Culture

Global Capitalism & Climate Change By Hans Baer AltaMira Press, 2012 The science says it is now far beyond sensible doubt that we can’t keep dumping greenhouse gases into the sky without terrible results. These range from more extreme floods, droughts and storms, to the disappearance of the Arctic ice cap, dramatic cuts in food yields and the drying out of the Amazon rainforest. Despite this knowledge, the problem is being made worse. US oil production is booming again. World gas production is surging. World coal production is reaching new highs.

Overdress: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion By Elizabeth Cline Penguin, 2012, 244 pages $37.95 (hb) Every year, Americans buy 20 billion garments, mostly from mass market clothes-makers such as Gap, Tommy Hilfiger, Nike, Wal-Mart and Target. They then throw away 13 million tons of it says a reformed clothing-addict, Elizabeth Cline, in Overdressed. Charity shops can’t soak up the excess with less than 20% of thrift-shop clothing donations sold on. Most of the rest goes to landfill.

For revolutionary rappers Rebel Diaz, the death of Hugo Chavez on March 5 came as a double blow. The Venezuelan leader had helped the Chilean hip-hop duo set up their community arts and resistance centre in New York's South Bronx after he visited the area eight years ago.

A selection of this week's celebrity news... Frenzal Rhomb frontman Jay Whalley reveals pig tapeworm egg infected his brain http://goo.gl/J8UwF Madonna, Bruce Springsteen Lead Billboard's 2013 Top 40 Money Makers http://goo.gl/2nXse Sean Penn Mourns Death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez http://eonli.ne/XNjLJD Edward Furlong Sentenced to 6 Months in Jail for Violating Probation for battery http://eonli.ne/XNaxNt Anderson Cooper on First Strip Club Visit: I Was Talking to the Ladies About Their Shoes http://eonli.ne/XN3NPH

All That I Am, A Novel By Anna Funder Penguin 2011 370 pp, $29.95 Germany at the end of World War I entered a political and cultural maelstrom that tested the integrity of all its participants. This factually based narrative, or “open-source novel” as author Anna Funder calls it, brings to life some of those who committed their lives to trying to bring socialism to Germany and combat Hitler.

The Waugul by Kaiber (Dennis Simmons). Performed at "Occupy Cottesloe - Colin Barnett has got to go" on March 2, 2013. This was one week before the state election and was organised by Occupy Perth. Public land was claimed on the Cottesloe beach foreshore for the event.

The gold shall not be sold For thirty pieces of silver No to the mine that contaminates No to the mine that kills ya! The copper shall not be sold For thirty pieces of silver No to the mine that contaminates No to the mine that kills ya! Conga no way… Conga’s just not happening… That’s the verdict of the people And there’s no reversing The NEWMONT conquistadors Come not with cross and sword They come with five billion dollars And they leave you with nothing The NEWMONT conquistadors Come not with bibles and diseases They come with their heavy machinery

A selection of this week's celebrity news... Kate Middleton's Family Bails Out Brother James From Cake Business Debt http://eonli.ne/13T46ZO Oscar Pistorius Plans Memorial Service for Reeva Steenkamp While on Bail for Premeditated Murder Charges http://eonli.ne/13R7yUW Alec Baldwin Smacks Down Racial Slur Allegations on Late Show With David Letterman http://eonli.ne/XzRh72 Zero Dark Thirty Torture Controversy: Senate Committee Drops Investigation http://eonli.ne/XzxTaf Michelle Obama's Oscar Dress Photoshopped by Iranian Media http://eonli.ne/13PcFEY

Whackademia: An Insider’s Account of the Troubled University Richard Hil NewSouth Publishing, 2012 239 pages, $34.99 (pb) Universities were better in the olden days, says Dr Richard Hil in Whackademia. As an Essex University student in the 1970s, Hil joined the British Socialist Workers Party (which expanded his political horizons) and the Campaign for Real Ale (which expanded his waistline), while his lecturers stimulated his intellectual growth.

"Look, the people you are after are the people you depend on. We cook your meals, we haul your trash, we connect your calls, we drive your ambulances. We guard you while you sleep. Do not... fuck with us.” The board members of HMV Group might be now wishing they hadn’t stocked so many Fight Club DVDs now. The massive UK entertainment retailer -- specializing in music, film, video games and other entertainment -- rang in the new year by running aground, with its British stores going into administration and its Irish locations shuttering entirely on January 15th.

That Richard Hinds needs a few lessons in sports journalism.

“Such has been the atmosphere created by the Western Sydney Wanderers' fans, usually dispassionate critics have left Parramatta Stadium raving the experience makes the Camp Nou [in Barcelona] seem like a winter night at the Wentworth Park dogs,” Richard Hinds, the chief sports columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald, had the sheer gall to write on February 18.

British Muslim rapper Sam Khan was the CEO of his own company, a clothing range, website and a record label called Be Somebody. Three years on, he has launched The B Somebody Project to raise funds for orphans in Gaza. The project follows in the fundraising footsteps of previous music he has done for Pakistani flood victims. Green Left's Mat Ward spoke to him.