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Fifty years ago, on February 13, 1963, the publication of US writer and activist Betty Friedan’s book The Feminine Mystique sparked a new awakening in the thinking of women across North America. Friedan denounced the repression women suffered in the aftermath of World War II, when they were forced out of wartime jobs and convinced to accept the role of keepers of the home. Profiteers of the market launched an unrelenting but subtle propaganda campaign to venerate women as wife and mother. This role, Friedan said, was the “feminine mystique”.

This World Is Dead Blockheads January 2013 www.blockheads-grindcore.fr French grindcore band Blockheads have hammered out a solid reputation in the European extreme music scene over the past two decades. Their lyrics spit bile against corruption, colonialism, the corporate media, inequality, pollution, pro-lifers and much more. Mat Ward spoke to bassist and vocalist Erik about their new album, This World Is Dead, and the political situation in France.

There are awards for everyone. There are the Logies, the Commies, the Tonys, the Theas, the Millies ("They cried with pride") and now the Shammies. The Shammies celebrate the finest sham media. "Competition for the 2013 Gold Shammy," said the panel of judges, "has been cutthroat." The Shammies are not for the tabloid lower orders. Rupert Murdoch has been honoured enough. Shammies distinguish respectable journalism that guards the limits of what the best and brightest like to call the "national conversation".

Eureka: An Unfinished Revolution Peter FitzSimons William Heinsmann Press, 2012 “And so I call you, all my fellow diggers, irrespective of nationality, religion, and colour, to salute the ‘Southern Cross’ as the refuge of all the oppressed from all countries on Earth.” So said Raffaello Carboni at the Eureka Stockade, Bakery Hill, on November 29 in 1854. With these words, Carboni and the diggers on the Victorian goldfields raised the Eureka flag and launched their rebellion against the unjust licence fees imposed on miners by the Victorian government.

Two student leaders from Jaffna University who were detained under Sri Lanka's draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act were released on January 22. Jaffna University Student Union president V. Bavanandan and Science Faculty student activist Shamugam Solomon were taken into custody with two other students on November 29 and 30.