Tamar Pulp Mill 101 – the Dependent Assessment Process

The Tasmanian pulp mill recently exploded into Australian media, putting a focus on public anger and political shadiness in Tasmania. Premier Paul Lennon gave a different version of events than a former Justice of the Supreme Court , and described Jaakko Poyry – the consultant employed by logging giant, Gunns – as ‘a world leading independent expert’ before a Parliament which looks set to pass one of the most poorly and destructively written laws in living memory. For both Liberal and Labor, this crisis of democracy may well become a Federal election issue. Like an open wound, the situation gets more intriguing the closer you look.

Sea Shepherd in Antarctica (2006/07) or Nisshin Implausible…

Captain Paul Watson’s Sea Shepherd fleet has been accused of piracy and even terrorism, but the fact that he is walking free after his recent return to Australia perhaps tells another story.

People were captivated, earlier this month, by the actions of the Sea Shepherd anti-whaling ships, the Farley Mowat and the Robert Hunter, in the Southern Ocean Sanctuary, where whaling is prohibited. It was a riveting story — ruthless ‘pirates’ dodged satellite tracking by steering through 400 kilometres of pack ice, ships collided and crew went missing.

Puppet Up! Uncensored goes LIVE in Australia…

Graphic porn, scatology, violence, dementia and drug use are not totally new to puppetry – Team America: World Police, Being John Malkovich, Meet the Feebles, even Q-Tip’s sex ed on The Chappelle Show helped to revolutionize and scandalize the secret lives of our childhood heroes – just as these darker and extreme aspects reinstilled, for many, a craving for the wisdom of all things fluffy, foamy, wired, spangled or just plain odd.

Puppet Up! have just played the first shows of the Jim Henson Company’s current Australian tour for the Sydney & Melbourne Comedy Festivals and positively went beyond shock value.

Puppet Up! an interview with Brian Henson

A burly American detective interrogates an Angolese koala while a French ferret translates. The koala has just robbed a bank…a sperm bank. A bespectacled Orang Utan tells a bedtime story about stealing Dick Cheney’s brain and shooting a dog, then breaks into ‘The Big Fat Buddha Song’. Piddles the diapered puppy gets amorous with a puppeteer’s arm on stage while a nervous presenter barks instructions at her from video walls mounted around the theatre.

These are some hysterical scenes you won’t see when the Jim Henson Company brings Puppet Up! – Uncensored to the Melbourne and Sydney Comedy Festivals, because the show isn’t just live – it’s improvised.