most of all I like making them.

At least it starts out that way.

There’s the initial concept. Fun!

Sketching it up. Fun!

Drawing, painting, tweaking. Fun! Fun! Fun!

But then, there is the whole standing in line at the post office because I absolutely must have those special snowman stamps.

Followed by an attempt at addressing the cards and the subsequent admitting to people that I wrote their address on a scrap piece of paper last year and my cat batted it under the couch and apparently a spider drug it away to it’s nest, so could you pleeeeeeease give me your address for the fifteenth time… and I promise I’ll key it safely into my iPhone this time!

Couple that with the fact that I waited until pretty much the last minute, even though I promised last year and the year before that and the year… ok, the past ten years that I would start in August.

Before you know it, I’ve got a holiday card meltdown on my hands.

Does any of this sound familiar? Am I alone with this?

Anywho, fun? Not so much.

But despite the griping and moaning, after all is said and done, the truth is, it’s just not Christmas until I’ve sent off all my cards and, of course, I receive that very first card in the mail, be it Christmas, Hanukkah or Festivus (I’m still waiting for my first Kwanza card.)

I just love holiday cards!

It’s tradition! Every bit of it, from fun to meltdown and I hope it never goes away!

Now get yer elfin shoes over here to see what the other doodlers have in store for you!

“We’ll eat like kings tonight, Blotch!” Orville shouted excitedly to his trusty pooch.

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Illustration Friday theme this week is “underwater,” and although this may not be the most original solution for the prompt, I just had to get this image out of my system.

This news was in the trades today:

oh hell yes!

Remember this post on Query Shark?

I love holiday cards. I love getting them, but most of all I like making them.

At least it starts out that way.

There’s the initial concept. Fun!

Sketching it up. Fun!

Drawing, painting, tweaking. Fun! Fun! Fun!

But then, there is the whole standing in line at the post office because I absolutely must have those special snowman stamps.

Followed by an attempt at addressing the cards and the subsequent admitting to people that I wrote their address on a scrap piece of paper last year and my cat batted it under the couch and apparently a spider drug it away to it’s nest, so could you pleeeeeeease give me your address for the fifteenth time… and I promise I’ll key it safely into my iPhone this time!

Couple that with the fact that I waited until pretty much the last minute, even though I promised last year and the year before that and the year… ok, the past ten years that I would start in August.

Before you know it, I’ve got a holiday card meltdown on my hands.

Does any of this sound familiar? Am I alone with this?

Anywho, fun? Not so much.

But despite the griping and moaning, after all is said and done, the truth is, it’s just not Christmas until I’ve sent off all my cards and, of course, I receive that very first card in the mail, be it Christmas, Hanukkah or Festivus (I’m still waiting for my first Kwanza card.)

I just love holiday cards!

It’s tradition! Every bit of it, from fun to meltdown and I hope it never goes away!

Take-Your_Kids-to-Work-Day, in Frog heaven.

Image via Wikipedia

A Hip-pocket frog, camouflaged in leaf litter and spilled root beer.

Image via Wikipedia

A frog, sitting on a leaf or a lily pad, will suddenly dart a silent tongue and capture unwary prey.

These keen observations cap the entire 67-year career of Professor I.M. Schmarttipantz, doctor of this, that, and the other, and certified Master of the Obvious.  This charming author, also noted for his opus, “There’s a Shark in My Drawers (and it’s giving me a wedgie)”, has been circling the globe on a promotional tour (an expensive proposition, because having a hammerhead-shark in your boxers requires the purchase of an extra seat on all planes, trains, ships, and rickshaws).

Samiyam, part-time rickshaw operator, and fairly successful mail-order bride delivery facilitator.  “Big Wheel” design allows Sam to cart travellers with large animals in their pants and skirts.

Image via Wikipedia

“Ballpeen”, name Dr. Schmarttipantz gave to the crotch-invader inhabiting his pants.  Note contented expression on shark, after it has apparently slurped mouthful of some kind of whipping cream.

Image via Wikipedia

After painful (and ultimately unsuccessful) attempts to dislodge the shark’s cephalofoil from his Fruit of the Looms, Schmarttipantz returned to his native land, Northeastern Southwestern Upper Lower Flatulancia, a small landlocked beach resort republic, most commonly known for the absence of water at any of its beaches, or anywhere else in the country for that matter (only five reported drownings in the last hundred years, all tub and sink related, and just one ongoing shark attack in all that time).

Beach-goers frolic in the sand at Flatulancia’s most popular ocean-less vacation get-away.  Anglers on the pier target schools of sand sharks,  which, despite a certain gritty texture, are favoites on dinner tables throughout the country.

Image via Wikipedia

Schmarttipantz once explained his conversion to the study of small amphibians (five or six of which inhabit his wild mane).”Gottammitt!  With sharks in my lederhosen, what else I’m gonna do?

Dr. I. M. Schmarttipantz in his ‘thinking box”

Image by manfrys via Flickr

Take-Your_Kids-to-Work-Day, in Frog heaven.

Image via Wikipedia

A Hip-pocket frog, camouflaged in leaf litter and spilled root beer.

Image via Wikipedia

A frog, sitting on a leaf or a lily pad, will suddenly dart a silent tongue and capture unwary prey.

These keen observations cap the entire 67-year career of Professor I.M. Schmarttipantz, doctor of this, that, and the other, and certified Master of the Obvious.  This charming author, also noted for his opus, “There’s a Shark in My Drawers (and it’s giving me a wedgie)”, has been circling the globe on a promotional tour (an expensive proposition, because having a hammerhead-shark in your boxers requires the purchase of an extra seat on all planes, trains, ships, and rickshaws).

Samiyam, part-time rickshaw operator, and fairly successful mail-order bride delivery facilitator.  “Big Wheel” design allows Sam to cart travellers with large animals in their pants and skirts.

Image via Wikipedia

“Ballpeen”, name Dr. Schmarttipantz gave to the crotch-invader inhabiting his pants.  Note contented expression on shark, after it has apparently slurped mouthful of some kind of whipping cream.

Image via Wikipedia

After painful (and ultimately unsuccessful) attempts to dislodge the shark’s cephalofoil from his Fruit of the Looms, Schmarttipantz returned to his native land, Northeastern Southwestern Upper Lower Flatulancia, a small landlocked beach resort republic, most commonly known for the absence of water at any of its beaches, or anywhere else in the country for that matter (only five reported drownings in the last hundred years, all tub and sink related, and just one ongoing shark attack in all that time).

Beach-goers frolic in the sand at Flatulancia’s most popular ocean-less vacation get-away.  Anglers on the pier target schools of sand sharks,  which, despite a certain gritty texture, are favoites on dinner tables throughout the country.

Image via Wikipedia

Schmarttipantz once explained his conversion to the study of small amphibians (five or six of which inhabit his wild mane).”Gottammitt!  With sharks in my lederhosen, what else I’m gonna do?

Dr. I. M. Schmarttipantz in his ‘thinking box”

Image by manfrys via Flickr