December 2010
23 posts
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Weekend reader - links I loved
Cartoon: Hugh McLeod on giving up booze - inspiration for the holiday season…
I don’t know about you but I’m mad about the holiday season. In celebration, I’ve thrown together a mixed bag of links from this week which is as all over the place as I’ve been, but in a good way. Less work-related stuff, more fun.
Happy Holidays!
Taylor Orci on how she realised...
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How are you doing in the lottery of life?
Save the Children have a bold ad campaign out, they verge on the edge of poverty porn, and I like them.
The message in the ads? Life for poor people is dangerous and scary. Life for white people is safe and fun.
As a white person with a safe and fun life, the ads worked on me. Sad but true.
Still, I’m uncomfortable with the “us vs them” tone and feel the same old...
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Happy 30th Birthday! (to my 13 year old self)
Today is my 30th birthday, and it’s not every day you turn 30. To mark the occasion on my blog, I thought I’d write a handy little guide for my teenage self, just in case time travel becomes an option and I can fast track some of the best things it took me so long to discover.
30 things it would have been handy to know at 13
1. It’s a cliche because it’s true, your...
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“There’s all these people out there cleaning their houses on the weekend,...”
– Stephen Elliott, The Daily Rumpus 21/12/10
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Weekend reader - links I loved
This week’s links is brought to you by the holiday season. Here’s to a bit of R&R!
I love this approach to life:
The world is my museum, displaying my collections on loan. (via Something Changed)
Do you like attending your own events? Sometimes, I really don’t. This might be why.
The reason movies work so well is because they’re entertainment. People like to...
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What's missing from this facebook visualisation of...
Facebook intern Paul Butler created this map of international human relationships…Which says as much about the areas of the globe alight with colour as the ones still in the dark. And by no means am I implying facebook is the only measure of relationships, my point is one about technology.
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“The life of money-making is one undertaken under compulsion, and wealth is...”
– Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethica, (which was also the inspiration for my recent tattoo).
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When does a charity not deserve your donations?
It’s Sunday evening and I’m sitting in the lounge room with my flat mates drinking red wine, eating strawberries and listening to Johnny Cash. It’s a wonderful night, summer-lite, the light fading into evening, and the smell of Christmas is all through the air courtesy of the real Christmas tree gracing the corner of the room.
So it’s not the right night for me to be...
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Everything you need to know about WikiLeaks
I’m no diplomat, or foreign correspondant, or expert in rape reporting, or spies, or…anything really that would qualify me to express an opinion on WikiLeaks outside of my thoughts as a ‘citizen of the world’ that secrets are generally ill-advised.
Which is why I recommend you follow the Rumpus’ guide to WikiLeaks. The roundup they gave of the Afghan war leaks was...
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“Whatever you think of WikiLeaks, they have not been charged with a crime, let...”
– – Glenn Greenwald quoted in The Atlantic
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Weekend reader - links I loved
Our house is starting to smell a lot like Christmas…
What’s the most effective development intervention we know? Tip - it has serious implications for immigration policies - Chris Blattman
Is it time to call it quits on the Euro? I hope not, but…
“…you cannot achieve monetary union, among democracies, without political union…It is a very sad story for one...
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Because it's hard picking presents sometimes
It’s not even the middle of December and already I’ve shamed myself by making the foolish “oops I forwarded an e mail to the wrong person and it contained details of their top secret presents” mistake. Luckily my sister is a secret squirrel and hacked into our parents e mail accounts remotely and deleted my erroneous e mail.
In my defence, I was so excited about being...
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Is 'The Amazing Race' really better than poverty...
There is quite a debate raging at the moment about poverty porn and the negative imagery and stereotypes many charities use to raise money.
Over at Wronging Rights there is a discussion about the positive portrayal of “the real Ghana” in the American reality TV show The Amazing Race (TAM) acting as an ‘antidote to poverty porn.’
I recently saw the episode where...
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“Actually, the biggest problems I saw were innumerable broken promises by UN...”
– Chris Blattman criticises the UN and NGOs in the threat broken promises play in fragile states.
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When do condoms mean a choice between AIDS or...
When do condoms mean a choice between AIDS or cancer? In Africa, of course!
At least that’s the situation in Kenya with a new program which is trying a new tactic to get condoms into the community by distributing them with cigarette packets, among other (less life-threatening) consumer products.
The problem? Is it ok to prevent one fatal disease (AIDS) by promoting another (cancer)? Is...
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Christmas 2010 - The Year of the Book
I hereby declare Christmas 2010 The Year of the Book - although truth be told, every year is a bit like year of the book for me. It seems I’m yet to outgrow the “Bookworm” moniker, which suits me just fine.
Choosing books for myself, incidentally, is a piece of cake. I’ve been tracking the books I’ve read for a couple of years now (via Goodreads) and have noticed...
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“ack, reading is just another cultural consumer dilemma. This is a cycle, too – a...”
– Angela Meyer of Literary Minded fame, resonating with her words.
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Weekend reader - links I loved
Let’s start with a letter to Santa by Saul Williams:
And who says I understand how to fight disingenuous governance, poverty or hate? I’m just saying I understand the importance of counterculture, of those who prefer boom over pop. Hardcore. Underground. The ones who dare to question and expose, who put their lives at risk… Those who stand up and speak out even when the...
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It's not cool, but I love Christmas
I love the holiday and choosing gifts and lazing around in the afternoon rubbing a belly full of chocolate and apricot squares (a tradition in my family) and playing trivial pursuit and waking up to the boxing day test match.
I love christmas drinks and tinsel and the smell of pine trees in the lounge room. I love the time we are given to spend away from work, that thing which can be all...
November 2010
28 posts
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Gay marriage: do you agree with your neighbours?
News.com.au have a great feature at the moment where you can find out where your neighbours stand on gay marriage, as well as your local Member of Parliament (in my case, Adam Bandt himself).
This is a fantastic initiative, and props to news.com.au (not known as the most progressive news outlet around) for making it possible.
(via Tim Norton)
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Dec 1 is world AIDS day - Join (RED) today