Congratulations, High Court Judge Virginia Bell.

Thirty years ago, I was a law student. I lived in the inner city of Sydney, next door to a lovely fellow, who was young, pretty and gay. I'll call him Carl.

Carl liked the odd toke of the odd joint, and one day, he'd just bought a generous deal of cannabis. He was busted, arrested and sent to court. I accompanied him. I was only in second year at law school, so couldn't do much apart from hand-holding. He received a custodial sentence of 6 months. I remember the shock I felt as he was taken away, the look on his face.

Some weeks later, Carl rang me from Long Bay Prison. He was in despair, being raped nightly, and he begged me to help him. He gave me the name of his defence solicitor, to see if I could ask him to do something.

I rang the lawyer and explained what was happening. "Sorry," he told me. "I don't do after-sale service." They were his exact words. I was gobsmacked. Apart from the sheer financial selfishness he demonstrated, his lack of compassion was breathtaking.

So I contacted Redfern Legal Centre, a community/poverty law organisation largely staffed by volunteers, and made an appointment with their full time lawyer running the Prisoners' Legal Service. The woman I saw was understanding of my friend's plight, and put him down on her prison visiting list. She couldn't get him out of gaol, but she could give him advice and comfort. She helped him a lot.

This woman transformed my ideas about the law. I became a student volunteer at Redfern Legal Centre, working one night a week, and when I qualified, continued volunteering at nights at the Illawarra and Parramatta Legal Centres. She was smart, completely lacking in pretention, no bullshit, and incredibly well able and willing to take on the bully boys (and they were largely boys) in the legal profession and police.

Today, that woman was made one of the seven judges of the High Court of Australia, the highest court in the country. Virginia Bell, after Redfern Legal Centre, went on to private practice and Public Defender work, as a solicitor and then at the Bar. She was appointed to the NSW Supreme Court in 1995.

Virginia, as a Supreme Court judge, ruled that it is not defamatory to call someone gay, a landmark decision. She was a participant in the first Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in 1978, and defended some of those arrested for participating. Basically, the woman is a star and her appointment is a real milestone, and not only because she's only the fourth woman and the second openly gay member of the High Court bench (replacing the first, Michael Kirby), but because her record as a level-headed defender of human rights and social justice.

I am proud to remember High Court Justice Bell from way back when. And I think Carl will remember her well too.

Oh, and on a completely different note, this blog's just been included in the Top 100 Botany Blogs by a group called "Online College Blog". Colour me chuffed! Thanks to whoever let them know about my little corner of the Net. :)

Superb Lyrebird

As I've previously mentioned, some Superb Lyrebirds, Menura novaehollandiae frequent our garden. They're remarkably beautiful birds, their common name reflecting the the male's tale, which resembles an ornate musical lyre. Even more extraordinary than the plumage, however, is their famous song. Or songs....

Image: John Gould,
The birds of Australia 1840-48

This morning, we were delighted to hear one of the males performing his repertoire. It included the calls of an Eastern Rosella (Platycercus eximius), an Eastern Whipbird (Psopodes olivaceus), an Australian Magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen), a car alarm, the beep of an electronic car-key, and the frogs in the creek behind our house, Crinia signifera.

The Superb Lyrebird is quite large, the male being up to 100cm in length, including tale. They fossick in the leaf litter of moist forests in South-Eastern Australia, eating insects, worms and spiders. They roost in trees at night.

Their mimicry is, of course, all about getting girls. The male builds a mound to act as a stage where he throws his tale over his head, shakes it, and performs for half an hour or more. The complexity of his repertoire is directly proportional to his mating success.

The accuracy of their mimicry has to be heard to be believed, so here is a video of one being interviewed by David Attenborough.

Science Book Bliss

A break from uni and work has allowed me the delight of reading science just for fun. Two books (one I've finished, the other I've just started) are particularly recommended.

The first is "Microcosm: E. coli and the new science of life" by Carl Zimmer. Zimmer is a blogger (The Loom, associated with Discover Magazine) and science journalist, whose previous books include "Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea" and "Soul Made Flesh".

"Microcosm" gives a thorough overview of the evolution and functional diversity of E. coli, exploring its relation to humans and other species (as friend and foe) and the history of our understanding of the bacterium. But more significantly, Zimmer uses E. coli as a springboard to survey much beside, including cell biology, horizontal gene transfer, creationism (and its new disguise, "intelligent design"), astrobiology and the role of viruses in genetic diversity. It is written with passion and flair, and includes a comprehensive index, endnotes and bibliography, giving it great value for both biologists and general readers.

Recently, Zimmer gave a lecture on his book, podcast by Scientific American. Listen to Part 1 and Part 2.

The second book, of which I'm only just scratching the surface, I will write about in more detail when I've finished reading. It's "The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance and Strangeness of Insect Societies"by Bert Hölldobler and the wondrous E.O. Wilson.

One of Hölldobler and Wilson's previous books, a massive monograph titled "The Ants", won them a Pulitzer Prize. This book mainly focuses on ants in its exploration of eusocial species. The book throws the reader head-first into a reignited debate on group selection. The understated style belies what is really quite controversial material.

Anyway, more soon. Only a few hundred more pages to go...

I've been tagged!

Christie Lynn, at Observations of a Nerd (a wonderful science blog.... do check it out!) has "tagged me".

Here are the rules:

1. Link to the person or persons who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random and/or revealing things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog
6. Let the tagger know when your post entry is up on your site.

Six random/revealing things:

1. I have ridiculously vivid, detailed and epic dreams, and wake up with them still lingering in my head. For example, a couple of nights ago I dreamt I was at a scientific conference, and the Rolling Stones were there, along with entourage. They were all wearing suits made from sky-blue satin, including their manager, who had a broken arm. I was proudly explaining to the manager that when I was a lawyer, I successfully defended a very guilty serial killer. (And no, when I was a lawyer, I had no serial killer clients!)

2. According to Myers-Briggs, I am ENTJ (but I verge on the "I"); according to the "Big Five personality traits," I score high on openness, conscientiousness and agreeableness, medium on extraversion, and low on neuroticism.

3. Many years ago, before he took off in Hollywood, Russell Crowe vomited on my shoes at a party.

4. When I was thirteen, I was forced to do a forward dive roll off a little springboard and onto a mat during P.E. I warned the P.E. teacher that I couldn't do it. I told her I'd break my arm. She wouldn't listen. So I did it. And I broke both arms. Ha! That showed her.

5. I get very upset by weeds and have to make a conscious effort not to let them get me down when I catch the train and see along the sides of the tracks the jungles of morning glory, privet, lantana, ivy, pampas, etc, etc, etc. I have a very unscientific fantasy of a magic genetic bullet that kills every invasive exotic plant in Australia, although I would have exemptions for food crops and various exotic plants that some people, for reasons that elude me, like to grow in their gardens.

6. The most magical moment I've had when travelling was in Florence. I climbed the long, winding staircase to the top of Il Duomo late in the afternoon, and climbed out onto the balcony at dusk. The Tuscan hills were laid out in extraordinary colour, multiple hues of pastel blues, pinks, golds. And then, just as I was gazing out in the silence of the evening, the bells of the various cathedrals and churches of Florence began. They were out of synch, each tuned differently and varying in volume and distance, so it was a beautiful cacophony. When the Duomo itself joined in, it became deafening. Magnificent.

Blogs I'm tagging (and I hope you'll play along!):

1. Ben Pobjie's Wonderful World of Objects
2. LemonFarm - Capertee Valley
3. Kipili
4. Misrule
5. TechnoLlama
6. Sabino Canyon

Cheers,

Margaret