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Keywords: Melbourne Cup

  • AUSTRALIA

    The AI overmind: Can machines capture the human quirk?

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 09 November 2023
    4 Comments

    Can the essence of human frailty—our inconsistencies, our biases, our passions—really be replicated in ones and zeros? And if so, what becomes of the human voice once the machines learn to speak?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The Bolshie Cup

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 08 November 2022

    The Cup is stacked with horses from everywhere but Australia, is designed for celebrities and would-be celebrities to be seen rather than to see, and now restricts the space where the plebeians can ape the dress and the excesses of the privileged. Fortunately, the rain still falls on the rich and the poor alike.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Class and climate drive Melbourne Cup hostility

    • Jeff Sparrow
    • 06 November 2019
    27 Comments

    I can't imagine how anyone could look at the Melbourne Cup and see a vision of the 'fair go'. On the contrary, much hostility to horse racing — this year's Cup attracted the smallest crowd since 1993 — stems from a perception that its rituals celebrate grotesque inequalities.

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  • RELIGION

    Silence has two faces

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 30 October 2019
    12 Comments

    It may seem paradoxical that one of the most effective ways of imposing silence is by imposing noise. The Romans did it with bread and circuses. More modern totalitarian regimes have done it with military processions and massive rallies. Governments in contemporary democracies do so by controlling what is fed to the media.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Among the gods of the Melbourne Cup

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 03 November 2017
    9 Comments

    More recently, Mammon has dominated the Melbourne Cup. It has been targeted by wealthy international owners and stables who buy up the most likely stayers in order to buy the result. It has also been used by corporations to fuel their engines of misery that suck money and life out of many Australian families.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Conversations with homeless protesters

    • Tim Robertson
    • 23 May 2016
    8 Comments

    I asked John, a tall, articulate man with long hair and well-maintained hipster beard, if he'd had a chance to read the most recently published Herald Sun think-piece arguing that what they are doing is not a demand for help, but a political protest. He smiled wryly, expelled a couple of bursts of laughter and said that that may be their most accurate reporting of the unfolding situation to-date: 'This has always been a political protest ... that's always been our intention.'

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  • CARTOON

    The neigh sayer

    • Fiona Katauskas
    • 05 November 2014
    1 Comment

    View this week's offering from Eureka Street's award winning political cartoonist.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    What the postmaster saw

    • Brian Matthews
    • 08 November 2013
    7 Comments

    Within an hour the shop is humming with talk and movement. Mac is courteous, but has some iron rules. A woman who talks ceaselessly into her mobile phone receives a steely glare and silence. Someone with both ears plugged into his iPod finds Mac has also suddenly gone deaf. Each new arrival is threaded into a sort of endless conversation which functions at two levels — greetings to the customer and side-of-the-mouth asides to me.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Cup Day losses to soar with betting apps

    • Michael Mullins
    • 05 November 2012
    5 Comments

    Australians are expected to spend $60.6 million in betting on tomorrow’s Melbourne Cup, an increase of 7.5 per cent since last year. But while the majority of bets will be placed in person at the TAB, online and mobile betting is rising rapidly. Because this form of gambling is particularly susceptible to impulse behaviour, pre-commitment laws are essential.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Australian larrikinism is a royal myth

    • Ellena Savage
    • 28 October 2011
    22 Comments

    The fact the Queen is a very nice lady doesn't negate her inherited privilege, her arbitrary powers, and the fact her reign isolates many Australians. There is a myth that Australia is a larrikin nation. But we are a nation not of provocateurs, but of conformists.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Race against grief

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 20 October 2011

    In 2002, jockey Damien Oliver rode to Melbourne Cup glory, one week after his brother, Jason, was killed in a racing incident. The Cup, a paean to the Golden Age of Australian cinema, recreates the tragic and inspirational events in style. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Best of 2009: Boobs, booze and Muslim feminists

    • Ellena Savage
    • 04 January 2010
    18 Comments

    She'd rather be wearing jeans, but is compelled to dress like a Christmas tree for the Spring Racing Carnival. Her desire to be desired for the depth of her cleavage is nominated by the designs of men in her society. No wonder some Muslim women feel the hijab subverts patriarchy. November 2009

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