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How did rescue dogs become status symbols? Why are luxury brands losing their cachet? What's made F. Scott Fitzgerald's most famous observations obsolete? The answers are part of a new revolution that's radically reorganizing the way we view ourselves and others. Status was once easy to identify--fast cars, fancy shoes, sprawling estates, elite brands. But in place of Louboutins and Lamborghinis, the relevance of the rich, famous, and gauche is waning...
2) Omar rising
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Seventh-grader Omar must contend with being treated like a second-class citizen when he gets a scholarship to an elite boarding school in Pakistan.
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"For the past thirty years, Mr. and Mrs. Jha's lives have been defined by cramped spaces, cut corners, gossipy neighbors, and the small dramas of stolen yoga pants and stale marriages. They thought they'd settled comfortably into their golden years, pleased with their son's acceptance into an American business school. But then Mr. Jha comes into an enormous and unexpected sum of money, and moves his wife from their housing complex in East Delhi to...
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"It's the week before her wedding, and all of Eliza's meticulous planning is about to pay off. She's become the exact type of woman who would marry into the prominent blue-blooded Walker family--Ivy League credentials, a high-powered PR job and a designer-label wardrobe. But as the big day approaches, secrets from Eliza's past attendance at an Evangelical college start to throw her true motives into question. Who exactly is Eliza Bennet and what does...
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A bitingly funny grand tour of our culture of excess from an award-winning humorist.
Whether David Rakoff is contrasting the elegance of one of the last flights of the supersonic Concorde with the good-times-and-chicken-wings populism of Hooters Air; working as a cabana boy at a South Beach hotel; or traveling to a private island off the coast of Belize to watch a soft-core video shoot—where he is provided with his very own...
Whether David Rakoff is contrasting the elegance of one of the last flights of the supersonic Concorde with the good-times-and-chicken-wings populism of Hooters Air; working as a cabana boy at a South Beach hotel; or traveling to a private island off the coast of Belize to watch a soft-core video shoot—where he is provided with his very own...
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"An examination of how individuals strive for social status and how this creates our culture as a whole Contrary to belief, status signaling isn't just the province of the immature or insecure but a fundamental human need to secure social standing. It drives our behavior, forms our tastes, determines what we buy, and ultimately shapes who we are. It's what's behind "cool" and what drives fashion, music, food, sports, slang, travel, hairstyles, and...
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"From the nationally bestselling author of The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls comes a story of 1950s Texas socialites and the one irresistible, controversial woman at the bright, hot center of it all. Joan Fortier is the epitome of Texas glamour and the center of the 1950s Houston social scene. Tall, blonde, beautiful, and strong, she dominates the room and the gossip columns. Every man who sees her seems to want her; every woman just wants to...
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When Tina Das finds herself at a crossroads both professionally and personally, she wonders if a weeklong trip to India for her cousin's lavish wedding might be just the right kind of escape. Maybe a little time away from New York will help get her mind straight about her stalled career, her recent breakup, and her nagging suspicion that she'll never feel as at home in America as she does in India. Tina hopes that this destination wedding, taking...
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"From preeminent LGBTQ scholar, social critic, and journalist Steven W. Thrasher comes a powerful and crucial exploration of one of the most pressing issues of our times: how viruses expose the fault lines of society. Having spent a ground-breaking career studying the racialization, policing, and criminalization of HIV, Dr. Thrasher has come to understand a deeper truth at the heart of our society: that there are vast inequalities in who is able to...
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"From the award-winning author of No One Is Here Except All of Us, an imaginative novel about a wealthy New England family in the 1960s and '70s that suddenly loses its fortune--and its bearings. Labor Day, 1976, Martha's Vineyard. Summering at the family beach house along this moneyed coast of New England, Fern and Edgar--married with three children--are happily preparing for a family birthday celebration when they learn that the unimaginable has...
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The second documentary in the collection is built around a custom that is thousands of years old: fishing. At present, about 65 million people in the Greater Mekong live directly from the fish the river has to offer. Fishing methods are of course different according to places and ethnic groups. Additionally, modern times strongly challenge the fishermen in the Greater Mekong. Torn between tradition and modernity, these men and women have to make for...
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In neighborhoods ravaged by years of disinvestment and racial exclusion, too many children and young people like Caheri Gutíerrez, Antonio Carter, and Javier Arango wrestle with sudden rages, nightmares, inability to trust, depression, and difficulty concentrating in school. Traumatized by violence, poverty, and adversity as disturbing as some war zones, they show symptoms similar to PTSD—except there is no “post.” But peer counselors, doctors,...
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According to the U.S. Department of Labor, American women are paid 84 cents on average, for every dollar men make. This wage gap has persisted despite near-record rates of women's participation in the labor market, with wage gaps even larger for women in minority populations, and experts estimate that pay parity will not be achieved until 2052. Should policy interventions address these disparities, or is it more important to recognize and honor women's...
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A steep drop into an uncanny, richly painted underworld, Desdemona and the Deep tells the story of the spoiled daughter of a rich mining family who must retrieve the tithe of men her father promised to the world below. On the surface, her world is rife with industrial pollution that ruins the health of poor factory workers while the idle rich indulge themselves in unheard-of luxury. Below are goblins, mysterious kingdoms, and an entirely different...
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Why do we accept huge levels of inequality and social injustice? This is one of the central questions that The Price of Fairness sets out to answer, beginning with a surprising set of social experiments in Norway, which suggest that our willingness to support systems of inequality is far greater than we are often prepared to admit. In Atlanta, we take a different look at fairness, from the perspective of a group of capuchin monkeys. Behavioral scientist...
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This film approaches the concept of ideology through the cruder notion of people being “brainwashed.” It then moves on to the Marxist notion of false consciousness, followed by an explanation of Althusser’s concept of Ideological State Apparatuses and Gramsci’s ideas about hegemony and counter-hegemony.
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This film explores the media depictions of the end of the world through various disaster scenarios. It analyses the disjuncture between real risks versus the public perception of such. It illustrates the functioning of mystification to obscure the real causes of humanity's most serious problems. Finally, it asks and answers the question "what is to be done?"