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Issue 5, Volume 17 ANONYMOUS No, we don’t have any toilet paper out the back. Oh, you weren’t about to ask me that question? My apologies, the answer is just automatic by now. What’s that you say? You want to know the dos and don’ts of supermarket shopping under the reign of COVID-19? Say no more, for I have a list right here.  Issue 5, Volume 17 ANONYMOUS Did you know there are two names for COVID-19 in Hong Kong? One takes a more direct translation from English, calling it the ‘New Crown Lung Infection’ (新冠肺炎). The other takes on a more political translation, calling it the ‘Wuhan Lung Infection’ (武漢肺炎). Protests continue to rage on the streets of Hong Kong. Growing anti-mainland Chinese sentiment is exacerbated by this novel disease. In an ironic twist of fate, the face mask – an icon of the Hong Kong Protest – regarded by many as a symbol of resistance and freedom and regarded by others as a sign of self-loathing troublemakers, became the one common thread that bound all Hong Kong citizens. Health always comes first. We learned our bitter lesson from SARS. But our reactions are tinged with political biases.  Apple News thumbnail (Image supplied) Issue 5, Volume 17 ANONYMOUS I’m writing this anonymously, because I don’t want to come across as a martyr. I live in an area with a higher-than-average proportion of elderly people. So, when COVID-19 reached Victoria, I did what seemed intuitive. I went around to the houses of elderly people on my street, and offered to do their shopping for them, so that they could minimise face-to-face contact. Of course (and apparently, this needs stating these days), I did not accept any money for doing this.  Image: Unsplash Issue 5, Volume 17 MATTHEW LI Reading through ‘The Woke Oblivion’, I was greeted with the mental image of Alex Jones screaming at me: ‘the water is turning the frogs gay!’ Kaitlin Bennett started waving her handgun as I skim through the part about International Women Day, and when the bit about Acknowledgement of Country came up, Tomi Lahren appeared in my peripheral vision and wagged her finger at me. ‘This is the death of freedom,’ they announced in grave unison.  "They turn the freaking frogs gay" Image: Alex Jones/Infowars Issue 4, Volume 17 MICHAEL FRANZ My bedroom window looks out onto a stretch of Sydney Rd at the south end of Brunswick, not exactly the centre of the CBD but still a fairly busy hub of shopping and nightlife. When I first moved in two years ago, it was difficult to sleep with the late-night sounds of a restless suburb. Over time I acclimated - the sounds of traffic, bars and restaurants simply turned into white-noise. This past weekend however, people have stopped coming out, the bars have closed, and the streets have emptied. Now it’s been the silence that’s keeping me awake.  Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash Issue 4, Volume 17 MAX FERGUSON On January 11, 2020, Chinese state media reported the first recorded death resulting from a little-known virus in the Central Chinese city of Wuhan. For JD student Ethan Zhang, the news didn’t cause alarm. ‘I’d heard reports prior to departing Australia,’ he told De Minimis in an interview. ‘Foreign media was reporting an outbreak. Nothing in Chinese media.’ Residents of Wuhan had been presenting at hospitals for weeks, with symptoms of viral pneumonia. Most of those afflicted were linked in some way to the Huanan Seafood Market, which was shuttered on New Year’s Day. Despite the swirling online rumours that the outbreak was worse than reported, Ethan flew to Beijing after completing his Legal Theory intensive. ‘I had no fear, and I wanted to return. I thought, no big deal!’  Image: Wikimedia Commons Volume 4, Issue 17 CAMERON DOIG Law students, legal support staff, paralegals, grads, lawyers – this is the time to join your union. It’s probably the Australian Services Union (ASU), whose members have won incredible victories like paid domestic violence leave. This crisis will worsen. If you think your Melbourne Law School degree will protect you, or that your legal knowledge immunises you against unemployment - think again. Now’s the time to band together with your workmates and secure control over your work lives. Collectively, we have more bargaining power to demand fair pay, secure work, and safe conditions. Individually, you are far weaker and more vulnerable – especially as a young junior worker.  Issue 4, Volume 17 AILA AYI So this sucks. Obviously. But as my high-school German exchange partner’s sister’s husband would say ‘Wat mutt, dat mutt’ [1]. In the spirit of Germanic optimism here is a list of ways to take advantage of the opportunity that social distancing has presented:  Photo by Matthew Pilachowski on Unsplash Volume 4, Issue 17 LEIGH The Melbourne CBD has some great skate spots. We have the stairs at the state library, Riverside Skate Park, the IMAX theatre spot and many more. But the Melbourne University spot is iconic for not only Melbourne skateboarders, but skateboarders from all over the country. We have seen professional skateboarders from Japan, America and our very own pros skate this spot. The Melbourne Uni spot brings me memories, as it is the place where I first landed quite a few tricks and grinds. The smooth cement is perfect for practicing your flat ground tricks, and the multi-level raised ledges are great for getting used to new grinds, and then doing a long grind to a massive drop. The Melbourne Uni spot is also not policed by the campus security so it gives us a nice place to skate without having to watch our backs to see if anyone around is going to come and tell us off.  Photo by shawn henry on Unsplash Issue 3, Volume 17 ANONYMOUS The following piece was submitted by an anonymous JD student from Hubei, the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic. I was in Wuhan, my hometown when everything started. I heard about the virus very, very early. I believe it was early December, almost the week after I returned home from Melbourne. At that time, no one paid much attention to it. I do not remember it clearly, but the first news I read about this incident said that there were fewer than 10 cases, and they were all related to the local seafood market. The following reports showed that the number climbed a bit, slowly, but did not rise above 60 cases in the next month. We were given the impression that this was a new virus which came from aquatic animals, and could not be transferred from person to person. Based on this misleading information, my life had not changed a bit. I went to my internship every day, prepared for my driving lessons, hung out with friends. Just like any summer holiday. Just as I had planned.  Wuhan Seafood Market (Image: Wikimedia Commons) Issue 3, Volume 17 ANONYMOUS I’d like to thank my learned colleague for their enlivening submission to the most recent issue of De Minimis. My personal response to the article was so visceral and unsubtle that I believe it would be unseemly of me to record all of these feelings publicly. Rather, my written response takes the form of a short missive on trends which are typical to those writings penned by young people who self-identify as right of centre politically.  Non-playable characters (NPCs) Issue 3, Volume 17 CAMERON MOIR After reading your opinion piece, I felt an urge to respond. And I felt that urge because I can, to a degree, empathise with the skepticism you’ve expressed. I grew up in a small town in the country, in a relatively comfortable middle class family, and that brought with it certain assumptions and ways of thinking that made me skeptical about the things you have labelled as ‘woke’. I wanted to write a response from the perspective of a convert. I’m certainly left wing by inclination in any case, so I didn’t put up much resistance to conversion, but I still had to go through a conscious thought process to arrive at my current position. So, below I have given what is, by my own admission, an imperfect response to some of your contentions, as well as a short meditation on how my opinions came to form as they did.  Paul Keating's Redfern Speech Issue 3, Volume 17 ANONYMOUS The author of ‘The Woke Oblivion’ touches on an important dynamic that I want to focus on. Yet, at the same time, I do believe there are some important points and context to consider. In keeping with the author’s lead, I shall proceed anonymously. Furthermore, in the spirit of dialogue, and in a most genuine attempt to locate ourselves in the real-world context, I address you, dear author of ‘The Woke Oblivion’, directly, so that we may as Michael Polanyi termed it ‘indwell’; to understand ourselves in the world, and see that we exist within the problems we talk about, not somehow transcendentally outside them. Be assured, this ‘you’ is purely conversational – no-one should mistake any animosity or negativity, because, that would, as you have astutely pointed out, undermine the whole purpose of any such exchange. There are some points on which I must express disagreement with you, yet they are not my focus. Rather than explain anything to you, I want to work towards a mutual understanding.  Image: Wikimedia Commons Issue 2, Volume 17 ANONYMOUS It’s quite likely that you’ll disagree with what I write below. You may even feel insulted. Even so, I hope that you are able to read it through. Try to reserve judgement. In many ways, I’m just like you. I’m a law student. I do my readings when I can, and I can’t function without my morning coffee. Sometimes, though, I can’t help but feel that there’s an invisible divide between me and my classmates. As much as MLS sees itself as a diverse and inclusive space, it is to a large extent, neither of those things. Yes, there are more wom*n than men taking the JD, there are more LGBT people than the baseline population, and students from every continent walk the Law School’s halls. However, for all that, the law school still lacks a genuine diversity of opinion. In some ways, this is a reflection of broader social trends, and more acute within universities than anywhere else.  Issue 2, Volume 17 Yoriko Otomo is a Research Associate (formerly Senior Lecturer in Law) at SOAS, University of London. She was recently a Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Global History, and a Visiting Fellow at the University of New South Wales. Her new co-edited collection, Making Milk, shifts the paradigms of food and animal law. She received her PhD from MLS in 2013. Yoriko kindly agreed to be interviewed by De Minimis regarding her work, her time at MLS, and her advice for all of us still studying.  Issue 2, Volume 17 DARCY POWELL I want to preface this article by saying that I’m only writing it because I am being very politely blackmailed by a DeMinimis editor that I have never met. You see, it all started about 34 minutes ago. It was (and still is) a sunny Sunday afternoon. My phone chimes to the sound of a new message and I rejoice as for once it’s not Dominos telling me I can get 20% off their entire value range if I enter in the code words ‘processed meats’.  Issue 2, Volume 17 RAYMOND KERTEZC Hyper-realised auto-pilots trapped in the social vortex that renders the automatons perpetually spiralling ever further. The global data movement uploading us to the motherboard of the mothership that overstimulated us at every stage of our psychosexual development. Material ownership forever developing as a compounding positive feedback loop and yet stripping the physical essence from everything. Virtual personalities mapped on binary vectors in cyberspace being shipped to the brave new frontier on the SS Google deep mind.  Issue 1, Volume 17 MICHAEL FRANZ Ah, law school. How I’ve missed you. Actually, maybe ‘missed’ is the wrong term. More, how keenly it is that I’ve noticed your absence in my life lately – not unlike the sudden relief one feels just after getting out of a toxic relationship. Our most recent separation has been good for me. I’ve caught up on my reading. I’ve learned to knit. But, like any good study in codependency, I just couldn’t keep myself away, and so here I am several months later asking you to take me back, convinced that this time you’ve changed. I do see that some things are different around here. The lobby has gotten a remodel. We’ve said goodbye to some old friends and said hello to some new ones. Well, De Minimis has undergone some changes too, such as the inexplicable decision to put a narcissistic hack in charge of its editorial board. I suppose the more things change, the more they stay the same.  Issue 1, Volume 17 JAMES SUTHERLAND Content Warning: this article discusses the sexual assault of a child. On February 12, a precedent-setting sentencing judgment was handed down in the New South Wales District Court. Anthony Sampieri, who had been convicted of the offence of sexual intercourse with a child under 10, was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole by Acting Judge Paul Conlon. This sentence is notable for a number of reasons. For starters, Sampieri is the first child sex offender (sentenced for a non-homicide offence) to be handed a life sentence in New South Wales.  Sampieri is receiving treatment for liver cancer in the hospital at Long Bay Correctional Centre (Wikimedia Commons) Issue 1, Volume 17 MAX FERGUSON This is a paper for intellectuals, of which there are doubtless a few hiding somewhere around here. In the age of the Presidential Tweet, and TikTok, De Minimis feels the need more than ever to provide an intellectual creative outlet. If you want to push for progress, instead of pushing the spinning doors, if you’d rather yeet your energy into something constructive, than into an insta-modelling career, look no further. If you think Rupi Kaur is Overrated come Here. Contributions, as ever, are urgently required.  Issue 1, Volume 17 BREE BOOTH The following headscratcher has been provided to De Minimis courtesy of the Melbourne University Philosophy Society. It forms part of a presentation that will be given at The Clyde on the 11th of March. René Descartes posited in the Meditations that he could not be sure that all his thoughts were not being placed into his head by an evil demon, whose sole purpose was to deceive him. Thus, everything he perceived as real might be an elaborate simulation designed to make him think that everything he knew was real, when in reality none of it was.  Rene Descartes: aggressively French philosopher (Wikimedia Commons) |
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