When you set out to tell the truth about things in the media, you are bound to ruffle a few feathers. One of the biggest complaints independent journos and the reading public have against the mass media is the tendency to censor and self-censor so as not to offend the advertising-base (the other of course being the tendency to report things that benefit the owners stock portfolio!)

When we think of censorship, we usually think of repressive regimes in foreign countries or the control of hardcore pornography in our midst. And certainly the former can be not only used to prop up dodgy governments, but can also threaten the lives of journalists who try to speak the truth. Case in point, in May 2009 two US journalists, Lara Ling and Euna Lee visiting South Korea were arrested by North Korean authorities and sentenced to 12 years imprisonment on June 8, 2009. [1]

However free we think we are in Australia, our very own government is already censoring the internet and intends to censor it further eroding our ability to get independent news unfettered by vested interests of big media. Communication minister Stephen Smith confirmed in 2009 that the Rudd government would go ahead with plans to implement legislation to enable, or indeed compel internet service providers to remove sites containing “inappropriate” content on top of the internet filter system already in place. Reporters Without Fronteirs says that,

In 1999, an amendment was put to the Broadcasting Services Act, creating the ACMA, responsible for regulating Internet content. This independent agency has the power to close websites that are the subject of complaints by citizens…To date authority has blocked 1,300 sites and is targeting some 10,000 others.[2]

Perhaps one of the most blatant examples of self-censorship by a media agency came from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation who in the early 2000s made a deal with the Chinese government to censor and block cable tv and internet services to secure the market there. Google followed News Corps lead and in 2006 made a similar deal to block web searches and websites linked to certain words including “democracy”. In a statement Google said, “While removing search results is inconsistent with Google’s mission, providing no information… is more inconsistent with our mission” [3] . Meanwhile Yahoo was actively helping to suppress Chinese dissenters by giving the Chinese government information that led to the incarceration of one journalist for 10 years in 2005.

Less life-threatening censorship that none-the-less can destroy lives is that within media organisations who a either threatened with legal action, or are attempting to protect their income base. Conventions like “freedom of the press” and “protecting your sources” are often cited by journos who are threatened with dismissal or legal action over what they report.

In 1999 two Canadian investigative reporters were silenced and then fired when they attempted to report the detrimental effect that human-growth hormone used by dairy producers was having on the public health. They were instructed by management to pull a story revealing research linking HGH with cancer and growth abnormalities in children by million dollar advertising Monsanto corporation. Not only were the journos sacked, but also the scientists who worked for the corporation who did the study. HGH for use in dairy cows was subsequently banned. [4]

When media organisations stoop to self-censorship in order to protect a financial base, the perceived threat to the organisations continuance is thought by those making that decision to outweigh the public good of revealing controversial information.

Many media organisations go one step further (or several depending on your point of view) to actually begin reporting public relations information from corporate press releases as news, or using pre-packaged video news releases or audio sent to them by corporations or government without disclosing them as such. The problem has become so rife that public advocacy group the Centre for Media and Democracy established a yearly prize for the most blatant uses of corporate propaganda as news, called the “Falsies”. [5]

Perhaps the worst of these transgressions of public trust is when media organisations receive money from organisations with the express intention that they will promote or show in a good light the goods, services or activities of the corporation. This problem was highlighted in the “cash for comment” scandal in the late ninties when it was revealed the radio shock-jocks Alan Jones and John Laws were receiving money for shameless promotions of the banking industry under the guise of impartiality.

On top of these pressures, often governments in so-called democracies make a point of scolding the media for their truth-telling. In 2007 journalists in the US were told by the White House that they needed to “be careful” what they say and during the 2008 US election conservative candidate Sarah Palin said freedom of the press is a “privilege” that the media “abuse.” This in a country that has free speech ensconsed in it’s constitution.

Under these conditions it is little wonder that many journalists self-censor as a means of self-preservation. While it’s common and ok to self-censor in everyday conversation to prevent harming people unintentionally, there nothing more harmful to a media working for the public good than for journalists to so internalise the demands put on them by governments, employers and polite deference to the majority opinion that they are not honest in their news reporting.

It is little wonder that journalists are near the top of the general publics list of untrustworthy professionals.

US newsman Dan Rather, in accepting an award for journalistic integrity in 2008 said in his acceptance speech:

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the earth from side to side.” When we bury the truth, we do not bury consequences. We only stand in the way of the… people. We keep this government of, by, and for the people from working as it should. And when we are complicit in burying the truth, we need to know well that we are also complicit in burying ourselves.

Hear, hear.

Do YOU self-censor: take this test to see

Further reading:
http://www.sourcewatch.org
http://www.rsf.org/
http://www.cjr.org/

After an 11th hour appeal by the RRC and supporters, the A show has been returned to the airwaves. Love and flowers to 4ZzZ102.1fm!!! The A Show returns monday, 12 noon: live cross to the dreaming. Live streaming now - www.4zzzfm.org.au

In the wake of a series of internal conflicts between Brisbane Community Radio 4zzzfm’s Programming Committee and the Radical Radio Collective, the long running Anarchy Show has been cancelled.

The Anarchy Show has been running on the station for over 20 years and has often been one of the few radical media voices on the Brisbane airwaves representing left-wing politics and views and promoting activism and direct action in the region.

Former Anarchy Show presenter and producer, Kim Kaos says, “I am disappointed and saddened by this decision by the programming committee and hope that they will reconsider when they see how loved by the community this show is. It represents a beacon of honesty, independence and forthrightness in a mire of toadying media. It provides one of the few outlets for grass roots activism news and events in the region.”

The trouble began in May when the 4zzz programming committee began changing the stations program line-up with little or no consultation with announcers. While many announcers simply wore these changes, some found themselves in time slots where they were unable or unavailable to present their shows due to work or study commitments. Conflicts between members of the Radical Radio Collective, who had been adversely affected
by these programme changes, and conflicting opinions about what constitutes “good radio” has seen this long-running programme end. Members of the Radical Radio Collective, a loosely aligned group of media activists that include Radio Democracy, Eco Radio, Locked In, Megaherz, and Paper, Scissors, Glue (the DIY show), are still reeling
under the shock.

The Radical Radio Collective are calling on all supporters of alternative radio to contact the station asking for the return of this much loved show.

32521555
info@4zzzfm.org.au

Yellowfin tuna

In Australia the practice of SLAPPS is well known to environmental and social justice activists. A SLAPP or Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation has been around in practice since the 70s when then Queensland premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen raised many nusiance law suitsagainst his detractors as a matter of course. Such cases keep activists stressed out, cost them money and sometimes affect their ability to voice and enact actions against the company or government they are protesting. However, SLAPPS are a bit of a luxury in non-western nations. In Papua New Guinea the effect of collaboration of corporations and government have run legal and environmental roughshod over local activists and indigenous communities defending their homelands. The outrageous case of the Ok Tedi ruling, effectively making illegal the protest by affected peoples of the Ok Tedi mine, is a glaring example of this cronyism.

It is more unusual for corporations operating wholly outside Australia to pursue legal actions against Australian groups. However, in December 2008 small independent webhosting company Netaxxs were threatened with legal action by Filipino owned tuna cannery corporation, RD Tuna operating in PNG. It reveals the tip of the iceberg of an environmental and social justice travesty unfolding in the small port of Madang where RD have a cannery and many small ancillary business interests. It is a story too common in the two-thirds world: indigenous locals, lured by the promise of jobs and money, find themselves beholden to a corporation, dispossessed of their land and the environment on which their survival depends left damaged. In effect, this corporation takes away the independence and right to self-determination of a people.

RD Tuna are about to embark on a massive expansion of their operations in PNG: an act that not only threatens the local environment and exposes even more labourers to unfair work practices, but relies on a dwindling stock of tuna. Their social effects on the region are pervasive: RDCompanies include interests in fishing, real estate, hospitality, agribusiness, food processing, pawnbroking, and banking. RD Tuna own and run canneries in PNG and the Phillipines. The cannery at Siar Village in the Madang region of northern PNG boasts a production capacity of 100 tons of tuna a day. They are now behind a push to open seven more canneries in the same region. Locals have complained of the industrial pollution killing fish and affecting their health for many years, and with seven new canneries planned, this can only be exacerbated. In addition, tuna numbers are dropping. Bluefin and Big Eye tuna are expected to be wiped out in a few years if fishing is not abated. Yellowfin, while more numerous are also declining and biologists recommend no increase in Yellowfin catch for the survival of the species. These majestic fish reach a massive size and live for about eight years. Bycatch, the unwanted other species of fish also trapped, are usually thrown back. With over 70% of the world’s ocean fish overexploited, bycatch is a problem for global sustainability. Part of the problem is that long-line and purse seine fishing methods can often also catch the more endangered species as bycatch, and dolphins are also accidentally caught. While RD tuna are not a big operation, with a fleet of just 12 ships, their local effects will be felt. Naturally, as tuna get scarcer, their dollar value increases, so unscrupulous fishing corporations will be increasingly driven to make a profit where others are restraining their catch for the benefit of all. The Pacific Island nations have recently signed a pact to protect tuna fisheries, however PNG is not part of that pact.

RD Tuna sell under 11 brands worldwide. According to cannery opponents, the Idawad Association of Kananam landowners, they put their best fish into cans destined for the western market, while locals get served a lower standard in the “Diana” brand. Anti-cannery advocates allege that better tuna is served to the western worlds cats than served to local Papuans.

RD Tuna have a string of labour-based conflicts in the region. Filipino fishermen employed to catch suppliers for the canneries went on strike in 2004 claiming substandard wages below the International Labour Organisation (ILO) rates without overtime or compensation for accidents or death on the job. They complained that the vessels were not sea worthy and lacked fire and safety equipment. In August 2004 over 200 workers seized 15 of the companies fishing vessels of RD Tuna Ventures in PNG and were subsequently prosecuted with mutiny.

According to the local media an RD cannery was bombed by ‘terrorists’ killing four workers in the Phillipines in April 2008. The Philippine Daily Inquirer said that police linked the bombing to labour issues at the plant, where “18 workers who had been fired from the canning firm had filed a case against the RD Fishing.” Shortly after this incident the company was banned from selling it’s products to the European Union after failing a hygiene inspection. The EU is RD’s biggest market.

According to local news articles on the website of the Kananam, RD companies have also been involved in a string of minor breaches of the law including holding radio equipment without a licence, operating an illegal water bore, the April 2003 accidental poisoning of locals, fish kills and contamination of the environment through an ammonia spill at Vidar Harbour, while a more extensive spill that was alleged to have been deliberately hosed into Doilon Bay less than a month later with reports of local deaths and illness. Amongst other allegations in the media or emanating from the protesters include an all pervading air pollution, corrupt manipulation of government agents, involvement in the bulldozing of crops and burning of houses, police and company officers working together to ignore chemical spills and allegations the company’s employment of migrant Filipino labour encourages prostitution and sexual attacks on local women. A company spokesperson reported in the Post Courier in June 2003 accused complainants of “making up stories to get free money from the company” after hundreds of people petitioned the government to investigate pollution by RD activities. Locals held a 3000 strong peaceful protest in 2006, but soon after, when government and RD officials failed to meet with them, the PNG Post Courier was reporting that “Kananam landowners in Madang are ready to “take up arms” to revolt against RD Tuna Canners.”

Indeed, in 2004 after a protracted legal struggle, RD Tuna was ordered to compensate Kananam people for their spurious attempt at having them charged with defamation. Despite their lack of success in the courts in this respect, RD have gone on to harass a number members of the Idawad Association, their supporters and their webhosting companies with claims that what the Kananam people say about their operations on their website is defamatory.

In November 2007 RD Tuna’s threats of legal action had the website of the local residents trying to publicised the issues around the cannery shut down. They moved elsewhere, but RD Tuna has suceeded in scaring another two hosting companies to capitulate to their demands in 2008 and in April 2009 Australian webhost Netaxxs refused to cooperate with RD Tuna when they demanded to names of the owners of another site hosted by Axxs.org.

RD Tuna, for their part, have claimed that many of the injustices called by the Kananam people against them are only the work of a handful of discontents seeking to make money from them and that as owners of the land and lagoons on it, they are permitted to do as they will with the land and water. Certainly, they have the approval of the PNG government. The government and RD have colluded to create a new ‘Industrial Marine Park’ (later changed to Pacific Marine Industrial Zone) that will take away much of the Kananam people’s traditional fishing grounds to the benefit of the tuna fisheries. The plant at Madang was closed down by health authorities in 2007 for poor hygeine and RD products were delisted from EU imports pending a clean up of their premises. After five years of legal action against a local protest organisation, the Bismark Ramu Group, they conceded defeat in the light of evidence that three shipments of their product had been rejected by the US as unsanitary and returned to PNG, a fact that if made public through the courts would further risk their now tainted international reputation.

In 2003 an independent report into the social effects of RD Tunas presence in the region found “serious concerns about the ability of RD to manage its operations on a humane, legal or safe basis. .. We find problems of workplace hygiene, social and sexual abuse of women, improper waste dumping, illicit sales of alcohol and cigarettes, disregard for landowner hiring preference practices, and the payment sub-minimum wages. ” Nancy Sullivan’s report found that the presence of RD Tuna and their ownership of a great number of the fishing licences for the area meant that the traditional livelihood of the Kananam was undermined. Without land or fishing rights, they were left with no options but to work for the cannery under whatever conditions it chose. “Without land, they must fish. With RD’s presence, they cannot fish as they once did. Without fish, they must labor for RD, which prevents them from working their gardens. Without sufficient pay, they cannot feed their families, or pay school fees or health expenses. They are left in a double bind: no way to sustain themselves, and at constant risk of losing everything.” That report recommended closing down RD Tuna’s operations. Four years later their own sloppy operations succeeded in doing that for them.

However, RD clearly have strong ties to government despite this appalling track record. This makes the struggle of the Kananam people all that more desperate and poignant. While in Australia we can expect some semblance of due process from our government and court system, in PNG is is clearly still the mighty dollar that rules. And with seven new canneries proposed, that is about to get a whole lot harder for the Kananam.

Opponents of RD Tuna now have a new site at www.rdtunapng.com

References available

With all the tragedy currently occupying the media and our thoughts, it’s easy to forget that the intervention into indigenous communities in the NT instigated by the Howard government goes on unimpeded.

This intervention has been continued by the Rudd government,  the NT Racial Discrimination Act remains disabled, indigenous people have lost the right to their own land, they continue to be refused access to welfare survival money and they are suffering as a result.  On Feb 9th Marion Scrgymour, Australia’s highest-ranked Indigenous politician, resigned for health reasons, she famously called the intervention “Black Tampa”.

Please read and use this statement sent to me by a friend visiting the NT who wrote:

“Yingiya is a Yolngu man from North East Arnhem Land. His family is based in Millinginbi and Gapuwiyak. Please use this statement for everything and anything. I am going to post a youtube video i am making with Yingiya soon, so I’ll let you all know when it happens. Also, I will post some more statements from other people soon too.”

Statement

My name is Yingiya Guyula from Liya-dhalinymirr clan of the Djambarrpuy’u People. I am a Yolngu Studies lecturer at University in Darwin.

The intervention has only created problems in East Arnhemland communities as well remote homeland centres. The Intervention has made our people more frustrated and confused, the white man’s way of thinking is forced on us, and forcing us to abandon our culture.

Government Ministers have flown into Arnhemland communities just for few hours on the ground to gather a little bit of information, then they fly back into cities thinking they know how to fix the problems in the communities, thinking they know what’s best for us.

Governments only looked at the fringe camps and towns and wet areas where people drink alcohol in places such as Nhulunbuy, Katharine, Tenant creek, Jabiru Alice Spring and Darwin.

White people see Aboriginal people in these places and think that these people that don’t care about life, who don’t care about living. But who are they to judge them. They class all Aborigines the same, but they are wrong.

These white people and those bureaucrats do not go out to the East Arnhemland communities, where my people live, where there has never been alcohol, and these is no child abuse. There are Aboriginal people living on remote communities of Arnhemland, in homeland centres, away from towns, away from the binge drinking areas, poker machine and gambling venues.

These are people that are able to manage their funds and work, or want work, educate, discipline, and practice ceremonies.

Quarantining of centrelink payments should be optional and not compulsory. Quarantining might be ok for people living in town camps and cities, where alcohol and gambling is a problem, but it doesn’t work for my people living on remote Arnhemland homelands where there is no gambling, no alcohol and no child abuse.

We are asking simply for understanding that in life, their needs to be an understanding between two cultures. There needs to be respect between cultures.

Mapuru homeland has a Coop store which won a National award for selling healthy food. Centrelink won’t approve it to accept quarantined money.

This means an aircraft charter fight from the mainland homeland at Mapuru to the closest shop on Elcho Island costs 560 dollars return. This means it’s costing $560 return flight just to buy 150 dollars worth of food, where’s the sense in that?

Arnhemland is like the European Union, made up of many different nations, each clan-nation with their own language, each with it own national estate. Bringing everybody in from the homeland centres into the major settlements is not the right thing to do because people do not feel secure or happy living in another mans land. Children are forced to go to school, but really they do not feel safe and unsecure on other peoples’ land.

There are about 40 children who willingly run to school every day at Mapuru homeland because it’s their home and they feel secure. Yet the N.T. Government wants to close down the homeland schools and bring everyone in to the major communities.

They think it’s not worth spending money on homeland schools who have 40 or more children freely, and with their own will attending school, but is providing internet services, facilities and technology to white schools with attendances as low as 5. The Education department provides computers and internet and distance learning for hundreds of cattle station and small schools, across the Northern Territory, but homeland schools are neglected.

Further more I would like say that these homelands are our homes. There is no violence in the remote homeland communities, no child abuse happens, no alcohol, no pornography, because out there in the bush is where the cultural ceremonial grounds are, and from it is where strong discipline comes through spirits of our fathers talking through the land.

Both the Commonwealth and the Northern Territory Governments hasn’t given equal opportunity to us the First Australians to be able to exercise our rights.

Through the intervention white man police stations have been put in the major communities for dealing mostly with cultural conflict issues (problems that can only be solved through traditional cultural justice), but instead the white policeman force white man law onto us, disrespecting our black fella law. They think they’ve done the right think. But often they’re only making it much worst by locking up senior leaders, the very ones who are wise and keeping our Indigenous Law strong.

This time we are taking the case further where it can be heard loud and clear by people whose ears, brains, feelings have a heart for Indigenous Australians. It is now being taken further where there is an ear that will listen.

We are taking it further, to the United Nations and will talk about the intervention, about how income management in the Northern Territory has had a devastating and debilitating impact on remote communities in Arnhemland.

Finally, we need you to support us. We need you to tell governments that we want the same opportunities as white people, to live and enjoy our own cultural life, but they must stop trying to make us like whiteman, we have our own cultural identity. Let us be who we are, and together we will have hope for the future.

Thank you

For mass media stories on the failure of the intervention:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/18/2008524.htm
http://news.yahoo.com.au/a/-/latest/5294644/field-indigenous-intervention-complaints/
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/intervention-protest-disrupts-question-time/
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/09/2486524.htm%3Fsection%3Djustin&cid=1302524208&usg=AFQjCNEr2cxQDHnbnxmB1IkaDnWpuvsFyQ

Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organsiation:

http://www.unpo.org/content/view/9201/77/

As an atheist anarchist greenie with kids, major public holiday events often cause me ethical grief.

Despite the religious bias of many of the milestones that make a kids life exciting, as a lifetime athiest, they haven’t given me much disquiet. Except where I have to defuse some blatantly wrong story perpetrated by the school system that involves miracles and other such scientific impossibilities. Public holidays, to their credit, give the workers a break from the daily drudgery and parents an opportunity to spend more time with their kids. There should be more of them. Every week.

However, the thematic consumerism that most holidays encourage is what disturbs me. At Easter the vegan in me rebels against the gross cruelty of industrialised milk production and the greenie at the sheer amount of plastic acetate and foil that goes into the average Easter. I envision mountains being removed to furnish the pretty aluminium wrappers. Valentines Day irks me for its disingenuous romanticism, bonded so tightly to the notion of buying to prove ones love. In my opinion expressions of love should be everyday occurrences and not dependent on the dictates of the greeting card and fluffy toy industry. Mothers Day and Fathers Day too. How poor is the familial relationship that only expresses it’s affection once a year? Not to mention the Sunday traffic jams it engenders.

But when it comes to rampant consumerism and waste of the most unnecessary kind, Christmas takes the (fruit) cake. In 2005 the Australian Conservation Foundation, grinches that they are, released a report “The Hidden Cost of Christmas”. In that report they found that:

However, as much as the environment suffers because of our silly institutions like Christmas, the psychological effects of the consumerist agenda shouldn’t be ‘undersold’. Christmas encourages greed. Full Stop.

In 2001 UK magazine The Psychologist reported the effect that the excessive pre-Christmas advertising blitz had on the perceived wants of children. Between 40-67% children wanted toys they had seen advertised during their favourite shows and wanted more than those not exposed to child-directed advertising. Disturbingly, even the very young were developing ‘brand-name loyalty’ (eg. asking for ‘barbie’ as opposed to ‘doll’).

Some of the other psychological pressures Christmas brings include: idea that one must buy a good present or risk being labelled skinflint by loved ones; the thoughtlessness of the pre-packaged love being coveted, while the lovingly handmade goes unappreciated;   competition amongst siblings to outbuy each other/get better pressies;  encouraging the materialism of kids; and the cost on already financially constrained families

Realistically, most of us can’t afford to splurge on expensive Christmas gifts. A 2008 report (published by the Labor Party) Families in Australia found that the richest 20% of families own 60 times more wealth than the poorest 20% despite household income increasing by more than one-third over the past decade. Even with the bonuses being handed out by the Rudd government to families this year,  economists say most of it will be used to pay bills.

In many ways Christmas is more a celebration of ostentatious waste and wealth.  The amount of food and drink behooves the most gluttonous, and over-consumption is practically the goal of it.

Mercifully for the pigs of this world, ham has become so expensive it will not be on most people’s Christmas menu. Due to the globalisation of the food industry allowing cheap imports, there are now 40% less pig farmers in Australia than there were a year ago and the price of pigmeat has doubled. I needn’t go into the ethics of industrialised pig farming here, needless to say that an industry that fills animals fll of antibiotics, cuts of bits oft them to make them manageable and puts them in pens so small they can’t turn around, is not likely to make it onto my shopping list.
 
Before I go on to sound too much the killjoy (although my relatives may argue that case), I’ll let you in on some of the things I do, have done, or may do in the future.   Make it yourself: every year I make cakes. Personally I hate eating cake, but everyone else loves them. So I make vegan fruit cakes for friends and family. Some years I make soap, others I do art. This year with the help of artistic teenagers, everyone gets a mandala themed to suit their personality (amazingly easy to create, even for the non-artist). If people don’t appreciate handmade gifts, then I guess I don’t appreciate them. Do someone a favour, promise them babysitting, laundry, a trip to the cinema etc. Get the kids creative: the oldies always love kids paintings. Set conditions: like no plastic or no batteries please.  Opt out of xmas: go camping some where isolated. And for the extremist in you, figuratively blow up santa: encourage fear of  fat men in red suits….

Here’s what others recommend:

ACF’s tips for treading lightly at Christmas time

• Don’t over indulge - eat, drink and give gifts in moderation.
• Give gifts with a low eco-impact:
• Vouchers for services: massages, facials, gardening, housecleaning;
• Tickets: movies, concerts, sports events, theatre;
• Memberships: gyms, charities, sports clubs, zoos, museums, galleries;
• Personal favour vouchers: 3 hours of childcare, 2 breakfasts in bed, a month of lawn mowing, 4 car washes;
• Gifts that give: charity donations, overseas aid project sponsorships and donations, memberships and subscriptions to environmental organisations;
• Organic food hampers.
• Organise a Kris Kringle with family or friends.
• Wrap gifts in newspaper or re-used paper.
• Save money and the environment by spending the hours you usually spend shopping in the company of people you don’t see enough.

 * Choose not to give a gift:For friends ‘who have everything’ give a donation to your favorite charity and send a greeting card to your friend explaining that a donation has been made on their behalf that will make a big difference to the life of a family in a developing country. Some charities eg CARE, Caritas and TEAR have gift catalogues for this purpose with gift options such as a chicken ($10) or a year of primary health care services ($40).

* Buying a gift with long term benefits:Gift vouchers for courses eg permaculture, organic gardening, cooking, bicycle maintenance, dressmaking, curtain making É A year’s subscriptions for a magazine on gardening, owner-building, crafts, cycling É Membership of YHA or a National Parks Pass.
(http://www.urbanecology.org.au/articles/christmasnotcosttheearth.html A Christmas that Doesn’t Cost the Earth. Margaret Rohde. November 2004)