Ballerinas and blue pole dancing: @burgewords #CreatingWaves on #Budget2014

  I have never paid much attention to the fallout of budget week, simply because the Arts are always sufficiently financially knocked-around long before the Treasurer makes our economic disenfranchisement official. If a body like The Arts Council or Screen Australia were to be closed, that would register. Hearing they’ve had cuts only blends into […]

Stand up, citizen journalists: @burgewords comments on #FairfaxStrike

  A very simple tweet went out on the same afternoon Fairfax journalists agreed to strike in protest at the company’s plan to cut 80 jobs, mainly in production (layout and sub-editing) and photography. Since the current Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) hearing will continue through the strike, a citizen journalist (‘CJ’) asked whether any […]

Try stopping the bleeding hearts: @burgewords #CreatingWaves

There’s no use beating around the bush: The Abbott Government has stopped the boats. I am arts columnist for No Fibs, and I probably should be writing about the Arts. However, like many artists in Australia at the moment, I am experiencing plenty of distractions of the political kind. I find it difficult to focus […]

Visiting concentration camps in Utopia: @burgewords interviews @GGeorgiadisRN on ‘that’ comment the DIBP didn’t like

  The Australian twittersphere freaked out when refugee advocate @VanessaPowell25 was threatened with legal action by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) earlier this month. Unless she removed a post on her Facebook, which documented one moment at a protest outside the Villawood Detention Centre in Sydney’s Western Suburbs, the DIBP would “consider […]

Creating communities with a common voice: @burgewords interviews @TheArtsParty

  Motorists, shooters and fishers have all got one, so have sex enthusiasts and christians. Why not creatives? Micro political parties have leapt into the Australian voters’ consciousness like never before, and right at the launch of this column, one of our readers tipped us off about the imminent formation of a new party named […]

Silencing the bird: @burgewords timeline of Immigration Department tweet fallout

Thanks to No Fibs readers and citizen journalists monitoring the mainstream and social media for the past 48 hours, we’ve been able to put together the limited facts about the people behind the tweets sent to refugee supporter Vanessa Powell last Friday by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP). Two of the most […]

You cannot burn a mummy blog: @burgewords comments

Over the weekend a ripple of panic went through the social media in Australia. I was alerted to it by one of my Twitter friends. Word was that Vanessa Powell, described on her Twitter profile as a “refugee supporter”, had been sent two anonymous tweets by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection. They could […]

Storify: Arise, I dub me #KnightsAndDames by @burgewords

[View the story “Arise, I dub me #KnightsAndDames” on Storify]

Storify: Abbott, Newman no firm favourites in Bris Vegas @burgewords #MarchInMarch

[View the story “Abbott, Newman no firm favourites in Bris Vegas #MarchInMarch” on Storify]   Read More from the March In March Archive 

An LGBT silly season Storify by @burgewords

[View the story “Faith, hope and same-sex love in two hemispheres” on Storify]