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Keywords: Consumerism

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Coming to terms with Christmas

    • Ellena Savage
    • 21 December 2012
    2 Comments

    My most vivid childhood Christmas memories have little to do with Christmas. In one, I'm rifling through the antique wooden bowl beside my grandmother's fireplace, finding hundreds of ancient marbles. They glow in the amber light that spills through the hand-crafted lead-glass lights. I don't even remember the presents I got that year.  

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Beasts of the climate change apocalypse

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 13 September 2012

    It is often the poor who suffer most in a disaster. When the polar ice caps melt, rising seawaters flood an impoverished southern American bayou town. The survivors destroy a dam that keeps the nearby city dry and their village flooded. The indictment here of the prosperous West is hard to miss.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    News and entertainment a difficult mix

    • Michael Mullins
    • 25 June 2012
    6 Comments

    Many Fairfax readers will miss the familiarity and romance of print. But more disturbing is the likelihood that the dignified authority of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age mastheads will be lost when the more ephemeral, entertainment-oriented electronic edition is all we have.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Death by a thousand yuppies

    • Ellena Savage
    • 25 November 2011
    2 Comments

    Pubs with boutique beer are creeping their way north. Day-old bread at the café where the yummy mummies drink lattes is $4. Gentrification. The cycle of life. I want to save my heartland from this fate, but I should first register my own complicity. 

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  • RELIGION

    Panicky in the UK

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 17 November 2011
    6 Comments

    Like the Northern Territory Intervention, the severe punitive responses to those involved in the UK riots bore the characteristics of what is commonly called 'moral panic'. A recent report provides an opportunity to ask how adequate these kinds of response are.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Reinventing Greece's paradise lost

    • Gillian Bouras
    • 09 November 2011
    7 Comments

    In their Greek travels, 20th century writers Lawrence Durrell and Henry Miller tried to construct a sort of paradise for themselves. Most foreign inhabitants of Greece try to do the same. I certainly did. I hope now that there is a chance of Paradise being regained.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Carbon price will cause pain

    • Charles Rue
    • 21 June 2011
    12 Comments

    Our lives will change forever as we face the creative challenge posed by the carbon tax. We will pay the real cost of producing food, and cheap and frequent overseas trips will slow. But we must not let a grasping spirit hold us from imagining an economy and lifestyle that can thrive on alternative energy.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Cheap milk and supermarket ethics

    • Michael Walker
    • 28 March 2011
    8 Comments

    Many people have been concerned about the effect of Coles' $1 milk on 'little' producers. They should look closer. Those producers are actually large companies, quite capable of fending for themselves, who have been putting the squeeze on farmers for decades.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Shopping as communion

    • Sarah Kanowski
    • 15 November 2010
    6 Comments

    Buying and selling has shaped history. Alongside goods, new ideas and practices get exchanged, leading to the creation of remarkable civilisations. My young daughter and I recently caught a bus into the city to do some shopping. A mundane errand was transformed into something magical.

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  • MARGARET DOOLEY AWARD

    Being humanistic about fish

    • Susie Byers
    • 20 October 2010
    2 Comments

    Harry Wetnose the Bigeye Tuna will probably never adorn any T-shirts. Nevertheless, the endangered Bigeye Tuna is in big trouble and could do with some help. The way we relate to fish raises some important questions about what it is to be a responsible person in the world.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Beyond the global storytelling crisis

    • Colm McNaughton
    • 29 March 2010
    10 Comments

    It is becoming clear that we are probably not going to avert cataclysmic forms of climate change. The foundational Greek and Hebraic imaginaries, the mythical narratives that frame western civilisation, can no longer contain, inform and explain what we experience. We need new stories.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    When sitting is subversive

    • Suzanne Hemming
    • 10 March 2010
    9 Comments

    The Singaporeans have heavy fines for antisocial behaviour such as spitting and swearing. It works for them, and creates a pleasant, safe environment for tourists. But the lack of seats suggests something more: a form of social control. 

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