robert stephenson

Juukan Gorge Gone

| cartoonrob
Rio Tinto destroys Juukan Gorge on 23rd May 2020

‘A sacred site in Western Australia that showed 46,000 years of continual occupation and provided a 4,000-year-old genetic link to present-day traditional owners has been destroyed in the expansion of an iron ore mine.

The cave in Juukan Gorge in the Hammersley Ranges, about 60km from Mt Tom Price, is one of the oldest in the western Pilbara region and the only inland site in Australia to show signs of continual human occupation through the last Ice Age. It was blasted along with another sacred site on Sunday.

Mining company Rio Tinto received ministerial consent to destroy or damage the site in 2013 under WA’s outdated Aboriginal heritage laws, which were drafted in 1972 to favour mining proponents.

One year after consent was granted, an archeological dig intended to salvage whatever could be saved discovered the site was more than twice as old as previously thought and rich in artefacts, including sacred objects.’ The Guardian, 26 May 2020.

Christmas 2015

| cartoonrob

Christmas2015

Supermarkets seem to be narrowing the interval between pulling down Christmas decorations and bringing in the Easter eggs and buns. My prediction for the first Easter foodstuff in the supermarket in 2016 is mid January.

Republican Choice for President

| cartoonrob

Watching the debate for the nominees for the Republican candidate for President was  pretty engaging from this part of the world, even though I don’t quite fully understand the electoral system of the USA. Seeing nominees in the same party competing and attacking each other is something of a funny spectacle. In Australia, the major political parties try to contain their internal bickering behind closed doors, coupled with frequent leaking to the media. Yesterday the internal fighting was so heated that it changed our Prime Minister overnight. However, in the USA the bickering is all on public display. On the one hand, it’s honest in that the disdain is there, warts and all, on the other hand it seems odd people on the same team bagging each other. And, so this cartoon came out, and I’m not exactly sure why I made them eggs, trapped in the same space and trying to break each other perhaps. Anyway, but here you go!

Republican Choice