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Griffith Regional Art Gallery will host artist Jo Roberts during the Ngurambang exhibition, who will offer a school holiday activity during the opening weeks

Jo Roberts is an emerging artist based in Leeton and this exhibition will be the first time her art has appeared in the Gallery.

Her enthusiasm for the opportunity is clearly evident in the time and preparations she is planning as part of the Ngurambang exhibition.

"I've been working on a series of activities for all ages and it will be good to bring these to Griffith's gallery," said Ms Roberts.

On Wednesday mornings during the school holidays Jo will be sharing the Beak Technique activity developed by Red Earth Ecology.

This activity promotes an understanding of the relationships between habitat and bird diets by discussing different species and their beak shapes.

"We'll be looking at the local species to learn what plants will bring your favourite birds into your backyard."

The worksheets are accessible to all ages and were developed through consultation with the Murrumbidgee Field Naturalists and support from Western Riverina Arts.

"Kids are naturally curious about birds and our conversations will expand their knowledge about local species."

Ms Roberts will also be working in the Gallery on Wednesdays throughout the exhibition to provide insight into how her artwork facilitates an innovative investigation of history.

The Ngurambang: Our Riverina exhibition aims to give viewers new perspectives on the landscape and to demonstrate some of the diversity of talent from creative practitioners working across the region

Griffith Regional Art Gallery worked with curator Jason Richardson to gather a group of artists from across the region for the current display.

"Viewers will find familiar scenes and they will also be challenged to recognise others.

"One of the greatest benefits in experiencing art is looking through another's eyes and this exhibition asked the artists to share their observations about an environment we all share.

The result offers insights into the diversity of creative practice across the Riverina while reflecting on individual interests in the landscape.

"The idea that art can help audiences build connections with the environment has been developing since I worked with Landcare and it's something I've explored through previous exhibitions, our not-for-profit Red Earth Ecology and also recorded interviews with artists and places," said Mr Richardson.

This diverse cohort produces artworks in differing styles and media to reflect their experiences, so the first step involved establishing common ground.

"We were supported by Western Riverina Arts to hold a workshop in Griffith late last year, where we compared perspectives and inspirations.

"The group comprises a dozen emerging, mid-career and experienced artists with various qualifications and we were able to share knowledge and build a vision for the exhibition."

For viewers the experience is rich with comparisons and contrasts from a variety of media that includes text, textiles, sound, painting, photography, found and manipulated objects.

"It was always going to be really exciting to see so many of my...

This is one of those Saturn Returns stories and begins with a dream in 2016

I had begun work as a curator and fell into a swine flu fever.

There was one sleep where I was walking among River Red Gums and saw human-shaped scars on the trunks, then realised people had gone through these doorways.

About a month later I saw this painting by Veronica Collins at Griffith Regional Art Gallery called 'Through the Port Holes' and spoke with Ray Wholohan about inviting her to be part of an exhibition.

We spoke about the theme of relationships to the Riverina and she sent a letter of support.

When I told her about my dream, she laughed and said "You've been visiting my world."

It was thrilling to see her painting hanging in the Ngurambang exhibition and I hope it's the first thing you'll see when you enter the Gallery, from Wednesdays to Sundays until 20 August.

August 6, 2023,  Dr Binoy Kampmar,  https://theaimn.com/water-wars-cooling-the-data-centres/

Water. Data centres. The continuous, pressing need to cool the latter, which houses servers to store and process data, with the former, which is becoming ever more precious in the climate crisis. Hardly a good comingling of factors.

Like planting cotton in drought-stricken areas, decisions to place data hubs in various locations across the globe are becoming increasingly contentious from an environmental perspective, and not merely because of their carbon emitting propensities. In the United States, which houses 33% of the globes data centres, the problem of water usage is becoming acute.

As the Washington Post reported in April this year, residents in Mesa, Arizona were concerned that Metas decision to build another data centre was bound to cause more trouble than it was worth. My first reaction was concern for our water, claimed city council member Jenn Duff. (The state already has approximately 49 data centres.)

The move to liquid cooling from air cooling for increasingly complex IT processes has been relentless. As the authors of a piece in the ASHRAE Journal from July 2019 explain, Air cooling has worked well for systems that deploy processors up to 150 W, but IT equipment is now being manufactured with processors well above 150 W where air cooling is no longer practical. The use of liquid cooling was not only more efficient than air cooling regarding heat transfer, but more energy efficient, reducing electrical energy costs significantly. The authors, however, show little concern about the water supplies needed in such ventures.

The same cannot be said about a co-authored study on the environmental footprint of US-located data centres published two years later. During their investigations, the authors identified a telling tendency: Our bottom-up approach reveals one-fifth of data center servers direct water footprint comes from moderately to highly stressed watersheds, while nearly half of servers are f...

Above recent photograph: Two old Sydney gays. Former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating with Sydney radio shock jock Alan Jones.

I dont know who Paul Keatings live-in gay partner is.

Below photograph: former Australian Prime Ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating.

 

Donald Elley of Bellingen:

This is true, I remember rumours about Paul Keating being gay. What I dont remember is him being put on the spot in a live interview and being asked if he was actually sleeping with his partner. That was just going to far, so nobody did it.  Comment below

...

POLICE are investigating after a boy riding a bike was hit by a car in Corrimal.

Emergency services responded to Railway Street, Corrimal, after reports of a crash involving a cyclist and a vehicle shortly after 5.50pm on Thursday, August 3, 2023.

Wollongong police arrived to find a 10-year-old boy suffering injuries to his leg. He was treated at the scene by NSW Ambulance paramedics before being taken to Wollongong Hospital.

The driver of a Honda Jazz a 25-year-old woman was breath tested, producing a negative result.

The child was taken to hospital in a stable condition.

Anyone with dashcam footage or information is urged to contact Wollongong Police or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

Anyone with information about this incident is urged to contact Crime Stoppers: 1800 333 000 or https://nsw.crimestoppers.com.au. Information is treated in strict confidence.

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Antonina Gentile 4 Aug 23

The ALPs FEC of the entire Parramatta electorate tonight voted unanimously against aukus. This makes it the second FEC in NSW, the other being Sydney. Thus noone can try to attack the campaign as an inner urban phenomenon anymore.

This will certainly give AA and the Executive something to lose some sleep over.  They are confident that they will win the National Conference vote, but they have a widespread party membership in movement and these are far less pleased than they thought.

If the aukestra outside Conference is impressive, parliamentary delegates will now more than ever need to take note and, if lobbied by their constituencies and organisations such as those on this list, some could start finding their tongues

Hell hath no fury like a vested interest masquerading as a moral principle The Australian franchise of the Trumpist Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is meeting on August 1920 at the Star Event Centre in Sydney. One of Australias most Continue reading

One of the questions the film Oppenheimer avoids is whether it was a war crime for the US to drop atomic bombs on domestic targets

George Orwell wrote that  "history is written by the winners" and few people question whether the end of the war justified the use of a devastating weapon like the atomic bomb.

I've been reflecting on that question during the anniversary of that watershed moment.

One of the most profound spiritual experiences during my visits to the Quaker Meeting House in Canberra was when an American woman felt moved to speak about the bombings. 

She was in tears as she announced her feeling of guilt for being from that country.

It would've been about 30 years ago now and in my memory it is when I recognised how the spirit moves one to testify in that setting. 

That day was tempered with an observation by the late Hector Kinloch, who stood in meeting to ask if anyone had seen the beautiful rainbow that appeared during the week.

Increasingly I find a spiritual gap in my life and wonder whether I should return to prayer with the Quakers.

By christhebarker

A few months ago, I joined an editorial ideas meeting in Melbourne and net zero unexpectedly popped up at the top of the agenda. What struck me was how far behind Australia is. Not in achieving net zero, but in discovering its thorny implications.

My work in Europe with Nigel Farage and keeping up with daily German news had highlighted just how controversial saving the planet had already become over there. Australia just hadnt gone through the same reckoningyet.

Since then, net zeros challenges have become part of Australias news cycle too. The public has discovered what Europes power bill payers learned about a year earlier.

The cost of achieving net zero has been underestimated by an order of magnitude thatd make a government public transport feasibility study look conservative.

The feasibility of a net zero energy system has been overestimated by an amount thatd get Elon Musk arrested for false advertising.

There simply arent enough mineable resources needed to build a net-zero energy system anyway.

Living standards under net zero would be worse than the Second World War rationing.

Green energy is not cheaper once you factor in energy storage and transmission costs.

The cost of updating the power grid alone is prohibitive.

And so on and so forththe revelations have been flowing.

Today, I want to update you on your future once more. Because, once again, Europe is leading the way on net zero. Or should I say out of net zero?

In the UK, which The Telegraph declared, is a world leader in net zero fantasies and delusions, the worm has already turned. This could be the beginning of the end of net zero, it says. Why? Every net zero policy has been a flop and you are paying the price, reads another headline.

Even the politicians have woken up, in the only way they know how. The UK Government recently faced a series of by-elections. It lost two seats but managed to hold onto one where a peculiar local issue dominated the debate.

The London Mayor wants to expand the Ultra-Low Emissions Zone into that electorate, which wouldve cost local drivers a lot of money. The Government opposed the change, and so it held onto the seat.

This seems to have caused some sort of political awakening for the Government in the UK. It has realised that neutering net zero is its only hope of getting re-elected. The slogan, Dont elect Labour, theyll only do more of what weve been up to isnt going to fly.

The biggest question in UK politics now is just how far the Government will go in undermining its own net zero policy. And the answer appears to be quite far, with hundreds of new oil and gas licenses to be issued in the North Sea for a start. Most of those would be worse than worthless under net zero commitments

Its not just those in government who have woken up. Former Brexit negotiator Lord Frost....

This detail from Christopher Orchards Mirrul artworks has been on my mind, specifically the removal of front teeth

As I thought about the idea I ran my tongue over those front chompers and reflected on the idea of biting more than one can chew.

This led me to wonder whether intiation for Wiradjuri men was accompanied with a lesson about not being greedy and to think of others when you hunt.

I recognise that knowledge is not my culture to know or share, but I feel like that lesson would be a good one in a world with limited resources. 

Orchard's artwork is currently exhibiting as part of the Ngurambang (Our Riverina) show at Griffith Regional Art Gallery until Sunday 20 August, when there'll be artist talks after 11am.

We are just having a record warm winter in Tasmania, parts of Victoria and Sydney, slightly more pleasant temperatures, but in Chile and Argentina in South America at the moment it is hot...in winter...Australian climate heatwave expert A/Prof. Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick (@sarahinscience) described the South American heat event:"what the actual F**K. this is totally insane. When I first saw this,

A MAN has been arrested and prescription medication seized after four break and enter incidents at Woonona and Thirroul.

About 4.25am on Tuesday, July 25, 2023, a pharmacy on the Princes Highway, Woonona, was allegedly broken into and a large amount of prescription medication was stolen; the same pharmacy was allegedly broken into again about 4.15am on Saturday, July 29, 2023, with more medication stolen.

A third alleged break and enter occurred at a pharmacy on King Street, Thirroul, about 4.40am on Sunday, July 30, 2023.

A fourth alleged break and enter occurred at a medical practice on Park Road, Woonona, about 5.25am on Tuesday, August 1, 2023.

Wollongong police were notified and commenced an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the incidents.

About 1.15pm on Tuesday, August 1, 2023, a 31-year-old man was arrested for an unrelated matter and taken to Wollongong Police Station.

Following inquiries while the man was still in custody, police executed a search warrant at a unit on Popes Road, Woonona, and seized over 200 packets of prescription medication and various vaccines.

The 31-year-old man was charged with a...

Stress tests too high

Temperature records tumble during winter in Tasmania in July. And Sydney set a new warmist July record. It seems July temperature records aren't only being broken during the northern hemisphere heatwaves, but also in the depths of winter season in Australia.In Tasmania:statewide mean maximum temperature was 1.40 C above the 1961-1990 average, the warmest on record. statewide mean minimum

AN investigation has confirmed the presence of asbestos fragments right across the Helensburgh Mountain Bike Track.

Wollongong City Council says it is making progress to resolve the asbestos problem found at the 2.3ha site, and is working closely with the licensee, Helensburgh Off Road Cycle Club (HORCC), on the next steps for the facility.

Council said it is currently working through site remediation approval processes with the regulator.

The Helensburgh Mountain Bike Park has been closed as a precautionary measure to allow for an investigation after asbestos was found at the site earlier this year. As a consequence, the park has been closed since May 4 after concerns were raised with Wollongong City Council.

The information was provided to Council by the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, which had confirmed the presence of asbestos containing material within a dirt jump structure on their adjoining land.

Council closed the park to investigate the makeup of soil material on the sites dirt tracks. Regular air monitor...

NORTHERN suburbs residents, particularly those in bushland settings, are urged to prepare and mitigate risks ahead of a potential dangerous bushfire season this summer.

This years bushfire season has the potential to be especially dangerous according to a UNSW fire expert. Professor Guan Yeoh, director of the ARC Training Centre in Fire Retardant Materials and Safety Technologies, says recent weather patterns have created conditions that increase the chance of major bushfires.

Those include three years of increased rain which have promoted rapid vegetation growth, followed by a more recent very dry winter creating a tinderbox scenario. That means any incident of lightning, which is the cause of around 50 per cent of bushfires in Australia, could easily spark rapidly spreading fires over wide areas.

In addition, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has recently forecast that the southern hemisphere is entering into an El Nio climate cycle and has warned of a surge in global temperatures.

In the last few years, we have had a lot of rain and floods and because of that there has been a lot of...

My fellow Crooked Timber blogger Ingrid Robeyns has long been making the case for limitarianism, that is, the idea that there should be an upper limit on the amount any one person can own or consume. As Ingrid has observed, limitarianism is a constraint, rather than a complete ethical principle, so its important to consider how it interacts with other principles. In the case of utilitarianism, the answer is surprisingly well, at least in (using Ingrids terminology) this and nearby worlds. But understanding this requires a little bit of background and some arithmetic.

Shorter JQ: utilitarianism implies limitarianism. The full argument is over the field (no tricks this time, I promise).

First, utilitarianism is a political philosophy, dealing with the question of how the resources in a community should be distributed. And it starts, as in Bentham, from the assumption that people are sufficiently similar in capability and strength that they must all be taken into account equally. This does not, in itself, imply equality of outcomes or even opportunity, but it rules out notions that some group is inherently deserving of better treatment than others.

Second, (this shouldnt be necessary to state, but it is), there is no such thing as utility. Its a theoretical construct which can be used to compare different allocations of resources, not a number in peoples heads that can be measured and added up. Nonsense about utility monsters and similar is just that.

The practical implication of this is that we need a measure which answers the question: how does the benefit of giving an additional unit of resources to one person compare to the benefit of giving those resources to another. A utility function is a way of answering that question.

There is an ethical judgement here which can be addressed in various ways. We can take a Rawls/Harsanyi original position, rely on introspection or look at peoples choices over time and under uncertainty. None of these are perfect, but most yield one clear conclusion: marginal utility declines with income or, more simply, an extra dollar is worth more to a poor person than to a rich one. But how much more?

The classic answer to this question, going back to Daniel Bernoulli, is that we can think of utility as a logarithmic function of income (or wealth). What that means is that a given proportional increase (or reduction) in income has the same value whoever receives it. Most recent estimates are similar. So, utilitarianism suggests converting everyones income to its logarithm and adding them all up. This may sound mechanical but the implications are striking.

What does this mean for limitarianism? If we take a centibillionaire such as Elon Musk, his wealth is of the order of 10^11. Using base-10 log (it doesnt change anything if you use another...

PARENTS, teachers, students, gardeners and volunteers of all kinds will get their green thumbs out this weekend to plant native trees shrubs and grasses around the Illawarra as part of National Tree Day events.

The National Tree Day program is a nationwide initiative that encourages Australians to come together and contribute to the restoration and preservation of our natural environment. This year, Schools Tree Day will be celebrated today (Friday, July 28) around the country, with National Tree Day to be celebrated July 30.

To celebrate National Tree Day, Wollongong City Council will host an event at Cabbage Tree Creek, Balgownie on Sunday. Participants are asked to wear enclosed footwear, long pants and sleeves, a hat and bring a water bottle. Also participants are asked to bring their own gardening gloves if you have them.

The event will get underway at Cabbage Tree Creek behind Judy Masters Oval, Balgownie, from 10am to 11.30am, on Sunday, July 30. Register:...

PROTESTORS have planned another picket and demonstration at Russell Vale Colliery on Saturday morning (July 29 2023).

Residents group Stop Russell Vale Mine are joining the Illawarra Knitting Nannas Against Greed to picket the mine and sing protest songs as part of a series of similar actions in recent years.

A spokesperson from Stop Russel Vale Mine, Renata Field, said the colliery is the closest mine to any residential area in Australia.

We are here to protest the impacts of its pollution on local waters, extra trucks on our local roads, coal dust in the air we breathe, and the extra 11 million tonnes a year of greenhouse gases released into our atmosphere, Ms Field said.

Ms Field said the demonstration...

AUGUST is National Family History Month, and to celebrate Wollongong City Libraries is encouraging people to explore their own family stories or to learn more about those from the past whove called the city home.

Throughout the month of August there will be a range of events, displays and opportunities for people of all ages to learn more about the unique history of the City of Wollongong by looking at the everyday experiences of ordinary people.

Wollongong Lord Mayor Gordon Bradbery said that the Illawarra community is made of a vibrant and fascinating collection of family stories.

...

CONSTRUCTION works to replace the causeway on Otford Road will start in early August, six months after it was damaged beyond repair in a major weather event.

The replacement causeway has been designed to current, contemporary standards and, Wollongong City Councils general manager, Greg Doyle said will be able to withstand major storm events.

The causeway, he says, has improved features, including debris deflectors to prevent blockages during times of significant rainfall, better line marking and additional warning signage.

We all remember the images of the original causeway with its huge slabs of concrete lifted out of place and moved along the Hacking River and the broken culverts after that February rain event, Mr Doyle said.

 It was visually very dramatic but for the locals it was also a major concern as this was an important access road. I am very proud of the team for all their hard work behind the scenes to see us work through the design, consultation and the start of construction in just a six-month timeframe.

We recognise that the local communi...